Asking for patience...

I had a plan for this week’s post and was about half-way through writing it yesterday, when I was derailed by the extraordinary evidence in Allison Bailey’s employment-tribunal hearing. So I set the original idea aside and started early this morning on a piece about that evidence—but it’s not quite finished, and if I don’t do a stint in the mini-collective that I and a handful of others have created to take the most complete possible notes of the hearing, given that we’re fast touch-typists but not professional court recorders, there will be no one to cover this afternoon.

And that must not be. Bailey has suffered so much to get the ideologues in Garden Court and Stonewall under oath and unable to wriggle away from cross-examination. The least we can do for her is capture, as accurately as possible, what they say for posterity (as I explained last week, recording is a criminal offence, unfortunately). I’ll send that article tomorrow, and I’m going to put it in front of the paywall—I want as many people as possible to read just what was said (as you may have gathered if you’ve been following the heroes at Tribunal Tweets, lesbians who don’t want men in their knickers are like white supremacists…).

In the meantime, you can entertain yourself by watching Bill Maher and Ricky Gervais weigh in on our side of the gender wars—such a relief! I don’t know how I would have coped with yesterday’s testimony in the Bailey hearing if I hadn’t listened to Gervais in a break. More importantly, I really don’t think paediatric transition will continue full throttle once people are laughing at it. Teenagers surely won’t identify as enby or whatever if they think people will make jokes about their pronouns? And the sort of parent who enthusiastically transitions their gender non-conforming four-year-old is doing it at least in part for social standing; they won’t want to look ridiculous.

And two upcoming things you may enjoy. This evening I’m on Helen Staniland’s new show, “Wine with Women”, live at 7pm and available to watch later on YouTube. And next Monday, 30th May, at the slightly later time of 7.30pm, I’m moderating “Sex Matters in Sport”, a webinar about what the science says about transwomen athletes. My panellists are the two pre-eminent experts on this subject, Emma Hilton and Ross Tucker. That’s free, but you do have to book a ticket via Eventbrite.

Finally, if you’re a yearly subscriber and haven’t yet filled out the form telling me where to send your free copy of my paperback, and what to write as a dedication, please do so below. (One person has been in touch to say she couldn’t use the form for some reason; if that happens to you, just email me your name, full address and desired dedication, from the email address you used to subscribe to my newsletter, to: hjoycegender [at] gmail.com.)