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Feminism’s had quite a week. We had International Women’s Day, Dame Jenni Murray telling us transgender women weren’t“real women” and Emma ­Watson defending her right to show off her breasts.

And in my family we celebrated the sixth birthday of our daughter Amara, who we adopted from ­Pakistan, a country where girls are abandoned in their millions, just for being female.

I see feminism as a spectrum. Some of us will be on the extreme side, some will be more conservative. Most of us will sit in the middle.

But one thing is for sure, our ­version of feminism will stem from our upbringing and life experiences. And mine tell me that Dame Jenni’s comments on transgender women are just plain wrong.

She interviewed me for Woman’s Hour after I was in The ­Apprentice and I was totally starstruck. She was one of my feminist role models.

(Image: BBC)

Over the years I had tuned into her calm, articulate, intelligent ­debates on Radio4 and respected her for tackling a huge range of ­issues affecting women.

So when I got to sit in front of her, I had to pinch myself. But, as is said so often, “never meet your heroes”.

She seemed to have failed to grasp what it meant to me to ­be the first ever British Muslim woman to appear on a prime time BBC show.

I felt no empathy or warmth from her. She didn’t seem pleased to see me breaking the mould. I felt like a specimen to be studied, invited into her middle-class world to be judged under the guise of inclusion.

When you are from a minority you long to be ­invited into places usually closed to you. But you soon realise that just because you’re in the room it doesn’t mean you’re welcome.

So it didn’t come as much of a ­surprise to me this week when she wrote an article crudely titled: Be trans, be proud – but don’t call yourself a “real woman”.

(Image: Rex Features)

She argued that transgender women had grown up with all the privileges of being men rather than the struggles of growing up female.

To be a “real woman”, she said, took more than a series of “operations and make-up”.

After 30 years of presenting Woman’s Hour, Dame Jenni used her position to hurt and disrespect others who identify as women – where’s the sisterhood in that?

She claims to be pro-trans but her words indicate otherwise.

I have a very close friend who is transgender. So I know “real” is about what you feel inside. It’s who you are.

We are ALL real. Jenni said trans women are not real women because they’ve had male privilege for half their lives.

But there’s no privilege in being trapped in a body you despise. Or in waiting decades for the chance to try to connect your body to your mind.

(Image: Rex Features)

It caused my friend pain all her life and stopped her forging meaningful relationships.

Often, she wanted to end her life because it was a way out of a world that seemed to have no place for her. There’s no privilege in that either.

Then there are the life-threatening ­surgeries she endured to fulfil her dream of ­becoming “real”.

It’s as if Jenni is saying to trans women “Be proud, be trans – but sit over there in the corner and don’t try to be like us ­because you’ve had an easy ride”.

As the BBC’s well deserved warning to Dame Jenni has proved, such views are unacceptable today.

My friend is a woman and a feminist and I judge her solely on who she is now – not on her medical history.

She’s now found love with an amazing man who wants to marry her and doesn’t care about her past.

And if he accepts her as a real woman, where does Dame Jenni get off thinking she can tell her she isn’t one?