0:05

Good evening. This is Free Speech Nation

0:08

with me, Josh Howie. With a

0:10

momentous week, we have done our very

0:12

best to build a momentous show

0:14

for you. We have the return of

0:16

Andrew Doyle. We have Katie John

0:18

Wendt on the impact on the trans

0:20

community. We have Fraser Myers on

0:22

two -tier policing. We have Fiona McAnena.

0:24

from Sex Matters on the acknowledgement that

0:27

Sex Matters. We have Connie Shaw

0:29

and Benjamin Butterworth on the very response

0:31

of Wednesday's Supreme ruling on young

0:33

people. We have Jean

0:35

Hachet or Jean Hachet talking about

0:37

what happened to her when she tried to

0:39

fly a suffragette flag at a Sheffield

0:41

protest yesterday. The footage will shock you.

0:43

And we have some comedians answering some

0:45

crazy culture developments from a live studio

0:47

audience. So there's to be some laughs

0:49

too. Welcome

0:57

to Free State Nation with me, Josh

0:59

Howie. This is a show where we

1:01

cast our gaze across a spectrum of

1:04

culture, current affairs and politics, and inject

1:06

a bit of common sense where things

1:08

have become senseless. On the show tonight,

1:10

after a momentous week for women's rights,

1:12

I'll be catching up with a friend

1:14

of the show, Andrew Doyle, to dissect

1:16

the supreme court ruling that trans women

1:18

are not women. I'll also be joined

1:20

by a woman who was certainly celebrating

1:22

this landmark decision and had been campaigning

1:24

for years, Fiona McKenna, from Sex Matters.

1:27

Gender critical campaigner Connie Shaw will also

1:29

be joining me in the studio to

1:31

see how young people have been reacting

1:33

across the country, including exposing some pretty

1:35

nasty incidents that happened at trans rights

1:37

protests this weekend. And a report by

1:39

a group of MPs has ruled that

1:41

claims of two -tier policing at the

1:43

riots following the Southport attacks were baseless. Fraser

1:46

Myers joins me in the studio to

1:48

discuss this. And of course, myself, my

1:50

fantastic panel be answering questions from a

1:52

wonderful studio audience. Welcome, please, to my

1:55

guests this evening, Steve N.

1:57

Allen and Nick Dixon. Welcome.

2:02

Welcome. Happy Easter. Happy Easter indeed, yes. Nick, happy

2:04

Atheist day. Yeah, chocolate egg day. Chocolate egg

2:06

day, yes. I've been dragged into work. I could

2:08

have claimed I should just stay on hold.

2:10

That should be a little hate crime. Yeah, yeah.

2:12

I was passed over last week. I worked.

2:14

I didn't even mention it. I didn't even mention

2:16

it. I'm mentioning it now. Live on air. It's

2:18

the best time to resolve my contract. You're a big man. Did

2:21

you have some chocolate eggs today? You can't

2:23

in this game, Josh. You can't. I'm trying

2:25

to lose weight, not gain it. Well, you can.

2:27

The secret is to do up your button.

2:29

Oh, yeah. I went a little crazy.

2:31

Unless you hit the stage where it won't do

2:33

up, that's when you can't eat the eggs. Fair enough.

2:35

Well, look, let's have some questions. Our first question

2:37

is from John. Are

2:40

the Muslim rape gangs a

2:42

false right -wing narrative? Yes,

2:44

are the Muslim rape gangs

2:46

a false right -wing narrative? This

2:48

is background to this is MP

2:50

Ayub Khan called the grooming

2:53

gang scandal a false right -wing

2:55

narrative claiming it's used to fuel

2:57

division and Islamophobia. He stressed

2:59

all abuse must be condemned but

3:01

not racialized. Critics accused him

3:03

of downplaying very, very serious crimes,

3:06

of course. This

3:09

is not helping move

3:11

things forward. Sorry

3:13

to go straight into my nerdiness. Normally, I wait for a

3:15

while and build this up. But there's a thing I

3:18

think it's Graham's hierarchy of disagreement. And the way

3:20

you disagree with someone, on top of the pyramid,

3:22

is to say, I disagree with your point. But

3:24

lower down, the cheaty way is like, I don't

3:26

like your tone. I question your motivation for saying

3:28

it. This is what this is. Instead of addressing

3:30

the issue, like, if you want to know if

3:32

it's all a false narrative, was anyone right? Yes,

3:34

then it's not a false narrative, is it? But

3:36

to say, oh, well, the reason you're bringing up

3:38

is due to this maligned reason, therefore, I don't

3:40

need to argue the point. No, there's a thing

3:42

right the top of that pyramid. an issue that

3:44

needs dealing with. And stop pretending it's only being

3:46

brought up to do you harm. Yeah, I mean,

3:48

this is deferment upon deferment upon deferment, right? Yeah,

3:50

it's disgusting. You've got the actual crimes, which

3:52

are a trustee almost beyond imagination. If you

3:55

read the court transcript, talk about the rape and

3:57

torture of thousands of children. And then you've

3:59

got the... sort of organized cover -up, the authorities

4:01

covering things up, and then you have the general

4:03

culture of denial, which this is part of,

4:05

where someone can say it's a false narrative. It

4:07

makes me so angry. I mean, last night,

4:09

it even made Paul Cox angry. That's how bad

4:11

this is. It's about as horrific as it

4:13

gets. You think you should be ashamed to even

4:15

talk about it. But not that. They're trying

4:17

to suppress it further. I find that stunning. And

4:19

if he's talking about the racial element, well,

4:21

there is a racial element. There's a religious element.

4:23

These girls were treated as somehow subhuman, partly

4:25

for racial and religious reasons. Sorry, that's just the

4:27

truth. But it's just accusing... of

4:30

things of far right

4:32

is what's, unfortunately, has

4:34

sort of actually led to more crime when

4:36

this stuff was first raised. Yeah. And the

4:38

thing that's really distasteful about this particular story

4:40

that we're talking about is what it's done

4:42

in the old drama triangle, he's gone from

4:44

like, oh, some people were raped and I'm

4:46

somehow the victim that it's been mentioned. That's

4:49

cheap. That's the level of hypocrisy that just winds me

4:51

up too much. I'm becoming like Paul Cox, I'm getting angry,

4:53

but normally I'm really chill. Yeah, you've changed since joining

4:55

this channel. Yeah. But in a good way. I think we

4:57

all have. Right,

4:59

let's get our next question from Govhan.

5:02

Govhan. Yeah, good evening. I'm listening

5:04

a bit of a weird question, but...

5:09

The true, uh, animation. The

5:12

villain, the true villain. Yes, the

5:14

true villain of the Second World

5:16

War. So this is a faction

5:18

of American conservatives is revising Winston

5:20

Churchill's legacy with figures like Daryl

5:22

Cooper calling him a villain of

5:24

World War II. This revisionism, fueled

5:26

by isolationist views, has gained traction

5:28

on platforms like Joe Rogan and

5:30

Tucker Carlson's shows. Douglas Murray warned

5:32

these ideas to distort history and

5:34

downplay Churchill's role in defeating Nazi

5:36

Germany. Uh, Douglas

5:38

Murray has been doing a sort of media blitz this week

5:40

with his book. I'm halfway through it. It's excellent. I

5:42

was sitting, I don't own a garden, but I was away

5:44

for a couple of days and I got to sit

5:46

outside and read some of it, and that's why a little

5:49

bit burned. That's sweaty. Bust up, is it? Yeah. Um,

5:52

but he has dealt with these, the criticism that

5:54

he has received from people of basically pointing

5:56

out there's an hypocrisy here. And of course, there's

5:58

also been this creation of the term the

6:00

woke right. who seemed to be like the sort

6:02

of mirror image of the woke left. Yeah.

6:04

I mean, I like the idea of going on

6:06

Joe Rogan's podcast and actually holding that to

6:08

account. Good. It was nice to see. You're saying,

6:11

why do you have people on with views

6:13

including this? Which do you seem a little bit

6:15

cracked by? And he comes up with a

6:17

really good reason, doesn't he? When he explains, this

6:19

is step one in managing to somehow flip

6:21

everything around to the West the bad guy again.

6:23

And look what you can do to the

6:25

West then. Yeah. I mean, I agree with his

6:27

analysis. Yeah. What about you, Nick?

6:29

You're woke right, aren't you? Apparently, according to some,

6:31

I imagine. I think the term is stupid,

6:33

but I totally disagree it. And what white person

6:35

would say that? Presumably, it was. It's a

6:38

circular narrative in it. But yeah, I think the

6:40

term is lazy, unintellectual. But OK, this

6:42

whole debate is very complex. Douglas

6:44

Murray went on the Joe Rogan podcast, debated

6:46

with Dave Smith. And they both had points.

6:49

Murray's saying, you're not an expert. Should you be talking

6:51

about it this much? The problem with that is, And

6:53

he was saying to Rogan, why you have so many

6:55

of these people on, you know, their cranks? The problem

6:57

with that is, in the past, Sam Harris accused Douglas

6:59

Murray of talking to the wrong people. He was talking

7:02

to Stefan Monu. He said, he's beyond the pale. You

7:04

can't speak to him. And Murray said, I just speak

7:06

to who I want. I find that a more healthy

7:08

attitude. Now it seems to me, Douglas Murray, he's the

7:10

expert now. He's the credential one. Now he's sort of

7:12

punching down and saying, no one else can speak. He's

7:14

not strictly saying they can't speak, but it's that kind

7:16

of thing. I think he just says that there's what

7:18

he, I think the point he made very clear, and

7:20

he's made clear sense, is he's just saying that to

7:22

provide no pushback to these revisionist narratives are

7:24

damaging. Yeah, in the end, it came down

7:26

to why don't you just have more people from

7:28

the other side, for example, the pro -Israel side

7:30

or the pro -Ukraine side. He felt Rogan was

7:32

sort of platforming the other people. That's fair

7:34

enough. Just put some of those people on there.

7:36

But what I thought Rogan was correct was

7:38

he's always booked his podcast instinctively based on just

7:40

who he thinks he should have. And that's

7:42

what's made it so big. If he now starts

7:44

to second guess himself, I'm too powerful now,

7:46

so I better be careful. I think that's the

7:48

wrong approach. Though I will concede there is

7:50

an element where the podcasts have replaced

7:53

the legacy media, but now they're becoming

7:55

a bit sloppy. So the danger that the

7:57

problem with legacy media is it just lies. It's flat out fake

7:59

news, right? But the problem with the Some

8:01

true news. Yeah, well, we are, but the problem with

8:03

the podcast is that they become, they can become

8:05

lazy. So it's actually an opportunity for the old media,

8:07

if they want to be taken seriously, they can

8:09

have more rigorous fact checking and they can actually start

8:11

telling the truth. Whether they can do that, I

8:13

don't know. Well, BBC should do something like create a

8:15

service The Verify. It's

8:17

like they can call it BBC Verify. Crazy

8:20

idea. I'll never work. But the podcasts are living

8:22

in an ecosystem where they have to chase

8:24

effectively clicks. They have to do something that gets

8:26

a click that goes viral. So I think

8:28

it's not just laziness. It's also, you

8:30

know, if you say something boring on a podcast,

8:32

no one's ever going to hear it. So you

8:34

will end up going to the slightly further extreme

8:36

point of view. But this event in itself is

8:38

the correction. So I don't think it's like you

8:40

should book more people. No, he did. Someone went

8:42

on there and questioned the narrative that was being

8:44

discussed on the podcast. So, actually, that's the correction.

8:46

That's the win. I know you mean I've seen

8:48

your podcast on circuit boards. It is quite... You

8:50

should get someone who just doesn't believe that circuit

8:52

boards exist. Oh, Lewis. Yeah, I'll get him back

8:54

on there. Right, our next question is from Chris. Hi,

8:58

Josh. It's... It's Trump... It's

9:00

Trump had a bit of a science.

9:02

Yeah, this is actually his good one.

9:05

For Steve here is Trump bad

9:07

for science. This is Seth

9:09

Rogen's criticism of Trump's science policies

9:11

was cut from the breakthrough

9:13

prize broadcast. He

9:15

blamed wealthy donors for backing Trump,

9:17

saying it hurt US science.

9:20

Organizers cited time constraints for the

9:22

edit. It seemed like it

9:24

could be that he was telling a joke. Of

9:26

course. You're the science guy. But do you

9:28

think that what he essentially said was, Trump has

9:30

destroyed all of American science? Yes. I mean,

9:32

that's the problem. It was hyperbolic. He's not destroyed

9:34

all of science. I'm not sure he's good

9:36

for science. It's a free speech issue, I guess.

9:38

That's why this show's called that. And he

9:40

had the right to say it. But free speech

9:43

isn't the same as insistence that something stays

9:45

in the edit. So I don't see a problem

9:47

with editing it out. It's been talked about

9:49

now. So the words are out there. It's not

9:51

as if he's somehow been shut down and

9:53

silenced by not having his... know science adjacent joke

9:55

included in a broadcast I guess the thing

9:57

is that this Nick was financed partly by people

9:59

who have actually came out and donated to

10:01

Trump in the end seeing which way the wind

10:03

was blowing and This is doesn't reflect probably

10:06

very well on them. They're trying the whole point

10:08

for them was to stay in Trump's good

10:10

books and then you have Seth Rogen coming out

10:12

and doing that. Yeah, it might be that.

10:14

I mean, I think Seth Rogen should be cut

10:16

out of most things. He was good in

10:18

those films back when he just used to smoke

10:20

weed and everything. Then we heard all his

10:22

opinions and were like, can you go back to

10:24

the silly films? I mean... is a point.

10:26

I mean, I've heard this old Trump's attacking science.

10:29

I'm not totally convinced. He is attacking, like,

10:31

un -American values in places like Harvard. Admissions that

10:33

are sort of racist admissions policies, for example. He's

10:35

attacking things like that. He's attacking DEI. He's

10:37

attacking anti -Semitism on campuses. So I think there

10:39

is something in that. Because remember Harvard, everyone's like,

10:41

oh, poor Harvard. They have an endowment of

10:43

$53 .2 billion. This is more than the GDP

10:45

of about 100 countries. This is more than the

10:47

GDP of Jordan. So they're not like this

10:49

terrible little victim. But it's a shame because it's

10:52

a sort of internal war in America, but

10:54

if they're not upholding American values, I say it's

10:56

sort of fair enough. But couldn't you punish

10:58

the universities by cutting the money for arts and

11:00

humanities and things that no one needs? Yeah,

11:02

I mean, I'm up for that as well. I

11:05

don't mind. Well, also, they were

11:07

cutting things like making mice trans, which

11:09

turned out to be... Well, it was... No,

11:11

it wasn't! No, when they did, they went

11:13

was transgenic. No, no, there was nothing else

11:15

to it. But the word that Trump saw

11:17

was like, oh, I see trans in the

11:19

same way that, you know... I can't think

11:22

it. But then they went back in, but

11:24

then part of the meaning was it was

11:26

about changing there. One of the genes you

11:28

could change would be that, but this was

11:30

transgenic changing genes. That's what we do. Look,

11:32

you don't grow an ear on the back

11:34

of a mouse without messing with its genes

11:36

a little bit. Steve, leave the mice alone.

11:38

I've seen your share. Did you see the

11:40

French University putting out the... The

11:42

call for scientific refugees or asylum

11:45

seekers to come to... Again, that got

11:47

more news coverage than it should.

11:49

They opened the doors to all the

11:51

poor refugee scientists, and there were

11:53

20 spaces. That'll help. All

11:55

right, well, thank you very much for your

11:57

questions. They're coming up on Free Speech

11:59

Nation. What influence did campaign group Sex Matters

12:01

have on this week's landmark Supreme Court

12:03

ruling? I'll be joined by Fiona McKenna, director

12:06

of campaigns at Sex Matters, and

12:08

the return of Andrew Doyle. This is

12:10

Free Speech Nation. Welcome

12:21

back to Free Speech Nation. It

12:23

has truly been a historic week

12:25

for women's rights. The Supreme Court

12:27

has unanimously ruled that the use

12:29

of the terms women and sex

12:31

in UK law and under the Equality

12:34

Act 2010 refers to biological sex,

12:36

meaning that trans women are not

12:38

women in the eyes of the

12:40

law. This follows a long -running legal

12:42

battle between the Scottish government and

12:44

campaign group for women Scotland. I

12:46

am delighted to say that friend

12:48

of GB News, originator of the

12:50

show, comedian, writer, mentor, Andrew Doyle,

12:52

joins me right now. There

12:54

he is. Thank

12:57

you. Hey, happy Easter. Yes,

12:59

happy Easter to you too. So

13:01

this has been a pretty momentous

13:03

week. It's absolutely incredible.

13:06

I mean, it's been what a lot

13:08

of feminists and women's rights campaigners have

13:10

been striving for for an awful long

13:12

time and thank goodness for for women

13:14

Scotland. Those three women who took

13:16

on the state and won. It

13:18

was so important that they were able to

13:20

do this because, as you know, there have

13:22

been all sorts of confusions about the Equality

13:24

Act 2010. Lots of

13:26

campaign groups, lobbying groups, people

13:29

like Stonewall, gendered intelligence, various groups

13:31

that go into schools and companies

13:33

to teach them about equality law

13:35

have been misinterpreting the law. They

13:37

thought that in the Equality Act,

13:39

when it referred to sex, it

13:41

was referring to gender identity. And

13:44

of course, it was it was

13:46

referring, of course, to to biological

13:48

sex. That has now been clarified.

13:50

Thanks to this action that Four

13:52

Women Scotland have taken against the

13:54

Scottish government, who had put out

13:56

guidelines explicitly saying that sex

13:58

in the Equality Act means gender identity and

14:01

they were wrong about that. What's really important

14:03

about this ruling is it doesn't start a

14:05

new law. We don't start

14:07

from scratch. The law has always been

14:09

this. And what that means is all of

14:11

those campaign groups that have been advising

14:13

schools and companies that single sex spaces have

14:15

to include people of the opposite sex

14:17

who identify into that sex category, they have

14:19

been incorrect. And so now there's going

14:21

to be a lot of unpicking in things

14:23

to do. That's going to be

14:25

going on for quite some time because this is

14:27

so deeply enmeshed in the system. It will affect

14:29

prisons, it'll affect hospital

14:31

accommodation. The NHS has been accommodating

14:33

people by gender identity rather than sex

14:36

for a long time now and that has

14:38

led to all sorts of trouble. As

14:40

you know, we've had the Darlington nurses and

14:42

the Sandy Peggy case in Scotland where

14:44

these women working for the NHS as nurses

14:46

have been forced to undress in front

14:48

of men and these tribunes are ongoing. This

14:51

ruling will impact those as well. It

14:53

feels as though this will clarify absolutely

14:55

everything in law. And one of the

14:57

key things that I want to say here, and I think it's

14:59

very important that people understand, this is

15:02

being framed in a lot of the media

15:04

as a debate about trans rights versus women's

15:06

rights. It isn't that at all. Trans

15:08

rights are completely unaffected by this

15:10

ruling. This is about preserving

15:12

women's rights and their right to single sex

15:14

spaces. Trans rights are completely unaffected and that

15:16

is a red herring to even sort of

15:18

go down that road. There's been a lot

15:20

of misinformation over the last couple of days, misrepresenting

15:23

arguably what the ruling means.

15:25

I mean, you've summed up, but

15:27

what kind of arguments have

15:30

you seen around counter to what

15:32

you're saying? Well,

15:34

a lot of trans activists, of

15:36

course, have been misinformed for

15:38

many years. They've been told that, say,

15:40

if someone was born male and

15:42

now identifies as female and has a

15:44

gender recognition certificate, that

15:47

they therefore have the right to enter women

15:49

-only spaces like toilets, changing facilities, that kind

15:51

of thing, even domestic violence

15:53

refuge centers. That was never the

15:55

case. So what has happened is a

15:57

lot of people have been misinformed, you

16:00

know, perhaps willfully, perhaps not

16:02

willfully, but either way, of

16:04

course you're going to get a

16:06

bit of a backlash because a lot

16:08

of people have been told lies, they've

16:10

been told something that isn't true, and

16:12

they feel therefore like their rights have

16:14

been taken away from them with this

16:16

ruling, but that isn't true. their right,

16:19

they never had the right to go

16:21

into a female -only space, that right

16:23

was not there. Trans rights are still

16:25

very much protected, insofar as discrimination against

16:27

people under the category of gender reassignment

16:29

is still very much protected under

16:31

the Equality Act 2010, and that is

16:33

something that the Supreme Court in its

16:36

judgement, in its ruling, was very, very

16:38

clear about. So when you see, for

16:40

instance, the campaigners, the activists yesterday vandalising

16:42

statues in parliament square, urinating publicly, you

16:44

know, holding up placards that were calling for

16:46

the deaths of women. pretty repugnant

16:49

behaviour, but they're reacting against

16:51

a fantasy. They're reacting against something

16:53

that hasn't happened. Their rights

16:55

are still intact. It's

16:57

just that now, women's rights, and

16:59

specifically as well, gay rights, are

17:01

now enforced, well, confirmed to exist

17:03

within the Equality Act, within law.

17:05

That's a really good news for

17:07

anyone who is a genuine progressive. Yeah,

17:10

I mean, to sort of... to follow up

17:12

on the point that you were making and maybe

17:14

in a slightly different way. The way that

17:16

I see it is that this has been framed

17:18

certainly by trans activists that it's part the

17:20

flip side of the same coin. And what this

17:22

ruling basically says is that they are two

17:25

different coins and always have been two different coins.

17:27

There isn't. There's women's rights. That's one coin

17:29

and there's trans rights as another. It's

17:32

not like they have to be in competition with each other.

17:34

No, exactly. And I don't think there was

17:36

ever a situation where these rights had to

17:38

be in competition, had to be locking horns. You

17:41

know, that, I think, is a major misunderstanding. That

17:44

misunderstanding appears to be so widespread, I

17:46

mean, right up to the top of

17:48

government. I mean, we've seen just the

17:50

other day, these leaked WhatsApp messages among

17:52

the Labour Party, where you've had senior

17:55

members of the Labour government who now

17:57

think that this ruling was catastrophic. You

17:59

know, Angela Eagle has said that this is

18:01

a catastrophe for transgender rights. It's absolutely, I

18:03

mean, that's factually wrong. The trans

18:05

people have the same rights as absolutely everyone

18:07

else. You know, the complication

18:09

came about because the gender recognition

18:11

certificate created a kind of legal

18:14

fiction. You know, nobody ever

18:16

was suggesting that someone can actually change sex.

18:18

It is a matter of incontestable fact that

18:20

no human being has ever changed sex. That's

18:22

just not something we can dispute. That's not

18:24

even something the law courts can dispute. You

18:26

know, they can sometimes in Australia, we had

18:28

a judge in the Sal Grover case saying

18:30

that sex is changeable, right? Well, it's not,

18:32

no matter what a judge says, that there's

18:34

not something that can be disputed. But the

18:36

creation of this legal fiction has led to

18:38

all sorts of confusion. And so no

18:40

wonder people are angry. But actually

18:42

what this Supreme Court judgment does is

18:44

it restores clarity to these debates. And

18:46

we should be able to get on

18:48

with a situation where, you know, anyone

18:50

who identifies as trans deserves the same

18:52

rights as everyone else, they shouldn't be

18:55

discriminated against. The Supreme Court made that

18:57

clear, but women's sex -based rights and

18:59

gay people's sex -based rights are dependent on

19:01

the recognition that biological sex exists. I

19:03

mean, in Australia, it's currently

19:05

illegal for lesbians to have their own

19:07

gatherings, to gather without men who identify

19:09

as women present. Well, no man can

19:11

be a lesbian, right? So that's the

19:14

trickiness, when the law gets involved with

19:16

attempting to redefine reality. then we get

19:18

ourselves in a mess. And what the

19:20

Supreme Court has done, and I think

19:22

this will filter out across the globe,

19:24

the Supreme Court has clarified that, of

19:26

course, this legal fiction

19:28

enshrined in the gender recognition certificate doesn't

19:30

actually change someone's sex. That's not

19:32

possible. And therefore, these preservations, these single

19:34

sex bases will now be preserved.

19:36

There'll be a lot of arguing that

19:38

a lot of people denying it.

19:40

I saw an advisory body just yesterday,

19:42

a school's advisory body, again misrepresenting

19:44

the law. in its new guidance off

19:46

the back of the Supreme Court

19:48

ruling. If schools follow that... then they

19:50

will be breaking the law. And

19:53

I think every company has to be

19:55

very, very careful now about if

19:57

they've taken advice from Stonewall and these

19:59

sorts of groups that have not

20:01

accurately represented the law, then they will

20:03

lose this battle because it's now

20:05

confirmed. And thank goodness for absolutely everyone.

20:07

Everyone's a winner here. Trans people,

20:09

they win because their rights are enshrined

20:11

in that Equality Act. Women will

20:13

win because they get their single sex

20:15

places back. Gay people win because

20:17

they can gather and assemble without the

20:19

opposite sex turning up, it

20:22

just seems to me like this is

20:24

good news across the board and I

20:26

don't think the controversy is actually reflective

20:28

of the facts in the case. Yeah,

20:30

well, you mentioned anger there and

20:33

that there are people who feel that

20:35

this is catastrophic to their rights,

20:37

who don't see the things the way

20:39

that you do. Do you think

20:41

that In time they will come

20:43

to see the positive in this ruling

20:45

or do you think this unfortunately is going

20:47

to continue but it's going to just

20:49

be rhetoric now because the law doesn't agree

20:51

with them? It's tricky because as I

20:54

say for years you've had misrepresentations and the

20:56

truth is a lot of people just

20:58

don't understand these issues. I mean in the

21:00

Labour Party you've got people like Nadia

21:02

Wittem, Lloyd Russell -Moyle was another one, I

21:04

know he's not an MP now, but people

21:06

like that, Alicia Kearns on the Conservative

21:08

side, you know, you've got these prominent politicians

21:10

who don't understand the issues, who think

21:12

that they're standing up for progressive values and

21:14

they're doing the precise opposite, they're promoting

21:16

the idea that society ought to be organised

21:18

according to gender identity, which is a

21:20

metaphysical belief that is shared by very, very

21:23

few tiny minority of the population. Most

21:25

people don't believe in such a thing. And

21:27

gay rights, as we know, is predicated on

21:29

this notion that some people are attracted to members

21:31

of their own sex. That is completely upended

21:33

if you advance this notion that gender identity has

21:36

to be the backbone to all public health

21:38

policy and all sorts of other policies. So

21:40

a lot of Labour people are actually

21:42

advancing a very anti -gay, anti -women cause

21:44

without knowing it. This is real problem.

21:46

Now, you've had Wes Streeting is a

21:48

very good example. You know, Health Secretary

21:50

Wes Streeting, who's come around to this,

21:52

he now understands because he's actually read

21:54

about the issues. He's spoken with people

21:56

like Sex Matters. He's actually like LGBT

21:58

Alliance. He's actually talked to people. He

22:00

now understands the issues. And if he's

22:02

reached a sensible conclusion, we saw this

22:04

with the implementation of the findings of

22:06

the CAS review. But you still have

22:08

politicians who don't understand, who are getting

22:10

this completely backwards and are have been

22:12

gull into promoting an anti -gay, anti -woman

22:14

philosophy without understanding the issues. Now, what

22:16

I would say to people like Keir

22:18

Starmer and Nadia Wittem and all of

22:20

those people who have said some ridiculous

22:22

things in the past about this issue

22:24

is they should sit down with sex

22:26

matters, with Four Women Scotland, with the

22:28

Lesbian Project, with the LGB Alliance, with

22:30

all these groups that have done such

22:33

incredible work and just try to understand

22:35

the issues. You know, these people have

22:37

outlined them meticulously. If you go to

22:39

the Sex Matters website, all of these

22:41

details are meticulously outlined in pain There's

22:43

no excuse for Keir Starmer not to

22:45

understand this. Keir Starmer has refused, by

22:47

the way, to meet with Rosie Duffield,

22:49

a woman who was driven out of

22:51

the Labour Party who couldn't even go

22:53

to the Labour Party conference because of

22:55

the threat she was getting on her

22:57

life. She was right. She

22:59

was right all along. And more and

23:01

more increasingly members of the Labour government are coming

23:03

round to this point of view. But there will still

23:05

be these these stalwarts, these diehards, who not only

23:07

don't understand but are determined that everyone else should have

23:09

a misunderstanding of this situation. It's

23:11

a really bad situation for the government to

23:13

begin. So they really do now need

23:15

to read the judgment, reflect on the judgment,

23:17

read the work by campaign groups like

23:19

Sex Matters, which is not bigoted, it's not

23:21

transphobic, it's not anti trans, it's not

23:23

against anyone. It is simply

23:26

reiterating the point that sex based

23:28

rights must, must, of course,

23:30

incorporate the notion that biological sex

23:32

exists. And it's strange to me

23:34

that that Starmer hasn't made more of an

23:36

effort. He also, by the way, hasn't said that

23:38

he's going to deal with this situation with

23:40

his own party. You know, if you have WhatsApp

23:43

messages, and I know it's early days, we

23:45

don't know the whole story about this. But if

23:47

there are indeed WhatsApp messages within the government

23:49

saying, how can we, how can we mobilize and

23:51

push back against his Supreme Court ruling? That

23:53

is very dangerous territory. That is the government undermine

23:55

the law. It's very hard to admit that

23:57

you're wrong. Fortunately, I've never had to do so.

24:00

So, Andrew, thank you so much for joining us.

24:02

Ladies and gentlemen, Andrew Doyle. Thank

24:05

you. Joining

24:08

me now is the

24:10

Diversity and Inclusion Facilitator, Katie

24:12

John West. Sorry,

24:15

Gwen. Katie, hello, Katie. Thank you

24:17

so much for joining us here. I

24:21

went on your social media

24:23

earlier and... see your position on

24:25

this. It seemed very reasoned

24:27

and it seemed very much about

24:29

where the trans community moves

24:31

forward from this decision on Wednesday.

24:34

Well, yeah, we have to move forward. I

24:37

do somewhat disagree with Andrew,

24:39

but also quite healthily agree with

24:41

him in parts. I

24:43

don't think trans people are going

24:45

to interpret it as yes, their

24:47

rights are protected. I think we

24:49

still do have a weird policy. to

24:53

me any any trans person that tries

24:55

to kind of reject biological sex is

24:57

kind of uh yes they are living

24:59

in fantasy then to some extent biological

25:01

sex has always been biological sex it's

25:03

kind of not even o -level biology

25:05

to actually you know confess what a

25:07

woman is what a man is obviously

25:10

we've had politicians running around in circles

25:12

trying to avoid saying it and i

25:14

think we've had two things that have

25:16

perhaps gone wrong, maybe that's not the

25:18

right word, but two things that have

25:20

happened in the last 10 years or

25:22

so. One is we've erred on the

25:24

side of inclusion and what this judgment

25:26

gives is greater permission to legitimately err

25:29

on the side of exclusion. That's

25:31

kind of one aspect. And the other

25:34

thing is we've always had this kind of

25:36

what I would call Schrodinger's sex, that

25:38

nobody's sex exists until

25:40

asked and that somebody created

25:42

this additional category of

25:44

gender when realistically, that only

25:46

sex exists in legal

25:48

sense. But we still... The

25:51

thing is that I reread all 88

25:53

pages of it again today. That's the

25:55

second time this week. I try to...

25:57

In the end, I just read a

25:59

summation. It's much easier. Yeah, I know,

26:01

because there's a lot... No, but it's

26:03

very important because there's a lot of

26:05

history in there going back to 1970,

26:07

Corbett versus Corbett, April, Ashley, whose marriage

26:09

was dissolved on the basis that, you

26:11

know, because she couldn't be... actually a

26:14

woman, even though she was living as

26:16

a woman, because she couldn't actually be

26:18

a woman, therefore her marriage in law

26:20

couldn't exist. So sexist

26:22

biology, it's obvious, and

26:24

it shouldn't have been an

26:26

issue. But how we

26:28

incorporate, how we navigate society

26:31

with people whose gender

26:33

is lived differently, that

26:35

goes back, obviously, to 2004, the Gender

26:37

Recognition Act, which was kind of,

26:39

you know, we had to put into

26:41

to to law because of judgments

26:43

from the european court of human rights

26:45

etc and trying to fulfill human

26:47

rights law and one of the things

26:50

that that actually says and the

26:52

the judgment last week actually said this

26:54

relates to the definition of woman

26:56

you know within the equality act etc

26:58

and i completely get that however

27:00

the gender recognition act still does exist

27:02

and it says that a person's

27:04

sex for all purposes becomes that of

27:06

the acquired gender now yes 2010

27:09

follows 2004 but there are aspects

27:11

of the Gender Recognition Act and Andrew

27:13

was just saying transgender rights haven't

27:15

been undone they still exist we still

27:17

have equality at protections based on

27:19

transition and we still have the Gender

27:21

Recognition Act but how it has

27:23

been interpreted is going to change because

27:25

as I said I think a

27:27

number of organizations trying to be inclusive

27:29

trying to be kind etc have

27:32

erred on the side of inclusion but

27:34

You know, Baroness Faulkner said, there

27:36

is no obligation to provide single sex

27:38

spaces, but where you do the

27:40

presence of any trans person in them

27:42

automatically makes them a mixed sex

27:44

space. And then the next day Lord

27:46

Sumption was saying, you no longer

27:48

now have to include trans women, but

27:50

nor are you obligated to exclude

27:52

them. So it's no

27:54

longer discriminatory to exclude trans in

27:56

that sense. And he said,

27:59

I don't think Baroness Falkler is right. She

28:01

responded the next day, softening her tone and

28:03

dropping the mention of toilets. So I do

28:05

think the interpretation of the interpretation of women,

28:07

which should be really simple, how that's

28:09

played out in life is. going to

28:11

be a little bit messy in the coming

28:13

months. We await statutory guidance over the

28:15

summer. But yeah, it's

28:17

going to be messy. Well, and

28:20

then perhaps we should have

28:22

a hashtag debate. And

28:24

do you think that that's really what got us

28:26

into this position was this? Yeah. That

28:29

people lost their jobs, mostly women,

28:31

for raising these discussions. They were

28:33

called bigots, assaulted. And

28:35

do you think now, I'm not saying,

28:37

of course, the trans community is not some

28:39

homogenous group, but do you think the

28:41

trans community will get to a place where

28:44

these conversations can actually happen, where it

28:46

can, these fine conversations can

28:48

be discussed now? Have you

28:50

met trans activists? So

28:52

I've always been up for

28:54

debate. been

28:58

involved in various free speech kind

29:00

of fora to actually debate all of

29:02

these things and I've always been

29:04

available to discuss but I'm classed as

29:06

an outlier because I am willing

29:08

to discuss these things because I can

29:10

say that biologically yes I'm a

29:12

man but also I have transitioned there's

29:14

some additional complications in my own

29:16

backstory biologically but I still know what

29:19

a man is and I can

29:21

and I'm not offended if someone you

29:23

know uses he of me it's

29:25

not my preferred pronoun but actually I'm

29:27

not going to force someone's language

29:29

changes. So as say, I'm an

29:31

outlier in that sense. I don't think

29:33

you're going to get the average trans

29:35

person to suddenly sit down and have

29:37

a calm conversation because they feel an

29:39

existential kind of erasure. Now, I get

29:41

that because I also believe that a

29:44

lot of women over the last five

29:46

to 10 years felt their language, their

29:48

identity was having an existential erasure when

29:50

people, again, erring on the side of

29:52

inclusion went too far and started changing

29:54

their language and actually removing references to

29:56

women in its obvious sense, everywhere where

29:58

it existed. And I think had

30:01

we gone about that differently, had we

30:03

done not no debate but actually got involved

30:05

in discussion and had respectful conversations and

30:07

heard both sides, there might have been a

30:09

different path forward through this because go back

30:11

20 years ago when I was first

30:13

out sort of thing, there was a kind

30:15

of, you know, turn a blind eye

30:17

approach. you know there was a kind

30:19

of British tolerance you know hey you know

30:21

not in a week okay we know your

30:23

trends we know you don't pass but we

30:25

also don't see you on your own one

30:27

person kind of with a friend sort of

30:29

thing as a massive threat to us in

30:31

that sense but I do think there's been

30:33

a media magnifying of isolated cases to make

30:35

it look like we are now the same

30:37

thing that was magnified in the 70s and

30:39

80s the scary homosexual you know in that

30:41

sense and I'm so sorry to interrupt you

30:44

but because I do not want to erase

30:46

you. I want to be very clear about

30:48

that. But I have been told in my

30:50

ear that we do definitely have to go

30:52

to a break. Also, I have to read

30:54

a lot more books to catch up with

30:56

you as well. Please, I hope you do

30:58

come on the show again so conversations can

31:00

actually happen, and that's how things move forward.

31:02

Thank you so much for joining us. Ladies

31:05

and gentlemen, big round of applause, please, for

31:07

Dervus to introduce your facilitator, Katie John. When

31:09

coming up on Free Speech Nation, why are

31:11

MPs still denying that there is two -tier

31:13

policing? This is Free Speech Nation only on

31:15

GB News. Welcome

31:21

back to Free Speech Nation. A

31:23

report by MPs has found that police

31:26

forces were unprepared for the violence

31:28

that broke out in riots following the

31:30

Southport attack last summer. But they

31:32

found no evidence of a two -tier

31:34

approach. According to the Home Affairs Select

31:36

Committee, claims of two -tier policing were

31:38

baseless, unsubstantiated and disgraceful. Joining me

31:40

now is the Deputy Editor of Spite

31:42

Online, Fraser Meyers. Fraser, welcome to

31:44

the show. Thanks for having me. You

31:48

wrote an excellent piece for Spike

31:50

this week, which essentially lays into

31:52

that report. Yeah. This report comes

31:54

in a long line of denialism,

31:56

essentially, from the establishment about two

31:58

-tier policing. I mean, we had,

32:00

during the riots themselves, Sir Mark Rowley,

32:02

Britain's most senior police officer. He actually grabbed

32:04

the mic out of a journalist's hands,

32:06

threw it on the floor when he was

32:08

asked about two -tier policing. So it's something

32:10

that's not only denied, but really fiercely

32:12

denied. Does anybody arrest him for a hate

32:15

crime? They should have done, perhaps. It's

32:17

something that, you know, the establishment doesn't want

32:19

to fess up to. So, the way

32:21

this report gets around it is by saying,

32:23

well, these were very serious riots, and

32:25

that's absolutely true. People were not simply protesting.

32:27

They were attacking mosques, attacking asylum centers,

32:29

committing quite serious violent crimes. Everyone could understand

32:31

that. So, yeah, they weren't peaceful protests. But

32:34

what you do have to look at

32:36

is how to police other riots. And

32:38

there were some riots only two weeks

32:40

before those in Southport, and they were

32:42

in Hare Hills in a diverse suburb

32:44

of Leeds. And when those blew up,

32:46

essentially, the police ran away. It

32:49

involved the Roma community. It involved the

32:51

Roma community. It was basically sparked when someone

32:53

tried to take a Roma child into

32:55

care, someone from the council. And

32:57

not only did the police run away,

32:59

let the riot burn itself out, allowing

33:01

people to set fire to buses, overturn

33:03

cars, cause chaos, cause terror to many

33:05

people in that community as well. The

33:07

next day, the local council put out

33:09

a statement praising the Roma community for

33:12

its diversity and richness, which is a

33:14

very odd thing to say. So I

33:16

think that suggests there might be perhaps

33:18

people's ethnicity, people's culture probably is playing

33:20

a role in policing decisions. Even

33:22

in the middle of the Southport

33:24

riots, as those were spreading, we

33:27

saw a kind of counter riot

33:29

in Birmingham. And that was completely under

33:31

-policed as well. So you had masked

33:33

men running around with weapons. They

33:35

were able to essentially menace some journalists

33:37

who'd turned up. They slashed

33:39

the tires of a broadcast van. They even beat

33:41

a man up. You can watch, you can see

33:43

the film of it. He ended up with a

33:45

lacerated liver. No police turned up at any point

33:47

during the day. They were even aware... were going

33:49

to turn up. And essentially the

33:51

next day. With weapons. With weapons. Well, potentially

33:53

they knew large numbers of people were going

33:55

to gather there. They knew that they were

33:58

worried about potentially a far right riot coming

34:00

to their town and they wanted to protect

34:02

themselves. That would probably imply they were going

34:04

to bring some weapons. The

34:06

next day, the sort of representative

34:08

from West Midlands Police said, well, we

34:10

spoke to community representatives and asked

34:12

them how they'd like to be policed.

34:14

And they essentially said they wanted

34:16

to police it amongst themselves. And you're

34:18

thinking, hang on, is that

34:20

normal? Do people get to decide?

34:23

Do masked men with weapons get to

34:25

decide how they're policed? No, it

34:27

isn't. And I think what it shows

34:29

is that we have a slightly—a

34:31

system of multiculturalism, basically, where the British

34:33

state doesn't relate to us as

34:35

free and equal citizens. We're seen as

34:37

part of different ethnic or cultural

34:39

groups. And sometimes, in the case of

34:41

Birmingham's Muslims, there are certain community

34:43

representatives who the state relates to and

34:45

talks to in order to understand

34:47

how to implement certain policies. That's clearly

34:49

a problem. That's clearly a recipe

34:52

for a two -tier system and for

34:54

inequality. seems like this report deliberately framed

34:56

it the wrong way or the

34:58

way that suited them to try and

35:00

pretend that two -tip policing doesn't exist

35:02

by not bringing in these other

35:04

examples and there are more than that

35:06

and we've seen it over at

35:08

least the last decade. Even

35:11

going back really to the

35:13

rape gangs. Absolutely. Yeah,

35:15

then they can sort of turn around and

35:17

say, look, it is some far -right conspiracy

35:19

because they're just focusing on this one

35:21

little thing. Well, exactly. They just say, anyone

35:23

who says, I'm not saying I'm not

35:25

saying that was a little thing. Those Southport

35:27

riots were massive. Terrible. Those people deserve

35:29

to go to jail who committed crimes. But

35:32

the point is that by pretending that

35:34

other people don't deserve to go to jail.

35:36

then they can sort of point to

35:38

the fact, oh, we're doing a great job.

35:40

Exactly. I mean, there was a small

35:42

fringe of people online who said the riots

35:44

after Southport were merely protests. But that's

35:46

that's not the mainstream view. That's not what

35:48

the British public public thinks that, you

35:51

know, people wanted to they saw the violence

35:53

and they wanted police to crack heads.

35:55

And that's fair enough. That's a reasonable response

35:57

to restoring order. But to deny that

35:59

that's how to pretend that that's how the

36:01

police always respond in all situations is

36:03

absurd. And as you said, you know, there

36:05

are so many other instances where I

36:07

think an obsession with maintaining race relations or

36:10

community relations, social cohesion, gets actually in

36:12

the way of treating people equally, applying the

36:14

law equally. And grooming gangs is merely

36:16

the most grotesque example of that. Every single

36:18

report you read, it's the police's fear

36:20

of racism, fear of stoking up a race

36:22

riot, things like that, that prevents them

36:24

from actually tackling these crimes. Yeah.

36:28

I guess the point is, as always, the

36:30

failure to acknowledge that there is a problem

36:32

is going to allow this problem to continue. Well,

36:34

exactly. And it is absurd for them to

36:37

deny it's a problem, because this is the way

36:39

that politics has been done since the 1980s.

36:41

So they're just in denial of their own policy.

36:43

Well, thank you very much. Fraser Meyers from

36:45

Spike Magazine. Coming up

36:47

later in the show, I'll be joined in

36:49

the studio by Fiona McAnenna, director of

36:51

campaigns as Sex Matters. This is Free Speech

36:53

Nation, only on GB News. Welcome

37:00

back to Free Speech Nation. I

37:02

want to get back to this week's

37:04

Supreme Court ruling and I'm joined

37:06

now by journalist and broadcaster Benjamin Butterworth.

37:08

Benjamin, thank you so much for

37:10

joining us. Benjamin, you've

37:12

been a very vocal advocate for trans

37:15

rights in the past. What did you make

37:17

of this this week's ruling? Well, on

37:19

the one hand, what it said was what

37:21

was always in the Equality Act, which

37:23

was that there was preservation for single -sex

37:25

spaces. Harriet Harman, the politician who wrote it,

37:27

had always said that. But on the

37:29

other hand, I think it creates an absolute

37:31

nightmare situation. Lots of people who

37:34

celebrated the Supreme Court ruling felt that

37:36

this was the conclusion of their activism,

37:38

when actually it's the start of a

37:40

real can of worms. Because the idea

37:42

that the gender recognition certificate, the thing

37:44

in 2004, which allowed you to legally

37:46

change or sex is now basically redundant

37:48

because it means that people have had

37:50

a full operation who've lived in their

37:53

identified gender for decades now, in theory,

37:55

can't go into, for example, you know,

37:57

women's lieu in the shopping centre. And

37:59

actually, that is completely unenforceable, as well

38:01

as the fact that what it really

38:03

means is that someone who's transitioned in

38:05

the other direction and now has male

38:07

genitalia, has testosterone, might have muscles and

38:09

tattoos, would have to go in the

38:12

women's toilets. And I really don't think

38:14

that's what people wanted. Well, those are

38:16

the options, but it's not that those

38:18

are the only options, of course, because

38:20

there is this idea of third spaces,

38:22

and now surely is the time to

38:24

start having these conversations about how things

38:26

move forward. Sex has been

38:28

now basically solidified as biological sex, and now

38:31

the question becomes how to best... the

38:33

trans community. But it's basically impossible to go

38:35

only on biological sex, because that means

38:37

that all these people, for example, who look

38:39

like women, would have to go into

38:41

the men's toilet, and people that look like

38:43

men would have to go into the

38:45

women. Well, they could go to another toilet,

38:48

though. Except that, you know, actually, well,

38:50

they could. What I think will happen, and

38:52

this is the opposite of what the

38:54

supporters want, is you will get unisex toilets

38:56

in public areas. Now, I really don't

38:58

like unisex toilets. I feel, you know, obviously,

39:00

I am simply a man, and I...

39:02

I don't like being in the toilet with...

39:05

I've been in the toilet after you.

39:07

I didn't like it. And

39:09

we're the same sex. But

39:11

I think this focusing on toilets is

39:13

just like... The other side of the argument

39:15

always focuses on sport because it's the

39:17

easiest way to see the unfairness here. But

39:20

the point is now is surely that

39:22

we can have these conversations from a cemented...

39:24

of understanding, isn't it? I think a

39:26

lot of trans people, and I was with

39:28

some just before I came here this

39:30

afternoon at a queer cinema in Southwark. Thanks

39:32

for inviting me. And they were, well,

39:34

you had the whole audience when I was

39:36

telling you. But what they were saying

39:38

is that... They feel really nervous. They feel

39:40

really terrified now. They feel concerned that

39:42

they're going to be mocked and questioned and

39:44

quizzed going about their basic day -to -day

39:46

lives. And they don't want this attention. They

39:48

don't want to have to be the

39:50

subject of Supreme Court judges. They just want

39:52

to get on with their lives. And,

39:54

you know, you might think they look a bit unusual.

39:56

In some cases, maybe they don't pass. But that doesn't

39:59

mean you need to dictate where they use them. We

40:01

are going to talk about this in the next hour.

40:03

Please come back for it. Thank you very much for

40:05

joining me. Welcome

40:10

back to Free Speech Nation with me, Josh Howey.

40:12

Lots more still to come, but first we'll get

40:15

some questions from our audience. Our first question is

40:17

from John. Um, does

40:20

the... River to

40:22

the Sea relate to the English Channel.

40:24

Yes, so does the expression River to

40:26

the Sea refer to the English Channel? This

40:29

is Jewish groups condemning a pro -Palestine

40:31

march during Passover in Westcliffe Essex,

40:33

calling it a hateful and provocative act.

40:36

Protesters chanted stop -killing children near synagogues,

40:38

causing fear among the local Jewish

40:40

community, while some defended the protest as

40:42

political others, saw it as a

40:44

deliberate attack on the Jewish faith and

40:46

community. Relations. Did you see any... First

40:48

of all, John, did you see any of this

40:50

footage? No, I didn't. It was

40:52

pretty horrific. There's Jewish families coming

40:54

back from synagogue. Perhaps it's appropriate that

40:57

today is Hitler's birthday. John,

40:59

the fact that you know that terrifies

41:01

me. So...

41:03

Did you get him a card? Did

41:06

you see this footage? I've not seen any footage. No, I

41:08

listened to the stories on the way and so I never get

41:10

to see the picture in the stories. But we don't know

41:12

which the river is, do we? I mean, we're now the English

41:15

Channel, so I don't know which river goes through. Thames? Thames,

41:17

it goes near there. West Cliff, I don't know what they've got

41:19

going on there. But look, would

41:22

I prefer if there were no protests,

41:24

of course. The sticky edge

41:26

of this is if you start to have

41:28

a situation where you can tell people

41:30

when they can't protest, I don't

41:32

know, then we start to... Well, that's the law, though,

41:34

is that we specifically have these laws so that people

41:36

will go to the police in a certain amount of

41:38

time. And that's the flaw here, isn't it? That they

41:40

didn't apply it. And they didn't do that. But

41:43

that's not what the headline is. If the

41:45

headline was, this is a process that was not

41:47

applied for properly, I totally agree. We have

41:49

a system in place and it should be adhered

41:52

to. The headline is like, look at the

41:54

Netherlands. But, Nick, if they had applied... given

41:56

the appropriate time. Then the police could have

41:58

said, wait a minute, this war goes past five

42:00

synagogues. There are families coming out of Shabbat

42:02

services at exactly that time, which is what

42:04

we saw in the footage. And

42:06

then they'd go, OK, we'll do it at a

42:08

different time or possibly a different route. That

42:10

doesn't take away from their ability to protest. Yeah,

42:13

it all feels a bit late, doesn't it, when you're

42:15

talking about organizing protests. The problem... Douglas Murray has said,

42:17

is we have people in the country who hate us.

42:19

We've brought in too many people. This kind of

42:21

thing didn't used to happen. Correct me if I'm wrong.

42:23

It never seemed to happen in the past. You

42:26

know, I'm sure if you're a Jewish person, you

42:28

had your own lived experiences that phrase.

42:30

But I don't recall things like this happening

42:32

so frequently in the past. So the

42:34

country's changed. We've got multiculturalism and this hasn't

42:36

worked. But our ruling class doesn't want

42:38

to admit that. Fine. Our

42:41

next question is from Tracy. Are

42:43

our churches safe? Our

42:46

church is safe, yes. So this

42:48

is graffiti with offensive images, was sprayed

42:50

on St. James Church in Leyland,

42:52

treated as a hate crime. Despite the

42:54

damage, the church held its

42:56

Good Friday service and a wedding the next

42:58

day. The local community offered support in

43:01

the aftermath. Did you see any photos

43:03

of this? I didn't. I've

43:05

kind of heard about it. I've just

43:07

realised I've asked that you might be sight

43:09

impaired as I asked that question. Do

43:11

you or hate crime did not occur? I

43:14

think one just did. And we

43:17

have the footage as well,

43:19

which is amazing. It's

43:21

Easter, forgive me. This

43:25

is not good. This is... No, it's not good. The

43:27

article says, like, a look at the day it was on,

43:29

and I don't just listen to the previous art of

43:31

thinking, that can't be the argument. You can't have, like, oh,

43:33

you can't do bad... It's worse to do bad things

43:35

on certain days. I think it is worse to do bad

43:37

things on certain days. No, but the church is the

43:39

thing. Don't graffiti a church. That's the hate crime part of

43:42

it, if you want one, rather than the way that

43:44

they explain it in the article, saying, like, oh, we're... Easter.

43:47

There's never a good time to spray paint a

43:49

church. That's the way I'd view it. I

43:51

guess so, but I guess it just makes the

43:53

offence that much greater. And then you had

43:55

this wedding who had It affected their

43:57

day, of course. It was a horrible thing. We've

44:00

seen churches being attacked, not just here, but across...

44:02

horrible, but I don't know who did it yet,

44:04

so I don't know if it fits with my

44:06

agenda. But it is awful, and it happened

44:08

near Preston, and we're near Rhine Farm. We used to go

44:10

to Preston when we wanted to go to a shop, because

44:12

I'm from the woods, and that was a big... That was

44:14

a treat for us going to Preston, all right? Do you

44:16

think it might have been your mum? No,

44:18

it's just sad that that's an area near Rhine

44:20

Farm to see it decline. I know

44:23

that's my big thing, talking about the decline

44:25

of the country. This is just another

44:27

example, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, this church

44:29

is... I looked it up online. It

44:31

does seem somewhat isolated. It's on the edge

44:33

of a town. There's nothing to suggest...

44:35

We have no idea who it is and

44:37

it may well have been some very

44:40

stupid teenagers. Yes, there's a chance. Yeah They

44:42

exist our final question for the moment

44:44

is from Peter Did anyone die due to

44:46

communism? Yeah, did anyone die

44:48

due to communism? Thank you,

44:50

Peter the BBC bite -sized video

44:52

on communism has been criticized for

44:55

ignoring the mass killings under

44:57

communist regimes critics argue it presents

44:59

a biased overly simplistic view

45:01

of communism Peter, how's your

45:03

history of communism? Are you aware of

45:05

the gulag and the millions of

45:07

people who starved? No, I'm pretty much

45:10

in my own little bubble. OK,

45:12

well, it happened. When

45:14

we have BBC Bite Size, which is a

45:16

very useful service in a lot of ways, my

45:18

kids use it, but the admittance of information...

45:21

the problem here. Yeah. I mean, you look at

45:23

it and you think... The original complaint should

45:25

be like, well, how deep do they need to

45:27

go into it? This is GCC level. And

45:29

then you think, GCC, you might mention the death

45:31

toll of the communism. That would be part

45:33

of your discussion. If you've got to whip up

45:35

an essay, communism for or against? You'd want

45:37

this as your basic selection of facts to be

45:39

able to throw in. The argument, the defence

45:41

would be that it's not meant to be all

45:43

of the notes that you use to teach

45:45

this lesson. It's BBC Black Size for Teachers, isn't

45:47

it, the subset that this is actually from?

45:49

So I suppose you'd presume your teacher might have

45:51

heard a bit about it. it, but it's,

45:53

yeah, it's a flawed... Well, that's the point, is

45:55

it seems like this is ideologically driven. The

45:57

way that they described fascism... applies

46:00

to many communist states, they don't mention that,

46:02

and the way they talk about capitalism, they

46:04

were very happy to sort of lay into

46:06

capitalism, but to sort of give communism a

46:08

free pass, and this is what's going on

46:10

to our children. I know, there are critiques

46:12

of capitalism include this and this. Critiques of

46:14

communism, nothing. No, it's just absolutely great. Too

46:16

much red. Yeah, it was sort of cutesy,

46:18

I just got it here, just get it

46:20

right. It's like a cutesy cartoon, and it

46:22

talks about Lenin and the Bolsheviks. It says,

46:24

their slogan, peace, bread and land, struck a

46:26

chord with Russian peasants. Well, that's nice. They're

46:29

like the bread I did. Up to

46:31

700 ,000 Cossacks killed. Apparently, someone tried

46:33

to correct me with Kulaks. That was

46:35

Stalin. That's later. The

46:37

Tambov Rebellion, the Kronstadt Rebellion. Letting

46:40

kill like a million. This is before Stalin

46:42

and all that and the Gulags. So there's

46:44

all unbelievable. This is the BBC. You just

46:46

want them to be better, but they can't

46:48

be, which is partly why we exist. But

46:50

it's just like, at this point, the BBC

46:52

is just full -on subversion. You

46:54

just give me a great idea for

46:56

a new revenue stream for GB News.

46:58

Right. GB News education. Education, yeah. But

47:01

true. For five -year -olds. Right, because

47:03

this is aimed at 11 to 14

47:05

-year -olds telling 11 -year -olds communism was

47:07

good. That's now the BBC. It's

47:09

beyond parody. BBC spokesman said,

47:12

this is a bite -size for teachers' resource and

47:14

clearly labelled for use by teachers, not for direct

47:16

use by students. It is designed

47:18

to be used alongside other resources and

47:21

therefore is not a comprehensive summary

47:23

of the curriculum area. There are other

47:25

resources for teachers which cover the

47:27

oppression and murder by communist regimes. on

47:29

Free Speech Nation. What role did

47:31

campaign group Sex Matters play in this

47:33

week's landmark supreme called Rawling? I

47:35

am joined by one of the director

47:37

of campaigns Fiona Macanena. See you

47:39

in a couple of minutes. Welcome

47:48

back to Free Speech Nation. One

47:50

group who certainly celebrated the Supreme Court's

47:53

ruling earlier this week was Sex

47:55

Matters, a group advocating sex -based rights

47:57

and free speech that helped shape public

47:59

debate and support legal cases, contributing

48:01

to the Supreme Court's ruling that affirmed

48:03

such beliefs are legally protected, marking

48:05

a key moment in the UK's gender

48:07

and equality law debate. While Sex

48:10

Matters was not the legal party in

48:12

the Supreme Court case, it played

48:14

a significant role in shaping public debate,

48:16

supporting related legal challenges, and amplifying

48:18

the voices of those with gender -critical

48:20

views. I'm now joined by the director

48:22

of campaigns for Sex Matters, Fiona

48:24

Macanena. Thank you so much. It's

48:28

sort of almost a shame that it has been

48:30

framed as a victory, that

48:32

it's like some loss for trans

48:34

rights, because that was never what

48:36

it was about. No, and I

48:38

think Andrew explained this really well.

48:40

What the judges have done is

48:42

they've reminded everyone that when the

48:44

Equality Act was made, it was

48:46

very simple. There was a protected

48:48

characteristic of sex, and sometimes that

48:50

matters. And there was a separate

48:52

protected characteristic of gender reassignment, and that's

48:54

very widely drawn. So anyone

48:57

who claims to be, in

48:59

any sense, having a trans identity

49:01

is covered by that. The

49:03

problem is, of course, that that group

49:05

overreached. And in recent years, they have

49:07

invaded single -sex spaces. And now the

49:09

judges have said, you don't have the

49:11

right to go there. You do have

49:13

the right to be protected from discrimination.

49:15

You do not have the right to

49:17

be treated as if you've changed sex,

49:19

because no one can change sex. And

49:21

so there's a period of adjustment, I

49:23

think, where people need to go back

49:26

to what the law says. Well, when

49:28

you say period of adjustment, I agree

49:30

institutionally, maybe that's a bit easier, the

49:32

many people who feel like they have

49:34

lost something. Now, there are many trans

49:36

rights activists who feel like this has

49:38

somehow taken something away. The

49:40

argument that I and others would

49:42

say is the fact that it's

49:44

seen that it's the reinforcement of

49:46

women's rights, not even just the

49:48

enforcement of women's rights. that

49:52

would seemingly take something away from trans rights

49:54

would say what trans rights really was about

49:56

in the first place. Yeah,

49:58

and we've seen that with the

50:00

rioters out marching in the streets

50:02

of London this weekend, that they've

50:04

defaced statues, and they've particularly gone

50:06

after the Statue of Militant Forced.

50:08

And she stands for women's suffrage.

50:10

She is a token of women's

50:12

equality and women getting the vote.

50:14

And so defaming that statue, defacing

50:17

that statue is a kind of

50:19

way of saying, we don't respect

50:21

your boundaries. We don't respect women's

50:23

rights. And it's very challenging.

50:25

What we need to see now is

50:27

is some leadership from the politicians

50:29

to say, actually, we've reset the bar

50:31

now. Everyone has the rights they

50:33

were always meant to have under the

50:35

Equality Act. And if people don't

50:37

like it, that they can no longer

50:39

breach women's boundaries and go into

50:41

women's spaces, they'll just have to put

50:43

up with it because the Supreme

50:45

Court has spoken and there is no

50:47

higher authority. I just want to

50:49

talk a little bit about the history

50:51

of this case. It's for women

50:53

in Scotland, started it quite a long

50:55

time ago now, right? Yeah, they

50:57

started this back in 2020. So the

50:59

law that they challenged was actually

51:01

passed in the Scottish Parliament in 2018.

51:04

And they realised that it was

51:06

basically saying that increasing female

51:08

representation on public boards would be

51:10

achieved if men who identified

51:12

as women got on public boards.

51:14

And so the For Women

51:16

Scotland team said, that's not OK.

51:18

They've basically redefined what a

51:20

woman is. They went through two

51:22

rounds of hearings in Scotland

51:25

in order to force the Scottish

51:27

Government to throw away that

51:29

definition and go back to the

51:31

drawing board. But what then

51:33

happened was the Scottish Government said,

51:35

OK, We can't do self -ID,

51:37

but we will allow anyone who's

51:39

got a gender recognition certificate saying they're

51:41

a woman to count towards these

51:43

targets for women on boards. And

51:45

so, once again, for Women's Scotland went to

51:47

court. This time, they lost in

51:49

first instance, they lost at the

51:51

appeal court in Scotland, and they very

51:53

courageously said, right, we've got to

51:55

take this to the Supreme Court. They

51:58

had to apply for permission to do

52:00

that. They were given permission. That was

52:02

a good sign. The Supreme Court said,

52:04

yeah, this needs looking at. And as

52:06

we know, The case was heard last

52:08

November and the result was declared this

52:10

week. And the ruling could not be

52:12

clearer. It couldn't be simpler. The judges

52:14

have said sex in the Equality Act

52:16

is a binary. It means male or

52:18

female. That's all there

52:20

is. And all of the exceptions

52:22

that relate to sex, the single

52:24

sex spaces and sports, lesbian associations, single

52:27

sex schools, all of those

52:29

things relate to whether you're born

52:31

male or born female. And having a

52:33

piece of paper changes nothing. So

52:35

this was five years in the making

52:37

to get to this point. And

52:39

do you think it's as pivotal, more

52:42

pivotal than Maier's four starters ruling

52:44

a few years ago that you were

52:46

allowed to say that there are

52:48

two sexes? Yes. Well, Maier's ruling was

52:50

mentioned, actually. by the Supreme Court,

52:52

they quoted a line from her judgment

52:55

that said that the Gender Recognition

52:57

Act does not compel people to claim

52:59

to express a belief in something

53:01

they don't believe in. So that was

53:03

when Maya won the right to

53:05

say, you know, I can see that

53:07

you're a man. And I

53:09

gave people free speech. And that in theory gave

53:11

free speech, but that hasn't really happened as

53:14

widely as we would have hoped. And what I

53:16

think is very encouraging about this ruling is

53:18

the attention it's had. I think

53:20

this couldn't have happened without Maya's case.

53:22

I think that this one now is

53:24

getting so much attention. It's made it

53:26

virtually impossible for the politicians to ignore.

53:28

Yeah. I mean, the sad thing is

53:30

that every time it has to be

53:32

the courts that do the ruling that

53:34

behave like the adults in the room,

53:36

when what should have been very clear

53:38

to the obvious and obvious to politicians,

53:41

but they just weren't brave enough to

53:43

actually take a stand for women's rights.

53:45

I think bravery is the key here,

53:47

yes. I mean, there have been some

53:49

brave politicians. Rosie Duffield.

53:51

Yes, and also the Secretary of

53:53

State for Health, Wes Streeting. And

53:55

Kenyatta Badenot. Yes, indeed. So we

53:57

can find people across the political spectrum,

53:59

but when the Conservatives were in power,

54:01

they didn't solve this. Labour

54:03

have been in power for almost a

54:05

year now. They haven't solved it yet,

54:07

but now the courts have solved it.

54:09

So now they only need to find

54:11

the courage to follow the ruling of

54:13

the Supreme Court. Well, let's see. What

54:15

does it mean for your organizations for

54:17

sex matters now that it's now codified

54:19

in law? Yes, sex does matter. What

54:22

are you going to be working towards?

54:24

Is this was this the end goal?

54:26

Well, the big push now is we

54:28

need to see the regulators, the politicians,

54:30

decision makers. We need to see them

54:32

step up and do their jobs. You

54:34

know, for all these years, there are

54:36

countless organizations that could have said. either

54:39

clarify the Equality Act, or they could

54:41

have said, we believe a single sex

54:43

space is matter, and we interpret that

54:45

as being based on what you're born.

54:48

And mostly they didn't. They

54:50

rolled over. So now those

54:52

organisations, the people who run

54:54

the NHS, for example, people

54:57

who inspect schools, all of

54:59

those need to follow the Supreme

55:01

Court ruling, recognise that it's pretty clear

55:03

and pretty simple. And employers— have

55:05

an obligation and people have been afraid

55:07

because if you if you're afraid

55:09

of losing your job Doesn't really matter

55:11

what the court says, you know,

55:13

you you can't take that risk And

55:16

so really we want to see

55:18

the people who make policies Do the

55:20

right thing and not leave it

55:22

to individuals brave people like Maya for

55:24

starter and like the women are

55:26

from women's Scotland So the next month

55:28

or two will be critical because

55:30

we'd like to see them step up

55:32

and say yeah We're we're going

55:34

to rewrite our policies to make

55:36

things clear. And do you think

55:39

this changes the narrative? Because it

55:41

seems it was so interesting, as you

55:43

said, to see the publicity, to

55:45

see the press scrum outside of the

55:47

ruling, which we just haven't seen

55:49

before. We haven't seen people like Ellen

55:52

Joyce featured on TV shows, radio

55:54

shows before. It feels like the dam

55:56

has burst. And maybe now

55:58

it's possible to have dialogue.

56:00

I wonder if it now

56:02

becomes moving forward. when

56:05

we're looking at these issues about

56:07

where trans rights are, to try

56:09

and identify what these rights are. And

56:11

maybe then we can have a conversation. But

56:13

I don't think that that falls to

56:15

women to have that conversation. I think now

56:17

it falls, frankly, to men. Well, I

56:19

think there's been a vibe shift. I mean,

56:22

it feels different. We've seen this ruling

56:24

covered all over the world. And that's extraordinary.

56:27

And as I say, I think that means

56:29

that politicians can't ignore it. It is

56:31

a ruling about women's rights. And yet a

56:33

lot of the media responses to talk

56:36

about what about the poor trans people, that's

56:38

disappointing. But we will keep insisting

56:40

that our rights are properly respected. And

56:42

then we can worry about, or they can

56:44

worry about, the people who have rejected

56:46

their birth sex and finding solutions for them.

56:48

But in the first instance, this ruling

56:50

is going to make a difference now because

56:52

we can talk about this and we

56:54

can reclaim our rights. I think the thing

56:56

is a lot of the narrative is

56:58

trying to two sides a fact. You can't

57:00

two sides a fact and now we

57:02

have a fact in law. Thank you very

57:04

much for joining us. Thank you also

57:06

for your campaigning, ladies and gentlemen. Big round

57:08

of applause, please, for Fiona Macanena. Next

57:11

on Free Speech Nation, the Supreme Court ruling this

57:13

week didn't exactly go down well with the younger generation.

57:15

Will they ever move on? We're going to find

57:17

out after the break. See you in a couple of

57:19

minutes. Welcome

57:25

back to Free Speech Nation. Yesterday, a

57:27

protest criticizing the ruling of the Supreme Court

57:29

was held in London. Others were held

57:31

across the country. GB News actually went down.

57:33

to the one the capitals are here

57:35

from both sides of the argument, as we

57:38

always do with NEB. However, some of

57:40

the protesters there weren't so keen on GB

57:42

News and free speech. One of our

57:44

members of staff was assaulted by a protester.

57:46

This has been reported to the Metropolitan

57:48

Police, as well as accusations of harassment from

57:50

two people down there are attempting to

57:52

obstruct GB News journalists carrying out their job.

57:55

They did ask for help from the

57:57

coppers down there, but they weren't very

57:59

helpful to say the least, despite witnessing

58:01

some of the above. However, we did

58:03

manage to speak to a few people

58:05

there. Here's what they had to say.

58:07

What exactly do you want? Trans women

58:10

are women. Do you want trans women

58:12

in single sex spaces? Is that what

58:14

it is? I think they should be

58:16

whatever they want to be. The new

58:18

legislations saying that trans women aren't women

58:20

are diabolical so I'm just here to

58:22

basically say that we're not going to

58:24

take that. Why are you here today?

58:27

What rights do you fight for? Everyone's.

58:30

Trans rights? Yeah everyone.

58:33

What specific rights do you want? Equal

58:37

rights for everyone. Tell me why you're here today.

58:40

Well, I booked tickets the

58:42

London Dungeon and me and my friend are having

58:44

a little wander around so just forward to

58:46

see you go to Parliament, you know? I support

58:48

everyone's right to live, yeah? I'm

58:50

very, I don't know, I think it's just important to

58:52

be open -minded, you know? I

58:54

don't if it's free speech to say that

58:56

I think that some of those sunglasses should

58:59

be banned. Anyway, to discuss more of the

59:01

reaction from this week's ruling is political commentator

59:03

and university student Connie Shaw and journalist and

59:05

broadcaster Benjamin Butterworth. Welcome to show both of

59:07

you. Connie,

59:10

you're a little bit younger

59:12

than I'm not saying the... you're

59:14

a little bit younger than

59:16

us. What's the reaction been amongst

59:18

students? Yeah, so the morning

59:20

after the ruling, I opened up

59:22

Instagram and it was a

59:24

flood of... -trans posts, mainly from

59:26

predominantly women, young women, that I

59:28

go to university with. Some

59:31

of it was quite amusing. I

59:33

saw one post, so there were

59:35

students individually, but also university societies

59:37

coming out and saying that they

59:39

condemned transphobia and the ruling. One

59:41

of the funniest ones was Bristol's Doctor

59:43

Who Society said that they said no to

59:46

transphobia. I'm a member. Some

59:48

of it was very amusing, but

59:50

what was quite alarming was that... mean,

59:52

you could see from that clip

59:54

there that some of these young people

59:56

clearly have absolutely no understanding of

59:58

what was happened. They believe that there

1:00:00

was a new law passed or

1:00:02

a new act passed to say that

1:00:05

trans women aren't women. They don't

1:00:07

understand that this Supreme Court ruling is

1:00:09

an interpretation of what the law

1:00:11

has always been. They've just stated what

1:00:13

the law has always been. The

1:00:15

way that people were posting, it felt very

1:00:17

similar to the reaction after when George Floyd

1:00:19

died. And one of the posts that I

1:00:22

saw actually said that trans people will die

1:00:24

as a result of this ruling. So

1:00:26

it is quite concerning that, on one

1:00:28

hand, there is absolute hysteria, but also just

1:00:30

complete misunderstanding about what's happened. So do

1:00:32

you think that young people, Benjamin, are overreacting

1:00:34

here? Do you think that it's just

1:00:37

that they don't understand the issues? Do you

1:00:39

think that they can understand the issues

1:00:41

eventually? Well, I think... interesting that Connie says

1:00:43

that it was a lot of young

1:00:45

women because often this is presented as though

1:00:47

women have only one view on it,

1:00:49

which is against when that's simply not the

1:00:51

experience of my female friends. Compassionate.

1:00:55

They care about the idea that, you know,

1:00:57

if they're Connie's age, if they're Gen Z, I

1:00:59

hate Gen Z, as they're saying, if they're

1:01:01

Gen Z and they're at university, well, then they're

1:01:03

more likely to have friends who are transgender

1:01:06

or non -binary. This is more likely to be

1:01:08

people they know in their lives. And if you

1:01:10

go back a generation, maybe to when you

1:01:12

were young, if you went to university, you would

1:01:14

have had people that were coming out as

1:01:16

gay in numbers that you just hadn't seen before

1:01:18

because there was a cultural change. And that

1:01:20

led to a domino effect of people being more

1:01:22

tolerant and more open and minded to gay

1:01:25

men and women living their lives. And I think

1:01:27

you see that with transgender people now, because

1:01:29

the threat is removed when they're your friends and

1:01:31

not just something you see in the media.

1:01:33

Well, this is it. Framing it in terms of

1:01:35

compassion. And it's understood everybody, no

1:01:37

one wants anybody to feel

1:01:40

threatened, to feel attacked. So you

1:01:42

have... a whole generation

1:01:44

really who genuinely seem to believe that

1:01:46

this is the eradication of trans people that

1:01:48

they are suddenly now in the precipice

1:01:50

when all that's really been established, Connie, is

1:01:52

that... Women in in law means biological.

1:01:54

Yeah, and I think sometimes I mean what

1:01:56

you were saying Benjamin about these people

1:01:59

just have compassion that they might have a

1:02:01

lot of trans friends Of course, that

1:02:03

might be the case. The reason why I

1:02:05

changed my mind I used to be

1:02:07

one of those Students when I was at

1:02:09

school. I really did believe that trans

1:02:11

women were women I didn't understand what any

1:02:13

of the fuss was about and it

1:02:15

was actually through talking to trans people that

1:02:17

I realized there was something going on

1:02:19

here that wasn't quite right and didn't really

1:02:22

align with what I thought feminism was

1:02:24

moving away from it does I do wonder

1:02:26

what it is that these young women

1:02:28

in particular don't see about, does

1:02:30

it not occur to them that there's a

1:02:32

reason why the Equality Act protects sex as

1:02:34

a characteristic? Because after all, it

1:02:36

is because we are female as women that

1:02:38

we have faced oppression and it is the false

1:02:40

stereotypes that have been imposed on us. So

1:02:42

how can they not see? And lots of these

1:02:45

women would call themselves unequivocally feminists. So I

1:02:47

would like to ask you, when it comes to

1:02:49

women who've been raped, do you not think

1:02:51

that they deserve to have single sex space? and

1:02:53

shouldn't be harassed for saying, actually, I don't

1:02:55

want this male person. It's not about the way

1:02:57

that you identify, it's just the fact that

1:02:59

you're male. I don't think you should be able

1:03:01

to come into this space where I need

1:03:03

to be around only other females to recover. How

1:03:06

can they not see that? And then, of course,

1:03:08

to accuse our bigotry, I have younger people in

1:03:10

my life who I love, who...

1:03:12

think my position on this

1:03:14

is bigotry. Whereas, as

1:03:16

Connie says, all we're really trying

1:03:18

to fight for is for biological

1:03:21

women to have their spaces protected.

1:03:23

Do you think that younger people, there's

1:03:26

always talk about this being almost like

1:03:28

cult -like, but do you think that now

1:03:30

this has been... so

1:03:33

clearly laid out in law that there

1:03:35

might be the chance of this generation

1:03:37

moving forward, Benjamin. But I don't think

1:03:39

moving forward would be to change their

1:03:41

mind on this. You know, every generation

1:03:43

has cultural watersheds where change. If they

1:03:45

think a male rapist should be in

1:03:47

a female jail, then that for me

1:03:49

feels like there is no right or...

1:03:51

I mean, there's a very clear moral

1:03:53

and legal position on that. So...

1:03:56

are this generation going to get to that

1:03:58

point to see that these issues are real

1:04:00

and need to be discussed rather than just

1:04:03

shouting bigger at somebody for saying it? Well,

1:04:05

I don't know that they would think that

1:04:07

in that example and also the reason the

1:04:09

Equality Act. always had this protection, which has

1:04:11

now been emphasised, was for places like refugees

1:04:13

and rapists. That was why it was there.

1:04:15

But they weren't utilising it, though. No, and

1:04:17

that was, you know, it kind of got

1:04:19

out of control. And I certainly don't think

1:04:21

that a trans woman in women's sport is

1:04:24

fair, because there's just no getting around the

1:04:26

likely difference in physicality in 99 % of cases.

1:04:28

But the idea that this means that people

1:04:30

just trying to lead their lives will be

1:04:32

undermined and that basic tasks they're going about,

1:04:34

like simply using the loo in a shopping

1:04:36

centre, will be difficult. It's why

1:04:38

a lot of transgender people are worried.

1:04:40

You know, they didn't ask for this fight.

1:04:42

And think about it. You know, they

1:04:44

were always using the toilet. They were always

1:04:47

using changing rooms. Twenty years ago, when

1:04:49

the gender recognition certificate was passed, so the

1:04:51

certificate that makes you legally change your

1:04:53

sex, those women, all those trans

1:04:55

men in the other direction, have been

1:04:57

living like this for decades without this

1:04:59

debate, without people fear mongering about their

1:05:01

existence. Do you think part of the

1:05:03

problem, Anasik, is that everybody who talks

1:05:06

about this has a different... in

1:05:08

their brain of who exactly we're

1:05:10

talking about here. Because I know trans

1:05:12

people in my life, and we

1:05:14

spoke to Katie earlier, living their

1:05:16

life as a woman. Some

1:05:19

people will think of that

1:05:21

image. Some people, though, the

1:05:23

reality is that 95 %

1:05:25

of what is now termed

1:05:27

trans people, which used to

1:05:30

be called transvestites, have this

1:05:32

sexual fetish, autogynophilia. Then

1:05:34

other people, that's what they're thinking about

1:05:36

when trans people are talking about. Yes,

1:05:38

and I think we do need to

1:05:40

recognise, Benjamin, that what was meant

1:05:42

by transsexual... you know, 10, 20 years

1:05:44

ago is very different, and that's why

1:05:46

the term has now changed to transgender.

1:05:48

It's a very, very broad category. And

1:05:51

what lots of people think, and the way that

1:05:53

the Equality Act had been misinterpreted is that some

1:05:55

people think that self -ID was the law, that

1:05:58

if someone says that they are a woman, then

1:06:00

that means that they do have access, but that's

1:06:02

not, that was never the law. But going back

1:06:04

to the student thing and about universities and about

1:06:06

this being almost a cult -like thing, one of the

1:06:08

most concerning things that I saw, a

1:06:10

statement that was put out by the

1:06:12

University of Dundee's student association, which is

1:06:14

their student union, every student at the

1:06:16

University of Dundee is automatically enrolled. It's

1:06:19

not an opt -in system. They put

1:06:21

a statement out saying that not only

1:06:23

do they unequivocally, they're saddened by the

1:06:25

ruling, but they said that they would

1:06:27

continue to support the right of students

1:06:29

to self -identify, i .e. they are essentially

1:06:31

saying in this statement that they are

1:06:33

willing to continue breaking the law. Now,

1:06:35

I don't think that student union should

1:06:37

be putting out any political statement

1:06:40

because they are meant to be representing

1:06:42

all students. I know that there are students

1:06:44

at the University of Dundee who are

1:06:46

very happy about the ruling and women who

1:06:48

do want to have single sexes within

1:06:50

university and so that's also very concerning the

1:06:52

fact that students now at Dundee have

1:06:54

basically been told if you agree with this

1:06:56

ruling and you do think that single

1:06:58

sex services should exist then your student union

1:07:00

will not support or represent you and

1:07:02

so if you're having your own body that

1:07:04

is meant to be bit like the

1:07:06

university and college union and the general secretary

1:07:09

Joe Grady going out and saying that

1:07:11

they'll always stand with trans people and trans

1:07:13

rights, which in this case does mean

1:07:15

basically the males who say that they're women

1:07:17

going into women -only spaces. They've

1:07:19

made it very clear to those members who want

1:07:21

to have their sex space rights protected that they

1:07:23

will not stand by them. So when

1:07:25

it... sorry, Ashley, worse than that because

1:07:27

she put out a post on X

1:07:29

where she was talking about hate and

1:07:31

yet one of the photos, Benjamin,

1:07:35

was a photo saying, kill turfs.

1:07:37

So there's been a hypocrisy

1:07:39

here, and also there's been this

1:07:41

idea that it's this toxic

1:07:43

debate. But I would say that

1:07:45

99 .9 % of this toxicity

1:07:48

that I've seen, and certainly threats

1:07:50

of violence, has been coming

1:07:52

very much. It's been one direction

1:07:54

towards these mostly left -wing lesbian

1:07:56

middle -aged women. Well, I

1:07:58

mean the debate is hideous and it's

1:08:00

been hideous for years. It's incredibly toxic It's

1:08:02

incredibly irrational at times. It doesn't listen

1:08:04

to the other side And one of the

1:08:07

reasons why it's so difficult and so

1:08:09

sensitive is because there is obviously as well

1:08:11

streaking the health sector is often said

1:08:13

for some years now There's obviously no doubt

1:08:15

that male violence is a problem is

1:08:17

an epidemic in our society and that women

1:08:19

in private spaces Feel the threat of

1:08:21

that male pressure. That is real. What's also

1:08:23

the case is that people that have

1:08:25

gender dysphoria that experience the idea that their

1:08:27

body and their identity are fundamentally in

1:08:30

conflict often feel that from a young age

1:08:32

it is more difficult than we can

1:08:34

imagine you know I'm a gay man so

1:08:36

I have a certain insight to it

1:08:38

and I can't imagine what it's like to

1:08:40

feel like you in the wrong body

1:08:42

and their lives are hard enough without feeling

1:08:44

like the weight of the state and

1:08:46

the weight of most of the media is

1:08:48

on them when they're just trying to

1:08:50

understand themselves and so it's no wonder that

1:08:52

they end up being defensive but the

1:08:55

toxicity of this whole thing has helped absolutely

1:08:57

nobody and I just point out you

1:08:59

know Stonewall before 2010 which was very close

1:09:01

to the new Labour government didn't deal

1:09:03

with trans issues but I know many of

1:09:05

the people that ran Stonewall at that

1:09:07

time and they will say the way we

1:09:09

did it was by talking to each

1:09:11

other and sitting down and listening and eventually

1:09:13

we worked out questions you never imagined

1:09:15

being able to answer like eventually getting same

1:09:18

-sex marriage shouting at each other never solved

1:09:20

anything well it was worse than shouting

1:09:22

wasn't it because Stonewall became no debate so

1:09:24

I mean this is so It's so

1:09:26

sad that so much the toxicity came from

1:09:28

this. When you hold people up and

1:09:30

say, you cannot talk about this. And if

1:09:32

you are, we've seen so many women

1:09:34

lose their jobs, being abused. Do

1:09:37

you think that we are going to finally

1:09:39

be able to now move forward from this?

1:09:41

Because unfortunately, what I've seen over the last

1:09:43

24 hours just suggests not. Whatever

1:09:46

happened, whatever has happened in the last

1:09:48

24 hours, it still stands that the Supreme

1:09:50

Court ruled that under the Equality Act,

1:09:52

biological sex refers to biological sex, and it

1:09:54

doesn't matter whether you have a piece

1:09:56

of paper. So, yes, there might be lots

1:09:59

of protests, but it is still the

1:10:01

case that that is the law. In

1:10:03

terms of moving forward in young people,

1:10:05

I don't know what it... I think

1:10:07

about it all the time because it's

1:10:09

my... I want to try and convince

1:10:11

young women that it's not unkind to

1:10:13

say that women have boundaries and that

1:10:15

it is okay to have... sex spaces

1:10:18

and exclude male people no matter how

1:10:20

they identify. I don't know what the

1:10:22

way is forward but these university students

1:10:24

have been taught that it is a

1:10:26

really nasty thing to say that actually

1:10:28

I don't want. trans women in my

1:10:30

spaces or even I don't think that

1:10:32

trans women are women or another step

1:10:34

I think trans women are men and

1:10:36

people think that that is so awful

1:10:38

to say it even though it's a

1:10:40

protected view it's it's illegal to discriminate

1:10:43

against someone for saying it. I don't

1:10:45

know what it's going to take to

1:10:47

get more young women to at least

1:10:49

engage because I think also when you

1:10:51

have taken part in what you feel

1:10:53

like you're taking part in a mass

1:10:55

movement of resisting bad

1:10:58

things and people having their rights

1:11:00

taken away, if you even see a

1:11:02

slight glance of something that might

1:11:04

think, oh, the first thing you want

1:11:06

to do is think, well, no, no, no, I don't

1:11:08

want to listen to that, because if it makes

1:11:10

someone change your mind, if it makes it you change

1:11:12

your mind, that can be quite an embarrassing thing.

1:11:14

I remember when I first started to realize, actually, I

1:11:16

don't agree with this, I almost felt really embarrassed,

1:11:18

like, how can I admit to people that this isn't

1:11:20

what I think anymore? If

1:11:22

you've been running with it for so long, you

1:11:25

know, we need to teach people there's humility in

1:11:27

changing your mind and it is okay to read

1:11:29

the other side. I think people are scared of

1:11:31

reading the other side because they'll see something that

1:11:33

basically shows them that what they have been preaching

1:11:35

is not right. We'll see. Well, having conversations like

1:11:38

this, of course, that is the start. Thank you

1:11:40

both for joining me, Benjamin Butthworth, Connie Shaw. Thank

1:11:43

you very, very much. Big round of applause for them. That's

1:11:45

how we move forward. Let's talk about it.

1:11:47

So coming up after the break, we are

1:11:49

going to be speaking to Jean Hatchet and

1:11:51

this incredibly traumatic experience that we saw online.

1:11:53

See you in a couple of minutes. Welcome

1:12:00

back to Free Speech Nation. Writer Jean

1:12:02

Hatchet has been to yesterday's trans protest

1:12:04

in Sheffield. She went there to support

1:12:06

women's rights and she was allegedly assaulted

1:12:08

by a member of that protest. So

1:12:10

we'll look at a clip. She

1:12:29

also was told by police to move on to

1:12:31

a different part of the protest. I'm

1:12:55

now joined by Jean

1:12:58

herself. Jean.

1:13:00

Welcome to the show. Hello. Look at

1:13:02

you. Glamorous. This is your non -protest outfit.

1:13:05

Thank you. Yeah. Just a

1:13:08

little bit tired today and a

1:13:10

little bit overwhelmed, I think. Yeah. Yeah.

1:13:12

Well, one of the clips that

1:13:14

we didn't show there was the, I

1:13:16

would argue, was more traumatising in

1:13:18

terms of just people really getting up

1:13:20

in your face, just the shouting

1:13:22

at you, the abuse. And I'm sorry.

1:13:25

Let's go back to the beginning. So what happened? You

1:13:27

saw that there would be this this

1:13:29

protest and you decided to go along? Yeah

1:13:32

I think a few women felt you

1:13:35

know we knew in fact that the

1:13:37

judgment was not going to be the

1:13:39

end of things that there would be

1:13:41

a backlash and because there has been

1:13:43

such um you know such viciousness towards

1:13:45

women for so many years that there

1:13:47

was no way that that judgment would

1:13:49

drop and then the viciousness would go

1:13:52

away so when we saw that um

1:13:54

something was being organized in protest we

1:13:56

went along to to it's an act

1:13:58

of defiance really and just to scratch

1:14:00

the surface and show what's actually there

1:14:02

and what does not go away and

1:14:04

you know these these are violent and

1:14:06

and lawless men you know, driving quite

1:14:09

young children in some, you know, from

1:14:11

what we saw and what we always

1:14:13

see. They're quite impressionable children,

1:14:15

but the people in my

1:14:17

face were older men. And,

1:14:20

you know, we know that they

1:14:22

dislike women intensely, and that is not

1:14:24

going to have gone away. So

1:14:26

we went along to see what it

1:14:28

was, you know, what it was

1:14:30

all about. Well, this is it. I

1:14:32

mean, this is what we've seen,

1:14:34

unfortunately, from so much of the last

1:14:36

few years were men telling women

1:14:38

what they were, what they weren't. And

1:14:40

it wasn't just at this protest

1:14:42

in Sheffield. There are various placards from

1:14:44

across the country calling for the

1:14:46

death of women, calling for violence towards

1:14:48

women. And what's incredible

1:14:50

is to see the police response to

1:14:52

that. We did a feature earlier

1:14:54

on two -tier policing. I

1:14:56

don't know how many people actually

1:14:59

were arrested for these outrageous cause

1:15:01

of violence towards women. I've

1:15:04

never really been part of the

1:15:06

two -tier policing debate. I've not been

1:15:08

asked much about it, but that is

1:15:10

what I saw yesterday, because they

1:15:12

were all over the public building, the

1:15:14

town hall. It's, you know, the

1:15:16

public right of access. And I

1:15:18

said, right, I'm walking my suffragette flag

1:15:21

back through there. I have the right to

1:15:23

do it. I'm not going to be

1:15:25

held by these bullies who've assaulted my partner.

1:15:27

They've assaulted me and I have the

1:15:29

right to walk one flag. won women's rights

1:15:31

flag through their hundreds of flags in

1:15:33

a public space that is, you know, a

1:15:35

democratic place and they would not let

1:15:38

me pass. The police would not let me

1:15:40

pass. So I asked them, why can

1:15:42

I not walk where everyone is allowed to

1:15:44

walk? Why can I not do that?

1:15:46

And they said, because we think it will

1:15:48

be a breach of the peace. And

1:15:51

I said, who will breach that peace? Because

1:15:53

I've never hurt anyone. And they

1:15:55

said, we fear that Well,

1:15:57

they were very unclear at first and then they

1:16:00

confirmed for me. They feared for me and for the

1:16:02

people I was with. There were only a handful

1:16:04

of us. You know, we didn't organize a great protest.

1:16:06

It was just, you know, let's go along and

1:16:08

take a few flags. They'd

1:16:10

already stolen virtually everything we had and

1:16:12

they had assaulted a number of us.

1:16:14

I'm covered in bruises actually. I didn't

1:16:16

realize at the time, but, you know,

1:16:18

we've looked at my arms. People have

1:16:20

grabbed me very hard. My

1:16:23

partners, she had

1:16:25

a face injured from people punching her and

1:16:27

she's had a headache all day. the

1:16:30

police actually arrested anybody from that. Sorry,

1:16:32

have they come and taken a report from

1:16:34

you? Have they taken any video footage? So

1:16:37

a woman can be punched in

1:16:39

the face. And this actually is

1:16:41

what I saw years ago, which sort of

1:16:43

opened my eyes to what was going on

1:16:45

here. In this case, it

1:16:48

was men. beating women and

1:16:50

somehow being celebrated for it and not

1:16:52

being seen that that is where the

1:16:54

hate is coming from. You standing there

1:16:56

with a suffragette flag, surely

1:16:58

that isn't hateful. It

1:17:00

wasn't hateful and we hadn't made

1:17:02

speeches, we hadn't been noisy, we had

1:17:04

simply held our flags and one

1:17:06

of them was the symbol of the

1:17:08

lesbian resistance, the labyrinth flag and

1:17:10

that had been stolen from a lesbian

1:17:12

woman. So, you know, the

1:17:15

violence was quite incredible and they

1:17:17

were really shouting, really in our

1:17:19

faces and it became quite terrifying.

1:17:22

actually, but when I started to say to

1:17:24

the police officer, he was trying to move

1:17:26

me away for my safety. And

1:17:28

I said, but this guy here, this guy,

1:17:30

this blow, because he was a blow, he had a

1:17:32

wig on and lipstick, but still a man, was

1:17:34

pushing his body into mine, you

1:17:37

know, his crotch into my sides.

1:17:39

And I said, this guy is

1:17:41

assaulting me. And the police officer

1:17:43

said, we don't want to offend

1:17:45

anyone though. He was talking about my use of

1:17:47

language about a man. And

1:17:49

so he was more concerned with me

1:17:51

and the way that I was

1:17:54

calling men, men. And then he was

1:17:56

with what was happening to me

1:17:58

in front of him. And that was

1:18:00

deeply, deeply shocking. Yeah.

1:18:02

well, I'm sorry for it. And

1:18:04

And again, seeing some of the clips

1:18:06

and seeing you being so brave

1:18:09

in the face of the hate was

1:18:11

visceral, apart from the physical thing,

1:18:13

but just the shouting, the screaming, a

1:18:15

thousand people all focused on you

1:18:17

for being able to just stand there

1:18:19

and say, look, women are biological women. I

1:18:21

thought it was incredibly brave. I am

1:18:23

so sorry that your partner and you got

1:18:25

hurt. But I think

1:18:27

where you're there, and unfortunately exposing

1:18:29

what happened is terrible but necessary.

1:18:31

So thank you very much for

1:18:34

coming on the show as well.

1:18:36

you. Thank you very much. OK,

1:18:39

GB News has approached South

1:18:41

Yorkshire Police comment. Thank you

1:18:43

for joining us for this historical free speech

1:18:46

See you next week. And thank you so much for all the

1:18:48

guests this evening. Have a great weekend.