Helen Lewis interview

[AutumnalCosiness]

Great episode of the Adam Buxton podcast this week....

Agree that Adam Buxton is a total wet blanket. I found his hand wringing at the start of the podcast very cringey. I've never listened to him before. Do righteous woke bros listen to his podcast? Because although I don't necessarily agree with Helen's both-siding, maybe they will listen to someone more moderate like her whereas they would outright dismiss someone 'evil' like Helen Joyce.

@EverybodyLovesString I've heard her raise issues of gender on the Private Eye podcast and be dismissed by the two male co-hosts (Ian Hislop and the other one).

Any specific ones? I glanced through the list and couldn't see any. (I think a little better of her now you've said that. 🙂)

Buxton comes across as the wettest of all wet blankets

This. Even later when he was talking about playing his son Green Onions he sounded like the world’s biggest coward.

it’s like she hasn’t quite thought her thoughts all the way to the end, which is why I quibbled with the backtracking point. She never fronttracked! She is, publicly at least, exactly where she was in 2015.

I think many have always wanted to go back to the attitude popular in 2015, before self id was suggested. The idea that we should pretend that some men are women at their request and have some single sex spaces. So we have to call men 'she', be tolerant of them in toilets, but not allow them to perform intimate exams on women.

But just as in 2015, they will talk about the extremes, but not say where the line is. They wont acknowledge that including men in womens spaces exclude many women, and forcing preferred pronouns is a safeguarding risk, that this attitude has lead to rapists been counted as female by police.

I can see why someone like Buxton will be happy to talk to someone with this attitude - it suggests that TWAW for most day to day situations, and will concede that women need single sex spaces in some unspecified and rare cases that TW probably wouldn't need anyway.

Im glad that helen critises countapoints, men like Buxton need to hear that he isnt a reasonable and harmless face of transgenderism.

Yes! At one point she says women face these issues too (safety on the streets) and I'm like yes! But there's many more of us and we are dying at the hands of men at the rate of 2 a week in the Uk so FFS prioritise US for a change. Is it so hard to see that this is the crux of it?

Absolutely agree!

For so many people, displaying respect towards men wearing women’s clothing takes precedence over preventing male violence against women and girls. It’s a great indicator of where women stand in terms of importance for our society. Not even other women can be guaranteed to prioritise women’s safety.

In my view, whenever there is a debate on this issue, there is far too much handwringing, be-kind-ing, being-nice-to-both-sides-ing and general wet blanketry.

It's almost comical that so many men, who tend to pride themselves on how rational they are, are almost entirely about the feelz when it comes to this issue.

We need to be hardheaded and rational. Start from first principles, namely:

1. Humans cannot change sex.
2. You cannot write a lie into law or policy without having undesirable consequences.
3. You cannot force people to go along with something they know not to be true.

And that's it, really. You don't have to say anything more than that. It doesn't matter what the lie is - it could be that the earth is flat, or 2+2=5, or personality is dictated by star sign. As soon as you write that into law, or implement it as policy, you will run into problems because 1) lies always have consequences whether you foresee them or not 2) some people will always refuse to go along with the lie, however benign or harmless you imagine it to be.

How difficult can it be?

Adam Buxton is a total milquetoast, but I think that's what made this conversation very effective, and why his podcast in general works—he's an unusually feeble voice in the media landscape, and quite happy to cop to it, which makes a change from the million blowhards out there.

Helen Lewis is clear on her position, very good at summarising the debate, and was able to deftly push back against Buxton when he was being cowardly. She may not be as hardline as some on here would like, but she does represent the majority view, and is out there clearly and convincingly articulating it.

Fair summary, I think

She may not be as hardline as some on here would like, but she does represent the majority view, and is out there clearly and convincingly articulating it.

Lewis could have clearly and articulately and accurately summarised what Rowling was doing. And then disagreed with it and I would have no beef with her.

Maybe because I was (and Lewis wasn't) in a Scottish women's conference a few weeks before the Act came into force and I heard the discussion about what it would mean (experts were present but no-one was sure because the Hate Crimes Act is poorly written) and what to do if/when the Scottish Police came round.

Press and politicians were pressuring police to follow up every accusation thoroughly and at the same time leaving it to the police to decide what was a valid accusation and what wasn't. Even if all the cases were eventually thrown out of court it's what happens before they get there.

It's not the middle of the roadness that gets me. It's the unfairness.

(btw for clarity - J K Rowling wasn't at the conference either)

I really struggle when people complain about TW having their appearance mocked. Ok it’s not nice, or something I condone, but it’s something women have to deal with constantly. This ideology that these TW adhere to has led to a TW leading a rape crisis centre, rapists going to women’s prisons and to a teenage girl being anally raped in their school toilets, to name a handful of events amongst so so many awful things. But yes, it’s deeply morally wrong for a woman to say a TW wears a bit too much makeup. How nasty of her. Really that’s where we should focus our opprobrium

I think this is the crux of it for HL and a lot of the lefty feminists. Ultimately what they look like to others wins out and the need to stay in the right circles is more important than actually making a stand. I appreciate HL has done a lot but you just can’t be moderate and actually achieve anything with this issue.

They have livings to make. Cut them some slack, ffs.

And in fact, I think "moderates" like Helen Lewis do a lot of good in pushing back against extremist transactivism in a way which is reasonable and open (I think HL is both these things + funny). She puts things in ways which seem balanced and reasonable to people not immured in the trenches of this war.

We need all sorts of approaches at all sorts of levels. Not everyone can be KJK.

Despite Buxton's "discomfort" with Lewis dismissing the trans woman who has called her all sorts of names, I thought it was a very balanced discussion. Helen Lewis has exactly the same thoughts and feelings about the trans issue as I do. Buxton ought not to tone police women and be very very careful about saying JKR should call Willoughby a woman as it's no skin off her nose. Recognise your privilege, Adam.

💯

I've said before, pointing and laughing at people may not be very nice, but it shouldn't be a crime.