R4 PM

[Igmum]

Damian Green has just been balanced and sensible about trans rights on R4's PM programme (about 40 minutes in). Is more sense seeping through?

who tries to stop them being themselves

I hear this phrase a lot, not least from my teenage daughter. But I find it quite an eyebrow raiser when it comes from the mouth of an adult.

That whole idea is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this kind of discussion.

Thank you pombear, great to be able to read a transcript for those of us who don't have time to listen to the recording.

I respect the fact that Damian Green bothered to mention transmen at all, even though ED fixated on the woman v transwoman debate

And Evan brushes over his comments to ask if focusing on this 'does damage' to the Conservative Party's image?

I'm confused as to whose eyes Evan thinks the Conservative Party is damaged in by this?

The people who think taking a cautious approach, especially where children are concerned, is a damaging position have already spent several years calling all Tories fascists and Nazis anyway.

The good thing is that it’s stuff like this that will make the R4 listener, who until now has thought this is trivial and unimportant, prick up their ears and say WTAF?

allMangyInseamwho
tries to stop them being themselves
I hear this phrase a lot, not least from my teenage daughter. But I find it quite an eyebrow raiser when it comes from the mouth of an adult.

Exactly. These people, like Evan, have never spent time with teenage girls, or understood the impact of puberty on so many of them. They either don't care, are putting thier fingers in their ears to advance an 'LBGT+ ideology they haven't looked into recently, or are actively using the current climate to push an ideology that is abusive.

Wow, I liked the Tory responses but ED? It was like listening to someone taken in by a cult.

Can someone give him a shake? I always thought he was quite sensible.

I spent some time recently with some Conservative friends who have stopped listening to Radio 4 as they are sick of all the TWAW & assigned at birth nonsense.

@NewYearSoon

I was delighted to hear it. Didn’t he say that most of his fellow Conservatives felt the same?

Please let that be true....I need somewhere to put my vote and as they are in power they can roll this back if there is the will to do so.

@BigGreenOlives

I spent some time recently with some Conservative friends who have stopped listening to Radio 4 as they are sick of all the TWAW & assigned at birth nonsense.

Yes I used to listen a lot but I got fed up of, for want of a better word...all the 'woke stuff' whenever I tuned in. Funnily enough twice this week I have tuned in whilst washing up and the items have been interesting. Today it was about architectural design when converting old buildings...actually it was a bit 'green' but not in a bad way.

Unlike others, I liked the reference to “trans and non-trans”. Much better than “trans and cis” in my view.

But like others, I was horrified to hear ED suggesting that “biology is real” is an extreme and usual position.

To be fair, I suspect it is considered extreme and unusual in ED’s social circles. I suspect that ED’s social circles are highly unrepresentative of British society and that he lives in the most extraordinary bubble.

Those surveys that ask about whether people support trans rights don’t ask whether biology is real. They’d get some illuminating answers if they did.

@tabbycatstripy

Damian Green says it straight out: ‘trans affirming healthcare’ for kids is abuse.

He has my respect.

Eureka. He also said TW is not the same as a biological woman.

I agreed with everything Damien Green said. I felt quite emosh listening actually.

@LittleBearPad

Evan is a berk and certainly won’t give a monkey’s about women at least unless they were born male…

I'd like to think that Ed the interviewer is making these statements (devil's advocate)in order to give Damien Green an easy pushback but perhaps I am being too charitable.

ED sounded to me like he was genuinely incredulous, rather playing devil’s advocate

rather than playing devil’s advocate!

Still can’t believe Maya was sacked for making very similar points to Damien.

Simonedinovoir indeed, he sounded astonished, didn't he! How can he not know that sex and gender are not the same things?? "You're not really saying that a trans woman isn't a woman are you?"

Evan, that notion has not actually been erased from the thinkable (yet). He sounded as though he had never encountered such a bizzarre notion in all his born days

And as for "going as far as saying biology is real" - words fail...

@AsTreesWalking

Wow. Sanity on Radio 4. And to think this is just what I got into hot water for saying at school.... (I opened the can...)

Same here at work in an FE College. Initially was closed down. But I've kept pushing and it's working. We can't let the wants of adult males, fuck up the minds and bodies of teenage girls.

Damian green, at last, common sense from a politician even if he is Tory 😲

Evan Davies, really, I knew he had drunk the koolaid a few years ago, but- "transwomen are biological women" had me shouting at the radio: 🤐you need to re-take your biology mate - or is that what is taught now? I despair!

The BBC needs to sort themselves out. They can't be taken seriously when they have presenters who are openly incredulous at someone saying biology is real.

FFS.

Well I've just seen on twitter that 'biology is real'" is a "terf talking point" apparently (as is "stop irreversible treatment to children")

"terf taking point" indeed.

@Simonedinovoir

Unlike others, I liked the reference to “trans and non-trans”. Much better than “trans and cis” in my view.

But like others, I was horrified to hear ED suggesting that “biology is real” is an extreme and usual position.

To be fair, I suspect it is considered extreme and unusual in ED’s social circles. I suspect that ED’s social circles are highly unrepresentative of British society and that he lives in the most extraordinary bubble.

Those surveys that ask about whether people support trans rights don’t ask whether biology is real. They’d get some illuminating answers if they did.

That's not what he said, though.

If transwomen are biological women why do they need to transition?

Can I be a transwoman? If not, why not?

Could it have something to do with the difference in biology?

What on earth will anyone listening make of this mess? (Spoilers- general mood closer to posts on this board than our visitors claim).

Damian Green was excellent.

I think Evan's obvious bias and misinformation is worthy of a complaint.

The trouble with complaining to the BBC about bias is they just claim you have to take into account all their output rather than one programme/news piece, as I found when I complained about their online reporting on conversion therapy (they did change that article though so must have had enough complaints to take notice). It’s annoying because nobody consumes every bit of BBC output so any individual’s exposure to their interviewing and reporting can still be biased in one direction.