On this bumper episode, Alyx, Ashleigh and Flint talk about:
- The election and the fallout from it.
- Kier Starmer’s unfortunate statements about trans people.
- Former equalities minister Kemi Badenoch and her sniping at David Tennant.
- The RCPsych International Congress suppressing questions about trans people.
- New suggested anti-bullying guidance for use by the Church of England.
EHRC Consultation – Draft Strategic Plan 2025 – 2028 | EHRC
References:
General Election
Labour drops ban on ‘woke’ LGBT lanyards
Kier Starmer
Keir Starmer: Trans women don’t have right to use women’s spaces (thepinknews.com)
Starmer accuses Sunak of using trans rights as a ‘political football’ (thepinknews.com)
Keir Starmer opposes teaching young people about trans identities (thepinknews.com)
Labour plans to simplify ‘undignified’ gender transition process (thepinknews.com)
Stockton Trans Woman Attacked
Three boys arrested after woman stabbed in Stockton ‘hate crime’ – BBC News
NHS Protest
Trans teens stage protest at NHS England headquarters in London (thepinknews.com)
David Tennant’s Sexy T-Shirt
Trans clothing site’s sales rocket after Tennant wears charity design (thepinknews.com)
SEEN in Publishing
Publishing industry slams new ‘anti-gender ideology’ network (thepinknews.com)
Anti-trans EHRC commissioner gives talk to anti trans Guardian staff network.
Waterstones Dismissal & Controversy
Waterstones bookseller ‘sacked’ after row with author over trans rights | UK News
Paul Singer: the secretive wizard casting a spell over Waterstones | Hedge funds | The Guardian.
How Elliott’s Paul Singer Is Driving Wall Street’s War on ‘Wokeness’ – Bloomberg
QUEER BOOKSHOPS!!
https://www.proud-geek.co.uk/
https://www.thequeerishbookshop.co.uk/
https://www.queerlit.co.uk/
https://bookwyrm.co.uk/
ALSO, JOIN A UNION!!
Cass Participates in Questionable Australian Event
Wicklow Pride
Rainbow Disco: ‘Heartbreak’ after Wicklow Pride forced to postpone event | Newstalk
Women & Equalities Minister
RCPsych International Congress
Royal College of Psychiatry International Congress: Questions about trans health suppressed
Call to Action: Anti-trans lobbyists Speaking at the RCPsych international congress
SEGM uncovered: large anonymous payments funding dodgy science | Trans Safety Network
RCGP host conversion therapy conference in London – protest 23 March – Dr Ruth Pearce
Bayswater Group
The parents group at the centre of a rollback of trans rights | TBIJ
‘One day they may thank us for that “abuse”’: Inside the… | TBIJ
CoE School Guidance
Transcript
Flint: Completely unrelated but I’m going to throw it out there. Happy Disability Pride Month! July is Disability Pride Month.
[Cheers] [intro music]Alyx: Well hello everybody and welcome to another episode of What The Trans?!
Ashleigh: What The Trans?!
Flint: What The Trans?!
Ashleigh: Good Lord, who’s that?
Alyx: Another new voice?
[sound effect]Flint: Hello.
Alyx: We’ll be swimming in new voices soon, I think.
Ashleigh: And good, frankly, it’s been you and I for a while and a change is as good as a rest as my gran used to say.
Alyx: Exactly otherwise they’d be sick of the both of us.
Ashleigh: Bold of you to assume they aren’t already. Welcome aboard, Flint, to the presenting team. How are you?
[clapping]Flint: I’m good, I’m doing really good, I’m excited to get into all of the stuff that’s going on today because we’ve got a hell of a lot to get through.
Ashleigh: What have you both been up to then?
Alyx: It’s been a very interesting week so far for me, I’ve been addicted to a bit of Stardew Valley recently, that was a whole load of fun. Accidentally blowing up my own farm with a cherry bomb.
Flint: [makes shuddering sound]
Ashleigh: We’ve all done it. Oh, in the game? Right.
Alyx: No, just randomly went to a farm and just was like yeah I’m going to set off a cherry bomb in the middle.
Flint: [inaudible] scrumping cherries [laughter] I’m showing my roots now, it’s a particular term for stealing apples, it’s the common word around – at least I know it from Norfolk. So you’d be like ah you’re scrumping apples.
Alyx: The North/South divide comes into play.
Ashleigh: Well I know it from a Red Dwarf episode where Lister’s talking about well we used to go scrumping for cars. Okay so Alyx has been scrumping…
Alyx: Sounds like I’ve been putting those cherries somewhere I shouldn’t.
[carnival sounds]Ashleigh: Ooh, Rodger.
[clip from something I don’t recognise]Alyx: Putting Amber’s editing into overdrive here.
[clip from something I don’t recognise]Ashleigh: It’s been a busy time here for me as well. I say it’s been a busy time, what I mean is I’ve been spending a lot of time playing Elden Ring because that changed the schedule that we’ve done because obviously it’s been three weeks since you heard from us, dear listener, thanks for coming back, but that has allowed me to say this week I’ll do this that and the other and on the second week I’ll be able to really focus on the podcast so fantastic, excellent, love it.
Alyx: Was it really low, Ashleigh, or was it just that you needed an extra week on Elden Ring?
Ashleigh: Ehh, I… couldn’t possibly comment.
Flint: Rumbled.
Ashleigh: Yeah, definitely rumbled. But it’s been actually a busy week for a lot of people, hasn’t it, because we had…
[dun-dun-dun and “the general election” echoing as if said over a loudspeaker]Flint [ironically]: Yay, democracy.
Ashleigh: At least a facade of it.
Flint: The attempt, the vague notion of.
Alyx: Generally vaguely wave towards the concept of democracy.
Ashleigh: Yep, well done us, first past the post.
Flint: How the best things are always decided.
Ashleigh: Yes. Well, it looks like a lot of the people who really leaned into culture war stuff and anti-trans stuff, they lost their seats.
Flint: Yeah!
Alyx: Woo!
Flint: Aye aye [inaudible]
Ashleigh: I really do hope they were chased out of the Houses of Parliament with brooms, but…
[“Angel” by Sarah McLachlan playing as background over the following names]We lost David TC Davies, Mark Jenkinson, George Galloway, Liz Truss…
[mock crying sound]Jackie Doyle-Price, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Rachel Maclean, Miriam Cates…
Alyx: Oh god it’s so good to see her gone.
Ashleigh: I know, I know, and her name may pop up again before the end of the episode.
Alyx: Oh, not again.
Ashleigh: Thangam Debbonaire, which is a fantastic surname, Joanna Cherry and, of course, the complete failure of Posie Parker’s Party of Women.
Alyx: An entire loss of that deposit.
Flint: Yeah, not a single deposit remained.
Alyx: Now that’s more money towards the taxpayer that’s no longer going towards TERFs.
Ashleigh: Yeah.
Alyx: Because what is it, like five grand?
Ashleigh: Something like that. There is a wage to being an MP, isn’t there, but I just think that so many of them that have leaned really hard into culture war and anti-trans stuff in particular and it’s not… they’ve kind of been shown the door at the ballot box. Like oh you’re talking about this rather than talking about the issues that actually affect your local constituents and your local constituents will say bye-bye.
Alyx: There was a whole poll about 1% of British voters actually care about the voter war for trans people and I think I mentioned it on a previous pod but when I was speaking to some Lib Dems who knock on doors, they only get one or two people bringing it up on the doorstep in months of doing it, of multiple people knocking on the doors, and for some reason they’re just going all in on the fucking thing.
Ashleigh: Well, they were doing, they’ve all lost their jobs now.
[laughter] [air horns blaring]Alyx: We’re going to need more air horns.
Ashleigh: Well something we don’t need air horns for is the uptick, unfortunately, in Reform, and at long last Nigel Farage has won back his safe seat on Question Time.
[booing sounds]Flint: That was the one thing that was like ah, this is nice, this is nice, this is nice, oh wait, hang on, of consistently seeing Reform second in the polls or whatever. I think it’s a bit overzealous to consider it a new rising as opposed to just the evidence of a Tory split but at the same time it’s still really worrying that a lot of people would split that way instead of another way.
Ashleigh: Yeah. So one of the problems with being a member of the reality-based community is that the vote is so often split between Labour, Lib Dems, Greens and you know the Greens did pretty well at this election. They were second, they’d been voted second in a lot of places, including in my constituency. So it’s nice to see the whole vote splitting thing affecting the Tories, at long last, rather than just affecting the left.
Alyx: Because in my constituency it’s always splitting in half between Labour and Lib Dems and it’s always causing the loss of our seat to the Tories but this year, for the first time in like 10-15 years, the Tories are no longer in my constituency. It’s now a Lib Dem seat.
[upbeat music]But there was still a bit of an uptick for Reform. When it comes to an uptick in votes for Reform, usually it’s Nigel Farage saying oh people are coming back to politics to vote for us, they’re energised, but quite frankly the voter turnout regardless of whether people turned out is still shit.
[sounds of agreement]It might just be that it’s a protest vote from current Tory voters which wouldn’t have been affected anyway and the Tories haven’t lost too badly so whether or not they then get stung the same in the next election or whether in a higher turnout election they become irrelevant again, that’s still the question, it could just be a protest vote from Tory voters so we don’t know if it’s just the Tory voters splitting and they’re just claiming it as a win of new resurgents or whether it’s just the same set of people divided, which I’m hoping for because if it’s just that then it’s not the UK population going more racist.
Ashleigh: Yeah.
Alyx: It still shows the Tory vote is still shit.
Ashleigh: For sure, but the fact is the Tories aren’t in anymore, at long last. So the Tories have been in government for as long as I have been Ashleigh, so finally I get something different. Fun times. So Labour have made a couple of changes immediately, haven’t they, they dropped their Rwanda plan more or less as soon as they were through the door into Downing Street.
Alyx: Yeah that was the first big announcement I saw aside from oh look we’re in Downing Street.
Flint: They also, I think, have said that they’re scrapping the whole lanyard clampdown thing.
Ashleigh: Yes.
Flint: And they selected Annelise Dodds as the Minister for Women and Equalities.
Ashleigh: Yes.
Alyx: Yes, which we’ll go over in a little bit. I didn’t really see too many trans people win their constituencies.
Ashleigh: No we didn’t, did we, because there were a few of them. Particularly for the Greens, because we spoke to one of them in our pre-election episode. Labour getting in isn’t a surprise to anybody because everyone was just so sick of the Tories. There have been some swings in formerly Conservative constituencies which have gone full-throated for Labour with differences of 10,000 or so votes but then in some other places it was a much, much closer race. But the point is, it was Labour’s election, they won. Voter turnout was low but they still won. So Keir Starmer is now the Prime Minister. So of course we’re going to go over his last few acts of transphobia before he came into office. To start with, our old friend J. K. K. K. Rowling reared up her face again to the irritation of trans people and the anguish of those who want to enjoy Harry Potter guilt-free but want trans people to give them a get out of jail free card, Rowling stuck her oar in on TwiX writing “Do biological males with gender recognition certificates have the right to enter women-only spaces? It’s a simple yes/no question” and Starmer responded with “No. They don’t have that right. They shouldn’t. That’s why I’ve always said biological women’s spaces need to be protected”. But then during the final debate between Rishi Sunak and Starmer, Keir accused him of using trans people as a political football to divide people which is certainly true, but you know who else is using trans people as a political football to divide people? JK fucking Rowling.
The transphobia is coming from inside the house, Keir. The duality between wanting to support GC people and wanting to look like he’s supporting trans people has a couple more examples as well. Like when he was talking with some reporters during a school visit in Kettering and Starmer said “No, I’m not in favour of ideology being taught in our schools on gender” and later a spokesperson for Labour said “nothing should be taught in an ideological way in schools” so if we’re taking ideology out of it, will we be seeing new lesson plans highlighting some positive aspects of the Holocaust for example? But then Labour have also said that they would seek to simplify the current gender recognition process, describing it as “undignified, torturous and degrading”. So is Keir Starmer out of step with the rest of the Labour Party or is he just trying to appeal to both sides, what do you think?
Flint: I think he’s a lawyer that’s lawyering like fuck through this entire thing. I think a lot of people, and I think we’re going to see this going forward in Question Times, in PMQs and stuff is he’s a lawyer. First and foremost, his bread and butter is arguing, it’s convincing you of whatever he is at that moment tasked with convincing you of and I think that he is doing that on a stage that is not as controlled as a courtroom which means you can very easily see two contradictory headlines next to each other and that kind of showmanship doesn’t play as well in a scenario where you’ve got these tight constraints so I feel as though he is ultimately acting a little bit more in a PR sense than anything else. For example, the statement that he said that’s “No. They don’t have that right. They shouldn’t”, well if they shouldn’t, that means that they do. So you’re recognising that they do, even whilst you’re saying that they don’t.
Ashleigh: Mm.
Flint: Because if they don’t have that right, then according to what you’re saying right now, that’s fine, there’s no problem, but they have that right, so you know what I mean? It’s all this kind of stuff.
Alyx: You read it better than I did.
Flint: [laughter] It’s one of those things that, it bothers me whenever I see him speak, because there is ultimately this… at least to my eyes, he’s saying whatever he thinks will get him most of the room of whatever room he is in. Which again, works fine when you’re working with a room full of people. Does not work fine when you’re working with thousands of rooms, all at the same time, all able to see what else you’ve said in what other scenarios and it just makes you look a little bit… I don’t know, I’m trying to say something that’s not too disparaging of our new Prime Minister.
[laughter]Alyx: Yeah, because I remember having that exact same thing with Wes Streeting a while back about the single-sex spaces in hospital wards where he was like “no I don’t want to exclude trans women from women’s wards but we need to keep women’s wards single sex” but then…
Flint: [laughter] It’s just so brass-eye.
Alyx: And everyone else was saying “oh he’s saying we need to exclude trans women from women’s wards” but that isn’t what he said. I hope that I never have to talk about JK Rowling and I always avoid it, every single [01:14:09], I make sure to never, ever mention JK Rowling on Twitter. The only time I ever do is whenever… I have this photo of a protest sign where it says “JK Rowling I hope you have crumbs in your bed”.
[laughter]So whenever something with JK Rowling comes up, I just post it up every now and again, so I don’t have to say anything but I can acknowledge it’s happened.
Ashleigh: It is frustrating though, isn’t it, because it’s quite difficult to establish his standpoint on something because to me, with what you’ve just said, Flint, which I think is absolutely right, that he is trying to appeal to whatever he thinks will get him further in whichever room he’s in. It’s just frustrating because where do you actually stand, what do you actually think, rather than what do you think we want to hear? And JK Rowling is a significant donor to the Labour Party, isn’t she, which I’m sure is definitely something that’s in the forefront of Keir’s mind whenever he’s called upon to interact with her, because she’s essentially dangling, I don’t know, hundreds of thousands of pounds in front of him and saying “do you want this? Well you have to say this”.
Flint: Yeah and unfortunately it’s something that, at least for me, from the second that he was Labour leader I had this sickening feeling in my stomach of this is going to be like Blair on steroids.
[laughter]And I really don’t… there’s a lot of people making Blairite jokes but seriously the thing is that it’s all of the heightened neo-liberal vibe but it’s not even with the clear foresight of what are you trying to build. It’s just trying to be not this other thing whilst also being enough of this other thing that people won’t tell the difference, it’s almost as if, because of the deliberate attempts to bring Labour further and further to the right. I hate the fact that so far I think we’re going to see that just kind of loom and hopefully as with the new Labour government of Blair they’ll be like a broken clock and right twice a day.
[jazzy saxophone music plays]Alyx: Did you see the stories about Blair constantly slipping into Keir’s DMs or something?
Flint: Oh, I fully believe that. He’s going to have a little…
Alyx: Might as well be sexting, at this point.
Ashleigh: Ooft.
Flint: They will be, it’s just them sending back ideas and suggestions on the manifesto.
[laughter] [jazzy saxophone music ends]Ashleigh: Now, to keep us going, we’re going to move onto our next story, and unfortunately this one is very unpleasant. So I’m going to give a content warning here for a brief mention of a transphobic hate crime, you’re probably already aware of the one, but if this is something you’d rather not listen to right now, feel free to skip ahead by a couple of minutes.
Flint: This next one is one that’s not super fun. I actually am from a close by area but in Stockton there were three boys arrested after a trans woman was stabbed in Stockton. On 3 July three boys were reportedly arrested by police for stabbing. The boys were 12, 14 and 16 which is horrifying to think of. She is okay, she’s recovering, she had to have surgery for a wound on her leg but is with friends and family. As far as we know, she’s okay, or as okay as one can be in that situation. The charges that the boys face are currently suspicion of grievous bodily harm. In a statement to the press, Police Constable Richard Baker stated that, “Nobody should ever have to fear being targeted for simply being who they are.” There’s not really more details than this and if there are any more, they’re going to be fairly gruesome. As more information is still coming in, all we really know is that the boys are being released on bail and we don’t want to go into giving ultra-gory details of hate crimes here because it shifts the focus away from the community and the victims. Being in the Northeast, there is, especially when you’re out of city centres, especially Newcastle area and Durham area, it can be really pressing on you. It feels like you stick out and it’s not a great vibe and it’s horrible that we’re seeing this horrendous uptick in crime against trans people. It’s something that’s not going to stop until we have people actively working against the current waves of hatred that are being pumped out by so many different media outlets. As we said in another story, until politicians stop using us like a football, we’re not going to stop getting kicked. It’s a rough time. Hopefully the victim, she recovers well and with as little frustration and aggravation as you can in a situation like this.
Alyx: On the point you brought up, even if the teenagers are charged and sentenced harshly, this is still going to happen. The hostile environment towards LGBTQIA people have been fostered by several political parties. The culture war is going to be rumbling on and continue to rumble on for years to come and more people are going to die and we know who’s to blame but we need justice not against the direct aggressives holding the knife but we also need justice against those who are encouraging the people holding the knives.
Flint: These kids will be in an environment that is the same as one we’re existing in. It’s incredibly violent and hostile towards trans people, it’s very easy to slip down a pipeline in terms of [inaudible], in terms of the people that you’re around, and you can’t speculate where these children will have learnt where to be so aggressive to someone, to dehumanise them to this extent. It is because this petri dish has been allowed to flourish and bloom in the worst way possible that
[sound effect]…disgusting, dangerous things.
Ashleigh: I agree and that’s something we’ve been saying on the podcast for a while that this is only going to go up. And I think for a lot of people, certainly some in the media, I think, that’s what they’re hoping will happen. Because they must be aware that there can be a consequence of this incredibly hostile environment that they’ve created. It happened in the early 2000s when there was incredibly hostile environment towards both Muslims and asylum seekers and if you were both, well… but what do we do? Because we’re talking about political parties, we’re talking about huge outlets in the press, all of whom are exceptionally well-funded now, what do we do?
Flint: To me, I take the view of it that it is in the same way that when you see politicians talk about reducing welfare, reducing disability payments, things like that. They are aware that it is going to kill people. They are aware that it is courting death and destruction of communities, vulnerable communities. And when I see austerity, I think economic eugenics. Because that’s the effect that it has on those that are put under it and I see this as a similar thing. I think absolutely you know what the effects are and at best you are callous enough that you do not care. And at worst, you know, and it’s the mentality of… it’s a Kiwi Farms mentality of one less, any one less, and again that’s horrifying. It is an actively murderous mentality to have, whether they recognise it as that or not.
Alyx: Exactly. Sometimes it just pisses me off. I suppose that brings us to the next story. Have you ever been so pissed off that you decided to climb a building?
Flint: [laughs] I’ve actually – I’ve not climbed a building but…
Ashleigh: Not for a while.
Alyx: Well, six trans young adults have decided to. So whilst London Pride was running in the background, it was found that two trans young adults climbed an NHS building in Waterloo. Sitting on a ledge, banner unfurled that said “We are not pawns for your politics”. A day or two later, two became six, riot police came and intimidated and went away and on Monday we spoke to the protesters from the organisation TransKidsDeserveBetter while they were on the ledge and this is what they had to say.
Alyx: Are you alright? I couldn’t hear you through your walkie-talkie.
Grin: Oh sorry, I wasn’t on the walkie-talkie.
Alyx: It might be easier if we talk through the walkie-talkie because I can’t hear you while you’re speaking.
Grin: That would make sense, yeah.
Alyx: Okay. Hi, so I’m with the protesters on the roof, I’m talking through a walkie-talkie. Are you able to introduce yourself please?
Grin: Hi, my slightly shit activist name is Grin, I use he/him pronouns.
Paint: Hello, my activist name is Paint, I use they/them pronouns.
Coven: Hi, I’m Coven, my pronouns are she/her.
Zeds: Hi, I’m Zeds, my pronouns are they/them.
Rusty: Hi, I’m Rusty, my pronouns are he/they.
Lynx: Hi, I’m Lynx, my pronouns are he/they.
August: Hi, I’m August, my pronouns are he/him.
Grin: That is all of us.
Alyx: How are you doing up there?
Rusty: I think we’re okay. There’s been a lot going on and a lot of ups and downs. The police are scary, but it felt good to see them off.
Zeds: It’s amazing up here. I love it so much, genuinely, the community and the support we have up here, the energy is amazing and we have plentiful supplies, possibly surplus, so we’re doing great. Everyone’s feeling great even if we have had the aforementioned ups and downs.
Paint: It’s going amazing. I had to go off the ledge for 45 minutes after being intimidated by the police. It was one of the worst 45 minutes ever, I never felt more grateful to be back on the ledge. I just feel so loved and so supported over here both by everyone on the ground and everyone on the ledge and it truly is amazing to be up here.
Lynx: We’ve had a rollercoaster of emotions and events. Even today we’ve been very intimidated by the police. I did end up staying on the ledge. I’ll be honest, it was petrifying. We didn’t know what was going on but we slayed and we stayed up here and they fucked off, so yeah.
Rusty: It feels… all the love and all of the community and apart from the intimidation of the police, it all feels so powerful and I’m really hopeful that it’s actually going to go somewhere.
?: It’s really beautiful how everyone’s come together and how this has spread out across a massive network of people and brought them together around this cause.
Rusty: I was one of the first people up here and we had no idea that it was going to go like this, it’s been amazing.
Zeds: We had no idea where it was going to go but we did not think it was going to go anywhere near as far as this and it has been amazing.
Unknown person on the ground: Do you need anything?
Grin: We’re all good but thank you so much!
Unknown person 2 on the ground: Thank you!
Grin: You’re the reason we’re still up here!
Alyx: How did you come up with the idea of coming up here?
Grin: Me and Zeds, I think. So I had a rule from when I was like 13 that you absolutely never look at, if there’s something in the news about trans rights, do not look at it, categorically, because it is awful. And I broke that rule for about 15 minutes and got so angry and suggested that we had to do something about it and that was about six weeks ago and now we’re here.
Zeds: We were so done with feeling helpless about all of the horrible stuff that’s happening to us and to the rest of the community and realising that we can do something and acting on that, and coming to this point, has taken so much work but it’s all been worth it. I guess it all stemmed from the idea that we think the rest of the trans community shares just as much rage as we do but not everyone has the resources or the experience or the knowledge or the support to take action and we want to help with that.
Grin: Yeah that was the theory behind the whole thing was we are two trans people are we are so pissed off, there’s got to be more trans people who are also absolutely fucking furious, and that was right and now we’re here.
Alyx: There’s going to be some young trans folk listening to this, what is your message to them?
Zeds: You are so loved and you are so supported, no matter what the media says, we love you, so many people love you. There are support systems out there for you.
Lynx: Stay strong, we all have the same emotions, we all have the same rage, we will fight this oppression together and remember, there is a whole community here for you and we’re all backing you up.
Zeds: Keep fighting. Change can come and what we’ve learnt from this action is that so many people want to show up and want to help you and want to help us and keep up the fight.
Grin: No matter what you see in the media, the amount of people that are hating on us… Being up on this ledge, completely exposing our transness to the world, we’ve had so, so much more love by people not in our community than we have hate and whilst you might think that there’s so much hate out there in the media, in reality, their voices are just the loudest and the love for us is overpowering.
Paint: Don’t let anybody tell you you’re wrong for being absolutely furious and terrified, particularly for trans young people in the UK. We get pathologised into believing that whatever emotions we feel are wrong but we have every reason to be scared but also we can do something about that. We’re up on this ledge because it brings us power and it’s a way for us to do something about it. Your anger is so important. We need it, please.
Alyx: What message do you want to give to politicians by doing this protest?
Paint: We talked about this question slightly earlier.
Lynx: Right, fuck you. We will not let you oppress us, we will keep fighting and we will make our voices heard. Our rage won’t go unnoticed and you can try to do whatever you want but we are here and we are here to stay.
Rusty: We are not pawns in your politics.
August: The less you listen, the more we escalate. We have the right to take up space.
Zeds: You might think that hate will get you more votes or get you more attention, more support but it really doesn’t. All it does is causes hurt and terrible, terrible things to happen to minority groups and in the end being supportive and fighting for our rights and supporting us will in the end garner a lot more support than just turning everyone against us.
Lynx: You cannot break us. We are so strong as a community, we have so much love and so much support. Fuck you, we are stronger than you.
Paint: Also, get over yourself! Like Jesus Christ, you have no one better to deal with, you’ve got nothing better to do than shit on a group of queer children? Like do something better with your time!
Rusty: Honestly, it’s kind of pathetic.
Paint: It is pathetic.
Lynx: Fuck off and get a better life. Stop using us, stop weaponising us.
Alyx: Fantastic. Thank you so much for going up there, this has been one hell of an interview.
Grin: Thank you so much. I’m not sure if our radio has died but I hope you can hear me, we certainly had fun sharing some of that I think.
Alyx: So that was the folk up on the ledge, and best of luck for the next few hours.
So yeah, what did you think of that?
Ashleigh: Seemed like an interesting way to do an interview.
[laughter]Alyx: Yeah that was a whole saga in itself.
Ashleigh: When I saw that was taking place I regretted the fact that (a) I can’t really afford to just go to London. Also, I’m probably a bit old and I definitely cannot climb up a ladder to get up a building. [laughter] I don’t have a hovering wheelchair, if I did I would’ve been right there.
Alyx: Well with Patreon funding, if you send the money to our Patreon…
Flint: We will develop the technology.
Ashleigh: We’ll just use the power of trans rage and we’ll encompass that and use it to cause levitation technology.
[laughter]Moving on up, with news that is a little bit lighter, our old friend David Tennant was in the news this week for a couple of reasons and we’ll deal with the cool one first. So he wore a black tshirt printed with a design in the trans flag colours that said “you will have to go through me”. Now the owner of the site that he bought it from has seen sales spike after Tennant was pictured wearing it at an event and said that the sales of each tshirt contribute to a scholarship fund for trans students in Ontario and Canada. It’s a cool shirt. I’m thinking of buying one to add to my mounting collection of clothes with a trans flag on.
Now the second thing that he was in the news for was a little bit more complicated. So while on stage at the British LGBT awards, Tennant talked about former Women and Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch and said that he’d like a world where Badenoch “didn’t exist anymore” and that he wished that she would “shut up”. Now we might have found it hard to disagree but the right-wing press and the Tory party sure didn’t. Because of the way he’d phrased it, the conversation immediately became a tone argument. Nothing was addressed about why Tennant had said what he’d said and focused entirely on the way that he’d said it, with even Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak wading into the row over the following few days. Fun times, right?
Alyx: So I just want to start off with: it’s so nice to hear the words “former Women and Equalities Minister”.
Flint: Right? Yeah! I heard that and went ooh.
Ashleigh: And “former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak”, that’s, I think I nearly just came.
Alyx: I was about to say [inaudible]. We’re sorry, our audience, for everyone having to think about that for now.
Ashleigh: I regret nothing.
[laughter]So the fact that Rishi Sunak and indeed even Keir Starmer said oh well David Tennant was wrong to say that to a black woman who’s an Equalities Minister, fine, yes she is that, but she’s a lot of other things as well.
Alyx: She’s a cunt.
Ashleigh: Yeah, pretty much.
Flint: That’s the word for it.
Ashleigh: That’s definitely the word for it. She’s just horrendous, isn’t she?
Flint: Yeah it’s propping up her identity as a shield to prevent criticism of her actions and words which is what it was. It’s a classic accountability distraction tactic that we’ve seen time and time again from the Tories. The thing that really bothers me is the way in which this immediately got turned into oh no, celebrities being political and a white man talking down to a black woman; he’s a father to a trans child. He has a direct stake in the effect of the Equalities Minister’s actions, policies, he absolutely has a right, as any citizen does, to publicly state as such and to have the opinion that he would rather someone who is actively working to disrupt the rights of his child, people around him, people on the earth who are human, regardless, yeah you’re allowed to be like I just don’t want you around any more. And the fact that other politicians are then talking down to that citizen and saying actually, shut up, is – classic for a Tory to not want democracy.
Ashleigh: Pretty much, pretty much.
Alyx: Immediately after that, I think on Georgia Tennant’s own Instagram, there was a post with a photo of David Tennant after the election where it said “don’t they look a bit tired”.
Ashleigh: Ooh, don’t you think she looks tired, very good.
Flint: And then after the results of the election came in, they posted a photo together in the London Eye, David and Georgia, overlooking Parliament and it was like #turnsouthedidlooktired.
[laughter]Alyx: That was it, yeah.
Ashleigh: But, as might have been mentioned, and our friend Mallory Moore from Trans Safety Network among other things pointed out on Twitter, that politicians telling citizens to shut up criticising other politicians is really fucking sinister, actually. But they’re gone, let me just say it one more time.
Alyx: They’re gone.
[celebratory music plays]Ashleigh: Former Women and Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch.
Flint: Music to the ears.
Ashleigh: It’s still good, it’s still so good. Sweet defeat.
[celebratory music ends]Also, just want to highlight that Sylvester McCoy, also a Dr Who luminary, he tweeted “Bravo David, don’t let the Badenochs get you down” which is kind of implying the use of the word Badenoch instead of bastard, like “what an absolute Badenoch”.
Flint: I love that.
Alyx: Also it’s the Badenochs that get you down.
[laughter]Flint: Listen, if you’re also a nerd, like most people who probably listen to this kind of in-depth podcast would be, and you also like Dr Who stuff, then there is Who The Trans?! It’s still a Patreon exclusive but every so often we do release episodes out for the public and it’s just two queers, sometimes three queers, sitting down and just talking about the latest episode. So we’ve done one for each of the episodes of the latest season. We’ve praised it in places where we think it’s been worth praising and we’ve had interesting critical discussions about it in areas where we think it’s fallen short because I am the kind of fan that believes in deconstructing and disassembling all of the different parts of the thing that you love and not just going oh I love it because it’s a thing that I like. I really enjoy being like okay I don’t think this bit worked, I want to understand why this didn’t work for me. So it’s just really fun to have a space to waffle on about a special interest to other people who hopefully have the same special interest to be honest.
Alyx: And you can check that out on our Patreon.
Ashleigh: We’ve got some quite exciting Patreon content coming up just generally, don’t we, but more on that later.
Flint: In the news of things being released and published, the publishing industry has had a general calling in of what the fuck as a new anti-gender ideology network which is a SEEN network has been released for the publishing industry and a lot of people have had a lot of thoughts. So if you’ve been with us for a while, you may remember some conversations around SEE or SEEN networks. SEE is Sexual Equality and Equity and it’s the new way for gender critical people to basically smuggle in their views while appearing reasonable. There’s one of these present within the Civil Service, we’re told there’s been attempts to set them up in the BBC and a number of other, larger organisations and now the publishing industry has been chosen as the next infiltration target. According to a report in The Bookseller from 24 June, a new group called SEEN in Publishing has been set up and a statement given which I’ll quote here.
[classical music begins playing]Flint [in monotone, bored tone of voice]: “We believe that everyone in publishing should be able to express legally held views on sex and gender, including where these views relate to publishing-sector decisions, free from fear, harassment, discrimination, and negative career repercussions.”
[classical music ends]So did you notice what they did there? Yeah, they talked about “legally held views”, immediately pointing out that it’s not illegal to be gender critical although if you’re at the point where the only thing you can say for your beliefs is that they’re not literally illegal to express then maybe have a think about what that says about those beliefs. Take a minute, please, it’s free.
The defence isn’t “this conversation needs to be had” or “there are unresolved queries”, they jump straight to “muh free speech” and expect that to carry the argument. Also loved the little bit about negative career repercussions, like they’re anyone else’s fault. As an example, Graham Linehan doesn’t have a career anymore because of Graham Linehan rather than because of anyone else and the thing is that funnily enough, the first ever story that I did for What The Trans?! ended up being tangentially about SEEN networks. So the EHRC Commissioner, Akua Reindorf, who, well we don’t know how long she’ll be there for but hopefully not too long, met with the SEEN network that was in it’s called the Guardian and Observer Sex Equality and Equity network. Now the thing is with this is some of… I remember seeing the SEEN network and they had a brief, let me read to you quickly, this is on their own website where they are. So we’ve got SEEN in the City, that’s in financial services, we’ve got UK policing, National SEEN Network, we’ve got SEEN in HR which feels the most oxymoronic, SEEN in Parliament which I thought that was just the Tory party but okay go on, SEEN in STEM – yep – SEEN in Journalism, SEEN in Sport, SEEN in Schools, SEEN in Health, Local Authority SEEN, SEEN in Publishing and assistant SEEN to the regional manager, we’ll put that one in there for fun. The funny thing is, if we look at the sectors all of these are in, there’s not ones for everyday industries. There’s not ones for SEEN in the server industry, there’s not one for SEEN in working class jobs and I think it’s indicative of where they’re trying to set up these networks and it’s in places that are advantageous to maintaining and controlling the narrative surrounding where trans people can expect humanisation. Where they are trying to bleach that away from these spaces. And it’s horrifying. It’s not a fun time. They keep popping up, there’s more there than there was when I first saw it, I think I remember there being only five or six, there’s now like eight or nine.
Alyx: It’s going to become like a Whac-A-Mole.
Flint: It really is becoming like a Whac-A-Mole and it’s something that I think we really cannot overstate, this is organised, this is deliberate, this is mechanised. Again, this is where, for me, the notion of it just being people that have some ignorant views really just starts to filter away because you can’t do this kind of thing without having a deliberate, actual want to carry out the things that you’re doing. You don’t stumble into setting up multiple networks throughout various, high-profile professions because you don’t understand what’s going on.
Ashleigh: Yeah, there is a strategy here.
Flint: Exactly.
Alyx: Absolutely and if you have got an LGBT group inside of your organisation, make sure to give them support if you haven’t already, I’d recommend trying to see if there’s any more allies in your organisation as well because those are really good. I think we’ve got one in our organisation, there’s even a pride flag now just waving outside the front of our main office. We’ve done our own piece on setting up these LGBT networks and the struggles around it and some information around that, we’ll make sure to link that and also Flint’s article in the description as well.
Flint: Ta. The best way that I think we can fight this, realistically, because the initial thing that you want to do is go ah, that’s fucking horrid, great. The best way that we can is to get actively involved, even if it feels like it’s paying a weird lip service to make your corporation look better at supporting queer stuff, it does have an impact when there are going to potentially be people trying to set up networks like this at your workplace. And if there is already conversations on queerness happening and yes it should not be on us, the LGBTs in order to make sure that those conversations are happening, it shouldn’t be all on us to do that emotional labour but try and have those conversations, try and set up those groups if they aren’t there, try and join those groups and talk about this. Make it aware that there are attempts to set up these networks and that they seem to be wanting to go through each industry they can find like dominos. The best way to stop that is to make sure you’re not laid out in an easy pattern to knock down.
Alyx: Exactly and talking of people who’ve just been knocked down by situations like this and not being protected is Waterstones. Because bizarrely enough, this SEEN situation has left Waterstones in boiling water. They recently dismissed an employee for tweeting from her personal X account that she was going to bin books by an author that she found out was transphobic. Yes, seriously. Christina Dalcher who has recently been openly supporting the far-right, even sharing Le Pen’s plans for France and calling them not far-right, negatively responded to a post from the professional and publishing world who rightly said shame on all involved in the setting up of SEEN as she had been supportive of it. The employee simply said she will enjoy ripping her copies and binning them now she knows where Dalcher stands as previously she said she had been supportive of her work. This tweet was clearly in a personal capacity regarding her own personal belongings. Dalcher even tweeted that she took the comments that way at the time but still saw it fit to publicly shame the employee and tag Waterstones as supporters of Dalcher spread lies that she wants to destroy company property. Waterstones then fired her, leading Tilly to make the now viral post about the abuse of power, leaving her unemployed from the only job she had ever loved. Following backlash, Waterstones doubled down saying they terminated her due to contravening policy and not supporting trans rights. But looking at Waterstones a bit deeper shows it might be unfair to categorise them as entirely neutral.
We’re going to put a link in the description of a thread that goes into a bit more detail on the finances. Did you want to walk us through what that thread said?
Flint: So this is by @ReactiveAshley on Twitter. Just so you know, I am reading this out. But I have also done the relevant Googling and fact checked it just as due diligence. So Ashley’s said she’s boycotted Waterstones since early 2023 “because they are owned by Elliott Management and ultimately controlled by Paul Singer. Although Singer was once known for supporting gay marriage, his activism never extended to trans rights. The 2020s cultural war is partially manufactured to use social conservative causes to outmanoeuvre Trump and the alt-right faction within the Republican Party, and partially funded by religious fanatics. Paul Singer has been funding the anti-woke Manhattan Institute. The Manhattan Institute funds efforts against diversity, equity and inclusion in workplaces, sponsors bathroom bills, spreads misinformation about critical race theory, and normalises hate speech as free speech. They work closely with Ron DeSantis. I have boycotted Waterstones since early 2023 when I first noticed they displayed Hannah Barnes and Helen Joyce’s hate publications prominently in every store. It really shouldn’t take a Pride Month social media post or a firing for everyone to notice how bigoted they are. By spending money at Waterstones in the UK, you’re lining the pockets of an American billionaire and directly funding the hate campaign against trans people worldwide. By the way, Singer owns Barnes and Noble too. Singer is the chairman of the think tank/hate group, the Manhattan Institute. They were tasked with producing the Wall Street Republican version of MAGA (Make America Great Again). They cherry pick right wing issues that are popular with voters and avoid those that aren’t. They played a key role in bringing together various topics under the anti-woke label.
For example, they adopted a State Rights stance on abortion, which shaped the Supreme Court’s decision, and last year Singer and [judge Samuel] Alito were embroiled in a luxury fishing trip scandal. So if you ever wonder where the LGB without the T, groomers and rapid onset rhetoric originated from, I have an answer, the Manhattan Institute. They hire propagandists like Christopher Rufo and Leor Sapir. You may notice that when hate groups say LGB, they really mean the G only. Lesbian and bisexual people are always ignored. Well, because Singer has a gay son and supports gay marriage. So they crafted this rhetoric to shield gay marriage from their anti-woke agenda. They also worked closely with the Alliance Defending Freedom, the legal wing of the anti-woke movement. They produced a model bathroom bill. They sued a California School Board member for blocking bigots on Facebook. ADF even has a branch in London. So let me circle back to Waterstones in the UK and Barnes and Noble in the US. James Daunt is the boss of both chains. Do you think he has no idea who Paul Singer is or what he stands for? The implicit bias, the hate speeches debate tips the balance. It’s evident in The Bookseller’s recent conduct. I don’t mind them selling hate publications but promoting them as free speech resembles Singer’s ideology. So I must boycott them.”
Which I think is fair enough. It’s not to say that – we can’t get super conspiratorial and be like, this is why she got fired. But it’s good to follow the money and in the same way that there are people that want nothing to do with a single product that J triple K makes. It makes sense that there are some people that don’t want to shop at Waterstones and I can see why.
Ashleigh: I’m probably not going to be shopping at Waterstones anymore because I was not aware of any of this until you highlighted that thread for us, Flint. Although having said that it’s a massive company that’s got some shady financial dealings. So that just means it’s a massive company.
Flint: Yeah, right. And if you are suddenly thinking, well, where am I going to get my books from now? And I don’t want to buy from Amazon. Genuinely – type in, like queer books or type in LGBT books, and there will be cause I literally just Googled queer bookshops and I got Proud Geek, The Queerish Bookshop, Queer Lit. There’s one that’s in Durham, which I go to called Bookworm. There’s many places, not just places that sell explicitly just queer stuff and queer literature, but also places that sell all kinds of books that are queer owned. Look around for your local one and if not then you know find online ones that can cater to you if you don’t want to support Waterstones.
Alyx: Yeah, we’ll make sure to link those in the description as well.
Ashleigh: Yeah. And I can’t speak highly enough of Queer Lit because as well as selling a bunch of queer books online, as well as things like, you know, flags and socks and picture books and things. They also have a brick and mortar store, and it is just a few streets away from where I am sitting right now here in Manchester. So I know the people who own it because I’ve been going back and forth over the last few weeks to buy and just charge through this one particular series of books that I’ve gotten really into, and I’ve finished it now, unfortunately.
Flint: I know the people at Bookworm, funnily enough, and they’re lovely people who are doing really cool stuff. They also do some – they set up, they’re setting up like perennial queer events throughout the year, which is really cool to see. Support your local queer businesses. And join a union!
Alyx: Join a union! Yeah, I always keep shouting that whenever I hear about a workplace mistreatment thing on this pod, join a union, join a union’s pride network, trans network, LGBT committee. They’d love all the help they can get and they’re doing some cool stuff. There’s a whole vote from the Trades Union Congress to fight against the Cass Review, so you can help in the fight against the Cass Review if you want to help out with that stuff. Join the union. On the topic of the Cass Review.
Ashleigh: Yeah, on the Cass Review, and things that should be fought against. Yeah, absolutely. So we’re going to do a couple of stories now about the same person. So mark this one down on your bingo cards, because let’s talk about Hilary Cass. She recently participated in an Australian webinar. This was back on 2 July and this was organised by the National Association of Practising Psychiatrists. Which seems legit, right? The name of that organisation suggests professionalism, so that’s probably why the founders picked it. They have no history of or expertise in working with young trans people, so at least Hilary Cass will be in good company there. But I wish it was just that simple because the really big problem with NAPP is the links they seem to have with another group called the Australian Christian Lobby or ACL, who themselves are linked with another group that I’ll get to in a moment. ACL has been declared as a hate group by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism for their wildly anti LGBTQ+ rhetoric and action, and that other group I mentioned. Yeah, that’s Opus Dei, the Catholic group who were famous for being the villains in a Dan Brown novel and whose stated goal is to help its lay and clerical members to seek Christian perfection in their everyday occupations and within their societies. Now I could give you a laundry list of the other members of the panel that Cass was on and a list of extremely problematic things that they’ve done and said, but I don’t need to. Because in the references page for this episode, I will link to a video by Tess Hall, who is themselves gender diverse and a victim/survivor of abuse by the Catholic Church, where the whole sad story is laid out for all to see. Give it a watch if you have 20 minutes. I found it very illuminating.
And the other story about Hilary Cass this week is because she got a fucking seat in the House of Lords.
[boo, hiss]Outgoing PM, Rishi Sunak, burrowed her in like a little tick to make it that much harder for people to criticise her now infamous review. Looks a little bit like, job done, payment for services rendered, doesn’t it?
Alyx: Yeah, especially as recent Freedom of Information request came out, there was only one person shortlisted in the job search for a person to do this kind of review. Only one person, one very specific one, like there was no competition, no finding out who’s the best qualified. They were like. Oh, just one person. Oh, isn’t that Hilary Cass and wouldn’t it be nice if you got a nice lordship out of it.
Flint: It’s an interesting thing, isn’t it? Because if you were, if you were looking at this situation as a hypothetical, for an example of someone being given a job where they were the only person that was on the shortlist, the only person that was interviewed. And then despite the way in which everyone else in that field has gone, I don’t think your work’s up to snuff… It’s almost like, there’s a word for this. Neapolitan? Nepotism. That’s the one. It kind of, it’s giving crony. It’s giving crony a little bit. Yeah, it’s giving flying monkey, so. Fun.
Alyx: Yeah, it’s giving me vibes of the EHRC again because it’s like they’re packing all the fields of where they can put people to be dicks towards trans people and then putting them directly in a place to make our lives worse in institutions. Like, I don’t know, a review that will directly affect the healthcare of trans people for years to come from this, and it was appointed at the same time that Kishwer Falkner was appointed as well by Liz Truss. Cabbage lady has been there for a short amount of time, yet has had such lasting damage.
Flint: It’s why the characterisation of transphobes as being so detached from reality, and like conspiratorial just feels a little bit sometimes not fully applicable, because when you look at this, it’s operating closer to like, Romans in a shield formation. You know birds of a feather.
Alyx: It’s bloody projection, isn’t it? That’s what it is.
Flint: It is! Every accusation is a confession.
Ashleigh: Yep, that’s exactly what I was about to say. It’s the argument from authority now. Right, like, oh, well, Cass did such a good job she was elevated to the House of Lords. Therefore, her report and anything else she might do about trans people is operating from a position of unimpeachable impartiality. And actually, no, it was a screw job. Start to finish.
Flint: I mean, let’s be real. The Cass Review couldn’t survive peer review and to get around that, they made her a peer.
[sound effects].Ashleigh: Very nice.
Flint: Spittin’ fire. On 26 June, Wicklow Pride was due to have a rainbow disco, a disco that was described as a disco for queer teens during their pride celebrations. A disco which was originally scheduled for Pride on the 30th. However, a statement made on the Pride website said that they had to postpone this event due to threats of protests from local residents and accusations of being paedophiles and groomers. Culminating in a note being stuck through a committee member’s letter box, branding them with one of those accusations. They said that “this decision was not made lightly and was done to prioritise the safety and well-being of our community, especially our young members.” Following this, they said that these actions underscored the very reason we need Pride. Which I fully agree with. During the lunchtime live, it was the idea of an organiser’s son, B, he talked about his two experiences going to teenage discos where he tried to fit in by wearing all the clothes he’s supposed to wear and the makeup and all that. Following on saying so it was his idea to have this safe space and there was an awful lot of work put into it by B and by the committee. So let’s just like bring this in, people pretending, and I’m going to say pretending, because that’s what they’re doing, people pretending to give a shit about the safety of children have decided that the best way to bring those thoughts into reality is to threaten children and anyone that’s trying to give those kids any kind of space to just relax and be safe, as criminals, some of the worst accusations you make towards a person, ones that we’ve seen for time immemorial, thrown against queer people.
Alyx: I get bored of seeing it in our mentions.
Flint: It’s gross stuff. Realistically, it’s queer kids existing. That is what these folks are fearing with a passion, kids being themselves, having space not to live in fear. And that is too much. Again, these people are so sensitive, so sensitive, so fragile. This is the kind of thing that they will actively throw hostility at. Kids just vibing to some music.
Alyx: It’s like a nice disco and everything. It’s a disco. A nice disco for kids, you know. It’s chill. And they pop a casket over it. And speaking of, oh no, I can’t say, I’m speaking of stupid people, because I was thinking, Women and Equalities minister, my brain went, oh, we’re talking about Kemi Badenoch.
Ashleigh: No we’re not!
Flint: You don’t have to let the Badenoch get you down anymore.
[Sound effects]Alyx: We’ve now got a new Women and Equalities Minister who isn’t Kemi Badenoch anymore. In fact, two Women and Equalities Ministers, and with the election of a Labour government and all the original positions of government ministers being changed, this now means that we are now paying attention to one particular spot, the Women and Equalities Minister. Originally held by Doctor Who villain Kemi Badenoch, Labour has now announced who’ll be replacing her and it’s not just one person, as said, it was two. On this particular occasion it was Anneliese Dodds and Bridget Phillipson. It’s important to mention that in the Labour Conference, Anneliese Dodds did announce this position was going to be a cabinet level Secretary of State position. However, on this particular occasion, it has now been decided that it won’t be a Secretary of State level post. Just a ministerial one, and will instead be put under the purview of the Department of Education.
Ashleigh: Everything related to trans equality is all now in the hands of the Department for Education.
Alyx: That’s what I’ve been reading, I was struggling to think of like whether it was or not. But everything seems to point towards it.
Flint: Yeah, when I looked up the cabinet, it just had Anneliese Dodds as Women and Equalities Minister now. And it had Bridget Phillipson as the Education Minister. So I don’t know if they’ve changed it around or made it clearer, because that does make it seem clearer or if they’re just backed out of the whole notion of making it like a two for one situation.
Ashleigh: The way you’ve described it there, that does make sense really, because the Minister for Women and Equalities was and should be a position in its own right, like, that does sound like a full time job. Especially with this situation you’ve been handed.
Alyx: I think a lot of people were just breathing a sigh of relief because a lot of people’s worst case now is they were thinking, what if Rosie Duffield got picked? I haven’t heard of any ministerial position yet for her or whether she – because Labour are in a position where they will have got so many ministers that they can’t fill all the government posts with it all. Which could mean that Keir Starmer could just like, not give her a ministerial post whatsoever, That’d be one hell of an interesting thing to see, wouldn’t it?
Ashleigh: What, Rosie Duffield not getting anything ministerial?
Alyx: Yeah, for being a dick.
Flint: I’d live. So she stayed as the representative of her area then?
Ashleigh: Unfortunately, yes, she was re-elected.
Flint: God, poor things.
Alyx: Because she didn’t get the Women and Equalities Minister, now Bridget Phillipson and Annalise Dodds have and you know we’ve got, you know, we do have some insider stuff on the EHRC. We do have to whisper it.
Flint: Got to be real secret. Don’t tell anyone. What the Trans?! ASMR.
Alyx: We’re hearing more positive things about them. Rumours that could mean that they’re not going to do any moves backwards. But we’re also being, we don’t quite trust them fully because everyone’s saying about Harriet Harman and we’re thinking, it’s the most likely outcome out of all of it, and we’re thinking it’s pretty much going to be Harriet Harman.
Ashleigh: Yeah, there would be worse, certainly, like Rosie Duffield, for example. But I think honestly, as long as Falkner gets given her marching orders, I think I’ll be happy.
Flint: Yeah. I feel like considering the way that she has handled her responsibilities, is the diplomatic way I’d put that, it would make sense to, you know, even in the sense of, even if she had done an average job and not sent the plane into freefall, it’s still fair to want to bring in new people that represent your government’s aims and ideals and switching out the person that has spent many years now representing an entirely different government with apparently entirely different ideals and values. But we’ll see.
Alyx: But the problem with that is, when it comes to the EHRC, it’s meant to be an independent body. So having someone that represents your government isn’t really representative of it being an independent organisation.
Flint: That’s kind of the weird thing because it’s like I think the fact that it’s meant to be independent often gets kind of forgotten about when we’re talking in the everyday sense about it because we’re so used to it being so deeply politicised. And it’s hard not to look at this as also a politicisation. But it’s also important to remember that it’s not really, because if they’re bringing in someone who has – and Harriet Harman does have a pretty decent from what I understand and you know, I’m always willing to be corrected – has got pretty good history with women’s rights and with human rights, it kind of actually means you probably will have someone that cares about doing that thing as opposed to someone that cares about following Labour policy. That’s the important thing that should be happening.
Alyx: I think most of it, there just needs to be radical overhaul. I think the main conversation isn’t who should be running it. It’s how should it be run in a sense of it needs to have the whole lot sacked and it needs, the appointments policy needs to be completely just changed to be something completely different.
Flint: They need to reassess and reapply the Paris Principles to themselves, which is the principles that the national human rights institutions have to be upholding. Yeah, that’s what their status is decided upon, is how well they follow those things. Because let’s be real.
If you had Harriet Harman take on the EHRC right this second, hypothetically, you still have Alistair Henderson’s connections to Christian Concern, connections to the Alliance for Defending Freedom, who has represented multiple people in anti-trans legal cases, is part of the push that got puberty blockers banned. Akua Reindorf who as we mentioned earlier, has met with SEEN network groups in the Observer and Guardian, has been spotted at anti trans rallies and even wearing their merch, like literally bought the T-shirt, and has represented LGB Alliance, you know. You could have the best person in the world run the EHRC. But if those are the Commissioners, then it’s going to be hard to get things done that are not deeply politicised alongside what the Tories have been pushing for the last 14 years.
But on the note of the EHRC, they do have a new public consultation that is out now until November or October, I think it’s October for people to fill in. There’s a really good thread that we will link into the description that goes into exactly the points to stress. If you want to help encourage a proper, actual attempt at bringing in trans rights and furthering trans rights and equality in the UK, and it’s good because this is the kind of thing that was exactly weaponised by groups like SEEN network and things, and various other organisational efforts, I’ll say because I don’t know for sure that it’s explicitly SEEN, but you get what I’m saying. It’s all the same ecosystem. And so the thread that we will link briefly covers over the fact that their key themes are justice and balance of rights. So it’s a perfect example. A perfect opportunity to say how there is no disagreement. There is no tension between women’s rights and trans people’s rights. Trans people’s rights are women’s rights, you know, and that that you want equal access to healthcare, equal access to spaces, you know. Protection for queer people that are not being protected and are being actively harmed. And yeah, if you want a moment to have your say and yes, it can feel a little bit pointless and silly filling out a form and then sending it off into the ether and going oh yes, I’ve done a democracy. But it matters. They do want to know – if this gets sent around various anti trans networks. They’ll easily have people, and this is not about, this is not about having your heart on your sleeve and fully believing in every single bit of government’s going to do right by me. You don’t have to buy in like that. You just have to recognise that we need more of us filling it in, passing it along, having a voice than we need of them.
Alyx: It’s about damage control, isn’t it?
Flint: It’s damage control and it’s making sure that when they say, well, we have a mandate to do X, Y and Z, that that mandate follows things that are going to benefit people and not harm them.
And we have also had very recently the news that despite the best efforts of the Good Law Project and others in trying to fight the puberty blocker ban that’s still ongoing, Wes Streeting has indicated that he might just make it permanent anyway. Now to be clear, he did say that this is in relation to the outcome of the current case so, there’s, I guess, a chance that he might not, but the fact that he’s willing to let it be decided upon that and not upon the mountains of research and the mountains of advocacy and the mountains of work that has been done by so many in the community who are directly affected is just annoyingly typical. I’m not going to say anything nastier than that, but boy, do I wish I could.
Alyx: And speaking of Do No Harm.
Ashleigh: I’m coming to a story which is a little bit complicated to get across in one sentence, but if I had to try, I would say the Royal College of Psychiatry International Congress was suppressing and deleting questions about trans health. In another story that was first broken by the Trans Safety Network, we’re going to talk about the Royal College of Psychiatry. Which, as the name suggests, is the professional body for psychiatrists in the UK. In late June, they had a conference which was the Royal College of Psychiatrists International Congress. The conference itself was the subject of a protest due to some of the people who were due to speak at it, including Professor Sally Baxendale, who has written for such esteemed organisations as Transgender Trend, Dr Michael Biggs, who doesn’t actually have any experience in trans healthcare, but who was outed as the owner of an extremely prolific anti-trans troll account on Twitter, and our old friend Professor Riittakerttu Kaltiala, whose name you may remember from our Cass Review deep dive. She’s the Finnish academic who introduced Hilary Cass to American anti-trans activist Patrick Hunter. The keynote speaker at that conference was, of course, Hilary Cass herself. Now it has emerged that during the conference, members’ questions about trans healthcare seem to have been actively suppressed. The session “Treatment of Gender Dysphoria in Children and Adolescents: a review of the evidence base”, accepted questions which needed to be submitted via an online form, and then these questions could be voted on by the attendees. According to a report by Trends Safety Network, a source has told them that over 40 questions were deleted from this without any explanation. Quite a few of the deleted questions which were saved as screenshots, focused specifically on the Cass Review, with others asking about evidence, ethics, and methodology. Several more asked the pertinent question, why aren’t we hearing from any trans people at this session focused on the wellbeing of trans people? And one particularly good question asked: could our speakers please declare their conflicts of interest which has been standard across all other talks at the conference? But they wouldn’t have been able to do that of course, because then a number of the speakers would have had to mention that they are members of the Clinical Advisory Network on Sex and Gender, or CAN-SG, a group who are pro-conversion therapy for trans people and who we mentioned in our coverage of the Royal College of General Practitioners back in March. Still more of the speakers would have to say that they are members of, or advisors to The Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine, or SEGM; that includes Kaltiala and Baxendale. Think of SEGM as the international version of CAN-SG, and both groups were essentially offered a platform to speak, with no critical voices asking reasonable questions. Good science, apparently! I know that I just threw a lot of stuff at you. What do you make of this?
Flint: So much. Yet again, it’s so gross. There’s a lot of connections and a lot of, you know, like, you know, this person’s friends with this person’s friends with that person, but, boiling it down to bare bones again. This is a pretty serious form of suppression of speech in a very highly esteemed space that is meant to be impartial, that is meant to be following actually good science. And absolutely again, we’re talking about the difference between ignorant negligence and active hostility. This is the kind of thing where you don’t get to just say, oh well, we wanted to avoid a big debate or oh well, you know, there’s no way you can get around this without saying, you know, at best you assumed that it was more convenient to take these things out than to allow them to be spoken on. Because again, if you have all of these people with these views, they should have no problem stating their allegiances and their conflicts of interest. They should have no problem being able to defend their ideas, but they can’t. When placed into a public forum, time and time again, they cannot. The difference between the furore that can be kicked up online and the furore that can be kicked up around actual normal human beings who go out in the daily world, those who have qualifications and have spent their lives in the areas that these grifters are trying to grift in. And it’s something that hopefully again, this is going to continue to be the case until it is fully recognised that it is not profitable to be acting this way.
Alyx: No. Exactly. I mean, on your point about being in these prestigious places, it’s exactly when these gender critical or these anti-trans doctor people try to use prestigious locations in order to forge some kind of legitimacy in order to show, like, we’re doing talks at the Royal College of General Practitioners. Look how official we look. They sort of hijack these places to force a sense of legitimacy which they don’t have, and we’re seeing it over and over again in these sort of situations as well.
Flint: Yeah, I mean, I mean, you see even in the naming of these things, we’ve got SEEN, Sex Equality and Equity Network, right? That sounds like that’s there and it’s forthright. You’ve got For Women Scotland, you’ve got… there are some that are a bit more obvious, like Transgender Trend or like LGB Alliance. But there are many that will simply say, oh, we’re the centre for families. And it’s like, yeah. You mean nuclear families that are white and able-bodied and all cishet. That isn’t actually about families.
Alyx: Nuclear family in the way that they want to nuke queer families.
Flint: Yeah, that’s a hell of a way to put it, and I don’t disagree. It’s this thing of proffering of each other as well as authority, because you have these authoritative sounding names. They make it sound official, and you know that that brings in really well to the next story, actually, which is another uncovering of a deeply transphobic networking group. We’ve had two pretty landmark investigations by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism that have released this.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism put out two articles about the Bayswater Group. The Group have been found to not only be practising conversion therapy on trans people and their immediate families, but are also part of the effort to remove LGBT topics from education and other rolling back of our rights. They have as part of the connections that have been uncovered, a Tory MP, well, a former Tory MP.
[sound effects]Flint: Former Tory MP Miriam Cates has been found to have a connection to the group, both in praising them during parliamentary sessions, collecting complaints sent into the Bayswater Group in documents to the government as examples of inappropriate content in sex ed classes. Both groups deny connections to each other, and Cates has threatened to sue the TBIJ when they tried to approach her for comment on this, but the Discord chats of the Bayswater Group directly contradict them. Chats show users speaking about talking with kids, and her being keen to have a working relationship with the lobbying group, she thanked them during a debate on the Cass Review, and there is also evidence of other MPs cultivating friendly relationships with Bayswater. Paul Brand reported for ITV in October that it was Cates who convinced the government to drop the ban on conversion therapy. Now that’s a direct quote from the TBIJ.
Alyx: This is the former Tory government.
[sound effects]Flint: Former Tory Government. Does make me feel [inaudible]
She has been involved in many of the legal attacks on trans people’s rights over the last few years and has been working with Bayswater to do so. The group will also organise to attack schools, get them to shut down LGBT support groups and encourage them to distance from charities like Mermaids while Cates was working in Parliament to bring about the new Section 28 at the same time. But the Discords of these groups are shocking. Not just for the connections to Parliament and connections to various groups, again as we say proffering up each other as things of authority. It’s also just horrifying when you look at the way in which these people talk about their families and the trans people in their lives.
The Discord of these groups are horrific for a group that pretends to safeguard children, as they are often under scrutiny for how they treat their own. Parents will post about being reported to Social Services for restraining their children. They talk happily about the abuse that they inflict on those in their care to prevent them from living authentically, including even sending them to conversion therapy. They talk about restricting their children’s ability to access things like Childline, restricting their access to friends and family. They know that they are abusive. They openly state so. They literally say “Yes we’re abusive!” and then they will say things like “in time they will be thankful for that abuse.” like, to be real clear here, this is horrible Roald Dahl villain things. And it’s horrifying. These are dangerous people that are not safe to be around children, in my view at least. Certainly not any queer people. These are the people that a representative of the government was quoting regarding the safeguarding of children. These people. That treat their own children. This way.
Ashleigh: So we have spoken once or twice about the Bayswater Group, just kind of in passing. Because they have been kinda a known quantity in terms of the things that they will turn up to protest for, and the kind of sway that they seem to have with the government of the day. But since Miriam Cates has lost her seat that’s not the case any more!
[Yello’s “Oh Yeah” plays]But this work by the Bureau is astonishing isn’t it, just the exhaustively researched really well put-together stuff. So again we’ll put that in the description.
Flint: [laughs] Yeah, because I mean this is a very brief condensation and I will say, trigger warning, if reading this kind of stuff about conversion abuse and abusive families is triggering then certainly at least skip the one that is titled “One day they make thank us for that abuse”, that is the more family-centred one. But do read through both of them if you can stomach it because it’s a lot of important information that we would be sat here for 20 minutes discussing if we went through word-by-word.
Alyx: Because the most shocking thing is they stopped the conversion therapy ban from happening for full stop. They fulfilled their goal. And the only reason they have failed at it is because of an election. But in terms of getting into the institution and stopping it, they did it.
Flint: Yeah. And I mean when we talk about when they’re shutting down LGBT support networks and stuff in schools, that’s their own schools. They’re taking this fight to their own local areas and in some cases successfully removing, for an entire community of children, possibly the only LGBT support group that they might have ever known.
Alyx: Because it’s not potential for harm, they have caused harm.
Flint: Yeah.
Ashleigh: Oh yeah. Very definitely they have caused harm.
Flint: Blood upon hands.
Alyx: That sort of stuff. I just want to stress that particular part of who they are. You could have glossed over that “oh they’ve lost now” but they have caused the harm already.
Flint: Yeah, and then, this kind of thing is a hydra. Just because one hat, one head, has gone down doesn’t mean that it can’t still be around causing problems. We can’t start thinking that we’ve won because the Tories are out, because what we’ve done is essentially rip out the weeds that are at the top. We’ve still got to get into all the roots. And this is one of the roots.
Ashleigh: Yes.
Alyx: There’s still much to do and the fight’s not over exactly.
Ashleigh: In a sense, the fight is only now really sort of beginning?
Flint: Yeah
Alyx: Exactly. We’re going to be making a series of episodes for the podcast about this sort of situation of “alright here’s the lay of the lands so that the fight can continue” and you’ve got a fresh mind on what’s happening and what the situation is.
Asheigh: Yeah. The history of one thing, the focus of another, and so yeah we’ve got some really good stuff coming up and I am so glad we’ve got some help now because if it was just the two of us, Alyx, doing the writing…
[laughs]Alyx: I would die of exhaustion!
Flint: Yeah, we’re swimming in a long race right now and just because we have been able to bring our head up for air for a gasp doesn’t mean we aren’t still in the race. This is a marathon.
Alyx: Moving on, we’ve got now for the first time I think the news section is longer than the meat. We’ve got two big buns [slide whistle then music] it’s like a really disappointing lunch.
Flint: It’s like the world’s worst Philly cheesesteak you’ve had in your life.
Alyx: Talking of the former government, you may have already heard about the current school guidance for gender-questioning children, which is currently waiting for the consultation to conclude. However a new consultation has popped up, a consultation for the same sort of guidance for schools but this time for the Church of England. That this is mainly an anti-bullying guide on preventing bullying against LGBT students and isn’t technically meant to be guidance towards LGBT students in a wider context. So we’ve had a look at this guidance and it’s a bit of a mixed bag to say the least.
Ashleigh: So as expected it firstly goes out to state that bullying is a bad thing. So that’s a start, well done. And it goes through the usual spiels of what I presume is the oft-quoted “common sense” type stuff but mainly in this section there’s quite a lot of positive stuff saying “bullying is bad!” Shocker, I know! But there are still some things in here that do raise questions, and more importantly bits that, if an anti-trans organisation got influence over the consultation it could cause some harm. Mainly a specific bit could be reworded and abused. And for those wanting to fill this consultation in, that should be raised.
Flint: Yeah, so the first bit of this addresses the current guidance made by former Education Secretary Gillian Keegan. And it basically asks teachers to review that guidance. The same guidance that asks teachers to misgender trans kids and forcibly out them to their parents. And we would say that there should be a bit that says that this guidance has been classed as contentious. You could say that it should be ignored. But knowing the moderates in the church they’d ignore that. But then with this, this anti-bullying guidance seemingly goes against the ex-government’s guidance. So the first part that we’re going to focus on is dead-naming. But in this guidance it calls it “misnaming”. Now this would be considered a re-word of dead-naming, which if looked at innocently would be fine. But let’s examine that. Misnaming isn’t defined in this guidance, and it is open for interpretation. This could mean using the wrong name for the student. But to me it seems to avoid something critical: this is because that could be maliciously interpreted, because misnaming could be saying that they are misnaming the child’s original name by repeatedly calling them their new name instead of their deadname. And could encourage malicious teachers to deadname a student because otherwise they are “misnaming them”. Kinda similar to how you might have that one person that’s like “well I don’t want to disrespect you by not saying the name that you were born with” when you’ve clearly told them “Nah, not my fuckin’ name, call me by my name.
Alyx: Yeah exactly. And that sounds like it could be abused. And what seemed to be a contradiction to the education guidance could be interpreted as a free-pass to deadname a student and encourage other kids to do so and that’s going to have to be raised. Which brings us to the next bit, another contentious point about the government’s guidance about outing trans kids to their parents. There’s one section we’ll quote:
“For pupils who will have strong faith this may be an even greater time of anxiety and confusion as they grapple for the fear for their family or their faith community may struggle to accept them. Ensuring that those providing confidential pastoral support have specific training is a priority for secondary schools. Otherwise well-meaning staff could inflict greater unintentional damage.”
But then this also goes ahead to advise:
“working with parents/carers and families to ensure a partnership working which supports the child or young person in every aspect of their life”.
Ashleigh: Which if used in conjunction with the school’s guidance as it stands, could be open for abuse. So it’s kinda contradicting itself in what it’s saying and it could be abused by anti-trans groups to argue to get rid of the parts about confidential pastoral support for purposes of “clarity”. So that needs to be raised as well. It isn’t just the school’s guidance messing things up, it also advises teachers to read the Cass Review. And we know full well what that is like. If you want more info on that and why would you, but if you do: you can listen to our deep-dive episodes.
Ashleigh: So what do we think so far, folks?
Flint: I think the misnaming thing is absolutely deliberate. I think that they have tried to do a bit of a fence sitting but not really. They’ve turned up to a sports game going “woo team”. They don’t know which team. They’re just trying to say something that both people can look at and go “seems alright” and not think too hard about. Which means that it does have that open door for abuse and manipulation as far as I can see because if you aren’t, if you’re tolerant of intolerance then all you are tolerant of is intolerance.
Alyx: It took me a good two hours of close reading with a fine toothpick comb to go through it. So a teacher who’s like, oh gosh I’ve got this trans student I need to look after would probably go over it and not know what to do and then some other malicious force could then come and affect the judgement of the situation and abuse it to their own situation, there’s some more holes… it makes some platitudes but then goes about making more holes than swiss cheese.
Flint: Yeah.
Ashleigh: Yeah, there’s definitely the potential for harm here, isn’t there.
Flint: I think also there’s a lot of deliberate obfuscation of what the true intent of the document is meant because of how they put it behind these things of read the Cass Review, a full government report, read these things, and if you are uninitiated, if you’re just a teacher who’s noticed a thing going oh hey there’s some new guidance, look at it, who doesn’t follow these things, as many people don’t, because life is life, you aren’t going to be tuned to pick up the dog whistles or to pick up the pitfalls that they’ve laid which means that it makes it harder for well-meaning people who genuinely want to support and be a good ally and create safe spaces in their classrooms may also fall into thinking they are doing the right thing when they aren’t. After it talks on these points, the guidance does actually bring up the points on ensuring that people consider intersectionality when tackling bullying. Which is always a good point to bring up, especially when multiple protected characteristics intersect but this then leads us to the bit that leaves me the most concerned and the one where I am most worried could be abused or could be used to mislead teachers. And that’s how it introduces what the protected characteristics are in the Equality Act. In the guidance, it put those characteristics into a handy list, including gender reassignment, but under it, in a subheading, it says this:
“We recognise that this is the legal terminology currently used in the Equality Act and therefore we use it here. In this document, we only use the term “transgender” in relation to adults. See the glossary in Appendix 2 for more information.”
And then does it go into detail as to why they chose to exclude trans kids from it? Except for calling trans kids “gender questioning”.
Ashleigh: That’s not so much intersectional as that’s putting up a barrier where there doesn’t need to be one by saying only adults are transgender, kids are just gender questioning. Where do you think we came from, exactly?
Alyx: Denying trans kids’ existence, which in itself is transphobic.
Flint: And this is the weird thing. I’m looking at this and, to me, it feels as though they’re putting in what they know legally they have to put in, and then following it up with what they would actually prefer the policy to be. Because you don’t need to put any of this tough stuff in here if trans kids don’t exist. You don’t need to talk about adults and the Equality Act in relation to adults when you’re drafting a policy on guidelines for handling children. So you’ve put this stuff in because you know legally it’s a requirement to put in stuff surrounding the Equality Act because obviously the Equality Act applies to children, you dunces, obviously. Are you well? Come on. For those who will read the document that is bound under this kind of authority and with this kind of glow of being institutional behind it will defer to what is said in the document as many do and so it will be, at best, a bit of a headscratcher, like okay then why’s that relevant, and at worse it’s going to mean okay so this normally is the case but I don’t actually have to protect. It might be saying to teachers, or a teacher could easily take the reading from it, shall we say, that teachers have a free pass on trans kids to exclude them if they can’t be defined as being under gender reassignment. Stack on the misnaming bit and that could be enough of a loophole for teachers to abuse trans kids still.
Alyx: We’re still trying to figure out the lawfulness of this because it could be quite unlawful still.
Flint: For me, a layperson’s view, I don’t understand that you can put in a document that you are considering a group of people exempt from the stipulations of the Equality Act and have that be legal. Because that’s functionally what’s being said here. So if it’s legal, it’s got to be legal in some weird loopholey way, in the same way that sure it’s legal to be a transphobe but it’s not legal to do transphobic actions against trans people. And it doesn’t change the fact that gender criticals will often say “it’s a legally protected view”, right, which is not really the case, it’s just not a criminalised view.
Ashleigh: Yeah, pretty much.
Alyx: Yes.
Flint: In the glossary it says, for gender reassignment, “the legal or surgical process of transitioning from one sex or gender to another. This is the term used in the Equality Act but not the preferred terminology for transgender people”. Which again, it kind of hinges on the notion of authority. If you’re the teacher of a kindergarten, what’s the chances that you’re going to have a trans child come to you with their parents holding a deed poll? It’s not very likely. So again putting this in specifically relating to the legal or surgical process completely, again, and I would personally argue deliberately, leave out all of the social aspects which is actually the only part of transition that is available to young children, which means that thinking of this from the perspective of an unassuming teacher who believes that when guidance comes out it’s going to be made with the best of intentions and aims may defer to it and then be enacting transphobia in their classroom because they may ask well do you have this legally filled out. They may view it as transness is pathologised, they may view it as similar to a disorder, they may treat it similarly to providing support for ADHD. Many a school may ask for a diagnosis letter first, right.
Alyx: It’s a whole thing about treating transness as a disability.
Flint: Exactly, because transness was initially first constructed as a disability within Western society.
Alyx: I stole that from your Who The Trans?! episode, I think.
Flint: Yeah, it’s why that relationship is so enmeshed to me. It’s sneaky but I think it’s deliberately ignoring the social aspect so that people will, even if they mean well, rely on legal processes or surgical processes, not understanding how devoid from the reality of what most trans children experience that is.
Alyx: There were good bits about outright telling teachers not to bully LGBT kids but if trans kids can technically still be abused under the way they handle those definitions then it does kind of feel null. And circling back to the similarity of school guidance, there was a part about putting a child in either the changing area of their biological sex or alternative third places to be excluded from their peers and it says this:
“Additionally, Church schools should make every effort to ensure when following the guidance and making any alternative arrangements for gender questioning pupils such as individual changing rooms, toilets and showers in schools or sleeping arrangements on residential trips, being careful not to do it in a way that reinforces any sense of exclusion that a pupil may feel by being singled out.”
Essentially schools are telling teachers to exclude a child but not to make them feel excluded, which is, guess what, contradictory. And that could be abused by anti-trans wankers by asking for it to be clarified to force a child into the wrong changing room full stop. So that’s another point that could be abused.
Ashleigh: Then it goes onto the government’s school guidance once again when it asks teachers to do a “watchful waiting period”. This is what it says:
“Under current government guidance, schools are advised to undertake a period of watchful waiting following any request from a gender questioning child or young person to socially transition at school. If a school follows this path, it is critical that the school proactively engages with the child or young person so that they know that they have been heard and ensures that they are kept safe from any harm or bullying behaviours by making planned and regular checks. They should not wait for bullying to be reported but understand that this is a particularly vulnerable time for that child or young person.”
So still asks for this watchful waiting to take place, forcing a child to still struggle through, and just sidestep when a school should deem it appropriate for a child to socially transition. So it can essentially leave them in limbo and it’s also bad that watchful waiting is still just waiting. And that’s another thing, when it comes to the topic of the government guidance where it tells the teacher to out a trans child to the parents, it says whenever possible this should include working with the child or young person’s family unless to do so would place the child or young person at risk.
Flint: And the only way you’re going to really know that is if you already know the family. So many people again may not realise that until they have unfortunately spoken about it with parents that they would assume are positive. So it only asks teachers to tell parents when there isn’t risk. But if a child asks for it not to be shared, it still means a teacher can do it anyway. That bit is still ambiguous, and yet again open for abuse and to be warped into an anti trans lens in the consultation. And the final thing that needs to be considered is this. This is a quote: “Ensuring pastoral staff are well informed so they can signpost young people who are LGBT to internal and external support in order to help them avoid seeking information and support from strangers online.” Now for us, probably important to say that we have got to be careful this doesn’t go to anyone like the LGB alliance helpline and that was most of what we could see after reading the guidance for a few hours. But one of the things that really got me about like what you were talking about with the alternative changing places and things like that. It feels far too easily able to be manipulated in the way that many other single sex, quote unquote, kind of bills have been in America that essentially lead to, well, we’d have to do genital inspections or something akin to that nature.
Ashleigh: Where are we drawing the line there exactly?
Flint: Yeah. Yeah, it’s gross. There’s no way that you would be able to assess that kind of thing outside of the child himself telling you without deeply intruding upon that child’s right to safety, that child’s right to privacy of their own body. And yeah, the watchful waiting period to me, it feels similar to the recent guidelines or the recent weird statement that was made pre-election results, during the election period. Part of the possible changes that they’ll make to the transition process is instead of two years living as the gender that you are, it is 2 years of a quote unquote reflection period or something like that, yes.
Which again just feels a lot like, well, you might not be doing gender correctly, so go sit in the corner and think about what you’ve said. I’m not keen on it, let’s be clear.
It is making a time bomb out of a human being’s stress endurance. To put them into that kind of position, especially when they’re a child. So if a child’s in this position, they’ve spoken out, even if their parents are supportive, that means that they have to then spend a certain amount of time not able to act authentically and feel authentically and be authentically themselves whilst also having at least one member of the school faculty, what, basically transvestigating them? For whatever amount of time that they wish for. Until that cis person can determine whether this child is actually trans. It’s just so much work. Instead of just listening to a child talk about themselves and you know that you would believe them if they said, well, I think I want to be a doctor when I’m older, but you can’t believe them about who they are now.
Alyx: It is still holes left by, you know, the previous government towards this guidance that can still be affecting things in the state and practicality as you mentioned. And then, yeah, all that stuff that I walked out on.
Ashleigh: Just why would you make it so much harder for yourself? You know, why not just listen. Why is that so difficult? Well.
Alyx: It’s like for some reason you’re not allowed to trust your own kids.
Ashleigh: Yeah, not allowed to listen when somebody tells you who they really are.
Flint: It’s giving Satanic panic the amount of parallels between the Satanic panic and and the way in which trans children are being pathologised. And, you know, trans people, and transness in general is, it’s creepy. It’s not fun.
Ashleigh: It’s creepy. It’s not fun, and maybe that should be the name of the episode, yes. Thank you all dear listeners for tuning in. Once again you can see a lot of Flint’s writing on our website already, which is of course whatthetrans.com. We’ve got all sorts of stuff there. We’re obviously on Twitter. Or twix. Whatever. Uh, we’re on Facebook, and if you feel able to support us, we have a Patreon. The list for the list of Patreon names gets a little bit longer every time we read them out. Which is great, enables us to get the technology that we need to give that to people that we want to start recruiting for hosting duties for example, and enables us to travel to Prides and it enables us to occasionally buy some written submissions. We will be back in a couple of weeks, look after yourselves and. And oh God, isn’t it wonderful? The Tories aren’t in anymore.
Alyx: Woohoo [extremely high-pitched] Bye!!
[end credit music plays]Alyx: This episode was written, produced and presented by Ashleigh Talbot, Alyx Bedwell and Flint, edited by Amber Devereaux and Olly Morris with music composed by Waritsara Yui Karlberg. Episode transcription produced by Sam Wyman, Rowan B and Georgia Griffiths. And we would especially like to thank our Patreon producers:
Alyx, Ashleigh and Flint: Stefan Blakehall, [inaudible], [all the crazzee reverb] CRAZZEE RICHARD, needles and threads, Flaming Dathne, Dr McGee, Genevieve Dickson, Rachel Harrison, Katie Reynolds, Grabilicious, Alex T, Rootminusone, Grey, Elisabeth Anderson, Bernice Roust, Ellen Mellor, Jay Hoskins, Trowan, Ashley, Matty B, Setcab, Jane, Roberto de Prunk, Rose Absolute, Sarah, Kiki T, Dee, Skye Kilaen, Eric Widman, Bee, Jude, [French accordian plays] monsieur squirrel, Fergus Evans, anubisajackal, Camina, Brandon Craig, braykthasistim, Sian Phillips, Heidi Rearden, Ezra, Sophia VI, Lentil, Philippa Taprogge, clara vulliamy, Amelia, Corvina Ravenheart the trans metal DJ from Twitch and VR chat will play St Lucifer for props, Tabitha Jo Cox aka Cnady, Fiona Macdonell, Torikuso H, Murgatroid, ontologicallyunjust, Stella, Cyndergosa, Rebecca Prentice, [all the crazzee reverb] CRAZZEE RICHARD, danoblivion, Florence Stanley, Helen_, Elle Hollingsworth, Melody Nyx, Nick Ross, Fiona Punchard, John, Nick Duffy, CB Bailey, Ted Delphos, Gordon Cameron, Wen Riverop, Patreon User, Vic Parsons, Vic Kelly, Katherine, Sabrina McVeigh, Cassius Adair, Melissa Brooks, Karaken12, April Heller, Sofie Lewis, Alexandra Lilly, Claire Scott, Ariadne Pena, Lauren O’Nions, Bernard’s Pink Jellybean, and Chris Hubley.
Ashleigh: Thank you to you all, and one more time, former Women and Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch.
[Celebratory exclamations]
