Just Plain Sense

Half an Hour with Dr Lynne Jones MP

Birmingham Selly Oak MP Lynne Jones says she never set out to have a political career — she just got sucked into one. Now, 33 years after first getting hooked, and 16 years after first entering Parliament, she has declared her intention to stand down at the next election.

In this detailed interview, Lynne talks about the experience of being a woman in Parliament, balancing personal convictions with party loyalty, some of the causes she has taken up over the years, and overall progress towards a more diverse legislature.

Interpreting Department of Health Policy on Equality

It is an occupational hazard of organising speaking events that now and then one of your speakers will be suddenly and unexpectedly indisposed. When that happens you can either leave a gap — or try and fill the breach yourself.

This is a problem that arose in the third of our recent conference / workshops on the Gender Equality Duty in Health. At each event civil servants from the Department of Health had volunteered to come and deliver their version of a common presentation about their department’s approach, and what it should mean. However, on our last day, one of them was prevented at the very last minute from attending.

Fortunately I’m familiar with what was going to be said — in part because I contribute regularly to two community stakeholder engagement groups, including an advisory group on Gender Equality. This meant I was able to step in at short notice and fill the gap — although the emphasis is inevitably my own as a result.

In the next episode we change tack again, with an in-depth interview with the Labour back bench MP Dr Lynne Jones. Lynne has lots to say about equality and diversity — in and out of Parliament, so be sure you don’t miss that episode, coming up soon.

Gender Equality in the NHS Part Three: EHRC Advice

In the third of this series of episodes covering the recent NHS Northwest Gender Equality conferences we come now to the advice and guidance of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Several EHRC staff contributed to the three events that we ran, and I’d like to thank Sam Pryke, David Howard and Vivienne Stone who all made great contributions besides Merryn Wells, featured here.

Merryn gave the main EHRC presentation at our third event in Preston. She is the Commission’s “Transfer of Expertise Manager”. Among her many skills honed in a 25 year equalities career she managed a recent project looking at gender equality in the NHS and also worked with the Royal College of Nursing, advising HR managers in that sector on the gender equality duty. For those reasons she was ideally placed to connect with an audience of NHS managers.

Click here if you would like to view and follow a handout of Merryn’s slides whilst listening. (PDF, 90Kb)

In the next episode hear how I ad-libbed my way through explaining the Department of Health’s viewpoint when the civil servant booked to speak was unable to attend for very good reasons

Gender Equality in the NHS Part Two: Men

In the second of this series of episodes covering the recent NHS Northwest Gender Equality conferences it is the turn of the Men…

Peter Baker is the Chief Executive of the Men’s Health Forum — a charity which works to improve male health in England and Wales. His presentation to us in Preston was every bit as challenging as the women’s message featured in the previous episode, though markedly different.

It was research by MHF that first highlighted how many NHS gender equality schemes in England appeared to have very little disaggregated evidential data, were focussed on processes rather than outcomes, or were lacking in effective consultation and involvement with service users.

Many speakers stressed that equality in this context does not mean providing the same service to everyone. That’s not what the law requires, and stark differences in priorities were very clear in the different messages from the men and women presenters seeking the same equality of health outcomes.

Peter’s presentation highlights a set of key areas where he says targetted action could be brought to bear on specific health inequalities for men; he also demonstrates how novel approaches can be used to get essential messages across to the men themselves.

Click here if you would like to view and follow a handout of Peter’s slides whilst listening. (PDF, 1.2Mb)

In the next episode you can hear the EHRC’s guidance for NHS organisations on what they expect when examining equality schemes for compliance.

Gender Equality in the NHS Part One: Women

Attention has been focussed recently on whether NHS Trusts in England are responding properly to the Gender Equality Duty, since it came into force in April 2007. Research by the Men’s Health Forum highlighted that many of the published gender equality schemes it had researched were poorly evidenced, focussed on processes rather than outcomes, and showed a lack of effective consultation and involvement with service users.

Plain Sense was recently commissioned to put together a series of conference workshops for senior NHS Trust managers in England’s North West region, to discuss how to be more effective and compliant in this area. Presenters included figures from the Strategic Health Authority, the Department of Health and the Equality and Human Rights Commission to explain what was expected. Just as importantly, an array of stakeholder speakers were invited to explain their view of the real priorities for promoting equality.

Karen Moore is a policy officer with the Women’s Resource Centre - a national umbrella organisation based in London. In her speech, presented here in full, she challenged NHS Trust managers to look strategically at issues like violence against women and support for rape crisis centres as a means of avoiding longer term and more intractable mental and physical health issues. Afterwards her colleague, Darlene Corry, provided an interview summing up the challenges and opportunities in thinking ‘out of the box’ on these kinds of issues.

If you would like to view a handout of Karen’s slides whilst listening to her talk then click on this link. (PDF 141Kb; 4 pages)

In the next episode it’s the men’s turn.

A Life in a Day Part Three: And then we had ‘T’

This week, as the third and final installment of the “Life in a Day” conference coverage, I’m featuring my own keynote presentation at that event: And then we had ‘T’

With more time to spend than in the recent Nottingham event, and with a broader audience of public services in the audience, this presentation covers some different ground, and includes a tongue-in-cheek ‘confession’. There are, of course, some familiar elements too.

After quite a lot of LGBT coverage recently, the next few episodes will be moving on to look at Men and Women’s experiences of health, and the Department of Health’s strategy for Gender Equality. In the coming week I also have a very special interview guest booked, and they will be appearing in a later episode. So do ’stay tuned’.

A Life in a Day Part Two: Linda Bellos OBE

Linda Bellos isn’t the sort of woman to mince words. She says she doesn’t care so much what people think, but about how they behave. She’s also angry about receiving a different level of treatment from public services when she’s paid as much for them as everyone else.

This is the second in a series of three episodes based on the conference “A Life in a Day”, organised by Leicester Lesbian Gay and Bisexual Centre on 5th June.

In the next episode you can hear my own keynote address at the same event — and don’t forget that by “subscribing” to this Podcast channel you’ll be notified automatically the moment this and other new episodes come online.

A Life in a Day Part One: Sir Peter Soulsby MP

This week we begin the first of a new series of recordings taken from a conference held in Leicester at the beginning of June.

“A Life in a Day” was hosted by Leicester’s Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Centre at Leicester City Football Stadium on the 5th June and promised “Practical ways to make public services LGBT friendly”.

In this episode you can hear the welcome address given by one of the City’s MP’s, Sir Peter Soulsby.

Next week I’ll then be featuring the keynote address by noted BME and lesbian campaigner Linda Bellos.

Trevor Phillips’ Address to the Private Sector

This week’s episode features the speech by EHRC Chair Trevor Phillips to business leaders from the North of England at a working luncheon organised recently in Leeds.

The media’s stereotype of business attitudes to equality and diversity issues is a crude one, which tends to emphasise opposition towards regulation and any moves that might impact upon profits or flexibility. The reality is more complex. Many businesses understand already that embracing diversity is a good thing, and that private or corporate enterprise cannot pretend to exist in a bubble somehow divorced from larger issues about the kind of society we have.

Trevor’s speech reflected the former sensitivities whilst reaching out for a more sophisticated dialogue.

An Interview with EHRC Chair Trevor Phillips

A few days ago I was invited to an event at the Royal Armouries in Leeds, organised by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. It was billed as a working lunch with business leaders from the North of England to talk about what Equality and Rights developments mean to the private sector. In the next episode I’ll be presenting Trevor Phillips’ speech to that audience. But first, in this item, Trevor spoke to me about the commission’s first nine months of operations, the initiatives already underway, and his hopes for the future. In addition to Trevor I also speak to EHRC’s Director of English Regions, Tim Wainwright.

Nottingham LGBT Conference Part Three

This week I’m presenting the third and final part in a series of episodes based on the recent Department of Health conference on LGBT Mental Health, which took place at the end of May in Nottingham. (For more details see part one)

I entitled my own presentation “Transgender Realities” and proceeded to pull very few punches about research-based evidence of trans people’s experiences of health discrimination, in a factual approach aimed directly at the 130 healthcare professionals present. I regrettably had to publicly criticise Nottingham PCT itself, having adopted a commissioning policy which is clearly discriminatory and unlawful in my view.

If you wish to follow the presentation slides then you’ll find these here.

Nottingham LGBT Conference Part Two

This week I’m presenting the second of three episodes in which you can hear the speakers at the recent Department of Health conference on LGBT Mental Health in Nottingham. (For more details see last week’s part one).

Tim Franks is the Chief Executive of PACE, a leading London-based charity which promotes mental health and well-being within the lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans community there.

In his presentation Tim talks about the different reasons that LGBT people may have for connecting with Mental Health services. Like many of the day’s speakers he emphasises that whilst being different in these ways is not a mental illness, people have the experiences of discrimination to deal with and, of course, they can experience conditions such as depression or psychotic illnesses like anyone else.

Tim also raises interesting perspectives about the way therapeutic relationships can benefit when service users don’t need to explain aspects of their identity and simply feel that their sexual orientation or gender presentation is accepted. He says that in PACE the service providers ‘come out’ about their position so that the service user doesn’t need to.

Nottingham LGBT Conference Part One

On 28th May the Department of Health organised a major conference on LGBT Mental Health in Nottingham. The event was attended by well over 100 health professionals and the day was led by Professor Clair Chilvers, who is the Chair of Nottingham Healthcare NHS Trust.

In this and the following two episodes the speeches of some of the main presenters will be featured in full. For this first programme we hear the introduction from Surinder Sharma, National Director of the Department of Health’s Equality and Human Rights Group. Surinder is then followed by Professor Anne Rogers, who holds the chair in Sociology of Health Care at the University of Manchester. Both of these speakers paint a progressive picture of the understanding of the role of mental health, and how thinking is changing (or needs to change) to meet the true needs of people without unnecessarily pathologising their difference.

Copies of Powerpoint presentations and other materials from this conference are now online here.

An Interview with Mark Rees

Next week things will be returning to normal with a series of episodes based on presentations from a recent Department of Health Mental Health conference that took place in Nottingham. For now, however, I’m offerring an opportunity to hear another full length interview with one of the grand old men of British trans campaigning, Mark Rees.

Like Stephen Whittle, featured in the previous episode, Mark transitioned from female to male role in the early 1970’s. He became the first trans person in the world to take a case to an international human rights court in the mid 1980’s. Although this bid for privacy and marriage rights was unsuccessful, he then went on to be instrumental in the creation of the UK campaign group Press for Change in 1992.

Postscript: Shortly after publishing this episode I learned from Mark that he has finally (somewhat belatedly) received his own Gender Recognition Certificate.

An Interview with Stephen Whittle OBE

A close family bereavement means that the schedule of recording and editing original interviews and other material for Just Plain Sense needs to be put on hold for a short while. During that time, and in order not to disappoint regular listeners, I am featuring a handful of the most interesting interviews that I’ve recorded in the past for another channel.

Dr Stephen Whittle is perhaps the world’s best known transsexual man. He is Professor of Equalities Law at Manchester Metropolitan University, the President of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health and the Chair of Transgender Europe, in addition to being one of the founders of the UK lobby group Press for Change. He is also a committed family man, with a wife and four children. In this in-depth interview, originally recorded in summer 2007, we cover his own personal background growing up in Manchester, his transition in the 1970’s, his work as a campaigner, and his views about the future for trans people.

Please consider supporting the charitable appeal for the Alzheimer’s Society set up in memory of my mother, who died last week. Details…

Cllr Paul Fairweather - The Local Politician’s View

In Just Plain Sense it’s my aim to feature every side of the enormous conversation around Equality, Diversity and Human Rights in British society. There are plenty of people who can talk about first hand experiences, or advocate on behalf of whole communities; in the last episode we heard from a senior civil servant; so in this episode I’m featuring a speech by an elected city council politician.

Councillor Paul Fairweather represents the North Manchester area of Harpurhey. He’s an out gay man and this speech is taken from a conference last year on LGBT Health strategy, so his comments about health and more general inclusion reflect that. Nevertheless his point about the role of local political influence — using scrutiny powers, local area agreements and partnerships — is just as valid for any group.

Equality and Human Rights in Health

July 2008 sees the 60th anniversary of Britain’s National Health Service. Much has changed in that time of course. It’s a different world from the immediate post war era in which the idea of a universal public health service, free at the point of need, was born.

Britain is far more culturally diverse. Public health emphasis is shifting from treating illness to preventing it. Health and well-being are increasingly seen as integral to wider strategy for encouraging and maintaining a socially equitable and economically successful society.

As the Department of Health’s programme director for equality policy, Barry Mussenden heads a team that’s responsible for ensuring that health and social care services match everyone’s needs equally and fairly.

It’s not an easy brief. The NHS is a federation of independent public bodies whose priorities can only be influenced, not commanded. The health service is Europe’s largest employer, staffed by ordinary people who have just the same blind spots and prejudices as the rest of society.

In this short interview Barry explains how his team sees the challenge and takes it on.

Department of Health Equality and Human Rights Group

Half an Hour with Sue Sanders

In the 1970’s school teachers could be dismissed if it became known that they were Gay or Lesbian. As a young teacher in those days Sue Sanders recalls that women were not even allowed to wear trousers. This was the environment in which the organisation “School’s Out” was founded in 1974.

In this in-depth interview Sue speaks at length about the organisation she has worked for during the majority of her adult life, the way things have changed in that time and the problem for the next generation of society when today’s teachers are not equipped to teach about diversity. She also talks about LGBT History Month, which she helped to found in 2004.

Post Natal Illness

For many people the journey of pregnancy and motherhood is a delightful and rewarding experience. Yet, for Elaine Hanzak, this wasn’t the case. She developed baby blues, postnatal depression and ultimately puerperal psychosis.

Elaine’s story is told through her book, “Eyes Without Sparkle” — and teaching people about the widespread reality of postnatal illness has become her life’s passion.

In this interview Elaine tells the story of how it was, and how such illness can affect anyone after birth… Even the kind who, like her, imagined that they’re “not the type”.

Details of Elaine’s book and how to contact her or obtain a copy can be found on her web site. She also has a regularly updated blog describing her constant efforts to educate more people about the seriousness of the condition.

News: No Simple Business Case for Equal Opportunities

A report published last week by the Department of Work and Pensions has poured cold water on one of the most popular arguments for promoting equality at work.

“The Business Case for Equal Opportunities: An Econometric Investigation” was researched and prepared for the DWP by a team at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. It says they could find no direct cause and effect link between businesses having Equal Opportunities Policies and having higher productivity and profits. But it says the reverse is definitely not the case too — and that businesses that have one seem to have the other, even if the connection isn’t clear. I look at the researchers’ conclusions in more detail.

Gender Dysphoria: A Mother’s Tale

What do you do when your child exhibits markedly gender-atypical play behaviour almost as soon as they can walk and tells you, by the time they are four years old, that there’s been a mistake?

Susie is a Yorkshire mum with three young children. Two are very much boys, but the other, though born the same, has insisted since pre-school that a mistake had been made.

In this in-depth interview she tells how she handled the challenge, sought help and has cared for her child at every stage in a remarkable journey through growing up. She also tells why she felt her child was not getting the right kind of treatment at Britain’s only child and adolescent clinic specialising in this area, and why she turned, instead, to specialists in the USA and The Netherlands. As a mother, she also has advice for schools on how they could help parents and children avoid the bullying her child has experienced.

For more information and support for parents and families in this position see Mermaids (UK) and Trans Youth Family Allies (US).

Interview with Denise McDowell - Economic Migration

The inward migration of workers to Britain has always been a matter of contention — yet never more so than in recent years when the concepts of economic migrants, unlawful immigration and asyllum have become confused and blended together.

Denise McDowell represents an organisation, Migrant Workers Northwest, that was set up in 2007 to specifically address the reality of migrant working in Britain’s North West Region. In this interview she explains about her organisation and the different kinds of people involved whilst answering common fears and suggesting the advantages that worker migration brings.

Half an Hour with Calpernia Addams

Activist and rising media personality Calpernia Addams was in London for a showing of her short film “Casting Pearls” and a panel on media representation at the Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. In this in-depth interview she talks about growing up, the murder of her boyfriend Barry Winchell, her blossoming career and the representations of trans people in film and on TV. Just click on the “Listen Now” control below to hear the interview online, without the need for any special software. Alternatively the “Play in Popup” option allows you to listen the same way but carry on browsing.

Calpernia’s web site http://www.calpernia.com/ has all the latest details of her work and, when you visit her site, you can watch the You Tube video of “Stunning”, her first single, which begins and ends this episode.

As a complement to this item I’d like to recommend another Podcast interview with US trans activist Jamison Green, talking at length about what drives trans people.

News: EHRC Launches You Tube Channel

I’m not sure whether I can claim the original credit for the idea — people didn’t seem to have thought it before I made the suggestion at a consultation last year, and they quickly wrote it down. However it happened though, the Equality and Human Rights Commission have now launched their own You Tube Channel.

The channel opened this week with a handful of videos on the theme “Equally Different”. You’ll find them at : http://www.youtube.com/EqualityHumanRights

When Rights Conflict

The rights associated with religion or belief are an area where misunderstandings can easily arise. The commonest issue is the incorrect presumption that the Article 9 rights concerning a person’s religion or beliefs could allow the rights of others to be impeded. This is not the case.

In this episode I explain how some aspects of our rights are not absolutes, but are designed to be balanced reasonably with the rights of others. There’s a difference between being protected from persecution and imposing your beliefs on others.

News: March 31st

In this week’s news sample, claims that the Government may be planning to opt out of parts of a UN Convention on the rights of disabled people and news of an extra £15 million committment to encourage the development of women’s careers in certain sectors.

The Men with Baby Bellies

The news that a number of transsexual men have had babies following their transition to manhood has hit the headlines both sides of the Atlantic recently, accompanied by a predictable mix of consternation and curiosity.

The problem with debate on a topic like this is that, whilst people are often quick to voice an opinion, based on the immediate gut reaction they feel, very few of them have much clue about the background facts.

In this episode I explain the legal and medical background, and pick away at some of the unfortunate conclusions that people will jump to.

Half an Hour with Paul Martin

It was only originally planned to be a ten minute interview and, if this were a Radio station, then there would have had to be an awful lot of him on the cutting room floor to fit the schedules. When the subject is the Chief Executive of one of the country’s leading LGB charities though, and when he’s as articulate as Paul Martin, then nothing less than the full half hour will do!

In this wide-ranging interview Paul talks about the background to the Lesbian and Gay Foundation; the reasons why places like Manchester have become centres of LGB culture; the surprising ordinariness of many lesbian and gay people’s lives; working for a better society — and working with each other. Oh .. and he also has a word of advice for the only Gay in the village.

For more about the LGF see www.lgf.org.uk and for a little more background on this interview see the Blog.

News: An Experiment for Now…

As an experiment I am going to explore the feasibility of bringing an occasional batch of news reports into the mix of editorial and interview content. I’m making no promises about regularity. A great deal will depend on the material that comes my way. Please feel free to comment on whether it’s a valuable addition or not though.

How do we know what we don’t know we don’t know?

Equality Impact Assessment relies crucially upon being able to predict the effects that a policy or service may have on different groups of people. The range of people and life circumstances we need to consider has got wider, yet we are all limited by our own experiences. We can’t second guess the effects of service arrangements on policies in situations outside our knowledge. Consultation is therefore essential, but that comes with its own pitfalls too…

You can read the transcript of this item in the accompanying Blog.

Political Correctness Gone Mad?

Talk about Human Rights is sometimes dismissed as ‘Political Correctness gone mad’ in certain quarters — mainly a particular section of the tabloid press. There are even some politicians who’d claim the whole idea is in some way alien to our values and culture.

I find that kind of argument worrying, and I think everyone else should think carefully about what such talk could lead to. In this episode I explain what Human Rights actually represent, and how they are values that we would sorely miss if they were absent in our lives. I’ve also been out on the streets with my microphone to hear what other people have to say.

The discipline that Human Rights principles give us is undoubtedly political. The values are undoubtedly correct. But is that a madness? You decide.

You can read the transcript of this item in the accompanying Blog.

Of Carts and Horses

People talk a lot these days about “Equality and Diversity”. The expression just trips off the tongue. But does that pairing obscure what the two words mean individually, and how do the two relate?

In this item I explain that Equality and Diversity are not the “Ant and Dec” of law and social inclusion — distinguished only by the order in which they stand. They’re different concepts, allbeit co-related ones.

You can read the transcript of this item in the accompanying Blog.

The ‘Grammar’ of Diversity

Learning by rote how to talk about and consult with different groups in society is like limiting yourself to conversing in a foreign language with a phrasebook. You’re likely to be stumped or get into hot water the moment you encounter a situation that’s unfamilar.

In this item I make the case for learning the ‘grammar’ of diversity instead. When you understand the grammar of a language then all you need to extend your reach is a bit of extra vocabulary.

You can read a transcript of this item in the accompanying Blog.

Women’s Work?

Why do comparatively few women pursue careers in computer related technology and should we be concerned that they don’t?

As a computer professional turned equality and diversity specialist I don’t have any simple answers, but I highlight in this piece the reasons why women have as much a role to play as men, and some of the things we should perhaps be looking at to tackle the huge gender imbalance in the parts of the industry where women could be tackling better paid roles.

Was That an Insult or Compliment?

When a well-known actress was invited to audition for the part of a transsexual woman the casting director was worried she might be insulted. The assumption provides a vivid example of the way in which people may think about this tiny but little understood minority.

The one hour comedy drama “Mrs Inbetweeny” was created by Caleb Ranson and Paul Abbott and stars Amelia Bullmore, who has a string of British TV acting and writing credits to her name. The part of ‘Emma’ is an unusually strong portrayal of someone who has ‘transitioned’ from one sex to the other. Inevitably such a part holds immense challenges for any actor approaching the role: What experience can they draw upon to make the portrayal authentic?

Amelia kindly agreed to meet with me to discuss these points over lunch at her home in South London…

Disability Hate Crime

The extent of hate crime is as extraordinary as it is unacceptable. According to the British Crime Survey, as many as 260,000 racially motivated and religiously aggravated hate crimes were committed in the UK last year. That’s not counting the 3 million women who are on the receiving end of some kind of gender-based violence, or the emerging statistics about violence and abuse experienced by LGBT people.

The Crown Prosecution Service has launched a national hate crime strategy and I was invited to speak in December at a conference staged with the North West Community Engagement Network, where the specific issue of disability hate crime was the focus.

Bullying, abuse and exploitation of disabled people has become more visible recently, following cases reported in the press. This item is based on my speech at the event, as Chair of the North West Equality and Diversity Group.

Getting Migration Into Perspective

Migration is a topic that keeps coming back to the top of the political and policy agenda these days. One moment it’s tabloid scares about Polish pregnancies (simply not supported by the statistics); the next day broadsheets carry more sober accounts about the economy’s essential need for more specialist skilled migrants.

This item is based on a speech which I delivered at the conference: Migrant Workers in the North West - One Year On (29th Feb 2008). Thanks are due to Steve Barwick for original material and to Denise McDowell and her colleagues in “Migrant Workers North West” who provided the platform and a great day’s conference enjoyed by several hundred delegates.

The Chief Executive’s Guide to Podcasting

Birds do it, Bees do it but should educated company executives be doing it? Podcast producer and consultant Christine Burns offers a jargon-free insight into whether this is a communications medium that can work for your own company.