Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Helen Joyce finally makes it to Women's Hour today from 10am

654 replies

Another2Cats · 14/05/2025 07:14

Just saw this:

Helen Joyce @ HJoyceGender
Morning all! Guess where I'm off to this fine day - Broadcasting House to discuss the @ ForWomenScot judgment, 4 weeks on, on @ BBCWomansHour! Do listen in. I'm looking forward to debunking some shocking disinformation, and reminding an astonished world that Women Have Rights Too

https://x.com/HJoyceGender/status/1922534653166006316

[EDIT]

Yes, I know I put "Women's" instead of "Woman's" in the title

https://x.com/HJoyceGender/status/1922534653166006316

OP posts:
Thread gallery
16
thenoisiesttermagant · 14/05/2025 11:54

Peregrina · 14/05/2025 11:46

I just think that people would understand it better or accept it more if it were acknowledged that it is difficult for a transperson who is used to going in the toilet of their choice and believes they pass (whether they do or not).

Does anyone really think that Robin Moira White would be threatened by other men if he went into the Gents?

It's a straw man argument anyway because in all big employers / public spaces there are unisex loos ('gender neutral') alongside the men's and women's now.

Just use those.

NoFineBalance · 14/05/2025 11:58

NoFineBalance · 14/05/2025 11:54

If you can't access BBC iPlayer, Sex Matters has a YouTube channel, and I think the interview will go on there at some point today.

Also try Sex Matters' Twitter feed.

Brefugee · 14/05/2025 11:58

I'll be interested to hear if they do edit, and which bits are cut, moved or whatever.

Manderleyagain · 14/05/2025 12:03

hope she'll find some decent safeguarding lawyers to talk about why we treat children differently based on age (duh) and be better prepared next time. Introducing some information about laws around safeguarding children and how these laws may in fact take precedence over the equality act and adults' wants and desires is quite important at this point. So glad Robin introduced this issue!
This is a good point I hadn't thought of.

murasaki · 14/05/2025 12:08

It normally takes a few hours to be available. I will reserve judgement as to why....

Lottapianos · 14/05/2025 12:12

Hadley Freeman and Sonia Sodha have shared the interview on their X feeds. Just listened to Helen's interview - oh she's good. A great listen 👍

cheesecakewrestler · 14/05/2025 12:15

myplace · 14/05/2025 08:00

Who was yesterday’s guest on WH? I missed it. Was it another in the SC ruling series?

Monday was Robin Moira White
Wednesday. Helen Joyce
next people are on Friday and Monday

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 14/05/2025 12:15

Greyskybluesky · 14/05/2025 11:07

Well, she might call it a slip of the tongue but she is literally denying trans people's existence

Every time you say you won't use preferred pronouns, a transwoman dies, as J. M. Barrie nearly said. This kind of literal violence is probably how they arrive at the murder stats the activists like to cite for the Transgender Day/Week/ Month/Millennium of Remembrance, the kind that persuaded local councils up and down the last to down tools and stand around the progress flag at halfmast in a type of ceremony they otherwise keep for Remembrance Sunday and the aftermath of a real tragedy.

I wish Helen Joyce had time to run the country. She is so brilliant that perhaps she could do it in her spare time.

nauticant · 14/05/2025 12:17

CorruptedCauldron · 14/05/2025 10:47

The interviewer did Helen a favour by trying to put across the MRA point of view. Helen was able to deftly dismantle every attempt at a ‘gotcha’. She was given a chance to shine, speaking with absolute clarity and cutting through all the nonsense. Good on you Helen! Hope you’ve peaked some listeners today. The ‘what about little boys going to the ladies toilet with their mums’ argument was pathetic and desperate but that’s the only straw the interviewer had to clutch at by the end.

This is how I viewed it too.

The interviewer, whichever side she's on, or neither, gave Helen Joyce a platform to put forward her views in a very clear way and one which provided a considerable contrast for the listener between those, and those of RMW. The interviewer bowled ball after ball, all of which Joyce was able to knock out the park. I'd say that RMW took a bit of a hammering over the two sessions when they're considered together.

The other thing is that by challenging Joyce, this means that Nuala would be able to challenge all of the genderist contributors. Although, unfortunately, if the Friday programme has the usual presenter on, Anita Rani, then expect that that'll be a session of her gently holding the hands of Amnesty International while speaking softly about how sad it all is for the lovely transwomen.

Becky37 · 14/05/2025 12:19

@TheaBrandt1 Agreed!

BrassyPalm · 14/05/2025 12:23

I’ve only read up to p.7 so far, so apologies if it has been mentioned - there are lots of comments under the P.Diddy tweet on bbc woman’s hour on X, referencing the HJ interview. No tweet at all on the HJ interview, shock horror.

ParentingRollerCoaster · 14/05/2025 12:25

I wrote this on another thread but when will journalists start asking men why women should be responsible for their feelings of safety when it is me who make them feel unsafe, why their need to be welcomed into women's spaces is more important than the need of women to have single sex spaces and words that define their sex category...

MrsOvertonsWindow · 14/05/2025 12:25

What's that phrase about never interrupting your enemy when he's making a mistake? If the greatest legal minds transactivism have to offer are arguing that because little boys go into changing rooms and toilets with their mothers to keep them safe, middle aged trans identifying men must be allowed in there beside them, the whole country will peak.
Crack on I say.

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 14/05/2025 12:26

GailBlancheViola · 14/05/2025 11:49

I don"t think it was a good idea to make the comment about RMW's size in a loo encounter, but that's my only suggestion. I get why its an important point but I think normie listeners wouldn't react well to that.

RMW looks exactly like the sex RMW is and has a very intimidating and challenging presence. Helen made the very reasonable point that very, very, few women would feel brave enough or comfortable enough to challenge RMW and RMW knows this.

Agreed, I thought it was a perfectly sensible remark. Helen was crystal clear that she refers to all males as he/him and that she doesn't share the belief in gendered souls, so what a male identifies as is irrelevant to her. In that context, and having clarified that it is and always has been permitted by the Equality Act to make some spaces and services single-sex, she was saying that the only reason RMW and other trans-identified males have got away with intruding there is because of the very reason the single-sex exemption is needed in the first place - because women have to be extremely wary of male violence and aggression. This has given some men carte blanche to ignore women's boundaries and breach their privacy, and because they are utterly self-obsessed with all the empathy of a gnat (at best, we know that some of them are doing this very deliberately and enjoying it) they have ignored all the signs that they are making women uncomfortable and unsafe and that some women as a consequence will be quietly withdrawing from public life.

sevilleorangemarmalade · 14/05/2025 12:30

LittleBitofBread · 14/05/2025 10:26

I actually think HJ shouldn't have said that personal point about Robin being tall and imposing. A rare slip.

He is. I've encountered him in RL and even though I'm a tall, too-well-built older woman who used to do boxing training, I would think twice and thrice before telling him to leave the women's loos.

JasmineAllen · 14/05/2025 12:33

sevilleorangemarmalade · 14/05/2025 12:30

He is. I've encountered him in RL and even though I'm a tall, too-well-built older woman who used to do boxing training, I would think twice and thrice before telling him to leave the women's loos.

I agree. If someone is tall and imposing it's not an insult to point it out and in this situation because it's highly relevant. Robin doesn't get challenged because of his height and stature.

HeadAboveHeadBelow · 14/05/2025 12:34

thenoisiesttermagant · 14/05/2025 11:54

It's a straw man argument anyway because in all big employers / public spaces there are unisex loos ('gender neutral') alongside the men's and women's now.

Just use those.

Yes , big workplaces won't be much of a problem. Smaller places , and especially things like pubs , smaller clubs , restaurants Don't always, it depends, really how big they are.How old they are etc. It's not a strawman argument, because I'm not really making an argument.I'm just saying that in some situations for some people, this is going to make a difference to their lives.I also believe that is necessary and that they will have to make the necessary adjustments.Just that for some people is not going to be easy , that's all.

CarefulN0w · 14/05/2025 12:40

Datun · 14/05/2025 11:12

HeadAboveHeadBelow

I just like to add, that when I was listening to the Peter Daley podcast yesterday, he also expressed understanding of trans people who are now up in arms.

Saying that they would've been used to doing it their way, and now they aren't, they feel like it's a reversal of rights, even though it isn't.

Which is understandable.

However, for the women here, and women like Helen Joyce, they have been speaking to, and conflicting with transactivists, barristers, lawyers, lobbyists, politicians, etc, all of whom had no excuse not to understand the law. Indeed very likely did understand it.

They're not shocked at a reversal of their rights. They're fucked off that their illegal access to women's rights has finally been recognised.

You can see how wrong it is to expect them to have any empathy.

Secondly, the people who led regular trans people down this erroneous path are lobbying groups like Stonewall, mermaids and Gires. People like Stephen Whittle and Christine Burns.

It's quite extraordinary that women are being asked to shoulder the fallout for their deliberate misrepresentation.

I haven't noticed any people, transactivists, or not, direct their ire towards those who are responsible for it. Rather than to women, the victims of it.

I would love it if interviewers asked Stonewall & others if they are going to apologise for their lies.

Obviously it’s not going to happen.

oldwomanwhoruns · 14/05/2025 12:41

JasmineAllen · 14/05/2025 12:33

I agree. If someone is tall and imposing it's not an insult to point it out and in this situation because it's highly relevant. Robin doesn't get challenged because of his height and stature.

Also, our Robin doesn't get challenged in the loos at his place of work because he is the women's employer. A bit of a power differential there, one would have thought...

teawamutu · 14/05/2025 12:42

GailBlancheViola · 14/05/2025 11:49

I don"t think it was a good idea to make the comment about RMW's size in a loo encounter, but that's my only suggestion. I get why its an important point but I think normie listeners wouldn't react well to that.

RMW looks exactly like the sex RMW is and has a very intimidating and challenging presence. Helen made the very reasonable point that very, very, few women would feel brave enough or comfortable enough to challenge RMW and RMW knows this.

Exactly this. As a dig at RMW, arguably not fair.

As a counter to RBW's ridiculous assertion that female silence in an enclosed space betokens consent - absofuckinglootly relevant.

thenoisiesttermagant · 14/05/2025 12:45

HeadAboveHeadBelow · 14/05/2025 12:34

Yes , big workplaces won't be much of a problem. Smaller places , and especially things like pubs , smaller clubs , restaurants Don't always, it depends, really how big they are.How old they are etc. It's not a strawman argument, because I'm not really making an argument.I'm just saying that in some situations for some people, this is going to make a difference to their lives.I also believe that is necessary and that they will have to make the necessary adjustments.Just that for some people is not going to be easy , that's all.

I think it's not going to be that difficult, to be honest, Miranda Yardley - transsexual - has made this adjustment well ahead of this clarification of the law.
Several other transsexuals / transwomen do already refrain from invading women's spaces because they have empathy for women. And they don't have any problems using the mens or unisex spaces.

I think framing this as 'difficult' is part of the problem. It's just not. It's not. We need to stop telling trans people that everyone hates them and framing quite easy things as terrible and akin to 'hate'. It's actually not very good for them, ultimately, it's not treating them as equal adults who can cope with the normal experiences of not always getting their own way in life.

Smaller establishments are far more likely these days to have unisex individual toilets. I think the number of cases where transwomen will have to use the mens will be tiny, and even if they did have to, it wouldn't be a big problem as people like Miranda Yardley and others demonstrate.

JasmineAllen · 14/05/2025 12:49

IDareSay · 14/05/2025 12:30

Full clip on Sex Matters X account

https://x.com/SexMattersOrg/status/1922591695897583833

Great 😊

I heard it live (as I did Mondays interview) because of GCSE collection times. I'd never heard RMW or Helen Joyce actually speak before, although obviously I knew who both of them are and I've read about them.

I thought RMW made a few good points about Trans people still need to be treated with dignity which I agree with because everyone needs to be treated with dignity. Obviously all the guff about little boys in toilets and Cable street wasn't his finest moment 😂and the stuff about single sex places for women who don't want to share spaces with TW was just bizarre. For a barrister I didn't think he came across very well.

Helen meanwhile was amazing. She was clear, polite and eloquent. All her points made sense and were well thought out and sensible. I found her inspirational and I don't often say that about people. Thank you Helen Joyce and Sex Matters.

I've always been cheering on from the side lines because I'm self employed in a 'be kind' area. Making a donation here and there, filling in anonymous questionnaires with my opinions of sex and gender, reminding my family about exactly why sex matters etc.

However, after hearing Helen speak on WH I've decided to set up a monthly DD to Sex Matters. After all their very public work to protect sex based rights I feel it's the least I can do to help 😊

AstonScrapingsNameChange · 14/05/2025 12:49

NoFineBalance · 14/05/2025 11:22

Great post.

I'd also add: single sex spaces aren't there to hurt the feelings of those excluded. Just as safeguarding measures aren't put in place to brand all adults as child abusers.

The constant switch of focus by the BBC from those that a facility is designed to protect to those who are excluded and their feelings is so....I don't know, is I too much to say that it's narcissistic and a bit rapey? How dare you put up a barrier to protect yourself, how do you think that makes me feel?

Yes! That's exactly how it comes across to me!

"How dare you say no to me"

<shudder>