Jane Garvey and fi glover interviewing Eddie izzard

Apart from safety element, which is huge, women use work rest rooms to deal with menstruation, lactation, morning sickness, even miscarriage, not to mention a private place of refuge away from some male colleagues!

Yes, at the very least I think they could have pressed Eddie further on whether he can understand the safety concerns that women have about shared spaces? That could have been asked in a very measured way too.

I don't have a problem at all with Fi acknowledging her privilege or of them being wary of causing offence - the issue is that similar considerations aren't often observed by the male trans community - the understanding and accommodations all have to come from women.

I am a follower of a sport practiced by both sexes where women have only recently starting to have separate lavatories and private changing rooms. Up until then they have had to change in spectator lavatories, or the broom cupboard, or their car, and forego a shower. In some areas the facilities for women are still very inadequate and women have no separate areas or they have to walk through the men's space in order to get to a storage room or similar. In those circumstances in the past couple of years there have been several incidents of bullying or harassment by half naked men towards fully dressed females. Why can't trans men like Eddie acknowledge that women's safe spaces have been very hard won and only relatively recently at that?

And if trans men like Eddie say they have to use women's toilets because they are worried about violent attacks when they go in to men's lavatories, they should be understanding of women's fears when the situation is reversed, and sorry but male violence is a male problem that has to be dealt with by men. Why doesn't he spend his energy campaigning about that?

I also heard the podcast of this and was massively disappointed.
I'm actually a fan of Fi and Jane and followed them to Times Radio where I hoped they would shake off some of the shackles of the BBC.

Like others, I find Fi very TWAW and simpering/BeKind etc and I can't stand all the self-deprecating stuff she says, and her habit of constantly going out of her way to acknowledge her privilege etc - we know, we know, just get on with the programme!

I thought the interview was positively weird. I thought Jane in particular sounded a bit conflicted and measured. I'm not sure she is full on TWAW, but I think she is just very aware of the ramifications of being seen to be on the wrong side of this debate. Let's face it, she's a single parent, needs her income, and has young adult children who I can imagine would disown her if it all blew up. They're not stupid - they've seen the fallout from JKR, Maya, Kathleen Stock et al. I think Jane in particular has decided she can't afford (and doesn't want at this stage in her career) to take the risk. I can't say I blame her to be honest.

They let Eddie get away with the 'if the kids aren't allowed to trans they'll die from suicide' and completely avoided the safeguarding issue of gender self-ID opening the floodgates to all men, including sexual predators.
Eddie just sounded so self-absorbed and self-assessed and had no answers for any of the trans questions, just saying he didn't want to be responsible for being the voice of the trans community.

I know it's wishful thinking, but I'd have liked them to ask Eddie about what 'girl mode' means for him, and if it's lipstick and dresses, isn't that perpetuating gender stereotypes?
And perhaps ask him why he's still happy to go after male acting roles? Gender pay gap, anyone?

It’s funny but we have a shared toilet at work that has all cubicles but shared sinks, mirrors and hand drying and despite knowing all the men I work with well and not generally being someone who feels uncomfortable around men I do feel really unsettled about the loos.

I was chatting to DH about it and wondering if it’s just that I’m not used to it?
I can’t describe why it is I just know I really don’t like it and I sort of feel I should trust myself on that rather than question my socialisation or bias?

Quite @Abra1t - or like me they may just not want to.

They may be fine using public loos with TW but other women from
Muslim or orthodox communities, or women who have reason to fear male bodies, or to feel embarrassed by having proximity to them when they have to deal with, say, heavy periods, may not feel fine about it.

One of the things that used to irritate me about JG on WH is her faux self-deprecation. She was so obviously not actually saying that she was stupid or whatever but came across very much as saying she was which really pisses me off. It's something that so many younger women do or have done (me included) particularly around men. But she was old enough to know better and it never rang true.

^^ this email address takes you to a more general contact page if you scroll down btw.

I always thought Jane Garvey was too scared of her children, two young adult daughters, to say what she really thought.

If you want to email the programme, Fortunately is now called Off Air and you can contact Fi and Jane here:

[email protected]

The early Fortunatelys were enjoyable, and I found the lightness a good thing during Covid. Shame if they aren’t really women focussed underneath though.

I agree. A really solid journalist.

I’m just an ordinary middle-aged woman fairly new to the GC topic and this particularly debate, and the feminism boards, so please forgive me if I don’t use the right acronyms and terminology.

I’ve come on to say that I think we need to e-mail Fi and Jane en masse.

I’ve just listened to the episode and I am very disappointed having previously been a big fan of Fortunately.

F & J only put one slightly hard question to Eddie about safe female spaces to which he replied more or less, “I don’t purport to be the high priest of all trans issues and have all the answers” which was a disingenuous and convenient cop out! I am very disappointed that those two vastly experienced women, with a long journalistic track record behind them, failed to follow up and let him get away with that answer more than once.

They also kept the discussion entirely focussed on Eddie himself without straying in to the area of legal definitions which are so vital to the debate.

Eddie was very clear that he stood his ground when questioned so why couldn’t these two veterans of radio have been braver and stood their ground too?

I think there was a clear agenda from the outset that there was going to be a calm debate, which tbh is not a terrible objective. However, it was so calm and non-controversial that the discussion became meaningless and banal and they pussy- footed around the issues. I’m sure the programme just served the purpose of them being able to say “tick, look, we haven’t avoided the trans topic”.

I may not be popular on here when I say that I took Eddie’s point that there have always been trans people - in this case trans women - throughout history and probably always will be, who of course deserve the same expectation of safety and respect as anyone else.

However - and this is the point that Jane and Fi seemed to “deliberately” miss entirely, trans-women are not women. They just factually aren’t however much they say they are.

So when Jane said at the end, “Well I’m fine going to a public loo used by trans- women” she is basically saying “I am happy that any random man has access to women’s lavatories, even those who have malicious intent”.

You really let all women down at that point Jane you really did, whether you are conscious of that fact or not!

I purposely don't listen to them when they have a sleb on. They just turn into a pair of sycophantic luvvies and it's barely listenable.

I was going to say the same. I used to fine JG mostly likeable enough on WH, but I think she is a fiercely intelligent woman and skilled broadcaster who puts on an act of being silly and fluff-brained and incompetent to appear 'relatable'. It's clearly served her well in a male-dominated industry, where women who speak uncomfortable truths get slapped down and sidelined (Jenni Murray.)

It was only when Emma Barnett took over at WH that I realised how saccharine and shallow the programme had been before, and how JG had perpetuated that stereotype of the middle aged woman with menopause brain being in awe of the younger cool girls and putting herself down. (I think perhaps I didn't notice as it's a trap of self-deprecation I've fallen into myself at times, before understanding how harmful - personally and politically - that is. I don't do it anymore.)

Sorry, that was a long and slightly incoherent way of saying that I think JG is prepared to switch off her critical brain for the sake of media brownie points, even if it means throwing women under the bus. And that is pretty shameful.

Yes I'd forgotten some of EB's interviews on this - she was very good interviewing a woman from Stonewall a while ago. Tbh I'd given up on WH since they weren't discussing the very topical gender issues I wanted to hear about. I emailed them about 5 years ago saying as a listener I wanted them to cover sex and gender more but to no avail.

Glad to see the issue is getting a small amount of airtime now.

To be fair to them, JG & FG are going for light and fluffy chat in this latest show not fierce interviewing technique which is why I enjoy them. Time and a place for both. I'm genuinely surprised JG is TWAW though. After all those years on WH!

Give me someone like Emma Barnett any day of the week who will challenge Maya Forstater and then do the same to a believer in gender identity ideology. One of the reasons we've got in the current mess is journalists losing sight of what they're there to do and instead thinking that their role is to promote a progressive cause.

If anyone wants to hear what Emma Barnett is like on this issue, I'd recommend they track down the interview she did with Kathleen Stock.

https://twitter.com/BBCWomansHour/status/1455838464801394688

That's interesting.

As pp say though, young adult daughters...

Agree with queen. There have been occasions where I thought JG was bordering on starting to get it. But then flounders and moans.

She certainly was compassionate on a trans widows piece a few years ago on Wh. And on times radio they were quite firm about the lunacy of the violent men In women's prisons snoop fuck up.

But it's clear from this that there's no real understanding of the issues, embedded cognitive dissonance and a willingness to throw women under the bus to suck up to the likes of Izzard. But the times radio is open to free speech and that's their opinion....

EB has been good on this while maintaining fairness. I also will
Have her sarcastic voice repeating the laverly book title "work of staggering penis" and the pregnant pause immediately after etched into my brain for evermore...!

Nuala was also clear that the "gender lawyer" hadn't answered her questions about what she wanted to hear from world athletics last week. And Sharron got a lot of air time...

As an aside WH are apparently doing a piece on RSE in schools on Monday that could be worth listening too.

I remember Jane Garvey being really irritated by Sally Hines on WH. That's saying something, if JG has actually been Stonewalled. She said something about TW and their 'living as women' not being the same as the life of many of the WH listeners - "facilitating the lives of others" was the phrase she used.

I purposely don't listen to them when they have a sleb on. They just turn into a pair of sycophantic luvvies and it's barely listenable.

They had Tim Minchin on Fortunately and he was just awful, they totally failed to rein in his delusions of grandeur - it was cringe.

And I'm speaking from the point of view of someone who likes his work.

I can't imagine how embarrassing they'd have been with Izzard.

I can’t believe Eddie Izzard is getting airtime.

I listen to times radio and was interested when with a big fanfare fi and Jane moved from bbc. Not my cup of tea at all and I’m just a wee bit younger than them. This just makes me certain not to tune in again. Bit too much like loose women but there are only two of them.

times radio has gone down hill a wee bit especially on Gender debate.
Sharon Davis was on times radio the other day commenting on Seb Coe’s athletics announcement and Chloe Tilly really showed her lack of knowledge.

I really liked Gloria de Piero on times radio and was disappointed she left.

You'd think working at the BBC they'd have a more realistic view of male media types 🤷. Oh, but TWAW so would never be like that. Silly me 🙄