Trans Ex-Judge on BBC Newscast

[CaveMum]

Can’t bear to listen to it mussels, but if anyone has a string stomach/wants to take one for the team, today’s Newscast is a 43 minute long interview by Laura Kuenssberg of Victoria McCloud who is planning a challenge to overturn the Supreme Court ruling that a woman is defined by biological sex under equalities law.

There aren’t enough 🙄 emoji’s in the world!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0lh0c9r?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

I watched it. Victoria McCloud got such an easy time of it from LK. Even when it was claimed that VM has changed sex. So annoying.

I did too. Wild stuff. Picking out:

• Most people don't even know if someone is trans or not.
• She has changed sex "in every way, from every perspective"
• She assumes that she was anatomically male at birth but she may very well not have been, because intersex people are so common and people may not even know they are intersex. (I assume she's talking about DSD.)
• She can't go out any more because she'd be forced to go into a male bathroom, where she'd probably be killed. (It is only a matter of time till this happens to someone.)
• Trans people are now having to flee the country for the above reason.
• There's no issue with trans people in girls' sport because you can't say they all have a physical advantage anyway, and some of them might have transitioned when they were 9 years old.

LK barely challenged a single point.

Crikey. Really? I don’t know whether to ask if you embellished this or not. It is so hard to tell these days.

No, I was very factual! There was obviously some other stuff in between. But I didn't even mention the story about the woman whose GP didn't realise she was trans and started asking about her periods, and then "tested" her and found out that she actually had ovaries and wasn't trans after all. This was to illustrate the point that most people wouldn't know they if they were intersex.

So natch, I could actually be a man who was wrongly assigned at birth... Except no, I have periods and have given birth to three children. So I guess that doesn't work.

How bizarre.

What was the solution to stop being murdered in a loo?! A unisex one or using the women’s?

As I said, it is hard to tell these days. It sounds like one of those interviews where you are not able to predict what you are about to hear from one moment to the next and not sure whether it will be believable or not.

Wild would sum it up well by the sound of it.

You would think that if anyone actually believed McCloud had actually changed sex in every way, that scientists would be undertaking some sort of in depth medical research into what has happened to McCloud’s body. A lack of interest seems to indicate otherwise.

Something particularly troubling is that this person was a senior member of the judiciary. The judicial appointments committee didn’t do a very good job of weeding out someone who has trouble distinguishing between fact and fantasy; the ability to do that properly is of course a key skill for someone presiding over a court of justice.

So much dodgy framing from VM with very little pushback from Laura.

VM kept repeating that the GRA says their sex is that of a woman "for all purposes" but that the Supreme Court ruling meant VM is now 2 sexes. However even before the Supreme Court ruling, there were exceptions in the GRA that held that a GRA holder could be treated as their birth sex eg. for peerages. VM also forgets to mention that as well as Section 9(1) "for all purposes", there is Section 9(3) where other legislation can limit the application of the GRA.

VM claimed that medicine doesn't define biological sex and tacitly referred to the BMA union's trans activist group statement as evidence that medicine doesn't define biological sex.

VM claimed that recent public debate arose as a result of Trump when everything "turned rightwards" but forgets that it was Theresa May and the Conservative party who were trying to introduce sef-ID with no consultation with women from 2015 onwards. VM also doesn't seem to be aware that the initial pushback came from left wing grassroots women's groups.

VM said for decades there were no issues in sports but omitted to mention the fact that various sporting organisations (including Boxing!) adopted a self-ID policy in the past decade.

VM (when asked about threats to GC women from trans activists) stated that Nazis attended gender critical rallies in Australia as if to smear gender critical women's groups.

VM claimed to have developed more empathy as a result of transitioning medically but there wasn't much empathy for women on display in the interview.

I can't think that Newscast would ever invite a GC feminist on for an hour long softball interview. The BBC should get Michael Foran on to debate the law with McCloud, the journalists aren't really up to it.

Are the Beeb going to have someone from Sex Matters on for balance? Or does that only apply when someone asserts that women deserve to be able to get undressed without men in the room?

Irritating tho it is to hear such unchallenged drivel, it's reassuring to know that it forms the entire argument to 'overturn the Supreme Court ruling'.

Off you go then.

He is just a blowhard. As an ex-judge he must be aware that as he lives in Ireland he has no standing to bring a case in the UK..

Yes, I listened to it last night as well, if those are the best arguments that VM has then it's quite reassuring that any argument isn't likely to go anywhere.

ps to the posters who mentioned "watching" the podcast, can I ask where that was? I listened to it on BBC Sounds

Oh man! I switched to Newscast after leaving TRIP and thought I was in safe hands. This is awful. I’m so crossed with them. So so crossed.

I’ve not yet seen an interview with a transwomen where outing themselves was in any way a possibility. There is no doubt, even momentary, when someone moves and speaks.

This. After listening to superficial anecdotal drivel for I while I got the feeling there's not much to worry about.....alarming this person was a judge 😳

I did chuckle at them claiming they were not 'out' to colleagues at that time, when the vouce coming through my headphones I would have immediately placed as male had i not known!

I can’t bear to listen. Can someone tell me if VM actually discussed the mechanics of the legal challenge? That is the only thing I am interested in.

transcript is on Apple Podcasts app.

proposed argument explained at the beginning and it is still that trans people weren’t allowed to present their case.

Thanks for the summaries all. I agree that it’s deeply concerning that someone who has held such high judicial office can be so ignorant of the law, it’s reassuring that the main basis of VM’s argument seems to be “Wah, wah! You’re all big meanies!”

Thanks @Merrymouse

But serious, has LK had anyone 'for the other side' on at all?

I caught the end of it. It included the usual arguments

• there are so many passing trans people that we’ve all met them and not known, but also very few
• for trans people this is all about human rights, but for women it’s just ‘expediency’
• there are very few GC people (although he* didn’t shout out the 6 sock puppets!) and some of them are very violent, unpleasant.
• In answer to LK’s very gentle mention of violent TRA demonstrations, VM said he’d had an email from a trans person who’s had a death threat while hand waving about anything else
• apparently he now has 2 sexes, but also sex can’t be defined 🤷‍♀️

Most interestingly though, VM said he had suggested a ‘truth and reconciliation’ approach, and indicated a willingness to debate. Surprised he wasn’t invited to the LSE event - or perhaps he was…….

*VM was clear he was an out trans woman, so his sex is clear. I use sex-based pronouns.

I feel an email to Newscast coming on….. We could let them see an indication of how many GC people there are (assuming nobody at Newscast has bothered to check the YouGov polls!)

Still seems to be planning to argue an Article 6 (fair hearing in a civil court) breach at ECtHR for the Supreme Court refusing his application to intervene. Only problem is, that was refused on 7 Oct 2024 and the deadline to apply to the ECtHR expired 4 months later.

Plus it's hard to imagine someone who lives in Ireland suffering a detriment from the laws of another country. He seems to be floating the idea that the Supreme Court ruling caused him to flee the country. But he's on record saying he moved permanently to Ireland last year.

It’s really obvious from the summaries provided that this person is an intellectual and doesn’t have much interaction in the real world.

It must be incredibly difficult for LK to challenge someone who presents with such vulnerable narcissism in any type of way without being accused of… well all the things that JK is accused of, derailing the story.