Stephanie Hayton in The Times

It almost seems like half an article. Of course she doesn't owe the world anything so might just have wanted to get her point of view into the media and wasn't interested in any further discussion.

I hope that it has helped Stephanie.

Yeah, this worries me too. I suppose I am not surprised, many GC feminists come out of communities that are heavy on purity spirals, but it is so toxic.

There seems to be a desire to shut down SH because she doesn't say the things, or respond the way, some GC people would like. Or to speculate quite broadly when she doesn't choose to put all of her own personal life in the public eye. Her situation doesn't seem particularly happy to me but I find the push to try and insist she supports a particular way of thinking about her life rather distasteful.

I think the language Stephanie chooses to use about her experience is important.

She mentions 'the trans widows who have been abandoned or abused by trans ex-husbands' at the start of the article. These are other women. She does not see herself as a trans widow.

This was also mentioned in Janice Turners article.
Stephanie, feisty and tough, balks at the idea she is a passive victim, a “trans widow”. “I feel sad at times, but I’m at peace and Debbie is so much happier.”

Stephanie seems to think that being a trans widow, or even believing that Debbie has been abusive, makes her a victim. She doesn't want to see herself as a victim, which is understandable, because for her this word implies weakness and passivity. She says that she has made her own choices. This is what she believes or wants to believe, even though she is only 'at peace' while Debbie is happier. But is she also happier?

But none of what Stephanie says or believes means that Debbie is not abusive. This says nothing about Stephanie, her reactions to Debbie's actions or her beliefs about her own situation. Abusive behaviours are abuse, no matter what the effect on the victim or how they feel about it. (I've been trying to think of another word rather than victim, which Stephanie would reject, but I can't think of one.)

Despite claiming to follow er, 'ultras' and knowing all about it, that person clearly doesn't know anything.

Speculating that Stephanie Hayton could be having sex outside her marriage is a clear indication that you've read fuck all about it.

I'd quite like to hear him interviewed. And also Stephanie. But not together. Might give us more perspective on their lived reality and in particular what it is to be a woman married to an AGP man. Debbie has been a good counterbalance to those that want to force us to accept that men can be women. So his is a very valid contribution in this discussion.

You follow a lot of 'ultras' do you? Are we accepting that term now?

I listened to most of the Robbie Travers space yesterday. Apparently 'ultra' has some really nasty connotations in the football world and a lot of contributers were very pissed off about being called that.

I've seen a few accounts take on the term in a tongue-in-cheek way since JT's tweets, the same as they took on labels such as 'domesticated zombie' and 'pound shop le pen'. Do you follow a lot of domesticated zombies too?

Very sad article that is missing an end paragraph or something.

If she is as strong as she says, and her marriage must have been hell, then why does she say she stays away from social media followed up by saying she's upset about social media comments.

Are we not allowed to say we believe her life is hell. They are the ones in the media. Are we only allowed to comment if we fawn over the presentation of their marriage.

They present themselves as a rock solid marriage, why would you care what people on the internet say. It doesn't affect who you are, your husband has written a book for public consumption, he's forever out there. It's a very controversial subject. Did Stephanie expect only bunnies and roses.

She is an admirable Christian for sticking with her marriage and for being supportive of Debbie in his AGP. I also admire Debbie giving us a rather honest description of his AGP. It must be a very difficult thing to have lived with. But he was wrong to deceive his wife into marriage. There's is an interesting contribution to understanding trans, and AGP in particular. It was fascinating to read how Debbie lost out of teaching union leader because he refuses to toe the TRA line.

It seems as if there is a level of intimacy between Janice and Debbie - given how quickly this rushed response has been published.

It's a kind of exhibitionism, isn't it? Discussing your lack of sex life all over the papers/in a book and trying to look respectable while doing it? My fear is that it's a mutation of the same malaga impulse that people are going along with. It is, of course, a matter for their own judgement but I can understand the perspective of women who've reached the limits of their tolerance with indulging this stuff.

I think this must be bloody awful for Stephanie Hayton. And their children.

Who wants their personal, intimate details splashed across every newspaper in the land, as a precursor to an entire fucking book about it??

I believe the children must be in their late teens early 20s now? Jeez, what a thing to have to be carrying around.

Personally, it's got fuck all to do with a purity spiral, and everything to do with safeguarding.

If a male teacher tells you he gets sexually aroused when you call him by a female pronoun, and you keep doing it out of respect', you're telling everyone it's okay to drive a horse and cart through safeguarding.

We've got simultaneous articles where half of boys think you can't rape someone if you're already having a sexual relationship with them. And now we're telling children everywhere even respected and influential adults will pander to a sexual fetish out of 'politeness'?

Nothing to do with purity spirals.

If you look at any successful reform/protest movement (from abolitionism to suffragism and beyond), it tends to start with the energetic radicals, then the intellectuals come in (for better or worse), and then as it moves into the mainstream it requires more moderate voices to convert the general public.

If we collapse into a purity spiral and silence the more moderate voices then we give ammunition to our enemies - people like Owen Jones and Adrian Harrop who are desperate for a chance to paint us as misandrist harridans who can't stop squabbling.

I hope he doesn't fucking make it to woman's hour; that will be a final straw.

That is a very odd article.

Talking about truth and reality, and that you can't undo evolution and that everyone knows the difference between men and women, but then saying she's upset because people won't accept female pronouns for Debbie Hayton?

It doesn't really make any sense.

I don’t want to tell other people what to say. But I don’t want to see our media and judiciary etc calling men women as they have a responsibility to be honest. Or you’d think they would anyway.

Because she's very religious, and has claimed they are both celibate now.

Janice Turner was not constrained to write female pronouns. She made it quite clear she did it out of respect, despite knowing that it was a characteristic of a sexual fetish.

People are concerned that a leading newspaper and highly popular journalist don't understand the nature of a sexual fetish, despite the person who has it being unequivocal about it.

Completely agree with your observations about purity spirals, CantDeal. It's especially annoying to see one forming just as we're getting somewhere, and the fact that the targets are so many of our longest serving and most moderate public supporters is pretty telling.

Stephanie Hayton is a grown-up. She's made up her own mind, and I don't think we can tell her she's wrong. With marriage, there's always a trade-off in what you're willing to put up with for what you get in return so presumably she values the companionship enough to decide to overlook the fact that her husband gets a sexual kick from pretending to be a woman.

She might've done in her original copy and then it got subbed out? It's not like The Times will publish her interview exactly as she wrote it. But she has to support her paper when talking about it on Twitter.

Support for the paper wouldn't require her to call those who think differently 'ultras'. That was quite a remark.
I agree that I think it's highly unlikely The Times would ever have used male pronouns in this article.

The intimacy comments are obviously a friend consoling her when sex was taken out of the relationship by Hayton's operation.

Or....it could have been what SH actually thinks?

As a feminist I feel uncomfortable with this implict idea that SH is somehow "obviously" unable to express herself and what she expresses must be what someone else has told her to say. Like I said, the dodgy concept of false consciousness.

How do we know SH doesn't have sex outside of the marriage?

She might've done in her original copy and then it got subbed out? It's not like The Times will publish her interview exactly as she wrote it. But she has to support her paper when talking about it on Twitter.

I would like to hear more from her.

I don't think anyone hates Janice Turner, just disagreed.

Stephanie has always been religious.

The intimacy comments are obviously a friend consoling her when sex was taken out of the relationship by Hayton's operation. Reasonable comments if the operation had been unavoidable but it must have been horrible losing her sex life because her husband developed an unhealthy obsession.

She's in a really difficult position because most of us find it hard to believe she's truly happy in that situation but it's her choice to stay with him.

I don't think all of them understood that The Times has editorial guidelines

I think they did. Janice Turner could have said she was governed by the guidelines, but instead made it clear on Twitter that this was her decision to use female pronouns out of 'respect'. And that she regarded those women who wouldn't do the same as 'ultras'. It was those comments, deliberately made for whatever reason, that really kicked off the arguments.

The caption in particular. Who strikes a pose in a trouser suit in front of a big screen “at home” ?

This bit is beyond cringe. He’s always front and centre.