Newsnight now

[bellabelly]

Emily Maitliss grilling Sarah Wollaston (LD) about gender self-id. Good!

Self ID by definition means without exception or scrutiny.

To say you'd do something about people who abuse the system after they've self identified when it's 'transphobic' to ask questions and you might face exclusion (including access to services such as health, refuges or rape services), HR sanction or even criminal charges kind of misses the point that single sex services were set up to protect the most vulnerable women first.

The whole point of self ID is to prevent questions and women from challenging.

Maitlis

Damn!

Ha! (Sorry.)

But I'm hoping we're done on that subject now.

I've already emailed Emily Maitlis a number of times. That's why I know how to spell her name. I've emailed Kirsty Wark too, for the same reason. In the past it was to why Newsnight wasn't covering the transgender issue from a women's rights point of view. I've emailed EM since then, most recently after the piece about detransitioning the other week. I will email again today once I've had time to watch last night's Newsnight on iplayer. I also email various other Radio 4, BBC news and Channel 4 progs and presenters and have sent cards to various people – most recently to Allison Bailey of the LGB Alliance but also to gender critical women in the SNP and Leeds.

I've emailed to congratulate Justin Webb this week (I've emailed him several times in the past) and I think Sarah Montague was last week, or maybe the week before. Oh, and on my to-do list is an email to Jane Garvey to ask her why there was so little time given to the transgender question on Woman's Hour. I'd already contacted WH to tell them why women's rights/ transgender issues were the most important on my political agenda.

I'm a lesbian who saw this coming from Stonewall over a decade ago and I've been actively opposing it for years. I won't go on about being a ReSister and the actions I've participated in but I would say I've been in there pulling for years.

I didn't pull you up on your misspelling because I didn't recognise your name or thought you were new and I object to the insinuation that I'm someone who'd go around bullying new posters. I picked you up on it because I think that if you're hoping to influence someone it helps to get their name right.

Sorry, Nauticant, but I had to respond to those insinuations. Over and out now.

Well, I read your post and thought there were things in it I could learn from. I should be emailing much more often to give support to those willing to stick their heads above the parapet.

I used to work in the media and there's no real way for programme-makers to know whether they're getting things right except for feedback from viewers/ readers/ listeners. I would say that an hour's work sending a few thoughtful emails asking a few key questions or encouraging investigation into a particular area could be far more effective than getting up before dawn to put a t-shirt on a statue – not that that wasn't a good thing to do.

I think it's best when these emails trickle in independently. Feedback from lots of people saying the same thing over a long period is difficult to ignore. Even better if the same person feeds back regularly over time. You can build up a bit of a relationship and they begin to realise that the axe you might appear to be grinding does actually need grinding.

I object to the insinuation that I'm someone who'd go around bullying new posters.

That wasn't what I said at all.

I welcome the correction and I agree it's important to get it right. My point is about tone, not content.

My point is you were unecessarily snarky to me, and that although it's not going to stop me posting on FWR, it might well put a new poster off. I'm getting the sense that you are perhaps unaware of how snarky you came across?

Perhaps you are unaware how off-putting it could be to some women new to FWR who may find attitudes like that intimidating when directed at them for making a simple mistake?

If so, please can I implore you to be a a bit gentler to other women here, I strongly suspect you don't intend to come across as intimidating to new posters?

I won't say any more on this as this had taken up quite enough time already!

Thanks for sharing your list of what you've been up to, inspiring stuff. I wonder if an ongoing thread with addresses of people we could all write to, to thank could be a useful thing to do?

Sarah Wollaston like most other politicians simply does not understand the issue.

On Newsnight she said "if there is somebody who is clearly not transitioning, who is somebody who is very obviously still physically male changing within a group setting in a female changing room, that's inappropriate because it makes people feel uncomfortable"

With self ID a self declared tw can present however they like. They do not have to have transitioned.

She has absolutely no idea about the scope of this, and does not deserve to be among the grown-ups making decisions for other people if she is so blind.Yes, it is inappropriate because it makes women feel uncomfortable if that somebody is male.

She knows what's right-- she said it right there on Newsnight. What she does not know are the real issues.

Emily gets it all right.

Just got round to watching this. What a pleasure to finally see a BBC presenter openly tackling the issues. And what a disaster to see a (presumably qualified rather than self identified) woman doctor missing the point so spectacularly. Just deny deny deny.

Having watched this and the Sonia Poulton documentary, it's very evident that the Lib Dems pose an active danger to women and children with zero understanding of safeguarding.

Having watched this and the Sonia Poulton documentary, it's very evident that the Lib Dems pose an active danger to women and children with zero understanding of safeguarding

They understand safeguarding. You cant simultaneously be intelligent enough to know exactly what tactics to use to make people feel guilty enough to not speak up and/or come up with lengthy detailed explanations as to why you feel that way purposely avoiding certain parts of the question, and not get safeguarding.

This is an active choice they know. They understand full well. But mens feelings matter more

For anyone without access to BBC iPlayer:

They know exactly what a woman is too..or theyd never be deliberately putting them/themselves in.a position where.of they wanna keep their jobs they have to go along with everything the men.say.

On Newsnight she said "if there is somebody who is clearly not transitioning, who is somebody who is very obviously still physically male changing within a group setting in a female changing room, that's inappropriate because it makes people feel uncomfortable"

Well, that's a bit transphobic, isn't it? A 'transwoman' isn't someone who has had or is going to have their penis removed, if that's what she means by 'physically male'.
The penis becomes a female penis when its owner declares a female gender identity. People who think like this actually exist, and they are the cheerleaders of your self id policy, Sarah. You really don't have a clue what you are supporting here.

You really don't have a clue what you are supporting here

She does.

You could see it in her face. Why else, every time the flaws were pointed out,would she go back to how awful and traumatic it all is.

I also think they have some insight into what their supporting. But are choosing not to think too much about it in case the contradictions upset a simple narrative they've adopted and which, so far, they can sell on for their own advantage.

I'm developing some real contempt for the Lib Dems.

Just watched it. Emily is fab ❤
I used to think well of SW, but she's drunk the kool aid as well, hasn't she

I have just watched it and found it unbelievably frustrating, both how little Sarah Wollaston understood they issue and how Emily Maitlis didn’t ask the key questions (though I am grateful for her efforts).

Thanks for the link nauticant!

Didn't Sarah Wollaston go directly against 'acceptance without exception' by stating that a male bodied person who looked obviously male shouldn't be in women only spaces? I thought that the bandwidth for women had been widened?

Some situations Emily Maitlis mentioned already have examples where the ability to enter women only spaces allowed abuse to occur by male bodied people( e.g. Karen White and Katie Dolatowski ); I have been getting so baffled by how the manifold problems coming from the GRA and self-id shenanigans are not being connected and highlighted by mainstream media, however after this and the Tavi segment before, I'm daydreaming that Emily is raising the issue with people who are pro self-id for different reasons, in order to tie it in to a more in depth episode focussing on female bodied women and their concerns.

I'll admit to being biased but I did think Sarah was 8 minutes of whataboutery for her answer, no definitive answers whatsoever!

I posted earlier that I hope Newsnight follow this through and ask all Parties about their position on self id.

Particulary now I have seen on a facebook thread that Labour would make it a hate crime to "mis-gegnder" a trans woman.

WtF????????????

Can anyone think of any other area of life where someone's choice to live their life at the expense of others rights is so studiously not discussed.

And if they dont then it will make me think that they were just using the trans issue to have a go at the Lib Dems which is definitely a BBC trend at the moment.

Emily's tweeted about it today, here:

twitter.com/maitlis/status/1202651755441508354

Wow. Thank you Emily Maitliss. Couldn't be said more plainly!

Another fine woman making her way to the peak.

Brilliant - thank you Emily, I can imagine that took a bit of nerve with you being a BBC employee.

Sorry don't know where the random came from!