Are you watching Womanhood?

I think the programme was quite reasonable in the sense that it was clearly aimed at the 99% of the population who don't know and think about these issues a lot already. Which is what I would expect from a public broadcaster on Friday primetime.

You don't see a lot of programmes with women of different ages in any context at all, so I liked that aspect of it.

Thanks to PP's who answered my earlier question. I am honestly so confused as to how he didn't know. How can it be acceptable to keep something like that from your partner for years? And how are we supposed to be 'educated' if they refuse to answer genuine questions?

There isn't a feedback programme on BBC TV any more, but there is a complaints page where you can complete a form or phone the number.

www.bbc.co.uk/contact/complaints

I'm going to phone when I've finalised my spiel and send a form as well.

The response was a fairly sharp "do you realise it's rude to talk about genitals?"

I think I would have replied that it's not just genitals, but the whole body shape/hands etc. Did this person not discuss medication/checkups? Do transitioners not need regular medication?

I'm guessing the answer isn't that he genuinely couldn't tell, because surely they would just have answered "he couldn't tell at all". No discussion of genitals actually needed.

It was explained to Shirley in an incredibly patronising and deliberately hectoring tone, I thought. She hadn't been rude, given the context of their conversation - and if the editors hadn't wanted the lasting message to be, don't ask questions of transpeople, you are being offensive, well they could simply have edited it all out. It came across to me as the programme makers deciding to use Shirley's very reasonable question as an opportunity to "educate" (intimidate) the public into unquestioning acceptance of all things trans. Up to, and including, deceiving your partner for 4 years.

I really felt for Shirley - despite disagreeing with her views elsewhere in the programme. She looked humiliated. And confused, as there were Still mixed messages about what is and isn't acceptable to ask (something else was said about no questions being wrong, but they way they were asked).

I am so angry about this program, please does anyone have a link to how to complain to the BBC about this? And I implore all of you if you feel the same, to do this?

No it was explained to Shirley that it was a rude question to ask

We are not to ask about genitals but of course the question with come up if you divulge such information all that was asked was how could they not know

A real vagina and a made vagina are different

So there can be a few reasons why he wasn’t aware (though I could tell straight away but that’s bigoted)

I'm not sure if I missed a part but was it ever made clear just how the trans woman's biological sex was kept secret from her husband for so long?

The coercive control workshop was interesting, but the script was a bit OTT. So much CC is dressed up as love and concern, which is why it's so hard to spot when it's happening to you.

Interviewing the young women who was selling her body and in 'total control' enabled them to opt out of tackling the issue of prostitution and how much it harms women. But the poor lamb - did you pick up how much support she got from her father? Is it only me who found that creepy and even pimpish? When the women talked about this afterwards, they didn't discuss how offering these 'services' perpetuates men's view of women as chattels.

The trans section was a travesty as it didn't touch on the crucial issue, which is that if you open the doors to trans women, predatory men in dresses will come in. As we have seen.
(I was expecting there to be an item on trans women because - as we all know - the BBC wsa in thrall to SW.)

What a missed opportunity for serious discussion. And I still don't know what 'womanhood' is!

Arse. I meant paycheque.

Women like me don't hate. We just think women matter in this too

I think this is the key issue.

The women on the program don't think women matter as much as their own careers. They are never going to prioritise women ahead of the wants of men so long as the people who pay them say so.

If the tide turn and women suddenly become human to the tv executives, they'll all pretend women in prisons and teenager in changing rooms need space aways from men after all.

None of them are focus on anything apart from their next paycheck.

For me it was a gruelling & hostile interview lasting well over 90 mins, pinned by the stare of a glaring Suzi Ruffell who dominated the questioning. Trying to get me to reveal my hatred - she of course failed. Women like me don't hate. We just think women matter in this too /19

twitter.com/fairplaywomen/status/1464604061509070848?t=ET7DMPTza0j1ll2gknSx0A&s=19

I found the location for the chat with Dr Nic odd - a cold, harshly tiled changing room, people standing, confrontational - contrast with bedrooms and sofas and sunny golfing grounds or drinks at a nightclub. Stage set for a heavily edited and pre-decided conclusion.

Really grateful for Nic and her courage and conviction and willingness to put the message across whatever the situation.

I lost the understanding for gender theory when I met up with my teenage niece. It was positively refreshing to see a teenage girl with short hair these days.

But no, as she apparently lacks the feminitiy which makes one a woman, she is taking testosterone and awaiting surgery to cut off healthy breasts.

So I make no apologies for finding this ideology neither 'kind' nor 'progressive'

these are people have felt like they are in the wrong body

In the same way that anorexics feel they are in a body that is too fat?

So much comes down to male entitlement

Males say this is how things are and females are expected to fall in line

And to put their feelings first

99.999% of trans women just want to peacefully get changed in a room in which they sincerely identify, we shouldn’t be persecuting them because of one or two bad eggs

I want to be able to peacefully get changed in a room for females too. Why do you think I shouldn’t be able to do that anymore because a person who is not a woman has decided that they need equal access to my rights to a single sex space to validate their identity? Refusing to share my right to a single sex space with someone of a different sex is not persecution.

No. You cannot have our spaces. You might be happy to share them but I am not. The answer is no.

Suzi has so much internalised misogyny her head was about to explode.

Why does she feel more empathy with men than with lesbians?

Would she be happy with a sexual partner who didn't tell her they had a penis for 4 years?

If she's put in prison would she want to share a cell with anyone with a penis?

No mention of mothers at all!!!

I was disappointed I found the fawning over transwomen irritating (similar to fawning over gay men that so many women do)

Though I don’t blame Shirely for saying she didn’t know how she would feel if she were in a changing room and a trans women was also in there. I think we all know how she would feel but we also know that absolute backlash she would receive and it would impact her career badly

Suzi was interesting I wonder how she feels about become called a bigot if she didn’t want to be intimate with a women who has a penis aka as a male

The two young women, well I found that disappointing especially the fathers comments.

Ans no I do not see trans women as women regardless of what treatment they have had as they are not women. I prefer to believe scientific facts based on biology that an ideology

I have varying degrees of fondness for Curtis Mayfield, Jerk chicken and marijuana that somehow makes me black.

FFS

I found Suzi's anger fascinating. She genuinely wants to be kind. She genuinely wants to be an ally to the trans community. But she can't contemplate the other side, listen to their arguments, consider the feelings of vulnerable women.

Eye opening wasn't it? The sheer vitriol was palpable and quite OTT.

What the betting @Jizzle comes back and reads anyone else’s points of view?

Yeah, I think the majority of us thought like you once. Most women here are liberal and left-wing and had the attitude of live and let live. Trans women were homosexual men with severe dysphoria and were no threat to us.

But something changed, and more and more women are becoming aware of that. The information is all there, if you want to see it.

I'm totally confused how Suzi Ruffell, a stand-up comedian ffs, could barely put up with listening to someone who had different views from herself. How does she manage to do her job?

I found Suzi's anger fascinating. She genuinely wants to be kind. She genuinely wants to be an ally to the trans community. But she can't contemplate the other side, listen to their arguments, consider the feelings of vulnerable women.

Could that be because somewhere deep inside... she knows they are right?

@Jizzle - I admit that up until a short time ago I would have broadly been of the 'live and let live' oopinion that you have. What harm can being sympathetic and inclusive of this small marginalised group of transwown do? Fast forward to today, when as a result of the gender ideology that underpins this and is being heavily promoted in schools, workplaces (they/them anyone?) and government and public bodies, via LGBTQ+ lobbyists such as Stonewall, my preteen DD is chestbinding and thinking about cross sex hormone therapy, obsessed with whether she's a lesbian (absolutely a non issue for me - crack on) gay boy or Pan sexual, all of which she and her peers are being celebrated for at school with school paying external agencies to teach them all about it. It is no coincidence that referrals to Gender Identity clinics for teenage girls has increased by something like 4000% in the past few years. Why do you think this could be? This is just one impact which is on children/young lesbian/gay/bi people who are being coerced into believing that they are in the wrong body. It's sets them up for a lifetime of medical intervention with irreversible damage- sterilisation, double mastectomy, testosterone for life, leading to problems such as vaginal atrophy. But hey, they'll be happy right? Making decisions in their teens that they'll have to live with forever. We are letting some very very important hard won sex based rights slide for the sake of this dangerous ideology that people can be born in the wrong body. This is just one aspect, but the GI ideology doesn't limit itself to wrecking children and LBG people's lives. It is affecting all a aspects where biological sex matters -such as law and health - cervix havers, birthing parent, menstruator, slowly but surely women are being irradicated all because we should be 'inclusive and kind'. My eyes are well and truly opened now. And if you think for one minute that surely if it was such a big issue the BBC woukd address it in the programme as an unbiased trustworthy media source, think again. The whole #no debate and influence of Stonewall at the BBC ensure that the reporting is anything but. People that try to talk about it are losing their jobs - Kathleen Stock, and accused of being transphobic - JK Rowling. I recommend the Stephen Nolan podcast 'Nolan Investigates' as a good entry level, easily accessible resource as a starting point. As a result of which it exposed the malign influence of Stonewall at the BBC and covers the main areas of the trans debate. Are you aware for example that a central belief of GI is that anyone can identify however they choose? My hairy faced, broad shouldered, tall, trouser wearing, penis having, husband could self ID as a lesbian (I kid you not!) and use whatever toilet or changing room he damned well pleases under this belief? Is that okay with you? Happy for him to be in the same swimming pool communal female changing room as you or your child? Happy to be naked in front of him or see his penis? Whilst I know my DH wouldn't, there are plenty that would. Whilst the Nolan podcast is a BBC programme he did tackle the issues head on and rocked the boat at the BBC but is so recent that it may not have had any impact on the programme last night. If you can't understand why people on Mumsnet don't support TW acessing female only spaces, this is why.