“Thuggish, sectarian, right-wing accounts.” “You couldn’t get a sheet of paper between them and the far right.” “They don’t want your kind of toxic gender ideology at their festival.” “They were the same people cheering on attacks on migrants.” “I’d be embarrassed if my political allies were Elon Musk... and Donald Trump.” These were among the descriptions used by Belfast Telegraph crime correspondent Allison Morris during a BBC Radio Ulster interview with Sex Matters Director of Advocacy Helen Joyce earlier today. They were debating the cancellation of a Women’s Rights Network event at Féile an Phobail. Morris was defending her recent Belfast Telegraph column in which she accused women campaigning for sex-based rights of “obsessing” over a tiny trans minority and described them as an “online sectarian mob”. She repeatedly linked gender-critical campaigners to Donald Trump, Elon Musk, anti-migrant activists and the far right - associations apparently drawn from scrolling people’s social-media feeds. She accused Joyce of bringing a “nasty attitude” to the interview and asserted - incorrectly - that JK Rowling was funding legal action against Féile. The presenter read out a statement from WRN that refuted this. When Joyce alleged that false claims had been made in both the column and the interview and said Morris should have checked her facts, Morris snapped: “We don’t interview people for opinion articles.” Presumably Morris was unaware of Joyce’s own background as a journalist. Opinion journalism allows robust criticism. But it does not remove the responsibility to check facts, represent opposing arguments fairly, acknowledge where claims are contested and distinguish scrutiny from personal attack.show more

It was a painful listen. @HJoyceGender deserves a medal for services to common sense and reason.

@HJoyceGender is one of the calmest, knowledgeable and articulate speakers I have had the pleasure of listening to.

Allison Morris recaps the GC position, but still won't add the dots. 'To take what you’re saying, you have to assume that every single man, ESPECIALLY every trans woman, is a rapist.' She admits TW are men & knows the lengths predators go to but berates women for seeing danger.

Shouldn’t this opinion journalism be referred to @Ofcom. How are the general public to know what is opinion journalism and proper journalism?

I've just looked under her twitter timeline on the article - i really cannot see the abuse she mentions?

She lost as soon as she pulled the labelling trick that doesn’t work anymore. This far right/left imported nonsense needs binned. Instead of looking at the merits of an argument, people are trying to put it on a spectrum. That’s a poor substitute for debate.

@LadyMusicGeek by reflexively claiming the opposite of her political opponents, Allison is actually the one looking to the rightwing to write her script. she’s already got them dictating the boundaries of her thinking.

Maybe she heard Helen talk about the relatives of trans kids being the ones who would never admit they were wrong and took it personally? I would love to know who she thinks she is defending.

It's unbelievable that she says she scrolled social media feeds but 'didn't have time to' look at @HJoyceGender 's

Just catching up with this. Kin ‘ell. @HJoyceGender is a saint for tolerating this.

Allison was shockingly unprepared for this interview. How utterly embarrassing.

Its shocking to see people having to defend women's rights & even more shocking to see the language some people are using to describe good people defending women's rights, especially women who had these protections when growing up

@citizenjournos_ @AllisonMorris1 making the argument that vegetarians are Nazis because Hitler was one…

Helen really took one for the team listening to the bilge water coming out of Allison Morris’ mouth Allison is an Trangender ideologue who has only belief and no facts. As ever it’s like trying to argue with a cult member.

Wow! That’s a very uncomfortable listen. To casually lump the majority of us in with far-right thugs is bad enough. But the wholesale conflation of issues, coupled with blatant misrepresentations by AM, calls into question her judgement, objectivity & credibility going forward.

America is the Worlds most inhospitable place for women she says. Really ?

In a failed attempt to discredit Joyce, Morris uses a wide variety of techniques and fallacies here. Strawmaning the argument. Motte and bailey defence. Guilt by association. Ad hominem attacks. It's all there. Quite the "journalist".

She was all over the place.

Part of the problem is 'opinion journalism.' Journalism is not involved. The paper *wants* a piece that is devoid of balance and nuance, ideally laced with self-righteous anger. Morris was doing her job. She just didn't expect an intelligent, informed rebuttal.

That is not correct. No one wants to read a column that sits on the fence. And great op-eds often offer a perspective that is surprising or challenging. But what you say must still be underpinned by fact and evidence. For example, if you’re going to say women’s grassroots groups like WRN are ‘well-funded’ you must have evidence to support that claim. If that means putting in a few calls to source/verify information- that’s what you must do. A journalist still has a responsibility to ensure they do not misrepresent individuals, groups or institutions - regardless of whether they’re reporting or writing opinion.

What bit is not correct? You seem to agree that opinion is intended to be one-sided. I agree that any facts should be correct, but it's often as easy to omit an inconvenient fact as it is to misstate it. As we are all too aware, it's easy to write an opinion about the woes of trans-identifying people without addressing the impact of their demands on women.

Joyce pointed out the parts she claims are incorrect in the interview. You speak about misstating facts like it’s comparable to forgetting your umbrella on a day rain isn’t forecast. In journalism, accuracy is everything. That isn’t to say mistakes don’t happen - they do. But when they do happen, they should be acknowledged and corrected - ideally as quickly as possible.

I agree with everything you're saying -except your characterization of what I'm saying. In my first comment, I said nothing about facts. You raised facts in your response, and I agreed in my second comment that they should be correct. Where on earth did you get, "comparable to forgetting your umbrella?" I was clear that if you include facts they must be correct. And you ARE allowed to omit them if they're inconvenient.

I particularly liked the "you haven't been silenced" from Morris only to be reminded that the whole reason this conversation was even happening is that a women only event had just been cancelled because it was a women only event. The tide turning is that its no longer silenced.

What incredible restraint you showed @HJoyceGender. You were incredible, and yes, rightfully annoyed. I'm not a hugger, but here's a virtual hug anyway.

What is Alison doing in this interview! Is it belief perseverance, cognitive dissonance, dogmatism, identity-protective cognition or just straight up denialism? It's honestly terrifying the lengths people have gone to in service of this ideology. Like, losing the plot 🤯

She’s still in 2020. The second hand cringe was real. @HJoyceGender was marvellous. The presenter could have challenged @AllisonMorris1 far more and stopped her being so rude.

One for those who see the "trans" nonce-sense as a simple women v men dichotomy which only more feminism can resolve. Women are often the most zealous for this utter nonce-sense.

I'm wondering why Catholics in Northern Ireland keep pushing for reunification with the rest of Ireland when the majority of the views they share are with the UK and not us.

Someone at the @BelTel needs to have a word with her before she & it are dragged through the courts because she incorrectly thinks you can right whatever you want in a column whether she’s bothered to fact check it or not.

Do you hear that women in Afghanistan? As a woman in America, I'm waaaaaaay more oppressed than you. But I'm still trying to figure out how... I need a condescending, lying journalist to connect those dots.

Why don’t you like the truth? That’s who’s on your side

She seems a self-righteous hypocrite and a classic practitioner of old-fashioned, mud-slinging 'gutter journalism'.

Only 13 out of 50 states ban abortion. This is because the people who live there have voted in the majority for those laws. Roe v. Wade reversal was not a universal ban on abortion, it was returning the decision back to the 50 states. Hate it all you want, but people vote with their beliefs. As a woman privileged to be a citizen and resident of the United States, I wonder if Allison feels that women in Poland or Liechtenstein are as oppressed as the women in the 13 states with similar abortion laws? As an American woman, I have the right to a career, property ownership, free speech and all the other rights afforded to men in this country. I can't help but feel a little sad for the billions of women around the world with fewer rights than me. Despite doing a journalism, Allison has overlooked their plight.

I've heard some nasty lying sh*te in my time, but what Allison Morris spouts in this REALLY takes the biscuit.

Oh I got angry listening to that, I don’t know how you manage to keep your composure @HJoyceGender you’re a better woman than me, I’d have grabbed her like a toddler and told her to put her listening ears on. What a wholly ignorant woman.

Bingo!! I didn’t expect to fill my bingo card within 5 mins of Alison’s diatribe.

The ‘far right’ are pro-women’s rights 😂 Most ludicrous thing I’ve heard all day. Helen did a grand job exposing the extremist nut job.