the brilliantly leaping gazelle

As things change, so they remain the same and so just as Galileo was found guilty of heresy in 16th Century Italy, so too has the BBC’s Justin Webb been found guilty of expressing the modern equivalent of a heretical belief in 21st Century Britain.

Galileo’s accusers were the Roman Catholic Church and his his supposed heresy, expressed in his book ‘Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World System’ was his belief that the Earth revolved around the Sun and not vice-versa,. This view was gaining some traction in 16th Century Europe, and because of that the Catholic Church in the form of the Inquisition sought to punish him. He was found guilty of heresy, forced to renounce the truth, sentenced to life imprisonment – commuted to house arrest until his death – and the publication of any of his books, including any future works, was banned.

Who accused Justin Webb isn’t know but his heresy was that, whilst co-presenting BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he uttered the phrase “trans women – that is males’ last year when discussing new International Chess Federation guidelines regarding whether being biologically male can give players an advantage in the game.

Leaving aside the question of exactly how biological males competing in a women’s category are somehow conferred an advantage when playing chess – chess – isn’t clear. Proper sport – the kind that causes you to sweat and muscles to ache if you do too much – I understand the advantage. Any male who has gone through puberty has all manner of biological advantages because of it and no amount of ideologically driven scientific gerrymandering will alter that fact.

But nonetheless, someone complained that the comment amounted to Webb giving his personal view on a controversial matter in breach of the BBC’s requirements on impartiality, and the the BBC’s editorial complaints unit agreed, saying it “gave the impression of endorsing one viewpoint in a highly controversial areaHow exactly is this ‘a highly controversial issue’? It isn’t. Far from it, as polls have consistently shown that the overwhelming majority of Britons hold same the view, namely that trans-women are in fact men. When they properly understand what is meant by a trans-woman, that is.

To me, this is just another baleful, yet increasingly modern example of a ‘sport’ or organisation wishing to jump aboard the trans bandwagon and in the interests promoting this and championing that, essentially negating the rights of biological women. And of an organisation that has abandoned all moral authority in trying to placate the digital mob.

The frightening thing is that Galileo had to wait a couple of centuries to be proved right.

We already know Justin Webb is right.