I first became aware that men were allowed to “self-identify as women”, and that gender clinics were blocking the puberty of healthy children, around 2012. This set off alarm bells immediately. However, I don’t like to pre-judge, so I wanted to spend some time looking at the evidence and implications of this novel phenomenon. I had recently retired from clinical practice due to the complications of an autoimmune illness, and I had free time to devote to this. It didn’t take me long to realise that I was looking at the biggest medical scandal of our time.  

I felt compelled to speak out, and my first instinct was to do it under my real name. I was aware of the dangers of being a “woman online”, having received my share of rape and death threats, cyberstalking and intimidation from men who had disagreed with me in the past. I had already been called a TERF (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist) for pointing out the discrepancy between the condemnation of white people who “identify as” Black, and the celebration of men who “identify as” women. But this was different. I would now be getting much more involved. I was here to draw on my knowledge and experience as a doctor, and I was committed to being informative, compassionate and mindful. 

One thing concerned me: wherever I turned, all I could see were articles and statements lamenting the unfathomable evil of the “far-Right bigot TERFs” who sought to “deny trans people’s existence” by talking about women’s sex-based rights. Meanwhile, trans-identifying people were described as “sacred” and they could do no wrong. If a man who claimed to be a woman raped a woman, or was found in possession of child abuse material, transactivists claimed that he was “never really trans”, even though he was recorded as “female” for the purpose of crime statistics and sent to a female prison. Women who objected to this were censored and even banned from online platforms. Nobody in the mainstream press would publish an article by such a woman. No politician would meet with her. No pundit would engage with her arguments. 

When women disagreed with any aspect of gender ideology, they were attacked on social media, at their place of work and whenever they tried to speak in public. 

This was more than just a “single story” narrative. This was a well-oiled propaganda machine, determined to deny women’s history and experiences, and to target individual women in order to create a chilling effect. By identifying myself, I would be turning its gaze on me. 

So I created a pseudonym – ‘la scapigliata’, also known as “Head of a Woman” – taken from the name of a beautiful renaissance drawing usually attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci. I began to write about gender self-identification, gender identity and the science and ethics (or lack thereof) behind these concepts. Also the consequences of allowing ideology, rather than evidence, to determine social policy and medical treatment. I had hoped that the situation would improve, and that soon, I would be able to contribute under my real name. Unfortunately, the violence toward women continued to escalate. 

In the sea of examples of this “persecution of TERFs”, there was one incident in particular that clarified what’s at stake.

In 2018, a woman called Kate Scottow was arrested in front of her children and thrown into a police cell for seven hours while menstruating, without being given access to sanitary products. Her crime? Referring to a male transactivist she had argued with on Twitter as “he”. 

I imagined myself in her situation, denied access to medication, cold, breathless and alone. I realised that if I ever died in custody, “lessons would be learned” but nothing would change. More than ever, I realised that I had to keep talking. But I had to do it in a way that wouldn’t make me into another statistic. 

I kept my name off social media, but I started to use it in my other campaigning. I even gave several statements to journalists under my real name, with no negative consequences. Yet, when it came to publishing my book, I still baulked and published it under another pseudonym.

Part of the reason for this was that I had decided to self-publish. I did so for two reasons. Firstly, I wanted to bypass the censorship in the trad publishing industry, and especially the enforcement of preferred pronouns, newspeak, sensitivity readers and the antagonism toward feminist analysis. Secondly, I felt a sense of urgency to make the book available as soon as possible. I felt that the time was right, with many readers willing to entertain dissenting perspectives, and in light of worrying developments entrenching gender identity ideology in medicine, education and in law. The trade-off was that I wouldn’t have the protection of a publishing house behind me. So I made my decision with the hope that a pseudonym would grant me some protection but wouldn’t hamper my efforts.

It’s been almost a year since my book launched. In this time I’ve been humbled by the incredible feedback my book has received and by the wonderful support given to me. With no mainstream promotion, my book could have easily been dead in the water. Instead, it has “flown off the shelves”, been talked about, reviewed and shared widely. However, my detractors continue to use my anonymity to dismiss it, including some of those in medical circles. 

As medicine is so captured, one of my primary goals for this book was to reach as many colleagues as possible. Giving up my anonymity may help it to do so. Either way, it is time for me to stand up and be counted.

My name is Dr Maja Bowen MBBS. I’m a retired doctor and the author of ‘Born in the Right Body: Gender identity ideology from a medical and feminist perspective’.