Nic Williams on Woman's Hour (Tuesday) talking about sport and gender identity

Thanks Pencils. I shall enjoy it.

My mum and all her church and U3A mates listen to Woman's Hour.

WI members listen to Woman's Hour. The government don't like them when they're .

BBC Woman's Hour has tremendous reach.

Talking about it in my local shop when I went in for milk earlier. Unimpressed is a polite way to put it.

SophoclesTheFox,

Best post so far IMHO.
I went to cycling from running and within 18 months could beat any female in the UK over 10 miles.
I am not bragging, because it is down to physiology, and these transexperts are muddying the water,
This is a serious situation, and I do not wish to see the Team GB pursuit squad - Jo Rowsall, Laura Kenny, Kati Archibald etc. lose to men masquerading as women.
That would be cheating pure and simple.

The more I think about the way Woman's Hour have handled this debate, the more impressed I am.

The whole 'giving equal weight to both sides' thing is perfect

It takes away every excuse - 'we didn't get to put our views to the listeners', 'our views weren't taken seriously', 'Jane Garvey was too harsh to our side' (I think she has done her utmost to be fair in every conversation, but is obviously gender critical.) Those that refused to debate were accommodated anyway, removing the #nodebate excuse, and the other participant was frequently reminded that they weren't there to defend themself, even though it was their own silly fault.

BBC Woman's Hour has tremendous reach.

The little boy would never have been able to point and shout 'the emperor has no clothes' if there had never been a parade

perhaps women kind of cap their capability, psychologically, because they're competing against other women

Still can't get over this. It's certainly pissed off a lot of women's hour listeners on twitter! Good job, Beth!

Male bodied ok I think

Fuck em
They so hating and fearing this thread
All laid out bare for examination

oh god the difficulty of not using the m word

why can't I describe reality?

Is politeness really more important than truthfulness and freedom of conscience?

💪💪datun

Datum - probably because I've been doing Xmas decs today but your description below made me think of 'pigs in blankets'. Now when I read Twitter I'm going to have to work very hard to stop mental images of bacon wrapped sausages popping up in my head!

I don't know why I was deleted. I must have let the M word creep in there.

I, like others, am infuriated by this unequal debate.

Transactivists have got absolutely nothing. Except science fiction, wrapped in fantasy, propelled by aggression.

fair point, rightreckoner.

Here Binglebong. Starts at 10 minutes in:

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0001f05

The false equivalence between experts and non-experts that is an increasingly pernicious feature of our public discourse

Although I am increasingly suspicious of experts myself. Most of the nonsense being peddled on WH this last two weeks was from academics - including today’s PhD in utter bullshit. Academia seems to be sponsoring the production of experts in drivel but dressed up in language that non academics are not used to. This is exactly why the term expert has become problematic.

The problem is not so much the elephant in the room, more the elephants trunk....

Guardian article on Lauren Jeska.

I actually think that Beth was deliberately ‘misunderstanding’ the question and wAs trying to imply that the host was asking about physical threats.

it’s here

‘Her parents hope that UK Athletics will learn from her traumatic experience’

(of attempting to kill a man).

Peak Guardian

“I don't think any trans person, regardless of whether they identify as male or female, pose a threat to their competitors ...”

Beth, who has a PhD in the subject, but not really grasping the basic concept of ‘competitive’ sport here!
And this is the cream of Nottingham Trent University’s academic crop!? Pfft.

PencilsinSpace - Thank you so much for the transcript - I'd have no access to radio without it!

Having read it through, all that is coming to mind is Hitchens' razor:

What can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchens%27s_razor

I get the point that Woman's Hour is not the place for Laurent Bannock level Guru Performance We Do Science podcasts

guruperformance.libsyn.com

but we could have done with some light-touch references to just how significant the hormone differences are and what they represent (as per the Fond of Beetles post I've linked upthread).

Does anyone have a link to the Guardian article about the Lauren Jeska case that was mentioned earlier in the thread? The one that peak transed people.

Thank you Pencils - it's really helpful to have it transcribed (and I'm in awe of you - I would still be typing tomorrow..)

This thread has gone bananas since this morning!

After whooping at the craziness that Dr Beth was spouting this morning, I do now feel a little sorry for her in that it's more than possible that the phd was suggested to her (e.g that there was money available for it) and it was connected kind of to what she was interested in (body perception) where there probably wasn't funding etc etc. I can see how it could happen.

That doesn't excuse the cognitive dissonance that must have been required in the conclusion that inclusive sports must be a positive thing as it would be good for transwomen (whilst ignoring the enormous elephant in the room) but that is often how life works isn't it? (the falling into things rather than the cognitive dissonance..)?

certainly women report that once they've been on oestrogen therapy they feel weaker Not my experience of HRT

Don't see why not, bingle.

I'm sure Owen or Tim wassname could easily knock out five hundred words on why feminists hate testosterone before breakfast.