The first point at which it became crystal clear that the times were changing was when we marked the 40th anniversary of the admission of women to Selwyn College, Cambridge in 2016.

I was three years into my 12-year stint as master of the college, which ends this autumn. My vice-master, Janet O’Sullivan, told students that we were inviting the women of the college to a group photograph at 2pm and then, because we were celebrating co-education, men were welcome to join us for refreshments afterwards. She received an immediate reprimand from a young man: what about people who were non-binary or those who identified as a different gender? At this point, I was not even sure what non-binary meant – and it had never been a topic at any college meeting.

Only three years later, though, a revolution had taken place. A new gender orthodoxy, based on self-identification rather than biological sex, was firmly established in universities and swathes of the public sector. It was common for students across the University of Cambridge to attend lectures with slogans adorning their laptop computers, proclaiming “trans women are real women.”

A female professor recalls: “I remember thinking when I saw a man brandishing that statement – imagine if I’d displayed a sticker saying the opposite. Would I lose my job? I felt uncomfortable about a man telling me what a woman is, even though as a mother I assumed I might know.”