Radio 4 - any Answers this afternoon

[Arcadia]

Great discussion on Radio 4 re teaching of trans ideology in schools - but as ever presenter sides with the pro-trans ideology callers!

It's been going since 2pm and it's been the only topic discussed so far.

I had fully expected Anita Anand to be fully onboard the gender train but to my surprise, she did the first link-up between the schools guidance and Cass that I've heard on Radio 4.

There's a complete idiot of an older male teacher speaking at the moment. He's a new convert to the ideology and it makes him feel with it.

What's coming across is the incoherence of the debate - perhaps a result of it not happening for so long. A couple of very clear and accurate points made, especially by "Andrea" (well done!).

This programme follows from Any Questions last night, and today's discussion is far far superior.

Last night these messages were hammered home:
teachers are the experts; and
we must follow what they say; and
there's no risk because they are open with parents and discuss matters.

To cap it off, the presenter of last night's programme, Alex Forsyth, made clear that there was no evidence that any of the things that people were making a fuss about were being taught in school.

Yes! What an annoying man. Being their 'authentic selves'!

The whole of Any Answers was given to this topic.

Actually pretty balanced - if not to the gender critical side if anything. The presenter did seem to get the point in the end about it not being taught as fact (which it is being - as evidenced by the last male teacher!)

Also, what was painfully evident from last night's programme was that those on the right are really poorly briefed. Utterly clueless saying things that they don't understand and having not the foggiest about the positions or arguments, of the "other side". I suspect that they are averse to even thinking about solid gender critical arguments (the best arguments available) because they view them as being suspect, eg lefty and/or feminist.

I caught some of it while driving. The GC lady was great, saying that we don’t teach other beliefs as fact to children. I thought she came across very well.

I don’t know if there was more than one teacher but the man I heard after the GC lady was so obviously a teacher. I guessed that before he said. He annoyed me with his ‘what if children are questioning their gender’ bollocks. That’s the whole point to me. Children didn’t ‘question their gender’ till very recently. The very fact that his hypothetical student is ‘questioning their gender’ is proof that they’ve been indoctrinated.

Yes, that was the idiot who was enjoying the opportunity to be down with the kids for the first time in his teaching career. Included a bonus of him teachersplaining the concept of "deadnaming" which he was inordinately pleased about.

There were two annoying male teachers towards the end!

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that either Anita Anand secretly has some gender critical leanings or she's been paying attention to what she's been hearing recently and has decided that there's something not right with the only acceptable narrative about gender identity.

Option 3 is the BBC has realised post Cass that it’s been caught with its pants down taking a rogering from Stonewall and it needs more balanced reporting, i.e. editorial decision.

No matter how cynical the motivation, so long as the BBC has shifted position on what is permitted to be said/reported, and this isn't a holding position in the expectation of resuming the dissemination of gender propaganda once the hoo-ha has died down, I'll take it.

*This programme follows from Any Questions last night, and today's discussion is far far superior.

Last night these messages were hammered home:
teachers are the experts; and
we must follow what they say; and
there's no risk because they are open with parents and discuss matters.

To cap it off, the presenter of last night's programme, Alex Forsyth, made clear that there was no evidence that any of the things that people were making a fuss about were being taught in school.*

This

And

This

Also, what was painfully evident from last night's programme was that those on the right are really poorly briefed. Utterly clueless saying things that they don't understand and having not the foggiest about the positions or arguments, of the "other side". I suspect that they are averse to even thinking about solid gender critical arguments (the best arguments available) because they view them as being suspect, eg lefty and/or feminist.

A good example of gender ideology in schools is a change to the toilets. This is what they are doing, not just saying. The fully enclosed mixed sex toilets are dangerous.

edit to change gender neutral to mixed sex

What worried me immensely is that these are teachers. Yet utterly failing to grasp that children and young people believe what they’re told. This is the entire basis of our education system. In teaching, you also introduce ideas that shape the person. Those taught ideas condition the very possibility of who you are as a person, your identity and beliefs.

The belief that is absorbed and internalised could be anything such as communism is the best political form of governance or that capitalism is the best mode of economic reproduction. Why else do we have the saying that the first people to kill in a revolution are the teachers.

Lately it’s very much gender ideology. So of course many, NACALT, children and vulnerable young people are going to hear something and think ‘oh that’s me’. That teachers fail to grasp this basic understanding of education and how young people learn is shocking.

Edited for clarity and grammar

I emailed Any Answers a few years ago now, when self-ID was a big thing, giving an hypothetical example of a male bodied older person being in a leisure centre changing room with a couple of unaccompanied 11 year old girls. Anita Anand read that one out and sounded quite shocked, as though she had never considered that might happen. Mind you she’s got that sort of voice anyway.

I'll have a listen. I do find it frustrating that the pro-GI people seem to switch between "it's not happening" and "it's a good thing" repeatedly. Yet another thing that makes no sense!

I find the self righteousness of teachers insufferable, given how it has been shown how often their use mermaids and stonewall

This whole raft of nonsense would never have floated if it weren’t for smug, sheltered, small c conservative men who love it because it gives them the illusion of being radical. And the side order of misogyny is always welcome of course.
see also: Keir starmer

The GC lady was great, saying that we don’t teach other beliefs as fact to children. I thought she came across very well.

Yes, the caller Andrea was brilliant. Very clear and factual about gender identity being a belief. And that not upsetting trans & non-binary pupils was at the cost of making girls uncomfortable.

I agree Andrea was really good. We should probably all make a copy of what she said to help us speak up clearly when needed!!.

However the speaker before, who AA totally failed to challenged, came out with "facts" that are categorically wrong. ie implying gender identity is a legal thing and the government is confusing what is covered by the EA and the GRA.

And even though Andrea pointed the comments were legally incorrect, AA failed to do it which shows she either isn't probably briefed or has swallowed the Stonewall briefing.

I am not sure if it is possible after the broadcast, but I think the BBC should add a rider to the programme saying that some points made were not legally correct and that AA should have pointed this out / didn't have time to correct.

I cant quite bring myself to listen again, but I think overall the comments were pro self identity without anyone saying this has nothing to do with education about sex. (One biology teacher seemed to have the most common sense approach.) But apart from Andrea there wasn't any really sex based rights comments, and overall the impression given was that those (including the Government) where just egging on a culture war. As did the participants in AQ apart from (groan) the right wingers.

Does anyone think there is any point asking the BBC to correct the wrong legal comments, even if only as an intro to the programme next week?

I didn't hear this. But ironic if the teacher thinks he's "down with the kids" with his views. Sounds like he's actually waaaaaaay behind the curve from what you lot have said here.

Having listened to the development of the debate over gender identity ideology on the BBC for a long time, I found things from the programme to be optimistic about. A debate of the kind broadcast today just wouldn't have happened a few years back.

It is significant that Anita Anand tied together the Cass report and the guidance about teaching gender identity to children. The point is that they're coming from a common origin, and, importantly, that since the Cass report isn't her engaging in a Culture War, then perhaps the teaching guidance isn't either.

Also, thanks to Andrea, it got two of the main messages across in a clear way: gender identity is about stereotypes, and that although someone with a declared special gender identity should be treated with compassion, it is necessary to balance their rights against the rights of others. This is particularly striking when you're balancing the rights of a number of girls approaching or undergoing puberty with those of a single boy.

Have had a quick look at TwitterX (which I know isn't representative) but no acknowledgement of Andrea, and lots of its just a Tory culture war / a rerun of Section 28.

And unfortunately some do remember the caller who gave wrong legal information, which is no being taken as fact, eg:

... Shocking revelation from that caller, that the Education Department has issued such a misleading statement about gender legislation. That alone should convince people that this government doesn't know what's talking about. #bbcaq ...