Ofcom will now investigate Talk Tv re transphobia.

[Imnobody4]

Here we go again.

From Good Law Project:

We said we’d sue over Ofcom’s decision to dismiss 22,000 complaints about transphobia on TalkTV – now the regulator has caved.

But we had monitored its output for July 2025, a month in which it carried 11 discussions on trans people. And in every discussion, its hosts and guests consistently spouted transphobic views. TalkTV’s stance mirrors the broader editorial position of its sister newspaper The Times, whose toxic and intellectually dishonest campaign against trans people we believe to be a contributor to the rise in hate crime against them.

x.com/JuliaHB1/status/1996576537894703427?t=VgmnlP9LETiwrihlgEkCqA&s=09

Among my misdeeds, apparently, is that I said this on air: "By definition, if you’ve had to get a piece of paper to say that you are a woman, you must accept then that you are man."

I'm happy to be found guilty of defending women's rights and safety, knowing the actual law, understanding basic biology and knowing what a woman is. 🤷🏻‍♀️

We seem to travel this exact same journey every couple of months. The word 'woman' means one of two things. It is either "any adult human who thinks that they are a woman" or "an adult human female where 'female' means having a body arranged around the production of large gametes".

I'm sure that both are equally valid. No. Forget that. There is only one meaning that makes any sense.

I do not understand why anyone would think that redefining "woman" (and similarly "man") so that it no longer describes 51% of the population with a testable definition, and so that it describes an unknown percentage of the population with an untestable definition, to the benefit of less than 0.5% of the population, is such a great idea that it must be imposed on everyone.

"Being trans" is not a belief system, but trans identity theory, or its bigger sibling queer theory, most certainly is.

Yes. Good to be specific .

If people who had transgender identities do not demand that the rest of the population acted as if they believed that the person was a different sex to their body’s reality, it would not fit the description of ideology.

it is when there are demands to treat people at all times as if they were a different sex to what they materially are that it becomes ideological. Complete with mantras that state that people are the opposite sex if they say so.

Mixed in with PoMo and you have a cocktail that is attractive to many.

Puppy, who clearly has the intellectual capacity of a 10 day old cheese sandwich, trying to tell Seethlaw, who has been around for a while and is an interesting, erudite and thoughtful poster with a trans identity but knows their own biology, what they should think, is frankly ludicrous. I know who I'd rather have a pint with. And it isn't our furry pal.

I think it’s ridiculous and vexatious.

Great analogy!

There is no "criteria" that's not how being trans works- it's not a process of logical determination. It's not a judgement. It's not a choice.

Please read the thread and particularly the account offered by the gender critical trans man on this thread- who shares all your perspectives/ theorisations of "sex", "female" and "male" and yet still has the experience whereby (in their words) there is "something wrong in the brain / psyche" which despite all her better judgement persist in viewing their person as being male.

Because it's not "redefining women" . There is no threat to that definition at all- that's just black and white thinking and moral panic.

its simply recognising that within the definition of woman there is diversity and nuance. Some types of variation are rare, and don't change any of the general characteristics of being female/ a woman at all. They just introduce the possibility of also including some very minority differences.

This is a good thing.

“I think we have at least made some progress in a shared understanding of what being trans / trans experience is.”

No. I don’t believe any progress has been made at all.

Many of us have discussed this with Seethlaw in the past and understood what she is saying clearly and have done for a long time. You and your definition? No. I don’t believe you have ever been able to explain it. Don’t you have higher education qualifications in this topic? Surely you should be far better in articulating this concept if that were true.

When you start stating that a male person can not only assume that his understanding, based on the philosophical theories, stereotypes and/or personal needs or wants he used to define and label that understanding, is female and label it as being female and have society treat him as being female based on his labelling what he believes as female, no there is no progress from where we have been for years.

Because no person should be able to use the terms that are needed to protect female people just because they believe that those terms describe themselves when this doesn’t reflect the material reality of their body. It is directly harmful to use those terms, particularly because they have legal meaning.

What we have though seen on this thread is that some people will continue to also use their personal definition of words to make false accusations towards others. Using a personally determined definition of a word (versus the common definition understood by society) besed on how you (general you) personally understand a situation, so you (general you) feel free to attack others using that word is a recipe for abusing others while feeling righteous about it.

This is a really important distinction , and I would totally agree with you here.

The thing is though, many people very often make the mistake of collapsing the two- either consciously or unconsciously.
so there are a lot of statements to the effect that being trans itself is an ideology/ philosophical belief , which is not correct:

How we should treat trans people: how should we accommodate them in society, which facilities should trans women be allowed to use. I agree , those are questions of political ideology.

“who shares all your perspectives/ theorisations of "sex", "female" and "male" and yet still has the experience whereby (in their words) there is "something wrong in the brain / psyche" which despite all her better judgement persist in viewing their person as being male.”

I don’t believe that this is much different from what a great many posters on MN FWR have been describing gender identity as for a decade or so.

While I see what you are saying, how we define the word "woman" is simply that- how we chose to define the word "woman".

What matters is that we agree on the substance- so we can at least move beyond these accusations of falsehood, pretence and lying and also demystify trans experience:
.

Trans women are born with a penis. They are observed to be male at birth. Yet they have a cognitive difference that causes them to recognise/ perceive themselves as female. This is not something that a person has any control over - it's not a rationalisation based on logic - it's not a logical projection of what they think "a woman" is like or what "female experience" feels like. It operates at a much more fundamental level in the psyche. Even a gender critical person can be trans.

Do I perceive the word "woman" as being able to accommodate this kind minority experience (and , importantly , without losing its ability to accurately describe the overwhelming majority of women). Yes. I think that is right, humane and also logical/ rational. Clearly we are not going to agree on this, I accept that. But it is not anyone's "personal definition " anymore than your insistence that "woman" is designated more narrowly is your "personal definition". "Woman" is contested terminology with many people agreeing with one view, and others agreeing with the other.

If you say so, then I am encouraged to hear this. It's certainly not my experience.

The ideological part has always come from the imposition that other people must act as if they share the same reality as the people who is making claims that their version of reality is the material reality as understood by the majority of the population. The ideological part has always come from society being pressured, threatened and intimidated, to treat a male person as if they were materially a female person just because that male person believes they are.

I reckon that you have always held your very own prejudices about the posters on FWR. Perhaps it has always been your own perception that was the issue.

while I understand that and acknowledge it to some extent- this is often then conflated with the idea that the very perception of self as female/
male (contrary to birth sex) is itself a form of philosophy/ ideology, based on a set of stereotypes/
projections about what it is to be the opposite sex.

This is an incorrect understanding of what it is to be trans.

Well obviously we disagree, but I don't think that's important in the grand scheme of things. Let's not distract from the substance and where we can find consensus.

“Yet they have a cognitive difference that causes them to recognise/ perceive themselves as female.”

Are you speaking on behalf of all people with transgender identities again?

Are you again resorting to being the arbiter of who is and isn’t transgender?

Because there are plenty of male people who don’t have that cognitive difference yet describe themselves female. And I believe this has been pointed out very often.

Why? So you can abuse posters again and make false accusations about them?

yup.

That is what it is to be trans:

There maybe some people who claim to be trans who arent like this, just as there are some people who claim to be disabled who aren't disabled. Or gay who aren't gay (this sometimes comes up in asylum cases). I believe this is very rare, although gender critical people like to emphasise these cases as if they were the norm.

None of this changes the reality of what being trans is which is someone whose gender (that is the difference of perception in the brain) does not align with birth sex.

Ok I see you want to pick a personal fight rather than have a meaningful conversation.

Im not interested. Better things to do with my time and all that x

And around we go.

Again, who are you to speak on behalf of people with a transgender identity. Haven’t we been having this very same discussion now for years?

Around and around and around.

I'm not speaking on behalf of trans people. I'm simply describing what being trans is, just as the gender critical trans man did on this thread.

You want to continue to insist that "anything goes" as far as what being trans is- so you can continue to uphold your position that being trans isn't a real, definable experience/ thing but a set of ideological ideas (despite simultaneously claiming you are not doing this).