31 - Silencing Thought: A Conversation with Heather Brunskell-Evans

Gender: A Wider Lens

Sasha Ayad and Stella O'Malley

Health & Fitness, Society & Culture, Mental Health

4.6 • 961 Ratings

🗓️ 9 July 2021

⏱️ 71 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Heather Brunskell-Evans is a philosopher and sociologist who studies the intersection of medicine and culture. She joins us today to trace the ways in which queer theory evolved in academia and moved into the broader culture, including the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) in the UK. Explaining how a social justice angle is key to the ‘affirmative model’ of care for gender dysphoria, Heather recounts a few key moments when she realized there were authoritarian elements at play in silencing thought and conversation around the topic of transgender, even for parents trying to protect their children.

Links:

Heather’s Website 

http://www.heather-brunskell-evans.co.uk/

Transgender Children and Young People: Born in Your Own Body

https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-0398-4

Inventing Transgender Children and Young People 

https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-3638-8

Transgender Body Politics 

http://www.heather-brunskell-evans.co.uk/thoughts/transgender-body-politics/

Heather on Twitter

https://twitter.com/brunskellevans

The History of Sexuality

https://www.amazon.com/History-Sexuality-Vol-Introduction/dp/0679724699

Janice Raymond, The Transsexual Empire

https://janiceraymond.com/the-transsexual-empire/

Vanity Fair Cover

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/06/caitlyn-jenner-bruce-cover-annie-leibovitz

Moral Maze

http://www.heather-brunskell-evans.co.uk/tag/moral-maze/

Heather Brunskell Evans opinion piece for Leicester University  

https://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/press/think-leicester/arts-and-culture/2015/neo-liberalism-masculinity-and-femininity-caitlyn-jenner-and-the-politics-of-transgender  

Extended Notes

Heather has been working in this field since the very beginning --Since the early 1990s.
Heather shares a bit about her background and how she got started.
The moment Heather discovered medical intervention for transgender children in 2016, her work has not been the same since.
Why did Heather decide to do her PhD in child sexual abuse?
Technically, we don’t actually have any human or social rights.
What research did Heather discover when she was doing her PhD in queer theory?
Heather describes what post-structuralism is.

www.widerlenspod.com/subscribe

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	You're listening to gender, a wider lens.
0:04.0	I'm Stella O'Malley, a psychotherapist in Ireland.
0:06.5	And I'm Sasha Ayad, an adolescent therapist in the United States.
0:10.6	Since 2016, my practice has been exclusively dedicated to gender questioning teens
0:16.1	and families impacted by gender dysphoria. I also work with gender questioning
0:20.7	teenagers and I facilitated support meetings for families and
0:24.2	individuals who have been impacted by gender issues. We're curious about the
0:28.1	concept of gender and how it's unfolding in the wider culture. Join us as we look at gender through a wider lens.
0:35.0	Hello Stella.
0:38.0	Hi Sasha.
0:40.0	I'm really looking forward to today's conversation.
0:42.0	As you may remember remember we did an episode on
0:45.2	queer theory several months back and we had a lot of listeners engaged with us in the
0:51.2	comments and people were really interested in the topic and
0:54.8	encouraged us to bring somebody on who's really an expert in this subject.
1:00.7	So we have a guest today, don't we?
1:02.4	Yes, and I first had the pleasure of meeting Heather Bruns' Eleventh when I did my
1:06.8	film Trans Kids, it's time to talk.
1:08.8	And at the time, I was fairly intimidated by Heather because she just knew so much more than I knew and I was like
1:18.8	Oh Oh because I was right at that time I was I would argue I really didn't I know a lot more about gender now than I did then
1:26.5	You know I had my experience as a kid that I really didn't know the stuff and oh my God that day
1:32.4	Talking in a park with Heather was it was fabulous it was
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Sasha Ayad and Stella O'Malley, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Sasha Ayad and Stella O'Malley and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.