This month I finally got round to reading Kathleen Stock’s Material Girls. It is an excellent book. I particularly appreciated the fact that Stock forces us to think carefully about the way we use language when discussing sex and gender. Too often the word ‘gender’ is used indiscriminately, as both a substitute for sex and a more all-encompassing identity descriptor. I have certainly been guilty of this myself and Stock provides timely lessons in the importance of linguistic precision. But, with this in mind, I was baffled by her choice to refer to people using their preferred pronouns. It seems to me that this risks perpetuating untruths under the guise of courtesy. But Stock’s decision to make this concession makes it all the more ludicrous that she has been so villified by trans-activists. This is a thoughtful, philosophical and polite argument for respecting everyone but centering women in feminism.