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is, particularly when it comes to

1:41

gender is a lock to be

1:43

ashamed of immortality. I do last

1:45

decade or so in what we

1:47

call the gay community. The some

1:49

kind of person sitting on a

1:51

gay man in particular who's not

1:53

trans really took off. You know,

1:55

pick up a controller really web

1:57

for you know, so the anybody.

2:00

It going out of line

2:02

was kind of lapdog. So

2:04

without any kind of consultation

2:06

or fuck suddenly that days

2:08

Simpsons was spotted up by

2:10

Agenda Movement. Ally,

2:14

Welcome back to the Brendan O'neill. So

2:16

with me, Brendan O'neill and my special

2:18

guest this week down with Robots Dallas

2:21

Welcome to the So. I'd rather than

2:23

as I got less talk about your

2:25

book Gay. Same, the rise of gender

2:27

ideology and the new homophobia. The so

2:29

much in this bugs I was taught

2:31

you about. It's funny, it's insightful. It's

2:33

dissenting in relation to some of the

2:35

new ideologies of our time. I guess.

2:38

I I want to kick off by

2:40

asking you about the title of the

2:42

bookcase. Shame. And I was just thinking.

2:44

About how that would strike the average

2:46

punters. He walks into a bookshop in

2:48

sees his book on the shelves. Because

2:50

we live in an era of. Pride.

2:53

Pride is omnipresent Econ escape. The pride

2:55

flag flutters from every building in the

2:58

world. Will own

3:00

encouraged to feel pride towards our sexuality

3:02

or gender identity or whatever it might

3:04

be at. It's always struck me as

3:06

weird to someone would be. Proud

3:09

of their sexuality. Just as as with that, they

3:11

might be ashamed of it. But pride is the

3:13

buzzword of our times. And yet you come out

3:15

with his book called Day Same And to just

3:17

give us a sense of what you mean a

3:19

broad sense of what you mean by Guy Sang

3:21

and Wife Cold and I. Am I

3:24

able to get a title to resist

3:26

Rarely I'm of because I was approached by

3:28

the publisher and. Forum. Which

3:30

is an imprint of Space Press on.

3:32

They came to me with the idea

3:34

of putting up of like this together.

3:37

Specifically. About gay men

3:39

and like or gender is some

3:41

gender ideology. On.

3:44

And. You know, out

3:46

about ten seconds at all. but it's

3:48

gotta be called gay gay say ah

3:50

I'm it seem quite obvious. Good

3:53

title, really. I'm. Upset.

3:56

about ten twenty years ago and there was

3:58

a club in london that did

4:00

a kind of funny tongue-in-cheek

4:03

anti-pride event called Gay

4:05

Shame. So that was kind of rattling around in my

4:07

head. But basically

4:10

what I thought was that, you

4:12

know, as you say, we're always being exhorted to

4:14

be proud. And I

4:17

was thinking, well, you know, there is, particularly

4:19

when it comes to genderism, a

4:22

lot to be ashamed of in what's happened

4:24

over the last decade or so in

4:27

what we call the gay community, which

4:29

I prefer to call the gay population. So

4:33

it was kind of riffing on that really. It's

4:36

interesting because I've seen the book in

4:39

a few bookshops, which

4:42

has not always been the case with what they

4:44

call gender critical books. So

4:46

I'm wondering sometimes whether

4:49

the staff just don't quite

4:51

notice what the book

4:53

is. Because I mean, with Helen Joyce, you know, it was

4:55

called Trans, with Abigail Shriver's

4:57

Irreversible Damage, mine is,

5:00

you know, Gay Shame. So maybe they

5:02

think it's about gays being

5:04

ashamed of themselves or something. But

5:07

it's interesting that happened. Or it could just be that

5:09

I'm a bloke. Yeah. Who

5:12

knows? Yeah, I expect there's

5:14

a mix of those two things. I

5:16

think probably some, you know, hip bookshop

5:19

workers saying, oh, this is a cool book about

5:21

why you should be super proud of your identity.

5:24

And it's written by a man, so what's not to like?

5:28

So let's start digging down into the themes of

5:30

the book. So it opened, the

5:32

book opens quite dramatically

5:34

really, where you describe being in

5:38

London in around, I think 2007. And

5:41

you see some young gay people

5:44

and you really marvel at how

5:46

relaxed they seem in comparison with

5:49

gay people in the past who sometimes

5:51

faced persecution or

5:53

felt bad about their sexuality.

5:55

And you have in this modern era,

5:58

Young gay people who seem very relaxed. Like in

6:00

the Redskins and and quite comfortable with

6:03

who they are and then you. Fast

6:05

forward to today and we has. Not.

6:08

The Gay community as as it

6:10

was referred to but the Lgbt

6:12

T plus Smooth Movement T for

6:14

Transgender She's a queer and as

6:16

you say plus for your guess

6:18

is as good as mine are

6:20

necessary to. You know that the

6:22

name of the movement has changed,

6:24

the vibe of the movement has

6:26

changed and that kind of relaxed

6:28

atmosphere that you witnessed a. Couple.

6:31

Of decades ago has changed to so tell

6:33

us a little bit about how. The.

6:35

Game movement, the gay community,

6:38

Or the gay population is either side

6:40

to it became the Lgbt t plus

6:42

me than what happened that what was

6:44

that about my it was very very

6:46

quit I'm a so. It

6:48

was less of a long march, so the

6:50

institutions are more like a quick sprints. You.

6:53

Can almost literally Norris Town said

6:55

he weeks in two thousand and

6:57

fourteen. I'm that

6:59

suddenly I'm. Lg.

7:01

Be as you say became Lgbt

7:04

and then resold else to it's

7:06

all these other numbers occasionally symbols

7:08

for added to it. But.

7:11

Without any kind of consultation or

7:14

thoughts. I'm suddenly

7:16

that day institutions was followed

7:18

up. By. An

7:20

Agenda Movements. I'm. In

7:22

the book I talk about stone wall which

7:24

is the British a book of which was

7:27

the that. For. Most gay

7:29

rights institution Adam. In

7:32

Britain and how they

7:34

under former see A

7:36

response was recently recanted

7:38

i'm A When she

7:40

took over she basically

7:42

apologized for not including.

7:45

T. In the Lg be

7:47

before and immediately sort of

7:49

rejects though most to. Become

7:52

Lgbtq toss organization. So

7:54

these things happen very

7:56

quickly. And without anyone really

7:58

thinking about the or. Having to be

8:01

coaxed or persuaded, or any discussion.

8:04

On my give another exams in the

8:06

book about the I'm London but last

8:08

I loved and Lesbian and Gay Film

8:10

festival which almost exactly the same time

8:13

became Be as high Slather Lgbt to

8:15

Plus festival. And. Dumb! The

8:17

organizers are saying things like, you know, oh

8:19

and more diverse. Now we need to be

8:22

more inclusive. The. So it was

8:24

all these kind of, you know, the usual kind of. Scuse

8:27

and T buzzwords the used and ever

8:30

I'm kind of went along with that.

8:32

I'm just in that way the progressive

8:34

institutions tend to do. You know when

8:36

a new. Idea. Comes along

8:38

they sort of except to a gets

8:40

rolled in ever. I'm psyched up. I.

8:43

Mean, I remember very clearly. I'm

8:45

at about this time fourteen or

8:47

fifteen writing as we all of

8:49

that email to someone and I

8:51

was writing the and issue isn't

8:53

Lgbt. And. Uncle oh well I better

8:56

put the t have my because everyone elses.

8:58

On I remember thinking them have lots a

9:01

it all the you know do I know

9:03

everything about this? Do I understand it is

9:05

this quite right and we how a discussion

9:07

about this. And that was

9:10

before I knew. You know, I

9:12

knew about ten percent by known how

9:15

about gender in the gender wrist movements.

9:18

I'm. So yeah, it just

9:20

it just happened very, very quickly

9:22

and a certain kind of person

9:24

the same kind of gay man

9:26

in particular who's. I'm.

9:29

Trans from our you know this

9:32

is not trans identified Really took

9:34

it up with i'm. You

9:36

know, picks up a continent. Really. Went for in.

9:38

I'm. So. That anybody so slightly

9:41

going out of line was kind of.

9:44

Black Com and I mean I read the

9:46

book, forgive several examples of that. On.

9:49

there was a very long standing

9:51

quite so those t t free

9:53

seat magazine called boys with a

9:55

zed to say how lucky i

9:57

was some and that had to

9:59

phone because the editor tweeted

10:01

something like, oh, well, why not just

10:03

give the LGB Alliance a fair hearing?

10:07

And immediately, there was a campaign by

10:09

activists online, the

10:11

advertisers were harassed and

10:13

immediately pulled all their

10:15

ads and made demonstrations

10:18

of fealty to genderism and

10:21

the whole thing, and it closed, and

10:23

that had been a gay run, gay owned business that had been

10:26

going for over 20 years. So

10:28

it seemed that there was a kind of

10:30

a section of the gay population that really

10:33

enjoys putting people in their

10:36

place, enforcing

10:38

rules. Now, I think

10:40

that's not necessarily a thing about the gay population in

10:42

particular, I think that's true about life in general, but

10:45

there is a certain distribution of

10:47

people with that personality. But

10:50

I think it comes out

10:53

more obvious in gay men, maybe

10:56

because there's an air

10:58

of wanting a kind of

11:00

revenge or

11:04

wanting to stamp back at somebody

11:06

or something. That

11:09

is a very interesting way of looking at

11:11

it. And I do wanna come back to the

11:13

question of why gay

11:16

men in particular, certain gay men in the public

11:18

life seem to be in the forefront of the

11:20

trans ideology. But to

11:22

begin with, let's talk about why it's a

11:24

problem for

11:26

the gay population, I guess we could just say

11:28

gay people, same sex attracted people, the thing you're

11:30

not allowed to say anything. Why

11:32

it's a problem that the tea

11:35

was added to LGB? Because of course,

11:37

you will have heard the argument many,

11:39

many times, without the tea, it's not

11:41

the same thing, you have to include

11:44

the tea, if you don't, you're some

11:46

kind of horrible monster. But

11:48

in the book, you open up with

11:51

an introduction called hello,

11:53

gender, goodbye, sex, and you talk

11:55

about the ways in which we don't say

11:58

same sex attraction anymore, we say, same

12:00

gender attraction, so a gay person is

12:02

someone attracted to the person of the

12:05

same gender, whatever that means. So

12:07

there has been a wholesale redefinition of

12:10

what it means to be a homosexual

12:12

person. So tell us a little bit

12:14

about why the inclusion of the T,

12:16

the whole idea of gender and the

12:18

ability to change one's gender. Why that's

12:20

so problematic for people who were traditionally

12:23

known as homosexuals. Well, it basically boils

12:25

down to the fact that you know,

12:27

you can't have homosexual without sex, you

12:29

know, without human sex. But

12:31

you know, unlike most things, basic

12:34

observable material reality is important

12:37

in terms of definitions. So

12:40

changing sex for gender is sorry to

12:42

use the word problematic across all number

12:44

of areas, particularly when it comes to

12:47

women, women's rights, women's spaces,

12:49

etc. For gay people

12:51

in particular, the

12:54

really bad thing, the really bad obvious

12:56

thing about it is what happens to

12:58

kids and teenagers. That you

13:00

know, you have camp little boys and

13:02

tomboy little girls. And this

13:05

ideology is saying, well, there's something wrong with you

13:07

that needs to be corrected. You

13:09

need to be your authentic self. And that will

13:12

involve puberty blockers, cross

13:14

sex hormones, and eventually surgeries.

13:17

You know, it's one of those

13:19

things that it's become so embedded in our culture

13:21

that it's hard to take

13:24

a step back and say, hold on, because, you

13:26

know, if somebody came to you and said, I

13:29

hate my right hand, I

13:32

need to have it removed, you would

13:34

immediately think that they were mad, or

13:36

there was something terribly wrong with them. And

13:39

that that needed addressing. But if

13:41

somebody, you know, and now even a child,

13:45

presents to healthcare and

13:47

says, you know, I don't

13:49

like my genitals, I don't like my body, then they're

13:52

tracked towards having them

13:55

removed or altered. And,

13:58

You know, this is this is obvious. The a crazy

14:00

idea you know we sort of greece of

14:02

as adults you know from the seventies. Going

14:06

backwards. You know there was such

14:08

changes or whatever. but. Enough

14:11

children. This is obviously insane and.

14:14

More. You have is a place like the

14:16

disconnect the Tavistock cent of as a place

14:18

where you know the physicians was or donkeys

14:20

okay you sumeia been okay it's lack of

14:22

the know Jp collapsed. Because

14:25

so many and of the kids were

14:27

presenting their and so I don't like

14:29

being gay. I'm just I'm ashamed. I'm

14:31

disgusted. Arms. I got: I'm

14:33

not a lesbian. I'm actually a boy.

14:36

I'm not game. I'm not gay man. I'm actually a

14:38

woman. all that kind of thing. Lies.

14:40

And obvious and three, a threat to

14:43

gay rights. sons. The.

14:45

Did Dignity and and the licensed

14:47

by the sexual people. Something

14:51

which is now the best way for

14:53

you as a rate based on you

14:56

with Austin and Lucky so far perfectly

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placed on a real not like advance

15:00

holding. Who. Really

15:03

know enough about some soda. Same

15:05

as I live in Austin and

15:08

only pay of he painted on

15:10

you. Know that little

15:12

in every state such as a terms and conditions reading that is the

15:14

same thing and it's and seats. Are a could increase in high

15:16

risk driving. I'll say scientists have insurance company in a

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16:13

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. But and and as

16:16

you say the speed with which this came about

16:18

is just sad grunts and a bit of the

16:20

speed with which it became embedded in our culture

16:22

is something that ought to be celebrated is really

16:25

mind blown. You describe really well in the but

16:27

when we come to the question of the new

16:29

homophobia and the way in which gender isn't as

16:31

you have her to and you describe you have

16:34

it. You have a very useful list of words

16:36

in your book and and what you mean by

16:38

them and one of the was ease his gender

16:40

is a you talk about the way in which

16:43

tend to islam has. Resuscitated Homophobic single

16:45

given rise to a new form

16:47

of homophobic thinking and one of

16:49

the best examples. As you've just

16:52

mentioned, that is what is being

16:54

done to gay kids t camp

16:56

boys all. Birds. Tomboy whatever

16:58

my base who are increasingly been put

17:00

on a conveyor belt off I guess

17:03

medical correction will be. You know where

17:05

we found ourselves in a world in

17:07

which we are medically experimenting on gay

17:09

kids and. Screwing. Up

17:12

their bodies in the process. so I'm

17:14

don't You sometimes feel like you're. Banging.

17:17

Your head against a brick wall When

17:19

you're trying to convince other members of

17:21

the gay population that it's a bad

17:24

thing to subject you know, gay boys

17:26

or guy girls to this kind of

17:28

incredibly incisive. Medical. Procedures and

17:30

surgery on the on the basis that

17:32

you know they must be something wrong

17:34

with them because they don't conform to

17:36

society's expectations of their sex. Yeah, I

17:39

mean what? what I find? His army

17:41

is very hard to debate or argue.

17:43

Be generous because they don't. They

17:45

don't engage on that level

17:48

that. a normal day or

17:50

conversations is on which is a blown

17:52

sort of move past that tennessee's which

17:54

are all false i'm so it's very

17:57

hard to get treats people either With

18:00

people that are unsure, it's much easier to talk

18:02

to. And

18:05

then you can go back and forth with

18:07

them and they can put forward their objections

18:09

or fears and you can discuss

18:12

those normally. With

18:14

the really hard-line gender activist

18:17

gay people, they've kind

18:19

of chosen their side and they can't

18:21

really deal with the difficulties

18:23

of it. I mean, I mentioned in the book

18:25

that even with people that aren't that fervent,

18:29

they're just so disturbed by what

18:31

this might lead to in

18:34

their thinking. They're so afraid of

18:36

what they might have to confront that they shut it down. It's

18:41

funny in the book I talk about how a

18:44

partner of a guy I know, there's a guy I know

18:46

who is a sex realist, who doesn't

18:49

agree with gender, whose partner is kind of

18:51

on board with gender just for a quiet

18:53

life. When the partner,

18:55

when they're discussing it, the partner will suddenly

18:57

say, just stop talking. No,

19:00

in an angry way, just

19:03

stop talking because they can't deal with it. And

19:05

after the book was published, I've had three

19:07

different people saying to me, oh, was that

19:11

me? Because they thought that

19:13

they'd said that because that's been the

19:16

case in three of my friends' relationships,

19:18

that they've talked to their partner about

19:20

it and the partner's just been, they've

19:23

had a kind of mental shutdown, because

19:25

they can't answer, they can't

19:27

engage because it's a very scary thing.

19:30

It's a horrible thing to have to

19:32

confront because it's happened so

19:35

much on the down low, as it were. But

19:38

when people realize what's actually

19:40

happened, it's quite a shocking moment.

19:42

It's a bit of a pan of the

19:44

apes moment. It's a kind of fall to

19:46

the ground, oh, my God moment.

19:48

And I think people are scared of that. So

19:51

I think what happens with the really extreme

19:54

cases of the sort of ardent genderist is

19:56

they maybe know that very far

19:58

distant in their minds, but they're not. going anywhere

20:00

near it because it would

20:03

knock their whole worldview so off

20:05

course. Yeah, absolutely. One of

20:07

the things that strikes me is that is the, again,

20:09

the speed with which it became acceptable

20:13

to save the

20:15

most extraordinary things about same-sex attracted people,

20:17

things that we would have recognized very

20:19

easily as homophobic or anti-gay just 10

20:21

or 15 years ago. So

20:24

if you look at, you know, what is,

20:26

I mean, lesbians in particular get an awful

20:28

time from genderism and

20:30

gender ideology and, you know,

20:33

the idea that lesbians, you know,

20:35

what's your problem with penises? Why don't you

20:37

like female dick, as they say? And, you

20:41

know, not only do they say this to

20:43

lesbians, but they try to enforce it on

20:45

them through pressuring them to have men who

20:48

claim to be

20:50

lesbians on their dating apps or in

20:52

their dating circles and so on. And,

20:55

you know, the BBC, which is

20:57

usually awful on all of these issues,

20:59

did an interesting piece a few years

21:01

ago where it talked to young lesbians

21:03

who felt increasingly under pressure to sleep

21:05

with men who claim to be lesbians.

21:07

And it just brings to mind what

21:09

people would say in the past, which

21:11

is that that lesbian just needs a

21:13

good seeing too. That will sort

21:15

her out. So in some cases,

21:17

it's classic homophobia rehabilitated in this

21:20

politically correct language, isn't it? Absolutely.

21:22

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I mean,

21:25

the thing that I mentioned in the book,

21:27

and I think put the tin hat on

21:29

this as a shining example of it, was

21:32

a terrible court case against

21:34

the LGBT Alliance on their

21:36

charity status, which was brought by mermaids and

21:39

Stonewall briefly and Jolie and Morm had something to

21:41

do with it. Where

21:43

I think it was Kate Harris from

21:45

the Alliance was on the

21:47

stand and the barrister

21:50

for mermaids was basically trying to

21:52

expose her as, you know, beyond

21:54

the pale for saying

21:57

that men can't be lesbians. And And

22:00

that's just, I mean, this is insanity. This is Britain

22:02

in, you know, this is two years

22:04

ago, this is 2022. And that's a

22:07

case in a British court. And

22:10

I mean, she was marvelous in her reply.

22:12

She, you know, she didn't take any nonsense

22:14

from him. But it's, it

22:17

just beggars belief. I mean, you have Nancy Kelly, who

22:20

is herself a lesbian, the

22:22

former CEO of Stonewall saying that lesbians

22:25

who refused to countenance men as

22:28

potential sexual partners were as bad

22:30

as anti-Semites. So they were sexual

22:32

racists. I mean, this is, you

22:35

know, insanity we're talking about is sort of old

22:37

lab joke, you know, oh,

22:39

I'm a lesbian trapped in a man's

22:41

body. And suddenly, that's, that's

22:43

not only acceptable, that's the right thing to say.

22:46

You know, this is just

22:48

crazy stuff. It really is. And

22:51

that case you mentioned where Kate Harris from the

22:53

LGB Alliance, she

22:55

broke down in tears, I think, at one point.

22:57

Yeah, yeah. I mean, can you imagine that? I

22:59

mean, it's just, I mean, it's

23:02

one of those things where I mean, so

23:04

many times, particularly, you know, I mean, it's

23:06

easing up maybe a bit now with

23:08

the cast report publication, but so

23:10

many times over the last 10 years, you've had to

23:12

sort of pinch yourself, because you

23:14

just can't believe what's happening. It was

23:17

when my forestarter lost the original judgment

23:19

in our employment tribunal. And

23:21

the judge said, saying that

23:23

there were two sexes was not a belief

23:25

worthy of respect in a democratic society. I

23:28

mean, this is this is nuts. And

23:31

as you say, the BBC and ITV who should

23:33

have been all over this, we're

23:36

not we're nowhere to be seen. In

23:38

the same way that they were nowhere to be seen. I'm had

23:40

in the 1980s, when there was lots

23:43

of homophobic stuff going on. So

23:46

it's just been, it's been

23:48

a hell of a ride. And it continues, you know, we're

23:51

still going to see a lot of this stuff, because So

23:54

much of it is still embedded in these, in

23:56

the institutions and across the world, across the Western

23:58

world in particular., You

24:00

know there are countries which are. Kind of

24:03

ahead of us in and dealing with

24:05

gender is and and their countries are

24:07

behind us. God. Knows what will

24:09

happen when I'm a labour government. Get

24:11

in because we don't know what the

24:14

makeup of the party. With.

24:16

With did I potentially like two hundred

24:18

three hundred new Labour mps mean god

24:20

knows what they're gonna be like on

24:23

this subject. Arms A So you know

24:25

at the moment we have people like

24:27

was treating and shabaneh Mahmud sort of

24:29

doing a little reverse ferrets. But.

24:33

The owners of the makeup of

24:35

the party's gonna be light Yeah,

24:37

exactly. So become Tunnel chickens. You

24:40

know things are looking a bit better at

24:42

the moment, but you know soon we're not

24:44

gonna have the the one woman. Fireballs is

24:46

Kenny Badenoch. Com Heath

24:48

who seems to be you know this of

24:50

like the the Wind a break for every

24:53

bloody mad idea in the country. I'm a

24:55

million on the smell of the of other

24:57

tories. Give a damn about it. And

25:00

it's a it's just incredible

25:02

We have this one woman

25:05

is undervalued, standing firm. And

25:07

using a brilliant doing the job that she's

25:09

paid to do? Yeah, I. Mean

25:11

I I every day I think. Thank God

25:13

for Kenney Baden the last under his bed.

25:16

She isn't gonna be season going to be

25:18

there for much longer. You know we're going

25:20

to have Anneliese Dogs or someone in that

25:22

role and and I you know that. So

25:24

good that is not good at that. That

25:27

is definitely not good. Either

25:29

you mention that the and where we told

25:31

by the Lt be alliance and I didn't

25:33

want to ask you about the treatment of

25:35

them and and the treatment of. Month

25:38

people. Like you you gotta as well

25:40

and you'll you'll get more of it It

25:43

now the of books been published and because

25:45

one of the striking thing is not only

25:47

was tight Harris V Lt Be Alliance. In

25:51

a court case, having to descend her right

25:53

to be a lesbian and having having to

25:55

say. Through. Her tears. You

25:57

know we will not have any man.

26:00

with a penis, tell us he's

26:02

a lesbian. Just extraordinary scenes. But

26:05

also alongside that, the LGB

26:07

Alliance has been monstered to

26:09

a staggering degree by the

26:11

genderists, including by gay

26:13

men in the public eye, who seem to

26:15

get a bit of a kick from hounding,

26:18

old queens as they would see some of

26:21

these people, if we're gonna be honest about

26:23

it. Old dyke,

26:25

old queens, that's how they look at some

26:27

of these kind of people who believe in

26:29

biological sex. They've

26:32

been called bigots, Nazis,

26:37

killers, the most awful people

26:39

in the world because they believe that sex

26:41

is real and because they believe that homosexual

26:43

people are a particular group who deserve their

26:46

own rights. Tell

26:48

us about what you make of

26:50

that monstering of anyone who dares to speak

26:52

out against genderism. It really is quite extraordinary

26:55

to see sometimes, isn't it? Yeah,

26:57

it's been very, very strange. I

27:00

think a lot of

27:02

that is coming from actors

27:05

and people in the media world, including

27:09

actors like Lord Cashman. Now

27:13

I have a lot of time for actors. I

27:16

work with a lot of actors, a lot of friends who are actors, but

27:18

I do think that actors always tend to, you

27:22

can divide them into two categories, which is

27:24

the most fun people, the most wonderful people

27:26

you'll ever meet. And the

27:28

other category is the worst, stupidest people you'll

27:30

ever meet. And

27:33

I think there's a lot of the latter category there

27:35

going on. I

27:37

think what happens is that they just

27:39

follow the herd and particularly in the

27:42

media world and the creative world. That

27:44

is necessarily and

27:46

always has been and always will be kind

27:49

of populated more by gay geeks

27:53

than any other kind of sector. And

27:55

gay geeks Have been a

27:57

massive problem with this stuff. The.

28:01

The. Kind of be. no. Creative.

28:04

A bit bulky. Muesli upper

28:06

middle class. And

28:08

Gender Nonconforming people and

28:11

you know them. And

28:14

who populate those industries?

28:17

Have fallen a lot for for this stuff

28:19

on. I think that the months during was

28:21

kind of and I was there was a

28:24

particular instance I can't remember what was that

28:26

when I am so like Stonewall and sense

28:28

out of a signal to all the source

28:30

celebrity get used to losing under sexual and

28:33

they all suddenly side tweeting and speechifying about

28:35

how awful the Lg Be Alliance was and

28:37

he was either been given a script like

28:40

the bat signal have gone out, wasn't. But.

28:42

I mean it's crazy because of you know,

28:44

the Lt be alliances basically. Doing.

28:46

Exactly what so more was doing before twenty

28:49

forty. What? What the detractors we

28:51

say? You know this, all this nonsense about

28:53

it being a far right see Griffin businesses

28:55

insanity is like of what we see costs

28:57

so much of an politics a moment is

28:59

that if you disagree with someone and they

29:01

must be a far right a creepy debt

29:04

said about the most bizarre. Bizarre.

29:06

The innocuous people and

29:08

organizations. I'm. An. Editor:

29:10

Just a I think what is I say this

29:13

in the book is that. People.

29:15

Can click coats as he opposes. They actually

29:17

have says a dream up. Imaginary

29:20

Nazis. And

29:22

the they would prefer to have their own

29:24

stuff with I will be. So

29:27

you know when I was impaled a

29:29

who is a black lesbian bar estate

29:32

who has worked for a decade some

29:34

domestic abuse and racial equality and was

29:36

gonna say she was some at the

29:38

meeting my the Lg Be alliance was

29:40

formed where he didn't even have a

29:43

night see tweeted about said. I'm

29:45

on the way home from the meeting and said I'm

29:47

watching the getting this together and before she even got

29:50

home you know before an hour the gone by. They.

29:52

Descended on a to tell her that she was.

29:55

Actually Klux Klan person one of

29:57

the to that released his sister.

30:00

When say. I'm not.

30:02

the thing about insanity though. Is

30:04

insanity used to proceed? Meets.

30:07

In the past. But. You know, the media

30:09

used to pick up on insane people. laugh

30:11

at them. Ah nice. We

30:13

all used to move on something else. Nowadays

30:16

with gender is around with several other

30:18

things. Are somehow

30:21

and I'm still not sure

30:23

how. with technology, all that

30:25

different seasons and that facades

30:27

hegemony? I don't know. Among

30:30

People and Mad Ideas Gas Foothold.

30:33

Already. Some of them to. And. Suddenly

30:35

you know you're getting segregation

30:38

in schools or. All.

30:40

About laws is gender madness. People

30:42

calling Alison Bailey a not say.

30:46

I'm and. Is. The kind

30:48

of thing that should immediately dropped the in

30:50

the same world will be dropped. These people

30:52

be laughed and dismissed. And

30:54

instead. They. Are encouraged sooner. we

30:56

have the situation Where the Arts Council on

30:58

with your a grant from the Lcp Alliance.

31:01

And I think the I'm i'm in

31:04

a Coffin estate you know is a

31:06

tiny amount of money. but there was

31:08

such a twitter storm and and instead

31:10

of sending so mean as if the

31:13

the staff at the Odds can suburb

31:15

all of a and over you know

31:17

emailing each other on the internet saying

31:20

oh this awful group of nazis It's

31:22

ah, minutes to blatant obvious nonsense A

31:24

it's episodes nonsense and I often you

31:26

know you mentioned Allah. The heroic Alison

31:29

Bally's is as you say is an.

31:32

As is there a black lesbian barista

31:34

who won her employment tribunal because she

31:36

lost work on the basis that she.

31:39

Supports gender critical views, are you?

31:41

She believes in biological sex and

31:43

she believes that homosexuality is a

31:45

real thing and and you have

31:47

all these activists months during her

31:49

and I often think to myself

31:51

i wonder if these in a

31:53

pig's head lgbt T types ever

31:55

thought that they would spend their

31:57

days pounding a black lesbian. He's.

32:00

These divided our lives to fighting for

32:02

homosexual rights is is weird how I

32:04

didn't see really matters to them except

32:06

when he suddenly doesn't Yeah. I'm.

32:08

That you know as long as your and

32:11

as he feels he to that cause whatever

32:13

it is. On. Your

32:15

identity is really important as soon as

32:17

you disagree with them. Then

32:19

why we to southern comprising a tool.

32:22

I'm a soda. You immediately become like

32:24

a pariah hands. you know, the olds

32:27

or you know, Uncle Tom. All that

32:29

kind of stuff comes out. Yeah, yeah.

32:31

so and let let's talk about. I

32:34

guess it's a difficult topic or prickly

32:37

topic. Which is and enough the the

32:39

rollers you've written about this presently as

32:41

in the book and we we published

32:43

a section in relation to this on

32:45

Spikes which and. Readers. Loved

32:47

And this is about why. And.

32:50

Some. Gay. Men

32:53

in the public eye are often

32:55

at the forefront of this new

32:57

weird movement and you know the

32:59

mean boys us be Lgbt T

33:01

movement and I did on a

33:03

loss you about Muscles in A

33:05

amongst. These. Kind of Young

33:07

Gay men? These or not even that

33:09

young in some instances. But amongst these

33:11

kind of gay men in the public

33:13

eye, a Skins sometimes proves to be

33:16

a controversial issue. And but what role

33:18

do you think? Missiles Any within sections

33:20

of the gay population, or certainly sections

33:22

of the game lobby. What role? Do

33:24

things And missiles Any place in relation

33:26

to this, because as we know and

33:28

you touch on this in the bus

33:31

a lot and the Trans ideology gender

33:33

isn't has a particularly finishes impact on

33:35

women on women's. spaces women's rights

33:37

women's safety women's dignity and so

33:39

to what extent is that kind

33:41

of rather dismissive attitude to women

33:43

in their needs a key part

33:45

of why some gay activists were the

33:47

forefront of this i think it's

33:49

a big part and i think it's

33:52

often i think it's it's a

33:54

thought you'd full i'm thinking sexism i'm

33:56

thinking misogyny on there was a

33:58

great type of any you've seen it,

34:00

it happened today on GB News, where

34:03

Tom Harwood was talking to Sharon

34:05

Davis, who's

34:07

a sexualist gender critical

34:10

campaigner. And

34:12

he was talking about the NHS revising

34:14

its guidance on single sex wards, so

34:16

that they are actually single sex rather

34:18

than single gender. And

34:21

he was talking to her and said, you know, this only affects

34:23

like 0.1% of the population, isn't

34:25

it a big deal? And Sharon Davis

34:27

said to him, women are 51%

34:29

of the population. You

34:32

know, I'm hesitating to come over as like,

34:34

the big feminist champion here, because I don't

34:37

think men can be feminists. I think it

34:39

was terribly embarrassing and that. But

34:42

there is something dismissive,

34:45

or I'm

34:47

thinking about gay

34:49

men in this context. I think what

34:52

happens is maybe they'll go to a club and they'll

34:54

see someone wearing a fantastic gown or whatever.

34:57

And they'll think, Oh, isn't gender

34:59

fluidity wonderful? Hoorah. But they never stop

35:02

to think about, you know, the really basic

35:04

obvious things, the fact

35:06

that, you know, men commit 98%

35:08

of sexual violence and about

35:10

80% of that is against

35:12

women. So obviously, removing the

35:17

safeguards around women

35:19

that protect them from men in certain

35:21

places is a mad idea. I

35:23

don't think that even occurs to them. But

35:25

then there is that streak where I think that

35:29

for various reasons, you

35:31

get gay men who have a kind of

35:33

bad relationship towards women, who

35:37

are, you know, their sexual

35:39

jealousy, envy, that kind of

35:41

thing. And there's also what we see in certain kinds of

35:43

drag, you know, there's sort

35:46

of grotesqueness and the kind of, I

35:49

don't know if you saw it, but there was something on

35:51

RuPaul, but not that long ago where it was like this

35:53

drag queen who had sort of like milking tits

35:55

with like milk coming out and everything. It's like,

35:58

Oh, come on, you know, this is This is

36:00

not hard to pass. But

36:04

we're not finding this hard to break

36:06

down or deconstruct. This is obvious, you

36:09

know, misogyny. Some

36:12

people just know there's a better way to do things.

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36:41

it's Brendan here. I just wanted to remind you

36:43

that you can still buy my book. It's

36:46

called A Heretics Manifesto Essays on

36:48

the Unsayable. And

36:50

I've really been blown away by the

36:52

response to it. From readers, reviewers, spike

36:54

supporters. People really like this book. And

36:57

I think you're going to like it

36:59

too. It covers all the

37:01

insanities of our time. From climate

37:03

change hysteria through to COVID authoritarianism.

37:07

Through to the trans ideology. And

37:09

it basically makes the case for more

37:11

freedom of speech, more debate. And

37:13

more heretical thinking to challenge the

37:16

conformism of our times. So

37:18

what are you waiting for? I'm going to

37:21

go to Amazon right now and order my

37:23

book, A Heretics Manifesto Essays on the Unsayable.

37:25

And now on with the show. I

37:28

actually, I did want to ask you about the drag

37:31

question because there's a really good section in the

37:33

book where you make a

37:35

distinction between different types of drag. Between the

37:38

older forms of drag. Because

37:40

people will often say, well drag's been around forever, why

37:42

are you so hung up about it? You

37:45

do make a good distinction between older

37:47

forms of drag, which, you know, the

37:50

lily savages, etc. And

37:52

going back even further than that. And the

37:54

newer forms of drag as typified by RuPaul's

37:56

Drag Race and other expressions

37:59

which... As you say, you say

38:01

in the book, there is something unpleasant about

38:03

it and it's pointless to deny it. And

38:05

I often feel that when I

38:07

watch this stuff. There

38:10

is something about the hyper caricature of women,

38:12

especially when you say, as you say, when

38:15

they're wearing a pair of breasts that pump

38:17

out milk on stage and everyone's laughing

38:20

their heads off. There is something

38:22

about that that's quite odd. And then

38:24

also, of course, we have the phenomenon

38:26

of drag queen story hour and, you

38:28

know, these six foot four blokes with

38:30

names like Flo job going into schools to read

38:32

to children. And sometimes you'll

38:34

have to suppress my Mary

38:37

Whitehouse instincts when I see this stuff,

38:39

because it does make me uncomfortable, but

38:41

I don't want to come across as

38:43

a tensorious prude. So what

38:46

do you make of the role

38:48

of drag in all of this? Because it does seem

38:50

to play a pretty key role in the foisting of

38:52

the gender ideology. I think because it

38:54

was part of the gay culture, for better or

38:56

worse, it sort of got it sort of got

38:58

dragged along with it, as it were, that that

39:01

suddenly you had I mean, what's been

39:03

really funny has been seeing, you know,

39:07

as I say in the book, the kind of old drag ads,

39:09

I remember were very larky,

39:11

very disrespectful, very

39:13

cynical. And

39:16

then you now get drag queens saying, oh, I'm

39:18

going into schools to make everyone feel better about

39:20

themselves. And, or, you know, you

39:22

know, I'm, I'm here to be inclusive to all my

39:24

trans siblings and all this kind of thing. And you

39:26

think, what on earth are you talking about? You know,

39:29

this is, you're

39:31

just dressed up as a clown. And

39:35

the sexism of it, which has always been

39:37

there as part of it, is

39:40

just magnified now. It's

39:42

got worse. And

39:46

you know, the stereotyping of women, you know, it's always like, you

39:48

know, it's always like, you

39:50

know, with with drag queens and with

39:52

trans identified men, it's nearly

39:54

always a very glamorous lady. You

39:57

know, it's sort of, it's never.

40:00

shift worker in a tracksuit called Anne.

40:03

It's always like some ridiculous name or

40:05

the long hair

40:11

and the glamour and the eyelashes, whatever.

40:15

It's just such a tiny sliver

40:17

of femininity as it's expressed in

40:20

our culture. What that has to

40:22

do with actual real nuts

40:24

and bolts womanhood, I have no

40:26

idea. I think drag

40:29

has become a part of it because it reinforces

40:31

the nough stereotypes,

40:34

the cultural stereotypes of men and women.

40:36

In my lifetime, I'm halfway through

40:41

my 50s now, apart

40:44

from a few vampy women

40:46

on TV, women

40:50

aren't like that. They're people. They tend to

40:52

be quite like men. We talk, we

40:55

interact, we don't have particularly distinct

41:03

characteristics. We

41:06

don't go around flushing them

41:08

everywhere. It's just bizarre that

41:10

this has continued past the age when

41:13

those stereotypes have

41:15

been binned off in the real world.

41:19

We don't go around being terribly hunky

41:21

men and terribly glamorous

41:24

women anymore. Absolutely. You

41:28

can see that sexism

41:30

dripping through in some of the

41:32

activism from the hardcore quarters

41:36

of the trans lobby in particular. There seems to

41:38

be not only this jealousy that often

41:42

borders on contempt for women's bodies.

41:45

Sometimes these men who supposedly

41:47

transition are incredibly envious of the

41:50

fact that women have real female

41:52

bodies, and it crosses the

41:54

line into anger about that, but

41:56

also just the way in which they...

42:00

talk about the female body. If

42:02

you read Grace Lavery's book, for

42:04

example, Grace Lavery's book on

42:07

a heartbreaking work of staggering

42:09

penis or whatever it's called, it just

42:11

drips with the most contemptuous discussions of

42:14

the female body. So there is that kind of a

42:19

combination of envy, I suppose, envy of women's

42:21

bodies and the role that women play and

42:23

some knowledge at some level, I think, amongst

42:25

men who want to be women that they

42:27

will never actually be able to achieve that.

42:29

And it creates a kind of sense

42:32

of anger and bitterness, I think, towards the

42:34

female sex. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I

42:36

mean, I mean, this is the other thing

42:38

that people forget, particularly when, you know, the

42:40

CQ plus gets lumped into the LGB. A

42:43

hell of a lot of

42:45

trans identified men are heterosexual

42:47

men. You know, they

42:50

are, you know, blokes who enjoy

42:53

the thought of being a lesbian. What

42:56

that's got to do with gay rights and

42:58

actual same sex attracted people, I have no

43:00

idea. And I think

43:03

the public image of

43:05

what we used to call a transsexual

43:07

is like, you know, someone, a

43:09

character like Haley from Coronation Street, is

43:12

I think what people still think that

43:15

the T trans identity people

43:17

are generally like, you know, it's

43:20

a bit, it's a sad man that couldn't quite cope

43:22

with being gay. And so he's had a sex change,

43:24

that kind of thing. Whereas

43:26

in fact, a lot of these, you know,

43:29

people like Grace Laverie are just straight

43:31

blokes who are quite kinky.

43:36

And, you know, I mean, I've

43:38

got nothing in common with that. Yeah,

43:41

exactly. Which is why I think your, your

43:44

skepticism of the term gay communities

43:47

called? Yeah, it's yeah, the queer community,

43:49

including like, you know, men

43:52

with beers are like going into women's

43:55

changing rooms. Well, no, who wants to

43:57

be part of that community? I

44:00

did want to touch on one of

44:02

the interesting. And. Sometimes quite

44:04

grotesque contradictions in all of this way,

44:07

which is when you will sometimes have.

44:10

You know the game and who who

44:12

are at the forefront of the of

44:14

the t lobbying of the Lgbtq stuff

44:16

and to will spend half that time

44:18

saying well. With what is

44:20

a woman you know, who knows only

44:23

ones A woman you can be. You

44:25

can be six foot four called Dave,

44:27

have a penis and be a woman.

44:30

You a They say that that can

44:32

the things in a roundabout way all

44:34

the time. For that goes hand in

44:37

hand with this growing interest amongst sections

44:39

of that community in something like surrogacy

44:41

and the desire to employ a woman

44:44

or exploit a woman in order that

44:46

they can have a child and so

44:48

on. So and. He gets At the

44:51

end. In the book you give the

44:53

example of Alan Jones and his now

44:55

infamous Sweet in which he said something

44:57

like in a maybe i'll have kids

44:59

I'm looking for a on the lookout

45:01

for some booty lesbians and say suddenly.

45:03

Ah does when he says their interests

45:05

as a recognition that see now that

45:07

to me exists Amina. Such hypocrisy in

45:10

that isn't. He I'd support.

45:12

I mean if some I get very.

45:14

A. T Sweaty palms about sorry to

45:16

say Bundeswehr to gay men are

45:18

involved. I'm. A

45:21

rings or cause alarm bells with

45:23

me and particularly in this guy

45:25

says he says you know you

45:27

had an odd Tom Daley that

45:29

I am is is firmly in

45:31

in favor of you know a

45:33

trans women or women I'm a

45:36

Trans women in in Women's Sports.

45:39

Bar use as a surrogate have a baby

45:41

wells seen as. A. Father one thing, all

45:43

the other. Tom. Enact are my

45:45

the women exist and sex israel or

45:48

they don't and it isn't I'm says

45:50

he says he also map mouthing ever

45:52

take any tickets for it. Ah

45:55

man, the entitlements is

45:57

of the scale denied

45:59

stunts. kind of using women as

46:01

kind of free floating mutaruses,

46:03

as kind

46:07

of 3D printers. It's just,

46:10

it's quite grotesque really. And I think that

46:12

does tie in with the kind

46:14

of sexism and misogyny all

46:16

around. It goes back to also that thing

46:19

about, you know, where gay men are so

46:21

sort of relaxed about prostitution and and spawn,

46:23

you know, because in the gay world, although

46:25

those things aren't free of trouble, they have

46:27

a totally different dynamic. You know,

46:29

there's, there's a very, very different thing

46:32

going on there because of the different nature of men and

46:34

women, they're just idiots. So

46:37

they don't even notice that these things

46:39

have an effect, a totally different effect,

46:41

a totally different meaning for women with

46:43

their embodied existence. You know,

46:46

a woman forced

46:48

into sex work is

46:50

in a very different position to a man. I

46:53

mean, obviously, they are both still vulnerable,

46:55

etc, etc. But it's a very different

46:59

set of considerations and the same with prostitution

47:01

and the same with, and

47:03

you know, that do you see this effect also, as

47:05

I said with surrogacy? Yeah, I

47:07

mean, it's so striking that the kind of people

47:09

who say trans women

47:11

are women are also the people who say sex work

47:14

is work. And they're also, they're

47:16

also the people who say porn is

47:18

great and so on. And you just

47:21

think, you know, if you're campaigning constantly

47:23

involves celebrating the

47:25

denigration of women, so, you know,

47:27

on the one hand, allowing men

47:29

to parade around in women's spaces,

47:31

or supporting the subjugation of women

47:33

in the pornography industry or, you

47:36

know, openly celebrating the

47:39

prostitution of women, usually women who feel

47:41

they have no other means to make

47:43

ends meet, if that's what your campaigning

47:45

consists of, then it's very possible you're

47:48

a bit of a misogynist. And I

47:50

also find myself saying that to these

47:52

people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It reminds me

47:54

of the 60s of the sort of hippie movement a lot of

47:56

the time, you know, all the sort of

47:59

free love stuff. And it was like,

48:01

well, it was free love. It kind of was

48:03

very convenient for blokes, wasn't it? Maybe

48:06

it's my sort of 80s student background

48:09

bringing that up. I remember feeling

48:11

at the time, you know, oh, come on, you know,

48:13

it's kind of a

48:15

lot of that hippie stuff was blatantly

48:17

sexist. It feels the same in a

48:19

kind of similar way. Yeah,

48:21

absolutely. All those

48:24

cult leaders, every message they get from

48:26

God is that you should take more wives. It's

48:29

that kind of thing. I did

48:31

want to ask you about the role that

48:33

language plays in all of this, because you

48:35

said earlier on, and I think it's really

48:37

right that it's very hard sometimes to debate

48:39

with these people because they seem to exist

48:42

on a different intellectual

48:44

and moral plane, not a higher one, a

48:46

much lower one. So

48:49

it's difficult to talk to them. And one of

48:51

the problems I think is in relation to language

48:54

because there are so many seemingly positive buzzwords

48:56

that float around this issue. So for

48:58

example, even something like the idea of

49:00

affirmation of someone's gender, you know, that

49:04

word affirmation, and you mentioned that word in

49:06

your book, it instantly makes you think, well,

49:09

this is their correct gender and society is

49:11

being very nice to these people by affirming

49:14

their correct gender. So even the possibility to

49:16

critique that or raise questions about it is

49:18

limited because of the language. And then of

49:20

course, there's the words conversion

49:23

therapy, I find this the most

49:25

slippery, confusing term of

49:27

our times, because nowadays, it's

49:30

conversion therapy, if you try to prevent

49:33

a young gay man, for example,

49:35

from subjecting himself to medical intrusion,

49:38

surgical intrusion, I would

49:40

consider the intrusion into that young

49:42

person's life as a form of

49:44

conversion therapy, trying to convert them

49:46

from being a young gay fella

49:48

into being a supposed woman. But

49:50

it's the people who tried to question

49:53

that and tried to prevent such a

49:55

clearly homophobic intervention from taking place. It's

49:57

those who are confused to being the

49:59

conversion therapy. So one of

50:01

the problems isn't it in relation to something

50:03

like the idea of conversion therapy is just

50:05

the radically altered meaning of certain

50:07

words and ideas in this issue. Yes,

50:10

yeah. Yeah, language is

50:13

a minefield. I mean, I think when the

50:15

people that we call woke for onto the

50:17

better word are always talking about how language

50:19

is important and they're right, but not in

50:21

the way they think. And

50:23

they've kind of put little minefields,

50:25

little minds around language, just like

50:27

you say, as with affirmation and

50:29

validation, those kind of words. So

50:33

that you often find

50:35

yourself using euphemisms or strange

50:38

concepts that kind of allow

50:40

a bad premise to sneak in. So

50:45

this is one of the reasons I

50:47

was very clear in the book about saying

50:49

trans-identify of man for what

50:51

people call trans women is I

50:53

think there's a switch that flicks in your

50:55

head and everyone's head when you say woman.

51:00

Just for whatever reason, whether this is a good or a bad

51:02

thing, where it comes from, I don't know. But

51:04

I think you start to view the person you're

51:06

talking about in a different way and

51:09

maybe sometimes in a

51:11

more understanding or more

51:14

forgiving way, a more sort of generous

51:17

way. That's why

51:19

we think because they're less likely, let's face

51:21

it, to be a rotter because more men

51:23

are bad. There's

51:25

certain proportion of men who

51:28

are violent and sexually violent,

51:30

etc. And

51:34

so I would think it's really important to

51:36

say that these people are

51:38

men because then you

51:41

avoid that. But there's other things as well. I mean,

51:44

one of the reasons I'm not that keen on

51:46

gender critical is because it uses

51:48

the word gender, which

51:50

is the kind of thing you're criticizing. So I

51:53

think sex realist is much better. I'm not sure.

51:55

I don't know who came up with that, but

51:57

I doff my hat to her. I

52:01

was thinking actually factually correct might

52:04

be a better term for it

52:06

really. But yeah, there are

52:08

all kinds of those little language

52:10

trips lying around. As

52:13

you say with the conversion therapy ban, that's

52:16

such a clever little linguistic fight

52:18

of hand. You

52:22

had that incident where I

52:24

think it was Stonewall or mermaids were getting

52:27

members of parliament to hold up a

52:29

sign saying, I'm against conversion therapy,

52:32

I'm doing selfies with them. And

52:36

they're all just grinning like idiots, because

52:39

who could be for conversion therapy?

52:41

Who wouldn't be against conversion therapy?

52:44

It comes back to all those

52:49

magic words that don't quite mean what everyone

52:51

thinks they mean. So you can slip in

52:53

bad ideas. We have this

52:55

with equality and equity and diversity

52:58

and inclusion. Who could be against those things?

53:00

Because they all sound so fluffy

53:02

and lovely. And often, those

53:05

words are sneaking into really

53:07

nasty ideas, racialist

53:09

ideas or sexist

53:12

ideas. Yeah, and absolutely,

53:14

the word inclusion, whenever I hear

53:17

it now, I just think this

53:20

is a bad idea. Whatever they're talking

53:22

about, if someone uses the word inclusion, I instantly

53:24

think this is not going to be good. Because

53:26

if you look at the way it's used in

53:28

this issue, for example, inclusion

53:31

can actually mean the brutal exclusion

53:33

of women in particular who don't

53:35

go along with this new way

53:37

of thinking and this new ideology.

53:39

Or it can mean the inclusion

53:42

of men in a women's changing room,

53:44

or a women's prison, or a women's

53:46

domestic violence shelter. So inclusion actually

53:49

becomes a battering ram

53:51

against actual rights that people

53:53

spend a lot of time fighting for. So

53:55

I think the slippery nature of language is

53:57

a real issue in all of this. I

54:00

wanted to just before we end, I

54:03

wanted to come on to the

54:05

more positive sides of what's happening right now. So

54:08

you said earlier on that things it seems

54:10

things are getting better. So we've had the cast

54:12

review, the brilliant

54:14

review by Hillary cast the lead

54:16

in pediatrician into the abomination of

54:19

gender services for young people and children and

54:22

all the terrible things that have been done to young

54:24

people and children as a consequence. We've

54:27

also, as you say, we've got people like

54:29

Kemi Badenok, you know, not

54:31

many people like that in politics, but we do

54:34

have one or two who are raising

54:36

their voices about this stuff, both in

54:38

relation to women's rights and in relation

54:40

to homosexual rights and

54:42

the undermining of both by genderism.

54:45

So how positive do

54:47

you feel because it sometimes seems

54:50

to me that it's, you

54:52

know, one step forward, one

54:54

step back, because it's still quite embedded

54:56

in the culture. It's still quite embedded

54:59

in, I guess, the new generation and

55:02

social media and the educational

55:04

institutions. Do you

55:06

think it's still a bit of a struggle on my

55:08

hands before we get to the bottom of all this?

55:10

Yeah, I think so. It's there

55:13

have been so many times when I

55:15

thought, well, surely that's it now. Surely

55:18

it's done now. When

55:20

Michael started one case when J.K.

55:22

Rowling first started talking about the

55:25

issue. And there have been several

55:27

moments when I thought, well, now the cat's out of the

55:29

bag. We can't have any more of

55:31

this. This is surely the end. And it's just rolled

55:33

on. I think

55:35

the cast report is maybe a bit different.

55:38

It certainly loosens up a lot of things,

55:41

it seems. But then

55:43

you have things like what's been happening

55:45

recently in Scotland with the

55:47

defenestration of Hums a User. Now,

55:50

a major part of that was

55:52

because of the green insane reaction to

55:55

the cast report. But

55:57

that hasn't really been covered. in

56:00

the media. They kind of slipped their eyes

56:02

off that. There's all this talk about climate

56:06

bills and things like that that the SNP fudged on.

56:08

It's like, well, yes, it was a part of it,

56:10

but a lot of it, the timing in

56:12

particular, was coming down to the fact that the

56:15

Patrick Harley, you know, just days

56:17

before Humza Chuck the Greens was

56:20

saying that the Castro review wasn't

56:22

a serious document. So

56:25

obviously that had a major impact

56:27

on Scottish politics. And

56:29

yet, the

56:32

BBC, I

56:34

think they did an article which mentioned it,

56:36

which was surprising. ITV didn't. And

56:38

certainly the broadcast news hasn't

56:41

touched on that issue at all. So there's still

56:43

a lady and as you say, there

56:45

is still a hell of a lot of gender is

56:48

embedded in the

56:51

media, particularly in

56:53

the broadcast media and TV

56:56

news, Sky BBC, ITV. So

56:59

getting this stuff passed then is

57:02

difficult. But on

57:04

the other hand, as you say, there seems to be

57:07

an loosening up that

57:10

we can talk a bit more freely. And I

57:12

don't know if you saw Rachel Mead the

57:15

other day, who was a social worker that

57:17

got disciplined and fired. She

57:20

took her case to an employment tribunal. And

57:22

the judges at the tribunal awarded her

57:24

exemplary damages, which means we

57:27

have had enough of this, basically.

57:31

This is to say to other employers in

57:33

big letters, you cannot get away with this

57:35

anymore. I like firing people,

57:37

particularly women, just because they don't

57:39

agree with Stonewall. So

57:43

hopefully things like that, you know, actual

57:45

concrete legal rulings

57:50

will have an impact. But

57:54

again, as I say, there are lots

57:56

of things that are still going to be there, you know, the Gender

57:58

Recognition Act is still there. going to be there. The

58:00

Equality Act is still going to be there. There are all these

58:03

kind of little traps. And we

58:05

have a younger

58:07

generation of bourgeois kids

58:09

who are going to go into these

58:11

institutions, who are going to go into

58:14

the Labour Party and to the Civil

58:16

Service, into the BBC, etc. And

58:19

they're stacked the gills with this stuff. So

58:22

it's going to be interesting. I mean, that's

58:24

one thing you can say about this is

58:26

never boring. For better

58:28

or generally worse, there's always

58:30

something going on. So I

58:32

think it's the important

58:35

thing is, is for us not to un-cunch.

58:38

Because we un-cunch before, you know, as I say at

58:40

the beginning of my book, you know,

58:43

we thought this was all settled and

58:45

sorted, and then gender-related. So

58:47

we need to be very, you know,

58:49

we need to be eternally vigilant, basically,

58:51

and keep our eye on these things

58:53

that you know, and make sure it

58:55

doesn't return in another form. Absolutely. My

58:58

final question for you. Firstly,

59:00

I totally agree with what

59:02

you say about the bourgeois

59:04

kids coming in. I'm

59:06

amazed that whenever I talk to a

59:09

genderist, which I do try to avoid doing,

59:11

I'm always amazed how posh they are. It's

59:13

often posh boys or

59:15

posh straight girls who

59:17

call themselves gender queer and so on.

59:20

It's very, very odd. But

59:23

my final question for you, Gareth, is just

59:25

about what kind of society

59:27

you would like to see coming

59:30

out of this. I know that's a sweeping question, but

59:32

it does seem to me that people on

59:34

our side of, I guess we could

59:37

call ourselves the truth-based community if we

59:39

wanted to have a community. You know,

59:41

it does seem sometimes that we're

59:43

having to fight all over again

59:45

for battles that we thought had

59:48

been won. The

59:50

idea that women are people, as

59:52

Sharon Davis now has to point out, the

59:54

idea that, you know, women, if

59:56

women want their own spaces, then they have the freedom

59:59

of association to have their own spaces and

1:00:01

blokes shouldn't go in them. The

1:00:03

idea that homosexuality is not

1:00:06

a problem and people who are homosexuals

1:00:08

should be able to live freely in

1:00:10

society without persecution and discrimination. All of

1:00:12

these ideas that we thought had been

1:00:14

settled, and as you say, maybe

1:00:17

we took our eye off the ball, it

1:00:20

seems they're not as settled as we thought and

1:00:23

standing up for them all over again is now one

1:00:25

of the pressing tasks of our time. So, what

1:00:28

would you like to see going forward, a society in which

1:00:30

we go back to seeing men and women

1:00:33

as deserving

1:00:35

of equal rights and where sexuality

1:00:37

shouldn't even be an issue? What's

1:00:39

your vision for the future? I

1:00:41

think the really important thing to

1:00:43

get over, particularly to coming generations

1:00:46

and to kids, is

1:00:48

the really obvious to me

1:00:50

and to a lot of my

1:00:53

generation fact that

1:00:55

there is no one

1:00:58

way or right way to be a boy

1:01:00

or a girl. Obviously,

1:01:06

sex plays a role in people's

1:01:08

behavior. Their

1:01:10

biological sex does play a role in that.

1:01:13

But that doesn't mean you're any

1:01:15

less of a man or a

1:01:17

boy or any less of a

1:01:19

girl or a woman. If you

1:01:22

don't fit those categories or the

1:01:24

rigid cultural versions of that sex

1:01:26

behavior, that's a really important thing to

1:01:28

get across, which seems obvious. The

1:01:30

way the issue is, you see all these awful books. If

1:01:32

you look in the children's section of bookshops,

1:01:35

they're all like, be yourself, be authentic,

1:01:37

all this sort of stuff. What

1:01:39

they're really saying is, be authentic,

1:01:41

chop off your penis, or be

1:01:43

authentic, have a double

1:01:46

mastectomy. No, no. Being

1:01:49

authentic is just...

1:01:53

It sounds so obvious and crass, but

1:01:55

it's perfectly fine to be a camp

1:01:58

boy or a tomboy girl. No, it

1:02:00

seems so crazy to have to say this stuff,

1:02:02

but you know there is nothing wrong with those

1:02:04

kids. Absolutely, that's a good note

1:02:06

to end on. Gareth, thank you very much. Thank

1:02:09

you very much, Brendan. Thank

1:02:25

you for listening to the Brendan O'Neill

1:02:27

Show. We'll be back with another guest

1:02:29

and more discussion. Don't

1:02:31

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1:02:34

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