"Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality" - My conversation with Helen Joyce

Summary

In this thought-provoking discussion, the host and guest Helen Joyce delve into the intersection of reality and ideology, particularly focusing on the concept of gender versus biological sex. Helen, with her background in mathematics and economics, shares her journey into advocating for clear understanding of sex and reality, especially in the context of sports, women's rights, and children's health. The conversation touches on the implications of gender self-identification, the importance of preserving women's spaces, and the challenges faced by those who question the current narrative. Helen's book, 'Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality,' is highlighted as a significant contribution to the discourse, offering a critical examination of the subject.

Takeaways

• 📚 The interview discusses the book 'Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality' by Helen Joyce, which critiques the contemporary understanding of gender and its impact on society.
• 🧐 Helen Joyce's background includes a diverse education and career path, from mathematics to journalism, culminating in her role as an advocate against the distortion of reality regarding sex and gender.
• 🤝 The conversation highlights the tension between biological sex and the social construct of gender, with a focus on how this tension is affecting various aspects of society, including sports, education, and legal rights.
• 🏊‍♂️ The script addresses the issue of male athletes identifying as female and competing in women's sports, potentially undermining the category and achievements of female athletes.
• 🏳️‍🌈 The interview touches on the complexities within the LGBT community, particularly the distinctions and tensions between sexual orientation (LGB) and gender identity (T).
• 👶 The impact of gender ideology on children is a significant concern, with discussions about the potential for increased stereotyping and the pressure on children to conform to certain gender roles.
• 🚹🚺 The necessity of sex-based spaces, such as changing rooms and toilets, is emphasized, noting their importance for safety, privacy, and the inclusion of women in public life.
• 💬 The script discusses the challenges faced by those who speak out against the current gender ideology, including accusations of bigotry and the silencing of dissenting voices.
• 🏛️ Legal aspects are explored, particularly the case of Maya Forstater, who lost her job over her beliefs about sex and later won her case, setting a legal precedent in the UK.
• 👥 The interview underscores the importance of open and rigorous debate on the topic of sex and gender, advocating for a balanced and evidence-based approach to policy and education.

Q & A

What is the main theme of the book 'Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality' by Helen Joyce?

The book explores the conflict between the increasing social and political recognition of gender identity and the biological reality of sex, discussing the implications of this on various aspects of society, including sports, women's rights, and children's understanding of their own bodies.

What is Helen Joyce's educational and professional background prior to joining The Economist?

Helen Joyce has a background in mathematics, having completed her degree in maths at Trinity College Dublin, followed by a master's at Cambridge, and a PhD at UCL in London. She spent three years as a postdoc in mathematics before transitioning into the public understanding of maths and science.

How did Helen Joyce become involved in writing about gender identity and the issues surrounding it?

Helen Joyce began writing about gender identity after a conversation with her editor at The Economist about children coming home with ideas about gender being fluid. She found the topic filled with 'very odd stuff' and ended up writing about it herself, which eventually led to her book.

What is the role of the organization 'Sex Matters' in the context of the discussion about gender identity?

Sex Matters is an advocacy organization that Helen Joyce works for, which focuses on the importance of recognizing and discussing biological sex in various social and political debates, challenging the notion that gender identity can replace or supersede the concept of biological sex.

How does Helen Joyce view the concept of gender as presented by some theorists like Judith Butler?

Helen Joyce criticizes the idea that gender is a social construct without a biological basis, as presented by theorists like Judith Butler. She argues that this perspective is not only incorrect but also harmful, as it leads to a misunderstanding of the profound biological differences between males and females.

What is the controversy surrounding the teaching of gender identity in schools as described in the transcript?

The controversy lies in the promotion of gender identity as an innate and self-determined aspect of a person, often without adequate understanding or consideration of the biological reality of sex. This has led to concerns about children being misled and pressured into identifying as a gender different from their biological sex.

What are the implications of recognizing gender identity over biological sex in sports?

Recognizing gender identity over biological sex can lead to unfair advantages in sports, as individuals who are biologically male may compete against females, potentially undermining the category of women's sports and the physical advantages that女性的生理特征带来.

How does the concept of 'cis' come into play in discussions about gender identity?

The term 'cis' is used to describe individuals who identify with the sex they were assigned at birth. It was coined to create a parallel to 'trans' and to establish two distinct categories of gender identity, which can contribute to the erasure of the biological reality of sex.

What is the impact of gender self-identification on women's rights and spaces?

Gender self-identification can lead to the erosion of women's rights and spaces, as it allows individuals who are biologically male to access spaces traditionally reserved for women, potentially compromising safety, privacy, and the integrity of women's-only areas.

What is the role of the international human rights law in discussions about gender identity?

International human rights law plays a significant role as it prohibits discrimination based on whether a person has undergone medical procedures related to gender transition. It asserts that rights and recognition cannot be conditional on undergoing such procedures.

How does the narrative around gender identity affect the understanding of mental health issues among young people?

The narrative can lead to the misinterpretation of mental health issues, such as gender non-conformity, as indicative of a mismatch between one's biological sex and gender identity. This may result in young people being directed towards medical interventions, such as hormone treatments or surgeries, rather than receiving appropriate mental health support.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Introduction to the Discussion on Reality and Ideology

The speaker introduces the concept of a 'religion of reality' and expresses admiration for Helen Joyce's work in challenging contemporary ideologies that clash with scientific understanding. Helen shares her diverse background, from dance to mathematics and journalism, leading to her role as an advocate against the erosion of objective reality in gender discussions. The conversation highlights the tension between biological sex and self-identified gender, with the speaker expressing bewilderment at the distortion of language and concepts around sex and reproduction.

05:00

🤔 The Origins of Gender Ideology and Its Impact

Helen Joyce discusses her journey into questioning the new gender ideology, noting the resistance she encountered when trying to explore the topic as a journalist. She identifies the movement as primarily linguistic, challenging the biological reality of sex with a focus on self-identification. The conversation delves into the influence of queer theory and the idea that gender is a social construct without a basis in biology. Helen criticizes the regressive nature of this ideology, which she argues is leading to the reinforcement of stereotypes and the misdirection of children who may be experiencing gender dysphoria.

10:02

🧒 The Influence of Peer and Teacher Pressure on Children's Gender Identity

The discussion turns to the impact of peer and teacher pressure on children's understanding of their gender identity. There is concern about the promotion of gender questioning in young children, with stories of teachers and liberal school environments encouraging children to doubt their sex. The speakers express worry about the potential for harm, as children may be led to believe they are the opposite sex due to societal or peer influences, rather than receiving accurate information about biological sex.

15:03

🚫 The Consequences of Gender Ideology on Women's Spaces and Sports

The conversation examines the consequences of gender self-identification on women's spaces and sports. The speakers discuss the loss of single-sex spaces and the potential for male athletes to dominate women's sports by identifying as female. They argue that the push for inclusivity is eroding the rights and safety of women and girls, and that the insistence on self-identification over biological sex is leading to unfair advantages in sports and the loss of privacy and security in spaces like changing rooms and toilets.

20:03

🏳️‍🌈 The Complexities of Gender Identity and the LGBT Community

The speakers explore the tensions within the LGBT community regarding gender identity, particularly the distinction between sexual orientation and gender identity. They discuss how the inclusion of transgender identity within the LGBT umbrella can create conflicts, as transgender identity challenges the binary understanding of sex and, by extension, sexual orientation. The conversation also touches on the historical marginalization of lesbians within the community and the new pressures they face from the transgender movement.

25:04

🛡️ The Fight for Reality, Free Speech, and Women's Rights

Helen Joyce shares her experiences of advocating for sex-based rights and the backlash she and others have faced for challenging the prevailing gender ideology. The discussion underscores the importance of standing up for objective reality, free speech, and the rights of women, children, and the LGBT community. The speakers express their commitment to fighting against what they see as harmful indoctrination and misinformation about human biology and sexuality.

Keywords

💡Reality

In the context of the video, 'reality' is used to emphasize the importance of acknowledging the tangible and objective truth, especially in relation to the topic of sex and gender. The speaker mentions a 'religion of reality,' which underscores a commitment to facts and evidence over subjective beliefs or ideologies. This concept is central to the video's theme, as it sets the stage for a discussion on the conflict between scientific reality and subjective perceptions of gender identity.

💡Sex

The term 'sex' in this video refers to the biological and physiological differences between male and female individuals, which are determined by reproductive anatomy, chromosomes, and genetics. The video discusses the concept that sex is a binary state, with clear distinctions between male and female. This is contrasted with gender identity, which some argue can be self-defined and fluid. The video's theme challenges the idea that 'sex' can be altered or transcended by personal identification.

💡Gender Identity

Gender identity is a concept that refers to a person's internal sense of being male, female, or something else. In the video, there is a critical examination of the idea that gender identity can be self-declared, independent of biological sex. The speaker argues against the notion that gender identity should replace biological sex as the defining characteristic of a person's identity, especially in areas such as sports, where physical differences are significant.

💡Trans

The term 'trans' is shorthand for transgender, which refers to individuals whose gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth. The video discusses the complexities and controversies surrounding transgender identities, particularly in the context of societal recognition and legal rights. The speaker expresses concern over the implications of recognizing gender identity over biological sex, such as in sports and single-sex spaces.

💡Advocacy

Advocacy in this video pertains to the act of supporting or promoting a particular cause. The speaker mentions working for an advocacy organization called 'Sex Matters,' which suggests a focus on issues related to sex and gender. The term is relevant to the video's theme as it highlights the role of advocacy in shaping public discourse and influencing policy around sex and gender identity.

💡Biological Sex

Biological sex is a term used in the video to describe the sex of a person as determined by their anatomy, genetics, and reproductive organs. It is presented as a fundamental aspect of a person's identity that is distinct from gender identity. The video emphasizes the importance of recognizing and respecting biological sex in various societal contexts, such as sports and women's rights.

💡Self-Identification

Self-identification is the concept that an individual can define their own identity, including gender. In the video, this idea is critiqued, particularly in the context of legal and societal recognition of gender identity. The speaker argues against policies that allow individuals to change their legal sex based solely on self-identification, without medical or surgical intervention.

💡Gender Dysphoria

Gender dysphoria refers to the distress a person may feel due to a mismatch between their biological sex and their gender identity. The video touches on this concept, discussing the complexities of gender dysphoria in young people and the potential consequences of medical interventions, such as puberty blockers and hormone treatments, which may lead to sterility.

💡LGB vs. T

This keyword highlights a perceived divide between the lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) community and the transgender (T) community. The video suggests that there may be tensions or disagreements between these groups, particularly in how gender identity is understood and its implications for sexual orientation and community spaces. The distinction is relevant to the video's theme as it explores the intersection of gender identity and sexual orientation.

💡Single-Sex Spaces

Single-sex spaces are areas designated for use by individuals of one biological sex only, such as women's restrooms or changing rooms. The video discusses the importance of maintaining these spaces for the safety and comfort of women, particularly in light of concerns about voyeurism and sexual assault. The concept is central to the video's exploration of the impact of gender identity policies on women's rights and privacy.

💡Free Speech

Free speech in the video refers to the right to express one's opinions without censorship or restraint. The speaker mentions the challenges faced by those who question the dominant narrative on gender identity, suggesting that they are often labeled as 'bigots' and face backlash, which can be seen as a threat to free speech. This concept is integral to the video's theme, as it raises questions about the limits of discourse on controversial topics like sex and gender.

💡Indoctrination

Indoctrination in this video refers to the process of imparting or instilling beliefs or attitudes unconsciously. The speaker expresses concern about the impact of gender identity teachings on children, suggesting that they are being misled about their bodies and human nature. This term is significant to the video's theme as it underscores the potential risks of certain ideologies on the understanding and development of young minds.

💡Sex Realism

Sex realism is the belief that sex is a biological fact and is not determined by gender identity or social constructs. In the video, this concept is central to the argument made by the speaker, who advocates for the recognition of the importance of biological sex in various aspects of life. The term is used to counter the idea that gender identity can replace or override the reality of biological sex.

💡Maya Forstater

Maya Forstater is an individual mentioned in the video who lost her job due to her beliefs about sex and gender. Her case is highlighted as an example of the challenges faced by those who hold sex realist views, particularly in the context of employment law and free speech. The mention of Maya Forstater serves to illustrate the real-world implications of the debate surrounding sex and gender identity.

Highlights

The discussion emphasizes the conflict between the concept of gender self-identification and biological reality, as presented in Helen Joyce's book 'Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality'.

Helen Joyce shares her background, from a career in mathematics to becoming an advocate for clear understanding of sex and gender, particularly through her work with the organization Sex Matters.

The conversation explores the implications of allowing individuals to self-identify their sex, including potential effects on women's sports and the categorization of sex offenders.

Helen discusses her experience as a journalist and the challenges she faced when trying to report on gender issues, highlighting the resistance to questioning the narrative of gender self-identification.

The interview delves into the linguistic aspects of the gender debate, with Helen explaining how the movement is primarily about speech and self-declaration rather than biological change.

Helen critiques the idea that gender categories are inherently oppressive, arguing that they are evolved and have a purpose, and that the push against categorization is a recent cultural shift.

The discussion addresses the impact of gender ideology on children, including the potential for increased mental health issues and the risk of reinforcing stereotypes.

Helen shares her concerns about the medical pathway for gender non-conforming children, arguing that it can lead to sterility without sufficient evidence of long-term benefits.

The interviewee highlights the emotional blackmail used by some advocates, suggesting that not conforming to the gender self-identification narrative could lead to an increase in youth suicide.

Helen discusses the importance of distinguishing between politeness and biological reality, advocating for the use of preferred names and pronouns while maintaining accurate sex-based language.

The conversation touches on the challenges faced by women who speak out against the gender self-identification movement, including personal attacks and being labeled as bigots.

Helen shares stories from her research, including the experiences of parents and educators who are concerned about the impact of gender ideology on children and society.

The interview examines the implications of gender self-identification for sports, discussing the potential for unfair advantages and the loss of female-only spaces in competitive athletics.

Helen argues against the idea that undergoing surgery or hormone therapy should be a prerequisite for being recognized as a particular sex, emphasizing the importance of biological sex in all contexts.

The conversation highlights the historical context of women's spaces, such as changing rooms and toilets, and how they were created for the safety and convenience of women.

Helen discusses the broader implications of gender self-identification for society, including the potential erosion of women's rights, the impact on the LGBTQ+ community, and the importance of maintaining a distinction between sex and gender.

The interview concludes with Helen explaining the mission of her organization Sex Matters, which advocates for a clear understanding of sex and the protection of women's rights.

Transcripts

foreign

[Music]

welcome to the Poetry of reality

I don't have a religion but I think if I

had one it would be the religion of

reality

and it's a pleasure to meet Helen Joyce

here as I haven't met her before I

wanted to meet her ever since reading

her wonderful book trans when ideology

meets reality uh science is all about

reality and Science and reality have

come up against some competition some

opposition

and Helen has been in the Forefront of

fighting against some of this opposition

um

there's a character in a Kingsley Amos

novel I think who gets interviewed on

television and the interviewer tells him

who he is and what he does and how long

he's done it so that's a typical Trope

of Television to to tell the interviewee

about herself but I'm going to ask Helen

to introduce herself very briefly thank

you thank you so much for having me on

well I work um for a an advocacy

organization called sex matters now but

my background has been rather varied so

when I was a little girl I wanted to be

a dancer and I actually went off to

dance school when I left school at 16

and after two years realized that wasn't

a great idea and went and did a degree

in maths in Trinity College Dublin and I

stayed and did my masters in Cambridge

and my PhD in maths at UCL in London and

then spent three years doing postdoc in

mathematics before changing course and

going into public understanding of maths

and science

and then in 2005 I joined the economist

as the education correspondent and I

spent 17 years there doing various jobs

along the way living in Brazil as a

foreign correspondent and then becoming

an editor of various sections of the

paper including the international and

finance sections

and one fateful day in 2017 the editor

sat down beside me at lunch and said why

do the kids keep coming home and saying

such and such as trends

and I said I have no idea should I look

into it for you

and my first attempt to find an author I

found somebody who had been through a

lot of queer Theory and gender studies

at University and managed to write three

pages about people identifying as male

or female man or woman without ever

mentioning that sex is about

reproduction and that the Sexes are

reproductive roles and that their

evolved categories

and I had to bend that piece and I ended

up writing it myself

and by this time I realized that there

was a lot of very odd stuff Happening

Here and that turned into my book which

came out in 2021.

it is a very odd phenomenon because I'm

used to

continue wherever I look I mean there's

tall versus short fat versus thin old

versus young all these things are a

smooth Continuum

um the one thing that isn't is sex I

mean sex really is binaries no question

about it you're either male or female

and it's absolutely clear you could do

it on gamete sides you can do it on

chromosomes

um and so it is to me as a biologist

distinctly weird

that

people can simply declare I am a woman

though I have a penis

um that seems to me to be a

strange Distortion of language because

we languages

useful as something to express your

thoughts clearly

and so I'm bewildered by it and I was

fascinated to read your book and I

learned a tremendous lot from it and

while I'm about it I would recommend a

couple of other books um

irreversible damage by Abigail schreier

about the particularly focusing on young

girls and how they get um

misled

and this one Material Girls by Kathleen

stock I I listened to this on audio so I

don't have a physical copy of the books

I'm printed out because I got the cover

of it

um

Helen what do you think lies behind this

odd Distortion of reality

so that was basically the question that

got me into this in the first place

and I mean I've been thinking really

almost full time about this for about

five years now and I don't have a pat

answer for you I think like a lot of

interesting phenomena it's a lot of

things

um I would say that when I started to

write about it first I quickly realized

that this wasn't treated the same way as

anything else like just asking very

obvious questions

like um don't you think that if we allow

people to self-identify their sex this

will lead to for example destroying

women's sports or putting rapists in

women's jails

people would turn this back on me and

say you think that trans people are

predators or you think that trans people

are in bad faith you're a bigot and I

hadn't experienced this before in at

that point about 14 years as a

journalist

that's a willful misunderstanding yes it

is it is willful misunderstanding

um and I mean I slowly became aware that

what we were talking about here was an

intensely linguistic movement like there

isn't a sense in which a man can become

a woman except linguistically like yes

okay he can have operations and people

some people do most trans people don't

have any operations don't take any

medicine don't have any genital surgery

but that doesn't change your sex I mean

the reason the female eunuch has called

that is that Jermaine Greer was pointing

at the way that the man is seen as the

full human and the woman is seen as the

lacking human she is a female eunuch

she's a man that you've castrated

but actually female people aren't

male people lacking something you know

or male people lacking something with a

little grow bag that you pop a baby out

of every now and then you know female

people are their own category female and

male are actually very profound

categories they're profound biological

evolved evolutionarily they have to be

that it's it's a the gift of giving

birth is something that that pervades

the yes uh the whole

um anatomy and physiology and psychology

actually exactly and if you're a mammal

every part of your body is female like

earthworms have both parts you know but

you know my hands are female my jaw is

female it's not just that I have you

know I'm a man with uterus popped in and

no penis but so it was the only sense in

which a man can become a woman or a

woman can become a man is by saying so

it's a speech utterance

and so I've come to see I think there

are many things happening here there's

things happening in medicine in politics

but one of the things that's happening

is a long run maybe two or three Century

move towards seeing categories and

classification as inherently oppressive

so people think you know

um you know heteronormative is a bad

thing

or they think that um you know the

traditional family is constraining

and they miss the point that these

things often like when I say evolved I

don't mean like evolutionary biology I

mean that they they came to be over

significant amounts of time for a reason

and they're supportive as well as

constraining

but everything that's structured or

categorized or named or classified

that's now seen as something imposed

upon people

so somebody like Judith Butler for

example who's the queer theorist who

wrote gender trouble which is kind of

the foundational text that Academia uses

when looking at these issues

says that gender is is an imitation for

which there is no original

that she doesn't see sex she says sex is

socially constructed and gender is the

real thing

and there isn't any foundation for

gender it's just something that's made

meaningful by performing it over and

over again

now I hadn't come across this at

University as I say I studied

mathematics

and I spent my time proving theorems and

defining my terms very carefully so I

was blissfully ignorant of the fact that

significant numbers of young people are

being taught this sort of nonsense

but they come out of it thinking that

somebody who says look there are two

Sexes and the sex that you are or it's

the sex that you were conceived as they

think that what you're doing is imposing

social roles on them

so I was brought up to think that what

was liberatory and what was Progressive

was to say well this little person is a

girl

let's not let her stop that let's not

let that stop her doing anything she

could be an astronaut I mean I think

they were all sort of I was brought up

to think that

you could do whatever you wanted to you

you have the power to to as you said be

an astronaut be whatever you damn well

like and it's as though this trend now

is reverting to stereotyped

girls like pink and boys like blue and

boys like playing with with meccano sets

and girls like playing with dolls and

and it's a stereotyping which I kind of

revolt against and yet it seems to be

increasingly fashionable absolutely and

it's worse than just the old-fashioned

stereotyping that would have said look

this child is definitely a boy and if he

doesn't like rugby and so on well he's a

puffer and let's bully him

it's now saying he's actually a girl yes

so you know there's the pink and the

blue boxes have been

re-structured and remade and reinforced

and a child who doesn't fit into the one

that's for the sex that they were

inverted commas assigned at Birth we

have to pop them into the other one and

if you call them out on this they say no

no no no no that's gender expression

that's gender roles you're talking about

we're talking about gender identity

which is a sort of an IT positive innate

knowing that you pop into the world with

but nobody pops into the world knowing

that sort of thing about themselves

children learn it from the stereotypes

they self-examine and match themselves

against the stereotypes so now we say to

little you know what you used to call a

[ __ ] boy you know that little boy now

thinks that he's meant to be a girl and

teachers may say that's not what I'm

telling him but it is what they're

telling him

yes I was very upset to see evidence

from your book and others that teaches

and

doctors perhaps are

latching on to a child who expresses the

slightest

doubt about this and then

affirms them as being

um the opposite gender to their sex I

mean it's worse than that they latch

onto us they suggest sell it yes you

know these books for two and three and

five-year-olds that say you must examine

your gender

I've got to hear a quote from a a girl

from America I think she must have been

about 12 when this happened to her she

was in she says I was in a very liberal

School

um

and she says there was so much peer

pressure to either be gay or trans at

this school basically it felt like you

weren't cool if you were heterosexual

this made me even question myself quite

a few times even though I'm heterosexual

I know that this pressure can be real

for so many children

some of them actually be gay or trans

and I will definitely support them and

fight for them in the end

but that's pretty young to be labeling

yourself in any permanent way in my

opinion

um she was a very bright girl she's

actually written books about science for

for children and very very impressive

and I was

really depressed to read her letter that

there is peer pressure and even teacher

pressure

um

to

really go against reality yeah yeah

absolutely and teachers think that

they're being Progressive you know so in

this country we don't have a syllabus

for sex ed for relationships and sex ed

there's some sort of very vague things

that you're meant to cover

um like the fact the facts about sex and

gender identity or the facts about

sexual orientation and gender identity

without telling you what those facts are

I don't think there are any facts about

gender identity and so there are these

external providers who are basically

Lobby groups that write unbelievably

inaccurate materials and then sell them

to schools so I've seen short videos and

they're so nicely made there's one by m

a guy called who calls himself Ollie and

his sidekick is a balloon and they call

themselves pop and Ollie and pop and

Ollie you know it's very bright and

colorful and they're like your sex is

the best guess that a doctor had when

you were born they looked at you and

guessed

yeah they often conflate this fact that

there are people who have differences or

disorders of sex development there's a

tiny number of people I mean a few

people do need investigations to not two

percent exactly exactly and even then

you know mostly they're getting

investigated for conditions that don't

cast out on their sex it's just their

genitals have not developed normally so

I mean probably about half a dozen

people a year in this country in Britain

have their sex assigned at Birth the

rest of us the doctor writes it down

anyway so it says you know so the doctor

guesses your sex and then when you're

old enough you get the chance to tell

everybody what sex you are are you male

female a boy or a girl or something else

in between and then and then stars come

behind him and it looks like you're

going through the Galaxy and it says or

something else entirely and we get off

this this putative sex Spectrum down

here and what are you meant to make of

this if you're eight like first off that

you're very boring if you think you're a

boy or a girl but also you're just given

no hints as to what this gender thing is

so you look around and you see Barbie

and GI Joe and you know that sort of

thing and you say well I don't like

Barbie I might be a boy

it's incredibly regressive yes

um somewhere in your book there's a

story about a mother who said who had

eight children and she said

and not a single one of them is boring

CIS is that what that's right so so sis

is this very new coinage that's uh with

by analogy with Trends yes because what

they don't want is you saying you know

real women and trans women

or normal women and trans women are

actual women and trans women they want

there to be two types of women so they

need a symmetric words to trans and that

is CIS on the same side of yes and so

this uh this woman I found this quote in

an a closed Facebook group in America

for parents of trans kids uh somebody

gave me a password into it and I lurked

there for a while and watched and there

were doctors gender doctors in there

suggest selling treatments answering

questions with extremely inaccurate

information like claiming that science

has settled on things that it's not but

mostly what you saw was the parents

reinforcing each other's false beliefs

so a new parent will come in and go hi

you know my my great little my great

little trans boy which is a girl you

know she's four I'm learning so much

from her sorry um I forget I've

forgotten which way around I'm having

this child let's say it's really a girl

and this girl says she's a boy

you know my little trans guy I'm

learning so much from him but I'm just

wondering like I I'm a bit worried about

socially transitioning him case I'm

leading him on the path to

medicalization and then people will love

bomb her and come in and say wow great

to have you here with us love them that

is what

um religious cults do uh they they love

bomb is the phrase they actually use I

think yes that's right and then if you

if you step out of line if at any point

you say well I'm not going to do yeah

and you are just going to get piled on

and you'll get kicked out and the thing

that these people use more than anything

else is the emotional blackmail of

telling you that if you don't get with

the program your child will kill

themselves now that is appalling because

that because well put it another way

the evidence for that had better be damn

good otherwise it is the most appalling

blackmail how good is the evidence I

mean the evidence that it does lead to

Suicide it doesn't so the important

thing to understand is that the reason

they say suicide it's not just that it's

emotional blackmail it's that they're

suggesting that you put your child on a

pathway that leads to sterility

because if you put a child on puberty

blockers early in puberty and then you

put them on cross-sex hormones at some

point we don't know exactly when but

maybe at 20 or 21 you've missed your

opportunity your own sex organs are not

going to grow you're not going to be a

person who can

conceive or impregnate somebody else so

they're sterilizing children

and the only reason you would ever do

that is to save a child's life so it has

to be yeah it has to be death it has to

be death or sterility yes so that's why

suicide now there are not a lot of

children committing suicide thankfully

it's very very rare in miners to commit

suicide so that's the first bit of

evidence that this is not true there's

an enormous boom in trans identification

there has been no concomitant boom in

suicide again thankfully but there have

actually been a few papers that have

looked at children who are on the

waiting list for gender clinics

and what they have found is that these

children you know they do have a lot of

mental comorbidities mental health

comorbidities so you are seeing higher

rates of depression anxiety

so that's there anyway they're depressed

anyway or or bulimic or well they they

say they say that of course that it's

it's you know the stress the minority

stress that's causing these things but

there's no evidence that that's true

it's at least as probable and I would

say much more probable that a child

who's looking for solutions to feeling

miserable and is suggest sold that if

you're trans you can reinvent yourself

you know you're like a phoenix your rise

from the ash as a new person all your

problems will be left behind

so yes so so the suicide rate is and the

self-harm rate is a little higher than

it is in the general population but not

out of line for mental health conditions

yeah

and and important to say there is

literally no evidence that transitioning

the child will decrease that risk yes so

so it does seem like a terrible it'll be

emotional blackmail people like you who

are standing up about this mostly women

I suppose

uh are getting an awful lot of

persecution

um I think they're very brave and and

um JK Rowling is very brave Kathleen

Stock's very brave Maya forced out it's

very brave is that how you pronounce it

yes it is yes what gives you the courage

I mean I don't want to answer for

anybody else although I work with Maya

daily so I sort of see where she comes

from and it's

um and I know Kathleen and I've missed

Joe Rowling and it's my privilege to

have met her

um

in my case

I was lucky to work somewhere that has a

very Collegiate and rigorously

intellectual atmosphere namely The

Economist but even there of course there

were people who didn't agree that I

should be speaking about this and it was

awkward on occasion

I would say in my case I was in too deep

okay I was so far stacked in blood that

there was no way back you know like I

before I knew that this was going to be

a problem I was so far in that I

couldn't get back

and then I um I was you know I was quite

I was quite

negative about it I really felt this to

me very bad was happening and you know

all the people who think that something

very bad is happening they'll pick a

different bit of it they'll say it's

about Free Speech or it's about women's

rights it's about Children's Health or

it's about just you know basic reality

or sanity and it was all of those things

for me but then I went to an event at

which um some D transitioners were

speaking and this would have been I

think late 2019

and I found it a profoundly

um upsetting event so at this one in

particular there were six young women of

course there are boys who transition and

de-transition to but this was six young

women all of whom had thought they were

boys

and they were all of them lesbians who

had been misled by their early gender

non-conformity into thinking they must

be boys and they had gone various power

stages down the medical pathway and one

of them was 23.

was this very articulate young woman who

had suffered from anorexia in her teens

and at 18 had stumbled upon the idea

that she was trying to starve away her

curves because she was meant to be a boy

and by 21 she had all her sex organs

removed Amazon testosterone she had no

breasts no uterus no ovaries she had to

be heard her hair was receding and by 23

when she still wasn't feeling any better

she still had an eating disorder

she one day

had the thought how can an operation

namely a hysterectomy that only a woman

can have

turned me into an

and that bounced her all the way back

to I am a woman that is just a fact

about me

and so I sat there and I listened to

these young women and you know I have a

very soft spot for gay kids I have a gay

son myself

he's never had gender dysphoria it's

important to say that he's never had any

theory that he's a girl or anything like

that but I have a soft spot for these

kids because

they're quite non-conforming and you

know Finding their way finding your way

as a teenager is difficult anyway but

for these kids it's a little bit more

difficult

because as they're growing up they're

also realizing they're different I mean

how many of these children do you think

are just simply gay anyway well I mean

according to the Tavistock Clinic which

is the UK's main gender identity Clinic

for Children the great majority of the

children they see are same-sex attracted

there's a strong statistic they could

have been perfectly happy because yes so

we are turning potentially healthy gay

adults into sterile straight simulacra

of the opposite sex and one of the

points you'll make I think is that there

are certain parents who would rather

have

a trans child and a gay child and yes is

that part of the motivation yeah and I

don't think it's always stated up front

and you know some people think that

that's very implausible

but I think that they they don't realize

the dynamic in some families and In some

cultures as in you know local cultures

and school or whatever

it's really hard to be gender

non-conforming like right bone deep

gender non-conforming I don't mean

someone like me who's a fairly normal

woman but did a PhD in maths I mean

somebody that everything about your

style and your taste and the way you

move and your interests just really

screams

you know camp for your boy or Butch if

you're a girl

and you have to have you have to be let

a lot of freedom to be yourself and not

a lot you know nothing has to be made of

this by the grown-ups around you

and it's things start to be made about

it you start to question yourself and

think like why am I so different like

why am I a boy who only likes the girls

and why am I a girl who only likes the

boys what's wrong with me and then the

thought comes up in your own mind

was I meant to be a girl was I meant to

be a boy like we knew this already in

about 2000 the research had been done

the the the papers have been examined we

know that the gender non-conformity

comes first in these kids and the gender

dysphoria the distress

is a result of the gender non-conformity

and the meaning that is made of that so

if no meaning is made of it you just

grow up

and you might be an unusual straight

person but you're quite likely to be gay

but if a lot of meaning is made out of

it you interpret that as being that

there's a woman inside or there's a man

inside

and then the people around you may think

that too and your parents may find this

very hard like a man who's always wanted

a boy to take to the football and you

know he he can the best will in the

world he may fail to not seem

disappointed yeah and the same with the

mother who wanted a daughter who went to

ballet and to go shopping with and so on

and she gets some little rough and

tumble character who just wants tree

climbing and rugby you get the

impression that you're a big

disappointment to your parents and this

Dynamic can unfold between them both and

what you need is family therapy really

from someone supportive to point this

out to you and to guide you gently

through and instead you end up in a

gender clinic and they say oh your

child's gender identity

oh you have a little trans boy you have

a little trans girl yeah

was in in the past we've just said well

she's a tomboy and and yeah well with a

girl you would have plural Boys the boys

they tried to straighten them out yes

horrible yeah but the girls was much

easier you just let them out tell them

to climb some trees and look back when

they're 16. yes

um I'm perfectly happy to address a

trans person by their preferred name and

prefer preferred

pronouns I think it's just a matter of

politeness really

um what I objective is the

um

insistence that I am a woman I mean

you're not a woman you're I'm perfectly

prepared to call you she if you if you

like and recall you whatever your

preferred name is

but to say I am a woman is a debauching

of language and that's where I draw the

line I've become much more Hardline on

this and I would like not to be I would

like I would have started where you are

but what I've learned is that somebody

who expects to be called she also

expects the words woman and female and

mother and sister and daughter

and it's very hard if you give away

sexed language to explain why this

person cannot in all circumstances be

treated as a woman

so often people do this Preamble it

happens to me less now but two years ago

when my book came out it happened a lot

they would give a preamble to any

interview with me in which they said uh

you know of course neither of us is

transphobic and we're very happy to use

people's names and pronouns and treat

you as a woman or treat you as a man and

I started to think like what do you mean

by treat somebody as a man or a woman

because we've got rid of all the unjust

and

unjustifiable differences between the

Sexes and the way we treat people now

with equalized pension age you know my

mother had to leave her job when she got

married in the Irish Civil Service

because there was a ban on married women

we've got rid of all that stuff and now

treating somebody as a woman means

either I just noticed that they're a

woman in in a space like any other space

where it just doesn't actually matter

what what sex people are or it means

we're in a single sex space and they

shouldn't be there let's we'll come on

to that in a moment but if you want to

try and explain why you have to use

sex-based language so I have to say the

reason this person cannot come in here

is because he is a man yes and if I say

she

I'm already I mean it is do you make a

distinction between people who've gone

through the ordeal of surgery and and

being castrated or whatever and having

their breasts removed whatever

than people who just simply stand up and

say I am a woman or I am a man

um it does seem to me that there's you

you also since you sort of paid your

dues if you if you if you've subjected

yourself to I mean you're really serious

about it you're really Earnest about it

no not just a frivolously standing up

and saying I've decided I'm a woman

today sort of thing I don't make any

distinction because I don't think that

being a woman or a man is the sort of

thing that you pay a price to be yes

it's just a very base fact about you but

more than that

um

you know in a space where a man is not

supposed to be I don't know whether he's

been castrated or not I'm telling from

his secondary sex features and they

don't change if he's been through the

surgery but the other reason is that in

international human rights law there

can't be any Distinction on the basis of

whether the person has been castrated

because it's basic it's a basic

principle that's been adjudicated on now

in several courts is that you can't make

something conditional on getting

yourself sterilized because it's human

rights if you used to do that so if you

say to people uh you you know you've

paid your dues if you cut the bits off

and that'll give you the the reward is

that we'll now treat you as a woman or

we'll treat you as a man

um

you are inducing people to go through a

really horrific surgery that is and to

give up oh yeah something so that cannot

be a legal line no and then the last

thing I'd say is like they paid their

dues to whom like well I mean like to

the other people around them you know if

you come into a women's space who have

you paid your duties are the wrong

phrase but but no I've heard it sure

you've shown you're serious about it you

should you've shown that you're I mean

somebody who let's talk about sports for

a moment somebody who who's a a

moderately good swimmer as a as a man

but kind of mediocre and then suddenly

just says I am a woman yes and because

he says I'm a woman he's then allowed to

go and break all the records of female

swimming

um

that seems to be to be

unserious you you're just saying you're

you're a woman because you want to say

you're a woman whereas if you've been if

you've been through the surgery

but he's still not a woman no no but but

but

there's a sort of feeling that

he really means it he's sincere about it

I mean I could say I was sincere about

being astronaut it doesn't make me an

astronaut and and the surgery doesn't

make any difference to your um your

sporting performance so if we're

protecting

what it is to be female in a sports

category which we are that's how sports

categories work you know we protect

under 18s over 35s paralympians

flyweights yeah the thing that we're

protecting is femaleness and the fact

that a man is very very serious in

wishing to be seen as female doesn't

move his category no that's true but

okay let's take the example of the

astronaut that you just mentioned just

say I I'm an astronaut and you're

obviously not but if on the other hand

you've gone through the rigorous

training of an astronaut and you've and

you've if you put yourself through all

the all the the it's really rather hard

craft to become an astronaut

you've proved you're serious about it

but I've also become an astronaut so

that's that you might not become you

might be not good enough to become a

restaurant then I would not be an

astronaut well you wouldn't be an

astronaut but but you've you've tried

yes I mean I just I don't think that

male and female are are prizes for

effort

they're just observations of categories

that we are yes yeah okay I mean it

keeps the numbers down there's that yes

but um you know for a long time we

didn't see trans like men who identified

as Trans in women's sports because they

did set a surgery Rule and at the time

the surgery was really only done on

people in their 40s and older yeah so

you didn't see any Prime aged men and

now that it's just a testosterone level

is all that many of the sporting bodies

require that you lower your testosterone

and I mean honestly they can't check

that it's just a it's just a paper rule

it's not a real one younger men can

identify as women and so now we're

actually seeing men who are you know

pretty good athletes and who are then

world record Breakers as women yes

but it's all wrong like if we're

protecting the female category then no

male Advantage belongs yes if there's

that simple if we're going to have

separate female

um athletic competitions at all then

then and if we don't then there will be

no women who win anything yes I mean you

could say everything's open you're just

a human you and you're going for for

everything and then as you say um women

wouldn't wouldn't win anything yes maybe

gymnastics but the gymnastics is an

interesting example because male and

female gymnastics are very different

like the one thing that women really

have an advantage in is flexibility yes

but male male gymnastics yes they're

flexible but mostly they're strong

so they do very different things they

just do different events for the men and

women

neither sex would be any good in the

others yes

okay

um there's a lot in your book about

changing rooms so we better we better

talk about that um uh tell us a bit

about that

I think another thing that people often

give away when they start to think about

this is they think well you know I

understand that you need female only

spaces if they're say rape crisis

centers

or you know really specialist services

but they think like you know oh what

about public toilets and maybe even

changing rooms like have cubicles

and they miss the point that these are

sort of mass arrangements for the

convenience of the half of humanity that

experiences rape at the hands of the

other half of humanity that experiences

the two most common sex crimes which are

voyeurism and exhibitionism

and are just they're an inclusion

measure for women so the first female

public toilets were brought in so that

women didn't experience what was called

the urine release which meant that women

had to stay near the home because they

needed to be able to go

and you know I mean women had to take

off clothing from the bottom half of

them to go to the toilet so men don't

you're quite vulnerable when you're

weighing

and so women in the Victorian era like

would have to always be able to be aware

that there was somewhere they could go

to way otherwise they could get

assaulted

and it was it was the factory girls

actually who campaigned for the first

public toilets and because they were

they were getting sexually assaulted if

they tried to wee during a factory day

they weren't able to

to work outside the home

and then you think like all the special

situations that women need

um just just ordinary spaces like

toilets and changing rooms for

like women menstruate

as I said women take off more of their

clothes to go to the toilet we take much

longer

uh young girls in particular like little

girls are at risk like if you if you're

a man who's out with your daughter who's

six seven eight nine and you want to

send her to the toilet you want to be

able to pop her into the women's lose

and know that there's only women in

there because she's really at risk

actually if it's a mix-sec space

then there's Muslim women and there's

women who have been right who are

survivors of sexual assault and who can

have really serious flashbacks in

enclosed faces if there are males there

with them

and now we're losing all of these spaces

they're either going gender neutral or

they're going self-id like they'll put a

sign up saying you know use whichever

space you feel most comfortable in

and about a year ago at sex matters

where I work with Maya for stature in

there we put out a call for evidence as

to why people cared about Single Sex

spaces and we did hear stories about

specialist spaces like Rape Crisis

centers but mostly we heard about

toilets and changing rooms

and this phrase got said over and over

again people wrote us almost essays

about it they said you know I went along

to my local swimming pool

and there's a bloke who caused this

other woman who's Now using the changing

room and I've never told anybody I'm in

my 50s now but I was raped when I was 14

and I never told anybody and I found

myself in this enclosed space and I

looked around and there was this bloke

and I froze

and I remembered everything terrible

that had happened to me and I left and I

never went back

so women are being pushed out of public

spaces Again by the loss of these spaces

that were introduced in order that we

could play a full part in public life

you were telling me before we started uh

which I didn't know that um

competitive swimmers but Olympic types

swimmers have to wriggle into their

streamline

swimsuits and so they don't just sort of

quickly put put it on with the way the

rest of us do they take how long does it

take like it can take up to 40 minutes

so I didn't know this when I wrote the

book or I would have put it in So at the

time I was writing the book and there

were a few athletes who were making it

into Elite women's sports who were men

so Laurel Hubbard was the big example at

the time who's a weightlifter a new Z

weightlifter a man in his 40s

but in between the hardback and the

paperback Along Came Leah or will Thomas

who's a young man who's six foot four

who's about 21 22 and who started

swimming in American college races

and I mean it's bad enough when you look

like you see people in their swimsuits

you can see who's a man and who's a

woman and he's really towering over the

women and he doesn't have good technique

you know he's just using his shoulder

strength and not even kicking his legs

and he still wins

and then I heard one of the young women

who had to compete against him

describing what it is like doing

competitive swimming so they wear these

streamlined suits

and the the sort of the compression

suits that like just make you very um

cut through the water fast and very very

hard to get on and the compression

doesn't last all that long so you change

suit every time you race and you also

don't wear that suits when you're doing

your warm-up

and there's dozens of events you know

all the different lengths and strokes

and there's maybe many competitors in

all of them they're these big open

changing rooms and you're running in you

strip completely naked you put on your

practice suits you go out you do your

warm-up you come back in your strip

completely naked again and then you

start this miserable business of

shimmying into your race suit which is

incredibly tight and you have to sort of

wriggle and bounce and wriggle and

bounce and get it up over your hips and

then regular and bounce yourself in

completely naked through all of this and

all around you everyone else is doing

the same thing and there's this six foot

four bloke and in case anyone wants to

know no he has not had surgery and no

there are not cubicles and no you cannot

hold a towel in your way

and that's what you're doing and these

poor girls like the girls on his own

team at the University that he's at but

all the women who had to compete against

him if they complained they were told

that they were bigots

at Riley Gaines who's the one of them

who spoke about the most was warned by

her University that if she kept talking

about it she would not be taken on to

medical school

told she's a bigot by somebody senior in

the University Yeah by this by the

sports team by the EDI team in the

University EDI meaning Equity diversity

and inclusion told her that they'll be

referred for counseling the women of the

University uh that we're

um Leah Thomas is I think it's

University of Pennsylvania the girls on

his own team because they complained

anonymously and they finally found

someone to send their complaints and

they were told they would be referred

for counseling to learn to cope with

their transphobia so they to to um to

cope with losing basically

I'm baffled by why

this is also one-sided I realized there

are two different points of view here

but

how has one side managed to kind of

capture

the dominant

um

dialogue really the dominant half of the

dialogue

and and

constantly it comes up that you've if

you descend from that you're called a

bigot and so people don't want to

descend because descents

um so I don't want to call it Cardis but

but

um it's it's pardonable characters

because nobody wants to be called a

bigot but why does all the abuse go one

way why does it why is it such a yeah

why did all the bullying go one way I

mean there are so many different answers

to that and like you know like I think

they all reinforce each other and one of

them is because this is a linguistic

movement and there is no sense in which

Leah Thomas is a Woman except that you

say he is you must silence people it's

the only way in which you can keep the

fiction going if people can say what

they see in front anyway in which he can

keep the fiction going but why does he

have these are better than the campuses

yes who um

I mean you can't ignore the fact that

this is for the benefit of men

you know like female sports has always

been fifth rate like it gets much less

funding you know these girls are told

they're told things that nobody would

tell a male athlete like that you know

it's for the joy of taking part why do

you care about winning

I think in America it's become so

associated with the the very very

polarized political system

so you know the and everyone everyone

tends to take their political opinions

as a package that's not an American

um thought solely but in America it's so

polarized that they're really very

specific packages and if you want not to

take the opinion the gender identity

trumps sex then you're a republican you

have to be a Conservative Christian you

have to be anti-abortion you have to

think that women belonging to this

kitchen you know and so if you don't

want those things well you've got to

come over here and give up women's

sports and say that men can be women and

say that you know there can be a female

penis and so on

and then I mean

there's a sort of an evolutionary point

to make here like sometimes when you

look at a giraffe or a platypus or

something and you say how did this come

to be

you could answer that by sort of going

back and I think you did this in your

beautiful book and which one was it the

the one where you go back in the the

Tree of Life backwards quite thick one

oh the ancestors tale that's lovely yes

that book so you can go back and you can

you can actually answer that question or

you can just say look that's how

Evolution works

you know so we have we have this is an

emerging ideology some would say

neo-religion

and out of the many many bizarre things

that people could believe this is the

one that made it and you could then

Point At You know the internet

um the arrival of sex change surgery the

fact that we're all online too much

uh social media places where kids

congregate without adults and talk to

each other without adult oversight the

cowardice of the ioc the international

Olympic Committee which is a dreadfully

corrupt organization I mean you know it

allowed the cheating by the East German

women dopers to go on in full sight for

20 years and has never sorted that out

and never taken the medals away from

them you know they just don't care the

show keeps on the road as far as they're

concerned so there's just all these

different things that happened and you

know the result is what we see as

opposed to me being able to say I would

have been able to predict this in

advance I'd never predicted the Platypus

either

yes the Platypus wasn't the lead when it

was first sent to the museum well

exactly so this is a platypus in a way

yes is this is there a tension between

the LGBT yeah um is the is the tea a

little bit more I mean is there some

opposition between the LGB on the one

hand and the T on the other on the other

I mean depends who you ask and depends

what you think these are if you think

these are identities

and especially if you think in American

identities

so in in the American way of thinking

there is the you know the white

supremacist the the sisette white male

who runs the world and everybody else is

oppressed by that person and the more

ways in which you're oppressed kind of

the better in this culture then

lgbtqia plus plus you know all of those

things are you know you're not CIS hit

yes I meaning CIS and heteronormal

heterosexual

um

on the other hand if you actually just

think that LGB is a shorthand for people

who aren't heterosexual that people are

either homosexual or bisexual and you

understand those as people who have

unusual sexualities which you know has

been until very recently a major reason

that people have been oppressed like as

in sent to jail given electric shocks

cast out by their families like really

bad things then what the hell is T doing

in there like tea is an identity it's

not a sexuality and more than that t is

a an identity that undermines the very

basis of sexuality

because if you're trans you move

category or in your mind you move

category from male to female and that

means you change sexuality as well so a

straight man becomes a lesbian

yes and that's not very much what most

lesbians find very helpful for their no

I mean there's attention

lesbians do feel threatened I think

don't they absolutely yes I mean

you could it works both ways like like a

lot of things to do with sex you know

formally it works both ways like a woman

who identifies as a man like a straight

woman who identifies as a man becomes a

gay man and this is increasingly popular

among teenage girls to identify as gay

men I think they're not going to have

much success when they get older it's

not going to go very well because that's

not how gay culture works

but the other way around you've got men

who are bigger stronger more sexually

aggressive

you know lesbians are the people who've

always found it hardest to keep their

footing in the alphabet soup like I have

a lot of lesbian friends now doing this

work and they'll tell you that the LGB

groupings never paid attention to their

needs they paid attention to gay men's

needs

and so now a lesbian-only group will

often find usually find itself under

pressure to admit heterosexual men who

think of themselves as lesbians

and then when you add to that the fact

that there's a very common male sexual

interest a fetish in cross-dressing

and that there are significant numbers

of men who find it very sexy to think of

themselves as lesbians probably as many

of those as there are actual lesbians

you're like well you know these people

come into your spaces and now it's not a

lesbian space anymore yeah

yes one thing that really pisses me off

it it came up a moment ago is that is

that

um

I've been kind of politically on the

left all my life and I find myself now

being

blamed

um

somehow it well I find that that people

think I must be right wing because

because the only people who agree with

me about this tend to be politically on

the right that's not really true but but

they they often think it is I mean it do

you find that I mean there's a very

significant movement here in the UK on

the left of the women who came up

through the unions and to you know very

good organizers who are sex realists

and so I think here in the UK it's

really easy to say oh look at Woman's

Place UK I mean JK Rowling look at her

she's not exactly right-wing so

you know it is often said but it's an

American thing to say it's because of

the American polarization and it's part

of the Americanization I should have

said that that's American oh it gets

said to us too I mean I get told that

I'm funded by the Heritage Foundation

you know that I'm getting money from

shadowy right-wing American groups I'm

not you know it's it's a joke among the

women like you know that I work with you

know people are saying have you got any

of your far-right money yet this must be

stuck in the post you know no we haven't

we don't get funding from them

um it is very irritating and I suppose I

find it less irritating because I never

thought of myself as either left or

right wing I wasn't even a left-wing

student politician I'm um

I've always been a very include me out

person

like I I I've voted for every party

every every one of the three main

parties here honestly don't know who I

could vote for now

uh but you will find that in this

in this movement the the people who are

willing to speak on this issue

um are often people who have been

through some Crucible beforehand and

those can be good bad or in different

things as far as I'm concerned lots of

brexiteers

lots of anti-vaxxers uh lots of

Evangelical Christians

um people who have had some formative

experience like I think probably you

sticking with atheist rationalism while

the new atheist movement degenerated

into gender woo you know you've already

been cast out in some way

and if you've already been cast out well

you've got used to it you know what it's

like and you know that you can survive

it and so I do see a lot of very varied

people who have already experienced

being cast out right

Well we'd probably better come to a

close would you like to um tell us a bit

about your organization's sex matters as

we as we close sure so anyone who's read

my book will have uh met Maya for

stature who is the person I shape the

chapter about Britain otherwise known as

Turf Island around Turf being trans

exclusionary radical feminist and it's

what we get called for believing that

sex is real yes do do tell Maya's story

yeah

so Maya worked for she was a specialist

in tax International tax flows and

developments and she worked for a think

tanker called the center for Global

development which is based in Washington

and they had a An Arm based in London

and at the time in 2017 the government

was thinking of changing the law to

allow for gender self-id meaning that

you would be able to get a new birth

certificate stating whichever sex you

liked just by asking

obviously insane when you put it like

that but anyway they were about to do it

and Maya thought but in development sex

is actually a really important variable

so you know maybe we should talk about

this maybe we should talk about our

gender self ID

destroys the bases on which we do a lot

of the work that we do

and that was fine initially with her

colleagues in London but colleagues in

America because all of this gender stuff

comes from America I like everything

else yeah yeah we live in America now

all of us they complained and said she

was transphobic and cut a long story

short she lost her job so she went to

the employment tribunal and she lost

a bit about what uh end of 2019 that

must have been no end of 2020

um as the book was you know as I was

writing the book and in the employment

tribunal the judge James Taylor said

that her belief that there are two sexes

the Sexes are immutable and sometimes

recognizing that is important for

women's rights that's her belief

that was not worthy of respect in a

Democratic Society

and so she deserves to lose her job and

I mean the way that the law was written

it's not just deserved to lose her job

it would mean that anyone could

discriminate against her at will they

could turn her away from a bar they

could refuse every employer anywhere

provided with any Services because this

is the law that protects us against

discrimination in employment and

provision of goods and services what he

was saying was that she was a Nazi she

was literally literally equivalent to

being a Nazi or somebody who says we

want to bring back slavery

so I knew Maya by this point and she's a

very brave woman

um and very very dogged so she had to go

to the employment appeal tribunal which

the original ruling was overturned in

its entirety I mean the judge just

didn't know what he was talking about

and that set precedent

so now with the belief that sex is

binary immutable and that matters

is a protected belief in UK employment

and prevention

yes that president has set so now in a

workplace if you say I think we need to

have men's and women's toilets because

there are two Sexes and women need them

they can't say are you bigger okay I

I've just found in in your book The the

questions that the lawyer on behalf of

the company that got rid of her

asked

um on what basis did she think male

people couldn't become female could you

name philosophers who agreed with her I

couldn't have a wife a lot of us or they

got to do with this biologists you want

to ask

um how could she know someone's sex if

she hadn't been present at their birth

doctors assign sex by looking at

newborns and using guesswork

so she had to answer all of those things

under oath and um the reason it's a

philosophy is because the protected

characteristic in the equality Act is

religion or belief and she was claiming

a belief you can't just protect facts it

does it at which the room packed with

women supported erupted and laughter I'm

not surprised yes and then after all of

that judge Taylor said thus you know her

belief was a novel belief that was not

protected because it was too harmful to

other people's rights so anyway Maya set

up with some lawyers including

um her her Barrister and your Palmer

this organization sex matters and I left

the economist to go and work for it

because honestly I feel in some ways

that this is

you know a generation defining battle

actually because it's a battle against

reality as you said also against Free

Speech against women's rights against

gay people's rights and it's a battle to

keep children from being indoctrinated

because children are being lied to all

of them they're being lied to about

their bodies about human nature about

sexuality and they're being misled all

of them and for some of them that's

leading them together

me too um well thank you very much Helen

once again Helen's book is trans when

ideology meets reality thank you very

much indeed well thank you for having me

on

thank you

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