“Trans rights” on R4 now, Universities Challenged

Yes, it would be nice if occasionally an interviewer would draw out exactly what that means in practice. Conflating “knowing someone is presenting as female but is actually male” with “denying their existence” is such obvious hyperbole, but it gets trotted out ALL the time.

I worked hard to read the article from a neutral - not GC - point of view, and it doesn’t convince. If anything it comes over as a bit unhinged.

🤣

No one explored the notion from the TRA person that refusing to accept TWAW meant their existence was being denied.

You could equally argue back that insisting TWAW means that women’s (the cunty kind’s) existence is being denied by redefining the word that describes them and only them.

Bad, bad mummies. Stamps foot!

"Though he struggles to imagine cutting her off, Noah cannot tolerate the idea that she may have actual political power,"

It's a bugger that, living in a democracy where even your parents get to vote. Ewww!

“the starting point for any discussion of gender must include TWAW as an accepted unarguable fact.”

Hence the necessary follow up question - "on what basis do you say that?" was not asked. As for her rubbish about denying that she existed - try telling that to any oppressed group - we could take women of Afghanistan - denied an education and medical care, forced to stay inside their houses, if allowed out have to be completely covered.

Whereas this rather silly woman babbled on the national broadcaster.

Exactly, it's about as relevant to society as being a goth i.e it's not.

I won't bow to genderist ideology and I've reached the point where I don't think there's anything much to be discussed - rights are in fact pie and I don't much care if genderists don't like the ones that their sex already grants them because they're sure as shit not entitled to the rights of the opposite sex as well as their own.

While I'm not against compromising per se, there can be no squaring the circle in this case.

"Meet me in the middle says the unjust man". FTN

Jeez she reminds me of arguing with religious street nutters as a student. They could never accept i simply didn't believe in God. It was always framed like I knew God existed but was intentionally ignoring him or something.

“the starting point for any discussion of gender must include TWAW as an accepted unarguable fact.”

That is the most important point of the discussion. No wonder they want us to concede it before the discussion begins. The frustrating part is that they then refuse to discuss anything on the grounds that we won’t start from the point where the argument is already lost.

With regard to the “right to exist” nonsense, what struck me as I was reading is that I can’t stop people existing and I can’t stop them categorizing themselves in ridiculous ways. I just don’t believe that “trans” means anything concrete. When it was defined by “gender reassignment” then it meant something specific. Now it’s meaning as been widened to the point it’s meaningless. So the problem is not that I “don’t want trans people to exist”, I just don’t believe “trans” exists as a meaningful category. It should therefore be entirely irrelevant to society when people call themselves that.

It’s never going to happen on social media, though. If you want to talk policy, there needs to be more formal structure and responsibilities.

But ultimately we need to decide on policy and have some level of consensus, and on something one side is insisting is so zero-sum this is a virtually impossible. It is existential

That's what they tell each other: that GC is a cult. They call GC a cult because they've been called a cult. It's the classic "No you!" response.

What is the name of the series? Outside UK so have no access to BBC Sounds.

For Radio 4, it was quite good! Interesting range of voices: GC academics & TRAs, plus the Office of Students and WonkHE blog.

The non-binary woman trotted out the old argument of gender criticals must be silenced; it is unacceptable to debate someone's 'right to exist'.

It is very odd how often TRAs use 'vulnerability' as a weapon in their debate. They seem to believe this is a winning argument by itself. If I am very offended, you must have said something very offensive. If I am vulnerable and very easily offended, you must take greater care and limit your words. The bar for hate speech should be much lower for all words said to me and to people like me.

So for her/them, the starting point for any discussion of gender must include TWAW as an accepted unarguable fact. As that is often a key contested element of the debate, this is like asking the Accused to agree he is guilty at the outset. Then starting a trial just for show.

That reads like satire. As if GC is a cult and not the other way round

https://transsafety.network/posts/my-parents-very-clearly-do-not-love-me-children-bayswater-speak-out/

This is an example of Sasha’s journalism.

The second one made me titter. I couldn't help thinking, if you're doing something like this that will come up when people Google you, and you're presumably hoping to pick up work, wouldn't you try and make it a bit less...dull?

Well of course she does, I'd expect nothing less.

As I said, laundering your privilege and weaponising your supposed "oppression" - oppression that you have self declared and is based on precisely nothing except your own solipsism.

There are not enough eyerolls in the world for this nonsense.

Some Q&As from that link...

What was your first job as a journalist?
My current job - Writer/Researcher at Which?

Did you work for your high school newspaper? If so, what did you do there?
I did, briefly, but the teacher who ran it left.

Aside from your own, what's your favorite publication to read?
The Guardian

Sasha Baker is journalist who investigates 'the anti trans movement' amongst other stuff.
muckrack.com/sasha-baker-1/interview

I caught this in the car earlier and did some serious eye rolling at the "NB" woman. She seemed to be suggesting it was particularly difficult to be disagreed with by lectureres because of the "power imbalance". But hasnt that always been the case? You go to university to hear from people with more qualifications and experience than you?

I agree, we should be aiming for discussion. A huge part of the problem is people needing to FIGHT and WIN by making people accept their point of view.

If we aim for a discussion, we can accept we’re not going to see eye to eye on everything, and we’re creating space to understand why different people can hold (completely valid!) opposing positions.

@user9637 Im starting to wonder if debate is actually the right word. Does it imply ‘packaging up the best arguments so they have the most impact’? Is there any listening involved, other than listening out for points to be challenged?
Maybe what we’re after is discussion.

The girl who was NB used very emotive language as seems to be the case generally and unfortunately for them makes their argument fall at the first hurdle. I don't deny they face intimidation, but when they say that being trans is arguing for their existence then it makes you doubt that they face as much intimidation as they claim. No one wants trans people to not exist we just don't believe as they do that they've changed sex. I'm happy for anyone to live as they please but I don't want females safety and rights to be compromised. That doesn't mean that I hate trans people but that's was her classification.
I thought the 47 day long protest for Palestine was rather excessive and can see why Jewish students would have been intimidated.
The girl who was part of that protest made the best point though - that she learned more from being a part of that than she did from her lectures.