Trans When Ideology Meets Reality My conversation with Helen Joyce 1080p 25fps VP9 160kbit Opus

Summary

In this thought-provoking conversation, 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 journalism, shares her perspective on the growing influence of gender ideology and its impact on society, especially in areas like sports, women's rights, and children's understanding of their own bodies. They discuss the challenges faced by those who advocate for sex-based rights and the polarization that has arisen within the LGBT community, as well as the broader implications for free speech and scientific truth.

Takeaways

• 📚 The guest, Helen Joyce, is an author who has written a book titled 'Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality', which critically examines the concept of gender identity and its conflict with biological sex.
• 🤔 Helen's background is in mathematics, having studied at Trinity College Dublin, Cambridge, and UCL in London, before transitioning into journalism and public understanding of maths and science.
• 🏊‍♀️ Helen discusses the impact of gender identity on sports, expressing concern about the fairness of allowing individuals who are biologically male to compete in women's sports.
• 🏳️‍🌈 The conversation touches on the tension between gender identity ideology and the traditional understanding of LGBT rights, particularly the concerns of lesbians within the community.
• 👶 The script raises concerns about the impact of gender identity teachings on children, suggesting that some children may be misdirected in their understanding of their biological sex.
• 🧐 Helen and the interviewer discuss the societal and political pressures that contribute to the rise and acceptance of gender identity ideology, including the influence of social media and the polarization of political discourse.
• 🏆 The script mentions individuals like Maya Forstater, who lost her job due to her views on sex and gender identity, highlighting the challenges faced by those who publicly dissent from mainstream narratives on this topic.
• 🚫 The discussion points out the potential infringement on women's rights and the importance of maintaining single-sex spaces, such as changing rooms and toilets, for reasons of safety and privacy.
• 🤝 Helen's work with the advocacy organization 'Sex Matters' is highlighted, emphasizing the need to protect sex-based rights and to critically examine the implications of gender identity ideology.
• 💬 The script underscores the importance of open and honest debate on the topic of gender identity, expressing concern about the stifling of free speech and the labeling of dissenters as bigots.
• 🌐 The conversation suggests that the acceptance of gender identity ideology is not a foregone conclusion and that there is a need for a more nuanced understanding of the complexities involved.

Q & A

What is the main theme of the discussion between the two speakers?

The main theme of the discussion is the conflict between the concept of gender identity and the biological reality of sex, and how this tension plays out in various aspects of society, including sports, public spaces, and language.

What is Helen Joyce's background and how did she become involved in writing about transgender issues?

Helen Joyce has a varied background, starting with aspirations to be a dancer, then studying mathematics at Trinity College Dublin, followed by a master's in Cambridge and a PhD at UCL in London. She worked in the public understanding of maths and science before joining The Economist as an education correspondent. Her involvement with transgender issues began when she was asked to investigate why children were identifying as transgender, leading her to write her book 'Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality'.

What is the position of the first speaker on the concept of gender identity?

The first speaker is critical of the concept of gender identity, arguing that it is a distortion of reality and language. He finds it bewildering that people can declare themselves a different sex without any biological basis for this claim.

What are some of the books mentioned in the discussion that address similar topics?

The books mentioned include 'Irreversible Damage' by Abigail Shrier, which focuses on young girls and how they get misled, and 'Material Girls' by Kathleen Stocker, which the first speaker listened to in audio format.

What does Helen Joyce believe is the fundamental issue with the concept of gender identity as it is currently presented?

Helen Joyce believes that the concept of gender identity is fundamentally a linguistic movement, arguing that there is no way for a man to become a woman or vice versa except through speech. She emphasizes that sex is a profound biological category that cannot be changed by personal identification or surgery.

What is the role of Sex Matters, the advocacy organization Helen Joyce works for?

Sex Matters is an advocacy organization that focuses on the importance of biological sex in various aspects of society. It was co-founded by Maya Forstater, who won a significant legal case establishing that the belief in the importance of biological sex is protected under UK law.

What is the significance of the case involving Maya Forstater and the Employment Appeal Tribunal?

The case is significant because it set a legal precedent in the UK, establishing that the belief in the binary, immutable nature of sex and its importance is a protected belief under the Equality Act. This means that people cannot be discriminated against for holding this belief in employment and the provision of services.

How does the discussion relate to the topic of women's sports?

The discussion relates to women's sports by highlighting the potential unfairness and impact on female athletes when individuals who are biologically male but identify as female are allowed to compete in women's categories, potentially undermining the integrity of women's sports.

What is the perspective of the speakers on the use of single-sex spaces, such as changing rooms and toilets?

The speakers argue that single-sex spaces are important for the safety and comfort of women, particularly those who have experienced sexual assault or who may be vulnerable. They express concern about the loss of these spaces due to policies allowing self-identification of sex.

What is the broader societal impact discussed in the transcript regarding the acceptance of gender identity over biological sex?

The broader societal impact discussed includes the potential erosion of women's rights, the undermining of free speech, and the indoctrination of children with misleading information about their bodies and human nature. The speakers are concerned about the normalization of an ideology that they believe is at odds with scientific and biological reality.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Introduction to the Discussion on Reality and Ideology

The conversation begins with an introduction to the theme of reality versus ideology, highlighting the guest's admiration for Helen Joyce's book 'Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality.' The speaker expresses his belief in the religion of reality and acknowledges Helen's role in challenging opposition to scientific and factual understanding. Helen introduces her background, from a dancer to a mathematics scholar and her transition into journalism, leading to her exploration of the topic of gender and transgender issues.

05:02

🧐 The Curious Case of Gender Identity and Its Impact on Society

This section delves into Helen's journey of discovering the complexities of gender identity and its societal implications. It discusses her initial encounter with the subject through her work at The Economist and her subsequent realization of the peculiar nature of gender identity claims. The conversation touches on the binary nature of sex, the distortion of language, and the influence of queer theory and gender studies on shaping public understanding.

10:07

🏫 The Influence of Education and Media on Gender Perception

The discussion explores how educational materials and media are influencing young minds regarding gender identity. It critiques the inaccurate and misleading information being disseminated through educational content providers and the lack of a clear syllabus for sex education. The speakers express concern over the pressure on children to conform to new gender norms and the potential repercussions of this social experiment.

15:12

🌐 The Societal and Psychological Factors Behind Gender Dysphoria

This part of the conversation examines the multifaceted factors contributing to gender dysphoria, including societal expectations, psychological influences, and the role of the internet. It addresses the concern that children, especially those who are gay, are being misdirected towards a medical pathway they may not need, with potentially irreversible consequences.

20:16

🏊‍♂️ The Controversy Over Sports and Gender Identity

The speakers discuss the impact of gender identity on sports, focusing on the fairness and integrity of competitive sports when it comes to transgender athletes. They argue that the male biological advantage cannot be simply wished away and express concern over the potential erasure of women's sports categories.

25:17

🚻 The Importance of Sex-Based Spaces and Privacy

This section highlights the necessity of sex-based spaces such as changing rooms and public toilets. It explains the historical context and the need for these spaces to ensure privacy, safety, and dignity, especially for vulnerable populations such as menstruating women, young girls, and survivors of sexual assault. The conversation criticizes the move towards gender-neutral spaces and self-ID policies that undermine these needs.

30:21

🤝 The Search for Common Ground Amidst Ideological Divides

The speakers reflect on the challenges of finding common ground in discussions surrounding gender identity. They express frustration with the polarization of the debate and the difficulty of maintaining respectful dialogue. The conversation emphasizes the importance of open discussion and the need to resist being pigeonholed into ideological camps.

35:21

🛡️ The Battle for Truth and the Establishment of Sex Matters

In the final section, Helen discusses the establishment of the advocacy organization Sex Matters, which aims to protect and promote the understanding of sex as a biological reality. The conversation recounts the story of Maya Forstater, whose employment tribunal case set a legal precedent by recognizing the belief in the importance of biological sex as protected under UK law.

Keywords

💡Reality

In the context of the video, 'reality' is emphasized as the foundation for understanding the world and forming beliefs, particularly in opposition to ideologies that the speaker perceives as distorting truth. The video discusses the concept of 'reality' in terms of biological sex being binary and immutable, as opposed to gender identity which is presented as a social construct. The speaker uses 'reality' to argue against the notion that self-identification can change one's sex.

💡Science

The term 'science' is used to underscore the importance of empirical evidence and the scientific method in understanding the world. The speaker mentions that science is about reality and implies that scientific principles are being challenged by ideologies that contradict biological facts, such as the binary nature of sex.

💡Gender Identity

Gender identity is a core concept in the video, referring to an individual's internal sense of being male, female, or something else. The speaker argues against the conflation of gender identity with biological sex, stating that the former is a social construct while the latter is a biological fact.

💡Sex

In this video, 'sex' is used to denote the biological and physiological characteristics that define men and women, including reproductive roles and genetic makeup. The speaker asserts that sex is binary and not a matter of personal identification, contrasting it with the concept of gender identity.

💡Trans

The term 'trans' is shorthand for transgender, referring to individuals who identify with a gender different from their assigned sex at birth. The video discusses the concept of being 'trans' in the context of the debate between biological sex and gender identity, with the speaker expressing concern over the implications of recognizing gender identity over biological sex.

💡Ideology

The speaker uses 'ideology' to describe a set of beliefs or opinions that they believe are in conflict with reality, particularly in relation to gender identity. The term is used to criticize the acceptance of self-identified gender over biological sex, which the speaker sees as a distortion of truth.

💡Biological Evolution

Biological evolution is alluded to in the video as the process by which male and female sexes have developed distinct characteristics. The speaker argues that the sexes are not social constructs but rather evolved categories, which are profound and biologically significant.

💡Public Understanding

Public understanding refers to the general awareness and comprehension of complex issues such as science and mathematics. In the video, the speaker discusses the importance of accurate public understanding in relation to the concepts of sex and gender, expressing concern over misinformation and misunderstanding.

💡Advocacy

The term 'advocacy' is used in the context of the speaker's work with an organization called Sex Matters, which advocates for a realistic understanding of sex and its implications in society. Advocacy in this video is portrayed as a response to what the speaker perceives as a misleading ideology around gender identity.

💡Misunderstanding

Misunderstanding is highlighted in the video as a key issue, where the speaker claims that questions about the implications of recognizing gender identity over biological sex are deliberately misconstrued as bigotry. The term is used to describe the resistance to questioning the prevailing narrative on gender identity.

💡Detransitioners

Detransitioners are individuals who, after identifying as transgender, revert to identifying with their sex assigned at birth. The video mentions detransitioners to illustrate the complexity of gender identity and to argue that the process of transitioning is not always a straightforward or permanent solution to gender dysphoria.

💡Sex-Based Language

Sex-based language refers to the use of terms that are specific to one's biological sex, such as 'woman', 'female', 'mother', 'sister', and 'daughter'. The speaker argues against the erosion of sex-based language, asserting that it is essential for maintaining distinctions based on biological sex.

💡Single-Sex Spaces

Single-sex spaces are areas designated for use by one sex only, such as changing rooms, toilets, and shelters. The video discusses the importance of maintaining single-sex spaces for the safety and comfort of women, particularly in light of concerns about voyeurism and exhibitionism.

💡Political Polarization

Political polarization is mentioned in the video as a factor contributing to the division of opinions on gender identity. The speaker suggests that the issue has become politicized, with certain views being associated with specific political affiliations, which can limit open discussion and understanding.

💡Sex Realism

Sex realism is the belief that sex is a biological fact and is distinct from gender, which is a social construct. The video discusses the concept of sex realism in the context of the legal case involving Maya Forstater, who was dismissed for expressing this belief.

💡Indoctrination

Indoctrination refers to the process of imparting a set of beliefs or ideas to others in a way that discourages independent thought. In the video, the speaker expresses concern that children are being indoctrinated with misinformation about their bodies and human nature, particularly in relation to gender identity.

💡Free Speech

Free speech is a central theme in the video, with the speaker arguing that the debate around gender identity and sex is being stifled by accusations of bigotry and transphobia. The speaker believes that open discussion and dissent are crucial for maintaining democratic values.

Highlights

The discussion emphasizes the importance of reality in understanding the world and the role of science in exploring it.

Helen Joyce's background in mathematics and her transition into journalism and advocacy for sex-based realities are outlined.

The conversation tackles the concept of gender identity and its conflict with biological sex, particularly in the context of sports.

Helen's experience at The Economist and her investigation into the transgender phenomenon are highlighted.

The impact of queer theory and gender studies on the understanding of sex and gender is critiqued.

The binary nature of sex and the absurdity of the idea that one can simply declare a different sex are discussed.

The role of language in shaping our understanding of reality and the dangers of distorting it for political purposes are examined.

Helen's book 'Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality' and its exploration of the transgender movement are mentioned.

The influence of societal structures and the evolution of categories like family and gender roles are analyzed.

The potential negative consequences of medical transitioning on children, including sterility, are discussed.

The pressure on children to conform to gender stereotypes and the risks of misdiagnosing gender dysphoria are highlighted.

The role of teachers and doctors in affirming children's gender identities and the potential harm it can cause are explored.

The importance of single-sex spaces like changing rooms and toilets for women's safety and comfort is emphasized.

The challenges faced by women who dissent from the dominant narrative on gender identity and the accusations of bigotry are discussed.

The political polarization surrounding the gender identity debate and its impact on free speech are examined.

The tension within the LGBT community between gender identity and sexual orientation, particularly affecting lesbians and gay men, is highlighted.

The story of Maya Forstater, her legal battle for expressing sex-based beliefs, and the implications for free speech are shared.

The establishment of Sex Matters, an advocacy organization focusing on sex-based realities, and its goals are introduced.

Transcripts

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, uh, 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. 

There's a character in a a Kingsley Amis 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,  

um, that's a typical trope of television to 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 2 years,  

realized that wasn't a great idea and went and  did a a degree in maths in Trinity College Dublin. 

And I stayed and did my master's in Cambridge  and my PhD in maths at UCL in London, and then  

spent 3 years doing post doc 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 is trans? And I said, I  have no idea. Shall 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 3 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 they're  evolved categories. And I had to bin 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, um,  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. The one thing that  isn't is sex. I mean sex really is binary. 

There's no question about it. You're either male  or female and it's absolutely clear. You can do it  

on gamete size. 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 that seems to me to be a strange  distortion of language because we language  

is useful as something to express your thoughts  clearly. And so I'm bewildered by it, and I was  

fascinated to read your book and and I learned  tremendous lot from it. While I'm about it,  

I could recommend a couple of other books.  Irreversible damage by Abigail Shrier,  

um, about the particularly focusing on young  girls and how they get misled. And this one,  

Material Girls by Kathleen Stocker,  I've I've listened to this on audio,  

so I don't have a physical copy of the book. So I printed out because I got a cover  

of it. 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 5 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. 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, isn't it? 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 is called  that is that Germaine 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. Know, female people are their own category. 

Female and male are actually  very profound categories. They're  

profound biological evolved categories. Well, evolutionarily, they have to be.  

That's a 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. Yes. 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 a uterus popped in and  no penis. But so it was the only sense in which  

a man can 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 2 or 3 century move towards seeing  categories and classification as inherently  

oppressive. So people think, you know,  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, ev evolutionary  

biology. I mean that they 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, uh, 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, uh, you know, 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 2 sexes and the sex that  

you are is 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. Let's not let that stop  

her doing anything. She could be an astronaut. She could be president. Well, I 

mean, I think we were all sort of when I  I was brought up to think that you could  

do whatever you wanted to. You you have the  power to to to, as you said, be an astronaut,  

be be whatever you damn will 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 poofter, 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, uh, 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 a 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 sissy 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'm just very upset to see evidence from your  book and others that teachers and doctors perhaps  

are latching onto a child who's expresses the  slightest doubt about this, and then it affirms  

them as being the opposite gender to their sex. I mean, it's worse than that they latch onto it.  

They suggest sell it. Yes. 

You know, these books for 2 and 3 and 5  year olds say you must examine your gender. 

I've got here a quote from a 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,  

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 myself in any permanent way,  

in my opinion. She was a very bright  girl. She's actually written books,  

uh, about about science for for children. I was very, very impressive, and I was  

really depressed to read her letter that that  there there is peer pressure and even teacher  

pressure 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, 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, um, 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. 

We're guest? Guest, guest. We're  

waiting for you. Wait a 

minute. They guessed your sex. You you had a penis and yet they guessed. 

Yeah. They so they often doctor. 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 0.2%. 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. Yeah. 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 in regard, or something else in between? And then and then stars come behind them 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 do you meant to make of this if  

you're 8? Like Right. First off, that you're very  boring if you think that 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. Somewhere in your book, there's a a  

story about a a mother who said who had 8  children, and she said, and not a single  

one of them is boring sis. Is that is that what what she said? So so cis is this very new coinage  

that's, uh, with by analogy with trans. Yes.  Because what they don't want is you saying, you  

know, real women and trans women, or normal women  and trans women, or actual women and trans women.  

They want there to be 2 types of women, so they  need asymmetric words to trans, and that is cis. 

Cis. Yeah. On the same side of. 

Yes. And so this, uh, this woman, I found this  

quote in an enclosed 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 is 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 4. I'm learning so much from  her. Sorry. Um, I forget forgotten which way  

around of 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 in 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 bomb, that is what, um,  

religious cults do. Uh, they they love  bomb is the phrase I 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 whatever the thing is, 

and you are just gonna get piled on and you  will get kicked out. Yeah. 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  

20 or 21, you've missed your opportunity.  Your own sex organs are not going to grow. 

You are 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. 

Save her. So 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 minors  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, 

even disorders. So that's there anyway, and  they're depressed anyway or or Yes. Or bulimic or 

or something like that. 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 re reinvent yourself,  

you know, you're like a phoenix, you'll rise from  the ashes a new person, all your problems will  

be left behind. So, yes, though 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 will decrease that risk. Yes. So so it does seem like terrible emotional  

blackmail. People like you who are standing up  about this, mostly women, I suppose, are getting  

an awful lot of persecution. Um, I think you're  very brave. And and, um, JK Rowling's very brave. 

Kathleen Stock's very brave. Maya  Forstater is very brave. Is that  

how you pronounce it? Yes. It is. Yes. What gives you the courage? 

I mean, that's I don't want to answer for  anybody else, although I work with Maya daily,  

so I sort of see where she comes from in it. And I  know Kathleen and I've met Jo Rowling. Uh, it's my  

privilege to have met her. In my case, I was lucky  to work somewhere that has a very collegiate and,  

uh, 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. Yeah.  So far, I was stacked and blurred that there was  

no way back. You know? Like, I 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  something very bad was happening. And, you know,  

all the people who think that something very bad  has happened, they'll pick a different bit of it.  

They'll say it's about free speech or it's about  women's rights or 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 detransitioners were speaking,  

and this would have been, I think, late 2019.  And I found it a profoundly upsetting event.  

So at this one in particular, there were 6  young women. Of course, there are boys who  

transition and detransition too, but this was 6  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 nonconformity  

into thinking they must be boys, and they had  gone various stages down the medical pathway. 

And one of them who 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 and was  

on testosterone. She had no breasts, no uterus, no  ovaries. She had a beard. Her hair was receding. 

And by 23, when she still wasn't feeling any  better, when 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 turn me into an Anne?  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 nonconforming 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, uh, the  

great majority of the children they see are same  sex attracted. There's a strong statistic there. 

Been perfectly happy Yes. Going up as Yes. So we are turning potentially healthy gay  

adults into sterile straight  simulacra of the opposite sex. 

And one of the points you make, I think, is that  that there are certain parents who would rather  

have a trans child than a gay child and Yes. 

Is is that part of the motivation? Yeah. And I don't think it's always  

stated upfront Um, 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 as 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? We knew this already in about 2000. 

The research had been done. The the the the  papers have been examined. We know that the gender  

nonconformity comes first in these kids, and the  gender dysphoria, the distress, is a result of the  

gender nonconformity 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 with 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. Whereas in in the  

past, we would have just said, well, well,  she she's a tomboy and and and you know? 

Well, with a girl, you would have. Poor old boys.  The boys, they tried to straighten them out. 

Yes. Yes. Horrible. Yes. But the girls was much easier. You just  

let them out, tell them to climb some trees, and Yes. 

You know, look back when they're 16. Yes. Um, I'm perfectly happy to, um,  

address a trans person by their preferred name  and prefers preferred pronouns. I think it's  

just a matter of politeness really. Um,  what I object to is the insistence that  

I am a woman. I mean you're not a woman. You're you're I'm perfectly prepared to  

call you she if you if you if you like, and  call 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 hard line 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 it happens to me less now, but 2 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  un, uh, unjustifiable differences between the  

sexes and the way we treat people now. Yeah. Uh, we've 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 a in a 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. Luckily, I'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 selling 

the thing. Yeah. For me, it is. Do you make  a distinction between people who've gone  

through the ordeal of surgery and and and being  castrated or whatever and and having their breasts  

removed or whatever, and people who just simply  stand up and say, I am a woman or I am a man. Um,  

it it does seem to me that there's also  a sense you sort of paid your dues if  

you've if you've if you've subjected yourself to  I mean, you're you're really serious about it. 

You're really earnest about it. You're not  just 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, uh, adjudicated on now in  several courts is that you can't make something  

conditional on getting yourself sterilized  because it's human rights abuse 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. You are inducing people to go through a  really horrific surgery that is and to give  

up Oh, yes. Or something. Yeah. 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 I know like, to the other people  

around them. You know? Yes. If you come into  a women's space, who have you paid your dues 

to, like, just sterilized? Is  the wrong phrase, but but but No. 

I heard it before. You've shown you're you're serious  

about it. You've showed you've shown that you're,  I mean, somebody who let let's talk about sports  

for for a moment. Somebody who who's who's  a 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. 

That seems to me to be unserious. You're you're  just saying you're 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, actually. But but but there there's a sort of feeling  

that he really means it. He 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 eighteens, over  30 fives, Paralympians, flyweights. 

Yeah. 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, you know, put yourself through  

all the all the the it's really rather a hard  craft to become an astronaut. You've proved  

you're serious about it. But I've also become an  

astronaut. So that's the thing. You might not become you might be  

not good enough to become an astronaut, but you you tried. Then I would not be an astronaut. No. 

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 forties  

and older. Yes. 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. 

Uh, 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 to us. If there's if we're going to have separate  

female, um, athletic competitions  at all, then then Yeah. It doesn't 

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, and you and  

you go in for for everything. And then, as  you say, um, women wouldn't wouldn't win 

Anything. Yes. Maybe gymnastics. But but  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 in these days. Yes. Okay. Um, there's a lot in your book  

about changing rooms, so we better we better  talk about that. 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 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 half  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 2 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 urinary leash, 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, men don't. You're quite  vulnerable when you're weeing. And so women in  

the Victorian era, like, would have to always be  able be aware that there was somewhere they could  

go to wee. Otherwise, they could get assaulted. And it was the it was the factory girls, actually,  

who campaigned for the first public toilets.  Because they were they were getting sexually  

assaulted if they tried to weed 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 6, 7, 8, 9,  and you want to send her to the toilet,  

you want to be able to pop her into the  women's loos and know that there's only  

women in there. Because she's really at  risk, actually, if it's a mixed sex space. 

Then there's Muslim women. And there's women  who have been raped who are who are survivors  

of sexual assault and who can have really  serious flashbacks in enclosed spaces 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 Forstater now, 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 calls  himself a woman who's now using the changing room. 

And I've never told anybody. I'm in my  fifties 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 play a full part in public life. 

You were telling me, uh, before we started,  uh, so I didn't know that competitive swimmers,  

but Olympic types swimmers, have to wiggle into  their streamline swimsuits. And so they don't  

just sort of quickly put put it on 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 sport, who were men. So Laurel  Hubbard was the big example at the time, who's a  

weightlifter, a New Zealand weightlifter, a man in  his forties. But in between the hardback and the  

paperback, along came Leah or Will Thomas, who's a  young man who's 6 foot 4, 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 the sort of they they're compression  suits that, like, just make you very, um,  

cut cut through the water fast. And it's 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 suit when you're doing your warm up. And there's dozens of events, you know, all the  

different lengths and strokes. And there may be  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  

suit, you go out, you do your warm up, you  come back and you 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 wriggle 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 6 foot 4 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. Riley Gaines, who's the one  of them who's spoken out 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 that they'll be referred  for counseling, the women of the university,  

uh, that where where, um, Leah Thomas is I  think it's University of Pennsylvania. The  

girl's on his own team, because they complained  anonymously, and they 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 I  realize there are 2 different points of view here,  

but how has one side managed to kind of capture  the dominant dialogue really, the dominant half  

of the dialogue. Yeah. And and constantly, it  comes up that you've if you dissent from that,  

you're called a bigot. And so people don't  want to dissent because dissent and so I  

don't want to call it cowardice, but but,  um, we it it's it's pardonable, cowardice,  

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  does all the bullying go one way? 

I 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 of you Only way in which he can keep the fiction going.  

Why does he have these betters  than accomplices who 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 5th 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,  

force solely. But in America, it's so polarized  that they're really very specific packages. 

And if you want not to take the the opinion  that gender identity trumps sex, then you're a  

Republican. Have to be a conservative Christian.  You have to be anti abortion. You have to think  

that women belong at the kitchen. You know? And so if you don't want those things,  

well, you've gotta 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. Um, which one was it? 

The the one where you go back in the the  tree of life backwards, quite thick one. 

Oh, The Ancestor's 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. Yeah. 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, 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 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 believed when it  was first sent to the museum. You know that? 

Well, exactly. So this is a platypus in a way. Yes. Is there is there a tension  

between when we the LGBT? Yes. 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 tea 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 in the American way of thinking,  

there is the, you know, the white supremacist,  the the cis het 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 cishet. Yes. 

Meaning cis and heteronorm heterosexual.  On the other hand, if you actually just  

think that LGB is a shorthand for people who  aren't heterosexual, like people who 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 tea doing in there?  Yeah. Like, tea tea is an identity. 

It's not a sexuality. And more than that,  tea 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 is tension lesbians  

do feel threatened, I think, don't don't they? Absolutely. Yes. I mean, you could it 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  

gonna have much success when they get older. It's  not gonna 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. 

Yes. One thing that really pisses me off, it it  it came up a moment ago, is that is that, um,  

I've been politically on the left all my life, and  I find myself now being blamed. Somehow, it well,  

I 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  

they often think it is. I mean, 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 it is often  said that it's an American thing to say. 

It's because of the American polarization,  and it's partly Americanization 

that I'm said that. That's American. Oh, it gets said to us too. I mean,  

I get told I'm funded by the Heritage Foundation,  you know, I'm getting money from shadowy right  

wing American groups. I'm not, you know, it's  it's a joke among the women my you know, that  

I work with. You know, People always say, have  you got any of your far right money yet? Like,  

this must be stuck in the post, you know. No, we haven't. We don't get funding from  

them. It is very irritating, and I I suppose I  find it less irritating because I never thought  

of myself as either left or right wing. Mhmm.  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 I've voted for every party,  

every every one of the 3 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  indifferent things as far as I'm concerned. 

Lots of Brexiteers, lots of anti vaxxers, uh,  lots of evangelical Christians, people who  

have had some formative experience like, I think  probably, used to King 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 I do see a lot of very varied people  

who have already experienced being cast out. Right. Well, we'd probably better better come  

to a close. Would you like to tell us a bit about  your organization, Sex Matters, as we as we close? 

Sure. So anyone who's read my book will  have met Maya Forstater, who is the person  

I shaped the chapter about Britain, otherwise  known as TERF Island, around TERF 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.  We we we won't won't hear that. 

So Maya worked for she was a specialist in  tax, international tax flows and development,  

and she worked for a think tank 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 how gender self ID  

destroys the basis 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. Yeah. Like everything else. 

Yeah. Yeah. We live in America now, all of us.  They complained and said she was transphobic, and  

to cut a long story short, she lost her job. So  she went to the employment tribunal, and she lost,  

a bit about what 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 2 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 deserved to lose her job.  And, I mean, the way that the law was written,  

it's not just deserve 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 to ever employ  

her anywhere, provide her with any services  because this is the law that protects us  

against discrimination in employment and the in  in 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 I knew Maya by this point, and she's a  

very brave woman and very, very dog doggeared. 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 the belief that sex is binary, immutable,  

and that matters is a protected belief in UK  employment and provision services. Precedent. 

Yes. That precedent is set. So now in a workplace,  if you say, I think we need to have men's and  

women's toilets because there are 2 sexes and  women need them, they can't say, you're bigots. 

Okay. I I just found in in your book the 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 she name philosophers who agreed  with her? I couldn't remember why philosophers. 

What have they got to do with this?  Biologists, you want to ask. 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 say that at which at which the  room packed with women's support erupted  

in laughter. I'm not surprised it erupted in laughter. And then after all of that,  

judge Taylor said that, 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 her barrister, Anya 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 to power and sexuality. Bothers me most, I must say. 

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.