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

Isn't there a negative missing from para 2?

My edit:

If I call a trans-identifying man - Robin Moira White, say - a woman, it's harder [for anyone] to say why he should NOT stay the hell out of women's spaces.

Someone showed me a group name game the other day.

You say your own name, but point to the next person at the same time. Then they say their name, and point to another person.......

I failed 😆

We'll know when the BBC is no longer captured by this nonsense when they stop issuing apologies for presenters calling a man a man.

It really is the Stroop test.

It takes up too much brain energy to constantly use the wrong sex pronoun for someone, especially when you are concentrating hard on what is being said in a conversation and replying to it

If you are not being supported by the other person in the conversation to do this, it falls apart.

See also rubbing your tummy and patting your head.

I think it becomes very apparent with the pushback lately when someone has used correct sex pronouns (whether intentional or not) that it really is an act of coercion. It is remarkable that those demanding that someone's chosen language is used don't see this and understand that it really is the very opposite of kind, inclusive and respectful.

That’s why it’s such a power trip.

My problem with the pronoun massacre is that it breaks a social convention that's been in place for centuries.

Nobody in this busy modern world has enough headspace to continuously break a natural social convention. It's not fair to expect anyone to do this.

I think I draw a distinction between the obviously made-up "ve/ver" or "xe/xem", which I find ridiculous but faintly amusing, and the obvious lies to which I object: "she/her" for a man, "he/him" for a woman or "they/them" for a single individual. There are contexts in which the plural "they" or "them" has been used historically to mean one person, as in "if some git want my waistcoat they can go whistle" or "if anyone takes a short-cut through my rose-bed tell them to walk round!", but as the pronoun for an otherwise named individual, say "Jenny", it's simply not true she is "they".

In any case, when an LGBTQIXYZ supporting website writes "Unfortunately, we can’t provide an exhaustive list of all pronouns, as people come up with new pronouns all the time." they are explaining why this stupidity is a damn nuisance.

I think Nuala's slip showed exactly why preferred pronoun use is insisted on. Nuala quite clearly lost track of her mental controls because Helen was using he/him all the time, Nuala was closely attending to what Helen was saying, and was then influenced by what was happening around her. Not rocket science. I still find it very hard to imagine using sex-based pronouns if someone I am talking to has made it clear they would prefer others.

It's a swerve from the thread topic, but I've in fact been accused of precisely this: of pretending I'm not actually married, because there's no point in being married in the first place if you don't relinquish your identity into the bargain. This sort of attitude wasn't a one-off.

I'd have kept my own name irrespective of my publishing history, but I have no wish to hide the fact that I'm married. We both wear wedding rings. I know this is a different thing from intentionally LARPing as something you are not. But it irks me just the same that such different standards are consistently expected of women than men. Women are frequently expected to justify our name choices (this has been my experience at least), or have faced the suggestion that we're somehow lacking as women if we want to retain our individual identifies. Yet it's simply demanded that we respect men's name changes and the thorny issue of pronouns without question.

This really is a personal bugbear of mine.

But people who publish something under one name professionally are not pretending to be something they are not!

Since this last month, with all the hysterics from the transactivists, I now find I am a lot less sympathetic than I would have been.

Totally understandable, loads of my academic colleagues kept their names on marriage as their publication records were in that name.

I think Robin was always Robin, and added the Moira. Keeping a professional name is understandable.

I wonder why 'Robin' has chosen a name which is as likely to be male in the UK as female? Women tend to spell their name as Robyn in the UK.

I don’t think it would go particularly well as many TRAs and their supporters have always claimed that “no one has been prosecuted just for misgendering.”

Helen has a belief that Robin is a male and can never be female.

If Robin wants to suggest it's harassment and wants a legal case, then it'd be interesting to test the pronouns theory in court under freedom of speech.

So crack on I say.

Nuala apologised for misgendering him at the end of the show though so it would be difficult to make an issue of it I think

Daft mare.

Her self hatred is bloody awful.

TRAs keep banging on that misgendering is a crime but it's not. Just because TRAs think people can change sex doesn't mean the rest of us can be coerced into pandering to their delusion. Referring to RMW as a male is simply a neutral fact. The fact that he doesn't like to be reminded of this fact is neither here nor there.

@EweSurname Nuala referred to Robin as a he, did Whittle mention that?

Just listened to Amnesty interview, it was so cringily bad I listened to most of it on 2x speed, I slowed it down at the end.

Stephen whittle has got a long twitter thread about how misgendering is unlawful harassment, and she answers a question some else poses about Helen

That was also my plan, listen to them speeded up.

Maybe BBC Verify should get on the case?