Beth Rigby interviews Iain Anderson

[Theeyeballsinthesky]

He does not do well!

https://twitter.com/skynews/status/1682117673277337600?s=46&t=aWQLrPtVicDNf6MQpq5WVg

Think Beth is a big ol' terf! And good for her.

What I found really surprising is that she's happy to let that show – I don't think she would have done even just a few months ago. It really proves that things are changing, and the trans insanity might finally have peaked.

Absolutely. As Sharron Davies pointed out on the excellent Triggernometry interview, a transman was competing in the same NCAA competition as Lia Thomas and chose to do so in the women's category. Nothing to have stopped Lia competing in the men's one.

I also suspect she has a lot of gay friends, and is very au fait with LGB Alliance's arguments.

I don't think he is " softening" so much as detecting a very obvious PR failure. I imagine he sees himself as a strategist, for the Labour party, in how to communicate this issue to the public.

Oh, I don't think the softening is genuine, I think he is just trying out different strategies to make him and stonewall appear more reasonable. He is a weathervane whose opinion (when voiced in public) will depend on the direction public opinion is blowing.

Anybody else get the feeling that Iain thought the interview was going to be the usual 'walk in the park' style meeting he has with politicians and therefore did zero prep?

He did look very odd, gripping onto his chair and swaying backwards and forwards. And that's before listening to his answers!

Oh to be a fly on the wall of the Stonewall offices today.

Like Staremer he keeps using the term 'safe spaces' instead of single sex spaces. 'Sex' is a word to be avoided.

He also talked about transitioning from male to female. This use of this inaccuracy/impossibiliity also seems to be on the increase, and needs to be confronted head on every time it is used.

Stonewall's 'Free To Be' Strategy for (2021 - 2025). It keeps referencing people " living their life to the full" - which Anderson kept repeating in the interview. They are trying to get everyone on board through the use of unifying statements which are assumed to be appealing to all people.

https://www.stonewall.org.uk/stonewall-strategy-free-to-be

It is all so transparent. They think we're stupid.

'He did look very odd, gripping onto his chair and swaying backwards and forwards. And that's before listening to his answers!'

He did come across as rather odd, and had a strange halting delivery style

I see this as opposing tensions.

On the one hand, the PR/culture grab from TRAs amongst the wider public failing (Adam Bryson, Lia Thomas, Mika Minio, SJB debacles hardening the "man/woman on the Clapham Omnibus" attitudes, indeed poll after poll showing Stonewall have comprehensively lost the public)...hence this uneasy mix of crazy talk from the left elites to support males breastfeeding etc, ramped up language of apocalypses, holocausts, fascists, Nazis etc...and this "new" sitting right on the dividing line from Stonewall Iain..."sooooo", "trans folk" etc.

Otoh, institutions, woke capitalism, Labour, LDs, Greens, SNP, all pushing down the trans road as if it's still 2015-2022. Robotic talking Self ID, hate laws, trans conversion bans, 99.9% of women having penises, both sides need to be courteous etc.

These battlelines coalescing right now in the schools issue, the natural tension between traditional child safeguarding and the weight of legal policy drift from 2004, that means the Stonewall message in schools is unbelievably hard to shift.

It's happened with prisons. It's happening with sports. It now must happen with schools. Then the NHS.

Some unions are trying to change the wording. Instead of equality, equalities or even moving to using the word ‘equity’. This enables a pyramid of rights. Overrides concerns about conflicting rights. Making it clear some rights are more worthy than others.

TRA supporters taking it one step further and advocating using ‘liberation’ instead of equality. So no equality act or an equality committee but a liberation act/committee. They really don’t want women to be equal. They want the language to signal women’s subordinate position ie less than. It was ever thus, but coming at it from an entirely different direction this time.

"This is a joke. Plenty cis women taller than Lia Thomas, who’s stood on a staggered podium. Lia won a college race".

India Willoughby desperately pretending that there are any number of 6ft4 tall women.
Desperation much!

I objected to the word 'folk' in draft official guidance at work as it only applies to a very small proportion of the workforce that are getting a hugely disproportionate amount of pandering to. No other class of protected characteristic has a mimsy cutesy label like 'folk'. I asked for either everyone or no one to be referred to in this way, consistency is essential. Muslim/Christian/Sikh folk. Black folk. Ethnic minority folk. Married folk. Folk needing a maternity policy. Doesn't work.

'folk'

where 'folk' includes 'men who enjoy being in spaces with women who actively don't want them there'

mmm, those 'folk' sound great don't they? so homey and reassuring!

The best thing Mr Anderson could have said in response to that line of questioning was just something like, "world swimming has said trans women won't be able to take part in women's sport in future, just like world athletics and world cycling have done, they're the ones with access to the evidence, Stonewall has no plans to commission research of its own or to allocate resource to challenging UK or international rulings in this area". Instead he said ...?

Looking to the pivot to "folx", like our lovely "Latinx" folx.

I like her interviewing style. She asks a good questions and then gives him space to answer. And when he does not she follows up by repeating the question.

I hate the BBC badgering style, especially when someone is being interviewed who they disapprove of. If people are interviewed, regardless of whom, I do want to hear what they have to say. And if they clearly have nothing to say this is also informative.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will...frickin' piss me off!

Folk is just plain weird in this context . Perhaps in any context except as a music category. Besides , I can't get an image of Eddie Izzard strumming a banjo out of my head. It's horrible I tell ya.

'Around' is another signifier of evasiveness and bad faith. And 'stakeholders ' is becoming quite vague and meaningless.

God, the Lia Thomas picture part of the interview was face gnawingly awful. Total cringe, all the sooooooos and wwwwwwwwwells, reverse ferreting and steamed up glasses.

Just Beth saying, c'mon now Iain, spoke a thousand words.

Anderson is Scottish. We use 'folk' quite routinely.

He was sweating heavily, it was a joy to watch and her questions. Right to the heart of it

And this. Grass root sports are very important

I saw my first folx the other day.
Does folx rhyme with bollocks or blokes? I can’t decide whether the x sound is separate?