TRIGGERnometry - We Proved Trans Women are Men

00:00:00.000 a woman is an adult human female that used to be a very controversial statement yeah you could

00:00:07.440 lose your job for saying that they all got the law wrong and have got it wrong for the past 15 years

00:00:13.520 every single regulator every government department every mainstream charity all thought that being a

00:00:20.640 man or a woman was a piece of paper so i thought that when this ruling would come out that would

00:00:27.160 be the end well is it or is there still a massive fight in communities across canada hourly amazon

00:00:35.720 employees can grow their skills and their paycheck by enrolling in free skills training programs for

00:00:41.560 in-demand fields learn more at about amazon.ca maya yes welcome finally trigonometry it's been a while

00:00:50.600 we've been meaning to have you on for ages and now you have something to talk about and celebrate you

00:00:55.580 might say with the recent ruling of the british supreme court uh in the case that you and helen

00:01:01.080 joyce and others were involved in so tell us uh everything that's happened why it's happened what

00:01:05.820 the the ruling was etc so last week uh the supreme court ruled in favor of a group called four women

00:01:13.140 scotland which is a grassroots group from scotland and against the scottish government on what the

00:01:18.640 meaning of sex is in the equality act um and we sex matters the organization that i run was an intervener

00:01:25.320 in that case so we made legal arguments put evidence and that was part of the winning side um there was

00:01:31.420 also uh a group of lesbian interveners who put the case that in particular the definition of sex matters

00:01:38.460 for lesbians um and on the other side was the equality and human rights commission so the nation's

00:01:45.640 equalities regulator and amnesty international and they all got the law wrong and have got it wrong

00:01:52.300 for the past 15 years and now we know that a woman is a woman is an adult human female that used to be a

00:01:59.660 very controversial statement yeah you could lose your job for saying that i do remember that it's it's

00:02:07.280 amazing that and it was unanimous by the uh by the supreme court they said um woman in law has been

00:02:15.740 recognized for forever and ever um it's it's not controversial it's not difficult and then the sex

00:02:21.960 discrimination act in 1975 was the act that first gave women uh protection against discrimination at work

00:02:28.020 um and harassment or a bit later harassment uh and that was based on the clear definition of sex

00:02:35.620 and then since then we've had uh the addition of the protected characteristic of gender reassignment

00:02:41.620 which protects transgender people from discrimination and then the addition of the gender recognition act

00:02:47.100 and the question was does any of that change the underlying definition of sex and the protection that

00:02:53.260 women have from sex discrimination and the um supreme court said no they said sex is as it always was

00:03:01.580 look it's you've done brilliant work you all have and we commend you all it takes an enormous amount

00:03:10.480 of bravery you lost your job as well in horrendous circumstances there's a part of me going

00:03:16.860 this is embarrassing isn't it it's it's it's stupid i mean it's a stupid question um and it corrupted

00:03:26.260 every single organization i mean that's the thing that the people who won this case were three scrappy

00:03:32.580 little organizations that get called hate groups and you know barely until this week could get on the

00:03:38.440 bbc and on the other side was the scottish government the uk government the welsh government every single

00:03:44.060 regulator every government department every mainstream charity all thought that being a man or a woman

00:03:51.900 was a piece of paper and thought you could run a country run run your institutions like that and

00:03:57.580 keep people safe and they were all wrong and you saw i mean the prime example of this was nicola

00:04:03.680 sturgeon i think the peak of this lunacy was isla bright the story of isla bryson adam graham

00:04:10.540 yeah i mean so isla bryson was uh a man a rapist in a women's prison um but there have been several

00:04:20.780 of those and i mean when i started paying attention to this in 2018 um partly it was because of a man in

00:04:28.960 a women's prison in england and i thought you know when i started tweeting about that that oh well people

00:04:34.420 are going to see this they're going to think this is mad they're going to think how could you possibly

00:04:37.680 have a man in a woman's prison um but they they didn't there were people saying oh the poor trans

00:04:43.380 woman think of the poor trans woman and all the way through this we've been trying to say think of

00:04:48.340 the women you know as soon as you say trans woman as soon as people think about this kind of magic of

00:04:53.800 of transition they forget to think about the women and you know why do you have women's prisons why do

00:05:00.060 you have women's sports why do you have everyday um single sex services it's to protect women from men

00:05:07.240 and enable women to be part of public life and i think that's a really important point that we

00:05:13.040 should just double click on for a second which is i think in this time we've been living in where

00:05:18.820 it's like well everyone's the same everyone's equal everyone's we've kind of forgotten some pretty

00:05:23.140 basic things that actually human beings have always known which is there's a difference between

00:05:27.240 men and women it's so physical but it's also temperamental it's psychological men are much more

00:05:33.260 likely to be violent not all men but there's a small subset of men who are so why does sex matter

00:05:39.400 it's the name of your can you just break that down for us in a kind of succinct way if people are coming

00:05:44.420 to this and maybe they don't they've never really thought about this before i mean exactly as you say

00:05:49.020 human beings are mammals um we we reproduce sexually it's an important part of our life um it's

00:05:57.200 important it's it shapes society and if you forget that um then you end up harming harming women um

00:06:06.300 everyone has a mother and a father and being a mother or father is you know it's a huge part of

00:06:13.720 life um and you know if you if you try and erase those differences and and like you say erase the

00:06:22.440 differences in terms of strength in terms of prevalence to violence um you're you're operating

00:06:29.180 counter to reality uh and you're making yourself stupid you're making your institution stupid

00:06:34.800 and you're you know i think people are trying to do it with good intentions um but you end up uh

00:06:43.640 corrupting everything because you know so helen my colleague helen has a uh a saying that um

00:06:51.200 saying that men are women is like saying one equals zero and if you think about any equation you know

00:06:58.320 what you learned in maths in school if you take any equation and you turn one equals zero um you're going

00:07:06.400 to destroy the integrity of that whole equation and the law is basically a set of equations and the way

00:07:13.100 a state runs is a big engineering project it's a big set of a big set of equations so what they did

00:07:19.320 was they sort of set one equals zero over here for you know for a small number of people they said you

00:07:24.340 know in order to be compassionate in order to accommodate this very small number of people

00:07:29.640 let's say this untrue thing and we will say that this untrue thing is not going to harm the rest of society

00:07:37.440 we can accommodate it but it turned out you can't once you say that a piece of paper or a statement

00:07:44.300 or a piece of clothing or or whatever turns a man into a woman you end up breaking everything that um

00:07:52.960 that keeps people safe and not just i mean people have been talking about toilets since since the

00:07:58.060 judgment and obviously toilets is a sort of everyday application of this but it goes through everything

00:08:03.840 it goes through data it goes through systems of safeguarding you know how you keep children

00:08:08.420 safe how you keep bad people out how you decide how you differentiate between um people who are telling

00:08:14.320 lies and people who are not which is important for in for for keeping people safe um you know how you

00:08:20.820 differentiate between people who are um smart and people who are and people who are stupid or people who

00:08:28.580 are um doing something which is um trying to achieve a public goal or doing something for their own

00:08:35.240 own benefit all of those things that you need to do to make big institutions work once you say we're going

00:08:42.680 to have this lie in the heart of our institution and we're all going to have to pretend it's the truth

00:08:48.140 you you corrupt everything in society and my talk to us about the impact of this because it seems to me

00:08:55.940 uh from what i've seen there's still a kind of there's still a back and forth for some reason like

00:09:01.820 the court has ruled but we we saw these leaked messages from the labor ministers who are basically

00:09:07.660 clearly trying to work out a way how to circumvent this ruling there's a big debate about the enforcement

00:09:13.620 of all of this what do you anticipate will be the impact of this for women but also and i think it is

00:09:19.600 important to talk about this for trans people as well because i think the motivations of those people

00:09:25.220 who've been accommodating has been to make sure that we don't exclude people and we don't discriminate

00:09:30.900 against people who are trans which i don't think anyone in this room wants to do so what do you think

00:09:36.240 will be the impact of this when it's all said and done um i mean i think that there needs to be a big

00:09:42.700 sort of re-education de-radicalization um i mean it's not difficult it's just ask your mom go back to

00:09:50.920 common sense what's a man and what's a woman you know it's it's not difficult to understand that

00:09:55.680 but all of these institutions in society have have misunderstood the law for the past 15 years

00:10:01.560 and the way that they've misunderstood the law has harmed women women and girls and they've told

00:10:08.200 themselves that that's all right and so now they've got this cognitive dissonance you know they think

00:10:12.640 they're good people you know i'm sure they are good people um that like you say they did it um in order

00:10:18.720 to accommodate this vulnerable group and they um they basically set the harms to women at zero uh

00:10:26.420 you know that they they wrote it off and they said it was fine and now we're saying to them no it's not

00:10:31.200 fine and women as a coherent group exist and you need to set rules and policies that recognize that and

00:10:39.020 protect them um and that's obviously coming up against uh uh big resistance um because we're we're

00:10:47.920 asking them to to completely flip the script from saying you know the default is that in any women's

00:10:54.760 space women's service women's sport that you allow in a man who identifies as a woman and what what

00:11:01.380 people had thought was you might exclude them if it's what they call a proportionate means to a

00:11:07.340 legitimate aim but the default is you include them and what the supreme court has said is no they're men

00:11:15.280 basically and that sounds mean i mean you know that is what i lost my job for is for saying

00:11:21.020 politely that that trans women are men but if you're going to um operate rules fairly then you're

00:11:29.860 going to have to say that um and there's there's a lot of um resistance to that and and institutions

00:11:36.900 have been captured you know on this issue they've made stupid decisions because they listen to their

00:11:44.040 internal lgbt networks they listen to external organizations like stonewall um and they did

00:11:51.300 that not because these people are experts but because they were frightened of them and they're

00:11:54.800 still frightened of them and they're going to have to find their balls uh sorry how no it's fine

00:12:01.500 how do you think though that this conflict of interest is going to be resolved because um you know

00:12:09.740 if you take someone who has transitioned let's say uh who looks feminine in every way are they going

00:12:16.820 to have to now go to a male toilet um i mean the trivial answer is in most places there are three

00:12:23.560 options you know most large buildings now have male female and unisex so you're not forcing anyone

00:12:30.200 to go anywhere you they don't want you're just saying these are the places that you can't go um and

00:12:36.660 that the whole thing about the equality act protects transgender people against discrimination

00:12:41.540 that means they should be able to obviously get a job keep a job be be promoted be judged the same

00:12:48.780 as everyone else um you know go to the cinema go on a train go on a plane or you know all of those

00:12:54.180 things and in order to do most of those things you do need to go to the toilet but you don't need to

00:12:59.860 go to the toilet that affirms your gender identity you just need to go to the one you're allowed to go to

00:13:04.480 and i think that's been the the misunderstanding of the equality act you know for 15 years people

00:13:09.920 have pointed at it and said it gives us the right it gives a trans woman a right to use a women's

00:13:16.040 toilet it doesn't it just gives a trans woman a right to have a job to go to the cinema to go to

00:13:22.000 the shops and to use a toilet that doesn't um disturb or alarm other people which is not the women's

00:13:27.620 toilet however they look and you can't you can't set rules on you know somebody who looks

00:13:33.080 very feminine or thinks they look very feminine and some people unfortunately have um

00:13:38.600 you know not clear self-perception about how well they pass and that's just not a an argument that

00:13:47.160 an employer or service provider should be having to get get into with somebody and they can't set

00:13:52.360 rules that say well you know you look good in your makeup but you but you don't sorry mate um you know

00:13:58.640 that that's not fair on anybody that's that's not a conversation you should be having what the

00:14:02.700 conversation you should be having is you know we have these spaces are for men and women people

00:14:07.420 via the sex this space is for women female people this space is for male men male people you know we

00:14:14.700 respect your self-expression um you know we love you as a gardener or as a um you know um shopkeeper

00:14:24.240 or whatever it is you do um but you're not coming in the women's changing room and so one of the

00:14:31.240 things i've always found really fascinating is look england has been demented on this let's be honest

00:14:36.560 about scotland's been worse exactly and the reason this has happened is because of scottish law which

00:14:43.460 uh our american viewers and listeners and our international viewers and listeners might not

00:14:47.300 be aware it has a different legal system to england why is it that scotland have lost the plot

00:14:53.400 even worse than the rest of the uk or certainly worse than england

00:14:57.080 i think partly it's because of um the kind of fight for kind of low stakes politics um you know what

00:15:09.540 what can scotland do well scotland could redefine what a man and a woman is or they thought they could

00:15:14.700 um you know the the this case was um it was a devolution case so it was about the conflict

00:15:23.100 between uh legislation that's across the whole well not the whole of the uk but the whole of great

00:15:28.820 britain so england scotland and wales have the equality act um but scotland has its own government

00:15:35.740 which can do certain things um on a devolved on a devolved basis um and what the scottish government

00:15:44.540 wanted to do um was to redefine what a man and a woman is in scotland which is you know which is

00:15:51.100 very mad i mean you think you know you cross the border and suddenly a man and a woman is a different

00:15:55.440 thing and so they they did it two ways one way was they um tried to pass this gender recognition

00:16:01.320 reform bill to make it easier for people in scotland to get a gender recognition certificate

00:16:05.940 um and that was passed a couple of years ago and then the uk government stopped it they said no

00:16:12.960 we can't have two different systems across the country where we're giving men certificates to be

00:16:18.340 women in england based on you know having lived as a woman whatever that means um and have a diagnosis

00:16:25.940 but in scotland you can just get one by rocking up and signing a piece of paper you know they said

00:16:30.680 that had gone too far and so they put a stop to that um but meanwhile the scottish government had also

00:16:36.460 um basically been acting enacting gender self-idee so treating people as men or women based on what

00:16:43.900 they say and they'd done it in this little piece of legislation in scotland about counting women on

00:16:50.380 public boards so this is what the the supreme court case was about the scottish government said

00:16:55.580 um they had this piece of legislation to encourage more women onto public boards but the way that they

00:17:02.960 would count them was if they said they were a woman and former in scotland said well that brings you

00:17:09.620 into conflict with the uk law with the equality act and so that was so that was the fight um and it was

00:17:16.600 found that what the scottish government had done in terms of this counting women on boards was wrong

00:17:22.440 because um and you could see it that so the supreme court which is you know it's a panel of itself and

00:17:28.480 it's it was three men and two women and you could see the two women judges going um you know they said

00:17:35.960 well but if we we're counting somebody in terms of their achievement in public life as a woman um

00:17:42.760 and yet they're a man and they've lived most of their life as a man and they've had all the um

00:17:48.560 advantages that that gives you know and the the judges on the supreme court they're a bit older than

00:17:54.200 me you know they've they've lived through more sex discrimination than i have and they were like

00:17:58.100 well that doesn't make sense that's not fair um and so you know so it's not just about safety it's

00:18:04.660 not just about prisons it's not just about sport it's also about things like when you say you know

00:18:10.320 you're the first um woman judge on the supreme court well you you want that to be a woman not a man in a

00:18:16.520 the news moves fast and it's not just about keeping up it's about seeing clearly in a world where

00:18:23.920 headlines are constantly shifting and narratives change by the hour understanding how a story is

00:18:29.240 being reported is just as important as what the story is that's why i use ground news it shows you

00:18:35.840 how coverage of any story differs across the political spectrum helping you break out of echo

00:18:41.180 chambers and actually see the full picture take the recent landmark uk supreme court ruling on the legal

00:18:46.760 definition of woman using ground news we can see that cnn which leans left ran with uk supreme court

00:18:53.720 says legal definition of woman excludes trans women the spectator which leans right led with the supreme

00:18:59.740 court ruling is a victory for women same story two completely different takes ground news makes these

00:19:06.200 contrasts easy to spot by letting you compare headlines at a glance it also shows you ownership

00:19:11.540 information like the ownership status of both cnn and the spectator my favorite feature is the blind

00:19:17.000 spot feed it surfaces stories being ignored by either the left or the right stories you might not even

00:19:22.860 realize you're missing so you can stay informed without being trapped in a single world view click the link

00:19:28.440 in the description or head to ground.news slash trigonometry for 40 off their unlimited vantage plan

00:19:35.220 the same one we use more than a million people have already downloaded the ground news app if you care

00:19:40.620 about seeing every side of the story join them today investing is all about the future so what do

00:19:47.540 you think is going to happen bitcoin is sort of inevitable at this point i think it would come down

00:19:52.460 to precious metals i hope we don't go cashless i would say land is a safe investment technology

00:19:58.920 companies solar energy robotic pollinators might be a thing a wrestler to face a robot that will have

00:20:05.380 they'll have to happen so whatever you think is going to happen in the future you can invest in

00:20:10.820 it at wealth simple start now at wealth simple.com do you think part of the issue is with scotland

00:20:17.200 is that it's far more progressive and left-wing than england which tends to be more conservative

00:20:23.400 and more right of center particularly when it comes to economics i yeah i think that's probably true

00:20:29.440 and i think um i mean i don't know enough about scottish politics but you know watching the gender

00:20:36.140 recognition reform bill um gave me a new love for the house of lords you know just have it having a

00:20:41.320 second house that can go you know no you can't do this um but they don't have that in scotland

00:20:48.160 and so have you been surprised now that the ruling has come and its common sense has been restored

00:20:55.360 a little bit uh the reaction that a small minority has had but i would also largely as well most people

00:21:05.540 are going well that just makes sense doesn't it yeah i mean you know no one expects the trannish

00:21:13.620 inquisition and um we we we didn't see this weekend coming i mean we didn't know if we were going to win

00:21:19.560 or lose um but we we didn't expect the the level of vitriol and intimidation and threats of violence

00:21:29.420 which is surprising because we've had it for the past um eight years um but obviously you know it's

00:21:36.600 kind of ramped up again um you know so you had people in parliament square with signs saying um

00:21:42.260 the only good turf is a basically a dead turf you know picture of a noose and things like that um

00:21:48.940 you know this this is male sexual violence intimidation of women that that's what it is

00:21:55.640 uh and and you know they were there waving those violent signs with their pink and blue flags and

00:22:03.940 then the next day people have to go back into work and their employers waving the same pink and blue

00:22:09.940 signs and their employer has misunderstood the equality act for the past 15 years and thought that

00:22:16.220 somebody saying that trans woman is a man is you know if not a nazi then you know pretty close to

00:22:23.820 it um and now their employer has to treat them fairly and has to kind of rethink their whole um

00:22:30.140 approach to men and women and yet you've still got these people within organizations terrorizing

00:22:36.920 their managers well my favorite thing of those protests was there was two people next to each other

00:22:41.200 one had a placard which said trans people are not a threat and the other one had one saying

00:22:45.600 bring back which burning i was thinking yeah which one you gotta pick a team guys you know but i'm

00:22:54.120 curious what you what you think about the future direction of this because i think most people

00:22:59.300 thought and i said this in an article i did on my substack in a little video that we put out on this

00:23:04.520 channel which is we kind of stopped talking about this issue on trigonometry because we felt

00:23:09.020 that at the ideas level like there were no more questions like i know what a woman is i know what a man

00:23:14.260 is i know why they shouldn't compete in the same sport and and etc etc like i couldn't in good faith

00:23:20.060 bring you on here and be like so am i tell me what yeah do you know yeah so i thought that when this

00:23:26.380 ruling would come out that would be the end as in done dusted sanity's back francis's common sense has

00:23:33.540 been brought back well is it or is there still a massive fight now to as you say de-radicalize the

00:23:39.620 institutions get all this crap because from what i understand a lot of this stuff is in the policing

00:23:45.760 it's in the nhs it's pretty much everywhere and a lot of the people who implemented it are still there

00:23:51.840 i don't imagine they're necessarily delighted that this has happened no and you know and people have

00:23:58.040 made their career out of out of um promoting this um it's still there in all of these systems and it's

00:24:04.560 still there in the data i mean i think that's the way we got the way we got here was the idea that

00:24:11.740 people could keep their sex secret and they they could keep it secret at work and in practice it's

00:24:19.300 impossible to keep your sex secret almost nobody passes as the opposite sex some women who have taken

00:24:26.520 testosterone for a lot for a long time pass more successfully than men that it's it's almost impossible

00:24:33.820 for a man to pass as a woman lots of makeup on instagram possibly but in person the body the

00:24:41.520 shoulders the voice the height you know that it's it's basically impossible to do and here's a fair

00:24:49.080 sorry to interrupt my as well that my sense is women are far more attuned to this stuff than men

00:24:55.060 so you like a woman can really you kind of got a bit of a bullshit detector when it comes to that issue

00:25:01.200 yeah and and there are studies that show they they do these studies like with pixelated pictures

00:25:06.500 and women can identify or um you know whether it's a man or a woman at a lower level of detail

00:25:14.140 than men can and that would make sense because you have to be much more aware of the potential threat

00:25:18.600 exactly exactly um and uh so so you what they were trying to do was um make this thing which is

00:25:28.000 fundamentally not secret you know it's written into every cell of your body and also once you know

00:25:32.740 about know that about person if you know someone's a man or a woman you never forget it you know you

00:25:37.360 might forget their middle name or their birth date or you know you know what they do for a living or

00:25:41.660 all kinds of things but you never forget somebody's sex um and make that secret and so what they did

00:25:49.380 was um change the data so they allowed people um first in the 70s to change their passport because

00:25:56.520 the first people who transitioned they went off to casablanca to do it because that's where the

00:26:01.880 experimental mental doctors that were doing these um horrific surgeries were and you know in those days

00:26:09.120 you couldn't walk around being a woman with a man's passport a man with a woman's passport so

00:26:13.940 the the passport office not even the government there was no decision making in the government

00:26:18.480 it was some you know somebody in the passport office went oh well okay so we'll give you a you

00:26:23.740 know a man a female passport because he's gone off to casablanca and and had his um penis removed

00:26:30.200 um sorry always it always comes to that um and um then they came back and they had to get jobs so

00:26:39.880 then they said well you know at that time you had like a men's national insurance card and a

00:26:43.760 women's national insurance card you couldn't go and pay your stamps with the wrong card so they

00:26:48.340 gave them a card for the opposite sex and they all of these things were just done just to allow

00:26:53.180 people to move around in a world where being male or female was very clear but it but it changed the

00:26:59.520 data and so um and then they brought in the gender recognition act which allowed people to change

00:27:05.400 um their birth certificate and all of that still exists so the data is a mess you don't even have

00:27:12.300 um you know there are about 8 000 people that have changed the sex on their birth certificate but

00:27:17.600 there might be a hundred thousand people that have changed their sex somewhere else so on their

00:27:21.480 nhs records on their passport on their driving license records and you can do that without a

00:27:27.140 diagnosis you can do it just go to your doctor seven minute in you know seven minute gps appointment

00:27:33.160 and you say i think i'm a woman i want to live as a woman and the doctor signs your passport

00:27:38.720 application say this person wants to live as a woman they'll give you a passport says female

00:27:42.740 and so then you go and apply for a job employer doesn't know any of this even they they might know

00:27:48.360 that you're male they look at passport and think well that's a government document i better trust that

00:27:54.020 i'm going to write down female um and so that that has proliferated across all of these systems

00:27:59.760 that are supposed to be keeping people safe collecting data um managing risk and that's all still there

00:28:07.760 and fixing that is i mean sounds sort of a bit techie but that that's really important because

00:28:14.280 that's the the mechanic the machinery of the state and at the same time the government's bringing in

00:28:19.860 this um digital digital use and access bill so this bill that's going through parliament at the moment

00:28:25.700 to allow people to have um digital identities so do you know um they've got a thing on your phone

00:28:31.480 where you can go you probably don't need it but go to pub to prove you're over 18 and instead of

00:28:36.280 having to show your passport it just shows that you're over 18 doesn't necessarily show your name

00:28:41.000 doesn't show your date of birth but it shows you know you're the person who owns this this um

00:28:46.240 fingerprint and you're over 18 but all the data that's built on is comes from passports driving

00:28:53.480 license the nhs so you're going to be able to say i'm a woman look government says so and you know

00:28:59.920 who reads supreme court rulings if what you've got is a government app with a tick that says i'm

00:29:05.840 female so all of that needs to be undone both in terms of the data and in terms of institutions and

00:29:13.420 you know what they untraining people on these stupid things they've trained them on and how confident

00:29:19.040 are you that this will actually happen because as i alluded to earlier we've seen private exchanges

00:29:24.440 between labour government ministers who are quite clear in their determination to subvert this

00:29:30.100 entire process keir starmer has come out recently and reversed his position that trans women are

00:29:35.420 women now he says they're not um are you confident that the current government is gonna is actually

00:29:41.460 gonna enforce all of this um i mean if they don't we'll be back in court basically the supreme court ruling

00:29:48.720 is a really is a really strong thing um you know it's the highest court in the land it was unanimous

00:29:54.700 and it said that men are not women um for institutions then to think they can get around this with

00:30:02.560 weasel words um or ambiguity um that they'll they'll trip over themselves and that you know they'll end up

00:30:10.600 in court and we have been winning and winning and winning uh i'd rather not i'd you know i'd rather they

00:30:17.500 do the right thing um but the law is on our side the next thing that needs to happen is the equality

00:30:23.760 and human rights commission which is the regulator of the equality law so that's the um body that

00:30:29.240 employers turn to to say you know what's this mean uh since 2010 they have put out uh guidance that was

00:30:38.240 wrong because they thought the law said something that it didn't now they need to put out guidance that

00:30:44.100 is correct and i think it needs to be um you know back of a postcard simple when you have the that

00:30:51.460 symbol the male symbol or the female symbol you know for toilets changing rooms everyday public services

00:30:56.760 um it means what it says no man has a right to go into a woman's space and you and you have to say no

00:31:07.240 at the moment their guidance is you know hundreds of pages long and it says you know think about all

00:31:12.220 these different things and um is it a proportionate means to a legitimate aim to exclude them but the

00:31:19.720 supreme court has made it much much simpler now they can just say no you know what a man is you know

00:31:25.480 what a woman is everybody knows their own sex if they don't want to talk about it sometimes that's fine

00:31:30.480 but they just don't use a space that requires them to talk about it and one of the things you've

00:31:38.220 touched on lightly but i think it's really important to delve into is how our language has been corrupted

00:31:44.380 my ex-girlfriend went for a very invasive medical procedure and there was something i was reading the

00:31:52.260 literature that she was given there was talk of chest feeders and this is an nhs this is a cancer

00:31:58.980 specialist hospital and you're going why is it that we are talking about chest feeders

00:32:05.220 and it wasn't just that it was it was there was loads of this stuff this is going to take a lot of

00:32:12.560 rolling back and yeah if you've achieved remarkable things but there's a part of me that thinks that's

00:32:19.120 going to be an even bigger fight i think these people are cowards though i mean they got here by

00:32:25.680 being cowards and i think once they see that um you keep your job by complying with the law and that

00:32:33.480 you know once that becomes the default and the easy way and also when they can point at someone

00:32:38.120 else say it's above my pay grade supreme court says so then i think you know it will get easier and

00:32:44.580 easier i mean the thing thing that happened with my case was um you know i i won the right for us to

00:32:51.240 say this and at the time it was very very hard to say it um and the people who did were brave because

00:32:57.780 they could lose their job but now you know you can lose your job the other way if you say to your boss

00:33:03.660 i'm not going to comply with the equality act i disagree with it i mean politically fine to disagree

00:33:09.960 with it but in the workplace you need to comply with the law and if your position is um i'm not going

00:33:16.380 to comply with the law then then you can lose your job and i think you know most people are um you know

00:33:23.320 they just want to get on with it they just want to do their job go home you know enjoy their life

00:33:29.060 and if it's made clear that the way to do that is to um follow the law as it's now understood to be i

00:33:35.520 think most people but and also they know it's the right thing what we see is that you you have a lot

00:33:41.740 of these policies that are written down and then you have doctors and nurses social workers teachers

00:33:46.980 going around them because they know what a man is and what a woman is i mean you also have some that

00:33:51.360 um you know woke and crazy going the other way but this is this has flipped the balance basically

00:33:59.640 and i think what's going to be very interesting as well from a legal perspective and i really hope

00:34:04.660 this happens is that people who have lost their jobs unfairly people have been suspended i think

00:34:09.680 there's one particular case egregious case in scotland which is is it sandy peggy the nurse

00:34:15.120 what's going to happen to these people who've been dragged through the mud they've lost their jobs

00:34:20.340 they've had their reputations tarnished i mean it's retribution time isn't it um i don't know if

00:34:27.840 it's retribution and i certainly um haven't seen any apologies yet um and i haven't haven't seen

00:34:34.020 anyone lose their job for this i think um i mean a lot of the cases that have been brought

00:34:40.680 were brought on the basis of belief discrimination so which is what my case was about and my case was

00:34:47.820 about this question of whether the belief that sex is real immutable and important is worthy of

00:34:54.720 respect in a democratic society and first the judge said it wasn't and they said it said that it was

00:35:00.140 and now it turns out that that thing that we call the belief you know it's just the law i mean it's

00:35:06.600 reality too but it's it's the law and so there's the other belief so so when i won my case there was

00:35:14.240 i i pleaded both belief and lack of belief so i said i believe in sex is real some other people

00:35:20.540 believe in gender identity i don't share that belief i'm a atheist towards that belief and i and

00:35:26.420 you're protected by being an atheist for against discrimination um and there's a question of well

00:35:32.760 is that belief worthy of respect in a democratic society and i think some versions of it are you know

00:35:40.340 some versions of religion are you know you shouldn't be discriminated against because of

00:35:44.980 your religion but your religion might not be that rational um but if your religion involves harming

00:35:50.920 other people's human rights then it's not the kind of thing that's protected at work and similarly if

00:35:56.460 your belief about gender is so extreme that you can't respect other people's rights or you think men

00:36:02.920 should be um in women's changing rooms or male police officers should be able to strip search

00:36:08.680 women i don't think that belief is worthy of respect in a democratic society so i don't think it's it's not

00:36:15.960 so much about retribution but it's about kind of taming crazy beliefs and you know we've tamed crazy

00:36:23.740 beliefs before we know how to do that we know how to live in a in a plural society where you know people

00:36:29.780 keep their the madder reaches of their beliefs at home or or on the internet and and respect each other

00:36:35.720 at work and i think that that's where we've got to get to um but the problem is that the crazy beliefs

00:36:41.480 have been the ones that have been um flying the flag at sussex university and you know well every

00:36:48.840 institution of government up to now and it's not just crazy beliefs it's also quite frankly crazy

00:36:53.780 organizations that institutions like the nhs and the bbc have let come in groups uh like mermaid

00:37:01.640 stonewall who were once very reputable have been pushing this stuff i think we're now going to have

00:37:07.120 to have a very difficult and uncomfortable conversation as to what actually went wrong

00:37:12.700 and by opening the door to all these crazy beliefs the the damage that was wreaked on people's lives

00:37:18.960 i mean and you know the biggest damage is for people who think that they're transgender i mean

00:37:27.260 they have been sold a lie and they they were sold a lie by the doctors who didn't think about other

00:37:34.620 people's rights and who said you know doctors sometimes get very excited about you know their

00:37:40.320 bit of medicine their bit of the body but they don't think about it in a wider context so there were

00:37:44.540 doctors who thought you know we can you know turn penises into vaginas um you can't but you also

00:37:53.300 have to think about how does that person live in that live in the world and what they thought was

00:37:59.040 well the world will reshape itself around them and now the world has bitten back and the world is saying

00:38:06.040 no you know you wear what you like call yourself what you like um do what you like with your body

00:38:12.800 up to a point um but that doesn't put obligations on the rest of the world and that makes trans

00:38:18.860 people's lives very difficult but that's because they've been sold a lie um and some of those people

00:38:24.560 are vulnerable people and some of them are um very young people um and you know the harm that's been

00:38:30.760 done to those people i think is is huge and is it i mean that's that's human rights abuse

00:38:39.380 um sterilizing somebody removing their sexual function on basically a false promise is is i think

00:38:47.500 a human rights abuse that's been done to those people some people deal with stress by journaling

00:38:53.240 some take up yoga i tried bottling everything up for 15 years and called it character building

00:38:58.720 or being british eventually i decided to give therapy a go and honestly it's one of the best decisions i

00:39:05.320 ever made but therapy isn't always easy to get long waitlist high cost therapists who don't take your

00:39:10.880 insurance it's exhausting but it doesn't have to be that way ruler is doing something genuinely

00:39:16.900 different ruler spelled r-u-l-a is making mental health care simple accessible and best of all

00:39:24.120 affordable with ruler most people pay just 15 dollars per session using their insurance that's game

00:39:31.460 changing ruler is not some faceless tech company they're a health care provider group that supports

00:39:36.820 you through your journey monitoring your progress making sure you're paired with the right person

00:39:41.820 and staying with you every step of the way you could be speaking to a therapist as soon as tomorrow

00:39:47.540 thousands already trust ruler to support them on their journey toward improved mental health

00:39:52.640 and overall well-being head over to ruler.com slash tree to get started today and when they ask where

00:39:59.640 you heard about them make sure to say trigonometry go to r-u-l-a dot com slash trig and take the first

00:40:09.740 step towards better mental health today you deserve quality care from someone who cares

00:40:15.420 broadway's smash hit the neil diamond musical a beautiful noise is coming to toronto the true story

00:40:23.980 of a kid from brooklyn destined for something more featuring all the songs you love including america

00:40:29.500 forever in blue jeans and sweet caroline like jersey boys and beautiful the next musical mega hit is

00:40:36.040 here the neil diamond musical a beautiful noise april 28th through june 7th 2026 the princess of wales

00:40:43.420 theater get tickets at mirvish.com you talk about young people my i think one of the most worrying

00:40:50.000 things for anyone who's a parent in in all of this is uh you look at the stuff that's being taught in

00:40:57.020 schools i mean most parents might not be aware but schools are infiltrated absolutely infiltrated

00:41:03.840 with this stuff they're teaching the gender as a spectrum and all kinds of other stuff uh what is

00:41:09.320 the impact on of this ruling and the broader kind of readjustment on education and young people in

00:41:16.500 particular because we do know whether you like it or not i'm sure you don't as i don't there has been

00:41:21.460 an explosion uh just numerically in the number of young people who feel that they are opposite sex

00:41:27.500 or different gender or whatever so what will be the impact of this on young people and education

00:41:32.900 i think um i mean we we had the cast review which looked at the the medical evidence for um child

00:41:41.800 transition and we've been waiting for the government to give guidance to schools on the broader question

00:41:49.140 on the equality act and how they should treat um so-called gender questioning children at school

00:41:55.900 um and we've been waiting eight years for this guidance they they've been trying to do this for

00:42:01.360 eight years and they couldn't do it um now the supreme court gives them absolute clarity that um

00:42:10.120 people cannot change their sex and you cannot i think um tell children that they can and promise

00:42:19.360 children that they can because children can't um assess those claims you know they they believe what

00:42:25.660 they're told um and i think the adults in the room now have to say look you know being a teenager

00:42:34.080 is tough you're you're discovering yourself you're you're you know you're making mistakes we're gonna

00:42:39.040 try and make sure that you keep you safe while you you know while you explore and and do stupid

00:42:45.820 things that teenagers do um but we can't promise you that you can change your sex and we can't um

00:42:53.280 force your classmates to to um treat someone as if they're the opposite sex and we can't change

00:43:00.280 all of our rules and processes that we have to keep children safe in school which are based on

00:43:05.960 knowing what sex they are so once you take all of that off the table there's not that much left in

00:43:12.860 terms of you say that but actually i don't know that that's true and the reason is that i think

00:43:17.640 the one thing we haven't really talked about is the concept of gender and gender identity if you've

00:43:23.320 been teaching i don't know children from the age of six up until the age of whatever they are now

00:43:28.100 that gender is a spectrum and you're like i don't i don't remember the exact metaphor they use but

00:43:34.180 like there's different colors of teddy bears or whatever it is and you can be green or blue or

00:43:38.440 purple or whatever and you're just on a spectrum of all these things now you're having to say to them

00:43:44.220 by the letter of the law boys are boys and girls are girls so where does this all of this leave the

00:43:50.420 concept of gender and gender identity which is to say i'm non-binary i am this i am this gender i'm that

00:43:56.960 gender i'm cat gender i'm whatever where does it leave that does it affect that at all i i mean i i

00:44:02.520 think it leaves it in the playground it leaves it as something that children say to each other that

00:44:08.360 people say to their friends um you know they can talk about their horoscopes or um you know being goths

00:44:15.880 or being emos or whatever you know that that self-expression um none of it changes what sex you are

00:44:21.500 and i think um if schools have have clear rules and expectations they're going to have to stop

00:44:28.880 teaching this stuff because in practice they're going to you know they're running sports they're

00:44:34.060 running changing rooms they're you know they're running trips away all of these places they they

00:44:39.540 know what sex children are and they're also teaching them biology and you know i just think

00:44:45.740 hopefully this will go out of fashion and it will just be one of those playground things that kids

00:44:51.640 that kids say and then they grow up and they fall in love and they get a job and they discover that

00:44:57.500 the world is far more interesting than wondering what gender you are i mean i sincerely hope maya but

00:45:03.660 my worry is with social media this is where the stuff gets pumped into them i mean if we're gonna if

00:45:09.860 we're gonna achieve that which everybody in this room desperately wants that's surely the next battle

00:45:15.300 isn't it i mean on on sex and gender one sort of encouraging thing we're hearing is that the

00:45:22.440 next generation of kids you know the next generation of kids always think the ones above them um are a

00:45:28.560 bit naff um and you know that the kind of um trend is is blowing itself out um so so there may be that

00:45:38.320 but the you know what the next awful thing that comes on the internet i don't know what that will be

00:45:43.000 um but it may be that you know this this is just a generational thing that um that doesn't go away

00:45:49.540 completely but that you know is a is a thing that happened and is not happening to the extent that it

00:45:55.720 that it did anymore um but you know it has shown how vulnerable our institutions are to capture by crazy

00:46:07.260 damaging ideas and you know like you say this idea is so stupid you didn't even get me on to talk about

00:46:13.820 it and yet it captured all of our all of our institutions and and i don't know what the next

00:46:19.520 crazy damaging idea will be but i'm sure there will be one what do you think the fact that this

00:46:25.640 particular ideology ran rampant to such an extent that you had the future prime minister unable to define

00:46:34.640 what a woman is the fact that people lost their jobs the fact that people had their careers destroyed

00:46:41.240 reputations times etc etc what do you think that says at a very fundamental level about our society

00:46:48.240 um i think it says that the big institutions are vulnerable i mean you know fundamentally we are

00:46:57.940 we're mammals you know we we are not the kind of higher beings that we that we think we are we're

00:47:06.120 you know we're selfish and horny and um you know um prejudiced and you know care about our families

00:47:16.760 more than we do about the next person and and yet we also have kind of big ideas about ourselves and

00:47:22.660 our societies and it's those big ideas that make um great you know we make great things out of them

00:47:30.860 but then the great things that we make are vulnerable to you know this is why you have um you know sexual

00:47:39.080 abuse and sexual harassment in every big in every big company um you know it's why you have corruption

00:47:45.980 it's why um you know you always have to be um uh you know wary of the things that can go on

00:47:56.100 in your big institutions while you're pursuing um the goal that you say you're pursuing um but we

00:48:04.720 can't give up on that you know we can't go back into you know living in our in our little tribes and

00:48:09.280 hating everybody else you know and and um so you know the most um

00:48:16.460 sort of important valuable things i think that we have are our institutions that's what

00:48:25.600 makes us clever what makes us wealthy it's what keeps us safe it what stops us you know just living

00:48:32.540 by might alone we need all these things we can't burn them down we want the police to work we want

00:48:38.460 the universities to work or you know maybe not the universities but we want people to be able to

00:48:42.840 learn things and maybe um you know the the institutions that we currently have are not

00:48:48.420 are not the ones that are going to do that um so all of that stuff about how people work together

00:48:53.780 with people who are not their families and who are not their tribe are the most valuable thing

00:48:59.480 and i think the fact that they all got um taken over by this crazy stupid harmful idea

00:49:07.300 um is a sort of lesson that you know that we should learn and i'm gonna you know i'm gonna be

00:49:14.580 focused on just this crazy stupid harmful idea um but i do think it has been a canary in the coal

00:49:21.640 mine for thinking about institutions well right and this is i think rephrasing france's question in a

00:49:27.640 more forward-facing way ultimately i think the thing we ought to be asking in this moment is

00:49:32.540 what mistakes did we make as a society and you might say i didn't make any mistakes i spoke up

00:49:38.600 about it and you did and other people did and that's great but i think there's something about

00:49:44.740 the way that this happened from which we really have to be able to learn some practical lessons

00:49:50.540 uh about our susceptibility to bad ideas and how rapidly they can infiltrate institutions do you have

00:49:58.420 any thoughts on what mistakes might have been made and how we can prevent the next bad idea from becoming

00:50:04.640 as mainstream and institutionalized as this one was um i think i mean the big lesson that i've taken

00:50:14.320 away from it is how um the things that we have to protect us can be used against us um and checks and

00:50:24.020 balances are really important so the the equality act is a very carefully put together piece of law

00:50:31.380 that has checks and balances in it it says you have to think about everybody's rights um and when you

00:50:37.640 have a policy that might harm one group you have to understand what that harm might be and think about

00:50:43.860 how you can mitigate it but you also have to think about what you're trying to do so you know your

00:50:48.840 actual business but also how your policies could harm other people and you balance all of those

00:50:54.540 things off and and hopefully you then are able to you know achieve your goals while not screwing

00:51:00.980 people over um but if you only focus on one group then all of that in all of those instruments that are

00:51:08.480 meant to make the balance work make it not work and so you end up you know the complaint system

00:51:15.560 gets weaponized unreasonably um the metrics drive the thing off in the wrong direction you know it's

00:51:24.120 the the kind of um the cancer that takes over the body all of the things that are meant to regulate

00:51:29.660 the the body start working over time in one direction and um take over the resources and the the um

00:51:39.520 you know the the body of the institution and i think that that's what happened here that um people said

00:51:48.440 be kind and um stopped looking at you know how um how policies affect everyone and only looked at how

00:51:58.240 they affect this this one group um and so you know that that's that's the big thing for me is like how

00:52:07.720 you know think just thinking about how institutions work and how you stop this happening again because

00:52:12.000 there will be another group um well maybe this is the thing that we ought to address then i think it

00:52:18.360 sounds like which is this over focus on victimhood and over focus on the protection of minorities

00:52:24.020 has meant that we can no longer say actually you know what we do care about protecting minorities but

00:52:29.300 you are actually going too far you're you're asking too much of of us as a society you're asking for

00:52:35.400 too much accommodation um and that seems to me like a crucial part of this and i suspect given that

00:52:42.060 we remain in that mindset of like well let's make sure we look after these people there's probably

00:52:47.200 more more of this stuff to unravel down the road but the one thing we haven't yet talked about is

00:52:51.760 actually your own contribution to all of this because we've kind of skirted around the fact they

00:52:56.320 lost a job it must have been a pretty difficult period of time for you my um yeah um i mean so i lost

00:53:04.980 my job in the beginning of 2019 for for speaking up about this and i and i um i recorded the last

00:53:13.960 conversation with the boss the big boss because he rang me up to tell us more where were you working

00:53:18.860 what happened what did you say etc if you're part of the trigonometry audience chances are you're not

00:53:25.540 just interested in politics you're properly dialed in you ask questions you challenge assumptions

00:53:31.940 and you don't settle for one side of the story that's why the npr politics podcast is a great

00:53:39.720 listen the team covers washington with real depth and right now they're unpacking the first hundred

00:53:45.860 days of trump's presidency what's changed what stayed the same and what's coming down the track they take

00:53:52.560 one topic per day immigration trade executive power and boil it down in under 15 minutes it's focused

00:54:00.040 well produced and always clear even when the news cycle isn't if you're serious about understanding

00:54:06.020 the political landscape the npr politics podcast is well worth your time listen now to the npr politics

00:54:14.280 podcast only from npr wherever you get your podcasts i was working for international development think

00:54:22.920 tank called the center for global development which is actually u.s organizations based in washington dc

00:54:27.620 um but i was working in the london office and at the time uk government was consulting on doing

00:54:34.280 public consultation on um reforming the gender recognition act and so you know i worked at think

00:54:39.780 tank i thought i should be allowed to think and and and it was an organization that um doesn't take

00:54:47.020 institutional positions the fellows in it disagree about things and the idea was um you know bring the

00:54:53.380 evidence like politely disagree this is what we do um and i was working on tax policy nothing to do

00:54:59.260 with sex and gender but i was interested in this and so i tweeted about it um and people in the u.s

00:55:03.640 complained so um a couple of people in fundraising complained and um the organization at first said oh

00:55:12.020 oh this looks a bit controversial but just put a disclaimer on your tweets you know which was the

00:55:16.320 right thing you know just this is you um carry on um but then they had edi consultants in and they they

00:55:25.240 got nervous they deferred to the edi consultants the edi consultants did a whole investigation on me

00:55:31.820 looked at all my tweets which were about um the government consultation about men and women's prisons

00:55:38.260 um but also about when i when i first started tweeting about this and i had about 2 000 followers and

00:55:44.960 they were like policy wonks they like an argument um and nobody was responding to me at all and so

00:55:51.520 i tweeted a question to my followers which was about um mannels so lots of men who work in

00:55:59.520 international development who are generally woke um say that if they're asked to speak at a conference

00:56:05.540 and it's all men on the conference panel they'll say could you get a woman and you know you can replace

00:56:12.200 me with a woman or you can make the panel bigger but i won't speak on an all-male panel and so i set

00:56:18.280 the question for them in terms of this is you know this is a policy a personal policy that you've made

00:56:23.080 to do something good for women what if and there was a guy called pips bunts philip pips bunts who

00:56:31.000 worked at credit suisse and who come came to work um a couple days a week dressed as a woman

00:56:36.220 wig and dress and and the other days a week as a man and i said well what if it was you and another

00:56:42.420 man and pips bunts would you still say this is a mannel and because i sort of asked it in a personal

00:56:48.680 way people responded and we had about a week's worth of you know heated debate on twitter and that's

00:56:54.060 what that's what i lost my job for was that and so it was this the same question really that the

00:57:01.140 supreme court was asking if the scottish government has taken this position to make sure that you don't

00:57:07.460 have mannels you don't have boards of public institutions that are all men what if it's a man

00:57:13.080 in a wig and so you record you said you were about to say you recorded your so so i i recorded the final

00:57:21.400 conversation with the big boss that when he was telling me they weren't keeping me on um and i've

00:57:27.360 only listened to it twice because it's quite traumatic um but it's in obviously it's in the

00:57:33.140 um uh evidence bundle for for the case and i was basically on that call saying but this is the law in

00:57:42.180 the uk women women are female we have the equality act it protects women's rights and and he was saying

00:57:48.960 well we recognize sex gender he said or sex slash gender you know um and i was saying but that's not the

00:57:56.540 law and and it just felt so kafka-esque you know i was i was the one saying that this is the law

00:58:02.640 and he was the one saying well you're fired um and it's taken you know five years from then to now

00:58:10.000 it being really clear and it's in the highest court in the land that yes that was the law um they they

00:58:17.320 shouldn't even have thought that it was controversial that i was saying it it you know it's the law they

00:58:22.540 should have been saying it too um and and as you say i lost i i had to bring this belief discrimination

00:58:30.060 claim and in order for a belief to be protected you have to show that it meets these criteria that is

00:58:35.980 coherent um that it's an important part of your life uh and that it's worthy of respect in a democratic

00:58:42.240 society which basically means it doesn't destroy other people's human rights so you know being a nazi

00:58:48.860 or wanting to overthrow the government by um violent revolution is not a protected belief but

00:58:54.500 almost anything else or not almost anything but lots of other things are like um being an ethical

00:59:00.140 vegan for example or scottish nationalist are both about the protected beliefs um so i had to show that

00:59:07.080 this belief that sex is real and immutable is a is a protected philosophical belief and and they asked

00:59:13.960 me things like when did you come up with this novel idea and i was like i can't really remember but i've

00:59:21.320 always known um and um and the judge in that case said no this this belief it basically is on par with

00:59:31.200 nazism that that's well that's what that's what he said that's what failing the test of being a protected

00:59:37.300 worthy of respect in the democratic society means and he said this belief is not worthy of respect in

00:59:44.800 a democratic society that was in um december 2019 that was when i lost and the next day jk rowling

00:59:54.680 tweeted and my life um was turned upside down because up to that point i mean i had i'd crowdfunded it was

01:00:02.080 public um i'd been in the papers but it wasn't as public as it is now and then suddenly it was you

01:00:09.700 know in variety and in the australian newspapers and you know i and i was kind of villain number one

01:00:16.760 and and every time they wanted to go after jk rowling and say what terrible person she was and

01:00:21.580 then people say well why why is she a terrible person it looks like she's saying very sensible things

01:00:26.500 they say oh but she she defended this bigot may have forced at her um you know so that that was my

01:00:32.100 life for for a while um and then we went back to court won the appeal and it was turned over so it was

01:00:38.760 was a protected belief it's worthy of respect in the democratic society and that now means that other

01:00:45.360 people can use this legal precedent to protect themselves at work and so you know i have people

01:00:51.520 you know the most wonderful thing is people coming up to me and saying you know i said your name at

01:00:56.700 work and it stopped an investigation it saved my job or you know i can i can speak up and i'm not afraid

01:01:02.980 because i know that the law protects you um and it and it's kind of crazy that we had to protect this

01:01:09.960 thing as a belief because it's it's not a belief it's it's the truth um and the belief part of it was

01:01:16.040 that it's important so not you know most people will accept that there are two sexes um but some

01:01:22.760 people say that gender identity is more important than sex so the belief part is that sex is the

01:01:27.700 thing that's important and that it's you still need to be able to talk about it and that you need

01:01:32.020 rules and laws based on it um my you mentioned jk rowling what has been her role in all of this

01:01:40.100 how impactful has her intervention been because i can see she's taken a lot of flack pretty much

01:01:46.280 entire all of it undeserved as far as i'm concerned but what's the positive impact that she's made here

01:01:52.120 it's been huge um you know she she's uncancellable and she kept coming back um you know when she first

01:01:58.960 tweeted about my case you know i thought well maybe that's that's it you know she doesn't have to carry

01:02:04.340 on talking about this um and she did she she kept tweeting about it and then she wrote an essay

01:02:09.940 and her essay was you know careful and compassionate and you know she's a good writer

01:02:15.120 um and you know i read the essay and i thought well that's it it's over now just just read the essay

01:02:22.860 um but obviously you know it wasn't then then she was um got death threats and rape threats and um

01:02:31.000 you know cancelled by the actors from harry potter and you know people burning her books and and and she

01:02:37.500 just kept coming back and she kept coming back and saying no you can't cancel me um and that that's

01:02:44.360 just been huge you know particularly obviously she lives in scotland you know she supported the women

01:02:49.100 in scotland she's you know she said nicola sturgeon is a destroyer of human rights um but you know she's

01:02:55.820 she's just been um kind of the queen really and my i'm glad we spoke about jk rowland because i think

01:03:04.000 she showed incredible bravery but i think the most powerful element of this story is it's just

01:03:11.120 ordinary regular women like you who just went no enough is enough and they took on governments

01:03:17.860 and political parties and figures like nicola sturgeon and you won yeah that's incredible i know

01:03:25.740 that's what a story i know it is it's yeah you must be so proud i am i i really am we've done an

01:03:37.080 amazing thing and like you say ordinary women organizing around their kitchen tables you know

01:03:42.860 putting their 10 pounds together and facing down the government and saying this is the law that protects

01:03:49.180 women we want protection we were right and we were right um you know and now they're pointing at us

01:03:56.140 and they say oh you know they're right wing they're funded by you know this this dark money and you know

01:04:01.900 because people can't believe that a bunch of women can be that organized to do this um yeah turf island is

01:04:12.180 is showing the way showing the way for the rest of the world absolutely and it's not just the impact

01:04:19.040 you have on this island it's the impact you have in america when i'm in america and we go and we talk

01:04:24.540 to you know all these different people really big names the thing they all talk about a lot of it is

01:04:29.700 what's happening here with the movement that you know you started in the pushback that's happening here

01:04:35.840 because they haven't been able to engender nearly as much in the united states or in canada as

01:04:41.340 a group of a small group of women in this country i think i mean i i think we had the advantage that

01:04:48.720 it's a small country so we could meet i mean it's really hard in the u.s to um to do anything um

01:04:56.020 you know we only had four nations and it's relatively small and we could meet and also we could kind of

01:05:01.940 look over the pond and see the craziness that was going on over there and in canada and sort of see that

01:05:08.560 coming um so i think those are kind of two reasons why it really it really took off in the uk and then

01:05:16.020 there are things like we had mumsnet you know just it's kind of wild card but um you know a lot of

01:05:22.420 this started on mumsnet uh sort of um women with you know more time and smarts than they were using

01:05:31.840 um on mumsnet going this is wrong what do we do about it and and organizing anonymously being being

01:05:38.980 able to organize anonymously um and so i think what you know what we have done is shown that you can

01:05:46.680 use the law and my case was based on um the european convention on human rights so so the although it

01:05:54.880 was based on the equality act it was based on wider principles that that people in other countries can

01:06:00.700 use and it was really based on this um question of the balance between privacy and um and other

01:06:08.460 people's human rights you know yes you can keep your sex private and you keep any any part of your

01:06:15.380 information private as long as you don't leave your house but as soon as you leave your house people

01:06:19.480 are going to work out what sex you are um you can't use the right to privacy to bludgeon everyone else

01:06:27.560 into into telling a lie and that kind of human rights principle applies in in every country that's

01:06:35.100 signed up to any kind of human rights framework so they can use it and then similarly the data stuff

01:06:40.400 if we sort out the data stuff data has to be interoperable you can't have um somebody else's

01:06:46.920 you know gender identity data substituting in for your sex data we recently had a case of um

01:06:54.520 a non-binary guy from california uh ryan castellucci who had a non-binary gender recognition certificate

01:07:02.440 from from california and he wanted a non-binary certificate from the uk government the uk government

01:07:08.140 said no and one in court because they said no here we only have male and female so you know getting it

01:07:15.280 right in one place then allows you to to hopefully um help people to get it right in other places

01:07:21.760 do you think part of the reason as well that it was so the movement was so successful here

01:07:27.760 is it isn't as politicized as it is in america where it's very much a left-right issue if you're

01:07:33.940 a liberal you believe in this and if you're conservative you believe in this yeah no i think

01:07:39.120 that that's definitely true and you know the fight back in the uk really did start with left-wing

01:07:43.500 women it started with a you know group of trade unionists who founded women's place uk um

01:07:49.860 and now it's across the political spectrum but it is much less much less politically polarized in

01:07:57.160 general and and on this issue my it's been great having you on thanks for coming we're going to go to

01:08:03.120 our sub stack where our audience get to ask you their questions but before we do the question we

01:08:07.440 always end with is what what is a woman i think we've answered that thank god uh the last question

01:08:14.380 we always ask is what's the one thing we're not talking about that we should be oh god i only talk

01:08:20.260 about this topic i should have thought of that we do talk about this topic as a society an awful lot

01:08:27.600 now so it's probably not that yeah um i mean i i really i really only talk about this uh this one

01:08:34.940 stupid topic all right well head on over to sub stack where we're going to talk more about this stupid

01:08:40.040 topic with your questions if we are to believe that the tide is truly turning with the gender debate

01:08:46.900 what is the next part of this debate also what might we see if the pendulum swings too far

01:08:52.500 want to fast forward your career discover the chang school of continuing education at toronto

01:09:13.200 metropolitan university our programs are the perfect way to boost your success you'll learn

01:09:18.780 from real industry experts and gain the skills that employers need you'll be supported by a community

01:09:23.940 of advisors and a network of valuable connections and you won't have to hit pause on your life

01:09:28.940 our flexible formats are ideal for working professionals like you visit the chang school online today

TRIGGERnometry - April 27, 2025

We Proved Trans Women are Men - Maya Forstater

Episode Stats

Length

Words per Minute

Word Count

Sentence Count

Misogynist Sentences

Hate Speech Sentences

Summary

Transcript