BBC HARDtalk speaks to Stonewall

[DianaBrackley]

Sarah Montague is speaking to Ruth Hunt about whether Stonewall's position on the T is at odds with the LGB. I only caught the first half as it was on just after 3 and I fell asleep, but I see why HARDtalk gets its name!

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csy97p

Sorry, I'll try the link again, I think it's repeated on the World Service radio channel at 1406 and/or 1506. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csy97p

Oh my...top of my listening list today. Thanks for sharing OP!

Never thought I'd see this subject on HardTalk, or RH of all people agreeing to do it.

Well she managed to spectacularly dodge the big question...

Would have like to have heard the interviewer ask outright if she really thought a bearded person with a penis is in fact a lesbian...

Actually thinking about it it's really just more of the same from the BBC

A few well selected questions to appear to be not just giving someone an easy time, but deliberately not asking follow up questions that would bring things to their logical conclusions.

Ruth had well rehearsed well practiced avoident answers. Will be over alot of peoples heads. In that the answers given made sense. But unless you were also concentrating on what wasnt said you would come away wondering what the problem.was.

Shameful

Thanks

I found it astonishing, it's well worth a listen.

To begin with HardTalk reference two genuine transwomen who assaulted women in women-only spaces, a refuge and a prison,
Ruth Hunt refuses to recognise these people are genuinely (male) transgender and fobs it off with "the problem is male violence. Changing laws relating to trans people won't mitigate the risk of male violence. Everyone has to go through a process (in gaining access the women's prisons refuges etc). The process failed in these cases".

When asked "Why are lesbians angry?" (with references) her response is astounding.
We always knew there would be people against T Being part of the LGB, the lesbians are upset because now we're focusing on Trans rights. (Subtext, they're all jealous/transphobic)

But a question before the end I thought was so revealing.
After RH repeatedly bragging about Stonewalls huge backing of wealthy donors, including the GMCQ, ALL political parties and major banks, so it's clear they aren't short on cash...

HardTalk
Having sex with a same-sex partner is illegal in 72 countries and punishable by death in 9 Countries. Could Stonewall perhaps focus their campaigning on these life or death matters rather than issues of identity and semantics?

RH replies
Well for it's not just a matter of identity and semantics for transpeople when they're a victim of extreme hate crime, day in day out, everytime they get on the train, everytime they use public transport, you know.

Yeah Ruth, because being killed by the state for being gay is exactly the same as being misgendered on the tube....
The hyperbole. "Extreme Hate Crime day in day out" right, like, someone liking a limerick on Twitter...

Well she's going but unfortunately she made it clear that the entire board and all major donors to Stonewall are entirely enthusiastic about the change in direction at Stonewall.

O Rly Ruth?

You now think self id must mean full and committed transition?
Not just Pip on Monday and Pippa on Tuesday?
Not just "I feel womanly but will maintain my male appearance, body, name, lifestyle..."

She is rolling back her position so fast I'm surprised the speed of light can keep up with her.

She is a traitor to all women.

If trained professionals in charge of these 'assessments" get it wrong then what hope do us regular every day women have.

Still painted as bigots

I thought dodging the question of what is happening across the world to gays and lesbians and by implication saying trans people are more in need of help was disgraceful.

And the fact that no one outright linked the fact that police are now dealing with "hate crimes" which consist of getting pronouns wrong. Yet when she said many dont start a medical process and no ones shows their certificates then we cant challenge men in women's spaces as we eoyod he in trouble potentially.

Another massive deliberate avoidance of following questions through to the end

Well she's going but unfortunately she made it clear that the entire board and all major donors to Stonewall are entirely enthusiastic about the change in direction at Stonewall.

Of course they are. The entire point of large charities today is to make lots of money. Not for their causes, but as an end it itself. And to provide a well-remunerated field of employment for privileged middle-class people, in which they can virtue-signal while simultaneously keeping the boot on the necks on those lower down the social order.

Wow GCAcademic I totally agree but couldn't have put it so succinctly.

Agree - she came across as very arrogant.

She and Stonewall has 3 choices after same sex marriage was legalised here I) see Stonewall's influence and income decline as they had largely achieved their purpose ii) make some headway on the seriously tricky tricky issues abroad iii) try and replicate what they had successfully done with homosexuality to trans.

I don't think a focus on actual transsexuals with gender dsyphoria would have been interesting or lucrative enough for either Runt Hunt who likes the corporate life or Stonewall (demographically insignificant). By extending the definition to between 1-3% and riding (increasing?) a wave in popular culture they accessed £s, got support from the powerful and rich trans lobby in the States and made the case to for corporate funding arguing that this was a significant population of people and therefore training was needed across the public sectors/ corporates etc.

'Had' 3 choices even

This is a further example of charities / mission focussed organisations being run as corporations. Here the 'business model' directed the mission rather than the other way round.

More than just arrogant...

I mean it was all right there.

But not in a way that average Joe listening to the radio on the way to work or with the kids chattering in the back of the car would fully access.

She basically confirmed what we had all been saying but so fractured it was all but useless.

Shes deliberately taunting us

Ruth Hunt and others who were instrumental in bringing this shitshow on us are all about preserving their imagined legacy of ending the last form of discrimination. It's like she hasn't actually looked at what is happening in her own organisation (or the country) since she launched the trans strategy. She resorts to vagueness and 'true trans' BS to bat away awkward questions as if she didn't know that the Stonewall Trans Advisory Group includes people like the 'male lesbian' Alex Drummond. It's insulting, frankly.
I understand Ruth Hunt wants to go into politics.

I wish that after the interviewer stated people's concerns about self ID being open to abuse and then gave examples of men transitioning in order to assault women, she repeated the examples again when RH asked if it was happening today.

I thought the last point was an interesting one to finish on. I didn't realise that same sex relationships were illegal in so many countries and to compare transphobia suffered on a train (misgendering? I haven't heard of any trans people being physically assaulted on trains) with facing the death penalty for being gay was a bit random in my opinion.

I guess it's a shift in the right direction that criticism of Stonewall's stance is becoming more well known? Also I know that RH didn't answer the specific question put to her of why lesbians are leaving Stonewall, and stated that loads of people have joined as her reply, but a few people each time must hear the non-answers to questions like this and go searching for a more comprehensive understanding. Well, I hope so anyway...

Brilliant GCAcademic. will share elsewhere and credit you!

I hate all the victiming about hate when out. Happens to everyone who looks the slightest bit different, it's not reserved for just trans. Dye your hair black and wear black clothes and black lipstick, you'll get remarks made at you. Be in a wheelchair, or have any visible physical peculiarity, you'll be a target. The world is full of bullies, and they target anyone they can.

She is a flat out woman-hater.

The whole of Stonewall is. I'm speaking to more and more lesbian and gay friends who will no longer call themselves LGBT(BBQWTFLTB) or use any service or group using the name because it's a political stance that actively excludes many LGB people, and is supporting an actively homophobic position.

This cannot be said enough. If you are standing around calling other people transphobic then the platform you are standing on is homophobic, disablist, racist, misogynistic, classist and against the right to belief/faith/culture. If you include men as women to give them extra choices and provision then you cannot escape that you are excluding women from the only provisions they have - they have no alternative choices. You are basically in favour of people guilty of wrongthink being denied civil rights and turned into a subclass where abuse/deprivation is justified. (Which means, frankly, you've lost your mind.)

And you have to seriously ask yourself, particularly if you're a woman, why you feel the choices of men matter so much more than the rights and access of women to services?

The entire point of large charities today is to make lots of money. Not for their causes, but as an end it itself. And to provide a well-remunerated field of employment for privileged middle-class people, in which they can virtue-signal while simultaneously keeping the boot on the necks on those lower down the social order.

Couldn't agree more. The Third Sector Industrial Complex is not fit for purpose: many orgs have completely lost sight of the needs of their service users and treat recruitment as a sink hole for posh twats who can't do anything else but have nepotistic connections

I wouldn't send a penny of my money to any corporate charity these days. There are plenty of small grass roots organisations doing fabulous work on a shoe string. A much better avenue for donations.

This cannot be said enough. If you are standing around calling other people transphobic then the platform you are standing on is homophobic, disablist, racist, misogynistic, classist and against the right to belief/faith/culture. If you include men as women to give them extra choices and provision then you cannot escape that you are excluding women from the only provisions they have - they have no alternative choices. You are basically in favour of people guilty of wrongthink being denied civil rights and turned into a subclass where abuse/deprivation is justified. (Which means, frankly, you've lost your mind.)

Preach!

She misrepresented the EA and missed sex-based exemptions altogether. It would have been great to have seen her questioned on why Stonewall pushed to have them scrapped altogether - ‘So Ruth why did Stonewall push for the legal right of any man to enter female changing rooms, dormitories, toilets etc on the basis of a self declaration only? Don’t you think this will be abused? Why aren’t you bothered about women’s concerns on this matter?’

It's televised as well apparently. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00054hg I'm hoping this is the iPlayer link...

I just listened to this. For all its faults this is significant progress for the BBC. Lots of hard questioned were asked. What was missing was the follow up questions.

I wish the interviewer had known enough / researched enough to come back on the prison thing - Ruth Hunt said that every tw prisoner, whether they have a grc or not, goes through a risk assessment process before being moved to a women's prison. That is technically true, but it's not the same risk assessment. If they have a GRC then the starting point is that they will go to a women's prison and the bar is set very high to be able to exclude them. This is about the only place where a grc still makes a difference.

I wish she had brought up the Stonewall petition from last October and Hunt's response, in which she said:

The petition also asks us to acknowledge that there is a conflict between trans rights and ‘sex based women’s rights’. We do not and will not acknowledge this. Doing so would imply that we do not believe that trans people deserve the same rights as others.

She has now decided that prisons are 'difficult' and sport is 'difficult' and refuges are 'difficult'. That's fine, I'm pleased she's changed her mind, but she said Stonewall have not contributed to the shutting down of debate and they absolutely have. She should have been pushed harder on that.

The conflation of trans people apparently facing daily hate crime on the tube with lesbians and gay men facing the death penalty in several countries was utterly crass. Hunt mentioned Stonewall's international work but from what I have read it consists of 'training' local campaigners to deliver the Stonewall 'acceptance without exception' message. I suspect this is the last thing they need.

I'll watch the video version when I have time, I'll be interested in the body language.