NSPCC Dare to Debate | Is society letting down transgender children?

~ Sarah Ditum

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Update, 13 October 2016 – Following the withdrawal of Kellie Maloney and protests from trans campaigners, the NSPCC has cancelled the event. According to the statement they have issued: “the trans community have raised concerns and told us that they don’t support the NSPCC hosting this discussion”. In other words, they don’t actually “dare to debate” if there is a risk that the conversation might challenge the current conventions around transgender children.

Original post continues below…

On 25 October, I’m taking part in a event for the NSPCC’s Dare to Debate series, attempting to answer the question: is society letting down transgender children? As soon as they approached me, I knew I wanted to participate. Over the last few years, I’ve dedicated a considerable proportion of my writing to gender, and in the process I’ve changed my own position substantially.

Transgender rights have been described as the “next civil rights frontier”, but within the feelgood narrative, a lot of assumptions have been left unchallenged. Is gender an inherent quality that every human possesses, or a sex-class system that we’re socialised into? Is it possible to identify a child as trans without relying on sexist stereotypes? How does the prioritising of gender identity over physical sex affect women and girls? Are trans-identified youths harmed by the way issues such as suicide are reported? All these are left woefully unscrutinised in the current orthodoxy about gender, and any opportunity to explore them is very welcome.

The other speaker will be Kellie Maloney, the boxing promoter formerly known as Frank who transitioned in 2014. Maloney’s past includes the expression of homophobic sentiments (now repudiated), and a 2005 attack on Tracey Maloney when the two were married (Maloney has attributed this in part to the strain of living with a suppressed gender identity). My participation implies no endorsement of these acts. Gendered violence, and its effects on children, is something I expect to discuss at the event. I trust the NSPCC to facilitate a full and open discussion, and am delighted to volunteer my time for this debate.

The audience will be by invitation, but I will update this post if there are plans to stream it or release a recording.

Read more about the NSPCC and support its work

Sky News – Sky News Sunrise | Should we encourage the new Down’s test?

~ Sarah Ditum

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Later today the campaign group Don’t Screen Us Out will deliver a petition to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt asking that he oppose the introduction NIPT – of a safe, accurate test for trisomy disorders. Their stated reason is a fear that improved detection rate for Down’s syndrome will lead to an increased abortion rate for affected pregnancies, and perhaps the elimination of Down’s syndrome altogether. This is a strange argument since it’s largely coming from families who have either chosen not to screen or chosen to have children with Down’s, and are themselves proof against their own claims.

Not at all strangely, the issue has been hijacked by anti-choice campaigners: Don’t Screen Us Out spokesperson Lynn Murray is also a longstanding member of the anti-abortion group SPUC. Following my response to Sally Phillips’ documentary A World Without Down’s Syndrome?, Sky News invited me to debate the issue with James Mildred, described as a “bioethics commentator” here but more accurately an anti-abortion activist since he’s a spokesman for the religious anti-choice group CARE. During the interview, he conceded that he was entirely opposed to termination and motivated in this by Christian beliefs.

For people like Mildred, the fact that the current testing regiment caused miscarriage in 1% of cases is irrelevant. The fact that NIPT is 99% accurate and will help families prepare for wanted babies with Down’s as well as end unwanted pregnancies does not interest them. NIPT itself is clearly better both for women and for the unborn they claim to be concerned about; the only reason to stop it is if you want is to stop women having information, because you don’t like the choices they make. Ultimately, opponents of NIPT don’t want to talk about the reality of bringing up a child with serious mental and physical disabilities, nor what happens when that child becomes an adult and still needs care. Mildred’s position isn’t just anti-woman, it’s anti-disability too.

Read more about NIPT from the NHS

 

LBC – Stig Abell | Donald Trump and rape culture

~ Sarah Ditum

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One of the strangest defences of Donald Trump’s 2005 comments (which I wrote about for the New Statesman over the weekend) is the claim that this is “just banter” and “what men do”. As Deborah Cameron explains in a typically excellent post, both those things can be true without diminishing the harm and the ugliness of the things Trump was recorded discussing. I joined Stig Abell on his LBC show yesterday to talk about what this incident tells us about rape culture, and how that affects all women.

Download the show as a podcast (subscription required)

New Statesman | Has Donald Trump’s sexism finally destroyed him?

~ Sarah Ditum

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Why is it “grab them by the pussy” that did it? Why, after everything he’s said, is it this that’s pushed senior Republicans to finally turn away from Donald Trump? Not slurring Mexican immigrants as drug runners and rapists. Not calling for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States”. Not retweeting an anti-Semitic meme that originated on a white supremacist message board. Not his racist and sexist bullying of a Venezuelan Miss Universe winner, and not his heavy-handed hinting that assassination might be an appropriate way to put Hillary Clinton out of the running.

None of those things have left a mark on the Trump campaign like that inflicted by a few minutes of candid tape from 2005. As Trump went to film a cameo on soap opera Days of Our Lives, he was accompanied by a crew from the TV entertainment news programme Access Hollywood recording behind-the-scenes footage; some of that footage was unbroadcastable, and some of that has now been leaked. “I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them,” says Trump in the recording. “It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait.” Then: “And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”

Read the full post at the New Statesman

BBC Radio 4 – Today | Does Kim Kardashian deserve sympathy?

~ Sarah Ditum

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A woman getting tied up and robbed would be, you’d think, a no-brainer when in comes to sympathy; but as I wrote for the Independent on Monday, that’s not been the case for Kim Kardashian, who has been an object of schadenfreude and even glee since the public learned that she was the victim of an armed heist. This morning, Today invited me on to debate this with journalist Celia Walden, and I couldn’t have asked for a clearer example of the attitude I wrote about, with Walden claiming that Kardashian “flaunting” herself led to an “instinctive reaction” of unconcern. Hear me explain what this says about our attitudes to violence against women, and what it has to do wit Donald Trump, on the link below.

Listen on iPlayer (from 01:54:40)

BBC Radio Wales – Good Morning Wales | Corbyn’s power reshuffle

~ Sarah Ditum

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Corbyn’s post-victory reshuffle has a distinctly assertive feel, with rewards for supporters and removals for the not-so-supportive. Most notably from the PLP’s point of view, long-serving Chief Whip Rosie Winterton has been replaced by Nick Brown – an old hand who served as Chief Whip under both Blair and Brown (making him a veteran of putting down rebellions), but also an ally of Corbyn’s on Trident. The move was apparently a shock to Winterton, who believed herself to be brokering peace talks between Corbyn and his MPs. The other big story is the appointment of Shami Chakrabarti (above) to Shadow Attorney General. A year ago, this would have been welcomed across the political spectrum; in light of her much-criticised anti-semitism report, it looks unfortunately transactional. You can hear me discuss all this, and the indignities inflicted on sandwich-starved lobby journos by an extended reshuffle, by following the link below.

Listen on iPlayer (from 02:06:40)

New Statesman | Sally Phillips’ documentary about Down’s syndrome testing was profoundly anti-choice

~ Sarah Ditum

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At one point in her documentary, A World Without Down’s Syndrome?, Sally Phillips finds herself earnestly agreeing that the most important thing about a woman’s decision to abort or continue with any pregnancy is that it’s exactly that – her decision.

But a decision can only be as good as the information you base it on, which makes this a strange moment when the film itself is essentially a plea to deny women access to a safe and accurate test for Down’s syndrome. It’s your choice, was the message, but you shouldn’t know too much about what you’re actually choosing.

Read the full post at the New Statesman