No. Of course not. As you say, there are bad apples in every community. I'm saying that without a standard of womanhood that everybody can get on board with (I think it's reasonable to exclude rapists and males who have no intention of transitioning from that standard, don't you?), more and more people will simply reject the whole idea.

This is what I mean when I say I think it's in everybody's interests to think seriously and honestly about this point.

The trans community has been deafeningly silent on the question of where the line between men and trans women lies. Or actually, it's worse than that. The voices that are speaking up insist that there is no line. That any male, regardless of gender dysphoria or transition status or history of committing sexual assault, becomes a woman simply by saying so.

Where are the trans women arguing that if you're a rapist, you forfeit any right to access female spaces? Where are the trans women arguing that if you have no intention of physically transitioning, you don't belong in female spaces? Again, these distinctions safeguard women and trans women. Yet I never hear trans women making the case.

We've finally come full circle. These are the kinds of questions we'd all agree that any nation should ask of immigrants. The trans community isn't just any community. It's a community of people who, in the case of trans women, are asking for access to the private spaces of another vulnerable group.

I think the vast majority of people are more than compassionate enough to understand and accommodate this. But when trans women don't seem to care at all about the safeguarding implications for women, it erodes that compassion.