Thread by @LabWomenDec

Some thoughts on @Emmabarnett's landmark interview of @Nancy_M_K. Thread.

First, thanks Nancy. Your appearance marks a step-change in Stonewall's no-debate position. The insistence on no-debate has produced a harmful, toxic climate. Let's hope it's consigned to the bin now.

https://twitter.com/BBCWomansHour/status/1461717903384854532

When pressed, @Nancy_M_K admits humans can't change sex but also maintains that transwomen are literally women. The implication is that sex has been abandoned as the marker of the categories 'men' and 'women' and has no political relevance. How many people realise that?

There's an admission that people can hold GC views, but @Nancy_M_K says that the expression of such views as principles is harmful - GC views should only be expressed when framed as personal, irrational fears, and in the context of being vulnerable and needy.

GC views, according to @Nancy_M_K, are harmful to transgender people when expressed as points of principle. We think this rules out the exploration of any evidence supporting sex, not gender, as the basis of separate provisions and competition.

So where are we with regard to no-debate? Well, we can talk, and that's something. But what we can say is severely constrained:

1) The faith-based insistence that subjective gender identity trumps material sex skews the conversation. It's not the right starting place.

2) When you start from a faith-based assertion you rule out rational, principled arguments based on evidence.

3) Insisting that GC arguments are framed as irrational personal fears plays into stereotypes of women as emotional, fragile creatures.

4) The real threat to Stonewall comes from the powerful, articulate women such as @jk_rowling and @Docstockk and many others - women who refuse to be positioned as emotional and fragile, and won't stop using their platforms to make rational, evidence-based arguments.

5) @Nancy_M_K doesn't know how to deal with persistent, articulate women, so she dodged those questions despite repeated skewering by @Emmabarnett. That's Stonewall's next challenge - to engage with well-informed materialist feminists. We're not holding our breath.

But it's still a big step forward. Huge thanks to @Emmabarnett for shining a light on Stonewall's current position, which is shifting. Without your forensic questioning we'd still be in the dark. #WomenWontWheesht #WomansHour