Over 600 philosophers have criticised the awarding of an OBE to the allegedly anti-trans University of Sussex professor, Kathleen Stock.
Over 600 philosophers have criticised the awarding of an OBE to the allegedly anti-trans University of Sussex professor, Kathleen Stock.
Dr Samuel Hall on dismantling the false divide and achieving true equality. Just recovering from my second lot of genital surgery. The first operation, where they skinned my arm to make my penis and sliced both buttocks up to cover the deficit on said arm, left me deeply traumatised, both physically and mentally. It’s perhaps a good thing you can’t really know what this is going to be like until you do it (a bit like having a baby). I could only ever glimpse what was to come – ultimately the acquisition of a functioning penis, bodily integrity, improved mental health and wellbeing.
I’ve been putting off writing this column for a while. Partly, I think, because I always feel like a bit of a fraud when it comes to writing about HIV, which this month’s issue is dedicated to. I feel like a fraud because in the 1980s and 90s I was a bystander, an outsider to the LGBT+ communities.
Dr Samuel Hall on how parenting is a privilege, and sending your kids out into the big wide world.
I’ve just lost a weekend. Setting off on Friday night with my eldest child on a road trip to deliver her to university, we stayed overnight with friends in the north, and then drove further north still, to Scotland, arriving in Edinburgh on Saturday afternoon.
I WAS at a dinner party last night. A great and old friend, renowned for her fabulous catering, put on a pretty impressive do to celebrate her 50th. She is one of a circle of friends from my pre-transition days who are really accepting of my new life, have embraced my amazing partner and her family, and really help me to take myself seriously as a man.
Dr Samuel Hall on the drugs he’s dependent on and how his brain is rewiring itself in his second puberty. Please forgive my indulgence, since I’ve little to say about chemsex as per last month’s theme, instead I’m exploring the influence of a drug that I’m totally dependent on for both my physical and mental health, and wellbeing. Testosterone.
Dr Samuel Hall on the risky business of opening up online to change how people think. I made it! When I last wrote my column I was on the brink of surgery that I’m now slowly mending from. And what an incredible month it’s been. I’ve had highs and lows, mishaps and setbacks, euphoria and dysphoria, felt elated and despairing in the same breath, and am finally beginning to settle into a more manageable pace emotionally and physically.
The first ever trans needs assessment in Brighton and Hove finds the city is trans-friendly but discrimination, abuse and isolation is still a problem. Three years ago the Trans Equality Scrutiny Panel set out to ask what needed to be done to make things fairer for trans people in the city. This needs assessment is one of the responses to that challenge.
