For this week’s What the Trans?! Ashleigh, Flint and Alyx talk about:
- The now-extended ban on puberty blockers for trans young people (but not cis ones).
- Alyx gives us the details from the Trans Kids Deserve Better protest outside the Department of Education.
- A lengthy Loser’s Corner featuring the LGB Alliance, Tickle vs. Giggle and the sport of darts!
- Labour Women’s Declaration and their weapons-grade bulls**t.
- The many ongoing misuses of the Cass report.
Join our Discord! https://discord.com/invite/asCjUkk
References:
Puberty Blocker Ban Extension
Puberty blockers temporary ban extended – GOV.UK
TransActual – Statement on the Extended Ban of Puberty Blockers
Northern Ireland
Trans Kids Deserve Better
Trans Kids Deserve Better letter to Secretary of State for Education
LGB Alliance
LGB Alliance reports £100,000 deficit as donations halve
Tickle vs. Giggle
Roxanne Tickle: Australian court rules in case that asked ‘what is a woman?’
Darts!
Telegraph article (archive link) https://archive.ph/pl947
Labour Women’s Declaration
Labour MP briefing: Conversion Practices ban
Questions for the House of Lords
Children: Gender Dysphoria: 12 Aug 2024: Hansard Written Answers – TheyWorkForYou
https://www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/s/DkrPV4rxK0
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2024-09-02/hl693
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2024-09-02/hl628
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2024-09-02/hl629
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2024-09-04/hl750
New Literature Review
SNP Conference Vote
TheNational article (archive link)
Effects of Cass Review in Scotland
Puberty blockers: Scotland will take part in UK-wide study | The Herald
Good Law Project
Letter Sent to UK Pharmacies
Transcript
Ashleigh: Hello. Hello, everybody. Welcome to What the Trans. Yep. It’s us. We’re back. It’s yet another episode. We hope you’re all doing well out there.
Ashleigh: How are you two doing?
Alyx: I’m doing well, you know, it’s a lovely Thursday afternoon. I’ve been doing a bit of shopping. I bought myself this really cool film camera, which I’m going to show on the screen here. It’s like this thing called a Bell and How, you know, it’s an old thing when it doesn’t have Dell or Microsoft, but it has Bell and How and sons or something kind of, you know.
Ashleigh: Yeah, yeah, yeah. When it’s got two people’s names on it. That’s when you know it’s the good stuff. Like Bang and Olufsen. It’s a film camera, this, isn’t it. So what kind of film is it?
Alyx: Yeah. So usually I’m on the digital sort of side of things. It’s a lot easier. You don’t have to worry about paying a billion pounds per second you roll this bloody thing. But on this lovely thing, uh, this is like a double 8, double run, 8 mill sort of fun thing. It’s like made in 1935, it’s run by clockwork. So for those who can listen in on the episode, you can hear a little bit of a ticking. Lovely bit of ASMR.
Ashleigh: So with this film, you run it through once and then you have to take it out and put it back in again, don’t you?
Alyx: Oh yeah, that’s what I’ve been reading, which sounds like a right proper faff.
Ashleigh: You definitely need to do that in a dark room, wouldn’t you, or it’d ruin the whole thing?
Alyx: No, exactly, I’ve yet to put a bit of film through. I’ve got someone I know who’s going to be walking me through.
Ashleigh: I’ll look forward to seeing what you come out with. That would make for some interesting Instagrammable content, wouldn’t it, if you could find a way of getting it onto Instagram?
Alyx: That’s fun time with filming old stuff, yes. But you’ve got funky recently?
Ashleigh: So, well, I have always loved soul and funk and specifically music with slap bass which when I first picked up a bass, was like Soul Gold and in a way it still is.
Flint: Hell yeah.
Ashleigh: Yeah. Absolutely slaps.
Flint: I love it. I love it.
Ashleigh: I’ve been good at it at various points in my life. I’m not anymore. I’m not the player I once was. My left hand is unfortunately affected by the MS, so I can’t play as quickly as I used to but over the past couple of months I’ve been collecting in all the soul records that I can. A lot of it’s compilations, but I just recently listened to one of Craig Charles’s Trunk of Funks, and I love that name. The Trunk of Funk.
Alyx: Yes, because you played that while we were up in Manchester, wasn’t it?
Ashleigh: Yes, indeed. And so the first track of side D is Begging, so it’s a song by Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, and there’s this absolutely wonderful, huge sounding version of it by of all people, Swedish singer Magnus Carlsen? No, not that Magnus Carlsen. The other one, no, not that Magnus Carlson, the other one. Because there are two singers called Magnus Carlson and one chess grandmaster who’s probably not got a soul side project. So I’ve just been, I have been nailing that song in particular.
Alyx: Putting the soul into chess.
Ashleigh: God, that would be an interesting way to do a chess match. OK, first you have to make a move in your chess and then do a slap bass solo. Like speed chess but groovy. Hey, Amber and Ollie. Love you if you can cut in 10 seconds of [Begging playing].
Flint: I fucking love this tune. I watched a really good film recently, talk about good media. I finally watched Longlegs and I’ve been desperate to watch it for months and I finally did and it is actually really good. It was a very fun, I say fun, it was not fun, but it’s an interesting horror film. It feels like it’s doing a lot of sort of Zodiac-esque tropeness in it and whatnot, which is really quite cool and I didn’t know it had Nicolas Cage in it.
So that a nice little surprise because I am one of those people that quite likes Nicolas Cage’s acting. I respect it for the mad hare-brained German Expressionism on crack that it is. I will not be taking any further comments at this time. But that is my hot take.
Ashleigh: Hey, he’s a good actor. Or he certainly was at one point because he was nominated for an Oscar for Leaving Las Vegas. You know, the man’s got chops.
Flint: Totally, yes.
Ashleigh: But that was, you know, maybe things have changed and it’s the sort of film that you see him in now. He’s usually just got this wild-eyed version of himself, isn’t he? But I have not seen Longlegs, but a friend of mine has, and they had rave reviews about it as well. So I should probably check that one out.
As delighted as I am to get together with you two and chat up all of the stuff that we’ve been enjoying recently, let’s talk about some stuff that we haven’t been enjoying recently, which is of course the news [sound effects, not the news!]
Unfortunately, we start off with something that was announced literally just a couple of hours after we’d finished recording our last episode on August the 22nd, which is the news that the current ban on puberty blockers has been extended until November 26th. The news, while not surprising, has been devastating for young trans people and their families, who may have hoped for a reprieve. The ban only applies to trans youngsters and not cis youngsters experiencing precocious puberty. Now, I’m not going to quote too extensively from the guidance, although there will be one quote, but the short version is there’s three key documents, one from gov.uk announcing the extension, one published by Parliament, with the text of the Act that made it law, and one published by the NHS. Now the initial Act was first put in place back in May after the election was announced, but before it took place. So the Labour government have just upheld something put in by the Tories, which we said at the time seemed to be there out of pure spite.
From the parliamentary document we have this little nugget: [background music to end of quote] “The recent independent review of gender identity services for children and young people, Dr. Hilary Cass, in April 2024 found that there is not a reliable evidence base upon which to make clinical decisions about the use of GNRH analogues, puberty blockers to treat gender dysphoria, slash incongruence, or for children and their families to make informed choices. The review concluded that because of the limited evidence and potential risks to patient safety, they should only be offered for this purpose under a research protocol and or with the agreement of the national multidisciplinary team. The NHS has implemented these recommendations. The Cass Report has been accepted and endorsed by the UK government, UK regulators and clinical leaders. This position has been maintained following the change of government in the 4th of July 2024 general election.”
So that’s literally from the first page of the document and they are already invoking the Cass Review as part of their rationale for upholding the ban, even though Cass quite specifically doesn’t advocate for a total ban, but for access as part of a research protocol, the details of which have yet to be announced. Moving onto the NHS part, that announcement came with some guidance and a list of resources, several of which weren’t specifically about trans people because they were about suicide prevention and as many people have pointed out already, if you have to hand out a list of suicide prevention centres along with your guidance, it probably says something about the quality of the guidance. This will do harm, they know it will do harm and they’ve gone ahead with it anyway. A couple of days before the ban was announced, health secretary Wes Streeting had a meeting with Trans Actual and other LGBTQ organisations where he was given stories and experiences of young trans people, although it must be said, did not actually meet any of them. The events seems to have been a photo op and nothing else as an attempt to gain a veneer of respectability.
After the announcement, Trans Actual posted a statement which pulled no punches: The new government had the opportunity to make a clean break from the previous government’s politicisation of trans people’s access to healthcare. Instead, they have doubled down on it, continuing to take policy beyond the politicised recommendations of the widely discredited Cass Report. Wes Streeting has spoken about being proud to be the UK’s first openly gay Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. Based on the current trajectory of his work, however, this is not how Mr Streeting will be remembered. History will not look kindly upon his decisions relating to trans health care. So that’s a lot. What did you think when you saw this?
Flint: Quite frankly, I couldn’t give two shits about whether Wes Streeting is gay or not. I care more about what he does with the power he has.
Ashleigh: Exactly.
Flint: And it means fuck all to me if you wave around the rainbow flag going, oh, I’m so proud, when you use that pride to literally destroy the ability of other people in your fucking community. Not the people that you’re in community with, mind, the people in the same group as you that are unable to live their lives to the full. Because of the shit you’re doing. Kindly go fuck yourself, Sir.
Ashleigh: And to be in that photo op a couple of days beforehand, knowing what was coming and still trying to, you know, cosy up to – and specifically to a couple of trans organisations was sickening.
Alyx: Yeah, but I think we did hear one or two tidbits where Wes Streeting specifically asked not to have the office photographer in the room as part of it as well, which is a little bit of a counter argument. Because that’s what we heard from people around the situation at the time, but we can’t go into too many details on who we heard and from what. But I’ve got to say when I first heard of it, I strangely my first reaction was for fuck’s sake, we’ve just recorded and they had to do it an hour afterwards.
Flint: Yeah. Of all times.
Ashleigh: That was quite annoying. Just on a purely selfish level that was very annoying, wasn’t it? And on it rumbles, right, because the fight hasn’t stopped it. And really it never will. It’s just the face of the opposition has changed, but their rationale hasn’t. The things they say to get done the things that they’re doing, those things have not changed from the Tory government to this.
Flint: One of the things that really stands out to me as an issue with this is the way that they sort of try and proffer the Cass Review as being accepted and endorsed by the UK governments, regulators and clinical leaders. And it’s like, actually that’s not true. Like there are many leading clinical regulators that have actually stated their disagreements with Cass. They don’t mention any of the international peer review that’s been happening, which has been very different, right. And the BMA is literally undertaking their own critical analysis of the review so it’s a lot to me. When you’re talking lots of the NHS, you are leaving out the BMA’s position on this and you’re just literally pretending as if they are already in total agreement, and they factually are not.
Alyx: Someone also ran an FOI report to the Department of Health, where they have said that they hold no records of communications between Streeting and healthcare professionals, or anyone who’s an expert, also saying that Streeting documented seeking a ban on puberty blockers since at least the 12th of July. And finally the Department of Health doesn’t hold any information supporting Streeting’s claim that puberty blockers for cis kids have passed stringent safety tests.
Ashleigh: And that’s been the kind of party line like oh they’re safe for cis kids. It’s fine for cis kids to have them.
Flint: Which is so weird because it is like you are pretending that my body is not the same as your body, right. Like you’re pretending that depending upon the way that a child views themself, changes factual things about their body that means that, you know, water that would hydrate someone will dehydrate another, that’s not how science works.
So if you’re arguing it’s safe for cis kids, it is by its default, safe for trans kids. You could make any arguments about like the, you know, may be a difference in the way that they used and whatnot. But as far as I understand it and by all means someone that’s actually wise on this, correct me if I’m wrong, it is used in the same manner, it is simply for a different effect.
Alyx: Exactly. And quite frankly, with the puberty blockers for trans kids, they’re just trying to go about their daily lives in school and, you know, and having these taken away, and be themselves and having them taken away just provides just a massive mental health toll. And it’s just making it worse and speaking of making things just worse, now some people are wondering whether Streeting will be pushing towards his permanent ban on puberty blockers, because he did say in court that he’s looking at it, but we have been passed some consultation documents of a permanent ban, but this consultation which we’ve been told about, which we’ve got confirmed now, has been to a closed consultation, only allowed for specific organisations and it hasn’t really had much of a public announcement.
And we will be investigating some of these documents and we wish we can give more information, but we’ll have to wait around for that one, I’m afraid. But if they do try for a permanent ban, there are still more hurdles that the ban would have to go through, including committee stages, parliamentary procedures. So there’s still ways to go, and plenty of avenues for a fight. Part of it is also, it does indicate Streeting intends to take this further.
Ashleigh: Yes. Yeah, just the fact that it’s a closed consultation as well and how many fucking consultations do they need.
Alyx: I hear there may be after this, there may be a more open one afterwards, but it’s still shadowy and really shows this is just Streeting wanting to take this further and it’s just, I’m tired of consultations.
Flint: It’s almost like a consultation is something that a government minister does when they want to appear to be doing something about something.
Ashleigh: Yes. So in related matters.
Flint: Following on from our first story, there’s seemingly been an about face from Sinn Fein about the blockers ban. The new law we’ve just talked about contains a section specifically saying that the ban will now apply to Northern Ireland, which it didn’t before. Our friend Lee Hurley has been reporting on this over on his Twitter and we will of course link to that on our reference page. So to give you a brief timeline, on July 23rd a Sinn Fein representative stated that Sinn Fein are against the new puberty blocker ban. Two days later, on the 25th Ulster Unionist Party Rep, Mike Nesbitt, remember this name will come up later, reported that he wouldn’t bring in the then new puberty blocker ban in Northern Ireland. Skip forward to August 19 and the newly minted PM Keir Starmer arrives in Northern Ireland the same day the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, Doug Beattie, resigned, citing irreconcilable differences. After some back and forth, a favourite emerges to be a front runner for the leader of the UUP, and it’s that very same Mike Nesbitt. On August 22nd, Nesbitt announces the puberty blocker ban, which was signed into law by Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill, among others. And all of this is after a Sinn Fein representative told Belfast Pride this year that
[16:44 recorded quote of speaker saying that it’s on clinical advice with no limit on age].Flint: According to Sinn Fein, Keir Starmer threatened to take the whole Stormont assembly to court if they didn’t toe the line with England and the puberty blocker ban. From Lee Hurley’s Twitter account on August the 23rd, this came out, quote, did Mike Nesbitt sacrifice trans kids to aid his UUP leadership bid? Did Keir Starmer have words with the first Minister to make her abandon Sinn Fein’s pledge to protect puberty blockers for trans kids? Apparently, Sinn Fein’s LGBT group were told precisely nothing about all of this, which has resulted in at least one resignation in protest from them. Now bearing in mind this is a story according to Sinn Fein, this isn’t necessarily what has happened, but this is what they are saying has happened. What do we think? This to me, if it looks like a duck, it might be a duck.
Ashleigh: Yeah, and that’s –
Alyx: Play the among us theme tune [music effects]
Ashleigh: So much for devolved powers. Right. So much for Northern Ireland getting to make certain decisions by itself. It’s just like no, toe the line with England or we’ll take you to court. Apparently.
Alyx: According to those sources now, it somehow looks a bit conspiratorial, but sometimes I’m like, it doesn’t really feel that fine a line. Lee is a really good journalist. Yeah.
Ashleigh: Yeah, Lee’s a solid guy.
Alyx: So it’s not like it’s coming from a random five follower Twitter account or something. So you may have heard about Anne Trans Health, who often have their branding saying that they’re using loopholes in Ireland to help get healthcare solutions. Some people were worried that this would affect the Anne Trans Health, and we spoke to Susie and she has told us that they haven’t been affected, but we’re not going to go into more details to save Anne Trans Health from accidentally stepping their foot in it and accidentally giving the government a new thing to try and legislate them away from.
Flint: Yeah, it is really suspicious. Like we don’t know how reliable everything is, but it’s weirdly suspicious and I mean it’s one of those situations where either way someone is, you know, I don’t say telling porkies because Keir Starmer hasn’t necessarily come out and denied that he’s done this, I don’t think.
Ashleigh: I’m not sure if anyone’s directly asked him, Look, Mr. Prime Minister, is this what was said? Because there have been accusations. No one’s asked him the direct question. I’d be interested to see somebody do that.
Alyx: Yeah, sounds like I need to find a Downing Street press email.
Flint: But then yeah, this is the thing, right? So if we were to assume that that Keir Starmer would be to deny that that’s what he’s done, right, because it would look pretty bad for democracy or devolution then we’re left with a situation where Sinn Fein would have been pumping out a shit tonne of support for puberty blockers and for trans healthcare, more so than most other governments that are in the UK at the minute. And yet would then double back. So at best you’re then arguing that, what, Sinn Fein would have deliberately done that so that they could do this and then look like a victim. But that’s just a level of maniacal that doesn’t really seem to track well other than Keir Starmer, who we know has been going on this weird crusade. Has continued to go on this weird crusade.
Alyx: Yeah, and it’s a weird crusade on trans kids and trying to prevent them from having some kind of voice. But over the past week, we’ve been hearing some fantastic news of some trans kids getting out there, getting their voices heard.
Ashleigh: Absolutely.
Alyx: You may have remembered last episode where we did a brief mention of the Trans Kids Deserve Better protest that starts at outside the Department of Education. Now between then and the end of the protest, a lot has happened. As mentioned, this protest was outside the Department of Education and was to highlight the horrors of the education guidance, and the gender questioning advice, and the government’s review into the RHSC advice. Advice that calls to drop teaching about gender ideology and tells teachers to deadname students and risk the trans child’s life by forcibly outing trans kids without their permission. During the middle of the protest, Trans Kids Deserve Better put up a banner on top of the entrance of the building of the Department of Education, saying we are not pawns for your politics. The same banner they put up on top of the NHS office in Waterloo. Three hours after this, the Department of Education tried to take down that banner, prompting two of the trans young people to scale up the wall at breakneck speed, grab their banner before it was stolen, and in the video we caught, it showed that happen. We have linked that video in our socials, and we’ll put it in the description and my God, it was such a nerve wracking thing.
Ashleigh: Yeah, so even kind of watching that video was kind of watching it through my fingers. You know, kind of making me really nervous, but they just scaled it up there really, really quickly, in fact, and grabbed their banner back, hadn’t they?
Alyx: Oh exactly I was sort of just stood there. So basically earlier on, before this event happened, they were trying to shut down the front door of the Department of Education, where the banner was hanging and they were trying to direct staff to move through a back entrance, around the back. So we saw some activists from Trans Kids Deserve Better just go to the back entrance to hand out leaflets for employees coming in and you know, I was taking some nice pictures and all of a sudden one of the activists just rushed round the corner, just breathing really heavy, going “They’re taking down the banner! Come quick!” and me and the two other journalists who I was with just rushed to the front. We saw them start to open up the window. We then stood back. Grim, one of the activists just leapt up this wall and went up at the speed of light, and I was then thinking, holy shit something’s happening and I was sort of on autopilot during that whole moment trying to think right, I need to get the best coverage I can of this moment.
Grim was rushing up, while he was up there, Grim said, one of the people trying to take down the banner, moving some of the weights from the sign said “Fucking hell, what’s he doing up there!” Literally, he was apparently in a bit of a panic. They closed the window leaving them to pick up the banner and then come back down again and then all the activists came and rushed to Grim once he reached the floor and everyone had this gigantic group hug. It was so wholesome.
Ashleigh: Mm-hmm. I’ve seen a picture of that as well I think.
Alyx: Kirk took that one. They were also there taking the actual video, they were supplying it around and such. And so I was there trying to take pictures. Kirk was there taking video and thank you Kirk for covering some of the content for us on our Twitter and our socials for that event, because a lot of the times I couldn’t be there, but they were. Same with Kai, they were there as well for a whole shit tonne of it. And they just did a brilliant job. So that was a big climb up.
Ashleigh: Yes, yes indeed. So what else? What else happened as the protests wore on?
Alyx: So I suppose the start of it was pretty mad as well. I wasn’t there for that, but Kai was, and when they were jumping over the barriers to get to the little alcoves while they slept overnight, there was like a big police incident, but I think some people can hear more about that from the interview from last episode, so I’ll leave that for that one. But when I did come there it was really lovely. The atmosphere was fantastic and I looked at the grates there and it was all covered in all these posters and looking all wholesome and fantastic, but they really did look bloody uncomfortable. Some were on slopes, some of the bits, the cardboard didn’t really provide good padding from jutting out bits of the grates. So I didn’t really envy them when I arrived back home and sat on my mattress, sleeping. Yeah, after that, you know, while I was sleeping overnight, there was a considerable amount of disappointment with some folks because while they were there, when they needed people to keep an eye on them overnight, just in case someone tried, you know, their luck at them or, you know, police came and tried something. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough people overnight to keep an eye on things which did lead to at one point one of the activists passing out, which was unfortunate.
Flint: Yeah, that’s really bad. We need to be doing better than that. And when I say we, I mean like, you know, that there would have been a lot of people that would have been like, oh, I want to be able to get there. But you know, for whatever reason, and maybe for some people, that reason might have been oh, there’ll probably be enough people there. Please get down, please. When you hear about an action, go and support it, if you agree with it, obviously make sure that you’re taking care of your body. But you know, if you have the capacity, please don’t just let other people do this work alone.
Alyx: Yeah, definitely. And they had expenses and they were, they had the funds to expense people to come down for it as well, so you could have this, so you can get in touch and say hey, I can’t afford it, but can I have some funds and I’ll come down and you would have had your trip paid for.
Ashleigh: Just to keep us moving forward, there was an incident on the last day, wasn’t there?
Alyx: Yeah. So we had to keep this quiet for safety reasons when we initially heard about this story. But there was a man who came about harassing the trans young people on the last day, I think there was a bit of shouting. There was some video, I haven’t got a chance to see it yet but one of our reporters, Kai will probably bring up some kind of mention on it when we do some kind of write up of the situation there, but it wasn’t all hate and anger. There was some really good moments of trans joy, happiness and everything like that. So there was a fantastic drag show on one of these evenings. I think Kai even said they just got so wrapped up in it cause it was like such a brilliant night and we did have a bit of content on there, but some of it had some of the identities on, their safety, we can’t really show them, but there’s a whole load more information out there. We’re going to put some more out there and we have a massive thread of the events of that week of my regular, what it’s been like a daily commute up to the Department of Education. Which we’ll link in the description and when we have the energy, as I said, we’ll do a write up.
Flint: On the point about the drag shows some of my favourite drag kings and drag performers went to that and I was like, oh, that’s so fucking sick. Obviously I was up north recovering still from all the pride stuff, so I couldn’t get down. But I was like oh, there’s some really sick performers there just going and turning up. And I’m living for this. I love it so much.
Alyx: So following this the Trans Kids Deserve Better put a letter in the Department of Education, which they got mailed out and then got given back a letter of eviction from the Department of Levelling Up, but essentially they were asking for involvement in making some of the guidance and scrapping key parts of the guidance. So what it stated was, “we all watched with growing dread for threats and drafts of guidance which felt deliberately crafted to harm us with maximum efficiency. What we hope and in more optimistic moments believe is that these are no longer the intentions of the Department for Education.” In it, it also notes that “too many of us here and across the country have lost our autonomy by being outed to our parents and carers, and have had transphobic bullying allowed or even encouraged by our teachers. Too many of us have had to advocate alone for our very existence against adults in our schools who believe their transphobia is state-sanctioned. None of us deserve to be attacked, physically or verbally, for who we are. We deserve to feel at home in school just like every other student.” Now, this isn’t the whole letter. We’ll link it fully in the description and the Department of Education got back to ITV News about the letter, saying that they are urgently working to get back to them. And we’ll wait to see how that goes. But these folks have done some brilliant stuff. And we’re going to have to look forward to seeing what they have up their sleeve.
Ashleigh: Definitely. Trans Kids Deserve Better, maximum respect, honestly, because they got out there and they did it and they put themselves through some difficult times. Like, like literally sleeping outside on the grate. That doesn’t sound like much fun, says the disabled person who’s already got a lot of pain. But I am impressed and I genuinely wish them well. I think they’re awesome.
Flint: One of the things that really calls out to me about this is that their tactics feel very similar to the tactics undertaken by disability activists in securing the ADA. They famously would occupy spaces. One of them very, very smart. They just like, wheeled into the road.
Because there weren’t any lifted or like, lowered sidewalk areas, which meant that if you were a person in a wheelchair and you were crossing the road, you wouldn’t be able to get up unless you had like either someone to be able to like tilt you over or whatever. So often you’re stuck. So what they did is they just literally crossed the road without someone to do that bit, or without doing that next bit and then when people were like “Get out of the way!” They were like, I would, I would. But uhm, you need to fix these sidewalks and then we can get there, right?
And they obviously famously did the occupation at the government building. I cannot remember which one, but they had support, and they had, you know, a lot of help with security, with feeding and things like that from the Black Panthers, it’s one of the little parts of history that makes me really happy and warm and fuzzy, and I’m just glad to be able to see something akin to it happening now. It’s great.
Alyx: Yeah, exactly. I think I saw someone reference the dykes who abseiled Parliament or something.
Flint: Oh fuck yeah, yeah.
Ashleigh: Or the Lesbian Avengers who got into The Newsroom to protest Section 28, and that was ace, it’s on video. Love them. Fantastic and I hope they stay safe and kick all of the arse and I hope the Department for Education respond in a substantive, meaningful way, rather than just saying, yeah, well done. But also, we’re not going to listen to you. Bye.
Flint: So, shall we keep the good times rolling again to Loser’s Corner.
Ashleigh: Nice. Yeah, let’s. Let’s do that. Let’s do it.
Flint: Take it away.
Ashleigh: Here it is, Loser’s Corner.
[32:23 sound effects]Ashleigh: Yeah. Our first loser this week is the LGB Alliance, who have just released their annual accounts, which is a reporting requirement for charities. And it shows the hate group masquerading as a charity had a deficit of over £100,000 for the reporting year ending November 30th, 2023. The key numbers are for the previous year. In 2022 they reported receiving £455,000, but for 2023 they only had 246,000. Which is a drop of 45% all by itself. Now don’t get me wrong, £246,000 is still entirely too much money for the LGB Alliance to have donated to them. But their operating costs for both years were around 352,000, so it costs them 352,000 per year to keep going as they are. But they only received 246,000 in 2023, leaving them with a nice fat deficit of just over £100,000. Now, I don’t want to have to bore you with many more numbers. Indeed, I almost fell asleep myself reading all of that out, but it seems to me the LGB Alliance having £100,000 black hole in their budget is, financially speaking, really funny.
Alyx: Oh, it really is. It’s barely enough to fund Allison Bailey’s expenses.
Flint: Yeah, yeah. I mean, what was it? There was that famous saying that they were all trying to popularise, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it that famous saying of, Go Woke Go Broke? Where’s that getting you? Where’s, where’s that? Because so far, the less woke you are the more broke you’re becoming.
Ashleigh: Pretty much so yeah, I thought that was hilarious. Yeah.
Flint: Yeah, I’ve got another little, small one and then I’ve got a bigger one coming up. But the smaller one takes us all the way down under, to the terrific Miss Roxanne Tickle, a trans woman who decided to sue the app Giggle for Girls when her membership was revoked after seven months out of nowhere. Why the revocation? Well, Giggle for Girls uses facial recognition to exclude men from its platform and ensure a safe space for women. Tickle’s membership was revoked because the pretence of women’s safety only actually applied to cis women by the design of the outspokenly transphobic CEO Sally Grover, who openly stated that she felt Tickle was discriminated against, in her mind, lawful discrimination based upon sex, claiming that trans women are not women. This resulted in an Australian court having to answer the question that’s been on every grifter’s lips for a while now. What is a woman? Well, actually, not really. The actual question that the court had to consider was, was this woman who was protected under Australian equality law, discriminated against, when repeatedly called a man and denied access to a service designed for women. And the answer was, not surprisingly, at all, and completely obviously a yes. The judge stated specifically that case law has consistently found gender to be changeable and not necessarily binary. And so even regarding that constantly confounding question that gender critical crooks keeps shouting in people’s faces, the answer from the courts is very clearly closer to gender is personal, flexible, and protected under law, than any babble about chromosomes from people who wouldn’t know their genetic makeup from a mile away, as their families often go no contact.
Ashleigh: The name of the court case is superb, isn’t it?
Flint: Oh yes, I forgot that, the most fun part of it. This court case got called Giggle v Tickle, which is fucking beautiful. Or Tickle v Giggle. I can’t remember which specific one because it changes depending on the case laws of the country, but yeah, beautiful.
Alyx: It sounds like a children’s TV show’s episode where they cover a court case between two characters.
Ashleigh: Yeah. Tickle versus Giggle. Yeah, it does, doesn’t it?
Flint: It’s a gold one because this is exactly what you want if you’re a law student, you want cases with really distinctive names and really distinctive like facts to the case of them. And I was a little almost like, oh, God, I almost wish I was back in uni because of being able to have that, was such an easy thing to be able to revise for. Oh my God yeah. Write it down. Any students listening? Write it down.
Ashleigh: I saw this case and I thought it was hilarious, mostly because the gender criticals lost and they love to claim that they are constantly scoring victories in courts all over the world, and they’re just not.
Alyx: I mean, most of the court cases we’ve seen have mostly been victories on our side, and even then it’s costing them hundreds of thousands to just fail.
Ashleigh: To appeal several times and still be told no [sound effects]. But there’s another one. Isn’t there something about the arrows?
Flint: There is! I’m actually really excited about this because this is something I’ve been following for a little while because I love the arrows, listeners. We know that usually when there is a story about trans people and sports, it means an oncoming headache. However, this next story might make you feel a spark of hope. You see, the darts is so far cross fingers, touch wood, all of that, so far it is being surprisingly sane about trans inclusion. And that’s just wild to me. The intensely laddish and male dominated sport, where people get pissed in fancy dress while other people throw sharpened tungsten with freakish precision, yeah, they’re having none of this transphobia lark. And I mean, if darts players can get it right, anyone can. So before we get into the specifics. Let’s do a quick crash course, so I’m not pausing every 5 seconds to explain a new acronym for those who don’t know. There’s various different organisations that set up darts tournaments. There’s the World Darts Federation that handles international tournaments and events. And then there is the Professional Darts Corporation, they are the big name organisers in the UK. They’re the folks that do the world championship at Ally Pally every Christmas on Sky. There are others, but these are the ones most relevant to the story. All of the ratified organisers of events are governed by the Darts Regulation Authority, which is not-for-profit and sets the standards for the sport. They have an explicitly trans inclusive policy. They explicitly state, we want trans and non binary people to be able to play and participate in this sport at all levels. So then who’s the loser and what’s the take? Well, unfortunately, darts player, Deta Hedman, who has been unsuccessfully pushing for the exclusion of trans women from the sport for some time now.
Last year, when the first openly trans darts player in the World Darts Federation, Noa-Lynn van Leuven beat her in the 2023 Dutch Open, Deta made a Facebook post complaining that trans people shouldn’t be allowed in the sport. In May of this year, she pulled out of the quarter-finals of the Denmark Women’s Open (that’s also done by the WDF) and there were rumours that she was sick, which she actually fully dismissed by saying “no fake illness I said I wouldn’t play a man in a women’s event” so this is where she’s at, right? That’s her philosophy right now. Noa-Lynn went on to win one of the PDC Challenge Tour series earlier this year in Wigan, and then one of the PDC Women’s Series events which happened to be in the same week and is now in history as the first player to win a mixed and a women’s event, as far as I understand from what my research took me. Very fucking cool regardless!
Unfortunately she has not faced this behaviour from Hedman alone. As when picked for the Dutch National Team two other players on the team resigned because of her inclusion. Okay, so now I’ve caught you up to speed, what’s new? Well, the WDF has decided to clarify their position on those conceding matches with the aim of excluding trans people. Specifically they said, quote, “once a first dart has been thrown in a tournament, any player that subsequently withdrawals from playing a match may be considered to be bringing the game into disrepute and could face disciplinary action.” Deta felt that she was being targeted like a triple-twenty because it only came a month after her, again, refusing to play a transgender darts player, this time Samantha Lewis. After being set to play against her in a singles tournament organised by the smaller scale organisation, England Darts, that is trans exclusionary. So they aren’t then ratified with the Darts Regulatory Authority, right? She’s now retweeting Sex Matters, receiving accolades from others of the same damaging disposition. And to be clear, just to give you a sense of the level, this is one of the most well known female darts players. She has been a runner-up for the World Championship and is one of the biggest legends in the sport. It’s a shame to see it fall so hard, but at least the DRA had its head screwed on right. Well, what do we think? Where are we up to?
Ashleigh: Well, it’s nice to see my hometown getting a bit of rep there. We were talking about the Challenge Tour Series earlier this year in Wigan like… yes! And I have no idea where that would be, where does that happen? But it’s kind of not really related to the question or the story. But yeah, so I was keeping track of this vaguely, because I was aware it was happening and I was aware that Deta… Hedman, was it? So I was aware that Deta was being trans exclusionary. And they love to be victimised, don’t they? “Oh, this rule targets me specifically.” which as in fact it probably does, but still like…
Alyx: Usually examples of when one rule is put up because of that one person. One example I saw on Reddit earlier was C4 packaging has “do not eat” written on it.
Ashleigh: On an explosive.
Flint: Just to put in perspective, the level of furor that was created about Noa-Lynn. When she won the Challenge Tour – just for people that don’t understand how it’s run, because to be honest this is not one of the ones that I watch, this is a big event where there are 24 small events that are very small throughout the whole year.
Ashleigh: I see. Okay..
Flint: She won one of them. With a grand prize winnings of £2500 for the entire tournament that she won. And then literally a couple of weeks later there would have been another winner. You know, that this is one of those tournaments that’s pumping out winners because it’s one of those… it’s a big one, but it’s to help continue with the seedings and the rankings. But it’s not like she’s done the equivalent of winning the FIFA World Cup…and even if she did, power to her. And if we wanna talk about fairness in sports, then let’s talk about the prize winnings! Because in the initial Facebook post that she put up, she weaponised a lot of you know, “oh here’s the work and the toil that I had to do to get darts in a stable position for women and this, that the other.” and she brings up prize money winnings. So let’s talk about prize money winnings. Because, for the Darts World Match play, right, which is one of the big ones, the prize money for the one that’s for the men is £200,000 for just the winner. For the Women’s World Match Play the prize is £10,000 for the winner.
Alyx: That’s a massive discrepancy.
Ashleigh: Yeah, bit of a difference there.
Flint: Is this where we want to focus our energy? On who is allowed to step up to the oche? Or should we not be making sure that anyone who steps up to the oche is able to, you know, be properly compensated? Also, Deta has played in mixed tournaments. She has played in mixed tournaments. She has played men on the oche, right? There is a lot of mixing genders that happens in darts. A lot of the women’s tournaments have been done more to encourage and increase having women in the sport in general, and the aim is really to kind of in the big world championship that happens at Ally Pally every year, that’s open, that’s open to all.
Ashleigh: Mhm.
Flint: So it’s really…you know, because at the end of the you aren’t dealing with something that requires a weight class.
Ashleigh: Yeah [laughs].
Flint: You know what I mean? Even if you want to argue any kind of differences biologically, it’s gonna be in such a minute way. Yeah, it’s just wild. It’s wild.
Ashleigh: Yeah. Gender criticals throwing their toys out of the pram when the world does not cater specifically to them is a tale as old as…well, it’s an old tale, isn’t it?
[laughs]Alyx: Speaking of tales of that have just been going on for so long… the conversion therapy ban.
Ashleigh: Oh, for goodness sake, the conversion therapy ban.
Well, so basically for this one, our old friends over in gender critical land have been keeping busy as they so often do. This time, we’re talking specifically about the Labour Women’s Declaration, which is an organisation whose website describes them as “The Labour Women’s Declaration, is the work of a movement started in Autumn 2019 to raise the profile of women’s sex based rights within the Labour Party and the wider socialist movement.” So alarm bells are immediately clanging over the phrase “sex based rights”. But wait, there’s more! The same website also states that “concerns have rose after Labour made commitments in its 2017 general election manifesto to reform the Gender Recognition Act. Many believe the proposals would have a detrimental effect on women’s sex based rights.” Oh no, concerns, not concerns! Those are the worst kind of -erns! so far, so TERF-y.
But I bring this up because these particular traitors to the socialist movement have recently put out a handy-dandy conversion therapy explainer for Labour MPs. Issued on July 22nd, the screed makes a number of dubious claims about conversion therapy for trans people and doesn’t even mention the wider LGBTQ community. It is just about trans people. For example, it tells MP’s that:
[dramatic orchestral music plays in the background]“Sometimes ex-patients reframe difficult or unhappy experiences in therapy as conversion therapy. Some may believe that any challenge or alternative viewpoint is evidence that a therapist wanted them to desist/detransition when it wasn’t the therapist’s intention.” and “Good quality therapy is developmentally informed, understanding that identity is in flux in children and adolescents. Good therapists must be able to challenge and discuss alternative viewpoints with their clients. Poor legislation in this area might inadvertently prevent normal therapy from taking place at all.”
[dramatic orchestral music ends]which does make us wonder what on earth their description of “normal therapy” even is, right? But most worryingly, though, we have this tucked away right at the end, under the subheading “unintended consequences”, where we have quote:
[dramatic orchestral music again]“There is the potential for this law to be misused by activists as an attempt to limit discussions about how best to help gender questioning people. We have seen activists do this before, for example, with prominent activists making unfounded claims that a non-medical approach, i.e. Cass-aligned psychotherapy, has led to youth suicides.”
[dramatic orchestral music ends]Which let’s put a pin in that. And finally, most damningly of all, we have:
[Once more, the orchestra]“Crucially, the introduction of a ban would undermine many of the recommendations in the Cass Review, which Labour has committed to implement in full.”
[ends the orchestra]Which is an interesting way of putting it. Almost like they know that a “Cass-style approach” would be very very close to conversion therapy. So what did…did you get a chance to look this over before we started recording?
Alyx: Quite frankly, I was sort of partially avoiding it, so I didn’t read their bullshit. So that’s my fault on that one. But I think it sounds like you’ve pretty much summed it up.
Flint: What really strikes me about it, is the level of…it’s that point, about how people will “change over time what they feel” like “an uncomfortable experience may overtime become conversion therapy” because that’s actually the case for most people that have been abused. It takes them quite a while to figure out they’ve been abused. They may know that they aren’t in a nice situation and they want to get out of it. But putting the kind of word like “abuse” to an experience is a difficult thing to do, and it’s something that a lot of people struggle to get to a point of actively being able to say. And so to take that, and to twist it around into basically “don’t believe someone if they say ‘ohh well, at the time I didn’t notice it, but now I recognise it was conversion therapy’, or ‘now I see’, or “I went through conversion therapy about two years ago’ and things like that, or ‘I had this experience with my parents, or with my family and whatever'”. To then say, “Well, you shouldn’t be able to take that just as-is because they may just be uncomfortable.” I feel like we’ve had this argument somewhere before, I feel like we’ve had this argument surrounding whether people have been assaulted, whether people have been in other situations where there’s interpersonal violence where there’s coercive control, and it is blood-boiling.
Ashleigh: Yeah. Yeah, it is. Uhm [exhales] so this is just a guidance document for Labour MPs. It remains to be seen if any of them will A: read it and B: take it to heart, and say “well, I’ve read this and that chimes with my experience and my understanding of it so I’m going to kind of use this as my playbook.” So we’ll see. It might not be able to do very much harm at all, fingers crossed… but yeah, when I saw this, it was just, yech, it’s gross, isn’t it?
Alyx: Yeah, it just sounds like a another bunch of gender criticals’ attempts at slowing down or trying to prevent any work being done to the conversion therapy ban, which we’ve seen a Conservative government move away from and…
Ashleigh: Yes.
Alyx: …what worries me mainly is when the Conservatives first brought in the conversion therapy ban as a thing to do in Parliament they were also advocating for self-ID. Labour have come into power with without even any kind of semblance of progressiveness in that particular aspect. So, I’m sort of like… their starting point is way lower than what the Conservatives started with. And their New Labour MPs they’ve brought in have been a lot more conservative. So when it comes to whether they’re taking it to heart, it does worry me, the likelihood and the starting points where everything’s been at currently. It’s the one thing that Labour have been trumpeting that it’s their own… but they’re bringing in a trans-inclusive conversion therapy ban as their only policy. That seemed to be positive. But even then…
Flint: Yeah, they can’t do a trans-inclusive conversion therapy ban and also fully implement the Cass Review. So that indicates to me that what they’re going to do is they’re going to pull in some… they’re going to put in place some not-totally-up-to-scratch piece of legislation that won’t properly protect trans people and will basically provide the right loopholes, but look performative enough that they’ll be able to point to people that don’t understand the situation and go “but we did the thing we did the thing! It’s there! It says the word ‘trans’ in the bill!”
Ashleigh: Yeah.
Flint: And in reality, that doesn’t good legal protection make.
Ashleigh: In reality, it doesn’t do any protection, and in fact may cause harm… almost like the Cass Review!
All in chorus: Hmmmmmmmmmm…
Ashleigh: Anyway, onward!
Alyx: Talking of parliamentary bullshit: on the 12th of August a written question was put to the House of Lords by Lord Pearson of Rannoch, asking the government when they plan to respond to the consultation on the draft guidance for schools and colleges on gender-questioning children published in December 2023, and whether the government has issued on
[soft piano starts playing]“whether teachers should be required to use preferred gender pronouns for schools whose legal sex remained the same as their biological sex”
[piano stops]and in a response, the Minister of State, Baroness Smith of Malvern, then answered:
[Piano resumes]“It is vitally important for teachers to have clear guidance, which is why the department is looking carefully at the consultation responses before setting out the next steps to take the gender-questioning guidance forward. The department will also consider this in light of the evidence published in the Cass Review. This will include consideration of the appropriate guidance to use on the pronouns in school settings.”
[stop piano]So the government, yet again, is leaning on the Cass Review for their bullshit.
Ashleigh: Yeah. And it’s wormed its way into everything, even where it’s…you know, it’s a review specifically about young people’s healthcare. That’s all it needs to be about. But everybody’s using it as a justification to deny trans people, trans kids specifically, exist at all.
Alyx: I think when I was partly going through it, there was a section in the Cass Review where it discouraged social transition unless a doctor’s said so. But even then, people, many doctors, all our experts, said that was too far-reaching. So even in a scientific sense, people are probably thinking “no, what Cass is saying there is bullshit”. So even in a scientific sense, it makes no sense, their reason was too far.
Ashleigh: Yeah.
Alyx: And alongside these questions there are some more that have been asked, but they haven’t received an answer. We’ll link them in the description and a lot of these are still awaiting a response. And one Baroness, which I’m not kidding, is called Baroness Hater, in which seven of the twelve questions submitted to the government this session in Parliament have been on trans people. That’s a normative determinism right there.
Ashleigh: Hmm, yeah. It’s like, is there nothing else going on in the country? Are there no other problems?
Alyx: No, she’s gotta live up to her name.
Ashleigh: [Laughs] Yeah.
Alyx: We will update you when we hear more, but thanks to our Discord who have helped keep an eye on this and if you want to help us in that regard, we’ll also have a link to our Discord in the description. If you want to help keep us up to date on bullshit in Parliament.
Ashleigh: Or if you just want to join our discord, come join us! Everyone’s very nice.
Flint: Yeah!
Alyx: Chat shit yeah, I’ve got all my cat pictures on there!
Ashleigh: Not necessarily of journalistic quality, but the cat looks lovely.
[laughter]Ashleigh: But yeah, definitely a shout out to the people on our Discord who have been keeping an eye on this, essentially, and pointing it out to us and saying, “look, here’s this thing that’s happening” and we… I think given all the stuff that we’re talking about in this episode, which is already a lengthy beast as you might notice, I think we’d have probably missed this completely thank you to our wonderful Discord users. We love you!
Flint: Love you!
Alyx: [extremely high-pitched] Love you!
Ashleigh: On the subject of legislation and paperwork, in a scientific sense this time though, in a recent literature review by Cornell University, it was recently found that not being evil and not withholding healthcare from trans people actually helps trans people!
[Clip from Disney’s Aladdin plays]Iago: Ohh, that’s a big surprise! That’s an incredible, I think I’m gonna have a heart attack and die from that surprise.
Ashleigh: And that taking an affirmative approach, with assessments being a single appointment, even one over video call, helps and does not harm trans people. Alongside this, it also states that forcing trans healthcare to be stuck to just specialists makes things worse, and that informed consent should be the way forward. So just by reading that you can hear Hilary Cass having a heart attack in the background, TERF journalists quaking in their boots, and Wes Streeting’s little brain having an aneurysm. Because guess what? Preventing trans people from transitioning is, uhh… bad, actually!
[collective gasps!]Now there are many many more details that we don’t have time to cover here, but we’ve linked the study in the description if you want to read it in more detail and there’s some juicy stuff in there. It’s a very, very large review of quite a lot of literature, the vast majority of which comes to the conclusion that actually helping trans people is better for trans people’s mental health. Shocking stuff, I know!
Alyx: And more of a surprise, considering the other reviews we’ve seen, actually consults trans people.
Ashleigh: Mhmm, yeah! What a funny thing to do. Maybe that’s an idea that should be brought in over here. Just a thought.
Flint: Yeah, just a smidge.
Alyx: So Speaking of TERFs having aneurysms over things, Joanna Cherry will definitely have had her inevitable tantrum regarding a new motion passed by SNP members in a recent conference:
“Conference recognises that the ICD-11 has removed Gender Dysphoria from its list of mental health conditions, and the move away from pathologizing trans identity this represents. Conference also recognises the extreme waiting times and significant distress that needing to seek this outdated diagnosis imposes on trans people trying to access Gender Affirming Care. Conference calls for Gender Affirming Care to be brought in line with all other models of healthcare for adults, and operate off of an informed consent model without additional need for a psychiatric diagnosis. Conference further calls for additional training and support to be given to GPs and other healthcare practitioners to assist them with supporting their trans patients.”
and I think that pretty much just sums it up.
Ashleigh: Yeah, definitely. So that’s the SNP saying “right, we’re not going to treat trans people like shit, let’s get some stuff done” and that is some welcome news, frankly! I was really cheered up to read about this.
Alyx: Yeah, and backed up by that study, earlier. Those are some positive details from members, the SNP have had issues with elections, with the general election they had a bit of a lower turn-out in terms of seats for Parliament…
Ashleigh: Chair.
Alyx: …vote share, that’s the word I’m looking for. So we don’t know how much of an effect their influence over Scottish Parliament will be, but hopefully they’ll make a resurgence if they continue with these progressive policies.
Ashleigh: Well, it’s welcome to see, isn’t it? Absolutely. Now, as part of the conference as well, there was some reports about the conversion therapy ban being dropped, but that’s been denied by Out for Independence, which is the SNP’s LGBT group. So we will await a clearer picture on that. SNP kinda getting it right, frankly, at, you know, at their big party conference!
Flint: Yeah! Which is good, because unfortunately I’m gonna have to stumble in and provide a little bit of bad news to counteract the good. Unfortunately, the yang to your yin. The situation in Scotland hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows, despite the SNP’s recent vote on actions, which do seem supportive. The medical establishment there is painting a considerably different picture. On the 3rd of September it was reported that a team established by Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer has now stated that it accepts all of the findings of the Cass Report. Allegedly, the team met Hilary Cass on a number of occasions following the publication of the Cass Report, and with this confirms that Scotland will also be taking part in “the study into puberty blockers”… that’s in big air quotes, which I know you couldn’t have seen… for young trans people and was pushed by the Cass Review. This follows the ending of self-referrals to Gender Identity Clinics, and in the changes accepted it will be moving away from treatments in Sandyford and the halting of new prescriptions of puberty blockers.
Ashleigh: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction… in politics, apparently.
Alyx: And this time, striking trans young people.
Ashleigh: I mean, it always is. They’re really the target at the moment.
Alyx: Yeah.
Ashleigh: But as we’ve seen, particularly in America and you know, the work of people like Patrick Hunter, once they’ve gone after the trans young people’s care, it’s ours next! That’s why there’s going to be a review into adult care, which we talked about in the last episode. So the situation in Scotland, despite the SNP’s full throated support of trans people, the medical establishment is unfortunately towing the NHS England’s line of saying “Nope, we’re going to fully implement Cass.”
Flint: No, it’s horrifying. It’s just… [frustrated noise] …it’s so much, it’s almost difficult to put into words. I mean, it is difficult to put into words. I struggle so frequently when we’re faced with this level of ‘big thing’ to then think of a thing to say about it other than “this is fucking evil!”
Ashleigh: Yeah!
[Laughs]Alyx: Pretty much! You just have to look at Westminster and consider it like Mordor.
Ashleigh: Yeah, and one does not simply walk in! And you have to go in, like, heavily armed. [laughs] I jest, I’m not advocating for an armed insurrection…
…ye[editing bleep].
Alyx: Although I sometimes consider my journey to Westminster a bit of a commute with all the…
Ashleigh: Yeah, yeah, you’re there pretty frequently, aren’t you? So yes.
Alyx: Sean Bean’s disappointed in me.
Ashleigh: So unfortunately we’ll have to see what continues to happen. We will keep you informed about it, and we will suggest ways to fight back. Because that’s kind of why we’re here!
Alyx: We had some interesting news regarding the Good Law Project recently. So in an email sent to people on the Good Law Project’s mailing list, has recently stated that they’ll be shifting their focus; stating that instead of funding or taking on legal cases themselves, they’ll be supporting a trans and queer organisation with three years’ funding commitment and adding that they thought long and hard about the best way to keep fighting for trans rights and lives, and they feel that this is the moment to put their weight behind an organisation led by trans people. As we have seen, Good Law Project has led numerous lawsuits into many aspects of trans life in healthcare and gender recognition. However, in the future, in what they will be doing for trans community, will no longer be lawsuits. And the trans-led organisation mentioned, no one knows who that is. That bit’s being kept a bit vague.
Ashleigh: It has, but given that they’ve specifically said “we’ll be supporting a trans and queer organisation with a three-year funding commitment” that sounds like there is kind of a plan in place, so even if they’re not announcing the details yet like the name and the people who will be involved, something is being worked up; and maybe I didn’t initially, and I was a little cynical about the Good Law Project, but they have really come through a number of times for us. I do trust them, to the extent that I’m capable of doing that. Obviously, we’ll have to see what happens, but I suspect there’s a plan and I look forward to finding out what exactly that involves. And they’re talking about it being led by queer and trans people: brilliant, that’s what we want! The people with the lived experience, and the legal experience, to be able to take up these cases in the way the Good Law Project has. So I think, depending on how it turns out, but I think this could well be the right move.
Flint: I don’t want to speculate too much because I think that that’s an easy way to start getting too fearful or too hopeful, you know? Let facts be facts. But I would like to think that if they are making this decision that that is because they have already in place an idea of what they want to do instead, how they wanna do it and really centre us and things like that. This statement does feel a little bit vague, but I understand that if they need to right now make the statement, but can’t speak on anything else. But then obviously that is dependent, that criticism is dependent upon us receiving more information about this as soon as we can, really. And I would hate to think that after so many good years of good advocacy and really good work of them being a really reputable… sort of like within the mainstream world. Like it’s also a thing that doesn’t have a name that is directly, immediately tied only to queerness. Which is by no means a good thing versus anyone that doesn’t. But when you’re trying to say to someone who doesn’t really understand trans things and maybe has a little bit of hesitation about listening to trans people directly because they’re not used to information being learned from direct communities, they’re used to information being dispensed by some bigger organisation, right, like BBC News or whatever. Being able to say “go and look at what the Good Law Project is saying”, sometimes that’s been an easy one for me with people who wouldn’t perhaps be receptive for me saying “ohh you should go and check out this thing that that is like very comforting for me” but because it is designed specifically for queer people and for informing queer people, sometimes cis/het people don’t quite want to engage with those organisations. Like as in people to look through links and information and stuff like that, right?
Ashleigh: Yeah, I get you. And I think…I don’t imagine Good Law Project are going to stop in terms of their advocacy and their support, but they’ll be doing it kind of behind this other organisation.
Alyx: Definitely one where we have to wait and see, and we have to reserve judgement ’til after you see what the act has done.
Flint: We do. Because there are some people that have been saying that this is an abandonment of trans people and trans community, and I really feel the gut punch…
Ashleigh: Definitely.
Flint: …like I completely feel the gut punch of hearing this news. I had the exact same immediate thought, right? Because we are so primed to, at the second of hearing that someone is kind of pulling some support, or is no longer being as immediately vocal in the way that we’re used to them being, we often are primed to immediately say “Uh-oh, that’s someone that’s turning!” you know, “that’s someone that’s losing their will to fight for us and with us.” But we do not know enough to be able to say that right now I don’t think…
Ashleigh: Yeah, for sure.
Flint: …and I will happily say it once we know that that’s the case. But I can’t start immediately besmirching the Good Law Project’s name based on the fact that they have said that they want to try and set up something for and by queer people. But that means that right now they can’t do as many lawsuits.
Ashleigh: Yeah. Yeah, indeed. You know, we’ll see what happens and we will obviously report on it. And honestly, I kind of look forward to the developments in a way. But you know, I’ll miss the Good Law Project. They’ve been really great, haven’t they? They’ve been very supportive and they’ve spoken to us several times. They’ve deigned to do so, and it’s been very interesting and helpful.
Anyway, just quickly right at the end, this story is kind of more of an honourable mention. It has been reported on elsewhere because the NHS has, of course, recently sent out a letter to a large number of pharmacies outlining the law as it now stands surrounding puberty blockers. The letter points out
[with chorus and reverb and all the effects] in bold textthat it is a criminal offence for doctors or pharmacists to provide puberty blockers and seems to essentially encourage pharmacy staff to snitch on any doctor or colleague who provides these medications outside of the guidelines.
So if the prescription is newer than June 3rd of this year, if it’s from before that date, they can continue receiving the medication. Any new prescriptions dated after June 3, they’re illegal. Now we’ll include a Twitter thread by Mallory Moore talking about the overreach that the act represents and pointing out that this letter in itself isn’t the problem. It’s the ban that’s a problem, and the letter is a symptom, not a cause. And with that, thank you very much for listening. You can catch us and our work and the tremendous sort of reporting that Alex did earlier this week around the Trans Kids Deserve Better. So you’ll find some stuff about that obviously on our Instagram or on Twitter, our website is whatthetrans.com almost all of our work ends up there. Lots of people write some fucking great stuff frankly. And as we’ve mentioned, you can join our Discord! But yeah, apart from that, thank you everybody, and we’ll be back in two weeks!
Alyx: [extremely high-pitched] Byeeeee!
Ashleigh and Flint: Byee!!
[end credit music plays]Ashleigh: This episode of What The Trans?! was presented and produced by Ashley, Alyx and Flint and was written by Ashley, Alyx Flint and Kai; and edited by Oliver Morris and Amber Devereaux. With music composed by Waritsara Yui Karlberg and transcription performed by Sam Wyman, Rowan B, Rachel Aldred and Georgia Griffiths. We would especially like to thank our producer-level Patreons, who are…
Ashleigh, Alyx and Leigh: Lex Phoenix, Sebastian Sings Soprano, Joe the low-quality enby, Andrea Brooks, Jack Edwards, Emily Roberts, Dulcie, Stefan Blakemore, [all the crazzee reverb] CRAZZEE RICHARD, needles and threads, Flaming Dathne, Dr McGee, Genevieve Dickson, Rachel Harris, Katie Reynolds, Georgia Holden Burnett, Grabilicious, Mx Aphen, Rootminusone, Grey, Elisabeth Anderson, Bernice Roust, Ellen Mellor, Jay Hoskins, Trowan, Ashley, Matty B, Setcab, Jane, Roberto de Prunk, Rose Absolute, Sarah, Sinna, 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, 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, Murgatroid, ontologicallyunjust, Stella, Cyndergosa, Rebecca Prentice, [all the crazzee reverb] CRAZZEE RICHARD…again, danoblivion, Florence Stanley, Helen_, Elle Hollingsworth, 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, Lenos, and Chris Hubley.
Ashleigh: Thank you to you all.
Flint: Thank you so much.
Alyx: Thank you [extremely high-pitched and voice cracking] Byyyeeeeeeeeeee!
