Evan Davis

Evan used to be on Today with those people, but took over from Eddie Mair to present PM.

This pleases me no end. I wrote in once to complain about how appallingly rude John Humphries was to one of his non-politician guests. You could hear the sneer in his voice. My MIL and I high-fived when he retired. Good riddance.

Has there been a reshuffle at R4? I feel like (but might be misremembering) Justin/Martha/Nick/Evan all used to present PM, but now it's all Evan, all the time (plus occasionally one new male and one new female presenter, whose names I cannot remember!) Nick and Justin are now on AM. As a result, the quality of PM has really declined. Stop banging on about AI!!

If you heard the first bit then you may well have heard his apology but it was so brief and indirect that it's not at all surprising you didn't notice it.

I heard the first bit. I didn’t hear the rest as I went out. Did Evan Davies apologise to jK Rowling on air?

No, thought not but would love to be corrected.

Just got round to listening to this. Somebody must have given ED a serious kicking to get him to agree to this.

Ooo @Mollyollydolly do tell! I can take some guesses (having worked with a few myself). But that's next level vanity!

Yes, and why do they think the conclusion she came to as a young adult is less authentic than the identity she assumed as a confused and unhappy teenager going through puberty?

At the same time, Ruby’s mother held her ground about her family’s neutral approach being the safest for children even though Evan was at pains to insisted some people are ‘just trans’.

I wish people like Evan would explain what they mean by 'just trans'. Does he think that some people are literally born in the wrong body? Or does he think that some people have such a dislike of their body that it can't be resolved with psychotherapy and the best way forward for them is sterilisation and lifelong medication? What does it mean to be 'just trans'?

Basically they log all the responses to BBC programmes so you can see the responses from viewers/listeners and why. So for example I imagine there would be thousands saying 'Happy Valley' was brilliant and maybe a few hundred complaining about Evan Davies. I worked with one vain presenter who the first thing he did when he got in work was read the overnight logs to see what people where saying about him.

I haven’t had a chance to listen to the latest interview yet, but from what’s been said on here it sounds very much like what we went through with my DS. Automatic affirmation is dangerous, and my son would be a very different person now if we had just gone along with what the gender machine wanted.

More stories like this need to be heard, instead of ‘better a live daughter than a dead son’ (or vice versa). It is harder to not automatically affirm, but I went through that difficult time because I knew that transition was not right for my son, and every time I see him being a happy, healthy, non-medicalised young man I thank fuck that we did.

Even with the segment in today's programme, I suspect that Evan Davis will still think that the outcome for Ruby was correct, and the outcome when young people do go through a life-changing transition process is also correct. Nice discrete outcomes, completely distinct from and unrelated to each other.

Thank you gorvthe link @ILikeDungs

Blimey. That was really good. Both of them were so articulate and clear.

Just listened to the interview, can’t quite believe PM gave all that time to this subject, it was brilliant. I agree the producers would have told him he had to do something pretty damn quick, in-order to stop anymore complaints.

I do hope Evan learnt a lot from those amazing women he interviewed.

Ooh good to know. I will listen when I get home. I also got a cut n paste reply to my complaint today that quoted ED’s tweet but didn’t address anything I had raised.

When I wrote the complaint I had no idea that Stacey was a transwoman; I was listening in the wild in the midst of making dinner etc and did not catch the names of either interviewee. My ears told me they were both men; and thus I called them men in my complaint.

The response was very deliberately peppered with “she” & “her”.

Not JKR! His apology to her was very halfhearted.

I thought Ruby and her mother mother were wonderful because they explained the nuances of all they had been through ,and all they had learned along the way. Neither came across as angry, over vehement, or dismissive of trans people who made other decisions.

At the same time, Ruby’s mother held her ground about her family’s neutral approach being the safest for children even though Evan was at pains to insisted some people are ‘just trans’.

Ruby’s mother was extraordinary given she navigated all this when there was less knowledge and push-back against trans ideology than there is now.

It was good she explained the very real danger, that under a ban on conversion therapy, her resistance to affirming Ruby as trans might be called conversion therapy - even though that was the right thing for Ruby. Especially well done of her as Evan did refer to the ‘torture’ involved in conversion therapy.

This is where the BBC should have mentioned the research showing the very large proportion of teens who desist when they are not affirmed. The various co-morbidities there are known to occur with young people suffering from gender dysphoria including autism, trauma, being gay possibly, and peer pressure (given the huge increase in numbers, and in groups).

But all in all it was an excellent programme as a start.

That was really good. And I'll say it again, ALWAYS complain. They do collate the logs (used to work at the BBC) and senior management and producers read the overnight logs. I'm sure the interview today was an attempt at balance after last weeks debacle. Hold them to account.

And saying “supposedly”! I think Ruby was quite clear that she is no longer trans, and is very happy living in her unmutilated body and not facing a lifetime of medication with hormones. Says a lot about TRAs that they are so determined to push their agenda that they refuse to believe a persons own experience if it doesn’t fit with the mindset.

The mum was excellent, the family must have gone through such turmoil , but in retrospect it was worth it, poor Ruby has transitioned from adolescent to adult - which is the real and natural transition that everyone makes- safely and without any permanent damage to her body. I thought what the mum said about how pandering ( and that word was used I think) by using the preferred name and adjectives must make the drastic changes that are happening in a teens body and which the teen is daily having to live with, more difficult to bear by people pretending that the teen really has changed sex and ignoring the reality f their physical development. Such a sensible and rational approach.

Ruby you were very blessed to have such sensible parents , who were also it seems canny enough to see through the Tavistock crap too.

Yes, definitely required to do this interview as atonement for past crimes against impartiality. However, even today he hurriedly interrupted Mum when she started to talk about “medical interventions”.

I miss Eddie too!