“Why is there a need for feminist poems or literature? Is the proof not in the news we read daily—a violent world of misogyny expressing itself in rapes, the trafficking of children and women and casting a shadow on every sector of human life? Has not every woman or girl-- except a few lucky ones-- felt the breath of patriarchy in the lenses that cloud her vision or the voices that crowd her soul.” Read Usha Akella’s statement at her recent launch for I Will Not Bear You Sons.

But the rapidity with which the transgender lobby has risen to a position of political influence and the number and enormity of consequences for women have forced me, albeit kicking and screaming, into taking up this discussion. Heather also perhaps: she tells in her book’s prologue of having “stumbled” into researching and writing on it by accident.

Born Still is a very special kind of memoir. It is, as Janet informs us in the opening pages, a political memoir – in which “the personal” – specifically, Janet’s life -- has been rendered so political, by virtue of its disruptive place in institutional systems of power and governance, as to have implications for the law and social practice -- in particular, in relation to home birth and independent midwifery.

Joanna Murray-Smith, playwright, talks about Sue Ingleton's new book: Making Trouble (Tongued with Fire).