£10,000 prize for arguing both sides of trans debate

Hang on. Do you have the original source of what Kapil actually said?

If not, you have assumed the by line journalist has made the error. I no longer make those assumptions because they are so often wrong. If you have the original source, please post it.

What on earth makes you think I don't understand that? Now I am actually convinced you are the one who is confused. More coffee all round perhaps!

Having re read it I agree with @JoIsBraverThanIAm

Kapil is wrong. He is organising this event and he is wrong with this basic fact.

Trans activists insist that there is a space in the word trans woman. Feminists use the term transwoman, because a male is not a type of woman as the space leads one to believe. As in tall woman. Trans is not an adjective for woman.

I'm really puzzled as to what is going on here. Am I having a brain failure? It seems to be quite clear. The indirectly reported speech, "He said that trans activists used transwomen as one word because it implies that men who transition become women. He acknowledged that radical feminists were more likely to put a space between the words." is not a quotation. It is Ames' interpretation of what Summan said, and it's backwards. The directly reported speech, "“It makes no sense for us to use ‘trans women’ since it affirms the point we’re asking entrants to argue against,” he said. “It is true that ‘transwomen’ affirms the opposite,” he conceded, “but we have to choose one.”" is, by normal journalistic conventions, what Summan said, and it is fine.

Why would you think that?

I expect many of us could write this essay.

I agree, it's an interesting thing to do, and I hope it attracts many entries from people with all points of view, and is even-handedly judged. Probably constructing entries here is not helpful to the running of the competition, but if it flops or gets cancelled, I'd be game for having a go after the closing date! Not with my real name attached, though, sadly.

So you are saying that the quote is not a correct quote and that the by line journalist has made the mistake? You are saying Kapil has been misquoted?

That the byline journalist has got the quote arse about face? Not the organising journalist?

Have you seen a correction? What do you base this on?

Kapil Summan, 35, a journalist in Scotland, is one of the competition organisers. He said that trans activists used transwomen as one word because it implies that men who transition become women. He acknowledged that radical feminists were more likely to put a space between the words.
“It makes no sense for us to use ‘trans women’ since it affirms the point we’re asking entrants to argue against,” he said. “It is true that ‘transwomen’ affirms the opposite,” he conceded, “but we have to choose one.”

Never mind undergraduates, it would be interesting to see if some on here could write the essay.

If your instinct is to scoff or criticise the organisers, then I suspect not.

The Times article has the byline "Jonathan Ames Legal Editor" and it is his words that are backwards. Kapil Summan is a journalist. But only the words indirectly reported ("he said that") are wrong, so I am surmising that it is the journalist, Jonathan Ames, who is confused. The words actually in quotation marks are presumably Kapil Summan's, and they are fine. No?

A transwoman is a male who 'identifies as a woman'

A Trans Woman is an attempt to suggest that TW are just another type of woman. 'Trans' being the adjective...so similar to ' white woman', black woman' 'disabled woman' 'tall woman' 'Hindu woman'.....

Most here would entirely reject the latter for obvious reasons.

TW are a category of male, not of female.

The journalist quoted is one of the organisers.

To be explicit, entrants are asked to argue for and against the proposition that transwomen are women. To include the space would have affirmed the proposition - to write "trans women" prejudges that these people are women. Nothing backwards about it. It's the journalist's words that the Times puts before this quote that have it backwards.

I'm going to cut Kapil Summan some slack:

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Come on, it's clear, isn't it, that it's the journalist who's confused, not the organiser? There's nothing wrong with the quote from the organiser (except that it's going too far to say that leaving the space out argues against the proposition: it's decently neutral - seahorses are not horses, but cornflowers are flowers, so without the space it can go either way).

Anyway I've pointed my impecunious undergraduate offspring at it. Though I agree there's an interesting question about how it's going to be judged.

Me too.

I find it hilarious - just the idea that he has come up with this undergraduate competition as a way of "settling" the debate, and then got the terminology arse-backwards. Are trans activists going to be angry that he's chosen - albeit inadvertently - the terminology used by gender-critical people? If so, is he going to change it to the terminology used by transactivists - or would that risk showing which side he's on? He's absolutely in a bind now.

“It makes no sense for us to use ‘trans women’ since it affirms the point we’re asking entrants to argue against,” he said. “It is true that ‘transwomen’ affirms the opposite,” he conceded, “but we have to choose one.”

I'd like to see if he changes his mind as soon as he realises he's got it backwards.

Perhaps the organisers should do their fucking research before releasing a patronising statement that will make them seem completely ignorant because they don’t seem to have any idea about the positions of either side.

It has just made a laughing stock of how ignorant they are.

Ok the idea this will 'settle the issue' is comically arrogant, and not understanding the meaning of the space in 'transwoman' is not a hopeful sign either. Even so I'm going to refrain from snarking because I think anything that encourages undergraduates to learn how to argue and debate properly is a good thing.

I'd like to know how it's being judged. Ideally each essay should receive a score from both a TRA and a GC feminist for how well the essay explains and engages with their side's position - with the option of scoring negatively for caricaturing with straw-man arguments or missing out massive issues. The prize to the highest scoring essay that has the two sides scoring it as evenly as possible, with essays that have a difference in score from the two sides of greater than say 10% being excluded from the final shortlist.

I suspect they won't do anything so even handed and the winner will be terribly biased in one way or the other.

(Or maybe I can just identify as an undergrad)