Women’s Rights, Trans Rights & the Line Between - Helen Joyce interview

[ProfesoraLou]

I really enjoyed this interview about trying to find a middle ground between Trans Rights and women's rights. Melody Rachel, a youth worker who says she has many trans friends, interviews Helen Joyce.
I found it balanced, very thoughtful, and (actually) very kind.

Yawn.
Helen has talked many times, and quite openly, about this petty attempt to smear her. The truth is that she was on a train with colleagues and was reading Harry Potter fan fiction as a part of completely valid research on the influence of this genre on trans identified teenagers.

https://sex-matters.org/posts/press-releases/statement-on-helen-joyce-and-fanfic/

She talks about this influence of fanfic at some length in the very interview this thread is discussing. Which you’d know if you’d bothered to listen to it rather than jump on with your misinformed nonsense.

If you’re talking about dodgy people, you may want to stop knocking a journalist doing relevant (and probably quite unpleasant for her) research and instead reflect on the worryingly large (and growing) number of gender ideology advocates with documented links to paedophilia and actual convictions involving sexual crimes against children.

This transparent attempt to equate reading text in a public area, something which most people have done, with watching filmed or photographed pornography in a public area, usually considered unacceptable, is both infuriating and quite interesting. I think most of us would expect the small minority of unbelievable idiots who crank up visual porn on public transport to be men. I’m not aware of any studies of this phenomenon that look at sex and/or gender patterns for this kind of behaviour so that’s a gendered hypothesis but it’s one that I think most of us would consider to be based in reality. Saying that a woman reading text with sexual content on public transport is the same thing is a transparent attempt to pretend that women behave sexually just like men do; alternatively, an attempt to imply that Helen Joyce is not like other women but is more like a man. It would be quite interesting to drill down into which of those things is being implied.

Long ago (2018?) some old FWRs might remember the committee appearance in the Commons of Diana somebody, a transwoman giving evidence. On the way home they attempted to access a sex shop website on the train and complained to the train company that their access via the train WiFi had been blocked. The train company pointed out that accessing this website was contrary to the terms of service that Diana had agreed to. What I remember though was the proud statement by Diana that the sex website was aimed at women. As if accessing pictorial sexual content in a public place made them MORE authentically womanly. Whereas to anyone with a sense of acceptable behaviour and boundaries, it made them seem extremely masculine.

The worst thing was that that Diana was going to London to give evidence about a women’s refuge he ran when he was looking up sex toys on a train.

And then he slithers away back under his rock.

Hmmm. I may have got it wrong that she discusses fanfic at length in this interview. I’ve watched quite a few HJ interviews recently and it must have been another one.

Either way. It’s a brilliant interview and Melody is a good and open interviewer. You can see the penny dropping in real time at a few points. The comments are great too. I wonder if Melody will end up becoming a fully fledged terf?!

Melody writes in her YT show notes that she forgot to edit the film to use the footage of Helen while she is speaking. I hope she doesn't change it because the expression on Melody's face as she is processing and understanding this information ( probably for the first time) makes the video even more interesting to me. Helen speaks SO WELL on all areas, I hope this starts a domino effect of more respectful shows like this for her.

Yet you have not said a word about Stephen Ireland. Why don't you separate yourself from him? Or all the other trans people and drag queens that have been charged with paedophilia and child abuse.

That was a fantastic interview, thanks for sharing.

@Rollstar the interview where she discusses fanfic is on Louise Perry's podcast, I think.

That was the true value for me. Watching the lights come on for Melody in real time. Priceless.

Melody has interviewed Graham Linehan twice and has heard some of this information and these arguments before, I watched the interviews last year.

What surprised me about this interview with Helen was that Melody’s questions and counter arguments were in the same vein as the previous two interviews. In those earlier interviews she also appeared to be taking on board what was being said but, based on this recent interview, it seems that chatting to knowledgeable GC guests hasn’t (outwardly) changed her mind on anything. She’s still a #BeKind & TWAW believer.

Edited to add:
It was Graham Linehan and Holly Lawford-Smith:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cdm3VGJga1s&pp=0gcJCcEJAYcqIYzv

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hjUwhkUtujY

You'd think the TRAs would stay a million miles from 'guilt by association' arguments, given how many of their camp have turned out to be sex offenders/pedophiles/highly unsavoury characters.

But no. They are genuinely that stupid.

I think the best they can come up with is Helen Joyce researching fanfic, that Scottish woman charged with abuse- genuinely awful, can’t remember the details, and erm yeah no. Think that’s as bad as it gets.

In contrast the list of criminal trans activists and campaigners alone is eye opening, and that before you include common or garden low profile weirdos like the trans bloke with the soiled nappy fetish and a prohibition order of some kind stopping him going near nurseries.