Woman's Hour on Maya Forstater today (9th March)

I just caught up on Sounds app. Great to hear Maya speak so calmly, sensibly, with so much dignity. She answered the questions and put her point across and didn't get riled by the interview style.

I'm a big fan of Emma Barnet, she's done very well with this issue before interviewing Nancy Kelly and making her look a fool, and Kathleen Stock and showing how amazing she is.

I thought EB did go on a bit too much though about pronouns when other issues are more relevant to the vast majority of women. And in fact pronouns aren't really what Maya's case is about. But, I'm actually glad EB gave her a hard time overall. It showed that Maya could stand up to the pressure of intense questioning and remain completely logical and still come across as a sympathetic figure. I think Maya will have peaked a lot of people in this interview! She did so so well. I have a massive girly crush on Maya she is one of my heroes.

And I suspect EB is actually a GC feminist, she's just very good at doing her job and hiding it. Curious questioning is the way to change other's minds, it's been proven in studies. So she's doing an amazing job.

I love all these amazing women. So proud of UK feminists, when Maya mentioned we're leading the world I felt so emotional.

EB is not a gender critical feminist (in public anyway), and it was a mistake to have lauded her as such for just doing her job in previous interviews, where any amount of critical thought and enquiry would have seen the holes in the ideas of the likes of Stonewall's Nancy Kelley, and the person that ruined women's sport with a hugely flawed report and complete logic failure, Joanna Harper. You don't have to be GC to see any of that shit shower what it really is. I think EB used this interview to show she is a neutral, detached journalist, not a mouthpiece for one side. I thought Maya handled it marvellously.

I don’t like EB interview style. Brusque & combative. With no attempt to probe why MF et al believe what they do. No attempt to untangle the ‘don’t offend’ argument from why we should be able to have the very difficult rights v responsibilities discussions.

Same. I thought Maya did brilliantly and I was getting frustrated that it appeared Emma was "you can have the views but just shut up about them" which completely misses the point.

I see Maya emailed overnight about it being good practice for cross examination!

I don't think the interview got to the really important points. Maya got to them I despite the questions rather than in response to them imo, but I don't think the level of hostility was out if place. As a pp said, it was similar to the stonewall lady. Kathleen Stock had a much friendlier interview but that just makes the other side think gc's are getting an easy ride. Much better to be grilled but still come across as calm and get your points out there.

It was Maya who raised the man in the girls' shower scenario to demonstrate her standpoint that she would differentiate between social/professional situations in which she as willing to use someone's preferred pronouns and safeguarding situations in which she would draw attention to sex based differences.

Then Emma asked her why she jumped to the worst case scenario.

I thought Emma adopted the exact same techniques as she used interviewing Nancy Kelley: asking specific questions that demonstrate she has researched the topic, being polite, and giving the interviewee, time to respond. I have become a huge fan of Emma. She is being a good journalist who understands her role and doesn't give interviewees a free ride to say what they want.

Oh I see more clearly now @FebruaryRainandSleet thanks for clarifying.

Wasn't it clear what I was getting at, DysonSphere?

There is no need even to assume ill intent (that is, to assume the worst-case scenario), or an age gap, in order to see why teenage Scouts of opposite sex should have separate tents and washing facilities.

I thought Maya was great - she is so calm with her responses. I wasn’t sure where Emma was going with her questioning at all. The whole discussion is about where sex matters not where it doesn’t.

I haven't listened to the interview yet but I will say that Barnett has covered the issue pretty well on the whole. She hasn't shied away from it unlike wet Jane Garvey who is so worried about upsetting her woke children that she's put her feminism in the attic under the Christmas decorations.

Barnett is combative but if she hadn't been, the TRAs would have been up in arms

I too had a BBC interview on the radio, much to my massive surprise as a member of the public campaigning about a local issue.

My DH prepared me that they might be not be nice and play devil's advocate, which they absolutely did.

Perhaps that's what they do as others are saying. (To my greater surprise I held my shit together and won my argument) I'll have to listen to this interview thanks.

Repartition, repartition, repartition.
Be nice.
Don’t hurt anybody’s feelings.
Don’t say / tweet anything someone may find hurtful.

Basically, we should all self censor.

Bloody awful interview. No delving into the issues like The Times award to PB. Completely missed the point there. Someone who hadn’t publicly declared themselves as TW & yet, picks up a woman’s award. Someone thought it was appropriate to give PB the award & PB thought it was appropriate to receive it.

I don’t like EB interview style. Brusque & combative. With no attempt to probe why MF et al believe what they do. No attempt to untangle the ‘don’t offend’ argument from why we should be able to have the very difficult rights v responsibilities discussions.

Concrete thinking masquerading as forthright. Piss poor.

Sorry posted too soon - last sentence should read:
The truth matters and the problem with Emma’s interview stance is that she is treating gender identity as equivalent to sex. They are different and require different treatment. Gender identity does not make the realities of sexed bodies disappear.

I haven’t listened, but is it possible that EB was pushing the “worst case scenario” issue as it is very much a transactivist argument to say we’re always pushing bad apples and worst case scenarios? Might she have been giving the opportunity for Maya to explain when it sometimes appears that way?

Maya did really well, she spoke her mind, she was in control of her responses and unshakeable in her beliefs. I found it really tough to listen to but I’m glad she gave her a hard time in a way because it really showed listeners Maya knew her stuff. It was aggressive but like a few posters have said a strong interviewer needs to challenge the interviewee, it’s not a cake walk or a bunch of women patting each other on the back. I really respect Maya Forstater she’s brave.

I thought EB was really poor in this interview. She can and should question and examine rigorously but I felt she misrepresented Maya’s position when she kept saying M was tweeting about gender identity not sex and the nonsense about Maya always leaping to the worst possible interpretation. The problem is that the trans rights issue will always be in conflict with womens rights because trans ideology wants to impose a lie upon society - that people can change sex and that sex is a matter of choice. And there are huge consequences that follow from that - from the practical issues of how we collect meaningful data and ensure safety and fairness for women to the psychological pressure of being afraid to speak the truth. A great quote from Chernobyl: “ Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid.” The truth matters and the problem with Emma’s interview stance is that she is treating gender identity as are that they give equivalence to things that are not the same in matters of feelings against matters of fact.

I thought the interview was OK although I did feel Emma got a bit bogged down and repetitive on the pronouns issue. Yes Maya was going for a worse case scenario with the pronouns but she had answered the question saying at work she would use preferred pronouns but not necessarily out of work if she thought sex mattered in that situation. I wasn't sure what different answer Emma was pushing for.

Actually I thought she showed maya pretty much the same type of treatment as Nancy Kelly. And this is a good thing, isn't it? Because look at the vast difference between how Nancy fared, and maya.

I am also totally fed up with looking at people's feelings in this debate. For instance, tweet g that you don't believe trans women are women 'can't you see how that might be hurtful to trans women!'

Well, how about trans women are wonen is hurtful to ME, a woman because I never wear make up or dresses so does that mean I am not a woman?

Stop making it about hurt feelings and start making it about safeguarding and fairness!!!

@Abitofalark Yes clearly she is biased here. I found her repeated attempts to get Maya to concede that the way she stated her beliefs might justify her employer not renewing her contract, knowing this woman has a case coming up, quite frankly, out of order, besides the clear cut answers cannot be stated any more 'nicely'. She was literally telling her 'why weren't you nice about saying a man cannot be a woman?'
Then her constantly questioning whether Twitter was an appropriate space to have such discussions. Then suggesting it's not an appropriate, or good platform to air views and whether Maya would take the debate elsewhere.

It was all very personal. That much became clear by the shower section.

Emma Barnett was on the attack here. She was relentlessly digging at and opposing Maya Forstater every inch of the way, not because this was in any way balanced or neutral questioning but because Emma Barnett is clearly hostile to one side of this, objecting to everything, quoting back and interpreting things she tweeted and said on the subject in the most adverse way and not crediting any other perspective.

All she does is keep on keeping on at the same form of attack, hammering away up to the point of seeming obtuse when the interviewee has said repeatedly that what she was saying was sex and not gender identity. This wasn't good enough because it wasn't what she wanted to hear or what she wanted Maya Forstater to have said or believed. It's easy to see where she's coming from.

Given she's a scout leader, I would have thought that there's no need to jump to worst-case scenarios. It's quite important for the Scouts to be the grownups when it comes to two possibly very willing, opposite-sex teenagers in a tent.

Nope. Just come to the hypothetical 'transwoman scout in the shower scenario and she's gaslighting Maya about it being a 'mental leap' to think about safety and the potential for violence if a male scout is in the girl's shower.

Mental leap.

Maya's doing well but I've had enough.

I'm finding this tough to listen to. I find the presenter quite adversarial and deliberately provocative but maybe I'm so fed up of all the crap that I'm overly sensitive.

Well done Maya. EB was being deliberately obtuse, and proved Maya’s case to be rational, and one that most of us would subscribe to. Particularly notable when Maya brought up what has been done and said to actual women. Best of luck this week, and I hope she gets proper compensation, which seemed to be something that EB thinks she doesn’t deserve. EB knows about safeguarding, she knows what the issues are, so the interview could have been a lot better. But good for Maya. Full of admiration for her.

I think EB did Maya a huge favour by being probing and challenging in her questioning, but only because Maya has such a firm grip on this issue and her positions. EB enabled Maya to clearly present a great deal of considered rationality in clear terms.

There are some areas where I though EB fell into being needlessly contrarian:
she put considerable emphasis on the validity of Maya's positions depending not on material reality but on the feelings of others, without there being any test that those feelings and their exercise need to be reasonable;
because Twitter has served to inflame the debate, EB was suggesting that it's a platform that Maya shouldn't use, but if that were to be the deciding factor, then all that trans activists would need to do is to turn debate on any platform toxic meaning that gender critical people would always have to withdraw from discussions; and
criticising individual Tweets on the basis that they don't contain the whole of the substance and the nuance of all of Maya's views, ignoring that they're part of a wider conversion, which is a ridiculous demand considering the nature of the platform (which means it's another way of presenting the "shouldn't use Twitter" argument).

A very impressive performance by Maya.