Radio 4 right now 5.50pm

I suppose you would expect a higher representation in the creative industries, but of course that TQ+ designation could mean anything from a heterosexual woman who identifies as nonbinary because of preferring short hair to a part-time cross dresser to someone who had full SRS decades ago.

2018 figures declare 2% of bbc staff are transgender, www.thetimes.co.uk/article/2722be26-7d74-11e8-af03-7edc8dc9d023?shareToken=9e0ead2dd49804493bfecbd957c37ab4

So at least double the national average..... although of course we don't even really have any proper data for that, only Stonewalls.

Davis is consistently terrible on this issue. Personally i think he's useful on all issues, with his faux-naive questioning wonder. But especially on this one.

BBC should be sued. They are still pushing the agenda hard, in spite of Tavistock, Cass, NHS revising guidelines and WPATH being exposed, and all the mounting and glaring unarguable evidence staring us all in the face of the harms that ideology does to women and children. I bet TV licence payers are made up of more than 50% women, and we are being completely fucked over by BBC.

I've no idea if it's analysed anywhere but surely most of the 11.5% will be LGB, not T.

Oh yes, and if Alex plays sport, men's team or women's?

That’s very interesting. Over 50% of the UK population are female, I wonder what % of senior staff at the BBC are female? Surely having 11.5% of bosses IDing as trans is going totally against their diversity policy? Isn’t it something like 0.1% of the population are trans? So they’ve vastly over-represented at the BBC? And yet trans people are some of the most marginalised? Apparently not at the Beeb.

I heard it live. It was treated like a light filler lifestyle piece, along the lines of 'And now in the last two or three minutes of the programme we talk to Alan, who makes model trains out of matchsticks'. There were so many obvious questions just begging to be asked. What medical interventions has Alex had, if any, and how well has that gone - what is Alex's state of health? What about Alex's fertility, and if Alex is still capable of pregnancy, is that part of the plan, and how would fit with 'living as a man'? What does 'living as a man' mean? Do the young women who go out with Alex identify as heterosexual or lesbian? Given that Alex is attracted to women, and is female, what were the attitudes to lesbianism in the family and amongst Alex's friends and classmates when Alex was growing up? How did the Tavistock staff satisfy themselves that Alex's conviction of having a male gender identity wasn't internalised lesbophobia? And so on.

His bias is always evident on any topic. Drives me mad.

I miss Eddie Mair.

Here's the link. The discussion starts at approx. 47:23 minutes in:
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001dmzb

Evan is good on economy, business and being incredulous about the goings on in Westminster. I’m not sure if he can cope with anything heavyweight. Certainly not where it relates to women. I used to like him on Today. But then the other presenters were there as a buffer.

I didn't hear the interview but can I ask what it is about the voice that makes it so obvious Alex is transgender?

The reason I ask is that I work with someone who says he is a gay man, and he is chair or whatever of the LGBT group at work. I've seen and heard him on video several times. Last week I was aware of a colleague in the room on a call who I could hear but couldn't see, who had that scratchy not-quite-deep voice that so many transmen have, and realised it was this chap. Hearing him then seeing him in the flesh was so different to being on video. I just wondered if in fact he is a transman.

Not that it matters, I'm just interested.

I heard this when it went out. Evan Davis mentioned the failings of the Tavistock/GIDS in the intro, then pretty much completely went along with the assertions of Alex and his parents. Whatever happened to journalism? For balance, I just hope that the next part of this occasional discussion of this issue on PM features a detransitioner who is treated as unquestioningly.

Davis loses all his journalistic integrity when covering trans issues, a shame as I really like him when covering everything else, but he applies zero critical thinking.

Davis is awful on trans issues. Stonewall will no doubt approve of his “acceptance without exception” stance. He really needs to be a bit more questioning, what with him being a journalist.

Evan Davis is completely on the side of the TRA.

This interview was so positive as to be unrealistic. Everything is fantastic, there are no downsides to transitioning, Alex has never had a problem getting a (heterosexual?!) girlfriend; only a naive kid would not be skeptical of this narrative. Happily, kids don't tend to listen to radio 4! I assume adult listeners will be more questioning of what they have heard.

All that said, it would be an interesting interview if it formed part of a series. 25 is no age, and I'd be interested to hear how Alex's experiences and opinions change at 30, 35, 40, etc.

Really fed up with the uncritical fawning attitude of the PM programme to this issue. Evan Davies has been hopeless. There doesn't even seem to be a pretence at balance - it's just lapping up the nonsense that the trans advocates want to peddle.

Institutional capture by gender identity politics is extremely widespread and not a BBC issue. It’s a national issue in major institutions in most developed countries.

I dont understand what point your statistics re BBC employees are making here- LGB and T experiences and politics can be very different. That will be the same in the BBC as anywhere else.

Evan Davis seems like a fairly credulous and by extension misogynistic man but that’s as far as I’d go on the basis of this interview.

One in 50 of the BBC workforce are trans, and 11.5 per cent of BBC bosses and 10.6 per cent of staff are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transsexual.

It is the creative media, and obviously the best person should always get the job BUT does this massive over representation effect impartiality? There's some ethical independent people at the BEEB , but equally some rampant TRAs.

Alex said that Alex identifies as a man rather than a trans man apparently. Apparently they forget they are trans sometimes and just get on with life as a man, etc. Of course Evan Davis did not ask what that really meant, or in what way they thought life is so different now from any other mid-20s woman’s. Or man’s. GRC wasn’t discussed which could have been an interesting topic.

Davis also didn’t ask anything about physical symptoms after any medical or surgical transition. He didn’t ask what physical interventions Alex had. So Alex saying that everything has been really great since their transition at 14 years old doesn’t mean anything at all. Obviously it’s lovely they are happy but that kind of skating over things could really mislead or upset someone who has had a very different experience.

Yet another elephant in the room was around passing- Alex’s voice instantly reveals that Alex is transgender, but Davis didn’t cover that topic. But actually that must be a huge issue for trans people- different issues will arise whether you pass as your preferred identity, or you don’t. But presumably it was forbidden territory. or maybe Davis wasn’t wanting to ask anything challenging.
It just felt like a half baked puff piece profile like you might find with a very sensitive celebrity, it really wasn’t journalism.

Alex went through their Tavistock-assisted transition when they were 16 and they're now 25, so that means it was about 9 years ago. That was a few years before ROGD caught on and drove the numbers of girls transitioning stratospheric.

It is frustrating when discussion completely skates over the fact that things changed hugely round about 2015. Mixing together statistics and experiences from pre- and post- is often misleading.

Evan is a committed TRA, no surprises here. But I suppose we do have to reckon with the fact that some Tavistock patients are pleased with the outcome of their treatment.

The dad saying that there's no point in arguing because the kid knows best.

Someone should introduce the dad to Keira Bell.

I noticed that, but turned off when he started asking Alex about girlfriends.

No challenging of the ideology at all. Transitioning was all sweetness and light for Alex; no regrets and supportive parents. The father even said there should be no debate around the subject because if someone is trans, they should be supported in their transition and should be able to live their life as they want (regardless of whether that impacts anyone else’s life, it seems). Much praise for the Tavistock.