Helen Webberley v Robbie Starbuck . . . WOW!! 😂

Yes, I feel exactly the same.
I'd never heard of this guy before I watched the interview. I watched it with zero bias.
I thought his questions and interview manner were spot on for the majority of the interview. He gets right to the heart of the questions very quickly and gives her lots of time to speak. He is very clear in what he's asking, and he carefully reframes several questions to help her understand (!)
He brings his own opinions to the forefront only towards the end of the interview.
I'm sure he and I would disagree on many things, but that's what grown-ups do.

Similarly, I cannot stand Piers Morgan but I've seen him do some belting interviews!

I think that's part of it, and she's definitely not alone in that way of thinking.

I think another part is her privilege. She makes all the right noises (literally) about showing care and consideration to sexual assault victims, but I doubt has ever experienced anything close. Her attitudes of 'just don't look', or 'if you don't like it, move' expose that she's never properly thought about any of it at any level other than #BeKind. I can't remember which interview it was but there was also a rather odd comment made when the trans racial/black analogy was put to her. It came across to me as a sort of "those cultures" type of comment, where nice white people won't/don't have that.

"How do you know which puberty somebody will experience?"

"Why does it matter which puberty they experience if sex means nothing?"

Like many self declared compassionate left wingers...

She might think of herself as left wing, but her business enterprises suggest otherwise.

I'd bet my house that HW is a lefty who thinks right wing people are mean.

She'll justify supporting every left wing position with the same argument she uses here: they're people be nice, without any ability to recognise the other side is raising some reasonable rational points on a complex issue.

Only if you're not right wing or think it's a bad thing for people to have different political views.

Thank fuck for the right wing commentators who've pushed back on this I say.

As well as all the left women who led the charge.

But then I think it's essential for democracy that there are different views, they get heard and people who think differently aren't necessarily bad.

Grow up.

How so? If something is good for a business then they will do it. If a dei initiative brought tonnes of actual business benefits on the bottom line, then nobody would be cancelling their dei initiatives.

Hiring someone because they tick a box on a diversity scheme to get the DEI person invited to buy a table on a champagne fuelled 'diversity awards night' is bad for them and for the business and for those from that 'ticked box' that come after that might actually be good at their jobs.

What IS a good idea is to increase the amount of people with access to the ability to train properly prior to getting the job. So initiatives that widen participation in a broader range of activities where people are given opportunities to improve on their skills and experience in order to do whatever jobs they do well, is find. I don't think Robbie is in any way against that, so maybe do some research on what the issue is before calling someone 'right wing' just because they oppose box ticking in business.

The ‘viciousness and hate’ comes from only one side… and it’s the side that hates women and uses a variety of means to control and dominate us. But yes, Weberly comes across as unhinged and keeps trying to bring in the "are you denying trans exist" tangent. She feels on safer ground there.

When she says a lion is an animal isn’t she being furryphobic?

She does use descriptive language: people who have testicle/ ovaries etc. Even she can't pretend there aren't body types.

Reveal her language insanity through questioning, then use her descriptive language to reveal the absurdity of it's application.

Her absurd arguments are obscured because it's not clear who she is talking about.

Every TRA interviewed should be asked what word do you use to describe the 50% of the population who have the types of bodies with the potential to gestate?

Reject it as dehumanising, offensive and in opposition to how humans use language throughout time.

But then use her language in presenting scenarios to reveal the absurdity of the arguments it obscures.

It avoids the opportunity for her to say but they are women and swing back round to feelings and being nice.

What DEI initiatives do you support?

I am increasingly coming to the view that DEqualityI can in theory be wonderful, but only in theory. In theory positive action can be great, ensuring, for example, that people from lesser universities are positively encouraged to apply for good graduate jobs, as opposed to only advertising those good jobs at red brick unis. In theory it helps ensure we get the best - the really talented woman who only got BCC in her A levels due to her chaotic home life and dreadful school, but showed herself to be capable of an Oxbridge place based on her performance at her lesser uni.

In practice I think that the risks of DEqualityI slipping into DEquityI and anti-white, anti-men, anti-meritocracy ideas slipping in is too great, and that as a result we cannot have any type of DEI. Mainly because we need the best people to get the job, and it is incredibly cruel to force women and black people to go through their working lives being seen as the diversity hire who only got the job based on characteristics, not competence (which with DEquityI may be true).

As someone on the centre left I have no real interest in Robby or his wider set of opinions. All I care about is that he conducted an interview, where he appeared utterly reasonable throughout, and utterly destroyed a deeply weird and disturbing and dangerous woman who is pushing the most insane and cruel agenda.

He’s against all dei initiatives which is somewhat throwing the baby out with the bathwater…

Absolutely, and completely unconnected to Webberly I believe that Harrop has also moved to the other side of the pond, into Canada. So we can be assured that there be gold in them hills...

a - what is right wing these days exactly?
b - why not just watch it and post your opinions on the actual thing being discussed?

Honestly, we are all right wing if we don't want kids sterilised apparently so this 'ew they are right wing apparently' is just so fucking boring.

It's disrespectful to call a woman - nay a female - a "penis-haver" just because she has a penis.

The only way incoherent TQ+ ideology makes sense is by using words to mean the opposite of what they have always meant

I think in these discussions longer needs to be spent on language otherwise the discussion just becomes circular.

Does she agree there are 2 reproductive types of bodies which can be observed in 99% of cases?
What words does she use to refer to these types of bodies?

Does women refer to gender or sex?

Does she think sex is ever relevant in segregating people or meeting people's needs?

Expose her undermining of the ability to talk about sex.

Then even use her language to make it clear how absurd it is:

So people with penises who've raped people with vaginas and are bigger and stronger than 95% of the vagina people, should be locked up with people with vaginas?

Make it clear this becomes the only way to speak to describe what she's saying because she has obscured the language to talk about men and women.

Not renewing her licence means that she can no longer issue tick box prescriptions to sell drugs on line, but presumably she had already had to change her business model during the period she was suspended.

From her point of view, better to let her registration lapse than to be struck off.

I think whether or not she is breaking the law depends on what services she provides and where they are carried out. I don't think the GMC would get involved in what she does outside the UK.

I still don't really understand why she wasn't permanently struck off for acting outside her area of competence. Maybe the technicalities meant that her husband took the hit?

Which is a shame

He’s very right wing apparently

Yes but it is a criminal offence to hold yourself out as being licensed to practice when you aren't. Calling yourself a doctor in conjunction with offering medical services, albeit through an organisation that you run, is sailing very close to the wind in my view. Much of it will depend on how the public that use your services see you. It would be interesting to see how the GMC looked on it.

A doctor who has neither the paperwork to practice, nor the evidence of being up to date with medical and ethical CPD in order to prove competence in 2025.

No, neither practising nor licencing is relevant.

You are a medical doctor if you have a medical degree.

If you want to practice in a particular jurisdiction you need a licence to do so. Most doctors give theirs up when they retire, it's expensive, but they are still doctors.

How is it adolescent if it ends around 32? Surely that means that is what an adult brain looks like.