Any Questions Radio 4 @ 8pm tonight

[Awning10]

I think I just heard that Lisa Nandy will be on and one of the topics will be trans rights. Questions can be emailed in.

Citizens assembly to keep discussion alive?? Like with abortion in Ireland...

QuiteGood
That's because she's got so few about this issue

Has Helen Whately got a medical background - I thought she was previously a management consultant?

Impressed by posters' trans bingo from Nandy!

Am I alone in being disappointed by Cherry? This issue is not going away as long as people don't address the key concept that you can be a woman trapped in a man's body and as long as they support the idea that this needs to be taken into account in law rather than in the psychiatrist's office.

Thought the man (sorry didn't catch his name) was the best of the bunch really but it was still all the 'balance of rights' chat which validates the gender essence concept.

Mind you I suppose the fact that it was debate rather than no debate is quite the change!

I thought Cherry got the tone right. Genuine concern, women's single-sex spaces, balance of rights, let there be an open discussion. It cements the impression that what the government did was reasonable and provides a good basis to build on.

Gutted I missed this but I am pleased that Lisa Nandy hasn't actually got anything to say on the matter apart from her 3 well-rehearsed clichés. Thats how you can tell the people who think from the people who don't/can't.

Will tune in tomorrow.

I'm not sure whether it's worth a big effor to catch up on, although do if you're interested in the difference in tone that has arrived almost overnight.

Did anyone wonder why Lisa Nandy's consistuent was finding it so incredibly difficult to go through the GRC process? (That's the person who is so incredibly important, the rights of 34 milliion women in the UK should be disregarded.) When it comes to real world experience of the process, it sounds a bit of a nuisance, maybe a bit intrusive, but not really any kind of ordeal:

twitter.com/iamtranssexual/status/1307960038292586496

The key to my question might be this comment:

It is quite obvious that this process was design for those who went through a certain process. If you didn't you would have no chance.

Did anyone wonder why Lisa Nandy's consistuent was finding it so incredibly difficult to go through the GRC process?

If I recall Nandys constituent that she brings up constantly in these discussions, is a child so the GRC process is irrelevant, Nandy should know that.

It's amusing how QuiteGood and people here can tell what Nandy's going to say. This is why I find politicians on Any Questions boring and unbearable. Burble burble with the same old lines. I mentally switch off when Nandy starts. Never understood the enthusiasm for her and the push to see her as party leader.

Nandy is as predictable as fuck now.

Just listened to this, LOL at the Nandy bingo! I can never understand why they always start from the position that the process takes too long and is too expensive. When did that part get universally agreed? Surely it’s a life changing decision and should not be faster or cheaper than a marriage or divorce?

Googled the French word for hedgehog (easily distracted from the point when I've had some wine). Igel!

Apparently hedgehogs are now on the endangered list.

German not French

Just listened on catch up while playing Nandy bingo.

How old is this constituent, because she's always seemed to hint before that they're a teenager?

Most people end up paying about £31 apparently, how is that too expensive?

And yes, why is this one person so speshul that 30 million women can be disregarded as long as they get what they want?

I'd call her a useful idiot for the trans cause, but not sure the first part's true any more.

I listed to both AQ and AA this afternoon.

Just as an aside the programme seems to have deteriorated. ie listeners questions dont get answered as politicians just go into an election type speel. And for some reason the presented seems to think they should be part of the discussion - and nearly always ignore the question and try and get some "gotcha" moment from an MP.

So in the QA part, was pleased for a BBC programme to even hear anyone say women have sex based rights.

But of course when it came to any answers, had to have a mother of a child suffering greatly. (Maybe she should wonder where her child got the idea that you can "be a gender"?).

Then Nicola Williams (haven't I heard that name before??) very clear, making the point about even if you change your birth certificate you dont actually change your sex, and this is why women have been campaigning to preserve sex based rights.

But of course had to finish with (ie no balance here) some man going on about how it just isn't right that he cant just say he is a woman and be accepted as that. And people (ie women) just keep coming up with these trivial irrelances just to be horrid to people like him.

(Have to say I didn't hear all of it clearly, but this was the impression given.)

I wasn't in a position to try and phone in - but now wish I had made the effort. Did anyone else try, or did in fact the BBC represent the calls received, ie 2 to 1 saying trans people had been let down?

The whole “it’s too expensive and bureaucratic” crap really annoys me. It’s not a perfect analogy, but my recent UK citizenship application required me to have lived in this country for a number of years, read a book on the history and culture, sit and pass a test, fill out a 90 page form, and pay over £1000.

@ stumbledin you have indeed heard of Nicola Williams before - Nic from FPFW, the organisation made up of 100s of ordinary women who took to the streets leafletting back in 2018. I can't confirm or deny if I was one!

Anyway, the person at the end did our position no end of good, by telling us listeners, that women were trivialising the argument against self id, by making it about access to female only spaces. Obviously showing lots of insight and empathy towards women and the female experience. Safety, privacy and dignity are such a trivial concern after all. It's apparently far more dehumanising to reveal your birth sex in court (why this was brought up I do not know) than something trivial like a female prisoner being forced to shower with a fully in tact transwoman.

If anyone missed Any Answers it was on today at 2pm and the self id segment was in the last 15 minutes or so. They had 2 TRAs on and just one woman - the wonderful Nic.

I got stuck with a phone call I couldn't refuse or cut off but luckily managed to catch a snippet of Nicola just before the end and was impressed by how brilliant, clear and incisive she was. Put the speakers on the panel to shame. I had no idea who she was.

@Toseland

Just listened to this, LOL at the Nandy bingo! I can never understand why they always start from the position that the process takes too long and is too expensive. When did that part get universally agreed? Surely it’s a life changing decision and should not be faster or cheaper than a marriage or divorce?

its way cheaper than getting citizenship.... £1400 I believe now. Don't see why it should be easier or cheaper than that.

I was just being a bit coy about Nicola Williams in case any BBC undercover agents and scaning mumsnet to see if gender critical women are conspiring to get their voices heard!

But as others have said, that last caller was almost a perfect illustration of the sheer self absorbed arrogance of some men and their trans agenda.

@2Rebecca

Googled the French word for hedgehog (easily distracted from the point when I've had some wine). Igel!

Herisson in French, memorably explained by our French teacher as " just think of your hairy son".