I recently had the privilege of presenting a run of programmes on Times Radio. During a getting-to-know-you chat with the Times at One’s producer the week before I started, we discussed a few stories. One I raised was the problems faced by Connie Shaw at Leeds University. Connie is an undergraduate, a feminist and the now-suspended Head of Daytime programming at Leeds Student Radio. Connie thinks she was suspended for her gender-critical views, but claims no one at Leeds Students’ Union has explained the exact nature of her transgression. Connie’s appeal against suspension is being support by the Free Speech Union. As a former Chair of the Student Radio Association, I have a particular interest in student media and was very much looking forward to getting Connie on.
We scheduled the interview for Thursday 12 Dec. On Tuesday 10 December the now infamous IPSO ruling over a Spectator magazine piece by the writer Gareth Roberts dropped. In his piece Roberts described former Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon’s appearance at a book festival, where she was interviewed by a male-to-female transsexual called Juno Dawson. IPSO ruled that Roberts calling Dawson “a man who claims he is a woman” was discriminatory – the word “claims” being “personally belittling and demeaning”. I wrote a blog post about this, calling IPSO’s complaints committee Enemies of Free Speech.
Michael Gove, the editor of The Spectator, responded to the IPSO ruling with some force. As well as writing in his magazine’s own pages, on Thursday 12 Dec Gove wrote a piece for The Times’ Thunderer column, in which he stated:
“It is vital that journalists are able to tell the truth about gender issues. Without brave reporting on this question, including from The Times’s Janice Turner, we would still have children being mutilated by NHS clinicians at the Tavistock clinic. Whatever position one takes on gender questions, or indeed any subject of contention, adults should be able to debate matters robustly and without fear of being censured by watchdogs.”
The scheduled chat with Connie gave us the perfect opportunity to widen out the discussion to one about free speech in the media in general. On Thursday at 1pm on Times Radio I spoke to Connie about her situation and her opinion of Juno Dawson. Then we held a short debate between Ben Jones from the Free Speech Union, and Ben Smoke from Huck magazine. You can listen to it on the embedded media player above.
I am grateful to all concerned for taking part. You don’t often hear genuine debates on the radio about trans ideology and the issues it raises. On this occasion we had both sides going at it fair and square. One thing I found extremely difficult to do as a presenter (as you will hear) was stay relatively neutral on the pronoun issue. By calling Juno Dawson “she” I would potentially be accepting that s/he is a woman. By calling Dawson “he” I would be potentially showing too much partiality to the gender critical speakers.
Dawson says he holds a Gender Recognition Certificate and therefore has the legal right to call himself a woman, but when that is the very subject in issue, it gets complicated. I generally prefer my use of pronouns to reflect biology, but I am acutely aware this is considered by some to be offensive.
In the end I found myself using “he”, “she” and (once) “they” when referring to Dawson in a way which hopefully made sense.
I hope this is the first of a number of broadcast discussions I am allowed to have about gender, because I think it’s one of the biggest stories of our age. We need to be reflecting that in our national media without too much tone and language policing, so the public understands what is going on. How to make that happen I have no idea.
PS If you haven’t read Gareth Roberts’ superb book, Gay Shame: The Rise of Gender Ideology and the New Homophobia, I insist that you do. It’s brilliantly-written and laugh-out-loud funny, which seems odd to say, given its subject matter. Roberts makes some serious points very well and he’s done the research. An ideal Christmas present.
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