The pain transgender people carry deserves to be named
Dr Helen Webberley on Triggernometry: the trans debate, with Konstantin Kisin, Triggernometry
The debate about trans rights is mostly an abstract argument about definitions and legislation. The real-world cost to trans people, the hurt, the loss, the lives cut short, gets lost somewhere in the noise.
What I was trying to do in that moment was bring the conversation back to the people inside it. Because there is real hurt happening, right now, to people who are transgender. Discrimination, pain, and loss of life that deserves to be named out loud, not sidestepped in favour of another round of definitional argument. The Equality Act 2010 gives gender reassignment as a protected characteristic, which means that in UK law, trans people exist and are owed respect. That is not a radical position. It is the law. And it matters, because when we lose sight of the human cost, we lose sight of what the whole conversation is actually for.
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