Shon Faye: The transgender issue
The Interview
BBC
4.3 • 537 Ratings
🗓️ 15 August 2022
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
According to research in the US and the UK, roughly one in 100 may be transgender. But the fact that the debate about transgender rights has become a political battleground isn’t driven so much by the numbers but more by conflicting ideologies. Stephen Sackur asks author and journalist Shon Faye if all the attention on issues of sex, gender and identity is making it easier to be trans or not.
This programme is subject to clarifications. In the interview with the transgender activist and writer Shon Faye, the presenter said: “There's quite a lot of data now on this, self-harm is a problem for people who are in this situation and suicide is also more common among trans young people than among the rest of the population”. In fact, the overall position is unclear as there is limited data on suicides among young trans people.
On the point made by Shon Faye that puberty blockers are reversible, the NHS says little is known about their long term side effects in children with gender dysphoria, and that although the Gender and Identity Service (GIDS) advises this is a physically reversible treatment if stopped, it is not known what the psychological effects may be.
Details here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/helpandfeedback/corrections_clarifications/
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker. My guest today has a personal |
| 0:06.6 | history which very much hinges on a transition, a before and an after. Sean Faye's before was her |
| 0:14.5 | upbringing in Bristol in the southwest of England. Back then, she was raised as a boy, a boy |
| 0:19.9 | bullied for being different, effeminate and somehow dangerous. |
| 0:24.1 | Sean came out as gay at university, trained as a lawyer, but then had a breakdown, moved back to Bristol and came out as a trans woman. |
| 0:33.9 | For a time, she was deeply troubled, consuming drugs and alcohol to dull the pain in her life, |
| 0:40.0 | but over time she found her voice, becoming a successful freelance journalist on a string of progressive |
| 0:45.8 | and left-wing publications. |
| 0:48.0 | She wrote a book, The Transgender Issue, which has become an influential text in the increasingly |
| 0:53.8 | prominent and heated debate |
| 0:55.6 | in the UK about trans rights and the relationship between biological sex, gender and identity, |
| 1:03.4 | a debate which encompasses politics, healthcare, education and ideological conviction. For trans people, this level of attention is new, but is it making |
| 1:14.5 | it easier to be trans or not? Well, Sean Faye joins me now. Welcome to Hard Talk. Pleasure to |
| 1:22.2 | be here. Thank you for having me. That's great to have you here. I also have a copy of your book, |
| 1:26.8 | the transgender issue, which you wrote published last year. It's described on the cover as a landmark bestseller. It has done well. And in the intervening months since you published it, the transgender story, as we put it, the issues around transgender rights has consistently been prominent in the political |
| 1:46.3 | debate. Would it be right to assume that you are delighted those issues are so prominent? |
| 1:52.9 | In one way I feel vindicated that the argument that I'm making the book essentially is that |
| 1:58.0 | there has been an explosion and discussion of transgender people |
| 2:01.1 | across all forms of media and in politics. But what I argue in the book is that trans people |
| 2:07.0 | are often not at the centre of these conversations and the actual issues facing most trans people |
| 2:11.8 | day to day do not form the substance of what is being discussed in the media. And I think we've |
| 2:16.4 | seen this a lot recently in our own Tory leadership election here in the UK, |
... |
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