My next video is about... | The Friday(ish) Update

Welcome to this week’s edition of the Friday(ish) Update, in which I give a little insight into what I’ve been up to for the past seven days.

What have I been up to this week?

Okay, so this is a preeeeeeetty late Friday Update this week (I mean, we’re halfway to the next one already…) for which I can only apologise; things have been busy!

This week, I’ve been powering-on with work on my next video which is… going to be about… *drumroll*… the “trans debate” and transphobia in the (primarily British) news.

See, a few months back there was yet another few weeks whereby every appearance by a politician on British TV or radio saw them incessantly asked variants on the question “what is a woman?”. (An example of this featuring Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper can be found here.) Here on what some have come to call “TERF Island”, this has become a semi-regular event.

Yet, this latest skirmish in the so-called “trans debate” came at roughly the same time as The Daily Wire released a documentary presented by Matt Walsh which took that same question as its name: What is a Woman?. In writing my next video, I’m interested in the relationship between these two things.

On the one hand, Matt Walsh’s documentary is much more openly cruel in its approach to trans people and trans rights. While, at the beginning of What is a Woman?, Walsh pretends to be coming from a place of genuine interest, the tone quickly shifts to one in which interviewees are able to spread made-up statistics and in which Walsh himself is calling teachers “child abusers”.

Yet, the manner in which Walsh uses that initial premise of “open debate” in which he’s “just asking questions” provides us with an interesting lens through which to view these more “mainstream”, seemingly “respectable” debates.

There are a few things I'm interested in here (and I'm sure one of these will come to dominate as the script takes shape). I’m interested in comparing and contrasting the guttural, right-wing transphobia which is more prominent in America with the “respectable”, liberal transphobia which has been more typical of Britain’s transphobic moral panic. I'm also interested in how notions of “respectability” are weaponised in political debate; particularly in ways that allow extreme views to be seen as acceptable. Finally, I'm interested in the dehumanising effect that the transformation of a discussion about human rights into a pseudo-philosophical debate about definitions has on discussions about trans people and how we reinject trans people's humanity back into that conversation.

A lot to think about but I've already got a decent amount written. I can't wait to share a bit more with you next week!

And outside of work?

This weekend, I went camping with my partner’s family for a couple of nights. It’s been a while since I’ve spent a night in a tent but, luckily, it didn’t have any holes in it and the air mattress stayed inflated! It was an absolutely roasting couple of days (I think something might be up with the climate…) but we had a lot of fun.

I invested in a Trangia (which is a kind of Swedish camping stove) as we didn’t have anything to cook with and got a little bit obsessed with trying to make some slightly too elaborate meals on it. I was talked down from mac and cheese with bacon but did manage a stir fry which I thought was pretty impressive! I’m now trying to convince my partner that we should walk along Hadrian’s Wall at some point, mostly because I want another excuse to use my outdoor cooking skills.

What have I been reading/watching/listening to?

On the book front, I’m still in the process of reading Ha-Joon Chang’s Economics: The User’s Guide and loving it more with every chapter. A definite recommend from me!

I also managed to catch Nope at the cinema yesterday which I thought was great. I’m really not much of a fan of horror movies generally (the trailers they were playing before Nope were more than enough for me…) but I really liked Get Out and so was looking forward to this one. I didn’t think it quite lived up to the achievement of Get Out but I thought it was a lot of fun. It’s full of really fun, brilliantly-drawn characters and there’s some great set pieces to the plot.

That brings us to the end of this week’s edition of the Friday(ish) Update. I hope you’ve found it mildly insightful.

Thanks as ever for your generous support and I’ll look forward to updating you more next week!!