On this fortnight’s edition of What the Trans, Ashleigh and Flint go through:
- Scotland’s GIC “pauses” all surgical referrals for patients under 25.
- Google providing thousands of dollars of free advertising to three anti-trans groups.
- A cis woman being sent to a men’s prison due to her “masculine features”.
- Our regular jaunt to Loser’s Corner, and:
- A discussion about being trans and disabled, spurred on by the appointment of Dr Simon Wessely as chair of the Children and Young People’s Gender Dysphoria Research Oversight Board.
References:
Chalmers GIC
Pinkwashing Defence Companies
There’s No Place for Arms Companies in LGBT+ Liberation
2024 Finalists – LGBTQ+ Defence Awards
Top 12 Network Group or ERG 2024 – British LGBT Awards
Raytheon engineer Matthew on embracing and creating queer spaces – Attitude
Google Gifting Ad Space to Anti-Trans Groups
EXCLUSIVE: Google charity program gifted years of free ads to prominent anti-trans organizations
Asexual People & Discrimination
Asexual people face vast and shocking discrimination in healthcare and work
Anti-trans movement has a new target: The asexual community
https://files.stonewall.org.uk/production/files/ace_in_the_uk_report_2023.pdf?dm=1725385212
Cis Woman Sent to Male Prison
https://archive.ph/7YuVP (Archive link – Telegraph article)
Wes Streetings’ Questionable Meetings
Nurses meet Wes Streeting over single-sex changing rooms
Mermaids
Mermaids’ statement on the Charity Commission report’s findings
Poor governance at Mermaids amounted to mismanagement, inquiry reveals – GOV.UK
Charity Inquiry: Mermaids – GOV.UK
Loser’s Corner
U.K. Teacher Who Outed Trans Student Banned From Teaching in England “Indefinitely” | Them
Teacher barred ‘indefinitely’ after sending transphobic tweets – Manchester Evening News
Simon Wessely
NHS commissioning » Children and Young People’s Gender Dysphoria Research Oversight Board
Letter to the Prime Minister – reconsider of the appointment of Professor Simon Wessely – Inclusion London (From 2017, contains history and useful links)
Transcript
[intro music plays]Ashleigh: Hello hello everybody and welcome to What The Trans.
Flint: What the Trans!
Ashleigh: Yeah! It’s us, we’re back. Well two of us are back. Alyx is not yet back from her holidays in sunny Westeros.
[laughter]Ashleigh: And by that I mean Dubrovnik in Croatia, which sounds lovely. And we’re very jealous of the photographs aren’t we?
Flint: Yeah. No, they’ve been really cool. Like, it’s been really nice to see all the… the bits and stuff that she’s been getting up to. But what have you been getting up to? Because you were away last week. Yeah.
Ashleigh: Well I was away last time, not because I was on holiday anywhere interesting, but because I was seeing a gig. And so we couldn’t really move the date of the gig and we couldn’t really move the date of the recording either. I wasn’t in it for like, the first time since the pandemic. I did take a break in the pandemic, or just at the start of it. So I haven’t had a break from the podcast in four years. So I figured I deserve to go to a gig, and I went to watch Caravan Palace.
Flint: Hell yeah.
Ashleigh: Oh hell yeah, absolutely. So initially I was like “meh, okay” and I assumed it to be a couple of guys doing like, tape Loops and samples and maybe a vocalist. But no. Got there: six piece band.
Flint: Nice. Yeah, yeah.
Ashleigh: They were so good. And the energy of the place, and the energy of the performers was just… Oh, it was outstanding. And it’s got to be said the venue, the Royal Albert Hall in Manchester was brilliant. It’s an old building and they’ve obviously gone to a certain amount of effort to put in a lift so that disabled people can use it, and put in a couple of aftermarket toilets so that disabled people can use them so that was great. And so we ended up being seated essentially kind of behind the stage.
Flint: Yeah.
Ashleigh: So we were really, really close to the performers, and for whatever reason the saxophone player just kept focusing on us while he was playing. I think he’s probably one of those people that just needs to focus on one…
Flint: Yeah yeah.
Ashleigh: …spot. And we ended up being that spot. And also, all six members of Caravan Palace – if you were to ask an image generator, say “Okay so show me six people who look French”, and it would show you Caravan Palace.
[laughter]Flint: No, that’s great. I love it. Yeah I actually saw them I think in, I think I saw them at Boomtown, must have been around about 2016 sevenish I wanna say. I got into it as like, it’s an easy “put it on when you’re pottering around the house” nice kind of like, dancey but not too in your face. And then they were playing at Boomtown. And I didn’t know that at the time, then I spotted it in, like, the program and went “Oh! Well I might as well”. And I was surprised that it was actually a full band. Like again, you kind of do expect with electro -swing stuff and electronic music to often not be live. But it’s always very refreshing when it is.
Ashleigh: It was tremendous. One of the best gigs I’ve ever been to, ever, I think. Yeah, definitely top 10. Just so… well like, everybody’s dancing and they did a cover of Black – I’m just going to keep gushing about it for a minute or two more, sorry.
Flint: Yeah that’s fine.
Ashleigh: But they did a quick cover of Black Betty.
Flint: On, fuck yeah!
Ashleigh: And they did… So the lead singer pointed to one half of the audience to say “Right, you do Black Betty”, and the other half of the audience and say “Right, you do bam -ba -lam”. So I was like [singing] “Whoa Black Betty, bam -ba -lam”, and everybody’s jumping up and down through all the songs. Just… It’s amazing. And obviously I was there with the partners, both of whom were jumping up and down and having plenty of room to do so, because there weren’t that many people in the disabled spot. And they were both dripping with sweat by the end. [laughter] So fantastic. That was a proper gig and I feel like I deserved that, you know?
Flint: Yeah. No, you definitely did. You definitely did.
Ashleigh: Four years of this without a break and I think I get to go into watch a gig every so often.
Flint: For sure, for sure. I’m also going to be going to a gig soon, actually.
Ashleigh: Oh yes? Yes yes?
Flint: So I’ve got a couple of friends over from America.
Ashleigh: Alright.
Flint: Yeah like I’ve known them for like four years. But they were finally able to come over, like, this last week. So I’ve been taking them to see the sights. We went to Whitby, we’ve gone to Durham. I’ve taken them to, like, “Okay, you’re gonna see the sea” ‘cause they’re from a landlocked state. So they’ve not seen the ocean before. So I took them to see the sea. Get proper fish ‘n chips. Went to, you know, you get them to see an English castle, of course. And the final thing I was like one thing that I think we definitely have to do is you gotta get yourself to a British rave. So we’re gonna go see NIA Archives soon. Which I think is also, it’s… I was really lucky that I noticed the tickets for the gig when I did because I feel like NIA Archives is a really great introduction of like, “Here’s where British rave music is at, at the minute” and also with a lot of history in the sound, like. involved in the sounds of what she makes and I just… Oh, one of my favourite artists. I’d be completely gassed about being able to go anywhere, but being able to go and show some people one of the things I love most about being in this country and this culture, and that’s very exciting. [laughs]
Ashleigh: Yeah.
Flint: They’ve also been loving it, by the way. Like, they love British food, they love – I’ve gotten ‘em proper into Yorkshire puddings and gravy. They love fish and chips. They tried a cherry bakewell: life-changing, apparently. I’m loving it. I’m loving it. [laughs]
Ashleigh: What do they..? I’m glad they’re liking it. The thing that sticks out to me is what do they think of the sea, then?
Flint: Oh, they loved it. They were like, “Oh, this is insane” like, it’s just kind of, like, the… being able to just see a full horizon.
Ashleigh: Yes.
Flint: And like, the level of history… There was one point where we were just sat on a bench next to some… it was some old I think artillery gun from hundreds of years ago. And we were just chatting, I think finishing off fish and chips and that. And then we looked over and there was a little plaque on this thing. We looked over and read it and he’s just like “That cannon is older than my country. Oh”.
Ashleigh: Oh okay. Nothing like a trip to Europe for a sense of perspective.
Flint: [laughs] Yeah! So I think it’s just that they loved seeing the sea, like they dipped their…. My friend got their shoes off and went into the sea a little bit. So he can now say he put his feet in the North Sea, which is quite cool. And yeah, they – they really loved it. They really get – they keep saying they don’t want to go home and that they might just stick around, or might find a way back here more permanently. And I’m like “Please!” [laughs]
Ashleigh: Yeah, do it. Yeah. Welcome aboard, comrade.
Flint: Literally.
Ashleigh: Well I’m glad you hear you’ve been having a nice time but we’ll try not to keep each other too long then, for recording this episode which we hope will be a fairly brief episode. We think. Because the last episode very nearly ran quite long. And we had to be ruthless in the editing bay. So as a kind of peace offering to our editors (whom we love)….
Flint: Of course.
Ashleigh: …we are keeping this one reasonably concise. So let’s crack on.
Flint: Yeah let’s get into – well I suppose we don’t really want to, but let’s get into the news.
Ashleigh: Let’s get into it, yeah. Aww.
[sound effect: disappointed crowd]Ashleigh: It’s a bit of a mixed bag this week in terms of what’s good and what isn’t, and with starting with the latter, unfortunately. As reported by Trans Safety Network, Scotland’s only gender clinic, the Chalmers GIC, has paused all surgery referrals for patients who are under 25. And that includes vaginoplasty for trans women and top surgery and phalloplasty for trans men. But why, I hear you ask. Why would they do this? Well get that bell ready, because according to a letter that they’ve sent to an MSP that represents one of the patients, they’re doing this because of the Cass Review.
[sound effect: bell]Ashleigh: East Lothian Health and Social Care Partnership, which is the overarching NHS trust that runs Chalmers GIC stated in the aforementioned letter that the referrals were paused from May 2nd 2024 and that for people aged over 25 would restart again on October 17th. Not that they actually, you know, told anybody about this. There were no public statements made about pausing the referrals. So, for people aged 25 and over they’ve just had a pointless six month delay crowbarred into their medical transition. But for those under 25 it’s even worse, because referrals will now not restart until a review of the entire referral process is taken place. NHS Lothian said that they…
[ominous music over quote]
Ashleigh: “Hoped to begin this piece of work shortly but do not yet have a time scale for this work”. Also in that letter NHS Lothian says that this now indefinite delay has been put in place as a direct result of the Cass Review.
[sound effect: bell]Ashleigh: Forgive me the lengthy quote but here’s what they said:
[ominous music over quote]Ashleigh: “In Scotland the DCMO Report and Cass Review implications for Scotland recommended that services in Scotland should review current transfer arrangements to ensure continuity of care and support over this potentially vulnerable period. We understand that the reference to 17 to 25 year olds was intended to refer to people up to their 25th birthday, i.e up to the age of 24 years. In considering the wider implications of this recommendation and the Cass Review, NHS Lothian decided to review the service for those aged under 25 years at Lothian GIC. This process will assess the need for additional considerations and/or a different service design to provide the required continuity of care and support for those aged 18 to 24 years within adult gender services in Lothian”. Now we’re pretty sure that an indefinite gap before surgical interventions can take place does not actually provide continuity of care and support. It sounds kind of more like the opposite of that. Also, I want to stress again that none of the patients were informed about any of this until the middle of September, four months after they had paused all referrals. Again from the letter, quote:
[ominous music over quote]Ashleigh: “The clinical team have responded to queries from individual patients and from 13th September have been provided with detailed information about the pause to share with those attending the clinic. Those contacting the clinic have been referred to a clinician for discussion and direct support”. So that sounds a little bit like the patients on the waiting list aren’t being informed of the delay or offered any support over it unless they either happen to have an appointment or directly get in touch to ask why they’ve been kept waiting for seemingly no reason. I’ve just got to point out again that none of this would have come out at all were it not for an MSP writing a letter to NHS Lothian and receiving the response that all those quotes have come from. I mean, lack of transparency much?
Flint: I think it’s exactly the kind of thing that we kept warning about Cass would be used for. It’s a worst case scenario I think, because we are seeing that it is being used almost exclusively and explicitly to prevent trans people from getting care, and to prevent them from rightly calling out and trying to receive some kind of equality, some kind of accessibility within their health care that cis people get every day. At least on the basis that they are cis. It’s ridiculous that it had to come down to an MSP writing a letter. I’m very glad they did.
Ashleigh: Yes. Hmm.
Flint: Like I think letter writing and having sort of a conversation with authorities from the perspective of “Hey, what are you doing?” and “How are you doing things?” and being inquisitive is a really important thing that like… it can feel really fruitless, because often we’re told to, like “Write to your MP” and this, that and the other, and you know that you will get back cookie cutter letter templates. You know that you’ll get back a lot of often nice pleasantries that mean nothing, or at worst you get a lot of rubbish wrapped up in political sounding writing. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t still a good use for at points. And it doesn’t mean that it’s perhaps not worth putting that effort in and just making as much preparations for the fact that you’re going to be getting blood from a stone.
Ashleigh: Yes.
Flint: But that’s how we get gold, right? So I’m glad that this has been written. I’m glad that this has been able to be, like, put on a wider scale of awareness.
Ashleigh: Yes, yeah.
Flint: You cannot tell me that this is not exactly what we all knew this was going to lead towards.
Ashleigh: Yes. Yeah exactly.
Flint: And yeah, it just feels very “told you so”.
Ashleigh: A little bit. And unfortunately that’s not the last time that’s going to come up in this episode. Like, we’re not gloating.
Flint: Yeah, yeah.
Ashleigh: It’s really important to say that. But because we were far from the only ones who were concerned about “Well look, this is what this is going to be used for. This is clearly what they’re moving towards”.
Flint: Yeah.
Ashleigh: And here… Now they have the pretext in the Cass Report to be able to say “Nope, we’re not going to – we’re not going to provide any services and we don’t have to tell you why”. But the Cass Report was talking about people under 18, right? And the only point it made with regards to people who were, you know, 17 to 25 years old was that they should be offered continuity of care.
Flint: Yes.
Ashleigh: And it’s just Lothian have done the opposite. There’s been no care ordered now. Those people are now just going to age out of the service.
Flint: Yeah, yeah.
Ashleigh: Because they’ve said “Oh well, we’ll, you know, we’re going to set up a proper review, but we don’t know when. And we’re probably not going to mention it when we do”.
Flint: Yeah, like, when I say like, we told you so. I mean, like, the wider trans community, not necessarily just What The Trans?!. Because it was like, we all saw the signs. It’s exactly that Cass has given permission to so many different bodies to do this, right? Because they seemingly, so far, just get to put in the words “Cass Review” and boom! Magical hall pass. You can say whatever you want, you can decide whatever you want. It doesn’t matter how much involvement trans people have in this, it doesn’t matter how much research there is by many people on this. No. Cass says it’s okay. And if there’s a way that we can tie any kind of decision, any kind of restriction of access or care back to Cass, then we will. And deal with it, is kind of the message that I’m getting.
Ashleigh: Pretty much, yeah. It’s… ugh! Infuriating.
Flint: [laughs] It is.
Ashleigh: It is, isn’t it. And speaking of things that are infuriating…
Flint: This is infuriating, unfortunately. Sorry folks, because it’s dealing with organisations in our community not doing their best. In fact, no. Doing bad. Queers For Palestine are calling on Stonewall to end its relationships with arms companies. And for those for whom it might be a bit weird to hear that Stonewall has positive relationships with arms companies in the first place, unfortunately it is not an isolated incident. As Queers For Palestine have explained, British Aerospace Systems (BAE Systems) is a Stonewall diversity champion and placed in their top 100 employers for LGBTQ people list of this year, as they also had been last year. And that’s not all. Stonewall also has a partnership with Raytheon, which is the second largest Arms manufacturer providing weapons to Israel. They also as recently as this month, October 2024, have been fined 950 million dollars by the US Department of Justice for quote “Defective pricing, foreign bribery and export control schemes” unquote. Queers For Palestine also drew attention to the fourth largest manufacturer, Northrop Grumman, being awarded bronze in the Stonewall Equality Index. It’s very clear, given how loud the conversation regarding Palestine has been over the last few years, that Stonewall has not considered the actions of these companies a deal breaker in giving them accolades regardless of how it reflects on them. BAE has also sponsored pride events in London, Surrey, Portsmouth and Blackpool. So make no mistake ,this is a wider issue that needs handling as it’s getting worse. In my opinion, these companies have no right to be in our spaces. These award shows and the organizations allowing this pinkwashing are risking their future, and by extension, the future of our protection and rights and advocacy by being so supportive of such publicly decried entities on the basis of “It’s nice to work there”. And that’s kind of where they are evaluating them at, as well. It’s kind of like a real issue because realistically, what are they upholding when this is who they reward? Like, I don’t care how good it would be to work on the Death Star if you’re working on the Death Star.
Ashleigh: [laughs] Yeah, yeah. Pretty much. We have made statements about pinkwashing before more widely than on the podcast. We’ve pulled out of an award ceremony because of the pinkwashing that was taking place. Now that in particular was about the climate. And this, given Israel’s recent actions, the fact that there is even an LGBTQ+ in defense awards system in… The fact that that exists…
Flint: Yeah.
Ashleigh: …kind of makes me a bit sick.
Flint: It does for me as well. It really, kind of like, I actually did like a double take when I saw it. Because I saw it and went “Oh. Oh wait, what?” I understand why many people who work for many of these companies would want to see their workplace be supportive of queerness, right? But there’s a very big difference between making a place inclusive to work and engaging in the public PR campaigns that centre around advertising your industry as queer friendly, when in reality there is indiscriminate bloodshed that is happening at best, and most of the time very discriminate bloodshed happening.
Ashleigh: Yes.
Flint: I think that, yeah, this… They’re really walking a tightrope of history here, because you cannot undo this. You can’t undo these actions. Like, realistically, these companies are putting at risk the infrastructure that is used for our advocacy, for furthering our rights, oftentimes furthering protection against the persecution, against oppression, against violence that is put upon queer people by the military industrial complex. And by authorities and by the recipients of the sales of the quote “Defence” that they will be selling. So I don’t think that you making a support network in your workplace at one of those companies for queer people quite cuts the mark.
Ashleigh: So I did… When I was running a workshop session for, you know, an LGBTQ organization, I actually forget which one [laughs]. But I was running this presentation online, and I had my slides and everything. And there was BAE Systems, who are users an example, and the fact that they had sponsored Prides in Portsmouth, Blackpool, Surrey, and said, so, you know, I had one slide saying “Hey BAE Systems; apparently it’s a good place to work, they’re in the Stonewall equality index, they’ve sponsored pride. But also they do this, this and this”. Like, on the next slide it was about “Here’s some of the bad things that BAE Systems have done”. And in the discussion afterwards, there was someone who said that “Well they were in the Stonewall equality index, what’s the problem? Why are these, you know,. why are you attacking BAE Systems?” Like, were you listening? [laugh]
Flint: Yeah, yeah. That’s infuriating. That’s really infuriating, because that’s exactly why this is such a fucking big problem.
Ashleigh: Yes, yes.
Flint: Because they want you to be able to have something to respond with like that. And, like, to be able to go “But they’re on this, but they’re legitimated”. It’s why for me I think the answer for this is: keep building up the grassroots Prides, keep going to the Prides are protests. For the people who, you know, have to buy tickets if they want to go to the big Prides near them, maybe don’t. If you disagree with these companies being involved, you know, if we disagree with award shows being used more to build networking connections for sponsors than it is for actually furthering the queer community, then we should make our disagreement with that as vocal as Queers For Palestine have. And I think it’s really good that they’re calling on Stonewall to remove their relationships with arms companies. Because it’s really really needed, and we’re already having a much wider conversation about how big of an issue this is off the back of them, you know, making it a more explicit and clear demand for “Here’s what we want you to do and here’s why we want you to do it”.
Ashleigh: Yes.
Flint: So good on ‘em. Hmm. However…
Ashleigh: Yes.
Flint: Speaking about…
Ashleigh: …big organizations that really could be doing better with the massive platform and influence they have…
Flint: Mmm, yeah. Maybe. [laughs]
Ashleigh: Yeah, great segue. Well done Ashleigh.
Flint: Pat on the back.
[furious slapping]Ashleigh: Let’s talk about Google. So you may remember this, but Google did always used to try and pretend that they are the “good” tech company. Apparently one of their founding values was “Don’t Be Evil”. But I’m sure we’ve all been thinking about how much things have changed. And to add more fuel to that particular fire, the Daily Dot have published an exclusive on October 23rd, revealing that Google’s Ads Grants Program had provided three staunchly anti-trans groups with hundreds of thousands of dollars in free advertising from Google. The Alliance Defending Freedom, the Family Research Council and Do No Harm are all signed up to the Ad Grants Program, which offers an advertising stipend of $10,000 per month for all the charities who qualify for it. Now, we’ve at least mentioned the Alliance Defending Freedom before. They’ve been part of Ad Grants since September 2020, meaning that they might have received a total of around half a million dollars of free advertising over the years. They’ve used this to run ads like:
[ominous music over quotes]Ashleigh: “What is gender ideology and how do we fight it? and “Preserving Women’s Sports: male athletes who identify as female have won race after race, all the way up to state. Here are some of the championship titles that male athletes have taken for girls”. Which I’m guessing led to a blank page, since that hasn’t actually happened.
Flint: Yeah. Like, that’s literally not true. [laughs]
Ashleigh: Exactly, yeah. Just straight away not true. But then when has the ADF let the truth stand in the way of their campaigns?
Flint: Mmm.
Ashleigh: The Family Research Council and Do No Harm have signed up to Ad Grants a little bit more recently, in August 2024 and April 2023 respectively, but both have used the program to run their advertising. The FRC’s adverts have so far been a little bit more mundane, advertising its Bible app and access to a Bible video content with Pastor Tony Perkins. Do No Harm have used it to run similar ads to the ADF, with one reading “Save America’s children: Do No Harm will fight to protect children from dangerous gender affirming care”. But it looks like all three groups could run afoul of Google’s terms of service for Ad Grants, which state that the Ad Grants adverts quote “Should not promote opposition or anti-sentiment related to beliefs about protecting groups, including sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or other characteristics that are associated with systemic discrimination or marginalization”. So there’s at least something in the terms of service that it looks like all three of these organizations have been breaching. All three of these organizations have been designated as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Flint. Yeah. People that are deeply morally corrupt, doing things that are deeply morally corrupt. What a surprise.
Ashleigh: Shocker. Yeah, shocking stuff. [ominous music] Amazing scenes. Huge if true. [music ends] [laughter]
Flint: I don’t know. It’s one of those things where you kind of really feel like you’re getting into a conspiracy episode of a TV show or something.
Ashleigh: Yeah. Doesn’t it?
Flint: And then you’re like, you see this report you’re like, but it was true! But it was true all along!
[sample: Jonathan Frakes] Is it possible this story is true? Yes it is. You’re right; it’s fact. Yes.Flint: Because I swear I, you know, we’ve all spoken about the way in which algorithms are being gamed or doctored, especially by companies and by ads in order to push people towards certain things. When you see consistently what very clearly seems to be adverts that are antithetical to the things that they are attached to as advertisements. Like for example seeing… I’ve seen before on queer videos, Christian adverts that have dog whistles for conversion in them, and things like that. It’s horrifying to see it be fully 100% confirmed true.
Ashleigh: Yes.
Flint: But it, just, yeah. It has that weird Twilight Zone-esque mind trip to it, because you feel a little bit like Fox Mulder or some shit.
Ashleigh: Yeah.
Flint: No one wants to feel like Spooky Mulder. He very rarely has a good time.
[sample: David Duchovney] Do you think I’m spooky?Ashleigh: So much of being trans though sounds like a conspiracy.
Flint: Yes.
Ashleigh: Like so much of what we’ve covered on the podcast, you know, over the years, and even, you know, in the last year since you’ve started joining us for these episodes, Flint. So much of it is…
[over X -Files theme]Ashleigh: Oh yeah but the Alliance Defending Freedom and other organisations are providing, you know, hush money to organizations like For Women Scotland, and like the LGB alliance. And they’re being paid by these organisations in America specifically to push a certain point of view over here.
[music stops]Ashleigh: And it sounds…
[sample: David Duchovney] Spooky?Ashleigh: Wildly conspiratorial, doesn’t it?
Flint: Yeah. Yeah.
Ashleigh: But it’s true.
[sample: Jonathan Frakes] It happened. You were correct. It’s fact.Flint: I think one of the biggest problems with talking about these things is actually the way that the societal concept of conspiracy theories has changed over time. Because now it’s pretty difficult I think to talk about, or criticize some of the things that happen here, well a lot of the things that happened in this space, because people expect a certain amount of questioning authority to come with a certain amount of… I’m trying to not use ableist language because a lot of the conspiratorial stuff is like, baked into ableist language of like, cranks and kooks and stuff like that I don’t think is helpful. But like, I think one of the things that does make that feeling so stark and make it quite difficult sometimes to talk straight up about a lot of the things that happen with bad actors against trans people, is that societal concoction of the conspiracy theorist that I think a lot of people have (rightly so) attached to very very detached viewpoints. But the way in which those people in those communities, like Flat Earth, Q-Anon and things like that have become laughing stocks, I think (a) means that we end up minimizing the actual danger that a lot of those spaces and those places have. And (b) makes it harder for people who are genuinely seriously questioning and showing proof of how much genuine conspiracy there is… Because remember, conspiracies are just people coming together to try and make sure a certain thing’s happened in a clandestine manner, right? So there are many many examples of conspiracy theories that are true, and then we learn about the later. And there are examples such as the CIA in the way that they’ve handled crack cocaine. I think that it makes it harder to have those real conversations.
Ashleigh: It does, yeah.
Flint: Because it’s just easy to be labeled as a goof, or yeah, things are bad for people online with anti transphobes, but like… Anti transphobe? That’s just a transphobe. [laughs]
Ashleigh: It’s so frustrating, isn’t it? And you’ve outlined exactly why. Very nicely done, I think. Yeah, honestly if we wanted to talk about the conspiracy theory space and how difficult and toxic that has made a number of other societal movements, we would be here all fucking day! So…
Flint: Yeah. So let’s talk about some reasonable and grounded factual information and data that’s been discovered.
Ashleigh: Sounds great. Let’s do that.
Flint: Yeah. So Yasmin Benoit, who is a noted asexual researcher and activist, recently released a report with Stonewall into asexual discrimination in work, healthcare, social life and other areas. Which is something that has barely really been researched on. So this is actually really groundbreaking data. The report found that ace people make up around about one to two percent of the population, and that like, the majority of ace people choose not to reveal it. Only one in four came out to their friends, according to the data they’ve got. It also compared data between groups on the same topic, like finding higher rates of discrimination. For example, in regards to healthcare, 18.1% of ace respondents said that disclosure had a negative impact on their care, compared to 7.1% of all respondents. Yasmin has written before in June of last year about the way the ace people are targeted by transphobes, and how asexuality has been adopted as part of the anti-trans movement, showing it to be like a clear next target, and fearmongering about asexuality and children. Which, by the way, that’s really really weird, but whatever. She makes the very important point that these movements, whether attacking trans people or asexual people, or other groups, the funding is usually coming from the same groups of organisations in the Christian far right. So ultimately, the report’s recommendations are that asexual people get legal protection in equality and hate law, something that has also been encouraged for non-binary people who currently have protection confirmed under case law, but not in the words of the Equality Act itself. And like, a really interesting thing here is that fact about the one to two percent, which is very similar to the population of trans people in the UK. And I think it’s really good to see the effectiveness of combining efforts. Lke, there’s something that Yasmin said in the article that she wrote for… that she wrote last year, about transphobes weaponizing asexuality. And she said “An attack against one of us is an attack against all of us”, which I know that we will have all probably heard before. But I think also in that vein, protection for one of us can beget protection for all of us. And I think that’s something that’s really interesting about these areas of queerness that are a bit less societally immediately seen as relevant and valid, right? The ones that are within queer spaces, obviously understood and recognised as part of the community, but you know, if you pop to the shops or go on a random bus they aren’t necessarily people who are gonna know even what asexuality is. And I think yeah, that kind of like, recognizing that when there’s a weakness in the defense of one group, it’s often a hole in a sieve that is a weakness of defence for many people. And I dig that. I hope that this furthers the fight for both.
Ashleigh: Yeah.
Flint: What do you think about the data and whatnot?
Flint: So I thought it was interesting… Oh, I’m trying to work out how to phrase this, I guess, because I myself have identified as asexual in the past. As has one of my partners as well. But I don’t want to say that and make it sound like everybody grows out of it, or that it changes for everybody. Sexual orientations can and do sort of change and flex over time, and that is fine. It’s also fine if it doesn’t. There’s no shame in asexuality, and there shouldn’t be, and it should be recognized and embraced as the part of the LGBTQA community to which it belongs.
Flint: Yeah.
Ashleigh: I think. With all that out of the way, I thought this was quite interesting. And I think it does, it kind of ties into what we were just talking about in terms of asexuality having been targeted by the anti-trans movement. Because we were just talking about the anti -trans movement.
Flint: Yeah.
Ashleigh: You know? And how they use, kind of fearmongering and trying to weaponize any little thing they can to try and make people fear the trans and indeed ace communities. And I do think that there’s probably quite a few trans people that I’ve known who I’ve identified, and did still do identify as ace.
Flint: Yeah. I think there’s a venn diagram with a lot of crossover.
Ashleigh: Oh yes
Flint: Between those communities between our communities, should I say. I think… I just have to bring up how deeply fucking bizarre it is, how weird it is, especially when your whole platform and ticket is meant to be protecting children from sexualization, to then argue that children are becoming too asexual. It’s just very bizarre to be concerned about the sexualities of children when you’re talking about a group of people who likely haven’t figured that much out about that in themselves yet, and need space to feel comfortable to do so.
Ashleigh: So I must say, I’ve not read the totality of Yasmin’s report, but you’ve piqued my interest, so I probably will.
Flint: Yeah, well we’ll link to it in the – because the full thing is available, we’ll link to it in the description for anyone that wants to see. There’s lots of juicy facts and figures in there. It’s very well presented. I really liked it. [laughs]
Ashleigh: Awesome. Alright. So we’ll have a look at that.
Flint: Speaking of… No, no.
Ashleigh: No there’s no segue for this one. So we’re not going to spend too long on this particular story, but today in “More things that we said would happen”, we look north to Scotland where a cis woman was recently sent to a male prison, apparently due to her masculine features.
Flint: Fucking hell.
Ashleigh: Yeah. The woman appeared at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court and was remanded in custody. She was then wrongly processed as a man and detained overnight at HMP Perth, a maximum security prison, before being transferred to Cornton Vale, Scotland’s only women’s prison, the following day. Now according to a source speaking to the Telegraph, taking a female to a male prison and leaving her there is a shocker. An assumption was made based on someone’s appearance and not much else. Gender in the prison system has become such a hot topic that management will be modified by this.
Flint: As they should be.
Ashleigh: But the Telegraph ran this story and said “The incident fuels gender controversy in Scotland” apparently without a trace of irony or any awareness that they themselves are part of the reason that controversy exists in the first place.
Flint: Ugh!
Ashleigh: And speaking of groups who are so close to getting it, the Telegraph article also quotes For Women’s Scotland, who say that this woman has definitely been put at risk: “It’s incredibly dangerous for any woman to be in a male prison”. Is it? Is it really? Well we’re all tickled to hear you say that, For Women Scotland. Now extend that thinking just a little bit further.
Flint: Oh, blood boiled.
Ashleigh: Yeah. For sure.
Flint: Blood fully fucking boiled. Be ashamed. Be mortified. Be absolutely fucking aghast at yourselves, honestly. Policing gender gets you nowhere but here.
Ashleigh: Exactly. Exactly. We theorized this many times, saying that, you know, policing trans people to this extent is only going to result in cis people being judged by their appearance, because they’ve got short hair or they’re really tall or, vice versa, if it’s a cis man who looks a bit fem. This is what it leads to. Every time.
Flint: Truly, yeah. It’s also the fact that this is being responded to widely in a pretty reasonable manner, even by entirely unreasonable actors.
Ashleigh: Yes.
Flint: Because the fact that this isn’t about a trans person means that they’re thinking gets to be more linear on this.
Ashleigh: Hmm.
Flint: And it’s like, you’re coming to the right conclusion, as you said. Like, about, it’s dangerous for a woman to be in a man’s prison. Exactly. That’s what we keep telling you. [laughs]
Ashleigh: Yeah.
Flint: That’s what we keep telling you. But you don’t want to listen, unless that lines up with a very particular specific view as to what a woman is. And also as to what the most valuable woman is. Because we all know that that level of shock and horror would be different depending upon how much of the facts of the case were known, whether that person was known to be white or not. Because so many of the people that are respond – like For Women Scotland have ties to deeply racist groups. And it’s just, it’s gross. It’s very gross.
Ashleigh: Yes. Yes it is. So the woman in question went completely unnamed through the article and…
Flint: Good.
Ashleigh: Yeah, absolutely. Good. But you just can’t shake the feeling that if the article was about somebody who was trans, they would have named and shamed her like *that*.
Flint: Yes. Yes absolutely.
Ashleigh: Anyway, that’s enough of that one. What have we got next?
Flint: Yeah, next up in other stomach turning news, weasley Wes has met with the nurses in Darlington that have taken legal action against their trust for having a trans inclusive workplace policy for using facilities like changing rooms, toilets and showers. In the least surprising turn of events, he has said that he is horrified at their treatment and that something has gone wrong in our society regarding single sex spaces. The nurses who, by the way, set up a union after finding a lack of support in the already available options (I wonder why) took up action after their trust rightly told them that they need to broaden their mindset, once they raise concerns about a trans woman who they work with using the same facilities as them, as is allowed under their work policy and as is in line with the Equalities Act, bearing in mind that the trust that they work for had already provided a separate changing space for the nurses who feel uncomfortable. Wes has come out in full support of them over the 45-minute meeting, claiming it’s not been taken seriously enough. And let’s be clear here, this is a nothing burger. The trust has given the accommodations to them and they simply will not be happy until a trans woman is unfairly dismissed for being trans. What is concerning is the way that regardless of the outcome of this case, it will likely still be reported on in anti-trans circles as a victory. But here’s hoping it ends up in Losers Corner, right? I mean realistically though, like, the good thing is that this case is pretty simple. Like, it isn’t about winning the issue at hand that’s the matter, it’s about furthering the heinous conversation about trans people being unsuitable for public life, right? And like, creating another piece of legal precedent that regardless of it being in their favour or not, can be referenced to in that conversation to make any argument appear more legitimate and less like…. you fact check, is the real concern here. I think they know that they aren’t likely to win. I think, you know, that the second that no union’s willing to take you on unless you fucking make one. Wes Streeting like 50 to 100, however many years in the future, he’s going to be put in the history books as one of them bad gays.
Ashleigh: Yeah.
Flint: That’s kind of where I’m at with him.
Ashleigh: Hmm. I agree.
Flint: But we do have not just terrible news.
Ashleigh: Yeah. We have some stuff, although this next story kind of could go either way.
Flint: Mmm. Yeah.
Ashleigh: Because we’re talking about Mermaids, who have been in the news once again recently. The charity commission began an investigation of them back in 2022, during which time Mermaids have been attacked regularly in the press and have had a change of CEO. Now the report from the charity commission has been released. And we believe it’s been framed in terms that make attacking the charity easier. So the report has a few findings, but the main one is quote “The commission has concluded that there has been mismanagement in the administration of the charity by the trustees in post, and that the trustees have accepted the charity, historically, had not been governed to the standards the commission expects. The charity grew considerably in a short period of time and the management and administration of the charity failed to adapt in line with this growth”. The commission’s report began due to a number of complaints that they received, some of which were from members of the public, surrounding the advice Mermaids gave to young trans people and their families. Mermaids have released their own statement now the commissions report has been released which says in part quote “The report states, as we anticipated, that there is no finding of misconduct at Mermaids. The commission has also confirmed, as we have repeatedly asserted, that we have not provided medical advice or acted improperly in our work with children, young people and their families”. Because that was what some of the original complaints hinged on, they said that, well they’re giving inappropriate advice about puberty blockers, and about chest binding and about a few other things. So the commission has kind of sidestepped that and talked about the trustees instead. So there seems to be some difference in terminology between mismanagement and misconduct. The commission report talks about mismanagement and does find fault with the trustees and governance, but not with any of the advice given to young people and their families, which is what the complaints to the charity commission centered on. The commission report and the Mermaid statement seem like they’re talking about two quite different things. Bit of a mess, really. It’s about picking through the commissioner said one thing and Mermaids have said another. I am glad to see that the complaint that was specifically raised by members of the public, you know, i.e. TERFs, who have complained that Mermaids is giving improper advice about, you know, puberty blockers and whatever else. That’s been completely sidestepped, and found that there was some mismanagement in terms of the trustees, which at a higher level you have to have trustees… a board of trustees governing your charity. But there seems to have been some problems there, but not with the initial thrust of the complaints.
Flint: I’ll be honest. In my personal opinion, I think if this was about a charity that wasn’t quite such a hotbed topic at the time, I think this report would make it clearer to state that it’s found mismanagement, which is not the misconduct that it was investigating, if that makes sense. Like, they were looking into if there’s misconduct, right? If there is a negligible, you know, potentially liable level of fuckery happening. And to then say “We’re looking into misconduct of xyz claims”, and then in your conclusion not put in there anything that you found that was positive, but only focus on “Well we found mismanagement”, it’s like, someone that’s in TERF circles will look at this and go “Ha! Fucking got ‘em. Got ‘em”.
Ashleigh: Yes. Yes.
Flint: And someone like us can look at this and go “Oh, so you’re doing it like that, huh?”. Because when you compare the two, it makes Mermaid’s statement look untruthful. It looks like Mermaids is doing what TERFs normally do, which is twisting around a finding to suit them by playing games with the negative space and whatever. But I feel like that’s kind of what’s happening in the charity commission’s, like, report on it. And so Mermaids is kind of correcting that by saying so this means that because they only found mismanagement it means there’s no misconduct and it means that,you know, none of the claims that we knew to be false have made it through to being a final thing that’s been discovered as true or anything like that. It feels like it’s playing a lot of games with, like, legalese, and I don’t like that. Don’t like that at all. I think be prepared to see a lot of manipulation surrounding this in the media. I mean I already saw from the Guardian the way they had reported on this was “Trans children’s charity required to rewrite policy on puberty blockers”, which again totally indicates the exact opposite of what Mermaids had said, and in reality is technically true, but also is not. Because it’s indicating that they had a policy that was terrible, when what it really is talking about is you do need to rewrite this so it’s in line with the Cass Review. Which isn’t the same thing.
Ashleigh: It’s not the same thing. But then again the fact that they’ve said “Well you have to rewrite your policies to be in line with the Cass Review”, when the Cass Review is such a stitch up, it’s just…
Flint: Yeah it’s horrifying.
Ashleigh: Yeah, yeah. Because what advice are they supposed to give now? “Oh well sorry, can’t get puberty blockers anymore. Sucks to be you. Byeee!”
Flint: Yeah, yeah.
Ashleigh: You know. That’s not really what a charity that’s set up to support people, that’s not really what they’re supposed to do. So…
Flint: Yeah, yeah.
Ashleigh: However, we have something that is unambiguously cheerful, don’t we?
Flint: Yeah. Yeah we do. Talking about findings that are clear and concise and to the point: this week’s Losers’ Corner.
[sample: acapella singing “Losers’ Corner”]Flint: This week we’re heading to class to learn about a teacher who can no longer teach. The former educator in question had been posting publicly about the trans children in her school, documenting some students’ transitions through her own disapproving lens. She referred to trans kids as oppressors and now has rightfully been prohibited from teaching indefinitely, after regulating bodies were made aware of our online presence. She will be able to appeal in two years but it’s unlikely she’ll be allowed back, as they claimed it was necessary to maintain public confidence in teaching. So that’s a pretty big like, we’ve got to – we’ve got to remove your ability indefinitely, so that this still looks like a good job to have. Wow. Wild. Just kind of wild. Until further notice, school’s out. That’s it. Nice. Simple. Easy. This person outing trans kids, talking terribly about them, completely abusing the position of trust and care that she had been placed in. And now rightfully has had that privilege taken away from her.
Ashleigh: This came up in the Manchester Evening News, which you may have heard me bitch about the fact that it’s impossible to read the Manchester Evening News without getting dozens of adverts forced upon you. And then you remember you’ve got ad blocker. Or at least that’s what happened with me and with Flint. Hannan is now banned from teaching indefinitely. So goodbyeee!
Flint: Bye.
Ashleigh: Ta ta. Thanks babes. Don’t let the door hit you in the arse on the way out.
Flint: [laughs] Well. After all of this news…
Ashleigh: Hmm.
Flint: You hungry?
Ashleigh: Little bit. Yeah, I could… I could eat.
Flint: Yeah. Let’s go through the meat.
[sample: people saying ‘“meat” repeatedly]Ashleigh: So let’s talk initially about Simon Wesley, okay. So Simon Wesley is a psychiatrist who has just recently been appointed to chair the National Children And Young People’s Gender Dysphoria Research Oversight Board which, yeah… That’s not an acronym I want to even try. So that’s a board which… they have leadership and oversight of the research program which, well… They plan to underpin the redesign and redevelopment of the children and young people’s NHS gender services. So it includes a data linkage study, a puberty blocker study… So that’s the puberty blocker trial that we’ve talked about before. So he’s the chair of the oversight board for that program. And unfortunately he’s got one or two problems. He’s got considerable authority over the entire research program, and he’s the one who’s going to be liaising with the principal investigators of the individual research studies. Now, he’s a psychiatrist, has worked in numerous other positions and well, let’s just really quickly have a bit of a look at his greatest shits, because he’s argued that certain conditions are simply psychogenic and lack a physical basis and aren’t, you know, physically there, including PTSD. He has considered sufferers of ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome as “malingerers”, and led the study design for the Pace Trial, which is now literally taught in universities as a textbook case for how to not design a trial.
Flint: Whoa.
Ashleigh: I’m just gonna quote Trans Safety Network here: “Simon Wesley has been criticized for his impact on research into ME, interventions around the NICE guidelines and DWP assessor guidelines for the condition. Sean O’Neill who is the father of Maeve Boothby O’Neill, a young woman with ME who died in 2021, directly blames Simon Wesley for the results of his influences on public narratives of disbelief about the condition in a statement during the inquest into Maeve’s death. Mr. O’Neill has also called out the medical orthodoxy that ME/CFS is a behavioral problem, and in his statement he said “This orthodoxy led to Maeve being stigmatized in a way that so many patients are. The view is taken that they are malingerers or feigning illness, or somehow the parents are responsible, and we’ll come back to that. It is a view held by many powerful individuals in the NHS”.” So that was Mr. O’Neill’s statement to a coroner in August of 2024. It was published in the Guardian as well at that time. So he has been assisting the DWP as well, right? It’s pretty rare for a doctor as part of a clinical trial to be funded by and assisting the DWP, but essentially it seems like his views on ME/CFS have influenced the DWP’s thinking about the condition as well. And that’s not good. So this man, who frequently looks at, you know, he never saw a condition that he liked the look of, basically. Who doesn’t really have much truck with the things that he’s been asked to examine. And he is now the man who is in charge of the redesign for the National Children And Young People’s Gender Dysphoria Research Oversight Board. So that is not great, obviously. But we’re going to come at this from the perspective of two people who are disabled who are also trans.
Flint: Yes.
Ashleigh: So what did you make of Mr. Wesley?
Flint: I think he is exactly the kind of doctor that a government would love to listen to, because all he does is think of ways to tell people that they aren’t sick and they deserve fuck all. And I think that there’s a special place in hell for cunts like this.
Ashleigh: Yeah.
Flint: But emotions aside, [laughs]…
Ashleigh: Yes.
Flint: And trust me there’s a lot. There is a very serious, like, real connection between disability and transness. We’ve spoken before about how transness was initially constructed as a disability when, at least our country, and western countries were trying to find a way to sort of operationalize what transness is into a sort of societal framework, right? This relationship never stopped. It’s just morphed over time. I don’t consider my transness a disability. I think most trans people, 99.999% probably wouldn’t. I do however find that my transness is often used as a method of disabling me, of making me less able to access spaces or less able to access a certain level of decorum, or inclusion that most people get for basic stuff. The way in which institutionally it can make it difficult, from little things like getting your shopping, because you have to put down a different title, through to being able to, you know, receive services in hospitals and things like that. When I talk about disability, I’m not talking about the things that are wrong with a person’s body. I don’t frame it like that. I think a lot of the things that are disabilities of course have very big negative impacts upon the body, but I think that there’s a lot of things, like ADHD for example, that I see as disabling me because of the way in which society puts up barriers for those with my neurotype. Does that mean that ADHD is a disabling thing? No it means that ADHD is a thing that is weaponized to disable me from interacting in society to the same level that others can. And we’re basically talking about the social model of disability, right?
Ashleigh: Yes.
Flint: But I find that sometimes when we talk about the social model of disability without properly considering the ways that it affects oppression, and the way that it affects things intersectionality, means that I have seen a somewhat, sort of, corporate co -opting, I’m going to say off the top of my dome, of like… I feel like when certain people in groups realised and found out about the social model of disability, they found a way to steep it in neoliberalism and basically use it to say “Oh but you aren’t disabled, it’s just these barriers in your way. You have to get over them”. And it’s then used as a way to, again, sometimes… And I’m not talking about – I’m not talking about the social model disability, mind, I’m talking about the way in which the social model is used and weaponized by companies and workplaces to deny people accommodation on the basis of like, “You have to overcome these things, you know. Like, it’s not your body it’s just this”, and things like that. In the same way that corporate spaces co -opted the idea of mindfulness and meditation to mean “Sit down and take a few minutes to not think about the ways in which we’re fucking you over and the ways of what you are overworked and overstressed, and then that way you can come back to work quicker”.
Ashleigh: Pretty much.
Flint: Instead of actually encouraging mindfulness. It’s a tightrope. I feel as though I am a person that is persistently put in the position of being disabled, whether or not that thing is actually causing me a level of distress in my daily life, but based more upon how easy it is to other people with whatever it is that I’m experiencing.
Ashleigh: So you and I are approaching this essentially I think to the same destination, but from two quite different areas. And because my disability is physical.
Flint: Yes.
Ashleigh: So it does affect my brain, you know… if you’re a relatively new listener, I’m a wheelchair user and I have multiple sclerosis. It burns! It burns! My nerves, they burn. And that’s not great. I do see what you’re saying about how the social model of disability has been co-opted under late stage capitalism. I’m not quite sure what we do about that.
Flint: Yeah.
Ashleigh: Because it’s taken long enough to get employers and larger organizations to accept the social model of disability, which is a step forward compared to how things may have been 10, 15 or even five years ago. It is a significant step to have made these organizations listen and say “Right, look: social model of disability, this is where it’s at. Disabled people are just as capable and are very keen to do some work, so they’re not left to the tender mercies of the DWP”. When I thought about it, I’ve thought about it in, like, it’s felt like… It feels like I’ve lost something. Several somethings, in fact.
Flint: Hmm.
Ashleigh: You know, because MS didn’t always affect me. You know, I was absolutely hale and hearty and fully able to run and stuff up until sort of 2021-ish. And then things started to get bad enough for me to… Well I only started using a wheelchair in 2022. But to hear that someone like Wesley, who’s conducted harms on an institutional level, because he’s influenced the policy of the DWP, right?
Flint: Yes.
Ashleigh: And he frequently attacks and tries to discredit groups like, for patient advocacy. So he’s constantly undermining groups that are trying to push things forward, trying to say “Here are our experiences, and here is why this treatment of our experiences is not acceptable”. And it’s so frustrating that somebody like that is still involved. But of course they’d bring him out of his antediluvian, pickled-in-aspic chamber to say “Right, we need you in for one last big score”.
Flint: [laughs] Yeah. Yeah.
Ashleigh: And you know, “We need you to completely discredit any chance of trans young people even existing”.
Flint: That’s the real takeaway for me from this is they have hired a demolition man.
Ashleigh: Yes.
Flint: That’s what they’ve done. They want someone who is going to take a fucking sledge hammer to the walls of whatever building they tell them to. Because that’s the thing that kind of gets me, when it’s framed is actually you can do this fine by yourself. Because I think it is a deep misunderstanding of the social model, which is… so like, yeah. Going to our different experiences of disability, for me, mine are invisible… is the word that’s usually used. Invisible disability.
Ashleigh: Yeah.
Flint: But I have chronic pain and lifelong nerve damage resulting from multiple slipped discs. It all seems to be connected to some kind of thing that I don’t know, I can’t name. But there is… they went “Oh you’ve got some underlying predisposition that’s making all of these things in your joints go weird”. But then I’ve been trying to get them to take that seriously. But it’s been a struggle. So I’m also kind of in the position of still fighting to get my symptoms taken seriously at the same time as already having quite a few diagnoses and things figured out. Like when getting to like the social model and that misunderstanding that’s taken, that to me feels quite intentional, it’s as if it’s still putting the onus on you to be the one to change.
Ashleigh: Yeah.
Flint: It’s not saying oh actually, you know, if you can’t walk for five steps without being in searing pain then it’s up to you to figure out ways that we can get around that, because disability isn’t a thing that should stop you. But instead it’s like, well no, that’s gonna happen. The onus should be on you to make a way to not force people to have to walk every five steps and then stop and then take a breath. Like, there should be an ability for people like that to get around without it being seen as a thing. And like, whenever I am in a position of being visibly disabled, I’m treated very differently. Because I do sometimes use a walking aid. And for those who know, for those who can pick up on basically those who have got the eye for the neurodivergent and people with my kind of stuff, you’ll know immediately upon meeting me. Immediately upon meeting me. So the notion of it being invisible feels kind of funny, because it feels invisible only to those who don’t want to see.
Ashleigh: Yes. [laughs] So I think being a disabled person in a wheelchair…
Flint: Yeah.
Ashleigh: …is kind of… I’m trying to think of a delicate way to phrase this, but genuinely I think it’s taken a lot more seriously than it is than when I was using a cane to walk. Because I would, you know… I was using a cane, I had a fancy purple walking stick…
Flint: Nice.
Ashleigh: …to walk around for like, a year in a bit. And I was initially using it to walk around outside the house. And then I needed to use it inside the house as well. And then for a while I was working for another job at charity from 2021 through to 2022, and the pain was just getting worse. Just getting worse and worse. And so every day it was taking me that little bit longer to walk to work.
Flint: Hmm. Been there.
Ashleigh: If I’d had this job and I hadn’t had multiple sclerosis, it would have taken me 10 minutes to walk there. But initially it started taking me 20, and then by the time I left the job after only a few months, because it was just getting too difficult for me to do. Because the memory problems and all the other stuff was just too much. And at that point I was still undiagnosed. At that point I was still battling against some mystery condition. And then literally the week after I left the job was when I had the call to say “Hey, we’ve got a room for you to have an MRI scan on your brain. Can you come in for it?” And so if I’d stayed at that job just a little bit longer, I think I would have ended up leaving after that anyway.
Flint: Right, yeah. Yeah.
Ashleigh: Because it would have just been too much. When I was part of that job we had a talk with HR about being a disabled person, but also about being trans, because I ended up being… well according to the HR head guy I was the first person they’d ever had working there who was trans.
Flint: Right.
Ashleigh: Yeah.
Flint: Well that they know of, I suppose. But yeah…
Ashleigh: That they know, yeah Quite. I did point that out.
[laughter]Ashleigh: So like, I was kind of having those conversations while at work, and saying “Well look, the social model of disability is good and everything, but you’re kind of putting it on me to be my own staunch advocate. And fine, I’m usually in… I mean me personally, in a position, when am I ever afraid to speak about anything? But it can be quite difficult to be your own advocate.
Flint: Yeah. It’s emotional labour. All the emotional labour is on you.
Ashleigh: Yes.
Flint: And when you aren’t disabled, unless again, we’re talking about another area where oppression comes into it. You normally don’t have to do all of that leg work yourself. Like, all of that weight of… It’s not just knowing enough about yourself to then be able to explain yourself in a way where others who don’t understand you can understand you.
Ashleigh: Hmm.
Flint: But then also, you have to take on the weight of the reactions to that if they don’t understand you.
Ashleigh: Yeah.
Flint: There’s no space for “Hey, actually if you are recognising that you’re the one that doesn’t have all of the facts and figures here, you shouldn’t be relying on me to do your homework for you, actually. You should be doing it yourself, because you’re the one that recognises that you are missing out on important info that’s needed if we want this group project to get off the ground, right. Like, that’s the way I see it. And yeah, that weight is crushing sometimes. Because it’s not just the weight, it’s also the weight of being understood and being misunderstood that is placed upon you. So when you’re misunderstood it’s your fault. When you’re understood it’s because you’ve done a good enough job at making them understand you. It’s never them trying to understand us. And even then when I’ve seen that attempted, it’s often come from a place that feels quite frankly patronising.
Ashleigh: Yes.
Flint; Like, it often comes from a place of “well I’m here” – Like, I don’t know. Sometimes I’ve seen bits on TV and stuff like that, when they’re talking about learning about disabled persons, stuff like that. And it feels like they think they are Princess Diana at an AIDS Ward, I’m not gonna lie.
Ashleigh: Yeah.
Flint: It’s just… it’s very like [Princess Diana impression] “Oh these people, and they struggle so hard”, and it’s just like: Bro, we’re humans. We fucking live. We live. And in fact we have full-fledged wonderful fucking lives, with many, many nuances that you will never recognise for as long as you put our disability before our humanity, and recognize that the two are intertwined. In a very messy way, because that’s what life fucking is. And yeah, the way in which these two intersect, of transness and disability, and the reason why this pick is so deliberate, in my mind, is because fundamentally both conversations are about bodily autonomy. They’re about privacy. They are about you knowing yourself first, and you being the expert on yourself, and being listened to. And this man is an expert in telling other people that he is more informed than them on what’s happening in their own body.
Ashleigh: Yeah.
Flint: And so of course that’s what you want to be the perspective of the dude running this situation, if you know that the Cass Review is the implementation you’re bringing in.
Ashleigh: Uh huh.
Flint: Of course. Because you need someone… Yeah, you need someone who’s gonna be, well, quite frankly that cruel, that callous.
Ashleigh: I don’t want to bring out the comparison to Dr Mengele.
Flint: No, yeah. It’s a tricky one. [laughs]
Ashleigh: Yeah.
Flint: It’s a very tricky one.
Ashleigh: But this is an ideological choice, for the doctor to run this.
Flint: Yeah.
Ashleigh: And while I’m not suggesting that Dr Wesley is literally a murderer.
Flint: No.
Ashleigh: I would not suggest that. Like, the way he’s run these sessions in the past, the way he’s completely disregarded information from the people who’ve actually been affected by the thing he is studying, right? So he’s disregarded that, he’s disregarded the advocacy groups that those people have tried to put together. And he has assumed himself as the ultimate authority, is extremely troubling.
Flint: In the same way that Wes Streeting is the kind of personification of like that difference between like LGBT and queer, Simon Wesley is a personification of what is wrong but the attitude the doctors take towards disability, chronic illnesses and those whose healthcare is quite unquote “Not normative”, right?
Ashleigh: Yeah yeah.
Flint: I’m just not trusting anyone called Wesley anymore.
Ashleigh: [laughs] Yeah.
Flint: Too many of them. By which I mean two, but that’s enough at this point.
Ashleigh: Yeah that’s fair. But what about Wesley Crusher?
Flint: Oh that’s a good one. Okay Wesley Crusher gets a pass.
Ashleigh: He gets a pass. Yeah, yeah. On account of being young, chippy and fictional.
Flint: Yes. Who is Wesley Crusher, because I just “Yes, and”-ed that bit. [laughs]
Ashleigh: Oh cool. He was in Star Trek.
Flint: Oh!
Ashleigh: He’s a character. He was played by Will Wheaton, and…
Flint: Oh okay.
Ashleigh: He’s in the Next Generation, and…
Flint: Yeah.
Ashleigh: …he was the chippy little boy genius that everybody hated. And…
Flint: Yeah. I quickly Googled him and I saw his face and went “Oh, that kid”.
Ashleigh: Oh, that guy. Yeah, yeah. Because if there’s one thing that science fiction fans don’t like, it’s the chippy little boy genius.
Flint: [laughs] Oh, is this a little bit too close to home to their own aspirations?
Ashleigh: A little bit, yeah. Like ‘Shut up! Stop being such a Mary Sue, this character who I actually idolized but will never tell anybody about”.
Flint: Yeah, like I think sometimes people – I think sometimes when people say like, “Oh, this character is a Mary Sue” or something like that, what they’re saying is “I’m projecting too much into this character and it’s upsetting me”.
Ashleigh: Yes [laughs]
Flint; And it’s like, babes, you’re just self-reporting. It’s fine. Just take out a journal. Just reflect a little. You’ll resolve this, I’m sure.
Ashleigh: Imagine telling on yourself like that.
Flint: [laughs] I think one of the cool things, like… We don’t want to leave this conversation on a shitting fest. As cathartic as that may be sometimes. I think the real cool thing here is recognise these connections between these communities, these experiences. Listen to disabled people, like, genuinely listen to disabled people on what things are happening in our community, about us. Like for example, in the pandemic I remember hearing reports from people saying that they were in hospital during covid, and like, they had family and friends or, they themselves had had like, DNRs put on them, like, Do Not Resuscitate put on them, even if they had explicitly said they don’t want that. And it was often happening to people that were autistic, ADHD or have chronic illnesses and things like that. That wasn’t listened to for two years, and then eventually was confirmed. So when I say listen to disabled people, I mean listen to disabled people. Because there’s a lot, like with the asexual research, there is so much common ground between the mechanics of oppression. Not the experiences, but the mechanics. And there’s also therefore a lot of common ground in the feelings of exclusion and exploitation and oppression that come with it. And yet again I am asking you to get intersectional. [laughs]. Like really actually intersectional.
Ashleigh: Yes.
Flint: And yeah. Like, take note, I guess, because there is also a community out there that organises, that gives a shit, that does this kind of advocacy work that we see a lot. And it’s also a case similarly with trans media, it’s also a case of getting that out there, signal boosting it. You know, being discerning about your sources and not letting assholes like Simon dictate where and what we do, and who we are.
Ashleigh: Yeah. Absolutely. And if you really want to be discerning with your sources, take a look at our website.
Flint: Yeah.
Ashleigh: Because it is easy to find, it’s whatthetrans.com. We do quite a lot of written material which ends up on the website. So sometimes we will highlight something in an episode where I’m saying “Actually, we’ve done a really good article about this”. And obviously we’re slightly biased, just a little bit. You can catch us on the social medias as well, of course. We’re still on Twitter, for some damn reason. [laughter] But you can find us on Threads and BlueSky. We’re on Facebook. And if you feel like this enterprise of, hopefully, truth is something that you can support is, well you can find us on Patreon; patreon.com/whatthetrans. Share us and support us if you can. Thanks for listening.
Flint: Yeah, thank you.
Ashleigh: See you next time.
Flint: See ya. Byeee!
[outro music plays]Ashleigh: This episode of what the trans was written and presented and produced by Ashleigh and Flint, and will be edited by Amber Roberts, Amber Devereux, Oli Morris and Larianne, and with music composed by Waritsara Yui Karlberg, and the thumbnail for the episode by Uppoa Peirs, with transcription performed by Sam Wyman, Rowan B, Rachel Aldred and Georgia Griffiths. And we would especially like to thank our producer-level Patreons, who are…
Flint & Ashleigh: Tim Rufo, Maestrum, Danny Gould, Lex Phoenix, Sebastian Sings Soprano, Joe the low -quality enby, Andrea Brooks, Jack Edwards, Emily Roberts, Dulcie, Stefan Blakemore, [unclear], needles and threads, Flaming Dathne, Dr McGee, Gen, 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 accordion plays] monsieur squirrel, Fergus Evans, anubisajackal, Camina, Brandon Craig, braykthasistim, Sian Phillips, Heidi Rearden, Ezra, Lentil, clara vulliamy, Amelia, Samantha Raven, 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, [in echoey whispers] Crazzee Richard, danoblivion, Florence Stanley, Helen_, Elle Hollingsworth, Nick Ross, Melody Nix, Fiona Punchard, John, a mysterious, anonymous patron (ooooh! [X -Flies theme plays], 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, Chris Hubley.
Flint: Thank you so much. Byeee!
Ashleigh: Thank you all. Goodbye!
