Meet the new CEO of Endometriosis South Coast

Thanks for the reporting all. I'll have to wait for the iplayer version.
Ben Bradshaw's tweet has just lost any chance of a vote from me for Labour.

And people wonder why ex Labour voters won't vote for them anymore. Ben, you tool, Emma Barnett was doing her (paid for from the public purse) job as a journalist. If Jodie and Steph haven't got the intelligence or wit to counter her arguments effectively and stand up for themselves without wittering, deflecting and crying "transphobe", then they need to step back from public discourse.

During early development the gonads of the fetus remain undifferentiated; that is, all fetal genitalia are the same and are phenotypically female. After approximately 6 to 7 weeks of gestation, however, the expression of a gene on the Y chromosome induces changes that result in the development of the testes.

From a lovely long tead
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK222286/#:~:text=During%20early%20development%20the%20gonads,the%20development%20of%20the%20testes.

Genotype would always be male or female, but phenotype (what you see in terms of observable characteristics) is female until 6-7wks.

Incidentally with regard to hormones; testosterone comes first, and is converted to estrogen by aromatase.

Labour are coming:

https://twitter.com/BenPBradshaw/status/1724740528825110605

Small mercies, @Boiledbeetle!

Well Steph at least was sober!

They are a registered charity?

I suspect that Jody got Steph Richards in because Jody believed that Steph would add power to what is effectively Jody’s charity. I suspect Jody views Steph as being able to represent that charity at high level events because of Steph’s profile.

I suspect that Jody has also believed entrenched prejudiced views so that Jody cannot sort through the crap to actually hear what women have been saying. I suspect that Jody thinks Richards is 100% righteous and all those naysayers are haters. And that is an appalling way to run a charity aimed at women.

That the trustees consider the majority of women in the UK to be haters? more like this charity had plans to grow leveraging clout they believed Richards would give them and it has backfired.

Helen Joyce on Twitter has a good sum up:

BBCWomansHour with Steph Richards PompeySteph was less awful than it might have been, probably because
Emmabarnett is a long-time endo sufferer & very good at interrupting waffle & BS from interviewees. (From 24 mins)
But the decision to platform Steph will be experienced by him as validation. He's got on WH, after all, when the women he insults, harasses and talks over are unable to. 2/7

Ultimately, he's a woman-hating troll who doesn't merit attention, still less platforming on our national broadcaster. He's not the only transwoman this is true of, and yet they are invited on repeatedly when women who campaign for sex-based rights are ignored. 3/7

Nor does it undo years of outrageous bias from WH, which seems incapable of seeing the clash between women's rights and transactivist demands in any way except through the lens of transactivism. 4/7

This item should have had a woman critical of the appointment on it - for balance, if for nothing else. millihill, Victoria Smith glosswitch, Julie Bindel bindelj
- all ACTUAL women who have written in the past day on Steph's absurd and insulting appointment. 5/7

All the outrage may have helped improve the WH coverage. We have to keep pushing. Our national broadcaster, paid for by our taxes and with a statutory duty of impartiality, has to do a whole load better than this one interview to get to where it needs to be on this issue. 6/7

Don't let WH off the hook just because one interview wasn't a fawn-fest. The show has been so one-sided for so long that women's-rights campaigners are in danger of Stockholm Syndrome - pathetic gratitude for scraps thrown our way. Remember: it's our hour. Demand better 7/7

Well she’s got backing from Freda so I’m sure she’s delighted

At the risk of sounding picky, Glom, embryos aren’t female until the male hormones kick in. They are undifferentiated - neither make more female- until the different genes are expressed, but male or female from day one regardless.
It’s that ‘men’s hormones are special, women are insufficientky developed men’ vibe again.

I don't think that's right - embryos have chromosome sex, and in an embryo 'undifferentiated' just means 'not sufficiently developed to be able to determine the sex'.

If Steph was a regular listener to Woman's Hour, Steph would know endometriosis is a subject of great personal interest to Emma Barnett which has been covered many times. By women who have first hand experience of it.

That's the problem, right there - eh, Steph? What could you have contributed to a discussion about the illness itself? And yet YOU still expected to be invited onto Radio 4's flagship programme for women to cover that subject.

As far as I can ascertain from a very brief glance at the literature, current theory is centring around neutrophil degranulation leading to growth of endo around the body, much like it can contribute to development of cancer, with inflammatory response. More complicated than this but I haven’t time to review and write right now. I will if I ever get a chance though!

Several wondering about endometriosis in men…. I have just had my eureka moment regarding why Steph would take an interest in this

The prevailing risk factor proposed in previous cases of male endometriosis is prolonged exposure to estrogen therapy.

ie trans taking estrogen may be more susceptible to endo than men…. But it is likely self inflicted.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5833878/

And that website, or at least the bit reproduced on here, is a bloody amateurish eyesore.

As a registered charity, I'm surprised the Charity Commission allows CEOs to be appointed over coffee.

Hmm...I smell a rat. 🤨

No way did Jodie get those threats from women!

At the risk of sounding picky, Glom, embryos aren’t female until the male hormones kick in. They are undifferentiated - neither make more female- until the different genes are expressed, but male or female from day one regardless.
It’s that ‘men’s hormones are special, women are insufficientky developed men’ vibe again.

Damn I have some catching up to do on here after work!

I've read this (are they men with a DSD, or is it just one of those freakish things, maybe because all humans were female in utero for the first few days?) but as far as I know it's a vanishingly tiny number. Interestingly, those potential male sufferers of endometriosis weren't the people Jodie/Steph were sticking up for though, were they? It was 'we're here for the trans men and non-binary people who have endo' (eg women).

Charities need to be well run. To serve the people they aim to help. For that you need proper hiring processes and accountability.

I wonder if Steph's first thought on getting the invite was 'Ooh, Woman's Hour!' The validation must have be irresistible. And so bright and enticing the CEO didn't see or didn't care about the impending car crash.

I've met a lot of people with/doing PhDs who had no lights on upstairs at all. Since you can now do a PhD in gender studies consisting entirely of logic-free, evidence-free bolleaux, it could mean anything. (Though I've met surprisingly clueless people doing them in multiple other areas too)

The majority of charities are tiny and many are set up by someone affected by the issue. Somehow they get funding and grow beyond the ability for the founder to properly manage it, since they have no expertise in that. She said as much in the interview.

Government grant funding for charity needs to end. It enrages me that my local council is only just now talking about ending grant funding due to not being able to balance the budget, after what, nearly 15 years of cutting every other service for austerity. It is not a statutory service! If the cause is so important, people will give money to it. Beggar off using this money to inflate small-town peoples egos and give them a non job.