Maya on Radio 2 today

[JesusMaryAndJosephAndTheWeeDon]

Maya is being interviewed on the Jeremy Vine show today.

Absolutely.

I was listening in the car, and thought Maya was an outstanding communicator, calm and measured I would trust her with my newborn.

Secondly well done the JV show for actually having the balls to cover this topic - really raising public awareness in the general population, they have avoided it for so long but it was handled fairly and as well as anyone can manage in the bear pit so to speak. JV has teen dds, so not uninvested.

The mother's of the trans child went entirely silent on the subject of her child becoming infertile, it made me wonder if that is the first time she heard about that, and it is massive. Secondly agreeing her child was autistic was helpful.

My friend has just completed a huge study in Australia, she is a consultant, and they have now seen distinct patterns emerging from children considering themselves trans: moderate to severe mental health problems usually undiagnosed, sexual abuse in early years and autism. We are failing our children in the most grotesque way by not addressing the first two points.

I was spitting feathers when someone messaged in to say Trans are more persecuted that anyone else, including cis women 😡I really wanted JV to challenge that lie. The courts and refuges are NOT full of trans ffs, they are full of beaten and broken women and children.

*mother

Audio on YouTube:

Maya Forstater on BBC Radio 2 with Jeremy Vine - Caller Times in description

15.37 - 'Anna' caller
20.15 - Lillian caller
21:42 - Dawn Susan
22.42 - ASD disclosure

My friend has just completed a huge study in Australia, she is a consultant, and they have now seen distinct patterns emerging from children considering themselves trans: moderate to severe mental health problems usually undiagnosed, sexual abuse in early years and autism. We are failing our children in the most grotesque way by not addressing the first two points.

How interesting but not surprising. As soon as the caller Anna said they had been to boarding school in the 1970s, I wondered what happened to him there. The number of men I know who were sexually abused at boarding school is sickening.

I really wish presenters would challenge it when people make loaded comments about transwomen being 'the most vulnerable people ever'.

Karen Ingala Smith looked into this and if I recall correctly, only 9 transwomen have been killed in the last 12 years in the UK. One was killed by another transwoman, five were killed as a result of working in prostitution or drug dealing and the others were killed by long-term partners. So not one was killed as a result of transphobia.

I think we can all agree that it would be better if no-one was ever murdered. But when a woman is killed every two or three days in the UK, it's pretty insulting to us when people claim that transwomen are more vulnerable than we are.

They were very surprised to see such dramatic and striking results, with very few exceptions. The take away is that early mental health intervention is key, support for sexual abuse that is on going, and children that have autism should be fully protected. Full stop. Her line of work is psychiatry.

really wish presenters would challenge it when people make loaded comments about transwomen being 'the most vulnerable people ever'.

Absolutely. To let some uninformed virtue signaller claim this without any challenge is wrong. And Jeremy Vine translating "cis" as if it's a completely accepted and uncontroversial term

Thankfully not, I'm glad JV didn't bring it up as it would have undone all the good work she had being doing on the show so far.

Karen Ingala Smith looked into this and if I recall correctly, only 9 transwomen have been killed in the last 12 years in the UK.

This tends to be countered by referring to the "astronomical amount of hate crime incidents" reported by trans identifying people, and particularly by trans allies, but these numbers often appear to be subjective. The "harshness" of the murder figures is that they are objective rather than subjective and therefore are the best numbers to illustrate what's going on. (This doesn't account for the cases of "literal genocide" of course, those are apparently countless.)

I've never heard her speak before but I was really impressed, she expressed - calm and intelligently - everything I feel about this issue but can never quite articulate.

Maya was eloquent as always. I particularly enjoyed it when JV called Anna him after their call ended.
I think most parents of trans children have to believe they've done the right thing and that their child is now the opposite sex and happier than ever as otherwise they would be filled with such guilt and remorse at their part in it all.

kareningalasmith.com/category/trans/

Yes, it's still a thing though with younger girls now. Largely prompted by the fact they are being told a lot of stuff about all these different "sexualities" none of which are very meaningful to them at 10 and 11. Plus it lets them joining the school clubs which in some cases is the cool thing to do.

I am not sure why anyone is convinced that it couldn't be a trend, it's not like it wasn't a trend back in the 70s for a while too.

Thankfully not, I'm glad JV didn't bring it up as it would have undone all the good work she had being doing on the show so far.

Yes it's good that there was no derailing. Maybe this thread could work to the same principle? There is another thread to discuss the alien thing.

I really wish presenters would challenge it when people make loaded comments about transwomen being 'the most vulnerable people ever'.

I think it can be difficult to do this effectively. To some extent you can challenge certain stats, but a lot of it is anecdotal, things that are hard to pin down, or stats that could be interpreted different ways.

It could just get into what seems like a very unsympathetic argument with no clear winner.

I listened with interest.

Teenagehood (if that's a word) is a time when kids explore all types of behaviours and boundaries and its surely not unusual for teenagers to be confused or transient about their sexuality?
Teen DD came home after a life skills/PsHE lesson last year thinking puberty blockers were a good idea because apparently you could essentially pause puberty until you had thought through or decided whether you wanted to transition or not. I'm not convinced someone could take puberty blockers for a number of years without any (lasting) side effects and I'm dubious what the lesson entailed to give her that impression.

I listened with interest.
Maya came across incredibly well.

Teenagehood (if that's a word) is a time when kids explore all types of behaviours and boundaries and its surely not unusual for teenagers to be confused or transient about their sexuality?
Teen DD came home after a life skills/PsHE lesson last year thinking puberty blockers were a good idea because apparently you could essentially pause puberty until you had thought through or decided whether you wanted to transition or not. I'm not convinced someone could take puberty blockers for a number of years without any (lasting) side effects and I'm dubious what the lesson entailed to give her that impression.

Still catching up with the thread and the programme, but for me I would have one comment for Maya and most women who speak on the issue.

For me, arguably the most important thing is that the word woman means adult human female and always has. AHFs need a word to describe themselves and to use when talking about their rights as a protected group under the EA 2010. Woman is that word. If trans women are women then "real women" need a new word, and then non-real-women women will need to adopt the new word as well in order to be part of the group, and so it goes.

I think it is vital to recognise that men do and should have the right to privacy and association away from women SO LONG as that is not in the boardroom or in the Cabinet etc.

A male who identifies as transgender can be of any sexuality/sexual orientation.

I can’t bring myself to listen to the show but I think it’s pretty grim how you’re all so gleeful about all of this.

Trans people are facing increasing levels of discrimination precisely because of this kind of thing but sure, Mumsnet is as Mumsnet does I guess.

I genuinely don’t understand what you’re all so bothered about (I’m not trying to be flippant; I genuinely don’t understand why being inclusive to others is harmful to you). Because all I ever see is “well men will pretend to be women to get into changing rooms and toilets” (in which case, your problem is with men, not trans women); I see “why do they have to be so stereotypical in their appearance” (er, because you have to live as your affirmed gender for at least two years before you can get any treatment, and do you really think people will get that if they’re not toeing the binary line?); I see “what about the children” despite it being known that trans youth have some of the highest levels of mental health problems and suicide. For people who think gender is a social construct you’re all pretty keen on policing it for other people.

And honestly I know you’re all probably gonna tell me I’m a snowflake or whatever but I know there are people on this site who don’t buy into this stuff. It’s just depressing to try and talk back against it.

'With Mermaids being investigated I hope this whole topic gets a massive dose of sunlight in the coming weeks'

Ditto. Some proper scrutiny has been a long time coming

This may be inappropriate and if it is I apologise and I'm happy for the post to be deleted, but, when I read about the woman whose child was upset because they couldn't have a baby I was reminded of one of my favourite scenes from The Life Of Brian when Stan wants to be known as Loretta and when asked why he wants to be a woman says because he wants to have babies. John Cleese asks "where is the foetus going to gestate, in a box?" They agree to agree that it is his right to have babies even though he can't have babies, etc.

It is not my intent to mock anyone, I would obviously never bring this up around the child who is sad because they can't have a baby, but this scene, which I loved when I first saw it a 14, comes to mind more and more lately because it seems to be so spot on when it comes to a lot of transwomen. They want it all and refuse to acknowledge that it is biologically impossible to have it all. You can go for the full transition, have your body modified, do all of it but biologically you will still be the sex you were born as and that this is important when it comes to certain medical problems that might arise. Recognising biology isn't bigotry it's reality.

There's a good reason that people want more open discussion about these issues.

New research has shown that affirming the 'gender identity' of young people can lead to them making decisions that permanently damage their health. The Cass review makes this clear but it is taking a long time for this information to filter through to schools and universities.

Anything that gets people to talk about these issues and look at the facts for themselves is cause for celebration because it could prevent young people from rushing into a decision they could regret for the rest of their lives.