Alice Roberts in The Times

[Igneococcus]

Mostly plugging her new book but the interviews bring up the trans issue:

"I am not trying to propel Roberts back to a 2019 skirmish in the trans wars in which she tweeted that “biology is, quite simply, messier and more wonderful than some people like to believe” and advised doubters to “ask a clownfish” — a clownfish being a fish that starts life as male but becomes female. It does, however, strike me that if human female and male brains are the same, how can it ever be said that a baby possessing male genitalia was born into the wrong body.
There is quite a pause.
“I think that’s a very difficult philosophical question. It’s very difficult to pin it down, isn’t it? And we’ve had decades of feminism where we’ve been trying to get away from women being reduced to their genitalia. My own feeling is that you approach everybody as an individual.”

No Alice, it really isn't difficult to pin down, and it's not about genitalia, it's about gametes.

On a side note, it seems if it weren't for Alice we'd still be clueless about the causative agent of plague:
"Her chapter on the Black Death of the 14th and 15th centuries reveals its genesis as the Yersinia pestis bacterium,"

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/31f84383-e923-42d5-8011-64d0dd7c1ff9?shareToken=2d6448182015ccd30701f4cb6c84de9f

Thank you for that link! Great programmes!

Oops sorry meant to quote @PachacutisBadAuntie

Ruth Goodman has quite a few shorter clips on YouTube too, 10-20 minutes. Just search her name.

Whats Lucy Worsley done, please dont tell me she is TWAW as well?

Excuse the irrelevant side note, but Alice Roberts was in the year above me at school. I didn’t know her though.

That is all, I just like to point it out, soz 😬

If it doesn't involve her being filmed looking perky and posh in a fancy frock, it probably doesn't exist.

@Zeugma gets the credit for actually finding one of them on YouTube though 😁

Times Higher Education. You can register for 3 free articles a month.

‘The same rhetoric and fear’: Janina Ramirez on transphobia and history
Janina Ramirez, one of the UK’s best-known historians, reflects on gender fluidity throughout history, transphobia and Twitter trolls. From 2023.

How interesting that she's written a book about women who were written out of history…
And JKR has chosen to die on a 'horrid hill', has she?

It's a long time now, but I have a vague memory of a documentary where the presenter asked the expert "So what gender were they ?" of a discovery of a burial, and the expert gave them a hard stare and said "We have absolutely no idea, but the skeleton is male"

And if I am imagining it, can someone make it a reality ?

I can guarantee that if it happened it was on the BBC 😀

Tales from the Green Valley is brilliant. I own the DVD, if only I had a DVD player still 😂

Are female celebrity brainboxes under more pressure to speak out and appear righteous? I listen to The Rest in History and although the blokes never address the subject, the odd passing comment makes it clear that they are sceptics if not outright critics, and see the whole thing in its context as a very familiar episode of social control..

I have a vague recollection of that too, but it could have been a Ch4 programme.

Top banter.

Slightly side issue, but Ruth Goodman did an excellent series on R4 called The Curious History Of Your Home.

Sorry, i didn’t realise the image was so blurred.

the text under the xray reads;

This is so perfect, for the time you look at this image, you don't know if it's a boy and girl, a girl and a girl, a boy and a boy, a black man and a white girl, a white man and an asian girl, you know nothing. Just the simplicity of the connection and the beauty of two human beings sharing love and that is all that should ever matter.

someone has replied;

False. The external occipital
protuberance on the right skull is much more pronounced, indicating that it is male, while the left on is female. Also, the both skulls have undulating jawbones mostly ascribed to caucasians or africans. The back of the lower jaw is flatter on the left, meaning that the owner is most likely caucasian. unfortunately, the edge of the jaw is obscured on the right, making it harder to distinguish. Of course, all this data is imprecise, but it paints a picture of a straight, non asian couple, most likely both white. Nice Idea though.

heres a screenshot, which may be clearer

Alice was talking about a female skeleton on Digging For Britain this evening. Isn't it amazing how she knows the difference when it suits her 🤯.

Just to continue the Ruth Goodman love, her books are excellent.

How to be a Tudor,
How to be a Victorian
The Domestic Revolution - How the introduction of coal into Victorian homes changed everything.

Crammed with fascinating detail. She also has a wry style which is very enjoyable.

This is what puzzles me. I have eeen her identifying male and female skeletons and characteristics so often on that programme. She is also very interested in the experiences of females in ancient societies. How does she square this with her views on trans ideology?