Janice Turner interview with Debbie Hayton in the Times

Whatever is it about DH that keeps stirring up these rows?

Cherchez le AGP. Always one at the centre of them.

And I'm afraid pretending that a fetish is not a fetish, and co operatively supporting happy penises at the expense of women is not really going to fly. If it gets off the ground at all it's in for a nasty crash landing.

I agree. It's a fetish. He says it's a fetish everyone now knows it's a fetish.

Does anyone really think that interviewers aren't going to bring that up?!

Because Loony Left Supports Sex Perverts in Schools' is a headline that writes itself.

I am tired and cynical by now, but I do wonder about the benefits of being able to monster women who want too many rights and are not prepared to be non consenting tools in a man's sex life if he's a really nice and special man, who after four years of women (the ultra ones) explaining endlessly to him in very small words and refusing to pander or pat him on the matter, has most graciously agreed to stop excluding women from their facilities and resources. Or at least to say he agrees in the right places and to the right people.

It leaves the desperate Labour faithful with the ability to shout 'both sides' and sell themselves as the totally unconnected, reasonable, lovely, middle ground (in PR terms).

But in real and practical terms of the harms to women, I'm not sure what this achieves. Beyond Hayton really having a lovely lovely big bucket of drama and attention to splash in. What are we saying here? That if they don't come in women's spaces we play pronoun performative submission? To everyone or just the selected nice ones? The 'my lovely trans friend' game is a familiar one on MN, but whatever you may consent to with your mate, you cannot demand that the consent of other women matches yours. Or that they agree to submit and suck up whatever you feel is 'reasonable' by your lights and in the terms of you being a woman who isn't really affected by the issues that affect those women saying no, boundary, I can't move it. Are we doing this for women as a whole sex class or not?

The whole 'if you're grotty and ugly by wanting too many rights and boundaries I shall stop being GC' and 'you owe this to me because I supported you' kind of vibes and conversations starting are a bit.... if people in powerful places were ever supporting as a special favour as opposed to because they were just standing up for what is right, then we have a problem. Women's rights too often are seen by the left as a 'nice to have' that will come at some point in the utopian future, and something women are expected to be visibly and performatively grateful for any crumb of.

And I'm afraid pretending that a fetish is not a fetish, and co operatively supporting happy penises at the expense of women is not really going to fly. If it gets off the ground at all it's in for a nasty crash landing.

The Labour Party knows it has just months left to produce a Great Big Fudge on women's rights and children's safeguarding.

If this 'ultra' business is the best tactic they can come up with - peeling off a group of mythical women and tradducing them as out of control nutters - then once again they have fucked it.

I mean, Germaine Greer would be an 'ultra' in this new, creeping mythology, would she not?

Whatever is it about DH that keeps stirring up these rows? Here we are yet again and who is at the root? What wonderful publicity for the book and the articles. I bet he’s absolutely thrilled.

I understand wanting to protect your mates but assuming that every criticism of your mates is motivated by hate is childish and simplistic, especially from people who make their living by debating and opinion-writing in the public sphere

Agreed, @UtopiaPlanitia. It's reminiscent of the Royal Family threads here.

Using the word 'hate' (and its variants) seems quite infantilising.

I also note that since Employment Tribunals confirmed that 'terf' is a slur, we are seeing the rise of 'ultra'. Quite a clumsy tactic of Operation Save Labour. I'll be waiting for my Labour MP to trot that one out now - he must be sick of 'less heat, more light' and 'culture wars' by now. 'Labour is for women like you, AutumnCrow, not for the ultras who seek to stoke discord' blah blah.

I reckon these GC-lites (thats the opposite of ultra GC, isnt it?) have shares in Haytons book. They are very invested in positive, and only positive, reviews of it and him.

Just so we get that in perspective.

Hayton said he would leave his wife and entire family in order to conduct a sexual fetish in public.

He said himself that he would leave her and the whole family if he had to in order to transition.

I'm not sure what Janice Turner thinks of him, but I'm hoping she doesn't really believe that she needs to accommodate his sexual fetish.

Again I feel you misconstrued what I am saying. I didn’t suggest men might accidentally rape someone. Or that a strong sex drive equates to or result in a need to rape.

You are hearing something different in my words to what I am saying.

I'm not trying to misrepresent anyone, I just disagree. A strong sex drive does not equate to or result in need to rape. Rape is violent and its a choice. Suggesting men just can't control their urges or they'll accidentally rape someone is inaccurate.

Right - so they either think of him like an innocent pre-pubescent boy playing dress up and defying gender norms, or they feel sorry for a man driven mad by his own randiness enough to wreck his body and the well-being of his entire family.

Understanding, or not, the depth of the male sex drive might well be why Andrew Doyle doesn't mind using female pronouns, and why Janice Turner doesn't mind it either!

Sorry for the confusion I caused @Datun / @ArabellaScott .

Regarding:

“Plenty of men are capable of a healthy sex life without it involving coercion or them having to sublimate violent urges.”

I feel this is the second time you have misconstrued/misrepresented what I’ve said @ArabellaScott .

I know the word ‘violence’ is used to mean even the ‘literal violence’ of hurty words by TRAs, but I used the word coercion, to describe behaviour including DH using teachers unions, and influencing school policies from other bodies, so that children are forced by the institution to use his erotic words. To me that could only be considered violence in the most abstract sense.

Also, you brought in the word ‘rapey’ originally, which doesn’t really have a clear meaning. Is it just a word to describe lecherousness, creepiness, etc, or is it as narrow as just ‘contemplating and/or perpetrating rape’? I would argue it is used more commonly for the former.

The coerciveness I am talking about is the fact that men tend to have sexual urges which would be socially unacceptable to express freely. They have three choices, suppress, sublimate or express it whether socially acceptable or not (coerce).

This doesn’t mean that ‘all men’ or ‘all males’ sexuality’ is expressed coercively, but the urges underpinning the expression whether consensually or coercively is a component part of male sexuality. Some men do have a lower drive, but I don’t think that makes them better people. I have also known women to be sexually coercive too, but I think the phenomenon of women battling to control their sex drive is pretty rare compared to men. ‘Strength of drive’ is a key feature of male sexuality compared to female sexuality.

I just read your longer post, Meta. I am reading the thread backwards just for maximum confusion.

That was me, although I'm flattered to be mistaken for Datun.

I don't agree that rapeyness is a component of male sexuality. That's an arguable point. Male sexuality is not inherently rapey. Rape is not just about sex. Plenty of men are capable of a healthy sex life without it involving coercion or them having to sublimate violent urges.

No, on this thread, where Andrew Doyle is not present, basically telling me to be quiet about something he did which pisses me off, because ‘he is a human being’, is you using #bekind as a silencing tactic on this thread. There’s no reason to stop discussing it here is there?

Also if you could point me in the direction of some evidence, that would be appreciated, instead of implying I am unkind for not taking your word for it.

Disengaging now @Metamorphosising, the mic is all yours. Have a nice day.

“Best response” indeed.

My perfectly legitimate response to AD using women’s words on a man who gets turned on by them, is to be annoyed.

From my perspective I have no other evidence than a flounce from someone who in my opinion, made the wrong call in the way he addressed a brother who insults/ parasitises women.

There were screenshots all over Twitter last night. I didn't copy them.

And when the reaction to treating someone as a human being is a #bekind sneer than I think it's maybe time for a break.

Can someone link evidence where AD shares that he had an unpleasant experience that’s left him shaken and upset please?

All this hearsay and #bekind is getting annoying on this thread.

In his post he said he hadn’t read the tweets?

I don't know what AD was thinking but he's a human being who's had a very unpleasant experience that clearly left him shaken and upset. I really think best response right now is to wish him well and give him some space with family/ friends.

Regarding Andrew Doyle, I didn’t go on to twitter to read any homophobic tweets aimed at him, it seems from his post, that neither did he, he just had it described second-hand by a friend.

I read this post where he described it screenshotted by Billy Bragg (for whatever reason).

I am not going to attribute that kind of source any credence. Unless someone gives me an actual screenshot of a homophobic tweet, written by a known gender critical account, I will consider those labels of homophobia as valid as JKR being labelled transphobic.

I’m still annoyed that Andrew Doyle used DH’s erotic words, words belonging to women. Twitter nonsense reported second-hand and shared by a hard-of-thinking misogynist like BB doesn’t change it.

WTF was AD thinking?

@Datun you said “Hmm. Rapey sexuality is not the same thing as male sexuality.”
as a response to my post, and although I wasn’t saying that male sexuality and rapey sexuality are identical, I would still argue that rapeyness is a component of male sexuality as a whole, it isn’t an entirely separate entity from male sexuality.

Sexual coercion by men doesn’t happen because boys are taught to do it by patriarchal society, as radical feminists might have it (although the sex industries and now online incel/sissy-type communities definitely create conditions where it is more likely), sexual coercion by men happens because male drives are strong and they either learn to hold the beach ball under water, channel that energy into something worthwhile or they engage in sexual coercion to vent, such as coercing children to use their erotic words.