Emma Barnett and Gillian Keegan.

I didn’t hear it that way at all!

Yes she did, she just said a man who has transitioned is a woman, she never mentioned "characteristic" she also said it in 2020 as well.

Its bloody obvious which side of the fence she sits and thats fair enough but lets stop this idea there is any difference between the 2 parties.

All you need is a GRC to be legally a woman, no surgery required.

Yes this is the law we have thanks to the GRA in 2004

Keegan didn’t say TW are women, she said that men who have had reassignment surgery (and have a GRC) have a characteristic that is protected under the Equalities Act and are legally considered to be women. Not once did she say they are women, nor did she say she personally considered them to be women despite Emma’s persistence on that point. It felt very much like a politician’s answer.
What she said is a fact. She did not once say that TW who have had reassignment surgery are considered to be biological women.

And even if it were the case that some GC posters were critical of Labour why would that be a problem? People with conservative views (both GC people and otherwise) exist. Just because I hold leftwing views doesn’t mean I want to ban or silence people with conservative views.

Posters on this thread have criticised Keegan (me included) and there is a multipage thread on FWR discussing birth trauma caused by inadequate maternity services.

Plenty of stuff about maternity services in this folder. It's possible to care about more than one thing at once.

Spectacular Keagan said TW are in fact women, no they are not, they are still men, that cannot change.

If Starmer had said this, instead of a Conservative, we'd be up to 40 pages by now, which does kinda show that some aren't really GC but Labour Critical.

Bit like with maternity services, pretty much ignored by the GC's, despite it killing 100s of women and babies each year, what matters is toilets & parkruns

I'd love to know what she has on Sunak that keeps her in post because it's not being good at the job.

Maybe "isn't actively plotting against me right now" is good enough for Sunak?

I'm pretty sure there are videos of parliamentary committees where Miriam Cates brings up specific examples. She should know, she doesn't. This is an extreme level of incompetence that would get anyone in a real world job fired.

I'd love to know what she has on Sunak that keeps her in post because it's not being good at the job.

It's very far from 'I'm on top of my brief' Kemi Badenoch. Whatever you think of KB, she does know what she's talking about. Why are we so willing to accept such utter incompetence among some ministers?

You make a good point; I hadn’t considered that she was reluctant to describe the problem in detail because then she’d have to take responsibility for it happening on her watch.

Emma could've done it though

I don't think it's surprising that a politician doesn't want to tell their entire audience that far from sleeping at the wheel they've been practically comatose

Yes, a huge hole in GK explaining her position is that she didn't have examples of the bad teaching materials to hand to refer to when asked about them. This is astonishing when there's considerable amounts of them floating about.

To be honest, I found it odd that Keegan didn’t know. I’d expect her to have facts and figures and examples to hand in order to better argue her case for these changes. I think she came across as woolly and badly prepared, like she didn’t do her homework and was hoping to spoof her way through the interview.

Remembering the dice that teachers rolled with their pupils to decide what implement or body part to put into what orifice, maybe the last thing she wanted to do is to let the public know what has actually happened.

I found it odd how she went off on "you don't know"

That's Interviewing Politicians 101:

Politician: We will apply measure X because of problem Y.
Interviewer: What is the extent of problem Y?
Politician: We haven't checked.
Interviewer: You don't know?!

One would expect any competent interviewer to do this. Remember, EB wasn't there to advocate for or against the Gender Critical position.

I think that if Mumsnetters and some UK newspapers can find examples of inappropriate material being taught in RHSE lessons then the least Keegan can do is have a few examples to give when asked about the subject. She sounded like she was spoofing off the top of her head when asked for examples and so she went straight to gender identity - which is a big problem but is not the only problem with RHSE provision.

If she’s listened to teachers and groups, as she says, then surely they provided her with examples of lessons that had inappropriate material, can’t she remember what she’s been told?

Exactly. Why not have fully centralised materials??

Exactly. Why aren't these materials absolutely centralised???

I couldn't understand EB's point.

• is she trying to say that self ID is ok and education should include that self IDing TWAW?? That was the impression I was left with.
• I found it odd how she went off on "you don't know"

The Tories are going to major on Labour not knowing what a woman is at the GE. It's important to call out the fact that the education secretary is utterly clueless on the issue herself. She sounded like John Prescott stumbling over her words.

That would be brilliant.

And the fact they didn't come could just be highlighted and speak for itself.

What I don't understand from all this PHSE (and this might not be the right place to ask), by why hasn't Ofsted ever stumbled on the "bought in" teaching materials and/or consultants and queried the appropriateness of it?

Quite.

And how fucking hard is it for the government to supply this material? Age appropriate, and exactly the same for every school.

Have a one off panel to decide what it entails, including teachers, parents, child development experts, etc. And roll it out to every school in the country.

Hell, you could get Safe Schools Alliance to do it.

That way schools wouldn't have to constantly be wondering who to employe, what they're saying, is it compliant, are they expert enough, etc.

Because until now many sure as shit haven't been.

If you had Helen J plus safeguarding expert they'd wipe the floor with GK. They could have a TRA org that's been pushing overly sexualised RSE / PHSE materials in schools on too (although I suspect they wouldn't come as they know their position is indefensible).

I do wish R4 would interview somebody who would explain this cogently and had the evidence to hand.

Yes, there's no balance - either Safe Schools Alliance, Stephanie DA, or someone like Helen Joyce would provide appropriate balance and be bang on top of the evidence that GK is trying to ignore.

So many organisations and other politicians (Miriam Cates, Kemi B) have been bringing the evidence of competely anti-safeguarding PHSE in schools and the problems with gender ideology to DfE for years, and there are receipts.

I'd personally favour Helen J - as she's so incredibly articulate and clear - plus a safeguarding expert to back her up on safeguarding knowledge (which is not her area of expertise and it sometimes shows).