Joyce activated, issue 108

I’m sorry it’s been nearly three weeks since I’ve written anything. Unless you’ve been living under a rock you’ll know why – the UK Supreme Court ruled on April 16th that in the Equality Act, the portmanteau act that gathers up pretty much all equality and anti-discrimination law in the UK, “man” and “woman” and related words mean biology, not paperwork. The week in the runup was flat-out on preparation, the week after it was flat-out on reacting and the week after that flat-out on scrambling to meet some hard deadlines that were now two weeks nearer than they had been the previous time I looked.

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It was a huge victory, and I’m only now starting to come to grips with the way the world has changed post-Judgment Day. I have so much I want to say about it all, but after half a day of scribbling I realise that I should break things up, otherwise it’ll be another week before I post. So for this issue I thought I’d bring together the various interviews I’ve done in the past three weeks, with comments on what stands out to me nearly a fortnight later.

The first interview I gave after the judgment was to the Spectator podcast in their offices in Westminster, along with my dear friend Dr Michael Foran. Looking at it now, it’s striking how fast the host goes to “what does this mean for Scottish politics?” It’s a reflexive journalistic trope to move to the highest-status topics – the who’s up and who’s down of Westminster or, on this topic, Holyrood. To me, the question “what does this judgment mean for Keir Starmer or John Swinney?” is trivial when set against “what does it mean for women?”

Next it was back outside the Supreme Court to talk, along with several others, to the Times Radio hosts, Kamal Ahmed and Camilla Tominey. 

I’ve just watched it back and it’s interesting to see how I hadn’t registered that many of the people who fell for Stonewall Law would strongly resist admitting they were wrong. There have been too many instances to count in the past two weeks, so I’ll just point to a remarkable head of steam building behind the idea that because the Supreme Court didn’t accept requests to intervene from two trans people with GRCs, a man called Victoria McCloud and a woman called Stephen Whittle, the judgment was illegitimate. This is absurd: the court’s job is statutory interpretation, not vox popping; and the arguments of the trans lobby were made by an institutional intervener, Amnesty, and they were rubbish.

McCloud says he’s going to try to get the judgment overturned, presumably with the support of the (Not Very) Good Law Project – I hope he tries, because it would at a minimum be very funny and if by some extraordinary chance a court was persuaded to look at whether the Supreme Court’s judgment means the Equality Act is now incompatible with the Human Rights Act, there’s a non-zero chance it might conclude instead that the Gender Recognition Act is. Though that’s much less likely than McCloud being laughed out of court, it would be a fitting end to the whole fool’s errand of gender recognition.

I’ve just watched this excellent compilation by Mr Menno, lots of great stuff from lots of people and it really captures the atmosphere outside the courtroom. I’m pleased I managed to say how much our wonderful lawyers at Sex Matters played in the judgment, and how extraordinary to have helped to bring about such an important rights-protecting ruling. 

Then I went to London Bridge to visit the Times of London’s newsroom and recorded a full podcast with the podcast Storybox. The host has a beautifully calm voice and the journalists on the show had been following the story deeply, so it was a welcome time to slow down and reflect a bit.

Then, because I’m basically a saint, I schlepped out to the GB News studio, even though it meant I wasn’t going to arrive at the after-party in Westminster until two hours after it started. For my pains I was treated to a panel with two absolute twerps: Charlie somebody, possibly Downs, and Aaron Bastani. I barely suppressed my groan when I walked onto the set and saw the latter.

I don’t know who Charlie is, but Bastani has written a supremely stupid book, “Fully Automated Luxury Communism” and co-founded the supremely stupid Novara Media. If I’d been better prepared I would have been (even) more dismissive of his ridiculous whataboutery, perhaps saying something like “Wow, that might have sounded good five pints down in the students’ union, but out in the real world grownups are trying to solve actual problems.” I cannot bear to rewatch it, but feel free if you like. 

The following morning I did an interview with the BBC – lol, BBC Radio Stoke, a drive-time show that’s mostly music. Still, it’s the nearest I’ve got to a BBC show in years. 

I can hear how talked-out and tired I am, but it’s a good example of the “what about the men?” line of argument – interviewers who skip right past the impact on women to hyperfocus on the teeny tiny number of trans-identifying men who will be upset or discommoded by being told that No they are not welcome in women’s spaces. You can hear the interviewer’s astonishment when I make this point. And it’s added a catchphrase to my life: friends keep quoting “you don’t sound very sorry” at me. 

Then I did a down-the-line with Fraser Myers of Spiked, who had done his homework and didn’t chastise me for being too happy when there are men’s feelings to be considered, not even once.

On the Friday I recorded a long-form podcast that I had agreed to do some weeks earlier but had to cancel twice. I was very tempted to cancel again because by this point I was exhausted, but a third time seemed too rude. We discuss the judgment and lots of other things – in particular the outrageous strip-searching policies of many UK police forces, which mean male officers may search female detainees and female officers may be forced to strip-search male ones. It’s a great example of the asymmetric effect of “trans inclusion”: the policies amount to “heads men win, tails women lose”. (That bit is around one hour and four minutes in.)

And finally, two podcasts I recorded in the runup to Judgment Day. The first, from Spectator TV about Mumsnet, which has just turned 25, was actually very timely because Mumsnet is both a big part of why TERF Island is winning this battle – it gave women relatively free speech on trans issues when there wasn’t anywhere else online you were allowed to discuss it, and it’s where the women of FWS met.

The other is a more general conversation with an American grad student who is trying to remain intellectually honest despite a peer group that consists almost entirely of trans-identifying people and their “allies”. It’s long and I ramble a fair bit, but for me at least it was fruitful and enjoyable. Watch out for the tongue analogy, however! It’s the first time I’ve tried it outside my own head.

Next time I’ll write more about how Judgment Day has changed everything, and what comes next. 

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