Layla Moran on Nick Robinson's Political Thinking on Radio 4

[nauticant]

He asked her "What is a woman?" You can imagine how that went. "Word soup" would be a kind assessment.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08lqgvv

Yes OldCrone, big difference from that debate when she talked about souls and joked about bearded women. It was the same with Jo Swinson, she sounded far from passionate or confident when she was put on the spot (chapeau to Anna from Warwickshire!), and they are both good speakers.

Isn't Layla a scientist by trade?

Hahahahaha 😂 no, what really??🤪

Physics teacher I think.

But ye cannae change the laws of physics...

I was listening to this without knowing who was being interviewed.
I found myself shouting at the radio which I don't do very much.
Then towards the end they said her name and mentioned Lib Dems.

Seriously depressing they don't know what a woman is, nor do they think it is possible to uphold single sex spaces, which women have been doing since we got them.

Well I think it demonstrated one or both of two things.

Very thick and/or
Scared of bullies and will say anything so that they won’t turn on them (yet)

She's chairing the APPG on coronavirus.

Bit disturbing in someone who doesn't believe in biological sex.

There was a little bit in today's Sunday Time's Atticus column which while hearsay rather than statistics I thought was somewhat interesting

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ed-davey-shaping-up-as-lesser-of-two-feebles-35rj5k9r0?shareToken=24991f1391f1e5141c3ff3d95d4c0cd0

The bit that caught my eye was:

^ There’s no great enthusiasm for either candidate,” says a party source after meeting some London councillors. “An interesting thing was that women backed Ed Davey because they didn’t like Layla Moran.” (NB: this is not a scientific opinion poll.)
A West of England councillor says colleagues fear Moran could be another Jo Swinson^

That's interesting Errol, but as mad as Layla Moran sounds on this topic, I think Ed Davey is actually worse. He did a MN chat last year and told us that TWAW, end of.

I think she’s stupid, not because of her answer to such a simple question, but because she’s decided that keeping a tiny minority of people on Twitter happy is a viable strategy for long term success as a politician. It’s barmy.

Actually, I take back what I just said about Davey. He is just another uninformed, arrogant bloke who can't see this from the pov of women, but at least he came here for a bit of debate.
But he is firmly in the TWAW/self id camp, so journalists should ask him the same questions.
What is a woman, Ed?

It's not just twitter influencing the Lib Dems. Helen Belcher and some other TRAs in the party seem to have an enormous amount of influence over policy. Or maybe it's the funding from a pharmaceutical company which produces hormone blocking drugs which is influencing them.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/puberty-blocker-drug-firm-donated-cash-to-lib-dems-cf3x77nh3

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3762937-libdem-funding-own-thread

because she’s decided that keeping a tiny minority of people on Twitter happy is a viable strategy for long term success as a politician

I think it's more the case that she and other politicians recognise that a tiny and vocal minority can have a disproportionate impact on your career if they decide you've said something that warrants 'cancellation'.

YY, what OldCrone said. It's mostly internal.

ErrolTheDragon
Brilliant headline: The lesser of two feebles
Never a truer word spoken.

Does Layla think the higher mortality rate for covid-19 is in people who are male, or in people who have stereotypically masculine interests? I'd really like someone to ask her this.

She can't have it both ways.

And yes, everything I've heard about her suggests she's incredibly privileged with little to no understanding of the lives of the majority of women and girls (those who don't go to expensive private schools).

Mind you doesn't say much about her private school that they turned out someone so ignorant of biological fact. But I'm guessing the incidence of sexual assault or period shaming is considerable lower at Roedean than your average UK comprehensive.

I was interested so I looked up Roedean. This is from their website about the 'aims of the school'

Roedean School was founded in 1885, to provide ‘a thorough physical, intellectual and moral’ education with ‘as much liberty as is consistent with safety’. The founding Lawrence sisters believed that girls deserved an education which was at least as good as boys had.

Do we think the Lawrence sisters might be turning in their graves at the way Layla is discounting the safety of normal girls in the Uk and limiting their liberty?

The ICA of which I'm a member suddenly turned all its loos which had previously been marked male/female into unisex loos. I think this is what women object to, not trans women in themselves. It's the blanket one size fits all approach and that you just have to lump it.

Complete waffle. Nick did a good job but I would have liked him to go one further - if ‘woman’ is now a ‘gender identity’ then can you describe it? How would I know I’ve got a ‘woman’ gender identity as opposed to something else? When straight questions are asked the response is always waffle waffle waffle virtue signalling nonsense. Never ever a straight reply. There isn’t one of course that makes any sense but I just wish every bit of wriggle room was removed to really make them nail their colours to the mast.

Think it’s clear where Nick’s thoughts lie, he had a run in with Paris Lees on air a few years ago. Wish he had made the point that for many if not the majority “woman” is linked to sex/being female and not an identity. He did well but so many questions I’d like to hear her asked on this.

If she ever did come into power, unlikely she's have a proper tussle with PHE and many other public health initiatives who resolutely need sex to be defined for targeting purposes.

[quote OldCrone]It's not just twitter influencing the Lib Dems. Helen Belcher and some other TRAs in the party seem to have an enormous amount of influence over policy. Or maybe it's the funding from a pharmaceutical company which produces hormone blocking drugs which is influencing them.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/puberty-blocker-drug-firm-donated-cash-to-lib-dems-cf3x77nh3

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3762937-libdem-funding-own-thread[/quote]
Why on earth would a drug company fund them? They have absolutely no influence. Must have done it before the election

@NotDavidTennant

because she’s decided that keeping a tiny minority of people on Twitter happy is a viable strategy for long term success as a politician

I think it's more the case that she and other politicians recognise that a tiny and vocal minority can have a disproportionate impact on your career if they decide you've said something that warrants 'cancellation'.

The book Galileo's Middle Finger discusses activism in various research fields, including in the transgender field. Somewhere in it (could be in footnotes) the author of the book notes that a handful of trans activists kept harassing the writers of the books they hated for years.

I looked up one named activist and found that this person is very active on Twitter (at least a decade after that earlier bout of activism) creating long lists of TERFs, and trying to create lists of everyone who has ever liked a tweet by a TERF.

So I understand that people do not exactly want to anger that breed of trans activists. Natal women are extremely unlikely to cause as big a threat, so are safer to mistreat.

Why on earth would a drug company fund them?

There's a lot of discussion about that on the other thread I linked to. They have had funding from Ferring Pharmaceuticals since 2013. Total donations of £1.4 million.

LibDem donations from Ferring

Ferring sponsored the Dutch trial into puberty blockers.

"Ferring was interested in this novel use for their expensive drug because they market Triptorelin, one of the GnRH antagonists used in gender clinics under the brand names Diphereline and Gonapeptyl."
www.transgendertrend.com/puberty-blockers-safe/