Transvox and NION Women: Not In Our Name and the Trans-Inclusive Feminist Voice

[00:00:07] Hello and welcome back to Transvox and welcome back to a previous guest. Very rarely happens on this show other than Jenny. We have Abby sitting in front of us, Abby Hawker this time. And hi Abby, how are you? Hi Gillian, I'm good, how are you? Good, and Jackie sitting in front of us as well. Hi Jackie, how are you? Hi Jackie, I'm Jackie. Hi Gillian. Look, you two are quite fascinating people because you've set up something that's quite fascinating. But first, why don't you just tell us a little bit about yourselves individually,

[00:00:37] and then we'll get into your amazing course. Yep, I'm Jackie. I'm a mom of a young trans woman. And I'm also a physio and a meditation teacher and a writer and a whole plethora of other things that I do as well as being an ambassador for FLAG, which is a charity that supports families of LGBTQ plus individuals. Oh, is that a flag with two A's? The flag with two F's. Two F's.

[00:01:07] Two F's, yes. For the flag. So many organisations, all the same names. It's really difficult. Abby, how about you? Just remind us of your munificence. Yeah, so I am a PR consultant and I specialise in helping companies to be more inclusive of the trans people, the community in terms of the way that they talk to and about and with trans people.

[00:01:33] Fantastic. So you've both evolved in the trans world, which is fantastic. It's great to see people doing this. Obviously, Jackie, you've got personal experience with this. This is amazing. And Abby and I worked together for a little while doing all sorts of exciting bits and bobs. But tell me, because everybody knows about your joint venture, tell me what it is and why you started it. Who's going to go first?

[00:02:52] We reported as a victory for cisgender women. And we just thought it was absolute nonsense because to us, it's not a victory. To us, it's the exact opposite. And so a few of us got together and took some steps to make our voices heard, because we thought our voice was missing from the conversation. So was this a specific catalyst or did it merge from something?

[00:03:13] My understanding, I didn't join immediately at the beginning. Somebody told me about it, a trans woman friend told me about it, but is it was the Supreme Court ruling, whether or not people who were setting it up already had those, I don't know, Abby, whether people were already thinking about it. But certainly the fallout from the Supreme Court ruling last April and then obviously the way that the EHRC jumped on it with that draft code of practice within, it was weeks, wasn't it? It was not very long.

[00:03:40] Just felt like things were rolling out of control and that somebody needed to do something to say that this was not for all women. So, yeah, that was my understanding was the catalyst. But I'm sure most of the people that are involved. We're already we're all do lots of us are all doing other things already. And it was just how do we create something that's that's different, that might make people pay attention in a different way.

[00:04:06] I think that's absolutely right. Yeah, I think what we have learned over the years is that it's not about speaking on behalf of other people. And the people who one can speak most authoritatively on behalf of is ourselves. And so we wanted to do that in a way which was really accessible. We're mums, we're daughters, we're friends, we're colleagues. We're just everyday cisgender women.

[00:04:36] And I use that term carefully because I know that there is noise around it. But essentially, I'm using it to differentiate between trans women, because the whole point of this letter is to the letter that we have written is to differentiate because we want to get as many women as we possibly can who are not trans to sign this letter. And so that we can turn around and we can say, look, we're not just a group of women, a handful of people.

[00:05:02] We actually represent the voice of quite a lot of women who think this is a nonsense and that trans people are being used as a distraction from the real causes of violence and harm against women and girls. So what is the letter you referred to? Yeah, that's a good point. So what we did, one of the first things we did, we all came together, as Jackie said, having had kind of experience and sort of fingers in other pies in relation to our support of the trans community.

[00:05:29] Some people have got trans family members or friends or they're involved tangentially through work, perhaps in diversity and inclusion type things. But one of the first things we did that was a kind of tangible output was to write a letter to an open letter. And it effectively states our mission statement, I guess you would call it.

[00:05:53] And it's a call to action to all women who feel the way that we do, that the trans community, this teeny tiny minority is being positioned as the kind of cause of all the world's ills. And actually, that's not physically possible because they're less than 0 point, depending on who you ask, 1% of the population. And so this letter essentially says, come on, guys, we all know what the real causes of harm are. So let us refocus.

[00:06:21] And it's a call to other women like us who believe, like we do, that we want to see an end to the scapegoating to sign the letter. And the key reason for that is so that we can go to different stakeholder groups. But for example, the media who insist on putting out these narratives that are very much, cis women and trans women are in opposition, we very much want to have something, we wanted to have something tangible.

[00:06:51] And so we asked women like us to read the letter. And if they agree with it, to sign it and share it in their networks. And I'll hand over to Jackie to share how we did with that. Yeah. So initially we had a really steep take of it. Initially, we got about 20,000 in about a week or something silly like that. Because obviously when everybody shared it with their own networks, they were the people who would naturally be very on board with signing it.

[00:07:20] And then it steadied out a little bit. And I think if I'm right, Abby, the next time we had the big jump was when Good Law Project got involved with us. So they've been supporting us and helped us get that message out a little bit wider. Because as I say, we're just a collective. So everybody's just been doing this on the side, voluntary and trying to put something together that was relatively straightforward. But these things never are, are they, when you're trying to get out to a lot of people.

[00:07:45] And we've gone out to try to get certain people who we feel might draw people in, various high profile people and allies and certain politicians who would, by saying that they either support or who've signed the letter, would catch people's attention. And as luck would have it, and it couldn't have really worked out any better, we actually hit the 100k on the day of the anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling. Which just feels so... Fantastic. Just so peculiar, isn't it? Because we could never, ever have planned it the way.

[00:08:13] And I don't know that anybody even thought that, did we? And we literally, that afternoon, were just all waiting. And suddenly, in the middle of the afternoon, it clicked over. So that was really quite something. It made that day that felt quite sour feel a little bit less sour, I would say. Yeah, we were all refreshing, weren't we, in that second, trying to get to the 100k. And as Jackie said, we've had some really lovely supporters who are high profile, which have really helped to boost those numbers as we've gone along.

[00:08:40] Singers and politicians and just really big names, which has just, I think one of the key barriers in this space is, I guess, the fear of people, of women thinking they're alone. In feeling supportive of trans people. And what I hope the letter has done to some extent is to demonstrate that actually there's loads of us who think this. When you're bombarded daily with stories in the newspapers that basically tell you to be afraid of trans women.

[00:09:10] I say trans women, it is about trans people more broadly, but we know that trans women are disproportionately targeted. And so in a way, we just want, we wanted to show everyday women that yes, this is what you're reading in the papers, but it doesn't reflect reality. And look how many of us there are who think this is a bit of a nonsense and actually are quite angry about the fact that time is being wasted.

[00:09:39] Focusing in using trans people as a distraction and people are getting away. I think the statistics are, Oh God, I'm terrible with statistics, Jackie. Can you remember how many women are murdered by a man? It's like this ridiculous, this one every three days. Yeah. Yeah. And I know there's so many every days, I can't believe. One in three. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:10:00] How is it possible that it's taken this long almost for something like this to be out there and for women, for us to be turning around and saying, and calling for a change and calling for politicians to actually listen on? I'm looking at the letter now. It's powerful stuff. And you see those statistics written in front of you, 1.7 million women impacted by domestic violence in 2023, 98% perpetrators of sexual offence are men. And it's pretty traumatic.

[00:10:30] And actually then when you go into a section called Enough, one of the things that you talk about is enough false feminism that abandons most vulnerable women, leaving all women at greater risk. Because it sounds, as you say, this is a distraction. And actually, the not in our name is not just about this issue. It's about many of the issues by the sound of it. Yeah, it really is. I don't want to keep talking. Jackie, you step in. Yeah, I think it's quite particular to hear, isn't it?

[00:10:55] This idea that feminists want to narrow and exclude certain people to say who can and can't be in that, under that plural term. And other cisgender women. Yeah. And creating this, like pitting people against each other. And this idea that you're taking away from one to give to another and that you're not supportive of people. And by calling themselves feminists, that makes it okay for them to do that. And that's just, that's never been the case.

[00:11:22] And for myself, for somebody who, up until, if you'd asked me this question five years ago, I wouldn't have had a clue what you were talking about. Because before my daughter came out, it wasn't something I knew anything about. I was aware I'd had a neighbour and somebody else I knew whose child had come out. And when I found out, just by chance and whatever, I just remember thinking, gosh, that's a lot for a family to deal with. And not particularly thinking anything else, negative or otherwise about it.

[00:11:50] Just that's a lot for anybody to have to deal with an 11, 12, 13 year old child. This idea about feminism and trans women and cis women and everything. I've had a big learning curve on that. And I can see completely how the way it's been presented, if you hadn't done all the research and the learning and talking to trans people and getting to know people and knowing other people. And just getting to know my daughter as well. Would just take what they're seeing in the headlines and go, oh, it must be right then.

[00:12:19] And not question it because we only pay attention to what we need to pay attention to and we understand what we're interested in. And so we've all got very busy lives. We've all got a lot of stuff going on. People have got other worries. I can completely see how the way things are presented, people will just go, oh, OK. And then, you know, be very easy for them to then label trans people as the problem. Because it's complex, isn't it, to actually understand it.

[00:12:48] If you take the narrative that's been relentlessly put forward and some of the awful things that have been said by politicians from nearly all parties. And I know one of the things that really got me about a year in. I can't even remember who it was pre-election. So I don't know who said something. But it was one of those really cliched moments where something was said on the news about trans women. And I just remember thinking, that's my child you're talking about. That's just not true.

[00:13:17] That is portraying as predatory and dangerous. And it just really hit me. And that's when I decided that I couldn't just... We were dealing with it as a family. And I felt I had enough energy to then go out and do something else about it. So it's hard to break through because there's so much going on. It's hard for us to break through. And Abby knows better than anybody how hard it is to get the media to pay any attention to what we're saying. Because most of them are very clear about how they want to portray this issue. Yeah.

[00:13:47] And it is a simple... It is a very simple message to be anti-trans. And it's very complex to be pros. No doubt about that. It is very complex. As is feminism. I always find it very interesting that people talk about feminism as if it's one thing. And that's quite interesting. And I understand, in a way, some feminists have this idea that they've spent a lot of time getting to where they were. And the idea that trans people somehow, who they see as men or women, are sneaking into the radar would be potentially an issue.

[00:14:13] And it's always important to listen to the other side of the equation. But one of the things that strikes me, or fascinated me, was reading stuff in America, which actually has a strategy around anti-trans dogmas, as a way of really removing the rights of women. Cisgender women. The bodily rights. Voting rights. And such like. And it was interesting. You used that word distraction earlier. Do you think something similar is going on here? Do you think there is a bigger plan going on behind the scenes? We know there is, yeah.

[00:14:42] It's very hard because we are very much, our aim is to get to those women who are in the middle, who are essentially the me and the Jackies 10 years ago. Because Jackie came to this space five years ago. I came to it 10 years ago when I first started working with a doctor who opened an online service for trans people. And. I wonder who that could be. And it's, yeah. The person I was then wouldn't.

[00:15:12] Would have gone, yeah, conspiracy theory. The paper, not everybody can be against you. I don't. And so it's really hard. But if you. Pick the scab off. And just have a look at where the money's flowing from, because these things are not cheap.

[00:15:28] And there's a real documented body of evidence that shows that there is a big stream of funding coming from the US actually to to support these narratives, to keep the focus away from where the focus really should be and on the trans community. So that's why it feels so hard. It's because it is. Yeah. And Russia, to be fair. That's interesting. So what's the organisation trying to do in the short term? And we'll talk about the future in a minute.

[00:15:56] But what is it you're really trying to do at the moment? So short term, in the very, very simplest terms, we want to show through body of evidence, i.e. something as simple as a load of signatures, that there are plenty of women who support trans people.

[00:16:13] So essentially, if you are a journalist and you're writing an article and you and it's about, say, Hampstead Ladies Pond, for example, and it's a story which is positioning the exclusion of trans women as a victory for women.

[00:16:30] We approach the journalist and we can say, hang on a second, please, can you include a quote from neon women who offer a voice of the trans inclusive feminist, where a group of women who were inclusive of women. So if you include that voice of the exclusive feminism, you should really include our voice as well, because otherwise you're painting a picture of women as this monolith who only have one perspective.

[00:16:59] And actually, that is not balanced. So what we're trying to do is introduce a little bit of balance. And we can only do that if we have 100,000 plus signatures, which is where we are right now, so that people can see that actually there is some weight to this. It's not just a handful of us, there's loads of us. Tiffs versus the TERFs, that sounds great, doesn't it? And what sort of reaction are you getting from that community who are anti-trans and cisgender?

[00:17:27] What we may call them TERFs, I'm not sure that explains it. We don't go toe-to-toe because we're not the anti-gender criticals. We're just women. Supportive. If you've got the anti-gender people, are they not having a conversation about your organisation and what you're up to? That's what I mean. They're not really our concern. They're not. We're not. It's not us against them. We're trying very much to lead with kindness. We completely understand that different people have different perspectives.

[00:17:55] That's not our goal. Our goal is simply to say, if you're making decisions, dear decision makers, if you're making decisions in order to improve the lives of women, harming trans people ain't going to cut the mustard because trans people represent a teeny tiny percentage of the population. So please kindly get your head out your backside and focus on the things that are really causing damage.

[00:18:24] So it's not just about trans people. Trans people are just unfortunately the collateral damage right now. And so we're trying to encourage people to take that step back. We are not going head to head with a tiny group of women who, for whatever reason, hate trans people. That's not our job because people can think whatever they want to think. As a result, everybody's got their reasons. I mean, we're all human.

[00:18:48] Yeah, I've always seen that the political agenda is shaped by the anti-trans terminology, which is then used for the anti-female thing afterwards. That's the point. And what we're trying to do is to offer a different perspective. Yeah. Good. So what's the... Sorry, Jackie. Go on. No, go on. Carry on. No, go on.

[00:19:33] I like to believe, maybe I'm really naive, that they actually do know that improving the safety of women doesn't change by banning trans women from using trans women. I like to believe that politicians actually do know that, really. And if they don't, then that's obviously something else for us to worry about. But it seems that we have to work quite hard to actually try to get them to act that way. But we're behind on that, aren't we? But not through any part of our own. Yeah, we are.

[00:19:58] And that's the whole point of us coming together because we knew that voice was missing. Very good. And what's the future for the organisation? Where are you heading? Carrying on trying to grow the signatures on the letter, trying to be that voice in the middle and get that out to slightly these next layers of the people that we want to reach. Some of that is probably going to involve.

[00:20:24] I'm looking at you here, Abby, us going out more into communities and actually trying to reach those people that aren't going to find us on social media. And it's almost trying to... What's the word I want? It's desensitised, not desensitised, but actually making people feel comfortable. You know, feel comfortable. I've got friends who know my daughter. And when you know people and that they're not, they're just people, it doesn't become a thing.

[00:20:49] And I've had one particular friend who, big feminist, older than me, would have believed that I fought really hard for what I've got. And then somebody else that she knew, something happened. And I think that was the thing that made her see that, yes, there will always be nefarious people who want to do harm. But that doesn't mean that you should pick on a different group of people who are not part of that.

[00:21:16] And that is just those little things that I see with people that I talk to when I can see they're struggling with little elements of it. And they don't have a problem with my child because they know and they know me, but they can't quite get past it. And then something else might happen. And then they go, oh, oh, I get that now. And it's just doing that. It takes time because we can only pay attention to the things that actually really affect us most of the time, don't we? Yeah, absolutely. And the Internet is not real.

[00:21:43] The world that you encounter when you go on social media or you read an article which is laden with hate, it's not the real world. And in reality, people walk down the street and even if somebody is, I guess if someone doesn't, to use that horrible term, pass, or they might be, you might be visibly trans. Most people are lovely.

[00:22:10] Most people, and I'm not speaking about it to your experiences, Gillian, but I don't know. What do you think? How do you experience the world when you're just in front of people mostly? Is it like it is online or is it different? Oh, it's totally different because, as you say, people are avatars of themselves, aren't they? Yeah. No, I think that's absolutely right. And I think it's fascinating because we've talked on this podcast many times about allies and the concept of allies. And there's the difference between the person, the idea that someone falls overboard and there's the people that, you know, wave at you and say, oh, I hope you're okay.

[00:22:40] And there's the people that throw the life raft over you. And there's people who actually jump in beside you and keep you afloat. And I think that's what you're doing here is actually demonstrable support. And I think it's absolutely brilliant to be. And I love the idea that it's people, it's women having a voice for themselves, really, isn't it? That's the point, isn't it? And this is the issue. That's the whole point. It's everything, isn't it? And everything in society, you listen to people pontificating about women. I was very taken recently because going into an office environment, doing that thing now because my physiology has somewhat changed, being cold all the time.

[00:23:10] And it's that thing about how you realise that actually buildings are set up for male temperatures. It's quite fascinating. You don't realise until you switch over the extent to which women are seen as a sort of a different consideration in life. And I live in the North East and it's a very more traditional thing up here. And it's that women's place and all that sort of stuff. And it's quite odd. I think it's so important what you just said about us having our own voice. The people who are speaking for women.

[00:23:41] There are traditionally who have put out these narratives that are negative towards the trans. There's a lot of men amongst those. Oh, yeah. That group of people. And it's like, I just feel that there are so many of us exactly who are like, hang on a second. Can we just speak for ourselves? And I think the classic thing was the HRT debate, wasn't it? That we could be saving a fortune in National Health Service medication as if you just had proper HRT. It would save, you know, anti-anxiety, anti-depression, all these drugs.

[00:24:10] But men don't get, men don't need that. Cis men don't need that. So it's not in their radar. It is quite odd how many people seem to speak for women. Look, I think what you're doing is genius. So how do people find out more about your work? How do they join in? The letter that we talked about is on notinourname.org.uk. So please have a read. And as we said, if it resonates, please sign it. And most importantly, please share it in your networks. Are you on the socials?

[00:24:40] We are on socials, not in our name, Neon. And if you keep an eye on our socials, we often, as Jackie said, we're trying to get out into the real world as much as possible. So if we're going to be hitting the pavements, we'll put it on there. So when we're at events and stuff, we post it on social. And we've had some incredible responses. We've had loads of people who are forming part of the wider neon network. There's the call, but then there's also people who come along to events and bring a banner.

[00:25:10] And they have a representative of us in the wider world. So that's really lovely. I just quickly had a look at our social media handle because I'd forgotten it off of my head. I thought you might have done. It's at Neon Women. And we're everywhere. And when I say neon, it's N-I-O-N, not in our name. And it's interesting, isn't it, because it plays into this actual growth in female voices, isn't it? People demonstrate for Palestinian action and environmental things.

[00:25:37] So there's something in the ether about women's finding their voice. So I think this is brilliant. And of course, from a trans perspective, personally, I think it's fantastic. So fantastic for joining us as well. So thank you so much for spending time with me today. Abby and Jackie, you've been delighted. Just send me that web address one more time. Not in our name.org.uk. I thought I'd just leave it in there. I was going to let Jackie speak and cut up with my own voice. Oh, sorry. Not in our name.org.uk.

[00:26:06] Thank you both very much. Thank you. Bye, Gillian. Thanks for listening to this episode of Transvox. It's been a joy to have you with us. If you want to make contact with us, you can contact us at gillianne.transvox.co.uk. And all of our money goes to our nominated charity. And Jen, you've chosen the charity for the next number of episodes. Which one have you chosen?

[00:26:34] Our charity is called Beyond Reflections, which is a charity that provides support and counselling trans people, non-binary people and their friends and their families across the UK. An amazing charity doing some amazing work. Really important. So, please, if you can give. Great. And if you want to go and have a look at Beyond Reflections, it's beyond-reflections.org.uk. But as I say, if you'd like to make a contribution to what we're doing, because we love to help the people who help us.

[00:27:02] Again, if you've got ideas for the show, things you'd like to ask us, questions, comments, applause, or brickbats, feel free to send it all in to gillianne.transvox.co.uk. Until the next time, goodbye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.