PODCAST [TRANSCRIBED] – Alerta, Alerta. Anti Cass-ista

On this definitely “fun” episode, Flint, Alyx and Ashleigh kick over the coals on:

  • The LGB Alliance conference, scheduled for October 11th.
  • An interview with Trans Kids Deserve Better.
  • School librarians facing complaining parents.
  • FOI data gathered about adult GIC’s and their many failures.
  • The NHS plan to undertake a Cass-style review into adult gender services. 

References

Akua Reindorf at the LGB Alliance Conference

Akua Reindorf speaking at the LGB Alliance conference

Links the EHRC sent us

EHRC Governance Manual

Nolan Principles of Public Life

Standards in Public Life

Principles of good governance in the UK Corporate Governance

Scottish EHRC Meeting Minutes

https://twitter.com/SlauHaus/status/1825164103427518673?t=4TvzYAXu7skwsrp9v717Tg&s=19

Trans Kids Deserve Better Protest

JustGiving Page for TKDB

TKDB Instagram Page

Jess O’Thomson Kicking Ass

School Librarians Under Pressure from Parents (and Sometimes Administrators)

Index On Censorship article about their findings

Independent article about the IoC findings (archive link)

FOI Data About Adult GIC’s

https://twitter.com/CTransTalks/status/1824374074157531157

NHS Adult Services Review

NHS Adult Services Review Announced (Guardian Article)

NHS Commissioning >> Review of Adult Gender Dysphoria Services (NHS announcement)

Transcript

Alyx: Hello everybody and welcome to What the Trans?!

Ashleigh and Flint: [singing in unison] What the Trans?!

Ashleigh: Hello everybody. We are back. Lovely to have you with us. How are you two doing?

Flint: I’m doing good! I watched “The Batman”, the most recent Batman film last night and I didn’t know this, but apparently it came out nearly a year ago, recently. But I showed it to my housemate, because I got to see it in cinemas and she didn’t, and it’s great! It’s one of my favourite Batman films, possibly my most favourite. I don’t know, there’s a contentious battle there, but it’s up there because it has a lot of the conversations that I’ve always desperately needed from Batman, which is discussing that he’s a rich white guy that’s usually beating up poor people and so much of his identity is based in fear and trauma and discussing that; and discussing his tactic for justice and what does that mean and where is that taking him? It’s got my favourite villain in it, the Riddler. Like there’s so much about that film to fuckin’ love! It’s basically Zodiac 2: Batman Boogaloo.

Alyx: So that was the one with The Twilight vampire bloke, right?

Ashleigh: Yeah, Robert Pattinson.

Alyx: Oh that one, yeah. I haven’t managed to get around to watching that.

Ashleigh: I’ve not seen it either. Like I have kind of dropped out of paying too much attention to Batman stuff, partly because of what you just mentioned there, Flint, because it is Batman is a billionaire in a city that’s riddled with crime and poverty and all sorts of social ills which he could solve with a few flicks of his wrist on his chequebook but instead he chooses to go out and beat up drug users and mental health patients. Poor people.

Flint: Yeah.

Ashleigh: Rather than just, you know, going to therapy!

Alyx: But what’s better, a therapist or a Batmobile?

Flint: See, that’s I guess the question, if you had that much money, maybe you wouldn’t consider the most Occam’s Razor approach of “let’s just deal with my head” because the thing that’s always drawn me to Batman is the villains, and is the mad characters and the way that Batman is… you can trace the history of comics through the way the Batman handled all the years and. I fucking love that. But yeah, it was good to just be able to have a film that’s like “Ohh, you’re doing what I need”. How are you doing?

Ashleigh: Yeah I’m alright. As we record this, the big corporate Manchester Pride is taking place in a few days, so I bought some sign-making materials this afternoon and that’s what I’m going to do tomorrow; I’m going to make a protest sign essentially. And I’m going to take that along to the parade tomorrow for when Labour walk past, or maybe somebody else. I don’t know, because there’s so many things wrong with the sponsorship of Manchester Pride, they’re sponsored by booking.com who are being criticised for their essentially profiting from the current genocide happening in Palestine.

Flint: Wow. Yeah, that’s fucked.

Ashleigh: Yeah. They are, for the way that they are failing to deal with that, and they are being quite widely criticised. So I could make a sign about that. So there are so many options, but the main thing I need to remember when I go along to the parade is just take some milkshakes along because I get very thirsty, and I gotta make sure…

Alyx: [laughs]

Flint: Hydration!

Ashleigh: Hydration’s so important, yeah.

Alyx: Yeah, I just came up with an idea for a protest sign: “Manchester Pride booked in for genocide”.

Ashleigh and Flint: Oooooh!

Ashleigh: That’s a good one! How about you, Alyx? What have you been up to?

Alyx: I’ve been doing alright, I’m ÂŁ300 richer than I was last week.

Ashleigh: Oh really?!

Flint: Nice!

Alyx: Yeah, I’ve discovered this fantastic thing called Facebook Marketplace.

Flint: Oh dear God. [laughs]

Alyx: Yeah. I think I’ve got less stuff in my bedroom now, because I was like “Oh a thing, I can sell it!” So I’ve sold my phone, I’ve been selling like old books I had, Blu-rays and I’m just eyeing up my Oculus Quest 3 in the background thinking “Hmm, maybe I might just consider that” because I was thinking of saving up for a nice mattress the other day, and I remember at Manchester Pride we were hanging around in Ashleigh’s place and I was like, you know what, Ashleigh’s bed’s too comfy. I need to get my own.

Ashleigh: That was a sofa bed as well, so that’s not even the comfiest bed we’ve got in the house.

Alyx: No it was when we were in your office.

Ashleigh: Ohh right. Yeah. So mine and Lexi’s actual bed is definitely the comfiest bed in the house. Sorry, Nadia. Love you.

Alyx: Some a few items lighter thanks to you.

Ashleigh: I sold a bed on Facebook marketplace and it took like a day and it just worked. And when I walked away from taking the bed downstairs to be picked up by a van, I was just looking at the money in my hand going “That was really easy, I’m suspicious.”

Flint: I got my first ever sofa from Facebook marketplace, it was just someone who, I think they moved house and it was too big for where they were now or something. But I was able to get a really good quality fuckin’ DFS fucking sofa for barely fuck-all ’cause she was like “I just need it gone.” and I was like “this is really weird. It’s suspiciously easy money, but it’s also very weird” because you’re just turning up to a place you’ve not been before. Or having someone that you don’t know just turn up to the house and be like, “Okay!” And there’s something about that that always makes me think that I’m probably potentially going to be facing my end of days, even though it’s normally some other poor person like me trying to get through life.

Alyx: Oh exactly because like in school they teach you “don’t give out your address to strangers on the internet”. Oh look, I’m just gonna dox myself to this random stranger, and they’re just gonna come up and give me money. Yeah, if I did that on the What the Trans?! podcast I’d probably be murdered in the next week. So if anyone wants to meet and [inaudible] me up my address is [buzzer sound]!

[Laughter]

Alyx: Posting on you get so many notifications from my phone, my phone goes mad now and it’s like more than I get from being brigaded by TERFs. And Speaking of TERFs, on this occasion.

[Groans]

Ashleigh: And people who love to brigade trans people, let’s get into the news.

Alyx: Ohh not the news!

Ashleigh: Let’s talk about the LGB Alliance, those cheeky scamps!

Flint: Whoopee.

Ashleigh: Because the LGB Alliance are having a conference, presumably for all, what, twelve of them to get together and swap transphobic insult tips or whatever else it is they do for fun.

[Clip from Arrested Development plays: “There are dozens of us! Dozens!”]

Ashleigh: The conference is due to take place on October the 11th, and our old friend, hardy perennial, Akua Reindorf has already announced that she’ll be speaking at it, with a talk entitled “Sex, Lies and Victories”, and promises that she’ll be commenting on the recent “extraordinary run of gender-critical philosophical belief discrimination cases following @MForstater’s landmark victory.” Which is of course in reference to a case in 2022 where Maya Forstater won a tribunal case against her former employer, the Centre for Global Development, who had chosen not to renew Forstater’s contract because of a selection of “Forstater’s gender-critical tweets”. The tribunal found that she was discriminated against for these beliefs, although she had to go through an appeal process twice to get that verdict since it didn’t go her way the first time she tried. So Akua Reindorf, a commissioner for the Equality and Human Rights Commission, is to be giving a talk about Forstater’s impact at the conference of a group who are widely regarded as nothing more than a transphobic hate group. So that’s fun, isn’t it? And we approached the EHRC for comment and they sent us this:

[Piano plays lightly in the background]

“All our Commissioners are required to adhere to the obligations laid out in our governance manual and code of conduct which follow civil service codes of good practise. EHRC Commissioners adopt the highest standards as public servants and are expected to demonstrate integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality in the work they do. All commissioners also agree to abide by the Nolan Principles of Public Life and Standards in Public Life and the Principles of good governance in the UK Corporate Governance code. All our Commissioners also undergo impartiality training and declare any conflicts of interest on an annual basis.”

[Piano stops]

So…

Alyx: They did not answer a single…

Ashleigh: They did not answer the question!

Flint: At all.

Alyx: Was it appropriate? They did not say whether it’s appropriate. They just gave us this crap and we were like “what the fuck is this crap?” This has not done anything and we were like “we’ve noticed that has not addressed a single thing. Do you want to re-issue another one where you actually answer the bloody question?” Well, we didn’t say in that specific terms, but that’s how we were feeling.

Ashleigh: Yeah, paraphrasing ourselves.

Flint: Hyperbolic. [laughs]

Alyx: And they declined to give us an answer and said “see the previous statement”.

Ashleigh: So we pushed in an email, they’ve obviously declined to answer and we also asked in that email that if an EHRC Commissioner decided to do a speech for a Stonewall conference, whether that would be considered appropriate and they sent us this:

[Piano plays lightly in the background]

“Akua Reindorf KC would be happy to attend a Stonewall conference if invited.”

[Piano cuts]

and I think that “if invited” is doing quite a bit of heavy lifting.

Alyx: We also said if an EHRC Commissioner came, we didn’t say Akua specifically either.

Flint: Yeah. Like we’re talking about the ethics of the position in general. And they decided to turn it straight to just Akua. And it’s not about just Reindorf in this situation, it’s about the ability to… well, it’s about the appropriateness of this, which is no, this is not appropriate. The reason why it’s a problem specifically at the LGB Alliance is because the LGB Alliance works explicitly to undermine and eradicate the Equalities Act and to reshape it into something that is not actually going to provide equalities and equity for people who are marginalised. You can’t have someone whose whole job is meant to be protecting and enforcing the Equalities Act talk at a conference like that, where the entire point is to undermine the Equalities Act. Instead they just went “Yeah, but no she could do both.” Please. You could tell they really thought they were getting it. They really thought they were sort of being snappy and was like “Yeah, of course she’ll be there.” But, come on.

Alyx: Your attempt at sass just showed that you’re just shit at your job.

Ashleigh: I don’t know. To me it didn’t read as sass, it read as “they’re not getting anything out of us” right? “These piddly little annoying, quote unquote journalists. They’re not getting anything. So just repeat the same statement” even though we specifically said “You haven’t answered our question”. And they responded again and continued to not answer the question. They knew what they were doing.

Flint: They did know what they were doing. OK, it’s probably unfair of me to say I think they were being sassy, but yes, they definitely knew what they were doing. Yeah, they definitely knew what they were doing.

Alyx: No, exactly. I mean I will say the press office for EHRC is a lot quicker than most other organisations’ press offices we’ve worked with before. That’s the only good thing about their organisation. And I think most of this statement wasn’t exactly written by them, but the leadership itself.

Ashleigh: Yeah, and if the best thing that we can say about our country’s, overarching “equalities” office is that they have a good press team. If that’s the best thing that we can say about them, it’s like they’re not doing their job!

Alyx: Yeah. I mean, even then they just answer our emails fairly quickly and that’s it.

Flint: Yeah, they don’t answer them, necessarily, well. That’s a whole other conversation.

Ashleigh: No, indeed.

Alyx: The person I was speaking to was fairly polite. But yeah, exactly. It’s sort of that situation. We’ve seen Akua Reindorf at the LGB Alliance Conference previously, and I took a picture of her holding this like tote bag with the Labour Woman’s Declaration on having a smoke outside. Anyway, she’s already making it her regular gallivant every October, for her. And she’s like “Oh, you know what? I’ll buy the merch like a little simp.” If you can’t tell, I’m not keen on Akua Reindorf. And I wish we were done talking about Akua Reindorf, but unfortunately, we’re not done yet.

In April of this year, Akua Reindorf gallivanted over to meeting the Scottish EHRC. The meeting minutes have been published recently and it did not look good. And Sarah Nova’s thread on Twitter has broken it down. First, the board now endorsed that the definition of sex needs to be changed in the Equality Act, stating that:

[Piano on]

“Many service providers were therefore struggling to achieve their ambitions of providing single biological sex or targeted services in an environment characterised by inaccurate information and pressure from civil society organisations with strong views and effective influencing strategies. Many service providers appear to have defaulted to a position of gender neutrality rather than public criticism.”

[Piano off]

So to put that in more lay terms, some service providers are eagerly clamouring to discriminate against trans people and they want to lie about people who want to treat people nicely and say that they are actually “scared of being told off”. For being dicks towards trans people, and then they point to the Cass Review for some stupid reason claiming it’s relevant and somehow it’s relevant to decide whether I need to go piss or not. Now, this whole meeting was in April and they haven’t published the latest minutes from after the election. So we don’t see if their tune has changed at all, and we don’t see the same for the general EHRC either. But, while the bigots are in charge, we won’t see any changes.

Ashleigh: That’s a cheerful note to end the story on Alyx. Well done.

Alyx: I love being cheerful!

Ashleigh: How much time have we already spent talking about the EHRC, right, over various episodes and Faulkner? Why is she still in post, right? Because we heard from a Labour source, before the election, that that would be kind of page 1 stuff. First month…

Alyx: Or first 100 days.

Ashleigh: A significant priority for the Labour Government would be to essentially reclaim the Equalities manifesto… and they haven’t done that. What are you waiting for? How much are you gonna let Fuck-it-up Faulkner fuck it up?

Alyx: Yeah exactly. Because the whole lot just need to be sacked, to be honest. Akua, Faulkner, Alasdair Henderson, I think, was one of them. I can’t remember the rest cause they’re all evil ghouls, you forget the names of anyway. But as you said, the only name we’ve seen being touted was Harriet Harman. But as you said, we haven’t heard any news. We don’t just need Harriet to be in Chair, we need some systemic, radical and thorough changes to ensure their independence. And also, they need to be competent. But that’s another matter entirely.

Flint: Well, yeah. It needs to be fit for service and it needs to actually be focused on the real matters, and not pity semantic differences that will create absolute havoc and so much, so much harm. That’s what they’re spending their time on. And all of the stuff that we’ve got going on in the world right now, that’s what they want to spend their time on. And it just says so much to me.

Alyx: Oh, definitely. Just obsessing over the word “women” in the Equalities Act when they could be looking at something actually important in a systemic discrimination against trans people. Or other minorities in general.

Flint: Yeah, and yet again, this weaponization of fear that is not based in a reality in order to other us. Instead of saying “Well, maybe if you’re scared of people just existing out and about in the world, maybe that’s a ‘you’ problem.”

Alyx: In the EHRC minutes, in parts of where it mentions it wants to redefine sex in Equality Act by changing the Equality Act in law it cites the For Women Scotland case, which they are calling for their second appeal of the word definition of “women” in law. And for some reason that and the Cass Review has made them think “Hmm, let’s be dicks towards trans people.”

Ashleigh: Well, they were going to be dicks towards trans people whether they had the Cass Review on side or not. But now that they’ve got it, it’s just an extra bullet in the chamber for them.

Alyx: Yeah, because this is a Scottish EHRC sorry.

Ashleigh: Yeah, this is specifically the Scottish desk, as it were.

Flint: It’s taking these statements of fear as actually earnest, which personally I do not fully believe. I think it’s far more people that have a deep sense of disgust.

Ashleigh: Yeah, it’s the ‘ick’ rather than the ‘aaugh’.

Alyx: And another drop-in from Alyx here. As you see, there’s a lot of stuff that’s very reminiscent of the Section 28 stuff and people trying to repress education for trans young people. So recently there was a protest of people camping out outside the Department of Education in which they are staying there for a very long time. I think they might still be camped out whilst this is being released on Monday at 7am, but I’m recording this on the Sunday. But we spoke to the folk there. This is what they had to say:

[Interview]

Alyx: Alright, and I’m with Trans Kids Deserve Better. You know, this time they’re not up on a really high ledge so I can’t reach them and have to talk to them through walkie talkies. Instead, all there is is a fancy metal barrier in a way. So this is prime real estate. At least you don’t fall to your deaths. Would you like to introduce yourselves?

Chalkie: I’m Chalkie, they/them.

Joker: I’m Joker, he/they.

August: I’m August he/him.

Payne: I’m Payne, they/them.

Alyx: So what brings you to occupy in front of the Department of Education?

Joker: So as we know that it’s not just healthcare that trans people are having issues with. Trans youth all over the country are going back to school in September, who’ll be facing issues such as not enough safeguarding in place for trans youth, if they’re being bullied. There’s not enough guidance in place if a trans student comes out. And as we know from the previous government, the previous guidance of outing trans students was completely unacceptable, as that is a major safeguarding risk. And we also know that in the curriculum itself, teaching about genders is for some reason a “contested topic”, which it shouldn’t be, because this is our identity and it’s something that should be taught freely and openly and not be seen as controversial.

Payne: What we’re seeing right now with the new government guidance is essentially just a redo of Section 28, which happened a while back, where trans kids are being treated like… we’re being characterised, cis people’s reactions to us are being characterised, but people aren’t really listening to our actual voices and, you know, people aren’t really humanising us. They’re treating us like some kind of debate or ideology instead of actual people. And we’re here to show that we are here and we are willing to fight for our rights. We aren’t some weak little group who’s been indoctrinated.

Alyx: Ohh, definitely a lot of the rhetoric always goes on to infantilise trans young people and it’s just utterly insulting, all that sort of thing. And I mean, just as on the education curriculum, as we’ve seen on the news recently, as we covered on the last podcast, over 50% of school libraries have had calls to remove LGBTQIA books from school libraries as well to make it harder for trans young kids to access materials, what are your thoughts on that?

Payne: Well, it kind of speaks to the whole curriculum kind of trying to get rid of trans people in a way, the curriculum we very rarely see trans people outside of things like PSHE (Personal, Social, Health and Economic education), and even then they are a very small part of the curriculum and some schools outright choose not to teach that part. Even though it’s mandatory and censorship is what it is, they’re trying to censor our identities and who we are and it’s not right. Because trans kids are everywhere and they need to learn about being trans in safe environments and whatnot. And while a lot of us learnt on the internet, and while learning, that can be great, it’s better to learn in an actual education environment rather than from random strangers.

Alyx: Exactly. I think a lot of trans older people probably know the fact that it was all stifled and everything. And I suppose with, like this is a lot like a direct message to the Education Secretary at the moment. So what message would you have for whoever that is?

Joker: OK, this might be a repeat of what I said last time, but fuck you, come on, we are not something to be debated. We are individual people with our own lives. Like maybe instead of trying to see us as a statistic to bring up in debates and make yourself look better, maybe like, get in contact with some of us, talk to us, hear about our lives. Hear that we are just like trying to live our lives peacefully and like – specifically in schools, school’s meant to be a place where if a kid doesn’t feel safe at home, it’s their second safe space. They’re meant to be able to go to a teacher, feel safe, and be able to express themselves, especially with many households nowadays not being the best household, and school is meant to be a place where the kids can grow, develop and learn holistically and not just academically. And the fact that there is so much censorship and oppression going on and being and trans people used as a debatable topic, it’s just unacceptable.

Alyx: Exactly, and as well as this, with the attack through education, as we saw yesterday, the puberty blockers had their ban extended recently as well, which was horrific and we were wondering what your thoughts were on that as well, because I think that was the topic of the last protest as well.

Chalkie: Well, it’s revolting. Honestly. We have made our case. We have told them what this is doing to us and how it’s going to negatively impact us in the long term and how you’re denying healthcare to children who desperately need that and they are not listening to us, clearly, they are ignoring us. They’re trying to block us out. We need them to listen. We need them to listen because I mean so many, a lot of people have died on waiting lists and a lot of people are struggling and they need their healthcare.

Joker: This is proof. So as we know the previous action was done with the former government. But this new, the extended ban, it’s just proof that the Labour government do not care about us. They are just continuing with what the old Tory government did because they just care about getting the votes and not actually caring about what the people want. They are further oppressing us and they are not listening to science, statistics or facts. They’re just trying to push a rhetoric against trans people and trying to marginalise us even more and use us as their political weapon and use buzzwords around us just to make themselves look even better. And like, “oh, my God, we’re so much better than the previous government”, when really they’re just the same. They are just the new Tories in red.

Alyx: Oh exactly and then that brings us here, to protesting for multiple days, I think it’s going to be planned for because I don’t know how what strategies you have and just enduring being here for this long. I mean you’re already sat here on some cardboard which has just been laid out and such and while you were just getting set up there was a bit of a scuffle with the police, earlier, wasn’t there.

Joker: So, they tried to talk to us and I was very obviously, as we know, no comment, no caution, no. Take no notice. But obviously they’re trying to get something me to say something and I was just ignoring them, trying to calm myself down because we had just like, jumped over the fence. We were like, ah, so they aggressively put their head over and it’s like, “can you hear me?” And it’s like, okay, okay, ask us how we’re doing. And obviously I don’t like speaking to the pigs. So I just did a thumbs up. They left us alone after, but they still walked up and down the grate. We eventually, one of us on another grate managed to get on footage that, them saying we’re allowed to use the whole pavement, they don’t care and I had overheard as they were leaving that this was a waste of time which I guess supposedly means that if the police try and do anything they’ll be going back on their word of what they said today.

Alyx: Exactly, and let’s hope that they leave you be and make sure that you’re able to fully make your point in your occupation. Okay, I think all of the team and everyone who’s listening are cheering you on and very excited to see how it goes and hope it all goes well and hopefully most of the team here will try and keep up and keep an eye on what’s happening here as well. I think I’ve already been added to a few group chats but yeah. Thank you very much.

Flint: Are we ready for something a little bit different?

Alyx: Yeah, what could it be?

Flint: Is it possible? Loser’s Corner! Run the intro [Loser’s Corner Intro].

Flint: In this week’s Loser’s Corner, we are going to focus on the winner first. But who is the winner? The iconic legal researcher and journalist Jess O’Thomson, who put in a Freedom of Information request to the Department of Education asking if they have any evidence or records of any schools or institutions teaching about 72 genders, yes, that common point argued by anti-trans obsessives that eventually became spread around in public media and even the highest levels of government. They finally got the response that there is no evidence of that in any schools. So now the next time someone starts repeating that fabrication, you could explain to them with the words of the government itself that no such evidence or report exists. This ridiculous meme started in anti-trans circles and should never have been taken more seriously than that. Jess got this info after going through the complaint system as a good bit of time was first spent claiming that they wouldn’t be able to search for the phrase 72 genders, only 72 and genders separately. So if Jess is the winner, then who are the losers? Well, dear listener, we have a multitude of them, including former Education Secretary Gillian Keegan, former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and all the others that uncritically babbled this nonsense in a desperate plea for votes that never came.

Ashleigh: Jess O’Thomson’s pretty awesome, aren’t they, just kicking ass and taking names? Because that 72 genders thing was repeated so widely, and you even see it popping up in the US in like, some of the leaked videos from Project 2025. So they talk about the 72 genders thing, but it’s never happened. It’s literally never happened. That’s not what kids are being taught. It’s that classic British thing of making up a scenario, completely fabricating it out of whole cloth and then getting angry about it.

Flint: It’s repugnant, it’s a repugnant amount of callousness and complete disregard for life. But you then, in the next breath, are saying “save the children from trans people”, fucking disgusting. Sort yourself out, please. I’m not going to get angry at it.

Alyx: It’s just that stupid amount of juxtaposition. That’s everything that – their culture warring and attempting to bring in a new Section 28 is just based completely on a lie. All this thing about, oh, we need to stop trans people being taught in schools. Just the word, just the fact that trans people exist is making our kids trans. It’s all based on a fucking lie.

Ashleigh: I mean, of course it was.

Alyx: And I just want to scream it out repeatedly. Because it’s just great to say it’s a lie!

Ashleigh: It’s a lie, but I mean of course it’s a lie because conservatives on either side of the Atlantic and in any country in the world, conservative right wing people. Not really big on facts.

Alyx: It’s inevitable that some random right-wing twat’s going to bring it up into some random interview with a Labour minister at some point, so if Labour gets questioned this needs to be brought up to each of the members who are getting caught with this because the data from their own department is saying that this claim is a lie. And if people who are in happen to be in the constituency of Bridget Phillipson, just spam her emails for a bit just to let her know because she is, of course, the Labour Education Minister, Bridget Phillipson.

Flint: And like honestly, like all jokes aside, especially as you put it in Loser’s Corner. Seriously, this is a massive amount of misinformation that’s been wilfully spread about in incredibly high offices in this country. And there absolutely should be some repercussions, for absolutely, wilfully misinforming the public on this level. You can’t convince me that you genuinely believe that this was true. Apparently the reason why they believed it was a fact that there was these evidence or reports. Call their bluff.

Alyx: Oh definitely and I think there and quite frankly with the level of misinformation spread about the because of the recent riots and such. And they keep saying, Oh yeah, that’s because of social media. They’ve got to remember, oh, look at the new Section 28 also, oh look at that, all the hate propagated by guess what? Social media. So if they’re going to make that cake, they’re going to eat it too as well.

Ashleigh: Umm. Hopefully the new Department for Education Minister has got her head screwed on a little more than some of the previous ones. And speaking of things related to education, let’s talk about a story that came up this week of school librarians removing certain books from shelves after complaints by parents. And you can probably guess what kinds of books are being removed. It is, of course, those with LGBTQ+ characters or themes. In fact, a survey has been performed of the librarians involved, and 53% of those polled had been asked to remove LGBTQ+ literature. And in more than half of those cases, the books were indeed removed. Now I know what you’re thinking. Ashleigh, why are you talking about Texas or Florida again? And the answer is I’m not. This is the UK. This comes from the Index on Censorship, who shared their story exclusively with the Independent. In a survey taking place over six months, more than two dozen school librarians have experienced this kind of censorship, and I’m just going to quote directly from the article for a moment, and say that one librarian had been told to remove every book with an LGBTQ+ theme after a single complaint from one parent about one book. Librarians also said that they were worried about their job security if they didn’t comply with the removals. There’s one story in there of a parent trying to have a library staffer fired because their child had been reading an LGBTQ+ book. There’s stories of senior staff telling librarians to keep certain books but not put them out on display. And a couple of really heartening stories as well of librarians defying the bans by handing out off the record loans from back cupboards. Now, according to Alice Leggett, a librarian at the John Fisher School in South London: “Pretty much every librarian I’ve spoken with says this is more of an issue than it was five years ago, and they’re concerned about it in a way that they’ve never had to think about before.” This is what she’s told the Independent, “But we don’t really have anything with teeth to help defend school librarians and their collections and their students when these things happen. We are about different perspectives. That’s our whole ethos. I worry about that being curtailed. Now it’s LGBTQ+ books, but next week it could be something else.” And Laura McKay, CEO of LGBTQ+ Young People’s charity Just Like Us, said “This small scale study shows some worrying cases of fear around LGBT books in school libraries. But removing books will never change the fact that LGBT+ people, including same-sex parents, are part of society. The recent rise in far-right attitudes and fears stoked around young trans people make life so much harder for LGBTQ+ young people, particularly those of colour. Homophobia and transphobia are still an issue in many spheres of British life. It’s vital that young people can access books that reflect the diversity of the world around them.”

Flint: It’s exactly the kind of horrifying thing that I knew would eventually wash up on these shores like a dead whale. It’s hard to put into words, right?

Ashleigh: It is, yeah, but it’s – as we’re about to point out and as several librarians in the study pointed out, the complaining parents seem to be getting their playbook from the US because we’ve seen book bans and complaints leading to swathes of books being removed from school libraries and public libraries. But particularly the school ones. And so the same tactics are now being used here.

Alyx: I remember being a school librarian at my old school. Like there’s a thing where you get, like, a little badge on the uniform that says school librarian and I think your past me would have been just horrified at thinking I’d have to then take off these shelves because some uppity parent decided that their kid is too precious to learn about the fact that queer people exist.

Ashleigh: Yeah, little Tarquin can’t possibly learn that.

Alyx: And it’s saying that there’s a lack of materials out there for school librarians to know their rights on stocking these books in the first place. And I’m not seeing much support from administrations, if that’s what I’m hearing about from the independent. Maybe there needs to be guidance from some places to school librarians to say, here’s your rights about LGBTQ books, and how to deal with it and support materials on how to help them in dealing within schools.

Flint: So like one reason a lot of the administrations aren’t perhaps clamping down as hard on their boundaries for the kids’ right to have a variance of opinion and diversity put before them if they wish to engage with it, is that the commodification of the education system, all of the previous decades has put parents in a particular position of basically being like customers. And so that means that when put in this position, many administrations are going to say, well, we can’t have the parents turn on us. And if we turn on some of the parents, then other parents, even if they have the right idea or aren’t, you know, frothing at the mouth transphobic, will see us say actually we know better. And even if they do because it’s their entire job is to educate like then it can just seem to cause more problems than it would be to stand up for what is right.

Ashleigh: It’s gross, isn’t it? Just. No, no other word for it.

Flint: Deeply.

Ashleigh: So I think what was pointed out in the article, I think there does need to be something with teeth that can back up the school librarians to, you know, kind of ameliorate the possibility of them being, perhaps, individually taken to court. Not that I suspect that would do very well, but.

Flint: Definitely.

Ashleigh: That’s the threat, isn’t it?

Alyx: Yeah, and something needs to happen soon. Because this sounds like it’s just a start, really. It can. It’s going to escalate to further lengths if you don’t clamp on it now. For those organisations that can produce those materials. Please do

Ashleigh: Please do. I guess, yeah, we, What The Trans calls for improved robustness of school librarian power. That’s a very specific thing that we’re calling for there, but I’m okay with it.

Alyx: That brings us on to the next story. Last episode we leaned very heavily into health care and all we need to do is gesture vaguely in that direction. You can probably get to the point and the next story we are bringing up highlights how bad the situation is with waiting lists and the treatments we are getting at adult care. Or in this case, lack of care from the NHS and politicians. Claire’s Trans Talks has recently released a data set of the national gender identity clinics and has laid out a thread with some of the key points that we will take you through now. The data is over five years pre and post COVID, data surrounding referrals, waiting lists, staffing budgets and more was laid out, focusing specifically on gender identity clinics and not these pilot schemes. Firstly, there is often talk of massive increases in referrals over the recent years, there’s strain in the system. However, this data shows actually referrals pretty much flatlined throughout, only increased 14% overall. However, it seems waiting lists have increased 144% and after five years of that much movement, it is now sitting at 35,000 people waiting for treatment. 35,000 people, about two and a half 02 arenas.

Put it plainly, on average referrals were increased by only 4.5% per year, whilst the number of people on waiting lists went up by 25% per year. This doesn’t back up the commonly made claim that referrals are getting out of hand, and that is why there’s an increasing waiting list problem. Claire’s data indicates that actually the problem is not people queuing up, but people not actually being seen. We can see in the data that most of the clinics are offering less initial assessments than they did five years ago. Most aren’t even doing one initial assessment a day. This indicates that the problem is more to do with services being withheld as opposed to being overused. Treatment times are also 71% longer due in part to an 81% increase in delay between initial appointment and second appointment.

But of course, with the NHS on its knees, you’d be reasonable to assume that the delay being seen and the delays between appointments once you have your foot in the door is because of continued cuts to funding and capability. Money talks, after all. However, the funding nationally has increased in GICs by about 133% overall since 2018, around 25% per year. And clinician staffing has gone up about 81% during that time as well. So what gives? Well, the polite way to say it is that there’s not been much focus on hiring those with diagnostic capability. One shocking statistic is that London GIC only increased its capacity for diagnosing by 0.2 FTE which is 1/5 of a full time worker’s job.

Now this isn’t to say by any means that trans healthcare doesn’t deserve more funding, or that the NHS is not in dire straits and drastically needs improvement. Two things can be true at the same time. The important thing is that it doesn’t corroborate what we have been told over the years. The fact is, when giving resources, they aren’t going to the areas that would best solve the issue. And again, trying to be reasonable and assume good faith, you might immediately think that’s because these clinicians are swamped seeing ongoing patients. However, most GICs have far less appointments per calendar month now than they did in 2018 and 19, some of which, drastically. The full data is available in the description. Be warned, it will give you flashbacks to GCSE maths, but this tweet from Claire sums up everything succinctly.

“What is clear is that clinicians simply aren’t doing their jobs. GICs are catastrophically failing as a service model. And both the NHS and the government are lying about one and two. The Welsh model does seem to offer a way forward, but even that appears to be stalling.”

Ashleigh: This does reflect anecdotal evidence because I’m sure all three of us know several people who are kind of on the waiting list or have been waiting for X amount of time, and we’ve heard horror stories of how long the waiting list is, where some people have, we’ve reported on it being said as high as 10 or 15 years.

Alyx: I think Claire’s also had the data on for year-long lengths, she sent us the data for it, but our consultation team is currently checking it out to go through those for you, dear listeners, in a bit about initial appointments and not many appointments happening inside the GICs. We always see pictures from people appearing at GICs for their appointment, seeing a waiting room that’s absolutely empty, and sometimes it feels like wait, so if there’s less people coming for an appointment, that sort of tracks quite well there in the data as well, yeah.

Flint: Yeah. And I think that first of all, fucking thank god that Claire’s done this because it really really needed to be done. I think that this is exactly the kind of thing that like answers so many questions that we’ve had and, as you said, like within those sort of whisper networks of trying to access good healthcare, hearing these things but being able to see them laid out is absolutely phenomenal because now we have something to actually present and say well when you say that actually, it’s because referrals are out of control what does this say? Because this is from your own office, so explain it to me, you know.

Alyx: No, exactly. And it sounds like that the Department of Health hadn’t put together some kind of report like this in the first place, yeah.

Flint: No, no. The data had sat there and basically been rotting, I think, and she’s the one that’s made it presentable and like syphoned through it to get to like where we are now, where we have, you know, graphs and there’s lots of that available, you can check it all out. Obviously looking through it actually reminded me of when I was in uni and doing research modules which were the worst part of the degree for me. Pure maths. Pure maths.

Ashleigh: But all of this information’s been obtained through like Freedom of Information requests, yeah?

Alyx: Yes, yes, yes, it’s amazing how useful this is.

Ashleigh: Indeed, I think these have just been intended as like, write only documents. Like we’ve got it written down somewhere, that’s fine, but no one’s actually going through it looking at trends, looking at, you know, well, what, what can we see? What can we draw out of this data? What can we make more efficient, what isn’t working, blah, blah, blah? No one’s actually doing any work with that data. It’s all just, you know, it’s being written and then left somewhere in the hard drive and forgotten about basically.

Flint: Now what we need is data from the pilot schemes that have been run of different models, some of which have a lot more involvement from trans people, and see how well they stack up, because that would be really interesting.

Alyx: Yeah, because I think we need those reports. And who knows, maybe they’ve repressed them, god knows, they’re like, oh, no, it’s too successful. But we don’t know. Yeah, that’s a big dump of data that we all needed, I think.

Ashleigh: Yeah, indeed. And well, if you thought that we were done talking about trans healthcare in the UK.

Flint: Yeah, unfortunately not. That’s what the meat’s about today, folks. Yeah.

Alyx: Om nom nom. Just a little drop in thing to say that we’ve just seen the news that the puberty blocker ban has been extended. We’re going to cover this more in the next episode, but we thought we’d add a little drop in to say we are investigating looking, speaking to relevant people. We’ve seen that there may be effects in how it affects the Anne Trans Healthcare, which we mentioned last episode, we’re chatting with Susie [Green], and we’re going to see what the situation is there. We just had this happen an hour after we’ve wrapped up recordings, so fucking hell. We’ll have more information about this as time comes along and we’ll be talking about it in the next episode. Back to the episode.

Flint: We promised that we will be back with more information about the adult transgender care review and here it is. This is the Cass flavoured inquisition into adult gender services within the NHS, who have now announced their plans for an adult review, which is only a couple of paragraphs on the NHS website. Attached on the page are two letters, one from Hilary Cass to NHS Specialised Commissioning Directors James Palmer and John Stewart – nope, not that one – from May this year and another letter from Palmer and Stuart back to Hillary Cass from August. So pretty recent.

The first letter shows what could be seen as an encouragement towards predetermined outcomes in undertaking the review. Cass states her – and I quote, themes I hope will be explored in the upcoming review, with 16 recommendations, which include some of the greatest hits from anti-trans campaigners, including the doctors felt there wasn’t enough ways to prevent them from prescribing trans patients with treatments they asked for unless in – quote – extreme circumstances, like persistent history of being sectioned or multiple personalities. She specifically mentioned self-harm as a factor that should be used to reconsider prescribing hormones. Moreover, suggesting neurodivergent people should have more extensive assessments than neurotypical people, hormones are prescribed too quickly, and that the increase of transmasculine people and trans men in the case mix is concerning.

Cutting to the chase, these 16 recommendations are either common rhetoric in anti-trans circles or very clear attempts to encourage further restrictions on the life-saving care that is given so many people the ability to see a future for themselves. It does this primarily by weaponising a supposedly reported fear by those in health care of not being able to deny trans people healthcare without being labelled transphobic. There was also a recommendation regarding magical thinking about the possibilities of medical transition going unchallenged, when in reality almost every trans person has a story about witnessing that kind of magical thinking from anti-trans agitators as they make claims even more detached from reality by the day. While each day another organisation in the medical world comes out against Cass’s work. As we have covered extensively. Nowhere in the letter is there a mention of excessively long wait times for trans people to access care. The single biggest complaint currently in adult services. Nor is there a mention of the deeply long winded, intrusive and dehumanising process trans people currently go through. Bearing in mind all we have just told you about the data on the state of NHS GICs. All the concern is placed on the demonisation of gender affirming care and protection of CIS people’s comfort and right to refuse us said care.

This letter, in my opinion, is vicious in the way that it manipulates anecdotal evidence and trans people’s dissatisfaction with the current barriers to treatment into arguments that even less support, even less informed consent, and even less dignity and even less recognition of our humanity, preferring to speak about us as an oddity to be dealt with. To say practitioners are being fearful of us or claims of transphobia when denying care is a good reason to place further restrictions on our bodily autonomy is to directly imply that we are aggressive, and we know that that aggression will be weaponised against trans women the most. It seems Cass thinks that if a doctor denies you care, you’re only allowed to be upset if cis. Let’s be frank here. It comes across as, we want to be able to deny treatment without repercussions, and trans people are the problem for being upset about this.

The response by NHS England is also concerning. It reads as complete compliance. Most of it goes through the ways in which they plan to implement the demands of Cass, including two new services set up in London and the Northwest for young people and children, that takes a, quote, more cautious approach to assessment, diagnosis and intervention, including social transition. It does start by talking about wait times. But as the last story showed, it’s hard to really take that as a good sign. The doctor heading the coming review is Dr David Levy, and according to the reply letter, on site visits will start this September. Now remember how Cass was a paediatrician with no experience at all of dealing with trans people, yeah? Now while David Levy is the current medical director for Lancashire and South Cumbria and a cancer specialist, so we’re sticking with the established theme of getting people with no experience in trans healthcare.

This is a quote from the letter just so you can kind of assess the vibe, quote. “There is a wide range of work to do in order to put your recommendations into practise, but we feel much of that can be achieved over the next two years. Thank you for your continued focus on the issues you identified and your support in implementation.” So let’s be frank again for a moment, accepting any recommendation from Cass on how to undertake the adult review is an endorsement of the same broken methodology that is not fit for purpose. It is shown to not only be severely lacking and put Cass on track to be remembered as the Wakefield of our era. You know the guy that started the whole autism and vaccines fuckery. But it is also pushing the NHS towards conversion therapy under a new name. But, I know you’re hearing this onslaught, and it’s not without pushback. A collection of organisations in the community are stepping up to try and encourage accountability and better practises in the review. The Trans Healthcare Coalition has been brought together by an alliance of various trans people and trans and LGBTQ+ organisations including TransActual, Not a Phase, Stonewall, LGBT+ Partnership and LGBT+ Consortium and Translucent, among others, so trans people are present in these meetings. Their aims are to ensure that the review works with those who know the services well. This includes from working in them to deliver person centred care or as patients.

However, with the Cass implementations rolling ahead, a lot of people in the community have valid concerns about the politicians and those conducting the review using these meetings with stakeholders in bad faith, as so many recent events have been marked by. They’re going to be releasing updates and have also provided contact details with those who feel they have something to add or any questions or concerns. It’s good to have people working to try and make sure that the Levy review isn’t Cass Part Two. But we need to make sure this also isn’t weaponised against us. On the one hand, having a wide and clear record of our needs and disagreements with the current state of trans healthcare is important for showing how discriminatory these actions and policies are. But of course, as ever there are those who will twist and manipulate whatever we say to their own needs and protecting against that is also really important. So that’s kind of where everything is out right now. Obviously developments are rolling in and as we know more, we will tell you more. But yeah, it’s a pretty tricky spot that we find ourselves in right now. What do we think about the letter then? Let’s deal with the fact that, you don’t really want to. [inaudible]

Alyx: Like because they’re, because it the reply to it, that said, there is a wide range of work to do in order to put your recommendations into practice, and says, not we’ll investigate the recommendations to see their effectiveness, or explore it, no, we’re going to do them.

Ashleigh: We’re going to implement your recommendations in full is the vibe, isn’t it?

Flint: Yeah, it’s why I included that specific bit because I expected there to be, well, as that was stuff that came up in a different review, we will acknowledge it, but we’re going to make sure that we do our own review with our own independence. Or at least saying we will investigate these claims as you said, but they truly just went, ah gee, thanks. We will definitely do that and, yikes.

Ashleigh: It’s like, it is so important that there’s already kind of, in a sense resistance like, because we’ve had Cass now, everyone’s already on full alert. And immediately started talking about working together. You’ve got a certain amount of pushback from the BMA as well. The British Medical Association, the big doctors’ union, who have recently voted to essentially do their own review of the Cass review, one that hopefully will be a little bit more critical. And I say hopefully. Anybody who peer reviews the Cass review is going to find out that it’s just full of holes and bullshit.

Alyx: I prefer Swiss cheese to the Cass review.

Ashleigh: Those letters then it’s, the first one. In particular, it’s just so, it’s chilling. Personally, I find it because it’s, she knows what she’s doing and she’s phrasing it so delicately. And she’s phrasing it so it sounds like it’s going to be for the, for the good of the population, these poor people, they don’t know what they want. I know what they want. I know what is best for them.

Flint: Yeah, it’s why I brought up Wakefield because I feel like that’s a really important – whenever I see Cass now, that’s who I think of, because the way that that man left a horrifying shadow over an area of health care that we still are trying to scrub the stains out of within the system.

Alyx: And it still affects us with the Covid pandemic and yeah, yeah, yeah.

Flint: Absolutely. Absolutely. And it’s dangerously harmful. This leads to people abusing their children. And this is another doctor who has done bogus science with a predetermined outcome destined to make life harder for a group of people that she considers undesirable.

Alyx: And who will have their blood on her hands to prove it.

Flint: Yeah, it’s exactly that. And I just feel as though that’s, it’s why it feels almost like again history repeating itself in a different way, but with a similar effect. Because that’s what the Cass review does. The Cass review is going to encourage people who do not know any better to start harming their children.

Ashleigh: Yeah, history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes, and I do just want to point one thing out about Andrew Wakefield or to give him his full medical title, Andrew Wakefield. Because he’s not a doctor anymore. He was struck off because of what he did, and I look forward to the day when that happens to Cass. I’m not sure if it will, but you know, a girl can dream long, long, slog, right? Long slog from here.

But with the organisations already talking about working together, already talking about like a coordinated push back of resistance to whatever bullshit they come out with is a good sign, that doesn’t happen in a vacuum. And I think if you’ve got the spoons for it, if you’ve got any ability to get involved in that work, come join us.

Alyx: Everyone’s desperate for the extra spoons and people who have the spoons to come along and just do a little bit, you know, because every single, for organisations for LGBT rights, there’s always the understaff. We need more bodies to throw at the fight.

Ashleigh: Yeah, it’s exhausting and it’s not over yet, unfortunately. But together we will, we’ll beat it. [Solidarity forever – sound effects].

Flint: It’s something that I said at a Vox pop in at London Pride, which is that our community will outlive these people. These people’s legacy will not outlive this. And that’s something to bear in mind. That’s something that keeps me going, at least, yeah.

Ashleigh: Good way to put it, that’s, yeah. And that’s a pretty solid note for us to say goodbye. Thank you all for listening in. Obviously you can catch up with our work and the various articles that we’ve been writing, particularly Flint on our website, whatthetrans.com, the enshittification hasn’t reached us yet. Obviously we’re on Twitter or X or whatever at @WhattheTrans, we’re on Threads on BlueSky, we’re on Instagram and Facebook. And if you feel like you’re able to share or support us on Patreon, you can find us there as well. And it would be wonderful if you were to do that and thank you very much in advance if you do. We love you. Yeah. Thanks, everybody speak to you next time.

[end credit music plays]

Alyx: This episode was written, produced and presented by Ashleigh Talbot, Alyx Bedwell and Leigh Flint, edited by Amber Devereaux and Oliver 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 Leigh: Andrea Brooks, Jack Edwards, Emily Roberts, Doll C, Brooke Rayburn Findlay, Stefan Blakehall, [inaudible], [all the crazzee reverb] CRAZZEE RICHARD, needles and threads, Flaming Dathne, Dr McGee, Genevieve Dickson, Rachel Harrison, Katie Reynolds, Georgia Holden-Burnett, 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, Sena, Kiki T, Dee, Skye Kilaen, Eric Widman, Bee, Jude, monsieur squirrel, Fergus Evans, anubisajackal, Camina, Brandon Craig, braykthasistim, Sian Phillips, Heidi Rearden, Ezra, Lentil, clara vulliamy, Amelia, Corvina Ravenheart the trans metal DJ from Twitch and VR chat will play St Lucifer for props, Tabitha Jo Cox aka Candy, 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, Patreon User, Vic Parsons, Vic Kelly, Katherine, Sabrina McVeigh, Cassius Adair, Melissa Brooks, Karaken12, April Heller, Sofie Lewis, Alexandra Lilly, Claire Scott, Ariadne Pena, Laynos, Lauren O’Nions, Bernard’s Pink Jellybean, and Chris Hubley.

Thank you to you all! Thank you, bye! 

Flint: I was so excited at the fact that I got to say Corvina Ravenheart I’ve been waiting for that one to just naturally I knew I knew that eventually it would happen because that’s just how it works with this but I was waiting.