My Name Is Anna. I've been called a terf - is the BBC starting to permit open discussion?

[nauticant]

On at 11 this morning (Monday) on Radio 4:

My Name Is Anna. I've been called a terf

My Name Is...Anna is branded a terf – a byword for transphobia. She rejects the label and goes in search of solutions to some of the thorny issues around trans inclusion.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000s1rr

They seem to have started this discussion merely so they can shut it down and prove that the 'right' side of history was right all along

I think this is the outcome they'd like, but every time the discussion is put out there and 'fault on both sides' or 'it's complicated' are trotted out, more people, listening in cars and kitchens across the land, think 'really??' I imagine very few people would be moved from the position of basic understanding they've always held by anything that Jamie and Jamie's 'c*s woman' partner' (can't remember her name) said.

I wish that every programme would start by explaining that the 'complicated issue' and 'toxic debate' is about what a woman is.

I got as far as the "I am a man and I can get pregnant" in response to the issue with abortion rights being opened up as a "people's problem", which would then allow any man input on abortion rights, rather than it concerning the woman carrying the foetus; and I gave up.

Language mangling and manipulation to the point of nonsense is going to be the death of women's rights, it really is.

At least they allow some debate. The BBC needs to realise most women whilst very sympathetic to trans people do not want hard won women's rights taken away by adding non xx people into statistics of women.

Meanwhile, this is how it was perceived in TRA circles:

twitter.com/mlothianmclean/status/1358735531744575488

I listened live and to me it just sounded too ‘sensitive’
I’m not suggesting Anna should have just come on aggressive but I really felt she was scared to object to anything she would normally have questioned had she not been on the radio
I hope this does allow more women to speak freely but I really doubt it

You mustn't say questions out loud, you must think how you are told.

But don't demonise poor people who make death threats.

So if you think the right way, nothing you do is wrong regardless of how extreme, violent, unkind etc.

If you think the wrong way in believing females have rights too, you're lucky to be allowed to breathe. Be grateful we're being that tolerant.

Yeah. Conclusions drawn thanks.

I got as far as the "I am a man and I can get pregnant" in response to the issue with abortion rights being opened up as a "people's problem", which would then allow any man input on abortion rights, rather than it concerning the woman carrying the foetus; and I gave up.

They must really be laughing at us. A century's worth of inch-by-inch progress overturned pathetically easily.

The predicament American women faced in the last election gave a good indication of the road we were going down, IMO. A choice between two sides, one clamouring to remove their own bodily autonomy so amounting to a vote for keeping men the hell out of their uteruses, or a vote for removing their definition of 'woman' entirely with all the language-wrestling and moral quagmire that entails.

My comfort is, in agreement with the PP who made that point, that the tide is turning. The key drivers in this assault on women's rights are getting more robust responses than simply the unquestioning acceptance they've been used to.

And now - although it pains me to say it given the monumental messes with Brexit and Covid - I'm a single-issue voter.

I liked that the interviewer is a young woman. I liked the Mitch fest background as new to me. I thought Sophie was brilliant. It was going well until she met the trans man and the cis woman couple. Jamie asserting that "he" can get pregnant. The entitlement of this statement says it all. Society has not signed up to this assertion. Jamie then dictated the terms of the conversation. You can say this but not that, you CAN have your own private thoughts, but you CAN'T say them. Will my grandchild be saying to me "oh yes, in your day, only woman could have children". Society has not agreed to this -- has it?

I'm a single-issue voter.

I am too, although its less a single issue for female people than the only issue. Once a party has declared it's committed to reducing females to a subordinate class and erasing their rights, what else can it possibly offer a female voter?

Once you've been depersoned, what other issues are there? It would be somewhat like asking a slave population to be the bigger people and forget about things like their own rights and equality and instead vote for their owners to have better tax relief.

When the young couple came on it was like a question about the influence of the Church of England on secular society being met by a recitation of The Creed.

I got as far as the "I am a man and I can get pregnant" in response to the issue with abortion rights being opened up as a "people's problem"

Because suddenly men would worry about whether they might need an abortion?

JFC.

I'm going to relisten later as I was busy while listening. Did they mention the triple homicide of two Michfest attending lesbian women and their son by a Camp Trans attendee? www.gendertrending.com/2019/08/13/media-blackout-on-dana-rivers-michfest-murder-trial/

A choice between two sides, one clamouring to remove their own bodily autonomy so amounting to a vote for keeping men the hell out of their uteruses, or a vote for removing their definition of 'woman' entirely with all the language-wrestling and moral quagmire that entails.

Right: You don't need rights because women don't deserve rights
Left: You don't need rights because there are no women

Same shit, different day.

I assume it wasn't "Anna from Warwickshire"?

It wasn't, it was this Anna: twitter.com/annalouiseadams/status/1358739965455269890

@TheMerrickBoy

Jamie basically claiming it's probably not transphobic to have questions, you just mustn't ask them out loud and you must arrive at the correct answer....

...and if you say trans women are not women you are transphobic. Right .

I cringed to hear the woman of that couple identifying herself as a cis woman .

Still, its a start to actually be able to have a useful discussion without recourse to accusations and insults.

'It's a huge thing to think about - what makes me a woman?' laughs the patronising self-styled cs woman*

Presumably visits to the doctor are a struggle.

The polls that show transwomen should be allowed in women’s bathrooms never seem to explain at the start of the survey exactly what a transwoman is, that it includes men with intact genitalia and beards for eg.

Christine Evans Urology surgeon in Wales was my hero decades ago she was renowned for her surgeries, turning a penis into a vagina, the BBC actually had a documentary where they filmed what she did. I thought at last we were tackling this subject and treating patients as they should be treated with respect. What I see now on social media is the palest shadow of what she strove for. My neighbour at the time had the operation, not for the faint hearted but she went for it because she knew she would finally be happy and she was.

[quote BitMuch]I'm going to relisten later as I was busy while listening. Did they mention the triple homicide of two Michfest attending lesbian women and their son by a Camp Trans attendee? www.gendertrending.com/2019/08/13/media-blackout-on-dana-rivers-michfest-murder-trial/[/quote]
no mention of that @BitMuch

@Nobu

The polls that show transwomen should be allowed in women’s bathrooms never seem to explain at the start of the survey exactly what a transwoman is, that it includes men with intact genitalia and beards for eg.

From fairplayforwomen

fairplayforwomen.com/penis/

Approx 2.8% of the transgender community undergo any gender affirming treatment, leaving 97% with self-identification with no modifications.

I STILL don't think transwomen understand (or want to understand) the fear that many female-bodied people have of male-bodied people in sensitive places. I think a lot of this is because they do not have the same experiences as many female-bodied people. Having a female body for many of us means we are treated differently from small children according to our society and culture.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be something that can be discussed openly. Even in this broadcast, the focus was on the feelings of transwomen - not anyone else.

[quote BitMuch]OU professor SG Chappell did a great job at NAMALTing . . .

Said "I pass myself if I don't speak". Photographed here
eicsp.org/events/event-details/784-an-evening-with-prof-sophie-grace-chappell-18-june-2020[/quote]
Goodness me. I haven’t seen frilly petticoats and patent leather Mary Janes like that since about 1950. No wonder men don’t take women seriously, we don’t look the part, what with all the confusing clothing we wear these days.

The polls that show transwomen should be allowed in women’s bathrooms never seem to explain at the start of the survey exactly what a transwoman is, that it includes men with intact genitalia and beards for eg.

When they do, and some of them have, the consensus is no. So I find it very dishonest that this justification is trotted out.