When I posted about the report of the UK parliament's Committee on Women and Equality from the parliamentary inquiry into discrimination against transgender people in education, health and criminal justice ten days ago, backlash had yet to coalesce. It stood to reason there would be some, but it was not known for certain from whence it would come.

Maria Miller, chair of the committee, probably expected attacks from right-wingers in her Conservative party. But Miller says they have remained largely silent.

[T]he former Culture secretary said she was taken aback by the “extraordinary” hostility from a minority of women “purporting to be feminists.”

Speaking to The Independent on Sunday from her office in Westminster, Ms Miller insisted that the “overwhelming” reaction to her report has been positive. Despite controversial calls for “gender neutral” passports and for 16-year-olds to be given the legal right to change their sex, there was barely a peep from her more traditional colleagues on the Tory back benches.

The only negative reaction that I’ve seen has been by individuals purporting to be feminists.

--Miller, who says many are outraged at her call for women's refuges to ensure equal access for transgender women

A glance at Ms Miller’s Twitter page shows that the backlash is real. She is accused of exposing women to “violent men hiding behind the mask of transgender”. In another message, she is told trans women are “not real women” and are often “violent offenders or sex offenders” and that she was failing in her duty to protect women.

But Ms Miller, wading into the dangerous territory of radical feminist politics, insisted that they are wrong. She pointed to research by the Fawcett Society, a think-tank campaigning for women’s rights, which found that two-thirds of feminists believe gender to be fluid. “Of course, that would cut across what Germaine Greer is saying,” she said.

I think that all of us who are feminists know that equality for other groups of people, and a fairer deal for other groups of people, is good for us as well. If we live in a fairer society, where opportunities are not cut off because of your gender or sexuality or race or religion, then that is going to be good for women as well as good for everyone else.

We should all be fighting for a fairer society. I find it extraordinary that somebody wouldn’t acknowledge that. But there seems to be an undercurrent of opinion among some that trans people shouldn’t be treated equally, even when they’ve had a legal change in their gender, and that in some way this is a threat to women; I simply reject that.

--Miller

She praised the “important work” of single-sex services, such as rape crisis centres. “But those sorts of services should be supporting trans women,” she insisted.

Some feminists prioritise gender equality above all else, but I think we should also do our bit to promote general equality. I’m not upset with the backlash, but we’re all much better off when we are all better off.

We will only achieve equality if we push things forward – we just need to put in the safeguards. Some feminists take a different view. But I would prefer it if these trans people didn’t face dark and twisty childhoods. If there is anything I can do to stop that, then I will – even if it rubs a few people up the wrong way.

--Jess Phillips, labor MP on the committee who ran a rape crisis centre before entering Parliament