It might seem unseemly to compare a retired senior judge to a yappy, badly trained dog, but bear with me. This week, Victoria McCloud, a former High Court Master who identifies as a trans woman, launched a legal challenge against the Supreme Court ruling which clarified that women are entitled to single-sex spaces.

McCloud argues that the ruling breached the right to a fair trial, complaining: “The basis is that the Supreme Court refused to hear me, or my evidence, to provide them with information about the impact on those trans people affected by the judgment and failed to give any reasons.”

Backed by the Good Law Project (GLP), McCloud and law professor Stephen Whittle had applied last year to join the litigation. As is standard practice, the court declined to hear from individuals, but it did accept an intervention from Amnesty International — ensuring trans-activist perspectives were represented, though weighed alongside contributions from groups including Sex Matters and the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Still, the howling hasn’t stopped. GLP founder Jolyon Maugham highlighted the lack of “trans voices” — an odd gripe, given that Lui Asquith, the solicitor representing Amnesty, identifies as both trans and non-binary.

Undeterred, McCloud now wants to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights, insisting: “There were protest groups speaking on behalf of women in this court case, but ordinary women were not actually represented as a whole.”

These tactics remind me of my late grandmother’s poodle, Sweetie. Sweetie was a spoiled, badly trained pooch: clawing at the furniture, barking incessantly, and relieving himself wherever he pleased. Every outburst was met with a treat and a coo, because Sweetie had learnt early on that if he made enough noise, the world would bend to his will.

But when Granny went into a care home, Sweetie’s new owners had to teach him how to behave. Barking and snapping wouldn’t work anymore. Sweetie sulked and stewed, but eventually he accepted that there were rules, and that those rules had to be respected. It made him healthier, and a lot more pleasant to spend time with.

Activists like McCloud are the Sweeties of public life — pampered for decades by HR departments, shielded from scrutiny, and told their feelings outrank everyone else’s rights. And charities such as Stonewall, which once protected demanding trans zealots from opposing views, are now rapidly falling. This must be disorientating; and it is understandable that to those who’ve become accustomed to being coddled and indulged, any return to reality must feel like a cruel punishment.

But what once identified as a civil rights movement has increasingly revealed itself as a set of demands promoted by the entitled and privileged. Women were expected to give up our dignity, spaces, safety and language. Institutions and even our government caved in, to stop trans activists (metaphorically) pissing on the sofa and chewing their slippers. The Supreme Court, mercifully, compelled the Sweeties to accept that other people have rights too. In essence, the ruling put trans activists back on the leash: whether senior judges or radical undergraduates, they must accept the law.

Today, tantrums no longer translate into policy, and it seems the age of appeasement is over. This isn’t cruelty, discrimination or persecution: it’s how adult society functions. One might hope a former High Court Master would understand that, because reality has bitten back. This time, no amount of howling for treats will change it.

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Josephine Bartosch is assistant editor at The Critic and co-author of the forthcoming book Pornocracy.

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