In other news, Wednesday's Newsnight featured former Conservative MP turned-Lib Dem Dr Sarah Wollaston talking about the Lib Dems' plans to reform the Gender Recognition Act, including adding a 'X' gender option to passports.
“The idea these people [transgender people] are a threat to other women is an assumption we should challenge", said not-now-Conservative Dr Sarah along the way.
Newsnight's main presenter Emily Mailtis had a view on this, and (naturally) tweeted it:
We discussed gender self identification last night on Newsnight. It’s not “ these people “. It’s the fact a blanket law would allow any predatory man to self identify as female to gain access to women. That’s the danger.
Well said, Emily!
As you might guess (if you're on Twitter), Emily's tweet went down like a cisgender lead balloon with the hyper-sensitive, hyper-aggressive transgender army on social media, for example:
- Are BBC presenters allowed to spread terf nonsense on Twitter?
- It is absolutely disgusting that a journalist would uncritically repeat this false talking point without any investigation.
- This is a transphobic trope that has no grounding in reality.
Enter a mischievous Tom Harwood (from Guido Fawkes):
So Emily Maitlis is a terf...
(For those not up on such things, 'terf' is a term of abuse used by transgender militants to describe 'second-wave' feminists - of the Dame Jenni Murray variety - who aren't keen on having transgender women (i.e. men) beating cisgender women (i.e. women) at sport, or using their toilets, or sharing their prison cells, etc ---- a concern that lots of non-feminist women doubtless share).
But Tom's mischief has a point:
Are BBC employees allowed to opine about who is or isn't a valid person / spread transphobic conspiracy theories?
Seems to stretch the definition of impartiality....
Doesn't it just! (even though it's common sense).
So, will Emily be punished for breaking cover and stating the truth on a highly controversial area?
And which agenda (feminist or transgender) will win out at the BBC?
It’s hard not to think of the noise generated by trans activists as being out of all proportion. It is also difficult not to regard the terf (new word for me) war between feminists and trans people with a certain detached amusement. I even hoped that this would finally expose the absurdity of political correctness across the board. But I think my hopes were in vain. The religious fervour of wokeness defies all logic and survives every contradiction.
ReplyDeleteBut none of this is at all amusing. The damage being done to children by this huge lie about about gender may be beyond anything we can imagine.
It is an interesting question as to which way the BBC will go. The BBC doesn't really like diversity in policy. It normally has a single policy on just about everything and they encourage the herd mentality in their bovine staff.
ReplyDeleteI think the radical feminists will hold the line and ultimately put the TGers back in their (dressing) box - basically because they are the many in the media world and the TGers are in reality few. So far TGers have advanced on the back of intimidation and fashion but that can only take them so far - there are simply too many contradictions in TG politics.