So when Townsend, who has been outspoken in her not unusual opinion that “women are adult human females”, was elected into the role in May, few were surprised. A few months later, she became the first PCC to give an interview denouncing Stonewall’s influence on policing policies.

But while her constituents greeted her comments with admiration, the reception from other quarters was hostile: she has faced calls for her resignation, an inquiry by Surrey Police and Crime Panel (PCP) and a slew of anonymous threats to her life. After receiving over forty formal complaints, in October Surrey PCP finally cleared Townsend of “any breach of public conduct”.

Now, four months on, she’s set to be dragged through the process again — this time at the behest of a fellow Conservative: Crispin Blunt MP.

Blunt, who is chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on LGBT+ rights, is one of a small number of politicians within the Conservative Party who fervently supports Stonewall and their stance on gender self-identification: he believes that it is discriminatory to exclude those who are male but identify as trans from women’s services and spaces. His constituency, Reigate, sits within Townsend’s jurisdiction as PCC.

Townsend sighs when I ask her about her latest battle: “I know I’ve done nothing wrong. But it’s the process itself which feels like the punishment — it’s exhausting.

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“Crispin called me after I first went public with my views on Stonewall. He put his case and I listened. I thought we’d agreed to disagree and was content to move on. Then I retweeted something by JK Rowling before Christmas and he called me again.”

The post in question was neither incendiary nor ill-informed: all Rowling did was highlight the absurdity of a policy introduced by the Scottish police which allows male rapists to self-identify as women. To Rowling’s tweet she added her own words: “It’s not a ‘niche’ issue, it’s not hysterical for women to be taking to the streets about it. We will not accept this gaslighting from men who keep telling us they are women, or from those who enable them.”

Blunt clearly disagreed. “He called again and effectively told me to stop speaking out. I explained that I wasn’t prepared to do that. I reminded him that I have a duty to defend women’s right to access single-sex refuges, hospital wards and prisons — not just because it matters to me, but because it matters to many of the people I represent.

“He responded with something that sounded like a threat. He said something along the lines of: ‘well, in that case I’m sorry for what I’m about to do’. And then the call was ended.”

Townsend is used to weathering the slings and arrows of politics, but nonetheless, Blunt’s comment left her unnerved. “More than anything, I felt sad because, as a young woman, I used to work for Crispin in Parliament. We’ve known each other for a very long time. When I stood for election as PCC, he was incredibly supportive and there are definitely areas where Crispin and I have shared goals.”

A week after the ominous phone call, Townsend was informed that Blunt had submitted a complaint about her tweet to the PCP. In a lengthy formal letter, Blunt complained bitterly that his attempts to “counsel” Townsend had been rebuffed and that “she remains absolutely determined to take part in this most contentious of public debates”. Blunt argued that Townsend’s “messaging propagates dangerous myths that trans women represent a physical threat to cisgender [non transgender] women”.

Echoing criticism levied at Townsend by Pride in Surrey, he added that by expressing her opinions on the topic, “Lisa Townsend is in breach of her personal obligations under public sector equality duty” and that “tweets like these are an abuse of her position as an elected official whose duty is to oversee the police service under the law”.

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Townsend, who has two law degrees, refutes the allegation that by expressing her opinion she is in breach of her legal duties. “If people disagree with me and want to stand against me that’s fine — that’s democracy. But I am tired of being told not to talk about this because it is really important. For Crispin this is clearly just a trans issue. For me, it is a women’s safety issue.

“At present, we’ve got a situation where, thanks to the lobbying of Stonewall, anyone who decides they identify as a woman must be allowed into female spaces. I cannot see anything more misogynistic than a policy that insists that the feelings of a male legally, morally, ethically trump the rights and safety of women and children.

“I absolutely support the right of trans people to live in the way that makes them feel comfortable; to dress, live and love as they want. But everybody’s needs and feelings deserve to be considered. It is wrong to prioritise one group above another. As an elected official it is my duty to speak up for those who Stonewall and their supporters too readily forget.”

What do those “forgotten” constituents make of her campaign? Well, behind her desk is a noticeboard with scores of thank you cards pinned to it; when her staff logged correspondence in the weeks following the interview, they found that 90% were supportive. “I was overwhelmed by support, and was sent cards, chocolates and even a bouquet in the colours of the suffragettes; people were so grateful that I’d used my position to amplify their concerns.”

Likewise, many within the Conservative Party have applauded Townsend. Nearby Guildford MP Angela Richardson thanked Townsend and urged Surrey Constabulary to record offences by sex rather gender identity (in this she is supported by Home Secretary Priti Patel). Townsend also has the backing of other PCCs, including chair of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) Marc Jones.

Throughout the Tories more broadly, Townsend believes “the overwhelming majority of grassroots members and elected politicians recognise that women’s safety is compromised by gender self-identification”.

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Yet it was the support of the heads of domestic abuse refuges and women’s organisations in Surrey, women who had previously kept quiet on the issue, that most inspired Townsend. “I read every single card I received. Some of those who wrote to me were women who had needed the support of refuges and rape crisis centres. Others were desperate parents, worried that their children were being forced to use mixed sex facilities in schools which had been advised by Stonewall. They didn’t feel able to share their views openly due to the potentially career-ending accusations of transphobia.

“So many women who’ve got in touch have told me they’re ‘politically homeless’, that they’d probably never vote Tory but were fed-up by the failure of other parties to acknowledge their concerns.”

Despite Blunt’s attempts to censure her, Townsend maintains that the Tory party is a broad church where debate is actively encouraged. As such, she says she feels “frustrated” by attempts by a minority within her own party to shut down debate, and that this is “both un-Conservative and undemocratic”.

She adds: “It just wouldn’t occur to me to complain about another person, let alone another elected conservative politician, because they’d said something with which I’d disagreed. And it’s telling that more widely, nearly all of those who’ve told me to stop talking about this, or who have complained, are men. This issue has really brought home to me just how many men feel threatened by women with opinions.”

And it’s an issue that isn’t going disappear soon — not least within a Conservative Party that could soon find itself in the throes of a leadership election. The sexual politics of transgenderism span far beyond the borders of Surrey, and Townsend is confident that future politicians will be asked for their views on sex-based rights. “It’s an issue every politician has been contacted about,” she says, “and I’m afraid anyone who says otherwise is lying.”

“At some point, whether it’s weeks, months or years, the Conservative Party will select a new leader. As a member of the Conservative Party, I will have a vote. And I can tell you now, I will be looking very closely at the candidates who put themselves forward. I will want to know what their view is on single-sex spaces and how they define ‘woman’. And I will vote accordingly.”

With nine books and several prizes to her name — her debut collection, The Language of Cat, was long-listed for the Carnegie Medal — Rooney’s career has been marked by success. But now it is over, following what she describes as “two and a half years of intensive bullying for doing nothing more than telling the truth”: namely, that there’s something deeply concerning about the prevailing orthodoxy around gender identity.

While JK Rowling might be too famous to cancel, those with heterodox views in the foothills of literary fame have two choices: keep quiet or leave. It’s a lesson not only Rooney has been forced to learn: only last year, Gillian Philip, who used to write animal fantasy novels under the name Erin Hunter, was suddenly dropped by her publishers after voicing her support for Rowling’s views on the importance of women-only spaces. She retrained as a lorry driver, noting that “the haulage industry is far more supportive and inclusive — and a lot less misogynistic — than the world of children’s writing”.

Rooney’s path to creative writing is a story in itself. Following a “toxic relationship” and nervous breakdown that led to her being hospitalised, poetry became her “main tool for recovery”. At 49, she won a CLiPPA (a national award for children’s poetry) for her first collection. After years of working as a teacher, she describes being “catapulted into a second career as a children’s writer”; her books were endorsed by everyone from Carol Ann Duffy to David Walliams.

But things began to change when Rooney felt compelled to investigate why so many autistic teenagers were identifying as the opposite sex. “I was once a gender non-conforming autistic child,” she tells me. “I know how it is to be uncomfortable in your own skin, to hate what society tells you it is to be female. It felt strange to realise that my growing reservations around the simplistic idea that children can be ‘born in the wrong body’ would be seen as being bigoted and hateful. I had always been progressive, even ‘woke’.”

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Rooney, undeterred by the hostility she knew might follow, started to gently question whether our understanding of gender identity has become warped — only to find herself unfriended and blocked by a number of children’s authors. Many, she explains, did “get in touch privately and admitted to being too scared to speak out — others said they had been warned off from engaging with the topic”.

But Rooney was determined not to be intimidated. So rather than back down, she decided to write a book to “counter the explosion in titles which told children they might be trapped in the wrong body if they don’t conform to stereotypes”. Through 2018 she worked on what was to become My Body is Me! with the illustrator Jessica Ahlberg. Published a year later by Transgender Trend, a well-established group of parents and professionals “who are concerned about the current trend to diagnose children as transgender”, it challenges sexist stereotypes and promotes a positive self-image.

“It’s a proudly inclusive book,” she says. “We talked in depth about the celebratory message we wanted to get across: we aimed to show a diverse range of personalities, body types and family set-ups.”

Of course, Rooney suspected she would face a backlash — but nothing could prepare her for what happened next. Ahlberg, whose parents Janet and Allan Ahlberg wrote and illustrated a number of best-selling children’s books including The Jolly Postman and Peepo, was for the most part ignored. Rooney, however, continues to be monstered and hounded more than two years later.

She explains that “a core of around a dozen authors, librarians, book bloggers and illustrators” — some of whom have allegedly been encouraged by “committee members in the Society of Authors (SoA)” — have repeatedly “smeared” her online in “an attempt to drum her out of publishing”. She recalls: “Fellow authors discussed my ‘hateful world view’, my ‘transphobia’, my bigoted, exclusionary nature and even my autism.”

Take Clara Vulliamy, creator of the Dotty Detective series and daughter of the acclaimed children’s author Shirley Hughes, described Rooney as representing “an extreme ideology that explicitly targets children”. Vulliamy even went so far as to compare Rooney to Tommy Robinson.

“In her post,” Rooney explains, “Vulliamy tagged an agency that employed me to do school visits, warning them about my views and saying ‘ideologically driven school visits could see us all in deep water’. I don’t think she’d even read My Body is Me and thankfully I had a good reputation at the schools I worked in, so kept that work. Ultimately, all I did was speak out on issues around education, literature, child development, safeguarding and more specifically, the female, autistic perspective. I did so because I care.”

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There is, however, only so much vitriol a person can endure. And soon Rooney started to struggle with bouts of debilitating anxiety. “It was exhausting. The thought of socialising with people in publishing made me feel physically sick. Poetry was not only my livelihood; it was how I stayed sane. But after the abuse from others in my profession I began to associate it with trauma.”

Then, towards the end of last year, Rooney received an urgent call from her agent to inform her that the publisher of her children’s books was unhappy with her outspoken questioning of gender identity. “I was told that my stance could be considered offensive and that people had been complaining. Two independent bookshops had refused to stock my latest picture book, The Problem with Problems, even though it was entirely unrelated to gender ideology.

“I was told I needed to stop tweeting about the risks to children from gender identity ideology and to remove posts on social media. But I was never offensive, I just told the truth as I see it.” When she refused to be silenced, Rooney was told that her Twitter account would not be copied into any online publicity “in case it sent traffic my way where people might learn of my ‘offensive’ views.”

Soon the campaign to vilify Rooney ratcheted up. Save the Children were bullied by activists into taking down from social media a charity video of Gillian Anderson reading The Problem with Problems. Waterstones was targeted after it posted a video of Tom Hardy reading the same book, though didn’t back down.

But the harassment against gender-critical authors hasn’t stopped. Last week, author Jay Hulme, who identifies as transgender, posted a tweet accusing an unnamed author who “hates that I’m trans and write for kids” of preventing the publication of one of his books. Hulme was supported by Vulliamy, who added: “People within children’s publishing, you KNOW who Jay is talking about.” Rooney wasn’t named, but is confident she was the subject of these posts.

I contacted several of those making accusations against the “unnamed author”. The only person who responded was Hulme, who told me: “I didn’t name the author for a reason — because I don’t believe in pile ons or digital attacks, and so I cannot and will not confirm any names or comment further. Had I wished to expand, I would have done already.”

The SoA also appeared to close ranks. Rather than responding to my enquiry, a press officer directed me to a link to a statement from August which outlined the SoA’s stance on inclusivity. Remarkably, their policy states that SoA will ensure “individuals are supported and able to speak out”.

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No doubt Rooney would beg to differ. The repeated smears, sly insinuations and cowardice of the professional bodies have all taken their toll, not least on how her work is received. “People often talk of cancel culture. But there is a more insidious technique at play — one that’s harder to prove but palpable to the receiver; that of ‘Ghosting Culture’. It’s when your book is left off reading lists; when it doesn’t get reviewed; when you are not invited on a panel to discuss it. It’s where organisations you’ve worked with and even long-time friends suddenly avoid sharing publicity about it.”

And yet despite everything — the abuse, the betrayal, the attempts to silence her — Rooney says she has no regrets. She has one more book due in 2022, The Fears you Fear, but it will be her last.

“I can’t work in an industry that purports to care for children yet polices and punishes those who raise safeguarding concerns,” she says. “Regardless of what anyone believes, we should always be free to talk about what’s in the best interests of children.”

However, given her venomous treatment, and that of her fellow authors, it seems unlikely she will be the last victim of the publishing purges. Her story, of overcoming barriers and reaching success in middle-age, is surely impressive; it ought to serve as an inspiration to aspiring writers. But thanks to the stunted vision of those who hold sway in children’s writing, the moral of Rooney’s tale is entirely different: “publish and be damned”.

Such a scenario would provoke an outcry from the international community and human rights organisations would launch an immediate inquiry. Yet this is exactly what is happening now in the UK, and leading human rights organisations, like Liberty who claim to “hold the powerful to account”, are suspiciously silent.

The threat to the rights of women comes from a proposed amendment to the Gender Recognition Act (2004).  Championed by Conservative MP Maria Miller, the suggestion is to ‘streamline’ the process by which someone changes their legal gender by removing the need for a medical diagnosis and reducing the length of time an applicant needs to live in their “acquired gender”.  On the surface this sounds reasonable, but the implications for women and girls are grave. In effect, a declaration of feelings of “feminine gender identity” would be all that is required for male-bodied people to access women-only services.

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At present, unprecedented numbers of male-bodied prisoners are identifying as transwomen and demanding access to the female estate. Making the process of changing legal gender easier will exacerbate this problem, the burden of which is already falling on some of the most vulnerable women, those in prison. Human rights organisations such as Liberty refuse to see transgender people as anything other than vulnerable and marginalised, “forced to grow up in a society that discriminates against them, treats their identity as an illness, and fails to recognise their true selves”. We are living at a time when the use of stickers bearing the words ‘women do not have penises’ is being investigated as a hate crime. The reticence of groups to speak out is understandable, but ultimately unforgivable.

Since the proposal to amend the Gender Recognition Act was announced, grassroots feminist discussion groups have sprung-up across the UK, with talks organised by We Need to Talk, Woman’s Place UK and Let a Woman Speak. Earlier this year I spoke at one of these talks – after sustained pressure from transgender activists the original venue had to cancel the booking at less than 24-hours notice, and the organisers were left scrambling to find a new venue. In June, the same group were the subject of a bomb threat. Just last week, in Plymouth, a listed building that had hosted a similar discussion was covered in graffiti and posters by those opposed to women’s free speech. The event organisers are now trying to raise money to cover the cost of the clean-up. These are not isolated incidents, they are part of a concerted campaign of intimidation designed to stop women from meeting to discuss their rights.

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Women who persist, those who deviate from the mantra ‘transwomen are women’, are smeared as TERFs (an acronym for ‘trans exclusionary radical feminists’) and frequently reported to their employers, political parties and even religious leaders. Self-appointed social justice warriors online lurk in discussion groups to report women for ‘transphobia’. Hashtags such as #punchaterf and #fuckterfs are used to incite hatred and violence against those who question the validity of gender identity.

Freedom of assembly is fundamental to a functioning democracy. And yet, from the heart of the establishment to the lunatic fringe of masked extremists, there is no question that women are being intimidated by constant efforts to stop discussion of the Gender Recognition Act. Whether one agrees or not, demands to shut down debate and the dehumanisation of those with unpopular beliefs should ring alarm bells.

Given the violence, actual and threatened, and the sustained harassment of women who persist in thinking biological sex is important in a sexist society, it is not unreasonable to ask what human rights organisations are doing to protect the freedom of assembly here in the UK. Liberty boasts a laudable aim “to protect basic rights and freedoms through the courts, in Parliament and in the wider community” so one wonders: where is their statement in defence of women meeting to discuss their rights?

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In a joint statement, Liberty, the British Institute of Human Rights and Amnesty International announced their support for Maria Miller’s proposals, arguing the “announcement is long overdue as transphobia, disinformation and prejudice have been spread by a small number of people opposing equality for trans people”. Human rights organisations have stopped listening to those they ought to represent and have instead become lumbering corporate beasts chasing an ever narrowing definition of ‘inclusive’ – one that excludes feminist women. 

It should be a source of shame that this battle has been left to largely unfunded groups of women. Elected officials and esteemed human rights organisations charged with defending our freedoms have either ignored the controversy or actively colluded in the silencing and shaming of feminists. Today’s smug declarations about the ‘right side of history’ will do nothing to protect the next generation of women and girls whose rights are at risk of being virtue-signalled away. I wonder, in five years time if I’m on trial for hate speech for having written this article, whose side will Liberty be on?

Chatting to Hessa, what strikes me is that her dreams about life in the UK are made of the small, prosaic freedoms that mark out life in a liberal democracy; the freedom to leave the house unchaperoned, to wear a vest top in the sun, to go to the cinema. I asked her what she thought about Boris Johnson’s comments, that women who wear the burqa look like letterboxes.

After the laughter died down she replied:

“It’s funny, but underneath is a painful truth because from the age of 13 I was forced to cover-up. For years I didn’t feel the sun on my skin, and people couldn’t see my feelings when I spoke.”

Now in the UK awaiting the outcome of her claim for asylum, Hessa explains what she thinks of Muslim women in the UK who cover-up:

“I feel sad for them, they have been brainwashed into believing that wearing burqas or niqabs makes them more pious. It’s ridiculous because this practice is cultural and has little to do with religion. These clothes come from the minds of men in the Arabian peninsula not so much the Koran.”

Arguably it is not just those who wear the uniform of Islamic fundamentalists who are brainwashed, so are the liberal Left who defend the women’s ‘choice’ to do so.  A new taboo has emerged that is fanatically enforced; those who are not from Muslim backgrounds must apparently not criticise the cultural practices that are lazily associated with all Islam.

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And these practices are being brought into the high street. From H&M’s ‘Modesty Range’, which is apparently designed to be “diverse and inclusive”, to the recent GAP advertising campaign which featured a little girl in a hijab, big business is keen to cash in on covering-up. When white women like me question this normalisation we are smeared as ‘white feminists’ and accused of harbouring racist beliefs. But it is my belief that there is nothing more racist than thinking something is acceptable for ‘other’ people that you would not want for yourself.

The concealment of women’s hair, face and bodies is pernicious and historic with roots and a reach far beyond Islam; over 3,700 years ago, the ancient Mesopotamian Code of Hammurabi made the veiling of men’s wives, daughters and, indeed, concubines of the upper classes mandatory, (though street prostitutes were forbidden from covering, one might surmise because they were deemed public property).

Veiling, whether it is the nun’s wimple, a bride’s veil or the hijab, as worn by some Muslim women, has always been a symbol of misogyny, undeniable evidence of male dominion and fear of female sexuality.

And yet so many lefties are tying themselves in knots defending the freedom of a very small section of Muslim women to choose to engage in this harmful practice. At a time when women are being imprisoned in Iran for taking off their hijabs, how odd that the mainstream Left in the UK is more inclined to fight for women’s right to be oppressed than to live free of oppression. This frothing online mob of social justice warriors fails to understand that taking a sword to that Gordian problem and critiquing cultural practices is not to be islamaphobic.

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Nor do they see that it is the march of Saudi-funded Wahhabism, an extreme and conservative form of Islam, which is changing the cultural landscape for Muslims, bringing its unusually repressive practices across the world. As Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in her powerful essay ‘Refusing the Veil’ argues: “Women who make the decision to veil are colluding with gender oppression across the Muslim world.” This is not to lay blame, but rather to state a simple truth.

Those who do cover themselves as an act of piety may deem it to be integral to their faith but this belief shouldn’t put the practice of veiling itself above challenge. The choices we each make do not exist in a social vacuum.  The harassment and racist abuse meted out to those wearing Islamic dress can never be condoned; but that is not the same as critiquing the man-made religious and cultural structures that create and enforce modesty on women.

As Hessa notes, the purpose of veiling is to “stop men’s thoughts about women”.  This not only effectively places the blame for sexual harassment and assault on women and girls, it also positions men as bestial victims of their uncontrollable urges. It is insulting to all, and when applied to veiling youngsters, it implicitly sexualises children and normalises paedophilia. How can any thinking person with a functioning moral compass defend such blatant misogyny?

The lazy cultural relativism of those who express shock and disgust at Boris Johnson’s comments, without ever thinking of women such as Hessa leaves those who are most marginalised at risk. But those of us who are free to criticise shouldn’t be shamed into silence; people, like me, who aren’t from Muslim backgrounds have a duty to call out all oppressive practices, not just those that affect us. Failing to see the sexism behind the veil is cowardly and careless racism.