Woman's Hour - Louise Thompson, For Women Scotland, Decluttering, Musician Emma-Jean Thackray, Exclusion zones

Episode Date: April 26, 2025

After suffering complications during the birth of her son, Leo, in 2021, former Made in Chelsea star Louise Thompson developed PTSD. She posted about this to her followers on social media and has now written about it in her new book, Lucky. She told Clare McDonnell about her experience and why she is trying to break the taboo surrounding birth trauma.People who have committed murder, manslaughter or stalking offences should be forced to live in restricted areas after being released from prison on licence, according to a group of campaigners. BBC journalist Gemma Dunstan and law-change campaigners Rhianon Bragg and Dianna Parkes join Anita Rani to discuss. The Prime Minister Keir Starmer has welcomed the UK Supreme Court decision on the legal definition of a woman. His office has confirmed that he no longer believes trans women are women. There have been protests against the decision, with critics saying it is incredibly worrying for the trans community. The ruling followed a long-running legal battle between the Scottish Government and the campaign group For Women Scotland. Susan Smith, one of the directors, spoke to Clare and gave her reflections on the outcome, a week on.TV presenter, writer and self-declared 'homes therapist' Michelle Ogundehin joined Nuala to talk about decluttering and the connection between our home and our wellbeing, her personal wardrobe strategy and her love of curated things that tell our story.Emma-Jean Thackray is a multi-instrumentalist, singer, producer, bandleader and DJ. Her sound has incorporated the widest range of music, from jazz and funk to Detroit house and techno, northern Bassline and catchy rock and pop music. She joined Anita to discuss her new album Weirdo and the inspiration behind it. Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Dianne McGregor

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. What life advice would you like to pass on to your children? Remember that failure is not a sign of defeat, but an opportunity to learn and grow. What challenges would you like to prepare them for? Death is part of life and we need to talk more about it. Dear Daughter is a podcast from the BBC World Service, sharing words of wisdom from parents all over the world. This is who we are, this is what we do.

Dear Daughter, listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Just to say that for rights reasons, the music in the original radio broadcast has been removed for this podcast. Hello and welcome to a selection of standout moments from the week. Coming up today, decluttering our stuff and the connection it has to our wellbeing. TV presenter and homes therapist Michelle Agunderhin gives us some tips. Last week the UK Supreme Court ruled that a woman is defined by biological sex under equalities law, following a long-running legal battle between the Scottish Government and the campaign group

for Women Scotland. We hear reflections from Susan Smith, one of the women behind the group. Louise Thompson, the former Made in Chelsea star on the traumatic birth of her son Leo and why she's speaking up about it, and music from multi-instrumentalist, singer, producer, bandleader and DJ Emma Jean Thackeray. But first, currently when the perpetrators of murder, manslaughter or stalking are released, their victims and the victim's family can be placed under something called an exclusion zone. This is supposed to prevent offenders from approaching those impacted by their actions. However, some women with direct experience of exclusion zones are now calling for this

system to be changed. They believe that the restrictions should be around the offenders location rather than theirs. I spoke to Rhiannon Bragg who was stalked and held hostage by her ex-partner and Diana Parks whose daughter Joanna Simpson was murdered by her husband Robert Brown in 2010. They told me about their experiences but first I started by asking BBC reporter Gemma Dunstan who's been following the story about the current law concerning exclusion zones, when do they tend to be allocated and what crimes are they connected with? Many offenders are subject to a period of time of licence and there are conditions that

are allocated to that and one of them is this exclusion zone that we're talking about and it's often the body granting the release, so maybe the parole board or the prison who are responsible for the terms of that license. So commonly to see an exclusion zone implemented it would be where there's been an offence that involves violence or harassment and stalking and they also tend to be used with gang related violence as well to prevent offenders re-entering areas where the gang may be based but it's really worth highlighting that once those license conditions end so can the exclusion zone. And how do they differ from a restraining order? Well that's a really good question because they both involve restricting someone's

access but they are very different and there are lots of nuances but essentially a restraining order restricts a person from engaging in certain actions so contacting a person or approaching a person, whereas an exclusion zone on the other hand, sort of prevents a person from being in a specific location. So whether that's a home, town, village or a county for a defined period of time. So restraining order protects a sort of a named individual, whereas an exclusion zones works to restrict someone's access to a specific area. And what changes are being called for? Well I've spoken to multiple victims of stalking, families

affected by homicide, manslaughter, murder who essentially want to see these exclusion zones flipped on their head. So instead of the victims given a zone to sort of live and work within, they want that zone put on the perpetrator because they tell me that the current zones make them feel very trapped. As soon as they cross over that zone they don't feel safe, whereas they feel if the restrictions were put on the offender it would allow them to travel more freely and to feel safer. Rhiannon, I'm going to come to you now because I'd like to hear about your own experience.

What was it like? What is it like living in an exclusion zone? The person who offended against me was sentenced to nine and a half years, four and a half days in custody, and then released February last year on licence. And until the day before release, I had no idea what those licence conditions would be.

So incredibly high anxiety. And there's one of the issues I have is the mental and physical health toll on victims because of how the current system runs. And I was told about the exclusion zone the day before release. And in fact, he was given an exclusion zone of four counties, which I'm aware is significantly larger than many people are given. But still, despite that, I felt really restricted. Whilst there was some sort of feeling of safety within that zone, actually as soon as I crossed the border, I felt at high risk. And in fact, our perpetrator died earlier this year. And it was with that that I really realized quite how on edge

how anxious I still was and that the clock was ticking. I'd got four years left before these conditions had run out. I'd to a certain extent had to sacrifice my liberty for the offenders. I'd had to disclose all sorts of information. I'd had to justify where I go shopping, where the children were at school, where I might need to access for health appointments. I just absolutely feel that this should be flipped. Victims suffer enough and actually we're talking about the small number of really high risk offenders who cause maximum harm and I strongly feel it's their liberties that should be limited.

Can I ask what you felt when you heard the news that he'd died? Complete shock. It took a while to sink in. The following morning I woke up and I couldn't put a word on what I felt. It was so foreign to me, I didn't know what to call it. And it came to me slowly that it was freedom. I'd forgotten what it felt like to be free. And we're coming up to nearly 13, sorry, nearly 12 years since this man has had a significant negative impact on myself and it's not just me. More often than not these perpetrators aren't just affecting one person.

It wasn't just myself and my children but actually people within the local community as well. So I made a point before release of asking probation what I could disclose to the local community and I was allowed to say he was excluded from one county. And the relief from neighbours when I'd said that, it really is, it's extraordinary. It's extraordinary how much continued damage these people and this system currently do to victims. What about you Diana? What's the situation in terms of the exclusion zones for you and your family? Well you may remember Anita that my daughter was killed in 2010 and her offender, her husband, ex-stranged husband, was given a 26 year

sentence but it was a determinate sentence so he was going to spend half in prison and half on licence. Now I have to say that the half on licence I just couldn't see working. We had to give exclusion zones, which were the whole of the Isle of Man, most of London, Wiltshire, Ascot. How on earth could they be monitored safely was my question right from the beginning. Ultimately, we feel he should still be in prison, as he had a 26-year sentence. After bludgeoning my daughter to death with 14 blows to her head with a claw hammer. To us, he is still a criminal. How would it feel if the exclusion zones were placed around him rather than you and your

family? This is what I've been campaigning for for ages and, that we, the victims, in fact, his own children, what about their human rights? They live in fear of him coming out. If he was in a restricted area, he would be closely monitored. It would be very cost effective to just monitor him rather than all the victims. I'm not speaking for myself. I'm speaking for every family who goes through the absolute fear

of their offender coming out of jail. The total panic there is that you are not safe. And if he was in an area where he could be monitored very easily, much deeply than looking after all the victims, and we who've done nothing wrong would be allowed to not have an exclusion zone, but to carry on our lives in the normal way. At the moment, we're supposedly only supposed to feel safe in our exclusion zone. So we're trapped. I'm going to Diana read out a statement that we've had from the Ministry of Justice from a spokesperson who said victims must feel safe which is why any

offenders released on license who break the rules face going back to prison they have to follow strict conditions such as curfews, exclusion zones that prevent them approaching their victims and restrictions on phone and internet use. Rhiannon you've been meeting with MPs about this. Do you feel like it's been taken seriously in Westminster? In my opinion, like I and others, I've had the flag of the perpetrators' human rights put as a hurdle.

I think it very much should be taken seriously and I acknowledge there are legal hurdles to overcome, but I expect any government, let alone one that wants to have a walk to address these hurdles. It's about putting the victim first, some sort of justice, safety to victims that might enable them to be able to heal and to recover from the crimes. And I think it's a change that would make such a fundamental difference to so many people who've been affected by crime. You heard about your program earlier talking about the cost cuts to victim services. Well, I strongly believe that this would actually be cheaper to manage these offenders. I think it would be easier for the police. I think it would be less

of a burden for probation. The technology already exists to make it possible. And I think it's a change that, you know, we know the law is solid and it needs to be solid, but there's been so much learning about these offenders, about these offenses, their devastating impact. And we also know not all offenders can be rehabilitated. So the law needs to remain open to change in recognition of that learning. It needs to be solid, but not second-stone, as I said.

And if you think about the change that's happened in the last few years even, so non-fatal strangulation has come in. Children living in a domestic abusive household are now considered victims in their own right. The Domestic Abuse Act itself, so there's so much that's already gone on. It is a change that I strongly believe ought to happen. I was talking to Rhiannon Bragg, Diana Parks and BBC reporter Gemma Dunstan. And if you've been impacted by anything you've heard, then do go to the BBC Action Line website where there are support links. Now, this next conversation involves details of a traumatic birth which may be difficult for

some people to listen to. Just a warning there. After suffering complications during the birth of her son Leo in 2021, former Made in Chelsea star Louise Thompson had to undergo an emergency operation and lost more than three liters of blood. Just after returning home, she was rushed back to hospital in the middle of the night with a hemorrhage. Louise is now trying to break the taboo surrounding birth trauma by speaking frankly about it to her 1.5 million followers on social media. Her Sunday Times bestselling book, Lucky, about her experience is out in paperback this week. Claire began by asking her about her experience. I had a slightly challenging pregnancy. I was pretty anxious. I'd suffered with a miscarriage before and I do have an inflammatory bowel disease and I'd suffered with fainting spells.

Later on during the pregnancy I was in quite a lot of pain and struggling to sleep and also I had this sort of cascade of events but I was actually involved in a house fire at my mother's house where we were living at the time, and that was a month out from giving birth. So my partner and I felt fairly displaced, and I have the body of a 14-year-old boy. I'm very narrow, and I don't have childbearing hips, and it was not something I'd ever wanted to go through. I knew I wanted to extend our family, and I was desperate to have a child, but I didn't love the idea of a natural birth. And I think as women, instinctively,

we know what is best for us, and I really tried to advocate for myself to push for a planned cesarean section to give myself a little bit of control, giving that we didn't know where we were going to be coming home to that night. And yeah, I didn't feel great about it. So I tried to speak to various different midwives and there was a slight lack of continuity of care and I was pointing a lot of different directions and I couldn't get the answers you know I felt like I had to jump through a lot of hoops but no one said okay here is the right person to speak to this is who you need to email this is who you need to pick up the phone and ask this person. And every time you brought this up to say, I look at my partner, he's enormous, I'm tiny,

my hips are this wide, I'm really worried about this. Could I not have an elective caesarian? What was the answer? Well, it is my right. So since having my son, I've looked into this in more detail. And there's an amazing resource called birthrights.org.uk which will highlight all of your rights out there and everyone is entitled to a safe and dignified birth. I didn't know that at the time. So in the end I just succumbed to my fate and I did go into labour naturally on my due date and I wasn't able to give birth naturally and my son wasn't, he didn't come out of me. He got stuck in my pelvis. I knew that he had a bigger than usual head. I'm five foot, as you say, my partner is

very tall. And I ended up in theater and it was an awful harrowing experience. I was awake for three and a half hours. And as you mentioned before, I did, I lost three and a half liters of blood and I had to witness that whole thing and that was immensely scarring. I had no idea what had happened to me. I was in shock. My baby was taken to NICU so I didn't get a chance to bond with him. I didn't even get to meet him.

I didn't know whether he was alive and I was then wheeled into a side room, which I've later learned I should have been taken into at least a high dependency unit. And then I was sent home less than a week later. And I hadn't even processed what had happened to me. I didn't know what was going on. They didn't tell you what had actually happened though, did they? Because there was a further injury that happened during the birth. And you didn't know about this, but it came home to you.

What happened afterwards? So a couple of days into being at home, I suffered a massive obstetric hemorrhage and I lost all of the blood in my body so I lost five and a half liters and I was blue lit into the hospital and I ended up having to have another emergency surgery and that was a really devastating experience for me because I was on my own and it was in the middle of the night and I genuinely thought every second for however long it was until I was put to sleep I've believed that I was going to die every single second and I don't believe that anybody should have to ever go through that to then survive to live with the consequences of that because the post-traumatic stress that comes off the back of that is so debilitating.

So yeah, and I woke up in intensive care and again, you know, I could never have expected any of this and it was really, really just completely, just it turned my whole life upside down. We have to say that the reason, a lot of the reason you were on your own, because this is during COVID, wasn't it? So when you look back on this now, and it's a horrific experience to go through, but you look back on it through that lens as well to say, maybe I could have had more support, antenatally, before the birth, maybe I could have had more support in the hospital if it weren't for this. Does that factor in now? I think it does.

Definitely, you know, it was off the back at the end of COVID when I got pregnant and I did all of my NCT classes were actually through the NHS and they were all online so I had no experience with real women sitting in a room full of people kind of demonstrating things, talking about things, asking the really important questions. And then yes, later on, my partner wasn't allowed, he was allowed in the theatre, so I was grateful to have him there, but it was also incredibly traumatic for him and it left him with some memories that have been very scarring for him to have to go on to process

too. But yes, I was very limited with who was able to visit me afterwards. So that was very challenging. And yeah, when I ended up in A&E, I wasn't allowed any hand holding at all. So I really thought that I was going to be on my own in my last days. So you went through this incredible disassociation twice. You go through a birth which turns into a three and a half hour operation. You're separated from your son. You go home, not to your home, well, you know, to a home that's kind of being worked on. You have this awful hemorrhage. You go back in. You end up in intensive care this first time. And you say anybody who goes through anything like that would be left traumatized.

How did it impact you? Well, so when I was in the hospital, it was hard. I had horrendous flashbacks. So I'd wake up in the middle of the night screaming, crying, sweating. And I was actually in a room full of people at that point. So it must have been pretty hard for them too. Some of the people I've actually met since, oddly enough. I hope the world has a funny way of serving you up those conversations again later on in life. But yeah, at least I found a place of safety because I found people that I trusted there.

So I then built up a very good relationship with an amazing female consultant there who took very good care of me. The real challenges came when I then was discharged and sent home and I had a week where I thought everything was going to be okay and I remember booking things like eye tests and just convenient appointments, dental appointments and then something happened and an ambulance went past one day as I was walking down my street and I fully dissociated and I just remember feeling like I was living life through a completely different lens and I lost touch with reality. I didn't know my name, I didn't know where I lived, I was glued

to the sofa for weeks on end and I would sort of go through in and out of these phases of being Louise and then not being Louise. And I had to really lean on a lot of family, a lot of people still from the hospital. The crisis team had to come every day for a two week period to check that I was alive still. I fell into a place of deep, deep despair. I had really severe post-natal depression and PTSD. And it was really scary for myself but

also you know the people my family looking inwards as well because they had no experience none of us had any experience with any of this and no one really knew what to do. And how did you bond with your baby throughout all of this? If I'm completely honest I had very a very bad relationship with my son at the beginning. I just didn't have a big relationship with him. When he was born, I didn't have any of the niceties of skin on skin. He was straight in NICU. He was then taken home to be looked after by my partner when I was back in hospital for over three weeks.

He was brought in but I was in such a state of survival and this sort of hyper-vigilant mode that I didn't even know he was there. He was sat in a car seat where my partner would bring him in and all I could do was just engage. I couldn't engage with him. I couldn't look at him. He was associated with what happened and I found, and you know, even later on then when I was back at home, I found his crying incredibly triggering. And I couldn't be left alone with him. And I remember actually when the crisis team came, they would sit around my kitchen table and they would ask me every time, every day, they'd say, have you spent time with your son today? And I remember answering, I've done three minutes, like I've done three minutes and that is just unthinkable, it's just not what you see.

And slowly, slowly I built that up so it would go from three minutes to four minutes to five minutes. And then, you know, it took me a few months to even feel sturdy enough to wear him in the baby carrier on my chest. I knew that there were things that I should be doing, so I tried to kind of bring them in and automate them. And I became a bit of a robot. So whilst I knew that there was no emotional connection there, and especially when I was feeling really dissociation, I would just lie on the floor with him and I would read. And I wasn't listening to what I was reading. I was just reading out these words, but I knew that it was important for him to hear my voice and to build that connection over time.

What changed? Because now you do have that bond with him. What changed and how did it change? We have the most incredible relationship now and he is just the most gorgeous, rambunctious, fun boy ever and he's actually my best friend and it was so cool. Like this weekend he told me and he said, mommy you're my best friend and I honestly am just so grateful that I've been able to get to this place. I think, look, it was slow incremental stages. I had to just keep pushing through. I had to really work on myself. I worked with an incredible BACS accredited psychotherapist, did a lot of trauma processing.

And then I built up that trust in myself that I could parent. And the better I got, the better I got at parenting. I built in a routine that I felt safe in, really, to be honest, and I would make sure that I was just holding him enough throughout the day. And I would sit on this chair for hours and hours and I would just look at him. And eventually, when I started getting something back from him, the connection developed. And this book is an incredible read and you are searingly honest and we have to say to people listening that, you know, you have these trigger warnings in the book if you're going to go talk about what happened to you in the hospital that this is coming up.

And I know you're an advocate for women being listened to and you attended the birth trauma inquiry last year to connect with and hear all those other stories. What do you hope comes out of this? What's the the change, the difference that you're trying to make? So I work closely with the Birth Trauma Association and I think it's incredible all of the work that they're doing. They offer amazing therapy for people that don't know where else to turn. I think really it comes down to women being listened to more. You know I have experiences in other departments in the hospital, I've had surgery on my bowels and I was treated very differently

there. I think that unfortunately with things like giving birth there's such a wide spectrum of how it can go. So some people just breeze through it, other people really struggle. I think still people assume that all women should be out of hospital in X amount of days and feeling a certain way five days postpartum. You know, I had a man tell me that I should be out at my local supermarket, doing my local shop five days following my massive obstetric hemorrhage, which is obviously totally unrealistic. And this was a medic? Very cruel. And this is a consultant who has a lot of experience.

And I knew that I was in a lot of pain and I shouldn't have been discharged from the hospital, but I couldn't speak up for myself. I needed someone to advocate for me. I did a sort of birth debrief at the hospital and they did say, this is something we really need to act on. We have to listen to women and to listen to how they're feeling because at the end of the day you can't see inside somebody's body unless you do a scan and obviously like where a scan is necessary

that's very important too but I think that a big part of it is just listening to women and trusting that a woman knows best about their body. Louise Thompson speaking to Claire and if you've been affected by what you heard there are links to information and support regarding birth trauma on the Women's Hour website. A spokesperson for Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said, The health and wellbeing of those in our care is our absolute priority and it's right we recognise when this care doesn't meet the standards that patients rightly expect and that we learn from it.

Patient safety and the quality of care we provide are fundamental to our maternity service. Our thoughts and best wishes are with Louise and her family. We're committed to working with all our patients and will continue to work with Louise on supporting her and providing appropriate resources and guidance. Now maybe you are currently clearing out your drawers or maybe it feels too overwhelming to even know where to start. I can relate. On Bank Holiday Monday we broadcast a special program all about clutter and decluttering. The hashtag declutter brings up 2.6 million posts on Instagram so lots of people are thinking

and talking about it. While the former architect and magazine editor Michelle Agundahin, who is now a judge on interior design masters, is a passionate advocate for the connection between our homes and our former architect and magazine editor Michelle Agundahin, who is now a judge on interior design masters, is a passionate advocate for the connection between our homes and our wellbeing. The author and presenter now describes herself as a homes therapist. In her book Happy Inside, she explored the relationship we have with our homes, saying, what surrounds you is as fundamental to your wellbeing as diet, sleep and exercise. She's also a huge fan of decluttering, as she told Nula. Visual clutter is more exhausting than we realize. It's not just stuff. Our brains are

constantly processing our surroundings, so they have to work overtime if they're surrounded by chaos. So if you feel drained or exhausted at home, it could be your clutter. I mean we know that homily, clear space, clear mind. But everyone must have a different level of clutter that is distracting, right? Like one man's clutter is one woman's, we're on women's, our one woman's clutter is another woman's treasures. Well, I love that you say that because this is not a call for minimalism. When I talk about clutter clearing, it is not about getting rid of the things you

love. It is not about leaving yourself with sort of, you know, one perfect pot just so on a kind of linen tableau. I mean, I love my things. I have lots of things. I think our things are like the talismans of your life. They tell your story. But the key is to surround yourself with the things that actually tell the story that you want it to tell, and so it's about

coherence rather than chaos in editing those things, and then you just keep the things that reinforce you, that uplift you, that when you walk through the door you think, oh gosh I loved that vase, present, pot, whatever it was, or this reminds me of my holiday, or it's your kids' drawings. It's those things that have a very positive connotation for you. Because I have literally walked into someone's house and gone, oh, that's an interesting vase. And the person has responded, oh, someone gave it to me, I don't really like it. You think, why is it there? Why is it sent to place? And they feel compelled to keep it because it was a gift. So sometimes it's about giving yourself permission to actually

get rid of that thing. How do you do that though? Slowly, absolutely slowly. It is not about thinking, right, that's it. It's all got to go. I want clear surfaces. It's about really taking it one step at a time. Maybe you start with a drawer. You know, we all have the draws. I mean, I actually, when I'm designing van draws, because they are just the kind of hidden holes of horror, where we tuck everything away and ram it shut.

I think we have to take a moment for that, Michelle. The hidden hole of horror? Yes, drawers, cupboards, things with doors on them, attics and basements, you know, where we think we've hidden something away so then it's out of mind, out of, you know, that we don't think about it anymore, except we do. That stuff is almost like this sort of psychological weight in our homes, this stagnant energy. But in terms of how do you approach clearing small little by little, you know, make it fun. One of the things I sometimes do on my Instagram is do a clearing challenge. So you pick a month. I mean, I usually pick February because it's a short month.

Day of the month, you get rid of one thing on the second day, two things, the third day, three things. And you usually get to about day 10. and you think, yeah, I'm doing this, this is great and it's not too heavy. But it forces you to go into those cupboards of horror and the basement and the attic and ask yourself the questions. But the advantage of doing it as a monthly challenge means it does contain it, it limits it to just that one month because we all have busy lives. I think that's so interesting because I know many people probably put off the decluttering because it can be such a time suck, right, it is time consuming, it is exhausting, not just physically, but emotionally at times.

So you think give it a miss for the other 11 months? I mean, I think once you start it becomes, it becomes quite compelling because, I mean, we know that it is exhausting, but the thing is when you get used to living with less, you actually make space, more time for more energy, for more fun, for more activities. Ultimately, that ripples out to absolutely everything else we do. Let us talk about curating the things that we have collected up until this point to stop it looking like clutter. Containment is the golden word. I love a display shelf.

What I think doesn't work is when we litter our things across every surface, so across the mantelpiece, by the TV, on every windowsill. That's when it starts to look cluttered. My son has in his room these two long shelves that have lots of little cubby holes in them. I think they used to be CD shelves. And the pleasure that he had in taking out all his little treasures, his little trinkets,

his rocks, his Lego, his little models, and putting them all on, that made home for him. So when he has his treasure sort of shelves, he's home. And I also love to sometimes just go in there and just look at his things, because this is my son, the things that he considers valuable. And it's such, such a pleasure. Anyone who has watched you on interior design masters will know you have the most beautiful wardrobe

of clothing. But wardrobes can be a huge problem area for people. What is your advice for tackling clothing? Oh, one in one out. Absolutely. Yes. You don't need the latest fashions to validate yourself. I mean, I aspire to be capsule wardrobe woman. I mean, on the school run, it's jeans and I've probably got three identical t-shirts and straightforward clothes. And then there is the separate wardrobe that is for the show, but I borrow most of the things because I'm never going to wear it day to day.

If it's just hanging in your wardrobe, it's no good to anyone. And it's a little bit sad and forlorn. Why not pass it on to someone who will wear it every day and will love it? And you make more space in your wardrobe. I mean, even physically, we need space around our clothes to help them breathe. Otherwise our clothes won't last very long. Maybe I'm odd, but I find there's something really thrilling about just limiting the stuff and knowing who I am, that I'm just comfortable in what I wear. Okay, so wardrobe is one. Let me turn to another box.

Okay, now here you've got me. You can never have too many books. I have literally just tried to organize all my books because there were so many boxes of them and they are so heavy that I thought, right, that's it. I am. I'm going to go through them. There's a very small pile of books that I'm prepared to let go because in my neighborhood there's one of those wonderful phone box lending libraries, so I'm going to go and gift the books there, but everything else I've just very neatly put all in category order. And I found a book on typography that I studied when I lived in New York probably 20 years ago. Should I get rid of it? Probably, but I'm not going to. When I was flicking through it, I remembered studying at the university in New York and I remembered the smell of cow gum and I

remembered drawing out the letters. And it's one book that I permitted myself to keep. So I used to think you could also not have too many cushions, but I think I've reached peak cushions. No more cushions are allowed in my life. Okay, what would be your top tip for our listeners who are perhaps listening today saying, okay, I'm going to do it? As much as it is about getting rid of the things that don't contribute to the story you want to tell, it is also about setting a really clear intention to reduce the amount of things you buy, deciding for yourself when you have enough. Bottom line, I don't really care how you fold your socks, but I do care how you feel. And I promise you that when you clear away the stuff that

has no purpose in your life, you will feel better, lighter, uplifted, energised. Holmes therapist Michelle Aguendahin speaking to Noola. And if you missed the programme and would like to listen back, just search for Monday's Woman's Hour on BBC Sounds. Still to come on the programme, music from the brilliant Emma Jean Thackeray. And remember, you can enjoy Woman's Hour any hour of the day. If you can't join us live at 10am during the week, just subscribe to the Daily Podcast. It's free via BBC Sounds. Now, trans women should use toilets according to their biological sex, according to the Equalities Minister Bridget Phillipson. This is in response, of course, to the UK Supreme Court's ruling a week ago

on the legal definition of a woman. The Prime Minister Keir Starmer has welcomed the decision, saying it provides much-needed clarity, and his office has confirmed that the Prime Minister no longer believes trans women are women. There have been protests against the decision, with critics saying it is incredibly worrying for the trans community. The ruling followed a long-running legal battle between the Scottish Government and the campaign group, For Women Scotland. Claire spoke to one of the directors of For Women Scotland, Susan Smith, and asked her for her reflection on the outcome a week on. It was a huge relief at the time. It was a really long road to get to the Supreme Court

and obviously we'd lost twice in Scotland. We didn't know what the result would be going in. Usually the Supreme Court gives you a little bit of notice. So the emotion last Wednesday was really quite intense, both in the Rima and back in Edinburgh, where they were allowed to make a noise and clap and cheer and cry, and we had to sit on our hands and hold our breath until the judge had finished speaking. Looking back, I mean, what we've said is we always believed that was the law. So in a way, nothing has changed, but in another sense, everything has changed because policy and guidance had run ahead of the law to such a degree that women's spaces were not being protected in practice.

You were in the Scottish Parliament yesterday to hear the Scottish Government's response to the ruling and you have been calling on them to apologise to women. So what response have you had? Nothing so far and it's disappointing because this was a result of a campaign fought by ordinary women with no real financial backup and with no experience in law or politics. We managed to build a movement and along the way we were subject to the most horrible abuse, some of it from politicians, and what we saw in recent days is that that has continued and there have been some really quite extreme comments from members of the Scottish Parliament and there has been no acknowledgement

on the part of the Scottish Government that they were a part of creating that febrile environment where women were being attacked simply for expressing their opinions. I want to get on to how the personal impact it's had on all of you and your backstory as well, how you came to form this group. But if you're a trans woman listening to this, do you have empathy for trans women who would argue that a week ago they had stronger rights than they do today? Well, I think the sad thing is they didn't have the rights in inverted commas that they were told they had and that is

the responsibility of the organizations who misled everybody on the law and they set out to do it very deliberately and I think they use some of these people as pawns and I think that we always said this was a separate protector characteristic, we were fully in favor of working out how people could be accommodated, but we needed clarity on when facilities were just for women. And that was our starting point. And I think the problem is, as somebody who is trans once said, that they could see in the future that there would have to be an absolute line drawn on biology because that is the only way you can really do it in law.

Everything else was a little bit of a civic contract. I think people were accommodating of people, especially those they thought passed, because women are conditioned to be nice and we are, and have been very aware when people are vulnerable and thought that we would give them a little bit of space and protection. The problem is that certain organizations really overstepped and really pushed this to the extent that we were being told that You know fully intact men with beards or

People like I suppose the we all saw the pictures of the double rapist Tyler Bryson and there were some people who were Absolutely standing up and saying that that was a woman. And I think when you got to that point, we had to pull it back. And the only way we could pull it back was to biology. And I would say that there were a lot of women who suffered an awful lot during that period. There were an awful lot of women in prisons, in hospitals, in domestic abuse shelters, in crisis shelters who were branded bigots for wanting to be safe. And I didn't see much empathy extended to them. So I think women are always expected to show empathy, but people are often less ready to show empathy to the most vulnerable women.

Where does that accommodation, you mentioned the word accommodation, women having to be the accommodating ones. Have you thought on where that accommodation now lies for trans women in this situation? I think that has to be men and I think we have to have conversations about how men can make sure that other men are safe. And, you know, I remember during the time when a lot of gay men were attacked and abused for their sexuality. And there was never any suggestion

that they should then be accepted into female spaces and we should protect them. Because women aren't human shields. And male violence is a problem, whether that's male on male violence or male on female violence and so I think it bodes us all to think very carefully about how we can tackle some of these issues but I would also say that I think there's room in certain organizations for third spaces and that won't just be for trans individuals you know there are

a lot of people who could benefit from having third spaces. If you have a carer who is of the opposite sex, for example, of somebody, they might appreciate being able to go into a space with that person. So there is an argument about how we broaden society and broaden the spaces and services we provide while not penalizing or taking away from the services that are specific to women. Let's talk about your organization because we've heard the title for Women Scotland quite a few times, but people don't necessarily know the women behind the story that everybody is talking about now. What brought you together and who are you all? So the three directors and myself, I was a former fund manager in New York

in the city of London, and I had stopped work to look after my three children. I'd done bits since then, but nothing particularly permanent. Marion Calder, who's with the NHS, and Trina Budge, who's a farmer up in the far north of Scotland. And I largely came across them online on Mumsnet, which is sneered at a lot by people who don't value mothers or who think that mothers all lose their brains when they give birth. That was how we started. We were

tiny. I mean, the four women name was actually a play because the original people in Marion's dream when they founded it, there was Marion, Trina, Magdalene and her girlfriend Nicole. And they said at that point, they didn't know if it had ever be any more than four of them. So it was literally four women. That's an interesting detail. I mean, just to put the listeners into the picture, I mean, it was back in 2018, wasn't it, when the Scottish Parliament passed a bill designed to ensure gender balance on public boards. This is what you are unhappy about.

Why? you were unhappy about, why? Yes, so the, it was quite a little remarked Bill, but Trina who is absolutely forensic and she goes through everything and she she finds the devil in all the detail and one of the things that she was very unhappy about was that the, in the the description of a woman in that Bill, the definition of a woman in that bill, it said it was anybody who identified as a woman. And it then expanded that to say, that could mean they used female pronouns

or they had a female name on their electricity bill. And then it's further said, but then you don't need to provide any evidence of this. So essentially we thought, well, it renders the whole thing meaningless, because anybody can claim to be a woman under this. It doesn't matter if you only decided to identify as a woman five minutes before walking into the interview. So we couldn't do anything about it in 2018. We, as I say, were tiny and ineffective, and we had hardly anybody was listening to us. But by 2020, we'd got enough head of steam, there was another consultation on it. And so we thought

we challenged the government, we took them to judicial review, and we won. And then they went back and amended that to say that it was biological women and anybody with a GRC, a gender recognition certificate that said they were a woman. And that is the part that we've been challenging now for the last two years. There have been, as you say, there's been a series of legal challenges through crowdfunding donations, because this doesn't come cheap. A reported £70,000 donation from JK Rowling that you were able to fund the latest legal challenge through the Supreme Court. What do you say to people that say you have been bankrolled by high-profile people like her

and that you are in essence an anti-trans lobby group? Well, it's nonsense really because we're very grateful to JK Rowling for that donation but the entire cost of this particular judicial review was over £400,000 and most of that came through in small individual donations. I worked out that for our first judicial review, the donations averaged about £37. So it was literally thousands of women giving us small amounts. And I think it's quite insulting to them when people think or pretend to think that this is some movement that's funded by high rollers because it really isn't.

As far as, you know, the accusations that were anti-trans, I would say that that only works if you think that people who believe women have the right to privacy, dignity and safety, if you think that being pro-women is in itself inherently anti-trans. It's saying that women are not allowed to have their own political or social movement without hurting other people, and I don't think that's fair or correct. You've made yourself very visible, and none of you, thanks for outlining that, have any kind of background in this kind of campaigning. And I know you've carried on doing your normal jobs alongside all of this. What kind of personal toll has it taken?

Because the arguments have got very heightened over the years, haven't they? Yes, they have. And I was really scared initially about becoming visible because I'd always regarded myself as one of those people who's very middle of the road, probably slightly lefty liberal. And I hadn't been getting the sort of information, it was a shock to me when I started looking at what had been happening in law and society, because I really hadn't understood the full impact of it and I think a lot of women were in that position and it was very difficult

when I first went to the committee on the census in 2018. I was really scared that how I would be perceived and I think some of the demonization is very upsetting. For me, the worst thing is not particularly the abuse and the threats, which are disgusting and sometimes graphic, but they come from a certain sector of people who probably would like to send those sorts of threats to women anyway. I think the things that most upset me are when people think you genuinely want to hurt them and that you're genuinely out to destroy their lives. We're not. I'm certainly not. I certainly don't hate anybody and the idea that we are wanting people to kill themselves or be miserable is very far from the truth.

We are starting to see the implications borne out, conversations around how does this apply then to health education business. Are you happy with what you've heard a week on? Are you happy with the direction of travel on that? Yes, I think there's a lot of the commentary coming from lawyers has been great. Aqua Ryndorf wrote a piece in the Times the other day that's very clear, sets things out very well and of course she is part of the Equality and Human Rights Commission and they'll be following it up

and there's been lots of good commentary I've seen from lawyers online. What's next for you? Is it over as far as you're concerned? No, we will keep on going because we do need to make sure all this guidance is sorted. We do need to make sure that it carries through into practice. We know there will be pushback and so we're going to have to deal with that and meet that. Susan Smith from the campaign group for Women Scotland talking to Claire. Now Emma Jean Thackeray, a multi-instrumentalist, singer, producer, bandleader, a DJ, a Yorkshire last done good. Her musical journey began in primary school playing a cornet her parents had

bought her from a secondhand music shop. She played in brass bands and orchestras before going on to study music. Her sound has incorporated the widest range of music from jazz and funk to Detroit house and techno, northern bass lines, catchy rock and pop music. She's also an in-demand DJ. She bridges worlds directing the London Symphony Orchestra and performing at Clastonbury. Her last album, Yellow, was awarded Jazz Album of the Year. Her new one, Weirdo, is out this week. I started by asking Emma Jean why she called it Weirdo. Because the seed of it was about not just accepting but trying to celebrate my neurodiversity. So growing up feeling like a weirdo, being autistic and ADHD

and always feeling like I never fit in, always feeling othered, I felt like although these things have caused pain, I think they've also made me who I am, they mean that I make the music that I do, that's also brought a lot of positive so I wanted to celebrate the other side of that and then of course the album evolved and became about other things as that. And then of course the album evolved and became about other things as well. I'm gonna quote something from your Facebook where you wrote this when it was Autism Awareness Day.

And you wrote, yesterday was Autism Awareness Day in brackets, I forgot, so it's something I don't talk about much about. And you probably didn't even know that I was autistic because I'm really hot, really funny and totally way cool. I can be all these things, not just in spite of autism, but because of it. So you are talking about it a lot and the importance of it to you, but I can imagine it's not easy to live with. No, I often talk about my head being like a bunch of screaming monkeys. It can be a really difficult place to be. And, you know, I've got

lots of different kinds of neurodiversity including also OCD, like my head is a bit of a nightmare to live inside but it's also an amazing place where I can make music and that's my safe space. And make an album that is an epic 19 tracks long. So tell me about the process of making Weirdo. I mainly just shot myself away, almost like going crazy in a cabin in a woods kind of vibes. I lost my partner at the beginning of 2023

and had six months of just doing absolutely nothing, staring at the wall. And I really needed to get back to myself, back to who I was. And the only way I know how to do that is through music. So I shot myself away in my studio, which is in my house conveniently, and spent an entire year on my own making this record. So like playing all the instruments, recording it, producing it, mixing it. It's

all me apart from a couple of features, but it's like 99.9% me. And it was my therapy, it was my catharsis, it's the way I was like processing things and it's my happy place, it's where I can be calm and finally at peace. It's a deeply personal album, it started out about your mental health and a lot of the tracks you say are written almost like diary entries, it's your thoughts? Yeah some of it is like even about the food that I'm making. I've tried to pair stuff together. So there's like, you know, where'd you go, which is a track that's like grappling these really big existential questions. And it's right next to a track called Fried Rice. It's just about making dinner.

But Fried Rice is a brilliant track because when it's that is there anything more comforting than just a big bowl of fried rice? I don't think so. And I think I hope that I really bring light to the duality of grief of just these huge things that are going on inside you and then also like, oh, I need to make some dinner. And it's quite a surreal experience. And why did you want to do that? Go from sort of the sublime to the ridiculous, the bleak to the silly? I really love when things juxtapose and have like these two extremes.

I'm quite an all or nothing person anyway, just in everything that I do. So for me, it makes sense for it to be like, you know, bleak, kind of sad lyrics, but then like a jaunty kind of like deep, dirty groove and lots of silliness in there, lots of sarcasm. And that's just the way that I work. I'm always like trying to crack jokes at the worst time and that's how I cope and I think people need that as well in order to hear it, to hear like the sadness and the pain that's in there. It needs to be wrapped up in something a little bit easier to digest as well and then hopefully people can see the full spectrum of emotion reflected back at them from their own experiences as well. And you've done everything.

Yeah. Total creative control, you're playing, you're singing, you're playing most, all the instruments. All the instruments. I mean, incredible. I mean, absolutely incredible. Can we talk about creative control? Because your last album you released on your own label and this time you're signed to, it's a joint, it's Brownswood, which is Charles Peterson's label and one, and you have, still

have retained creative control. You can do what you like Yeah, I sort of said to them. I was like, you know, if we're gonna do this, I need to be able to be myself And everyone was totally on board. They're like, you know, we we like you we want to sign you We want you to be you so it just really fit like a glove everyone's so supportive and I think with this being such a really fit like a glove, everyone's so supportive and I think with this being such a sensitive and personal record it made sense to have lots of other hands to help, you know, mould everything and release it and I feel cared about as a human, not just an asset or something to add to the bank account. I definitely feel like, I know it feels a bit cliché to say,

but it does feel like family vibes. Emma-Jean Thackeray there and her new album Weirdo is out now. And it's stunning. On Monday's programme, Nula will be joined by Belarusian political activist Svetlana Zykonovska. She'll join us from Lithuania, where she's established an oppositional government. And after her London Marathon run, four-time British Olympian Paula Radcliffe will also be on the programme. That's all for me, enjoy decluttering your homes. That's all for today's Woman's Hour, join us again next time.

What life advice would you like to pass on to your children? Remember that failure is not a sign of defeat, but an opportunity to learn and grow. What challenges would you like to prepare them for? Death is part of life and we need to talk more about it. Dear Daughter is a podcast from the BBC World Service, sharing words of wisdom from parents all over the world. This is who we are, this is what we do. Dear Daughter, listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts.