Welcome to Downstream. I'm Michael Walker and I have an interview for you today about

which I am both nervous and excited. I'm nervous because we're talking about a topic

which can get pretty heated, can get pretty tense online and offline. We're talking about

trans rights, trans inclusion and biology. Very, very interesting topics. I'm excited because I'm

speaking to my absolute favourite author and thinker on this topic. Julius Serrano, her writings

were very influential for my understanding on these issues and in particular this book Whippinger,

which is now an absolute classic in the field. An introduction to the conversation, the context in

which we are having this is there is at the moment, as I'm sure you're aware, many debates

raging about trans rights and trans inclusion and especially issues such as trans women in women's

spaces. Also issue of our teenagers due to social contagion identifying as people in the opposite

sex. Personally, I feel like a grounding in biology while not necessarily being that popular

on certain parts of the left is persuasive. It's very useful in those situations. We're also in

a context where people who are opposed to trans inclusion, in particular gender critical feminists

or so called TERFs, are making the argument that trans people are living in a fake fantasy world.

A couple of titles for you, so these are both bestselling books, ones by Helen Joyce,

at the economist. Her book is called TRANS when ideology meets reality. The other is Kathleen

Stock, she of leaving Sussex University fame. Her book is called material girls why reality matters

for feminism. Both people making the argument trans rights, trans inclusion, trans activists,

they're ignoring biology. Now, I don't think their arguments are particularly convincing. At the same

time, I do think there can be a tendency in progressive circles to have a narrative and

understanding of gender, which I don't find that convincing that it's all socially constructed.

So we're going to talk about those ways of looking at sex and gender today and I am delighted

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