Quote:
Originally Posted by Damien
I don't understand the point of not having someone who identifies as trans to put their argument across themselves, rather than giving that job to the presenter. Especially when you have two guests who disagree.
|
It’s pretty standard TV and radio journalism to have the presenter play devil’s advocate to a certain extent, when they can’t get people with opposing views into a direct discussion. However in such circumstances they have to be fair, and in Lowen’s case, the programme centred trans feelings on Thursday, then did so again at the beginning of the segment in question on Friday by interviewing another man aggrieved that he can’t play on a women’s team any more, and then re-played part of the Thursday interview with a trans identifying male, before finally coming to Davies and Yamauchi; he then finished by reminding everyone that they did interviews with Trans people on Thursday. There was nothing remotely balanced about it, even when allowing for the BBC’s favourite get-out clause, ‘across our output’.
The trans-dentifying males were not given any push-back and were not asked to show much (if indeed any) empathy for women. And crucially Lowen attempted to present the trans-identifying males as ‘she’, uncritically, and without acknowledging that this is contentious, disputed and at the very heart of the Supreme Court judgment. In fact, Yamauchi took him to task on it at one point, insisting that he make clear in his question that he was asking about men who say they are women.
Quote:
|
Also, what's the objection to a trans only category? I saw some people suggest they may have do that previously. If you do that, then it's not going to impact biological women. It might be hard to get enough numbers to do that, but in London, I imagine you could get a few 5-a-side teams going.
|
There are multiple issues with that approach. I think Davies & Yamauchi were objecting to it from an elite sports perspective. How would you create and fund something that is by its nature designed for mediocre individuals? And let’s not pretend they’re not mediocre; every single man who has ever put on womanface and stolen a woman’s medal or prize pot is no more than middling in their chosen sport as a man. None of them would be competing against women if they thought they could win in a men’s tournament (which as men they are welcome to try to do).
And as far as women who think they’re men go, well if they take any serious steps along that road at all, then they’re huffing testosterone which excludes them anyway because that’s doping.