“Now if you think I’m wrong on this topic, and have a better argument than those just
covered, then please do let me know – as if I’m wrong, I want to know it." It's been
over a month since I expressed my views on transgender women competing in athletics,
and since then I've learnt a great deal. On this note, I want to sincerely thank everyone
who has reached out to me lovingly, calmly and respectfully to point out where I went
wrong (as opposed to those who’ve called me right-wing and a transphobe). If it wasn't
for your charitable listening and understanding, my views may not have changed, as if all I
had received is criticisms that are prefaced with accusations of transphobia, I probably
would've moved on before getting to any substance. And so, to those who were respectful, thank
you. Thank you for your charitable listening. Now if you’ve been following me on Twitter,
this video is probably a surprise to you, since I expressed there that it’s going
to take me a few weeks to adequately cover my mistakes, the mistakes of my critics, convey
my new view, and apologise to those that I hurt, but because it’s going to take such
time to do my due diligence, I’ve decided to make my apology separate, and that's what
this video predominantly is. Now, a great many of the trans community have reached out
to me both privately and publicly to make clear that they were not hurt by my previous
video, and that they certainly didn’t find it, or me, to be transphobic. “Now I've
watched the video and I honestly don't think Woodford himself has said anything that could
be construed as transphobic. Now he made some very poor choices for clips that he used in
his video and a very very poor choice for analogy that he made in his video, but not
transphobic, just a couple of blunders.” But my apology, of course, goes out to the
whole of the trans community. Please know that I am truly and sincerely sorry for the
mistakes that I made. Mistakes happen, and they’re a critical component to learning
as an individual and as a collective, but some mistakes are more hurtful than others.
My failure to adequately cover the effects that HRT has on trans women was a pretty huge
and embarrassing blunder, but my lack of sensitivity, endorsement of extremely insensitive statements,
and indeed entire narrative, was where I royally messed up. I’ve always tried to be an ally
to the LGBT+ community, and have always meant for my videos to reflect this, and so to know
that my mistakes and hyperbole has likely emboldened some actual bad actors weighs heavily
on me… but the weight that I feel is NOTHING compared to those who suffer at the hands
of said bad actors. I’m sorry for my failure on these matters. A few days ago I demonetized
the video, updated the title, pinned a comment, and donated all of the ad revenue that it
accumulated to the transgender charity Sparkle. And, indeed, that’s also where every penny
from this video will be going. What’s more, once I publish my new views I will likely
unlist the old video and link to it in the description of the newly published. Anyhow,
it’s currently 3am here, and so I’m going to hit the hay. My next video will cover my
mistakes as well as my critics, and then, in a subsequent video, I’ll express my new
views (at least, that’s the plan). Thank you all kindly for the view, and and I’ll
leave you with some more wisdom from Sarah: “Sometimes people might say things that
they don't realize is maybe insensitive and maybe a little bit awkward, but you know what
you do? You respect them, and you understand and you give them time. They're learning,
you know? They are curious and they want to know more about this topic and they want to
have a discussion and that is fucking great.” And I think having this immediate reaction.
This hasty reaction of immediate shunning people and denouncing people shuts down the
opportunity for having conversations – for having discussions, and that really annoys
me. The only way if you want to be tolerated, if you want to be understood and accepted…
we need to have conversations with people, and we need to have them-- we need to allow
people to express their concerns, to express their doubts, and then just talk like normal
people without having to point fingers and brand people as evil just because they might
have used a poor choice of words during a debate.”