Radio 4. Right now. Is freaking me out.

[OnePotPolly]

Transmen who want us all to accept that they are actual men. But they are a subset of men who can give birth to babies..
Which only women can do, in fact.

And still claim that they are men. After giving birth to babies. From their wombs.

And the presenter on R4 is actually going with it. And sympathising with the person that obviously men can give birth. Or is he just presenting it so that the audience can draw their own conclusions?

Whatever it is, it is winding me up no end. I have listened to R4 for the past 50 years - 50 YEARS!! every night without fail, while I potter about in the kitchen, tidying up and popping a bit of baking in the oven. I love radio 4, it has seen me through many traumas. Divorce, death of parents, death of sibling, permanently life altering illness of my child. Radio 4 has always been there as a stalwart support. A reality check. Reassurance that the rest of the world continues as normal - ordinary, normal even if it's bad news or a war between foreign nations. Right up to 1am and "Sailing By"

I love Sailing By. I find it, at the same time, both soothing and sad (because it's a reminder of times past)

But the shite that I've just listened to has totally wrecked it for me.
What a load of utter bollocks they have just allowed on air.

Unless they're just airing it to show how ludicrous and self absorbed some people can be. . . . .

Really hope that's what it turns out to be.

But you’re both agreeing that it should be not at the expense of others.

Which is where women sex based rights come in.

It wasn’t inaccurate. I quoted figures. They are correct.

Just turn it off then and listen to something else, it’s not hard

I think wish we could just be allowed to say that TW are TW, TM are TM and they have the right to exist without harassment or denigration.

But that is a lie.

I wish we could say that TW are MEN, TM are WOMEN, and they have a right to exist without harassment and denigration.

Because that is the truth.

But you know who else has a right to exist without harassment and denigration? WOMEN and MEN. ALL of us - straight, gay or bi, we ALL have a right to live our lives in a way that we are comfortable with, as long as it doesn't damage other people.

Pretending that people can change sex is wrong - it does not happen, cannot happen and never will happen. To pretend otherwise, and in particular to allow self-ID without any evidence of dysphoria is to make women and children very vulnerable. It is misogynistic and also deeply homophobic.

"Woman" isn't a costume to be worn. Sexual attraction is sexual attraction - not "genderal" attraction. But because of this "be kind", "TW are W" rubbish, predatory men are taking advantage of the opportunity to enter female-only spaces unchallenged, and gay people of both sexes are being vilified and expelled from their own organisations.

Yep.

Very, very homophobic.

TBH, the people saying ‘we don’t know what it does to the body’ sound a little like the antivaxxers who were scared of the long term effects of the CV-19 vaccinations.
This is an utterly ridiculous analysis. We know how vaccines work. Covid was still relatively new but there was such a wealth of information on coronoviruses and vaccines in general, that we had a good idea of what the risks are.
As far as I am aware, there are zero studies on the effects of testosterone intake by the mother on fetuses. And, not just because such a study would never make it past an ethics committee. We do know that testosterone can have such a strong effect, that it is a controlled substance.
It's perfectly reasonable to have concerns about a substance with known effects to be used without appropriate medical oversight and without any studies showing us how the child would be affected.

“If the number of people increasingly abandon it it’ll be like The Guardian

Only the very committed with bother

A big shame they can’t self reflect on what’s happening before it’s too late”

This is fallacious on many levels:

1. it suggests the Guardian is struggling with loss of readership, which is incorrect (see my earlier post for numbers, but the top line is that it’s the second most widely read newspaper)
2. Delve deeper into the audience of the Guardian and it’s largely made up of AB (professionals) and a fairly wide spread of ages including young people - ie just what advertisers want

Your later post suggests somehow Times Radio is a worrying development, snatching R4 listeners in droves. Again, fallacious. It’s entire weekly listenership is 500k, which is a lot less than the 5 million people who tune into just one R4 show (Today).

And BBC Sounds recorded 1.48 BILLION listens last year. So again, it’s fallacious to suggest the Times Radio is anything other than a squashed fly on the windscreen of the BBC juggernaut. HTH

I grew up with Radio 4, my mum loved it and listened to The Archers, Woman's Hour, World at One etc, so I always did too.

I enjoyed Woman's Hour with Jenni and Jane but have really struggled since and now haven't listened for a couple of years. Not discussing anything to do with GRA, women in sport, men in women's prisons etc for YEARS when it was a glaring omission was ridiculous.

I used to enjoy Fortunately with Fi and Jane but again, they were overly positive and lacking in critical analysis or challenge on feminist issue and it grated too much in the end. Their interview was Paris Lees was a real let down.

The Archers turned into absolute drivel. I don't think my mum particularly listens any more, ending a decades long habit.

The lack of headlines about court cases like Allison Bailey's. The unquestioning reporting of male crimes as perpetrated by women etc meant that Today/PM led me to wonder what else they weren't telling me.

I listen to Podcasts mostly now, with Times Radio to wake up to. Literally can't remember the last time I tuned into R4 (and my car used to be permanently on it).

For a transman to become pregnant and safely carry and birth a baby, its no light matter, everything is carefully monitored, he preps in advance by stopping testosterone and it's really not taken lightly. Testosterone isn't taken during the pregnancy at all. Neither is it, if he will be feeding the baby himself.

I think you mean "If SHE will be feeding the baby HERSELF"

Transmen are women. Please don't be drawn down the slippery path of preferred pronouns.

@Bingbangbongbash

My dial does nt go far right unfortunately nor far left.

It likes to sit in the reasoned, rational middle.

HTH

Not really. The quoted figure was accurate it’s you extrapolated from that talking about ‘droves’

That and ‘frothing’ in pp you seem worked up by this thread.

People will switch and can talk about why. But feel free to address other posters, there’s not much in this.

YABVU

Just realised this is in AIBU.

At least the majority vote is yanbu

Timea Radio has some really excellent political and news analysis. Much more indepth and balanced than Radio 4.

As I pointed out earlier in the thread, there are good reasons why the use of Domperidone (which is not a frigging Vaccine anyway, so that comparison by the PP was completely and utterly irrelevant) by birth mothers is tightly monitored by healthcare professionals.

It’s banned completely in the US, but the NHS judges the benefits to a baby’s immune system (granted only by Mum) outweigh the risks. Non-birthing parents (male or female) don’t pass on these benefits.

And a far better comparison (than Covid or similar vaccines) would be the lack of understanding of the long term consequences of Thalidomide when released. Totally safe and hyped as the ‘wonder drug’ of its time.

I can’t get behind this. It seems to me that trans men and women receive far more abuse than gays or lesbians. It is as though we have switched scapegoats.

I guess you'll have to learn to go through life not expecting everyone to share your view or opinion then. Or are you insisting the national radio station can only discuss things you 100% agree with?

@Bingbangbongbash This post was about people frothing about the drugs used to induce lactation and how they might affect the baby. I was pointing out that they are used for inducing lactation in natal women, not just transwomen, so any concern should be equally levelled at both. I guess it isn’t as fun to call the lesbians out, though.

So are you saying that if a lesbian couple have a baby, the partner who didn't give birth to the baby, is given medication to induce lactation ?

Yet another person who was brought up in a household with Radio 4 on all the time and have learned a lot from it and loved it. Apart from Emma Barnett on Woman's Hour (who left to have a baby) and Just Webb on Today, who has stuck to science and biology and facts, the whole of the BBC has been captured by this cult-like belief that by changing language you can change reality. If someone conceives and gives birth to a child then they are a woman, no matter how much you fiddle with language. It's an absolute tragedy that the whole of the BBC has been tainted by this. It's as if people who believe the earth is flat have taken it over. People saw what happened to Jenni Murray, who questioned trans ideology, and they let the lies in. The BBC's good reputation is in ruins.

Of course it’s concerning if anyone is taking unprescribed or contraindicated drugs when pregnant. But are TM doing this when pregnant? All the guidelines I can see online suggests that testosterone therapy should be stopped before & during pregnancy. Intramuscular testosterone leaves the system after about a week.

So I don’t really understand the concern. Unless you think TM are, as a group, deliberately putting the health of their babies at risk by continuing to take hormones. In which case, first, I’d like to see how evidence, and second I’d like to see it treated like drug abusing women - a healthcare issue requiring intervention and support.

I have switched off from most BBC channels due to their overbearing wokeness of recent times.

‘I want a baby and I’m having one regardless’

My two young great nieces where fathered by a man who decide at the age of 40 he was a woman and from now on was to be referred to as ‘Claire’.
Claire suddenly went from having around 50 FB friends to over 1000, most of whom are trans rights activists. This person now appears to despise women even though they claim to be one themselves. Spends most of their spare time slagging of JKR and anyone who dares to agree with her. This person will stand and argue with you about how trans rights override those of natural born sexes yet refuses to acknowledge their original gender which actually allowed them to father 3 children (this person also has a ds who now refuses to see ‘Claire’).
’She’ appears have no regards for ‘her’ dc feelings over this. They are being teased at school because when 6 foot 3, heavily built ‘Claire’ comes and collects them from school, their friends want to know who that person is. ‘She’ stands out from the crowd. ‘She’ is their father but they can no longer tell people this so he’s now just ‘Claire’.
Trans people are not thinking longer term when deciding to procreate, the emotional damage this will cause their dc in the future is irreparable. Fine, if you need to live your life as the other gender who am I to judge but please do not bring children into your world, I am seeing the damage it is doing, on that subject I will judge and continue to judge you for I have seen the impact it has on dc.

Any Questions, Any Answers, You andYours, DIDs, Costing The Earth, It’s a Fair Cop, Just a Minute, the radio plays, Reith Lectures, Life Scientific, In Our Time, and some amazing programmes like Robert Carlyle’s What Really Happened in the 90’s and one on radio in US prisons that made me cry. There are many amazing programmes. We’re not going to like or agree with them all. Evan Davies, IMO, is a smug sexist git but there are others who are more intelligent.

But don’t let all those amazing programmes be lost or dismissed out of hand. Tell the BBC your concerns about its programming. Thousands of people do and (sometimes) they listen.

R4 is within that bandwidth, so you should be ok to get it on your system.

@Rosietheravisher I suggest that you look at the court cases involving and govt report into the Tavistock gender clinic, and the children who were being called trans. Read some stories of detransitioners like Kiera Bell. See also the numbers of girls with undiagnosed autism, and children with a family history of abuse going down this route. And if you want to see an extreme case, look at Iran, where gay men can pretty much only survive by transing.

Really? I'm a lesbian and I'm seeing far more abuse to LGB now we're lumped in (involuntarily) with the TQ+ than I used to. Only the other day someone said to me 'I've had it up to here with your lot'. When I asked what lot she meant, she said 'All you queers and non-binary and trans lot.' As someone who attended the early, political Pride marches and fought for equal rights for LGB people I find being called queer and lumped in with straight people who want to look a bit more interesting really offensive. And when I say that out loud in public I get told I'm a bigot and hateful.

The staff at the Tavistock gender clinic used to joke among themselves that soon there'd be no lesbian or gay young people left, because so many were being referred to the clinic for hormones that would leave them sterile. Those kids were taken to the Tavi by parents like Susie Green of Mermaids, who on a TED talk stated very clearly that she and her husband didn't want an effeminate, possibly gay, boy and so put him on cross-sex hormones and through surgery at 16 to make him a 'girl'.

Homophobia, misognyny and autogynephilia explain 98% of the TQ+ movement. Are you happy to be supporting homophobic and misogynistic men? Go and google autogynephilia, which accounts for the vast, vast majority of transwomen.