Webberly Vs Joyce

[CassOle]

https://nitter.poast.org/mollylguinness/status/1987891680964493390#m

'Join us for the Times Radio Gender Debate at 9pm on 20th November @HJoyceGender debates @HelenWebberley, presented by @Jo_Coburn live on @TimesRadio and on our YouTube channel.'

Having berated Helen Joyce, more than once, for being a Mathematician, I don't think Helen Webberley will ever have any authority on any statistics ever again.

However, since she is a stranger to evidence base, it is unlikely to be a problem.

I'll have to listen to it again tomorrow. On first impression, she comes across as nuts.

Reflecting on both interviews I find it very difficult to articulate how I feel about her. I find her deeply disturbing in a way I don't others in this debate, it's almost a primal revulsion. So nice, so sweet, so kind, so deeply deeply unsettling. I know someone described her as a psychopath and I do wonder.

Sorry if it's been covered already but does anyone know Elaine Miller's research on the effects of testosterone on the female pelvic floor that Helen Joyce mentioned? Is it available to lay people?

Elaine Millar posted this - seems hot off the press? https://x.com/gussiegrips/status/1991647126242357669?s=46

I think it's actually quite hard to debate someone who isn't using reason and logic and doesn't actually believe what she's saying herself - as witness the comment about "men who are transwomen".

At one point it's "sex and gender are completely separate" - at another point it's "when you change sex you change your gender" etc etc. None of this is coherent but if you keep repeating it and similar statements often enough then it's actually quite hard to keep track and say "Stop, doesn't this contradict what you said earlier?"

Yes, I've noticed a few connections between people involved in or affiliated with Spanner, PIE etc.

'You & I already know that MG was a longtime contributor to the Eunuch Archive & that WPATH members in good standing brought EA contributors into the construction of WPATH's SOC8 Eunuch Chapter,'

I did not know that, though.

It is hard to debate someone who always goes off on at least one or two pointless tangents before considering addressing the point at hand. Lies. Obfuscates. Says nothing which is based on facts or logic or reason.

It was not a debate, or certainly not a proper one. It was once person making clear evidence based points, and another playing silly word games and lying.

It had zero value as a debate. It had value in terms of allowing people to hear the words of a dangerous extremist, but many who need to listen are probably deep into the nonsense anyway.

Yes! It's that little satisfied smile she makes after every statement.

I've worked with a few psychopaths and it is absolutely exhausting. The ends really do justify the means to them and the normal rules of engagement do not apply.

As @JamieCannister says, this isn't a 'debate' in the normal sense of the word, because HW has no interest whatsoever in the truth.

If your opponent is happy to change the meaning of words, completely misrepresent the law and irreversibly harm children in pursuit of their ends (with an added shield of #be kind), then it becomes like wrestling with treacle.

Back to HWs admission.

If I understand correctly, if HW had been clear, she basically said "I run a company. I cannot talk about any of the cases because I am not the one doing the prescribing - "not me guv" applies to every single prescription I profit from. I know that puberty blockers are banned in the UK for transgender medicine, which is why we use other drugs to stop puberty. We also prescribe cross sex hormones illegally to under 16s."

Is that about right?

Google AI "In the UK, puberty blockers are banned for those under 18 for gender dysphoria, following government restrictions that ban their prescription for this purpose. Cross-sex hormones can be prescribed to 16- and 17-year-olds, but require a multidisciplinary team of clinicians to agree on the appropriateness of the treatment."

Surely she needs investigating (police?) for the cross sex hormones? Surely she needs to be medically investigated for providing what are in effect puberty blockers - either she is breaking the law there, or she is getting around the law via a loophole which needs closing ASAP (I suspect the latter)?

As another aside, I honestly think that HW is a perfect example of someone refusing to play by the normal rules of our broadly secular, classical liberal democratic society. I support freedom of speech, and I support everyone having their say and their vote. On the other hand I think that one could make a very strong argument that any organisation which has power in terms of amplifying voices and opinions should say "anyone unwilling to debate honestly in a way that - however unlikely it is to happen - seeks to enable two opposing sides to find common ground by dismissing lies and poor arguments until the truth is revealed, is a dangerous extremist who almost certainly has no argument we should be listening to, and if they do have a good argument unfortunately they need to learn how to prove that in debate before we're going to take any account of it".

It reminds me of the pro-palestine protests or the pro-immigrant protests in the UK at the moment. They are willing to chant slogans and wave placards right in the faces of people filming. They are almost never willing to explain what they believe and why (and when the odd one does speak to observers they are normally faced with marshalls coming over to tell them to say nothing). Sorry, but if you can;t even attempt to explain and justify your beliefs then I don't believe you have a right to protest or have your voice heard.

I didn't listen to the debate - did anyone bring up concerns that have been expressed by patients about the service that HW is selling?

Yes. It's exactly like arguing with an abusive, controlling man.

One can learn how to do it, but it involves 1. always maintaining an awareness that you are arguing to WIN, not to get to the truth of the matter or convince the other person, 2. Complete on alert all the time, self control all the time, never let your guard down.

Most people find it hard to do this and that's why its exhausting - most people act and argue in good faith and therefore find PD traits very tiring to counter, because the natural assumption is that when a person says something, that's what they actually mean or think or believe.

In the context of these interviews, it's also keeping focus on the outcome - more about how one can create spaces for the person to reveal their thinking clearly. It's not just 'let them speak', it's asking the right questions.

It seems Webberley had decided that JBindel was to be cast as a 'man hater' and used that tack. She used 'mathematical' for HJoyce to contrast with her chosen persona as warm, caring, compassionate, motherly.

Any difficult questions are met with indignance or a quick change of subject.

Both she and her husband cast themselves as brave rebels, martyrs, mavericks fighting the system.
They ladle on the sentimentalising of trans identities. It's utterly insincere, but that doesn't matter too much, so long as they use the right keywords.

I'd suggest what works best is laying out the facts.Naturally we're averse to doing so because it seems bloody rude to say 'you were suspended, your husband was struck off' and list their failings, but the systematic and long standing refusal to acknowledge errors and failures in care are breathtaking and the public should be told about them.

with her chosen persona as warm, caring, compassionate, motherly.

Although I'm not sure how that correlates with selling an on-line subscription service to people she will never meet!

because she is the face of the service and her motherly, caring, clothes folding mumsy persona would never cause any patient to have to think about negative things or to be challenged. And certainly such a person would never cause you or your child any harm.

The persona is all in the gentle voice too.

You're right, but that's logic and HW doesn't use logic.

From her pov it doesn't matter that she's being inconsistent.

Some people will see her and fall for it and that's all that matters. Building a consistent pov is not.

I watched The Times HW/HJ and while I thought HJ got her points across, for those who aren’t informed, her apparent grumpiness (forgetting she was on camera and pulling faces at the stupid things HW said) distracted from that.

Sorry to go against the grain but as a newbie to this I thought back to my pre-Peggie state of mind and I’d possibly be thinking that HW presented as more reasonable because she was calm and smiling. Obvs that’s a false impression and now I know that she was talking utter garbage but I wouldn’t have been aware before…

I was also a bit gutted that HJ went down the road of talking about her editorship of a stats journal instead of challenging Webberly on the ridiculous statements more directly about how choice of medicines is between Dr and patient only… I was shouting at the screen about NICE and how every drug through the NHS has to prove both cost and medical effectiveness based on statistics!!!! (ETA or the entire basis of the Cochran Institute etc) But I’m sure I’d never have thought to say that under pressure in a studio!?

I found myself slightly wishing that Mia from Genspect had been put up for this particular “debate” as she’s red hot on the medical stuff and would easily have batted off the idea that a non-Dr couldn’t grasp medical issues… But fair play to HJ - must be unbelievably irritating to still be dealing with such utter guff after all these years - I’d be bloody grumpy too!!

PP have commented about HW’s odd grin - it looked to me like the fixed grin I’ve adopted since 2020 on Zoom calls to avoid my terrible RBF (resting bitch face) which I’m sure distracted people from anything I previously said. Since adopting the fixed grin people listen to me more - sad but true!

I did like Webberley’s slip at about 21.12 where she said ‘some men, whether they are transwomen in identity or men in identity, some people’.

They all do it at some point.

It is hard to keep two parallel universes going at the same time.

I think as Arabellasaurus (don't know how to tag posters, sorry) and a few other posters have pointed out, Webberly's way of debating seems to be to attack the credentials of the person she's debating, rather than the facts or logic of the argument. In this case saying HJ can't possibly know more than a medical doctor because she's a mathematician. Obviously HJ does know more about it and did show HW up imo. I'd say if HW had been up against Mia from Genspect she'd have found a personal aspect to attack her with too.

It's not Helen Joyce's way to make personal attacks on people or to get riled up. If I was trying to debate someone like that I'd probably come across as a raving lunatic as I'd be so incensed! :-) I'm constantly trying to take a leaf out of Helen Joyce's book ( and Kathleen Stock and Julie Bindel to name but a few). So many amazing women trying to defend our rights.

It's not Helen Joyce's way to make personal attacks on people or to get riled up.

This is what I mean - normal people are at a disadvantage when debating someone who is not concerned about lying or being consistent or truthful.

https://juliebindel.substack.com/p/i-was-in-the-presence-of-evil

I know that my face gives away my thoughts, so I can forgive HJ. Also HJ was listening to utter nonsense, so being astonished at the nonsense is a normal reaction.

To a large extent the "debate", such as it was, was meaningless and pointless.

No-one is going to have changed their mind from HJs to HWs because HW had nothing that contradicted the good arguments we all know and that HJ was repeating. As we knew she wouldn't because we've all been waiting years for a hint of a good argument for sterilising kids or ending women's rights (some of us even believe that no-one can possibly argue for sterilising kids and ending women's rights, so are not even open to the possibility of a decent argument coming along!!!!)

Anyone who has pointedly ignored the evidence and thinks that we should believe what "trans kids" say is not going to have changed their mind.

I think that for those in between they perhaps needed the Times to be braver - a quick follow up programme making it explicitly clear that women's and LGB right simply cannot exist if men and stright people share them; there is no evidence that PBs are a good thing and lots that they are a very bad thing; no evidence that medical transition is beneficial (but lots of evidence of harmful side effects); HW's company is either breaking the law or exploiting a loophole or both. etc etc

You are just a mathematician Helen nobody should listen to you, you arent a doctor like me.

A 2 year old however, that's a different matter. They just know.