Maya's judgement Thursday 10th June 10.30am

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Wishing her the very best of luck. twitter.com/MForstater/status/1402310977115279362?s=20

I'll be absolutely gutted if the original decision isn't overturned, but at least her case has let a lot of sunlight in.

First thing I thought about this morning

Everything crossed for Maya

Joanna Cherry did a good job of presenting the argument as a right to hold a belief. The R4 presenters argument seemed to revolve around pronouns. Seems bizarre that in today’s world observable biological reality that leads to structural inequality has to be established as a belief so that women and some men don’t lose their jobs. Anyway best of wishes to Maya for today.

JC was terrific!
The thing they didn't explain was - what does gender critical actually mean.
The times online comments from the blokes are all GC, they are horrified at what's happening.
Keep shining a light
Good luck Maya!

Could Joanna Cherry be any more brilliant? She cut through the flannel and emotional blackmail that interviewer was trying to catch her out with so deftly.

Joanna was fantastic

Other than Patrick grant it was pretty much a female morning on the today program. What a nice change.

Sarah Smith was the presenter. I don't know her but she just seemed to be parroting Stonewall stuff. Cherry was awesome.

I'm glad the interviewer was robust. Because it let Cherry explain properly what this appeal case is about. Which is that people should be allowed to have gender critical beliefs.

Maya is doing us all a great service no matter what happens today. And just in case, even if she loses this can go further.

JC was excellent, and it was so refreshing to hear reference to 'spaces, sports' etc, and liberal use of 'gender-critical' on mainstream media as an acceptable 'other' side of the argument. Bizarre how presenter kept going back to the 'being kind' part of this as somehow weighted as heavily as observing legal protections... madness.

Sarah Smith was woeful, clearly didn't have a clue what the case is actually about. Thank goodness for Joanna Cherry.

Sarah Smith was following the BBC policy line. The questions would have been decided by the production team. This was 'the' high profile time slot, they could have hidden it away any other time from 7am.

I'm glad the interviewer was robust. Because it let Cherry explain properly what this appeal case is about. Which is that people should be allowed to have gender critical beliefs.

Yes, definitely. I'm very happy with that piece of radio. I'm glad she was able to state this from Maya's perspective rather than the trans perspective, that this is about not being able to "discriminate against, harass or victimise" people for their gender critical beliefs. Before that I think there was a segment on harassment against women and girls, anyone familiar with what happened to JK Rowling might start to join the dots.

I can't quite believe that the defence has to be her beliefs. Like, you can't actually change sex. Chromosomes don't change. Really odd that biology has to be seen as a belief.

But there is an ideology which is founded in the belief that biological sex is unimportant.

Gender critical beliefs clash with that ideological belief.

I agree with you, but that's how it's being framed.

Agree that they really needed to define gender critical. It was open to interpretation as ‘people who don’t think other people should be transgender’.

I know this because I asked DH, my useful barometer of ‘well meaning but not interested’ opinion, and that’s what he’d got from it.

She did define it later as people who believe sex is immutable and that women should have sex based services and spaces.

June that is a problem for sure. I think it's because - gender critical - sounds negative. That you are -critical- and therefore - against something. And most people have no clue what being gender critical actually means. I've tried this with my DH too, he thinks I'm nuts. At the end of the day it means that we believe biological women are women. And trans women are not biological women. More than a belief, because it's an actual biological fact.

One hour to go, I'm trying to work but I can't concentrate on anything else!

@Ereshkigalangcleg

I agree with you, but that's how it's being framed.

Hopefully this framing of reality as a belief will get more people questioning the ideology at the root. I think that Joanna’s clarity in the interview and being allowed to put across so many important points is an achievement in itself on the BBC. Fingers crossed.

'Sex matters' belief

I keep checking the time and can't settle to anything.

I know - this will be a very long hour!

I think SS had to present it that way for BBC to allow it to be raised at all. Someone has to be on the anti-side.

What other words can we use for GC? Sex approving? Sex fundamentalist? Sex Beleiver?