Sex Matters in Edinburgh

Joanna Cherry KC has been the MP for Edinburgh South West since May 2015 but was relegated to the backbenches for her gender-critical views. Since then she has resumed legal practice to defend other women unfairly discriminated against for their beliefs – she practised as an advocate at the Scottish Bar for 20 years and took silk in 2009. 

She is currently considering whether to take legal action against The Stand Comedy Club in Edinburgh, which cancelled her appearance as a guest at an event in this year’s Fringe and then announced on Twitter that the reason was that some of their staff didn’t feel “comfortable” working with her because of her views about self-ID.

Marion Calder is co-director of For Women Scotland, the campaign group founded to oppose the Scottish Government’s plans to reform the Gender Recognition Act to allow for self-declaration of sex and in the process helped bring down Nicola Sturgeon. “It was Nicola’s failure to be able to say a rapist was a man that turned it in the end,” Calder told The Times. “If you can’t say that, why should anyone trust anything that comes out of your mouth?”

Elaine Miller is the woman who made the word “merkin” famous again. Known on Twitter as @GussieGrips – tagline “Come for the fanny, stay for the feminism” – she combined her professional knowledge as a pelvic physiotherapist with her love of stand-up comedy to write a show that tells women about the science of continence and the wonders of the pelvic floor. Gusset Grippers had sell-out runs and five-star reviews at the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe and then won awards in Australia too. Her message of #LaughDontLeak has reached more than 590 million people – which is just one of the reasons she was awarded a Fellowship by the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy.