You quote Nick Cohen as suggesting that someone can give “trans women every kindness” without believing “that anyone can be a woman, and that there is no material basis for being female.“

But both cannot be done simultaneously. When someone doesn’t respect the gender that another presents or otherwise communicates, the disrespected person won't perceive them as *kind* in any matter where their gender is relevant (which is most matters).

Secondly: You add that you find it “challenging” to “steer a path of being a defender and ally of trans-rights whilst simultaneously showing solidarity to women and to give space for feminist voices on these pages.”

This establishes a dichotomy between transgender women on the one side and women and feminists on the other. The dichotomy is false and harmful. Transgender women are women. Also, transgender people can be feminists, and feminism can champion issues of importance to transgender people. The road between transgender-people-vs.-everyone-else does not have to be steered because it does not need to be traveled.

Also, any brand of feminism (or of any other ideology) that doesn’t recognize that transgender women are women will find it pretty much impossible to defend the gender-related rights of transgender people. Transgender women very likely will not judge people with this position to be their *allies*, regardless of what those people want to call themselves.

If you want to know if your actions toward transgender people are interpersonally kind and politically helpful, you can ask a few of them, because they are the ones who get to judge in matters concerning them.