Helen Lewis interview

I've said before, pointing and laughing at people may not be very nice, but it shouldn't be a crime.

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Despite Buxton's "discomfort" with Lewis dismissing the trans woman who has called her all sorts of names, I thought it was a very balanced discussion. Helen Lewis has exactly the same thoughts and feelings about the trans issue as I do. Buxton ought not to tone police women and be very very careful about saying JKR should call Willoughby a woman as it's no skin off her nose. Recognise your privilege, Adam.

I think this is the crux of it for HL and a lot of the lefty feminists. Ultimately what they look like to others wins out and the need to stay in the right circles is more important than actually making a stand. I appreciate HL has done a lot but you just can’t be moderate and actually achieve anything with this issue.

They have livings to make. Cut them some slack, ffs.

And in fact, I think "moderates" like Helen Lewis do a lot of good in pushing back against extremist transactivism in a way which is reasonable and open (I think HL is both these things + funny). She puts things in ways which seem balanced and reasonable to people not immured in the trenches of this war.

We need all sorts of approaches at all sorts of levels. Not everyone can be KJK.

I really struggle when people complain about TW having their appearance mocked. Ok it’s not nice, or something I condone, but it’s something women have to deal with constantly. This ideology that these TW adhere to has led to a TW leading a rape crisis centre, rapists going to women’s prisons and to a teenage girl being anally raped in their school toilets, to name a handful of events amongst so so many awful things. But yes, it’s deeply morally wrong for a woman to say a TW wears a bit too much makeup. How nasty of her. Really that’s where we should focus our opprobrium

(btw for clarity - J K Rowling wasn't at the conference either)

She may not be as hardline as some on here would like, but she does represent the majority view, and is out there clearly and convincingly articulating it.

Lewis could have clearly and articulately and accurately summarised what Rowling was doing. And then disagreed with it and I would have no beef with her.

Maybe because I was (and Lewis wasn't) in a Scottish women's conference a few weeks before the Act came into force and I heard the discussion about what it would mean (experts were present but no-one was sure because the Hate Crimes Act is poorly written) and what to do if/when the Scottish Police came round.

Press and politicians were pressuring police to follow up every accusation thoroughly and at the same time leaving it to the police to decide what was a valid accusation and what wasn't. Even if all the cases were eventually thrown out of court it's what happens before they get there.

It's not the middle of the roadness that gets me. It's the unfairness.

Fair summary, I think

Adam Buxton is a total milquetoast, but I think that's what made this conversation very effective, and why his podcast in general works—he's an unusually feeble voice in the media landscape, and quite happy to cop to it, which makes a change from the million blowhards out there.

Helen Lewis is clear on her position, very good at summarising the debate, and was able to deftly push back against Buxton when he was being cowardly. She may not be as hardline as some on here would like, but she does represent the majority view, and is out there clearly and convincingly articulating it.

In my view, whenever there is a debate on this issue, there is far too much handwringing, be-kind-ing, being-nice-to-both-sides-ing and general wet blanketry.

It's almost comical that so many men, who tend to pride themselves on how rational they are, are almost entirely about the feelz when it comes to this issue.

We need to be hardheaded and rational. Start from first principles, namely:

1. Humans cannot change sex.
2. You cannot write a lie into law or policy without having undesirable consequences.
3. You cannot force people to go along with something they know not to be true.

And that's it, really. You don't have to say anything more than that. It doesn't matter what the lie is - it could be that the earth is flat, or 2+2=5, or personality is dictated by star sign. As soon as you write that into law, or implement it as policy, you will run into problems because 1) lies always have consequences whether you foresee them or not 2) some people will always refuse to go along with the lie, however benign or harmless you imagine it to be.

How difficult can it be?

Absolutely agree!

For so many people, displaying respect towards men wearing women’s clothing takes precedence over preventing male violence against women and girls. It’s a great indicator of where women stand in terms of importance for our society. Not even other women can be guaranteed to prioritise women’s safety.

Yes! At one point she says women face these issues too (safety on the streets) and I'm like yes! But there's many more of us and we are dying at the hands of men at the rate of 2 a week in the Uk so FFS prioritise US for a change. Is it so hard to see that this is the crux of it?

it’s like she hasn’t quite thought her thoughts all the way to the end, which is why I quibbled with the backtracking point. She never fronttracked! She is, publicly at least, exactly where she was in 2015.

I think many have always wanted to go back to the attitude popular in 2015, before self id was suggested. The idea that we should pretend that some men are women at their request and have some single sex spaces. So we have to call men 'she', be tolerant of them in toilets, but not allow them to perform intimate exams on women.

But just as in 2015, they will talk about the extremes, but not say where the line is. They wont acknowledge that including men in womens spaces exclude many women, and forcing preferred pronouns is a safeguarding risk, that this attitude has lead to rapists been counted as female by police.

I can see why someone like Buxton will be happy to talk to someone with this attitude - it suggests that TWAW for most day to day situations, and will concede that women need single sex spaces in some unspecified and rare cases that TW probably wouldn't need anyway.

Im glad that helen critises countapoints, men like Buxton need to hear that he isnt a reasonable and harmless face of transgenderism.

Buxton comes across as the wettest of all wet blankets

This. Even later when he was talking about playing his son Green Onions he sounded like the world’s biggest coward.

@EverybodyLovesString I've heard her raise issues of gender on the Private Eye podcast and be dismissed by the two male co-hosts (Ian Hislop and the other one).

Any specific ones? I glanced through the list and couldn't see any. (I think a little better of her now you've said that. 🙂)

Agree that Adam Buxton is a total wet blanket. I found his hand wringing at the start of the podcast very cringey. I've never listened to him before. Do righteous woke bros listen to his podcast? Because although I don't necessarily agree with Helen's both-siding, maybe they will listen to someone more moderate like her whereas they would outright dismiss someone 'evil' like Helen Joyce.

“it’s fine to be treated as the opposite sex except when sex matters”

In situations where sex didn't matter, what would this look like? In what way would a woman be treated like a man or vice versa?
Apart from pronouns and names, ideally society should already be doing this.

I think this is the thing I have trouble with - it's the acknowledgment that society is inherently sexist, and treats women and men differently for no reason where sex is irrelevant. And then shrugging and saying, well what I want to change is that I receive the opposite sexism.

I thought it was an interesting interview. I particularly liked that Helen said there are many women who will find it hard to move on from men dismissing their concerns - Adam sounded deeply uncomfortable at that point. I also liked that she pushed back against Adam's criticism as bitchy when she said that Contrapoints likes slathering on the makeup and lady clothes so accusing GC women for reinforcing gender stereotypes is a bit rich. He had nothing to say when she rightly said that Contrapoints had been very rude about her.

I like Helen although she is more moderate than me. I think she's wrong about public toilets, for instance, and I don't have an issue with JKR joking around on Twitter with transwoman parody account. I think her idea of a moderate compromise will never, ever be accepted by trans activists and she does a bit too much "both sides-ing".

She's very good on Blocked & Reported though (it sounded to me like Adam has listened to Blocked & Reported? I wonder if he has and that's why he was willing to have this conversation with Helen now) and I've heard her raise issues of gender on the Private Eye podcast and be dismissed by the two male co-hosts (Ian Hislop and the other one). It was good she pointed out the professional consequences she and other women have experienced. Buxton comes across as the wettest of all wet blankets but I'm pleased he chose to interview her.

Yes, yes - there was no interrogation of the concept transness at all, what it is and what it might represent. Just an acceptance that “some people are — get over it”. I thought her line saying basically “it’s fine to be treated as the opposite sex except when sex matters” was a bit weak because what does that leave you with?

it’s like she hasn’t quite thought her thoughts all the way to the end, which is why I quibbled with the backtracking point. She never fronttracked! She is, publicly at least, exactly where she was in 2015.

I would very much like to hear a conversation between her and Helen Joyce.

This is what intrigued me about the chat. They know each other and she's been on before. But Buxton knew about Blocked and Reported, and was asking questions about Cass. There must have been a reason he wanted to talk about it. And as such he can't plead ignorance like he used to anymore.

One thing it was good for was realising, by way of a real life conversation, how both of them criticised JKR's thread not exactly from a personal dislike, as much as simply not being able to even begin to comprehend why anyone would call a trans woman a man. This seemed like genuine puzzlement. I forgot how much people can tie themselves up in knots at the stage Buxton is finding himself.

I agree that she reaches a particular audience which is needed and the I think that's good. I'm allowed to find some of her comments unhelpful, just like anyone can criticise anyone else in this movement.

I agree, she's much more convincing to people who haven't been steeping in this issue for years than any of the loud hardliners are. We need the Helen Lewis types or we'll just be like the TRAs in their echo chamber.

This is pretty much my take on Helen Lewis. My opinion of her was diminished by her Blocked and Reported podcasts with Katie Herzog earlier this year when Jesse Singal was on sabbatical. She seemed quite happy to throw shade on women who are in the trenches actually getting stuff done. It came across a bit ‘pick me’ to be frank.

She is. But not by the legions of whining trans rights activists who think, despite her milquetoast approach to "trans" issues that she is the devil incarnate, second only to JK Rowling.