Radio 4 just now (8.47) bonkers conflation of intersex and trans

[oldwomanwhoruns]

Was anyone else just listening to R4? Discussion of the history of 'trans' and the case of Ewan Forbes, an aristocrat born Elizabeth, who was challenged in court over the inheritance of a baronetcy.

About 8.45 am, on the today program (I think)

Complete conflation of intersex and 'trans', woo-woo stance of 'oh we've got it right now'.

Claiming that up to the 1960s trans had all normal rights, and that this court case took all their lovely rights away.

The worst bit (for me) was when they talked about all the poor trans people who used to get raped in prison, not like now, of course.

Contributor and presenter both clearly had no understanding of the difference between intersex (DSD) and trans.

I must admit I was very puzzled by Amol's reaction. He left all of Prof Playdon's assertions completely unchallenged and conducted the interview as if he was just allowing an author to promote a new book. No searching questions, no challenges, no references to current debates on the subject. Nothing!

“WearyLady
I must admit I was very puzzled by Amol's reaction. He left all of Prof Playdon's assertions completely unchallenged and conducted the interview as if he was just allowing an author to promote a new book. No searching questions, no challenges, no references to current debates on the subject. Nothing!“

I agree. That is not the usual way the Today programme is conducted.

Sorry but I think Amol is a pretty rubbish presenter - not up to the Today programme standard.

Have you noticed how incredibly similar Amol Rajan is to Gary Bellamy from Down the Line?

Amol Rajan is a great presenter - very polite, relaxed questioning style which gets a lot out of interviewees without sounding angry.
He was the presenter of the media show for ages at Radio 4 and was great - I learned alot about films/ social media.
They've nabbed him for Today.
He was editor of The independent for years. First non white editor.
I think he was probably not interested in the Parton thing - write in and complain - he'll do better next time.

I agree, I think he's great. That TV documentary he did a while back about why there are so few BAME people working in TV was really good. He must have been having an off day, but if enough people write in he will learn from that. Might be worth writing to Feedback too.

Love Sarah Ditum's review, especially this paragraph.

It would take a certain kind of cursed genius to render this material anything less than thrilling. However, Playdon is that genius. Possibly to make up for the thinness of the available material (Ewan left no diaries or letters), Playdon appears to have included everything she discovered: the level of detail about Ewan’s country dancing group can only be described as an ordeal.

Today is something of a mixed bag. In two hours the presenters will interview a wide range of people with different specialisms. I assume they are briefed by researchers, but I dare say there isn't much time for preparation, so if you're not familiar with a subject you'll probably do a duff interview. John Humphrys used to drive me up the wall because he never bothered to prepare properly for interviews with scientists and he seemed to treat any scientific item as a joke.

Well it didn't sound to me like just disinterest. To me it sounded like obsequious toadying on the part of the interviewer

Amol Rajan is a great presenter - very polite, relaxed questioning style which gets a lot out of interviewees without sounding angry
I couldn't agree more. I love his conversational interview style, which as you say, usually gets much more out of his interviewees than an angry interrogation. Yesterday, though, he was definitely asleep at the wheel.

[quote nauticant]Have you noticed how incredibly similar Amol Rajan is to Gary Bellamy from Down the Line?

[/quote] Thank you! It's been bothering me for weeks, yes, he sounds like Gary!

I don't doubt that he is talented, he wouldn't (or perhaps shouldn't) be where he is if he isn't a very good journalist and presenter; but on Today he just sounds half asleep, disinterested, out of his depth and a bit thick to me.

So Radio 4 gives us lies and nonsense, which is very sad, as the BBC is losing its worldwide reputation for honesty. The interviewer would have had time to check basic facts about ‘intersex’ and DSDs.

But within a few minutes of this posting, ordinary women on Mumsnet are able to correct the misinformation. And within a few hours they’ve posted enough links and clear scientific information to give the true story to anyone with a few minutes to read this thread.

I learn more reliable, evidenced and factual information on Mumsnet than I do from mainstream media! Thanks, oldwomanwhoruns and all posters who put your own unpaid time into doing what the MSM should do.

Yesterday, though, he was definitely asleep at the wheel.

Hmmm, he was also asleep at the wheel in that segment a couple of weeks ago about how the poor little menz were being locked out of current fiction publishing. Too many women in the business and as novelists apparently!

It was a shockingly ill-informed, ahistorical segment, and he led it.

Hmmm, he was also asleep at the wheel in that segment a couple of weeks ago about how the poor little menz were being locked out of current fiction publishing. Too many women in the business and as novelists apparently!

I stand corrected re Amol. I heard that piece about women in publishing and was quite enraged by it. Why would anyone be surprised that if the vast bulk of fiction readers are women then their would be a large number of women fiction writers? And why would anyone complain that women are well-represented at all levels of the publishing industry? I thought all of that should be a cause for celebration rather than complaint!

I seem to be angry all the the these days ...

I seem to be angry all the time these days ...

I'm less angry now. The BBC have just announced they're going to pull out of the Stonewall diversity programme. Hurrah!!!

“@thinkingaboutLangCleg
I learn more reliable, evidenced and factual information on Mumsnet than I do from mainstream media! Thanks, oldwomanwhoruns and all posters who put your own unpaid time into doing what the MSM should do.“

I agree completely.

I still hope that we have all put in our complaints to the BBC re. this interview? It really was such a clear case of 'special' deferential treatment being given to the Sacred Caste. No questions, just nodding agreement.

And the BBC complaints team are still well captured - I have all their answers to my Laurel Hubbard complaints, all spouting the Stonewall terminology.

So don't let up on the BBC quite yet. They have a long way to go to get back to impartiality.

I seem to be angry all the time these days

I've been angry since about 1972 @WearyLady You learn to live with it

@oldwomanwhoruns - I put my complaint in to the BBC about this item. I am still fuming about it. This awful book is going to be turned into a tv mini-series apparently, so expect more of this grooming / propaganda

I agree with Babdoc about the term intersex, but lots of people are still using it unfortunately, there's even a few BBC documentaries a couple of years old that still used the term.

TRAs love the term because it creates confusion about the reality of sex, and suggests that one can be neither A nor B, but somehow a mixture of both of them (or none of them!). As if there was an option 'C'.
There is also a recent push to include conditions like polycystic ovarian syndrome in the 'sexual spectrum' (for want of a better term). Anything that confuses sex, for them, is a bonus because it muddies the waters, feeds into their narrative, and chucks sand in the eyes of the uneducated (in terms of science) general public.
Sex is a 'spectrum' don't you know?

Article from inews by Patrick Strudwick

inews.co.uk/news/long-reads/secret-court-case-50-years-ago-robbed-transgender-people-rights-1291857

[quote ArabellaScott]Article from inews by Patrick Strudwick

inews.co.uk/news/long-reads/secret-court-case-50-years-ago-robbed-transgender-people-rights-1291857[/quote]
From that article:
Due to the wealth and connections of Forbes’ supportive mother Lady Gwendolyn, at 15, he was taken to a range of specialists across Europe and given synthetic testosterone, which had only just become available. It prompted a male puberty (complete with spots and stubble) which supported the fact that throughout his young life he presented as and considered himself a boy.

Forbes was born in 1912, so would have been 15 in 1927. Testosterone was first isolated and synthesised in 1935. Details in this paper:

eje.bioscientifica.com/view/journals/eje/180/6/EJE-19-0071.xml

And girls can't go through a 'male puberty'. Is Playdon's book intended as a work of fiction?

WTF? She think Carl Linnaeus caused the slave trade and the holocaust by systemising taxonomy?

Well, we know science is dangerous because it contradicts people’s fantasies. So who knows what other harm it could do?

Is Playdon's book intended as a work of fiction?

That’s not the word I would use. How sad when book editors don’t bother with even simple fact-checking. Thanks for doing their job for them, OldCrone. Too bad the book, and its credulous reviewers, will continue to spread fantasies.

That article seems to have taken the line that in the past, pre 1970, people could simply "correct" their birth certificate. That was apparently fine until their sex was questioned in law.

It strikes me that some people just got away with self-identifying their sex as it was very rare and no-one had properly thought through the consequences.

We are really only beginning to see the consequences of this ideology being taught to a whole generation as fact, alongside surgeons willing to operate destructively on healthy bodies.

This book appears to be a bit of a rose-coloured fantasy idea of what could have been if only no-one had noticed.