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Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness

GETTING CURIOUS | How Can We Raise The Bar On Trans Rights? with Lui Asquith

Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness

Sony Music

Science, Self-improvement, Comedy, Education, Society & Culture

4.9 • 21.5K Ratings

🗓️ 27 January 2021

⏱️ 53 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In December 2020, the UK High Court determined that trans, non-binary, and gender diverse young people in the UK must have legal approval before they can start puberty blockers—even if these young people, their families, and their doctors advocate for treatment. This week on Getting Curious, Lui Asquith joins Jonathan to break down what hormone blockers are, why this case is so significant, and how it fits into a broader discussion about trans rights in the UK and beyond. Lui Asquith (pronouns they/them) is Director of Legal, Policy and Operations at Mermaids. Lui is a qualified lawyer, with a background in LGBTI activism. They moved to Mermaids over two years ago to focus on improving the lives of trans, non-binary and gender diverse young people on the front line. Founded in 1995, Mermaids is a UK-wide charity working to support thousands of transgender, non-binary and gender diverse children, young people, and their families. Lui is on Twitter @luiasquith. Mermaids is on Instagram @mermaidsgender, Twitter @Mermaids_Gender, and Facebook @MermaidsGender. Find out what today’s guest and former guests are up to by following us on Instagram and Twitter @CuriousWithJVN. Check out all new Getting Curious merch at PodSwag.com. Listen to more music from Quiñ by heading over to TheQuinCat.com. Jonathan is on Instagram and Twitter @JVN and @Jonathan.Vanness on Facebook. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome to Getting Curious, I'm Jonathan Venice, and every week I sit down for a 40 minute conversation with a brilliant expert to learn all about something that makes me curious.

0:09.0

On today's very important episode, I'm joined by Louis Asquith, director of legal policy and

0:15.1

operations at Mermaid, where I asked them, how can we support trans youth in the United Kingdom

0:20.5

and abroad?

0:21.5

Actually, all around the world, honey.

0:24.4

Yes.

0:28.4

Welcome to getting curious, this is Jonathan Vanes.

0:30.5

I'm very excited for our guests this week who is Louis Asquith.

0:35.0

You are the Director of Legal and Policy and Operations at Mermaid's, a UK charity that has

0:39.5

been supporting transgender and gender diverse kids, young people people and their families since 1995.

0:45.6

Ah, how are you Louis?

0:47.6

Hi Jonathan, I'm wonderful. How are you?

0:50.6

Good. So I do want to give our listeners just a little brief background.

0:54.8

We first ran across you on this Twitter thread that was discussing a ruling by the

0:58.7

UK's High Court deciding whether people under the age of 18 can understand enough about puberty blockers and hormones to make a decision about whether to take them or not.

1:07.0

The court ended up saying that people under 16 are unlikely to be able to consent to hormone blockers.

1:12.0

Now a court has to decide whether it's in someone's best interest,

1:15.4

I'm holding up air quotes everyone

1:17.2

to start puberty blockers before a doctor can prescribe them.

1:20.1

So I do, you know, for our episode,

1:22.4

I have, you know, two pretty large questions.

1:25.0

One is, you know, what's going on with this case? What does this case mean for the lives of

...

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