Helen Joyce finally makes it to Women's Hour today from 10am

I am not saying this to be cruel or nasty and if it comes across that way I apologise in advance ….but who ever said life was never meant to be hard or difficult. People make decisions and we have to deal with the consequences of those decisions.

It is not Helen’s responsibility to continually address and acknowledge the emotions of trans identifying people. She never gets invited onto the BBC so why should she have to waste valuable interview time taking away from her opportunity to speak out and about the points she wants to make.

Helen made the very important point about why she doesn’t use the language of TRAs. If we adopt their language we end up in the ridiculous situation of having to justify excluding some women from women’s spaces. The point is stronger when we are talking about excluding ALL men irrespective of how they feel about themselves.

Well said. Years ago when I spent a good deal of time on Twitter, there was a trans-identified male who was not unlike Miranda, in that he was absolutely clear that he knew he was male and therefore needed to use the male loos. He was British, noticeably short and slight in build and he used to post pictures of himself in that day's outfit (ordinary casual clothes, short hair, bit of make up) and stress that he had almost never had problems from other men, including when using the gents'. I believe he was banned from Twitter in the end. It wouldn't have suited the TRAs' agenda at all to have him there making these points.

This is a trick that is tried again and again in all kinds of contexts. That if your safeguarding measure doesn't work perfectly in 100% of all contexts, and that there might be the occasional unintended outcome, even if it's trivial, then this justifies abandoning safeguarding.

An example would be that because seatbelts do not automatically guarantee survival in all crashes, then they should be done away with.

It's such a common fallacy it even has a name, The Nirvana/Perfect Solution fallacy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy

I appreciate that lots will have switched off before the “gender index” pair had a lengthy slot, without being asked about why they were mentioning gender disparities, not sex. The Aussie lady is Julia Gilliard (Australia’s first female Prime Minister). Under Gillard’s government, the definition of “woman” was removed from the sex discrimination act.

I would have thought that her background was quite important for listeners to be made aware of (but perhaps I was crashing around the house too loudly to catch it).

Yes! That's exactly how it comes across to me!

"How dare you say no to me"

<shudder>

Great 😊

I heard it live (as I did Mondays interview) because of GCSE collection times. I'd never heard RMW or Helen Joyce actually speak before, although obviously I knew who both of them are and I've read about them.

I thought RMW made a few good points about Trans people still need to be treated with dignity which I agree with because everyone needs to be treated with dignity. Obviously all the guff about little boys in toilets and Cable street wasn't his finest moment 😂and the stuff about single sex places for women who don't want to share spaces with TW was just bizarre. For a barrister I didn't think he came across very well.

Helen meanwhile was amazing. She was clear, polite and eloquent. All her points made sense and were well thought out and sensible. I found her inspirational and I don't often say that about people. Thank you Helen Joyce and Sex Matters.

I've always been cheering on from the side lines because I'm self employed in a 'be kind' area. Making a donation here and there, filling in anonymous questionnaires with my opinions of sex and gender, reminding my family about exactly why sex matters etc.

However, after hearing Helen speak on WH I've decided to set up a monthly DD to Sex Matters. After all their very public work to protect sex based rights I feel it's the least I can do to help 😊

I think it's not going to be that difficult, to be honest, Miranda Yardley - transsexual - has made this adjustment well ahead of this clarification of the law.
Several other transsexuals / transwomen do already refrain from invading women's spaces because they have empathy for women. And they don't have any problems using the mens or unisex spaces.

I think framing this as 'difficult' is part of the problem. It's just not. It's not. We need to stop telling trans people that everyone hates them and framing quite easy things as terrible and akin to 'hate'. It's actually not very good for them, ultimately, it's not treating them as equal adults who can cope with the normal experiences of not always getting their own way in life.

Smaller establishments are far more likely these days to have unisex individual toilets. I think the number of cases where transwomen will have to use the mens will be tiny, and even if they did have to, it wouldn't be a big problem as people like Miranda Yardley and others demonstrate.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002c35m
9.39 start

All the "for our audience" from the presenter is mindblowingly stupid you know.
WE ALL KNEW.

Exactly this. As a dig at RMW, arguably not fair.

As a counter to RBW's ridiculous assertion that female silence in an enclosed space betokens consent - absofuckinglootly relevant.

Also, our Robin doesn't get challenged in the loos at his place of work because he is the women's employer. A bit of a power differential there, one would have thought...

I would love it if interviewers asked Stonewall & others if they are going to apologise for their lies.

Obviously it’s not going to happen.

Yes , big workplaces won't be much of a problem. Smaller places , and especially things like pubs , smaller clubs , restaurants Don't always, it depends, really how big they are.How old they are etc. It's not a strawman argument, because I'm not really making an argument.I'm just saying that in some situations for some people, this is going to make a difference to their lives.I also believe that is necessary and that they will have to make the necessary adjustments.Just that for some people is not going to be easy , that's all.

I agree. If someone is tall and imposing it's not an insult to point it out and in this situation because it's highly relevant. Robin doesn't get challenged because of his height and stature.

Full clip on Sex Matters X account

https://x.com/SexMattersOrg/status/1922591695897583833

He is. I've encountered him in RL and even though I'm a tall, too-well-built older woman who used to do boxing training, I would think twice and thrice before telling him to leave the women's loos.

Agreed, I thought it was a perfectly sensible remark. Helen was crystal clear that she refers to all males as he/him and that she doesn't share the belief in gendered souls, so what a male identifies as is irrelevant to her. In that context, and having clarified that it is and always has been permitted by the Equality Act to make some spaces and services single-sex, she was saying that the only reason RMW and other trans-identified males have got away with intruding there is because of the very reason the single-sex exemption is needed in the first place - because women have to be extremely wary of male violence and aggression. This has given some men carte blanche to ignore women's boundaries and breach their privacy, and because they are utterly self-obsessed with all the empathy of a gnat (at best, we know that some of them are doing this very deliberately and enjoying it) they have ignored all the signs that they are making women uncomfortable and unsafe and that some women as a consequence will be quietly withdrawing from public life.

What's that phrase about never interrupting your enemy when he's making a mistake? If the greatest legal minds transactivism have to offer are arguing that because little boys go into changing rooms and toilets with their mothers to keep them safe, middle aged trans identifying men must be allowed in there beside them, the whole country will peak.
Crack on I say.

I wrote this on another thread but when will journalists start asking men why women should be responsible for their feelings of safety when it is me who make them feel unsafe, why their need to be welcomed into women's spaces is more important than the need of women to have single sex spaces and words that define their sex category...

I’ve only read up to p.7 so far, so apologies if it has been mentioned - there are lots of comments under the P.Diddy tweet on bbc woman’s hour on X, referencing the HJ interview. No tweet at all on the HJ interview, shock horror.

@TheaBrandt1 Agreed!

This is how I viewed it too.

The interviewer, whichever side she's on, or neither, gave Helen Joyce a platform to put forward her views in a very clear way and one which provided a considerable contrast for the listener between those, and those of RMW. The interviewer bowled ball after ball, all of which Joyce was able to knock out the park. I'd say that RMW took a bit of a hammering over the two sessions when they're considered together.

The other thing is that by challenging Joyce, this means that Nuala would be able to challenge all of the genderist contributors. Although, unfortunately, if the Friday programme has the usual presenter on, Anita Rani, then expect that that'll be a session of her gently holding the hands of Amnesty International while speaking softly about how sad it all is for the lovely transwomen.

Every time you say you won't use preferred pronouns, a transwoman dies, as J. M. Barrie nearly said. This kind of literal violence is probably how they arrive at the murder stats the activists like to cite for the Transgender Day/Week/ Month/Millennium of Remembrance, the kind that persuaded local councils up and down the last to down tools and stand around the progress flag at halfmast in a type of ceremony they otherwise keep for Remembrance Sunday and the aftermath of a real tragedy.

I wish Helen Joyce had time to run the country. She is so brilliant that perhaps she could do it in her spare time.

Monday was Robin Moira White
Wednesday. Helen Joyce
next people are on Friday and Monday

Hadley Freeman and Sonia Sodha have shared the interview on their X feeds. Just listened to Helen's interview - oh she's good. A great listen 👍

It normally takes a few hours to be available. I will reserve judgement as to why....