Trans rights and the supreme court

[lnr]

Unions now have a meeting on Thursday with the Pro-VC, senior HR and EDI people. I'm going to be attending on behalf of UCU, along with our Equalities Officer Amanda. Our main requests are better communication of actual practical support for staff and students, not changing policies without consultation based on the rushed EHRC interim guidance, and asking for them to contribute to the consultation. There's a lot more subtle stuff involved, but that's kind of the absolute minimum.

It turns out I'm now having trouble getting back to sleep if I wake in the night, because I'm too busy thinking about how the hell we communicate this properly, and what our chances of success are in ensuring trans, intersex and non-binary people continue to be treated with dignity and respect and remain safe at work. Because that feels like a really basic thing to be asking for when you put it like that.

My HoD finally got back to me yesterday, to reiterate support, but it's meaningless if it's only said to *me*, and not to all staff and students.

Comments

[vyvyanx]

Thank you again for all your support on this - I am so grateful that there are cis people out there who care enough about our lives even to say something, let alone doing all the work you have done. I'm sorry it's been giving you sleepless nights (I've had plenty myself over this issue during the last month or so - and in the past when trans stuff was in the news for other awful reasons e.g. the Cass report).

On Sunday, my MP wrote me a very encouraging letter in response to my long missive, and asked me to meet him to discuss it further at one of his surgeries. So I will!

[lnr]

Oh I'm so glad! I thought my MP's initial report was quite good (if woolly): until I saw two almost identical versions of the same message from other LibDem MPs!

Cass is still a nightmare too, isn't it? Argh. All the stuff about testing children for autism before being willing to discuss anything about being trans is appalling too (what if they've already *got* an autism diagnosis eh?)

[barakta]

Have you seen that there's a Peer Reviewed paper criticising Cass including that Cass Report was NOT peer reviewed?

[lnr]

I did! <3

[bens_dad]

I haven't read the Cass report in detail, but have heard her say that the autism/depression assessment and treatment is intended to be in parallel with and not before or instead of the trans assessment and treatment. Given the current waiting list to see a trans specialist, and given the frequency of autism and depression in trans people it does seem reasonable to investigate and treat those in parallel.

Now that could all be spin by Cass or her detractors; I am not close enough to know, and as with much the NHS there could be a huge difference between the ideal and the reality.
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Much has been said about the alleged lack of research into when blockers are helpful, but I wonder how much effort is being put into finding effective treatments for depression in the autistic.

[ptc24]

Autism - this seems reminiscent of the usual "do the other thing first" games, where everyone seems to want trans people to do all the things that other people are gatekeeping before they allow trans people through the gate they are keeping, generally in ways that would create a deadlock.