Joanne Lockwood: Foreign.
Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to Inclusion Bites, your sanctuary
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Joanne Lockwood: ignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion Bites.
Joanne Lockwood: And today is episode 181 with the title
Joanne Lockwood: Beyond Reflection Towards Belonging. And I have
Joanne Lockwood: the absolute honour and privilege to welcome Gillian Russell.
Joanne Lockwood: Gillian is the CEO of Beyond Reflections, who champion
Joanne Lockwood: mental well being and inclusion by empowering the younger generation
Joanne Lockwood: with chances the older generations never had. When I asked Gillian
Joanne Lockwood: to describe her superpower, she said it is giving younger people those
Joanne Lockwood: opportunities her generation was developing. Hello, Gillian.
Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to the show. Hey, Jo, how are you?
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, well, yeah. No,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, it's been a tough day at the office. Tough day at the office.
Joanne Lockwood: 16th of April, 2025, and we had
Joanne Lockwood: the Lord Chief Justices of the Supreme Court of the United
Joanne Lockwood: Kingdom rule on the definition of woman. And that as a trans
Joanne Lockwood: woman, that affects me and without wishing to out you any further, other
Joanne Lockwood: affects us both in some ways. Yeah. Yeah, it's been a
Joanne Lockwood: tough day. It has, it has. It's been one of those days. It's
Gillian Russell: not unexpected, I suppose, but it's still. It's still a kick in the guts really,
Gillian Russell: isn't it? That's. That's the trouble. Brutal is the word already is. It
Gillian Russell: is. It is brutal. But no, not unexpected. And I think the problem has
Gillian Russell: been, if I may say, is that in my view.
Gillian Russell: How can I put this, I don't know that we've done enough to
Gillian Russell: a protect the freedoms we had to protect the rights we have.
Gillian Russell: I don't know if we've done enough to take
Gillian Russell: enough action quickly and
Gillian Russell: effectively enough. I don't know. Because we're such
Gillian Russell: a diverse community, as a group of transgender people
Gillian Russell: under that huge umbrella, it's hard to get everybody to come together. You know, I
Gillian Russell: sit in meetings with CEOs and other structures in the
Gillian Russell: trans health and I listen to people to go talking and talking and talking and
Gillian Russell: talking and talking. And just sometimes I just wish, can we just do
Gillian Russell: something? And I think. I think, you know, there's an
Gillian Russell: orange man in the White House at the moment, and he has proven
Gillian Russell: one thing above all for me. It's something which has
Gillian Russell: been my mantra all my life. It's not what you do, it's how fast you
Gillian Russell: do it. And if you're gonna make change happen, you do it fast. And
Gillian Russell: that means that things happen. And I just think we spent a lot of
Gillian Russell: time consulting, coordinating, thinking, policy making,
Gillian Russell: pontificating. And I understand why, get me wrong?
Gillian Russell: Because of course, you know, it's. But there's this idea that we have
Gillian Russell: to have everybody on the same train, all going the same direction, whatever that train
Gillian Russell: is and where the tracks are. Sometimes I think. And I'm looking at myself, by
Gillian Russell: the way, Joe, you know, I think this is really important. People like myself, the
Gillian Russell: elders in the community, as it were. And I'm proud to say I'm older than
Gillian Russell: you, so I can call myself a true elder if I'm
Gillian Russell: older than you. That is something, isn't it? But, you know, we've not pressed hard
Gillian Russell: enough. And I think we fought so hard to get the rights we had,
Gillian Russell: and then we sat down and thoroughly celebrated them, and then we sort of went
Gillian Russell: to sleep and we just assumed that was all ours. And I think what we've
Gillian Russell: seen in the States is that erosion of a democracy. And I think
Gillian Russell: we're seeing it in the UK and I think we're seeing, you know, the big
Gillian Russell: picture, a big political movement against trans people for all sorts of different reasons,
Gillian Russell: but in the day to day, you know, it's the case, isn't
Gillian Russell: it, that who really cares about
Gillian Russell: this decision? It's about 25 people with a particular agenda.
Gillian Russell: Sorry, there's probably maybe 250 people with a particular gender.
Gillian Russell: And of the other 79¼ million people in this country,
Gillian Russell: no kids are monkeys about it, apart from us, who are severely
Gillian Russell: disadvantaged by it. And. And that's the. That's the trouble with
Gillian Russell: this. That's the trouble with this rule. Yeah, but we don't want to talk all
Gillian Russell: day about this because that's just moaning and pitching, isn't it? You know,
Gillian Russell: that's why, just like opening. Salvo, it's a car
Joanne Lockwood: crash on the way to work. I guess it's probably the best way of describing
Joanne Lockwood: it. Yeah. And you know what's really brilliant about it? It does two things. It
Gillian Russell: polarises People, doesn't it? So you have people. I was on LBC this morning chatting
Gillian Russell: and I had someone called Graham who rang in, say ah, Gillian with the blokes
Gillian Russell: voice. Ah, you know, what's the reason this is important is for the protection of
Gillian Russell: our spec. And are they great? Yeah, because I'm single handedly
Gillian Russell: not doing my bit to help them. You know, the carry on of the species
Gillian Russell: having fathered children in the past. So, you know, my job is done
Gillian Russell: here, both as a man, as a woman. Was that Nick Ferrari you did,
Joanne Lockwood: was it? No, it was on James Bright or Brian, part of the phone
Gillian Russell: in the thing. Yeah, I did GB News this morning. I'm sure you did. You
Gillian Russell: live on there now, don't you? I don't know. You can't live
Joanne Lockwood: there, it's far too toxic and
Joanne Lockwood: soul destroying. But I was sat in the green room or on
Joanne Lockwood: Zoom waiting to go live and I just listened to the two presenters,
Joanne Lockwood: they were just piling on the bigotry, the bias, the anti trans
Joanne Lockwood: rhetoric and it was just like by the time I got on there I was
Joanne Lockwood: feeling kind of unclean and dirty. And then they had someone outside the court
Joanne Lockwood: in Scotland who was basically celebrating from one
Joanne Lockwood: of the board of Sex Matters charity and they were euphoric
Joanne Lockwood: and it was kind of. And I was trying not to be too doom and
Joanne Lockwood: gloomy and just be very practical. You know, we've got to accept the decision, we've
Joanne Lockwood: got to work out what it means. Today is a day for reflection,
Joanne Lockwood: tomorrow is a day to regroup and re establish, you
Joanne Lockwood: know, I still have a gender recognition certificate, I'm a certificated woman.
Joanne Lockwood: According to the judge, I may not be a biological woman and I never claimed
Joanne Lockwood: to be a biological woman, but I'm legally, for all intents and
Joanne Lockwood: purposes a woman. I'm just not covered under the Equality act under
Joanne Lockwood: the sex protection. And let's, let's be really clear about this.
Gillian Russell: What we need to do is look back in six months time and say, and
Gillian Russell: see how the figures of rapes, crimes, violence against women
Gillian Russell: have dramatically dropped because all of these transgender women are being excluded from
Gillian Russell: these spaces. It is ludicrous. Well, what it shows is that
Gillian Russell: well funded, well invested, well organised, small
Gillian Russell: groups of people can make a big impact and we can do that. And that's
Gillian Russell: why I keep sort of, you know, we have great allies out there, we have
Gillian Russell: advocates who speak passionately on behalf, you know, Joe Lysert, Dave, David
Gillian Russell: Tennant. We've got good people out there and we're just Not. We're just
Gillian Russell: not joining the dots to bring it all together and make that process work. And,
Gillian Russell: you know, that's what we have to do. Simples. But isn't the problem we're not
Joanne Lockwood: really a community? Yeah, we're not. We're a. A group of people
Joanne Lockwood: who share a characteristic. Yes, but we're so diverse,
Joanne Lockwood: so disparate, so intersectional. We're not really a community. And even
Joanne Lockwood: within. We're organised as a community. But we are a community, as I would say.
Gillian Russell: But I remember Bobby Pickard saying this in Trans. In the City. You
Gillian Russell: know, we don't have a hut, we don't have a badge, we don't have a
Gillian Russell: flag that we always. Which is funny because we do have all those three things.
Gillian Russell: But. But you're absolutely right, we don't. And we don't have people who,
Gillian Russell: dare I say, have been in the commercial world enough
Gillian Russell: to understand how large scale change management
Gillian Russell: lobbying works in the real world.
Gillian Russell: Like lots of people, we've got a lot of people running this sort of community
Gillian Russell: interest companies who have come from that community. We don't have people who've
Gillian Russell: maybe got the breadth of experience. You and I have been in the corporate world
Gillian Russell: and managing huge changes and understanding. How do you get a government to
Gillian Russell: change and understanding if you've got a thousand people heading in one
Gillian Russell: direction, how do you change that really quickly? And all of this,
Gillian Russell: all of this can happen. Just needs. It just needs some.
Gillian Russell: Hold the first meeting. I always think, and I've often. If you look at. If
Joanne Lockwood: I look through the sex matters and looked at the who's who there on their
Joanne Lockwood: website and they have people on their board
Joanne Lockwood: who are specifically targeted at lobbying mps and
Joanne Lockwood: ministers and people like that. They have someone deliberately working with the press
Joanne Lockwood: and media to get that. Stories. We don't have that. We don't have an
Joanne Lockwood: advocacy charity. We used to. I mean, Press for Change used to be
Gillian Russell: that organisation wasn't there and. And we. But we didn't. And we
Gillian Russell: didn't. But we didn't have the forces against us in that time. But I
Gillian Russell: genuinely. I'm actually genuinely. What's the word? I mean, across.
Gillian Russell: I'm angry, I'm frustrated, I'm bloody mad, actually. But I'm
Gillian Russell: actually quite optimistic as well because there comes these points in the
Gillian Russell: road where what they've done is. They've said, right, it's this. So
Gillian Russell: now we know what we're dealing with because since 2010 it's been
Gillian Russell: anything and no one's known what they're dealing with now, we might not like the
Gillian Russell: result we've got, but now we know what we're fighting against. And actually, it's better
Gillian Russell: to have a fight against something than half a fight against lots of different
Gillian Russell: things. And what's important for us now is that we're a wedge
Gillian Russell: piece of. This is a wedge piece of legislation against all marginalised
Gillian Russell: communities. And, you know, we have to get others,
Gillian Russell: those marginalised communities, to stand behind us and with us, because
Gillian Russell: there's also already attacks on gay marriage. And this is, you know, Project
Gillian Russell: 2025. I had the joy of reading all 900 pages at one point. This is
Gillian Russell: all written down. This is actually a plan.
Gillian Russell: This is not someone, you know, actually sort of making up goes along.
Gillian Russell: This is a well considered, well thought out, well funded, well organised plan and
Gillian Russell: we can do the same. I'm very hopeful. Let's get to it. Yeah, we
Joanne Lockwood: just gotta. We just gotta come together. I think you're right. But, yeah, we said
Joanne Lockwood: in the green room before we went live here that we weren't gonna spend the
Joanne Lockwood: entire episode talking about this. So we've done a bit of a prelude and we
Joanne Lockwood: got it off our chest and we've kind of screamed at the world and
Joanne Lockwood: committed it to tape. But, Jillian, tell us a bit more about what your
Joanne Lockwood: real passion is in your other life, if you like. It's interesting, isn't
Gillian Russell: it? Because being very old, even older than you, as you said, I mean, I've
Gillian Russell: had a number of different careers and not just working for Beyond Reflections. I'm the
Gillian Russell: chair of Support you, which is a LGBT charity up in Thames Valley,
Gillian Russell: and I'm the host of TransVox, which is a campaign and podcasts such as
Gillian Russell: your own, but specifically in the trans world, and trying to, you know, making change
Gillian Russell: happen in the trans world with a colleague of mine, as well as working in
Gillian Russell: Beyond Reflections. So I've always said that
Gillian Russell: because I left it so late to transition, I look at some of the younger
Gillian Russell: people who come along behind and say, it's a real. You know, I want those
Gillian Russell: people to have what I didn't have. Now, what I didn't have is through my
Gillian Russell: own choice, and sometimes because of a lack of opportunity and knowledge and time and
Gillian Russell: resources and such like. But you see, when I started out, and maybe
Gillian Russell: you're the same, we didn't have the word transgender. We didn't really talk
Gillian Russell: about identity as a psychological construct. We didn't really talk about. Certainly
Gillian Russell: didn't talk about gender identity. We had. You know, I come from the Northeast of
Gillian Russell: England. And you. If you were wearing women's clothing, were you
Gillian Russell: just seen as a pervert? And there was no concept or
Gillian Russell: construct. I mean, we had that, you know, documentary about the person that was
Gillian Russell: born in the wrong body. And, you know, I remember that being discussed. And
Gillian Russell: I think, you know, the youngsters today, they've got the
Gillian Russell: language, they've got. They've got evidence, they've got science, they've got
Gillian Russell: all sorts of things which are there to be able to make things work for
Gillian Russell: them. And I think it's, you know, the job of us elders to be able
Gillian Russell: to facilitate for that next generation the opportunity, but also the
Gillian Russell: skills on how to fight and how to lobby and negotiate and do the things
Gillian Russell: that we've done. Because arguably, trans people are very
Gillian Russell: resilient, but also they're not. At the same time, they're very vulnerable. So it's
Gillian Russell: about how we transfer those skills. Now, I was lucky.
Gillian Russell: I remember when I was very young, a
Gillian Russell: conversation with my uncles, actually, and my uncle was a
Gillian Russell: very large man. He just come from Poland, working in the steelworks in
Gillian Russell: Poland. Steelworks, remember those? And he was sitting. He used to work for
Gillian Russell: Swan Hunters, the people that made the tanks in the war. And he was sitting
Gillian Russell: there. And I used to be a musician. I used to play A musician, play
Gillian Russell: music. And I used to say to him, E. E.
Gillian Russell: Because we always say E at the beginning everything in Geordieland. He's a funny
Gillian Russell: un. He's a funny un. But at least he's not a Tory.
Joanne Lockwood: There are worse things, aren't there, than being trans. And I always think, and this
Joanne Lockwood: is no disrespect to any of my friends or anybody that listens to this, I'd
Joanne Lockwood: rather be trans than a Morris dancer or a Tory. And, sorry, that's not meant
Joanne Lockwood: to be pissed anybody. That's very funny. And it is interesting, though, isn't it? It's
Gillian Russell: interesting that, you know, I have met trans people in the Reform Party and in
Gillian Russell: the Tory Party, and it's. And it's that lovely idea. So your point about
Gillian Russell: not being a community, isn't it? We're not all. We don't need to be
Gillian Russell: cut from the same place. The point about our, you know, the trans existence is
Gillian Russell: that it's. It's separate to our lives. It's possible to have
Gillian Russell: views which are not linked to being transgender the whole time. So I
Gillian Russell: suppose I was lucky, you see, because I grew up in the arts world, so
Gillian Russell: I had gender dysphoria, but didn't know it was gender dysphoria. I was often caught,
Gillian Russell: you know, dressing in clothes, female clothes, not knowing that was a
Gillian Russell: bad thing. Remember coming to London and going to Transformation, you know, like, I'm one
Gillian Russell: of those people that went to the Old Place and Euston Road, you know, it
Gillian Russell: was great. Used to see the adverts and used to come down, you have to
Gillian Russell: make a phone call from the call box around the corner. And I was about
Gillian Russell: 13, 14, coming down to Newcastle, from Newcastle to London to have
Gillian Russell: music lessons, such like. And then, you know, sort of trying to experiment with this,
Gillian Russell: but at least the arts. And I've always been a big fan of the arts
Gillian Russell: and I always think lots of trans people come from the arts and they come
Gillian Russell: from it as well. Being in the arts gave me that ability to express
Gillian Russell: yourself through music. And, of course, that was marvellous because
Gillian Russell: I wasn't able to express myself with words because the words sort of didn't
Gillian Russell: exist at that time. And at the time, you know, we're talking, I
Gillian Russell: remember a friend of mine, I was a musicologist who committed suicide because, you know,
Gillian Russell: gay rights weren't even a thing really, back then. You know, early set, it was,
Gillian Russell: you know, it was. I can't remember when gay homosexuality was
Gillian Russell: decriminalised, can't remember it. But there's a huge amount of, you know, negativity
Gillian Russell: around the whole thing. So the idea of being transgender was just nowhere. So.
Gillian Russell: So I think it's been. It's been a classic story of you. You find your
Gillian Russell: way, you understand yourself. I mean, how many people we met in the military have
Gillian Russell: tried to deny it themselves? You know, how to try and fight against it, got
Gillian Russell: married, had children, all that sort of stuff, you know, try to deny themselves.
Gillian Russell: I mean, a lot of people I meet who are trans say, I wish. I
Gillian Russell: just. I wish I wasn't. Wouldn't life be easier not being
Gillian Russell: transgender? People don't understand this, who aren't transgender. I remember sitting recently and
Gillian Russell: saying in a board meeting, you know, I sit here now
Gillian Russell: and I used to have white male privilege. And whatever I said, whatever,
Gillian Russell: whatever it was, people just listened to and go, oh. I used to suck their
Gillian Russell: teeth and say, that's very profound. And then a woman would say something and it
Gillian Russell: was, ah. And then a transgender says, this person says that. And they're sort of
Gillian Russell: saying, oh, are you a she or a they? And it's like. It's just not
Gillian Russell: the conversation. And it's like, we. We lose our. This, you know, this
Gillian Russell: idea of crossing identities is very Very powerful. And, you know, which
Gillian Russell: is something that's fascinating. But I think having a world for me
Gillian Russell: built in the arts gave me this access, especially from the Northeast.
Gillian Russell: It gave me access to people from different classes, different
Gillian Russell: aspects, different journeys, you know,
Gillian Russell: and it was a. It was a marvellous thing. It was true inclusivity and,
Gillian Russell: you know, because actually what you're trying to do is to produce a performance and
Gillian Russell: no one cares after a while. There was quite a lot of
Gillian Russell: sexism at the time, but no one cared after a while whether
Gillian Russell: you know, what you were, what you. Who you were or where you come from.
Gillian Russell: It just mattered. That was a great performance. I say that as if it's true.
Gillian Russell: I mean, clearly there was a lot of untruth sitting behind that. But, you know,
Gillian Russell: that was really what it's all about. I was in the freelance world as well.
Gillian Russell: So freelance players were either you were either up to it or you weren't.
Gillian Russell: And so, you know, it's been a founding part of my life before
Gillian Russell: I went into commerce and even in commerce. I've always understood and
Gillian Russell: had that sort of musical brain being able to see the world differently.
Gillian Russell: I mean, I now think, you know, neurodiversity. I think Howard Gardner talked about this
Gillian Russell: idea of multiple intelligence is slightly erroneous thing, but
Gillian Russell: musical intelligence is quite an interesting concept
Gillian Russell: and musical language and such like for those who habit.
Gillian Russell: So I've always been able to see the world differently. And to a certain extent,
Gillian Russell: I think I thought that explained being trans
Gillian Russell: because I already looked at the world differently. I already used to
Gillian Russell: think that everybody used to look at the mirror and think, well, I'm this. And
Gillian Russell: I look in the mirror and think, who's that? I thought every. Like posadamba. Don't
Gillian Russell: know whether you had that experience. It's peculiar, isn't it? Just seeing a person you
Gillian Russell: want being reflected back. Who is that? It's like when you watch Cats. So don't
Gillian Russell: you see Cats in the. Looking in the mirrors and the sort of, you know,
Gillian Russell: that thing where they jump into the air and I think I spent a lot
Gillian Russell: of time doing that. Yeah. I probably only became
Joanne Lockwood: hyper aware of that mirror
Joanne Lockwood: image at the point when I was transitioning, I guess.
Joanne Lockwood: And the dysphoria, you know, the. I was okay here,
Joanne Lockwood: I was okay here. But it was on that bit in the middle where
Joanne Lockwood: you just didn't see the reflection of the somebody who
Joanne Lockwood: you believed you were on the inside. I could handle it. Looking at a bloke
Joanne Lockwood: when I was a bloke, sort of thing, it didn't bother me but it was
Joanne Lockwood: when I was embarking on my transition I was hyper aware
Joanne Lockwood: imposter syndrome, passing a test, not being good
Joanne Lockwood: enough for anybody. Who am I kidding? All that kind of dysphoric
Joanne Lockwood: self loathing kicked in and it's only when I was able to break away from
Joanne Lockwood: that self loathing and that focus on what I look like
Joanne Lockwood: because actually that became irrelevant. Actually what I looked like was not irrelevant at all
Joanne Lockwood: how I felt and loved myself. And that's when I focused on
Joanne Lockwood: that. It doesn't matter what you think of me, whether you
Joanne Lockwood: criticise me or you slag me off. You don't like my voice, whatever it may
Joanne Lockwood: be, that's not relevant. It's what's in my heart and my
Joanne Lockwood: soul and my being that's the important. Who you are,
Gillian Russell: the root of you. And I think sometimes I genuinely
Gillian Russell: envy some of the young members of the trans population because
Gillian Russell: just younger people because they've not grown up with those sort of stereotypical
Gillian Russell: roles. Lots more gender fluidity, there's
Gillian Russell: lots more accept. I mean, you know, people used to be out there in
Gillian Russell: my world if you had a pink shirt on, sorry a purple shirt on with
Gillian Russell: big, big collars now I mean people come in wearing the most amazing clothes and
Gillian Russell: you look at them and think that's incredible because societal
Gillian Russell: breakdown has happened around fashion and, and those sorts of things
Gillian Russell: and I think the traditional idea of what a woman and a man looks like
Gillian Russell: has broken down. This has allowed I think the non binary community to,
Gillian Russell: to sort of go ah, okay, that makes a lot of sense because I'm none
Gillian Russell: of those things. And you know that's, that's been a really wonderful opportunity for people
Gillian Russell: to, to think about that. Whether they're always a non binary or they move
Gillian Russell: from one side to the other or you know, it's part of a path, whatever
Gillian Russell: that might be. I think, I think being non binary is very misunderstood possibly
Gillian Russell: because it is that concept which is, it's not this rather
Gillian Russell: than being a something which is, which is very clear. It's an
Joanne Lockwood: absence rather than a positive statement. Yes. It's like a vacuum, isn't it? It's
Gillian Russell: like, you know, okay, I, that's not, doesn't got, hasn't got that in. But what
Gillian Russell: is it that, what is it you are rather than what is that you're not?
Gillian Russell: And I saw a good old J.K. rowling launching
Gillian Russell: Seven Pennyworth into the conversation about agender people on a website
Gillian Russell: and. You know, asexual people. Yeah. Yeah,
Gillian Russell: exactly. So there you go, confusing sexuality and gender again,
Gillian Russell: as usual. But there you go. Well, there was this person, one of the presenters
Joanne Lockwood: on TV news this morning, pontificating about the fact that now they don't have to
Joanne Lockwood: pander. The people who use they them pronoun. We know it's all rubbish.
Joanne Lockwood: It's like, no, you're just extrapolating
Joanne Lockwood: BS from this. It doesn't weaponize. It doesn't
Joanne Lockwood: empower you. No, but you see, I was talking to someone and
Gillian Russell: talking to Jenny, colleague of mine, who's a big YouTube
Gillian Russell: on the podcast, and it's something I've talked about for a long time. And I
Gillian Russell: remember a couple of the tech bros talking about this idea of woke
Gillian Russell: scolding, this idea that you're talking down to people, telling
Gillian Russell: them this is not right and that's not right. And. And I've been a
Gillian Russell: huge advocate of removing all that. And you know, what you're. You're
Gillian Russell: saying is, I don't want to be treated differently, I want to be treated the
Gillian Russell: same as everybody else. And I'm not going to get bent out of shape for
Gillian Russell: some of some of these things, because I understand. Takes you time to understand because
Gillian Russell: you've got limited intelligence and you know, that's hard. And I get that. And
Gillian Russell: one of the things I think is we have spent a bit too much time
Gillian Russell: focusing on the wrong things. I do think we spend too much time talking down
Gillian Russell: to people. I don't think we've. Actually, if I
Gillian Russell: always like to say this, if you took our community and looked at the ROI
Gillian Russell: from our community in the performing arts and the soft power of the UK in
Gillian Russell: the IT world, for goodness sake, we would be a significant
Gillian Russell: community in terms of impact. No one talks about that. No one talks about
Gillian Russell: the part we play within LGBTQIA umbrellas.
Gillian Russell: No one talks about the impact of those people. And if they do, they don't
Gillian Russell: talk about enough in a way that people get. And I think
Gillian Russell: for me, this is your point about not being
Gillian Russell: a community. We never sit down, do we, and think, actually, what are we worth?
Gillian Russell: Not just individuals, but what are we actually worth in the UK economy? We're worth
Gillian Russell: a lot. I mean, how many IT firms would grow into a halt
Gillian Russell: if we took our transgender people
Gillian Russell: out of coding? Nothing would be flying for a while, would
Gillian Russell: it? Well, certainly gender queer, gender fluid, gender expansive people. Yeah. The
Joanne Lockwood: whole spectrum. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Gillian Russell: And I think. And I think we. And I think that's the point, isn't it?
Gillian Russell: The point is we need to Stand up for ourselves. We need to bring this
Gillian Russell: evidence together. You know, one of the things in the arts funding at the moment
Gillian Russell: is they're saying things like, well, actually, if you invest a pound into the arts
Gillian Russell: community, you get something like three or four thousand pounds back
Gillian Russell: into the cultural zeitgeist. And I mean, so that's the argument, isn't
Gillian Russell: it? So invest, because actually you're going to get a return on investment. The issue
Gillian Russell: is how quickly does that return come? Okay, it's not quick enough. Let's figure
Gillian Russell: out how we get that to return fast enough. Now we've got a different conversation.
Gillian Russell: We're not saying we shouldn't, we're just saying how do we do it? And I
Gillian Russell: think this is the thing that's being missed again in our community. I'm not, by
Gillian Russell: the way, suggesting that this is a piece of work we need or should be
Gillian Russell: doing, but it's that sort of commercial thinking about the world.
Gillian Russell: It's about how we lead, how we manage, how we develop, how we think about
Gillian Russell: cultures. It's about we've. We can, we can become
Gillian Russell: so protective. We don't give people the tools to be
Gillian Russell: able to have robust conversations. We can remove people and say.
Gillian Russell: I remember someone asking me a question at a speaking event
Gillian Russell: and one of the facilities on the panel there was something quite
Gillian Russell: innocuous saying that's hate speech is anti trans. I said, it's not
Gillian Russell: hate speech and not anti trans. A. I'm not offended because I've chosen to be,
Gillian Russell: but actually it's coming from a place where you're finding out when he wasn't calling
Gillian Russell: me something, it was asking. And I think this is the thing, isn't it? We.
Gillian Russell: We run the risk of closing down arguments. We run the risk of
Gillian Russell: being vulnerable to the extent that we don't actually educate and inform
Gillian Russell: people. And a lot of people, once they educate and informed, are quite
Gillian Russell: okay there. I mean, it's a classic piece of research, isn't it? Once you met
Gillian Russell: a trans. If you don't like trans people, A, you probably met one never knew.
Gillian Russell: But if you have met an explicit trans person, you tend. Your opinions about trans
Gillian Russell: people completely change at the end of it. Yeah, I think
Joanne Lockwood: we've tried to create people accuse us of having an ideology
Joanne Lockwood: and I think to a certain extent we've created language that
Joanne Lockwood: seems complex. We're forcing people to conform to our way of thinking.
Joanne Lockwood: As a minority, we're trying to influence the majority. And I think sometimes what we
Joanne Lockwood: probably need to do is be more tolerant ourselves I totally agree.
Joanne Lockwood: And learn to navigate a world where we're not the majority, we're not the default,
Joanne Lockwood: and therefore we have to figure it out. And no minority ever wants to fit
Joanne Lockwood: here, that they're not included. But sometimes we have to work at it. And I
Joanne Lockwood: think, I know if we attack people,
Joanne Lockwood: your argument, if we go there with pitchforks, people tend to put the barricades
Joanne Lockwood: up. So how do we lower the drawbridge? How do we get people to sit
Joanne Lockwood: around the table and have conversations? And that's what we've lacked. I
Gillian Russell: think that's absolutely right. I think it's that a classic thing is that you've got
Gillian Russell: to understand the other person's perspective. Now, I've listened to the
Gillian Russell: turf, what people, what we call turf stuff. We listen to the
Gillian Russell: extreme feminist argument. Do you know what? They're pretty right. They've fought
Gillian Russell: for many, many years to get the rights of women to be where they
Gillian Russell: are, and then they suddenly find them swept away because
Gillian Russell: as they see it, a bunch of blokes dressed in frocks are going to come
Gillian Russell: along and get their rights. I mean, I think I'd be a bit hacked off
Gillian Russell: about that as well. And I don't think we've thought clearly enough about that. There's
Gillian Russell: been a heck of a struggle for 30, 40, 50 years. You know, at a
Gillian Russell: visceral level. I don't mean visceral. I mean at a really fundamental level for
Gillian Russell: women to get, I mean, I remember my mother in 74, whatever it was, having
Gillian Russell: to go get a, open a bank account and having to have my husband go,
Gillian Russell: my father, to go along with them to open their bank account. That's only
Gillian Russell: 50 years. You know, that's, that's been a long time. And I
Gillian Russell: don't think we appreciate the fact that this has been a long
Gillian Russell: struggle. And, and then we sort of, in their perception, come swanning
Gillian Russell: along at the end and go, well, we want all the rights that you've got.
Gillian Russell: Thanks very much. And in their world, you know, we're just,
Gillian Russell: we're just taking it, taking away again as what they see as men
Gillian Russell: who dress up and okay, fair enough. Let's start there. Let's have that
Gillian Russell: conversation. And because we're a broad church, there are people across that spectrum
Joanne Lockwood: who, from
Joanne Lockwood: gender fluid, cross dressing, transvestite people, whatever language you want to use
Joanne Lockwood: historical, who do it
Joanne Lockwood: for identity reasons or for expression reasons or for fetish reasons. And again,
Joanne Lockwood: we're such a broad church that we rebranded the word
Joanne Lockwood: trans or transgender to mean lots of different Things to mean nothing.
Joanne Lockwood: Everybody gets caught up in everybody else's description and that's where
Joanne Lockwood: confusion arises. And I can hear that the judge this
Joanne Lockwood: morning talking about we couldn't have a trans woman with a gender
Joanne Lockwood: recognition certificate who looked like a man in women's spaces.
Joanne Lockwood: It's like, well, okay, we're conflating the whole thing there of course. But
Joanne Lockwood: it comes down to perception. Yeah. And never mind trans masc people
Gillian Russell: just because they don't have penises, they look more alaid. Some of the transmascape people
Gillian Russell: have fantastic. I mean they're just, you know, broad. Shoulders and
Joanne Lockwood: trans men with penises. I'm afraid I've been there. I mean of course. And they're
Joanne Lockwood: keen to show it off and go look what I've got. Yeah, it's. And they're
Gillian Russell: allowed toilets. And it's not like. And it's not like we've got the third
Gillian Russell: option because of course now what we're talking about. So we're back in bathrooms again.
Gillian Russell: Let's get off, let's get off that subject. You know, less than 5. You know,
Gillian Russell: I was in London in the Royal Exchange. You probably note that lovely place. Go
Gillian Russell: down to the loos down there. Everything is just non gendered or
Gillian Russell: any. Just going to the toilet or you know, whatever the Americans say.
Gillian Russell: Bathroom I've never understood because I'm from the North. I never understood the concept of
Gillian Russell: a bathroom because a bathroom is a place you go for a bath and a
Gillian Russell: toilet is a place that you go to how good to the toilet. Call me
Gillian Russell: old fashioned. Well they call them restrooms as well, don't they? Restrooms,
Joanne Lockwood: bathrooms. I mean I go to the Louvre. Yeah. I go,
Joanne Lockwood: I go and spend a penny. Yep. So I think, I think there's going to
Gillian Russell: be interesting challenges. I think there's going to be, as you say, there's going to
Gillian Russell: be many different people
Gillian Russell: who consider themselves leaders in the trans community,
Gillian Russell: as it were, who are going to get out there and going to say
Gillian Russell: stuff. It's going to be not coordinated. It's going to be all over
Gillian Russell: the shop. It'll be a shame. But I do think some
Gillian Russell: traditional corporate change management would actually help this and would allow
Gillian Russell: things to move forward. And at the same time you've got an organisation
Gillian Russell: like the charity I work for who's not political, doesn't have. That's why we have
Gillian Russell: trans voxers, so we can campaign and be political, but they're just supporting
Gillian Russell: trans people. Many hundreds of members who are going in needing support
Gillian Russell: with trans issues. Well, being safety, dealing with hate
Gillian Russell: crime, thinking about challenges with the National Health Service, for God's sake, you
Gillian Russell: know, because we know that's another area of exclusion, you know, And I think, I
Gillian Russell: think there are organisations to just get on under the surface and just deliver something
Gillian Russell: and then you've got people who want to make a song and dance about it.
Gillian Russell: And I think the good thing to know is that for trans people is we're
Gillian Russell: not alone. And there are some really good trans support charities out there consider
Gillian Russell: arrows to be good, obviously, but there's others and you should reach out to them
Gillian Russell: and you can talk to them and have a chat and then say, okay, so
Gillian Russell: that's one thing, that's support and safety and all that sort of stuff. And then
Gillian Russell: the next thing is, right, okay, so what we're going to do about this. And
Gillian Russell: I think that's the part where people have got to be standing up and
Gillian Russell: saying something and I think that's the process of change, isn't it? You've got to
Gillian Russell: have places where it sort of bubbles along and then you've got to have people
Gillian Russell: who are pushing envelope who are out there saying things. And you've done this in
Gillian Russell: GB News, you stand up and say stuff, it's not popular and people throw all
Gillian Russell: sorts of insults at you and, you know, they do to me and,
Gillian Russell: and, hey, yeah, I'm a trans woman and. And I'm proud to be. And I've
Gillian Russell: always said I am. I've never pretended to be a cisgender woman. Certificated woman.
Joanne Lockwood: Now I'm a certificated woman. Congratulations. The difference. The judge told me I'm a
Joanne Lockwood: certificated woman, not a biological woman. So. Exactly. I've got a new
Joanne Lockwood: title. Yeah, congratulations. We need, we need, we need a. You need a
Gillian Russell: badge. Yeah, you have to carry that around. Now
Joanne Lockwood: I get my gender recognition certificate and I frame it and I keep it in
Joanne Lockwood: my pocket just in case I'm a certificated woman. Yeah. And I think, do you
Gillian Russell: know what, it's interesting that, because it is, it does beg the question of how
Gillian Russell: they're going to check this stuff out, because I do have this idea that we're
Gillian Russell: going to have a new employment strand of gender
Gillian Russell: in a toilet police who are going to be standing there saying, now there's a
Gillian Russell: special test I'm going to give you to see whether you're a cross dresser, a
Gillian Russell: transvestite, gender fluid or a CIS woman. It's like. It's hilarious,
Gillian Russell: isn't it? So we already see the people being. Called out by
Joanne Lockwood: teak with a. A brush. And then you're gonna DNA test it and.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, and then by the time you've done that, I've already peed and washed. My
Gillian Russell: hands down his leg.
Gillian Russell: This is all good stuff, but, you know, it's. The
Gillian Russell: trans community has had these challenges many, many times and it's adapted and it's grown
Gillian Russell: and grown and it's, you know, it's like weeds. It pops up through the cracks
Gillian Russell: in the. In the pavement. And we're not going away as a community, but we
Gillian Russell: might have to be a bit more smart about how we operate over the next
Gillian Russell: period of time. And it's clear that this Labour government aren't going to be particularly
Gillian Russell: interested in this and they're going to use this the same way as the Tories
Gillian Russell: did last time around. And so we've got to deal with. They really started talking
Joanne Lockwood: on the news today about how we fully support the judgement. We
Joanne Lockwood: knew they were right. And of course you think, well, yeah, everyone's throwing us under
Joanne Lockwood: a brick under a bus right now. And so, yeah, so we've got to be
Joanne Lockwood: clear. Let's see what happens when trans people are being discriminated against under the
Joanne Lockwood: protected characteristic agenda reassignment. If I start seeing some cases
Joanne Lockwood: where trans people start winning back and limiting the.
Joanne Lockwood: And, yeah, all this rhetoric, you know, about banning me from
Joanne Lockwood: sex, separated spaces, like hospital wards. I think last time
Joanne Lockwood: I went to hospital, they looked at me, scratched their head and put me in
Joanne Lockwood: a private room. And I thought, well, okay, segregate me and put me in a
Joanne Lockwood: private room every day of the week. Give me my own telly. That's. Yeah, go
Joanne Lockwood: for it. You're not having any complaints from me. Yeah. So, yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: Is that what you. Is that what you mean? You want make me happier by
Joanne Lockwood: putting me in a private room? That's fine. That's good. It did make me laugh,
Gillian Russell: dealing with the level of sophistication from some of this. I
Gillian Russell: was reading an article on LinkedIn about the guy who didn't
Gillian Russell: want to be subjected to the TSA screening
Gillian Russell: process because apparently the TSA screening process makes you
Gillian Russell: gay. So what he'd prefer is to be patted down by a
Gillian Russell: male operative. And I did chuckle, I think. I don't know if you've seen the
Gillian Russell: irony of what you were just said there, but you'd rather have a man cup
Gillian Russell: your testicles than actually just go through a screening process.
Gillian Russell: So this is what we're dealing with. We have to be smart. We have to
Gillian Russell: look after ourselves and look at each other for the next period of time and
Gillian Russell: then things will. Because we can't see what the world's going. We
Gillian Russell: can only do a risk analysis and say it is the case that
Gillian Russell: very, very powerful organisations,
Gillian Russell: outfits, political institutions are moving against us and when it's
Gillian Russell: expedient to go the other way, they will. And you know, it
Gillian Russell: doesn't help that we've got west treating in the Ministry of Health, but we have,
Gillian Russell: you know, we know things are going to be getting tough, but that doesn't mean
Gillian Russell: we can't do stuff about it. And certainly in the charities I've worked for,
Gillian Russell: what's been fascinating is the degree to which funding organisations still currently
Gillian Russell: are on our side, still the case that arts organisations are
Gillian Russell: still on our side, it's still the case that you can get jobs where you
Gillian Russell: can get jobs. I mean, there is discrimination against trans people. I've done that thing
Gillian Russell: where I've applied for a job, an identical, the same job with
Gillian Russell: the same cv, but the word trans on one and
Gillian Russell: a boy name on the other one. I've got an interview as one and not
Gillian Russell: as the other. So, you know, it's there. But then that also
Gillian Russell: can be just about AI and rubbish as well that goes on in the world.
Gillian Russell: And I think we've got to just say we can only control the old
Gillian Russell: state stuff that we can control and that's what's inside of our, you know, between
Gillian Russell: our two ears and we can get out royally bent out of shape about all
Gillian Russell: this or we can actually say, look, we need to be resilient, we need to
Gillian Russell: be cute, we need to stick together and then we need to think about what
Gillian Russell: we're going to do running for, how we're going to cope and adapt to this
Gillian Russell: new world until we've got a chance to change it. And once we change it,
Gillian Russell: it'll be different again, it may be worse, it may be better, we
Gillian Russell: just don't know. And as you said, control the controllables. And if it's outside
Joanne Lockwood: of your control, you have to work out how you can adapt around it and
Joanne Lockwood: cope with it and stay resilient and stay
Joanne Lockwood: strong. Just don't burn all your energy up on reentry. You ought
Joanne Lockwood: to save some for the landing. Yeah, well, I've spent many years as a psychologist
Gillian Russell: working with people and building resilience. You know, I do see a lot
Gillian Russell: of. I do see huge amounts of resilience in our
Gillian Russell: non community, as it were, but I also see a lot of victimhood and victimisation
Gillian Russell: as well in the community. And understanding that role of
Gillian Russell: choice and controllability and such like is really important. And
Gillian Russell: understanding about how to ask for help and helping and asking people
Gillian Russell: how to help you think if you don't know how is really important as well,
Gillian Russell: because you don't need to suffer alone with things like the effects of
Gillian Russell: anxiety or depression and such like. Some of it needs to be sorted
Gillian Russell: out and that works. And that works in a work setting as well. You know,
Gillian Russell: organisations need to be more resilient and think of different ways to being that way
Gillian Russell: and need to be more adaptable and think more. I mean, there's a massive crisis
Gillian Russell: coming to the world of work soon, according to all about AI.
Gillian Russell: And as trans people, we should be thinking a lot about that, because many of
Gillian Russell: us are in that community, could do something about that. There's going to be a
Gillian Russell: lot of seismic change hitting the UK over the next 20 years, maybe over the
Gillian Russell: next two. I sincerely hope, as a woman, as a certificated
Joanne Lockwood: woman, no less, that we do start
Joanne Lockwood: focusing on what matters to women and that is safety and
Joanne Lockwood: not experiencing some of the sexist behaviour we get all the time. And
Joanne Lockwood: I really would like some of these charities who purport to be for women
Joanne Lockwood: to actually start tackling the real shit and challenges that are out there.
Joanne Lockwood: And that's predatory men, often in a family environment,
Joanne Lockwood: looking at people in positions of power and responsibility who are
Joanne Lockwood: adversely affecting women's opportunities in the workplace.
Joanne Lockwood: Sexism exists, disparity in.
Joanne Lockwood: In pay and reward in sport and other sectors. That's where we want to
Joanne Lockwood: put the effort in. And 0.5% of the population who are
Joanne Lockwood: just getting on with their lives are not a threat. So let's hope that we
Joanne Lockwood: start actually starting to call out people who are trying to bang on about trying
Joanne Lockwood: to save women and actually. What are you doing? Really? We should be talking about
Gillian Russell: that. We should be talking about health and safety for women and girls, because we
Gillian Russell: are women and girls and we should be part of that debate, not
Gillian Russell: being seen as the threat. You know, the vast majority of rape
Gillian Russell: is from people you know, I mean, those statistics are. Have been well borne
Gillian Russell: out over the years. Very well documented, very robust. You know, bumping
Gillian Russell: into a stranger in a toilet wearing a wig is unlikely to be the source
Gillian Russell: of your most extreme discontent. It's. It's like the. I don't know
Gillian Russell: if you're familiar with Jon Stewart's work. I remember in the States, I think he's
Gillian Russell: on the Late show or whatever it is, sitting down with one of the anti
Gillian Russell: trans campaigners and saying, why are you stopping drug shows? And they're saying,
Gillian Russell: well, drag shows are very, you know, harmful to children. So he
Gillian Russell: said, okay, that's really interesting. What's the number one source of harm for
Gillian Russell: children in the us? And the person looked at him, said, you're going to say
Gillian Russell: guns, aren't you? And he said, of course I'm going to say guns. Because there've
Gillian Russell: been four and a half thousand deaths from guns and zero from
Gillian Russell: watching a drag show. And it's exactly
Gillian Russell: the same in our world. So it's not about that. And that's the thing we've
Gillian Russell: got to figure out. It's not about that, it's not about toilets.
Gillian Russell: Toilets are just the thing. That's the gathering point. It's something else. And that's the
Gillian Russell: bit we've got to get. It's not about prisons, it's not about children, it's not
Joanne Lockwood: about this, it's not about the other. It's all about. It's playing find the lady
Joanne Lockwood: with the cards, isn't it? Don't look at this hand, look at this hand. That's
Joanne Lockwood: what it's all about, isn't it? The troll of the masses. Fox News that has.
Gillian Russell: Whenever there's a positive story about Donald Trump, they have
Gillian Russell: positive story about Donald Trump. Here's the stock market, it'll say this, it's that he's
Gillian Russell: jumping up and down. Negative story about the stock market. Transgender athlete. That's a headline.
Gillian Russell: And it's just we have always been the dead cut, haven't we? Rishi Sunak,
Gillian Russell: Boris Johnson, we've always been. Let's just roll out a
Gillian Russell: transgender issue. You know, let's get that very tall swimmer. I
Gillian Russell: forget that their name. There you are, Sharon Davies, straight on the scene,
Gillian Russell: flipping X right into war. Sharon Dick. And you know,
Gillian Russell: good. And of course what we have to do is not just let ourselves
Gillian Russell: be radicalised by the radicalised others and that's about
Gillian Russell: just staying sane in this world. And I do think that's part of our job,
Gillian Russell: isn't it, as elders, is to be saying, we've been through this before.
Gillian Russell: You know, I've sat on and board meetings and takeovers and such like emergence
Gillian Russell: and acquisitions, where two sides have been literally yelling, screaming,
Gillian Russell: inches away from each other's faces, pointing about the punch people in the faces
Gillian Russell: and you can talk people down from that. And this, this situation of ours can
Gillian Russell: be dealt with, it just can't. I don't want to be an elder, I want
Joanne Lockwood: to Be a youngster again. Sorry. You're an old certificated woman and be proud
Gillian Russell: of it. Yeah, but you're younger than me.
Gillian Russell: You're younger than me, so I'm still looking at you, thinking you youngsters.
Gillian Russell: So that's good, isn't it? Oh, that's good. Yeah. I like that. Yeah.
Gillian Russell: I was talking to earlier. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. I'm back on again.
Gillian Russell: Yeah. I'm only 25 in my head. Yeah. No, I do think. I do
Gillian Russell: think. I do think with everything. It's about what's in your head. For me, I'm
Gillian Russell: always optimistic. I always think there's no need for us to start running for the
Gillian Russell: hills and, you know, all moving. Well, don't move to Spain because that's. That's not
Gillian Russell: so great. Or moving to Norway or wherever it is where we're accepted. This is
Gillian Russell: a good country. It's. It's relatively free, it's relatively
Gillian Russell: benign. It's about what we do with it. So, you
Gillian Russell: know, let's get together and sort out. Yeah. And I
Joanne Lockwood: mean, the grass is never greener. The grass is just grass.
Joanne Lockwood: There's always been a cow's shit on it somewhere, whatever it may be.
Joanne Lockwood: It's. You just got to make do with what you've got. And you can keep
Joanne Lockwood: looking over the fence, you can keep wishing or wanting, but the reality and people.
Joanne Lockwood: I often say to people, when they say to me, should I transition? I said,
Joanne Lockwood: well, what do you. What's in it for you? What's the objective? You know, if
Joanne Lockwood: you're looking for a greener grass, a better life, that's not what you.
Joanne Lockwood: That's not what it's about. The ultimate aim is for life to be ordinary and
Joanne Lockwood: boring and just like everybody else's. If that's what you're looking for and
Joanne Lockwood: that's what's missing in your life. Ordinary and boring. Yay. Welcome to.
Joanne Lockwood: Welcome to my club. Yeah. So I was chatting
Gillian Russell: online to someone and said to me, oh, it must be great wearing tights all
Gillian Russell: the time. I said, really, really have.
Gillian Russell: Do you know, I mean, you've obviously not done it because it's not become the
Gillian Russell: massive sexual fetishization thing for them. And. And
Gillian Russell: that's the problem, isn't that people look at this and think that we're like that
Gillian Russell: and we don't think like that anymore because this was never about fetishization. It's just
Gillian Russell: been about finding out who we are. Identity is really
Gillian Russell: fascinating, isn't it? People get it because everybody understands the concept of
Gillian Russell: Identity. So, for example, you'll live on the south coast, don't you? And you'll know
Gillian Russell: people who support Portsmouth and somewhat very quietly support Southampton
Gillian Russell: at the moment. And there are people. And I get the same thing up here
Gillian Russell: in Newcastle and Sunderland as well. Rivalry, you know. And, you know, you'll have
Gillian Russell: people in Portsmouth who won't have red stripes in the house and there'll be massive
Gillian Russell: fallings out between the family. And if you. If you support them and they
Gillian Russell: identify so strongly with that club, they are,
Gillian Russell: I am Portsmouth here. I am Portsmouth through and through. You'll hear them saying
Gillian Russell: that, oh, the. Song is Portsmouth till I Die. Chant it
Joanne Lockwood: on the. On the. On the terraces. Yeah, yeah. And it was one of the
Gillian Russell: things. I did some work with Southampton Football Club, so you may not like them,
Gillian Russell: but I remember them saying to me that if they hear hate speech or victimisation
Gillian Russell: or one of their supporters who are in their fan clubs committing hate
Gillian Russell: crime or offences like that, they lose their ability to come to the football club
Gillian Russell: because that's the bit they care about. And I thought, you know, that's a really
Gillian Russell: positive thing. But people get that. You know, I was in Australia
Gillian Russell: three years ago and I met someone and he said hello to me in
Gillian Russell: some strange context, and they said, oh, where are you from? He said, I'm Welsh
Gillian Russell: through and through. That's identity. I'm Welsh. How long you lived in Australia?
Gillian Russell: Oh, I've been here since I was 16. How old are you now? I'm 57.
Gillian Russell: And you're still Welsh? Oh, yes. I'll always be Welsh till I
Gillian Russell: die. And you see, people understand identity when you start
Gillian Russell: telling them, oh, yeah, I get that. But didn't I just choose that? Well,
Gillian Russell: yeah, but it was more than that, wasn't it? You became it as well. Oh,
Gillian Russell: yeah, that's right. People choose that. And of course, what happens is, you know,
Gillian Russell: people choose their jobs, right? And how many people have evoked into men
Gillian Russell: it people, I'm a man, I'm an accountant. It's the second thing to say.
Gillian Russell: Or a man, I'm an actuary. And then they lose their job and they completely
Gillian Russell: lose that sense of identity. They lose that sense of who they are.
Gillian Russell: People get that, they understand it. I've been a mum all my life. I'm a
Gillian Russell: mom, I'm a mum. Kids grow home. What am I? What am I? Oh, thank
Gillian Russell: goodness, I'm a grandmom. So you get about this idea of identity is at the
Gillian Russell: kernel of who we are. So why doesn't it Just click over to the last.
Gillian Russell: The last piece. And I know it's much deeper than the others. People get it,
Gillian Russell: don't they? Once you start explaining identity. I've never explained it.
Gillian Russell: It. And people go, no, I don't believe in identity anymore. Because they'll say, well,
Gillian Russell: you know, there's a bunch of nurses in front of you. I'm a nurse. I'll
Gillian Russell: always be a nurse. I want to be a nurse. Would you like to be
Gillian Russell: a doctor? No, I want to be a nurse. I'm a nurse, I'm a nurse.
Gillian Russell: I've always been a nurse. I've always wanted to be a nurse. Here I am,
Gillian Russell: I'm a nurse. I celebrate. Okay, sure you don't want to be a kind of
Gillian Russell: doctor with a parent? No, I'm gonna. Because that's who I am and that's what
Gillian Russell: it's all about. And I think it goes. It goes to culture and organisations, it
Gillian Russell: goes to charitable, you know, organisations. It goes to who we are are
Gillian Russell: who we are is who we are. And you can't really do much about it
Gillian Russell: until it's taken away from you. There's the thought. Because identity
Joanne Lockwood: is all wrapped up in belonging, isn't it? Because, you know, being
Joanne Lockwood: Welsh, you're part of a Welsh community. That identity is all caught up in that
Joanne Lockwood: sense of self, who your communities are, who your echo chamber is, your
Joanne Lockwood: affinity group. I mean, you talk about it.
Joanne Lockwood: And I spent a large chunk of my life, 20 or
Joanne Lockwood: 25 years, with people labelling me as an IT
Joanne Lockwood: guru, as an IT expert, as an IT this and the IT rocket
Joanne Lockwood: scientist. But it was never an identity that I was
Joanne Lockwood: proud of. It was always something that I thought, exactly, I don't want to be
Joanne Lockwood: known as the IT person. And so it made me realise the difference between
Joanne Lockwood: identity and labels. You give me a label how I see myself,
Joanne Lockwood: and when I shed that IT person label
Joanne Lockwood: and sold my business 10 years ago, it was
Joanne Lockwood: easy to let go because it was caught up in how other people saw me,
Joanne Lockwood: but it wasn't caught up in how I saw myself. Yeah, my new identity is
Joanne Lockwood: a professional speaker, educator, trainer, whatever you want to do in the
Joanne Lockwood: EDI space. And being labelled with the trans identity,
Joanne Lockwood: it's not a label that I resonate with. Yes, if you want to tick some
Joanne Lockwood: boxes, yes, I'm trans, yes, I'm a woman, therefore tick, tick. I'm a trans
Joanne Lockwood: woman, fine, great. Logically, it makes sense, but it's not something I
Joanne Lockwood: want to be all my life. It's that label stuck on My
Joanne Lockwood: chest all the time. So yeah, it's working out who you are. I
Gillian Russell: get it. I mean, I was working in, I think you know, as a
Gillian Russell: speaker as well and consultant and I was working. I lost a hundred grands worth
Gillian Russell: of revenue last year just because I used to work in Africa. And then suddenly
Gillian Russell: I couldn't work in Africa anymore. And you know, that's just speaking revenues from one
Gillian Russell: year and it's like, like, well, that's gone. And then when people ring us up
Gillian Russell: now and say, oh, I'd like you to come and talk. Oh yeah, what do
Gillian Russell: you want to talk about? Change management, Culture? Leadership
Gillian Russell: activity? No, no. Being trans. So, okay, right, I
Joanne Lockwood: know, it's, it's like, is it Paranoid
Joanne Lockwood: Marvin, the paranoid Android? You know, brain the size of a planet and you want
Joanne Lockwood: me to clean the floor or something? It's like, yeah, it's almost
Joanne Lockwood: like, hang on a minute, I've got this big brain, I've got all these ideas,
Joanne Lockwood: I've got all this oomph. You want me to talk about being trans?
Joanne Lockwood: Okay, yeah, yeah, great. Yeah, well done. I know,
Gillian Russell: and I get that all the time. I mean, it's. Luckily it's sort of interesting,
Gillian Russell: but you know, it's, it's not that interesting. I mean, I was in Naples and
Gillian Russell: Florida the other day and last week for two, three weeks ago for my
Gillian Russell: holidays. And it was not a pleasant experience. And, and
Gillian Russell: I think it's going to be a differently unpleasant experience as life rolls on.
Gillian Russell: But you know, it's not, like I said right at the beginning, the least interesting.
Gillian Russell: I mean, we probably haven't talked enough about what makes, what. What's more interesting than
Gillian Russell: being trans, other than being just ranting. But you know, it is the least important
Gillian Russell: thing about me. I remember one of my colleagues in BR saying exactly that. You
Gillian Russell: know, one of their, one of their kids has said the least important thing about
Gillian Russell: me is that trans is true. Because we're not defined by our transness. That's just
Gillian Russell: a really small part of who we are. And once that's achieved, you
Gillian Russell: know, there's that thing, isn't there, in the transition journey? It's like a change management
Gillian Russell: thing. The old idea of change management is you have this, you have something that's
Gillian Russell: frozen, you unfreeze it, you refreeze it again. Sometimes that's part of the trans
Gillian Russell: journey, isn't it? You're something, you transition and you become something
Gillian Russell: else. But you don't realise that's just the beginning of it because that's done now.
Gillian Russell: And it's finished. You're not defined by your transness and the journey
Gillian Russell: you've been on. It's just a small part of who we are, like everything in
Gillian Russell: life, you know, otherwise we wouldn't have any potential to change. I mean, it's like
Gillian Russell: if we've got a member of staff who comes in and says, I can't do
Gillian Russell: Python coding, they say, well, that's it then. That's you doomed. That's the
Gillian Russell: end of you. Because it sort of precludes the idea that we
Gillian Russell: have potential and can learn. Yeah, you see, you can. You just gotta get Chat
Joanne Lockwood: GPT, you gotta use the Deep seq. Deep Seq.
Joanne Lockwood: And I write Python code now. Is it jibe
Joanne Lockwood: coding, they call it, where you basically ideate into
Joanne Lockwood: pseudocode and you just get. And Canva just released a
Joanne Lockwood: Canva AI which writes brilliant code. I've just developed a whole lot of stuff,
Joanne Lockwood: okay? It's not like push the button, it just happens. You've got to massage it
Joanne Lockwood: a lot. But I've created two great things. One is
Joanne Lockwood: an LGBT history of
Joanne Lockwood: 200 years of LGBT history as a timeline map, which I did in Canva AI
Joanne Lockwood: and then refined it. I've got like 130
Joanne Lockwood: timeline entries with drill downs and clicks and all this kind of thing, which is
Joanne Lockwood: going to be just ready for Pride Month to show, to share with the world.
Joanne Lockwood: And I designed all that in camera AI with, With. With Chat GPT
Joanne Lockwood: backup on the end of it. And yeah, it's. You can develop stuff now. You
Joanne Lockwood: haven't got to be a Python expert, you've just got to be a business analyst.
Joanne Lockwood: Probably is where we go back to. If you're a business analyst and process
Joanne Lockwood: analyst, you could then fill the gaps in to get the code
Joanne Lockwood: to do the black box stuff. And you just put the black boxes together. Input,
Joanne Lockwood: output. I was doing an interim CEO role because I do spend a long
Gillian Russell: time doing that now. And I was working with a specific type of
Gillian Russell: architecture firm. I don't want to say too much about that because they're very famous.
Gillian Russell: And I said to them, because I was doing this work too, a couple of
Gillian Russell: years ago, I said to them, so what about AI in your business? And they
Gillian Russell: said, AI will never affect us. And I said, okay. I said, well, what you
Gillian Russell: could do is you could maintain that view, say nothing about it, sit down with
Gillian Russell: AI software people and be the first people to market, or you can do
Gillian Russell: nothing thing. And I was just online the other day, had my phone,
Gillian Russell: I just took a picture of my Garden. I know this is landscape design rather
Gillian Russell: than landscape architecture, but I took a picture of my garden and I've got 17
Gillian Russell: designs with levels on the back of my ChatGPT stuff and
Gillian Russell: deep and deep seq or whatever on Perplexity. All these different
Gillian Russell: AI tools are out there and they're all giving you results you never knew. What
Gillian Russell: matters now is that ingenuity of understanding the question you want to
Gillian Russell: ask, that's going to be the key skill, isn't it? It's that originating need. You
Gillian Russell: know, again as a therapist, counsellor, all that sort
Gillian Russell: of nonsense. Go to ChatGPT and just type in, hey,
Gillian Russell: ChatGPT GPT. You can't say I don't feel so good today. And they'll say,
Gillian Russell: oh, I'm sorry to hear you're not feeling so good and especially if you switch
Gillian Russell: the voice on, you've got a counsellor. All these non skilled
Gillian Russell: jobs are going and it's time that we all woke
Gillian Russell: up to the real big seismic changes which are going on, which our community
Gillian Russell: could be a real big part of if only we could get ourselves, get our
Gillian Russell: head out of the toilet. Pace there's a brand. I, I, I appealed
Joanne Lockwood: a parking charge the other day with Chat
Joanne Lockwood: gbt. I scanned, I took a photograph of the front and back page, fed it
Joanne Lockwood: into Chat GPT and said, look, what causes can
Joanne Lockwood: I, can I contest this parking charge with? He went, ah, under the British code
Joanne Lockwood: of parking whatever, you're entitled to a 10 minute
Joanne Lockwood: overstayment, which seemed fair and reasonable. You were 41
Joanne Lockwood: seconds over the 10 minutes. I think that's a good cause
Joanne Lockwood: to go back, say it'd be a waste of the court's time to take this
Joanne Lockwood: to court because of de minimis or whatever the legal term is and
Joanne Lockwood: that 41 seconds is kind of like so trivial. They should deny
Joanne Lockwood: it. If they don't, it's worth appealing. I thought, go on then, I'm going to
Joanne Lockwood: go for this. So, yeah, it allows you to have this
Joanne Lockwood: empowerment. A bit like YouTube gave us the idea of how to fix a car.
Joanne Lockwood: You find the bit you want to do and YouTube shows you all the bits.
Joanne Lockwood: I another story with ChatGPT is I've, I've got rid of Sky
Joanne Lockwood: TV. They're just charging way too much money a month. Hang on
Joanne Lockwood: a minute, I could do freesat, my TVs got freesat errors on. I could plug
Joanne Lockwood: it in and I just asked CHAT GPT, can I just do this? They went,
Joanne Lockwood: ah, no, your Sams will not like
Joanne Lockwood: the LNB which is the module on the, on the satellite dish
Joanne Lockwood: that Sky Q has. Because it has a different frequency or different
Joanne Lockwood: characteristics, you need to swap out the LMB for one that is
Joanne Lockwood: supported by your tele. I went, okay. I said, how do I do that?
Joanne Lockwood: Take a photograph of the LMB you've got. I went. He said,
Joanne Lockwood: right, I can see if what you've got there is definitely Sky Q. It's not
Joanne Lockwood: the one you need. I recommend you go to Amazon and buy one of these.
Joanne Lockwood: Okay, I've got that. So now on my telly, what do I do? It
Joanne Lockwood: says, oh, you need to go to this setting, into this tuning, select that and
Joanne Lockwood: do this. And it says, if you want to get hold of Far east
Joanne Lockwood: satellite, you need to add this one in as well. I coach
Joanne Lockwood: myself, I'm now a satellite engineer. We joke about the film the Matrix in trans
Joanne Lockwood: circles, about being kind of our allegory, if you like. But that
Joanne Lockwood: idea of plugging a module in to fly the Apache helicopter, the
Joanne Lockwood: AI can now upskill us rapidly at the
Joanne Lockwood: point you need that information. And of course, if we're six, seven or eight, we're
Gillian Russell: not even thinking, this is remarkable. We think it's remarkable because remember.
Gillian Russell: Do you remember dial at modems? Oh, yes. Remember that?
Joanne Lockwood: The sad thing is I could tell you what bold rate and what error
Joanne Lockwood: correction the modem negotiated and go, ah, yeah, I've got 14,
Joanne Lockwood: 400 there. That's a good one. Or, oh, that's a 5600 connection. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: that's how sad I was. I knew that. I knew the negotiated speed, face to.
Gillian Russell: The knob, I could sing it and play it back to you. So there you
Gillian Russell: go. You said, we'll have a little. It was like a neighing donkey, wasn't
Joanne Lockwood: it? Okay, yeah, that's
Joanne Lockwood: connected. Brilliant. Well, there you are. So there we are. We've
Gillian Russell: come to the part, come around to the circle where we said, this is what
Gillian Russell: we wanted to do. We want to empower young people to get on do it.
Gillian Russell: And I think AI is the way it's going to happen. I think there's going
Gillian Russell: to be such seismic changes over the next 20 years. If we don't have a
Gillian Russell: war, which is entirely part of the risk management
Gillian Russell: of the next four to five years, that's entirely likely to happen. But if it
Gillian Russell: doesn't, I think we're going to have some. It's going to be a very interesting
Gillian Russell: world. And we've only got another 40 or 50 years in front of us. So,
Gillian Russell: you know, it's Going to be a challenge. I wish. I hope. Yes. Now we
Gillian Russell: do buy a hacking and it's all written down, what you need to have. And
Gillian Russell: you get your butter rail and sort your microbiome out, you know, it's all, it's
Gillian Russell: all this stuff. And buy probiotic yoghurts for breakfast. Yes,
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah, I know. As long as you don't buy the main brands because they're worse
Gillian Russell: for you than having none. That's the challenge of all this stuff. I'll ask ChatGPT
Joanne Lockwood: later than what it. Recommends you should do. That's a no. You should really watch
Gillian Russell: out for some of the supermarket type stuff and anything off Amazon.
Gillian Russell: I used to have a little alternative therapy
Gillian Russell: unit in Port Solent years ago, which you'll know it's around the
Gillian Russell: corner from you because I used to live on the south coast, which is why
Gillian Russell: I manage a charity on the south coast. And I
Gillian Russell: remember we used to sell CBD way before the time it was
Gillian Russell: popular because I've always been at the bleeding edge of thought, thought,
Gillian Russell: thinking. And Amazon did a test of all their
Gillian Russell: CBD and Holland and Barrett did, and at the time, of the
Gillian Russell: 16 products, none of their product had CBD in it. Isn't that
Gillian Russell: amazing? Just makes you wonder, who'd have thought, eh? Who'd have
Gillian Russell: thought? American companies making rash
Gillian Russell: claims. Yeah, make claims. And I
Gillian Russell: love the TikTok thing with all the Chinese people saying, this is how we make
Gillian Russell: your designer stuff at the moment. That's a very good tick tock meme.
Gillian Russell: I like that. Yeah. It's the future, Joe. It's the future
Joanne Lockwood: young people of the future. And I'm. I'm envious because
Joanne Lockwood: I'd love to have another go around. I'd love to, love to have another go
Joanne Lockwood: around and think, actually, what I know now. Yeah, wow. What I could do with
Joanne Lockwood: that. Yeah. But hey. And people say, oh, I wouldn't want to be back in
Gillian Russell: this time because the social media thinking, no, no, I'm very happily, I'll be 16
Gillian Russell: again. I'll swap. You can be 63.
Joanne Lockwood: Know what I know now. Yeah, let's have another go. Give me another roll of
Joanne Lockwood: the dice. I could do this one more time. What single thing would you do?
Gillian Russell: What single thing would you do differently. Or change like myself today?
Joanne Lockwood: So I'm one of these people that if I changed something in the past, I
Joanne Lockwood: wouldn't be me today, who I am today, my family, my friends, my children,
Joanne Lockwood: you know, that butterfly wing that changed. But things I would do differently
Joanne Lockwood: is not smoke or ever start smoking and. And I would
Joanne Lockwood: recognise how alcohol
Joanne Lockwood: impacted my life negatively and my weight
Joanne Lockwood: management. I think those are the health. But all those three things I mentioned are
Joanne Lockwood: health related, not ambition or good
Joanne Lockwood: capability. So I think being more mindful of my
Joanne Lockwood: body from an earlier age, that's probably. It's not
Joanne Lockwood: regret, it's just if I was doing it again. I've learned in
Joanne Lockwood: my late 50s that this is how I should be. So, yeah, I think
Joanne Lockwood: be more health conscious, be more aware of my body because I
Joanne Lockwood: want it to last a long time and by, by not looking after
Joanne Lockwood: it, I'm. I've potentially stunted some of my capability.
Joanne Lockwood: I might even start flossing just because my. My hygienist keeps telling me I
Joanne Lockwood: should floss every time I go and see her and. Are you talking about guns
Gillian Russell: or the teeth? My teeth. Floss my teeth. Floss my teeth.
Gillian Russell: Not flossing. The dust. So I don't get long in the tooth, as I keep
Joanne Lockwood: getting told. I'm long in the tooth, though. That's terrible.
Joanne Lockwood: Apart from that. No, I would. Don't split the small stuff. Believe
Joanne Lockwood: in yourself. Believe in the kindness and warm heart of other people
Joanne Lockwood: and keep being the best you can be. I think those are. If you can
Joanne Lockwood: live by those sort of mantras, then life is what you make it. That's a
Joanne Lockwood: really privileged thing to say, isn't it? Why not? Why not? You've earned the right
Gillian Russell: to be privileged because you've put all that work in before today. Yeah, well, it's
Joanne Lockwood: just time served, I guess. Yeah. It's not luck. I don't believe in, bloke. I
Gillian Russell: think it's all about what you've done before today to make that butterfly wing thing
Gillian Russell: come together. Yeah, well, we are a product of our environment and our history,
Joanne Lockwood: aren't we? So we are here. We are. We are.
Gillian Russell: Are we done? Yeah, we're done. Gillian, tell us how to get hold of
Joanne Lockwood: you now. Well, you can send me an
Gillian Russell: email@transvox.co.uk if you want to do that. You could send me
Gillian Russell: an email to gillian@supportu.org.uk or Gillian,
Gillian Russell: what is it? Gillian Russell, Beyond Reflections. Or you can just go on LinkedIn and
Gillian Russell: just look for Gillian Russell, FRSA and yet
Gillian Russell: another one of those FRSA people and send me a LinkedIn, have a
Gillian Russell: chat, send me something contentious. Let's write an article together. Come and be a
Gillian Russell: podcast guest, come and volunteer, Come and
Gillian Russell: be contentious. Make a difference in the world and I'll help you get. Wow.
Joanne Lockwood: Wow. Wow, wow. Gillian, it's been a shit show of a day so
Joanne Lockwood: far, but you've lightened it up. The sun's come out. It's been great having a
Joanne Lockwood: chat, so thank you so much. Take care. You'll be good.
Joanne Lockwood: As we bring this conversation to a close, I want to express
Joanne Lockwood: my deepest gratitude to you, our listener, for lending
Joanne Lockwood: your ear and heart to the cause of inclusion.
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Joanne Lockwood: episode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.