Helen Webberley v Robbie Starbuck . . . WOW!! 😂

[POWNewcastleEastWallsend]

I have watched all the recent Webberley interviews . . . this one is a doozy!!

Robby Starbuck Vs. Pro Trans Doctor: Debate On Child Transitions!

Robbie Starbuck cool as a cucumber and totally unfazed by Webberley's almost continuous unhinged ranting 😂🤣

In previous interviews I thought that she was feigning ignorance. I am not so sure now. Otherwise, she has really jumped the shark by claiming never to have heard of Marci Bowers, at the same time banging on about WPATH as the fount of all knowledge!

There was a row between the Coop, and Andrew Neil re the Spectator (he was chairman).

It was about 'transphobia'. The coop took exception to something in the spectator and said they would pull their advertising.

Neil was absolutely livid, and actually banned them from ever advertising again, in perpetuity. Saying he will not have advertisers dictating content.

They caved, grovelled, and said an intern did it and then ran away.

It was quite interesting. Because at the time, Mumsnet was suffering from advertisers threatening to pull out. It seemed quite a good lesson in not caving to blackmail.

No, this is not true. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. It’s very simplistic to talk of the best person getting the job when we damn well know this often does not happen. There’s a whole plethora of reasons why the wrong - quite often caucasian men - person gets the job. Connections being the most obvious. Besides, positive discrimination is largely unlawful in the UK. We don’t have ‘diversity’ hires.

However, there are and have been many DEI initiatives that have been successful in helping recognising where particular groups of people have been systematically disadvantaged. For example, supporting students at university with SEN/SpLDs and developing foundation years for students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds or those with caring responsibilities.

However, I will acknowledge that many people in organisations have allowed themselves to be increasingly illiberal by following DEI initiatives to an illogical and unhelpful end. For example, there’s research that equality training in the workplace leads to entrenched beliefs. Good intentions but often bad implementation.

Anyhow, in relation to the interview, Weberly comes across as making no sense whatsoever. According to her, we should stop all debate because someone’s feelings might get hurt. There’s just no logic. For centuries physicians bled people as a medical treatment. I’m sure some feelings were hurt when people started to suggest this was more harmful than helpful.

Sorry, my first words of the second paragraph ("utter nonsense") were my own response to my own first paragraph which (unclearly) was meant to represent Helen 'BS' Webberley. You can choose whether the B is bull or bat.

I liked (for certain values of like) the bit where he says "Let's imagine we're both wrong" and she instantly says "No, I am not going there, I refuse to".

It reminded me of the very different bit in The Witch Trials of JKR where Megan (the interviewer) asks her, "What if you're wrong?" and JKR instantly talks about the evidence that it would take to change her mind, and the fact that if evidence could be produced, she would change her mind. The inTRANSigence is all on one side, IMO.

"It’s very simplistic to talk of the best person getting the job when we damn well know this often does not happen." - easy to assert, can you evidence?

"There’s a whole plethora of reasons why the wrong - quite often caucasian men - person gets the job. Connections being the most obvious." - easy to assert, can you evidence? Watching the BBC it would appear that being black, queer or trans, and maybe LGB, gives you an advantage more than being white British does. Have you heard Andrew Gold's experience of not getting BBC related work?

"Besides, positive discrimination is largely unlawful in the UK. We don’t have ‘diversity’ hires." We do, there are, I believe, many examples of organisations like the police seeking to hire the people whose faces help improve "diversity" not the best people, despite it being illegal.

"there are and have been many DEI initiatives that have been successful in helping recognising where particular groups of people have been systematically disadvantaged." Quite possibly, but again it would be interesting to see what can be evidenced.

Ultimately I am open to being persuaded that DEqualityI can work when departments are trained / told to avoid DEquityI at all costs... but I am leaning towards a position which says "I'd rather risk the odd person missing out on opportunities which they could have taken had they had help getting their foot through the door, even if that means the best person sometimes does not get the job. What is much more important is that bosses are able to concentrate on apppointing who they want to appoint, because DEI risks diversity hires and diversity hires are bad for the hire, the company and wider society."

That is a perfect example of a fundamental truth that I am beginning to understand... no-one's opinion is of value unless they are willing to converse or debate in good faith and honestly, with the theoretical end goal of the two sides coming to an agreed truth (however unlikely agreement is to be reached).

As a life-long leftist (social democratic capitalist, not socialist or communist) I am rapidly concluding that the main groups unwilling to debate honestly (and whose words therefore have no value to me) -

Some religious people when they are specifically talking about their faith (plenty of religious people are capable of honest debate, but some less so when it comes to whether god exists or jesus died on the cross for our sins).

The very hard, ethno-nationalist, very racist right. A tiny tiny minority. Putting them on the list is an educated guess - I don't believe for a second that they use reasoned arguments and honest debate to justify white supremacy. But maybe I am wrong.

Woke, CSJ, BLM, TQ+, TRA, antifa types - the "hard left" - an utterly shameful, dishonest incoherent bunch. Webberley actually stands out as one of the relatively rare ones willing to speak, even if she refuses to debate in good faith.

If you cannot defend your position properly and it comes down to slogans (or faith) then - IMHO - it is all but certain that you're wrong.

@JamieCannister if you’re genuinely interested then I’ll share some studies with you but I can’t do this today.

I think it is fair to say I am somewhat interested... I'd be more than happy to have you send me links to studies if it is no trouble... on the other hand I think I am pretty happy with my current position and not overly interested... I can see how positive action in good in theory and can be good in practice, and I despise positive discrimination in theory and in practice. But given the importance of meritocracy and the risks of positive action becoming positive discrimination, and given how bonkers some of what passes for DEI is, the safest thing is to bin it all. Maybe once that is done, once every extremist has been banished from HR departments, we can consider building positive action again, in a small way, from the ground up, using none of the same people.

OMG the woman is a moron. Sorry, I realise I'm not adding much to the debate with that comment, but it is staggering that someone with a medical degree can be so ignorant and illogical.

I think she's just regurgitating common talking points gleaned from TRA Reddit. She's doing these interviews because she's interested in speaking to her potential customers and not the rest of us. None of what she says has to make sense to us because it's not aimed at us, it's aimed at demonstrating that she's all in on giving hormones to anyone who wants to buy them from her.

She comes across as very much the Steve Buscemi meme ('Greetings, fellow kids') in how she uses the TRA arguments - she's deploying talking points she doesn't believe to try and signify that she's aligned with people who do profess to believe these things. On the whole, she's very cringe.

Well, she has spoken to this "right wing" person so now that basically makes her Hitler according to TRA rules 🤷‍♀️

If you follow the logic of some people, including those who post here, that absolutely makes her far right wing and it position her as being a hateful bigot who supports everything that all those she appeared with support.

Webberley may as well give up now. She will be forever tarnished as a hateful far right bigot using the same line of thought that some people use.

HW talks to a religious American conservative => HW catches fascism and becomes a literal fascist

Trans person believes every single thing that a literal fascist called HW says (whilst complaining that she said it and who she said it to) => Trans person is not a fascist at all, obviously.

Make it make sense.

Trans Reddit isn't happy with Weberley's interviews...

https://x.com/ripx4nutmeg/status/1994098421549158626

I agree with comments about needing to put forward arguments for the position you hold and not just use slogans and accusations about the motivations for holding opposing views.

I think there is something about what passes for entertainment and what will get engagement (and therefore make money) that isn’t helping.

I would like to listen to dialogue that requires ‘each side’ provide sufficient evidence to the opposing side that they understand the point they are making before progressing with a counter argument that actually attends to the point. I think the role of the host should be to ensure this ‘rule of engagement’ is upheld. I don’t think statements such as ‘I think that’s cruel’ need be banned, but they should be permitted to side step the substantive point.

However, I think this is the equivalent of a book when the money lays in reels!

I won't listen to this - yesterday I listened to the Gold interview which is all I can take!

When Gold said he could identify as Black she retorted that he couldn't because black is a colour and you can't be a colour. She was deliberately side-stepping the fact that 'Black' is a racial identity, not just the colour black in a paint palette!

So you can't identify as Black, although many visually white people could well have recent Black blood, but you can claim to be a woman, a real woman, even though you have a male body and genitalia, and we are all expected to recognise that claim or we're being unkind!

It will fry your brain trying to make it make sense!!

There were a number of moments in the Gold interview where it showed that she recognises that males and females can be meaningfully categorised by sex. I think she tries to obfuscate because she knows her customers object to this fact.

I think her intention for the interviews is to raise the profile of GGP to drum up business. I think her MO for masking her grasp of biological reality is to deflect by citing ‘the science’ laying in flawed studies, but primarily by operating from a position of the only moral and humane approach being to give people with a trans identity everything they ask for medically and by replacing sex as a category with gender.