Have the gender critical feminists gone too far? 

Case in point: unherd.com/2024/02/caught-up-in-the-gender-critical-civil-war/

For the record, Kelly Jay Keen does not consider herself to be a feminist.

Btw, the Let Women Speak meetings are not allowed, by the Authorities, to use loud speakers. There is a pin-on microphone to record the speaker for U-tube, but even if you are at the meeting it is often not possible to hear the speaker unless you are standing or sitting very near. Fortunately, the Metropolitan police have now started giving us some physical protection from 'trans' activists who routinely turned up with their bull-horns and sirens - they were apparently allowed for some reason - threatening to kill us, and it is now *possible* to be heard, in a way that was not possible before. I have never endured what was inflicted on Kellie-Jay Kean in Auckland, New Zealand in February 2023, but I found it uncomfortable enough to have foamingly angry muscular men and young girls with pink hair screaming 'F - - - off, you f- - - - - - Nazi' two inches from my face, while brandishing placards saying 'The only good Nazi is a dead Nazi'. This is the image I have of 'trans' rights activists. The incessant chant is 'Trans rights are human rights'. Obviously, anyone who is human has human rights by definition. But 'trans' rights end where my rights - and children's rights - begin.

We cant help protect children from harm if harm to women is "up for debate." What's happening to women isn't a secondary concern. Women and kids are inextricably linked. Women are the primary protectors of children. Dividing us puts children at further risk. It's basic safeguarding, something Stella has had her struggles grasping even if her brain type can hold two thoughts at once.

the problem with pronouns is that its forcing people to engage in dishonest behavior then shaming them when they don't want to. thats it. Stop overcomplicating it with shoulds or pleasantries. Politeness is not something a political class should police. Their acceptance of you and your pronoun shift has absolutely nothing to do with their acknowledgement of it. If you are secure, you simply will not care they don't abide by your rules. If you are insecure, you will blame them for reminding you of your own lie you're trying to believe.

You felt depressed at the extremism of the gender critical clashes which you'd seen elsewhere in your life....... imagine how the gender critical women feel after being abused, slandered, silenced, lied about, threatened, misrepresented constantly in the media... and seeing many many of our institutions introducing gender ideological norms and rules in workplaces and services everywhere - then losing their jobs and receiving more threats for daring to object.

For me, it's not a case that I am unable to hold both things in my mind, it's that using the incorrect pronounces muddies, the waters when we really need everything to be clear.

I'm all for respecting other cultures, but I''m old enough to remember when being a "progressive" in America meant you were opposed to the practice of "female genital mutilation" - conducted on children no less - in those cultures where it was still practiced - rather than today not only supporting the practice - but both celebrating it - and insisting on it - for irrational ideological reasons. Who ever would have imagined that Western "progressives" would "culturally appropriate" - one of the most patriarchal and barbaric practices ever invented - from nations in Africa, Asia and the Middle East?

There is a strong case to be made for being uncompromising around pronouns. When children hear female pronouns being used to describe males, it makes an impressionable group even more vulnerable to manipulation and (yes, I'll say it) grooming by sexual predators because using female pronouns for males tricks the mind into believing such males to be less of a threat to physical safety than other males, but the data demonstrates that men who pretend to be women are just as dangerous as other men, and some data shows they're more likely to be sex offenders.

It's not a case of adults being unable to hold two conflicting beliefs, insisting that we use sex based pronouns. When Stella says she has absolutely no brain ache in accomodating chosen pronouns, she discounts young children who are just learning basic language skills, people who's first language isn't English, learning disabled people...etc. If the influential adults around these people are using preferred (incorrect) pronouns, that's teaching others that gender and not sex, dictates the way we apply language to individuals. It makes sex based language redundent. Give the words she/her to men, and the words mother, daughter, aunt, female... etc follow very closely afterwards.

I think your portrayal of those who refuse to use gender (not sex) pronouns vs your reasons for wanting to use gender (not sex) pronouns as horribly insincere and simplistic. I wouldn't insist others do as I do but those who do (mostly, who have been in this shit show for many years), aren't censoring free speech or 'policing pronouns' out of a pointless sense of purity. That take massively misses the point, which is about the 'preservation of truth' and taking back what has been taken from women - in huge part by this very insidious and strategic manipulation of language - just like the adultification of children shields adult male abusers of girls by calling them 'young women' instead of children). Using sex not gender pronouns reestablishes that stolen truth and holds the line. People feel compassion for 'the poor trans'women' rejected from women's spaces. They are jarred at hearing 'men' are using women's spaces. Words have power and trans ideology has used this knowledge extremely well. It isn't 'purist' to point it out. If you think real social change will come in half measures, good luck. All this said, I've always maintained that their is value in all sections of this movement against trans ideology. Humanity is a many varied, non harmogenous entity. I never expected agreement but please, don't demean those or belittle very serious aspects of this fight because you don't see the significance.

The reason we don’t use ‘preferred pronouns’ is that once you have conceded to that everything else follows its wake.

Pronouns are the gateway drug that allowed this to fester as it has. But when women had issues with the AGP issue Stella and others took a very snippy dismissive tone. Now she is diverting from that main issues of AGP , making a battle with women who have been continually been silenced, attacked, and erased. Blue Velvet plays a role in that and Stella refuses to seriously face that fact. Yes Christians have their beliefs but many of us do not consider ourselves religious and we see that it is a lie to use the wrong biological pronoun. It is also a misnomer to say it is left vs right when the right does nothing but give lip service, AND they mostly use the pronouns as well. The issue with Buck is the kink factor. Buck is not helping other than to confuse young kids which is who Buck aims at.

My camp is the parent camp. You have the luxury of speaking in theory.We had to flee our state, we had to give up our paid off home, we had to have a navy seal at the ready, to extract our daughter from the hospital because an activist social worker was hell bent on medicalizing my minor daughter. Any capitulation is a nail in the coffin of my parental rights. You'll never get it unless you walk in the shoes of a parent.

Please have a conversation with Kellie Jay Keen who will explain the political reasoning of using wrong sex language. Most of us start from your position, wanting to find a way to bridge and bring people together but the problem with that is it means the ideology perpetuates in schools and more children are harmed. I understand that you’re coming from compassion but using gendered language rather than truthful language allows people to continue spreading the myth that some people can be born wrong. Insecure kids are highly susceptible to wanting escapism from their uncomfortable growing pains. Please just give some air space to hear someone like Kellie Jay give you her view on this. Asking people to speak truthfully is not the same as coercing speech.

Have the gender critical feminists gone too far? NO.

You started out by not defining the behavior of the people who it was clear within 30 seconds you were determined to snipe about throughout the entire video. Followed quickly by Stella O'Malley's diagnosis that everyone who refuses to call a male "she/her" has a brain that is incapable of holding two thoughts at the same time. I can't believe this passes for intellectual discussion. Kelly Jay Keen may use the 'f' word more frequently but she's a highly intelligent woman who, even when she criticizes people like O'Malley, is straightforward about it and yes, many of us think she is indeed spending her time wisely.

Normalising the distortion of language and meaning is very significant. You cannot protect children by giving mixed messages.

5:51 Answering for myself: I don't want to compell other people's speech, but I do not believe in using alternative pronouns for gender-reasons is harmless. If someone is unaware that Buck (just for example) is female, and they hear you refer to her with male pronouns, they will understand Buck to be male. The use of he and she encode the sex of the referent in English. What does using he/him for a female transexual accomplish if not misleading people as to the sex of the referent? If Buck views he/him as a sign of respect, it is because such language facilitates her attempt to misinform other people as to her sex. If she truly accepts that she is female, then why would it be disrespectful to refer to her with th pronouns English uses for female people?

so engaging in cognitive dissonance is great. a person doesn't use their own pronouns, it's how i refer to them that they want to control.

Am I allowed to ask how far are they allowed to go?

I'm a supporter of free speech, and, while if people want to use preferred pronouns or refer to others as 'cis', for example, they have the right, it's also important for others to be free to voice an objection (which is not the same as 'policing'), because it is important to be able to state the truth; less so, perhaps in interactions with individuals, but very important when it comes to crime-reporting, data-collection, statistics, education, etc. At my workplace, for example, which is a Stonewall member and educates healthcare professionals, some people put their pronouns in their email signature. I don't care - it just marks them out to me as being either dumb or subservient or ideologically captured, and it helps me to avoid those people! - but it would matter very much if it became mandatory, or if it encouraged student doctors and nurses to take an ideological approach to health care (which is bad enough in the NHS already), so that preferred 'sex' markers were used in medical records, for example, or in correspondence between professionals, which could have harmful consequences. Similarly, victims of sexual assault should not be compelled to refer to their trans-identifying male assailants as 'she' in court; the assailant should not be formally recorded as 'she' in arrest reports; the crime should not be reported in the media as having been perpetrated by a woman, etc. Pronouns matter. Obfuscation of biological sex can be dangerous. I guess there is a big difference between the individual's right to freedom of speech - one hallmark of a free society is that people should be free to privately follow whatever delusional belief systems they like - and institutional gas-lighting at a societal level where the implications are harmful to the rights of others.

8:40 If I tell Stella my friend Dani lost her job, Stella will assume Dani is female. I am certain she (Stella) doesn't possess a special brain that can identify when I am referring to a man she doesn't know with she/her pronouns. I am entirely on Stella's side that speech should not be "policed" or compelled, but I worry that her justified resistance to being compelled is keeping her from thinking about the implications of the choice she is defending. I hope she does not allow herself to be bullied into changing her view, but I hope nevertheless that she will reconsider on her own terms.

Kellie-Jay Kean says that she is not a feminist. I think that that is because she thinks that some of them seem to ignore or deny the challenges of life which are intrinsic to being a woman.

As someone who can also hold two thoughts at once, I do agree with the argument that the more you cater to gender ideology and validate the people pushing it, the stronger and more pervasive it becomes. This movement has proved time and time again that for every inch you give, they will demand a mile. The only defense to the gender ideologues’ “all or nothing” approach, is to push back with the same amount of intolerance.

I note that you flagged up the criticism and 'hate'you received from gc people and didn't mention any from tras. To critique someone directly to their face is not the same as going after their careers with anonymous complaints, which is what tras do. The reason the general public are so confused about this issue is cognitive dissonance caused by pronouns.

Sorry but why is Stella O Malley in a conversation that seems to be to just be about bashing feminists. Why should feminists pay into the patriarchal idea that women = feminine? No. Males are he and females are she. It is a lie, not a quirk to say differently. Switching it up just exacerbates the issue and pays the patriarchy double.

He is super annoying.

I don't agree that Debbie Hayton has been silenced. Debbie has a column in the Spectator, a book coming out and was just on GB News!

One negative effect of the trans movement is that now people are suspicious of masculine women, which must be terrible for them. As a heterosexual male I am always alert to being conned, which brings up suspicion in damaging ways.

Thank goodness for hardliners. This conversation was hilariously weak.

This video quickly became a Kellie-Jay bashing.

Its not extreme or puritanical to remain uncompromising on the truth. Seriously, both of you, do one

Although I think everybody should be using pronouns they want, getting upset other people don't want to affirm somebody's delusional identity is a little much. Also, I don't know how naïve one would have to be to encourage AGPs to join their organisation. Or even to showcase one in a photo. Mad. Just mad.

The reason that you see no harm in using 'preferred pronouns' is because you've only been involved in this issue for a year and clearly haven't thought through the implications of them. This is exactly why you're getting grief from people who actually have skin in this game, many of whom have had it for over 50 years. What did you expect?

Correcting people when they say 2+2=5 is not "censorship." Letting people know lying and confusing kids is a dangerous safeguarding issue is not "policing language." And being critical of Buck, who is a pornographer profiting from sexualizing and glamorizing those who self-mutilate, is wise. There is such a thing as controlled opposition. Saying that Buck is protecting children from medical transition (while she directly profits from it) is like saying that Eugenia Cooney is protecting girls from eating disorders, all the while her whole brand is about making money off of just that.

You are joining this very late mate and telling women how they should think, what a disappointment

So Stella can call a man 'she' while remembering that he's still a man? This can only lead to confusion. What's logical about that?

7:57 Stella's point sounds good so far. But what about the information conveyed to an uninformed third party? If Stella refers to a male person as "her", and her interlocutors are unaware that Stella is "holding two thoughts at the same time", how will they know she is referring to a male person? Would she qualify her use of pronouns so they're clued in?

Complete and utter gaslighting. Misrepresentation of women's concerns throughout. Fyi people put their thoughts on twitter rather than email is because you can't wriggle away and gaslight the writer in private.

Any chance you can post the title of the trans widow episode? I could not find it. I am collecting data on our experiences, now approaching 60 who answered my survey, 20 Questions to Ask a Trans Widow. I have the sole data in the world from more than a dozen trans widows. For example more than half of us were publicly defamed by our now "identifying" ex-husband.

Great interview. A lot of food for thought in there. Thank you.

Stop blaming feminists. So tedious. Stella, your Hayton video was pure cringe. You seem very confused.

I am also often depressed with the in-fighting in the trans-critical movement. I always come to Stella's and Genspect's defence by pointing out that they come from a therapeutic perspective and fight against medicalising children and against the notion that children can be born in the wrong body. Women's rights and government policies and laws are to be fought for by others. I find myself always between all sides, I see merits in Stella's and Kelly Jean's approaches. Mostly I think of all children, who are being confused by learning in school that they have a gender identity and will be forced to accept that their mate has changed sex. I worry very much about the children of trans-parents, who are told that their father is their mother or vice-versa. Men are pretending to breastfeed already. There is a push to allow "transmen" to continue to take testosterone during pregnancy, because the "father's" wellbeing would be negatively affected. Claiming that too much importance is placed on the wellbeing of the baby. My observation is that the needs of children are not considered when we use the wrong pronouns. We need to insist that 2 + 2= 4. The correct use of language. That is not " prescribed" speech but "truthful" speech. I worked with a family where we had to refer to the father as "she" or we would be sued. That is compelled speech. Whatever the struggles of parents, -as soon as they have children, fathers and mothers need to be addressed as such and it has to be clear that the father is a man and the mother is a woman. I think we owe it to children to be radical with that. One thought on Debbie Hayton: If he came out to his wife after being together with her for a considerable time, he has deceived, betrayed and probably manipulated her. His insisting on "changing sex" although it distressed his wife, shows that he puts his needs first. His behaviour is consistent with people who have addiction issues. The obsession comes before everything else. This does not make it abusive, but close, -in my. I think we sand straight about this without going overboard in any direction.

Even Buck understands why women want to stick to correct pronouns and he is the trans man. Maybe ask him why.

Thank god for men like you telling women they have gone too far in defending their human rights.

Stella asks: why are you focusing on Debbie Hayton?, because we witnessed an AGP who put his family through hell and admits to being a teacher. And you say “well done” to Stephanie after all this is disclosed. I have heard you many times explain that film: you have your lines down pat. It is clear you do not like criticism of any kind and you need to drop all of this about KJK. It is patronizing when you say: I can hold two thoughts in my head…..I don’t get why you are bothered at all by what KJK says. She will not do a full sit down video hour video to talk about you.

Don't worry ladies, this man has been studying "trans" for a whole year now.

You’re severely underestimating the degree of crucial information transmitted by something “small” like pronouns. The primary issue here is that it’s just a straight up lie to use opposite sex pronouns. The necessary components for what constitutes a woman is being adult, human, and female. There are no exceptions. When you use she/her pronouns for a male, you are lying, and confounding ALL the risk assessment people (especially women and children) have to do on the fly. It is not an extreme or hateful position to simply not lie. No males are women.

I can call Buck a "he". Buck is an adult and so am I. We all know Buck's sex and we are both willing to discuss the true roots of someone rejecting their body characteristics. I personally don't think embracing a trans identity with all the medicalization that comes with it is a good thing. So let's all debate without emotionalism.

I always thought Stella was a bit flaky. But she has also made a meaningful contribution to the debate.

Never realised the depth of the conflict between these different groups.

I believe that acknowledging and perhaps educating the public about AGP is important, but portraying it as acceptable and normalizing it is absolutely not. I don’t think that Genspect intended to normalize AGP by posting the picture of Phil, but it seems that many people interpreted it that way. I was at the conference and found Phil’s dress extremely attention-seeking and felt as if he was intentionally flaunting himself. He wasn’t actively being inappropriate, but I definitely did not enjoy being near him.

For many years we have been wondering why journalists and filmmakers have been absent from this issue. Good luck. I would have disabled the comments

I still hope Genspect is really about *properly solving* whatever Stella and others are calling "dysphoria" for minors of all kinds (AGP, autistic, gay, ROGD, etc.). I suspect many GC doctors are basically postponing medical alterations till adulthood to keep promoting cosmetic industry and have everyone play the validating role (calling people "trans", using special pronouns, erasure of women's and religious people's rights, being fired for anti-gender industry views, etc.)

Amazing how they think it’s the critical dude who are policing language.

What’s she even talking about!? Free speech says she can use whatever pronouns she likes, and we are free to point out how very harmful it is. ANY TIME you use wrong sex pronouns you are showing kids it’s valid to get harmful sex change operations. I won’t participate and shame on anyone who does.

Did you have security at Genspect to keep out the “trans” fanatics?

Kellie Jay K has done much more than anyone else. This man should put away his hubris and male entitlement and LET WOMEN SPEAK. Listen.

If you call your guy friend "she" and someone points out that the guy is a guy, you're not being silenced. You've already said what you wanted to say lol. You've stated your opinion: that you see a specific man as a woman, and someone else has stated their opinion: that they don't.

The very problem of 'preferred pronouns' is that it's policing thought, speech and language. And if you disagree with the ideology underlying the medical transition of children, then why would you use language that upholds that? Why would you use 'she/her if you know a man is not a woman? Why do you have to hold those two thoughts in your head in the first place? What does it achieve but further entrenching this ideology?

I'm pro free speech and have never described myself as a feminist or a gender critical. Wrong sex pronouns are the thin end of the wedge towards anti safeguarding. You can use whatever pronouns you want and my free speech includes being able to criticize anyone using wrong sex pronouns. I think less of anyone using wrong sex pronouns when they are aware of the harm.

I've never met a lesbian who has got off (sexually) by wearing men's clothes. That doesn't mean there aren't any - though, in 48 years of being out, I would have expected to meet one - if they existed!

Travis is on his own side. Is he fuelling a fire to generate an audience and make some money? He starts with the premise of us and them. No doubt when this culture (sic) war is over, people like Travis will claim their important role in ending the madness. He rides on the tips of the coat tails of scores of bloody amazing (mostly ignored) women and a few men.

What about the sentence ‘She cannot use the women’s restroom.”? Using someone’s preferred pronouns in this instance is deeply confusing. What is being said is ‘A man cannot use the women’s restroom.’ I won’t use she in this type of sentence because it sounds like nonsense.

It has nothing to do with not being able to hold two thoughts at once, or being dogmatic for the sake of being dogmatic. It has to do with letting doublespeak and the twisting of reality into our everyday vernacular, which is very dangerous.

I watched the talk between Stella and Kellie Jean with Benjamin and thought it was good. I thought the reaction to the photo was over the top just as I thought publishing the photo at the GenSpect conference was a very foolish, ill-advised, and thoughtless thing to do. Why would you publish it? Although this man evidently doesn’t try to intrude on women’s spaces, arguably very rich autogynephiles are in a large part responsible for gender ideology. It wasn’t a benign action.

What you said about lesbians is one of the most offensive things I have ever heard.

I'm a guy here. You know who went too far, bro? People promoting eugenics on prehomosexual kids. And that includes Stella even if she seems like a cool lady.

Btw kjk shared the pill illy photo AFTER women including myself had already commented on the photo.

“I wanted to throw the dead dog on the table.” Where would we all be without Stella’s Irish charm and fortitude? Let women support women.

I love Stella. Don't always agree with her but she's always interesting and her point that we forget her role as a therapist is so important and hasn'teven been mentioned, for what I see. She has definitely been treated very badly by some feminists. I also like and often *do* agree with women on polar opposite sides. The problem with 'correcting' other people is they tend to find it pretty f***ing annoying. Also, in the case of wrong sex pronouns, it's highly unlikely that person is unaware they are using them. Everyone in this fight is doing something. Stop. Trying. To. Tell. Other. People. How. To. Behave. I hate it when critics of KJK do it, complaining that someone who's mother voted Tory once for to speak. I hate it now. Please

It's a good thing, as stressful as it's been, that these differences amongst the coalition of factions has come to light, and especially that it's being dealt with publicly amongst these factions - rather than being used by oppositions who would exploit the faultlines to derail the movement.

So much gaslighting in this interview

I always love those honest conversations, all the performative debates everywhere just really make me sick.

I would say we haven't gone far enough

You can’t sit on both sides of the fence at the same time. It muddies the waters. We need to be clear about what we are saying.

#LetLauraSpeak! Thanks guys.

Good chat. I'll visit The Signal again in the future. 🐿

I don't know. Secondary sex characteristics used to help to inform if you are a normal female/normal male/CAIS male, etc. in an objective way: by looking at them. At the end of the day, a person like Blaire is still attempting to be seen as a member of the opposite sex group (or maybe a she-male, a mythical-looking person with both sexes). Saying you are a male or female is not enough in a world where people lie and redefine language all the time. And doctors are helping her to disguise her sex, even if they are failing. I'm not against medical transition for adults, but this is what taking so-called "HRT" is for. It's an illusion that does not resolve anyone's dysphoria and coupled with the "right" language conspire against clear perception of reality.

Thanks for this great convo. I want to add that use of preferred pronouns is not always about being "respectful" or obliging the persons preferences. Sometimes it's just about using language in a way that intuitively makes sense to our perceptions. For example, one would have to try really hard to call Buck Angel "She" consistently. It would require tremendous effort and brain/will power to remember this (not to mention feel very silly) because automatic association with bucks presentation clearly screams HE. Likewise, if you were trying to point out Buck in a crowd it would not be advantageous to say "that woman over there wearing the white shirt." Language is not always used to express the ultimate reality but as a simple functioning of what's in front of our eyes or as a way to achieve a means to an end.

I think the issue with pronouns is a legal one. If we use opposite sex pronouns to describe an individual, we are tacitly inviting them to participate in our history. Now, women’s history, the material reality of female bodies, is one of violence. Rape, domestic violence, forced domestic labour, forced marriage, sexual assault, forced impregnation, forced birth, physical restraint, lack of or inadequate representation in the economic sphere, unequal pay, lack of legal personhood, lack of education, lack of political representation, lack of parity, misrepresentation of those who do not subscribe to the sexual purity myth enforced during and post-Renaissance by religious institutions in thrall to the cult of the Virgin Mary… Calling a ‘he’ a ‘she’ aligns and integrates him into that cultural and social history. It removes his tacit male privilege, his way of making his way through the world as a male-bodied person with all the privileges that result as a consequence of his masculinity (an example - post-puberty, a male’s punch is 160x that of a woman’s. That is not to say he is not at risk of violence from other males, but it highlights his physical advantage over women.) To invite him into women’s language is to associate him with historical suffering and victimhood of women. It makes him part of the struggle against inequality between the sexes. Once we remove the fragile boundary, which women invariably struggle to maintain, between the physical dominant and the physically powerless, how can we keep him out of our spaces? With the single act of ‘she-ing’ him, we’ve moved to a dangerously inclusive interpretation of history, and removed the very barriers that keep us physically and emotionally safe. And this has been taken advantage of on numerous occasions by bad actors. For example, there was a group for rape survivors in oh-so-progressive Brighton, where women were able to recount their horrific experiences and find commonality with and support from other women. A male of great height and physical strength who had made no attempt to disguise his bodily dominance claimed he identified as female and joined the group. The women, who were deeply uncomfortably, if not traumatised by the presence of a representative of the sex that had caused them such psychological damage, asked the group leader for him to leave. No, said the leader: X identifies as a woman. She has as much right to be here as any other woman.

A lot of all this is about the way social media works in mass movements rather than anything to do with sex realism as a phenomenon. The best thing everyone can do is ignore the stuff you don't like and support the stuff you do. EVERY personality conflict inside the movement to stop gender ideology is a waste of time and energy. What Stella is doing has very little to do with what Kellie Jay is doing, and neither has much to do with what Helen Joyce is doing. All are doing important work that reaches different people in different ways. Arguing amongst ourselves in any way at all is a waste of energy. It won't change anything, and it distracts from the people who are de-sexing children, or destroying women's sports, or putting rapists in women's prisons. EVERYONE on our side needs to think very carefully about who they really want to be fighting.

PS. Obfuscating or lying about a person's sex by redefining the meanings of "she" & "her" et all isn't something you do FOR someone, it's something you do TO someone. I give you no leave to lie to me just as I give you no leave to obscure a person's immutable sex when I am your audience. I expect to be treated with respect and if you can not do so, even though you are able (there are millions of ppl who can not correctly sex ppl for a multitude of reasons and I do not blame them bc they are being coerced, often under the threat of violence/loss of work etc) you are put in the list of people who happily, nay, proudly admit, they will call a man "she" and "her". You're on that list. "Not to be fully trusted". Thanks for letting me know. I've made a note. TM-

Another man has an opinion on feminist thought *eyeroll. How long, sir, have you been in 'this movement', whatever you think 'this movement' is?

Telling a child that daddy is now mummy and a lady, is lying to them. Asking people not to lie isn’t compelling speech. Sacking, or arresting someone if they don’t want to lie is compelled speech. A young girl was forced to call her abusive father she/her and a woman in court. Free speech doesn’t include lying. In private situations, I think it’s up to you, but as a public platform, please don’t lie.

Trouble is, (and this is from a UK perspective) groups like Stonewall have captured institutions: Labour, LibDems, Greens, the BBC, the NHS, Police constabularies, universities, schools, large companies... and more, and they ALL refuse an open debate, so understandably frustration occurs. As for pronouns, I am "one of those people" who when I hear a female pronoun I picture a female. I bet other people do too, especially children. I have been involved in this social issue since 2001, yes 2001 (a little more than a year) having been in a lesbian group where I militated to keep it "women born women only" so I have seen and lived the damage gender has done and I profoundly mistrust the dishonest ambiguity. The group is still "women born women only" more than 20 years later. Still, Genspect has to deal with the trans issue as it happens in the clinical context and I respect your work 100% May thanks Stella.

Stella, please learn about the fundamental conceptual objections to the American Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). It tries to be consensual and atheoretical at the same time in defining its 'categories' of disorders. This encourages diagnostic drift and a proliferation of categories. (The American health system of Americans only being able to be reimbursed for the cost of their psychological treatment if their 'disorder' is named as a Category in the DSM also encourages this proliferation.) The method of 'Categories' militates against diagnosing co-morbidities. It is dualistic. It is a very bad Manual.

Phil Illy was wearing his girlfriend

I identified as a woman but realised lm still male 😮

Haha, NO. But thanks for trying!

Honestly, you both come across as condescending.

I love Stella. This is such a great interview, I agree with everything she says here, and I learned a lot, just as I do when I listen to Helen Joyce on this topic (and all the subtopics). O’Malley at the top of her game.

Great interview! However, the conflation of "fetish" and "paraphilia" here is confusing for people. You should talk to Michael Bailey or James Cantor about this.

Stella sounds smart as a whip and articulate to boot. I like her break-down!

Why were Kathleen Stock and Julie Bindell not speakers at either of your conferences? Were they invited. Both are major thinkers in the field of Gender Critical analysis.

Social media itself has a deranging effect on discourse. People routinely write things online which they would never say in person. Try not to forget that discourse on twitter is not real life.

The arguments here are so skewed. KJK is suspected to be jealous of what Stella does with Genspect bc apparently Stella proves that you can present an alternative therapeutic position without getting hassle from TRAs. Yet simultaneously Stella tells us how massive the security measures were for the conference, how she was shitting herself because of security concerns, how they were afraid of guns going off? Pa-lease Stella, I think you're projecting, give Kelly a break, her campaign goals are different to yours, she is not putting up conferences for academics some of whom are sitting on the fence but is trying to get ordinary women informed and involved. And as you can see from the clip you played, TRAs do hassle ordinary women into silence! So what am I to take away from your argument, that it's Kelly's fault for the TRAs trying to shout ordinary women down? That women COULD have civilised conversations about trans in the open of only they were "nicer"? Next, this camera dude who is in this for a mere year, whom the RU-vid algorithm suggested I should listen to, who is he to judge how a battle hardened woman spends her time campaigning? If she's holding a 4 hr twitter space so what? Next question: who dragged "the dress" back into the discussion, was it Kelly? It wasn't, was it...! Whether you agree with Kelly's criticism of "the dress" is not the point actually, the point is that people know too little about autogynephilia and Kelly is allowed to criticise the normalisation of it. Ok, I get it, you want Kelly to be "nice" and not be outspoken but send you an email complaining about Phil Illy's normalisation of AGPs. But you think there is nothing to criticise, yes? It's true, Phil Illy is a fresh voice and admits that autogynephilia exists and some may find this a good thing. However as with many mental phenomena self awareness is not granted to all. And those AGPs who are convinced they are women and deserve to enter women's spaces will not be convinced by Phil Illy. I am surprised that you don't understand what the fuss (or indeed "holding the line" is about). It's about the inconsistency that you choose to call some AGPs "she" and some "he". Which AGP is deserving of the lie? Which girl deserves to be gaslit by which AGP? The discourse around Hayton centers around the fact that the guy is a teacher who presumably expects girls whom he teaches to use she/her. So which teachers are allowed to destabilise girl's boundaries? How is a girl to know that this man must be addressed as a woman because Stella (who is advocating for children) thinks it's ok and another isn't? This really isn't about policing your speech, Stella but it's about consistency in safe-guarding. It's probably ok for invisible women to decide on a day-to-day basis whether they want to grant some AGP men honorary woman status. But you are a woman who is trying to write policies for therapists. Should we not expect consistency from public women? One last thing and I'm really pissed off about it. Leave us lesbians alone. There is no such thing as "men's clothes". Lesbians rejecting feminine clothing do not get off on imagining themselves as men. Can you hets please stop this variant of lesbophobia that projects men's sexuality onto women?! Thank you.

Wonder if Stella is telling us that Julie Bindel and Kathleen Stock and some other lesbians she knows who wear 'men's clothes (jeans and t-shirt or suit and tie or bowler hat?)' are getting sexually charged? Good subject for Genspect to explore obviously, great to see a chat between Stella, Julie and Kathleen about this.

Thanks for this video! ❤