This is a post based on a Radio 4 programme, from 2013. Whittle is just one of a number of people interviewed. This programme also alerted me to the role of Alex Carlile, ex of the Liberal Democrat’s, who has sat in the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Most of the contributors are proponents of Gender Identity Ideology with the exception of Julie Bindel.

Transcription here:

Analysis Woman Defined FINAL

I transcribed it because I find these sources are in danger of disappearing but you can still listen to it, as of March 2022, here 👇. {The featured image is the one used by the BBC by the way}

Analysis: Women. Who decided

The list of contributors:

James Barrett is features, lead clinician for the UK national Gender clinic, as is Alex Carlile, ex Liberal Democrat who tabled a bill to allow ”trans identified” people to change their birth certificates, in 1996. Also interviewed are Melissa Hines, who believes in self-defining your sex/gender and Richard O’Brien who believes he is 30% female and takes oestrogen, Ruth Pearce, a trans-identified male, and Stephen Whittle, a trans-identified female. Julie Bindel is somewhat outnumbered. Here is the presenter, Jo Fidgen.

The format is not a round table discussion. The presenter asks some direct questions and interjects her own voice as narrator, whether the notes of incredulity are faux-naive I will leave you to judge, when she reaches her breathless, excited conclusions.

First up Whittle casts doubt on the rigour of hospital staff assessing sex at birth. I find the calibre of this argument ludicrous, to be frank.

The presenter raises a contemporary furore after the Observer published a provocative comment piece by Julie Burchill calling “male-to-female” transsexuals a ”bunch of bedwetters in bad wigs”. The context for this piece was that Burchill’s friend, Suzanne Moore, had posted a piece about body shaming women; who are being sold the idea the ideal body shape is one favoured by Brazilian “Transsexuals”. Cue threats of rape and violence which resulted in the police being called and, predictably, claiming to be unable to help.

The presenter omits the above context but does admit it plays into the current debate and claims, whilst once she was confident she was a woman, ”Now, I’m not so sure”.

Next up Alex Carlile explains how he became interested in the plight of transsexuals. He was approached by a female constituent about which he has this to say:

Carlile goes onto explain how his constituent had various difficulties being a female but ”living as a man”. He then claims his constituent faced difficulties in using male facilities because he could have been accused of doing something wrong. Females are always used to support this argument because we all know it’s not females who commit 99% of sex offences, overwhelmingly against women. Men are unlikely to by intimidated by a female who, according to Carlile, is indistinguishable from any other man.

We are informed that Carlile tabled a bill, as far back as 1996, to allow ”transsexuals” to change their birth certificates to reflect the sex they wish they were. I had a look at that debate and was struck by one comment which sheds light on why falsifying birth certificates was more acceptable than gay marriage, which by the way was not legalised until nearly a decade after the Gender Recognition Act. Note also that Press For Change were lobbying these Conservatives decades ago. (Source:Hansard).

The Bill did not pass but, Carlile explains, it piqued Labour’s interest. Next up Whittle waxes lyrical about the UK, Gender Recognition Act which is described as ”State of the Art” in comparison to ”anywhere in the world”. In just five short years Whittle would see the GRA as out of date and advocate for self-identification of ”sex”!

We have a slight detour at this point to explain that Whittle has a ”vested interest” in this debate as a ”transman”. We also hear about how Whittle now has a surgically constructed ”penis” but has kept some, unspecified, female parts so has a sort of “mixed body”. Next Whittle says the quiet part out loud.

Fidgen interjects with a question about how radical this is and, finally, brings in Julie Bindel, who explains it is, in reality, ultra conservative.

Whittles rebuttal of this point is astonishing, to me, makes perfect sense to anyone whose thought processes have been addled by Queer Theory. 🤦‍♂️

Jo goes back to Bindel to ask if Stephen has a point. Bindel cuts to the heart of the matter. Feminism wants to dismantly gender stereotypes, transgender people want to uphold them. They rely on stereotypes of masculinity and femininity so they have a template to ”perform” their gender.

Ruth Pearce, a trans-identified male, repudiates this and claims he is quite scruffy and generally in jeans and T Shirts, even hoodies 🤷‍♀️. Pearce argues that Bindel is out of date. Stereotypical expectations are simply not a feature gender clinics anymore. Pearce claims he is a feminist and a trans perspective is not necessarily at odds with feminism. Ruth explains that he was seen as weird and strange as a teenage boy and was often asked if he was gay. His interests were typically associated with being a girl so now he identifies as one. To Ruth this is not shoring up stereotypes (🤔) and he believes, ultimately, we will abandon the categories of male and female. This is the magical thinking driving this ideology. Ruth thinks they are going to dismantle the ”gender binary” by, checks notes, aligning their own self-perception with what society says are typical interests for a woman. Ruth has rejected his sex on the basis of the very sexist stereotypes he claims he wants to destroy. Make it make sense!

Can’t defend what you can’t define.

Bizarrely the presenter thinks Pearce is agreeing with Bindel. To be clear, one of them is living a life embodying a stereotype which Bindel wants to dismantle. Bindel is not seeking the destruction of sex based categories which underpin women’s legal right to single sex spaces.

Hines, no not that one!

We are then introduced to a Cambridge Professor, Melissa Hines, to introduce some science. Hines is a neuroscientist and spends a lot of time working with people who have disorders of sexual development. I could take some headlines from her work which focus on toy preferences and ”gendered” brains influenced by higher than normal levels of testosterone. Hines recognises the importance of socialisation but also argues there are biological processes at work. This, seems perfectly plausible to me since humans are sexually dimorphic and evolution is likely to have introduced differential development in the sex that does the child-bearing. Conceding the complex interaction between nurture/nature doesn’t mean we are all biological essentialists who think women belong in the kitchen. It’s also important to retain some skepticism about claims in respect of #LadyBrains which is just as ideologically predicated as a 100% denial of the role of biology. Three books for anyone interested in following this up.

Hines lost me at this point, even the interviewer sounded a note of incredulity.

Hines therefore argues that exposure to higher levels of testosterone pre-disposes some females to adopt preferences associated with the opposite sex. Jo Fidgens adds in the known association of victims of childhood sexual abuse and a rejection of your sex. This gets little attention because we then proceed to discuss research into post mortem examinations of the brains of male transsexuals. Interestingly, Hines is on the fence about this research; questioning whether the experience of “gender dysphoria” causes the change in brain structure. (Search neuroplasticity).

James Barrett

James Barrett was lead clinician at a U.K Gender clinic and has appeared in my blogs frequently because he often appears as an expert witness in legal cases I have covered. Here he talks about how he would assess a patient who presented with gender identity issues. He makes if clear that the assessment must involve not just your self-identificaion but how you are percieved by others. This puts the burden for acceptance on females, in the main, who are mandated to #BeKind, validate these men and accept them men in our spaces. #NOThankyou

Born This Way?

Whilst accepting the evidence of a biological explanation is inconclusive we now consider the issue of Puberty Blockers. In 2011 the Tavistock Gender Clinic began experimenting /researching the effect of placing ”Gender Dysphoric” children on medication to block a natural puberty. This is still often described as a ”pause” and ”reversible”. It is not a ”pause” the long term impact is uncertain and 98%+ proceed to synthetic drugs to mimic the effects of cross-sex hormones. I have written about this a few times here:

Puberty Blockers

Julie Bindel is asked for her thoughts on this:

Julie is right to point out the danger of over-diagnosis in young Lesbians and Gay males. Not conforming to sex stereotypes is elevated in children who, left alone, would become homosexual adults. These are the last figures I have on same sex attracted referrals to the Tavistock Gender Clinic. With all the fuss about the #GayConversionTherapy ban why haven’t people realise that the main place this is happening is at Gender Clinics?

Single sex spaces.

Julie Bindel then brings up an incident with a pre-operative male behaving aggressively in a space for vulnerable women. I think the law is misinterpreted here because it is technically permissible to exclude a male, even with a GRC, from a single sex space. Though it is correct to say too many organisations fail to apply this exception. Bindel then raises the issue of males in female prisons even when he has committed a an offence against a female.

Fidgen then puts this hypthetical to Lord Carlile which leads to this, astonishing, exchange. {Worth noting, at this point, that Carlile was head of a Penal Reform charity, the Howard League, for a number of years}.

We next take a detour to learn that Richard O’ Brien takes oestrogen for his 30% female part. Ruth Pearce thinks the next legal battle will be to recognise people who don’t identify as male, or female, and Whittle boasts about how we have been ”de-gendering the law for twenty years. Whittle then tells what I am certain they think is a cute anecdote about his three year old asking how they know their twins are girls. Whittle’s wife explains they don’t. They made a guess and the babies can tell them, when they are older, if they got it wrong. I find that a rather sinister tale.

This was Jo’s conclusion.

The Denton’s document is a must read to understand how we got here. I covered it here:

That Denton’s Document

The conclusion Jo comes to reminds me of the book Pollyanna. It has not worked out that way.

The Battle of the X’s.

Time for a new suffragette movement and thankfully one is here:

You can learn about Sex Matters, and donate, here.

Respect my Sex

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