On another “fun-packed” episode, Flint, Alyx and Ashleigh talk about:
- The now-indefinite puberty blockers ban, the moral implications and the actions that have already been taken to protest it.
- Accusations levelled at the PinkNews leadership of sexual misconduct.
- A double feature of Loser’s corner, and
- An interview with Reactive Ashley about the recent UK supreme court case involving For Women Scotland.
References
Puberty blocker ban
Ban on puberty blockers to be made indefinite on experts’ advice – GOV.UK
Teenage trans activists begin an encampment outside the office of Wes Streeting constituency
PinkNews
PinkNews bosses accused of sexual misconduct – BBC News
Rainbow Laces campaign comes to an end
The Rainbow Laces campaign isn’t enough – Trans Writes
Loser’s Corner
https://bsky.app/profile/sallyhines.bsky.social/post/3lcqopqcl6s2v
https://twitter.com/LGBwiththeT/status/1864619059100197286
Transcript
Flint: I’m so sorry to do this, this is totally random. I don’t know if you’ve seen any of the Saw films, but you know, I sometimes sit and think about how the Saw killer in those films… There’s one of those films where he’s actually speaking to a healthcare CEO and he says the word piranha really funnily.
[sound effect from Saw] Piranha.And since this case has been happening, I just keep thinking “piranha”.
[sound effect from Saw] Piranha. [into music]Alyx: Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of What The Trans?!
Flint & Ashleigh: What The Trans?!
Ashleigh: It’s us.
Flint: It is. Hello. I’m back again, free from the land of migraines. Literally, it’s the only reason I wasn’t on the last one. I got a migraine like two hours before and I could barely function.
[laughter]Ashleigh: I hate migraines. I’ve had like between 12 and 20 migraines in my entire life, so I remember them all reasonably well and they’re fucking horrible. So yeah, sorry you had to go through that.
Flint: Yeah. Well, to be fair, I actually do have a really funny story. That’s happened that I’ve been dying to talk about in the pod so recently, right? [laughs] I took my dog out for a walk. He found a rope, like a little ball made of rope. Like, normally I’m like, you leave that for a day or two and then if no one else claims that you can have it.
But I was like, listen, you’re on your holidays, I’ll let you take it. Okay? So he has the ball and then I realise I need to get this off of him. Otherwise, he’s going to not like, do his business. He’s going to be too focused on carrying the ball everywhere and it’s his new favorite toy. So I go and take it off him, which he then takes as a Oh, fuck yeah, we’re about to play a game. We’re about to do some fetch.
And this is where things get crucial because he tricked me by getting me excited about this. So I’m like, oh yeah, you want to play fetch? You want to play fetch buddy? So I pick up the ball. I yeet the fucking ball as far as I can. It’s in the air for about two seconds before I realize, wait, I’ve not unclipped the lead, which means I need to let go of this rope.
Alyx: [laughs]
Flint: And then I’m off my feet. Literally off my feet, I’m being dragged across the fucking field on my back in my fucking leather jacket. It is pouring down in rain in the middle of storm fucking Darragh. [laughs]
Alyx: Oh.
Flint: Truly. And then like, but at the time that I was like, Oh, this has happened, I was just staring up at the sky, absolutely cackling because not only was it really funny for me, I’m that kind of person, if I fall over, I immediately laugh, but he was happy as all hell.
And this happened in a field where all of the houses like look into the field, which means that there may be some person out there that has a video of me being pulled flying like five feet in the air by my fucking Labrador. I love him, the absolute chaos gremlin.
[laughter]Alyx: It’s hilarious. That reminds me of all those hilarious videos where you see this small kid holding onto this massive dog’s leash. And then suddenly the dog goes flying and you see a kid flying and even though you shouldn’t be laughing, you see a kid falling over, just being yanked.
Flint: Yeah, yeah. No, I honestly, it felt like I was like, Buzz Lightyear on the end of that fucking truck in Toy Story or something. You’re just like, Oh well, this is happening to me now.
Alyx: Although given how green Flint is, it probably is that your dog was struggling to find you in the immediate aftermath of you falling over there.
Flint: Well, yeah, I mean, let’s just say I didn’t really have any stains on me because it just added texture to what I was already wearing. [laughs] How have you’s been then?
Ashleigh: Yeah, all right, good. Recovered from my last time before we- just before we recorded the show, I had a very busy day. So that night I went to bed and slept for like nine hours straight through, got up, had breakfast went back to bed for another two or three hours and I was still fucking exhausted for like two or three days after it. So I am now recovered from the thing wot made me busy. More more on that in January.
Alyx: “Let number go up app with the sleep” must be really enjoying that day.
Ashleigh: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So…
Flint: MVP.
Ashleigh: So yes, did that. But because I was so knackered, I forgot to mention that I went to a really fucking great gig a couple of days before we recorded the last episode. I saw Laura Jane Grace live in Manchester.
Flint: Ooh!
Ashleigh: Ooh la-dee-da. Yes, indeed. So she’s been on tour all over Europe with a band called Pet Needs.
Flint: Nice.
Ashleigh: Another punk band who we got – So we got one of their records at the gig, obviously. And when we listened to it, we were like, this is very Against Me, isn’t it? And they do have a very Against Me sound, particularly sort of White Crosses sort of era Against Me. So yeah, really great stuff. And the gig was just tremendous.
Like so she’s playing a lot of stuff. Almost all of the set is composed of her solo material. So Devouring Mothers, Trauma Tropes, you know, because every time she releases an album and goes on tour, it’s… the band has a different name. So it’s Laura Jane Grace and the Whatever.
So Laura Jane Grace and the Devouring Mothers, Laura Jane Grace and the Trauma Tropes. So there’s several, kind of different phases of the solo stuff. But obviously the high point of the gig was, she played I Was A Teenage Anarchist and then Black Me Out and then True Trans Soul Rebel. And the entire –
Flint: Ah fuck yeah.
Ashleigh: The entire place just went Woo! For all three of those songs, it was great. And they’re really good on accessibility, a band on the wall. So that was pretty great. I was pretty much down the front.
Flint: Oh, fuck yeah. I’m excited because I’m going to a really, well I hope it’s going to be a really good gig this weekend. I’m seeing Kneecap. I’m seeing Kneecap. I’m so excited. Though when I found out that they did a gig in London and they had Kurupt FM on stage, I was like, oh, my God. But I’m so excited to see them. I watched their film like three times already. My mate in Ireland actually got me into them. He was like, you need to check these guys out. And now I’m seeing them this weekend. And I’m so fucking excited.
Alyx: Oh, that is absolutely brilliant. I mean, it sounds like you two are having a rather wonderful musical time.
Flint: What have you been doing? What have you’ve been up to?
Ashleigh: Yeah.
Alyx: You know, it’s just been absolutely mad. I’ve been really busy with work. And at the moment, the moment I finish recording this, I need to pack up for a holiday up in Rome. I’m being picked up at three o’clock in the morning and I haven’t packed yet.
Ashleigh: I see. So you’re you’re swanning off on holiday again is what you’re saying.
Alyx: Again. This time I’m not going to miss a podcast episode. I suppose that’s going to be good for my attendance card, right?
Ashleigh: I lost all the attendance cards, really. I’ve not been keeping track recently, if ever. It’s not like I’m keeping score here. You know, saying, oh, here’s a long service medal, because if we were giving those out, I’d have like four of them already. So, you know, what’s the point for me just giving myself an award? It kind of seems a bit. Yeah. But on the subject of awards, though, again, we’re going to mention this, we’ve got an award show coming up.
Flint: Mmm.
[trumpet fanfare]Alyx: 18th of December, that’s our closing date. And that’s it. You can’t vote anymore. Fucking hell, we have got how many votes now? Hang on, let me have a look.
Ashleigh: Well, over a thousand now, isn’t it?
Flint: Yeah.
Alyx: It’s just fucking mad. Like Jesus.
Ashleigh: So from the day this podcast comes out, you have two days to get your votes in.
Flint: Yeah, final 48.
Ashleigh: Because this podcast comes out on December 16th, and voting is going to close, we’ll be nice and say on the evening of the 18th. So we’re releasing on a Monday, voting is going to close on the Wednesday. So if you’re listening to this on the day of release, go get your votes in for all sorts of categories. We’ve got villain of the year.
Alyx: We wonder who’s going to win that one. [laughs]
Ashleigh: Yeah, who might that be?
Flint: I wonder.
Ashleigh: Come and join us. And we will be recording our little award show over Christmas, and that will be released on December 30th.
Flint: Yes. I mean, I think it’s fair to say that we all… none of us really anticipated this getting much further reach than like, you know, the discord and the Patreon and sort of like the immediate every couple of weeks listeners. But clearly, [laughs] clearly, we have much bigger reach than we first assumed.
Because yeah, the amount, the amount of votes we have had has dwarfed the amount of nominations we had by like orders of magnitude. And it’s been amazing. It’s given us so many areas to grow and like, test the mettle of doing this. So next year, we can be like, right, you know, let’s get into it. Yeah, I’m excited to see what goes on.
Ashleigh: Yeah, for sure. There’s going to be all sorts of things. There’s all sorts of stuff that we’ve learned. And we’ll talk more about that during the awards show itself.
Flint: Yes.
Ashleigh: But there’s definitely been some, you know, learning opportunities for us. But in the subject of things coming up in the future, let’s take a nice little trip to Action Alley.
[Action Alley Music]Alyx: The first thing we have is, well, as we said about the villain of the year, there’s also a petition from Labour for Trans Rights on the opposition of the puberty blocker ban that came out and is here. And you can make some signatures and let those in power know that they fucked up. So that’s the first one.
Ashleigh: That’s a Labour for Trans Rights petition, is it?
Alyx: Yes, it’s a Labour for Trans Rights. It’s not Labour LGBT. It’s not Pride for Labour. All those splitters, you know. And following on from that one, we’ve got fundraisers for Trans Kids Deserve Better. They’ve got more stuff on their website. It sounds like they’re going to be doing some really cool stuff in the future.
For those who want to have a bit more of a musical inclination for this. There’s also a fundraising gig at the Signature Brewers in Haggerston. We’re going to link that in the description, because there’s an Instagram thing. And that’s going to be happening on, like the 17th, I believe, so check that out. That’s going to be cool. Another reminder about the TransActual Meet Us, Hear Us campaign.
It’s very important that people go, still speak to MPs, especially now and make sure they see you in person. And a bit more of a trans joy side of things as well. But still an action which is really cool. There’s a Trans Secret Santa. Where you can get, well – they’re fundraising for presents for trans kids. So they’re still fundraising money for this really cool project. So check that out if you want to help make a trans kid’s Christmas.
Ashleigh: Fabulous. Thank you very much. Okay. Well, let’s get into it.
Alyx: [groans]
Ashleigh: Yeah, I know. Well, we’ve kind of hinted at this already. I’d be very surprised if you, dear listener, is unaware of this particular story. It’s been all over social media from Tuesday 10th onwards. Obviously, if you follow us or anybody really on social media, you’ll have seen us post about it. This is of course the story that began with the Northern Ireland Assembly unanimously voting to make the puberty blocker ban permanent. And that happened on December 10th and the following day, the rest of the UK followed suit.
Thanks, Wes. So by permanent, the ban looks to be in place until at least October of 2027, by which time we sorely hope that this long awaited clinical trial protocol is underway, unethical though it almost certainly might be. Actually, to be honest, what we really hope for is Wes Streeting is fired as health secretary and then maybe launched into the outer solar system to really think about what he has done from a safe distance. Safe for young trans people, I mean.
On the subject of Streeting, let’s talk a little bit about the process that’s led to this decision. So India Willoughby posted onto the hellsite about some things that happened before the decision was made to make the ban permanent. Quote, A few weeks ago, a group of mums and dads were given a secret meeting with Wes Streeting. Very hush hush. They’d written to ask if they could bring their trans kids to speak directly to the health minister so that he could hear firsthand what banning puberty blockers would mean to their lives.
I’m told Wes appeared sympathetic. The meeting got underway and one by one, the trans boys and girls took their turn, the mums and dads saying nothing. They explained that they knew who they were, they had always known, and that they didn’t want their bodies to change in a way that made them stand out.
They all had friends and family who accepted them and just wanted normal lives, which puberty blockers would help give them. There were lots of tears listening to the testimonies. The parent who told me about the meeting said the emotional charge in the room seemed to be making Wes realise. In their words, how anyone could not be moved after hearing that I’ll never know. Hopefully he now understands. I have more hope after today. I can’t see how anyone listening to what we’ve heard doesn’t understand.
But of course, now as we know, Streeting was unmoved by what he’d heard that day. So there are one or two other things that we want to highlight here. First the quote unquote consultation that gathered evidence before the ban was made permanent took evidence from a number of sources, including Drs Ruth Pearce, Natacha Kennedy, Cal Horton, whose work we hope you’re familiar with. And if you’re not, you know where the links are.
Now Kennedy, Horton and Peace were among the academics and organisations who submitted evidence in this consultation, which we mentioned back in August, September time, back when it was open. The full details of the number of submissions and rough details of what they’d said have now been released.
And honestly, doesn’t look good. The government confirms that they invited the LGB Alliance, Sex Matters, Bayswater Support, Transgender Trend and CAN-SG to submit responses, all of whom are either anti-trans hate groups or pro conversion therapy groups. They were invited to submit for this. Just looking at the number of submissions alone should have seen things go the other way. But no, on the government page sharing all these results, it demonstrates that of the total 51 responses they received, 59% opposed making a blocker ban permanent, with those supporting a ban at 27% and neither for nor against at 14%.
The next question was, to what extent do you agree or disagree with making the arrangements in the emergency order permanent? Of the 51 respondents to this question, nine strongly agreed, five just agreed, seven neither agreed nor disagreed, five disagreed and 25 strongly disagreed. So 14 said the ban should be permanent and 30 said that it shouldn’t. And remember, several of those nine people who strongly agreed the ban should remain were literal hate groups. Twice as many people said to drop the ban and still Wes pushed it through in spite of the evidence from his own fucking consultation.
Now we’ve already put a statement online which outlines the team’s feelings about this, so I won’t repeat that here. But this is a gut punch. It’s not surprising, but it is absolutely sickening. If there’s any young trans people in our audience, we love you, stay safe, and we will stand with you all the way. And for everyone else, I’m going to point out that this isn’t going to stop here.
We’re not going to get through this by shrugging our collective shoulders and saying, meh, can’t do much about it, and it doesn’t concern older trans people, so we don’t need to panic. I’d argue it very much does concern us. The same people who’ve made these decisions will be in charge of the Levy Review. Now is not the time for assuming we’ll all be okay if we don’t do anything. We have to do something or we may as well roll over and show them our bellies right now. [sighs]
Flint: Let’s just say here, if trans kids don’t survive, if they don’t grow up, we don’t get trans adults. That’s how important this is, realistically. The thing that really fucks with me in all of this, I mean so much of it fucks with your head, but Bayswater Group, all of the other groups are, you know, disgusting hate groups, they’re lobbyists, but Bayswater have very consistent, explicit, abusive practices that they recognise are abusive. There is really hard hitting investigative journalism that we’ve covered before about how actively fucking destructive to their own families the people in this group are, and they were invited.
Ashleigh: We could probably spend the next five or six hours talking about all the shit about this that is fucked up, because it really is, and like make no mistake, it’s not gonna stop here.
Flint: No, it’s not. This is a – I don’t even want to say a slippery slope, I feel like we’re watching the beginning of an avalanche, realistically. These are not the big chunks of snow, these are the cracks and the shakes in the ground forming. The bigger stuff is on its way, I feel, and that’s not to fear monger, it’s just being realistic about how much we’ve got to get our feet on the fucking ground. And well, speaking about people that get their feet on the ground, should we go through some of the responses that have occurred since this?
Ashleigh: Yes absolutely.
Flint: Because you can bet the second that the ban was announced, our intrepid insurrectionists against systemic transphobia set about their plans of response. At 8pm, they got their feet on the ground, their voices out loud with their banner held high that they won’t be denied.
I’ll speak plainly now. The very night that the news dropped, Trans Kids Deserve Better set up an encampment outside Wes Streeting’s London office that lasted until the morning of the 12th. Now, you’ll have probably seen this on our socials, because we had our wonderful reporter Lily join them and report live on Blue Sky what was happening.
And if you want a more thorough look at what happened, then please do look through all of those posts that are there, but we’ll give you a brief rundown right now. They sent out lists for needed supplies and encouraged adults to come down and help support them in numbers. They were given pizza and food by a kind Samaritans and then began building a life-size coffin out of cardboard to present to Wes the next day. Alongside smaller ones that have been made with various slogans on them, and that’s actually been a thing that Trans Kids Deserve Better have been doing for quite a while now at their actions. Similarly, people were making signs and placards and the now infamous We Are Not Pawns For Your Politics banner was dripped over the front of the building.
Once the night drew in and people got settled down as… well, as much as you can, given the circumstances there. However, throughout the night, there was disturbance from transphobic attackers. Around 4.30am, two people turned up and started being transphobic to the protesters.
A video was posted on our socials showing some of the statements. They were also asking for the age of the youngest person there and trying to force debates continuously and conversation that was not wanted. Aside from how overbearingly creepy these people’s actions were, it was genuinely very frightening for the people subjected to this behaviour. Eventually, they started getting agitated and constantly asking if they were filming them.
They then began searching through Trans Kids Deserve Better things for stuff to steal or throw around. And just a point to say that when these actions happen, safety is in numbers. And I want to repeat that again. Safety is in numbers. And when people don’t show up in enough numbers, situations like this that will always be distressing have the capability to become incredibly dangerous. Please support your local direct actions.
When we share these things, it isn’t just for the sake of spreading the information, it’s also to extend the invitation and to drum up actual on the ground support and help to ensure the protests go ahead safely as well as their message being heard. Unfortunately, there was continual callouts for more adults to be on the scene and to support, and there just wasn’t enough support from others to be able to continue it as long as they had really hoped.
Now, thankfully, these transphobes eventually left at around 6am. Shortly before 8am, the police were back again and they had appeared at the start of the action but soon left only advising people to stay warm. This time, officers asked TKDB to take down all of the signs and decorations from the front of the office. There were hopes of this being a longer action but at around 10 o’clock that same day, they decided that the action really should end. They left the large coffin in front of the office with the words, We Will Live Out Of Spite written on it. Although this was intended for him, it seemed that Wes couldn’t face turning up to speak to the people bearing the consequences of his actions. Cowards do what they will.
However, if you thought this was the only action happening, then you are mistaken. There was also a protest at Stormont today in the north of Ireland which we are hoping to find out more about. In Nottingham, there was another one that happened on the 15th and finally there was a call blockade from 12 to 5 today at Wes Streeting’s office with the aim of flooding it with emails, voicemails and calls, from which we found that he uses a system called CaseworkerMP that lumps all emails of a certain topic together, making this kind of action a bit easier to sidestep when people are using a template.
So, make sure, and I know this means a little extra fucking work, I know, I know, I know, I know. But if you’re going to write to your MP, if you’re going to write, maybe we need to not use templates possibly. I mean, initially, they’ll show themselves to be Oh, this is good for organization and good for keeping on track of things and whatnot so people can’t get slipped through the cracks. But realistically, in a situation like this, it’s just a very easy way to lump everyone into one folder that you don’t have to look at. [laughs] So let’s find a way around that.
Alex: Exactly. Like, if there’s a local area, if there’s a local Facebook group and people are complaining about a very specific thing, maybe on the subject title, put “issue with this” and then try and work and then basically just go, I know we were talking about this, but now actually you’re – Wes Streeting’s fucked up bad and stuff, would be a good way of trying to get around it. Trans Kids Deserve Better getting on the fucking ground and there was not enough adults in the room and it’s a disgrace.
Ashleigh: Yeah.
Alyx: We’ve, I’ve seen, we’ve seen this over and over again. Department of Education, Waterloo and the original one. There was not enough adults out there. It was not good enough and we really need to do better. I mean, these kids shouldn’t be out there, but we have to look after them.
Ashleigh: Okay. So just one more little story with reference to puberty blockers and then we’ll move on.
Alyx: The Council of Europe Expert Committee have released a report recently that shows concerns for the puberty blocker trial possibly violating patients rights. And the reason is that if puberty blockers are banned and only accessible through a study, then people cannot fully give informed consent as they are essentially forced to say yes or no to receive medication, on top of maybe going through all of that for a placebo.
Normally when a drug is behind certain restrictions or is still being studied, but has made it through all rigorous human testing to decide that it is prescribable, you can still access it without being coerced into a study as the only method of access. But we will do a deep dive on this in the next episode, as there’s still a lot more meat with that bone.
Ashleigh: There is, yeah. And so I read pop science books, I was a fan of Dr. Ben Goldacre initially, and I recognize that there are reasons to not be that anymore, more on that later. But I actually worked in clinical research for a little while. And this shit kind of coercing people into doing, you know, you have to go into a trial and then you’re potentially receiving a placebo for it. And there’s no other way of obtaining the medication, is just straight up, like I don’t even want to say medical negligence, it’s probably, it’s beyond that.
Flint: It’s abuse. It’s abuse. Yeah, yeah. This is shit that I learned about in my psychology A level of what not to do, how not to do a psychology, right? How not to do medical testing. And this feels like something that could be written down on a sheet of paper with a load of other scenarios of, like medical tests that have been done, where you get to decide whether they’re fake or not. Like, do you know, do you know what they were like? We have that kind of exercise. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Horrifying.
Alyx: Yeah, it’s literally horrifying. It’s going to ruin people’s lives. It’s going to, well, it’s going to make things worse. It’s going to basically be a mess. And it’s going to be used. But once they’ve done the study badly, they’re going to then say, Oh, it wasn’t done ethically, and all the results should be thrown out. And then, oh, we’ve got to do it all over again.
And then it’s going to take longer to then do the puberty blockers anyway, I bet. Because you know, if they do it badly the first time, they’ll have to do it again is their excuse. And then that’ll take even more time. And then they’re going to find fault with that one until someone not evil…
Ashleigh: By which time the Tories are back in and we’re never going to get it anyway.
Flint: Yeah, whoopee.
Ashleigh: Hooray. What a delightful thing. What a splendid future we’ve got.
Flint: I love this island.
Alyx: Very cheery episode today.
Flint: [laughs]
Ashleigh: Well, yeah, but I think this does go back to what I was just saying about, like standing together and supporting each other and supporting Trans Kids Deserve Better and groups like them rather than saying, Oh, you know, well, I’ll be fine. Or we’ll be fine if we do this as like, well, the only way we’ll be fine is if we make a load of noise about it together.
Flint: Yeah.
Alyx: Yeah.
Ashleigh: Okay. So that’s, that’s the big puberty blockers story. But that wasn’t the only thing that happened this week. So we’ll just rattle through a couple of other things before we get on to the nice big interview that we’ve got for the meat.
So the next story is actually one that we’ve been at least partly aware of for some time now, but there’s been a new development, which means we can talk about it a little more openly. Any LGBTQ person in the UK and beyond really has probably at least heard of Pink News. They’re huge these days and they publish stories and content from many countries around the world. And they’re run by a chap named Ben Cohen, who is the chief exec and his husband, Dr. Anthony James, who’s the chief operations officer.
However, not all is well within the organization. A few months ago, an anonymous account emerged on the hellsite called Pink News Whistleblowers. It made a number of serious allegations about the workplace culture and the conduct of both Cohen and James. Now, we had heard some of these allegations before anecdotally through people that we know and we’ve considered covering it once the whistleblower’s social media account went active. But after it became clear that any outlet who published any details of the allegations would feel the full force of Pink News and their expensive lawyers, we elected not to talk about it.
So with that as the context, we did not want to go to war with Pink News over an anonymous Twitter account. But now some more details have emerged, thanks to a BBC article and documentary, both of which will be referenced in the you-know-where. Unfortunately, things are a little more serious now, with current and former staff members making allegations of sexual misconduct against both Cohen and James.
The BBC piece apparently spoke to 33 past and present staffers, many of whom made allegations towards the pair. One who spoke to the Beeb [BBC] on condition of anonymity said, Anthony was just forcing himself on somebody who wasn’t able to make that decision for themselves because of how intoxicated they were, in reference to an alleged incident that took place outside a London pub after a Pink News event.
Another former staff member claimed that he personally experienced inappropriate behaviour from Cohen during an evening at the pub after work. Quote: Ben was extremely drunk to the point he fell off his chair and then asked me out of ear shot of my other colleagues whether I wanted to go back to his, because Anthony his husband wasn’t there. He said something along the lines of Anthony is always getting with other men and the suggestion was we would do something sexually. I was extremely uncomfortable.
And speaking about Cohen’s management style, the same staff member said, quote: He could be quite brutal in the way he speaks to you. When things go wrong, he’d come down on you like a ton of bricks. And so you were just in this constant state of emotional flux. He put extreme pressures on me to the point I would go home and cry. It caused issues in my own personal relationship with my partner. And then Cohen would lovebomb me. And I would think everything was all right.
Now, I’ve got to point this out that all of this stuff is a series of allegations. The BBC was apparently informed that Mr Cohen and Dr James weren’t able to provide a statement for the article. But the Beeb understands that their position is that the allegations made against them are entirely false. So we have to make that absolutely clear that Cohen and James are both extremely serious that they consider these allegations to be completely false. So that’s their standpoint on it. But they didn’t provide a statement of any kind to the BBC article and the little documentary, both of which we’ll reference in the description, of course.
Alyx: I think legally I should probably say we’ve got some list of alternative news outlets, I think we can probably mention on these ones.
Flint: If you’re listening to this, you might have already found one alternative at least. [laughs]
Alyx: Hello!
Ashleigh: Yes, maybe, maybe.
[Blackadder The Third] Any idea who? * Well, sir, one name does leap to mind. * Does it? * Yes sir. * You couldn’t make it leap any higher, could you?Flint: When we first heard news of the Twitter account putting out a lot of these claims, we reached out to them and we reached out to Pink News with the hopes of covering this quite a while ago. The tone of the response was a very clear and assertive no, which is understandable and their right. But it was the way that it was said, which we all looked at and went, Ooh, that’s quite sharp.
Ashleigh: Yes.
Flint: And it felt like it was saying between the lines, you fucking run this and we’ll sue you into the ground. So we went, Okay, we’re going to have to wait for more evidence, for bigger people to basically…
Alyx: Shoot the shit.
Flint: Yeah, to take on the burden of being like, I say the ones to break it, but we can report on the BBC speaking to over 33 people and gaining their experience. It’s harder when we are in a position of only having a few messages on top of a lot of what’s already being put into a public sphere.
Like, legally, it put us in a difficult position, which was really annoying because we all wanted to cover this and saw it as a really important story that we didn’t want to have to sit on. You know? What did the response say, Alyx?
Alyx: Pink News is aware of an anonymous Twitter account reporting to be run by former team members that is posting false defamatory and harassing content about Pink News, its leadership and team members. Pink News is proud of its multi-award winning content and its position as one of the few global media outlets to report in-depth and inclusively for all members of the LGBTQ+ community, including the trans community, whose voices and perspectives we platform every day.
Flint: Okay.
Alyx: That was a lovely email from Anthony for our statement about that.
Flint: Yeah, it was the way that they laid out specific civil charges, that for me, it wasn’t just a case of all of these allegations are false. It was defamatory, harassment, it felt very much like you run with this, you’re doing the same thing and we will act in accordance with that. And I was just like, oh, yeah, that’s it.
Ashleigh: If all of this is true, right, how disappointing is this?
Alyx: Very.
Ashleigh: Yeah, because Pink News has built itself up as, you know, a global LGBTQ+ content provider, because they are kind of doing listicles now and lots of stuff that’s kind of only really news adjacent, like, oh, here’s the top 10 celebrities you didn’t know were gay, kind of things like, I’m not sure that’s news as such, but…
Flint: Yeah, there’s a lot of, because I feel like you could see the decline of it.
Alyx: We’re talking about our opinion at the moment, by the way.
Flint: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m talking about my opinion seeing Pink News’ output over the last few years. It seemed as though there was quite a, how can I put this? I remember in particular, there being on their TikTok, I believe, there was two or three posts that I saw that felt really beneath the belt. One of them was essentially shock content about a very prominent internet figure that has quite clearly an eating disorder. And it honestly felt triggering.
It felt salacious. It felt like, oh, look at this person. And it’s like, that’s, it’s just not compassionate. It’s also not queer news. And that was the one where I went, Oh, oh, I don’t see that as a good sign. And I hope that that’s just a one off. And it didn’t seem to be.
They only started posting more like trans positive stories that weren’t, that weren’t sort of trans positive in a way of like fluffing up Keir Starmer’s clearly transphobic comments. But like, they only started doing that when it was way late in the game, after they had been called out repeatedly on other platforms, for not doing that. And that to me is telling, you shouldn’t need to be pushed into supporting members of your own community.
Alyx: I suppose there’s also some of the intersectionality parts of it as well, because there was some hoo-ha about the Pink News awards with some of their sponsors they got as well, which…
Ashleigh: Yes indeed. Which I mean, so we were nom- like full disclosure, in case you’re not aware of this, dear listener, we were nominated for a Pink News award last year.
Alyx: Last year. Yeah.
Ashleigh: Yeah. And we pulled, we pulled out of it, we wrote a statement saying no, and here’s why, because of the sponsors of the Pink News awards who are, you know, elbows deep into fossil fuels and funding fossil fuels. So not appropriate. So we pulled out of it.
Alyx: Yeah. So there’s certainly some interesting things, award shows. Imagine… Yes. So I wonder if there’s other interesting award shows going on.
Ashleigh: Yeah, I wonder if that might be an interesting thing that some other smaller grassroots organisation might be tempted to do.
Alyx: Look, there’s no sponsors on it. We’ll kick it off to the next story. We’re going to be talking about the Rainbow Laces Campaign that ended on December 10. This was a campaign that was designed to encourage young LGBTQIA+ people to get into sports, to reduce stigmas and to make it a hospitable place for queer people in sports.
And of course, it’s made bigots have a tantrum. In this case, some bigoted footballers. There was a Ilford captain, a skipper from Crystal Palace, and the Manchester United football team that decided not to wear anything, a uniform. They did wear some kind of clothes. Following this, the anti trans group, the Free Speech Union, has now launched a legal threat against the football association, telling them to stop promoting the Rainbow Laces Campaign.
Following this, ReactiveAshley made a thread detailing how the pursuit against the FA may be against the law. And we’re going to link that in a description. But we have some extra thoughts to mention. So despite all this, the Rainbow Laces Campaign has been running for over a decade.
However, it’s important to note that in studies, one in four LGBTQ fans still feel unsafe at games. So now some question the campaign’s effectiveness when it isn’t awareness that’s needed to grow, but action needs to be taken to address the hate. And there’s a really interesting article by Arthur Weber in a description where he’s made some really good insights into the campaign.
Ashleigh: Cool. Well, yeah, it’s a shame they’re wrapping it up, but also it’s kind of got… like how much more could it do? Like I’m trying to think about how to phrase this. I think it’s gone as far as it can, you know?
Alyx: I suppose if it’s wrapping up, and if they want to continue doing something similar in the future, there’s probably an opportunity to do a heel-toe change to say here’s our new campaign about fighting the vitriol rather than saying bringing awareness to LGBT people in sport, maybe, or something like that. That’s me being a bit moderate on it. [laughs]
Ashleigh: Yeah. So I saw the Rainbow Laces Campaign. Obviously it’s been running for 10 years. So I think I have some rainbow laces. Like I’ve not played football since probably I was at high school or maybe college. And now, obviously, what with being in a wheelchair, I never will, but I still asked for some laces because rainbow shoe laces, what’s not to like?
Alyx: Yeah, perfect for Pride and such as well.
Ashleigh: Exactly.
Alyx: Accessories!
Ashleigh: So yeah, sorry to see it go, but also you are right in that some like something more needs to happen now. It’s not just, okay, visibility. Great, we’ve got that. We need to take it further. You know, we need to defend those queer fans a little more effectively.
Although I would say I think the women’s game is definitely much more LGBTQ+ friendly or it seems to be, because one of my partners is pretty consistently at Manchester City women’s games. And there are quite a lot of LGBTQ+ fans in the stands enjoying themselves. So just as a thought, if you wanted to get into football, but you’re worried about being openly gay or bi or trans at a game, go to a women’s game.
Flint: Aye.
Alyx: I suppose it’s exactly – get to a women’s game. And let’s see how they play around with the strategy for what they do next on it. Because it sounds like a bit of a change and have like, tweaks in the strategy and or maybe a reforming of it could be something- could be something.
Flint: Yeah, I mean, I think like, obviously the Rainbow Laces Campaign is made with a lot of good intentions and heart and no doubt has been very helpful for many. I always wonder with campaigns like this, how much can be really changed, versus changing the inherent structure of the institution as it is. Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, like, campaigns like this are very cool. But sometimes I wonder how much it’s achieving in the actual like structure and institution of sport, because for all of the inclusion that we can drum up in the sort of anti-bullying campaigns, if the policies are still in place that were in place when it came to being able to let so much homophobia slide, then that still doesn’t ensure better protections.
I’ve got a nonbinary friend who might actually listen to the pod. [laughs] And they will probably be able to talk my ear off about this a lot more, because they’re very much a football person. But yeah, it’s a shame to see it come to an end. I hope that in its place, there is something else that does just as much good work and challenges a little bit more the institutional homophobia, as opposed to the external homophobia of the fans.
Alyx: Isn’t it bad that this is the only light-ish story?
Flint: Yeah, well, I mean, this is the thing, right? Sport has winners, and sport also has losers. And that’s right, my lovelies. In this utter downpouring of bad news that we have had recently, I had a word with Mother Nature to make sure that we got a double rainbow. Because of course, this segment operates to showcase the immutable natural law governing all life forms and afterlife forms. As the ancient Roman Cicero said, true law is right reason in accordance with nature, which when I then asked Mother Nature about, she said her accordance is fuck around and find out. So…
[singing] Loser’s Corner [boxing bell] [slap bass]Flint: Our loser in corner number one is the anti-trans blogger, Stuart Campbell, whose preferred name is Wings Over Scotland and hence the plural in Wings, we are assuming they/them pronouns. The loss was against their own accountant. Yes, you heard that right. After finding a new accountant for the blog, Stewey received an email from them explaining that they had finally had a look through the site and out of respecting care for their trans clients, would be unable to act on behalf of Wings of Scotland. It must really sting to know that your money can’t make up for you being a repugnant person.
[boxing bell]Our second loser in corner number two is possibly the UK’s largest collection of people whose grandkids are dreading seeing them at Christmas, second only to those who voted Reform. That’s right, it’s everyone’s favorite hate group with charitable status, LGB Alliance, whose best claim to fame is being the straightest queer focus group since Anita Bryant held barbecues. But what have they done now? They have only managed to piss off bloody ABBA! Yeah, for real. [laughs] So apparently they made a film that was previously using Jimmy Somerville’s music. That’s the [sings] don’t leave me this way, one, right?
Ashleigh: Yep. Communards.
Flint: Um, Amber, put in a clip please, so people don’t have to hear my singing.
[ sample: Communards]Flinty: And then when they were told to stop, they switched to ABBA. But Laura Lee on Facebook noticed this and let ABBA know, leading to Universal and Paula taking the music down. Imagine thinking you can get away with using the queers’ own music against us. LGB Alliance now have a clear instruction to follow:
[sample: Priscilla, Queen of the Desert] No more fucking ABBA.Flint: Maybe the real ABBA turd was the turfs listening to their music along the way. Now, okay, this is a little fun one, because I ended up writing this one a little bit like a boxing match. I have a question to ask and it’s not who would win in a fight. It is. Who do you think would be more cringy in a rap battle?
Ashleigh: Ooh.
Flint: [laughs] Yeah, it’s a tricky one, isn’t it?
Ashleigh: The LGB Alliance or Wings Over Scotland. Mm-hmm.
Flint: Mm-hmm.
Ashleigh: Ooh. I think, I think it would be the LGB Alliance because they’re going to be more middle class.
Flint: Yeah, it’s giving Christian Moms Against Rap. Yes.
Ashleigh: Yeah, like far too, far too tweedy to drop beats.
Flint: [laughs] Yeah, yeah.
Ashleigh: What do you think, Alyx?
Alyx: Yeah, I mean, I suppose the Wings Over Scotland, they’re a smaller thing, so they have a bit more of a pathetic element to them.
Flint: Yeah, that would just be one guy, like giving, I’m a middle-aged man that thinks that SoundCloud is still going to work out for me.
Alyx: Very blatant vibes. Yeah, whereas the other one is much more giving, you know, well, our crochet club got together and thought it would be really neat to do something that’s hip and hoppin’ for the kids.
[laughter]Flint: Two very different kinds of comedy.
Alyx: I mean, on the story about the Wings Over Scotland accountants and accountability. It sounds like a match made in heaven, right?
Ashleigh: Yeah, it sounds like a not particularly interesting Jane Austen novel. Accountants and accountability.
[laughter]Flint: Oh, but that’s beautiful. Absolutely. That is what this is. It is what this is. And it’s just, it’s really this simple to stand by trans people. It’s recognising when someone does not hold views that are respectful. And, you know, if someone is spouting things on the internet that you wouldn’t be able to say in a coffee shop, then maybe you shouldn’t be doing business with them.
Ashleigh: Maybe, yeah. Because the thing is with accountants, they’re quite big on following the money, right? That’s literally their whole job. But they have said, no, you are so repugnant, we’re going to turn down the money.
[laughter]Flint: It’s a curse time. It’s a curse – It was, it was two smaller losses instead of one big one. And I realised that both of them are just nicely satisfying in that kind of Nelson from Simpsons. Yeah. Ha, ha, kind of way that makes you just, fun. Are we ready for the main meal?
Ashleigh: Let’s do it. Yeah, I’m getting, I’m getting hungry.
Alyx: I haven’t had tea yet.
Flint: Hungarone.
[Principal Skinner] I hope you’re prepared for an unforgettable luncheon.Alyx: So, the puberty blocker ban is a lot of cis people deciding what’s the best for the transes, and it’s becoming more of a common occurrence these days. And this edition of cis people sitting in a room to decide how to deal with the transes, it was the For Women Scotland case in the Supreme Court of Westminster deciding whether a gender recognition certificate should do what it’s advertised to do. We spoke to ReactiveAshley, engineer, lawyer and cat mum who has been following this case as it unfolded and she walked us through this case. Alright, so on with ReactiveAshley or Ashley. She/her. So how are you today, Ashley?
ReactiveAshley: Yeah. I’ve been quite busy working on some of the projects that I’ve been looking forward to getting done. Yeah, it’s been a busy day.
Alyx: No, definitely. I think one particular thing people have been paying attention to is the Supreme Court and probably been tuning into your brilliant live thread and analysis of the court case there at the moment. And we were wondering what your thoughts were on it, and wondering if you could walk us through what this case was and the party’s argument for the case.
ReactiveAshley: Right. So this case is, I would say, is the end of almost six or five years of lawsuits. There are eight cases. So there were hearings about the legislation in question, that is the Gender Representation on Public Boards Act, 2018, I think. There are also other judicial reviews on census questions, for example. So these lawsuits get appealed when from those Scottish part of sections that is the outer house and then it reached the inner house. And there was a couple of rounds of ping pongs. I would say, essentially the lower court judges are pretty trans inclusive, I would say, but they say the definition of gender is not confined to biological determinants.
But the inner house, basically just three judges. And they say, no, probably sometimes it means biological sex. Sometimes it means legal sex. I don’t find that distinction useful. Because they’re not well defined, they’re not in the statute, they’re not in common law.
So essentially, the inner house is a bit toward the side of We don’t like self identification. And that’s how the case reached the Supreme Court. Now, the hate groups, there’s the Four Women’s Scotland, they want to go further. They want to say, right, not even a trans person with a GRC could be regarded in law as a woman, but as a man. So they launched another round of appeals, all the way from outer house, inner house, and then they finally reached the Supreme Court. That’s the history, I would say.
Flint: So in this instance, the claimants are the hate groups, For Women’s Scotland, Sex Matters and that, right? What were your thoughts on their arguments, how they were presenting themselves in court?
ReactiveAshley: For Women’s Scotland, the way they presented their case was rather interesting. I would say there’s zero prospect of it being accepted by the Supreme Court, not a single judge would say, right, this is the law. So the argument is pretty simple. They say, when parliament made the Gender Recognition Act, they made a mistake, they passed the protections for trans people too wide, and then when they made the subsequent legislation, that is the Equality Act 2010, again, they messed it up so that the Equality Act essentially repealed the Gender Recognition Act, that is the closing argument. It’s an interesting contention, but the likelihood of it being accepted by the court is very, very low. But one of the consequences of the For Women’s Scotland’s case being accepted is that the Gender Recognition Act would have no impact whatsoever on the Equality matter. That means the Section 35 orders related to the veto of the Gender Recognition Reform Act would essentially be invalid, because if it does not affect the Equality Act matter then why would the Westminster parliament have vetoed it? So there’s a lot of contradictions in these cases. The problem for the court is how to resolve them.
Alyx: So how strong was the respondent’s arguments against what For Women’s Scotland said? Was there anything they missed, for example?
ReactiveAshley: So the respondent is the Scottish Minister. They have taken a very conservative approach to these litigations. They want to have, essentially have, like, a hard bottom for trans rights. They wanted to make sure the GRC actually has an effect so that in everyday equalities matters, trans people with a GRC can preserve their privacy, especially in court proceedings.
Because there are a lot of strange arguments that was put before the Supreme Court, for example, Sex Matters tried to say, right, trans people are protected, but only for the protected characteristics of gender reassignment. Then they conceded the case and they say, right, maybe trans people can also be protected through perceptions or association, not with their gender, but with another person’s biological sex. That is the very strange argument, isn’t it?
Because perception or association with another person are essentially these person’s biological sex is just gender, isn’t it? So then the question is whether the justices can see through this. But on the Scottish Minister’s side, their argument, there are contradictions. For example, they stress the importance of I mean, the conclusiveness of like how absolute a gender recognition certificate really is. So, for example, a person can change sex orientations in law before or after they have gender recognition certificate.
But there are circumstances where things are happening or occurring in terms of the statutory provision that is continuous. For example, if you have a relationship with a person, a romantic relationship, before you have a GRC, that relationship is considered homosexual. And then after you’ve got a GRC is considered heterosexual, but it’s the same relationship with the same person, with the same feelings. How do we reconcile those realities, not the so-called biological reality that is put forward by the hate groups, but the real reality that everyone understands. How does it reconcile with the legal proposition that a trans person changes sex when they’ve got a gender recognition certificate?
Because we know that it’s not the reality, that reality is that a trans person would have probably always been that gender. It’s just that the legal recognition is different. So, I would say Lord Reid is quite conservative in legal matters, but I don’t think is, like, that kind of social conservative, extreme kind of person. I would say he understands the reality, the societal circumstances surrounding a trans person’s treatment in law is not as consistent as it should be.
Alyx: There’s always just been obsession over bringing up the word biological sex in all this.
Flint: Yeah, it’s like there’s this kind of trying to match together of, as you say, that lived reality. And it’s very disconcerting the way they’re trying to take that lived reality and make the law even further away from it. In the article that you wrote about this, you mentioned the representative of the EHRC, I think, Coppel being pretty ineffectual. And I was wondering if you could tell us more about that. Like, what were they doing there?
ReactiveAshley: Coppel is, he represents the EHRC, and the EHRC position was essentially locked in by a letter that is sent to the former Minister for Women & Equalities. And I mean, that is not well thought out. So, at the time they finished the letter, the political pleasure, the political interference, I would say, within the EHRC and is still continuing today. Their legal position is that they side with the Scottish Minister. That the Gender Recognition Act has a very strong protection, it is what we call rule of statutory interpretation, so that it overrides most of the existing statute, all the way from, I would say, 17th century to now.
Everything, let’s say, a woman or a man. It used to mean sex, or they argue biological sex. But now, after the Gender Recognition Act, essentially, those meanings have changed. They agree with that. They also agree, part of the Equality Act is workable, so that there are no internal inconsistencies in terms of the treatment of a trans person, especially during the litigations when they suffer discrimination. But they also argue there are issues that are not addressed by the legislation and the parliament.
At the time, for example, most of those arguments are related to trans men. For example, pregnancy provisions, but I mean, the first instance of a trans man giving birth was in 2017, whereas the Equality Act was written in 2010, and the Gender Recognition Act was in 2004. ISo it doesn’t really make sense to retrospectively impose a view that there are inconsistencies in the legislation. It’s not part of the considerations at the time.
Flint: So it’s not explicitly written down in there, but to say that that means it’s not… that it’s not protected at all, that kind of flies in the face of what the point of the act is, right?
Alyx: Yes, that was the point of it, isn’t that?
ReactiveAshley: Yes, because one of the rules of how the court understands legislation, that is the process of statutory interpretation, is the assumption that the law is what we call always speaking. It’s like the parliament is saying the same word every day, now, every minute. So if there are new circumstances that arise in a society, the court should be able to adapt to those circumstances.
Alyx: Another part of this case was also the omission of trans voices in the room as well. And we were wondering, like would this have helped make a positive impact to the case itself? Because we had what was it, Stephen Whittle and Victoria MacLeod being barred from it?
ReactiveAshley: Yes, so I would say the exclusion of trans voices in the courtroom was a bad decision because the legal questions affect our lives and we know about it. We know about the consequences of the alternative interpretations that the parties and the interference put forward. Some of them are better for our lives. Some of them are going to cause some inconvenience, but not the end of the world. Some of them are going to just be terrible because it removes all the dignity and privacy, especially privacy that is the core of the Gender Recognition Act. I know most, I would say, most trans lawyers know about these issues. We know how to resolve the difficulties that the court may have identified.
For example, whether we treat the Gender Recognition Act retrospectively in some cases, or whether it is going forward or alternative not to give recognition at all, which has actually never been imposed in the statute books as of today. So we know the consequences and we know how to justify, how to justify, rather to the court, how to persuade the court to reach an interpretation is more reasonable than the alternatives that is put forward by the hate groups or the Scottish government because all of them left some inconsistency unresolved and the Supreme Court do want to resolve most of the inconsistencies. Sadly, the councils on the outside are not particularly helpful in this regard.
Alyx: Yes, I suppose of all the arguments and everything put in now, what are your thoughts on what the results might be in the Supreme Court?
ReactiveAshley: Right, I can’t make predictions, but I would say the For Women Scotland’s hate group case is doomed to fail from its own inception. It’s never been accepted by any judges. I mean, the other house, the inner house, they both rejected them. So the likelihood of it being overturned by the Supreme Court is low: The Gender Recognition Act being repealed and the Equalities Act being called biological sex, the likelihood is slim. I think the real threat is the Sex Matters submissions because it offers the court a strange way out of this mess. So they basically say, okay, trans people, a trans woman is not a woman. A trans woman is just trans, not even a woman. That is their position.
They also tried to mislead the court about some of the European Union’s anti-discrimination directives, how it works. There is a very small chance the court might make a mistake and accept their submissions. I would say Sex Matters’ submission is not really a legal one. It’s a policy position they tried to establish in court. So when the trial is just going into the deliberation discussion, they might just identify, right, no, this is not a legal argument. This is just a policy position, and they would just reject it right away.
And then they will accept the only available positions, really, that is the Scottish Government’s positions, that there’s a strong protection for trans people in the Gender Recognition Act and the Equality Act. But then the question remains how the Court is going to resolve some of the difficulties, some of the, like, the lived reality that trans people face, and the potential inconsistency of how they deal with it in law. The Court may resolve everything. In this case, or maybe they were more likely they would not be able to do that, because the court didn’t receive much assistance from the lawyers.
Flint: So how would a positive result in this, like, affect us going forward?
ReactiveAshley: The most positive, possible result for us is that the court basically accepts that sex and gender means sex or gender, though that means there would not be a fixed determinant of sex as it used to be. There would not be what we call, what they used to call, like, biological determinant hormones, physiological, genital, the kinds of rules, they would not apply. They would consider bad law. But what more focus would be on how trans people identify, essentially, in their official documents. That is precisely the purpose of the Gender Recognition Act because the purpose of the Gender Recognition is to change official documents.
Then you get another official document that is the Gender Recognition Certificate. Because Britons do not have an identity card system like other countries do, which is also the case in Australia, where I live in. We do not have an ID system, that means there is an implicit self-ID system within our law. So if the court accepts the word sex and the word gender, means sex or gender, then essentially it is implied that there is an ID system already in our law. So yeah, that would be very beneficial and really is just a status quo, isn’t it?
Flint: If in the very slim chance, as you’ve said, if the result ends up not being in our favour, what can trans people do? Would you think?
ReactiveAshley: That’s a hard question.
Flint: Yeah I know, I’m so sorry. I just feel like that would be something a lot of listeners might be thinking as well. If it is bad, what do we do?
ReactiveAshley: It’s bad. That is, if For Women Scotland got their way, the hate group, actually there would not be any immediate consequences at all. It just, well, for example, the challenge legislation is the general representation the public board had would have to be amended if it remains the policy of the Scottish Government to include trans people in that aspect. The danger is that in the future, if there’s a bigot who wants to exclude trans people from appropriate facilities and services, then they can formulate their policy in some wider transphobic terms, I would say. So they can express their policy without direct reference to trans people. They will say, right, the policy is the eligibility is according, it has the same meaning. Like, for example, the policy says a woman has access to a certain facility and they can clarify in their policy, say, right, women has the same meaning in the Equality Act.
That would be terrifying. That would mean it would be very hard for anyone suffering, essentially, now, they consider only gender reassignment discrimination or sex discrimination, or a combination of both. Essentially, it makes the law uncertain because it doesn’t state anything. Women’s has the same meaning in the Equality Act, what does it mean? Some obstacles in front of us if we are to challenge those new transphobic policy.
Alternatively, if Sex Matters got their way, the way transphobes would express their transphobic policy might be slightly different. But again, it would be very uncertain how we can essentially bring lawsuits against those practices. This is because since 2010, when the Equality Act was enacted, the discrimination cases against trans people are very rare. The numbers are, say, 10/20 of all cases, all circumstances, employment or not, the number is very small, then if the Supreme Court decided to change the law, there will be a tsunami of lawsuits.
Alyx: Yes, I suppose if things do go badly, it would be interesting to see how it fights back. I think I remember speaking to one person, saying, would it be something that they’d be able to fight in the European Court of Human Rights, for example, to take up to Strasbourg?
ReactiveAshley: Good question. So the European Conferential Human Rights, it does not really change some of the… it does not directly mean that it is anti-discrimination law in the Conventions, because historically, part of the anti-discrimination international obligation stems from the European Community and the European Union.
If the court accepts that we only have a right to claim gender, reassignment discrimination, but not sex discrimination, then there would be a correction, whether this is a effective remedy or a privacy preserving way of dealing with discrimination cases in relation to the trans person. There is virtually no case law in this regard in Strasbourg. So it would be a very awful low point that the court would have to address, because no European state has done that, gives recognition to trans people, but not in equalities matters. You can see how strange this position really is.
Flint: It’s farcical, really farcical.
ReactiveAshley: Yes, it’s farcical, so it would be interesting how the court would deal with it in Strasbourg, but it’s really uncharted territory in terms of international human rights law. It’s a strange thing to do. After all, I would say, because it’s so strange, it’s probably going to deter the Supreme Court from having to go through all this nonsense, I would say.
Flint: We seem to be in a really unique position then, right now, legally, in terms of our position with the rest of Europe and parts of the world. I see what you mean, that courts aren’t usually fond of being in unique anomalous positions.
ReactiveAshley: Yes, we are in a unique position, because there’s not a universal [unclear 1:16:50] registry in the UK, [unclear] registration, [unclear] license, but we don’t really have an ID card system. So I put that in a rather unique position. I mean, the UK has always been unique in terms of a chance to write an interaction with the European Convention on Human Rights, because we don’t have an ID system, we don’t have civil statuses, and also, we were probably one of the last state parties to the conventions that allowed marriage between a trans person and a cis person. So, we’ve always been in a unique position in this area of law.
Flint: It was very cool to finally get someone on the pod, and this is a feeling I often have when we have cool interviews with people on the pod. But with ReactiveAshley, that’s a name that I have seen so frequently in our podcast scripts, and it was very, very cool to get the person herself down here to chat to us about all of this, about what she saw, about the way that she perceived both of the claimants and the respondents, and where this is kind of headed. Yeah, honestly, stellar work, thank you so much for coming in.
Alyx: Oh, exactly. I mean, whenever we go over the stories of Ashley, I keep thinking, oh, do we have enough time to squeeze an interview with Ashley in, approach her to get her to get her on to talk about like, one of the freedom of information requests or one of the analyses, and then just things just keep getting in the way. But this time, we were like, okay, we need to get her on because she knows her shit about this, and we need to get her on. And…
Ashleigh: She was there.
Flint: She was there.
Alyx: She was there. And it was fantastic to hear it. It was really interesting stuff. We even threw her some really, like, difficult questions, legally of like, oh, what if, like, far off what ifs, if things went to like really unlikely scenarios, and she took to it like a breeze. But yeah, thank you so much, Ashley, for coming on, and there’s no doubt we’ll bug you again soon.
Flint: Yeah, yeah. And yeah, there’s… I think one of the really big things for me was the way in which she spoke about how obviously, the claimant side was a shit show. But the respondent side could have been a little bit stronger than what it was. And I mean, that makes sense when you’ve had many trans people not be able to provide evidence. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. We have a lot of trans people who have been specifically told that they are not allowed to give contributions to the case.
Ashleigh: Yes. Before we wrap this up, let’s do the thing that is just really nice to do, which is some trans joy as a kind of dessert.
[Aunty Donna] I’ll just get a sliver of pud, thanks. * How much pud are we talking? Like, about that much pud? * Maybe a little bit more pud than that, mate. * Yeah, that’s what I thought, mate. Oh, maybe a little bit more than that, mate.Ashleigh: A palette cleanser, if you will.
Flint: Yeah. Yeah. On the sixth, Graham celebrated five years on testosterone, go Graham. On the same day, Laura went to her first trans voice training workshop that was apparently well worth it. So congratulations there. Hazley is celebrating getting a higher dose of estrogen. Again congratulations. And our very own Olivia will also be celebrating a five year anniversary on HRT soon. So that’s phenomenal.
And since many of you seem to enjoy having a moment dedicated to queer art, we also found another film to plug. Well, I say we. Actually, it was one of our lovely listeners, Gordon, who wrote to us recommending a film called Crossing, which they said features a lot of the trans community in Istanbul in a really positive light. And I looked at the trailer for this, because it seemed interesting to me, obviously.
It seems to me about a woman who’s searching to reconnect with her trans granddaughter. Yeah. And I am actually going to watch it now. So thank you for that recommendation, Gordon, because I’m really interested in it. Did you just say you have a recommendation?
Alyx: Yeah, by the way, the reconnecting trans daughter, I like it sounds like a wholesome movie to just fill a hole in the heart.
Flint: Hopefully. Hopefully.
Alyx: So I think I had a couple emails from someone- who, from a publisher who wanted us to mention an Emmy nominated documentary focusing on the lives of transgender athletes called Changing the Game. And it’s released, out now, so it’s available on Amazon Prime Video, Google Play Movies, you know where you can look it up. But it’s called Changing the Game. And it’s won a GLAAD Media Award. And it sounds like a really cool film.
We’ve got a review for Honor, a wonderful writer has written up. I need to put it on a website. I keep forgetting to. But we’ll put that up at some point. But if you ever want to check out a cool trans sports game, given how we talked about Rainbow Laces earlier, check that out.
Flint: Oh, also, I’ve just remembered, I have something. I have some new fun queer art to plug. Okay, so this is very regional. A lot of my mates are Smoggies. A lot of my mates are from Middlesbrough. There is a show on BBC iPlayer right now called Smoggy Queens. And it is about a group of drag queens that are like living together in Middlesbrough. It’s got this slightly, kind of, surreal, abstract-ish vibe to it. I really love it. Me and my partner were watching it. It was a very good time. And yeah, go check it out. It’s it’s actually dead canny like it’s fucking I really enjoy it. I really enjoy it.
So yeah, me and my friend have been like, because I messaged my friend being like, Have you seen Smoggy Queens? What do you think? And she was like, I’ve actually already seen like the first like half of it. Let me know what you think. And yeah, it’s very good if you like drag, if you like silly, fun, catty humour, and people with delusional levels of like, self assuredness that they are the hottest thing in the room. There is a character there, there is a character that is very that. And it’s very funny because like, they’re really good at playing the reality versus what they think of themselves. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. It’s very fun.
Ashleigh: Awesome. Check all those things out. Because that’s why we talk about them right here. Right? So yeah, check out your trans art. Support your local artist or poet or musician.
Alyx: And speaking of supporting people, you can find us on…
[laughter]Ashleigh: Yes. I’m gonna run with that, thanks Alyx. And speaking of supporting people, you can find us. We have a nice shiny website that the enshitification of the internet hasn’t yet reached, which is whatthetrans.com. We’ve got all sorts of articles. We’ve got stuff planned to be released over the next few days before this episode even comes out.
So there should be some new content on there pretty soon. So obviously we’re on Facebook. We’re on Blue Sky. That’s our main content platform just now. We’re on Instagram where you can see all of Alex’s lovely photographs. And if you feel like this wittering is the sort of thing you can support, then do feel free to take a look at our Patreon.
Alyx: Money please.
Ashleigh: Patreon.com/whatthetrans. But yeah, that’s it. That’s the show. Say goodbye, everybody.
Alyx: Bye!
Flint: Bye!
Ashleigh: Goodbye.
Alyx: That’s a weird bye.
[Goofy noises]Alyx: Do the credits in a Goofy voice. No, don’t. I’m sorry.
Ashleigh: [attempts Goofy voice] This episode. No, this episode.
[laughter]Flint: You gave it a shot though. And that’s what I love.
Ashleigh: This episode of What The Trans was written and produced by Ashleigh Talbot, Alyx Bedwel and Flint, and was edited by Amber Devereux, Amber Roberts, Oli Morris, and Larianne, with music composed by Waritsara Yui Karlberg, and our thumbnail 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…
Ashleigh, Alyx & FLint: B2, Smiley, friend of Candy from across the pond, The Socialist Party of Great British (SPGB est 1904), Alyssa, Sarah, Alison Cole, Erris, Tim Rufo, Maestrum, 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 (which always sounds like a drag name to me. Like Holden Burnett [laughter]), Grabilicious, Mx Aphen, Rootminusone, Grey, Elisabeth Anderson, Bernice Roust, Ellen Mellor, Jay Hoskins, Trowan, Ashley, 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 the heavy metal, Tabitha Jo Cox aka Candy, Fiona Macdonell, Murgatroid, ontologicallyunjust, Stella, Cyndergosa, Rebecca Prentice, [crazy reverb] Crazzee Richard, danoblivion, Florence Stanley, Helen_, Elle Hollingsworth, Melody Nix, John, a mysterious, anonymous patron (ooooh! [X-Flies theme] [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.
Flint: thank you all so much,
Ashleigh: Thank you.
Alyx: Bye!
Flint Bye.
