Gay rights, women's rights and cycling are in danger of being sabotaged by the people who care about them most.

Am I the first to see the similarity? I'd be interested to find out.

As you are aware, I ride a bike for transport, have done all my life and the time I spent living anywhere but in the Netherlands have on many journeys had my life threatened as a cyclist, both intentionally and simply by being in the way.

In the Netherlands cycling is funded and defended as a form of transportation and segregation is the main tool used to keep cyclists safe from faster, heavier vehicles such as cars and lorries. It is also supported legally - for the most part, the driver of the faster, heavier vehicle is considered to bare the majority of the responsibility for their behaviour on the road.

Gay rights in the Netherlands are just as vulnerable as in the UK. The Netherlands is known for being a tolerant country, but only recently, male politicians made a stand by publicly holding hands to support the right for two homosexuals to openly hold hands in public places without having the life kicked out of them. We still need Gay Pride marches.

I am also a woman, a heterosexual woman, married with two children. I am a couple of inches taller than my husband, I open the jars in our house, and we share the DIY tasks according to who is better - he has a degree in electrical engineering so electrics, he's also much better at shelves, setting up PC's and IT related things. I maintain our bikes, the garden - including building stuff like planters, a bbq etc. I am the bbq lighter and maintainer. We share the cooking, I specialise more in oven related dishes and use more tools and stuff like the pressure cooker, whereas he tends to prefer the Wok and makes much better rice than I can.

I have a reasonable collection of shoes, including several pairs of Doctor Martens, birkenstocks, ballet pumps, court shoes, dancing shoes, walking shoes etc. He usually has two or three pairs of shoes on the go.

I have a huge collection of records and music, I am the music geek, but my husband has arguably more music, all on his harddrive and a very large collection of board games.

We share the cleaning, and he does most of the laundry. I do more childcare because our children are gifted autistic which makes them quite a handful. Having said that, he does lots of gaming with them, which they love, both made up D&D style, board games, Live Role Playing and online/computer based with them, so it's far from one sided.

Some of our attributies are considered "gender typical" others not so. I am keen that my children, both boys, grow up with the idea that anything they want to do, providing they are not hurting anyone, is fair game. I have not pushed them towards or away from anything based on their sex. If you don't need genitals to do it, it's fair game.

What I have noticed in the past decade or so, is that in my country of birth, the UK, the marginalisation of sexual preferences other than heterosexual has decreased, which in turn has meant that, quite rightly, the idea that who you choose to have sex with or spend your life with, have children and leave all your possessions to, is largely your business. Providing you don't hurt anyone, they are old enough to consent and they have indeed, consented without fear for themselves or someone they care about, you are within the law.

These laws and norms have all been heading towards making sure that you can prevent people from being taken advantage of, excluded, persecuted or harmed because of their choices and preferences within the framework of protecting everyone from discrimination, overt or covert.

At the same time, transportation has been evolving too. The bike, once a symbol of feminism and equality - in the early 20th Century it sped up the changes in women's clothing norms - allowing women to wear trousers and move around freely.

The car, once a man's toy, also became adopted as a means of freedom for many - being able to drive is a liberation of mobility. You can travel anywhere, anytime of the day or night in safety.

Public transportation has always had mixed reviews as far as safe mobility for women is concerned and the loss of guards on trains and conductors on busses was not a great move in the context of feeling safe travelling alone. This coincided with the increase of cars on the road, the one getting easier and safer, the other becoming prohibitively dangerous alone.

All the way through this obviously, the better off you are financially, the less impact the bad sides have and the benefits increased too. Although being able to afford a taxi doesn't mean your taxi driver doesn't turn out to be a serial rapist, but that's another can of worms.

Cycling among all this, since the increase in motorised transportation, with its associated advantages and disadvantages has changed dramatically. With fast busy roads and little provision for cyclists, the act of riding a bike for a woman or a child has been actively discouraged, you could say. At best cyclist have been driven to the pavements where they are also universality hated.

A tiny percentage of women in the UK ride bikes. Why? it's over half the cycling population in the Netherlands.

We know why, because it's both perceptually dangerous, and actually dangerous. It requires a "masculine" amount of bloody minded determination and stamina.

Among cycling activists, I am in a minority, as a transport cyclist and woman. I am there to support the idea that cycling should be available as a means of transportation on public roads and that the infrastructure that is paid for by taxation should provide equally for all road users. Not, as it now stands, heavily subsidising and preferring motorised private transportation. I am not alone, but it's a less well supported cause than even say, gay rights. It barely gets mentioned, and features more victim blaming, a very similar way to rape and sexual harassment.

Only half the population drive, if you count children and the elderly and disabled, yet they are forced to become reliant on drivers because all other means are expensive, dangerous, far slower (public transportation have to adhere to much stricter safety regs than cars, not to mention they aren't as well subsidised) and not made as readily available. You can buy fuel 24 hours a day, but few places provide 24 hour public transport.

Spend any time in the Netherlands and you will be passed in the street by disabled people mobilising themselves in ways that in the UK just can't be done because the infrastructure isn't there. You can't hand cycle along a major A-road, with no pavement and there's often no other route.

In the Netherlands, at any time, over half the Men, women and children of all ages, ethnicity, and social standing use bikes for short journeys, journeys that would all mostly undertaken by car in towns and cities around the UK. Not because of hills, because it's not laid out do do so, you don't exist, unwelcome on the road and the pavement. Look at the huge uptake in London for cycling infrastructure. But what about the rest of the UK? If you live outside of a major town or city transport poverty is a large, under represented problem.

Twitter is ablaze with outrage as racing cyclists frighten horses, while drivers routinely injure and kill both horses and riders on the roads. The stats are shocking. But it remains, cycling is the only form of racing allowed on public roads.

This "cycling" movement, backed sometimes furiously by advocates of cycling as a whole, is no different to the advocates of Lesbian and Gay rights. Both issues occupy a huge amount of twitter traffic, emotions fly and threats, insults or anger are common.

Both causes are populated by mostly well meaning people. But are they actually led by a significant minority of predominantly white, privileged men, who are hijacking these good causes for their own ends? They don't care about how it effects others, they are in fact if anything just as likely to prefer it if the people who are being hurt or having their freedoms taken away, just shut up and get back in our places; out of their way.

There is a surprising link between racing cyclists and a significant amount of men who identify themselves as women. What a strange link!

Racing cycling is worth a fortune in the UK, it's not by any means just a male obsession, I love a good road bike, but it is mostly a male sport. It is not saving the planet, bike races involve as many cars as there bikes and just as the bikes are travelling round in circles, so are the cars. There's nothing nobel or special about it. It's a sport, like any other. The only thing it has in common with me on my bike coming home from the shops, is we both have two wheels, a frame, pedals etc.

As for what we are doing and why, we are worlds apart, in fact, he has impacted me, because if it were up to him, I wouldn't exist. When he goes shopping, he wants to do it by car. He will vote for people who want to it by car and he will support being able to travel by car. For him, his bike is a toy, a plaything, not his main means of transportation. In fact, it can only carry him. I don't see Alan Sugar campaigning for the right for children to ride to school safely just because he's got a 2 grand racing bike.

The fashion for cycling as a sport is no more good for the planet or the human race than the fashion for saying that a man who chooses to dress as woman, is, if he chooses to say so, a woman.

Grayson Perry, he says he's a man, I like him. In fact I very much admire him. Be like Grayson, he's got the idea, he's also got at least one lovely bike, and he rode it to work in a dress. That's more like it.

What's the harm if he does? None.

But what's happening on the quiet, in the Green Party, in the Labour Party, all over politics is not. It's the insistence that they have to silence anyone who questions the idea that wearing a dress makes you a woman. There has been an exodus of women who are thrown out for questioning men who identify as women taking women's jobs from political parties.

That you can feel like a woman, that's nonsense. How do you know what it feels like to be a woman? What does that feel like? It doesn't exist. Your sex is biology. It's not blue or pink.  Acting like a woman is not being a woman, anymore than acting like a tree or acting like a dog.

Lesbian and Gay rights has been piggy backed by men who identify as women to infiltrate into positions designed to advocate women's rights. It's allowing a man to compete in a women's sporting event, it's allowing a man to do time in a women's prison and in the process coerce vulnerable women who are lesbians into having sex with a man because he's convinced you he's actually a woman. Women have now raped, it's in the statistics! Yet you need a penis to rape someone.

It's a male policeman who identifies as a woman legally allowed to to body search a female detainee. It's supported by religious organisations who don't recognise homosexuality to encourage, even force homosexual men to become women. It's feeding body dysphoria and self hatred, so rather than learning to love yourself, you change your biology, spend all your money on surgery. That's just the tip of the iceberg, because elsewhere in the world it's much much darker.

I touched upon religion and homosexuality, all over the developing world homosexuals are being marginalised more by insisting that "gender" being "feminine" or "masculine" is more than just an idea. It's not fixed, it's cultural. It's not biology, it's ideology. Do we want to live in a future where if you are gay, you have to have corrective surgery and hormone treatment to be accepted by society? Do we want to indulge the fetish of powerful men who like to feel as "helpless" as a woman? Do we want to encourage "femininity" to mean demure, pretty, weak, vulnerable?

This all sounds way worse than a bunch of blokes in lycra, what harm are they doing? Well no actually they are also part of the taking away of freedom for the rest of us, women, children, men and women who are not at the peak of sexual, financial, mental health. If you are not strong enough, fast enough, brave enough to hold your own with vehicles, you shouldn't be there?

This is the same issue; the systematic trickle away from equality, back towards a world where male and the man is dominant, the strongest prevail. The roads, our transportation systems are a symptom of this as much as anywhere.

I might be white, I might be heterosexual, but as a woman, I challenge anyone who tries to take away a person's right to be a feminine man or a masculine woman. I challenge the "cycling community" to ask themselves who benefits from supporting cycling as a sport in order to promote cycling for transport? You are not helping, and until your event involves a mass charity ride laden with shopping, children and disabled people with hand cycles and electric wheelchairs, you are just part of the privileged few. Fine, go for your ride, but don't for one second think you are saving the environment or changing the world for the better.
 
I'm conflicted. I have a racing bike, I like Krafwerk! and my beloved niece is becoming my nephew. I don't for a minute want to stop him or take away his right to live as he chooses. But we must make sure that freedom of speech and freedom of movement aren't taken away from us to satisfy a tiny minority of narcissistic, greedy, over privileged men. If that means drawing the line somewhere, make it low, make it simple and make it fair.

If it doesn't work for women, if it doesn't protect children, if it doesn't respect diversity, it doesn't work for anyone.

Cycling with headphones or earbuds, it might actually be help some and not hinder others.

I like to see connections between the things in my life and how these things effect each other. We all have to get from A to B and we all have our preferences. Headphones are possibly the adult version of ear defenders for many adults on the Autistic spectrum and who have ADHD and I want to explain a bit why and what that means. From the head of a cyclist and a woman.

I was diagnosed a couple of years ago with ADHD, I take dexamphetamine (when I remember, ironically) to help me stick to what I'm supposed to be doing. I am relatively normal, I have an Autism (also known as Aspergers) diagnosis too.

I have used head phones or earbuds most of my cycling life, since my mid teens. I was a teenager in the 80's so a walkman was never very far from me. From the age of 10, I rode to school every day with my Dad on a Tandem, first through rush hour Reading, then on a train and the mile or so from the village station up the road to the village school where my dad was a teacher in Crowthorne.  When I reached my teens and rode to school on my own, I had a choice of two bikes, both hand build by my dad. A road bike and a diamond frame transport bike with a sturdy carrier for my saxophone case and sit up handlebars. It was just whatever bits I wanted really.

The thing I used to love most, was taking my road bike out along Greenham Common Airbase, with my headphones on, blow off some steam with some Gary Newman or Japan, Kraftwerk or some Punk, Ska was very good for climbing too. A good mix tape was a must. Pick one of the numerous hills near where I lived, go up one and come back on another - usually the short steep one up and the long gradual back. Was it dangerous? definitely. Would I let my kid do it now? probably not, but the one most likely do do something like that that takes after me probably wouldn't ask permission.

As I got older, I mostly liked the combination of headphones or earbuds and cycling for long distances, it would help to establish a rhythm, or help settle me in for a long ride. You see, if you ride for transport, sometimes you make quite long journeys by yourself, it's great if you do have someone else to talk to, but you could say, just like any kind of travelling where you can't just read a book or stare out the window, it's nice to have something other than your own thoughts for company.

Don't get me wrong, my own thoughts are fine, but it helps to have something else to occupy yourself with. I enjoy music, I have always enjoyed the radio, especially now that you can pick your programmes with your phone so easily. An episode of Woman's Hour, can get me from my place to my Mum's as it's about 45 mins at a good pace.

Cycling is well known for being a great way to clear your head, a kind of meditation. Drifting off into your head, on a bike isn't the same as in a car, riding a bike is a physical thing, there's wind, weather, pedalling etc, physically, you are constantly being pulled back to the real world. This isn't the case behind the wheel of a car, in fact cars isolate you to the point you can actually fall asleep if you drive for too long. I'm sure bum ache will stop most cyclist from going that far.

Kids in the Netherlands, where I now live, die on bikes looking at their phones, just like adults do behind the wheels of a car. It's a problem too, I admit to occasionally texting while riding my bike, but I also tend to only do that where the road is straight and then I look up every other word and I find myself increasingly pulling over as it's really not a good idea to be reading stuff on your phone. You can always spot a cyclist who's just pulled out their phone, their speed drops and the head goes down. Pulling over on a bike is also much easier than in a car. Not concentrating on the road no matter what your transport mode, isn't a good idea. Mobile phones are the new drink driving.

Those who find the idea of riding with headphones uncomfortable, often say that this is dangerous, that you can't hear the traffic around you. I will admit that it does take some of that sensory stimulation away. But not as much as you might think. This is also a very personal choice, it is not something that you have to do, no one is forcing you to do it. I have friends who say they never listen to music and do other things simultaneously, they like to listen when it's their choice.

I use google maps if I'm going somewhere I've not been before. I can set up a route, put my headphones on, put the phone in my pocket, and the instructions are spoken. I might need to stop and check, or use the phone holder on my bike to show the route sometimes, but with headphones, it works very well.

In winter, I like my earphones because they keep my ears warm.

My husband is very very sensitive to noise, to the point, he wears earplugs when we are out, especially around the kids, who are very loud when they play together. He also uses his over ear headphones to cut out as much audible stimulation as he can, both on the bike and just walking around. He finds unwanted or sudden noise physically painful, he clamps his arms around his head in pain. After being prescribed SSRI's a few years ago, he is left with severe ticks, which are now worst when he is subjected to sudden crashes or bangs. Taking the family out on outings in public is...fun...and we have been very limited when it comes to choosing holiday destinations. Headphones are what allows him to come to busy places like theme parks with the family. He also prefers to cycle with headphones on, and when we have the kids in the car, he wears his headphones to block out the kids chatter and concentrate on driving.

I like to do the supermarket shop with my headphones on too. I find it much easier to focus, I don't have to put up with the random shop music either. I see too much of what is going on around me, I hear everything, I notice too much, so it cuts it out. Not long ago, I was shopping in my local supermarket, as usual headphones on, music playing. I saw a man in front of me ask a sporky teenage shelf stacker where the bbq coals where, the sporky young shelfstacker looked terrified, looked around, ummed and arred, so I walked over, moved my headphone to one side and said, in Dutch, "Houtskool is in de aanbieding, rechtdoor, tussen de alcohol en de freezers". He smiled and thanked me, the shop assistant thanked me too.
So shutting myself off enough to allow me to focus on daily tasks better, doesn't mean I have shut myself completely, more dialed the world down a bit.

My point is, wearing headphones or earbuds can be something that makes normal life more possible is as much a choice for some, as for others it would be unthinkable. Modern life has it's challenges, and that includes being able to accept that not everyone does as you do. If it's not hurting you, or anyone else, mind your own business.

When I ride, I want to stay alive, I have my feckless moments, the odd near miss, but not because I'm wearing headphones, because I'm human. The worst crash I had in London, I wasn't wearing them, I was blindsided by a car turning right and left for dead. I rode 100 miles a week on average in London, knew it like the back of my hand, all times of the day and night. Being a woman travelling from Bow to Battersea at 2am was safest by bike, I was invisible in the best possible way. No cab drivers or night busses for me. Was it my ADHD that made me take risks others wouldn't? Or was it my ability to think outside the box? Cycling for an hour flies by with a good mix of music.

Not having an ADHD diagnosis does not make you immune. In fact, turns out there are many un-diagnosed adults out there. I have several female friends with ADHD who love driving and are very good drivers. I don't think the condition can define whether or not you are a good road user or not, but how you do it, it got that way for a reason.

One thing I have learnt about how the brain and stimulation works, is that being slightly on edge can make a sluggish brain more efficient. An element of risk will make the processor work better, increase the amount of dopamine I'm getting, as does music or the radio. For some at least, knowing what helps or hinders is just part of growing up.

If you know your ears are occupied, or impaired, you use your eyes more. In a car, you are insulated from almost all exterior noise. Any kind of complacency when moving at speed is dangerous, as cars got more comfortable at speed, they needed more safety features. The trouble is, those safety features are for the occupants benefit, not for the thing they hit. So separation from motor traffic is the only way to be safe as a cyclist.

Headphones and earbuds are not a distraction for the cyclist, they are a distraction for the conversation around cyclists, a reason to judge them. The fact is, fallibility is a fact of life. Headphones don't effect your eyes or your ability to ride or turn your head and check what's coming.

Segregation is what keeps cyclists safe, indeed designing road infrastructure that allows for an element of fallibility is what keeps us all safe. No matter how your brain works.