Midday today on Radio 4, new programme AntiSocial talks about the toxic conversation on social media about trans rights and women's rights

[nauticant]

Midday today on Radio 4 is a new programme called AntiSocial which is about how debates on social media can turn nasty. The series starts today with:

Why is the conversation about trans rights and women's rights so toxic?

This week, two sports governing bodies decided that trans women should not compete in women's categories. Other sports announced they would review their policies. There's a row about that, but beneath that is a deeper argument about how the tensions around gender identity are discussed and debated.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0018h14

I don't think Steph is all that bright

So again Steph gets asked 'How does it feel?' yet again.

Milli saying women, the old fashioned kind feel very strongly about the words woman and female. We fought for rights we didn't even have 100 years ago and we can see them being taken away.

Steph is using the word transition where she means surgery, I think?

More in Common was more balanced than I thought it might be.

I’m working from home thanks to bloody Covid but in this case it means I can actually listen live!

More in common report was a bit woolly

Yup, I don't think Steph is the sharpest knife in the drawer. Milli is running rings around her on the polling results.

Milli Hill is brilliant

Bloody hell, Adam. Yet again 'How does it feel as a trans person Steph ...'
Why not ask Milli 'How does it feel as a woman...'

Recent threads on the More In Common report

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4570160-public-want-trans-women-kept-out-of-female-sport-times-16622

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4570261-guardian-piece-on-more-in-common-research

Good to have a long programme to cover quite a lot of issues.

So many of the same, demonstrably false statistics. Same old same old.

And Steph thinks GC women should be upset about the fact there are fewer women in sport than men….how does Steph think twaw affects natal women getting into elite sport!!

Well, there's a surprise. That's one of the rules of misogyny isn't it. Telling women how they should feel.

Knew they would use Laurel Hubbard. She only finished last because she failed all her lifts. What a low blow. Swear she was sent to open the floodgates. Look she didn’t win so it’s fine for everyone else.

Urgh. The trouble we have here is to some people saying ‘transwomen are men’ is diabolical and to some people it is a neutral statement of fact.

Steph respects single sex places…but uses women’s toilets.

Milli says women's voices are now being heard. SW 'no debate ' is over. Women are called shrill and hysterical and need to be able to speak. Language is being changed. Refers to the 'womb carriers' twitter post.

Steph ‘the government should just [do what we want] and then the debate will be over’ !!!

Thank you Milli.

Just listened on the way to a meeting and blown away this is being discussed so prominently. Great to hear it.

@CriticalCondition what poll please?

No one ever says that any transwoman in a female competition has displaced a female athlete. It doesn't make any difference if the transwomen athlete ends up in 100th position, or if the female athlete would have been 100th. Women deserve the 100th place in women's sport just as much as they deserve the 1st place.

Labour need to get a handle on this part 2345... Steph is 'Labour this, Labour that, I'm a Labour women's officer, this is Labour policy'

That was very interesting. I wonder if we're seeing some backpedalling from the 'trans rights' side of the debate here, or whether it was a deliberate editorial choice.

Quite a lot of what Steph said would be considered 'transphobic' by the more extreme TRAs I've seen on Twitter, etc. And they had a transwoman speaking who was all 'I pass well, my voice is quite light, etc. etc' (I won't comment on the accuracy of these statements). There wasn't anyone arguing 'women with beards' should be allowed in the women's loos, or about lesbians and 'female penises' or any of that stuff.

If we're going back to trans=gender dyphoria+some kind of meaningful transition, that misrepresents what GCs have been trying to push back against.

Steph forgot to show concern for the woman who lost her place in the competition due to the participation of Laurel Hubbard.

It was amusing to hear Milli Hill confidently reply that she stands by things she's said in the past on social media as being reasonable while the founder of Steph's Place couldn't be so confident. If I recall correctly I've raised many an eyebrow at what SP thought was reasonable to put out.

The programme was a disappointment but Milli Hill did an excellent job given the constraints.