Channel 4's Genderquake Debate is heavily criticised/ boycotted(?) by prominent transgender activists & allies .

[R0wantrees]

Transgender campaigners and organisations have released an open letter to Channel 4 criticising Genderquake, a season of programmes touted as an exploration of the gender debate, as "counterproductive".
Signees are particularly concerned about Genderquake: The Debate, a studio discussion hosted by Cathy Newman that promises to look at what gender means in 2018. It will discuss topics including: 'what defines our gender identity', 'how that affects our rights', 'should it be easier to change gender' and 'does gender matter'.

The letter, published by indy100 in full below, argues that the debate will give legitimacy to transphobia, prejudice and the notion that trans identities are up for discussion. This concern is presumably stoked by the presence of Australian-born academic and writer Germaine Greer on the panel, who has previously said transgender women "can't be women". continues...

"The letter is published in full below and has been signed by dozens of prominent transgender and non-binary activists and campaigners - and allies - alike, including Fox Fisher, Owl, Stephanie Hirst, Juno Roche, Travis Alabanza, Kate Llewellyn, Jack Monroe and India Willoughby."

www.indy100.com/article/genderquake-the-debate-transphobia-channel-4-open-letter-campaigners-germaine-greer-8341481

If this is the best feminist can come up with then maybe we ought to lose everything and get back into the kitchen bare foot and pregnant. It was a debacle from start to finish, did you really expect CN to be on side? Perhaps some lessons could have been learned from Jordan Peterson who wiped the floor with her about similar issues

I see Twitter has led with a very biased interpretation of events. ('Genderquake debate disappoints some viewers after panellists were heckled'). So despite the facts that C4 had five genderists against two feminists, and an extremely biased presenter who gave most of the talking time to the two transwomen, the feminists are being represented as the baddies.

Somebody posted earlier about Cathy Newman being groomed by transadvocates, back in 2013. Really good point. That sort of advocacy has a lot of traction, even over so many years, if your ability to think straight isn't very well developed. She sees herself (as does Channel 4) as a campaigning journalist, when really she's just a campaigner.

Cathy was awful. What sort of real debate allows an utterly biased presenter? Woke up still fuming! Watched the show with my DH who cursed at the screen as much as I did. What a farce. Surely any reasonable person watching could understand the complete lack of respect GG and SP received?

You could see through CN very early on. She gave CJ as much time as they wanted to waffle on abut thenselves whilst GG was cut off every single time and not allowed to finish her point.
And the vicious way she attacked GG, was just dreadful. Why didn’t she question Munroe in the same away, about her constant “Terf” slurs and nonsense about not centering our reproductive systems?

It was a joke of a debate.

I couldn't sleep last night after watching it. I lay awake worrying that we're all fucked.

I watched with my 72 year old Mum who is new to this whole thing. She was peaktraned within 5 minutes and utterly shocked by what is going on, especially the fact 12 year olds are being medicalised.

It's only C4. Kiddie TV for the youth and trendies.

I thought a bit of research would have helped TBH.

There are recorded cases of sex offenders transitioning in name only and having access to womens prisons for example - not being able to pull them out of the hat was disappointing.

The whole toilets thing annoys me, it's misdirection & Sarah just ended up sounding weak when she was trying to justify her point of view.

And as for Sarkar - what is she, 12? All those smug little waves & wobbles....

DNAnotGRA - Jordan Petersen also wiped the floor with Kathy Newman when she interviewed him.

I was posting a bit last night when it was on, very unimpressed by the whole thing, now I can see from the distance of a few hours what a total car crash it was. It was the CJ show, who was treated as a matriarch, MB was the sulky elder daughter who threatened with her every move to stomp out, GG was a bit dotty grandma - very unfairly with her intellect - and the rest were the younger kids. Just dreadful TV. All those issues they could have look at and they focused on CJ's rambling, irrelevant stories & toilets.

I only watch 'Gogglebox' on C4, nothing here changed my mind.

I don't think it's done any damage. Being kicked around makes British people like you more.

I come from the same perspective and experience as Saltcrust.

Watching the second half of Genderquake in tne House, I actually found it illuminating and heartening how mostly they young people were open and related as individuals. Showed their vulnerabilities and were honest about their insecurities and prejudices. Really moving when Brooke went back to her old school.

And surely that’s how this ‘debate’ should be. Testing people as individuals. The studio debate was just an embarrassing parade of soapboxing. The different treatment of Greer and Jenner by Newman was shocking. Greer was bullied, treated as the pariah from the outset, shouted down. And she did actually listen to others. Disgraceful.

The trans man could have been grilled a lot more. It’s one thing saying he still get cramps, this was where Germaine Greer’s opening points about a difference between sex and gender are surely relevant? He gets cramps because his biology is female. Not yelling ‘men have periods’. This is what makes it complex: the difference between sex and gender, and the patriarchal / feminist context. NEITHER of these things were allowed to be spoken of.

The house episode made me MORE open about the trans issue and LESS prejudiced about trans people, the studio debate made me exasperated and disgusted with the very people claiming the right to speak and everyone else should shut up, be removed etc.

And just to say.... hair twiddling! Stop fiddling with your fucking hair, girls! It was CONSTANT. Smoothiinh it out, swishing it out sideways, stop it!

My DH refused to watch it, as, I suspect, did the vast majority of the UK.

I need @Datun to come on and tell us it'll all be OK. (bottom lip wobbles)

Hair flicking

Lady Justice's tweet:

Did you watch #GenderQuakeDebate and want to stick pins in your eyes? Fancy having a rational, respectful debate where women and trans women can speak about all this crucial stuff without being interrupted?
Check out @WomansPlaceUK.

These 'debates' never work out - the one Pilgrim valiantly did on VD was a case of a larger number of celebrity transwomen saying that they were nice and people wanted to erase them, and Pilgrim trying to mention that women are losing rights and who is saying anything about erasing? Same here. Then everyone looks on

My DH refused to watch it, as, I suspect, did the vast majority of the UK.

Why did he refuse to watch it? Because He doesn’t take the erasure of women’s rights seriously or because he didn’t want to see a biased debate?

Still just as annoyed this morning. One positive is I hadn’t connected why I hate Mrs Browns Boys so much, and now I realise it’s because parodying women is gross.

The toilet section was ridiculous, when issues of how to record sex in medical trials, crimes etc are core to the debate and totally ignored. Just one more gender critical participant would have been great. GG’s face at the end when she realised she’d been set up was

Sarah Ditum and Dr Nic did incredibly well on Derbyshire. Pilgrim was shafted. But as there's no argument to the other side, when feminists get a voice, it doesn't have to be a disaster at all. It can be fair and positive.

My favourite bit was when Bergdorf said that what GG thought had no impact on MB whatsoever and someone in the crowd yelled out (something to the effect) that trans ideology does have an impact on women though.

I spent a lot of it wishing I could hear the audience better tbh. Watching two men - one who has killed a woman without any consequences and another who insists women are bigots if they talk about their bodies - demanding respect while they shout down women and wear womanface (and sit on inside out penises which they call vaginas ffs) was unbearable.

Why did he refuse to watch it? Because He doesn’t take the erasure of women’s rights seriously or because he didn’t want to see a biased debate?

He refuses to watch all reality/celeb TV, and the whole Genderquake concept had him rolling his eyes even more than usual when he saw the trailer.

Like the majority of men in the UK, I suspect.

I really wish just once on these things someone would stand up and actually speak out loud how gross and disrespectful and woman hating it is to insist that gouging out a hole in a man makes him a woman. Germaine comes close to it but is too amused by the absurdity to get across how offensive it actually is.

Like the majority of men in the UK, I suspect.

The Genderquake thread on Pistonheads got 3 comments.....

Looking at twitter, there seem to be two parallel discussions about this programme.

Some are objecting to the programme because apparently it questioned whether transgender people exist #no debate, but how is it possible to argue whether Munroe Bergdorf exists?

The issue is the re-definition if women.

Why is it so difficult to understand that difference?

I didn't watch it. I couldn't bring myself to, seeing who was on it and knowing how vicious the TRA are I could see how stifled and suppressed it would be, I refuse to acknowledge a group of loud mouthed men shouting down miniscule opposition as debate.

The irony is they're right in that there should be no debate, women's rights should not be up for debate or dismantling. The feelings of men should not trump the legal rights of women but here we are.

Jordan Petersen also wiped the floor with Kathy Newman when she interviewed him.

As did Zizek. She's really not very good.