It’s a year since the Supreme Court ruled that gender means biological sex – and not much has changed. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), which is advising the government on how to apply the judgment to law, has spent a long while drafting guidance. But last week, word arrived that Bridget Phillipson, the women and equalities minister, wants the EHRC to ‘tone down’ its advice, leading to further delays. Why the hold-up? My guess is that it has something to do with a new era we are entering. An era of ‘TRANS RAGE’.

That’s not my expression. It’s from Bash Back, a recently formed anonymous collective going after people and organisations it believes frustrate the transgender experience. Its supporters’ first act, last August, was to rough up Health Secretary Wes Streeting’s constituency office. Next, they vandalised a Brighton conference centre hosting an event for feminists. In October, Bash Back daubed the headquarters of the EHRC in pink paint. This year, members hacked the website of the Free Speech Union (FSU) and published a list of its donors.

‘ALL OF OUR TARGETS HAVE BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS,’ Bash Back says on its website. (Why, with protest groups, is the copy always upper-cased?) ‘WE REFUSE TO LET THEM WASH IT OFF IN PEACE. WELCOME TO A NEW ERA OF TRANS RAGE.’

Transgender activism was always fraught, but after last year’s Supreme Court ruling, it switched register. A nihilism has infected parts of the movement. Look at this snippet, for instance, of a podcast that Grace Campbell, daughter of Alastair, did with a transgender figure called........

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