Peter Tatchel talking utter nonsense.

It's also a really stupid argument when it comes to audiences. When I watch women's athletics, I want to see who the fastest woman is, what a woman is capable of doing. I have no interest in watching a mixed sex group. This "inclusion" ruins sports for everyone.

Individual assessments He thinks his tw friend is okay because he's smaller and weaker than some women and that makes it okay, but if twaw then some actual women might be barred if they're too big and strong.

Individuals should be assessed. If they're men they don't play in the women's sports. No need to over complicate it.

His arguments are so ridiculous. He kept on saying that we need "individual assessments " for trans people in sports. Really? Who's going to do that? It would take ages and be so expensive. What about amateur sports, school sports? They count too. They're where everyone starts off, where we might get a taste for it. Even these competitions need to be fair for girls. He really hasn't thought this through. Or maybe he has but doesn't care about women and girls.

I find it extraordinary that he still seems to on all the producers call lists.

Producers are trying to get a job done and what they want are known quantities: people with a clear speaking voice who will put forward their point of view, whatever it is, in a reasonably articulate manner, don't have a distracting appearance, don’t um and ah or ramble on at a tangent, and know to shut up when you tell them you're finished.

That is why they call Tatchell and not the activists who pour piss over themselves.

Indeed.

But what I found interesting about this one is that he has to respond to direct challenge in a way that goes beyond what happens in small segments on news slots etc.

Andrew Gold is informed enough to pull him up on things, give him space, keep him talking (I totally agree with the PP above who says that it's likely he tactically speaks to Tatchell's ego at times) etc. This is what's new from my POV.

Yes, it's the same nonsense but explored differently. He's not being pandered to by someone ignorant of the issues. Gold is perhaps in awe of his gay rights campaigning and sympathetic to what he went through. I think that's likely. But he's giving Tatchell the combination of the space and the direct challenge that he rarely gets. Helen Joyce would have achieved it at the IME debate (2022, 2023?), I'm sure. But Freda's performance art and wine-slugging somewhat stole the show.

This is EXACTLY what I thought when I read the thread title.

I find it extraordinary that he still seems to on all the producers call lists.

From what I saw of it Andrew Gold was very 'kind' to Tatchell. He really seemed to be buttering him up. I think some of that was genuine, some though, from what I've seen from previous Heretic videos, was just massaging Tatchell's ego to keep him talking. That he didn't see through it, or did and didn't care, says alot about his intelligence and character.

I'm finding this one a struggle to get through, because I cannot believe he is the best the TRAs have. His points are so weak. His stupidity is very irritating. AG is not an intellectual heavyweight but he is able to wipe the floor with the most basic of counterarguments. PT's arguments certainly give the impression (as PPs have said) that he is on this bandwagon because it's a cause that fits with his identity as a campaigner, not because he feels particularly strongly about trans people.

This bit in the Observer article

The way he describes it makes the experience sound almost like a chemical high and I wonder whether there is a part of Tatchell that is addicted to pursuing that single, pure moment of serenity when so much of his life is defined by the persistent threat of danger.

I found myself wondering something similar while I was watching the bit of the Heretics interview I could stomach. Perhaps he had a Stonewall-esque need for a new cause and, like them, landed on TQ+.

Something else that bugged me about the interview was him almost certainly retconning LGB with the rest of the alphabet.

Ha's a male supremacist pure and simple.

Despite paying lip service to left wing ideology which supposedly champions the underdog; on a fundamental level he is only concerned with men and men getting what they want at any given point in time., And if women and children are hurt in the process, crickets.
He really does not have any kind of opinion on that, because... see the first sentence above.

It is entirely possible that he is incapable of assimilating new information. He was subjected to so many physical beatings, he has some brain-damage.

This is quite a decent article giving the details, and also a bit about his background.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/dec/20/peter-tatchell-retires-interview

I'm going to have to turn it off. He's too annoying. Dunno if Andrew Gold knows about tatchell's paedophilia apologies.

😂😂😂😂😂 I just snorted out loud.

He seems vehemently protective of trans 'rights' yet, as a gay man, that orthodoxy means he should consider a transman as a sexual partner. Is he ever questioned on that and not permitted to wriggle off the hook?

This is implicitly covered @Rightsraptor and the answer is that he wriggled out of it. Nobody should ever tell anyone who they should or shouldn't be attracted to etc. It was right back to his ironic "let's not generalise by putting in arbitrary boundaries" generalisation of how everyone should live their lives.

If only he’d stuck to being an advocate for gay people, he’d have been on strong ground.

Yep. The continuation of the progression of rights with no boundaries was initially limited to his advocacy for lowering the age of consent (his infamous letter to the Guardian, that chapter in that book, that video interview etc) and has extended to advocating for gender identity belief to be the basis upon which policies are made. I'm proud to think of myself as a liberal and I'm certain that some of the things I support will be considered "woke" by others - I never use that word myself as one person's woke is another person's reasonable. But I'm also glad I uphold boundaries when they are there for a reason. Two key reasons for me:

1. The reality of sex (male/female) is as important as the line between child and adult when making laws to keep everyone in a society safe from would-be bad actors, focused on achieving this before they do the bad act as much as possible.

2. nobody's belief should ever give them rights that take rights away from someone else who doesn't hold that belief. Andrew Gold refers to this several times in the interview, as do many other people who explain rights as a pie etc.

I managed about 3 minutes, by which time my eyeballs had rolled so far that they fell out of my head and I had to stop the video so I could crawl around on the floor feeling for them.

I couldn't watch beyond the first half, my TV might have borne the brunt if I'd continued.

He positions himself halfway; he agrees sex, as in biology, exists but also gender ID. Did Gold ask him which trumps the other? He seems vehemently protective of trans 'rights' yet, as a gay man, that orthodoxy means he should consider a transman as a sexual partner. Is he ever questioned on that and not permitted to wriggle off the hook?

Is it worth watching to the end? About 5 minutes in and it’s already irritating in listening to his inconsistencies and misrepresentation. If only he’d stuck to being an advocate for gay people, he’d have been on strong ground.

Thank you @QuickMember and... phew! I've had that thought trying to form itself in my head ever since I watched the TV programme. I'm glad I was able to articulate it in a way that made sense when I finally got it out.

Agreed @RainWithSunnySpells The human condition is a funny thing. Sadly a shared belief leaves space for bad actors to bend society to their will, hide in plain sight and have their behaviour accepted as righteous. This very much links to Andrew Gold's point (also said by many others) that we shouldn't change laws that uphold the values of a belief system. It ends up giving people rights that allow them to justify what they are doing under their belief - and not everyone shares their belief.

I've watched it now. He contradicts himself continuously and he repeatedly says "we mustn't generalise"... then he generalises.

Him saying it wasn't about stereotypes, then saying Andrew Gold had a male gender id because of his clothes!

Yup. Yet he says that nobody should tell anyone else what their gender identity is or isn't.

Also he said that it was absolutely right that any young person who attends a gender clinic needs to have a proper assessment first to understand if anything else was going on, because it's a major medical intervention.... then he says it's appalling that anyone would interrogate a young person and not believe them about their gender identity (i.e. nobody should tell anyone else what their gender identity is or isn't).

He's conflated everything in to such a muddle that he doesn't seem to understand what is coming out of his own mouth. I think his core belief is that gay people should be allowed rights and freedoms to be themselves. Everything else that he says on this topic is a conflation that projects from it. Maybe he believes we all have a gender identity, maybe he doesn't. His constant self-contradiction makes it impossible to tell, so I'll take it at face value that he believes it (just as many religious people hold contradictions continuously e.g. immaculate conception vs the biology of reproduction).

Andrew Gold did a great job with the questions in this interview. I'm relieved that there weren't any questions about the age of consent. I applaud what Peter Tatchell has achieved in the past for gay rights but sadly he just doesn't seem to know when to stop being progressive and put hard boundaries in to law. Society can't function in the way that he advocates under his top down generalisation that everyone should have the freedom to do everything and it should be looked at case by case. If we don't have hard boundaries in law (by sex, age etc) we will gravitate towards governance under a belief system, where the bad actors have risen to the top and get to make all the rules that define how we behave - which loops back to the "indulgences" link from RainWithSunnySpells.

As if a man would go through the whole ordinance of priesthood to gain access to children 🙄

Love all the thoughtful analysis, but the guy is just a self-seeking, thick twat who likes the sound of his own voice even when he knows he is talking complete bollocks. It’s as simple as that.

One of the most unexpected discoveries for me during the last few years of following this is quite how many really stupid people there are, and a surprising number of them have a platform, or are in positions of power and responsibility. I watch or listen to them and think, you can't actually be that stupid? But they are! Boggling.

…Him saying it wasn't about stereotypes, then saying Andrew Gold had a male gender id because of his clothes!

Honestly, this statement is Tatchel showing the reasoning level of a young child: studies have shown that before the age of 7 or so children think that wearing certain clothes is what makes someone a man or woman.

One doesn’t expect this type of limited reasoning from adults….but, still, we keep encountering it 🤷‍♀️🙈

I could only stomach half of it. Him saying it wasn't about stereotypes, then saying Andrew Gold had a male gender id because of his clothes!

Credit to him for showing up I suppose.

So over this guy getting a platform, and youtubers using him for clickbait.
Make him irrelevant and investigate him.

...and birds go tweet! At least he's consistent, I suppose.