I've had numerous conversations with people and if they talk about transgenderism,

they'll lower their voice, they'll look around them to see if anybody is listening.

It's as if we're in Germany in 1939 and my friend wants to say something a little bit negative about Hitler.

Hello and welcome to the Brendan O'Neill show with me Brendan O'Neill. This is a monthly podcast in which an esteemed guest joins me to talk about the big ideas the bad ideas the problems and the

controversies of the early 21st century. This month I am delighted to be joined by the novelist Lionel Shriver.

Lionel barely needs an introduction.

She is the author of numerous novels, including prize-winning novels,

and she is a columnist with The Spectator. And she is a

is a literary figure who is also a public figure. Her thoughts on art,

politics and society always make an impact in the public sphere. A reviewer for the Washington Post once said

that if Jody Pico has her finger on the zeitgeist,

Lionel Shriver has her hands around its throat.

Over the next hour, I hope we will tighten even harder that grip around the throat of the

zeitgeist.

Lionel, welcome to the show.

Pleasure to be here.

I want to start by talking about something that you've written about quite a lot, which is the

impossibility of art in the era of identity politics, because it strikes me, and I know it strikes you as well that one of the most

tragic accomplishments of the politics of identity has been to create an aura of suspicion and even censorship around art, literature and entertainment.

And what it's done, it seems to me, is polluted these things with politics so that art and literature are less and less judged by their

beauty or their meaning or their humanity but rather by whether they are called with the ideological

worldview of the new identitarians.

...