Emma Barnett and Gillian Keegan.

[heldinadream]

Today prog R4 now - Emma holding GK to account!
16/05/24 8.45 been going on about 10 minutes really worth listening to!

It was good that the interview actually happened. It wouldn't have done so even a year ago. I love Emma Barnett and think she's a great interviewer but I was very disappointed in her performance in this case. She was, as others have said, unnecessarily argumentative. I think she talked over Gillian Keegan rather than the reverse. Still, it's good to hear the issue debated. And I'm not surprised that Gillian Keegan hadn't given the issue much thought up until 2020. Most people hadn't and many people still haven't which is why we need more interviews and debates like this.

I wasn't a minister back in 2020 at all and yet I knew about all this.

They knew they were just too afraid to do anything about it.

Agree 2020 is early on all this

Some pp on here were aware early but for many of us we come to it as women speak up

R4 has always done interruptions, which can be annoying, so that pls being nervous or emotive won’t help listening

I like EBs passion.

And day 2 of her Today gig - hit the ground running I guess!

I'm not sure whether any of the other presenters would have got to the nub of what GK believes on the subject of gender recognition. It was also heartening to see GK admit that she had been on a journey with respect to gender matters.

And whether GK came down in the side of fully transitioned males being women or not is, I think, less important than the fact that she highlighted that many transwomen are actually still fully intact males. This needs to be brought to the attention of those who think it's just being kind to let these men into women's single sex spaces and sports.

I didn’t love MK so hopefully EB will work out better

Emma says she's across this issue. If that's the case, why didn't she challenge Rebecca Leak yesterday when she said the concern was about same sex issues? When it is not.

I haven't listened yet but this is worrying if true. It's saying to children that they really DO need the full surgery to be fully transitioned, rather than saying wear what you want, express yourself and do what you want but you're still the sex you were born.

Many will take this as advocating surgery which we know is experimental at best - it's quite an anti-Cass position from the Education Secretary.

Transwomen who've had bottom surgery still have a male shoulder to hip ratio, will be faster and stronger than women with greater lung capacity, more of a certain type of muscle (I can't remember this bit!). Katie Dolatowski, convicted child sex offender, will still be 6ft 5 even with no penis.

And Debbie Hayton has clearly told us that even if fully transitioned (i.e. had their penis cut off), transwomen can still have an AGP fetish, which I would say makes it highly inappropriate for them to be sharing single sex spaces with girl children. Which presumably would be the consequence of Gillian Keegan's view and which makes her entirely inappropriate to be Education Secretary.

Overall I thought it as good. If EB had not tried to put some of the TRA's side, it would have been dismissed as one sided. She gave GK the opportunity to talk mostly sense which presents better imo

I agree with this. Surely if the Education Secretary previously held a simplistic TWAW view and has now changed her mind - with the apparent result being that safeguarding is starting to be brought back in the room - that is a good thing?

Feels like Emma knows they fucked it yesterday and took this opportunity to dump on GK. I'm no fan either. But if she'd done nothing to fix this and just kept her head down until the GE...are we saying that would be preferable? I assume not.

I liked EB here but I do wonder what people who don’t know the background make of it all. I think points need spelling out much more calmly and clearly. For example I think lots of people still don’t realise that trans women include people who have taken no steps at all to transition and fully present as men.

GK trying her best not to say “we said TWAW in 2020 because we hadn’t really thought it through and just thought it meant “be nice to trans people” and now it turns out it’s a bit more complicated than that”.

I did think Safeguarding should have been mentioned but time was limited

If she wasn't education secretary that might be an excuse but safeguarding should be central to her department, it should be the most important thing. And clearly it's not.

Schools get marked down by Ofsted if they don't have a strong enough 'safeguarding culture' and yet the education secretary doesn't mention it at all? The Cass review is about safeguarding.

Did Emma ask if Keegan thinks fully transitioned males are women then should they be allowed to share single sex spaces with girl children in schools? And should parents be informed of this fact, knowing that a very large number of parents do not believe a human can change sex? Some will have religious prohibitions on mixed sex too.

If she wasn't education secretary that might be an excuse but safeguarding should be central to her department, it should be the most important thing.

While safeguarding is crucial, I think education should be the most important thing for the education department to focus on.

I enjoyed it massively.

I think GK is a really interesting minister to interview (and a massive headache to media train). She takes questions so personally and reacts as a personal affront. But she's undeniably passionate and cares that she's seen as effective. That's quite rare and unusual.

I also like EB as an interviewer, she's very sharp and was holding back massively during this piece. She'll get a lot of heat because women voices in debate just get dismissed as bickering but the content was great.

Compared with Amol and his interview with the Labour campaigns guy this morning, it was balanced so much better. Amol was biased, with irrelevant questions which undermined proper political critical analysis.

if you're just hearing this for the first time , it's impossible to comprehend how far reaching the effects of the TWAW mantra are. It would take a couple of full length documentaries to reach the points that are raised on this section of the internet.
I thought KJK and Graham Lineham were deranged when I first read their take, now I think they were the only adults in the em room at one stage.
Edited to say , it's impossible for Emma to do more than scratch the surface in one interview but if she keeps plugging away, she will get it all out in the open

I know pe...erm...mountain climbing is a journey. Some of us started earlier or travelled faster than GK but <sigh> this was the headline in the 'live' section of the Telegraph

I've screenshot it because it'll probably be updated with newer news.

An upside perhaps is that'll it will open a debate to the wider world. Although, ffs, 'what is a woman'....still!?

I thought EB was got very carried away and argumentative and GK held her own really well. I find a lot of the R4 interviewers get very het up when interviewing though and it becomes a battle rather than question and answer, I'd like them to all calm down.

@GerbilStyle I agree with what you said

Listening to the interview now, thanks OP.

Keegan hasn’t changed her view much: she no longer supports self-ID but she thinks womanhood is a reward for males who have surgery.

Irrespective of this particular issue, I never get the sense that Keegan is on top of her brief 🤷‍♀️

Edited to clarify

My take away from the interview;

Nothing to do with me guv. The slogan TWAW is code from a campaign group and it is these groups that have been causing confusion by building a set of materials and the ideology.

I think one relevant point is that when answering difficult questions, politicians are trained to talk in long complex sentences as though they are getting to a point, but then rarely do. They know time is limited and are talking the clock down. They rely on the listener glazing over. I think Emma is very aware of this and trying to keep the answers on point. The education of our children in these matters is highly important and ministers who don’t understand the issues should be doing some research, not just nodding things through.

Castrated men are not women. Womanhood is a biological reality. We are not men with missing penises. We are female. It’s dangerous and irresponsible to suggest that men can become women if they mutilate their genitals. It will lead to more men undergoing dangerous and irreversible treatment. It’s much kinder to tell males they are free to adopt a female name and feminine dress style if they wish, but they will never be the same as biological females. Therefore, they do not have the right to access provisions set aside for actual women.

I actually thought I heard GK say "aren't", not "are" re the TWAW question. But it wasn't easy to hear and everyone else seems to have heard the opposite so I think it was my hearing!!