Woman’s Hour Tuesday

Can you imagine a woman who had written this blog being invited on the BBC as an authority on anything? The different standards applied to transwomen and women in public life are beyond a joke.

I second this. Is there not some kind of due diligence to be done in booking serious contributors? I know the answer to that...

I think it's important for the voices speaking publicly about this, to people who aren't so aware of the issue, to maintain a compassionate tone, simply because lots of basically decent, right-thinking but unaware women will be alienated from the GC position if it comes across as being cruel or unpleasant.

I have to disagree with this. There is a really unhealthy dynamic at play in this debate in which trans activists guilt-trip women (and everyone really, but women especially) into feeling sorry for them, while refusing to show even the smallest empathy for women in return. This dynamic needs pointing out, not reinforcing.

The unhealthy dynamic is that TRAs (particularly the male ones) are taking advantage of the differences in masculine and feminine socialisation - which is also why the PP suggests that women may be turned off by other women behaving in a way that contravenes feminine socialisation. You can see this in the different ways women respond to Posie and Magdalen compared to how they respond to Dr Nick. We need both styles!

I agree that, rather than debate the ins and outs, and the assumption that trans people are somehow having something taken away from them, we need to show people the consequences: the male rapists in women's prisons, for example.

Oh wow, that blog post by Peto is just...wow. They really come across as completely deranged. And narcissistic to a degree I don’t think I’ve ever encountered before. And this is the person WH decided to give credibility to? Jesus.

I don't think I can make it all the way through because the specific way in which it does not ring true, makes me uncomfortable. But based on what I've read so far I would like to heartily second this.

Can you imagine a woman who had written this blog being invited on the BBC as an authority on anything? The different standards applied to transwomen and women in public life are beyond a joke.

I've just read Glinner's post about Peto's, uh, mythologising.

She was referring to altered birth certificates for those with a GRC. GRC holders can carry on as normal.

Yes - including not being legally entitled to single sex services/spaces - as per the EA sex based exemptions for the safety, dignity, privacy and equity of access of women and girls. Exclusion is based on sex - that they are male, not gender reassignment.

Lots of rolling back of Stonewall’s lies. Ann Sinnott’s legal case is important.

Arabella, I had a quick look at HP's blog and then saw your comment and they made me think of something Helen Joyce says in this video, which I watched a week or two ago:

I await her book with bated breath. It could be a game-changer because she's so highly regarded.

Helen made a point that in her interviews and research it took a while for her to understand that some transgender people feel that there is an actual, separate person of the opposite sex inside them, trapped and desperate to get out. And that transitioning means the death of the man they used to be and rebirth as a woman. Not just a symbolic death, but a real one. When they transition they die and are born again as their true selves.

As others have pointed out It's clear from responses like Peto's that the woman inside has sod all understanding of the reality of being a woman. So you end up with a person who feels reborn into their true womanly self, expects to be accepted as a woman and validated by other women but doesn't look like a woman, has no idea of what being a woman involves and no empathy with women. It's a recipe for disaster.

She was referring to altered birth certificates for those with a GRC.
GRC holders can carry on as normal.

I think it's important for the voices speaking publicly about this, to people who aren't so aware of the issue, to maintain a compassionate tone, simply because lots of basically decent, right-thinking but unaware women will be alienated from the GC position if it comes across as being cruel or unpleasant.

I have to disagree with this. There is a really unhealthy dynamic at play in this debate in which trans activists guilt-trip women (and everyone really, but women especially) into feeling sorry for them, while refusing to show even the smallest empathy for women in return. This dynamic needs pointing out, not reinforcing. I think it would be far more useful for GC spokeswomen to point out that women's compassion is being manipulated by people who have none for us.

Many 'decent, right-thinking' women would listen to how hard someone like Peto supposedly has it, and agree, yes, yes, it must be very hard to be male and yet feel like you are a woman inside. Without pondering the fact that Peto displays an utter indifference to the safety and feelings of women - the same group of people Peto claims to 'identify as'. If this were pointed out in public debates, it would result in more than few lightbulb moments I think.

Most prominent 'GC' women already take an overtly soothing line WRT 'trans rights', which are in reality unreasonable demands. It keeps them on the defensive, where they are constantly trying to reassure others that they are not 'transphobic'. Meanwhile no one asks trans activists why they are making these extreme demands of society at large and women in particular, or why they show such consistent disrespect for the safety and feelings of women. I mean, Dr Nic did do this a bit, actually, which is really good. More pushback, less defensiveness! Put TRAs on the back foot. Shift the narrative, and make them defend their anti-woman, anti-child, anti-reality agenda.

It's sometimes pointed out that, for instance, male sex offenders are being transferred to women's prisons. It's portrayed as something that just 'happens'. But no one links this explicitly to the fact that trans activists worked to make this happen. This is the agenda they have been enacting, while protesting that they 'just want to live their lives'. Trans activists campaigned long and hard for the likes of Stephen Wood aka 'Karen White' to be incarcerated with women. But no one says to TRAs: you demanded this - why? Just for once, I would like to hear them asked: why do you want male sex offenders to be locked up with female prisoners? Why did you lobby for that? Why do you want men who rape and murder women to have their crimes recorded as female on their say-so?

Yes, that's what I took from Heather's repeated points about the sexual assault.

Well, that's the lot of a woman. It's not unusual that women get harassed and assaulted, surely it's not a surprise to you?

Of course, it might also be validation. Though, I suspect that many transwomen land up in sexual situations which are fetishised. I gather that one of the top searches in porn is, well, a number of terms I'd not be allowed to repeat here.

There are just some things that males find very hard to grasp - if you've not experienced the power imbalance that women have it must be hard to see. Blindness of privilege, I suppose.

(To be clear we were discussing the matter generally, he wasn't a cat caller!)

'there’s a certain kind of middle-class woman that finds catcalls particularly galling: “There’s a sense of being sullied if an uncouth or lower-class kind of man – a white van man, for example – heckles'

Women who don't like street harassment are being snobs, now? I can't quite express how much that Paris Lees article disgusts me.

I've sought advice as to why my last post was deleted so hope this one will be ok.

Tinsel - that happened last time too...

eg see this from Paris Lees

https://www.vice.com/amp/enuk/article/zn7b79/enjoying-catcalls-paris-lees-column?twitterr_impression=true

There is a category of male born person who are not entirely averse to the idea of thinking they might be sexually assaulted.

I just wonder, how often do you ever hear a woman on air announce a sad and hard feeling, and the presenter turn immediately to the other guest to repeat "X, y says they have sad and hard feelings...." with the clear implication on all sides, "what are you going to do to fix y?"

Women don't do that. Women don't put up with that sort of behaviour from other women. Women don't have the expectation that declaring an uncomfortable feeling will immediately result in the other person dropping everything to provide them with nurture.

As is further evidenced by guest y having zero interest in guest x's feelings, uncomfortable or otherwise, or providing them with any kind of reciprocal care: guest y sees guest x merely as the aggressor in doing things that cause guest y to have uncomfortable feelings. Like insisting that female people should have rights too.

Try that on AIBU as a woman poster and you'll be handed your arse and directions to a grip shop.

There is something exasperating going on behind the scenes. I expect that someone has had to work very hard to get the slot at all

At least they are discussing it, badly and late, but, they have, at long last, discussed it. I think Jane Garvey is toeing a line, without her balancing act/performing-being-harder-on-the-GC-position then I doubt this discussion would have happened at all.

Agree.

And no matter how much Jane Garvey pretends to be harder on Nic, and how much extra and uninterrupted time is given to TRAs, it's very difficult to make the TRAs sound anything other than selfish, entitled and colonising, and for women asking for our lawful sex-based rights to sound anything other than entirely reasonable.

So it still helps.

If Peto were able to get a new birth certificate, would it be as easy to change the birth year (1970 to 1983) as well as the birth sex (MtoF)?

Not everyone gets a PhD, and even fewer by age 13...

Dear Lord. All those provable lies! Couldn't they have got someone who didn't have a history like this?

I strongly advise that no one here take a trip to the "fruit growers" website and search HP's profile...

Did I really hear Peto refer to Michelle OMABA when quoting Obama's "When they go low..."?

I doubled back and heard it a second time. 🤷🏼‍♀️ I think Peto must have misread from notes. I'd have notes if I were being broadcast, too, to be fair.

Glinner also has some info on Peto.

grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/heather-peto-and-the-benefits-of

I'm guessing no one else would come on and 'debate their existence' but I think they would have been better off having no one than Peto who appears to have a rather flimsy grasp on reality.

What I couldn't understand from Peto, was why Peto was talking about sexual harassment of Peto at work.

What does that have to do with self-id?

It's blindingly obvious that Peto is male, if they are getting harassed at work or attacked in the street that is very wrong.

Peto being able to get a birth certificate stating they are female only serves to produce false documentation. Self-id is about making that process simple.

Again, nothing to do with what Peto was talking about.

It's hard to argue with nonsense.