When I saw the women raising their champagne glasses after their Supreme Court victory, I felt that same queasy way I always feel at the end of long legal cases when people shout and cheer and toast the delivery of what they hold to be justice. Because, sure, I get that you fought for what you believed in, that your fight sprang from a place of pain, and that now you have been vindicated.

But, my God: look what it has cost. Look what has been lost along the way: for you, but also for others, who were fighting for what they believed in; for feminism which is divided (just as many of the men who claim to be our champions always wanted it to be); and for the public discourse, which is now so toxic as to make even hardened commentators like me sick at the thought of sharing their opinions.

And, yes, I know that women lost their jobs for voicing their beliefs on biology. That was a wrong that required to be righted. But suffering is not binary in the way the court has decided sex is. Trans people have been under attack, too. Their besiegement has been amplified by the same judgment that has lessened yours.

Trans women won’t cease to exist because five judges decided the legal definition of a woman within the Equality Act 2010 does not include them, even if they hold Gender Recognition Certificates.

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And now they have to navigate a world that is crueller than it was before. It doesn’t matter where you place the blame for that: with politicians, the media, extremists on either side of the culture war divide. There’s still a field out there strewn with casualties.

Ruling or no ruling, we need to find a way to accommodate........

© Herald Scotland