This week on What the Trans?! Ashleigh and Alyx go over:
- More details of the upcoming Levy Review into adult trans healthcare.
- Girl band ‘Eternal’ proved anything but, due to transphobia.
- New prison service documentation about where to house trans offenders. Spoiler alert: It’s not great.
- A dose of some trans joy to pick you all back up again, just in time for…
- Some reflections on TDoR, and Ashleigh interviews Alyx about a TKDB action she witnessed
References
Action Alley:
Football vs. Homophobia: https://www.footballvhomophobia.com/let_them_play/
Trans Pride Brighton: https://bsky.app/profile/ohsarahsavage.bsky.social/post/3lbjvwowep22h
Glasgow Transfem Electrolysis Project: Glasgow transfem electrolysis project
Asexual Research Study: https://bsky.app/profile/rebeccahlamford.bsky.social/post/3laogcounx22y
Viridian’s Article
Another High Court in Japan Finds Lack of Marriage Equality Unconstitutional – What The Trans!?
Levy Review
Incorrectly-registered Baby Girl
‘We were horrified’: parents heartbroken as baby girl registered as male | Nottingham | The Guardian
Scotland
Ian Murray Quote: https://bsky.app/profile/holyroodmag.bsky.social/post/3lbeqvekixk2n
Chalmers GIC: https://bsky.app/profile/presentlyincorrect.bsky.social/post/3lbpoab3zic2c
Eternal
LGBTQ+ group critical of 90s band at Hereford lights switch-on – BBC News
Loser’s Corner
https://twitter.com/CultureCrave/status/1859818893562560912?s=19
Prison Guidance
The care and management of individuals who are transgender – GOV.UK
Microaggressions Study
Microaggressions and social exclusion: experiences of transgender people – National Elf Service
LGBTQ+ People’s Experiences of Homelessness
https://bsky.app/profile/foxdie.bsky.social/post/3lbgzz5tqz22z
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people’s experiences of homelessness – GOV.UK
Trans Joy!
Transfolk (web series) https://www.youtube.com/@transfolktheseries
Girlmode https://bsky.app/profile/thetransfemininereview.com/post/3lb3irxitwc2a
Timewars (comic) The Legendary X-Knights Issue #1: “The Legend Begins!” by Bijhan Valibeigi — Kickstarter
The Kingery (sci-fi crime dramedy) https://bsky.app/profile/tillybridges.bsky.social/post/3lbhwi2zxgc26
Transcript
[French accordion music]Ashleigh: Bonjour et bienvenu, c’est Qu’est Que Le Trans!
Alyx: [laughs] Good afternoon everyone.
[intro music plays]Ashleigh: [laughs] You were not expecting that!
[French accordion music]Alyx: Oui. Oui oui
[accordion stops]Alyx: Yes. [laughs]
Ashleigh: Yes. Welcome to What The Trans?!. This is us. It is Alyx and I. How you doing, honey?
Alyx: I’m doing alright. It’s been another couple of weeks and then, news comes up again and everyone’s “Ugh”. But yeah, it’s been pretty good. I would say I’ve done stuff, but it’s mainly been playing Minecraft. I switched out game server providers. So if you’re part of Shockbyte, they’re rubbish. Do not buy them. That’s James, my friend [unclear 0:49]. There we go, anyway. But yeah, I’ve sort of been fairly quiet.
Ashleigh: Just while we’re here, there is no Flint this evening slash this morning, depending on when you’re listening to this. But we don’t have Flint because life stuff has once again got in the way. It happens, no big deal. So you’ve just got Alyx and I today. I am fine. I am jolly tired today, because I have been doing something fun. Something interesting. Something that involved me interviewing several people at the behest of a charity. And so I’ve been up way earlier than I normally would be up, and I’ve not had a nap during the day either. So I am running on fumes right now. But more to be revealed on that. That’s going to be out generally in the world in January, so do keep a lookout for that. Some good conversations, some good talking and yeah, it was tremendous fun.
Alyx: A good mysterious charity, let’s say LGB Alliance for now, shall we?
Ashleigh: [groans] How dare you! Nothing too crazy interesting to mention.
Alyx: An action packed week at What The Trans.
Ashleigh: And yeah, definitely. So neither of us can think of anything particularly interesting we’ve done. That’s how cool our lives are, listener.
Alyx: Yeah. And speaking of action, I think we have a certain segment don’t we?
Ashleigh: Before we step into that particular ginnel, it’s worth mentioning that we’re doing some awards this year, aren’t we?
[trumpet fanfare]Alyx: Yes award show. You’ve probably mentioned me blathering on about it last week. But we’ve now got – The What The Trans?! Awards has now got its voting opened. It’s already at a massive like, 200 responses already. It’s absolutely just gone mad in the first couple of hours, and the form is still open right now. It will be open till the 18th of December and… Just go out and vote. We’ve got so many cool categories: Activist Of The Year…
Ashleigh: Journalist.
Alyx: …Journalist Of The Year, Cracked Egg Of The Year, and even some other ones like Villain Of The Year.
Ashleigh: Yes, which… We’ve been having tremendous fun seeing all the various ne’er do wells jostling for position since the announcement went out.
[Ben Kenobi] You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.Ashleigh: Just as I was eating my delicious woke sandwich. What do you like to top your woke sandwich with, Alex?
Alyx: I’m kind of boring with my sandwiches. Because this was like, part of the Daily Mail, wasn’t it? There was like a whole…
Ashleigh: There was. Apparently sandwiches are woke now.
[laughter]Alyx: Yeah they mentioned like, young people in Britain were abandoning standard toppings of their sandwiches, and going for mustard and ham or something like that, but I don’t…
Ashleigh: Like, ham and mustard is a pretty standard sandwich topping, I think. I wouldn’t have said there’s been anything particularly woke about that. Unless you’re using Dijon mustard which, you know, that’s a little bit too French for the Daily Mail, I’m sure.
Alyx: No. To be fair I’m more of a seeded mustard kind of girl.
Ashleigh: Ooh. Whole grain?
Alyx: Whole grain.
Ashleigh: You dirty bitch.
[Alyx laughs]Ashleigh: So my parents have actually been to Dijon in France. And they went into a, you know, just a shop like a supermarket. Not like a supermarket, it was a supermarket. And they had an entire aisle of this supermarket that was just mustard.
Alyx: Just… just… mus…
Ashleigh: Just mustard. [JUSTARD] Yeah, definitely. Like, you know, they served me a photo and there’s so many different varieties of the stuff. I’m guessing there’s lots of cool little pop-ups making [JUSTARD] small batch mustard or some shit in Dijon. But yeah, so my favorite woke sandwich is lettuce, gherkin, bacon and tomato, which is of course LGBT. That’s how you do a woke sandwich, the Daily Mail. You’ve got to think about the acronym as well. Anyway, back to the action as it were, let’s get a piece of the action, yes? It’s Action Alley.
[Action Alley music]Alyx: Yes, so… Of course, when it comes to things coming up, so far we haven’t had any new announcements on protests coming up. But if you’re looking at organising something happening after the 16th of December, get in touch, because that will be when the next episode releases. But we also have some open letters as well. So we have an open letter from lead group Football V Homophobia to ask the FA to continue being inclusive towards trans people. So if you want to sign that kind of thing, we’re going to link that in the description as well for you to fill that out.
Ashleigh: Alongside this, it seems that Trans Pride Brighton are now looking to recruit more volunteers. So roles like digital marketers, project management, various other roles which you can see on their website. So if you’re up for it, we’re gonna link Sarah Savage’s post in our description.
Alyx: Yeah and I think Ruth Pearce has been busy, because she’s appearing multiple times in here as well, because coming up next is also a fundraiser by Ruth: a project aiming to get affordable electrolysis to trans folk, given the extortionate prices other clinics charge. So if you want to help out with that, it’s so close to its goal we’re gonna link that in the description as well.
Ashleigh: So many links in the description. There’s also a call out for ace and asexual identifying folk to help take part in a research study looking at how representation impacts ace communities. You have to be based in the UK for that one. But again, link is down in the whatchamacallit.
Alyx: Alongside that I just want to add extra reminders about the fact that the EHRC consultation is still open, about this public sector duties. So if you want to contribute, it’ll be closing in January.
Ashleigh: And just another reminder for the TransActual “Meet Us, Hear Us” campaign that still going on, and they’re still very much interested in getting people to speak to their local MPs, preferably in person, so if you can find a way to get in front of your MP at a constituency, surgery or another event, let TransActual know that you’ve done that. Tag them in the post, put it on social media. So that’s some action you can take. Obviously we’re heading into Christmas, so things are kind of winding down a little bit, but not entirely. As Alex mentioned, we will discuss later.
Alyx: We’ve also been fairly busy writing up articles as well, including Viridian. So for a little bit of shameless promo Viridian, our fantastic Japanese correspondent, has written a brilliant article about the recent high court decisions finding Japan’s approach to marriage equality unconstitutional. This is after three couples have had their cases heard, and how it affects the current landscape. So we don’t want to go through the whole thing, but do check it out. It’s a hell of a read.
Ashleigh: It certainly is. And with that, let’s crack on with the main thrust of our show, as ever, which is of course…
[crowd booing]Ashleigh: It’s the news.
Alyx: Not the news. And on that topic it’s about the terms of reference for the review scope of adult gender dysphoria clinics and key lines of inquiry for the review into adult trans healthcare as they were published on the NHS website on November 14. There’s not a great deal to say about them right now, but it all seems fairly above board, and it makes a number of potentially hopeful noises. It’s sterile enough that both trans people and the anti-trans lot can read anything they want into it. Obviously, announcing an overly hostile intent towards trans people at this stage isn’t going to happen, even if that is the ultimate goal. I’m not going to spend much time quoting from it because it’s deliberately a very dry document. It shows a rough plan for the Levy Review and the key lines of inquiry or KLoE’s. It works in three basic sections: what the review will examine, what it will identify and what it will inform. So for what it will examine, we have things like the operating procedures in each commission GDC service, and challenges to the delivery of the GDC service. For what it will identify, we’ve got areas of improvement and what support should be made available. And for what it will inform, we have things like action plans to improve GDC service qualities needed, and a longer term quality improvement approach. But the phrase we think is going to be doing a lot of work is that the review will “Consider the safety and effectiveness of the GDC services”, because who is going to define those parameters? For the effectiveness and who do they plan to ask? A steering group of cis people or some actual service users? I think we can and should raise hell that the review should speak to trans people, which seems like a basic step, but Cass more or less managed to miss it. And by trans people, I don’t mean just speak to de-transitioners like Keira Bell, but a larger cohort of people who’ve actually been helped by the service. That’s what we need to agitate for. That these key stakeholders actually include us.
Ashleigh: Yeah. So did you catch this one in the news? Because it wasn’t very widely published.
Alyx: No, there was fuck all about it really. I think the only reason I saw it was because someone managed to spot it and just chuck it on Reddit…
Ashleigh: Yeah, same.
Alyx ….just in time for me to spot when I woke up in the morning. Tired, exhausted…
Ashleigh: And that’s the first thing you see.
Alyx: …depressed.
Ashleigh: Yeah it’s not the best.
Alyx: Are you talking about the news or waking up in the morning?
[sample: woman maniacally laughing]Ashleigh: Yes. So I do hope that, like, A: That they take the slightly more empathic line than Cass did. I hope for that, but given Levy has been recruited in the same way that Cass was; there was nobody else in consideration for the role. And he’s somebody who has stopped GPs and other NHS services from interacting with and taking prescriptions from private trans healthcare clinics. In his previous role he has done that. That is an anti-trans move. And whether he meant that overtly, I don’t know. Maybe it was just part of a wider clamp down on stuff that he thought was extraneous. Unsure. And until the Levy Review actually comes out, we won’t know. Because until it comes out we don’t know if it’s going to be anti-trans or otherwise. So we should absolutely be agitating for including trans people on the people that you speak to, rather than talking over and around us.
Alyx: No, exactly. I think we… I suppose the Cass Review just having a clear indicator of us knowing it’s not going to be good, there was sort of the sense of “What it isn’t so bad as before?”. Like, as if some kind of hopeless begging in our brains thinking “Maybe it won’t be so bad”. But now I think the whole community has cottoned on. I think the Trans Healthcare Coalition have sort of also realised that we need to play more defensively towards these kinds of reviews from what we did before.
Ashleigh: Yeah.
Alyx: And of course the whole community knowing exactly how bad Cass was. Getting some folks to check this out, you know, say “Listen to trans people”. Whether that works or not, because we’ve seen how consultations work. We’ll have to see.
Ashleigh: They ignore the evidence that’s inconvenient to the previously established line.
Alyx: But as we’ve seen, we’ve a consultation form. It’s, you know, it’s not going either way in terms of looking like it’s anti-trans or pro-trans.
Ashleigh: Yeah.
Alyx: Quite dry. So it’s all a waiting game really.
Ashleigh: Yeah. Well a waiting game and, you know, writing letters to people again, you know? As to the extent that you’re able to do that. More on this as it develops, of course. This review will be ongoing for, kind of the next few years, really, we think. It’s not going to be one-and-done in the next few months. So if you are at all in need of any trans healthcare, get it now. Get yourself on the waiting list if you’re not there already. I imagine there’s quite a lot of our audience who are already on a waiting list. Yeah, scary times I think. But hopefully we can positively influence the review in a way that we weren’t able to with Cass. Because now we’re expecting it we’re kind of galvanized against the possibility that it might not be as independent as it claims to be.
Alyx: I think we were all quite horrified with the Cass Review.
Ashleigh: Yeah.
Alyx. And I suppose there’s been some horror from some cis people, in the next story.
Ashleigh: Yes. Those poor cis people. So we actually think it was pretty impossible for a trans person in the UK to not hear about this story. Ewan Murray and Grace Bingham are a cis het couple who’ve recently welcomed a newborn baby girl. And the reason we are reporting on this is because the new arrival was mistakenly registered as male on her birth certificate, and the couple have apparently now been informed that it can’t be changed.
[sample: Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life] Mother: Is it a boy or a girl? Doctor: I think it’s a little early to start imposing roles on it, don’t you?Ashleigh: After many nights of broken sleep with a newborn baby girl, the couple did not notice that the registrar had made an error on the sheet before the certificate was submitted into the system. Murray said “We were horrified but assumed that as we saw the mistake just a few seconds after it happened, correcting it would be an easy matter”. But although the registrar apologised for her mistake and the area manager also apologised, it turns out birth certificates can’t be changed. Although apparently a note can be made in the margins of the original document. But how often do people read over these documents in detail just looking for any notes or appendices, right? So Bingham, the mother, did say this though, she said “Even if people do notice the correction they’ll assume our daughter is transgender. Which isn’t an issue if that’s what she wants to be when she’s older, but it’s not the case now. Lila might also not believe she was born a girl, but that there was a strange biological thing that went on when she was born. I just feel so guilty. I’m in tears all the time. I’m completely torn up over it”. The parents have of course complained to the General Register Office, but they’ve been told that the mistake was their responsibility and cannot now be rectified. So yeah, that kind of sucks, doesn’t it?
Alyx: Yeah, imagine that? Your birth certificate’s wrong, and what’s on there doesn’t correspond with what your body actually is and, you know…
Ashleigh: Yeah. What must that be like?
Alyx: No, it’s nothing.
Ashleigh: Tricky one to get your head around. How could we possibly empathise with someone who’s birth certificate is incorrect?
[laughter]Ashleigh: Yeah but seriously, like, this does show to an extent like, if something is submitted and then can’t be changed within seconds, kind of suggests it’s a bit archaic, I feel. If there’s not a way to rectify these things quickly, if there’s like a managerial override or something. You know, you’d think that would be there just in case mistakes like this are made. But apparently not.
Alyx: Now the kid’s later on in life is gonna have to go through the whole trouble of a gender recognition certificate or something.
Ashleigh: Yeah.
Alyx: The gender recognition board will be like “Alright, so have you been to the gender identity clinic? Have you had the medical treatments?” And it’s like, no they were already born that, and…
Ashleigh: Somebody made a mistake. Yeah. Yes, so they’ll have to go through to the gender recognition panel, won’t they? Or maybe not, I don’t know.
Alyx: Be kind of handy if the kid turned out to be trans.
Ashleigh: Hmm.
Alyx: Save a lot of effort there.
Ashleigh: That would be helpful, wouldn’t it? That would save everybody some time. But equally, statistically it’s not super likely. But I don’t know. I mean, you know, as we’ve been saying for quite a while on the podcast, we think the kids are all right, so the people who are babies right now who are going to be coming to adulthood in 18 or 20 years, what views of ours will be considered archaic by then, you know?
Alyx: Yeah, because I always think, like, I feel like… I’m pretty open-minded, pretty woke as they call it. But in the next 20 years, what if I’m just completely outdated and I’ll be some kind of… I’ll be canceled or something in a few years.
Ashleigh: Just don’t use social media to express opinions.
Alyx: That’s certainly an interesting task for me, using our social media. I will certainly say that.
[laughter]Ashleigh: Yes indeed. So, well honestly, good luck to the couple. And I hope they do find a way to get this rectified, if they have to go to court or whatever. But even saying that, that’s gonna be expensive. Just over a mistake that somebody made. But I wish them the best, them and their newborn. And I hope they can get some sleep.
Alyx: Yeah. Congrats on the new child, I suppose is another bit. But speaking of gender recognition and making sure you birth certificate’s all updated to the correct thing, next up is the new info coming in from Scotland. Firstly, a very brief bit on this, but on the Scottish Gender Recognition Act. The Scottish secretary of state Ian Murray was asked by the Scottish Affairs Committee about whether there are plans to lift a section 35 order that has been put on for the reform of the Gender Recognition Act. And that is the order given by the former UK government to block bringing in the Act. And this is what he had to say.
Ian Murray: In terms of the previous government using it, I have said clearly we won’t lift the section 35 order that was put in place on that basis. And it’s probably a question for the previous government in terms of whether or not they should have used it, but it’s a political question for them, not a legal question for us.
Alyx: What a depressing clip.
Ashleigh: Yeah. Like, okay, fine. Again, heart goes out to trans people in Scotland who’d been quite hopeful because their government had done something really good with the GRR Bill, that was then blocked by Westminster and they were told “We’re going to challenge that block”. And then they didn’t, so, you know, and it was ruled that Westminster had acted lawfully in applying that block. It’s just so frustrating.
Alyx: It’s like that clip from Star Wars: Rogue One where like “We were this close from greatness”.
[Director Krennick from Rogue One] We were on the verge of greatness. We were this close.Alyx. What a shame. What a bloody shame.
Ashleigh: Yeah. Absolutely. But that’s not all from Scotland this week.
Alyx: So second up we have an update on the situation with Chalmers GIC that we covered a little while ago. So quick TL;DR: Chalmers Gender Identity Clinic, one of the only four NHS clinics in the country, put a pause on surgery referrals for those between the ages of 18 to 24 in May, citing Cass [bell rings] when they finally decided to inform patients about this in SEPTEMBER. Well, good news being delivered to us not by Chalmers but by [unclear 20:54] from the group Resisting Transphobia in Edinburgh. Chalmers has now lifted that block, which apparently happened in mid October. This is despite them saying that the block was indefinite while the services provisions were reviewed. But now there are no new updates on what changes, if any, are made, and it’s been instantly popped back within a month of a couple of patients who were told over the phone after explicitly asking about the block to their care. And then they went to Trans Safety Network and they got involved. Regardless of this change back, those months have been lost for trans people on the waiting list, and cannot be gotten back. Thankfully though, their care is resuming. But we need to highlight the fact that as far as things seem on a surface, in part because they’ve been neglecting to inform patients in a reasonable and timely manner, that Chalmers simply put a block on care with wafer-thin reasons that they knew they couldn’t uphold if people found out, which we did. That’s deeply sinister behavior that shows we all know the reasons are entirely superfluous. The point is denial to care. They keep trying these sneaky things, and then we keep finding out.
Ashleigh: Yeah, they say “Oh they won’t find out this time”. Like, we always do, for goodness sake. And it’s not to say “Oh we found out” as in we at What The Trans?! found out with our superior deductive journalistic reasoning. That’s not how it works. We as in the public, the trans community, the news always comes out; there’s always a leak or, you know, someone’s involved and gets a letter. Or in this case someone gets their MSP involved, who writes a letter and receives a response which kind of blows the whole thing.
Alyx: Mmm. I mean why do they keep bothering at this point of just trying to hide it?
Ashleigh: Why not just be honest, you know? Like whether- if you’re being honest about being a dick, no one’s gonna dislike you any less, you know? People are going to dislike you more if you just try and hush it up and lie about it. Surely just say “Yeah, well we’re putting a block on your care and we don’t have to justify it, and it’s not like you’ve got any choice but to wait, so byeee!”. Yeah it’s so annoying, isn’t it? And, you know, to be a trans person in Scotland must just have been this point, a couple of years ago when things were like “Oh well at least not in England; things are really bad in England”. And now things have degraded significantly. You know, particularly those that this GIC who had their care blocked for no reason and not even been told about it.
Alyx: There’s like a whole thing, I just saw this on the group chat a bit ago about basically now John Swinney’s gone and said men cannot become pregnant, just completely erasing the existence of pregnant trans people.
Ashleigh: Trans men.
Alyx: Trans men and nonbinary folk.
Ashleigh: Yep well done Swinney. So yeah, there you go. That’s party politics for you; they always betray you in the end. Because there aren’t enough of us and the TERFs are louder.
Alyx: Yeah. That saves me writing up that story for the next pod as well, for the waste of time that is John Swinney now.
Ashleigh: So yeah. Well let’s move on. Let’s come back to England now.
[sample] NOOOOOOOOO!!!Ashleigh: And you’ll be delighted to hear this, because we made it, gang. We have our first Christmas related story of the year. Woo! Christmas noise sound effects.
Alyx: Oh Christ!
[sample] It feels like Christmas! Ho ho ho.Ashleigh: So listeners of a certain age may remember Eternal, a girl group from the 90s consisting of Louise Redknapp, Kelly Bryant and sisters Vernie and Easther Bennett. They had hits with Just A Step From Heaven and Stay. These days they find themselves invited to switch on the Christmas lights in Hereford. But not all Herefordians welcome this blast from the evermore distant past. The local LGBTQ+ group Queers And Beers pointed out that Vernie and Easther had refused to do an Eternal reunion tour that would have seen them perform at various Pride events around the country this year. And the reason they refused? Well, here’s a quote from Simon Jones, who is the publicist for Louise Redknapp, another member of the band. “A message was sent to the team putting together the Eternal reunion, stating that if it was to go ahead neither Vernie nor Easther would perform at Pride shows or LGBTQ+ festivals” he said. This was because the duo felt that the gay community was being hijacked by the trans community, and they do not support this. Louise is a huge supporter and ally of the LGBTQ+ community herself, and both she and Kelly told the duo they would not work with anyone who held these views, and as such the reunion as a four would not be going ahead. So Queers And Beers published an open letter on their social media, saying that these issues need to be addressed and prevented, as aligning with hateful groups only sends a strong message. Richard Hancock, who’s one of the organizers of Queers And Beers said “It’s been 14 months since the articles…” and what he’s talking about there is the articles about Vernon and Easther in their comments, “It’s been 14 months since the articles have been around. If I had quotes like this attributed to me, I think I’d have clarified them pretty quickly if I didn’t feel that way”. So… and I think it’s worth pointing out, Queers And Beers have actually been pretty reasonable, right? They haven’t been demanding anything particularly of the sisters. They haven’t been accusing them of being transphobic, they’ve just asked that the comments that the sisters have made be clarified, right?
Alyx: Especially when they said about the hijacking of the gay community as well.
Ashleigh: Yeah.
Alyx: I’m a lot less diplomatic on things like that
Ashleigh: Just, that old “Trans people have hijacked the gay community”, like that’s not how it works, chief. Most members of the gay community stand with trans people, it’s just a minority that don’t, are really loud and annoying.
Alyx: No really. I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised for holding the LGB Alliance cards and whatever.
Ashleigh: Yeah, quite. Yeah, the LGB Alliance got to them first.
Alyx: No, maybe if they needed some kind of crickets, we know how to… I’m sure some folks would know where to get them.
Ashleigh: Where to obtain some crickets. Yes indeed.
Alyx: Speaking of other losers, I suppose…
Ashleigh: It’s that time.
Alyx: Yeah.
[singing] Losers CornerAlyx: So our winners this week are Anonymous, but the loser is infamous. Andrew Tate…
[sample] Andrew Tate: The only water I drink is sparkling water, because sparkling water is for rich people.Alyx: Yes, that walking cesspit. The screaming cockroach facing human trafficking charges alongside many other crimes had his farce of a university hacked.
[sample] Andrew Tate: If you ever be a man who’s afraid of sparkling water know this: he’s certainly afraid of combat.Alyx: According to the Daily Dot, around 325,000 email addresses of former members were found, just under 800,000 usernames grabbed, and over 200 public chats and just under 400 private chats were also taken. The cherry on top and a final nail for adding this story to the script was look whilst this was happening, the loser in question was streaming an episode of his show.
[sample] Andrew Tate: So if you’re sitting at a table and your friend won’t drink sparkling water, he’s not your friend.Alyx; And as a welcome hello to people who considered this prick worth $50 a month (Jesus Christ), they filled the chat with not only gender flags and feminist iconography, they also spammed it with memes, a Photoshopped picture of the predator in question with a big old butt and an AI picture of him draped in rainbows.
[sample] Andrew Tate: Anyone who drinks still water is excommunicated permanently. And for your safety I strongly suggest you do the same.Alyx: They were also able to ban people, crash clients and in general cause havoc. They’ve handed over the information to Have I been Pwned? and DDoS Secrets, which is the journalist collective, to host the data in the interest of the public.
Ashleigh: Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.
Akyx: Definitely.
Ashleigh: So I saw this and I thought it was hilarious, because Andrew Tate, like, to nick a phrase from HBomberGuy like, his career is just crashed down through the floor and is burrowing its way towards the Earth’s core because of the sheer weight of all of the nails that have been hammered into it. Somehow he’s still free and still charging people, dolts, $50 a month. If you’ve got a friend who’s name is on that list who’s giving Andrew take $50 a month, go and slap that friend and ask them “What the fuck are you doing?”.
Alyx: What the fuck are you doing? Why are you wasting 50 quid a fucking month? Sorry, I can’t get- I still can’t get my head around the 50 quid a month.
Ashleigh: I know, I know. Well he’s a scam artist plain and simple
Alyx: It’s like a good set of groceries for that money. All the chocolate bars you could buy.
Ashleigh: Yeah. I love that’s where your mind just goes immediately to the “Ooh, chocolate!”.
Alyx: Yes!
Ashleigh: But just, Andrew Tate, man. He’s just so hateable
[sample] Andrew Tate: You should only drink water to begin with. SPARKLING!Ashleigh: To the extent that with some of the stuff that he said about, oh, liking women in a certain way, I forget the exact details of it, but liking women like x-way is gay. Like, so liking… Fellas, is it gay to love women?
[sample] Fellas, is it gay to drink water? I mean, the male body is literally 70% water. You’re literally deepthroating another man.Ashleigh: What?! What the fuck are you talking about, you odious little creep?
Alyx: And that’s why it’s just so much sweeter to see that fucker get hacked.
Ashleigh: Mmm. Delightful, wasn’t it?
[French accordion]Ashleigh: Ze exquisite irony is not lost on me.
Alyx: And I think Andrew Tate’s sounding like he’s heading to prison with those charges. But you’ve got another story about prisons as well.
Ashleigh: Yes we have. So in more document related “Thanks, I hate it” news, the government has updated their guidance regarding trans people and the prison system. Now the headline news is that being a trans woman with a GRC doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be placed in the women’s prison. On page five we have this statement of intent for the document…
[Emperor’s Theme from Return Of The Jedi]Ashleigh: “This policy framework builds on the previous instruction in the following key respects”, and the very first thing listed is this: “Adding the presumption that transgender women including those with GRCs with birth genitalia and or any sexual or violent offence conviction or current charge, should not be held in the women’s estate, with exemptions recommended by a complex case board (CCB) being referred to HMPBS director general operations for consideration and the Secretary of State for Justice for a final decision”. So it’s just immediately saying straight off the bat that any trans woman who’s been accused of a violent offence or has been convicted of one shouldn’t be housed in the female estate. So that’s kind of bad that that’s there just in black and white. That trans women even with a gender recognition certificate may not be placed in the women’s estate. Indeed this is hammered home a little further on page eight in the outcomes section quote:
[Emperor’s Theme]Ashleigh: “In allowing individuals to express the gender with which they identify, this does not oblige HMPBS to locate them accordingly. It is one of many factors that may influence such a decision. So those two quotes are repeated almost verbatim, really, in the requirements section, which starts off with:
[Emperor’s Theme ]Ashleigh: “All individuals in our care must be allowed to express their gender identity”, but immediately follows that up with “Their presence does not oblige us to allocate them to a men’s or women’s prison or approved premises accordingly. It is one of many factors considered”. So gender identity preference? We’re just a preference now? Thanks for that. I mean, disliking aubergines or loving Studio Ghibli movies, that’s a preference right? Being trans, little bit more complicated. So what did you make of this?
Alyx: It’s literally discrimination and ignoring human rights, because the gender recognition certificate is not something you ignore. It’s just horrid. Utterly horrid. And it is… And they, for some reason, don’t think “Oh yeah, it’s still a risk for a trans woman to be stuck in a men’s prison anyway”, because they’ll still be at risk.
Ashleigh: Yeah, quite. I cannot overstate how difficult and risky it would be to hold a trans woman on the male prison estate, because, as you say, that would absolutely submit her to more harm and risk than possibly any other prisoners. Certainly more than most of the prisoners. Like, I don’t want to play what if and guessing games and try and demand that trans women would be at the most risk. But you have to admit, they would be at a lot of risk, right?
Alyx: Exactly. It’s just… Fucking hell.
Ashleigh: Bastards.
Alyx: Bastards.
Ashleigh: Anyway…
Alyx: Onwards with the next one. Now some news of the obvious. There’s a new article out in the Journal Of Social Psychiatry And Psychiatric Epidemiology written by Talen Wright, Gemma Lewis, Tayla Greene, Ruth Pearce and Alexandra Pittman. It’s talking about a study that looked at the mental health impacts of microaggressions on trans people. Now I don’t want to spoil things for you, but it turns out that when you’re part of a marginalised community, constant microaggressions can have an impact on your mental health. Shocking stuff, I know. I’m now going to liberally quote from another article by Dr Pearce outlining the study and its findings, the link to which will be in the description and it’s well worth taking a few minutes to read it. Quote: “Wright designed a study of 787 trans adults in the UK, asking questions both about participants’ mental health and experiences of microaggressions. When analyzing the findings we found out the experiencing more microaggressions was associated with worse mental health, including increased severity of depressive and anxiety symptoms and increased odds of lifetime self harm, suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts”. Ashleigh spoke to Dr Talon Wright about the article, so let’s play the tape. Just a trigger warning just at the start of this next story, there’s going to be mentions of suicide.
Dr Wright: So my name is Talon. I am currently the post doctoral research manager at Bipolar UK, but I did my PhD at the division of psychiatry at University College London, and my PhD was all about, sort of, microaggressions and associations with mental health outcomes in the trans community. I kind of found myself wanting to do this study because I myself am trans, and I have lived experience of both microaggressions as well as pretty bad mental health. So, you know, thinking depression, anxiety and suicidality, the whole gambit, as so many of us do. And especially, you know, having looked at, you know… Part of my study was not just to look at microaggressions, but was to create a kind of data set looking at various other factors that may explain mental health distress. So things like loneliness, rumination, minority stresses all kind of factored in. But my PhD was focused on the microaggressions aspect as that felt like the most novel, which is interesting, because it is not necessarily something that is novel within lived experience. I think we all kind of generally understand what life is like for trans people in society in the UK, especially, let alone microaggressions, but very much macro violences, you know, from government and from generally institutions. But I was interested because I had worked in a pub, a Wetherspoons, for about five years, and it was pretty much every single day it would be the same sort of microaggressions you might experience and you might expect. You know, sort of like constant mispronouning, denial of my identity, behavioral discomfort stuff. Like, it was all just very much like, just all the time. And I kind of thought to myself where, you know, like “Well it makes me feel really bad but, like, what is this doing to me as a single event, but also, kind of, accumulatively across a span of time?”
Ashleigh: What in particular made you want to perform this study?
Dr Wright: Primarily the reason I do my research is from a lived experience perspective. It is from mostly, you know, kind of selfishly my own lived experience, but then also lived experience that I see out in the community. And people, you know, friends and family that talk about these sorts of issues they’re experiencing. I also noticed how, whilst it was very clear to me that people were experiencing microaggressions, and quite regularly, and people kind of said that, you know, it makes them feel terrible and awful, the actual literature itself, there wasn’t really much on it until… I mean, just before I published my piece, the one that we’re talking about, someone else had just snuck in before me, which I was really happy to see, because it essentially lined up exactly what I found too. So it was to kind of build that evidence base and say, you know, to policy makers, to say to, you know, people who are doing training or something along those sorts of lines, you know, that those small things that people say and think mean nothing have quite a large impact on people, and it’s worth bearing that in mind when interacting. And I think that we do this with many people. There’s certain things you just… you don’t say, and you shouldn’t say. And people “Oh it’s no big deal, I might as well just say ’cause, you know, I’m thinking it; I’m just being honest”. And it’s like, you’re being honest but it’s having an impact in someone. So we need to know that. And, so this is one of the first times, if not the first time, that it’s been applied with, like an empirical lens. And it’s so important, apparently, to do, even though we, you know, it’s that sort of “No s-word, Sherlock”
[laughter]Ashleigh: This is kind of the obvious one, but can you give us a brief outline of what you found?
Dr Wright: Sure. So, to no one’s surprise I think, we found that microaggressions, using what is called the gender identity microaggressions scale, which was developed by Kevin Nadal. And it has five subscales. So these look at misuse of pronouns, behavioral discomfort from others, denial of societal transphobia, denial of gender identity and… I’m forgetting one of them… Invasion of bodily privacy, that’s the one. Invasion of bodily privacy. And so these kind of create a total scale, and so you can kind of sum up all these scores across… I think it ranges from, like zero to 80. And for every, sort of like, every microaggression experience there was an increase in depression scores using the patient health questionnaire, which is one that’s used very religiously in the GP services to assess for depression. And the same for the general anxiety disorder scale, generalised anxiety disorder scale, which again is also used in GPs to assess for anxiety. And I use some very simple, sort of suicidality questions looking at suicidal ideation, that’s suicidal thinking and suicide attempt, as well as non-suicidal self-harm. So looking at that scale against all of those outcomes, all of them are associated. So more microaggressions: more depression. More anxiety and more suicidal ideations, suicidal attempts and non-suicidal self-harm. But beyond that I kind of, we thought, you know, that that’s a great finding. I mean, one of the things about doing research it’s a you have something really obviously very sad and a very horrible happening, but you call it a “Great finding”. And it’s just, in my head it’s so funny to think about. So we found that and then we looked at… But we said, you know, is there something else going on here? What is the mechanism? What’s the underpinning? What’s actually happening here? So when we looked at, well when I looked at for my PhD, the subscales particularly, I was wondering if specific microaggression experiences had associations with specific mental health outcomes, and they did. So behavioral discomfort being one of them, was associated with depression but not with the other mental health outcomes. And that was after what we call mutual adjustment for the other subscale, so that’s regardless of the other subscales (they were taken into account), behavioral discomfort came up top and was associated with depression. Similarly, denial of societal transphobia, that was associated with anxiety. Misuse of pronouns was associated with both non-suicidal self-harm and suicidal ideation. And then finally denial of gender entity was associated with suicide attempt. So essentially, I think there were those ones. I think it’s – I think there’s some sort of obviousness to it maybe, I don’t know. Maybe it’s from again that’s all lived experience perspective, you know, someone misusing your pronouns; yes it could have been a mistake, it still hurts, and therefore we see these increases. I think someone’s gender identity feels like that sort of step further from a misuse, from what could be seen as an accidental misuse, to something that feels very intentional. And if you’re experiencing that across the board, and you’re feeling as though nobody is recognising your gender identity, it only stands to reason as to why that may drive someone towards that particular event. Similarly though, I mean, denial of societal transphobia I thought was interesting, but again that sort of rang true to me, that sort of anxiety feeling like you don’t want to be around the people, maybe; you’re worried about being around other people, other people’s reactions. And knowing that you are experiencing transphobia on a daily basis, but people telling you that “Oh, transphobia doesn’t exist, don’t be silly”, and I know it does, but everyone’s telling me it doesn’t, so what is the truth here? Like, that sort of gaslighting, that sort of comes up. So that is the study in a nutshell, and the sort of recommendations I think are to – well we need to do some more research on this. I think the thing I really want to look into is that cumulative effect. So I’ve got a paper hopefully coming out, and that will be looking at the longitudinal aspect of this, so seeing whether or not microaggressions at one time point can predict mental health outcomes at a later time point. I have run some analysis on that and yes, in a way it does. There’s this sort of story coming out that there is some predictive power, I suppose, with microaggressions and depression anxiety particularly. That, I think, will be very very informative in terms of any sort of prevention that we want to do. Interventions. I think that’s where a lot of conversation needs to be had, particularly with sort of lived experience at the forefront around what sort of interventions would make sense, and how can we intervene when it comes to microaggressions? Because they, to me at least, they seem to happen so off the cuff and it’s difficult to predict whether or not someone’s going to enact one. So I think maybe that’s another avenue of research is to find out what, kind of makes people microaggressive or can, kind of have this… something come out as microaggressive, and how we might be able to inform and educate and work against that. It’s a lot of work to do, essentially.
Ashleigh: As part of Ruth’s article she’s got the “cat detector” meme as a kind of, like, you know, as a finding it’s… To any trans person it’s obvious. Don’t want to speak for everybody, because I certainly myself have been on the receiving end of what seemed like very specific and targeted microaggressions. It didn’t seem like a – initially you kind of want to give the benefit of the doubt. And as you’ve said, you know, you just kind of want to say “Oh well maybe it was a mistake”, but then they keep making the same mistake after you keep trying to correct them, and that’s definitely something a lot more deliberate, isn’t it? You definitely have touched on this already, and I don’t want this to degrade into a tautology, but how surprising were the results?
Dr Wright: Not surprising whatsoever. And I think I want to sort of quickly pick up on what you said there about that sort of, when it happens repetitively like that, and that’s when… I know that I have had this conversation with many people around, you know, micro. The “micro” nature of microaggressions, and it’s like it’s not micro, especially when they’re done so consciously and repetitively. It’s like someone’s making an effort. So I think that the sort of language around microaggressions kind of demeans and devalues their impact sometimes. And I think, I don’t know if we need like an updated language on this, but I think that in terms of like the surprising nature of the findings, people have responded well to it, people, I think, who don’t live life as trans and, like I think that that’s surprises me more, that people find it surprising. And because, as you said, like you know, I think Ruth, because Ruth was a co-author and she, when she put up that meme and I was just kind of looking at it and being like ‘This is hilarious”. And it’s so true. Like, to be honest it’s been my whole career up to this point. I’ve been, like doing research that I’m like, well this is obvious, that to everyone else is not obvious. And I don’t know if that’s kind of humbling or not. I don’t know what the word is for it. But it kind of makes me think – humbling or terrifying, to be honest, that people don’t think that there’s a problem with it. Or find it surprising, because it’s like you are living on to a rock if you think this is surprising. And wait until you see more stats, like, wait until the qualitative work comes out. But I think people generally, I think we just need to keep building our evidence base, so that we can stick to them essentially. Like I mean, something needs to change, something needs to happen. And I think that the more of us who were doing this work the better. And hence why I’m also excited to see the other person publishing a paper just before me, I was like “I’m not the first one out, but actually I’m really excited about this, because now my paper looks even better because it’s, like extra stuff”.
Ashleigh: Yes.
Dr Wright: So in terms of, like how surprising, I don’t think it is at all.
Ashleigh: I think it’s important to have, like a body of evidence if you are trying to convince someone in power, maybe someone, an authority or, you know, your local MP (hint hint, dear listeners) that there is a problem if you’ve got some hard data to back it up, that’s properly been researched, as you have here. So final question, how do you think the trans community can best make use of these results?
Dr Wright: I think that there’s power in knowledge. So there’s a power in kind of understanding maybe what could be contributing- that means to say, during this whole process, looking at the sort of numbers, that the prevalence of mental health distress in the sample I had, which is about a thousand trans people. It cuts down to about 790 after removing some missing data. But over 90% had been suicidal at some point. Like something around about, like I think depression… depression scores were in the moderate to moderate/severe, even severe. So I think there’s a power in knowing kind of what may be contributing to it. So it’s something that instead of internalising a lot of the blame on oneself, which I know I’ve done in the past, thinking there’s something wrong with me, clearly, because I’m feeling this way and everyone else is fine, and I’m overreacting and this and that. To know that these things have an impact means that you can kind of replace the blame onto these social determinants, because we know they exist and we know they’re having an impact. So I hope that at least when people read this they at least feel sort of validated in that, I suppose, that actually what they’re experiencing isn’t a consequence of them, it’s a consequence of society. I hope that if trans people take all this sort of work and bring it to those people in power, it feels like an impossible task, but I hope it eventually changes their minds on certain policies and bills they want to put through. You know, the things like bathroom policies, the idea around, I mean, that in itself is already, you know, denying gender identity. It’s a whole host of the microaggressions out into this sort of bill of macro violence. So it’s difficult. A difficult thing to do but I think that that would be my two, I think main messages, I think. Definitely the first one. Not to internalise all the crap, and to realise that actually yes, what people do has an impact on us individually and collectively, but it’s not your fault. It’s, do you know what I mean, it’s not your fault.
Alyx: If you found that interesting, have a look at the study or the article on Ruth Pearce’s website. The links are below.
[remembrance harp]Ashleigh: Now dear listener, cast your mind back to the misty far-off days of 2017. Donald Trump was inaugurated in January, for the first time. The Manchester arena was bombed by a terrorist, and Britain triggered article 50 to leave the European Union. A decision which has had no lasting consequences whatsoever and has led us all to the sunny utopia that Britain has become. Something else that happened in sometime around 2017, was the conservative government of the day began a research project designed to look at LGBTQ+ people’s experiences of homelessness. Surprising, I know, but the anti-trans hate machine hadn’t yet ramped up to the screaming pitch that it’s reached today. Now why haven’t we heard of this already? Because even once the project was finished, they deliberately didn’t publish the results until November of 2024. These results have been sat in a drawer or on a drive somewhere in the government equality’s office for maybe four or five years, depending on how long the actual research took to conduct. At the very top of the document there’s a sentence that goes “Owing to delays in publication, the content and language of the report does not reflect current government policy or the latest available evidence”. And that’s it. Delays in publication. That’s all we get. No reason for why this might be. No excuse given. They haven’t even bothered to try and blame somebody else, which is like page one stuff in the “how to be a conservative” handbook. The report is, unfortunately, exactly what you might expect. LGBTQ+ people across the board have worse experiences of homelessness, with trans people in particular often singled out for the worst treatment. There are stories in the report, including trans people being straight up denied access to shelters, and even one case where shelter workers admitted to having a blanket no trans policy, which is very illegal under the 2010 equality act. But homeless people tend not to be able to afford legal representation to go to court, so these shelters can get away with it. If you feel like having a predictably depressing half hour or so, give the document a read, it is of course linked in our description.
Alyx: I think I saw it on Bluesky on this occasion. It’s always social media, you never see on the BBC, don’t get it on the Sun, the Guardian, anything like that. It’s just whatever someone’s managed to find, just quietly put out there, and… This is like, massively important to show the massive discrimination towards trans and LGBT people with homelessness and literal discrimination that in some cases of official charities is literally illegal. And this needs to be pushed a lot further to whoever is possible. And it’s also like a bit of a relic from the old 2017 days as well. It was even before This podcast came out.
Ashleigh: So This podcast started in 2018, right? So this… basically it looks like it was started sometime between 2016 and 2018, so let’s just call it 2017 to split the difference. So it’s then run for like a year or so. It looks like it’s been finished sometime around 2020. And it’s then just sat in a draw since 2020 to all the way up till this year, 2024. It’s just infuriating. I didn’t want to go through absolutely all the stats and statistics on the podcast, because it’s… it’s really fucking depressing. And this episode, with what we’re going to be talking about in a bit, is going to be a heavy one already. I mean, they’re all heavy ones these days, aren’t they?
Alyx: No, it’s like a bloomin’… Yes it’s always made out of lead in this big balloon of podcast episodes.
Ashleigh: But yes, the actual document that the government have put out, if you can stomach reading a very densely packed and difficult document, please do have at it. And finally…
Alyx: Yes. So I think every single person on the internet, and even on BBC News, something that did make it to be BBC news out of all these massively important topics, all this stuff. We’ve… you may have noticed the supreme court case going on with For Women Scotland. It’s basically going over the gender recognition certificates and whether if you’ve got a gender recognition certificate it can say that you’re a woman, as that’s its job. And for some reason For Women Scotland wants to say no it isn’t its job, despite that being the what’s meant to be.
Ashleigh: That’s literally its purpose in law.
Alyx: That we’re going to go into more details in the next episode, as we want to make, like a proper deep dive. We didn’t have time this episode.
Ashleigh: And the cases- as we record this the case is actually ongoing. Evidence is still being presented this week. So we want to have all our ducks in a row: well here’s all the evidence that was presented by x-party and y, you know. So more on that next time. Won’t that be fun.
Alyx: I think we’re hungry for some more news, and hungry for a bit of me.
[Pink Floyd’s The Wall] How can you have any pudding if you don’t want to eat your meat?Ashleigh: Mmm. Delicious. Well, kind of. I mean, it’s… it’s that time of year, isn’t it? It’s the difficult time of year for trans people, because recently of course was Trans Day Of Remembrance. If you listen to our American sister podcast, a list of the names of all 30 odd people who were killed in the USA were read out. We are not going to be doing that. We’re not going to read any names out, because it’s really difficult to do. And I’m sure you don’t want me to spend the next 30 or 40 minutes just reading out a list of three hundred and fifty odd names, I think. But what we are going to do is we’re going to talk about what TDoR means to us a little bit more generally, and then Alyx is going to talk about something rather interesting.
Alyx: It’s a very sobering time, TDoR. It’s sort of… it’s where you can sort of have to step back and really think about who we’ve lost. And such a sober time; I always make sure to dedicate an evening when I can to just sort of remember. I might try to make it to a vigil or something. Like, this year I went to one the weekend before, because there was, like one for the Trans Strike Back, which was very important, and it always mobilises us.
Ashleigh: Yeah, you kind of seize up not quite knowing what to say. So, I yeah… I take what you mean about the solemnity of it, you know? You kind of have to take space and do something. Like, there have been a couple of years where I’ve stayed in and just kind of done a bit of a TDoR observance on my own, just with, like a couple of candles and sitting and having a think and considering the intentions for the coming year. I guess it’s a little bit ritualistic. But I went to this year’s TDoR event in Manchester, which I had to layer up pretty thoroughly. Because obviously sitting outside in the cold for, it was like, an hour and a half, like beginning to end. Because it says, you know, it starts at 6:30, but really it kind of started at seven o’clock. Everybody was just kind of gathering from six thirty. The thing is, there’s a few people that I only ever see at, like big events, like Trans Day Of Remembrance. Like I see them at Pride and at Sparkle, and I see them for Trans Day Of Remembrance. So it’s like I see them in the lovely summertime and it’s great we’re all cheerful, and it’s Pride and “Woo!”, and then I see them at TDoR and everybody’s, you know, wearing thick coats, usually darkly coloured, because it just kind of feels appropriate to wear black somehow.
Alyx: Yes. Like a proper swinging metric of feelings between each of the events there.
Ashleigh: Yeah it is. So you said you went to a TDoR event. So what was that like?
Alyx: Yeah so it’s sort of like a day or two at, like a weekend before the TDoR. It was sort of a group called Trans Strike Back, who did a vigil just outside of the Tavistock Clinic.
Ashleigh: Oh yeah.
Alyx: They held a 12 hour vigil ferom 8am to 8pm in the evening. It was originally meant to be a 24 hour, but there were some health situations where they had to halve the day. So there were some really important testimonials and people speaking to folk in- who attended the event. There was also some drag artists to help lighten a mood on occasions. And it was a very good event, it had its sober moments. I think lots of moments where it was just, everyone was kept, was just silent for minutes after reflecting.
Ashleigh: Like it’s difficult to know what to say isn’t it? Because, you know, there’s only so much reflection and solemn consideration that you can really talk about without sounding like you’re just sort of playing for time. So let’s not spend too long on this I think.
Alyx: I suppose to move things on, at the vigil from Strike Back 2024: Trans Kids Deserve Better also attended the vigil and they’ve also been doing something quite – have been protesting again quite recently this week as well.
Ashleigh: Yes, well you were there, weren’t you? So okay… So tell us about the action. What was the plan?
Alyx: Yes. So this action that happened, it was very secretive in how it was planned. We found out about it, well in fact we were interviewing Trans Kids Deserve Better for their cricket action, I think in October, and just as the interview ended, they were like “And keep an eye out for us on the 27th of November, as something with Wes Streeting is going to happen”. And we were like “Oh gosh, they’ve given us an interesting secret there”.
Ashleigh: Yes indeed.
Alyx: But then I had to keep it secret. And we only found out, like a couple of hours before the event happened. I had to get myself to London to report on the bloody thing. But what happened at this event, which we finally found out, was there was two things that they were doing: the first one was they were going to do a die-in at Victoria Tube Station, right in the middle of everything. They had a banner drop on one of the balconies at Victoria Street Station. And there was also a person with a megaphone doing some speeches, basically informing the public of the situation of puberty blockers. And on that banner was “Kids Can’t Be Kids If They’re Dead”, which was a very striking thing to put up, and it captured a lot of the attention of people around. There were a lot of people looking around going “What’s happening here?” and then they saw the little trans flags on the bodies of the kids who were dying – who were in the die-in. There was the banner up there which said “Kids Can’t Be Kids If They’re Dead”. They then swiftly moved on to Department of Health and Social Care building, which was just a few minutes down the road, and they placed a bunch of paper coffins on the front of the building, to basically show what the effects of Wes Streeting’s decision, as Wes Streeting is the head of the Department Of Health And Social Care. When they were talking – Trans Kids They’re Better were talking about it in the group chat, they were saying it’s going to be a very difficult protest for them, emotionally.
Ashleigh: I saw you as our Intrepid investigative reporter on the spot. Because obviously you knew about it ahead of time. I think that means that you were the only reporter there, like the one who got told about it beforehand. There’s a certain amount of trust with that, so that’s pretty cool. And well done on your, kind of, getting the news out there and using your phone and putting your camera to good use, as ever. So nice work.
Alyx: Thank you. Yeah, there was certainly a good deal of dual wielding camera and phone at the same time.
Ashleigh: Dual wield. Yeah, like it. “These are my weapons”. So, that’s some difficult stuff, but let’s finish with some lighter stuff. Let’s talk about some trans joy.
Alyx: Or dessert. I think we sort of went for dessert and then we forgot to bring up the names.
[Aunty Donna] (mumbling) Maybe just a little bit of pud for me. Oh ho ho. Oh, so you do want a little bit of pud. I thought you cheeky little boys would want a little bit of pud.Alyx: Coming through our inbox recently, we thought we’d signpost to a cool YouTube drama series about the lives, loves, losses and triumphs of trying of transgender friends and family in a small island town. It’s a YouTube series which seems like a really cool series, and we’re going to link to the playlist of that in the description. So more trans stories and representation put to video. And speaking of cool trans media, we also recently saw an awesome trans comic called Girl Mode, by Magdalene Visaggio we will link to Magdalene’s Bluesky in the description here. It’s really cool. I mean, I kind of love my trans comic books. It’s sort of the only comic books I will reliably enjoy. Like, Safe Sex was amazing. And so check that out.
Alyx: I can’t really catch up on too many comic books. I think that’s… to be fair, my parents never really gave me comic books to look at, even if it was Marvel or DC or whatever. I was neglected as a child, as it sounds like now.
[laughter]Ashleigh: Well maybe I wouldn’t go that far.
Alyx: But speaking of cool trans comics, there’s also a Kickstarter we’re going to link in the description, made by a bunch of awesome trans artists, trans people of color. Also doing some cool writing and making these comics, and the comic called Time Wars: a comic set in an endless conflict between humans and vampires. Sounds slightly cultural if anything.
Ashleigh: It sounds like exactly my jam, is what it sounds like. That sounds amazing. Let’s do that. And since we’ve like, this trans joy section is all about cool trans media that we’ve been showcasing, the last one is also a cool series. This time it’s an audio drama that’s both science fiction and a crime comedy. So there is a ton of trans and queer representation, it is well worth a listen, and it’s called The Kingery. So definitely check that one out. We’ll again share a link to the Bluesky in our description.
Alyx: Also, I’ve completely forgot to mention that our audio editor has had a bit of trans joy themselves.
Ashleigh: Oh, they did, didn’t they? Okay, so what’s the details? Give me the tale, spin me the yarn.
Alyx: Yes, so the yarn or the tale of which is our fantastic audio editor Amber Devereux has an award at the Audio Production Awards, as the best sound design producer. Which is just fucking amazing.
Ashleigh: Yeah, absolutely. And as you can probably tell Amber knows how to do some audio editing, right? You probably noticed over the last few months the use of sound effects, a bit of music being dropped in here and there. That’s Amber; very much knows her craft. We are lucky to have her and congratulations Amber for your win. That’s fantastic.
Alyx: Absolutely brilliant. And you can hear the good work of Amber right now by literally listening right now.
[Brooklyn 99] Humble Five? You know it. Aahhh… I couldn’t possibly.Ashleigh: On that, you know, high. On that bit of good news which, we’ve got to take them where we can get them, that’s it. That’s us. That’s where we’re going to end our show. Thank you so much for listening. Wonderful to have you with us as always. You can find all of our work, including that article by Viridian that we talked about right at the start, you can find that on our website whatthetrans.com. You can find us on Bluesky, you can find us on Facebook. You can, if you’re able to and you’re so inclined, do feel free to check out our Patreon as well. We are so close to having 100 of them, it’s amazing. Thank you so much for listening, and we’ll speak to you next time which will be our last episode before Christmas. And then we’ll take a little break but we’ll talk about that next time.
Alyx: Byeee!
Ashleigh: Goodbye.
[closing theme]Ashleigh: This episode of What The Trans was written and produced by Ashleigh, Alyx and Flint, and was presented by Ashleigh and Alyx. This was edited by the award-winning Amber Devereux and Oli Morris, Amber Roberts and Larianne, and with music composed by Waritsara Yui Karlberg, and our thumbnail image by Uppoa Peirs, with transcription performed by Sam Wyman, Rowan B, Rachel Aldred and Georgia Griffiths. We would especially like to thank our producer-level Patreons, who are…
Ashleigh & Alyx: The Socialist Party of Great British (sbg est 1904) Alyssa, Sarah, Alison Cole, Erris, Tim Rufo, Maestrum, Danny Gould, Lex Phoenix, Sebastian Sings Soprano, Joe the low-quality enby, Andrea Brooks, Jack Edwards, 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, Ravenheart bringer of heavy metal, Tabitha Jo Cox aka Candy, Fiona Macdonell, Murgatroid, ontologicallyunjust, Stella, Cyndergosa, Rebecca Prentice, (oh my parents are in the house; I can’t do it too crazy) [crazy reverb] Crazzee Richard, danoblivion, Florence Stanley, Helen_, Elle Hollingsworth, Nick Ross, Melody Nix, Fiona Punchard, John, a mysterious, anonymous patron (ooooh! [X-Flies theme plays] [Mulder] Spooky), 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.
Alyx: Thank you all for watching.
Ashleigh: Thank you all.
Alyx: Bye!
