My Name Is Anna. I've been called a terf - is the BBC starting to permit open discussion?

Bitmuch thank you reminding us of the horrendous atrocity committed by A TW on the lesbian couple and their son. No wonder lesbians and other women are worried about separate spaces which include men. Is there any up to date news on what happened? I really really hope he is in a male prison, though the Gallup piece suggests not.

[quote nauticant]Meanwhile, this is how it was perceived in TRA circles:

twitter.com/mlothianmclean/status/1358735531744575488[/quote]
"these shows on major platforms need challenging. They do bring on 'dissenting' voices but they're extremely tempered and the entire thing is set up as a "debate" in the first place."

As though 'debate' was a dirty word...

@morningtoncrescent62 - I think that is very nicely put

I think as society we have very big questions to answer about how we protect trans folk, and ensure their rights, especially transwomen.

Why 'especially transwomen'? What makes you think that the rights of 'transwomen' are more likely to be lost than those of 'transmen'?

Also what I find very interesting is that it's only the female biological sex which is primarily attacked.

One of the radical trans organisations posted about "people who are raped" - a piece about women being raped without actually ever using the word woman etc.

They then also posted another article about "male rape" and men being raped. No issue using the word "man" or references to biological males whatsoever.

It's not OK to have an identity as a biological woman, but it's fine for men. Gotcha.

The OU professor said the way forward in this discussion is for all of us to believe that transwomen are women because they're speaking the truth about their lived experience.

I do believe that many transwomen have an internal sense of self that tells them they are women and that it's a very real belief to them and core to their sense of who they are, in much the same way that I believe Christians have a genuine faith in Jesus being the Messiah and their personal saviour. I don't have to share those faiths to believe both groups are (mostly) speaking the truth about their experience, and that they should have the right to live according to their beliefs, up to the point where they make political demands that impact on other groups, at which point there has to be dialogue and resolution. Thankfully we no longer insist on adherence to any religious doctrine in the UK. I don't think the professor has any right to insist on adherence to gender identity ideology either.

I didn't listen to the show. I'm having a brief pause from this at the moment as I'm feeling overwhelmed, exhausted and a bit defeatist about it all - which is very out of character for me. Will be back into the swing of things again soon but at the moment I'm so utterly frustrated by it all.

From what I can see, it started out with a conversation about how gender is different from biological sex. OK, happy to roll with that. If we're saying that's about respecting how someone wants to present themselves and how they feel, that's fine.

But then somewhere along the way, people forgot that this was a discussion about gender not sex, and the boundaries blurred to bring biological sex back into it. Phrases such as "people who menstruate" lit the torch paper because female and woman were relating to biological sex functions, and as such, should have been left intact.

After insisting for so long that we must respect everyone to have their own gender, biological sex has been swept back up with it, distorting the issue and eradicating our biological identity.

I think as society we have very big questions to answer about how we protect trans folk, and ensure their rights, especially transwomen. But at the same time the answer isn't just to expect bio women to roll over and accept that the rights of biological men are more important than theirs. Immediately being slammed for being transphobic for daring to question how we manage this is beyond frustrating.

I haven't had the chance to listen, but if someone somewhere in the BBC is actually listening then it's a start. Bloody long way to go, though. Every time I use BBC iplayer there's drag being thrust in my face. Until someone there understands how insulting it feels we're in trouble.

People who menstruate but can't get pregnant. People who get pregnant but can't chestfeed. People who used to have a cervix but don't any more. People who carry a baby but don't parent it

More fundamentally advertising services for "people with cervixes" and "people with a uterus" results in a reduction in uptake from disadvantaged women. The doctor might be comfortable with "more inclusive" language but it doesn't help their patients if it results in itheir exclusion from services.

When our main local hospital changed its Obs and Gynae department name to "Women's health department and services" and focused their advertising on that terminology, the uptake from women in poor, immigrant and other disadvantaged groups increased significantly.

Nobody seems to give a shit about these women and I was disappointed that Anna didn't pick up that point on language. Its also amazingi that the male equivalent advertising still consistently talks about "men's health" with impunity.

@IsThePopeCatholic - completely agree and it must be hard to watch the potential undoing on behalf of a very small cohort. I was born at the tail end of the 70's but due to having lived experience of rape, domestic abuse, pregnancy based illness, pregnancy loss, a gynaelogical disease and parenting boys I have kind of had my hand forced in terms of radical feminism, from a trauma based perspective. Safe spaces and the debate around it dismays me, it really does. It feels regressive.

@CranberriesChoccyAgain Indeed!

If, like me, you lived through the Women’s Liberation Movement in the seventies, there is no way I am going to give up some of our hard-fought rights. A woman is a woman and not a man.

You need a level of maturity to understand that different people have a different experience of life - to go beyond "I feel like this so everyone else must feel the same way"

Absolutely!

I was scrolling through BBC sounds and found a familiar face - to my surprise - Selina Todd on R3 - no sign of cancellation over on BBC 3! Was a very pleasant surprise - and fascinating hearing the programme on social mobility.

Sexual Reassignment Surgery does not create a vagina, it creates a permanent wound that will need to be forced open on a daily basis for the rest of that person's life.

[quote BitMuch]OU professor SG Chappell did a great job at NAMALTing . . .

Said "I pass myself if I don't speak". Photographed here
eicsp.org/events/event-details/784-an-evening-with-prof-sophie-grace-chappell-18-june-2020[/quote]
"Don't speak" is the same as 'dumb' in English, isn't it?

And sometimes I am tempted to add, that it's penis-havers that bother us. Call yourself what you like, even though men and women are traditional, but no penis, no admittance.

Did I hear it right? Jamie was implying that the people making really vile and abusive remarks towards JKR shouldn’t be ‘villainised’?

Jamie is You Tuber Jamie Dodger who has made videos to explain why JKR and LGB Alliance are transphobic so to find the mildly diluted repeat of this position on the BBC isn't surprising. The video about them as a couple planning for a child in the future and the video telling Shaaba's little sister that Jamie is trans is quite eye opening.

I also thought Anna probably diluted her reactions or her position in some of her responses.

When the background to the Camp Trans murder wasn't even mentioned and nor was Jamie's own You Tube content was overlooked it really wasn't that different from the BBC position on trans stories but it was a tiny step forward I suppose. The opening lines were quite shocking and it was good to hear young women speaking about their entry into radical feminism, (I might not align with their particular brand of radical feminism but it's something).

If Descartes said 'I think, therefore I am' today, he would probably be gaslighted and social media shamed that he saw himself as a 'being' because it is marginalizing or dismissing other beings that do not think or don't identify as thinking beings ffs

If we are no longer are allowed to state 'I have physiologically and psychologically and socially reacted to having xx chromosones since I was born, therefore I have an understanding and claim to what a woman is' then we are absolutely fucked quite frankly.

We lose the word that encompasses all those people, and that makes it so, so much harder to join the dots and see the systemic mechanisms that underpin their shared experience.

Very much agree.

However it also makes day to day communication difficult. I keep hearing ads asking men to donate blood, because men's blood and women's blood is not the same.

www.blood.co.uk/who-can-give-blood/why-men-should-donate-blood/

Only language that relates to women's bodies is somehow distressing - why?