Mick Hartley

Times leader on yesterday's Oxford Union debate:

Hopefully, the tide is beginning to turn. Dr Stock was backed by the prime minister before her appearance in Oxford. Defending the need for tolerance, Rishi Sunak said: “University should be an environment where debate is supported, not stifled. We mustn’t allow a small but vocal few to shut down discussion.” Quite right.

What is concerning is that Mr Sunak was not joined in this rallying cry by Sir Keir Starmer and Sir Ed Davey. Labour and the Liberal Democrats have both fallen prey to trans-McCarthyism, their leaders locked in an insane belief system that makes it impossible for them to acknowledge the biological sovereignty of women. Dr Stock is not a bigot. She does not hate trans women or want them to be marginalised in society. She believes that they are entitled to legal recognition and protection. But this does not extend to unimpeded access to all female spaces, such as changing rooms and refuges for victims of domestic violence.

She says of her status at the trans lobby’s public enemy number one: “It’s hard to believe now, but when all this started, I genuinely thought that people didn’t understand the issues and if I just explained them, they would concede that transgender women are not women and that facts have to triumph over feelings. It seems terribly naive, but I’ve learnt you can’t change the minds of fanatics.”

That's what I found a bit frustrating about Channel 4's Gender Wars last night. It was very pleased with itself on being so even-handed, and yes, it has been generally praised as presenting both sides of the argument, but what we saw was people like Kathleen Stock and Julie Bindel putting forward – calmly and lucidly – the case against gender ideology, against, well…fanatics. With whom there's no arguing. It was calm fact v. emotive bullshit – presented as a debate between two equal adversaries taking part in a "toxic" debate.

Cath Leng says it well:

I’m sure the #GenderWars producers consider themselves brave and impartial, but the programme was predicated on the same failure of judgment I’ve come across in so many BBC meetings: the refusal to distinguish between fact and opinion. That’s entirely a trans advocate position.

— Cath Leng (@leng_cath) May 31, 2023

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Here's the whole thread:

I’m sure the #GenderWars producers consider themselves brave and impartial, but the programme was predicated on the same failure of judgment I’ve come across in so many BBC meetings: the refusal to distinguish between fact and opinion. That’s entirely a trans advocate position.

Documentary-makers are not meant simply to report two opposing views: they should make at least some effort to discover, and relay, what is true and what isn’t.

Gender Wars took the line that the indisputable facts of sex are mere ‘views’, and controversial ones at that.

The first line told us what to expect: ‘a toxic culture war has been raging’ and later my personal teeth grinder – ‘toxic war of words.

It swiftly cites unquestioningly the contested concept of ‘gender identity’ – another red flag, signalling the producers’ default stance.

No surprise that it included every trite argument that feminists are familiar with: predators don’t need to transition, just want to get on with life, stop obsessing about genitalia’ and so on.

The programme-makers were themselves either silenced, or complicit.

They were unable or unwilling to point out to the trans advocate contributors and the audience that actually, Stock and Bindel are correct about sex. They do not express views, they articulate facts.

I’m sure Gender Wars was signed off at some terribly high level by experienced journalists, all of whom are content that the facts about sex are presented as opinions, and all of whom believe this makes for an impartial programme.

There is exactly the same stance at the BBC.

The ‘some people might say you’re activists’ trope is alive and kicking in newsrooms where any journalist points out that – as a supposedly trusted and impartial resource – it might be an idea to tell people the facts at some point. Including at the BBC.

Gender Wars was a rehash of the ‘this side, but that side’ features that we saw a lot of around 2017-18 when the GRA UK was under consultation. In fact some footage was actually taken from one of them.

It’s amazing that it’s seen as an achievement to end up back at square one.

After all that, huge praise for Julie Bindel and Kathleen Stock. I found their contributions very moving. Not to point out the facts of sex, however, was a significant decision.