What do you mean by “men”?
Replies are scathing toward Nuala McGovern.
Here’s the interview with @KateBMwriting on @BBCWomansHour
Kate from @AllianceLGB was cogent throughout.
It’s clear the programme is truly terrified of complaints activism from gender identity advocates (not from women).
Clips in sequence pic.twitter.com/y23otwILgW
— SEEN in Journalism (@JournalismSEEN) May 19, 2025
Listening to that interviewer raises my blood pressure. 'What do you mean by men?' GET A GRIP, WOMAN! You could say, she's not allowed to admit that trans women are men because it's not BBC policy, but in that case, she should resign and get a better job, frankly.
— Jane Holland Author (@janeholland1) May 19, 2025
They only have one weapon in their arsenal; they were so successful for so long, by obfuscating the actual issue of men taking women’s rights with “What is a woman?” that the only recourse they have, now that it has been disarmed, is to ask “What is a man?” even though that one was rendered equally impotent by the Supreme Court’s declaration.
It’s pathetic to listen to the desperation of those invested in a particular but anti-reality world view as they trot out thoroughly debunked talking points (they can hardly be dignified with the term ‘arguments’), whether the issue at hand is the shape of our planet, how life diversified, or whether men are entitled to everything.
That’s what attracted me to this place, actually. The willingness of people here, especially Ophelia of course, to consider all the facts and change their minds on any subject when given new evidence (after examination to ensure that it’s not bogus). Most people seem to be a mixture of traits; willing to change our minds and opinions for some things, unwilling or unable when it comes to others. Some people refuse to change their minds about anything whatsoever, but they seem to be almost as rare as critical thinkers at the other end of the bell curve.
I’m always amazed that the T, a group for the most part opposite-sex attracted, insists that only they get to define what it is to be LGB. Further, despite being a tiny sliver of the population, only they get to define what it is to be a man or a woman, female or male, and everyone else is just supposed to change what they believe and go along. I’m even more amazed that everyone else mostly does go along, or at least pretends to.
Then I remember the BBC, the CBC, the ABC, and all the other media outlets that reliably cover gender issues as though everyone had decided long ago that men become women if they say so. I remember the AP style guide that was rewritten to be “inclusive.” I remember the Oxford and Webster dictionaries and all the others that have changed their definitions to suit the T so the rest of us can no longer tell them to look up the word. And I remember all the legislation, medical guidelines and corporate policies that keep us locked into this nightmare and wonder if we’ll ever see sanity again. Because despite the Cass Report and UK Supreme Court ruling, the T train keeps rolling along as though nothing has changed, the NHS hasn’t dropped the Dr Upton lawsuit and the public broadcaster keeps shoveling coal into the locomotive, acting shocked with anyone saying that transwomen are men. What’s it going to take to derail this juggernaut?
I would turn that on its head. “What is a woman?” has always been our question, and the other side has done nothing but dodge the question, give circular answers (“A woman is anyone who identifies as anyone who identifies as anyone who identifies as…” etc. etc. ad infinitum), resort to bad puns (“Some are women based on biological sex, and some are women based on gender identity”), or even portray the very act of asking the question as inherently bigoted and hateful, whenever we brought it up. Most of my questions have certainly been variations on the same theme, e.g.:
What exactly are you saying about a person by calling her a “woman”?
If being a woman doesn’t tell us anything about a persons physical traits, what does it tell us anything about?
If you know nothing else about a person, and someone informs you that she’s a “woman”, what do you now know about her that you didn’t know before?
What is it that all “women” have in common, that justifies calling them by the same name in the first place?
Etc.
Unfortunately. they have an answer for this. It’s a stupid answer, but they think it’s brilliant. They claim there is nothing that all women have in common! There is nothing that makes us a group but our thoughts about who we are, and how we identify.
Stupid answer, because it is not only wrong, it isn’t even eloquent. It shows no evidence of thought or knowledge, and instead of clarifying, it muddies.