TRIGGERnometry - Rose of Dawn: Trans Activists Don't Speak for Me

Episode Date: December 15, 2019

Rose of Dawn (@Rose_Of_Dawn) is a YouTuber who explores and critiques the modern trans community and trans activism. Support TRIGGERnometry: Paypal: https://bit.ly/2Tnz8yq https://www.subscribestar....com/triggernometry https://www.patreon.com/triggerpod Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@failinghuman) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This episode is brought to you by Netflix's remarkably bright creatures. What if a Pacific octopus held the key to a mystery that could heal your heart? Well, that's Tova's reality. An elderly widow working at an aquarium. Tova forms an unlikely friendship with the cramudgeonly Marcellus, whose remarkable intelligence leads her to a life-changing discovery. Watch remarkably bright creatures with your remarkable moms this Mother's Day weekend, only on Netflix May 8th.
Starting point is 00:00:32 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. and Stincision. And this is a show for you if you're bored with people arguing on the internet over subjects they know nothing about. At Trigonometry, we don't pretend to be the experts, we ask the experts. Our brilliant guest this week is a trans YouTuber who talks about trans issues, freedom of speech and political correctness.
Starting point is 00:00:54 Rose of Dawn, welcome to Trigonometry. Thanks, having me on. It's great to have you on the show. As you know, in recent weeks we've had an interview of ours with Posey Parker, who's a gender-critical ex-feminist removed from YouTube for hate speech. was then reinstated. By the time this video goes out, it could have been deleted again. You know, the channel might have been deleted. Who knows? But if we're still here, I know you watched some of that interview, and you mentioned to us that you thought it was ridiculous. So
Starting point is 00:01:21 let's, just for anyone who doesn't know you before we get into that, just tell everybody who are you, how are you where you are, how do you happen to be sitting in this chair here today? Okay, so as it's blatantly obvious, I'm a transsexual woman, I transition about 10. years ago now, maybe a bit longer, I can't quite remember off the top of my head. But throughout my transition, I relied a lot on myself rather than relying on any kind of community. So I gained a lot of individual ideas on what it is to be trans and the kind of self-reliance that should come along with it. I found the trans community in not just the UK, but just in general, as being one of very weird extremes with a lot of science denial, with a lot of controlling ideas on what it is to be trans,
Starting point is 00:02:09 in a way where it takes away rights from people like myself. Now, I had been concerned about this for a long time, but what really made me start my channel was kind of an argument with a couple of friends a few years ago where they talked about how all genders are valid, and I wanted to challenge that and thought, well, what about people who identify as tri-gender or moon gender, thinking they would push back at that and think like, no, like, obviously people can't self-identify as the moon, that's ridiculous.
Starting point is 00:02:37 Only to then, only they then defended identifying as the moon. It's like, that is just as valid as being me. And I think, really? Like, how do you transition to be the moon? How do you transition to be free genders at once? And I was just called a transphobe in response. And so I started my channel kind of talking about these kinds of issues
Starting point is 00:02:57 and a lot of it was also motivated by what happened with Count Dankula when he was found guilty of hate speech. Because I thought with the way that a trans community is, this is going to be a real issue as the years go by with people wanting to control what others can actually say about the trans community. And as a trans person myself, I found that I've been told to shut up or even had post removed from social media because I'm saying that to be trans is to have gender.
Starting point is 00:03:27 disforya. It's to, it's not these like multi-gendered hundreds of genders that the narrative is now being polished. So if I can't talk about this, what about anyone else? What about your average man or woman on the street who wants to, who has concerns about any of this? What about the radical feminists who I'd been told for years where my mortal enemies and wanted me thrown in camps? When I see them trying to hold meetings on this, they get, they get shut down. Some of them have had bomb threats thrown in. Activists will turn up in like masks, stopping people from coming in.
Starting point is 00:04:04 And they say that they're doing it in the name of love and doing it in my name as well. And whilst I wanted my channel to initially be more about politics, more on like the centre right and more about free speech, trans issues has become such a strange hot topic issue that I don't think I can stay silent on this. It's a strange world. that someone like myself is actually considered controversial in the community.
Starting point is 00:04:30 Why do you think it's become such a strange hot topic issue? Because when you think about it, you know, trans affects a very, very small minority of the population. Well, that's it. It should, in theory, that should be right. We would be looking at, you know, only like a couple of thousand trans people potentially in the country if we look at what the original definition was,
Starting point is 00:04:51 which is someone who has gender dysphoria and has made steps to publicly, socially, medically transition to be that which they identify us. So, for example, myself, I've had to take hormones, I've had various surgeries, I've had to do various legal documents, everything to show society that I am very serious about the way in which I live. This isn't any kind of fetish. This isn't any kind of weird fantasy of mine. This is just who I am. But the current trans lobby is really lowering the gate for who can actually be trans. We're now seeing people being told, well, you know, you're a male, but you quite like
Starting point is 00:05:32 doing this feminine thing. Or you're neither male or female then. You must be a special gender of your own. Or you'll be getting trans women who are told, or people who say they're trans women, rather, who have no desire to have any kind of surgeries, no medical issue, no, no, taking of Meditin at all, no changing their appearance. They will grow beards. And they will say, well, this is a woman's beard because I am a woman.
Starting point is 00:05:59 I am a biological woman. And that's simply not true. Like a trans woman, by definition, cannot be a biological female. Otherwise, we wouldn't be transitioning, would we? And it's gone from relative obscurity at the start of the decade to now being everywhere. Like, a couple of days ago, it was Trans Day of Remembrance. And there were trans flag. flying everywhere. Now, I have
Starting point is 00:06:22 massive problems of Trans-Day of Remembrance, but I find that it's become, like, this massive focal issue for everyone when really, it should only be affecting a very small percentage of the population, and it doesn't seem right to be able to control
Starting point is 00:06:37 what everyone can do or say when there's so few people that this actually affects. I'm aware that Francis has given you his customary death stare. It's not personal to you. He just puts that face on every episode. every episode we both... It's called South London Face.
Starting point is 00:06:52 I'm very sorry about it. Just try and just smile for once in your life. That's not how we communicate in South London because if smiling is weakness, but anyway... You're not in South London right now, you're on the internet. You're on the internet right now. I'm in North London, hence enemy territory. However...
Starting point is 00:07:09 Now, what you said, transition to a... You said that you are not a biological female. And that is... I mean, that's just the scientific fact, but that is seen as somehow incredibly controversial. Why? I think there's a lot of denialism involved. And in a way, there is some fantastic, like, fantasy thought
Starting point is 00:07:31 that some of these activists have when they all claim, well, because I say I'm a woman, therefore I am biologically a woman, they will talk about that there are a variety of different sexes as well as a variety of, you know, even more genders with new genders being released every week. They, but I also think there's a bit of control in this as well. The idea that you can have someone with a full on beard
Starting point is 00:07:53 tell people that they are a woman, you have to accept them as a woman. They have no desire to get rid of that beard. They have no desire to change their appearance or anything about them so society could see them as a woman and it does, I know mentioning 1984
Starting point is 00:08:09 is such a tired trope at this point, but it is that very much two plus two is five. Like what you're looking at is a woman, even though this woman is like a big, burly man, and you wouldn't know they were a woman unless you were told by someone that you had to refer to them as a woman. That's not the way that I think a transition should go. It's as much as I want to be happy with myself. If I want to be treated in a certain way, I have to understand what is that society expects of me. And if society isn't going to see me
Starting point is 00:08:39 in that way, I cannot command them to do so, to do otherwise as authoritarian. And that's the way a lot of these activists are going. They want to be able to control what people say and think and feel about a trans person. That's counterproductive and it makes the whole situation more hostile. It's going to turn people away from even people like myself. Now, obviously, I think I'm quite reasonable. I don't know about you guys or anyone else. But a lot of people do group others into various groups.
Starting point is 00:09:11 And I don't want to be lumped in with these extremists, these people who seem to completely deny reality and are pushing an authoritarian and very extreme agenda. So let's explore some of what you just said there because it makes perfect sense to me. But when I think through the consequences of what you're saying, which is that you say you're not biologically a woman, which biologically, as Francis said, is correct, right? But does that not open the door to people? Well, people will say you're not a woman and you said you're a transsexual woman.
Starting point is 00:09:43 right? So does that mean therefore you're not entitled to the same things that a natural born woman would be? Are you not opening the door for discrimination against people like yourself by talking about it in that way? I think each issue has to be taken based on what the circumstances are and like as its own individual circumstance. So for something like sports, for example, I'm quite against trans women being in spot. it would be a different situation if it's someone who has transitioned very young and has been taking hormones and stuff. And so they haven't built up the muscle mass that a lot of testosterone can give you. So, for example, when you look at a lot of trans athletes like Rachel McKinnon, for example, I think that people like her should not be competing in women's sports. It's very notable that these are athletes who are dominating their whatever field that they're in when they were competing in the same.
Starting point is 00:10:39 sport when they were males, they weren't actually doing quite as well, you'll see. And so it gives the impression... There's a mild understatement there, isn't it? So it gives the impression that they're doing it for sports and glory. When it comes to bathrooms, I do think to simply say that all trans women should be banned from bathrooms and that it should only be biological women. I don't think that really addresses any of the nuance of what people like myself are going through. what I think is that it is all individual circumstances
Starting point is 00:11:11 and I understand a lot of what Posey Park has said but when you get a trans woman who might go into a bathroom who isn't very passable I know that a lot of people find that problematic but fuck it. Who doesn't look like a woman is basically by anyone who doesn't know what possible means. Yeah I mean my line is always
Starting point is 00:11:28 if people put an effort into their transition at least a little bit of effort then I will refer to them in that particular way I do I can understand why some might well be intimidated by that, but I think a lot of trans women aren't these poorly dressed, like, massive blokes with weird wigs. They are some of the most visible, but I think that they are a minority. I would say that a lot of trans women are more people like, maybe myself, people like Blair White, people who, I've used women's bathrooms for a very, very long time now. I've never had any problems in it.
Starting point is 00:12:04 I don't buy this idea that by me entering a bathroom, I'm intimidating people. Because I've no desire to intimidate people. I'm literally going in there just to go to the bathroom. And I think when Posey Parker said that, that felt like she was putting a motive onto what our actions are. Now, the counter argument, and I put a lot of counter arguments to her. So we're just trying to explore these ideas would be the intimidation is an eye of the beholder. Of course. Right. So I personally, you look perfectly possible to me.
Starting point is 00:12:36 I wouldn't, if I didn't know you were trans, I wouldn't know you were trans. Right. But there are people who may not have the same appearance who may go into a female bathroom. And if you're a woman, you may feel intimidated by that, even if the intention of that person isn't to intimidate. Do you know what I'm saying? I can understand that. So this is the issue, right? Because essentially the problem here is that you have to have someone on the door of every female bathroom.
Starting point is 00:13:01 in the country going, you pass, you don't pass, you have a penis, you don't have a penis. Do you know what I'm saying? And that's simply not going to happen. No. It's why the whole bathroom issue is almost... Sorry to interrupt. They sound like you're volunteering yourself for that job.
Starting point is 00:13:14 I'm up for that. I'm down. Do you have a penis? You'll not have... It's a great job. Like, so... Coming out here, doing the job approach, people don't want to do.
Starting point is 00:13:26 That'd make a hell of a bar from my tent. You'll not have penis, have nolly pop. Look. I spend a lot of time telling you what's wrong with the world. So let me tell you about something that's actually right. Sleep, specifically getting more of it, better quality, the kind where you wake up and feel like a human being, rather than someone who's been thrown down a staircase.
Starting point is 00:13:46 Most mattresses are just layers of synthetic foam and crossed fingers. You're spending a third of your life on the thing, and most people have no idea what's actually in it. Avocardo green mattress is different. Their mattresses are certified organic, built from natural materials, designed to actually support your body properly rather than just hold you in one position until morning. The craftsmanship is real. These are mass-produced objects.
Starting point is 00:14:10 Someone has put thought into them. I'll be honest. I'm not the person who thinks carefully about where he sleeps. My dating history will tell you that. I'm the person who's been on the same mattress for eight years and called it fine. But the older I get, the more I notice that fine isn't actually fine. Your body tells you, if you're going to invest in anything for your home, your bed is a little. the one that pays you back every single night. Avocado products are made, not manufactured,
Starting point is 00:14:37 and thoughtfully crafted with real materials to deliver lasting comfort and support. Go to avocado greenmatress.com slash trigger to check out their mattress and furniture sale. That's avocado green mattress.com slash trigger. Avocado green mattress.com slash trigger. So yeah, you're right. You're never going to be able to police. who can go into a bathroom, you're never going to be able to have like an ID card situation because that would be quite terrifying
Starting point is 00:15:06 if you had to carry an ID to show that you were trans or that you weren't trans. So in a way, it's almost a bit of a non-issue. I don't mean that as any disrespect for people who have concerns, but it is something where if you have a trans woman who passes, for example, you're not really going to be able, there isn't a lot that can be done. And you can also get biological women
Starting point is 00:15:30 who might fall foul of this as well. I've heard of examples in the United States where they bought in these bathroom laws where it's actually illegal if you're a male to use a female bathroom and biological women have actually been impacted by that and have been told, oh, you're a biological male, even though they're not.
Starting point is 00:15:49 Even though it should be blatantly obvious that they're not, it can still happen. How does it get resolved? Well, I don't, this is a thing where I probably don't have the answer to it. I can't pretend that I have all the answers to everything. I think that until a lot of the big trans conversation came at the forefront of everything, there wasn't much of an issue on this.
Starting point is 00:16:13 People would just use the bathrooms and it would be perfectly fine. But now we're making mountains out of molehills. We're trying to say, well, because we have beardy over here, who's now decided that Zee feels more comfortable in a women's bathroom, so therefore that can happen, Z can go in there. It's this weird, we're getting these weird situations, which is why people are now asking the question. I mean, self-ide is really the problem.
Starting point is 00:16:43 Self-ide is the big problem. And it's something which I think a lot of people were never really prepared for. I mean, as I mentioned earlier, trans issues were never a big thing until just a few years ago. And now all of a sudden we've got the multi-gendered nonsense telling people that, you know, you have to accept it. Like, as an example, changing rooms is another big one.
Starting point is 00:17:04 When we have things like M&S, I think there's another laundry store, there's quite a few that just allow people to go and based on how they self-identify. Now, they didn't have these rules when I started using them. I just used them and that was fine. Nobody had an eyelid.
Starting point is 00:17:19 Everyone was cool with it. But a lot of this has kind of come about since we've had a lot of non-binary people try and pull this off. Like this a non-binary activist called Travis Alabanza who made headlines a few years ago after they decided that they wanted to use the women's changing room in a top shop. Travis doesn't look like a woman.
Starting point is 00:17:42 Travis doesn't even claim to be a woman, but says that they are non-binary. And they just so happen to feel more comfortable in the women's. So Travis went into the women's changing room and Topshop's policy, he did allow them to do it. that. And so even though they got in trouble with some of the staff who were like, no, you're clearly a bloke. Like, get out of here. Like, Travis got a massive apology from them.
Starting point is 00:18:07 And what is non-binary? I still can't understand it. What is it? So non-binary is something which is quite difficult to describe because a lot of people have their own weird definitions of it. Effectively what it means is you don't identify it as male or female and the barrier for entry is basically non-existent. This is where, where the likes of the attack helicopter meme or Pierce Morgan claiming to be a penguin came about because there is a list of various different genders that you can identify as and be non-binary. This can range from being a demi-boy or gender queer or gender fluid to genders that sounds incredibly strange when you look at the definition. I can't quite remember the name of it,
Starting point is 00:18:52 but there is a gender which is 100% of one gender and then also a bit of an other. gender as well. There's another one which is like your gender is like water. Your gender is like space. Your gender's like fire. You can only have this particular gender if you are autistic. So these are like people making up their own ways of describing themselves. And it feels very much like a fad.
Starting point is 00:19:20 And this goes along with a lot of the pronouns that these people use. I remember being at a party a couple of years ago when someone announced that they had new pronouns and a lot of people applauded them and it felt like a way of getting attention. Nowadays, people are a lot less suppressed than they ever have been, even if you're quite a hardline intersectional activist. You can't seriously compare times now that they were 50 years ago. And so it's a lot harder to claim that you are a victim. However, if you're non-binary and nobody understands you, it's a very easy way to earn some oppression points. And we see, like, A lot of middle class women doing this.
Starting point is 00:19:59 Laurie Penny, for example, claims that she is non-binary. And she comes from a very well-off background. You know, she's educated in a prestigious university. She goes all around the world writing. And so just saying that she's a woman isn't enough oppression anymore. But she can claim to be non-binary. And now, you know, she is more of a victim. So you've got to listen to her more.
Starting point is 00:20:23 And a lot of it seems like a power play. And to simply identify, now is trans, that gives you that oppression status. You're now more oppressed than other groups. You therefore get the talking stick so you can control the conversation. And people always talk about the oppression that trans people face the fact that, you know,
Starting point is 00:20:40 the fact that, you know, there are members of the public who are actively hateful. Absolutely. And I wouldn't pretend to know what it's like to be a trans person. Do you find that people are intolerant on a day-to-day basis? Have you? Okay. No. I've actually found the vast, vast, vast, vast majority of people to not care.
Starting point is 00:21:01 And that's exactly what I want. I want to be able to just go outside and do whatever it is I need to do in the day. And I don't get treated any differently to anyone else. And that's the experience that I've had, even at the earliest times of my transition, I'm not saying that I've never had any drama or I've had a couple of people for abuse at me in the past. Like, that's absolutely happened. But the overwhelming majority of my experience has been positive that people generally are quite decent and they don't want to hurl abuse.
Starting point is 00:21:33 Like they're not hateful deep down. They don't care. And so when I hear about how we got record levels of transphobia, record levels of abuse, I don't see it. I don't see it with some of my friends either because I do have other trans friends, obviously. And they don't suffer this either. So I've got to ask the question, where is this?
Starting point is 00:21:56 We're hearing about more and more transphobia, but where is this coming from? Like, who are the victims in this? It's kind of like immigrants as well. There's a lot of evidence that people, if you measure reported hate crimes, they're on the rise. But if you ask the public, if you take a random symbol of the public and you sample them, hate crimes have never been lower than they are right now. So more people are reporting them. But if you ask an ordinary person, have you been a victim of a hate crime?
Starting point is 00:22:23 the statistics are dropping rapidly. So it's this imbalance between people reporting more and actually the level of offence dropping rapidly. Of course, that goes back to Posey Parker, who was then, you know, reported to the police based on a hate crime of simply having a disagreement with people online. Well, let's talk about this, because, as you know, we had her on the show, the video was taken down because it was hate speech,
Starting point is 00:22:51 which, quote, caused, or incited hatred or violence. What do you make of that having seen that video? Well, I don't think that Posey was inciting violence at all. Was she inciting hatred? I don't think so. I think inciting hatred is something which is very hard to define. I do think that there is intolerance of trans people, certainly.
Starting point is 00:23:14 But I don't think that in itself should be a crime. And I think that people should be allowed to listen to her. Whether I agree with what she says or not, And there are things, in particular with her language, that I did disagree with, like, when she would use terms talking about, like, this idea that we're walking to intimidate, that we're lying to people. Pretending. Pretending. Like, I can disagree with that language. But she gains my sympathy once she starts to be silenced for it.
Starting point is 00:23:44 Like, she isn't calling for violence. She isn't using terms that are, like, outright slurs, as it were. It's just more of a walk-around use of language. And we're walking on very tricky ground if we're going to stop someone from talking and I have to stop policing language they use it. Now, if she was calling trans-beef like trannies and stuff like that,
Starting point is 00:24:06 then that might be a bit of a different situation, but she wasn't. And she should be free to express her opinions on this, just as I should be free to disagree with her. One of the key issues that, sorry, Frank. No, no, no, go, go, go. No, no, because I was going to say, Now, we were talking about a hate speech and incitement to violence.
Starting point is 00:24:24 A number of trans activists who would say that misgendering somebody is hate speech and incitement to violence and is in self-anacted violence. I mean... No, of course it's not. Yes, words are an active violence. Of course it's not. I've seen it as well. When people will suggest that, yeah, to misgender someone is indeed an act of violence.
Starting point is 00:24:47 Of course it's not. It's not violent. you can say it's rude, you can say it's disrespectful, and again, that goes into the kind of person that we're talking about. I would certainly say it's disrespectful to refer to someone like Blair White as a man, but it would be, is it as disrespectful to refer to someone who, again, I know I keep on mentioning the beard reference, but I've come across a lot of so-called trans women who have beards. Is it disrespectful to them? It's society-wise, probably not. And a lot You're really talking about passing there, aren't you?
Starting point is 00:25:21 Again, yes, I am. But it's not, even if you were to misgender myself or Blair White, it's not hate speech, and it's not violence against us. It's just rude. And like surely people have the freedom to be rude. Like, I can take my, if someone's going to misgender me, I can just walk away from that conversation. I can choose to remove myself from that,
Starting point is 00:25:43 and I don't have to deal with that person. But that's very different from calling the statement. to try and silence them. And so I don't want to talk to this person, therefore nobody else can. Because one day, that power could be used against me. And it probably would in that kind of situation because a lot of these people I do have agreement with.
Starting point is 00:26:01 But it's not violence. It's misgendering isn't violence. Using the wrong pronouns isn't violence. And especially when we have the non-binary elements into it, when we have people saying that they want to identify as whatever and use these magical pronouns, that you've never really heard before. I've never been a part of any kind of dialogue,
Starting point is 00:26:24 but they're not being forced on you. And you're expected to use those pronouns. And if you don't, you're committing a hate crime. That's kind of what they're pushing for. When they try and compare using wrong pronouns, using misgendering as an act of violence. I really hope YouTube take down this video that we're doing. Because then we can accuse them of transphobia.
Starting point is 00:26:45 That would be brilliant. But it's interesting what you're saying. Do you think that this actually damages the trans cause? Yeah, absolutely. It paints the image that we are irrational, that we are incredibly aggressive, that we don't have any kind of critical thinking on to who we are. And most importantly, that we are perpetual victims.
Starting point is 00:27:08 Like, when I started my transition years ago, it didn't go off to the easiest start. I lost a lot of friends. I had some difficulties with my family, but was able to persevere and get over it. As a result, I've now made an incredible life for myself. I have a fantastic group of friends. My relationship with my parents has never been stronger.
Starting point is 00:27:31 I have a good job. I've been able to take myself out and do very interesting things throughout the world. And I've started my YouTube channel, which has really taken off. I'm in no way a victim. And I hate the assertion that trans people are being victims. And that's one of the narratives that this is pushing, that we are these weak, pathetic individuals that have to have others nanny us
Starting point is 00:27:52 and you have to respect us and if you don't, then you could cause our suicides and you could also then be thrown in jail, you could be removed from social media, you could lose your job. And then when you've got your typical layman on the street, why would they want to interact with us?
Starting point is 00:28:09 If their impression of us is that we are so weak that we have to call the police every time our feelings are hurt. It makes us look pathetic. It makes us look authoritarian. And I'm an individualist. I don't like groupthink ideologies.
Starting point is 00:28:29 Why I'm very much against the likes of fascism and communism. Communism in particular is bizarrely prevailing within the trans community. But it is. Since we're defining things, One of the issues where I disagree with the pose he said the most was probably around gender dysphoria because I don't remember the exact words that she used, but essentially I think she was quite unwilling to
Starting point is 00:28:53 acknowledge that it happens. Yeah. What is gender dysphoria? Yeah. So gender dysphoria is something which is admittedly quite hard to explain and understand. It is effectively a discomfort between your real biological sex and the way in which your mind feels as though it should have been wired. Now, there is currently no real answer as to what causes gender dysphoria. There are various different theories from the way in which your brain is wired to social raising, but I would say
Starting point is 00:29:26 certainly the latter doesn't ring true to me. But effectively, that is what is a transsexual person, that they have gender dysphoria. And so you transition as a way of treating it. And it's recognized as a medical condition. It is. However, there are trans activists who are trying to get that removed. And that is a terrifying prospect for me. I relied on medical treatment, in particular through the NHS, for a lot of my transition. Apart from my face, I've had like gender reassignment surgery, I've had my hormones, I've had various different therapies or related to it. And so it's the medical aspect is certainly real.
Starting point is 00:30:04 This is another point where I conflict a lot with trans activists because they think that anyone can just choose to be trans. whereas my argument is, and always has been, that we are, we can't really control who we are. But we have this condition. We treat it by transitioning. And yeah, we've put a border on the walls, a border on gender. But they want to open it and simply declare that anyone can identify as whatever they want. And therefore, they are the same as me. I've had to go through a lot to get away to where I am.
Starting point is 00:30:40 and I think really that should be respected. I think India Willoughby actually said the same thing when she was on the show. She said the demedicalization of trans is a problem. Let me ask you this. And it's quite an unpleasant question for me to ask, but people do say this. So I just want to get your take on it.
Starting point is 00:30:58 What about the argument that people sometimes feel like they're in the wrong body, they've got too many hands, right? They've got two hands that they should really have only one hand. People say this, right? And I'm not saying this from my perspective. I'm just putting the counter argument that some people say that being trans is like a medical condition. It is. That is in your head.
Starting point is 00:31:22 But if someone came in and said, well, I've got too many hands, doctor, please chop off one hand and one foot and one ear. We wouldn't go with that, right? Well, not really, no. Like, that just seems to be some, like, why are they doing that? What is the motivation behind some moment? wanting to just say, well, I identify as a one-handed person. Rather than, like, when I do a transition, I don't know what, like, I'm not really doing any kind of harm to myself by doing it, whereas a self-mutilation is actually stopping
Starting point is 00:31:55 you from being able to perform certain tasks. Like, for example, if you lose your hand, you can't really do anything with it. You know what I mean? I, I, we do always hear this argument of, like, well, we can self-ident. When people pull up these, you know, trans-abled. people who self-identify as being disabled and it might actually take steps to cripple themselves and to follow that. Now, that's not a subject I've really looked into.
Starting point is 00:32:24 All I can comment on is what the science is on being transsexual person. Which I know that there, whilst there is no conclusive answer, there is certainly something there and it's certainly enough to be recognised. but I would say that if you're the other thing is not really changing the way in which people have to perceive you if that makes sense yeah
Starting point is 00:32:45 you're a person with one hand is not demanding to be recognized as a new as a different whatever yeah in a way I would say that they are I wouldn't really see a lot of correlation there like I've only really considered the actual pathway which I've had to go through
Starting point is 00:33:03 I would say just simply compare me to someone who is chopped off that hand is a bit disrespectful. Yeah. And where do you stand on another argument, Posey Head, which was the thin end of the wedge, we're saying, well, you know, if, you know, somebody has to acknowledge that you are a woman and that they have to acknowledge and use certain pronouns,
Starting point is 00:33:24 eventually it means a sliding scale, and then we get trans women in Olympic sports and, you know, obliteration of women's spaces, etc., etc., etc. Well, it's a slippery slope, fancy, basically. basically. Not everything, that's taking a very black and white view of the world. I can certainly understand concerns around that, for example, as we mentioned earlier, about trans athletes, and I think that there are some issues where trans people might actually have to kind of take a step back. But it should never be an all or nothing situation. It should never be a case of, oh,
Starting point is 00:33:57 either we can compete in the Olympics or we can't even use bathrooms. Like, that's amazing. That's quite an extreme response, whatever way you are on that scale. I think that there are some instances where trans women can back off. Example being like rape crisis centers. There's one in Vancouver, which had its funding pulled because a trans woman basically contested the fact that they didn't allow trans women in there. And this is a centre which had a lot of vulnerable women in it. people who have gone through a lot of abuse by males.
Starting point is 00:34:37 And I've seen these photos of this trans woman, so to speak, who very, very low effort, like no efforts at all, basically like a guy, but was allowed into a rape crisis centre, taking photos naked in the bathroom. So this kind of thing does happen. And I think around very vulnerable people, there might have to be a little bit more of a barrier there. But I would say that a bathroom or a changing room
Starting point is 00:35:00 is a very different to like a space for vulnerable, a truly vulnerable people. Okay. And it's a sensible, you know, it's a sensible point you're making that we need to take every, you know, situation and judge it on its own merits. It has to be taken like that. You can't simply push that all trans women are automatically women and we're therefore biological women because we simply identify as such. Like, there's, the whole debate requires so much nuance. My main concern with, one of my biggest concerns with the way the debate is going as nuances going through the window. It's either trans women or biological women and therefore look at Big Bertha over there with Pinetelis,
Starting point is 00:35:42 that's a biological woman there. Or it's the case of like, no, these are all like mutilated freaks who have huge problems and it's cruel to even refer to them as a woman. So I've seen that argument be used by gender critical feminists at times that referring to me with female pronouns or anything like that, is an act of cruelty, and it's simply an act of violence on them if I was to even ask them, not demand that they do it, but simply ask them to do so is considered violence to them. So there are two very strange extremes in this debate. And, you know, we always talk about, you know, the LGBT, I and all the rest of it. And we, you know, from the outside, it's seen as this big, homogenous group. Everybody walks around with rainbow flags. Everybody's
Starting point is 00:36:26 happy and loving all the rest of it. What I didn't realize is that there's a, there's a, there's an enormous tension between the trans community and the lesbian community. Yeah. Could you just delve a little bit into that and then why there is such tension between the two? Yeah. So one of the reasons for that is with the main prominence of trans people in these spaces over the last couple of years, and especially with the mantra of trans women are biological women, because that's what they mean when they say trans women are women,
Starting point is 00:36:55 not just that we are socially considered women, but we are biological women. there's the notion that turning down a trans woman for sexual purposes or whatever is a transphobic action now this is something which does happen when you have a trans like where you'll have like a trans woman asking a lesbian out and the lesbian says no and a trans woman oh you're a fucking transphob
Starting point is 00:37:20 in fact this happened to a friend of mine she met a trans woman wasn't actually aware that she was trans until they probably like met up realized she had a penis, said, I'm not interested in that. She was considered transphobic for doing so. And she's someone who is very much involved in this very woke, like queer lefty space. And she was considered transphobic for saying that.
Starting point is 00:37:45 So you get this like conflection where lesbians and gay men as well are being told that they have to accept trans people as potential partners. And to not do so is considered an act of hate. And that can be a very intimidating thing when you've been very much involved in this queer community for years. And people in the queer community rarely venture out of it. And so you're now being told, by the way, you now have to be open to sleeping with these people. If you don't, then you're on your own into that hateful Tory Trump-filled world. And so they don't know what to do. And when they do speak out against it, they are considered that, you know, they'll be called turfs.
Starting point is 00:38:27 they'll be caught, you know, like have all sorts of abuse thrown at them. Now, some of these people are genuinely transphobic. I've come across quite a few who are. But a lot of them aren't. A lot of them just have concerns. And they're still branded as figures of hate, even when what they're saying is just, look, I'm just attracted to other women, biological women.
Starting point is 00:38:47 What's wrong with that? Like, you know, we've gone for years of fighting for, like, gay equality. And the idea that, you know, it's perfectly fine for a man's sleep with a man or a woman to sleep with another woman. And now all of a sudden, that's being told that you're being transphobic for doing that. Like, that's utterly bizarre. Like, it's the same way when you see,
Starting point is 00:39:07 because I've seen a couple of straight people be accused of being transphobic for not sleeping with trans people. So it doesn't just impact the lesbians or the gays. It impacts everyone. It's kind of straightforward, though. I mean, if you're a lesbian, you're by definition not attracted to people with penises.
Starting point is 00:39:23 Yeah. And if you're a straight man, again, you're not attracted to people. I mean, I, so they're basically saying that you're bigger for having any sexual preferences whatsoever.
Starting point is 00:39:34 In fact, Rachel McKinnon, who I mentioned earlier, trans... Huge and successful cyclist. Very successful. It's incredible. Oh, so good.
Starting point is 00:39:42 So, so she did a bizarre thread on Twitter. By the way, I feel guilty criticizing Rachel McKinnon because the Russians have been doing this before. Yeah. In fact,
Starting point is 00:39:53 you point in it. Yeah. So she did a weird fred a couple of months ago where she actually said that sexual preferences are immoral and that you should be open to having fun with anyone of any gender or sex or whatever. But the only acceptable sexuality is pansexuality, which is like bisexuality, but you would also sleep with people who identify as chairs. I like it.
Starting point is 00:40:21 If you're straight, you're now right wing. One of the things I talk to, I know you were into it by Carl Saganovacadr recently, and I talked to him about this. I mean, one of the things that seems to me to be happening is, and him and I talked about this, if you were to poll the general public on this issue, and you were to say, is someone who has transitioned from being male
Starting point is 00:40:42 to being female, a biological woman? I think, you know, I'm pretty comfortable that it would be in the high 90s of people who would say no to that. Well, of course, because you've told them this person is biologically male and they've now transitioned to be a woman. Right. You don't change biology when you transition. You do everything you can to fit that biology and make yourself as comfortable as you can be.
Starting point is 00:41:02 But transition is never 100% perfect. And yet, if I were to go on national television or radio or write a piece in the newspaper saying a person who's transitioned is not biologically the sex which they claim to now be or the gender which they claim to now be, you would be destroyed overnight. Yeah. So essentially, we have. now live in a situation where the opinion of a tiny minority of people is the one that is allowed to be heard and to be spoken. And the opinion of the overwhelming majority of the public is the one that is not allowed to be spoken and not allowed to be heard. Yeah. Is that accurate? I would say so, yeah. Like, it's controversial. I've even seen trans women be banned from Twitter
Starting point is 00:41:52 simply for saying that they're biological males. They're not calling other people. They're not calling other people. Biblical males are simply saying, look, I'm a trans woman. Okay, I see myself as a woman, but I am biologically male. Someone pretty much said that exact message, and she got banned for it. I know countless trans women who that has happened to. Wow. Even we can't say it. Even we're not allowed to say it. And what do you think are the long-term implications of that? I think it gives a very misleading idea of what we are. I think it makes it look as though we are a lot more,
Starting point is 00:42:24 unhinged. We really deny the reality that it also sidelines biological women and biological men as well because it says that a man's issue is no longer about testicular cancer or women's issue is no longer about pregnancy.
Starting point is 00:42:42 And you see this when you have these more intersectional, more progressive women's rights groups in particular where they'll be considered talking about periods is problematic. if you've got trans women in the room because not all women have periods. Not all women can get pregnant.
Starting point is 00:42:59 It's the same, you see it with men's groups as well where not all men have, you know, like some men have periods. Some men can give birth. And there was a weird, I can't even remember the name of the group, there was a group a couple of days ago that was saying, like, yes, men can get pregnant. ACLU it was.
Starting point is 00:43:14 Yes, that's it. The great thing about that is, you know, if men could get pregnant, they'd do it better. We still smash a gender player. Absolutely. We'd be 18% better at being pregnant. Yeah. Well, it's just, it's clown world, isn't it? Yeah. It's absolute clown world.
Starting point is 00:43:34 And it's become that for everyone. And it's why I find that such a strange issue that is now at the forefront of everything we talk about. It's a small group of extremists who have successfully infiltrated and effectively kicked me out of what should be my own community. And they're now effectively taken on the world. and everyone's bending the knee to them. They are acting as they're some sort of weird authority to these, like, again, like they, even when you look at a lot of the issues
Starting point is 00:44:02 that they campaign on in the name of trans rights, a lot of them have nothing to do with being trans. Like, as an example, the NUS National Union Students, their trans group has fighting for such trans issues as prison abolition. Like, which is convenient for their former trans officer who was suspended a mixed, serious allegations of gross sexual misconduct for whipping their dick out at work.
Starting point is 00:44:29 And there's faced more serious allegations after it. And I just wanted to mention that because the NUAS is, there's a serious point. The NUAS is purposely burying it. So you have someone who's been accused of sexual abuse way up in the NUAS. And the NUS is completely shutting down any discussion of it. And they had access to vulnerable people. Right. But going back on...
Starting point is 00:44:51 Has there been a court case about it? I'm aware that there is a police matter. However, this has been going on for way more than a year at this point. And the ennuias is simply, as far as I'm aware, this person's still being paid by the NUS. Oh, wow. Yep. Jess Bradley, look them up. I have to say them.
Starting point is 00:45:13 Going back to the point I was trying to make, they campaign, a lot of these are hardline communists. They're ones who put in Marxist ideology into their, their conferences, but they do it in the name of people like me. And then they say, well, if you're right, how can you be right wing and be trans? How can you vote Tory and be trans? And I'm like, well, because I'm an individual, I have my own political beliefs. Like I consider myself a classic liberal. I am not in any way a collectivist.
Starting point is 00:45:42 But with the way that identity politics is, you have so many people who kidnap it for their own political gains and we're seeing that more obvious than any other group and with the trans group like we have, there are actual like anti for activists within a lot of trans organizations and everyone's perfectly fine with that.
Starting point is 00:46:04 Well, Francis is a very tolerant and open accepting person but when you said you voted Tory you fucking lost him. Typical lefty evils! Get rid! Yeah. It does seem like, you use the phrase,
Starting point is 00:46:22 Clown World, it just seems that we're just descending into lunacy. And so you look at, you know, what's happening with, you know, the LGGBQ. You're fucked me. You're fine. You've got them wrong order. And I forgot plus as well. Do you think part of this is the fact that we've made such huge strides in equality? We've made such huge strides in tolerance.
Starting point is 00:46:46 You know, where, you know, of course there's still homophobia. Of course there is. but compared to even 30 years ago, you know, we live in so much more of a fairer society that really we don't have as much to rail against as before, so we need to find smaller and smaller things to get upset about. Yeah, absolutely. We have progressed so much, even in my own lifetime.
Starting point is 00:47:09 I mean, hell, when I first transitions about 10 years ago, it was a completely different landscape to what it is now. Now there is actual acceptance. A lot of people will, accept me for who I am. They will treat me just as they would treat anyone else. Things have never been better. But you're right. We have to always find other ways of making ourselves victims. There has to be something we can rail against, especially with all of these like going of like interest groups within like the oppression Olympics. They have to be oppressed by something.
Starting point is 00:47:39 Otherwise they're completely obsolete. So this is how you find problems like say manspreading, for example. Like that's not really a problem. That's not really comparable to. Look how progressive we are. We're fucking smashing it. We're taking as little space as possible to give you as a woman the opportunity to speak your mind and feel comfortable in the space. Absolutely. Yeah, so I was just going to say,
Starting point is 00:48:02 crossing our legs and therefore crushing our own genitals. Yes, that's the level of progressivism you see on this show. But yeah, like we've moved on so much that we are picking and choosing all the tiniest little issues. And like, again, the transmissible. movement isn't the only one that's doing it. You name an intersectional movement. They're doing it as well.
Starting point is 00:48:24 But I noticed it the most with the trans one where it is all of these weird issues. They keep on demanding trans rights. I was at a trans pride march a couple of months ago filming for my YouTube channel. And one of the guys on a microphone, remember him shouting like, when I say we have, you say trans rights.
Starting point is 00:48:42 And then he realized straight away what he said. And he was like, no, no, no, no, no, we don't have rights. And I was thinking, what, rights do we not have? What are I not allowed to do that anybody else will be allowed to do? Like, I cannot think. And the only things that could well be is like, oh, well, you're not allowed to compete in the Olympics.
Starting point is 00:49:02 Like, well, I've got no desire to compete in the Olympics. I've got no desire to join like a women's board or anything. So what else is that really to accomplish? So they have to find all of these pointless arguments and fights. and the actors, though, we're in the dark ages, almost, and it's never been worse. I know you say that you personally don't want to compete in the Olympics, but I think that's where a lot of the complications come in
Starting point is 00:49:29 because there are people who want to sit on a board. There are people who want to be on an all-was-women short list. There are, and this is where it's a very, as you said, it's a very complicated and very nuanced issue, and unfortunately, we've run out of time. So we don't have the time to explore it. Perhaps another time we can get you back on the show. and talk more about it.
Starting point is 00:49:48 But for now, our final question is always the same question. It's what's the one thing that we're not talking about? It's a society that we really need to be talking about. We really need to be talking. Well, does it have to be related to transit? No, not at all. Okay. So one thing we're really not talking about enough is the rise of the far left
Starting point is 00:50:06 within society in general. What we're seeing in particular with the Labour Party at the moment, when we've got members, former members of the Communist Party, being engaged in it, that they are becoming a lot more authoritarian and nobody is questionless. We're too fixated on the far right, which is, of course, a concern.
Starting point is 00:50:25 But the current way in which our society is going is almost down a dark path. I mean, we're pretty close. I don't know whether this is going to go out before the election or afterwards, but, you know, we're quite close to a point where Jeremy Corbyn could be in power by the time this comes out. I don't know if it was that close, to be honest.
Starting point is 00:50:43 I know what you mean. It's just a joke. about him being unelectable, that's all. But yeah, I mean, I have a lot of concerns with things like freedom of speech as well. I mean, freedom of speech is certainly something we're not addressing enough. But right now, I think the far left is something which is on the rise. It's like absolutely be concerned about the far right. But look at everywhere that socialism has ever been tried.
Starting point is 00:51:07 Like, everywhere it's been a catastrophic failure. Except Venezuela. Except Venezuela. Yeah, it's an alien. And it's not real. Well, it's not real, not real socialism. was it? Well, there is no real socialism,
Starting point is 00:51:18 unless it's successful, which is never, then. Anyway, Ros of Don, thank you so much for coming on. We will put a link to your YouTube channel in the description of video. Thanks for watching. We'll see you again
Starting point is 00:51:28 in a week with another brilliant episode. Take care. See you the next week.

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