Woman's Hour - Grace Lavery, Maternity Services Nottinghamshire, Life After Divorce

Episode Date: April 7, 2022

Grace Lavery is an Associate Professor of English, Critical Theory, and Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Originally from the West Midlands, Grace moved to the States in 2008, and transitioned in 2018. She is an activist as well as an academic, and has now written a memoir called Please Miss – A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Penis. This morning 100 individuals and their families have written to the Health and Social Care Secretary, Sajid Javid, asking him to appoint Donna Ockenden to conduct an independent review of maternity services at Nottingham University Hospitals Trust. They are members of an online support group for those affected by unsafe maternity services and have shared harrowing accounts of their experiences. Jack and Sarah Hawkins join Emma to talk about the death of their daughter, Harriet, on 17th April 2016 as a result of a mismanaged labour. At the time both of them worked for Nottingham University Hospital Trust and their medical knowledge meant that when they were told she had "died of an infection" they knew this was inaccurate.As we discussed in yesterday’s phone-in no fault divorce came into effect in England and Wales yesterday. More than 40% of marriages end in divorce – and most of us will have been affected by one - whether it be our own, our parents’ or our children’s. In a new series Life After Divorce our reporter Henrietta Harrison, who has recently been through a divorce herself, meets other divorcees to hear their stories and share experiences. We begin with Amanda - not her real name - who is 51 and split from her husband 12 years ago when he came out as gay.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning and welcome to the programme. This happened yesterday. I don't think that biological males should be competing in female sporting events. Maybe that's a controversial thing to say, but it just seems to me to be sensible. And I also happen to think that women should have spaces, whether it's in hospitals or prisons

or change rooms or wherever, which are dedicated to women. That's as far as my thinking has developed on this issue. Now, if that puts me in conflict with some others, then we've got to work it all out. That doesn't mean that I'm not immensely sympathetic to people who want to change gender, to transition. It's vital that we give people the maximum possible love and support in making those decisions. But these are complex issues,

and I don't think they can be solved with one swift, easy piece of legislation. It takes a lot of thought to get this right. The Prime Minister speaking yesterday afternoon at a hospital to a group of journalists, making his most direct intervention yet into the debate over sport, trans athletes, conversion therapy and female-only spaces. We asked for a government minister to join us this morning in a bid to understand what Boris Johnson's remarks may mean, but we were told no one was available. Even if you haven't followed any of the discussions about gender identity, women-only spaces, conversion therapy, which the government did a double U-turn on last week,

the part of this that you may have tuned into and followed is what the impact will be on sport. The Prime Minister said categorically he doesn't think biological males should compete in female sporting events. Those are his words, his view. This follows, of course, a row in British cycling over transgender cyclist Emily Bridges being barred from competing in a women's event and a high-profile victory across the pond by the US swimmer Leah Thomas, a trans woman. Some sports stars have welcomed the Prime Minister's remarks, including the Olympic swimmer Sharon Davis, expressing gratitude for his clarity and position. Others are concerned about discrimination. While Boris Johnson can share his views,

he isn't making the policy across sporting bodies of how to govern this. And remember, we aren't just talking about elite sport. These sorts of decisions have implications for grassroots and community sports too, who can be on a five-a-side team or a netball team. So today I wanted to turn this over to you and ask what you think should happen next. What do you think should happen next on the issue of trans women in sport?

You can text me here at Women's Hour on 84844. Text will be charged to your standard message rate. Social media, we're at BBC Women's Hour. Or you can email me and the team through the Women's Hour website. We are interested in doing a special programme on this, so I should say if you are affected in any way as a competitor, a coach, a parent, a sibling, however you may find yourself involved or affected, please do get in touch and leave your details. We have invited Lord Co-On. He's the Conservative PIV, of course he's the

President of World Athletics and a current member of the International Olympic Committee. We hope you'll join us. But who are the other leading figures you would like to hear from? Do let me know. 84844 to text or on social media. We're at BBC Women's Hour. But first, a week ago today, we devoted the whole programme to the long-awaited and landmark Ockenden Report into maternity services at

Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust in what has been described as the biggest maternity scandal in the NHS's history. We spoke to the midwife Donna Ockenden and I asked her how about her findings but also how it had affected her and the answer was deeply and profoundly. She concluded 201 babies and nine mothers may have been saved if the trust had provided better care, learned from mistakes and crucially listened to women. Well this morning a hundred new people have written to the Health and Social Care Secretary Sajid Javid asking him to appoint Donna Ockenden to conduct an independent review of maternity services at Nottingham University's Hospitals Trust.

They have also, this group, approached Donna Ockenden directly and this group have met and bonded online and in real life through sharing harrowing accounts of their experiences. Well joining me now is Sarah Hawkins who with her husband Jack became whistleblowers about the problems at this trust following the death of their daughter Harriet in April 2016 as a result of a mismanaged labour. Good morning Sarah. Good morning. Thank you for being with us and I definitely and must start by saying how sorry I am for you and your family's loss. Thank you. You have chosen to speak out about this and keep speaking out about this. What are you asking for today in light of what happened last week? I think what we really need is, we need Donna Ockenden to come to Nottingham. When I looked through the Shrewsbury report, it was absolutely harrowing.

And for every single example I read of a baby death or a mother being harmed I can think of a name in Nottingham I can think of someone we are in contact with um this the current review at the minute um we have significant problems with um we don't think it's independent it's commissioned by two ex Nottingham staff um they are nearly halfway through. So far, they've only done two social media ads. That's their media release. And in between that, the amount of families jumped from 80 to nearly 400. And, you know, we were informed by the press of this. We're not embedded in this review as grieving families. And we now hear it's nearly 461. And I think that's one of our main focus points is that in 2016,

we blew the whistle loudly. We were isolated. We were blamed. Harriet was blamed. You know, we couldn't have her funeral for two years. And we just kept on thinking, as senior clinicians, this isn't right. Because I should say, if I may just break in at this point you both you both you mentioned being clinicians you both worked in the trust

and with medical experience uh your partner a consultant you yourself a senior physiotherapist and you know you said a couple of things there which I just wanted to pause on because this is your story you're very familiar with it but lots of our listeners will not be. You, when going into labour, weren't able to be admitted for some time. Is that right? So the day after my due date, I started contractions. Those contractions never stopped. And they went on for six days. And over those six days, I had two admissions and I was sent home. I'd made 13, 13 contacts with the hospital. And every time I was told I wasn't late in labour until the last admission. Well, I'd phoned the midwife up a short time before and I said, I don't think I can do this.

Like I felt like a complete failure. I said, you know, I'm just having the most awful pain. These contractions aren't stopping. And she told me that I wasn't in labour. I wasn't in established labour. I was telling her the opposite of what women in labour normally tell her. There was no point in coming in. Frankly, she was just made me feel absolutely awful. A short time after that, something started to hang out of me. And then I was told to come in. I was walking down the corridor in absolutely excruciating pain. Now, considering this is six days after starting my contractions, and she shouted down the corridor to me,

is it still hanging out of you? So I burst into tears. No one got up and helped me. There were three people sat at the desk got to the desk midwife took the notes and said oh we were having bets that Jack was a doctor because of his manner on the phone I was then ushered into a birth sanctuary suite which it should have been an obstetric emergency um the the midwife said she got Harriet's heartbeat she didn't because Jack was taking my pulse but at the the time, we didn't. We just thought it was an error. Nothing significant. Time passed. Midwives

passed. They said, we can see the baby's head. The baby's about to come. Then before I got into the water bath, they tried to take Harriet's heartbeat. They couldn't. They called the doctor. Doctor drained my bladder, two litres of my bladder. And then he scanned and said, I'm sorry, your baby's dead. And you still had to keep going, didn't you? I was then left, because of some communication error, for nine hours trying to give birth to a dead baby. I'm so sorry, Sarah.

Yeah. I felt like I was dying, and I didn't really care. It's unimaginable. And you then did have to go through with that. And I know that you do have some images from that time of you being able to hold her and have that time together. And the thing that was so difficult was she was a fully healthy, full-term baby and looked absolutely perfect. She just looked like she was asleep. And if I just shut my eyes for one minute I just wished that she'd be alive

you know she doesn't look any different it was just and as soon as we were told even before she was delivered that she was dead we knew there were problems we said you've messed up you've got to listen to us you've messed up you were told uh that your daughter had died of an infection yeah how did you know that was inaccurate how did you know to push and to fight well jack's speciality as an acute medic is infection there was no isolated bug so we we turned up to a meeting a routine stillbirth meeting and they presented this completed investigation that we didn't even know that had happened they had the wrong place of delivery they didn't have i had to use my phone bill to prove the 13 contacts they didn't have any of them

um and jack was sat there saying but it's not infection and the the clinicians of the obstetrician was saying but it is we're like're like, well, we know it's not. And we felt like we were going crazy. We honestly felt like we were being blamed. We were those mad, grieving parents just saying what? And our main concern is we were clinicians and we knew that. How many people are out there blaming themselves? You did.

I wish to fast forward, but just to get to this point, because you are now leading the fight for this review to happen within the trust where you were affected and working. You then did get the admission of guilt eventually with negligence and a payout. Yeah, eventually. I mean, it's been a very difficult fight. We had to, obviously, the trust didn't classify her as a serious incident, which it should have been. We then pushed for an external investigation, which we got. However, in between the draft and the actual release of the report, the lead author was employed by the trust and the report changed. You just honestly can't imagine the corruption. So we then had to push for another external report, which finally admitted that Harriet's death was almost certainly preventable. But it's just all those years of fighting and, you know, being blamed.

What toll has that taken on you both? Oh, it's just, honestly, I was saying the other day, if someone would have told me Harriet died six days ago, I would believe it. Well, having been able to grieve, you know, not being able to have her funeral for two years in case they tried to blame her again. And, you know, three years later,

Winter Andrews died because of neglect and Sarah was in labour for six days you know all this changed that apparently it happened after harriet's death nothing had changed and as soon as we made contact um with gary and sarah we just thought it's still going and the ball is we've now picked up momentum and you know i just want everyone out there even if their baby is alive and they had an extremely traumatic birth you know we that just they need to come forwards because the next mother might not be so lucky everyone's trauma should be validated thank you very much for talking to us to all of us and and i did have

to say this i did spy a very sweet looking uh little one in your in yours in your video call window before and i believe that's Lottie. It is. I'm just saying my husband's out there pretending to be a frog. So if you hear random noises, that's us trying to keep her quiet. How old is Lottie? She's two and a half now. She's amazing.

She looks amazing. And, you know, getting her daddy to be a frog is a good morning's work in my book. Thank you so much again. I'm sure we'll talk again as this develops with your campaign and to keep pushing. Let me just bring in Michael Buchanan at this point, the BBC social affairs correspondent who's followed this story very closely.

Michael, do we see this after Donna Ockenden's report? Do we see this now potentially going across, not just England, across the UK? Well, I think there are clearly some significant problems at Nottingham. There are significant problems in East Kent as well in terms of maternity care. We saw the CQC last week in Sheffield rating their maternity services as inadequate as well. So there are questions that are being raised across the country in relation to maternity care. Perhaps I should just, in relation to maternity care perhaps i should

just in in relation to nottingham i think it's important to point out that there was a cqc um inspection can i can i just say at this point care quality commission in case people aren't aren't aware excuse me yes yes thank you carry on so there was a care quality commission um report into nottingham just uh last month and it found that there was significant ongoing problems that women weren't when they were coming in for triage they weren't being seen quickly enough there was an there was an increase in stillbirths they were saying that some midwives were acting beyond their competencies and they still have significant concerns and want to see improvements in ongoing care by the middle of May the trust for for their point of view are saying, look, that CQC inspection did notice

that we're making some improvements. And they do say that they are doing everything they can to deliver the best possible maternity care to all their patients. But the problem, as you heard there from Sarah, is that this review now is, in the view of many of these parents, it is going to be really, really difficult

for the review that's been called to actually answer the questions that these parents have. And it's for this simple reason that having looked at these reviews across the NHS for a number of years, you know, we heard that there's 461 families in Nottingham with questions about the maternity care that they have received.

It is undoubtedly going to be the case that some of those families received appropriate care and that maybe they were just badly communicated to after a particular incident. But they will only accept that conclusion if they believe that the inquiry that has looked into their care has been independent, thorough and credible. And if you have a significant number of families

already raising doubts about the inquiry as it is, and it hasn't even reported, then there is a danger that when it reaches its conclusion, its conclusions will simply not be accepted. And all you do is you continue to have these questions swirling around care in Nottingham. And perhaps in two or three years time, the NHS will be forced to conduct another review or another independent inquiry. I was going to say, with the request specifically for Donna Ockenden to look at this, do you think there is a likelihood here that they're lengthy and costly, these reviews? They are lengthy. The Donna Ockenden review took about five years from commission to conclusion. It probably was expensive given that amount of time,

although we don't have the figures on that. But I think it fundamentally, and I know that the families in Nottingham have been in touch with Donna Ockenden, but ultimately this will be a decision by NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care as to whether they commissioned Donna Ockenden to do it. Well, we hope to get Sajid Javid onto the programme on this and several other issues.

Michael Buchanan, thank you. A spokesperson for Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust said, we are truly sorry we failed Mr and Mrs Hawkins and baby Harriet in the care delivered in 2016 and are doing everything in our power to ensure patients using our maternity services are as safe as possible. We are cooperating fully with the ongoing independent review and working closely with local families

to learn where we can make improvements at an individual level, as well as develop better services for the future. A spokesperson for Nottingham, Nottinghamshire Clinical Commissioning Group and NHS England and NHS Improvement in the Midlands, which commissioned the independent thematic review, said the ongoing review has a dedicated team

who are ensuring that the experience of women and families is heard. team who are ensuring that the experience of women and families is heard. We will continue to monitor the progress of the review and ensure that any necessary improvements to maternity services are put in place as soon as possible. Now, many of you getting in touch about my question this morning, a couple of messages just here to say with regards to what you've just heard in that conversation, I will come to some of these messages if I can very shortly. But my next guest, Grace Lavery, is an Associate Professor of English, Critical Theory and Gender and Women's Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. But you're more likely to know her if you have heard of her from social media. Originally

from the West Midlands, Grace moved to the States in 2008 and transitioned in 2018. She's been described as the most followed transgender academic on Twitter and Instagram, but she's no longer on Twitter after being suspended in February, something we will get to. Grace has now written a memoir called Please Miss, a heartbreaking work of staggering penis. I actually spoke to her on Monday of this week before the Prime Minister's remarks, which we aired at the beginning of the programme. But of course, some of what we talk about explains where she is coming from on many of these debates. But I began by asking her why open a book about transitioning to a woman with your penis? focus on this strange and unlovely aspect of embodiment that strangely has become a matter of broad political controversy, which is the question of a trans woman's penis, which is often treated

with a great deal of embarrassment or shame on the one side, but also a great deal of confusion or even hostility by another side. So I wanted really to try to think about this part of the body as just that, really. You mentioned the politics as well there and how this gets talked about and is asked about. And I'm very struck that we're talking in the week after the leader of the Labour Party here in the UK has refused to say whether a woman can have a penis or not. What do you make of that? I think clearly Keir Starmer is in a difficult position. He is trying to hold together a coalition with a broad and quite contentious set of interests around the question of what defines or constitutes womanhood, which is, I think, the question that

we're really asking when we ask about whether a woman can have a penis, which grammatically is a slightly strange construction anyway. Because it implies that there is a woman who is asking permission to have a penis, rather than the question whether or not the category woman includes a subcategory or subclass of people who have penises or can include that subclass. So grammatically, I think it's a slightly misleading formulation. But in any case, he's in a difficult position. I think the policy they're going with right now, like trying not to talk about it very much, but understanding women as a political category,

is broadly in line with my understanding of the history of feminism. It strikes me as what should be a consensus position. It certainly is less than a lot of people would like to see in terms of support for trans people, but it doesn't strike me as a political disaster. In terms of the question itself, as I've said, I'm a little skeptical because I think what we're really talking about is, do we think that the word woman designates a particular class of biological being, or do we think that it's a political category whose meaning can change over time? I think reasonable people can take different perspectives on that question. But historically speaking, the people who have taken the position that it is a biologically essential category have tended to be on the

side of patriarchy and those who have claimed that it is a political category that is deployed to oppress a class of people have been feminists. In the UK at the moment, those terms seem to be contested, but the terms of that contest are a little confusing, will remain a little confusing to me at least. Do you understand even if you don't appreciate the construction of that sentence, why a lot of women would think you could never have a penis as a woman? I'm not talking about those that you debate with, those who are sometimes described as gender critical feminists. I'm talking far away from those who rage about this, quite frankly, a lot of the time, certainly on the internet. If they hear a political leader asked on a mainstream media programme, can a woman have a penis? They would only have one answer for that. Again, just to be clear, the question, can a woman have a penis, strikes me as, I think, a deliberately misleading construction.

The question is intended to ask, do you think that the class women can contain people who have penises? I think Keir Starmer's answer to that is clearly, I think, yes, he does think that, which is also what I think. Well, to be clear, he refused to answer. Yeah, I know, because it's a question that, again, has been designed to produce a sort of stupefaction and a sense of the general weirdness of the world as a class of women who have penises. Never heard that in my day. Although some people would say it's the weirdness of the world

that he can't just reply, no, women can't have penises. Right, but again, the question, can women have penises, is for the reasons I've now stated three times, a kind of bizarre and pointless question. If he had tried to rephrase it. No, I think to Keir Starmer as well, and I think to most people, the question is...

Sorry, with all due respect, speaking for most people is a dangerous sport, as I'm sure you know by now. As an employee of the BBC, you probably know that better than me. But sure, I think, let us say that afar from the Internet where people rage about the shit you cook, there is a group of women who find it absolutely ridiculous that there is another group of people who go around asking questions like, can a woman have a penis?

When what they mean is, does the class woman contain a subclass of people who have penises? Coming to you, and I'm sure we'll come back to what you said is at the essence of that question, what is it to be a woman? And I do want to get to that. But just so we know a bit more about you, Grace, because some will not. You do talk about that moment. And I wondered if you could take us there now when you first said out loud that you no longer wanted to be a man. Can you describe that? I can, yeah. And it's one of the moments in the book that I describe, I think, with least agitation or least fuss. I was on a sort of tour of the Southwest United States with my now husband. And he had taken me to the Grand Canyon and then to Sedona, Arizona. And we were sort of sitting in this hot tub

in a Best Western Hotel, just a road motel somewhere along the way. And I was standing in the hot tub and I kind of felt those words leaving my body. It didn't feel like something I was choosing to say. I would describe it and I realized that this is an embarrassing thing to say. I would describe this as a spiritual experience. It certainly felt like something that I was observing and participating in rather than directing. And I didn't know what it implied or what it would mean. And what happens next in that story is that I make a variety of attempts to try to figure out what it might mean to no longer be a man, most of which sort of completely fall on their ass. So, you know, I go to various different trans support groups and find that the people that I'm speaking with

don't necessarily have stories that resemble mine or that I didn't think resembled mine. I look online for support and find surprisingly little that makes sense. And in the end, I decided to start hormonal transition really as a last resort to rule everything out rather than to move forward. It was not something that I had any kind of optimism about whatsoever. I really thought that it would be a last gasp to get something that simply wouldn't work. the experience of being on hormones or changing my endocrine system was profoundly transformative and really completely reorganized my sense of myself so that was really the moment where I thought oh my goodness I mean I don't know exactly yet what this experience of being on HRT has to do with this articulation in the hot tub and I as you again if you've read the book you'll know it has very few

strong claims about what kind of a person i am or what i think transition is other than i can say that profoundly changing my endocrine system has profoundly uh affected my sense of my well-being and um yeah and happiness on a daily level that's what i was going to say your your sense of happiness is greater you would say yes yeah absolutely because of that and and interesting of course to also hear you didn't know how that would be going into that and and where it would come out and where you feel you are now i mean all of that as you say a transition is is is moving as it were but i also understand you experienced some odd advice on how to behave as a woman as well. Oh, I mean, people have all kinds of crazy advice.

And most of what people say is fairly baffling. And a lot of it is deeply misogynist. And of course, you know, one of the things that one experiences the moment that one begins to signify in a different way. You know, people do address and refer to me very differently. One of the first things that I noticed, for example, was my first semester teaching an undergraduate class since starting taking estrogen, the course evaluations that are anonymized that I got back from the students were profoundly different. So whereas before people would always want to remark my kind of intelligence or my synthetic capability or whatever it was. In the new regime of things, people tend more to refer to me being caring or generous or thoughtful,

or these highly gendered and slightly offensive, diminishing terms. So, yeah, those things really shape a person's experience and transition too. And you and your husband, Danny, have both transitioned. A bit of an it couple, I'm told, on social media as well. I just wondered, in the early days, did you ever, just keeping with that point of view of advice that people, you know, in all sorts of scenarios, try and offer well-meaning or otherwise, did you ever advise each other on how to be a woman and how to be a man?

Oh, gosh, not in those terms. I mean, you know, again, those are really not terms that Danny and I would use, I think. And I can't really speak for him directly, but he really doesn't need any advice from me about how to, you know, pass or anything like that. For one thing, there is a kind of, as is well known, there's at least in the early stages, asymmetry between the effects of testosterone and the effects of estrogen, whereby, you know, Danny was being referred to as on the street very quickly. And it took me a little longer before that was the sort of default. But no, I mean, you know, there were things that I acquired. One of the things that I've been working on in my scholarly work for the last few years has been really important to me, is thinking about little techniques that seem newly

necessary when one transitions that, you know, had never seemed necessary before. And so, for example, I had never worn makeup to work. And now I don't wear makeup at all, really. I mean, very, very rarely, I'm not wearing makeup now. And if you don't wear makeup when you're doing an interview with women's hour then um you know you don't wear makeup very often but I mean but back in the early days I used to wear makeup to work a little more and Danny would would occasionally give me help but I but I was terrible at it I really was you know it was just not something I did but you know and this is another thing Emma that I sometimes think about tensions around trans people in the UK is so many of the problems that seem to be generated by what we might call the kind of trans liberalism of the present moment. So many of those problems seem to have to do specifically with the moment to transition and much less to do with the question of how trans people exist in the world on a longer term basis. It has to do with

moments where people don't really know what pronouns to use or don't really know how to talk or think about things. People feel disoriented in the wake of a transition. When one is first beginning to transition socially, there are all kinds of complicated consequences, which of course affects trans people far more than they do those around us but but which affect those around us too and sometimes in ways that are unpredictable and sometimes even intense so all by way of saying I think it's not an uncommon story for people to sort of start wearing makeup when they first transition as a way of flagging look something really different is happening in my life now and then at a certain point just sort of start thinking well

you know really I don't need to do that I don't really want to do that that's not really who I am. I think at the heart of what we what we've also started to to talk about and I want to get to a bit more is you believe it's possible to change sex is that right? I wouldn't characterize it as a belief but I would claim that yeah I would claim that it is possible to change sex. Okay, so that is the view that you have? Yes, yes, it is. What evidence do you have that sex isn't real? What do you base that on? Oh my gosh, I'm sorry. If something can change, it's real. I have no intention of saying sex isn't real. Sex is real. Sex is profoundly important. It shapes elements of our lives in important and contradictory ways. If it weren't an important aspect of embodiment, I don't think trans people would really put such

effort into changing it. You know, my understanding is that if we refer to testosterone, for example, as a sex hormone, and we put testosterone into a body that otherwise would be producing less testosterone and more estrogen, one is to some extent changing the balance of sexual characteristics and sexual traits in that body. Of course, one is not changing chromosomes. Of course, one is not changing primary sexual organs, but one is changing secondary sexual organs, which is a category that seems to have dropped out of favor these days, but which I still think is very important to people. Secondary sexual characteristics are breasts rather than genitals, parts of a body that

are produced by sex hormones. But going back to chromosomes, I suppose what I'm talking about there is there are those who will believe that you can never fully become a woman because you can't change your chromosomes. Yes, those people are people who believe that a woman is defined by chromosomes. I was going to say, I suppose in my experience of talking to the public about this or rather talking to individuals and the public listening and being a part of it, is that there are a few areas where people feel they can relate to this in some way, even if they haven't been looking at it academically or living with elements of this like you have. And one of those is sport. And of course, when we're looking at what's going on in certain sports around the world at the moment, this is where people really engage a lot of the time.

And I wanted to bring up something that was said to me last year in a very candid interview with Joanna Harper, who is a trans woman, former athlete and now a sports scientist she said that after taking hormones trans women retain a strength advantage over as she puts it cisgender women now of course this has been in the news because of for instance the British cyclist Emily Bridges so the point being is if you have been competing in a male category and then go over to the female category you will have an unfair advantage that's how a lot of people can understand that and they feel very concerned about fairness what i wanted to ask you though was for those who who are not of your view on this around what constitutes being a woman do you not understand or perhaps sympathize as to why they think of that

as proof that there is such a thing as the female body? Well, again, I'm not for a moment contesting that there is a thing called a female body. You know, you're asking me whether I can sympathise with a position I've told you I don't agree with. So I guess my answer is yes, I can understand why people would hold the view that there was a naturally occurring organic type. After all, that is what patriarchy tells us every day. And it is a very difficult view to get your head out of. And yet... Are you saying...

Sorry, if I may, just before we go to a bigger point, are you saying every woman who believes that is effectively having their mind warped by patriarchy? I wouldn't use that phrase. I think that it is difficult to think one's way out of structures that one is informed of frequently. Because the irony is obviously some of those people are very much feminists and have thought nothing but about patriarchy and how to think their way out of those structures and still come to the conclusion that is that the male body

retains an advantage over female bodies. I think it makes sense to refer to sex as real and important and determinative and deserving of respect. When it comes to traits, I do not think it makes sense to refer to entire organisms as though they always and inevitably possess the sexual characteristics of a single organism. The fact that we can indeed put testosterone, which is a male sex hormone, into a body that otherwise does not produce those kinds of quantities of testosterone seems to me to suggest that out there in the world, and indeed in the next room to me, there are people who are living disproof of the notion that a sexual organism is a naturally self-evident type. And of course, you know, if one wants to say that nothing matters other than chromosomes, one could do that. But then the question is, what are the

advantages of that definition from a social policy? And I think there are very few. As to the question of whether or not many of the people arguing on this on behalf of the question of naturally occurring types or women as a naturally occurring type are feminists, it's beyond doubt at this point that there are some feminists who do take that view, but all I would say is that that's a profound historical novelty. I do not think you could find a single feminist who would take that view prior to Caitlyn Jenner appearing on the front cover of Vanity Fair. I think historically the notion that woman is a natural type deserving of specific and enumerated sex-based rights is precisely what

feminism was created to oppose. So the fact that we have reached this impasse or this confusion around what feminism is, is a historically interesting and significant development, but it isn't a sort of self-evidently easy one to know how to untangle. You have written, I'm quite sure that women's rights are not, have never been and must never be sex-based. But to those women who believe that they must have sex-based rights for a variety of reasons, ranging from sport through to women-only spaces for different purposes, you'll be very familiar, our listeners will be as well. How can you say that

with such surety? Well, again, I say it on the basis of 20 years of active research and teaching in the field. I have been doing this work for a long time. The notion of sex-based rights is a very recent phenomenon that hasn't existed for more than a few years. It's a really bad deal for women. And I don't say that as a trans woman woman i don't say that as anyone other than a scholar of feminism it's got nothing to do with my own personal experience i just i just think it's a really bad move in terms of the history of sex-based rights as far as i can tell here's the thing emma i actually have a debate with one of my gc friends about when you say gc i don't want i don't want to interrupt you, but when you say GC, I have to translate. You're talking about gender critical feminists. Do carry on. I would say gender critical activists because I think many of them are explicitly not feminists, but I. I'm sorry. Grace, Grace, just pause that thought. If you don't want a world where the borders of what it is to be a woman are policed, why are you trying to police the border of what say is that there is a constituency of people who are very clearly and avowedly not feminists, who are fellow travelers with gender

critical feminists, and who are part of that movement in a very high profile way. That's not to say anything about the women you're talking about, whose feminism I may very profoundly disagree with, but can nonetheless very easily recognize as feminism. So here's my basic commitment, though. My basic commitment is I don't think there are any grounds on which the state should make a decision about whether a person is a man or a woman. I think that that's a fundamental issue of civil rights. And I think it's a feminist issue of civil rights. So if that is a commitment that I have sort of come to on political grounds, it naturally occurs to me to try to ask the difficult counterexample

questions and say, well, what about prisons? What about sport? What about bathrooms? And I have different answers to all of these, but again, none of them think involves a kind of caveat. I think it is very possible for us as a community of people living in the world to get by without the government licensing womanhood or licensing manhood which is essentially what as far as I can see the gender critical movement is agitating for. I want to ask you a question I've asked a lot of people in all sorts of areas of life if I'm honest do you regret any of the way that you have conducted some of your conversations online? It's difficult to say I have no regrets about anything

without anticipating that, you know, something mean and petty comes up. You know, I do think I've been capable of being snippy. Twitter brings out the worst in everyone and certainly it brings out the worst in me. I mean, you're not on it anymore, are you? No, I said that I hoped the Queen died and they kicked me off permanently.

That was while she had COVID, is that right? It was, yeah. What was going on there? I mean, you know, I've been a Republican my entire life. I remain fairly convinced that the fact that there is a British royal family is a grotesque and disgusting relic of privilege that makes mockery a British democratic procedure. I know that's sort of uncool thing to say. That's quite different than wishing a woman in her 90s dead while she has COVID. Yeah, I mean, I don't know what to say.

If we were living through the French Revolution, you know, regicide was very much on the table. I don't think that these are sort of as outrageous or unprecedented as you may think. So no regrets on that particular one? Yeah, on that one, I would. I don't think that these are sort of as outrageous or unprecedented as you may think. So no regrets on that particular one? Yeah, on that one, I would say I don't. I think that the Queen really handle me saying that I hope she dies. Yeah, I actually just don't. I plain don't regret that one. So just to clarify,

as someone who wants to have these sorts of debates, you don't regret the thing that got you kicked off Twitter, namely wishing the Queen was dead. But you, I presume in some way, would miss having, where you had a lot of followers, having that platform to have those sorts of discussions. Well, do you know? Maybe you don't. I've been in the UK. It's funny.

I've been moving around the UK for the last few weeks doing my book tour. And I was really expecting and I'd been encouraged to expect a great deal of resistance and a great deal of protest and confrontation. Certainly when one listens to the BBC or reads The Guardian or looks at Twitter, one gets the impression that the UK is currently going through this extremely fractious conversation about trans issues, which is splitting, you know, the gay community in a particular way. And I was really kind of anxious about coming back to my home country. I haven't been here since 2018. And in fact, you know, what I've noticed is that the gay bars look exactly like they used to work. The flags are still flying. People are still hanging out. You know, everyone I meet wants to know why I think there's such a kind of surge of GC sentiment in the UK at the moment. In other words, I think getting off Twitter has been really useful

in terms of gaining a new understanding of the way this issue is actually playing out in community spaces in the UK, which is to say, I just don't think that there are as many gender critical activists, whether feminists or not, as the media wish us to think that there are. I didn't expect that. Grace Loverick, her book is called Please Miss, a heartbreaking work of staggering penis. Well, next week, I'll be speaking to the Labour MP Rosie Duffield about her backing of a new campaign group, Respect My Sex If You Want My Ex. And you have been getting in touch with regards

to the Prime Minister's comments in this area, specifically about sport. As the Prime Minister said yesterday, biological males shouldn't be competing in female sporting events. A message here, I'm strongly of the opinion that trans women should not be allowed to compete in women's sports. I think it's clear that they will always have an unfair advantage, even if they have lowered their testosterone to the required level. One only has to look at the photographs of Leah Thomas in America, standing next to female swimmers in the recent American college competition to see the vast physical differences. And Miranda's emailed to say, I'm a gender student at the LSE and these topics are something

I study a lot. What problematises this debate for me are cases like Kasta Semenya, a cisgender woman who was banned from competing, a cisgender woman who was banned from competing a cis woman excuse me from competing in women's sports for having testosterone levels which were too high taking into account her experience and the experience of intersex people who do not neatly fall into a category of male or female we come to a point where gender is defined on hormone levels which strikes me as reductive that's from from Miranda there. Well, I'm sure your messages will keep coming in. And as I say, we want to do a specific special on sport and this issue.

So please do get in touch. But to return to the topic of divorce, having had the pleasure of speaking to a number of you on air yesterday during our special phone-in to mark the law change in England and Wales, which saw no-fault divorces come into effect. If you missed that, catch up on BBC Sounds. And thank you so much to everybody who got in touch and was so honest. In a new series, Life After Divorce, our reporter Henrietta Harrison, who's recently been through a divorce

herself, meets other divorcees to hear their stories. We begin with Amanda, not her real name, who's 51 and split from her husband 12 years ago when he came out as gay. I was dedicated and committed to my marriage. It was for life for me. And we got on great. But obviously I knew deep down that it wasn't right. We didn't have an intimate side, really, apart from having two kids. And so it just built up where I just thought,

I can't do this forever. And he felt same and he said he would leave I didn't actually think he would but he did and it were a relief actually when you found out that he was gay yeah was it a shock in the 10 years we'd been married I'd put it to him on two occasions because I remember and I asked him outright if he was gay so I must have had suspicions and he went ballistic with me how dare I question his sexuality and blah blah blah so I thought oh I better put that to one side so it wasn't a shock but it still was because he was leaving but I kind of thought yeah yeah I knew yeah. Amanda lives in a rented three bed in a city in Yorkshire with her two kids. We talk in her kitchen. Like many of us she only heats one room when she's working from home. There are cut flowers, a scented candle and lots of those framed pictures with positive

affirmations like mistakes are the stepping stones to success or every day I am a better version of myself. In fact, they are the sort of statements you might read on divorce sites on Instagram. But Amanda's not keen. I'm quite choosy in who I follow and who I look at. Yeah, so... And one Instagram account particularly riles her. She's only been divorced, separated a couple of years, and she goes on all these dates,

and I think because of her job, she goes to all these fancy places, and it's lovely to watch and see on Instagram. And I saw an article, and it had a picture of this journalist, and it said, the poster girl for divorce. And I thought, you what? It's nothing like reality for me, and I'm sure many other women. That might be how it is for some women and good luck to them do you know but it's so not do you know it's so not the reality everything changes everything

you get all these sort of images don't you of liberation I think there's a very famous photograph of Nicole Kidman after Tom Cruise running in a see-through blouse. I mean, for me, it felt this whole idea that if I'm not out dating or I'm not, you know, out having adventurous sex or cocktails with the girls, that it adds to the sort of sense of failure. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I remember that picture too, but they had money. You know, she wasn't thinking, oh, I'm going to feed my kids this week. I went shopping last week, they declined my card, you know, which happened to me. So I don't think Nicole Kidman was worrying what she was going to give the kids to eat that week or where she would live. For a lot of women,

it's the money side changes everything. So if you're, I'm not saying you don't feel the abandonment, the hurt, the rejection, you know, the grief of losing your marriage, but it's got to be a lot easier knowing that you've got that financial comfort. So we're human and we all feel the same emotions, but people I seem to read about or see, life goes on as normal. And mine certainly didn't. Everything crashed. Because of the money. Because of the money. Amanda had been the first in her family to get a mortgage, but after the split,

on paper, she didn't qualify for a mortgage on her own and had to move into a rental. I know how she feels. I too had to move into a rental when I moved out of our family home with my two kids. It was an eye-opener, to say the least. Demand way outstripped supply and the price you had to pay for substandard housing and how hard you had to fight to get these terrible properties was shocking. Renting has been not great for me and I moved three times in five years which was awful. So how tight have you been financially? I mean you've

always been working. Yeah always worked and thank god for tax credits you know they supplemented my income. I didn't qualify for housing benefit or anything like that. So we have always had enough. But we have not lived an extravagant life. My car is really old. I don't really go out much. I go to charity shops. I shop on eBay.

So although when I say we've had enough, I've been able to pay my bills and go shopping every week. And to me, that's been enough. I know the day I moved out of my family home, something I was really dreading. My mum came to help me, actually. She came to help me pack up the boxes. I think she'd got mixed feelings about the divorce.

I think she found it quite hard to accept. On the morning that we were actually moving, the van was coming. She said, how are you feeling? And I said, well, you know, not great. You know, pretty awful. And she said, said well at least you can remember it's your choice and I remember thinking actually it's not a choice no one would choose this but for you are there any moments that you look back on as being particularly hard when we moved that year when we

moved into the rental and then a few months in we had to move out again because of the damp and when the estate agent said oh you can move back in now I just went down and it was full of dust and muck so I done packed everything made it all home later a few months in pack everything again and it was filthy full of dust and I thought I can't do it I think I had a breakdown it was too much selling a house finding somewhere to live all on my own. It was kind of a mini breakdown because you can only break down so far when you've got two kids who rely on you, do you know? So I kept the show on the road,

but I'd cry when they were in bed. I did function, but I was just going through the motions. Well, that's years ago. Of course, I've had seasons where I felt really low and just not happy. Who would be happy you know doing everything on your own and couldn't read books I couldn't concentrate I went to the doctors I took

some time off work I run I like to run and that's helped but I just had to get strong again because I knew I had to get back on track and go I mean the kids are quite good for you in that sense aren't they I remember people saying to me because I was going through the divorce during Covid and lots of people used to say to me when you were in lockdown I don't know how you do it with the kids and I used to think to myself actually I don't know how I do it without the kids. What's the alternative do you know? My kids were certainly what got me up in the morning on those difficult days physically and emotionally. even if you consider yourself decent mature devoted to the best interests of your children emotions seem to get in the way amanda and her ex share parenting we didn't for the first year because it left me to move in with somebody else and so i didn't know

this other person from adam he had he'd not known this person for long so i didn't want the children to go plus because of our jobs and our hours we worked, our setup was that I went not to work, he took the kids to school and nursery, he finished early, picked them up, because my hours were longer at the time. So for the first year, he came to the house, he'd just left, it was traumatic, it was awful, yet he had to come every morning still to see to the kids so I could go to work, and he was there when I got in. And then on a Saturday, he'd come and have them for the day and I would either go upstairs into my bedroom and try and read or whatever or go to a friend's. I didn't want them to go to this new

place that nobody knew much about at that point but then after a year he were a good dad and they were desperate to spend more time with him and I realised then I can't keep this going all the time I've got a full-on job no family support as such because my dad loved us and we adored him but he wasn't a well man he couldn't physically look after the kids he came visited all the time but he couldn't look after them or take them out on his own so you shared parenting but you operated out of just your home for the first year so after a year we did alternate weekends they went on a friday night one week and on a saturday night the week after so it was just one night and it wasn't until i moved into a rental the first

time so three years down the line that they started going every other weekend and we've maintained that i know i'm lucky in the sense that I do have every other weekend and a couple of nights through the week, but, boy, do I need it, yeah. You actually said that though you share parenting 50-50, that you think the emotional responsibility, I think the phrase that you used when we spoke was that he loves them, but you carry them.

I do. I really feel that, yeah. I know everything about my children, you know. Do they emotionally share with him? Do you know what? They do. I really feel that, yeah. I know everything about my children, you know. Do they emotionally share with him? Do you know what? They do. They've got a good relationship with him. But there's been lots of ups and downs because he's put relationships before them. And as they get older, my daughter especially, can see that.

But she still loves him. And I've said, he is your dad and it is what it is. He loves you, really loves you. But as she's got older, I've said to her, but he will come first. What has been the impact on the children? I do believe all kids want their mum and dads to be together. I do. I remember when my daughter was, she must have been about eight,

not long after he'd gone, a friend had come to stay over. And a friend's mum, I remember her saying to me, your daughter said to my daughter oh they're going to get back together because when he comes he comes in and mum's fine with him so I know they're going to get back together do you know and I had to sit her down and say that's not going to happen you have not had any significant relationships I went out with somebody for eight weeks last summer not my first relationship in 12 years and I didn't like it and I'm a control freak I realized and I was like and he was lovely but it was too much for me he wanted to marry me

and it was just too intense you made a choice not to have a partner is is that right you wanted to put the children first I did I did so I didn't go looking for it. And funnily enough, they don't come knocking on your door, do you know? But my point is, was it a conscious choice not to? Yeah, absolutely. Why? Because I couldn't. I felt I needed to give my kids 100%. And I wanted home to be home for them. And I don't ever want them to feel uncomfortable, ever.

I think it's really interesting that and i know it's a generalization that men seem to pursue other relationships they pursue pleasure they put their needs first and and women prioritize the children they put their sort of romantic selves aside and i think part of me thinks well why are we being such martyrs we're almost like victims of the divorce because of that we don't move on in the way that men often do I know I'm a bit odd for that do you know how I've lived my life these past 12 years I know it's not the norm and I don't judge anybody for making other decisions you know but for me they went through so much my kids and they've dealt with a lot, you know,

and they've had to accept a lot. We're all broken. I'm broken. They're broken. But I didn't want to break them anymore. Don't you think they would have quite liked to have seen you with someone that supported you and loved you? No.

I know they don't. My son used to say, don't you be bringing a boyfriend. I'm not having a stepdad. Don't bring any boyfriend home to this house. I said, and he'll joke with me sometimes. He'll go, have you got a boyfriend, I'll go, yeah, I have, you better not have, you know, my daughter, now she's older, will go, oh mum, I just wanted you to meet somebody, and she'll even, she's looking out for people, you know, you had this relationship

last year, but presumably, for the rest of that 12 years, it was, in terms of your sexual life, it was a complete drought was it yeah yeah I mean I must say and this is really mega important I've not mentioned this to you but I am a Christian as well so that does massively influence my decisions as well but no I've not slept with anybody since he left and we've probably not slept together for the last two years of being married you won't sleep with someone until you're married again is that what you're saying that's what i'm saying yeah yeah i mean if i'm being really honest sex is important we all need that we need intimacy

but i've switched off to it and i haven't ever met anybody who's really turned my head you know so it's not a case of i've chosen not to and that's that like i said they don't come knocking up all these eligible lovely men there's they're not out there in abundance you feel guilty or ashamed that you're divorced no not at all no sense of failure no no i couldn't have done anymore i gave that man my everything and as hard as it were and it was traumatic I can't put into words how traumatic it was I wouldn't have my two children if I'd not married you know and I possibly would have married somebody else and had different children but they won't be my two I've got now and so for them alone I'm truly grateful and would I wanted the lives we've got or what they've had to go through no I

wouldn't but essentially they're all right I know they are so I don't feel guilty I think regret's a waste of time completely I think comparison's a thief of joy that's my mindset most of the time you talked about that you were in a lonely unhappy marriage and that you're happier now as a single woman do you ever feel envied by people I mean I find that when people find out I'm divorced or people that know me that I feel that I'm in some circumstances pitted but in other circumstances I'm envied yeah definitely yeah I remember a mum at school in the early days saying so what's it like and how often do you have the kids? And how do you manage money-wise?

And I thought, oh, I think she's fancying a bit of this. There's many people, in my experience, who are married and they're frightened to death, which I totally get, of rocking the state's court. How will they cope? How will they manage? And that fear is real. I would say to anybody that the fear is worse than the reality,

but it's still hard. The grass isn't greener. It's different grass. It is different grass, yeah. What advice would you give to the 39-year-old self that was about to go through a divorce now? Brace yourself. Brace yourself, because this is going to be hard.

If I'd have known when I was 39 what I would have to go through, I would have thought, take me now, I can't do it. But you take one day at a time, and if today is absolutely horrendous, tomorrow's a new day. Some brilliant advice there. That report by Henrietta Harrison. Thank you so much for your company and contributions today. The programme's back tomorrow at 10.

That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know.

It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.