Just coming back to this after transcribing.
So much to unpick:
a) How I wish for more left-leaning voices to have articulated the issue with the clarity that Damian Green has. A decade ago, I would have expected all of the following points he made to have been articulated by left-wing MPs, understanding the material reality of the female sex. We are in an Alice-in-Wonderland world.
b) eg DG's statement So, having a long cool look at this legislation is extremely sensible. My worry is why I make the distinction between teenagers and adults, if you like, is that I don’t want anyone to do anything irreversible to a child, essentially. Well, yes, this is a very sensible argument from any adult. Because the alternate argument is surely 'affirm the teenager in their gender identity, it doesn't matter if there is a physiological irreversible outcome from doing so^ Which doesn't seem sensible.
c) Evan Davies saying Can a woman have a mans bits? Have we reverted to embarrassment and prudishness on Radio 4, where we can't say 'penis' but 'man bits' will do? Or did Evan deliberately avoid saying penis, because that would alert listeners to what we're really talking about here - men, with penises, saying they're women?
d) Evan Davies saying a ban on carting off a teenager to a dodgy therapist who tries to stop them being themselves - what a throwaway dangerous comment, when the debate has clearly not been about that at all. Is Evan reading the serious discussion around therapy for children with gender identity issues? If he is, and is throwing these sorts of statements around, that's dangerous. If he's not, just an ignorant throwaway comment, with no regard to children's development of their sense of self.
d) Damian Green saying Conversion therapy can mean a number of things to different people and when you’re righting legislation you’ve got to be precise and so if you say that any questioning of a gender identity expressed by a teenager, particularly. I think there’s a huge difference between how you should treat children and adults in this
This is a considered, thoughtful statement , and mindful of the implication of legislation. Please, Labour MPs, can you speak with similar clarity and nuance?
e) Again, Damian Green saying: The puberty blockers and those sorts of drugs. Which, you know, at best cause permanent alteration and can cause permanent damage. I think doing that to children is abusive What a powerful statement, aligning to much of what is potentially going to come out of the Cass review.
f) Evan Davies: I think there would be people in your party who would say that going as far as you do in saying a transwoman is not biologically a woman and biology is real and therefore a transwoman isn’t a woman, they’re a transwoman, and that’s a different category to someone assigned female at birth.
Despite Evan's horror, this isn't much of a stretch for most people than he thinks.
g) Evan again: By going that far you are really putting a very very large wedge between you and the trans community that there isn’t going to be any reconciliation there What about the wedge between the trans activists and most women, Evan? Could you even imagine that wedge and why it's there?
h) Damian: And particularly things like women’s refuges where I’ve spoken to people who run women’s refuges and they say that some of the women who’ve had terrible experiences do not want biological males around the place, I think that attitude needs to be respected as well. Thank you Damian for recognising that women's needs should be respected