Helen Joyce responds to Durham Union talk

Controversial gender critical author and journalist Helen Joyce has written about her recent talk at the Durham Union on her website. In an article subtitled “Finally, a talk to a student society goes off without a hitch”, she praises the decision to invite a controversial figure such as herself. The article reveals a lot about the way the handling of the talk behind the scenes. It also contains information about the supposed opinions of the student population.

Helen casts sympathy towards Edward Tye, the president of Durham Union Society (DUS), who was reportedly “coping with a degree of fuss totally out of proportion”. Her response to the SU’s statement is less positive but not wholly critical. She does jab at their “childish tone” while in the same paragraph suggesting “I do wish it would occur to them that they might be the baddies”. But her assessment is largely fair: “Everyone is entitled not to come to an event where I’m speaking”.

She goes on to describe the security measures taken by DUS before the event. The event took place at a secret location with six security guards hired. Helen suggests “We forget how surreal it is” that this is happening.

Helen describes the vote that happened back in January against Edward Tye’s proposed events programme. Traditionally, it is the duty of the President (then President-elect) to set the schedule and arrange speakers. However, Helen’s invitation prompted a vote by the other nine members of the Union’s Standing Committee. All of them, except Edward, voted against her inclusion. A Union source told Palatinate that Helen’s invitation was “not a consensus” but a “personal mission” by the President.

Helen suggests that “it was pretty brave of Edward to ignore the vote”. She goes on to describe this as a “brush with trans exceptionalism”, exemplifying a culture of “shaming and moral grandstanding”. She ignores any possibility of the move to ignore the popular vote being undemocratic.

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Helen’s account of the actual speech includes the claim that a number of questions were “from people saying they agreed with me but didn’t dare to say so publicly”. She further describes how two women “came up to me to say they were “huge radfems” who completely agreed with me but didn’t dare let that be known in their friendship groups because they didn’t fancy being ostracised by everyone they knew”.

The article concludes by talking more about Helen’s beliefs – there is little more mentioned relating to DUS.

Helen Joyce and DUS were approached for comment.

Helen’s entire talk can be watched here.

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