In this extremely jurisprudence-heavy episode, Ashleigh, Alyx and Flint go over:
- An update on the increasingly bleak situation in the USA, as well as aspects of the Trump regime’s many defeats in the courtroom.
- Conversations about Scottish Labour and the UK Liberal Democrats and their two different ways of approaching anti-trans activists.
- Details of the now-funded puberty blockers clinical trial.
- A smattering of updates from tribunals and legal cases here in the UK and one extremely focused meat about an Arts Council employment tribunal.
References
Action Alley
Awesome-sounding comic series: Ash Grey and Saturn Olympus Issue #1 by Bijhan Valibeigi — Kickstarter
Tilly Bridges queer sci-fi film: Long Away – Film and Storytelling | Seed&Spark
London trans pride are looking for volunteers
Vote for Trans History Week at the DIVA Awards!
Trans Pride Brighton are looking for fundraising volunteers
USA Updates
Military ban
TWIBS: Judge Makes Fools of Justice Department Attorneys — Assigned
Other EOs
Leaked recording shows Dem State Senator telling parent of trans Child she will vote against trans rights so dems can win more power: https://bsky.app/profile/atldemsoc.bsky.social/post/3ljgmxotcwc2i
Judge Blocks Trump Trans Ban Nationwide, Slams Reliance On Cass Review
Senate Dems Show Spine, And National Sports Ban Bill Dies
Scottish Labour
Anas Sarwar calls for clear guidance on single-sex spaces – BBC News
Anas Sarwar Branded “Desperate” After declaring trans women should be barred from single sex spaces – Scottish Sun archive copy
Liberal Democrats
Times article – archive copy
Puberty blocker study
PATHWAYS: Puberty suppression And Transitional Healthcare with Adaptive Youth Services
Why I won’t be engaging with the UK’s puberty blocker study | Growing Up Transgender
Ryan Castellucci
UK legislation does not allow nonbinary recognition.
Employment Tribunal
New employment tribunal ruling could make it harder to limit anti-LGBTQIA+ posts by workers
Wes Streeting
21 February 2025 Wes Streeting MP Secretary of State Department of Health and Social Care
Telegraph article – Archive copy
The Meat
Transcript
Flint: This is a waffle.
Alyx: Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of What the Trans?!
Flint: What the Trans?!
Alyx
What’s our theme tune again?
Ashleigh: Who the hell even know we’re all just doing completely different theme tunes?
Flint: Yeah, I don’t know the one that I just got in my head when you said theme tune was John Cenas. And I’m like, well, that’s going to have to change soon. I don’t know if anyone else watches wrestling, but my mind is reeling.
Ashleigh: Mine was the Indiana Jones theme tune [Indiana Jones theme tune], der der der der, der der der der der. Good old John Williams anyway, so yes, it’s us. We’re back. Lovely to be here, mwah, mwah. Are you two doing all right?
Flint : I’m vibing. I’m doing OK. I made banana bread yesterday. Which has been very nice. Yeah. In my mind, I’ve just been going, banana bread at work today, dude? Hell, yeah. it’s just been rattling around in my head, but yeah, I made some dark brown sugar and cinnamon banana bread, and I made it. And it’s gorgeous. But it’s massive. And I now have too much cake, so fun times.
It’s a good problem to have. I’m like. Oh, no, what a shame. I’ll have to have cake for breakfast.
Ashleigh: How dreadful. But oh, brown, sugar and cinnamon banana bread? That sounds decadent.
Flint: Oh yeah. Oh yeah delicious. I’m a maximalist with flavour for sure.
Ashleigh: Awesome. Awesome. How about you Alyx?
Alyx: I’m doing all right. Haven’t done that much. I haven’t done much baking myself. Actually, I’ve sort of been daydreaming about a new kitchen when I move out myself, but then I sort of haven’t bothered to do any cooking recently. I am doing some risotto tonight. That’s going to be delicious.
Flint: What kind of risotto?
Alyx: Standard risotto.
Flint: No flavour, just pure rice.
Alyx: Yeah, yeah, just rice. Chorizo. So, chicken. OK. Chicken stock. Yeah. Food. Yum.
Ashleigh: OK. Yeah, that’s certainly my favourite thing to eat. Food.
Flint: Yeah, yeah.
Ashleigh: That and – no, I’m not going to finish that. [Laughter].
Flint: You know what? You know what, though? I stopped myself from saying it, and I was like, I’m going to be mature.
Ashleigh: Yeah. Yeah, you did.
Flint: And I’m not going to do the obvious and yeah.
Ashleigh: I just went there. Yeah, of course. It’s my thing. It’s my jam. And also here’s the thing. I’ve been on a course this week. Oh, yeah, indeed. So obviously, Flint and Alyx are more than aware of this, but as a result of me being on this course, I haven’t really been able to participate in writing the episode this week. It’s the first time in a very, very, very long time where I’ve not done any of the writing whatsoever. So firstly, thank you both. And secondly, my course was at Gaydio right? It’s an introduction to radio production. And so I got to play my hand at being a newsreader today. So I did a story that we’re going to cover a little bit later on, on the show and not to put too fine a point on it, I understood the assignment and nailed it.
Flint: Yeah, I was going to say it sounds like ohh wow being a newscaster, I wonder what that must have felt like, for a second.
Ashleigh: Such an alien experience? Yeah, the other people on the course with were like, wow, you were really good at that. Yeah. Thank you. I wonder what might have led me to that particular set of skills. And as you might imagine, I’ve been very unsubtly going around the office leaving What the Trans?! business cards all over the place in the Gaydio office and giving them to people and introducing myself to literally everybody and giving them a business card.
So that’s been my week because this is involving going out every day and doing a thing and travelling across the city, well, trundling really on my electric, my power chair and so doing that every day it turns out is really tiring. Even though I’m not doing the actual walking, but being out and doing a thing and interacting with people and paying attention and writing some stuff up, by hand, they’re not giving us a computer. We just get a few sheets of paper, upon which I’ve made copious notes and just – oh well, here’s an idea, there are a couple of things that I do want to mention to you too, but let’s have that conversation when we’re not recording anymore. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.
Alyx: Top secret advice [sound effects].
Ashleigh: Not particularly, some of it’s pretty obvious, but I just wondered if it might be worth considering for us, but more on that in a little while because first let’s take a lovely little jaunt down the back streets and ginnels to our old friend Action Alley [Action Alley music].
Flint: Yes. I’m excited for this one. So first off, there is a Kickstarter for a comic by Bijhan Valibeigi that is very near to its goal and it’s a very small goal. On the Bluesky post with the Kickstarter Bijhan described it as two interracial interfaith husbands fighting vampire warlords in the Wild West. It’s full of queer love, sci-fi mysteries and cowboy action. Together they take on the world that wants them dead. Excitingly, it already has £271 of its only £393 goal. So please, if you have the capability and also heard that sick synopsis that we just read you then back it! I really want to see this in the world and pledges literally start from $1.00. I think there’s also a pledge level where if you get that particular level, they will send some copies to inmates in America who have signed up for wanting more queer literature. So yeah, that’s the thing.
Ashleigh: That sounds fucking great. I’m going to go back the shit out of that.
Flint: Right, right. We shared on the Bluesky and I was like, I’m sorry, I need to make sure that goes into the pod as well. That’s too cool to not, yeah.
Alyx: Yeah, definitely. I was so excited at the message saying, oh, we’re doing this really cool epic thing. I’m sharing the shit out of this.
Ashleigh: Tilly Bridges has a film that she has co-written that is crowdfunding again, so if anyone is able or willing, it’s a trans science fiction film about love, hope and connection. It’s currently at 64% and it only has 17 days to go. So that is Long Away, as in, that’s the name of it. So yeah, check that out. More work of the wonderful Tilly Bridges.
Flint: There’s queer art and trans art and that’s cool. And if we can support them then we should. Speaking of helping out, London Trans Pride are looking for volunteers.
Alyx: There’s quite a few roles here. I just Googled it up and there’s some stuff, admin team members, fundraising, treasury and account teams, steward and security team leads, access team members, all a bunch of this of stuff like van and press and PR. Check out their Instagram post which we’ll link and see if there’s anything, if you can volunteer and help out this one, because it’s always great to get some more people to help out with the prides and everything like that, especially given how big London Trans Pride is.
Flint: Yeah, absolutely. It was an absolutely mammoth undertaking last year and they need all the help we can get and a prime opportunity, and also it means you get to do London Trans Pride.
That’s sick, and finally Trans History Week has been nominated for a Diva Award. So if you want top vote for it, then go ahead. There’s also trans authors like Laura Dale and Juno Dawson, Trans Kids Deserve Better are also in the mix, so have a look. Vote with your heart and the voting closes on 21st of March.
Ashleigh: I know you said finally, but there’s just one thing that I really quickly want to mention, which is Trans Pride Brighton are also looking for volunteers. So that popped up in the last couple of days and I saw it today and made a note, I’ll make sure to mention that while we’re recording tonight. So yeah, check out Trans Pride Brighton. We’ll put links in the place where we put the links in the down below, which usually links to a big nicely well organised links page on our website, which you should also check out. Hint hint. Fantastic stuff. Let’s do the news. [groans].
I know, I know.
Alyx: We keep putting the news in each episode. It sucks. Why do we keep doing it?
Ashleigh: Yeah, I know. But unfortunately, it’s our brand now, isn’t it.
Flint: Yeah. And it just keeps happening as well. So as long as news keeps happening, we have to keep doing stuff.
Ashleigh: Unfortunately, yeah. While there’s all this stuff that’s happening, we’ve got to talk about this stuff, we’ve got to put stuff out and there’s just so much stuff that keeps happening and don’t even get me started on things.
Flint: Oh God, the things of it all. The things of it all. It’s too much.
Alyx: And speaking of things, there’s always a never ending amount of things in the USA at the moment.
Flint: Are we going to hop over the pond?
Alyx: Yeah. Hop over the pond.
Ashleigh: Over the pond we go. [music plays: Star Spangled Banner]
Alyx: So over in the States, there’s still confusion, frustration, and fear surrounding the Trump administration and all those executive orders he’s put forward. Now, as expected, there is a lot. So, this is going to be a whistlestop tour and if you want these stories in depth, check out the description down below where we’ll link them all in. So, to kick things off, we start off with Donald Trump’s trans military ban has been going around the courts. In a recent court case, Judge Ana Reyes has ripped the thing to shreds. The case is still ongoing at the time of writing. On the subject of executive orders going to court, one of Trump’s executive orders got blocked earlier this week, this time his ban on gender affirming care for trans young people under the age of 19. In the article we used to write up about this, the Cass Review was mentioned in this ban and the judge just absolutely destroyed the Cass Review in the court hearing and it’s glorious to read. So, check that out. Alongside gender affirming care bans getting blocked, trans sports bans for young people also got blocked in Congress. There were many concerns that Democratic legislators might break ranks and vote for the ban, but to great relief they managed to vote the thing down. However, some of these Dems clearly still need to find something resembling a spine as a leaked recording of a state Senator Elena Parent came out in which it showed her saying that she would vote for Republican healthcare bans because supporting trans people is unpopular. But don’t let those two positive bits lure you into a false sense of security, as the news in America is definitely not sunshine and rainbows and these next stories are not great. So on the 25th of February, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has essentially banned foreign trans people from entering the United States. There are a lot of details, so we’ll link that in the description too. The next unfortunate story to hear was that the Department of Homeland Security seemed to have scrapped privacy provisions which have protected people from surveillance based on sexual orientation or gender identity. There may have been more stories we’ve missed, but these are the main ones one we’ve spotted and we’ll make sure to link to the cool folks at Assigned Media and Aaron Reed’s website so they’ll be able to catch you up on the latest.
Flint: It’s a lot.
Ashleigh: It’s pretty grim stuff. So did you see the woefully useless showing at the State of the Union address where Trump was in Congress and the Democrats almost to a man, just wore coordinated outfits and held little signs, and that was it.
Flint: Yeah, and I have so many feelings about that. I have so many feelings about that because this is the thing. This is the thing. When we have to take signs and go, I say we I’m not an American citizen, but you know, people have to get out on the streets, get signs up. They have to make themselves if they have to organise in masses, to talk to the government, to talk to the state of wherever they’re protesting so they can be heard. What’s the point of that when you are the government?
It’s you. You are the people that are meant to be doing something about this. You aren’t. You’re doing the equivalent of a stare directly into the camera in the office. It doesn’t do much more than signal to us that you’re aware of what’s going on, but you aren’t doing anything.
Alyx: Even if they are a minority in the Congress, we’ve seen that Republicans have still managed to use that very heavily before, to put a stop to anything happening. That would just be, being an arsehole, essentially. If you’re able to cause disruption in that way, it should damn well be happening.
Ashleigh: Yeah, exactly. So, there was there was at least one older Democratic senator who just refused to be silent and was taken out by security. And that’s what needs to happen, right? That level of disruption, not just wearing pink and holding a little sign.
Flint: Exactly. Because if you do that, you do that and then and then what? You sit down, you you then proceed with all of the events on the agenda as if it is normal, as if it is legitimate, you continue to vote on things. No! If you’re recognising that this is a non-normal, completely illegitimate situation where you’re being asked to do things and the government are doing things of dubious legality, right and I’m using that phrase generously, then then do not give it the credence. Do not give it the credence. Shut it down, be loud, be disruptive, actively disrupt. If you genuinely are, you are one of the few people in a position to actively, to the face of the man that’s fucking up your country, to go, No! We’re not having it and you’re not taking it. But you’re just going, uh-oh, we know this is bad. We don’t like it either. Let’s sit down and continue as if everything’s fine. Because we’ve made our little statement.
Alyx: And they brought, they did an idolisation of Reagan at one point as well.
Flint: Did they?
Ashleigh: Yeah, they did. So, was it on social media? I think someone said, oh, well, Reagan said that this shouldn’t be happening. You should do these things in this way and it’s like, now is not the time for you guys to be the ones to say here, let’s take after Reagan, right?
Particularly not queer people because of the number of queer people Reagan got killed.
Flint: Absolutely, absolutely, that is insensitive at best.
Alyx: Umm, quite useless fucking idiots.
Ashleigh: Yeah, absolutely. So, I hope that there are more judgements like the one that took down the Cass Report. That is, as you said, that’s a tremendous read, tremendous fun.
A win and a little bit more on a similar topic coming up in a little while, but I hope there are more judges that have more of a spine than the Democrats. Fascism’s not just on the rise, I mean it is, but fascism has risen, right, this tyranny. The fact that the Second Amendment allows people to have guns as part of a well-regulated militia to protect against the possibility of a tyrannical government taking over, and all the people that have the guns that are stocked up are the ones who voted for Trump. They are the tyranny, right? The NRA is the tyranny now. It’s been terrifying to watch. Honestly, for me, I’ve been scared to watch all of this stuff, and I can’t even imagine what it must be like as an American trans person or as an American queer person, given as you said about Rubio saying, Oh well, we’re going to leave the door open for people to be investigated purely on the basis of their sexuality or gender identity. I’m sure all the collaborators like Blair White and Caitlyn Jenner will be delighted to know that the person they wanted, the administration they’ve ushered in are now just going to immediately betray them as they always would. Right. That was the obvious outcome. Leopards eating faces. Exactly, yeah.
Alyx: Leopards eating faces.
Flint: Exactly. Yeah. This is the thing when I when I see people like Caitlin Jenner or Blair White. To me, the stark thing is that you really think that you are one of the good ones, don’t you?
Ashleigh: They are convinced.
Flint: You really think that it isn’t going to come around on you because you are well known enough? Rich enough? Because you may have thought that you’ve made friends in the right places. It’s a lie. It’s a lie. It’s not going to go the way you want. Yeah, it’s awful.
Ashleigh: Anyway. Let’s look a little closer to home, shall we?
Alyx: On a lighter topic. Yeah, but I suppose this one’s a bit of a loss in a way, isn’t it? In Scottish Labour.
Ashleigh: So last episode we had the unfortunate displeasure to talk about Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar and his lurch to support NHS nurse Sandy Peggie in her hate crusade against trans people just existing. But this time it appears that his ilk are also wanting to cosy up to conversion therapists. In a motion called Cass Review Guidance Motion they sought to call for the withdrawal of Scottish Government guidance that supports trans young people and safeguarding single sex spaces based on biology. The only bit of relevance to the Cass Review was a brief mention of support to trans children in accordance with the Cass Review. However, at the Scottish Labour Conference, where this was taking place, it was voted down.
Flint: I always tend to sort of breeze past party political stuff. I’ll look long enough to develop a frown on my face and then I move on before I can get the courts already pumping and but. But I did spot this and I’m glad it got voted down. That’s good. The way in which there is this continual push in political parties to make it more and more normal. Struggling with that. Not enjoying it. I guess the real question realistically is Cass Review guidance? The guidance on single sex spaces, I don’t think is a thing that’s in the Cass Review.
Alyx: The only time it was mentioned was when Cass said that’s not inside the scope of the review, in the first few pages.
Flint: Yeah. So it feels like they are just assuming that everyone’s going to assume that it’s actually in there.
Ashleigh: Yeah, quite. And it’s not. The Cass Review didn’t say anything about single sex spaces. Yeah. So, for them to say, oh, well, we’re safeguarding these single sex spaces because the Cass Review says that we should. It’s like, no, it doesn’t.
We know, we read it. OK, like we did more than read it in fact, we did a month’s worth of content all about the fucking Cass review.
Alyx: It’s also interesting how the motion here that was voted down was also endorsed by Anas Sarwar and this Labour government at the time as well. So, the fact that even having that backing made it still not go through was also quite an interesting thing to see.
Ashleigh: Indeed, and well, not to mention darkly humorous. While we’re here getting political, what else do we got?
Alyx: Yeah. So, this is another interesting one. It seems that the Liberal Democrats have had some fun with anti-trans lawsuits recently, in a case from an unaffiliated group that wants to swing its shit around. And this time with whatever pocket change that probably was lying around from the ADF or some shit. On the 20th of February, Liberal Voices for Women, an unofficial group, claimed that the Liberal Democrats have been forced to allow anti-trans voices to have equal footing, citing the decision from the party stating that they would be allowed to hold events, have exhibition stands and place adverts after an alleged previous ban. This was following a legal battle with Liberal Voice for Women in which they claimed they had been discriminated against. So, the LVW wanted to force its way into a party in which it was not wanted and has strong armed its way in. Now we could examine the claims and do some fact checking, but it appears that the Liberal Democrats’ LGBT committee have already beaten us to it. They have recently released a statement showing how the Liberal Voice for Women’s claim of being discriminated against was in fact the opposite. In a statement, it said that “at the Liberal Democrat Federal conference in Autumn 2024, a volunteer for Liberal Voice for Women harassed two members of the LGBT plus Liberal Democrats on two separate occasions. The volunteer in question admitted waiting until our members, one of whom was an autistic woman less than half his age, were alone on our exhibition stall to target them.” So, they harassed a member of the LGBT group and then played the victim and then had a tantrum that they were held accountable for it, especially considering that in a statement it then said “When his behaviour was raised with members of Liberal Voice for Women both at the time and after the fact, our concerns about this man’s behaviour were roundly dismissed by them, including by their chair, Zoe Hollywood.” The statement then follows: “We are now in the unheard of and unprecedented position of having to request additional support from the party in order to ensure the safety of our volunteers at our spring Federal Conference in Harrogate.”
Ashleigh: So, when we initially talked about this, where the member of Liberal voices, sorry, no, it is Liberal Voice for Women. I nearly said Labour Voice for Women. But no.
Sound effects 23:43: “They’re different because of the spelling”.
Ashleigh: Labour was the last story. This is the Liberal Democrats. So yeah, the Liberal Voice for Women member who’s harassed an autistic trans woman half his age, we reported on that at the time. But it seems that this man has the support of the chairperson of Liberal Voice for Women. So that shows you how liberal they are. And also given that they are supporting a man’s speech, it’s not really Liberal Voice for Women, is it?
Alyx: I think in part of the statement I forgot to mention this, but they also noted that “for an organisation that claims to care about women’s safety, it is hypocritical in the extreme for them to dismiss concerns about a man’s behaviour towards a woman being harassing or intimidating when the basis for their dismissal seem only to be his age and/or that they agree with the opinions that led him to harassing our members.” So even the committee had a little pop at that as well.
Flint: Yeah. Well, that’s the thing. It’s like the only thing that they seem to be liberal with is how much benefit of the doubt they’re willing to give this clearly problematic man who keeps acting the least liberal towards anyone in his near vicinity.
Ashleigh: It’s because it’s the in group out group thing, isn’t it? Right? So as far as they’re concerned, those women, women that support trans women, and indeed trans women themselves, they’re fair game, right, what they mean is Liberal Voice for Women who spout hate speech.
Flint: Yeah. Well, it’s Liberal Voice for Women, but women is with an asterisk, meaning only certain kinds of women. And only if those women hold certain beliefs and certain values and act about them in certain ways. And at that point, how many asterisks have we added now onto the word woman?
Ashleigh: Yeah, terms and conditions apply.
Flint: It kind of indicates that you’re not about what you say you’re about.
Ashleigh: Yeah, quite. That’s some Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere stuff, isn’t it? And every time now somebody does some double think, that’s the first thing I think of.
Flint: Right. Yeah, yeah.
Ashleigh: There’s another quote, actually, not from Liberal Voice for Women but from the LGBT committee of the Liberal Democrats. So Alyx, if you’d care to give us that quote.
Alyx: So yeah, they just said, We opposed their attendance at a conference because of their actions. They not only apparently failed to insist on a decent standard of behaviour from their volunteers, but then defended his harassing and intimidatory behaviour.
Flint: I don’t know it. It sounds very much like a group of people turned up into a space that nobody wanted them in, and then got very upset at the fact that they felt unwelcome, because they weren’t respecting the fact that people were not about that, and they just decided to stick through it and to basically try and force people into letting them be there and it’s just, yeah, I don’t get it.
Ashleigh: Yeah, exactly. It’s like they’re throwing their weight around having a tantrum, etcetera. Call it what you will, but that’s exactly what they’re trying to do. They’re trying to intimidate and bully their way into a space where nobody wants them.
Alyx: Yeah. And then trying to bury the bullying as well alongside it.
Ashleigh: So. Yeah, definitely.
Alyx: I mean, just for transparency’s sake, I should have probably mentioned that I used to be a member of the Liberal Democrats, but I’ve recently cancelled my membership for no particular reason, just that I had some stuff that I needed to cancel my membership for. Also, moving out of the house and needed to save some money as well.
Ashleigh: Yeah, for sure.
Alyx: Just needed to put that out there as well.
Ashleigh: No, absolutely. I mean, I was a member of Labour when Corbyn was in charge.
Flint: I only ever became a party member when I went to uni and they have like the student versions. So I became an actual member of the Labour Party for a brief while, but only because there was a stall that was put right in front of me going, Hey, do you want to give us this £2 and then you’re a Labour Party member and it saves you the hassle of doing it the old fashioned way. And I was like fine then. Yeah.
Alyx: Well, at least everyone now knows all our political affiliation, memberships or ex memberships.
Ashleigh: So from party politicals to –
Flint: Puberty blockers. Next up and onwards, the long-awaited puberty blocker trial has been awarded £10.7 million in funding and a few more details about the study have been revealed.
So for example, we now know that it’s called the – get ready for an acronym folks – Puberty Suppression and Transitional Healthcare with Adaptive Youth Services Study or Pathways for short. Apparently, that’s short. I bet someone’s really proud of that one as well.
Alyx: And you don’t think the acronym’s just a little clunky.
Ashleigh: I thought it was quite catchy.
Flint: Pathways encompasses several projects. There’s Pathways trial in which some patients will actually get puberty blockers for a period of two years, as well as Pathways Horizon, collecting data about all young people attending NHS gender services, then, Pathways Connect tracking brain development, then Pathways Voices, which is feedback from patients and their families. There is also a Pathways Engagement, which is an advisory group made-up of trans people, and the parents of trans youth. If we’re lucky, the research team might even listen to them. How about that? Maybe. Hopefully, who knows? And are you sick of hearing the word Pathways? I am too. Let’s move on.
Although this is way more than we knew previously, there is still a big question mark looming over other elements of the study, particularly the trial. The most recent info we have suggests that it will be an open label randomised trial, meaning that all participants are assigned to random groups, and everybody knows exactly what treatment they’re getting. Everyone will be invited to participate in the Horizons part of the study, and some may also participate in Horizon, Connect, Voices or Engagement, but only the trial offers a chance at receiving puberty blockers. The study is set to run from some time in the near future until January of 2031. There’s expected to be some kind of interim report in around April 2027. Can we talk about the way in which they seem to have named all of the elements of this study like they are soon to be released games or subscription packages? Yeah, I hate it. I hate it. Yeah. Horizon, Connect, Voices or Engagement. They all sound like phone providers. What are you doing?
Alyx: That’s how they get their sponsorships.
Flint: Well, for Horizon. Ahh.
Ashleigh: Oh, God. OK. But the thing that I’m immediately coming up against is if it’s an open label trial, everybody knows what treatment they’re getting, even though one of Cass’s big bugbears was that there wasn’t enough data from randomised controlled trials, right? Remember RCTs? Remember how many times the acronym was in Cass? So this isn’t that as well. And if everybody knows what they’re getting, then they’ll think, well, I’m in the group that doesn’t actually receive the treatment. So I’m going to go somewhere else to get that treatment. And then they can say at the end of the trial, they can say, well, we had too many people dropping off the study so the results are null and void, and we’re going to have to run it all again. That’s my kind of immediate thought on it. I’m just jumping straight to a conclusion. I can see that. But it does just seem like that’s kind of an obvious flaw, right?
Flint: Yeah, it seems pretty obvious as a flaw to tell someone directly to their face. You are not going to be getting the treatment that we know that you want. So, sit there. Stay there. Keep feeling what you’re feeling and we’re going to study that instead. And you’re meant to be OK with that. You’re meant to just what do that for the sake of science. Come on, that’s not. That’s not good science. You are asking someone to sit in a state of existential discomfort, and that is a mild word for it. We all know where, unchecked, a need for medical care that is not given leads in this area. And you’re putting people in that position.
Ashleigh: I am not looking forward to the many, many headlines that are going to accuse it of being a pathway to you are on the way to destruction. [sound effects]
Flint: Yeah, a pathway to gender ideology.
Ashleigh: Yeah. Oh, it’s a pathway to wokeness. All right, so let’s consider pathways to our next story, shall we?
Alyx: Yes.
Flint: I love the beginning of this one reads like an advert. Are you tired of our never-ending stories about lawsuits?
Ashleigh: Well, are you?
Flint: It’s all good, man.
Alyx: Are you tired of never-ending stories about lawsuits or bad news in courts and the disappointments following them? Well, get ready, as there’s more to come in this case brought by Ryan Castellucci, in which Ryan was trying to apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate which would enable their legal sex to be said as X instead of M or F. When Ryan brought it to the High Court in 2023, they ruled that the UK Gender Recognition Panel could reject the request for the Gender Recognition Certificate. But then in January, the case was taken to the Court of Appeals and unfortunately, that has also now been denied. So now this is going to be headed to the Supreme Court for the final verdict.
Flint: Yeah, which I don’t know, as a non-binary person, shitting myself a tiny bit, kind of really, really needing to wear the brown pants right now, because either way, I’m concerned of what the verdict may be because either way, there could be a precedent. I don’t know, it’s scary. It’s scary because, like, I want this to go ahead. This should be again a simple slam dunk. I don’t know why. I’d love to see the reasonings. I’m concerned that it’s going to be a no, and I’m concerned that even if it’s a yes and that they allow it, that it’s going to be with some kind of weird caveat that still makes it harder for non-binary people in the UK who don’t have any ability to have legal gender recognition. It might just make it harder for them. I don’t know. I can just imagine. I can imagine that this is an exceptional special case and it’s not to be considered for anything to do with all that kind of stuff and I don’t want that to happen, but I really want this. This person deserves to have their gender recognised properly, as do we all. I really hope that the case goes well. I hope that they get the verdict that they deserve. Just. Yeah, wearing the brown pants.
Ashleigh: Yeah, all right, fair enough.
Flint: That’s a Deadpool reference by the way.
Ashleigh: This guy wore the brown pants. Actually, I don’t know what I think, because it could go either way. Given that the High Court have ruled and then the Appeals Court have ruled the same way, it’s not looking good.
I’m glad Castellucci is doing the legal fight, and I wish them every success with it, because it’s what they want, right? It’s what they are pushing for, because California did it. So why can’t the UK, right? What’s the problem? And it’s specifically there is this clause within the Gender Recognition Act to say that if someone has had their gender affirmed by another country that that can then be taken into account and the Gender Recognition Certificate can be issued. But for some reason they’ve denied it, right? Yeah. And I think that reason is because Castellucci wants the X marker rather than M or F, and I think that is the sticking point, and it shouldn’t be. And that’s just fucking come on, guys, get your get your arse out of the 19th century.
Alyx: Speaking of people whose heads were also stuck in the 19th century.
Ashleigh: Ah, you’ll be delighted to hear that it’s another tribunal. Da da da da da da da. We should have a tribunal sting [sound effects]
Alyx: It’s a tri-bugle. No, this is nothing. This is so shit.
Ashleigh: [sound effects] So when you see an article start with a Court of Appeal ruling brought by groups including Sex Matters and Free Speech Union, you know that they will in fact be trying to prevent free speech and make lives worse and in this case that is very much so. So unfortunately, on the 12th of February, the Court of Appeal had ruled that it was wrong for a school to dismiss teacher Christy Higgs for reposting content attacking LGBT people and saying that trans people shared madness and accused trans people of brainwashing children. So, you know, just usual transphobe stuff. In the previous tribunal, it was found that the Equality Act had actually protected her hateful opinions and that when she was initially dismissed, it was legally flawed. Now, when the fantastic folk over at Queer AF checked out what post hateful Higgs had put online, it was found that it mostly consisted of reposts, posts that spread the groomer rhetoric, and many posts giving out misinformation about the LGBTQIA community and that including LGBTQIA people in education was tantamount to totalitarianism.
[Sound department]Ashleigh: And we should have another klaxon for when a fascist accuses the opposition of being fascist [sound effects] In this hateful Higgs stated that she did not regret spreading hate, so unfortunately this does set the precedent that anti trans teachers can endorse and share hateful social media posts on their own social media pages and not face any consequences. So this will make it harder for trans people and students to challenge transphobic bullies in their workplace. So not great, unfortunately.
This is one of the stories that I was only made aware of thanks to the work of you two. So, thank you for that. Thank you for bringing this into my life, I really appreciate it. Well, so it’s a question of if the teacher in question, if they’ve brought that hate into the classroom. That’s when, because we spoke about a tribunal and the name of the guy, escapes me, who was quite directly, hateful in the classroom to an actual, I think it was a trans student.
Flint: Yes. Is this the one from the last episode where it was the teacher that was coming up with transphobic, everyday talking points at this point? But it was to some students with a trans student in the room. And yeah, they were like, what are you doing bringing that shit into the classroom. Like, even if they asked you about it, dude, like, you’re the adult. Why are you getting goaded by the conversations and stuff, you know you shouldn’t be by children, bro. That’s like, not the vibe. And obviously the court put it more formally than that. Whereas this is like, it happened outside the classroom, I guess, is their reasoning as to why. But the one thing I will point out, that doesn’t mean that they aren’t still under the power of the Malicious Communications Act and any other piece of law that governs how you should not be spreading violent hate speech online.
Alyx: So the guy was having a DBS check and they decided to say that he wasn’t safe to be around children because of his transphobic and anti-abortion comments made in the classroom. Yeah.
Ashleigh: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s still the precedent there is, the teacher loses their job. But now if they’re quieter, maybe even more subtle about it and don’t bring it into the classroom quite so overtly, that might well be protected. So that sucks.
Flint: You’re calling people fucking groomers. That’s not something that’s acceptable within the realms of free speech. Fuck that.
Ashleigh: Yeah, yeah, that is hate speech.
Flint: Yeah, that’s hate speech, and that should be considered hate speech. You shouldn’t be able to do hate speech and be a fucking teacher point blank, period.
Ashleigh: Hmm. Yeah, agreed. Moving on then. Rather than hateful wins.
Flint: Guess what we’ve got more of folks. Yes, that’s right. So here we go again, back into this whole debacle with the current ongoing case about nurses that started by the determination of one woman to vilify a trans coworker for daring to exist.
This time we have another person to add to this nightmare blood rotation. Streeting just had to put some waders on and go blundering into this bog of a supposed harassment case. His oh so valuable contribution? To demand that the British Medical Council overhaul its system for how it records doctors after a piece by the Telegraph came out that said doctors changing gender will have their previous records removed as they will have a new GMC number. They tried the frankly concerningly detached argument that doctors will transition to have any misconduct or disciplinaries wiped, and we really don’t need to break down her utterly absurd and completely without journalistic merit or integrity, that that is – right, well, we don’t actually need to, because the GMC has come in and penned a letter directly to the secretary of Ill-Health to express how inaccurate his stance is and how ill-fitting his demands are.
So, let’s read from the letter itself. When a doctor transitions, they can receive a new GMC number, but their fitness to practise history and any risk that they may still present to the public attaches to an individual and remains the same whether or not their gender identity changes. Further on in the letter: In relation to all doctors who we have allowed to change their gender on our register, we can also confirm that all fitness to practise history is accurately displayed on the records of all those doctors and no fitness to practise history has been removed or suppressed. Because obviously that’s how that would work. It is embarrassing that you are in this position Wes and having to have these things explained to you Wes! Come on.
Ashleigh: Yeah, right. That’s some really basic safeguarding referencing type stuff that obviously the GMC have thought about because it turns out people and doctors have been transitioning for quite some time.
Flint: Yeah.
Ashleigh: Lo and behold.
Flint: And let’s just take a moment to kind of really consider how reasonable or likely it is that Wes genuinely saw it and believed this. I don’t think he did for a second, I think he was just using a moment that he could to springboard and launch himself into a conversation to keep this momentum going. I think he very much is like, yes, I want to push through XYZ changes and be known as the guy that shut down the gender ideology. And he’s just taking any opportunity that he can.
Alyx: And especially putting this timing directly next to the Dr. Upton and Sandy Peggie case and going. Oh, but what if, what if Dr. Upton had in fact been a dodgy doctor before and transitioned to hide a history. But in reality it’s most definitely false and just trying to make someone sound guilty when they’re not.
Flint: The investigation feels very much like it’s a hit piece to drum up fear of anyone that is potentially queer looking or not following cis-heteronormative standards of how appearance should work and it’s to basically make yet again, this conflation between trans people and criminality, trans people and hiding dangers and it’s to make you fearful of anyone that you see that doesn’t look and act cis.
Alyx: We’ve also seen with the Darlington nurses, they’ve recently come out and gave the full name for the doctor that they were harassing as well, setting a very scary precedent to me that like if someone wants to have a tribunal, they’ll name the doctor in public. And enforce the hate campaign towards that person who clearly needs to remain private.
Ashleigh: Yeah, definitely. That person should be protected, not vilified in the press, but the Darlington nurses and Sandy Peggie they.
Alyx: Are evil.
Ashleigh: Yeah. And they just want to persecute trans people. Essentially, there is literally no other reason for it. There’s no other justification. There couldn’t possibly be. Why would they go to so much trouble if it were not motivated from a place of genuine, I don’t think it’s just hate, I think it’s disgust, right?
Flint: I think it is disgust. I think you’re absolutely right. I think it is disgust and I think that this is the equivalent of them wanting to – this is the 21st century equivalent for me, this is what I see, of them wanting to grab some people and put them in the stocks. And set up the scene so that everyone very easily can just walk past, jeer at them and throw tomatoes. That’s what it gives to me. And that’s how it looks to me and I don’t see, really, it’s not in the public interest to be naming and shaming people for existing. For existing, especially in civil cases that haven’t even concluded. No, people have a right to privacy. Fuck’s sake.
Alyx: There’s a lot of legal cases going on and you’re probably getting sick and tired and you probably want us to stop talking about lawsuits, but unfortunately, we’ve got another one. But for those hungry for law related stories, if you’re feeling a bit hungry, we’ve now got a meat [sound effects: Eat Your Meat].
Flint: So you probably thought that you were out of the paperwork, but here we are to drag you back in and hit you with the judiciary mallet. So, the meat this time, I guess we’re just going call it lawyers corner now, because it’s another legal case. This is the one that I promised you last time because, well, it started out as a potential losers corner. I started looking through it and there is more to it than meets the eye. It’s not quite as cut and dry as we all want to believe. This case has a lot of moving parts, so bear with us because I have read the whole thing. But disclaimer, I am not a lawyer at all, so do not consider this an expert examination, but more a guide through the document with a commentary by a social sciences nerd. Just imagine I’m telling you some drama from the office with a little bit of a bombshell at the end. OK, cool. Cue the theme tune. [sound effects] Good, so this centres around the hateful turd that just won’t go, no matter how many times you flush it. The LGB alliance, but not directly. It’s more the ice cold open to this episode. The case is actually specifically about the wrongful dismissal of a worker from the Council of Arts, who I’m going to call the claimant. She took them and a senior HR partner at the council to court. Who I will call the Council and HR senior respectively. It’s important context here that the claimant is South Asian.
Ashleigh: A couple of years back, the Council of Arts infamously gave £9,500 to the LGB alliance to fund a film. This caused a stink and eventually the grant was suspended. This also caused a lot of conversation within the workforce of the Arts Council, leading to discussions in meetings and then an employee sending around an e-mail with a spreadsheet for other employees to voice their support for the grievance that was going to be lodged and support for trans and non-binary colleagues. The claimant wrote the following comment.
Alyx: “If I came to work one day and attended a drop in where staff members were openly making racist statements and asking the first respondent what protection would be offered to them as race critical staff members, I would feel terrified. I can’t imagine what my trans and non-binary colleagues are feeling right now. I’m very concerned for gender critical staff members making funding decisions and believe it is of the utmost importance that trans awareness training is delivered and also training about our Public Sector Equality Duty. It shouldn’t be taken as a given that everyone comes to work with no discriminatory views. We can’t necessarily train people out of being transphobic, but we can make it clear that we don’t tolerate transphobia by not tolerating it.”
Flint: So the document essentially became an in-house petition that sent the company into panic stations. And gender critical workers started voicing complaints to the HR senior that they planned to submit grievances. Following this, the HR team at the Council of Arts decided to investigate some of these comments. The claimants being one as she had compared being gender critical to racism, potentially creating a hostile environment for gender critical workers, which is ironic in the grossest of ways, considering what is to come.
Ashleigh: The investigating panel had no People of Colour on it. The claimant was called in for a meeting when her line manager had not been informed, and nothing had been brought up to her at any point about her comment beforehand. Apparently, the HR senior just asked someone else to do that bit. That person asked someone else and that person, well, clearly didn’t. When this issue was raised with the HR senior, he said people can request a postponement but don’t have the right to pick and choose their investigation manager unless there is a conflict of interest, calling this a preference, but she can bring a companion to the meeting. Even the court in this case called his responses here terse and dismissive. Oof.
Alyx: The claimant then raises a dignity at work complaint and asks for it to be heard first as it’s concerning the process of the investigation, but the senior is not very receptive, let’s say. Even asking her to familiarise herself with company policy, to which she then plays the Uno reverse card of no, you learn the policy, quoting sections et cetera, and showing how his interpretation may not be ACAS compliant. The meeting gets postponed a couple of times and at another point in the events the HR senior sends an e-mail to the claimant and her rep without consulting the investigator or copying her in, to say that the claimant was wanting things on her terms and running order, and quoting policy on wilful hindrance or obstruction of a disciplinary procedure and refuting victimisation on the basis that there were loads of comments, yours is only one of a few being investigated which, well doesn’t sound as strong as I think he thought it did.
Flint: Quick insert here, some questions to the void if you will. One, what purpose is there for continuing investigations that have started on shaky ground and not followed usual channels through mismanagement, and before hearing the formal complaints placed against it? And B, how was this investigation meant to be fair, if you’re already literally calling it a disciplinary process? Is it not meant to be an investigative procedure to decide the necessity of potential discipline? I don’t know, just some food for thought in this meat, let’s look at the court’s opinion on this matter, shall we?
Ashleigh: “Respondents suggested in their evidence that there was no need to deal with those issues at that stage because they could be picked up at the end of the meeting or later on in the process. We did not find that convincing. If the dignity at work was upheld after the disciplinary process was completed, that would seem to us to involve unwinding the whole of that process and any sanction arising, it also risked the claimant going through that whole process before finding that it should not have happened.”
Alyx: Investigatory meetings eventually happens and what a surprise, they decided to go ahead with disciplinary actions. They also didn’t read the submissions that the claimant had made to the meeting about her concerns of its legitimacy until after the meeting instead of before. If you’re getting the vibe that maybe HR senior had already made up his mind and was just trying to push through the process as quick as possible. Well, then you’re agreeing with the court that found the same thing. Now, let’s get to the judgments. [sound effects]
Flint: The script that was used for the meeting was described by the court as quote a sledgehammer to crack a nut and at times quote veered into legal oral examination, which the court found irrelevant and actually found that the respondents’ understanding of the case law in those questions to be wrong, whilst they were calling the claimant’s understandings of those very same cases wrong, which – Yikes! The respondents’ report of the meeting also said that she showed no remorse even though she apologised that people were upset by her comment and even sent a follow up e-mail afterwards saying the same thing. The court also found other inconsistencies in the report and what the claimant said in the meeting, quote some of her comments appeared to us to have been taken out of context or distorted to justify action being taken.
Ashleigh: Alongside this, they found that she was entirely motivated by advocating for trans coworkers and not villainising anyone to create animosity. They also pointed out that it was contradictory for the investigation to have found that she both didn’t know about equality law to know what she was doing was wrong, but was also guilty of harassment with no discussion of level of intent. However, there’s been talk of this case proving that gender critical views are equivalent to racism in law, or that it is setting some precedent for preventing people being disciplined for vocalising support for trans people at work. And we hate to say this, but it’s more complex than that. Here’s what the court said. “We have concluded that the way the first respondent dealt with the claimant’s comment does amount to a breach that is very little, if anything, to do with the comment and its context and much more to do with the process it adopted.”
Alyx: So it’s honestly not the slam dunk we would hope for. Because so much the decision of unfair dismissal is based in the process after the comment, not because it was unfair to pull her up on it. The way the court saw it, it made most sense to have her line manager have an informal chat with her about the upset her comment had caused. To jump straight to an investigation was deemed to be an action that broke down the trust between parties. But again, to show you the court’s reasoning: “we do not think that the decision to invite the claimant to an investigation meeting in itself was conduct without proper cause sufficient in itself to destroy or seriously damage”. So it was a bad move but not bad enough to be a breach on its own.
Flint: Look at how little we have been talking about transphobia and trans people in the last few minutes. Instead, it feels like we’ve been in a HR nightmare edition of the Stanley Parable. Which is where the court found the most breach. They found it was clear that HR senior had lost sight and focused on risk assessment. He had already made up his mind within the first two weeks that the claimant was just being obstructive and this went on for months. Another part of the breach is that the respondents did not properly consider her complaint about the investigation and preferred her reading of ACAS that it would make sense to pause investigating to handle that matter.
Ashleigh: But that doesn’t mean it’s worthless. The court found that the disciplinary meeting she was scheduled for before resigning would have also been a breach had it gone ahead. But here’s the thing. The claim of victimisation was dismissed because the court did not find her comment to be specific enough to fit the criteria of a protected act, mainly due to it not being an allegation of a breach in the Equality Act, nor in relation to any formal grievance that had been lodged regarding the Equality Act. And you may be thinking, well, the e-mail she commented on said it would be filing a grievance. Well, unfortunately they never did, which is interesting to us because wouldn’t that mean she was acting under the belief that it was related to a formal process? So would that not count? That’s a genuine question which we feel is kind of above our pay grade. So let’s move on.
Alyx: Yeah. So we mentioned a bombshell at the end and here it is, if you remember way back until the comment that started it all, the claimant mentioned that a hypothetical if your co-workers were making racist statements at a drop-in meeting and asking what protections they would be given for race critical views. And we kind of glossed over that, but she was referencing something that really happened at a drop-in meeting which the claimant was not at, but heard about later through others. The LGB Alliance grant was discussed. A particular employee attended saying she was concerned about the accusations of transphobia the LGB Alliance had received. Good news is she was in the minority of opinions in that meeting, but a few days later she reported the meeting runner via whistle blowing, arguing that he breached conduct by stating his own personal opinion during the drop-in that the grant shouldn’t have been given. Check cheek cheek.
Flint: The petition started after that meeting and when the gender critical co-worker found out about it, they were one of the employees that went to the HR senior, saying that she would be bringing up the grievance that we mentioned earlier. And after this, the responders started investigating comments and ranking them and pulling people in. They heard her out and then the system could do all of the heavy lifting. No one had to be directly and overtly bigoted towards her in any way. It was all under the notion of risk management and following procedure. But they created enough of an air towards it all that she was understandably intimidated to the point of resignation, and reminder by the way they didn’t follow proper procedure anyway. But here’s the really important bit that anti-trans employee just so happens to be none other than the claimant in the other Council of Arts civil case. The one that found that the Council had in fact created a hostile environment for transphobes. Oh yeah. That case was centred on other comments made in the same petition. But the claimant’s comment in this case was not in that suit. The kicker is that this entire storm that was kicked up and put the claimant through absolute hell was yet again connected to that wider machine of legal challenges used to whittle away our rights and ability to protect our right to live authentically. So good on the claimant for fighting for what’s right, but god damn isn’t it annoying that yet again, it’s one of the same 12 people.
Ashleigh: Yeah, I know. Just.
Ashleigh: Like, get a hobby. Go and touch some grass.
Flint: They have, they have one. It’s just terrible.
Ashleigh: Yeah, all right. Yeah. You raise a good point. I don’t know though, some, some of them it’s a job, right?
Flint: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s a grift. Almost.
Ashleigh: Almost. Yeah, well, you know, got to fill in all that paperwork for the ADF.
Alyx: ADF money is not going to spend themselves.
Flint: Almost definitely. Yeah. Yeah. But someone’s got to stand up for Christians. So, yeah. This is why I was like, OK, this looks like there’s so much that’s happening here. And the more I was reading through it, the more I was like, this is looking very obviously like a wrongful dismissal.
But where’s the trans stuff? Where’s the trans stuff? And I was like, this isn’t as much of the big watershed moment, the landmark case that we wanted it to be and hoped that it would be. When you first see the headline of, they tried to tell her to stop, they tried to bring her down for supporting trans women. She’s managed to win in court. It sounds like someone has been able to go, I’m standing up for trans people and I shouldn’t be stopped from doing that. And the court went ‘Correct’. Unfortunately it was more the way that you tried to investigate me about this comment that I made that I think is fine, by the way, is a problem and the court went Yes and then she went, and by the way, you were victimising me because I was doing it, protected by the Act for trying to protect trans people. And then the court went ooh, steady on. Which I personally disagree with that, but I also, the ruling is the ruling, that’s what we have to work with.
Alyx: Are all HR departments this incompetent?
Ashleigh: Yeah.
Flint: Well, all HR departments are primarily set up to protect the company, so if you are considering them along the lines of how they protect their workers, then arguably yes. Said by someone that’s not worked in an office job.
Ashleigh: Oh well, speaking as someone who has worked in several office jobs, one of which was an organisation that applied for funding to the Arts Council. There was quite a lot of back and forth on the kind of intranet thing. So I left that job not because I thought, oh, fuck these people.
But simply because my contract wasn’t renewed. It was an arts festival, and once the festival had taken place, they get rid of a load of employees and I was on the chopping block. So fine, fair enough. That was the last full time job I ever. No, wait. No, it wasn’t. The second to last full-time job I ever had. As you say it’s kind of good, but it’s not the absolute Kapow headshot type thing that it might have been made out to be, unfortunately.
This whole episode has just been, hey, do you want to hear about the latest legal cases that are kind of a bummer?
Flint: Yeah. Yeah. And we’re sorry about that, folks. Because it’s kind of that and also you can see there’s also a big conversation here about the way in which racism and transphobia intersect here, let’s not get distracted here. She stood up for trans coworkers and for trans people in general, right. And that led to her going through months of incredibly unfair treatment that primarily centred on them being completely unwilling to provide the most basic kind of critical thinking, compassion and decency or accommodations for the way in which racism was a part of this discussion. Right.
And the second that there is a group of white people that are there to decide whether what someone said regarding their experiences of racism is correct or not, we have a problem, and it was good that she called that out and it was good that she went hang on a second, there’s a problem here and in that scenario to me it makes the more sense to be like OK, let’s prevent any possibility of that kind of argument or accusation being made, of course, we will make sure that it is not that kind of power dynamic. It just makes everything work more, right? Does that not also protect the company by making sure that you are respecting your employees and making sure that you aren’t setting them up for a situation where they are potentially going to be victimised? But no, that was seen as a bending of the rules instead of a recognition of the power imbalance. That was already bending the situation anyway, and that’s a really important thing that I think is easy to forget or overlook in this case, because it’s mainly been reported as arguments over trans row, which yes, but also that’s like part of the story and we shouldn’t ignore that racism has a lot, a lot to do with how this situation has gotten to the place that it did.
Ashleigh: But you won’t read that kind of nuance in the judgement, will you? You won’t have that context.
Flint: There were no claims being made of discrimination based on race. It was simply that there was victimisation for the way that it had been gone about.
And so, for me, it’s very much when you read through the things, it comes across to me like there is a lot of unconscious bias and a lot of assuming that you cannot do a racist thing because you aren’t an EDL member, which is not how that works.
So I think that they were they were creating very much a problematic and hostile environment for this person by refusing to engage with her on an equal footing. And the second that she went, hang on a second here, let’s make sure that there’s equity in this situation. They took that as her being belligerent and obstructive. It’s not chill. It’s very not chill.
Ashleigh: It’s very much not good.
Flint: But I’m glad she won. I’m glad she won. And I hope that there is a clearer example in the future that that better solidifies your right to speak. It’s one of those things where honestly it’s all about that victimisation claim that was dismissed.
I think that I can see why it was dismissed. I don’t necessarily agree, but I can see the legal reasoning.
Ashleigh: Anyway, so from the digest of legal cases that are actually kind of downers to, well, let’s talk about some trans joy, shall we? Yeah. Let’s finish up with some joy. So what have we got?
Flint: Ellie from our Discord, said “immediately after the episode last month, I found a cinema near me that was showing The People’s Joker and it was really, really good.” Nice one, I’m glad.
Ashleigh: I’m going to watch The People’s Joker on Sunday with a bunch of my queer friends. Yeah. So that’s going to be fun looking forward to that.
Alyx: A lot of this is just basically from our Discord, but Jess from our Discord also said she got a femme haircut, and she loves it a lot.
Ashleigh: Honestly, for me that was kind of a watershed moment, like getting my first femme haircut because I’ve been in metal bands and shit. I was in a metal band when I transitioned, so I had long hair already, so I just got it slightly adjusted, got a fringe installed, just a few other bits of things, and suddenly it was all a lot more feminine. I was like, yes, this is awesome, I love it. So yeah. Fantastic news, Jess. So Becks also from our Discord competed in their first women’s sailing event and got eighth out of 24, so congratulations. Nice kicking their asses, yeah.
Flint: And Aura also said that they have been just over a month into HRT on Oestradiol. Congratulations, very glad.
Ashleigh: Yeah, so Aura, the fun part starts now. Honestly, it’s an adjustment. You will find yourself. Your mileage may vary, but you’ll notice an impact on a number of areas.
And I won’t spoil what those are, because you might, because they might be quite different for you. I remember when I first started HRT, I was working in a job that I absolutely hated. It was a call centre job. It was just fucking depressing. It was awful. I worked there for a year and had in total about 3 months, signed off sick with stress. That’s how good it was. At the same time as I am going on to HRT. And so, when I cried, I really cried. Anyway, that’s some trans joy. Thanks for sticking with us, dear listener. We love you. Don’t forget that we want to try and lift everybody up at the end of what’s what are getting to be increasingly difficult episodes to get through, with some trans joy. So please do keep those coming. Join our Discord if you like.
Flint: Even n if you have some random ones during the week and it’s like not on the week that we’re going to put it up, just pop it into the Discord, message it to us, whatever. We’ll still be able to include it, when we do the recording, even if it’s a week away.
Alyx: There’s always some other great stuff as well because we’ve got because you can send pictures of your cats and your dogs. And there’s also this person who’s been dropping pictures of their pond where there have been tadpoles and sort of watching their progress over the past years and.
Flint: I was not aware of tadpoles on the Discord. I’m going to have to check that out. Holy shit.
Ashleigh: So as well as our Discord, you can find us on Bluesky. You can, skeet us. I think that’s the word, skeet. I hate it.
Flint: I know, I know, it sounds so hello fellow kids.
Ashleigh: It does, doesn’t it?
Alyx: I’m never going to call them Skeets.
Ashleigh: No. So you can you can post at us, you can let us know about your trans joy over on Bluesky, which is our main social media platform now. We are still on Facebook and Instagram for the moment, and you can find all of the wonderful work that we do over on our website, which is where you’ll find the references page. This episode, and if you are one of the wonderfully kind-hearted people who would like to support us on Patreon, you can find us there too. Thank you all for listening. We’ll be back in two weeks. Look after yourselves. Look after each other. Build communities. Stay safe. And we love you and goodbye.
Ashleigh: This episode of What The Trans was produced and presented by Alyx, Ashleigh and Flint, and written by Ashleigh, Alyx, Flint and Sammy. It was edited by Amber Roberts and Amber Devereux, and our opening theme music was composed by Waritsara Yui Karlberg, with our episode thumbnail by Uppoa Piers, and transcription performed by Sam Wyman, Rowan B, Rachel Aldred, Georgia Griffiths and Becky. And we would especially like to thank our producer-level Patreons. Who are:
Susan Kaye Quinn, Undeadnarfa, Ellie s, Bex the Mermaid, Brian Goss, HazelDust, Laura Queen of Seagulls, Becky Cheatle, MX Spectrum, Jordyn Star, Leigh Downes, Lyndsey Cannon, George Simmons, Carly Silvers, B Squared, Smiley, friend of Candy from across the pond, The Socialist Party of Great Britian 1904, Sara, Eris, tin roof, Naesstrom, LexPhoenix, SebastianSingsSoprano, Jo has stopped using patron shoutouts for therapy, Andrea Brookes, Jack Edwards, Stefan Blakemore, naoarte, NeedlesAndThreads, Flaming Dathne, Dr McG, Gen, Katie Reynolds, Georgia Holden-Burnett, Grabilicious, Rootminusone, Grey, Beth Anderson, Bernice Roust, Ellen Mellor, Jay Hoskins, Trowan, Ashley, Setcab, Jane, Roberto de Prunk, Rose Absolute, Sarah, Sina, Kiki T, Dee, Skye Kilaen, Eric Widman, Bee, Jude, monsieur squirrel, Fergus Evans, anubisajackal, Brandon Craig, braykthacistem, Sian Phillips, Heidi Rearden, Lentil, clara vulliamy, Amelia, Samantha Raven, Fiona Macdonell, Murgatroid, ontologicallyunjust, Stella, Cyndergosa, Rebecca Prentice, CRAZZEE RICHARD, danoblivion, Florence Stanley, Helen_, Elle Gray, Melody Nyx, Fiona Punchard, John, CB Bailey, Gordon Camero,, Ted, Delphos, Kai Lewen, Vic ParsonsvPatreon User, Vic KellyvKatherine, Sabrina McVeigh, Cassius Adair, Melissa Brooks, Karaken12, April Heller, Sofie Lewis, Alexandra Lilly, Claire Scott, Ariadne Pena, Lauren O’Nions, Bernard’s Pink Jellybean, Leynos
