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Hello, welcome to political thinking.

We're all in favour of equality, right?

Well, wrong, actually.

The principle of equality is what many people say they support,

but what the idea means in practice is increasingly contentious.

My guest on political thinking this week is the woman who has the extremely sensitive job

of enforcing the law on equality.

She is Mary Ann Stevenson,

the new chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

She's just published advice on one of the most divisive of issues,

how to ensure equality for trans people without trampling

on the hardfall rights of women. It's just one of the many difficult debates in which she's

expected to intervene. In a society in which, for example, someone to ban what they call

Islamophobia, but others insist on the freedom to criticise, not just Islam but any religion.

Some argue women are still not treated equally to men, others insist equality has gone too far.

Not to mention the rights of migrants and refugees as against those born here.

That is just part of her very packed agenda.

...