Episode 128

Reality on trial!

In September 2018, The Reality Report spoke with feminist philosopher Jane Clare Jones about the current ideological battles around ideas of sex and gender. This proved to be by far the most widely viewed — and controversial — episode of the 127 thus far produced.

Three weeks ago, she returned for a follow-up conversation which covered relevant events of the past year, focussing on the recent tribunal concerning the termination of Maya Forstater's employment for asserting the reality of biological sex (in which the prosecution lawyer described this belief as a "conspiracy theory"!)

Also covered are corporate "rainbow-washing", the emergence of transracialism, transageism and transablism, the newly formed LGB Alliance breaking away from LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall, troubling occurrences in women's prisons and sports, the appearance of the Detransitioners Advocacy Network, the Jonathan Yaniv affair, Alice Roberts' (Professor of the Public Engagement in Science) invocation of clownfish to deny human sexual dimorphism, attacks on women's rights activist Julie Bindel and the Women's Place UK meeting in Brighton and reality-denying changes to NHS guidelines.

As well as a deep discussion of the current youth cultural flight from materiality to virtuality, we consider the world's first penguin chick "not to be assigned a gender at birth".

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Pre-empting possible criticism: yes, in the flow of our conversation we "misgender" a handful of male activists (and "deadname" a particularly violent one), but if you're going to physically assault women and/or make demands like this, this or this, then you've forfeited any meaningful claim to womanhood or right to complain about pronouns.

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[links to articles are not necessarily endorsements of everything written in them]

• Jane Clare Jones' website
• Jane Clare Jones on Twitter
• Judith Butler
• Maya Forstater, "I Lost My Job For Speaking Up About Women's Rights" (blog post)
• Center for Global Development
• John Money (sexologist)
• queer theory
• manspreading
• M. Mali, "Gender trouble: Gender feminism and the blank slate" (Aero article)
• Kate Millett's Sexual Politics (1970 book)
• Rachel Dolezal (subject of transracialism controversy)
• NAACP
• transableism
• G. Linehan, "What is wrong with young leftie men?" (blog post about Benjamin Butterworth attempting to "identify as black")
• Kathleen Stock (feminist philosopher)
• BAME
• UK Gender Recognition Act (GRA) 2004
• sexual motives for transvestism (autogynephilia)
• Christine Goodwin's case at the European Court of Human Rights
• The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 (England and Wales)
• Stonewall (LGBT+ charity)
• LGB Alliance
• Simon Fanshawe (gay rights activist)
• UK government GRA consultation
• UK Labour Party Manifesto 2019
• UK Equalities Act 2010
• Budweiser Pride drinking cups (Gay Star News article)
• Clause/Section 28 (defeated homophobic UK legislation)
• "Pinkwashing"
• Tannis Jacob Wolf a.k.a Tara Wood (assailant of Maria Maclachlan)
  trial of Tannis Wolf (blog post)
• Stokely Carmichael (US black rights activist)
• SNCC (1960-70's US political movement)
• Andrea Dworkin (feminist philosopher/activist)
• Julie Bindel (feminist activist)
  Justice For Women (Bindel's organisation)
• Cathy Newman (Channel 4 journalist)
• the real Cathy Brennan
• Ash Sarkar ("journalist")
• Gamergate controversy
• TERF is a slur (countless screenshot examples thereof)
• Women's Place UK (organisation)
• WPUK Brighton meeting protest (Brighton Argus article)
• protest outside Meghan Murphy's talk at Toronto Public Library (Toronto Sun article)
  video of protest
  video of talk
• Sally Hines (gender theory academic)
• "A rising star of women's cricket" (blog post)
  male cricketer Maxine Blythin talking about being "assigned a gender at birth" (Sky News video)
  Chesham Men's 2nd XI (second-tier local men's team Blythin also plays for)
• hejira
• eunuchs
• Native American 'two-spirit' concept
• UK Green Party's classification of women as "non-men" (blog post)
• C. Lucas and J.D. Robertson, "NY Democrats quietly dismantle '1 male, 1 female' rule" (blog post)
• E. Peterson, "District 211 grants transgender students unrestricted locker-room access" (Daily Herald article)
• O. Benson, "The cis/trans binary is used to flip the hierarchy of oppression" (blog post)
• J. Vigo, "The Degenderettes: The transgender hate group taking aim at women" (blog post)
  "San Francisco Public Library hosts transgender "art exhibit" featuring weapons intended to kill feminists" (blog post)
• Jo Swinson (UK Liberal Democrat Party leader July-December 2019)
  radio interview in which Swinson appears not to know what a woman is
• Jeremy Corbyn (UK Labour Party leader 2015-2019)
• Stonewall Trans Advisory Group (including bearded, self-proclaimed "lesbian transwoman") Alex Drummond)
• Alex Drummond video
• University toilet signs in Bristol 1 (Bristol Post article)
  University toilet signs in Bristol 2 (blog post)
  University toilet signs in Bristol 3 (Telegraph article)
• "Karen White: How 'manipulative' transgender inmate attacked again" (Guardian article)
  "Trans inmate jailed for Wakefield prison sex offences" (BBC News)
• Shon "Enjoy ur erasure" Faye (trans-identifying male activist)
• Shon Faye gives keynote speech at Amnesty International's "Women Making History" event (discussion thread)
• Munroe Bergdorff (transgender model/activist who led Women's March and told women not to discuss their reproductive biology there)
  H. Freedman, "Don't you just love it when a man explains to you what it means to be a woman?" (Guardian comment piece)
• Leading children's charity cuts ties with influential transgender activist (BBC News video)
  Munroe Bergdorff NSPCC safeguarding scandal (Sonia Poulton video)
• "Emile Ratelband, 69, Told He Cannot Legally Change His Age" (BBC News article)
  Emile Ratelband
• transracialism
• Transgender father Stefonknee Wolscht who left family to be a six-year-old girl 'uses child's play to escape adult life' (Independent article)
• Hypatia transracialism controversy
• Sam Smith (gay pop singer who "came out as nonbinary")
• Owen Jones (smug political commentator)
• Janice Turner (gender critical political commentator)
• Miranda Yardley (gender critical transsexual activist)
• M. Murphy, "Women warned you: Yaniv's Human Rights Tribunal case is the inevitable result of gender identity ideology" (blog post)
• L. Wakefield, "Trans woman denied 'gender-affirming' services files human rights complaints" (Pink News comes out in support of Jonathan Yaniv)
• "The surge in referral rates of girls to the Tavistock continues to rise" (blog post)
  Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust
• Lisa Littman and "rapid onset gender dysphoria" controversy
• Detransitioners Advocacy Network
• Charlie Evans (detransitioned activist)
• Alfie's detransitioning video
• Magdalen Berns' full video response to transactivist Ash Hardell
• clownfish (Amphiprion percula)
• "OK Boomer" meme
• congenital adrenal hyperplasia (most common non-ambiguous intersex condition)
• Alice Roberts (Professor of the Public Engagement in Science and President of Humanists UK)
• Alice Roberts attacks evolutionary biologist Emma Hilton on Twitter (discussion thread)
• one-sex and two-sex theories (historical models of human anatomy)
• massively multiplayer online games
• role playing games
• live action role playing
• cosplay
• xenofeminism
  Donna Harraway, A Cyborg Manifesto (1985)
• Amazon's AI services
• Tumblr (microblogging site which incubated gender identity ideology)
• Helena, "Tumblr: A call-out post" (blog post)
• O. Petter, "There is now a gender neutral penguin living at London's Aquarium" (Independent article)
  L. Wakefield, "Penguin chick raised by same-sex penguins revealed to be gender neutral" (supportive Pink News article)
• E. Hilton, "From humans to asparagus, females are females" (blog post)
• Janice Raymond (feminist philosopher)
  J. Raymond, The Transsexual Empire (1979 book)
• Mary Daly (feminist philosopher, J. Raymond's doctoral supervisor)
• A. Alghrani, "Uterus transplantation in and beyond cisgender women: Revisiting procreative liberty in light of emerging reproductive technologies" (Journal of Law and the Biosciences)
• P. Ball, "This womb transplant breakthrough could open up pregnancy to all sexes" (Guardian comment piece)
• Institute of Feminist Thought
• gaslighting
• UK National Health Service gaslighting women
• "Do lesbians have better sex than straight women?" (The Guardian gaslighting lesbians)
• little skates (Leucoraja erinacea)