Not too long ago, the #MeToo movement went viral as women in Hollywood shared their experiences of sexual assault and abuses. They gained a lot of sympathy, and their bravery encouraged many other women to speak out.

Now women are being told to get re-educated if they don’t want males in the female-only changerooms, sports or services.

It is so hard to believe this is happening – all with the full consent and encouragement of lawmakers who insist self-id is beneficial for society.

A group of UK nurses recently filed a complaint about a male colleague who says he identifies as female. He lurks longer in the changeroom than necessary and makes the female nurses feel uncomfortable as he stares at their breasts in the changeroom.

Officials who received the complaint offered no sympathy and told the women they needed “to get ‘educated’ and broaden their minds.”

It was, the nurses say, an ‘offensive’ response to their legitimate complaints that their colleague’s presence was ‘degrading and humiliating’. They also told the HR department that the 26-year-old stared at their breasts when they were getting undressed and lingered ‘longer than necessary’ in the changing room.

The nurses say their colleague – who is understood not to have had gender reassignment surgery – had told fellow workers at Darlington Memorial Hospital they had stopped taking cross-sex hormones because they were trying to get their girlfriend pregnant and therefore is ‘a sexually active biological male’.

Now, after being dissatisfied with the response from bosses, eight of the nurses are launching an unprecedented employment tribunal against the NHS Trust that employs them, claiming harassment, indirect discrimination, victimisation and human rights violations.

It is utterly extraordinary that health care professionals are told to deny biological reality and reject science for the sake of some men’s feelings. How can you trust a health system that insists males can be female? No human has ever changed their sex. Why is there so little regard for women’s mental health and physical safety?

Bethany Hutchison, 34, a surgery nurse, said: ‘It’s disgraceful that nurses are ending up in tears prior to their shifts. We are there to be an emotional support for patients who are about to undergo surgery, and it’s very difficult to do that if you’re in a state of distress from having to change in front of a male.

‘I think women need to stop being fearful about this and use their voice. We have fought for so long to get women’s rights but it’s just gone backwards, and I’m not prepared to see that.’

For a human resources manager to allegedly suggest “the nurses needed to ‘broaden their mindset’, be ‘more inclusive’ and ‘be educated’ is offensive and based on lies.

Ms Hutchison said: ‘It is so offensive to us because we are all educated – we need a degree in order to do this job and some of us have multiple degrees. We’ve got very intelligent people on our ward so it was disgusting for them to say something like that to us.

‘We’re not transphobic and we’re not fearful of trans people – we believe they need their own changing space that’s safe for them.

Women must be able to speak up for sex-based rights, spaces and services without being threatened, bullied, or intimidated into compliance with an ideology that rejects reality and denies evidence-based science.