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.

“Only the very committed will bother” suggests that you think the listenership will dwindle to some small level from the existing multimillions. That would be, in anyone’s book, people leaving in droves.

it’s ok not to be very good at debate - but perhaps to sharpen your skills you could try some alternative media outlets. I hear the BBC and Guardian have high levels of trust from their largely educated, professional audiences. Maybe there’s something in it for you?

it wasn’t women who didn’t want a middle way or third spaces, it wasn’t women who screamed NO DEBATE!! everytime women said “um maybe allowing men to self ID into women’s spaces might need a bit of thought”.

We are where we are because Stonewall decided that TW were not TW but actual literal women and once they entrenched there then what we’re women supposed to do? Just hand over a single sex spaces and change the definition of words to appease a tiny minority of men?

@Bingbangbongbash
. I'm not so sure anymore.

I'm an older lady who has been listening to radio 4 for a extremely long time.

It's critical that the bbc remains a liberal in between intelligently considered media outlet and it's changed.

Just like the guardian although of course it's bias is well known.

When one is taught to question everything, one notices.

The far left and far right meet in the middle. I tend to steer well away from these types.

Both the guardian and the daily Mail make their website content available for free as do the BBC

funnily enough more people read free news sites than ones they have to subscribe too.

@Bingbangbongbash

"I hear the bbc has high levels of trust and the guardian"

🤣🤣🤣.

Oh dear.

Well the committed might be enough for them.

I used to prefer The Guardian and bought it every Saturday. It might come up on a quick google but it’s definitely fallen away as the go to. I also think they manipulate according to their agenda. And yes so do other papers.

I get you’re on some sort of trying to cut people down high but it’s not really hitting home. I’m fine with my skills and what you think of them really couldn’t matter less.

@StellaJohanna

It's interesting as well as deeply worrying about how and why it's drifted from it's main cause!

It's worrying because it's so contaminated.

Where do they recruit from? Who is in charge of hr?

The Guardian’s readership figures are boosted by the fact that it’s free to read online, unlike other broadsheets. If people were asked to pay for the drivel they’d feel differently.

Go and google autogynephilia. It's a paraphilia — what's commonly known as a fetish. Apparently around 4% of the male population have it. It's about being turned on and sexually aroused by the idea or image of yourself as the opposite sex. I don't know any butch lesbians who like to dress and look like men who have autogynephilia: it seems to be an almost completely male thing.

I think you'll find this explains Claire's behaviour. Of course, with it comes rage and resentment against biological women because they know they can never be one. Helen Joyce speaks very clearly on this subject. Here she is — but she has given many other talks and interviews:

Has Owen Jones infiltrated mn. 😕

I didn’t suggest it was a vaccine, I was comparing the hysteria about the covid vaccines by the scientifically illiterate public was akin to the hysteria here.

Thalidomide was a brand new drug, domperidone is not. It is relatively widely used by birth mothers to increase supply, so I’m not sure why you think its use by non-birth mothers (natal or trans) would be any different. Do you have some studies suggesting it’s not advisable? Could you please share them?

I would also appreciate some studies that show why any immune benefits of breast milk would not be passed on from non-birth mothers. I don’t really understand why this wouldn’t be the case, as the immunity is passed on via antibodies in the milk, and I don’t see why the chemical constituency of breast milk would differ according to having birthed a child or not.

It’s a fascinating subject - isn’t the human body incredible?

This is so illustrative of how these people think. These are the right opinions, and the right media, which the best people (of whom I want to convince you I am one) have and consume. The other opinions and media are for the lower orders.
its still the 1950s in these people’s heads; the opinions may be different but the mindset hasn’t changed a bit.

Took the words right out of my head, @Perfect28 .

Anyone who thinks R4 is extremist and/or Marxist has plainly never met a genuine extremist or Marxist and uses the terms for things that too liberal for them.

I've been a regular listener for the best part of 50 years, and would sooner give up tv than R4. I have it on pretty much all day, every day, except for during Wimbledon.

Not my thoughts - actual studies by actual experts. Have a google, dear

I wish people would stop conflating this issue into an attack by Marxists. Read this.
https://www.communistparty.org.uk/the-gender-recognition-bill-and-equality-law/

You say trans don’t receive as much abuse as queers (I apologise if my terminology is off I am not young and don’t always keep up) Yet you say that you receive more abuse now because you are “lumped in” with trans men and women. Can you see how that doesn’t refute my contention? And yes it comes across as bigotry.

People read the DM/Guardian online because they are free. The Independent, Telegraph, Times are all behind paywalls. The BBC News site is also free and benefits from a century of brand loyalty (which is diminishing).

The "evil overlord of the MSM" argument being blamed for everything is a nice try but the Times was a strong remain paper throughout the Brexit campaign, Times radio items are more far critical than supportive on the subject. Their interviewers do a better job of challenging the current government and others than many on R4 these days.

The quality and content of R4 has gone dramatically down hill across the board. Some of that is due to budget, some of it is due to complacency against a great deal more competition these days. The quality and endless repeats of drama and some documentaries sometimes makes me wonder if I've tuned into R4extra. The World service is a shadow.

The quality of news journalism has declined dramatically with press releases from political parties, lobby groups and commercial interests being presented as the news instead of investigated, researched and analysed and fact checked. (R4 business news on the Today programme is basically a free advertising slot for whoever appears, there is no testing of guests' claims). There are still some gems but they are harder to find.

So R4 will currently have more listeners than Times Radio but the trend is strongly downward, the numbers going to a range of other stations and podcasts are increasing.

The beeb has never been strongly right or left - its also been very "status quo" with small forays into performance edginess. That isn't surprising. Historically its been staffed and run by overwhelmingly MC, white men from Oxbridge - that influence is still huge and controlling. The kind of men who would otherwise have gone to the civil service to become Sir Humphrey - they know best, they prefer the image of change to actual structural and societal change when they do quite well out of the status quo. Identity politics is the perfect cause for such people.

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.'

And this is the great problem - TRAs (not even genuine "trans") are causing a massive backlash against "this lot", and homosexuals and genuinely dysphoric individuals are the ones who will suffer.

When this madness has passed, the TRAS and autogynephiles and homophobes and misogynists will just quietly slither back into their holes, and gay and dysphoric people will be left to be the brunt of everyone's anger. People are assuming that the pride marchers shouting "We're here, we're queer, we're coming for your children" (as happened last week in New York) are gay - they aren't.

It's putting gay rights back a hundred years.

I don’t agree that the Guardian has an obvious bias. Is it left-leaning? Of course. But most (all?) papers support a particular political party. I still find the Guardian balanced and relatively neutral on most things.

There are plenty of academic studies into this, so I’ll gladly read any that support your notion of an inherent bias.

I assume you don’t take the Mail, of course, since that has been shown many times to be the acceptable face of the far right and it’s journalistic integrity lies in tatters.

@Rosietheravisher I’ll also point you to the number of liberal states in the US who are banning investigatory talking therapy for young kids thinking they may be trans - kids who may be confused about their sexuality, have family problems/abuses, may have co morbidities etc, and are looking for the sanctuary of a different and celebrated identity - and forcing an affirmation only model that tells therapists to tell these kids, yes you were born in the wrong body, and yes you need to get on the drugs and surgery train immediately. Look at California, Vermont. Look at the proposed laws to force parents out of the equation. This stuff has already happened in Canada. Scotland at one point was trying to roll out legislation to ensure every child had a third guardian (effectively a HCP) with quasi parental rights (it was blocked by the Supreme Court). If you don’t think this is happening, I’m afraid you are not paying attention.

Don’t worry, one of those things where you feel like you’re sat at home going mad when actually everyone else is thinking the same thing - Loretta.

I still find the Guardian balanced and relatively neutral on most things.

This is not surprising.

I assume you don’t take the Mail

No I don’t although many do.

Like I said it’s Times Radio, and still some R4 here.

Nah, read what you like. But I am going to judge someone who makes a terrible argument - happy to take any well-reasoned and well-sourced argument on board. But so far I haven’t heard one re the cataclysmic decline of R4 / The Guardian.

Do I judge people who only read the Sun & Mail? Of course I do; they are abhorrent and don’t align with my values in the slightest.

But I also know some really bright, incredibly well educated people who read & write for the Mail, Telegraph etc. I don’t understand how they can marry their world views with this, but I don’t think they’re all stupid or from a lower order.

And you judging people means what exactly?

Diddly squat.

The far left and far right are both dangerous places to be. The BBC is meant to be an impartial broadcaster. But it’s already taken a political stance - just look at the 100 Women list. Surely that list is there to celebrate women and shine a spotlight on the sex class that has to fight hardest to get a seat at the table.

However, the BBC 100 Women list has for years been including men who identify as women. Couldn’t they have their own LGBTQIA+ list? Women have so little to ourselves as it is. The state broadcaster, effectively declaring that a transwoman is part of the female sex class, is peddling trans propaganda.

Meanwhile, men can’t get pregnant. Women can, including those with a male gender identity. However, in all these circumstances, the welfare of the child must come first. So there needs to be a risk assessment of the effect of hormone treatment on breast milk.

And as for transwomen, I can’t see how the secretions coming from a male nipple are going to have any nutritional value or benefit to the child. It could even be harmful due to the cocktail of drugs TW take to make themselves more feminine.
Seems to me that TW who breastfeed are using their baby to validate their gender identity, and that is morally and ethically wrong.

Finally, for the benefit of any lurkers, gender-critical feminists may get a bad name, painted by the trans lobby as big meanies who are stopping people from living their best lives. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Do whatever you please, be free, be happy, the one condition of that is to make sure your actions don’t cause harm to anyone else. Gender-critical feminists will always centre children and natal women, and if their rights come into conflict with trans rights (and sadly they do in certain circumstances), then we have to speak up.