JAN MOIR: Why should I be at risk of jail for saying a trans woman is not a real woman?

This is what it has come to. J. K. Rowling says that she will stand up for women’s rights even if it means being sent to prison.

And if the Labour Party comes into power, the Harry Potter author might very well end up behind bars quicker than you can say Avada Kedavra!

Because Labour, in all its wizarding woke wisdom, has promised to make attacks motivated by hatred of a victim’s gender identity into what the courts call an ‘aggravated offence’.

This move would bring ‘transphobic abuse’ into line with assault and harassment motivated by hatred on the grounds of race or religion, which are punishable by up to two years in prison.

But it is all relative, isn’t it?

This is what it has come to. J. K. Rowling says that she will stand up for women’s rights even if it means being sent to prison 

It all depends on who you are and what you believe in, rather than what you actually do and say. Under these laws, the pro-Palestinian supporters who were tearing down posters of kidnapped Israeli children in London this week should be jailed.

Yet somehow — call it crazy intuition — we all know that these people are not going be jailed, don’t we? However, in the brave new world of Prime Minister Starmer — Expelliarmus! — the person who would be jailed would be J. K. Rowling.

Under a Labour government, expressing the belief that a person’s sex is immutable and that a trans woman is not a woman would be a crime.

Yet how can holding this view be against the law or deemed to be motivated by hatred, when it is merely propelled by common sense, biology and what the vast majority of us believe to be true? Yet here we are, swirling in this perilous dogma, fighting for women-only spaces and sex-based rights, heading into a future that might criminalise us for doing so.

Under the carapace of progressive thinking, Lisa Nandy and all the headbangers in the Shadow Cabinet who support this nonsense are only making matters worse.

For instead of encouraging a middle ground, where transgender people can live happy and confident lives in society, all it does is polarise opinion and encourage extremism.

Replying to a post on Twitter/X, Rowling said: ‘I’ll happily do two years if the alternative is compelled speech and forced denial of the reality and importance of sex. Bring on the court case, I say. It’ll be more fun than I’ve ever had on a red carpet.’

Rowling made her pledge to go to prison beneath a photo posted on Twitter by the magazine Dazed, which featured the slogan: ‘Repeat after us: Trans Women are Women.’ The author simply commented: ‘No.’

And it’s a triple no from me, too. Trans women have all my compassion and support, for many of them undertake brave, lonely and difficult journeys to be who they want to be.

Yet being sympathetic to their cause ends with believing that they are real women when they so patently are not.

In the brave new world of Prime Minister Starmer — Expelliarmus! — the person who would be jailed would be J. K. Rowling

They haven’t been born, raised or socialised as females, they haven’t been shaped by cultural sexism or the physical limitations that inform womanhood. Not to mention the wombs, the periods, the brittle bones and the lack of equal pay, still.

On a cellular and singular level, trans women are not real women and never can be real women; and I don’t mean that as an insult, just an empirical truth.

Put it this way. Would a trans woman, in a medical crisis, turn down life-saving treatment to cure their prostate cancer? Call me back when they do.

Speaking of which, when someone informs you of their preferred pronouns, increasingly it seems like less of a polite appeal for the correct way to be addressed — like being given guidance on how to address a bishop at a cocktail party — and more of a demand, sometimes a bullying one, for public validation.

I don’t mind acquiescing. It seems rude, at the very least, to deliberately misgender someone when they have announced their gender preferences.

And I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings on this difficult subject of gender self-identification, but that still doesn’t mean I have to believe that trans women are women.

I can and do respect that Buddhists believe in karma, rebirth and impermanence without believing it myself. I revere the Christian belief in Heaven without entirely believing it myself.

Ditto the existence of the Tooth Fairy, unicorns, ghosts, the Eternal, astrology, the Man in the Moon and the Virgin Mary.

So why do I have to believe that trans women are women, and live under threat of criminal proceedings if I don’t? Trans women can believe it, Lisa Nandy can believe it but I don’t have to believe it and neither do you.

Yes, Dolly wakes up in make-up

Pass me that gallon bottle of micellar water and those jumbo wipes. Should we be surprised Dolly Parton still sleeps in her make-up at the age of 77? I’d be more shocked if Dolly suddenly adopted cottagecore and crochet, while extolling the virtues of simple living and homemade soup.

The country legend admits she chooses to sleep in a full face of pancake glam in case she is spotted au naturel by her husband, by photographers or is forced outside in the unforgiving dawn by a pesky earthquake.

Pass me that gallon bottle of micellar water and those jumbo wipes. Should we be surprised Dolly Parton still sleeps in her make-up at the age of 77? I’d be more shocked if Dolly suddenly adopted cottagecore and crochet, while extolling the virtues of simple living and homemade soup

Dolly really is the ultimate dolly, but she is not alone. Mary Berry once told me that after having her make- up professionally done for a photo shoot she always slept in it overnight — and sometimes even beyond. ‘Why wash it all off?’ she said. Why indeed?

This pragmatism echoes her method for pre-preparing party sandwiches to keep them fresh. It involves covering the filled but uncut sandwiches with cling film and a damp tea towel, before transferring to the fridge overnight. ‘That way your crusts will always be sprightly,’ says Mary. Eyelashes and maquillage, ditto.

Diana must be allowed to speak

A new play about Princess Diana’s infamous Panorama interview with Martin Bashir opens soon at the Park Theatre in London.

Prince William has already fumed at length about the original BBC production, believing that the programme ‘holds no legitimacy’ and should never be aired again.

God knows what he must think about this play, written by Jonathan Maitland, which asks if society can still agree that Diana’s views have legitimacy, given Bashir’s untruthful methods of obtaining them.

There is no question that Bashir’s coercion of Diana into giving him an audience was deceitful, verging on the criminal. If a tabloid newspaper had ever dared to use such lies and procedures to lure someone into a confessional dialogue, you can bet the BBC’s condemnation would have been vociferous, damning and eternal.

Yet once again, the oily corporation somehow excuse themselves of their worst transgressions.

The BBC would like nothing more than this Panorama interview to be buried for ever. However, I cannot agree with them — nor Prince William.

Despite the coercion, these were Diana’s own words; her honestly held opinions about her situation within and without the British monarchy.

To deny them is to deny not just her personal history, but to deny history full stop.

A new play about Princess Diana’s infamous Panorama interview with Martin Bashir opens soon at the Park Theatre in London. Prince William has already fumed at length about the original BBC production, believing that the programme ‘holds no legitimacy’ and should never be aired again

Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary claims recent airport problems have been caused by air traffic controllers working from home. Shriek! Even if their day-to-day work is remote and software based, surely there is more safety in air traffic controllers working together in that terrifying little tower, rather than being isolated in their bedrooms? Distracted by the cat and the need for a kitchen snack? Is it a bird, is it a plane, is it a tailfin that has just fallen off a 747? We need our eyes in the skies to be collegiate on these matters. We need them to be together, under the supervision of strict bosses, all of them watching the horizon in concentrated unison. Not shuffling about at home in their slippers and tracky bottoms, playing Minecraft when no one is looking.

Primrose oil just won’t do this time!

Whatever one thinks about attention-seeking Naga Munchetty, not even she could have relished telling the world about her terrible period problems at a Women and Equalities Committee meeting this week. Naga has had the most awful time for decades — her troubles apparently ignored and dismissed by medics. TV star Vicky Pattison also shared her own experience of having her premenstrual dysphoric disorder disregarded, but is anyone listening? Let’s hope so.

Years ago, I remember sobbing to my uninterested GP about my horrendous PMT, confessing a very real worry that I might kill my boyfriend the next time he didn’t stack the dishwasher correctly. ‘Are you interested in evening primrose oil?’ he replied. Only if I can boil him alive in it, I thought.

Whatever one thinks about attention-seeking Naga Munchetty, not even she could have relished telling the world about her terrible period problems at a Women and Equalities Committee meeting this week

Victoria’s back to her sexy self

Go Woke, Go Broke Part 294; Lingerie company Victoria’s Secret is reverting back to sex appeal and raunch as marketing ploys after its female empowerment strategy didn’t catch on with consumers.

For years, using gorgeous supermodels such as Gisele Bundchen, Cara Delevingne and Miranda Kerr made Victoria’s Secret a global cultural phenomenon. These ‘Angels’ with tiny scraps of lingerie were just as admired by women as men.

However, poor old VS buckled under the onslaught of a zeitgeisty feminist makeover. They began using advertising images of humourless U.S. footballer Megan Rapinoe in a pair of her dad’s boiled underpants — well that’s what it looked like — because she said the company’s old marketing strategy was harmful, patriarchal and sexist.

The entirely predictable result was plunging sales instead of plunging bras, and a slump that had nothing to do with faulty knicker elastic.

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