It speak volumes there were no actual men on the panel . It's not a men's issue is it?
Brendan O’Neill gave a speech at Oxford this week, as recorded on Spiked:
(extract)
"Say the unsayable
This week, to the horror of student campaigners, Brendan O’Neill was invited to speak at a dinner at The Queen’s College, Oxford. This is what he said.
It is my sincerely held belief that a man can never become a woman. That no matter how many hormones he takes, or operations he has, or fabulous outfits he buys, a person who was born male can never become female.
I accept a man can be a trans-woman. I accept the right of every man to claim to be a woman. And to change his name to a woman’s name, if he likes. And these trans-women should of course enjoy the same rights as every other citizen: the right to vote, the right to free speech, the right to work. But to my mind, they are not women. The slogan ‘Trans women are women’ is a lie. This is my sincerely held belief.
Recently, however, this belief has become virtually unutterable in respectable society. It has become tantamount to heresy. To deny that men can become women is the modern equivalent of denying that a wafer of bread and a cup of wine became the flesh and blood of Christ during Mass. If you deny the magic of transgenderism, you will be subjected to a similar wild-eyed fury that was once visited upon those who denied the magic of transubstantiation...
...Witness how feminists who question the magic of transgenderism are hounded off campuses and blacklisted by the NUS. These feminists are referred to by the most awful names online: bitches, cunts, whores. Or TERFs. TERF, meaning trans-exclusionary radical feminist, has become the most common insult hurled at these blasphemous women. TERFs are blacklisted by student officials, most recently at Bristol University. They have been physically prevented by trans activists from holding public meetings. They have been violently attacked: last year trans activists assaulted a 60-year-old grandmother, or TERF, to give her the dehumanising name they gave her as they punched her in the face...." continues here
www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/a-manifesto-for-heresy/21379#.WvTEfIgvw2z
Current discussion about this speech & : www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3245540-The-slogan-Trans-women-are-women-is-a-lie-This-is-my-sincerely-held-belief