All of this sounds so out of touch, doesn't it?
“As a proud mother of a young trans man, I see every day the strength and resilience of our trans youth,” she said.
“There’s a very small cohort of young trans people that are really subjected to awful abuse, I, as a mother, am subjected to awful abuse in relation to a young person living their best life.”
“All they’re looking for is respect and support, and they’re not harming anyone”.
It depends on how you define 'harm', doesn't it, Minister?
There's individual harm, and then there's the harm to women's right to our own identity and language, and harm to the law by creating nonsensical categories like men who are legally women and vice versa, and harm to education by teaching children inaccuracies about sex and gender...
The harm is systemic, and will take years and years of unpicking.
Having the likes of Butler, Varadkar and Catherine Connolly coming out so strongly in favour of 'generwoo' recently shows that there is a long way to go.
A full-on TWAW president will be a big stumbling block to getting the GRA reconsidered, and opposing all the day-to-day erasure of women's rights and women's language.
It's all depressing, and in stark contrast to the chipping away that is happening across the Irish Sea, where court ruling after court ruling is reasserting women's rights.
To women, our rights and no less.
To trans people, their rights and no more.