Janice Turner interview with Debbie Hayton in the Times

[CaptainWarbeck]

Share token link here: Debbie Hayton: the trans woman taking on the trans activists

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/df87fe47-3dd3-4f35-ac48-81f54aeb418f?shareToken=a53b2f201cdd4c204b9009b204cb1ef3

Janice neatly runs through a history of trans issues with Debbie including a discussion of AGP. An excellent read I thought and will get a wide audience as a Saturday Times Magazine article.

Same here,I've got an oven to clean.

Are you honestly sure you want to know?

Thank you for sharing that article.

Yes, I get the use of someone (who is allowed, being a man) to put the concept to AGP and the addiction terms/comparisons into the public consciousness, and yes we've all been through the stage of realising 'look, even some TQ people are unwelcomed and horribly treated by the lobby that claims to be the voice of them' which is when you get that this is not a movement that actually cares about anyone or anything that is not a useful tool to their agenda. Despite all the emotive rhetoric. That too has its uses. (Later you see how they treat detransitioning kids and your hair stands on end.)

But reading that, all I can see is me, me, me, me, me, me, me. That absolute self obsession, the absolute inner focus at all times and everything and everyone else being just grist to that mill. His poor wife. Stuck celibate in a marriage she didn't sign on for. And then I wonder what all this that looks like courage and resilience to be unpopular and stand up and say the unwanted things is really serving. Except a bit more me.

It does look as if the patient years of explaining and explaining that yes, using female spaces does cause harm has finally and eventually sunk in and he's moved on a step, but that has taken frigging years. And doesn't the article make clear how it was his self reflection and his decision and his deep thought and conclusions and isn't he wonderful - as opposed to the woman centric view of mate, wtf are you doing?

So very very sick of women being nothing but the props in the never ending drama of the lives of males with psychological and behavioural issues.

But reading that, all I can see is me, me, me, me, me, me, me. That absolute self obsession, the absolute inner focus at all times and everything and everyone else being just grist to that mill. His poor wife. Stuck celibate in a marriage she didn't sign on for

I totally agree which is why I think people here are being a bit hard on JT over this article. It's all sunlight - yes, this is a different and more subtle kind of sunlight to the trans women in female sports/ employment tribunals etc but it is sunlight nonetheless.

Hayton jokes that, alas for wives, “living as a woman” doesn’t involve doing more chores.”

even with all the many many issues about TW, it’s throw away remarks like that that give me the absolute rage!

there are so many many posts on MN of women collapsing under the mental load of either doing everything or doing the organising so everything gets done, looking after everyone else but themselves

you can tell TW are so very definitely men because there’s no way they want to shoulder any of the grunt work of being a woman. Not for them the endless mental load and organising! Nope far too busy thinking about themselves which is just male behaviour 10 fucking 1!

Stuck celibate in a marriage she didn't sign on for.

And the person Debbie is in lust and in love with is himself. He's walking around talking about his love affair, putting it in the papers, and satisfying his sexual needs by presenting as a woman.

He might technically be celibate, but he's still having a comprehensive and public sex life.

And the real give away - that's funny to him. A joke.

Yes. It's the throw away bits that give away the resounding misogyny and dehumanising of women and their lives behind the carefully presented main course. Which tbh is quite typically framed as stunning and brave.

I think Tinsel has talked before about the frustration of all the attention and celebration for transitioning and then all the attention and celebration for detransioning... wtf do women come in to all this performance and drama? You start to wonder about whether this is just curtains up on a brand new stage for the next evolution of the show.

“ It does look as if the patient years of explaining and explaining that yes, using female spaces does cause harm has finally and eventually sunk in and he's moved on a step, but that has taken frigging years. And doesn't the article make clear how it was his self reflection and his decision and his deep thought and conclusions and isn't he wonderful - as opposed to the woman centric view of mate, wtf are you doing?”

Precisely, and I’d see it more as “this lot over here are making all of us look bad, so I’m going to set myself apart from them”.

Also, what Datun said about changing the story to rewrite the points that have caused criticism / scepticism / disbelief in previous story telling attempts.

Same.

there are so many many posts on MN of women collapsing under the mental load

Yet men like Hayton are using it as a costume to feel sexy, and then make a joke of it.

Ah @Froodwithatowel I really hear you there, I think you've nailed it with the word "props", especially given the photo.

@Pigeon851 yes I agree with this being sunlight. There is something of a golden bridge (if that's the right term) aspect to it for me too. Not quite there but closer.

I think it's an interesting interview, I don't really care who's standing up to ask questions as long as someone is. The hand-waving (joking about not doing chores) stands out I think, and the focus on AGP and being driven by the erotic leaves an impression.

Thought the last bit was funny as I initially read it with a different emphasis!

"For Hayton, the likely fury that will greet her book is worthwhile if it helps other people like her."

I think the actual "debate" isn't as polarised as people make out and highlighting the contradictions and grey areas of "the middle" wherever that might be can only prompt people to think about their own position and whether it is makes sense.

I don't know if I've got the energy for this having exhaustively covered all the arguments last week.

Are we going to have a fawning thread every time one of Hayton's carefully groomed network of flying monkeys produces an advert for his book?

Thank you: Debbie Hayton in the Mail www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4994327-thank-you-debbie-hayton-in-the-mail

But I will say, it takes a lot to shock me, but the extent to which we're being mocked by that marigolds picture has left me flabbergasted.

Basically I think getting the key concepts out, "having an affair with yourself", "we're not the nost hard-done-by" etc into the mainstream, are worth a bit of fanning the flames of obvious self-promotion.

I don't think many people are going to be won over by DH himself based on that, the whole thing is done to provoke.

creating a graph to chart her developing breast size
🧐🧐🧐

The photographer/make up artist (?) is a genius he doesn't look like him AT ALL although still looks male. Every-time I see the wedding photo I am struck by how unusually different their levels of attractiveness are & it makes me wonder.

I don't believe he told Stephanie when he says he did - it's not exactly something you'd forget!!!

It's a promo piece - I'm sad that Janice used her considerable talents to promote him, he's had a lifetime of doing it for himself.

I wish someone would press him on the early childhood aspect.

To be clear, I think it's a complete fabrication, but somehow it's become part of the script (cf Eddie Izzard) to retcon AGP compulsions as starting in pre-puberty, preferably in toddlerhood.

It is part of the "It's natural and innate and I can't help it" narrative? It doesn't tie in with what that therapist bloke Burgo was saying, whose apologia for AGP is linked on another thread .

I don't believe he told Stephanie when he says he did - it's not exactly something you'd forget!!!

100% agree with this! There's a lot that's not said about his wife and the gaps speak volumes.

Janice is responding to the comments which is interesting.

I'm not clicking on it, morwen, on principle, would you mind expanding on this comment?

creating a graph to chart her developing breast size

Only the reason I ask is Debbie Hayton is under the impression that big breasted women have more social cachet amongst their peers than small breasted women. (God knows where flat chested women come in. Social pariahs, according to Debbie. Has he ever actually looked at real, non porn star, women?)

I don't believe he told Stephanie when he says he did - it's not exactly something you'd forget!!!

well, according to the other article, apparently he told her that he' done it 'once or twice, but doesn't do it now.'

which, if you've read anything from transwidows, was clearly a big fat lie.

“To be clear, I think it's a complete fabrication, but somehow it's become part of the script”

I suspect the “the word eighty and tights made me excited when I was three” story will get ditched in future interviews as it’s such obvious nonsense. DP, who really couldn’t be less interested in all this, snorted at that bit.

Any quotes you can share?

His story does get tweaked a lot. He used to admit that he made Stephanie tell their church and friends, but thats been glossed over now.

But as the tights stories grow, i suppose orher details have to be omitted in these puff pieces.

Next she was prescribed testosterone suppressants and female hormones, creating a graph to chart her developing breast size and going on giddy shopping trips. This, says Stephanie, was the hardest point, with Debbie distracted and self-obsessed. Meanwhile Stephanie shouldered the whole domestic load, going to parents’ evening alone so their children wouldn’t be embarrassed by Debbie. Hayton jokes that, alas for wives, “living as a woman” doesn’t involve doing more chores. Eventually, Stephanie asked Debbie to leave the family home, but that crisis point passed and their relationship began to improve.

Hayton's previous comments about social standing being based on breast size were what it made me think of too - so very...odd.

Thank you Morwen!

I've bitten the bullet and read it. Largely because I've seen two women (not even on mumsnet) who have now unsubscribed to the times because of that bloody article.

I don't know if it's because Janice simply doesn't know, but that's an awful lot of words, just to describe a fetishistic cross dresser. They're not exactly rare.

And anyone with half a clue will be reading all of it through that lens. And just seeing me, me, me, look at cross dressing meee.

I mean look at these bloody contradictions. I get hard using women spaces but just assumed all the women were fine with it and they trusted me!! What the fuck?

Moreover, it’s harder to demand access to intimate female spaces if that need is erotically motivated.

For decades, says Hayton, transsexual women have relied upon female goodwill to use their bathrooms and changing rooms, but self-ID destroyed that precious trust.

He's always going to struggle to reconcile the fact that he's got a sexual fetish, with the lobby's narrative that there's nothing sexual to it.

He wants to tell everyone it's sexual, but still retain the air of innocence that transactivation tries to constantly force.

(I realise that it was Stephanie who said the children were a priority, not Debbie, in my previous comment. But that's what you fucking get when you can't use the correct pronouns).

"Hayton’s classic “persistent, consistent and insistent” childhood dysphoria may have led to doctors prescribing puberty blockers and hormones."

But he didn't have "classic" childhood dysphoria. Even in his (almost certainly with at least 5 years subtracted from reality) own account he's just wanging on about tights.