Raquel: Hello everyone. Welcome to the FiLiA Podcast. FiLiA means daughter. We are the daughters of the women who came before us and we fight so that our daughters may be free. We are a women-led volunteer organisation and we are part of the Women's Liberation Movement. FiLiA's vision is a world free from patriarchy where all women and girls are liberated.

 My name is Raquel Rosario-Sanchez, and I am the spokeswoman for FiLiA. Today I am absolutely delighted to be joined by a discrimination solicitor. Her name is Audrey Ludwig, and she is a discrimination solicitor who writes about the Equality Act in depth. She tweets openly as @AudreySuffolk about her subject as part of her commitment to public legal education.

 She gives her general opinion where she thinks people have got rights under the Equality Act 2010. More recently, she has done this with regards to the heated sex-based rights/gender identity policy debates, and the conflict that it creates with women's rights. She tweets politely and tries to assume interest and goodwill from those who correspond with her.

 Sadly, this is seldom replicated by some of the people who engage with her, who issue hostile condemnations and have told her, for example, that she needs to die in a fire. She believes that people who come under all nine protected characteristics have equality rights, but sometimes those rights conflict and they have to be balanced in accordance with the principles of the Equality Act in the UK.

 She has been complained about to her employers. She has been complained about to her funders and to her professional network. Luckily, all these organisations have shown a backbone, for others have not been so fortunate. So thank you very much.

 Okay, so my first question is, you are a discrimination lawyer. What came first for you? Was it the passion for law or was it the passion for feminism?

 Audrey: That's such an interesting question. I would say that, probably, law. I suspect I've always been a feminist, but certainly not an active one until the last couple of years. It's not been something that I've particularly reflected upon, though clearly I have benefited from the work of feminists in the past.

 And my mother was a good feminist and a pioneering social worker in the domestic violence and mental health area of social work. So, yeah. But I would have to say law came first and, from that, my life's experiences led me up to becoming a discrimination solicitor. 

 Raquel: Yeah. And in a general sense, what was it like going through that system as a woman?

 Audrey: On the whole, my experiences of being a solicitor, going to university and the rest of it, have probably been shaped more greatly by my disabilities than by my sex. But, you know, looking back on it, I can certainly say there have been occasions where I have been sexually harassed by corporate clients.

 I was once notably asked in a job interview about whether I was going to have children, after the panel of solicitors said, “I know we are not supposed to ask this question, but…” and that interview didn't last very long after that, it has to be said. 

 Yeah, looking back on it, I've certainly experienced sexism, but on the whole, my career was not thwarted by it. I've certainly seen a lot worse for other people, and that's probably where my interest in feminism has been sparked. 

 Raquel: Well, thank you for sharing, and I mean it kind of blows my mind to know that at an interview with solicitors, they would ask that, they would ask that question. And it's like, “oh, I know I'm not supposed to do that, because it is illegal, but…” 

 Audrey: “But!”

 Raquel: “No, don't!”

 Audrey: Yeah, absolutely. Yes, I nearly fell off my chair. And I didn't allow them to ask the question, and I challenged them on it. But it really did set the tone for a very bad interview, in which I decided that I’d got no desire to work for this organisation.

 I think that, as I say, the experiences of my clients who've experienced sex discrimination and other forms of discrimination have very much shaped my passion for equalities, and my interest in sharing that knowledge with other people. So I do a lot of public legal education. I do a lot of training in my county and nationally, and I've started to write a bit more. 

 Raquel: I wrote that in several places, that you are very keen on public legal education. Can you define a little bit what that is, and what does it look like in practice?

 Audrey: Oh, I dunno if I could define it, as such, as just tell you what I think it is. I think that access to justice is something I feel very strongly about, and that as a lawyer, I know that one of my greatest tools is knowledge, not only of the law, but where to find law that I don't know about.

 And so, particularly with people who are vulnerable to discrimination, I feel it's a duty but also a privilege to be able to go out and share my interest in law, share my understanding of it, give people the confidence to challenge unlawful acts, and generally to discuss the experiences that they've had and look at strategies in how they might try and resolve them.

 In practice I don't think you can be a participant in society, fully, if you haven't got the ability to challenge things which are unlawful. I think you need to have a voice, and as part of that, you need access to information. So I'm happy to share that information. 

 Raquel: And you have, and you have done so brilliantly, but it has brought you to this issue, the issue of sex-based rights and how they conflict with gender identity policies. So how did you get into this topic? What brought you to this conflict? 

 Audrey: In some ways it was very accidental. I must admit, I hadn't really thought much about it. I didn't really follow the sort of, leading feminist writers like Julie Bindel and others who were talking about the issue and warning it. It sort of had washed past me.

 I came across a guide to transgender rights, or alleged transgender rights, in schools and similar for young people, which was written by an organisation I think called All Sorts. And I looked at it, because I look at a lot of equality stuff, to see whether I would promote it through social media and show my colleagues.

 And I started reading it and it made me very cross because it was inaccurate legally. And I was like… I was quite baffled that a document which was seemingly quite official and was being promoted by local authorities would have inaccuracies in it.

 And one of the things that's significant about the Equality Act is that one should always regard it as a single Act of Parliament, in which there are nine protected classes, and that it's fairly mainstream equality law, that on occasions there is a conflict of competing rights. And that usually manifests itself when policies which are for one group, to benefit one group, actually cause indirect discrimination to another group.

 The thing that this document, this All Sorts document, failed to have was any sense of how they'd balance the rights of one protected class – such as trans people, who are protected under section seven of the Equality Act under the protected class of gender reassignment – how they were balancing it against the rights of other people, such as young women who would fall under the sex class, or people of different races or people of different religions and beliefs. And it just seemed strange to me that there was no references to that.

 In addition, there is something in law called the Public Sector Equality Duty, Section 149. Which basically, if you are talking about public bodies like a school or a hospital or local authority or something, basically they have a duty to essentially ensure that you don't discriminate against each of the protected characteristics, and you paid due regard to the duty to ensure balance between – I'm paraphrasing, this isn't how the law says, but – balancing between the protected classes.

 And again, this document paid no correct reference to the Public Sector Equality Duty. Anyway, so I just tweeted something about it and said, “I'm not very impressed by this document,” or something like that, I can't remember the words. And in the meantime, before I tweeted about it, I found a document by another organisation called Transgender Trend, which you've probably heard about, which was a much better document. It felt much more balanced.

 So I tweeted approvingly about the Transgender Trend one, and disapprovingly about the All Sorts one. And I got some complaints, basically saying I was being transphobic, and they complained to the trustees of my organisation. And that to a certain extent piqued my interest, as well as, you know, made me a bit grumpy because I was treating it very much as an intellectual exercise rather than, do you know what I mean?

 It didn't even occur to me that it would be accused of transphobic behaviour because as a lawyer I'm used to dissecting law, if you see what I mean, in a fairly dispassionate way. So to be accused of essentially denying people's existence or their rights or something was weird. So anyway, they suggested that I speak to a lawyer who worked for an organisation called Mermaids, which I was quite happy to do.

 Raquel: Who suggested this?

 Audrey: Oh, somebody who complained, I don’t know who the person was. The complainant or a complainant said, “you should speak to Mermaids, they're the experts on this.” And I was like, “oh, that's interesting, I'll do that.” So I got in touch with Mermaids and spoke to their solicitor and we had a very pleasant conversation, in which it was very clear that the solicitor wasn't an expert in the Equality Act at that time.

 Raquel: What were they an expert on? 

 Audrey: My sense was that their background was in family law, but I wouldn't say I'm definite about that. But certainly they weren't a practicing discrimination lawyer and certainly it got to the point where I was sort of doing a mini-masterclass and it, you know, it came across on the telephone like the person was taking notes.

 So I came away from the conversation thinking that it was clear that this organisation weren't employing a specialist discrimination lawyer. And then when I sort of got more involved with it on Twitter, I came to the conclusion that the ‘no debate’ process or tactic of organisations like Stonewall and other lobbying groups had meant that there'd been very little consideration on a legal or intellectual basis for the proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act. 

 And I started discussing this with other discrimination lawyers and others, and it was quite obvious that the only real analysis on the whole by practicing lawyers was being done by gender critical lawyers and not by those who took a more gender identity basis.

 One of the things I would say is that the discussion on Twitter is very different to my experience as a discrimination lawyer in real life. In real life, I have transgender clients and I take claims for them under the Equality Act successfully, we challenge on the basis of discrimination on the grounds of gender reassignment, and there's no great difficulty. I'm not saying…

 Trans people are discriminated against, considerably, but their rights are there in law at the moment and I can't see that any proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act are going to assist them greatly with regard to discrimination. What I think the changes will do will have the potential to adversely affect the Equality Act in terms of sex-based rights. But then that's something I've been writing about recently.

 Raquel: So I want to ask you precisely about the point that you just mentioned, which is that you recently collaborated with Women's Place UK, and Women's Place UK is an organisation that campaigns to end violence against women and to protect women's rights under the Equality Act 2010. So, tell me: your article is titled, “Legally this is not a trans rights issue, it is a sex rights issue: A blog about boxes.”

 It had a massive reception. It was very well received by a number of people, particularly lawyers. I'm wondering if you, number one, I want you to speak about the content of the article, but what inspired you to say “no, it's not enough to just talk to people over Twitter. I want to put my thoughts in a coherent manner, in a very detailed manner about what this means legally, for women and for everyone.”

 Audrey: I had… as you say, I've been doing various threads on Twitter, trying to explain how the Equality Act worked, and just got to a point where I thought it was probably a good idea to martial my arguments into one place.

 I'd been very lucky to be invited to be a speaker at the Women's Liberation Conference at WPUK in February at University College London. So I did a workshop with Julian Norman on law, and then I got asked by WPUK if I would turn it into a blog. Now, ironically, the thing I talked about at WPUK was about making policy, which is not this article. 

 But actually when I sat down and started writing it, I realised that actually I’d got two articles in my head and that I would sit down and write one, which explained how Equality Act worked for the layperson, and then I would do a second one on policy, which I'm just finishing off now.

 And so I decided I would just sort of sit down and try and explain to people why I thought that actually the media and a lot of of commentators on social media have got the argument wrongly framed, because technically under the Equality Act, it's not actually about trans rights at all. It's actually about an argument about sex-based rights.

 And the article, I tried to explain why that was the case. That as I say, trans people are already protected against unlawful discrimination in the Equality Act, unlike, for example, until recently in the United States where they weren't protected from discrimination in in certain contexts. And so, in practice, I tried to explain that, actually the whole argument around gender identity is about who comes within which ‘box’, when you're talking about the ‘sex’ box. And it's actually…

 I was trying to explain about protected characteristics, there are nine of them and that in a sense, they're like boxes that you have to legally fit into before you can bring a claim in the employment tribunal or the court for unlawful discrimination or harassment. And some of the boxes have got sub-boxes. So for example, in the ‘sex’ box it’s got sub-boxes, which is woman and man. And you have to show that you come in one of those two boxes.

 And how you define what is in those boxes is really important for this concept of what is known as ‘comparators’. Under both direct and indirect discrimination, you have to compare yourself against somebody who doesn't fit into that sub-box in order to show you've been treated worse or you've been adversely affected. I'm paraphrasing again, this is not how it says it in the legislation, but in practice.

 So as a result, who fits into the woman's sub-box or who fits into the man's sub-box is very important. Now, as a result of some European case law, the Gender Recognition Act was brought out in 2004. Basically, if one goes through the process of obtaining a gender recognition certificate, which at the moment you have to go through essentially what is regarded as a gatekeeping process, but you end up with a gender recognition certificate, essentially legally, it changes which sex sub-box you're put in.

 So you go from being a man to woman or a woman for the man for most legal purposes, not all. So for example, ironically, whether you can inherit a title in the British aristocracy has not changed, inheritance is not changed, various other limitations. But certainly for the purpose of discrimination, having a Gender Recognition Certificate enables you to change your ‘sex’ box.

 Now because of the gatekeeping, at the moment we only have about 5,000 people in the UK with a gender recognition certificate. Mostly, really, because other people haven't needed to get one because they've got the right to challenge unlawful discrimination under gender reassignment. So in practice, there isn't a great push to get it. So as a result, it's not really been an issue. 

 Raquel: Sorry, can you pause there? What do you mean, there hasn't been an interest in sort of like pushing that?

 Audrey: At the time of the Gender Recognition Act, I understand that they anticipated about 5,000 people would end up with a certificate, and that's actually how it's proved to be. That on the whole, only a small percentage of those who fit into the wider Stonewall trans umbrella would seek to get a Gender Recognition Certificate at the moment, because it's a process, they have to apply, costs a bit of money unless they get a reduction because they're on low income, that sort of thing.

 But under the proposals put forward by lobbyists such as Stonewall, it is proposed that one should be able to get a Gender Recognition Certificate through a statutory declaration process. In practice, regardless of the merits of it, nobody's really looked at the consequences of doing it with regard to the effects on sex discrimination of possibly up to 500,000 people, which is the largest number that I've seen identified as people under the trans umbrella, changing their sex in law.

 So this lack of research concerns me greatly. The lack of analysis concerns me greatly. There's a lot of talk about the single sex exemptions, which is, you know, the right to single sex wards or single sex changing rooms, single sex beauticians, that sort of thing.

 But my article was actually sort of looking at actually about direct sex discrimination and indirect sex discrimination and whether there would be any adverse consequences with regard to the comparisons that one needs to make with people who are not in your sex sub-box if somebody suddenly moves from one box to the other.

 Are you gathering what I'm saying?

 Raquel:  Yes. 

 Audrey: Okay. So essentially what I'm concerned about, and I haven't done any research, so this is a theoretical concern, but I'm really concerned that nobody's done any research. Nobody's thought about, “if up to 500,000 people suddenly, who previously were either male or female, or a mixture of the two suddenly change sex, what effect does that have on somebody's direct or indirect sex discrimination claim or their equal pay claim?” Because nobody's talking about it. 

 Raquel: Is this normal for the law? Is this normal for the way legislations are constructed?

 Audrey: It's totally unusual for lawyers not to be talking about it and legal academics not to be talking about it. It's very, very unusual. Usually if legislation was proposed, there would be a lot of discussion about unintended consequences, but because of the ‘no debate’ arguments that have been put forward by people like Stonewall, et cetera, where there's been almost an inability by researchers and by lawyers to discuss the issue for fear of being branded transphobic, nobody's done the work.

 It was very interesting that the only academics who are doing anything are pro-gender identity advocates like Alex Sharpe. It was very interesting I read a recent article by them in which Alex seemed to elude to this issue of potentially problems with comparators, but then was skirted around the issue because they didn't want to confront it.

 So I suspect that they've thought about it but have chosen not to raise an issue which would essentially put a spanner in the works of the reform that they're looking for. 

 Raquel: So what happens? You're saying that this is very unusual for how the law actually works. What happens when you speak with other barristers and solicitors? What happens when you privately raise this matter? The fact that there's a push to prevent debate. The fact that there are clearly issues that need to be discussed properly and analysed through a legal analysis. What happens when you gather with other lawyers, speak with other lawyers about this matter?

 Audrey: One of the lovely things about the article is I did actually get a lot of public and private positive comments from other discrimination lawyers. Primarily discrimination lawyers in the UK are employment lawyers because most discrimination cases come up in the employment tribunal. And we got some very good comments.

 It's been very difficult previously. I know that a number of bodies have been split on the issue, and so as a result, they’ve sort of largely been silenced. I know that there's mutterings that the Equality and Human Rights Commission are internally split on the issue, and it has to be said. I think that their dereliction of duty has been very notable in terms of recognising the conflict and actually addressing it head on.

 A lot of the human rights organisations have taken a very binary goodies and baddies approach to it. So organisations like Liberty and Amnesty International have not really considered the conflict of competing rights issue. There's an awful lot of exaltations to ‘be kind’ and stuff, which privately, as lawyers, we despair about. 

 Because to make good law, sustainable law, you need discussion. You need intellectual discussion. You need rather dispassionate discussion. And at the moment the debate is all very emotive, which is not helpful. By contrast, there has been a number of cases of conflict in the arena between sexual orientation and religion and belief.

 So cases like Ladele, which who was a marriage registrar who worked for a council, who because of her particular brand of Christian beliefs didn't want to marry same sex couples, and she lost her job. And then you had a case called Preddy and Bull, which was about bed and breakfast owners who didn't want to put up a gay couple. And then more recently we had the Ashers Bakery case, which was sometimes known as the gay cake case.

 And whilst those cases have been quite heated, you just don't get the sort of toxicity of debate in those conflicts that you get in the sex- and gender-based rights. I can have discussions with people on sexual orientation and religion and belief and nobody will send me sexualised violent comments, which is not what you get in this debate.

 It's very, very sad and quite frankly, shocking. And I think it really points to the fact that women's rights are, largely, they're not as strong as they should be. They're not on strong ground. If you can understand what I'm saying. I think there's a real… 

 Raquel: Also, when it comes to sexual orientation and religious beliefs, like that also affects men. You know, there are men who are gay and also there are men who have religious belief, which are against sexual orientation, you know. So it's like men have an interest on both sides, but on the issue of sex based rights, you know, it's like the main people who are affected are women.

 Audrey: I think that's completely true. I think also though, I do think that a strand of the gender identity movement is very misogynistic. I think it's given them license to be misogynistic. I think that my biggest area of sadness has been around the left, and I've always believed myself to be on the left politically, and yet I'm really disappointed in the lack of understanding of women's rights, of understanding the complexity of human rights, the complexity of equality rights on the left. 

 Where they've just gone to a very binary, simplistic, almost mantra-like approach to what is a very important issue. And as I say, ultimately, you know, I came into this as a lawyer rather than necessarily a feminist. And I do know from other pieces of legislation where people have taken very simplistic approaches that the legislation is usually poorly written and not sustainable.

 So I don't think it's actually helping trans causes either. I think it's very detrimental to the trans people themselves that essentially they've allowed in what is, it feels like, the men's rights movement, a sort of rather toxic part of the men's rights movement to sort of take over the debate.

 Raquel: Yes, I agree. And it's one thing to have this sort of strand in a very broad leftist movement, which has become very misogynistic and to have that sort of as an outlier. But the biggest problem rises from the people who do not agree, who see this as misogyny, and instead of standing up to it, sort of like bow down to it and allow this to ferment because you're not doing…

 I mean, the vast majority of people can see that there's something going on here. This is too toxic. This is too virulent, especially towards women and towards women of color, immigrant women, all that type of stuff. People can see that.

 But instead of having political figures, people on the left, you know, take a very strong stance against it, you see a lot of acquiescing and a lot of compliance. And at the end of the day, that's no worse than the people who are, you know, wishing deaths on women and rape on women and all that type of stuff, because it's all creating the same climate.

 But in any case, I really like that you mentioned Amnesty International, because it's interesting that international organisations, including Amnesty International, have taken a very strong stance on this issue. And in the UK, in the global north, their tactic is to sort of try to coerce women into silence by asking them to be kind.

 But from my experience, I'm from the Dominican Republic and what Amnesty International and other organisations are doing in a very small country in the global south like mine is they're using the most vulnerable women, like prostituted women, women who are victims of male violence, they're using legislations meant to address that as a cover to try to force gender identity in a country that has no idea that this is going on.

 You know, they're using the power of, “we are Amnesty International,” to try to sort of coerce the Dominican public into having to accept ideas that have never been discussed democratically, and under the pretense that if we do not acquiesce, then it's because we're a backwards country, that we're sort of against human rights or something. And that's, I think, a very interesting juxtaposition, how they are trying to coerce people in the global north versus in the global south. 

 Audrey: I think that's true. I mean, I think in practice, one of the things I would say is that it's really demonstrated almost an inability to support human rights generally, but rather to take particular political stances based on the ideological wishes of those that run these organisations.

 I mean, overwhelmingly these organisations tend to be very middle class and are quite…

 Raquel: and led by men. 

 Audrey: Even the ones that are led by women, they're very separate and quite far away from those who will be impacted by the unintended consequences of changes to legislation. I think the reason why I've particularly noticed it, I work provincially and most of my clients are quite vulnerable themselves.

 So they are migrants, they are disabled people, they're people who work in very precarious working environments. They're people in prison. And so as a result, I think I'm probably a lot closer to the people who will be the recipients of the policies as opposed to those who are sitting around in conference rooms discussing the policies.

 And I think that that's something that they don't have the self-awareness to recognise. So as a result, the lobbyists nationally have been very successful in painting only one group as having a vulnerability, and being able to basically airbrush out other people who may have competing vulnerabilities in particular contexts, because they're not perceived as at the table.

 And they sometimes, usually, they're not at the table in these sort of committees that discuss these things. I mean, as far as I'm aware on a lot of these proposed changes, certainly in the first few years, women's voices, voices of Black and ethnic minority people, disabled people, et cetera have all been ignored. 

 I see time and time again, equality impact assessments around supporting trans people where the equality impact assessment will only look at the impact on trans people. It doesn't look at the impact on the other eight protected classes, notwithstanding that that's how you are supposed to undertake an equality impact assessment.

 And as I say, I'm writing an article at the moment on how to make policy, whether in a public body or a private body, compliant with the Equality Act. And a lot of my points are very much around the fact that you have to take into account, even if your policy is about a particular protected class, whether it be trans people or disabled people or whatever, you have to look for unintended consequences on other protected classes. 

 Raquel: Yes. Well, I can't wait to read your new article. Okay, so I have a question. I have a very good friend of mine, and we always have sort of like this back and forth, trying to better understand this issue. Isn't discrimination against people who identify as trans covered under sex discrimination?

 Because my thinking is if a man, a man who identifies as a man, if he decides to show up at work in women's clothing and make up, what have you, you know, the stereotypes assigned to women, and he gets discriminated on that basis, then isn't that a form of sex discrimination?

 Because what people who discriminate against him would be saying is that there are certain roles that he should feel because he's a man… that means that he… cannot be allowed to engage in the other stereotypes assigned to women.

 Audrey: Okay. I'm not an expert on US law, but I know that the recent decision, the Bostock decision, very much suggested that it was based very much within sex discrimination in the American federal legislation.

 When transgender discrimination was first being discussed, and we had to change the law in the UK as a result of some decisions in the European Court of Human Rights, discrimination against transgender people came as an amendment to the Sex Discrimination Act. But when it came to the Equality Act 2010, the legislators decided that there would be a distinct protected class of gender reassignment.

 And I think that the thinking behind it, though I haven't read Hansard or some of the discussions which led up to it, is because of what's known as the ‘because of’ test. Essentially, when you're looking at direct discrimination, you look at less favorable treatment because of a protected class. And generally speaking, when you look at transgender people, they're discriminated against because they're transgender.

 It is perfectly open to a transgender person in theory to bring a sex discrimination class. If they pass so successfully as the opposite sex that the ‘because of’ test is actually shown to be perceived sex, then they could bring a claim under sex discrimination. But they would have to show that the person who did it, did it because of perceiving their sex to be other than what it is legally.

 So they would have to show… it depends whether they've got a Gender Recognition Certificate or not. I'm terribly sorry. This is quite complicated. 

 Raquel: I know! 

Audrey: In practical terms, when people come through my door and they have been discriminated on the grounds of, because they're transgender, the ‘because of’ test when I discuss it is usually because they're transgender. And they've been treated terribly because they're transgender or they've been harassed because they're transgender, and therefore the protected class of transgender fits them perfectly adequately.

 And so if I was the legislator, I wouldn't be interfering with the protected classes in the Equality Act. But what I wouldn't be doing is bringing in gender as Self ID, because that will, in my view, cause problems with regard to the sex class. Now, my suspicion is that we won't get rid of gender recognition certificates in the sense that it would be a lot…

 The Gender Recognition Act is a very badly written act, it has to be said. It conflates sex and gender. It's an appalling piece of writing as legislation. But politically, I think there's gonna be no way that one is going to abolish it. So, as a halfway house to that… 

 And I don't have a problem with the Gender Recognition Act in principle, in the sense of people wanting to go through a quite a laborious process and then changing their sex. I don't have a problem with a few people in society because I suspect then it would have very little effect on women if only a few people have got this certificate. But I certainly wouldn't be expanding the numbers of people who are getting certificates because it will have, in my fear, adverse consequences on women, and that that issue has not been explored to my satisfaction.

 Now, I might be completely wrong. The research might show it will have no effect in practice, but the fact that nobody's done the research, any statistical analysis, and quite the opposite, the ability to debate it has been suppressed, makes me very nervous. And my fear is that Self ID will come in and then women will suddenly find themselves in a position, as I suggested in my article, that they've lost their ability to proceed with a sex discrimination claim or an equal pay claim for technical reasons.

 And that worries me horribly. I'm just a provincial solicitor, from a small town, and it worries me that people much more important than me or learned than me aren't talking about this. Now, it may be because I'm completely wrong, and in some ways I don't mind being completely wrong if I can see the work that they've put in to show me why I'm wrong. But so far, nobody has. 

 Raquel: You're a rockstar, Audrey. 

 Audrey: I dunno about that. I think one of the things I would say is that my career has been very odd in that I haven't, you know, I haven't risen to the top of the legal profession. I've had some real ups and downs because I've had bouts of mental health problems and I started losing my hearing as well, so I'm partially deaf.

 But I think also, being in my mid-fifties has made me weirdly quite brave about this issue. There's a bit of a “stuff it.” And I'm not going to be bullied by people into shutting up about this issue because as I say, I don't mind being wrong, but I prefer that I force the debate and so I can be content that I've done everything I can do to make people talk about the issue.

 Raquel: So as I said, to everyone here in the podcast, we are speaking with a rockstar. Just kidding. Okay, so I have one question, another question for you.

 Audrey: I just think it's amusing, I'm a 55 year old mother and I'm so far from a rockstar, it's unbelievable, but hey, I like it, anyway. 

 Raquel: Okay, so I have a question. So in the UK you have the Gender Recognition Act 2004 and you have the Equality Act 2010. So given these two sets of legislation, what rights do people who identify as trans not have?

 Audrey: That's a really interesting question, and, as an Equality Act lawyer, I'm not sure I'm necessarily the right person to answer that question. In practice, certainly they've got the ability to challenge unlawful discrimination.

 Oh, one of the things I would say, and I think it's a really important thing for people to recognise, is that not all discrimination is unlawful. I sometimes make the stupid analogy that if you go to a cake shop and there are 10 cakes and you choose one cake, you're not discriminating against the other nine cakes. Discrimination is about choice, and unlawful discrimination is about choice based on stereotyping and prejudice. And in practice, the Equality Act sets out a bunch of principles and then there's a load of exceptions.

 So in practice, what I would say is that transgender people are certainly protected against unlawful discrimination and harassment. They've certainly got the rights under other bits of policy and legislation to change their driving license and their  medical records and various other things. And under the Gender Recognition Act, there's quite a complicated system for ensuring that people don't disclose information about them without good reason.

 I really do struggle sometimes to work out what it is that they are seeking to achieve through amending the Gender Recognition Act, other than getting a certificate that changes their sex. Now, if that's what they want to do – and they're perfectly entitled to fight for that – then in practice, they need to explain why they want the ability to change sex as opposed to gender and what will be the consequences of a number of them doing so.

 Because to be honest, on the ground as a discrimination lawyer, I've never had a case where somebody hasn't had a claim against discrimination because they're transgender that I haven't been able to take under section seven. So, you know, I'm struggling to tell you the answer to that question. It may be somebody a lot cleverer than me can. 

 Raquel: Or it may be that that's the crux of the issue.

 Audrey: It may be. As I say, my title of my article was “This is not a trans rights issue, this is a sex rights issue,” and I stick by it because yeah, ultimately they're fighting to change legal sex and I would say they're perfectly entitled to lobby for that. I have no problem with people campaigning for anything.

 I have a lot more problem with them trying to stop other people from campaigning against what they're campaigning for. So in practice, I'm just saying, “let's have the debate,” you know? As I say, I started this as a sort of very intellectual exercise. I probably am a bit more involved in it, but I have no difficulty with trans people lobbying for what they want to achieve.

 They've just got to be very clear, very un-emotive and quite precise in, “what it is they're trying to do? How will it impact people? What adverse consequences are there going to be? How many people is it going to involve?” It's just basic stuff like that. And we don't know the answer to these questions because apparently we've all just got to be lovely about it.

 Raquel: Yes. Well, women have to.

 Audrey: Oh yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. Women have to be lovely. And the thing about it is, like many people in my situation, I've never regarded myself by reference to my sex, really, apart from biologically. I don't have a great sense of gender. I mean, you'd know that if you saw me, you know, I'm short haired, you know, no makeup, the lot, you know, classic middle-aged feminist look, in some ways, stereotype, you know, middle-aged feminist look.

 Basically, I'm not very feminine. I'm very tall. I'm quite big. I'm very clumsy. I'm good at map reading. I run an organisation, I'm quite assertive. All of those things are not regarded as feminine qualities. So I really struggle with this idea of gender, and I've struggled with that probably throughout my life without realising I was doing so, and therefore this idea that somehow I have to fit into a gender box, which is all pink and fluffy and pretty, is slightly bizarre to me.

 But actually a lot of my concerns are a lot more legal and intellectual and all the rest of it, rather than grumpiness that people are trying to basically force me into a box not of my choosing. My biology is very clear. I mean, I have a son. I had pre-eclampsia just before my son was born and I nearly died from it. So, you know, biology’s quite important.

 So, you know, in practice, gender isn't really that important to me. So I don't have that emotional connection with it, that maybe trans people do. I don't know. And that doesn't worry me. I don't have a problem with people being strongly pro-gender identity, in the same way as I don't have a problem with people of a different religion or, you know, whatever. Where I have a problem is when they impose it on me against my desires, basically.

 You know, and certainly having done a lot of litigation around discrimination, unlawful discrimination, and harassment, I know what unlawful and discrimination and harassment looks like to vulnerable people, including trans people. So when somebody tells me that talking politely about the law and disagreeing is transphobic, I really struggle with that one. You know, because it's just nonsense and it devalues the whole equality law and it devalues hate crime when you trivialise it in that way. 

 Raquel: And it devalues words like oppression and discrimination and marginalisation, vulnerability, all that type of stuff.

 So I have a question for you. How do you see the future of sex-based rights? Because you and I are in a very interesting position, like we have met a number of times, and I am speaking to you right now from the Dominican Republic. You are in the UK. You currently have sex-based rights. For Dominican women and girls like me, we do not.

 So we are in the context of, we have no sex-based rights, and we're getting all of these anti-democratic pressures to impose gender identity policies and legislations in a country that does not have basic legal protections for women. Sex-based rights. So I think that – and what we are seeing from other countries – so that's us receiving that pressure currently for many years, but we're witnessing what is happening to women in countries like yours who do have sex-based rights, and you're pretty much not even allowed to speak about it. So how do you see the future of sex-based rights in law? 

 Audrey: I think that this year I'm slightly more optimistic than I probably was last year. The conference I spoke about was amazing. A thousand fiercely intelligent, bright, funny, warm, a real diversity of people, came together to talk about everything from media to families, to education, employment, law, everything really positive. I think we need more Barbara Castles. Do you know who Barbara Castle was?

 Raquel: No, I don't. 

 Audrey: Okay. Have you heard of a film called Made in Dagenham? Okay. In the 1960s, the female workers from the Ford factory in Dagenham near London staged a very high profile strike because they were doing work and getting paid less than men who were doing the same work, who were getting paid more. And it led up to what's known, was known then, as the Equal Pay Act. There was a very famous high profile minister called Barbara Castle, who was a feminist icon and she really embraced the Dagenham women and she forced through the Equal Pay Act.

 I think you will get to a situation where you get a number of working class women as these Dagenham workers who were, they weren't university graduates, gender studies people, they were working class women and they fought for equal pay. And I'm heartened that I'm now meeting a lot more working class women who are saying to me, “I am really unhappy about this situation about male people in women's prisons and the possibility of not having a woman only psychiatric ward,” those sorts of things.

 And I'm seeing more and more working class women getting involved in this process and that heartens me. Whether I'm just being naive or not, I don't know. I also think you shouldn't underestimate middle-aged women. I think middle-aged women are amazing. Being one myself, we vote, generally speaking. We coordinate, we write letters.

 There's a TV series on at the moment called Mrs. America about the Equal Rights Amendment in the United States. And interesting, I saw the first episode and it was actually about an opponent to the Equal Rights Amendment called Phyllis Schlafly, who was very right wing. But what she demonstrated was how you could coordinate a lot of middle-aged women to get off their… and get on and do things and write letters and protest and all the rest of it. And the feminists underestimated her significantly.

 And I think that we are in a situation, a weird situation. I mean, as I say, I'm feeling politically very, very weird at the moment because traditionally I would say I'm very much on economic terms on the left and even slightly libertarian, I suspect on the right, even though I'm a discrimination lawyer, which seems like a contradiction, but it isn't in my view.

 But I'm meeting people of all political stripes and they tend to be middle-aged women, some younger women, but on the whole older women, women who’ve gone through the various generations of feminism, and I'm heartened by that. So, you know, whether that'll play out in the Dominican Republic, I don't know, because I've got no knowledge of the Dominican Republic or even the global south.

 But certainly that's how I feel about the United Kingdom. I think… I'm really heartened that this is not a right/left thing, it's not a religious/non-religious thing. And we've certainly not got the debate that they've got in the United States. It's a very different debate. Most of the people I meet are lefties.

 Is that your experience, Raquel? The feminists in Britain that you meet, they're mostly left wing? 

 Raquel: Oh, yes, yes. They are. They're very adamant about it. Yes. 

 Audrey: Trade unionists. Yes. You know, they're not religious. 

 Raquel: It was left wing women who are mainly middle-aged who put up that conference in February that you and I attended. And that was amazing. 

 Audrey: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think the thing is about it is, I suspect they've all come to the same view that I've come to. It's sort of that, “I'm not going to be bullied. You can stuff it.” You know, there's a confidence that comes with middle-age, which I think, you know, I'd like to share with my younger sisters, basically.

You know, I think I was probably a lot more worried about what people thought about me when I was 20. And I think that maybe what we need to be doing is building up younger women to have the sort of confidence that middle-aged women have got. 

 Raquel: You sound so bold. It's like, I have like 20 years left!

 Audrey: I'm not sure. I'm not sure about that. I think it's maybe just the mood I'm in at the moment. 

 Raquel: Yeah, no, it's wonderful. Okay, so I have another question and I think we we'll wrap up after that. Okay. So you have contributed to Legal Feminist and the website is legalfeminist.org.uk. And it's described as a collective of practicing lawyers, solicitors, and barristers who are interested in feminist analysis of law and legal analysis of feminism.

 Between all of you, you have a wide range of specialists areas. They aim to provide an accessible and informative commentary. So this is circling back to what you were mentioning at the beginning about the importance of public legal education. So can you tell us a little bit about this project and what does it aim to do?

 Audrey: Absolutely. Obviously, as part of the discussions, I'd met a number of other feminists who are practicing lawyers, from different parts of law. Some work in the city in commercial law, and some work in crime, and some work in human rights, and media, and other specialisms, and also some are in England and Wales, and some of them are in Scotland.

 And basically we had been talking around whether we would do legal conferences or we would do discussions, podcasts, whatever, and just came to the conclusion that what was missing was a place where people could submit articles looking at law from a feminist perspective, or feminism from a legal perspective, not overly technical articles, more discussion pieces, quite accessible, ones that anybody could dip into on topical issues.

 So for example, we've had contributions around cancel culture. We've had discussions around conflicts of rights, sport. We've also had contributions about why a lead singer of a band called Kasabian who committed domestic violence didn't go to prison under the current sentencing guidelines.

 A couple of pieces that were published by two feminists in the last couple of days were looking at the proposals of the Ministry of Justice to extend the court hours, which will impact very adversely on women lawyers who have families because of childcare arrangements. So we basically just wanted to have this collective, a very loose collective of people who could look at these issues from a feminist perspective and very much fill a gap in the market for blogs. 

 Raquel: Yeah. It sounds so badass though, you know, like it just sounds so awesome to get all these lawyers together and it's like we're going to analyse the law using a feminist lens. Have you received, what has been the reception to this project?

 Audrey: It's literally only been a week and we've had more than 10,000 visits to the site. Yeah, we're very pleased with the response. We've had lots of retweeting and, I know that one of the articles about extended court rights has attracted attention from various lawyers who are campaigning on this issue. So, you know, we are definitely capturing zeitgeist.

 The piece that I was particularly pleased about, which is not mine, was one done by a city lawyer looking at what organisations should do to address when they're invited on Twitter by a mob to cancel somebody and to sack them, and just practical guidance. And it was tremendously useful and I know that that's been shared very widely on professional circuits like LinkedIn.

 So hopefully it'll get a very much wider thing, because in practice there's a real thirst out there for this sort of very accessible short form blog. I think my main problem is I find it very difficult to write only a thousand words. My blogs tend to come out about twice as long as that…

 Raquel: Especially because you're writing about law, so you'll probably want to, like, explain everything as detailed as possible.

 Audrey: I think it's just because I talk a lot and my writing has the same style, I think. I'm not very pithy. But yeah, I'm not very experienced at blogging, but I'd like to do more. But I think also, I think it will lead on to other things.

 I think we're very hopeful that because we've had actually quite a reasonable response to it, surprisingly not that hostile, I'm hoping that this means that we've kickstarted a discussion amongst lawyers and amongst policymakers, et cetera, by basically mainstreaming the issue.

 I deliberately collaborated with WPUK on my blog about boxes because I was very keen to contradict the rubbish that was spoken about them by a number of leading UK politicians about them being a hate group.

 It's absolute nonsense that fairly radical trans people can describe them in those terms, and politicians just parrot it without doing any investigation of their own and realising that everything that WPUK have done is on their website, that they're very open and to be frank, very respectable.

 And so to write them off as a hate group is, frankly, you know, defamatory in my opinion. So I was very keen to give them support. I know that my blog has been downloaded, I think the latest was about 6,600 times. Which is a bit shocking, but I think that there's just, I think there's an appetite for this sort of cool analysis is probably how I des… do you know what I mean?

Even if I'm proved to be completely wrong, I'm hoping that I will attract people on the other side who are prepared to do similar levels of cool analysis and come up with pieces to explain politely why I'm wrong, so that we can have a proper debate. 

 Raquel: And that's why Legal Feminist is such a powerful tool. So please give our congratulations to the whole team. And what would you say to a young woman who is about to go into law precisely because she wants to study discrimination, because she's interested in sex-based rights, but she's looking at the hostile environment surrounding this issue. What would you say to that young woman?

 Audrey: I would say that you don't go into law to make friends, though, I have made loads and loads of friends. But your role is to advocate for your clients, and therefore you need to have the resilience to cope with people not agreeing with you. I would say get some work experience volunteering in a law centre or Citizens Advice Bureau or something like that so that you can experience why people need lawyers and get a passion for it as I did.

 I would say law is fun. It's exciting, you help people. Not very well paid in the sector I work in, which is the voluntary sector, but on the whole, you know, I have a good life. With regard to concerns about sex-based rights, I would say be passionate about everybody's rights. It's not just about sex-based rights.

 There's an ecology where everybody is human. Everybody's got rights. Sometimes the rights conflict, I won't necessarily be on the woman's side on all occasions. It may be, ironically, I might be on the trans sides on some occasions. That doesn't concern me. What concerns me is that people have access to justice, that the law is interpreted correctly, that we don't create injustice by unintended consequences.

 I think also get involved in practice. I understand people like you, Raquel, have had lots of adverse consequences to standing up for your rights. I suspect you've also had some benefits. And in the long term, I think you will get more benefits by standing up for your rights, just simply because I think that that will give you a greater sense of personal satisfaction.

 And I think helping other people to get that sense of satisfaction that you've stood up for your rights is really good. It's why I do my job. I think it's a fantastic career and I would recommend it to anybody. 

 Raquel: And what if she feels intimidated by this climate? 

 Audrey: Network, meet other people, meet like-minded people. There’s strength in numbers. Meet people of different generations, basically. You know. And it's very difficult to say “be brave” because that's very difficult, but bravery is something you have to practice, I think. I'm not sure. Is that your view?

 Raquel: I think so too.

Audrey: There's an element of, if you try it, you can try it a bit more and then you try it a bit more and then you can try it a bit more. I'm not saying you should do anything that you feel very, very discomforted by, but sometimes it's worth maybe being a little bit brave and if that works being a little bit more brave. But I also think get amongst like-minded people. There's a comfort. I've met so many brilliant people, mostly women as a result of this fight. It's just lovely.

 I've met some of the… I hadn't realised how funny radfems can be, I'm not really a radfem myself, but they are the most awesome women I have ever met and they are the best fun. So I think, you know, in practice… it's really interesting, I definitely, in some weird way, if it is a binary choice and I don't think it is binary in real life, I definitely wanna be on the radfem side, because they are the most fun and they'll drink you under the table you know, so much so. So that's been lovely.

 You know, I don't want to be in a world where everybody agrees with me, though. I want to be in a world where we can have disagreements and polite debates and all the rest of it. You know, I have friends who don't agree with me on this issue and it doesn't matter, you know, the point is about it is we have disagreements, but ultimately it… 

 I was brought up to debate issues of policy and stuff. This is not an emotive thing, this is a – sorry, I think I can accept that for other people it might be an emotional issue, but for me it's not. It's very much a clinical intellectual slash policymaking issue and therefore, I think that I can come into it probably in a slightly different way to other people. I'm not diminishing people who do come into it emotionally, but I didn't come down that route and I can only talk about my own journey. 

 Raquel: And that's the cornerstone of democracy, that we should be able to have these conversations openly and and debate politely and have disagreements, even heated disagreements, and intense disagreements.

 But yeah, what matters is that, you know, we don't resort to threats and violence and intimidation just when we are speaking about public policy. So thank you so much Audrey Ludwig, for engaging with us in this podcast. I have really enjoyed our conversation and learned a lot. So thank you for participating.

 Audrey: It's been lovely. Thank you. It's been really, really enjoyable. And congratulations on this brilliant podcast.