A BBC radio presenter clashes with the transgender CEO of an endometriosis charity, questioning her suitability for the role.Emma Barnett, who has endometriosis, spoke to the recently-appointed CEO of Endometriosis South Coast, Steph Richards on BBC’s Woman Hour radio show, as many online have pushed back against the appointment.The interview created a commotion on social media with a side defending Barnett’s line of questioning and others voicing support for Richards.Richards took to X after the show, asking if Barnett wanted “to talk about #endo or the word ‘woman’?”BBC have defended the interview, calling it fair and robust.Source: BBC
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 With your campaigning history, of which there are records of it online, and some of the
00:05 things that you feel very passionate about, no one's calling that into question, there
00:09 is a concern that as a trans activist now running, being a CEO of an endometriosis charity
00:15 for women, that you will not preserve the importance of things like the word 'woman'
00:22 and that experience. Because in your statement on X, which is what Twitter used to be called,
00:28 10% you say of those assigned female at birth suffer from these awful disease. Is the word
00:35 you're looking for there 'woman'?
00:37 I look at 'woman' but I also look at the issue of trans men and non-binary people.
00:45 There's something like 5,000, 5,500 trans men who has endometriosis who probably feel
00:52 absolutely, that's in the UK, that feels rather left out. There's also non-binary people.
01:01 But the vast majority are women.
01:03 Yes, of course the vast majority. Does that mean that we should leave behind trans men,
01:08 Emma?
01:09 Absolutely not the case. The charity can more than cater, I mean, unless it's a specialist
01:13 charity and you want to go down that particular route, you tell me, can more than cater for
01:16 it. But that's what I'm trying to explain to you. There's two different arguments. There's
01:20 the argument that you don't have to be the same as your service user to represent them.
01:24 You've made that argument. There are countless examples. But there is a different argument
01:28 about your specific appointment, Steph, which is a concern that as a trans activist, as
01:33 someone who has been accused of using inflammatory language in the past, such as saying the word
01:39 'turf' at people who are also feminists, that you are not the right person to represent
01:45 a women's charity.