For as long as I’ve known her, I’ve thought Joan McAlpine’s feminist credentials unimpeachable. It had never occurred to me that McAlpine, an SNP MSP for the South of Scotland, might also be a “transphobe”. That is, someone who hates or is afraid of transsexuals or other “non-binary” people whose gender identity exists on a spectrum that’s often nuanced or resistant to easy classification.

McAlpine has become the most prominent politician in Scotland to wonder if the government’s plans to change the way in which gender is classified here are either wise or appropriate. For this alleged heresy she has been subjected to an astonishing level of vituperation, much of it savagely personal. She is not alone; many of Britain’s brightest feminist writers — people