Yet, in recent years, they have found themselves marginalised within the party simply for expressing the view that sex is binary (an opinion protected by law and underpinned by cold science).
They have also refused to bow to any threat, abuse and intimidation they say they have endured within the SNP for upholding women’s sex-based rights and their private spaces.
For this, they have been branded Terfs, which stands for trans exclusionary radical feminists.
I’m glad to see, though, that they have decided to “own” what was initially intended to be a term of abuse and now sport this term as a badge of pride.
Terf has thus been stripped of its intended unpleasantness and hurled back in the faces of those who continue to deploy it as a blunt, lexical weapon.
What’s more, these women had never excluded genuine trans people.
And the only people who think that protecting women’s rights is “radical” probably think that paying women the same wages as men is an unnecessary luxury.
I’m glad to report, though, that last week’s terfy subterranean assemblage proceeded with boisterous good humour.
This became evident in the T-shirts sported by the women for the occasion. These bore the legend Glasgow Tactical Feminist.
“What’s a tactical feminist,” I naively asked. “Look again at the initial letters of each word,” I was told.
Somewhat shame-faced, I retreated and berated myself for not having recognised one of my city’s signature forms of dismissal.
Jaws dropping moment
LIKE many other middle-aged Scottish men, some of the finer points of the trans debate initially seemed niche and esoteric. I think, however, that many of us had a “jump the shark” moment.
Indeed, there have been several of these, not least the belief that a rapist can be anything other than male, or that biological sex is little more than a social construct.
I was then told that many of those who identify as trans threw their toys out the pram when they discovered that lesbians – very understandably – were reluctant to look favourably upon their entreaties for concupiscence.
A few years ago, such conduct on the part of belligerent and sexually frustrated chaps led to them being called incels (involuntary celibates).
These men’s persistent failure to be favoured with physical intimacy led them to turn on women for being unreasonable and overly cautious in their bedroom choices.
Such incel attitudes on the part of some entitled men seem to characterise their late entry into the trans debate. It was this revelation as much as any other that made many of us check if we were still living on the same planet.
If I may be permitted to customise the initialling on the tactical feminists’ T-shirts, they can all of them GTF.
Culture in Calton
LIKE most others in progressive, enlightened Scotland I was pleased at the news that a Museum of Catholicism is to be established next year in Glasgow’s Calton district.
It’s yet another strand in the rich diversity of our nation, signifying acceptance and indeed celebration of the many cultures that make Scotland such a vibrant country in which to live.
Already, some appropriate names have emerged for this project. I’m quite enchanted by The Popeidou Centre and the Tim Capsule.
It makes me recall with a chuckle the apocryphal tale about the existence of a secret society, based in the Vatican, who’d been given a special dispensation to test sex products for the rarefied Catholic market.
Apparently (though I’m largely untutored in such matters) this involved ensuring that vibrators seeking Vatican approval had a sufficiently low rpm so as to ensure that any resulting levels of sexual ecstasy might be kept to an orderly minimum.
What kind of twisted and unhinged mind though, could ever have conceived of such a thing?
Bog standard wine
MY good friend, Neil Findlay, the former Labour MSP is a stalwart of West Lothian and remains an eloquent advocate for his neighbourhood. He’s also one of those east coasters who doesn’t suffer a nose-bleed on his regular visits to Glasgow.
Last week he sent me a photograph taken on his most recent venture west. It’s of a Glasgow Life gymnasium and features an installation that highlights Glasgow’s laissez-faire and proportionate attitudes to physical self-improvement.
Buckfast
The picture (above) features the kenspeckle emerald and amber livery of a bottle of Buckfast tonic wine left in one of the gym’s toilet cubicles.
Glasgow Smiles Better, was my city’s most famous slogan and this picture captures one of the reasons why.