Radio Humberside

[clitherow]

I have been lurking for ages and got to this board because I became aware of the trans ideology through videos posted by womensplace uk. I did not have any intentions of posting until I switched on my local radio and caught the end of the interview with two transgender people. This was on the David (I think) Burns show and I was absolutely appalled by what I heard. He accepted everything that they said including that parents should affirm a child's wishes to transition even at age two or three. He seemed to be genuinely caring about his guests and was struggling to understand their point of view and accepted what they said at face value. But he seemed to lack any critical understanding of the issues and, to be fair, did not claim to have such an understanding.

I have not heard the entire interview but one of his guests had a degree in biology from Durham Uni and had apparently used scientific arguments to back up their position. It concluded with the other guest saying that their ideology was opposed by a small minority of radical feminists only to which David replied that you would think that they would have a better understanding than most (presumably from the point of view of fighting for rights). He touched on Martina Navratilova and seemed to conclude that because trans people have to go through such brutal reassignment treatment that noone would gain any physical advantage from this and hence would not do this merely to enter female competitions.

The only people that seem to be phoning into this phone-in programme are accusing him of being unfair to trans people and emphasising the terrible pain they go through to be reassigned- an accusation that he was rightly taken-aback at. He did not seem to be aware of the self-id issue at all. I am only posting because I wonder how many of these conversations are going on around the country. I have sent in a quick email but there must be ways of getting to other groups - WI, church groups etc that are not perceived as being radical. I don't identify as a radical feminist and I am opposed to trans ideology for all sorts of reasons. - Just musing really about the possibility of small scale community activism not attached to academia or any political party

That's Humberside for you.

It's possible that Humberside is more strangled by the ideology than some other areas owing to the fact that a police officer in Hull went out of his way to try to stifle free speech that deviates from it, in a retweet that didn't even cover the local area.
Often radio stations opt not to air certain voices and there is a network of transactivists who are aware of when to call in to certain programmes.
It is hard to get a sense of a scale because of it.

David has just read out my email (which was pretty poor as I didn't know how much time I had to get on the programme). He said to me that he was just trying to treat people as human beings. I didn't say that he shouldn't treat people as human beings but just that self id puts a whole new face on the transgender issue and that he should be more aware of the issues around children and blocking puberty. But what is depressing is that my email was obviously the only critical voice raised in regards to this issue. This is the first actual thing that I have done other than shouting at the radio/tele/computer - wish I had confidence to do more!

Well done.

This is the first actual thing that I have done other than shouting at the radio/tele/computer - wish I had confidence to do more!

I think that there are lots of people shouting at the radio, more going wtf.

Part of the problem is that it's difficult to respond in a timely manner, so other voices aren't heard. I think you did well to respond so quickly.

He said to me that he was just trying to treat people as human beings.

There does seem to be a push to suggest that transitioning makes the individual happy, and that ultimately is the only thing that matters.

I agree that some of the processes involved to transition are unpleasant (puberty blockers, breast binding, damage to reproductive organs as a result of taking male hormones) and individuals wouldn't do that purely to disadvantaged others.

But the fact remains that not all those who transition go through these processes, and that women and girls need and want sex segregation regardless of the processes a subsection of males go through.

It's difficult to get those ideas across in a 10 minute radio show, especially if those involved don't want to acknowledge these facts.

Well done for acting so quickly!

The human rights of one group do not outweigh the human rights of another.

So frustrating - well done for responding.

It would definitely be worth a follow up email, along the lines of 'thank you for reading out my point, but it appears there is an aspect of this issue that you are unaware of.' And then give a bit of background about self-ID and its potential impact on the privacy, dignity and safety of all women, but particularly those who are vulnerable because of age or disability, who are survivors of sexual assault, or whose religion means they can't access certain spaces with male-bodied people. Ask if he'd be willing to give airtime to women's legitimate concerns about the effective erosion of sex-segregated spaces and why we have them in the first place.

You might not get an answer, or it might be a no, but I like to think that uncomfortable awareness is raised a little by asking the question and making virtue-signalling men think why they don't want to consider it.

I heard bits of this this morning, but was driving for work so missed the main interview.

I did catch a bit later in the show when David said - (words to the effect of) what HE had taken away from the interview was that the FtoM person had undertaken 12(?) surgeries to be their true selves. So perhaps a few words of balance there.

I did send a follow-up email but it wasn't that much better than my first! I pointed out that anyone who thinks a two-year-old child is in a position to express a preference about their own sex is a danger to children and asked if he had heard of the case of the mother who had a kind of Munchausen's by proxy and was backed-up by mermaids and social services until it became clear that she was imposing her own feelings on the boy who she said wished to be a girl. Unfortunately, I acted in the heat of the moment and although I was polite, I didn't have all the facts at my fingertips - I won't do that again. I wanted to answer his straw man suggestion that I felt that he shouldn't treat his guests as human beings by pointing out that there is no scientific evidence that you can be born in the wrong body but plenty of dissociative disorders that can make you feel an alien in your own body. We then have a growing number of unfortunate individuals who go through the punishing transition process only to discover that it has not answered the problem and caused plenty of others. Supporting people by not helping them question their own feelings and in desperate acts of self-mutilation is not necessarily the best way to care for others. I don't know if he will take any of these issues on board because it is a local phone-in show that deals with transport and bins! I sometimes think that it is more pernicious when these big issues are slipped into the sort of hypnotic thrumming of local issues in between Take That and Kylie - it just sort of slides into peoples' unconscious minds as part of the normal everyday scene.

To Dinner - He said this in the context of the Martina Navratilova issue in that (he argued) people would not undergo such drastic surgery just to cheat at sport. That is, he was ridiculing people who have concerns about transwomen in sport and trying to bolster the sympathy of the audience for transpeople who have suffered so much only to be further attacked by a handful of hateful feminists!

op your follow up email was probably good. I sometimes initially regret sending them 'in the heat of the moment' then look back later and think - bloody hell I was on a roll! Sometimes over thinking can make things lose their power and it is right the first time.

I wish I had taken the time to email something in now clitherow Its so frustrating that these interviews are taking place with just TRA and no one on the panel representing women's sports or women's rights.

I need to get myself a non-personal email and Twitter account, any advice from others on how to prevent doxxing? How do you keep your accounts secure and anonymous?

Great work in pushing back. Saying something is always better than saying nothing and it sounds like you made some excellent points.

I keep all my emails in a file on my laptop and cut and paste bits, so the resources available to draw on grows over time and it feels less of an overwhelming task to respond.

Dinner - it's not too late to email now. Don't let them get away with it unchallenged!