On this episode of What the Trans?! Alyx and Ashleigh go over;
- Edinburgh Rape Crisis CEO steps down, following an investigation and long-standing media criticism.
- Opposition to For Women Scotland as they take a case to the supreme court in late November.
- More JAQ-ing off in the House of Lords.
- The many problems with the 2024 edition of Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance, featuring an interview with Kate Hutchinson.
References:
Edinburgh Rape Crisis
Edinburgh Rape Crisis CEO steps down after independent report and longstanding media deluge
For Women Scotland at the Supreme Court
We’re fighting for trans voices to be heard in the Supreme Court – Good Law Project
Help protect trans people’s right to safety – Good Law Project
Questions in the House of Lords
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2024-09-02/hl628
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2024-09-04/hl751
Sex Equality and Equity Network (SEEN) – GOV.UK
Loser’s Corner! Greens suspend health spokesperson over trans remarks
Green Party suspend spokeswoman over trans comments – BBC News
Liberal Voice for Women
Anti-Trans Group to set up stall at Lib Dem conference
Lib Dem women’s group claims it has been banned from promoting event over trans views
Census question on gender “misunderstood”
Sex and gender identity question development for Census 2021 – Office for National Statistics – Additional information written while the census was taking place in 2021.
Quality of Census 2021 gender identity data – Office for National Statistics – Assessment of the quality of the survey data, written in 2023
Dragon Age
Schools Guidance
Keeping children safe in education 2024
IGLYO Statement on the UK’s Updated Statutory Education Guidance
Transcript
Alyx: Well, hello, Welcome to another episode of What the Trans!
Ashleigh: What the Trans! Hello. Hello. It’s us. We are back. How are you doing Alyx?
Alyx: I’m doing all right. Yes, enjoying another week away, we’ve just launched the new US episode about a few hours ago. Indeed, we’ve been so busy.
Ashleigh: We have. It’s been a lot of busy stuff and it’s been a particularly auspicious day because we’ve relaunched the US version of What the Trans, which we’re going to promote quite heavily and set up like, new feeds and stuff. At the moment, we’re currently hosting it on our own channel, but we are going to set up an entirely separate one, so that it can go out to you know, US feeds and adverts and stuff, rather than it being marketed specifically to a UK audience that hasn’t really asked for it yet. That’s happened earlier today on this September the 19th, which is of course International Talk Like a Pirate day. [sound effects] Ooh aah me hearties.
Alyx: Yeah, something about timber shivering.
Ashleigh: Yeah, yeah, that’ll be popping up throughout the course of the episode you may be sure. So yeah, fun times. Have you been up to much?
Alyx: All right, so it’s sort of been an interesting week. Been sleeping a lot more soundly recently.
Ashleigh: OK.
Alyx: Yeah, I’ve got a new mattress, that’s coming. I spent way too much money on it. It arrived on Wednesday. My mattress arrived great, but at the same time my parents bought a mattress as well. I think you might have seen this Ash, didn’t you? Maybe. So we had our mattresses delivered. Mine arrived perfectly fine, but then my parents got this Super King mattress like one of the biggest mattresses you can get. And we’re very small people in our house and for some reason, our house fits our size perfectly and I’ve had so many tall friends complain about it.
Ashleigh: Right. So you live in Hobbiton, basically.
Alyx: Yes, there’s so many times I’ve been referred to as a Hobbit, but essentially our stairwell is not as big as it should have been for our mattress. For my parents and the people who are moving it despite signing the waivers to say yeah, you can chip off paint, break stuff to get this damn thing up the thing. By all accounts, they could not get that thing up the stairs.
[sound effects – laughter]Ashleigh: I see. OK. So your mum and dad sleep downstairs now.
Alyx: So they took away the mattress, the new one, but they also decided to take away Mum and Dad’s old one as well.
Ashleigh: Right. OK, helpful.
Alyx: Out the moving van and all we had left was a bed frame and no mattress for them.
Ashleigh: He he. OK, sounds fun. So what have they been sleeping on?
Alyx: So we had to get as many duvets and bed covers as we could assemble in the house.
Ashleigh: I see.
Alyx: And we couldn’t put up an air bed for them because my mum had a cub camp the next day. So I was hoping – They had assembled the bed. I lay on there and I was like, I wouldn’t want to be there. So I left the matter overnight. And then I woke up the next morning. Mum was oh, how was your sleep? How would you answer that? Your parents on a hard wooden bed base. They’re 50 years old. Their backs are not as what they should be. They need all the support they can get. And you are there on your memory foam. Lovely goodness. I just had to answer, I don’t want to talk about it.
Ashleigh: Yeah, it seems like the answer would just kind of do you permanent psychic damage, dear mum. Well, I’m glad you’ve got a new mattress at least. And send your parents my condolences for theirs.
Alyx: Yeah, that was my fun sleeping times. How have you been?
Ashleigh: Good. Yeah. All right. So I picked up a couple of new records last week I think, but as in they weren’t just new to me, as in they were like brand spanking new. So there’s the new Floating Points and they’re like this kind of chill electronic group from Manchester. So they’ve got song names, like Afflecks Palace, which, I think we went to Afflecks Palace while you were here in Manchester, didn’t we.
Alyx: Oh yes.
Ashleigh: Yeah, yeah, the really cool shopping little place. But even better, was an album by a band called Los Bichos. So it’s these four women from literally from all over the world. One of them’s Turkish-Australian, the drummer’s British, the bass player’s from somewhere else. And there’s a guitar and synth player who’s from somewhere else as well. So they’re based in London. And they do this kind of instrumental party music. It’s like, you know, it’s all really up tempo and really cool. And there’s a particularly awesome track at the very end of the album called Let Me Cook You and the album is called Talkie Talkie. It’s by Los Bichos, check it out. Let’s see if we can get away with a little snippet [extract of album]
Alyx: Ah that is so amazing. I mean, you don’t really get too many instrumental songs in the middle, from major bands.
Ashleigh: Yeah, yeah, indeed. And so you can expect that there’s going to be lyrics in the gatefold sleeve of the album and there isn’t, because there aren’t any lyrics, so there’s just like a little card saying, here’s what this song is about. And here’s the kind of feeling that it comes out with and it’s just fucking great. So yeah, give that a listen. Something else to listen out for, particularly in this episode, is the medicalisation bell. Can I have like a little Ding Ding sound effects?
Alyx: Or like a cloister bell from Doctor Who?
Ashleigh: No, no. That’s too serious. And you need like a boxing bell like, Ding Ding.
Alyx: OK, try again.
Ashleigh: The medicalisation bell. [medicalisation bell]. Because there’s going to come a point, or there may come a couple of points, where we’re going to be staring in the face, the classic over medicalisation, over pathologisation of the trans community. And if you’re listening for it, you will hear the medicalisation bell. [medicalisation bell].
So look out for that and also just something else to mention. Flint is still with us. They’ll be back on the show next time. Got some life stuff going on at the moment, which meant they weren’t able to join us for this episode but they will be back, which is great because I really enjoy making the show with them.
Alyx: Oh, he’s brilliant. I miss him already.
Ashleigh: I know, right? Not least because we had to do all the writing ourselves instead of leaving a third of it to Flint.
Alyx: So much more effort and a bit of the laziness there.
Ashleigh: You and me both, don’t worry.
Alyx: We always start these episodes with shit for news, and today it’s the same. Today, it’s regarding the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre. On the 13th of September, its CEO Mridul Wadhwa resigned. This followed an independent review stating that the Centre had failed to set professional standards of behaviour and that Mridul did not understand the limits on her roles of authority. This was followed after an employment tribunal found a counsellor with so-called gender critical views or basically anti-trans views had been unfairly dismissed from the Centre, as she was trying to find ways to discriminate against trans people which caused the Centre to start the dismissal process. Because for some reason the courts allow bigots into the workplace now, this is following the CEO who wants to make sure that the centre remained friendly to trans people who compared to cis counterparts, are four times as likely to be victimised in a violent manner. In a statement, Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre Board said it plans to implement all the recommendations from the review, but felt the time was right for a change of leadership to ensure we place survivors’ voices at the heart of the strategy. The Centre has now stopped referrals and throughout this whole case the voice of trans survivors were not listened to.
Ashleigh: Indeed, and is worth pointing out as well that Wadhwa herself is trans. Isn’t she? Yeah.
And so there’s been kind of the nasty undercurrent and overcurrent really of transphobia that anybody in such a role couldn’t come to expect, let’s say. Not that that should be the case, but here we are. So yeah, Wadhwa herself has obviously come in for a lot of unjustified criticism simply because she’s a trans woman working in a Rape Crisis Centre, being the chief executive of one, in fact. So she’s already put up with quite a lot, and now she’s had to go. Unfortunately.
Alyx: It’s always the moment they see a trans person having a success in any way in employment, in life, in working, they can’t take it. They have to try and rip it down because we just exist. But I know we’re just trying to live our lives and we’ve seen this whole thing rumbling on for ages. There’s always people pointing to Beira’s Place and all these TERFs including JK Rowling, I saw trying to point, to defund this Rape Crisis centre because they did not like the fact a trans person worked there.
Ashleigh: Yeah, indeed, although you know it must be said that there has been some fault found on Wadhwa’s side in that, failing to set professional standards of behaviour can mean any one of a number of things really, but did not understand the limits on her roles of authority. Well, that sounds like it might be a bit more serious, because if she’s stepped out of line, as in she’s genuinely made some mistakes, which is obviously possible, if not likely. Then she’s justifiably, you know, had to leave the organisation.
Alyx: Yeah, exactly. And then because of the high-profile nature, I suppose it then also provides us with a frustrating media circus as well, which was unfortunate.
Ashleigh: Hmm. Yeah, such is the case of it, so it must be said Queer AF, Jamie Wareham, over at Queer AF has written an article about this. So obviously that’s in the description. So go read that go and support fantastic work that Queer AF do.
Alyx: They did a better job of doing a write up than I did of the whole situation there.
Ashleigh: Yes, so staying in Scotland, or at least with Scottish groups Our old friends in the anti-trans group For Women Scotland have appealed to the UK Supreme Court to essentially undo the protections of the Equality Act. Now they claim their goal is to protect women but come on, we know what this is about. On their crowd funder, which has yet to reach its funding target. The summary says, quote: [silly voice] “This legislation relies on definitions set out in the Equality Act 2010 and the judicial reviews have served to show that a definition of sex that is inclusive of a person’s acquired gender on a gender recognition certificate leaves the Equality Act opaque and unworkable for many women. There needs to be clarity that sex is a biological term, and while the UK government recognises this, it is yet to take any remedial action.” So that’s my TERF impression. Hope you enjoy it.
And their plan is that they will make the Equality Act protected characteristic of sex, not apply to trans people. It will be specifically targeted as sex assigned at birth. And that would include trans people who do possess a gender recognition certificate, so that essentially rips up the protections that the GRC is supposed to bring. It’s worth pointing out as well that any trans person may still be protected on the basis of gender reassignment, but it would depend on the kind of discrimination they go to court over under the terms of the Equality Act. And that’s a whole other argument, which is beyond the scope of the court case. The For Women Scotland case is set to be heard in late November at the Supreme Court and will be opposed by none other than Doctor Victoria McLeod, the UK’s first trans High Court judge, who we’ve spoken about before, and Professor Stephen Whittle, a longtime legal advocate who has been Professor of Equalities Law at Manchester University since 2007. So I think it’s fairly safe to say that if I may borrow a legal term, these two really know their shit. They’re being supported by the Good Law project to intervene in the case while it’s being heard in the Supreme Court and there is of course a fundraiser to help them do this, which we will link in the description. So what did you make of this?
Alyx: Well, to be honest, the case is a pile of crock shit which I hope fails at the first hurdle. But unlike TERFs, we can actually bring actual experts into the case. Some of you might remember Helen Joyce going to that court in Australia. And then the judge just went, What the fuck are you doing here? You’re no expert. And just gave them the boot. But Professor of Law at University of Manchester, and also Stephen Whittle I think, was the person who initially made the first lawsuit to push back about the lack of gender recognition.
Ashleigh: Stephen Whittle was part of Press for Change in the late 90s and early 2000s. As a result of their work, that’s how we got the Gender Recognition Act in 2003. Now the Gender Recognition Act was suitable, if criticised even at its time. You know, back in 2003 there were lots of people saying, well, this ain’t it, chief, the response to that would be something like that was the best we could get at the time. Stephen Whittle was instrumental in that act. And obviously, Victoria MacLeod, who we talked about before the trans High Court judge, she’s got a wealth of experience as well legally, as you might imagine. So I hope these two are granted leave to intervene in the case. And I do think this should be. It’s also, like, duelling crowdfunders. Because there’s a crowdfunder for the Good Law Project to, you know, obviously get the legal expertise to intervene in the case, to be able to pay for it. And there’s also the other crowdfunder for For Women Scotland which hasn’t reached its funding target as of yet, which I enjoyed a wry little smile over when I was looking into it.
Alyx: Oh that was brilliant. I mean because we saw last episode, there was some doubt over the Good Law Project’s possible funding of legal cases.
Ashleigh: I was going to say I think they are fulfilling all of the stuff that they said they would do. But they’re going to, you know, they’re not going to take anything new on because they hope to set up, you know, a trans legal defence initiative fund, some, you know? Whatever it is that they are putting together, they’ve said has funding for three years. We shall see what that is. But I’m guessing that they are honouring the commitments that they’ve already made. And saying, well, we said we’d help out with this, so we’re going to do that. So yeah, we’ll see how that case goes. We will keep you informed of it, obviously. And what’s next?
Alyx: So our Discord members have once again been absolutely fantastic in helping us write the script for us at this point. But as mentioned last episode, we’ve been keeping an eye on Parliament and in this case, the number of questions, as you may have seen from the Lords.
So the first question from Baroness Hunt is to ask His Majesty’s Government how many young people are on the waiting list to access support at the specialist gender services at Great Ormond St Hospital and Alder Hey Children’s Hospital? And what is the current average length of time spent by young people on the waiting list before attending their first appointment? And on the 13th of September, it was answered, 6,033 people were waiting on the list for gender services for 65 weeks or a year and nine months.
And we all know that is merely an understatement of the true numbers. Mainly, as the majority of young people on the waiting list are ageing out before they can even get to the service. Later that week also Wes Streeting put out a statement in a Commons announcing officially that he is pursuing a full ban on puberty blockers and several other things about the implementation of the Torturing Trans Kids Review AKA the Cass Review in there too, and we’re going to link those in the links in the description.
And the shit from Parliament doesn’t stop there either. So on the 4th of September, the cartoonishly named Baroness Hayter submitted a question to the House of Lords, asking whether the government departments give equal consideration and status to staff sex equality and equity networks as they do to LGBT+ and other diversity groupings. So do the discrimination of SEEN groups get equal consideration as LGBT+ groups in the workplace. The government then answered, all formally recognised cross-government equality, diversity and inclusion networks are given equal consideration. The Cabinet Office oversees cross government equality, diversity and inclusion networks, management of department equality, diversity, inclusion networks is delegated to departments, so they put those groups on equal footings. Now those wanting to increase discrimination in the workplace toward LGBTQIA+ folks can now push for discrimination more. There is now a link on the Cabinet Office website now recognising SEEN groups, which will also link in the description too. So what are your thoughts on that?
Ashleigh: Well, it’s nice to see Baroness Hunt doing the goddess’s work, because that’s obviously Ruth Hunt, former CEO of Stonewall. Yeah, she was made a Baroness. And that’s Baroness Hunt. So great, fantastic. She’s still trying to find things out using her position to do some good. Unlike Baroness Hayter. Haters are gonna hate. Obviously SEEN groups, we’ve talked about them before, I don’t know how many times, but yeah, sexual equality and equity and it’s the new way of saying gender critical basically. Rather than having a gender critical employee group, you have a SEEN network. Those are now kept on an equal footing with like an LGBT group or a person of colour group. That’s fucking great. Thank you, the government.
Alyx: Fortunately, at my workplace, I have not seen a SEEN group, but I’ve just come out. I’m currently a bit closeted, but I’ve come out just out of spite to oppose them.
Ashleigh: Yeah, absolutely.
Alyx: But it’s always frustrating when they always have the gender critical views. At this point I’m just asking, I just want to ask everyone, don’t call them gender critical anymore. Call them anti-trans activists. It will just save us all the time in the world.
Ashleigh: Yeah, because every time, they move the goalposts, right. They used to say, well, we’re TERFs. We’re trans exclusionary radical feminists, that’s what we are. That’s how we describe ourselves. And now they pretend TERF is a slur, and then they started calling themselves gender critical and they stuck to that. And now they’re trying to change it again to SEEN network. So it’s this constant moving of the goal posts. So that the trans community is constantly kept off balance because we don’t know if we’re supposed to be calling them this or that and the other, but they are all the same thing, when you get underneath the skin, and they’re anti trans, you know, let’s not mince our words here.
Alyx: We’ve seen a certain anti-trans activist get the boot in.
[sound effects – loser’s corner].Ashleigh [singing]: Loser’s Corner.
Ashleigh: Yes, indeed! Loser’s Corner this week concerns a Miss Pallavi Devulapalli, Green Party health spokesperson and party candidate for South West Norfolk. At a hustings event back in June she said, quote:
[piano plays lightly in the background during quotations]“I’ve yet to meet anyone that actually says somebody should not have the right to be addressed as they please and to dress as they please” and “I really think there is something mischievous in the air to make those out to be an issue.” She then went on to say “The confusion arises when people start conflating sex with gender” and that “Biology is a real thing, it’s not a belief.”
So on the face of it, that doesn’t sound like much, but a lot of trans people will recognise the dog whistles in there, particularly that last comment about biology, which she followed up by saying the government should adopt the recommendations of the Cass Review in full. Oh, and she also told the BBC that there is no trans hate in society in general. So I don’t know what version of society she exists in, but it sounds like a better place than this one. So why is Miss Devulapalli in Losers Corner? Well, darling, it’s because she’s been suspended from the Green Party following these comments.
[game over music plays]Alyx: Whooo!
Ashleigh: According to documents seen by the BBC, she was placed on an emergency suspension pending a code of conduct investigation. After her suspension, Devulapalli apparently condemned anti-LGBT hate crimes, but claimed that her suspension was part of a larger Green Party plan to silent dissent. Does that sound familiar?
Alyx: God, I’ve seen it so many times. They’re so… they never shut up about it.
Ashleigh: Which is weird because none of these people that say that they’re accused of being silenced, none of them ever shut the fuck up, right?
Alyx: No, in between their book tours and BBC News articles…
Ashleigh: Yep, and interviews in The Times, The Telegraph. Yeah. Silenced, apparently.
Alyx: And yet, when trans young kids occupy the front of the Department of Education, climb up their bloody walls, and, when they say “treat us properly, ya fucking bastards”, they just… it’s just silence from any kind of mainstream outlet. And then this TERF having a tantrum is what riles up the jimmies in the BBC, and that’s whether they’re not talking to Lily Cade or not. Am I right?
Ashleigh: Hmmm, topical! And on the subject of political parties with an anti-trans streak!
Alyx: Yeah. So there’s been some discourse inside the Liberal Democrats as well!
Ashleigh: Hmmm!
Alyx: So on the 11th of September, we reported that according to an anonymous source, we had been told that the CEO of the Liberal Democrats, Mike Dixon, had decided to allow the anti-trans group Liberal Voice for Women to set up a stall at the Liberal Democrat conference. The decision had been made after being given legal advice by party lawyers. This comes after Liberal Democrat’s federal conference committee took the stance internally that Liberal Voices for Women should not have a stall. Following this, it kind of exploded. So we found out that leadership wants to keep their attendance as quiet as possible. So that went well!
The anti-trans group got relegated to a dark corner of the conference and next to them, the Lib Dems Abroad groups draping a trans flag on their stall to try and hide the anti-trans stall. Alongside this, we were told that half of the stalls in the conference also made sure to include a rainbow or a trans flag on their own stalls. And top it off, on the last day a gigantic 15 metre flag was made and hoisted outside the conference and hundreds of Liberal Democrats joined in on the protest to show that the Liberal Voices for Women were not welcome at the protest they forced themselves into.
Ashleigh: Yay. Good! You know, make them uncomfortable. Give ’em enough rope. So this was great when I saw this, honestly. And the fact that we wrote about… ’cause nobody else had written about it, really. so we wrote about it… and you specifically did the writing, didn’t you, Alyx? And we heard that that had had quite an impact!
Alyx: Yeah, I mean to be honest, we put it out and I think rule of first outlet to sort of get it out on some kind of article. Which meant that it could be linked out easily, compared to a Twitter post or something. And then all of a sudden, we heard about from insiders about gigantic stirs inside, Young Leader Committee members resigning, other stuff I can’t really talk about but the Reddit certainly exploded in Liberal Democrat Reddit.
Ashleigh: Yes, ‘the cat was amongst the pigeons’ let’s say.
Alyx: I think a lot of it, I think I felt like was attributed to the fact we didn’t call that group “gender critical”, which I’m just gonna keep harping on about. I made sure to call them anti-trans.
Ashleigh: I mean, that’s what they are and I enjoy the solidarity from all of the other stalls that… you know nearby. They’ve obviously just said, “right, someone go and buy a trans flag”!
Alyx: Oh definitely, make sure they don’t feel welcome.
Ashleigh: Should they have risked the lawsuit then, by saying “no, you can’t come in”? Should party leadership have risked that lawsuit, given that they’d taken advice from legal boards in the party who’ve then said “yeah, we have to let them in”? Do you think it was worth what’s happened?
Alyx: It’s certainly an interesting question. I will say I keep meaning to cancel this subscription, but I am a Liberal Democrat member at the moment. I only kept the membership so that they could help with my local area for the election effort. Now they’ve done their job I need to make sure I’m not wasting my money. So when it comes to biases, I’d better put it out there. But the legal part of it…why not? Why not just go for it? And the Green Party did it, and it seems the majority of the membership would be behind them.
If they went for a lawsuit, it’s just whether they want to put the funds in and have the headlines. ‘Cause at the moment you don’t really hear too much about transphobia… transphobes being out of the party, like the Green Party does. Would you want that kind of extra increased publicity? Compared to the new gains they got in the Houses of Commons?
Ashleigh: Yeah, I think it’s always their concern, isn’t it? Reputational damage. I think there does come a point though, where… yes, fine risk of reputational damage, but also you do kind of have to have some principles? And the Green Party obviously does as the last story has indicated. But yeah, the Liberal Democrats, it seems to be a little bit more flexible because they’ve allowed this group in and they were hoping it would pass unmarked. But uh, we got a hold of it, and we told everybody else, and some stuff happened. So…
[laughs]Alyx: Yeah. We just, and quite frankly the whole community here who shared this out, completely out-foxed this anti-trans group. We got the one-up on them, everyone did. The groups inside the Liberal Democrats, the other trans folks sharing on social media. They lost very badly.
Ashleigh: Yeah. Yeah, they did. Didn’t go well for them.
Alyx: That was a story I did not expect to uhh…
Ashleigh: …to blow up the way it did. Although just for you, dear listener, a little insight because Alyx has written in the show notes here “the anti-trans groups plans were thwarted by the trans community. Thwarted! Excellent use of that word. Very much approved. Good work!
Alyx: My brain was leaning more towards ‘outfoxed’, but ‘thwarted’ does have a good ring to it.
Ashleigh: ‘Thwarted’ definitely works, and it feels like a thwarted rather than an outmanoeuvred.
Alyx: Those pesky kids!
Ashleigh: Yeah. And I would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for you pesky trans people with microphones and a website! Whatever, it doesn’t matter. Moving on! Let’s talk about… well, I know how hyped we all are in general for data.
[clip from Star Trek plays]Data: I have decided to allow my child to choose its own sex and appearance.
Ashleigh: Unfortunately, I don’t mean the Starfleet officer, I mean information. Specifically census information. Now back in 2021, when the most recent England and Wales census was taking place, we reported on a story concerning the attempt to capture data about the trans community and how this was opposed in the courts by a group of anti-trans activists from Fair Play for Women. So thanks to that court case, the guidance changed to sex on either birth certificate or gender recognition certificate. We know anecdotally, however, that a lot of trans people did answer the sex question in their acquired gender, whether they held the GRC or not. And in addition to the sex question, there was an optional second question further down the form asking “Is the gender you identify with different from the sex you were assigned at birth?” So that was in 2021, why am I talking about this? Because the Office for Statistics Regulation have now published an analysis about all this on September 12th. In it, they talk about how the estimates for the trans population have been downgraded from “accredited official statistics” to “official statistics in development”. So what does that mean? Basically it’s that the data gathered about the trans community within the census is no longer “officially recognised”. Now this has come about due to concerns over people whose first language is not English seemingly having a higher proportion of people identifying as trans, more so than might be expected. However, as has been pointed out, not least by a few of our Discord users, it kinda seems like the stats have been nerfed because “most of the people that claim to be transgender did not understand the question” and that “there can’t be that many trans people”. And while we’re sure that language difficulty is absolutely what’s happened in some cases, it does kind of stink of a general sentiment along the lines of “trans people can’t just self-ID as being trans!” Even an attempt to backpedal on how many of us really exist in order to marginalise us even more. And with thanks to our Discord user Faye for pointing this out and for phrasing it so well. Thanks Faye. Love you.
Alyx: Love that the groups do so well.
Ashleigh: Yeah, I love the Discord! So there was this press statement about this, but I don’t remember seeing it being picked up by many places. Did you catch wind of this at all?
Alyx: No, I think there may have probably been someone tweeting about it on the odd place or two. But it’s sort of one of those where if the Discord hadn’t flagged it up, we wouldn’t have been able to see it. But we’ve already seen the rumblings about the census appear all over anyway, from whichever TERF is having a moan on the single day or so. As you said, they’re like “there can’t be that many trans people!” and quite frankly, any attempt at trying to delegitimize the existence of our community is unsurprising. And the fact that the Office of National Statistics bowed down to this.
Ashleigh: Well, no! Not the Office for National Statistics, the Office for Statistics Regulation! So the Office of National Statistics performed the census, the Office for Statistics Regulation analyse the census. I know, I know. It doesn’t make any funcking sense, does it? The statement that’s come out on the 12th, the one that we’re talking about where they’ve said they’ve downgraded those estimates: that’s come from the OSR rather than the ONS.
Alyx: Yeah, the People’s Front of Judea and the Judean People’s Front.
Ashleigh: The Judean People’s Front. Yeah, quite!
[Laughs]Ashleigh: It’s interesting that that’s happened. In a sense it’s not surprising. To me it does look like “well, let’s try and minimise the number of trans people” you know? Let’s try and downplay that as far as we can.
Alyx: Literal Helen Joyce voice there. Just before we go into the meat, this is going to be a very quick one, but something very nice and happy that I spotted just before the recording. Some of you may have noticed the Dragon Age: The Veilguard coming out soon, and I’m hyped to see that and maybe even play it. And for those trans guys out there, you may be really excited to hear that they’ve now added top surgery scars as a customisation feature, which is really cool.
Ashleigh: Yeah! That’s nice to see representation in video games, isn’t it? Just kind of casually. Although I mean, there has been a specific announcement saying “hey, we’re adding top surgery scars” so it’s not just like they’re casually putting it in the game and not telling anybody about it, and letting people discover it. It’s like they have made a specific announcement. But it’s a nice touch. It’s a good thing to do, I think.
Alyx: We can only applaud it. So yeah, moving from that joyful thing of representation and making sure that people feel seen, we move on to something that’s, uhh, yuck…
Ashleigh: Yes, it’s a little bit more complicated and involved. So this is the meat for this section and you might have guessed this: what we’re going to be talking about the recent education guidance.
Alyx: Indeed. So yeah, we touched on this a little last time, but we didn’t have our ducks in a row over it because the news coming in thick and fast these days. But now we have everything all lined up. Take that ducks! So, some school guidance has now been released called “Keeping Children Safe in Education 2024”. Apparently without a trace of irony, we might refer to it a few times as just KCSE. It’s a yearly document, but until this year has actually been affirming and supportive of trans children and young people. In its current form, the guidance makes a number of deeply cynical and potentially dangerous statements and recommendations. If you’d like to take a look yourself, we’ll put a link in the description, and almost all of the stuff we’re talking about here is from page 55.
Ashleigh: So we’ll start with language. Firstly, the words trans or transgender appear not-at-all in the guidance with trans young people instead being referred to as “gender questioning”, while LGB children and young people are spoken of with affirmative language, and it notes specifically that:
[Soft piano plays during quote]“A child or young person being lesbian, gay or bisexual is not in itself an inherent risk factor for harm. However, they can sometimes be targeted by other children. In some cases a child who is perceived by other children to be lesbian, gay or bisexual, whether they are or not, can be just as vulnerable as children who are.”
So yeah, fair point. But it kind of feels like there’s something missing from there, doesn’t it? Can’t quite put my finger on it just now…
Alyx: The guidance also makes a few references to some guidance that’s still under consultation. It isn’t really freely available yet, and the government haven’t responded to it either, so it’s a bit weird that the guidance refers to it by saying, at the top of page 55, quote:
[Soft piano plays during quote]“This section remains under review pending the outcome of the gender-questioning children guidance consultation and final gender-questioning guidance documents being published.”
Now, this other guidance is still under review and not yet published. So with that being the case, it’s a bit weird that this guidance has used it as a justification, but more on that, on the other guidance, when it surfaces publicly.
Ashleigh: And we also see yet another abuse of the Cass Review as a stick to beat young trans people with. The guidance, says, quote:
[Soft piano plays during quote]“The Cass Review identified that caution is necessary for children questioning their gender, as there remain many unknowns about the impact of social transition, and children may well have wider vulnerabilities, including having complex mental health and psychosocial needs, and in some cases additional diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder and/or attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder.”
So this paragraph is trying to do a few things. Firstly, it’s using the Cass Reviews as a shield even though it doesn’t really seem appropriate to do so? Cass was talking about healthcare, and this guidance is for schools. Now there is some, but not a tremendous amount, of overlap on that particular Venn diagram. Secondly, it’s seeding doubt about the impact of social transition, suggesting as Cass did that a simple change of name and pronouns could be, uh, bad actually! And thirdly, there’s a sneaky little attempt to try and say that maybe pupils who think they’re trans are actually just mentally ill or neurodivergent. In what is absolutely the biggest problem in a problematic document, there’s a suggestion that trans young people should be outed to their parents quote:
[Soft piano plays during quote]“Other than in the exceptionally rare circumstances where involving parents would constitute a significant risk of harm to the child.”
Now I deeply regret to inform the Department for Education that this is not “exceptionally rare”. There’s an organisation called IGLYO, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer and Intersex Youth and Student Organisation, which is a bit of a mouthful so we’re just going to call it IGLYO. Now, according to a statement from IGLYO, research from Gallup, the UK’s LGBTQ anti-abuse charity, quote, “two in five trans or nonbinary people had experienced abuse at the hands of family members, with the majority experiencing this before they turned 18 and often in relation to their gender identity.” And according to AKT, the UK’s LGBTQ youth homelessness charity, 74% of young trans people said that they were, quote, “repeatedly belittled by their family members to the extent that they felt worthless before they became homeless, compared to 58% who aren’t trans.” So overall, that doesn’t really sound like “exceptionally rare circumstances” to me. Now, as an aside, we will link to the Gallup report and the AKT report in our description with the AKT one being particularly sobering reading, and I say that as someone who doesn’t drink alcohol.
Now finally, when it comes to gender questioning children who’ve jumped through all of these hoops, and have socially transitioned with no problems, and don’t seem to be neuro-spicy or mentally ill, and have supportive parents, the guidance suggests the following:
[Soft piano plays during quote]“It recommended” (and that’s not me making a mistake in the quote that genuinely seems to be a missing word there) “It recommended that when families/carers are making decisions about support for gender-questioning children, they should be encouraged to seek clinical help and advice.”
So that’s it! There it is! That’s the medicalisation bill! [boxing bell rings] We did it everybody! Ding ding ding ding! [More boxing bells and cheers] There’s kind of two potential sides to this. From a certain point of view, it could be argued that that’s actually good! Given the years-long waiting times, maybe it’s a good idea to get them on the list as soon as possible for them to receive, you know, no meaningful treatment now that puberty blockers have been banned. But the other point of view is that once again, trans people are simply medical curiosities, and that teachers can shunt off any responsibility to support trans young people by saying “Well, you’ll have to wait and talk to a gender clinician. I couldn’t possibly support you, I’m not qualified.” Overall then, to interpret this guidance in a manner appropriate to it being a school’s guidance: 2 out of 10, very poor, see me after class.
Alyx: It’s just utterly… you know, when I first saw the statement I was like, what the fuck? It can’t possibly say all that shit? And then I started to look through it and I’m like oh for fuck’s sake it does. I mean, as mentioned, the suggestion that trans kids should be outed to their parents other than the rare circumstances, which as we said will be harmful. And we’ve seen and heard stories of this over and over again. I think we’ve heard from Dee before and another…
Ashleigh: Dee Whitnell from Trans Kids Deserve to Grow Up.
Alyx: Yes, great organisation there.
Ashleigh: Mhm! Check out their Instagram.
Alyx: Yeah. They’ve seen so many trans young people worried about this.
Ashleigh: Justifiably so, I think. Now that it’s actually surfaced.
Alyx: Yeah, they just want to exist and live out there without being scared.
Ashleigh: Yeah, without being scared, without being bullied and without being crushed by their co-students as well as by their teachers and parents and support workers and guardians and whatever else. This is harmful and they must know that it’s harmful!
Alyx: Yeah, and I thought that when I did my work at school, the GCSEs were stressful enough. Let alone then having to worry about this over their heads.
Ashleigh: As well as that, yeah absolutely. Like, I dunno how they do it, I don’t know how they cope honestly, young people who are trans right now. It must be even worse than it was in the 90’s. Because the 90’s, all that it really had was a lack of information, right? There was just nothing there, it was very difficult to find anything and if you wanted to see any representation of trans people, you had to look in psychiatry textbooks. And that would be all kinds of problematic, so there was just a complete lack of information and yeah, bullying if you ever presented yourself as slightly queer of centre. There’s [now] social media, cyber-bullying, getting denied you exist by the government and by support workers and teachers and the Department for Education. It must be so fucking stressful!
Alyx: It’s remarkable the strength that some of them do have. I was at Trans Kids Deserve Better and they’re just… with them and their strength and their courage and all that I saw in them was just simply inspiring.
Ashleigh: Yeah, definitely. And for a little bit more of an insight, by someone who actually works in schools, I had a sit down with Kate Hutchinson, who works for Diversity Role Models and I will let her introduce herself.
Kate: Kate, she/her, I wear many hats is a way I’d probably describe myself in what I do. I’m an activist, I work with a number of different organisations and charities, mostly focused around education, trans inclusion and LGBT inclusion more widely within education. What I call my day job, I work for a charity called Diversity Role Models that was set up about 12 years ago, as an anti-bullying charity. They were sort of a response to an incident that a secondary school teacher heard about, where a young person tragically took their own life because of their experiences within school and around language that was targeted towards them. So yeah, we’ve been around for about 12 years, worked with 225,000 young people right across the UK, and continue to try and improve things for LGBT+ inclusion within schools.
Ashleigh: So the new guidance then, the new Keeping Children Safe in Schools Guidance for this year, what do you make of it as a whole?
Kate: It’s a big change on one page in particular compared to last year. So, we’ve seen in that guidance, trans people basically being erased from that guidance. They’ve taken the word transgender completely out of that guidance. And also that guidance refers to a piece of draft guidance that is not even in place yet, which is around how schools will, I can’t even call it support, deal with trans students within school. Except they again do not like to use the word transgender within that document. It’s actually advised that they don’t use that. So we’re seeing trans people erased out of that, and there’s been a lot of different organisations besides ourselves who have made statements about how this guidance and supposed supporting guidance could be problematic.
Ashleigh: So the phrase they’ve used is “gender questioning” instead of trans, isn’t it? And a few commentators have accused the government of essentially trying to deny trans people exist. Do you think that’s a fair assessment, or is that a step too far?
Kate: I mean, from my personal thoughts on it, yeah. It feels like we are looking at Section 28: Part 2. It is basically trying to push out and deny that recognition of trans people within education. Y’know and we’ve always been there, I know because I was one of those kids. This is the problem, it is basically trying to erase people from that. We’re seeing the way they are trying to push us out as far as the Equality Act and wider legislation goes but at the moment within education, it’s bringing in inequality within that system.
Ashleigh: So, do you think encouraging parents to “seek clinical help and guidance for gender questioning people”, do you think that’s the right move?
Kate: I mean, parental support I think is always a fantastic thing, if you can get it. If you’ve got parents who are on board and are able to support their child, you can’t ask for any sort of better outcome with it. The problem I’ve seen with some of the other trans questioning guidance, is that it was encouraging schools to basically share confidential information of the young people with parents who might not always be supportive. So without the consent of that child, that is incredibly problematic and could actually lead to a lot of very serious safeguarding concerns for those young people. And considering keeping children safe in education is about keeping them safe. So when it comes to if a young person comes out to a staff member in school, if that staff member then outs them to their parents, to their guardians, to their carers, in all cases it could mean that that child is actually put at increased risk and not safeguarded adequately.
Ashleigh: Yeah, so the phrase within the document itself is, it suggests that that should happen, that the parent or guardian should be informed. Other than in the exceptionally rare circumstances where involving parents would constitute a significant risk of harm to the child. It’s not exceptionally rare though, is it?
Kate: No. And also it relies on the teacher’s judgement of it, and there are a lot of teachers who do not have the confidence to actually make that call in some places. I’ve got a lot of friends who work in education on that level, and a lot of feedback I hear is about “I don’t have the expertise to make that call. I don’t know enough about this to be able to make that judgement”. Instead of taking that young person’s view and wishes into account. If we look at other areas around safeguarding and people’s rights, rights to bodily autonomy, rights to their privacy, things like competency which is taking into account that a young person has the right to make their own decisions about their own body in that way and as far as contraception goes. But it translates completely to those choices that they might make about themselves and their identity.
Ashleigh: There is, within the document, what I think is a clumsy attempt to conflate being trans with being autistic or having ADHD. Did you pick up on that?
Kate: Yeah. Because we see that a lot, again in lots of documents and lots of gender-critical approaches to the trans community. They always throw that one in there. They’re basically trying to say that being trans isn’t real, it’s caused by other factors, and they always try and bring it back to things like Autism, mental health, lots of other factors instead of just accepting the fact that trans people can also be autistic, have mental health issues; the same sort of health issues and parts of who they are that anyone else in the population can.
Ashleigh: Almost like trans people are… y’know, people!
Kate: Who’d have thunk it! [laughs]
Ashleigh: Crazy! Because you do see that a lot, don’t you? Where it’s like “oh you can’t possibly be queer and trans” and it’s like, I’m standing right here! Well, not standing, but y’know. You say this to someone who is obviously queer and neurodivergent and it can exist in both states at once, and it infuriates me when that reality is denied. It’s pretty infuriating when gender-critical people deny reality on a number of levels.
Kate: It does get ridiculous. I mean, it’s funny that I have a lot of things in common with a lot of other friends who are from the trans community. Lots of trans women I know play bass guitar funnily enough.
Ashleigh: YES. [chuckles]
Kate: I’ve never heard somebody say “I must be trans because I play bass guitar and all my friends play bass guitar”. [laughs]
Ashleigh: Yep.
Kate: So there you go.
Ashleigh: Is there anything you’d like to highlight about the document that you’ve not touched on already?
Kate: I mean, really it’s the actual overall approach and the consequences of this. This is basically saying that they won’t be able to support young trans people who say that they’re trans. They will basically push them aside, or push them towards CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) or somewhere that they shouldn’t generally be pushed towards as far as support goes. You’ve got to think what it’s like for those young people, knowing that there is no support for them in the system. I know what that’s like because I grew up in the 70s and 80s and was in that situation, y’know? Trans children didn’t appear out of nowhere. We’ve always been around. So, I knew probably about age 5 or 6. Told anyone? I would have been made fun of for it! So, you would go through school and just hide it deep. And that doesn’t have a good effect on anyone, it doesn’t have a good effect on wellbeing, on mental health, we know that. There’s research out there that shows that if people are not able to be themselves, generally it has a negative impact. And we know that when people are able to express themselves, talk about their identities, their attractions, just who they are, to be able to be open about that, they have a higher standard of wellbeing. Within school, they will achieve better because they are more comfortable in that environment. So, it is about supporting those students. It’s about every student being supported. If we are not supporting one group of students, we are not supporting all of our students how we should. They are being left out, they’re not having the same opportunity to grow, to achieve, as anyone else within that school system. So it’s vitally important that those young trans students are supported within education. Absolutely vital.
Ashleigh: So, yeah. I think she covered quite a lot of the stuff that’s of concern to us, particularly about trying to say that trans people are actually just autistic or mentally ill. I think that’s a definite worry that that’s how this guidance will be used. Maybe not across the board, but one case of that happening is too many, I feel.
Alyx: Yeah, so they are sort of trying to point to existing as trans as either something that needs to be treated, or some kind of debilitating condition. Them just existing stops them from being worth existing.
Ashleigh: Obviously, more on this later. I think organisations like Diversity Role Models and Trans Kids Deserve Better and Trans Kids Deserve to Grow Up, and various things like this that you can find on social media, sign up to them. Have a look at what they are doing. Find a way to oppose this. If you’re someone who is at school or if you have a trans youngster who is at school, talk to the teachers about it. Stress that this guidance, this ain’t it chief. Go back to the previous years of guidance, where trans children have been spoken of in affirmative terms, because KCSE is issued every year, right? So this is just this year’s guidance, but all of the previous years have been a lot more compassionate and affirmative. So encourage your teachers or your kids’ teachers to use those and not this shower o’ shit.
Alyx: On a call of action, I’ve just realised we’ve got enough time between now and the release of this episode and a bit more; for those people, if you want to go out, we need people to come out for trans kids right now. We need them to be on the street, we need to have people writing letters to MPs, but more importantly on the 15th to 16th November, if you want to make sure you’re out there supporting trans kids, we need more people to be out there to back them up outside London Tavistock. There’s going to be a vigil, where we need people to come and show their solidarity. To show that trans kids are supported, that they’re loved, and we need people out there. So 15th and 16th of November, come out, go and provide some support please. They desperately need people. And if you’re a drag artist or a poet, a storyteller, a singer or someone who wants to speak, get in touch with the Trans Strikeback Organisation, priority given to people of colour and trans youth. Get in touch with them and you can join in and help out.
Ashleigh: If you’re particularly interested in keeping up with what we’re doing, you can find us on WhatTheTrans.com, that’s our website, all of our stuff goes there. The podcast, the references for the podcast, the articles that put the cats amongst the pigeons in the Liberal Democrat Party. Obviously we’re also on the social media, we’re on BlueSky, Threads, Twitter, Facebook, and if you’re able to support us, please do so over at Patreon.com/WhatTheTrans. But that’s us, that’s our show, thank you so much for listening and we will catch you next time!
Alyx: Thank you goodbyeeee!!!
Ashleigh: This episode of ‘What The Trans’ was written, presented and produced by Ashleigh Talbot and Alyx Bedwell, and edited by Amber Devereux and Oli Morris. 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 and Alyx: Danny Gould, Lex Phoenix, Sebastian Sings Soprano, Joe the low-quality enby (No you’re not low-quality you’re lovely!), Andrea Brooks, Jack Edwards, Emily Roberts, Dulcie, Stefan Blakemore, 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, danoblivion, Florence Stanley, Helen_, Elle Hollingsworth, Nick Ross, Melody Nyx? Fiona Punchard, John, Nick Duffy, CB Bailey, Gordon Cameron, Ted Delphos, Kai Luren,Vic Parsons, Patreon User, 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 so much.
Alyx: Byyyyyeeee!!!!
[rock outro fades out]
