I'm in Wales and I have an MP for Westminster and an MS, who is my representative in the Welsh Parliament. Over several years I've written to her perhaps 20 times regarding issues including planning applications for chicken farms, sewage being discharged into the sea, the removal of a number of rural public car parking areas and — four or five times — various Gender Ideology issues. She is pro-trans as are most members of the Welsh Labour Party. She and her assistants have sat grim-faced and disapproving each time I've attended surgeries to raise concerns about various Welsh Government trans initiatives.
In the last last fortnight I've written to her about two different things, one non-gender related for which I've just had a 'thank you for contacting me about this, I will follow it up' and one about threats to burn down the Cardiff hotel Filia is being held in. I reminded her that Filia is something that Cardiff and Wales should be proud to host. I reminded her that the current Welsh government boasts about creating a feminist country here in Wales, so I wondered why neither she (who is in the cabinet) doesn't appear on the list of attendees at the world's largest feminist conference. I also asked her why no one from the Welsh Government has issued a statement about the threats to visitors from all over the world coming to Filia and politely asked her to do so. I always write in a polite and businesslike way.
Her response included a superfluous final line saying she's offended at the implication that she or the Welsh Government would condone violence against anyone. Looking back through previous correspondence with her, every time trans or women's issues are mentioned, she responds with something along similar lines. 'It offends me that you seem to think...', 'I find it offensive that...'. But on chicken farms and the closure of rural parking spaces no offence is taken.
I wrote to two other female MSs who are also my representatives (the Welsh system is a strange one and we have as many as five MSs we can contact) along the same lines. One hasn't responded but the second has also said how offended she is at the implication that she isn't interested in women's concerns. I know that a friend in a different constituency has reported that her female Labour MS has become uncharacteristically emotional when asked to discuss the subject and has taken the line that she's offended that anyone would think she'd be involved in anything that wasn't in women's interests — end of discussion.
Why does asking Welsh MSs about women's and transgender issues cause such offence?