Radio 4 Afternoon Drama - blimey!

I only caught the end of this play, but googled it to look for all the trolling from trans supporters! I'm 70, and have only become aware of this issue relatively recently. Where have these trans people been all my life? Why is my granddaughter (aged 14) going on Instagram about rights for trans and non-binary people when she could be supporting the rights of women? Am I even allowed to say any of this?... Of course the majority of people in charge are going to support trans rights over women's rights, because none of it affects men..... I despair......

Yes,Just located it. Didnt show on my phone.
Shame its not available it was a materpece

It was called “Waves”!

Yes that sounds like it 78percentLindt I can’t find it on Sounds. Great news that it made it to pick of the week.

Right found the thread. The piece was part of the From Fact to Fiction series broadcast on 29th November 2019. It was only available for 27days on BBC sounds at the time e. I haven't looked for it yet.
The MN thread was also 29/11/19 went on for a few days as there was a successful bid to get it on Pick of the Week

Thanks @78percentLindt!

Glad I didn’t dream it!

@DaisiesandButtercups
You're right. There was a thread on here, which I posted on. I been back through my posts under my last user name and can't find it. I'll carry on looking.

Thanks for that link nauticant, no it wasn’t that one so there’s another one! I hadn’t heard the Dykes one before, I will listen to the rest later.

The one I am thinking of all the main characters had a different version of the same name, it might have been Joan, Jo and Joanna or something similar. It was a one off 15 minute play and may have been something “shorts”. I can’t find it on sounds. All the characters had a feminist awakening and attended women’s rights meetings in their time, suffragette, 70’s, modern day. All encountered resistance and abuse.

Could it have been this DaisiesandButtercups:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3806789-BBC-Radio-4-drama-Dykes-on-now

"we're in a hospice and you're telling me not to deadname"

I thought the born-in-the-wrong body was countered well though.

I also liked that she said being gay was something she was able to grow into and experiment with and see who she wanted to be. Yet with trans debate its so binary and teens are forced to decide whether the body is righy/wrong.

Just correcting my quote above - one character says
'but to have been born in the wrong body, how would that work biologically? it's a stretch. For me, it must be a choice'
then another character says:
'no, an instinct, a perceived error, a correction. Even if there isn't a trans gene, couldn't there be, what was it, trans phenotypes?'

Not very like a real discussion about trans, is it? In reality the 2nd character would most likely have said 'terf, die in a ditch'... !! But I'm still not sure that the BBC should have been mentioning 'born-in-the-wrong-body' at all.

That was quite a good bit I thought. They put forward the genderists beliefs through the characters and then argue a counterpoint.

There was another play I heard on radio 4 a while ago about women’s rights through 3 generations of women which ended with something like the Women’s Place UK meeting which had gender identity extremists banging on windows, obstructing entrances, shouting abuse and so on. The conclusion was a reflection on misogyny through the ages and how little it had changed. The gender identity extremists being very much like the men who didn’t think women should have the vote. Wish I could remember the name of it, I was really surprised and impressed to hear it.

I caught some of this play just now in the car, too! So presumably, the woman I heard speaking most of the lines, was supposed to be a man.
Unfortunately the bit I heard was of (her) saying 'being born in the wrong body must be something to do with the genes then'

• I will see if I can get the quote right from BBC Sounds & repost.

I think there was a disclaimer at the start of the play that the organisations and rules were fictional, simply constructed to aid in the narrative being presented.

I noticed that - the surgery angle was to show you couldn't just self-declare... but I didn't know either way about that.

Good for Mark Lawson and the drama department, boldly going a lot further than Woman's Hour dared!

If it's the one I heard a while ago they used old info of m to f tennis players having to have genital surgery. That is no longer the case.

Mark Lawson has done a number of plays that can fit into the categories of gender critical and free speech. I just had a quick look on twitter for torch wielding mobs. Nowhere to be seen. What can it be about Mark Lawson that means they haven't gone for him?

This made me laugh though: twitter.com/kokokopek/status/1404800543307018240

I agree, Nauticant the use of the female actor was odd, and I thought this was going to be about a transboy not being able to compete at elite level because of strength/build etc. I wonder if that casting was the compromise to get the thing aired?

It was so interesting, the entire piece was hard cold facts on the "GC" side versus everything emotional on the other. Not a single "fact" given on the trans side that couldn't be debunked. And thankfully, no false suicide stats.

I am amazed Mark Lawson wasn't hung, drawn and quartered for it by the Twitter yobs. Wonder why that was? Wonder if a women had written it whether they would have got that play on air?

Nevertheless, bravo Mark Lawson and the brave cast.

It's nice to think so but Radio 4 have been doing an enormous amount of recycling of their archive since the start of the pandemic.