Savage Minds

Nic Williams, PhD discusses her work as director of Fair Play for Women in providing advice to policy makers on how to fairly balance the rights of women and those who identify as “transgender.” Williams covers the push to keep women's spaces single-sex detailing her work on prisons and sports from the grassroots level, to chatting with Martina Navratilova over the sports debate and to having invited herself to a meeting hosted by World Athletics in Switzerland about the rules for trans athletes. Williams describes the climate over the past four which where she was left ostracised and where she was often times the only voice at the table speaking up for women’s rights. She also covers the triumphs such as the recent high court victory against the Office for National Statistics (ONS) after Fair Play for Women took the ONS to court to stop them redefining sex in the census. Williams also expounds upon her concern for young lesbians underscoring how being a scientist has informed her approach to this debate where evidence and facts matter. Get full access to Savage Minds at savageminds.substack.com/subscribe

Naomi Cunningham, a barrister and director and Chair of Sex Matters, discusses her entry into the gender debate and the wider implications of the Gender Recognition Act (2004). Elaborating the disconnect between the medical and legal frameworks on the subject of gender dysphoria, Cunningham notes how the surge of girls declaring themselves as transgender demonstrates a dereliction of duty by adults who should be protecting these adolescents instead of cheering them on. Cunningham also covers her work on submission and compliance to the Workplace Equality Index highlighting how the Equal Treatment Bench Book has been exploited as she details the vast capture of these institutions by the transgender lobby that has homed in on the country’s judiciary. Considering how human beings are invested in “getting into role” as humans tend to be vulnerable to group think, Cunningham elucidates the concept of the Milgram shock experiment in explaining the way in which judges have been given “training” that “bypasses their critical faculties.” Get full access to Savage Minds at savageminds.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, journalist Beatrix Campbell discusses her shift from the Communist Party to the Green Party analysing the horrors of Stalinism, the end of Perestroika in 1991 and the emergence of green politics to which she gravitated. Delving into the transgender issue that has plagued politics in the UK in recent years, Campbell discusses how the Green Party was captured by transgender ideology that decided that there was no debate and that the feminists who wanted to hold this debate were necessarily “transphobic,” a position that was instrumental in frightening people away from having any debate. Noting how trans ideology is highly sourced and hegemonic, Campbell elucidates how the Green and Labour parties were hammered by the toxicity and “cultish madness” of an identity politics that most people had never fully considered. Campbell also discusses her forthcoming book, Secrets and Silence (2022) about child sexual abuse and the cultural taboos around this social fact and the encouraging reality that today we are able to hold conversations on this subject. Get full access to Savage Minds at savageminds.substack.com/subscribe

Dr. Thomas Prosser, a Reader in European social policy at Cardiff University, discusses his latest book, What’s in it for me? Self-interest and political difference (2021), highlighting the economic and cultural foundations of different world views and how they relate to tribalism, Brexit and changes in liberal democracies. Analysing self-interest and political partisanship, Prosser discusses with Julian Vigo the rise of identity politics since the global pandemic and how these recent developments raise fascinating questions about different interests and liberal democracy. Get full access to Savage Minds at savageminds.substack.com/subscribe

James Esses, a former a Criminal Barrister and currently a Trainee Psychotherapist, discusses the current social dilemma at the heart of the gender identity debate where countries are banning “conversion therapy” while dismissing the beneficial uses of therapeutic approaches to gender dysphoria. Analysing the deeper issues central to the refusal to embrace anything but affirmation, Esses points out how it the proposed ban on conversion therapy in terms of gender dysphoria is “very dangerous” to the client-therapist relationship as he underscores the need to push against the stereotypes being recycled by the gender identity lobby asking “What is wrong with being gender atypical?” Claiming that we need to spend more time addressing gender stereotypes, Esses lays bare some of the fundamental dangers at the heart of a petition and he and other members of Thoughtful Therapists addressed to the British government, namely the conflation of “conversion therapy” with beneficial therapy which effectively mandates the affirmation of transitioning. Get full access to Savage Minds at savageminds.substack.com/subscribe

Working class lecturer and filmmaker Deirdre O’Neill discusses the possibility and potential of working class filmmaking today as she highlights her experiences in the British film industry and the eclipse of the working class behind and in front of the camera. Arguing that “class is not an identity,” O’Neill considers the relationship between the forces of production and the paucity of analysis today amidst the myriad identities fighting for their visibility while class is entirely eclipsed from the debate. Criticising feminism and identity politics noting the damage they have inflicted on class politics, O’Neill debates the effects of the open letter she co-authored with Julian Vigo directed at the British Film Institute’s platforming of Munroe Bergdorf during its Woman with a Movie Camera summit noting that Bergdorf is neither a woman nor a filmmaker. O’Neill details her work in cinema in the UK and in Venezuela noting the kinds of films that are made today, who has access to having their work produced, and the types of cinema that superficially addresses working class issues today. Get full access to Savage Minds at savageminds.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, co-founder of Stonewall Simon Fanshawe OBE deliberates his involvement in the formation of Stonewall in 1989 in response to Section 28 of the Local Government Act. Discussing gay rights during the height of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and the stigma of AIDS that would come to mark the 1980s, Fanshawe notes that Stonewall pushed back against Section 28 through an appeal to the right of free speech. Taking up Stonewall’s recent political trajectory that focusses on trans rights which he characterises as the “Trojan horse for gender ideology,” Fanshawe elaborates how this essentialist ideology has moved against the rights and interests of women and gay men and lesbians while gaining enormous academic traction where the political today has become personal. Fanshawe addresses the paucity of diversity of differing points of view within Stonewall today expanding upon how a community’s struggle for freedom has been subsumed by a highly individualistic narrative where personal identity does not match material reality. Covering the history of camp within gay culture, Fanshawe analyses the drag queen who transgresses social codes simply because there is no pretence of “the real.” In drag there is no affirmation of identity—there is only camp which exposes “the flaw in masculinity” which lies in direct contrast to gender ideology’s “dull conformity that’s demanded by this lack of humour.” Get full access to Savage Minds at savageminds.substack.com/subscribe

English economics and politics journalist and author Grace Blakeley discusses her latest article, “How Corporate Welfare Props up the Billionaire Class” and the larger issues surrounding class politics today and the increase in wealth of the billionaire class is not a fluke but is very much part of the architecture of capitalism and the “direct intervention of capitalist states all over the world.” Discussing the Global Financial Crisis, Blakeley maintains the response to the crisis could be considered a form of “corporate welfare” noting how central bank policies are creating an even richer billionaire class through “quantitative easing” where banks create new money to purchase assets from the private sector (eg. government and corporate bonds) which have led to an explosion in stock and property prices. Blakeley covers the housing crisis and the “evictions ban” during the pandemic and the “fundamentally irrational” features of capitalism noting how the private landlord class contributes to an upward, intergenerational transfer of wealth within the context of massive disparities in wealth and income between the older and younger people. Noting the end result of the rentier system is that huge amounts of wealth are transferred from those who must work and who are struggling to those who monopolise necessary resources (eg. land, housing, capital), Blakeley argues quite effectively that this is making our economies work less well. Get full access to Savage Minds at savageminds.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Laura Dodsworth, author, journalist, photographer and filmmaker, discusses her latest book, A State of Fear: how the UK government weaponised fear during the Covid-19 pandemic, addressing how SPI-B (the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviour), a team of behavioural scientists working inside Whitehall that advise SAGE and ministers, has worked to create a climate of fear amongst the British population in order to encourage compliance with lockdown. Criticising the totalitarian tactics of terror that suppress rational thinking across the population, Dodsworth analyses the government’s use of behavioural psychology and the weaponisation of fear in order to treat people as if we were systems to “manage” noting how this form of fear mongering raises serious questions about the society being created and the government that thinks using fear as a form of social control is acceptable. Giving copious examples as to how the British government has used the pandemic to divide society along the lines of compliance where masks are used to signal obedience, Dodsworth notes the misleading use of statistic, bad science and the media complicity in spreading misinformation. Get full access to Savage Minds at savageminds.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode, Susan Evans, a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, and Marcus Evans, a psychoanalyst, discuss their latest book, Gender Dysphoria: A Therapeutic Model for Work ing with Children, Adolescents and Young Adults (Phoenix, 2021) wherein they analyse some of the psychoanalytic ideas regarding gender dysphoria and the political and social climate surrounding transgender identity today. Covering some of the issues relevant to gender dysphoria, Evans and Evans cover the mental health co-morbidities often conterminous to adolescent and childhood gender dysphoria as well as adjacent familial and social issues that inform the exploration of gender identity. Detailing some of the frameworks for delivering therapy—to include its complexities—Evans and Evans note that oftentimes adolescent gender dysphoria is fraught with anxiety related to the subject’s inability to tolerate ambiguity and confusion and they detail how best to work with adolescents and helping them accept who they are. Get full access to Savage Minds at savageminds.substack.com/subscribe