The heroine with a pool cue
Lynne Pinches was treated abominably by the gender ideologues - now she is fighting back
You probably won’t agree with all of Mr Embery’s policy prescriptions, but he will force you to think outside your usual political grooves — Wall Street Journal
SOMETIMES the liberties and freedoms we enjoy as citizens are won and maintained through the efforts of people we will never meet and whose names we don’t even know.
When it comes to the ongoing struggle to defend women’s rights, for example, the name Lynne Pinches might not be uppermost in everyone’s mind.
Neither, I imagine, would most people think of the field in which she operates – she is a professional pool player – as an obvious combat zone in that particular battle.
But every woman owes a debt of gratitude to Lynne. For her sheer courage and determination in the face of injustice and hostility are rooted in the finest traditions of popular struggle and have helped to strike a blow for the rights of her sisters-in-arms everywhere.
Lynne, 53 and from Norwich, is a veteran competitor in her chosen sport. She created waves in 2023 when, having reached the final of a prestigious national tournament, she refused to participate against her opponent, a trans-identifying male. As the match was about to get under way, Lynne shook her opponent’s hand politely, packed away her cue and departed the arena.
It was a small but deeply principled act of resistance against the cult of gender ideology and all its gross injustices.
Lynne argued, as many female pool players do, that biological men enjoyed physical advantages in cue sports. (For example, men are able to make more powerful breaks through greater upper body strength, and they enjoy height and reach advantages at the table.)
Lynne lambasted the sport’s governing body for refusing to defend the integrity of the female category. ‘I don’t care about the money or the title or the trophy,’ she said after forfeiting the match. ‘I care about fairness.’
The following year, and in protest at the situation, she turned down what would then have been her first professional playing contract.
After that, Lynne’s card was well and truly marked by the sport’s authorities, as well as by radical trans activists. She was subjected to a stream of abuse on social media and in person. On one occasion she was screamed at by the partner of a trans-identifying male competitor, and on another she had a bottle thrown at her.
Such was the level of intimidation that Lynne was advised by police to wear a bodycam at future pool events. She did so in April 2025 when attending a match organised by the sport’s main promoter, Ultimate Pool. But the bodycam was spotted by a trans activist who promptly informed security.
Even though she offered to remove the camera, Lynne was booted out of the venue. Worse, she was banned her from all the promoter’s future events, not only as a competitor but also as a mere spectator. This seemed especially cruel given that both Lynne’s sons played in tournaments and she watched them regularly.
Just days later, the supreme court ruled that women and men were defined by biological sex for the purposes of equality law. This forced pool’s governing body to change the rules so that trans-identifying males were prevented from competing in the female category. Lynne’s principled stance had been vindicated.
But even this didn’t persuade Ultimate Pool to lift the ban on Lynne. She remains blocked from attending all its events. So, in a further act of defiance, she is now suing the promoter for discrimination and victimisation, and has launched a crowdfunder to that effect.
Lynne says she is taking the action ‘so that no-one else is put through this in the future, because if they can do it to me after a lifetime of playing, they can absolutely do it to anyone’.
For its part, the promoter strenuously denies that the ban had any connection with Lynne’s gender-critical stance and has vowed to fight the claim. Plainly the courts will have the final say on that.
In my view, Lynne is a heroine – one of a growing number of women who have put their head above the parapet because they are sick and tired of seeing extremist ideologues and realty deniers try to erode the very concept of womanhood and smash up their hard-won sex-based rights.
Events have shown that the supreme court judgment, welcome though it was, does not represent the final word in the battle to defend the freedoms and liberties of women and girls from attacks by the trans cultists. Across Britain, bodies and institutions captured by gender ideology are still trying to sidestep the judgment and appease the fanatics. So the fight goes on.
Lynne Pinches has played the game of pool for 35 years. It is truly a disgrace that women like her, who simply wish to compete on fair terms in the sport they love and have dedicated their lives to, are called upon to take part in these exhausting political and cultural battles.
But they do so because they want to do what is right and to express their solidarity with women and girls everywhere. For that, they deserve the solidarity of the rest of us.
A reminder that you can follow me on ‘X’: @PaulEmbery
An edited version of the above piece first appeared on the GB News website.
Image: ‘X’
Lynne is rare in that she refuses to cave to pressure of any sort : her principles have not faltered and her sense of right and wrong give her a moral clarity that too few seem to possess these days. Courage like Lynne's (and JK Rowling's) are all the more impressive because they don't scream and shout, they don't use abusive language, they don't falsify facts to suit an agenda, they are not rude, they don't attempt to intimidate or threaten. They don't need to for one obvious reason: they simply tell the truth. Many of us feel we've fallen through Alice's looking glass as we try to survive in an inverse world that makes no sense. I would like to think Lynne will triumph and justice will be done... but justice seems to have abandoned the field.
Thank Heaven there are men with a public profile, like Paul, who have the courage to stand up for the rights of women.
Thank you Paul 🙏