After suffering a humiliating defeat in the courtroom, trans rights activists decided that the most appropriate action to take is to defaced a statue of Millicent Fawcett.
Angered by the the Supreme Court’s ruling on the definition of a woman, protesters marched through central London last 19 April. Draped in blue, pink and white, they chanted calls for trans liberation, blocked traffic and held up placards which read "No feminism without trans women" and "Biology is not binary".
At least two statues in Parliament Square were daubed with graffiti during the rally, with "f-- rights" and a heart painted on the banner held by the suffragist, and "trans rights are human rights" sprayed on the pedestal bearing a memorial to South African military leader and statesman Jan Christian Smuts.
Maya Forstater, the CEO of human-rights charity Sex Matters, told The Telegraph: "Yet again the trans rights activists show us who they are. This is not a peaceful request for the right of a marginalised group to live quietly and with dignity; it’s a violent anti-women mob.
"They’ve defaced the statue of Millicent Fawcett, who represents women’s suffrage, to make their point that they will not respect women’s boundaries, even when the law requires it. Once again, they prove why women need male-free spaces and services - to keep men like this out."
Joanna Cherry KC, a former SNP MP who opposed the party’s trans policy, said the activists had shown "appalling misogyny".
She posted on X: "Anyone doubting the appalling misogyny of trans activists need only look at this evidence. The handmaidens should hang their heads in shame."
Fawcett campaigned tirelessly from a young age to get women the vote. In 1866, when she was 19, she helped collect signatures for the first suffrage petition.
She was involved with the push for women’s votes for more than five decades and led the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, though her commitment to peaceful tactics led to a split between her moderate movement and the more radical suffragettes.
Fawcett also campaigned for women’s rights in many other areas, including access to university. She died in 1929, a year after women achieved full equality at the ballot box.