Episode 144: Tickle vs. Giggle Round Two

We discuss the recent outcome and wider context of the pivotal Australian legal case Tickle vs. Giggle. Its specifics involve a bloke joining a female-only app, but the case has all encompassing consequences for how single-sex law is interpreted and applied in Australia. With examples from court, such as Sall Grover, Giggle's creator, being fined $10,000 for laughing for 2-seconds and so breaking the tension of faux seriousness in such a ridiculous situation, the case represents so much of the dilemma transgenderism causes for women and institutions. Plus, how the American right came late to care about the trans issue, maternity rights as a break point, why Australia has an advantage over Canada in battling transgenderism, and the backlash to transgenderism as a contributing factor to the rise of populism.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Hello and welcome back to Red Femme. We are back from our hiatus since April. Today we're going to be talking about the Tickle V Giggle legal case going on between Solgrover and oh god, what's the guy's name? Something giggle, Mr. Giggle? Or should we just go with Mr. Giggle? Wait, let me check though. Roxanne Tickle. It's always gotta be like a porn name. They always change their names to a pawn name.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

It's so funny, these coincidences. I have no idea that you know what this ever could be about.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

And Roxanne, even that name, like when you think of that, you think of like uh put out the red light.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Roxanne, put it's a reference to prostitution. What I don't know that reference. Uh, you know the song The Police with the the band The Police was Sting. Okay. They have a song about a prostitute, and it goes, Roxanne, put out the red light. Roxanne, put out the red light. It's about being in love with a prostitute and telling her to leave prostitution. The whole thing is a reference to prostitution.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Okay, wow. I just thought it was like a kind of sexy jazzy woman's name that would make me think of like, I don't know, like a busty red-haired 27-year-old woman that works at a bar, a bike a bar, and she's all kind of cool and brash, and you know, the men know not to mess with her too much.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

This is the connotations of Roxanne for me. Apologies to any Roxanne's. I don't mean to say that your name immediately draws to mind prostitution, but like in the context, you know.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Well, it's shortened to Roxy, right? Which is definitely a kind of sexy name. Roxy. Boxy Roxy. Okay, all right. So we've established Mr. Tickles, sorry, Mr. Giggle's name, Mr. Giggle. Okay. So what has happened is Mr. Giggle tried to join Sal's Tickle app. I'm just recapping this a little bit. I think most people probably know. And she created a women at an app just for women, and there was a dating section, and there was a section for new mums. It was just in general an app for women to chat and get to know each other and form, I don't know, fucking women's hiking club on there. But it was basically a forum for that kind of thing. So very nice, very nice idea. All very friendly, all very benign. What you just waved your hand. What?

SPEAKER_01 3:00

I just think it's funny. I have to say, whenever we talk about Tickle V Giggle, and I apologize to Sal, who's a listener of the podcast and is listening now. Friend of the show, friend of the show. Friend of the show in the Tim Dylan sense, friend of the show.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

No, no, because he means it in a sarcastic sense. He picks people who hate him. Actually, Sal is a friend of the show.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

Yeah, Sal is actually a friend of the show. But so sorry, Sal. And I don't mean to make light of what you went through, but I can't help but laugh a little bit because whenever we talk about the origin of the app, because I remember Sal went on Tammy Peterson, Jordan Peterson's wife, briefly had a podcast and I saw Sal on there and I thought, oh, cool, that's my friend Sal. I'm gonna listen to it. And Tammy Peterson was so fucking mean about the origin of this app. Like Sal very innocently went, Yeah, it's about finding female friends. And Tammy Peterson goes, What, you don't have friends then? It was she was so rude. And I remember being like, Am I just imagining this? And then I think I mentioned it to Sal. I was like, Was it just me or was Tammy or Tammy Peterson like horrific to you on that podcast? She was like, Oh yeah, she was awful. So every time we think about this cake case, I just think about Tammy Peterson just like having an issue for no reason. And how and Sal was like, I think at one point Sal uh Tammy Peterson went, Yeah, don't you not do you not have friends then? Like she was so mean, and Sal just went, Right, well, anyway, just tried to like be brave and carry on. But I was like, whoa, that was crazy, and it makes me laugh how when some when people are like needlessly horrible, I do always think it's a bit funny.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Well, Tammy Peterson is just kind of an ardent anti-feminist, and she'll just read anything that is of just you know a women's forum for women to chat. I mean, it's called giggle for heaven's sake. Could this be more benign? It's just like, oh, grab yourself a cup of tea and have a giggle, love. Like it's so, you know, this kind of thing that women do when they're just in the staff room at work, or I don't know, in the park whilst their kids play, like you have a nice chat and you literally have a giggle. And it's just this idea of like casual friendship, or yeah, maybe uh becomes more if you have an interest in common, and as I say, these different themes that were set up in the app, ready to go. It's just that Tammy Peterson, and this is funny as well, because it's it's like, well, apparently this woman is a Christian, like a and a convert. And I just think you don't think in Christianity that there's this idea that women should have their own spaces and that women are something else other than men, and that of course they would want to have conversations, for example, that they just don't want men to be privy to.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

Yeah, I just I thought it was um shocking and bizarre, and uh, you know, great job, Sal, for handling that. I mean, you went through this horrific court case. I think Tammy Peterson being a bit rude and passag, I guess, is not very much in comparison, but I I always find it hilarious.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

Yeah, so apparently Mr. Tickle didn't even use the app beyond onboarding, making some profiles in which he didn't put a picture of himself, he used pictures of kittens and ducks. Talk about wolf and sheep's clothing behavior. I'm just a cute little kitten. So originally it was at the federal court, and now the thing that's happened in 2026 is it went to a second court, so a slightly higher court, which I think is called something like full federal court, but she has lost there, so is now taking it to the High Court, which is the equivalent of, say, the Supreme Court in the UK. So it's the highest law, um, the highest court in the land. And they've applied on the basis of they believe an error in law has happened, which is the law is specifically section 7D, and this is the female-only spaces part in Australian law. And they say that it's not being interpreted and applied as it was intended, and it's not discrimination to exclude a man from women-only spaces, and that no exemption is necessary, no asking for permission, and it's completely all uh lawful. So, really, what's at stake is not just an app for women, which is a nice thing, but if they can manage to get the law to be interpreted as it was intended and should be, then that will then have consequences for women's rights and women's uh only spaces all over Australia in every other realm. So there's a lot riding on this, basically. It's not just uh about one woman and her nice app that she developed. There are actually yeah, nationwide consequences. And so far, I mean, Sal did tell me this, so she doesn't mind, but it's been 1.2 million in legal fees. And part of that, can I just say that she Sal has received a $10,000 fine for laughing in court at some of Mr. Tickle's evidence? But look, with a case called Tickle and Giggle and a man named Mr. Tickle claiming to be a woman behind his duck and kitten self-image, obviously this is prime for humour, and apparently Sal laughed involuntarily and it stopped as soon as it started, but she's still been slapped with this $10,000. This $10,000 fine. And I guess for me that kind of sums up just how I mean, is that so unusual? I mean, I don't know, in courts, I don't think people get uh fined for all kinds of things, all kinds of misconduct, right? If they end up swearing under their breath and so on. It's just such a hostile anti-woman atmosphere over there or certainly in their courts, it seems.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

Can I interject, or do you still want to read? Hold on. Well, it's just the worst thing that you can do to these men, and they take it as an affront to their dignity, and I think in a very bizarre uh inverse sort of way, it's an emasculation. And that's one thing as a woman that you can't really ever properly be forgiven for in any context, because it's this idea that men are like the namers of reality. I get to say what is or is not, I get to construct myself and I get to say what is true and untrue, and you're just a little woman. Um, fuck you, bitch. How dare you? And when you laugh, especially in this way that's like involuntary, you're just removing um that claim to naming, as Dworkin put it, you know, that men get to name things as they are. And when you laugh at that, it's a very innocent way of saying you're full of shit. And what laughter is, is a break in tension. So basically everyone's holding it in tension, that it's ridiculous that this autogynephile with a fetish dressed in this bizarre way, this like crop this fetishistic cross-dressing, that that's the idea that this person is a man is obviously ridiculous, and there will be that tension in the room. And indeed, if you spend time around these people, no matter how much time, there's always this ambient tension around them because in every interaction, they're hoping that other people um endorse this idea that they're the opposite sex. So when you laugh, you're breaking that tension and everything is sort of unmasked. Um, and it's like just the I'm not surprised that it was the judge decided a 10,000 Australian dollar fine for that. It's um the most it's a more powerful thing to do if it's genuine, not in this like kind of contrived, smug way, but if it's genuine, it's a very powerful thing to do. It's more powerful than saying your man in some ways.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

Yeah, it's just incredible, though, to see a legal system in hockey these Cretans. Saul also has had to uh pay him double damages because she referred to him as him during cross-examination. But the thing is, if she said her, she'd be lying, and then you could get done for lying in court. So they're kind of placing women between a rock and a hard place in this respect. And I do just think that it's through yeah, male identification that the judge or certainly the legal system itself just strongly identifies itself with, I think originally probably strong men, but now it seems to be weak men who are the kind of men that take up transgenderism. And yeah, it's similar to when um Maria McLaughlin, I remember when, and she won her case, it was a criminal case though, uh, a prosecution against Tara Wolf, who was a trans-identified young man that had assaulted her in 2017. And I remember that some of the yeah, what the defense submitted was Maria Mack calling Tara Wolf or some other man, like making fun of him for being bold or his hair receding. And of course, the bold male judge did not take this very well, despite being in his 70s, which is a perfectly like it's pretty normal to be bold by that age. You've done well if uh to have got there. So, yeah, there is some, it is like definitely a hostile atmosphere for the reasons that you say, and it's kind of like they're having to play along with this man's fantasy, the entire works of the Australian legal system. But if a woman laughs about it because their evidence is silly, oh well, we all have to say, oh, this is terrible. And that's worth a $10,000 fine. That's worse than. I mean, some people get into um, you know, like DUI situations or car crashes where they've seriously hurt someone else from driving drunk and they don't get $10,000 fines. Right? Like no harm was caused, but you're right, yeah, it's his the harm to his ego, his ability to name himself in the world. And in doing so though, Ben apparently the name like he has this power of naming that has the legal system of Australia within its grip. I mean, this is just crazy.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

I think with reference to the legal system, I think there's so many things going on. I think in just to say about the power of naming bit, what the the cases that I find most interesting around transgenderism are the family court cases, and I do try and follow them as much as I can when they are in public or when women speak about them. What's incredible about those cases is that those men, these divorced, middle-aged um fetishists who get into transbestic fetishism through pornography and often start abusing their wives and children, um, they claim fathers' rights. So they want to be the naming of reality is such that they they are claiming to be the opposite sex, that's the first kind of reality-bending thing. And then despite that claim, they want father's rights. Like this is the level in which they are allowed to just completely make up reality. And then I think in the legal system, the way that transgenderism, and it's been a it's a it's been a point that's been made, has it was the civil rights movements, which were about mostly about race as a uh immutable characteristic, which it obviously is, sex, which is an immutable characteristic, which it obviously is, and then it was gay rights, very immutable. And then um, so is this whole like legal framework around these quote-unquote immutable characteristics, and I think for a lot of lawyers, they've just slot it slotted, as we know, as they've done in Canada and other places, um, quote unquote, and they attempt Stonewall attempted to do in the UK by lying about what the law is, they've slotted gender identity into one of these immutable immutable characteristics as if um thinking you're the the opposite sex is the same thing as being black, you know. Um, so in their mind, you are laughing at an immutable characteristic, and it's then folded into all these identity politics around all of that. Um, it's not seen as like a volitional act cross-dressing and getting into fetishism, which it like completely and obviously is. I think that there's um people who are so extremely gender non-conforming that the cross-dressing is kind of less volitional, like they would be made so uncomfortable to be in the clothing that's traditionally known for their sex, Jen's putting up her hand, that it's not really volitional anymore. But we're not talking about that, are we? We really are not. And those people often don't claim to be the opposite sex because they're so aware of their sex, because they're so they're living in um in a way that is non-conforming to it every day that it would be a really odd thing for them to do. Um, but yeah, the laughing, and it it's it's also just the way that the law can can punish women. Like it's it's it's so incredible the the power of the law and how these people have managed to completely capture it makes me very glad to be British and living in the United Kingdom.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Yeah, we live in Turf Island where these questions are settled now. It's just settled and it's gone, and it was as if that was another world. And I should say that I think that Australia will get there, and it has been it has been a good thing, even though Saul has lost at this stage. The whole thing has still had excellent outcomes because after this decision was made, I definitely saw more Australian politicians speaking out about it on Onyx on Twitter. And I hadn't really seen that when it was just at the federal court level. So there is certainly a kind of raising of awareness and more and more people feeling more brave to speak out and say, wait, what the hell is this? Like, this is just crazy. So it is helping to shift the Overton window. And unfortunately, I feel like, well, this is just how it is. Maybe I shouldn't say unfortunately, but women over there like Sal, like Jillian Spencer, like some others, are kind of gonna like they've been put on the pyre, and the pyre has been set aflame. You're just gonna have to spend a bit more time there before things turn around. But it's being turned around by those actions, by the fact that women are um facing down hostilities basically to these really normal truth claims of you know, child, yeah, everyone's born in their body, you're not born in the wrong sex, that's not possible. We shouldn't be giving beauty blockers to children, that's abuse. We shouldn't be uh allowing Cretans like Mr. Tickle on two women-only apps. This and and as as Sal says, like this is actually already in the law, it's just being completely interpreted um ideologically at the moment, seems to be the case. But I really hope that the High Court does find in her favor when it eventually gets there. But also, I mean, Sal sort of said that she thinks she'll be liable for a million dollars in damages to Mr. Tickle. I mean, also like these odious men, these obviously dysfunctional men, right? This is also just becoming a way for them to make money. Like it's just such a piss take of legal institutions. But aside from that, if Mr. Tickle ends up a millionaire, it will still have been a good thing that she's done it because it really has raised awareness. She's very, very good at media appearances, she's very good at quickly delineating what the issue is. And as I say, it's not just about the app, it really will have consequences for then how the law is applied all over. And I just feel like it's hard to express how quickly it went away here. And it was sort of like um there was a tipping point. I think it came in about the summer of 2022. I think it was when Keir Starmer said, No, yeah, I don't think women can, uh no woman can have a penis. You know, he said that he agreed with that. And it was as if like there were these women pushing a massive boulder up a hill, and then when it just got to the top and then it tipped over the other side, it just rolled down by itself. And it was just, yeah, like a house of cards falling. With I'd say within a matter of one to two years, and then it was like, oh, that's it. And then it's just now it's like, how far can the boulder go? And it seems like, yeah, I come across just more and more um cases or examples or incidents of like, oh, this is really dead. Like, I didn't even know it could die that much. I didn't know that these people who had such power, they had all our institutions fawning over them for God's sake, wanting to give them money, awards, all this shit. It's like that that was uh now it's just gone. It's just gone, it's just peacetime, the war is over. Okay, there'll be occasional things like Lush, that stupid shop, which just smells disgusting, and I can barely stand next to it in public. It's true, like they for Pride Month have put out some furry cartoon, like you know, like a tiger, a cartoon tiger on the side with uh mastectomy scars, and it's like love your tiger stripes, and this is all I suppose melding in the furry thing with the trans thing. And they're actually aware that it's teenage girls and young women that really love Lush, right? Like who who else is gonna go buy the neon pink soaps that smell like how you imagine, I don't know, fairies from Candyland smell. Um, but aside from those outliers, where clearly those people are just clinging uh to hope that you know they can still be seen as virtuous through this stuff and flog some sorts. Of uh body showers or gone uh organic body showers, it's done. And it's just yeah, it's just really hard to imagine that though, when you're in the other world still. But I do think that we're about 10 years behind America or 5 to 10, and I think Australia is maybe five to ten behind us. Sorry, Australians.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

I I don't know, and I and I don't know enough about Australian politics to say. Um but uh the what happened in the US, and just to say, in in the US, it the it wasn't like the American right didn't talk about this issue at all, but for a very long time, the American right was very the institutional American right, was very reluctant to talk about it. They were still licking their wounds over gay marriage. There was a real reluctance very early on in this fight for Republicans to speak about transgenderism at all. Um, and anyone who was around at that time, kind of early on, the late 2010s, can tell you as much. It was absolutely not the case that the right cared about this issue. There was like Joe Rogan talking about sports, and it was kind of like in the air a little bit. But in terms of policy and legislation, absolutely not. There was nothing, and the institutional Republican Party really wanted nothing to do with it. Um, how what I saw with the Americans is that it was really Matt Walsh, almost single-handedly, who um broke through that wall with the What is a Woman documentary and the um the shutting down of that child transgenderism so-called clinic. Um, and he once he broke down that wall, then there was Trump's executive order. And by the way, Trump's executive order on these issues written by a woman, um, directly uh feminist arguments. There it was um, it was as if something that you would have read on gender critical Twitter. Like there was nothing in there um that was a right-wing um argument for for sexual ethics at all. Um so that was the evolution as I see it in America. It took, it took some time. The feminists laid the groundwork. We did need right-wing men to push it over. Sorry, it's objectively what happened. And then there was change with the executive order, which is where I kind of see the end of this stuff. A bit different in the United States with a with a private healthcare system, but overall it's largely dead there. And the amount of rights that states have over the federal government. But I think the executive order was the big um big win in the American gender critical movement. And then Britain, very unique, different case in that the British gender critical movement really chose to focus and labor, um, focus and lobby the Labour Party, because there was this impression that if we get labor, we get everyone else. And that strategy really worked and was really like typified in this moment where Keir Starmer said, of course, women can't have penises. And then the ball has been carried forward. Now that we are having our um populist right-wing shift as the Americans had in 2016, we're now having in 2026 10 years on, which is about what the time it happens. So that's now gonna properly dead and bury it. I don't know what there is going to be in Australia as an equivalent. I don't know which path it's going to take. I know that there is an evangelical right in Australia. I know it's mostly evangelical, um, some Catholics. I don't know if um Christian sexual ethicists have that kind of power to do something like Matt Walsh did. I do it does not seem possible um that they are going to be able to uh lobby the Labour Party or any left-wing party or Liberal Party, as what was demonstrated with what was her name? Um, who sued the head of the Labour Party, the Australi the Australian MP?

SPEAKER_00 25:56

Moi Redeeming.

SPEAKER_01 25:57

What happened with Moira Deeming? So that strategy is not going to work in Australia. She did win. No, she won, but they're not going to be able to success successfully lobby the the Australian Labour Party to be gender critical, I don't believe. Um so I don't I don't know what the pathway is in Australia forward with this issue, and I'm I'm curious as to what Australian listeners think may happen, but to me it seems quite quite bleak because kind of the two paths, lobbying the liberals and the right wing doing it, don't seem up don't seem available.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

Yeah, well, I think that ours was very bottom-up in terms of it was a big movement from below that genuinely did seem to rock institutions through legal cases and all the rest of it. And of course, um speakouts and this kind of thing. And I think what you're saying is more in America, they had a different path. I mean, I think the Daily Wire, Matt Matt Walsh was part of that, but the Daily Wire, whatever you think of Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens, they were huge. I mean, Daily Wire is not huge anymore, but it certainly was around the Trump era um from 2016 onwards. So there was a lot of of influence there. I think that Australia, they're having their general election in 2028, and the liberal and national parties and one nation, this is what I've heard, there's a possibility that they will win as a coalition. So they might not stand as a coalition, but they might make a deal afterwards. Because at the moment, apparently everybody hates Labour for exactly the same reason, or one of the one of the reasons that people hate Labour here, which is the Labour government in Australia are proposing and probably got to bring in these huge cuts to um disability support for disabled Australians. And so it's the same thing as here, where you vote Labour thinking, well, I'll get what it says on the tin, and then actually inside the tin. There are a lot of policies that nobody likes, and a lot of cuts to some of the most vulnerable people in society. So I think that they may well have the right-wing popular shift in 2028, or perhaps the election after. I should also say that there is quite a large grassroots movement there, of which people like Sol Grover are just like, you know, like one tip of one particular spear. So, and we do we do oddly get 10% of our listenership from Australia for a country of 20.28.5 million, which is relatively small, it's a little bit surprising, but you know, great. So there's clearly an appetite, I think, um, for women to form, and they have this is the thing, like um court cases about lesbians wanting to meet together. There's a lot of dissidents there. And I think eventually, after legal case, after legal case, and politicians really starting to realize what time it is, that's I think that's how it will happen. I can't foresee, and that's usually how everything happens. And I think that you're right when you say that people thought if we get Labour that we've convinced everybody else. I think it's because Labour were the are the supposedly the party of the left in this country and they were gonna be the next um government. So it was just like, oh well, you've convinced people in power, that's that. And I feel like um but I think it would have been the case whoever was in power. We just made it impossible to hold that position. I still think it was very from below. It became untenable, and I think that legal cases like SARS eventually ratcheted up the heat to the point that whoever is in power it starts to become untenable and you start to lose credibility, but it takes a number of years.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

Yeah, and I I'm interested in hearing more from our Australian listeners. I do know we're very popular there. Hi, hello, everyone. Um, but I really think something Kelly J. Keane said about Australia once on a Twitter space, when she said it, I was like, oh, that really rings true to me. Um, she's just like, I've always found Australian men to be exceptionally misogynistic, and it kind of feels like the second wave didn't really happen there in the same way. And when she said that, I was like, yeah, that really, I mean, the it in for a developed country, the the rates of wife battery are much higher than um what would be expected for a similar similar comparable country. Um so I don't know. I don't know what's gonna happen with the Commonwealth countries in this fight. Um I do think maybe things are in their what 2015-2014 stage. Um, if you want to be optimistic about it. I'm completely, I just think Canada is like a totally lost cause, I'm afraid to say. I I don't think there's anything to be done there. Um Pierre Polyev made some comments about puberty blockers saying he doesn't believe in them, and then obviously there's Danielle Smith in Alberta. Um, but most most Canadian right-wing people I've known have have been involved in some conversation are really just getting behind Alberta separatism at this stage because they feel there's no other option. So I don't know if the atmosphere is similar in Australia, and I'm or maybe not, and I'm just projecting. But the Commonwealth countries is in is an interesting thing because they are British common law and it has parliamentary systems like they have here, and culturally similar to the UK, um, but in many ways, these sorts of um the the excesses of a kind of critical theory stuff and queer theory stuff seem to have really percolated there. I remember who was it? Was it Jane Claire Jones? I'm really like all the gender critical movement people I'm really referencing here. Was it her? She was she talked about the transgenderism studies at the University of Victoria, which was the first one of its kind. Um, you also have in Canada in the Canadian example, people, some of the scholars on multiculturalism and liberalism, like Will Kimlika, who's a Canadian, this idea that you know um democratic rights on a broader scale are realized at the at the level of the individual being their truest self, having being recognized and reflected back to them by the society. These are all ideas that were really percolated in the Commonwealth or created in the Commonwealth countries and academia and other things. So I just I yeah, I don't know. I'm not saying Australians give up hope, but I I I don't know what the path forward will be. I I sometimes think, I think that the buck stops with women's stuff very often at reproduction. And I wonder if things have to get, I'm and I God forbid, I'm not saying I wish this to happen, but I wonder if in Canada and Australia it will require maternity rights starting to be threatened in some way for regular women who are like, oh yeah, I don't mind a uh uh you know, a cross-dressing man in my bathroom is just like my gay best friend. If maternity rights start getting threatened, I would imagine that might be the turning point. But I just I just don't know what the path is there.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

Yeah, well, I think the path is just what I said before. So hopefully, I mean, but also I'm just an internal optimist. Um, I think Australia has an advantage over Canada and it doesn't have a the USA next door because a lot of the still this uh tilt towards hyper-liberalism in Canada is very much based on, well, we're not America and we're against Trump, and so we want to do everything that's the opposite to that, whatever they perceive as the opposite to it. Australia at least doesn't have that. Um, I mean, uh yeah, I wish that they'd had a revolution against us like America did, and then it would just be Texas down under and obviously a much better place. Sorry, than it is at the moment. It would just be, yeah, much more a society based on rebelliousness and uh yeah, being willing to uh to not be so passive or not be so interested in, and I'm not saying the people there are so passive, maybe in Canada, I don't know about Australia, but this idea of a passive reception of ideas and allowing them to take over your legal system. I think a lot of Americans would find that crazy because even on the right and left in America, they will still be this, there'll still be this sort of obstinence and this they they believe, yeah, free speech is absolute. They believe that rebelliousness is a good thing. And so, yeah, I wish I wish both Canada and Australia had uh revolted against us and set up a culture that was more that way.

SPEAKER_01 35:12

I also think there's something of the geography in it, and in both cases, I mean, you said this when you visited Canada with me. It's very much you can set up a nice life for yourself in Canada, sort of in the middle of nowhere, and create a sort of apolitical bubble around yourself where you're not really affected. Um, and I think that that's due to the geography. If you live in the UK, which is a obviously relatively much smaller, um you will run into the lush posters with the mastectomy scars and your kids going to school with with people who are very different than yourselves or whatever. But in Australia and Canada, there is just these vast expanses where you can just go live a comfortable life and never think about politics, basically. Um, so I wonder if that has something to do with it. But it's a very sad thing that uh this has lost. Is there anything that can be done? Do we have to wait for another legal challenge, basically, on single-sex spaces or what happens from here?

SPEAKER_00 36:18

Yeah, I think the Saul's legal challenge is going ahead. I think the other women will be cooking some up. Uh, I think also that uh Gillian Spencer's will have an outcome. And I feel like all of it actually is still all heading in the right direction. So as I say, I I think, and just the way that once it was over here, it was over, and the fall was much, much quicker than the climb. So, whenever that tipping point is there, and no one can exactly know when it is, but once that tipping point is met, actually you don't need to do anything anymore. You've done all the work. So, given that's the case, it's sort of like just keep keeping striving, pushing that boulder up the hill. You can't leave the pyre, you have to stay on the pyre burning until uh until dawn. Um, and light finally breaks out. So I agree with you about the geographical thing, actually, about having a massive country, though I should also add that 80% plus of Australia is uninhabitable, but it's still so big that they still don't have what we have, which is a you know, a country the size of Alabama, while England, the UK is the size of Massachusetts.

SPEAKER_01 37:34

Same with Canada. Yeah, massive massive, I mean you freeze to death in a large portion of it, but yeah, I mean I don't know. I mean it's it's it's it is discouraging, I guess. Don't don't give up the the fight, I suppose. I mean I think I think it we it really I think you're right about that um from below stuff that happened in the UK because basically anyone who tweeted when when the kind of LGBTQ rights transday visibility uh tweet went out from the MP from Shropshire or whatever, you could count on a woman being at the next surgery um going, sorry, do you think women have penises? Are you well? Like, what's going on? Um and it became completely untenable to hold that position and not be publicly held to account for it. So I don't know um what's going to happen. I would say that they're also at a slight uh disadvantage because the what I find these days, the the commentariat class seem to think it's like um a cheap issue. It's a it's a it's a uh lurid issue, it's uncouth to speak about, you're going for cheap clicks or um cheap, a cheap play for ratings if you bring up transgenderism in any in any way. I remember I was watching Camilla Tomily, Tominly, Tomaly, Tomaly, Camilla Tomaly from the Telegraph ask um some Blairite guy, uh a policy guy from Blair, because Blair recently put out this 5,000-word essay where he basically supports conservatism. Anyway, but she asked, was asking him about um Andy Burnham and transgenderism, and he just goes, Oh, well, yes, you people are absolutely obsessed with the trans issue. And she was kind of she moved on to other things quite quickly after that. So I think there's a bit of a uh culture now of that's a that's a lurid issue to to talk about. I would also say um with in Gillian Spencer's case and the the the other side of the issue, which is to do with transing children, I think the UK having a national health service and having it be this sort of beloved institution that everyone cares about and we protect our NHS, and um it's so foundational to the country's idea of itself. And people found out that our NHS was abusing children in this way, that also brought about outrage when you have obviously Canada and Australia both have public health care systems, but they're not nationalized, they're not a national health service in the same way. Um, so I think that's also might be a problem.

SPEAKER_00 40:37

I have noticed that nationalism, well, nationalization, of which I'm a big fan, is very difficult in a huge geographical, like you know, in terms of geography, like a huge country just seems to be the rule that things don't work quite like that and they're more separated into states and provinces, which I guess makes a lot of sense, but it does put a barrier to my uh wild dreams of nationalization, nationalization of the earth. Um, but yeah, so just to end, I'm very grateful to women like Sargrover who are willing basically to show the kinds of bravery that the average person doesn't, or you know, a lot of people in regard to this issue, it's like we have to have these individuals who have a thousand times more bravery about the topic. And then, yeah, as I say, you just you send them off into the ice lake and just hope that they float well and go, Well, you know, best of luck, warrior. Hope that you manage. So uh yeah, we should be very grateful that certain people are willing to be put through the ringer for actually on behalf of all women and children.

SPEAKER_01 41:48

It's bravery and courage, absolutely. But I think the other real, really underdiscussed factor is inconvenience and risk. And, you know, all the years that years and years and years, actually, it's felt like years and years that Sal's been involved in this case, this term that she hasn't been working on other things, hasn't been doing other things, hugely inconvenient. Um, and also the willing, the willingness to take to take risk. Um, I think that's another huge portion of this. People like Gillian Spencer, uh, who people should look up on Twitter. She's a child psychiatrist in Australia who's whistleblown whistleblow about um medical abuse of children. The the personal the personal and professional risk that people are willing to take is should always yeah, it's it's so so admirable. Um and you do need uh like a a significant portion of those people in order for this movement to be to be to be won, you know, for us to win. So yeah, I mean uh what Sal went through, even though it feels shit to lose, thank you so much. I mean, thank you doesn't do it justice, really.

SPEAKER_00 43:05

Yeah, and she's not lost yet. I mean, the High Court could be a victory, and I still consider it all a victory, even if she technically loses, and I'm sure financially it won't feel that way. But definitely I saw something happen amongst Australian politicians when the outcome of her case at this level started to circulate online, and I thought, oh, okay, so the you know, the ice is breaking a little bit on this question, which is great because actually one of the toughest things was just in this country was just getting people to talk about it and being willing because there was so much um and it in ways a legitimate fear because it was so to your detriment to comment on the issue, right? And if you had a thought out of place, you suddenly got splattered from every angle. So I feel like the conversation on a Australia will get bigger and grow the more that this stuff is around in the media. And eventually, once you talk about it enough, obviously you just realize it's stupid. And Tony Blair, who killed a million people in Iraq, right? A fucking war criminal that should be in a dungeon, dares to say this is a cheap issue. It's like, no, sorry, this is a litmus test. This is, are you trustworthy or not? Or are you stupid or not?

SPEAKER_01 44:28

It wasn't Blair himself. It was his one of his apparatus. I actually think Blair has said himself has said sensible, sensible things. But one such person who you describe who's exactly that way is Alistair Campbell. Alistair Campbell and his um daughter, who's a so-called comedian who goes on podcasts and makes fun of domestic violence victims, lesbians, children who have been medically abused, raped women, um, and calls them ugly. Um, and then Alistair Campbell, her war criminal father, who should probably at the very least, I mean, I don't believe in the death penalty, but if there was anyone who, you know, would be eligible, it would be him. His her father who talks about being on antidepressants and his mental health on a podcast. Um, I mean, it's just sick, these people. Um, yeah, for for her to so there's a there's a whole group of of people who have absolutely no moral authority whatsoever to chat about any issue in public ever again. Um and they've I don't think the reality has hit them. And I think that they've gone into this kind of a lot of the true believers have sunk into their little enclaves, and these people in public have taken on this sort of glib um we're gonna make fun of and mock and harass people um who have been victims of this. It's absolutely sick.

SPEAKER_00 46:02

Yeah, well, Alistair Campbell is most likely on antidepressants because he's haunted nightly by the ghosts of Iraqi children. I mean, imagine waking up to three children's faces that you helped kill in the middle of the night. I imagine that's exactly what his internal world is like. And so it should be. It makes sense. And look, I've just, yeah, I mean, I've had a radical shift. Maybe I was like this before, but I just think we have to lock up half of our political class of about the last 30 years. I don't think we need to hurt them, but I don't think they should be allowed a in public life, potentially not in society. I just think all of these people should be in prison for the rest of our lives. And the fact that they open their fat fucking mouths to comment on anything to do with morality or ethics. I'm just like, who are you? Like, look at your precedence. Like, I don't want to know their opinion on what to have for Sunday dinner. I just, it's just incredible that they still think they can speak, and it's doubly incredible that anyone tries to listen to them. And yeah, Blair has become super rich since leaving office. I'm sure his apparatchik was speaking on his behalf or whatever. He hired him. The buck still stops with him. All of these people, I just I don't understand where they are, where they are. And I hope we have a political revolution in this country that puts all of these fucking criminals away.

SPEAKER_01 47:28

And just to say uh kudos to Jen. And you yelled at Alistair Campbell on the tube, didn't you?

SPEAKER_00 47:33

Yeah, I saw him go off the tube, and then as he walked away from me, I shouted, war criminal. And he didn't turn around, presumably because he uh is used to getting that shouted at him. But I just thought, I can't believe you dare show your face in public.

SPEAKER_01 47:48

I mean, it's amazing, like whether it was um the war in Iraq, COVID, another big one, and now uh and and in the past now transgenderism, how many times these people can treat the electorate, um, the British public, whatever public of any country, like they're fucking thick, and at the same time morally lawed over them as if they have these higher values, and then they're surprised when people want to elect populist parties. I mean, how many times can't have can we see this film really? And I remember the the at the time, and I think we did podcasts about it at the time, the absolute shrinking, the sinking horror in these people when um that when when when what happened to the Tabistock was X exposed by that woman Hannah, what was her name, who wrote the time to Hannah Barnes? Yes, Hannah Barnes, when she wrote her book, the sinking dread you could see in these people of oh shit, we might have been wrong. Um, and yeah, I I completely agree. How many times can they do this to people where they lie like this in in this way that is so um, yeah, war crimes, genocide, killing millions of people, sexually mutilating children? How many, how many times can they um do this? And then you get these um uh these things. Why is populism popular? Why are people turning to the Green Party and to reform? Why do people not trust institutions? What's going on? I wonder what it could possibly be. Read my think piece about it. There's a book that was released recently, which I thought was so funny. It was just called What If Reform Wins. I'm like, they're going to, and they are winning in councils everywhere. What do you mean, what if reform wins? The absolute shock and horror that is setting in. It's like, yeah, that these the the ordinary ordinary people fucking hate you. They fucking hate you, they don't want anything to do with you anymore. Um, it's very, very funny to see that kind of sinking reality get into these people's thick fucking skulls.

SPEAKER_00 50:08

Yeah, it is nice to see. And I just consider all these people, you know, our political class and the PMC, they're just like ghouls who are in search for new blood all the time. And the reality is, given how much they've fucked things up, they shouldn't be allowed to have a lemonade stand on the side of the street. I wouldn't trust them with that.

SPEAKER_01 50:32

But you do see why I don't agree with the schizophrenia of like they're all a bunch of blood-sucking pedophiles who need to survive off the blood of children to live and worship Ball or whatever, though we do know Epstein was a Satan worshiper. Um, I don't agree with all that. I think a lot of that's mental illness, but you can see why people get there. You could, you could, if you were just if you lean a bit bizarre, you know, if you are, if your touch on reality is a little bit, even just a tiny bit, it's not a big jump. Like, I do get why people have gone mad. You're like, oh, are you out to to kill people and mutilate people and cut them up? And like you get the and then what I found very funny, and I know we did an episode about Mandelson, but I was, you know, watching the institutional press covering that whole thing. You saw people be like, oh, and the vetting, and at what stage? And it was given a red card, not a yellow card. And what does that mean in the context of this, you know, third-party consultancy firm that did the vetting? I was like, the ambassador to the United States was in frequent contact with a man who said he worshipped Ball. Okay? Let's keep in perspective. People don't give a shit about the consultancy firm doing the the vetting, they care about demon worship. There was the official ambassador to the United States had regular contact with a satanic paedophile demon worshiper. This is the headline, people. Not what fucking card and color system, and when did Keir Starmer know? And what did the WhatsApp say? I was like, Lord Ball is the headline here, you dumb fucks.

SPEAKER_00 52:15

Well, yeah, Epstein was a convicted pedophile, and Mandelson was still saying in emails that he was his best friend. And could he get him a Cuban, i.e., a Cuban male prostitute? There was just a lot more there that was more concerning than process. But these people hide behind process, and I just don't know why anybody's surprised. I mean, why is it the youth of today don't think there's a future? It's like because these these people, these people have really cocked things up, and then of course you're gonna get something completely new once that's on the table, because everybody has given you time after time to get things right in even a small semblance of ways.

SPEAKER_01 53:00

So anyway, political rant over. Well done, Sal. Friend of the show, not in the Tim Dylan way. Well, Tim Dylan goes, Lord Ball, friend of the show. We don't mean that, Sal. We mean genuine, genuine friend. Um, and I don't know, there's nothing I can say here that doesn't sound um condescending. Keep your head up. What do you think? Keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going, superstar lady.

SPEAKER_00 53:31

Yes. All right, well, thank you very much for listening. And if you like this material, we do have a Patreon with a bonus episode that comes out every weekend, usually a bit more controversial or personal than what we talk about on the main pod. So, yeah, if you liked our stuff and would like a concentrated version of Red Femme, check us out over there. Thank you very much for listening as well.

SPEAKER_01 53:54

Thank you ever so much. We will catch you next time. Bye-bye. Bye.