Rational debate

[KatVonGulag]

Thank you bbc for a balanced piece here
www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-45894686/gender-debate-two-feminists-say-they-feel-silenced

And well done to both people in the clip.

Blimey they're brave. Much braver than most of our MPs. Amazing how young people CAN get it.

I know right Charlie!

I'm so glad they had a hug too. Arrghhh. I'm a softy.
I just want a positive way forward for all to come out of this shit show.

About to post but noticed you had! Could you alter the title to include bbc?

Half way through due to babies and kids!

Who is the rad fem? I know the other is someone who chatted to Venice Allan.

Interesting they invited self identified trans people on but all declined.

Lol at stonewall's no debate!

No, I don't agree that was a good piece. I don't know if they were edited or weren't allowed to say certain things, but they missed out the two most important points.

• This is a badly-designed proposal involving hundreds of thousands under a new definition nobody understands, predicated on already bad law aimed at a handful of people defined by the common understanding of "post-op transexual". The logical end point of self-id thus renders the EA useless and conflicts with the protected characteristics of both sex and religion.

• As ever, the elephant in the room that is male violence was glossed over. If there were no such thing as male violence the need for women-only spaces would be nowhere near as necessary. We cannot tackle this topic without talking about it.

You can't kumbyah and have "balanced discussion" if those things aren't acknowledged.

As a discussion, it was clearly lacking on substance, it was also too short for meaningful dialogue.
As a demonstration that dialogue is possible if the TRA/AWA crazies and stonewall don‘t shout everyone down, it was very useful. It delegitimized the ‚no debate‘ nutters.

That's the thing, it's not a neutral situation of one person's word against another. There are facts and evidence. For example all that violence from trans people on terf is a slur. Those people who said those things haven't gone away. Maybe they got banned from social media or whatever but they are still around. They are real people with violent woman hating fantasies and they want into our vulnerable spaces.

It was like an introduction, before talking about the actual facts! The one thing I took away from it was that Stonewall wouldn't engage.

Charlie I agree that the massive abuse dished out by TRAs and targeting women changed the debate and our understanding of what women need to feel safe in our spaces.

Of course it didn't go into depth.

However in the first minute the rad fem got in "what is a woman?" - this question alone has been repeatedly evaded and apparently isn't up for debate by stonewall.

We need to fill in the gaps on twitter.

it's a good start, far far far too late of course. We've had far too many gender feelz previously.

There was so much fannying around with the camera and music and titles being edgy that it ate up a lot of time.

I noticed when watching this how my own attitude has hardened - a year ago I would have accepted the transwoman's claims about how tw have always stood with women, now my visceral reaction was "who fucking asked you to?". That wasn't a reaction I could control, it was a result of what I've seen in the intervening year, since I became interested in what was happening. I'm no longer prepared to give ground, or accept that we have mutual concerns with trans people.

...when that video ended it went on to one with Linda Bellos, and I think it was in that video a young trans person spoke about being asked to use the disabled toilets in school and eventually saying "sod that" and using the female toilets, "and nobody objected". Again, a year ago I'd have taken that at face value, now I think cynically 'of course they didn't, they'd be considered mean and transphobic if they did, no matter how embarrassed they might be'.

There was so much fannying around with the camera and music and titles being edgy that it ate up a lot of time.

Sadly this has to be to get it seen as mainstream acceptable thought.

The thought that a woman might question and disagree with a trans identity.

I may be cynical, but the fact the BBC has aired this and the Guardian op ed piece make me think that now that they have realized women are no pushovers and won‘t budge an inch when threatened ( on the contrary), their new strategy is: ‚but if we ask politely, pretty please?‘

(Still happy this aired and no offense to the transperson in the clip, who is caught between a rock and a hard place now, after the shitshow the TRAs rained down on us all).

I thought it was a start but still couched in BBC’s terms. The captions that pop up in the video said something like ‘the law recognised trans people exist in 2004’

I don’t get the ‘existence’ issue. Gender non Confirming people have existed since gender norms have existed.. what does the law have to do with existence or non existence?

Had what we’ve seen over the last 48 hours happened 12 months ago things could have been very different.

The following video stated that 8 out of 10 trans youngsters had self-harmed - irresponsible and negligent to use those now refuted Stonewall ‘statistics’.

I don’t get the ‘existence’ issue. Gender non Confirming people have existed since gender norms have existed.. what does the law have to do with existence or non existence?

I don't get it either. The best explanation is probably, again, looking at the accusation (of a narcisstic media class in this case) as an admission. By implicitly accusing us to deny the existence of trans people, they actually admit that they are denying the existence of women as a biological reality.

Those stats are refuted, nicknames?

Is that Michael bigg's work?

I felt as though the transwoman saying they has been 'silenced' was a bit much, seeing as they're voice is being heared through the megaphone of the AWA.
I thought the radical feminist should have said more about other feminists being threatened with violence and rape threats and actually experiencing violence for their opinion, which is why fewer speak out. TW have never been subject to that level of male violence.

The text blurb under the video completely glosses over the issue too.

Too wishy washy.

It's on bbc2 now. Victoria Derbyshire programme. Can send in comments. They've got three trans people on.

^ had and their!