R4 now Tuesday 7.51 am

[somethinginoffensive]

Discussing Stonewall.

Just come on here to see what this was about. DH emerged from under his headphones to tell me about a bloke who sighed a lot and called everything transphobic. Said his stomach was in knots just listening to the gaslighting. Yeah mate, now you know how I feel all the bloody time, and years of hearing this shit too.

I imagine James Dreyfus could put Kathy Burke straight on a few points. I hope they're still good mates. Used to love Gimme Gimme Gimme.

I did some air punches to that segment!

Justin Walsh gently hinting at the possibility that B Cohen had assumed he was cis ... priceless!

I don't have a massive problem with not having a woman as part of this interview. GC women have been invited onto similiar BBC-aired segments quite a bit recently, but I think having a one-time founder of Stonewall and a gay man putting the GC side of things will have helped to break through to the sort of listener who thinks it's 'just women being hysterical' .

Penis News/BC really didn't come out of this well, did they?

I mentioned this thread to Dh who said go onto BBC sounds and just rewind to 7.50 which I did. We both just sat here and listened. BC did not come across well at all. Loved Simon and Justin.

Sadly all too short as usual. I stopped listening to WH a while ago, I cannot relate to its stance.

Cohen notably would not 'answer the question' about women having a right to express concerns. Indeed, he wouldn't mention the word 'woman'. Seemed more concerned to talk about himself.

It’s set to be a bright sunshiney day! I enjoyed that.

I don't have a massive problem with not having a woman as part of this interview.

It's the absolute hypocrisy of the outrage of how wrong it is to discuss trans issues without a trans speaker (invited but wouldn't come) while having no problem discussing women's issues without a woman speaker (not invited.)

Repeatedly, for years, the BBC have discussed the biggest women's rights issues since the Suffragettes on air by putting a group of male people to discuss amongst themselves what male people should permit and direct female people to do, have and feel.

It's sexism on crack, and absolutely illustrative of what really lies at the heart of all this: an established cultural belief of service humans. Woke my arse.

Just went onto Stonewall site to see what they say (in detail) and the detail of what they stand for. Remarkably difficult to see any detail at all.

Just listened- it was epic and glorious! SF is bloody amazing, everything we’ve been saying for years, nicely summed up.
I’m going to listen again today and count how many times BC lied.

BBC could choose to have Miranda Yardley, Rose of Dawn et al to come on and give their views. & their opposite counterparts.

Both of those would be excellent choices - I know the latter in particular is not aligned with a GC viewpoint.

Of course, there's always Stephen Whittle. It's rather sad that I can't think of another trans man with a public profile in the UK.

However, as stated above, this was a section about women's rights although the whole thing ended up being about the empty chair (Stonewall).

Cohen was very ranty wasn't he. I've heard Justin Webb on the subject before and he's very good.......

www.stonewall.org.uk/cy/node/9461

Here is the link re: Stonewall on single sex exemptions.

It's from 2015, but if they had changed their minds you would have thought they would have taken the article down.

The fact that their advice on single sex exemptions deliberately minimises or fails to acknowledge any conflict of rights demonstrates why they should be treated as a lobbyists, not a reputable organisation that can give advice equality law.

This has made my day.

advice 'on' equality law

I didn't mind there being three men talking about women's rights this time - partly because I was just so happy to hear BC making a massive fool of himself, and partly (sadly, obvs) because people (esp men) are far more likely to listen to men discussing this than to women.

Much harder to dismiss as 'wimmin's issues'

If there's a transcript marked up in the same way as Mic Wright does it for news stories that would be a mass of colours.

Green: (largely) factual
Orange: opinion / spin
Yellow: from briefing
Pink: tabloidism
Blue: promo/page furniture

Explanation of colour markings etc. taken from here:

twitter.com/brokenbottleboy/status/1401922020489797635

Thanks merrymouse. I think my eyes weren’t really wanting to read stuff to carefully as I was searching as I’m so angry about eg the Alison Bailey debacle. Didn’t even like to go to their site tbh.

It was three men talking about a women's issue - one of whom reframed it as a man's issue and was incapable of even spitting out the word 'woman'.

A factor there is that it is safer in this 'debate' for men to speak for women: Justin Webb has doubtless moved into the TRA crosshairs, but social media will feature non-misogynistic name-calling and demands that he lose his job: there won't be vile threats to rape him with 'lady dicks'.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

I imagine James Dreyfus could put Kathy Burke straight on a few points. I hope they're still good mates. Used to love Gimme Gimme Gimme.

Yeah, disappointing to see her twitter, but she's a theatre director now and theatre is infatuated with trans stuff and in the vanguard of removing women's single sex toilets, piling on those who object and silencing The Stage. You'd think a sector where the abuse of actresses and students has been all over the press would now be treating women's rights with kid gloves, but no.

Justin Walsh gently hinting at the possibility that B Cohen had assumed he was cis ... priceless!

And why should it be assumed that he is cis? It's true that Justin Webb may look like a white male member of the establishment, but I can think of at least one white male member of the establishment who presents as a white male member of the establishment in every way except pronouns.

I saw the date and assumed there would be something more recent.
There it is in black and white. (Unless we do an embarrassing colour code - fascinating).

Anyone listening to that would have heard calm rational Simon then Benjamin, the difference was stark, Benjamin came across really badly. I liked the end when it was made clear stonewall refused to be part of the discussion.

Shame the BBC didn't pull him up on the lies about single sex spaces. I also want interviews to start talking about the sex by deception issue.

@Vargas

Benjamin Cohen: 'Gender critical is a polite way of saying transphobia' - FFS

Thia really pissed me off. When I say I'm gender critical I do not mean I am transphobic.

That was great

Interviewer to Ben: "Hang on, you know nothing about me, now can you answer the question?"

"Stonewall could've come on but didn't" 😂

one of whom reframed it as a man's issue and was incapable of even spitting out the word 'woman'.

That one reframed it as his personal issues. His diatribe was half about him and his beliefs. So little of it was actually about stonewall and yes, he even got the published removal of single sex exemptions wrong (and that is so easily verifiable).

So penis news proves their credentials really.