Women's Hour features interviews with Professor Alex Sharpe and Professor Rosa Freedman as part of 'Sex & Gender' series **Thread title edited at OP's request**

[kesstrel]

The topic is "The law on sex and gender".

Thank you Pencils! Thank you Rosa!

Thank you bowl . In my case it was a father and a sibling. Watching my DF using just a specific look. a shift in posture, and as he got older just a face change (not so much older that he couldn't hit he, or me) has made me observe this stuff too.

You are smarter than I am to have known this without this experience - honestly. as I spent 8 years with another one. OK now. You can be.

Are we supposed to be ashamed that the UK is somehow less progressive than Pakistan?

Kathleen Stock addressed Pakistan (and the other countries with self-ID) in this link upthread:

twitter.com/LucyHunterB/status/1067057790210985984

Cross it's not a case of being "smarter" - it's a case of whether you've had the sheer good luck to be brought up in a setting which fostered your development of good boundaries, or brought up in an environment which didn't. No-one gets to choose that for themselves, it's just luck of the draw.

I find this a really helpful article:
www.psychotherapy.com.au/fileadmin/site_files/pdfs/SharkCage.pdf

Fascinating stuff. Great to hear Rosa and Jane. And, in a way, great to hear Alex.

Alex's recent tweet telling a woman try to pay attention (Which deserves of its own!)

Alex, I did try to pay attention during your interview:-

"There's a massive data set and yet there's no harm."

"I mean, just think about it, with the exception of the few cases that have been reported in prisons, there are hardly - hardly any cases - there are either no cases or they're exceptionally rare, and if that wasn't true, if there were cases out there, we would know about it."

"So let's not kid ourselves that there are some hideous cases lurking out there. Gender critical feminists spend their lives trawling the internet trying to find these cases.They're manna from heaven, Jane, when they do arrive - arise - they're just not there, it's just utterly bogus."

I really tried. But someone telling me that something doesn't exist, but it might do, and those cases might be hideous, or maybe we're kidding ourselves they do exist, but when they do happen they're just not there.

Makes me wonder what I'm meant to be paying attention to, or whether the use of words as smoke and mirrors is designed to try and make me not pay attention to what you're actually saying?

Many thanks to Pencil for your transcribing efforts, I know that takes time!

The Alex creature seems to say here that it was denied the opportunity to debate.

www.mumsnet.com/uploads/talk/201811/large-326319-screen-shot-2018-11-26-at-19-03-27.png

Ridiculously I started listening with the optimism that I might, for once, hear a good debate. Alas, again, one side talked drivel and the other was excellent. Every sodding time this happens.

I'm also sick to my back teeth of people who know nothing about safeguarding making ridiculous statements which undermine basic safeguarding. Do they honestly think that laws around sex segregation were made up for shits and giggles? Are they really that naive that they don't think perverts wouldn't abuse a system of self ID? Those of us that undertake safeguarding work day in and day out know how to mitigate risk. You can never erase risk, but certain measures, like sex segregation, are part of this mitigation.

I don't often get personal but goodness me, Alex did not come across well at all. Patronising and snide. They came across venomous.

It's the same every interview isn't it?

The BBC bend over backwards, let them set the terms of debate, make it more favourable than the other party, let them pre record or speak unchallenged, but it's still not fair and they're still the victim .

Reminds me of a manager I had taking me aside and saying 'this client has a personality disorder. Start from the perspective that whatever you do, however hard you try, you will never be able to make them happy or say you've done anything right, and you won't end up signed off with stress'. He was right.

Thank you Pencils! Very interesting to read that.

Crossparsley it is not stupidity - growing up in an abusive environment conditions you to accept abuse. Not because you are a doormat, but because no-one teaches you boundaries. And if you grew up in physical abuse, you are not necessarily tuned to pick up financial or emotional abuse and you see your needs as lesser anyway. It all takes a lot of undoing.

It’s not stupidity. Sometimes it’s the challenge of you being more intelligent, outgoing and smart than them. Abused women are not stupid, perpetrators have a whole range of tactics which work - otherwise they would not get away with it, and there would be no domestic or other abuse. And of course inequality between men and women helps because society teaches you a lot of gestures of control are actually romantic. It’s only just about 150 years ago that women were not allowed to own their own property. Only 29 years since marital rape was made illegal. If you think how little women were viewed as autonomous, human beings, why are victims of abuse stupid for having that fragile sense of personhood (which women have only recently won) eroded. Men are stupid if that is the only way they can feel good about themselves, by putting a woman down in one way or another.

Do they honestly think that laws around sex segregation were made up for shits and giggles?

Two more question ideas for a future interview of a TRA representative, Jane: I'd love to hear the answers.

1. Why do you think we have laws on sex segregation?

2. Is it women, you know, biological women for whom those spaces have been allocated, saying they no longer need them or want them? When it's people born biologically male who want biological women to no longer be allowed them, and are arguing that women should not be listened to when they protest, how is that ethical? Or justifiable?

3. What do you think should happen to the women who will no longer be able to use these spaces if they're not sex segregated? (And do not allow the speaker to lie that there won't be any)

You are smarter than I am to have known this without this experience

Not at all! I have known a couple of people like this - thankfully although someone close, not someone who had much power over me. So I’ve seen it, and close up, but not had it directed at me iyswim. I worded my post badly I think.

for your experience. Never blame yourself - it’s not our fault for not seeing and avoiding, sometimes people like this can’t be avoided. I hope nobody is in your life now who directs this kind of shit at you.

Rosa

I mean, I have learnt that the plague is in the soil. I would highly recommend googling plague in the soil and then replacing plague with GC feminists as you read it. It made me laugh. We've been hiding dormant for years. Waiting to kill.

Language maybe that's why all the trans-rights activists are metaphorically playing 'the floor is lava' game at Women's Hour and other places?

Daren't touch the infected soil that is women-who-simply-disagree-with-your ideology.

Quick, jump, don't touch them, don't be interviewed with them, don't listen to them. The floor is full of 'em!

pombear yes, I see what you mean. They all make the same argument, attacks against women by transwomen are rare and therefore it's ok for transwomen to be in the same space as women while we're undressing and sleeping. The implication here is that there is an acceptable level of sexual violence against women, as long as the numbers stay within this acceptable level it's ok.

It's self identified rogressives who are making this argument. The same people who would argue that one trans suicide in prison was too many, one refugee death while trying to cross the channel, one mass shooting, one is always too many - apart from women being sexually assaulted by transwomen, and then we're told to ignore it because it's rare.

Heck, one doctor practicing in this country without qualification started a massive review of all doctors who came to practice medicine in this country over the same time period. One transwoman sexually assaulting 4 women in prison - oh it's rare, nothing to see here.

Dare I point out that this belief that because sexual assault against women is rare, women should shut up, stop complaining and submit reflects a very masculine world view.

Knicknack Yes, straight to the point: why do we have sex segregated provisions? I'm aghast that there's no reflection on this point by them. It always jumps straight to 'why are they saying trans women are threats?'. No, stop it. Go back to the question and answer it.

Although tbf, answering any question, of any description has been challenging for them so far in this series. I'm still scratching my head at cisgender/cissexual. Stop trying to give me terms to validate you.

Maybe Alex means anthrax? Did you mean anthrax, Alex?

Anthrax spores can lie dormant in soil for quite a while. Tetanus and botulism too.

For people so sure of, and pushing such drastic changes based on, their theories, TRAs never seem too hot on the actual scientific know how. Seems like very few (none I’ve seen so far) have a science background. Postmodernism doesn’t get you very far when your subject is reality based.

I think Alex means we hang out with rats and fleas and stuff

I'm also sick to my back teeth of people who know nothing about safeguarding making ridiculous statements which undermine basic safeguarding. Do they honestly think that laws around sex segregation were made up for shits and giggles? Are they really that naive that they don't think perverts wouldn't abuse a system of self ID? Those of us that undertake safeguarding work day in and day out know how to mitigate risk. You can never erase risk, but certain measures, like sex segregation, are part of this mitigation

This ^^ I wholeheartedly agree.

HerFemaleness

Heck, one doctor practicing in this country without qualification started a massive review of all doctors who came to practice medicine in this country over the same time period. One transwoman sexually assaulting 4 women in prison - oh it's rare, nothing to see here.

That's a really good point, though sadly unsurprising.

(Just using this post to throw out s to loads of posters here, but particularly Bowl's constant and welcome science-head, despite having a mini-petri dish to attend to )

I wish women would take back the toilets. The argument that 'men in wigs' have always been in women's bathrooms needs to be challenged, ALWAYS. Once you allow a man into your sexed bathroom, you're giving him leeway to get into your shelter, your rape crisis centre.

It disappoints me when I hear women give up that crucial argument.

Maybe Alex means anthrax? Did you mean anthrax, Alex?

I think Alex means we hang out with rats and fleas and stuff

If only there were some way that Alex might have clarified matters. Something like, I dunno, participating in a respected radio programme with a diverse and interested audience, where you respected the interviewer and the other participant and the audience? Maybe opting to communicate your ideas clearly and choosing your similes/metaphors with care?

If only Alex had been gifted an opportunity like that, eh?

Jane Harris:

One third of us women will be burning at the stake while a third of us will be standing around asking each other: 'What does "cis" mean again?" And the final third will be gathering logs and adding them to the flames. womenshour

twitter.com/blablafishcakes/status/1067031569418895361

I keep picturing these 'gendercrits' that Alex seems obsessed with:

little snuffly creatures with bucky teeth, quite cute really but they don't half squeak a lot.

Best kept behind bars as they carry the bubonic plague.