Caroline was quite likely well ahead of the curve. Her blog post from 2014(!) is one of the best, most passionate and cogent rejections of the cis-label and cis-privilege that I have ever read. Read the whole post, I recommend it, but this rallying cry at the end could have come straight from my heart, too:
I do not identify as cis. I am not cis. I am a woman trying to fight with every fibre of my being against everything that my “gender identity” tells me to be. Woman as defined by society is not my gender identity. My gender identity is fuck this oppressive bullshit, and let me be a human fucking being.
One of the people attacking her posted an archive link to the full piece, which is here.
Contrary to the vile smears online, Caroline is no transphobe. She supports equal rights for trans people, she acknowledges that they face struggles, wants them to be supported if they are distressed by gender dysphoria and protected from male violence. Her fight however is for women qua females and she does it in her own, incredibly important way. As a feminist she simply puts female people first.
And yes, as I sat there in the gallery and watched Shirley-Anne Somerville urge all her fellow MSPs to read Invisible Women, several times in her answers during the debate, I just thought, uh-oh watch out Caroline.
And even more concerning is that she indelibly associated her book with the Scottish Government's decision to walk back from its commitment to legal sex self-id by taking her right into the statement, explaining that there are biological (!) and physiological (!) differences (!) between men and women which is why the government is setting up a working group to establish when we need to disaggregate data by sex (!). When not if.
By stressing the importance of the book, which is a full-on affirmation of sex-based differences between males and females and how oppression of the latter in a society dominated by the former has led to a world designed for men, Somerville painted a target on Caroline's back.
Without knowing it. I do feel certain that Somerville would not have known what she was exposing CCP to by so closely associating her with this announcement that it looks as if this book is a part of the reason why us awful Scottish terves won this battle, with the support of so very many women from all over the country and the world. And thanks to that move by Somerville, Caroline will now be considered one of them.
This Twitter spat will, I fear, only be the beginning of a concerted witch hunt against her. I hope she has lots of support.
After all, she didn't simply like a tweet or say something vaguely objectionable - she has enjoyed huge, international success with a book about the difference between the sexes and so provided us with ammunition in our fight.