Welcome to another episode of The Simply Equality Podcast, the podcast that seeks to foreground the lived experience of both LGBT+ and disabled people. In this episode we talk to Emily Brothers, a blind trans woman who is probably best known for being the first openly trans person to stand for parliament from one of the major parties.
Emily talks openly and honestly about her early childhood in working class Liverpool, losing the majority of her sight aged 10 and the challenges of navigating the world of education as a blind person. She explains how a donation from a group of striking factory workers sparked her political awakening . Emily speaks about her earliest memories of struggle with her gender identity and the events that led to her undergoing gender transition and coming out publically during her parliamentary campaign. She shares her thoughts on the reaction of her political peers and the press then and how things have changed for the worse today. It really is a great listen and regardless of your political persuasion (or lack of) you can't fail but be challenged and inspired to action by what Emily says.
Welcome to another episode of The Simply Equality Podcast, the podcast that seeks to foreground the lived experience of both LGBT+ and disabled people. In this episode we talk to Emily Brothers, a blind trans woman who is probably best known for being the first openly trans person to stand for parliament from one of the major parties.
Emily talks openly and honestly about her early childhood in working class Liverpool, losing the majority of her sight aged 10 and the challenges of navigating the world of education as a blind person. She explains how a donation from a group of striking factory workers sparked her political awakening . Emily speaks about her earliest memories of struggle with her gender identity and the events that led to her undergoing gender transition and coming out publically during her parliamentary campaign. She shares her thoughts on the reaction of her political peers and the press then and how things have changed for the worse today. It really is a great listen and regardless of your political persuasion (or lack of) you can't fail but be challenged and inspired to action by what Emily says.
Hi.
Sarah Stephenson-Hunter:So, um, tell us just a bit more about yourself in general terms, Emily, whatever you want to start with.
Emily Brothers:Ah, well, where to start? I'm Emily brothers. I live in London currently. I have a guide dog called Truffle, two children, William and Victoria, who are now adults. And yeah, so I'm active in the Labour Party, have had a career in both the voluntary and public sector. And I say where I'm living now, but I'm looking to move on elsewhere. Originally, I'm from Liverpool, that's where I grew up. So that's in sort of generic terms...
Sarah Stephenson-Hunter:So, um, you mentioned you're quite active politically. I think that's a little bit of an understatement. You've had a... well, you have had and still have an active political career. Do you wanna talk us through that a bit, and where that started, and things?
Emily Brothers:Yeah, I've been a... politically active throughout my adulthood. Very much a member of the Labour Party and related organisations, but really only in the last 10 years, very active in the Labour Party, both locally, regionally, and indeed, nationally. I've been very active in disability politics much more before this. My political awakening really started on Merseyside in the 1970s. As a child, I went through a lot of eye surgery to try and stop the loss of vision, which became too difficult when I was 10. And my consultant wanted me to go to Moorfields Eye Hospital here in London, and to get specialist help. And that was difficult because my dad at the time was on strike action, which was very, very common in the 1970s. So I lived through as a child, the three day week, and all the controversies of the time. And it was it was pretty tough, and they couldn't afford to take me to London for this advice. And so it was the strikers on Vauxhall Motors, in Ellesmere Ports on the picket line, who put a collection together that enabled us to come to London for that advice. And it was, in fact, not possible for them to do anything. And we came back early, and there was some money left over, and my dad tried to give the money back but the strikers said no, I should spend it on something that would help me with adjusting to blindness. With that we bought a Perkins Braille machine, which is a manual machine that types Braille. And that still sits on my desk today.
Sarah Stephenson-Hunter:Really, wow! I never was.
Emily Brothers:The story is important because it was a legacy of those strikers that stayed with me, and gave me the sense of solidarity and how it's important to work in a common endeavour, and why I've committed so much time and effort both to the labour and trade union movement, but also to wider politics. And both in terms of the disability movement and more lately to the LGBT community.
Sarah Stephenson-Hunter:Yeah, I mean, we'll come on to that in a moment.
Emily Brothers:Sure.
Sarah Stephenson-Hunter:But could you just talk us a bit more through what it was like growing up in Liverpool? And are you from a very working class background, as you've said? What was it like being a child with sight impairment in those days?
Emily Brothers:Well, I, um... yeah, I was in a working class family. My mother is partially sighted. So, there was some understanding in the family about visual impairment. As a young child, I had some sight, but it was going gradually, they always encouraged my independence, which is critical in whatever I have done ever since. I struggled in mainstream school. And they - the convention of the time was that blind and partially sighted and other disabled children went to specialist schools. So at the age of seven, I was shipped off to a Catholic convent school, where I boarded on a weekly basis, went home at weekends. That, I think, made me more isolated from the local community. So I lost contact with the children I would have previously associated with. As my sight got worse, then obviously there was... it was more difficult to go out and about, you learn new skills from the age of ten, such as using a long cane. I had to learn Braille. So my life changed. And I think in a special school, certainly in those days, it was a very sort of cocooned environment. It was quite strict and conventional in its thinking about all kinds of things. It was a - you know, run by Sisters of Charity, although many of the staff were not nuns. But it certainly had that culture. And I found that quite difficult as I was somebody who has always struggled with religion, and I found many of the issues that were sort of presented quite challenging. So much so that I was taken out of religious education classes because I was too challenging in not accepting the the conventions.
Sarah Stephenson-Hunter:You weren't a troublemaker that stage were you, Emily?
Emily Brothers:I think they would have seen it that way.
Sarah Stephenson-Hunter:Yeah, yeah. And that's - and again, I'm jesting, but that sort of pushing against things you don't agree with and challenging things has obviously being something that you've carried on throughout your life.
Emily Brothers:Indeed. Um, because I didn't like the kind of constraining special education system, I wanted to go to mainstream further education, and blind and partially sighted children didn't do that in those days. It's much more common now. And I always remember, about the age of 16, with my parents having a meeting with local careers advisor and someone from RNIB, about which special college I was going to go to, to train as a piano tuner or a basket weaver or a telephonist, or with a very clever physiotherapist. And, um, because the real... the bright people were sort of streamed into Worcester College for the boys and Chorley College for the girls. And I didn't go to either of those. And it was seen that basically you went on another track of more vocational. I said I want to go and do O and A levels at Chester College, which was close to where I lived. And I was told that blind people don't do that. And it ended up in a row, my Dad, being a trade unionist, was very much on my side, and went home and contacted the County Council to speak to a careers officer there, and we went on our own track. I met a senior lecturer at the college and had a provisional offer. And as all my schoolmates were going off to specialist colleges, I went into the mainstream and that was unheard of in those days. And I think also, it's fair to say that... it should be said that I- and this is how systems work. I never applied to any of those specialist colleges, but I had offers from them. And it was very telling, that for a couple of years, I was very much shunned by RNIB and other specialist organisations in terms of getting support, such as reading material. So I wanted to do Geography A level at mainstream further education. And there were maps available at the, at the specialist colleges. And my college were willing to obviously pay for transcription of [brown?] maps and diagrams by RNIB. And they refused. They said I could go to one of their colleges. Of course, I dug in my heels. It meant though, that I wasn't able to do the Geography A level that I wanted to do and go on to university to do that option. Instead, I studied history and politics. And I guess that gave me a greater interest in those areas that I've continued over the years. But it says very much about how the establishment operates and how thinking can change over time.
Sarah Stephenson-Hunter:What I find really fascinating is, you're only a few years older than me, a lady never talks about her age, but I think you're about six years older than me. I was probably very much at the tail end of that, because I grew up in Northumberland, working class parents, struggled through mainstream education. And there was a lot of pressure on my parents, from the council and others, to send me to a specialist school, which... I perhaps would have had some benefits, like learning to read Braille as a child, not learning it in later life, and other things. But equally there's sort of pros and cons either way, isn't there, Emily? And it's just interesting listening to you talk, because, you know, I remember having a discussion with my SEN teacher about applying to university. I was determined I was going to do that. But I found out afterwards that he'd been talking to my parents behind my back about trying to get them to dissuade me from applying, because really, I was overreaching myself and I shouldn't really be applying to university. So you know, there's only a few years between us. Yet those attitudes were still very much, still very much there. So, obviously, this podcast is about disability AND LGBT issues. For those who don't know you, Emily, I know that you came out in, was it 2014..
Emily Brothers:Yes
Sarah Stephenson-Hunter:... as being transgender, and you had your your reasons for that, which I'll let you talk about in a minute. And when you were growing up, when you were in that school, when you were in that environment, how were your feelings about your gender, your gender identity, if you even had such a language at that time?
Emily Brothers:I didn't have the language I always felt my inner being was female. And it didn't make sense. I, as a child with sight loss, couldn't access a whole wealth of information. This was before the internet and accessible information. All I had was, you know, standard textbooks, a working class family, no one had sort of been to university or were particularly educated. I went to a Catholic school that, you know, it was unthinkable to, to be gay, and not - certainly I didn't have the language about being homosexual or transgender or other diversity. And whenever it came up, it was in some kind of parody, you know, in the 60s and 70s, it was, you know very much about stereotypical views. And it was - I just didn't have the language or knowledge to be able to explore those feelings, and therefore, I suppressed it, I worked to try to be something that I felt other people wanted and felt that I needed to grow up to achieve. And I think it was only later in life when I was able to read more, explore more by meeting a greater diversity of people, that I was able to understand that actually, I wasn't the only person about who felt like this, who were going through these challenges. And because - and even without that knowledge, at the time, I knew that some terrible things happened to people who opened up about these kinds of things. I kind of knew that people went through things like electroconvulsive therapy and terrible treatments of that kind. And I just felt it was dangerous ground. And it's interesting recently,[inaudible] job and I was seeking selection and Liverpool, West Derby, which is the constituency in which just google I went to, back in the 1970s. That one of the teachers, in fact, the R.E. teacher I had, who felt I was perhaps not well disposed to her lessons, sent me a message via social media, because there was coverage locally, and said that she was sorry about the kind of environment that she had been part of in that time, she hoped that she would have, and others would have been supportive, but understood that it was a very, very different world at that time. That was quite a moving moment, communication, that it was something she didn't have to do all these decades later. But, you know, she did acknowledge it. And it was private, but it was important to me, and I think, to say a lot about how have we made progress as a society, even though there's still a long way to go.
Sarah Stephenson-Hunter:Yeah. I mean, you talked earlier about one of your prevailing feelings at that Catholic boarding school was isolation.
Emily Brothers:Yes.
Sarah Stephenson-Hunter:I'm presuming that was a big part of it, that you didn't feel there was anybody else like you you could relate to at the school.
Emily Brothers:Exactly. And I think both at St. Vincent's, but I think then, when I went into mainstream further and higher education, a different isolation because I was then, you know, blind, and living in a sighted world. So some of my ways of operating or networking, for example, were difficult and it was more challenging. And then also, you know, going on in terms of career, and indeed politics, that, um... isolating in other ways, both in terms of disability and also my LGBT experience. So I think even though you have people around you, and you're doing things in a practical way, and you're having conversations about other stuff, you can also be very lonely in the other ways in your life too. It isn't just about not having contact with people, but it's also having that contact with people who perhaps have that insight, that understanding, whether it be disability or gender or any kind of experience.
Sarah Stephenson-Hunter:I mean, what's really interesting is, I have a similar element to my story, and one of the questions I often get asked is sort of, how do you understand your sense of womanhood, in our case, when you are blind? How do you understand how you look, how you experience the world, as a woman who is also blind? I mean, what would... how would you express that or explain that?
Emily Brothers:I think it's just a sense of who I am, my inner self, it's about how I feel most comfortable. Before transitioning, I was never comfortable in my own skin. Since transitioning, I am comfortable in my own skin. It isn't about how I look. Of course, it's important because I want to blend, I don't want to be, you know, standing out as some figure of ridicule or... And it isn't about being sexy or attractive, and, you know - but it is about being comfortable and confident. So, you know, any woman would say that they would dress in order to be confident in themselves and in how they deal with the world around them. It isn't it, you know, it isn't about those stereotypes of being, you know, attractiveto other people necessarily. Of course, we want to be attractive to some people, because we might be attracted to them. It is something I'd struggled with over time. And that - I think it came with confidence. So in my transition, and yes, I would have tried to have done makeup and that kind of stuff. But it just didn't work for me, I just didn't have, even though I had support, I, you know, when I applied it, I I couldn't have the confidence that it looked good. I tended to go orange in terms of [laughter]. And I think that's the case for many blind women, particularly if they haven't done it from a young age, or when they had vision and then perhaps lost their sight. And then have been able to do it kind of unconsciously, it just comes naturally. They don't think about it, and the more you think about things, sometimes the more difficult it is to to accomplish it. Um, so after a while I you know, I ditched the makeup, I... well, there are things that are important, I get my, you know, my hair coloured, and brows shaped and that kind of stuff, it helps, it's good from my perspective. You know, my build, five foot two and, you know, medium, I, you know, I kind of perhaps fit a stereotype, so I don't stand out. You know, if I was you know, six foot five and, you know, muscular etc, then, you know, that would be much more difficult. So, um, I hate the phrase, but from the feedback I get from people I pass well. And that is, and I know that because of people I come across, they treat me as any other woman. And that's all I ask for in terms of respect, and just getting on with it. It isn't about having any notoriety or, you know, of any kind of sort of sexual orientation or gender identity, just about being a woman who gets on the bus, goes and does the shopping or, you know, goes to a meeting or whatever, just those ordinary things. It's a sense of been comfortable, people interacting with me in that way. And that's just being Emily basically.
Sarah Stephenson-Hunter:Did you find you had any issues as you were transitioning, post transition, in terms of acceptance with other blind women in particular, the sort of blindness community in general?
Emily Brothers:I don't believe so. Um, not long after I transitioned I in fact became president of the National Federation of the Blind, which is the the self-organised group of blind people in the country, leading organisation. And I think that would have been difficult if there have been those kinds of problems. I think one of the difficult things to get right is, particularly early in transition, and perhaps always difficult, is voice. While you may have a kind of visual impact and that is, and that can be well managed, voice for blind people is obviously very telling and, and therefore if you, although you may look the part of a woman you may not sound it. And I guess that incongruence can happen sometimes. I didn't find any. And that's why I did things like some voice training, for example.
Sarah Stephenson-Hunter:Yeah, I'm still doing voice training. And I think it's really good to speak to somebody who appreciates that certainly, as a blind person, you know, I can't see how I look, nor can you. So how I sound is important. And how I sound to others, particularly within the blindness community, is.. is, yeah, because I know when[inaudible] you can get, or what's your name? And I'll say, Sarah, and I think certainly the early days, you could tell brains were thinking, well, you don't sound like a Sarah. So sorry, could you just repeat your first name? Yes, it's Sarah. So yeah, I know exactly what you mean. Emily.
Emily Brothers:Yeah. I haven't had it, I think, um, I mean, I don't - most most of my time is not involved in these days, certainly in sort of organisations of and for blind people. I have spent times in and out of those organisations, but where my life is at the moment, that isn't the case, but may well be in the future. I think, you know, I don't think acceptance is any more successful or unsuccessful in the blind community than, you know, in a sighted environment. I think some people who knew me long before my transition, both sighted and blind people, probably found it more difficult to use my new name and get used to that. And I'd still have one or two people who should know better.
Sarah Stephenson-Hunter:Just in terms of timelines, I mean, when for you, did you begin that transition process? Whatever point you feel you began it?
Emily Brothers:Um, well, I, I started, what we call the real life experience in early 2007. Been under Charing Cross gender identity clinic for a number of years beforehand. And got to the point where, well frankly nothing was working, and it was... it come to a crossroad. And so it was in really mid 2006 when I came out to my then wife and, you know, it became a very difficult period, in early 2007 I left the family home, and started living full time as Emily. You know, a couple years later had gender surgery and obtained a gender recognition certificate, and here I am today.
Sarah Stephenson-Hunter:How did you find things like Charing Cross, because I know, I mean, I began my formal transition in 2013. And I went to the Nottingham gender identity clinic. And I feel... there wasn't, they weren't negative about the fact I was blind, but they hadn't come across many other blind people that were seeking to transition, either male to female or female to male. So it certainly did come up sometimes as part of the discussions around my experiences of gender. And how I experienced the world. Was that the same for you at all?
Emily Brothers:Um, which, certainly, the consultant, the psychiatrist I was supervised by did talk about my visual impairment and my experience. And there certainly wasn't ever sort of tangible examples to draw on. So I think it was, to some extent, a shared learning experience, to some extent. And I found it helpful. It was difficult in the sense that the gaps between sessions were quite wide, you'd have your hour, and then you'd toddle off for the next six months, or whatever it was. And I was, in that time, sort of thinking through my options, and, you know, whether indeed, I came out to [Leanne?], let alone the rest of the world. And so it was a useful time for me to reflect. In fact, before I went to the, through the NHS process, I had been going to a trans group, which here in London, people who'd sort of gone through the experience, and talked to other people. And that was quite, that was very helpful to do once a month. And after that, I learned of a private practitioner, and I went to see him, to kind of run by him my, sort of my issues and my experience, and whether I was actually, you know, truly on the right path. The, you know, hares running through NHS system. And then, of course, I went to see my GP as a result and then through to the gender clinic which, um, and, yes, so it was, um, I know a lot of people are frustrated by the process. But for me, it was useful in terms of being able to reflect and make the decisions that were going to be life affirming. Um, however, I think the pressures on the service that mean that people on long waiting lists, that appointments are too far apart. And of course, all the hoops that people have to go through in order to get hormone treatment and other interventions can be quite challenging for many people. For me, it wasn't difficult in getting sign-off. And maybe that was because I was being reflective and that was demonstrable. I don't know, but I am clear that the gender recognition system is not fit for purpose. It is not helpful to many trans people. And that's why we need reform. So that we move from a medicalization to a legal recognition system.
Sarah Stephenson-Hunter:Yeah, absolutely. Crazy, really, isn't it? I think there's a bit of a narrative out there, in the media, that as trans people, we just wake up one morning and decide, oooh, I think I'm trans. I think I want to transition. And next thing, you know, we're off to the doctors, and we're being given hormones, and then we're having surgery. And I think we both know, as do people listening to this, as do the thousands of trans people in the UK and worldwide. It's not a sort of a single point of decision is it, it's a longer process of self-reflection, discovery, and a journey, which- I think you're right, well I know you're right. I think the process is not fit for purpose, and there needs to be change. But I think that time for reflection is important.
Emily Brothers:Yes, but I think we also need to recognise that many people who fit into the transgender spectrum, are people who will not go through gender reassignment surgery. They may just have hormone treatment, or, you know, voice therapy, or a different combination, It's a much smaller group of people, subset of people, who would fit into what we would might describe as the sort of transsexual group. And, and whilst there obviously has to be medical safeguards if there are those kinds of interventions, in terms of recognising people legally, in terms of statutory rights, in terms of things like passports and all that kind of stuff. Then I don't think, you know, that that should be withheld in the same constraining way from, I mean, the way that this is -
Sarah Stephenson-Hunter:I know what you mean. And again, I would definitely agree with that point. And it's a point I try and make whenever I'm asked to speak about trans issues: that, you know, just because you and I, Emily, have a similar story, and we've ended up in a similar destination, in terms of that sort of transition from binary male to binary female, we are probably a smaller proportion than people think, and there are lots of people whose transition journey is a much more fluid journey, interruptions along the way. And they may stop at a point that we haven't, but that doesn't mean they're any more or less valid in their transition or identity. Quite. Um, so jumping forward a bit, obviously, you have your political career, and it brings us to a point that you decide to stand for Westminster elections. Could you talk us bit through that? And then obviously, through that came the point at which you either decided or felt it was necessary to publicly come out as trans. Do you wanna just talk us through some of that journey?
Emily Brothers:Yeah, I mean, I joined the Labour Party, age of 17 I think, 1981, and have been a member ever since. And I was active when I was a student. And then of course, when I then went on to have a career and a family, you know, it wasn't such a main feature in my life because of of demands. So I didn't go to meetings. In 2010, I had a call from another member who said would I stand for the council, they wanted some paper candidates. And I agreed, but I don't do anything by paper alone. So, I did actually start getting involved. And as I got more active, the... my local seat was selecting in 2014. And I decided to throw my hat in the ring. And, well that that was - sorry, in the timeline was late 20.. yeah, 2013 is when the selection was. And I was successful, and had the next nearly 12 months, quite active in what we describe as a non-winnable seat certain achievements, Sutton and Cheam in Southwest London. And my profile was increasing, not just locally, but also nationally, I was doing quite a bit on, particularly in the area of disability. I spoke at the Labour Party conference on the NHS debate, and had a really good, positive reception. And as I was, um, as things were, I'd sort of, had never talked about my gender history. But it was coming clear to me that at some point, a journalist, a newspaper somewhere, would cotton on to my past, and use that in a negative way, by suggesting here was another politician not being honest about their past. We've seen many examples of that being the case, in other sort of spheres of political life. And I talked to the then equalities minister, Gloria De Piero, who had a, an experience, where she'd done some modelling when she was younger, and much later in life... you know, she'd been, you know, a TV presenter, and then became an MP, and they were going to be shared, and she decided to, to pre-empt the sort of negative publicity, and we talked about that experience and other people's. And I then came to the conclusion that I should actually just lay out for what it was. And so we set up a TV interview and newspaper, London Evening Standard article. So I could come out. And I do remember sitting in the TV studio, and there was a top of the hour story where I was being interviewed about my decision to come out, and they were reading the news headlines, and I felt, actually, you know, should I should I bolt, should I run for it? What on Earth was I doing? Because I was kind of revealing part of my life that I would have preferred not to have done.
Sarah Stephenson-Hunter:Mmm, mmm.
Emily Brothers:I thought it was important to do it, in order to be, yeah, to be told, you know, truth to power. And somehow I got through the interview, and the Evening Standard a few hours later published an article. And little did I then realise, but then the next morning, very widespread coverage, both in this country and overseas, and on it went for some time, about being the first, not just the first Labour trans parliamentary candidate but also of either of the two main political parties. And I clearly got a sense of, at that point, a lot of positivity from the media, and I think that was because I had decided to come out and try to make a positive direction on my story. I think it was also interesting for them because of the dimension with my disability.
Sarah Stephenson-Hunter:Mmm, absolutely.
Emily Brothers:That was interesting. So there was a lot of coverage. The only... and I also got a sense very early on that it was proving to be empowering to many trans, and indeed disabled people, that here was somebody in public life who had perhaps not the same experience, but a similar story to tell. And I think that was helpful. And I certainly hope it was helpful to a lot of people, of course. And I spoke about it to a lot of magazines, online services, newspapers, various features, all that kind of stuff. And I think that just helped to hopefully, develop more understanding around gender identity and indeed, disability, the only fly in the anointment, of course, was the columnist Rod Liddell who wrote in The Sun, since she's blind, how did she know she was the wrong sex? Which came the next day in the Independent was, when Rod Liddel goes to bed at night and turns off the lights, how does he know is a man? Which accords, doesn't it not? About we were talking about earlier?
Sarah Stephenson-Hunter:Yep.
Emily Brothers:About sense of, you know, gender, when you're blind. And I know in a way that he presumably knows when he is... doesn't have vision that he's still, he's still a guy.
Sarah Stephenson-Hunter:Mmmm, absolutely.
Emily Brothers:And of course, there was no answer. So maybe he's still working it out.
Sarah Stephenson-Hunter:Maybe find the media balanced or focused, that whole tension between you being blind, you being trans, did they tend to focus on one more than the other? How was that?
Emily Brothers:Oh, I think they were more interested in the fact of the transgender story. That was the key factor. I mean, some certainly did cover the disability angle. And I think certainly the link between the sort of tenacity that I've shown in terms of dealing with my impairments of blindness and hearing impairment in more recent years. And also, you know, those challenges of gender transition, and so I think it was largely about the gender identity. I think it was a time when there was curiosity in terms of the press, we are now moved into a time of greater toxicity around transgender issues. If I was, if I was presented with the same dilemma today, some five years later, it would have been more difficult to do because of the level of hostility that there is out there at the moment. And I think that is also translated into things like it being more difficult to get selected, for example, for winnable seats with the Labour Party. That just hasn't been possible. I tried in 2017 and 2019. The...and even though, we did have some trans parliamentary candidates who have followed since and that's great. And they played a contribution, which is really important and hold... continue to encourage them and others to get involved. We are in a different place. And I do worry about where we are at the moment and the hostility there is towards issues around transgender and indeed trans people.
Sarah Stephenson-Hunter:Do they ever come up much when you are campaigning on the doorsteps, your being trans? Did you get talked about much?
Emily Brothers:No. No.
Sarah Stephenson-Hunter:Isn't that interesting, because in the modern - in the modern time, in modern times, gosh, you know, here we are 2020, there's this impression that everyone's talking about being trans, and everybody's up in arms about it, and everybody's got an issue of who's got an opinion, and yet there you were out on the doorstep campaigning, and it never got raised.
Emily Brothers:No, never, not on the doorstep, streets, doors, public meetings, all the usual campaign activities, and I didn't cover it in any leaflets or anything of that nature, you know. People are interested in, you know, to Brexit or not Brexit, in parking in the streets, on education standards at local schools, wherever they're going to build on the local park, whether the local hospital is going to have its A and E closed or not. Those are the issues that people are interested in, they're not, you know... Yes, they'll read the local newspaper, or national newspaper or look on Twitter, or Facebook, you know, oh, you know, this person has cis experience or not. But, you know, when it comes to the crunch, that people are, you know, interested in what your politics are, on what you're going to do for them and their family and their local community. And that's just as it should be. I think - I think probably there are more question marks around a disabled person's ability to do the job. And I think that was probably more of a factorin the way that it often is when disabled people seek employment. And that's often because of lack of understanding and awareness. Well, as you know, some, you know, deep rooted fears about, you know, people's capacity to deliver. And I think that is largely wrong. And, you know, it's why we have high levels of unemployment amongst disabled people, we also do amongst trans people, you know, particularly if they are not in work at the time of transition. So, um, I think it's fair to say that it isn't an electoral disadvantage, to be trans, in a sense of how people vote, but I think political parties perceived it, perceive it as a risk. I came out after being selected. If I had come out before being selected, I wonder, there's a question mark there for me about whether I would have got on a ballot paper.
Sarah Stephenson-Hunter:Mmmm.
Emily Brothers:Because my 2017 and 2019 efforts, which have quite extensive, have demonstrated to me that the Labour Party weren't in a position to support me. And that might be because of a whole host of issues, you know, where my politics are, as my disability or gender identity, but I do sense a good level of being risk averse, that we haven't yet had a trans person fight a... an election or by-election, which was winnable for that party.
Sarah Stephenson-Hunter:What would you say to people listening to this who are disabled and LGBT, about their involvement in politics, whatever flavour that is, would you have any words of advice or wisdom to share with them?
Emily Brothers:Um, well I think you need to be clear about your own ambitions. And that is not in terms of how you get on, but in terms of how, why you want to contribute. And is it to, you know, is it to disability issues? Is it to gender issues? Is it to the wider community? So I think, you know, for me, it was a combination of those things. I think in many ways, it's, it's really rewarding, you have a lot of different things to do, a lot of teamwork to, to build. It's certainly a challenge if you're... but if you're perhaps feeling fragile, maybe you're perhaps not quite comfortable with your impairment, and how those disabling barriers impact on you, if you're not comfortable about your gender or being out about it, or your sexual orientation, then you need to understand those factors. And, you know, and people's responses will be different. You do have to be prepared, though, for some level of scrutiny, and that is like any politician. But of course, when we're talking about your gender history, um, that can be very personal, very painful. And you have to be comfortable with sharing it. And if you're not, then you have to be willing to hold that boundary and be clear that you're not going to talk about it. But we are underrepresented in public and political life. There are no trans parliamentarians or members of assemblies. The Labour Party has two councillors, that I'm aware of in the country. Very underrepresented. Disabled people, there's four or five disabled people in the House of Commons, you know, 20, around 20% of the population are disabled people, hardly representative for five out of 650 representatives, so few councillors or assembly members. Um, if we are to be a truly diverse and representative nation, then we need to have more disabled people and trans people and non binary people in political and public life. And then, and that's not just all in politics, perhaps on boards of, you know, companies and voluntary organisations, community groups, public bodies, we need to see... because it isn't just about ticking the box in terms of data diversity, it's about the fact that we bring different experiences to the table. And that means a different perspective.
Sarah Stephenson-Hunter:Is more to do is to do with that. So intersectionality and lessons that can be learned from both the LGBT and disability communities. Do you have any particular views on what they could learn from each other, things that could benefit each other?
Emily Brothers:Yeah, um, I think the disability movement in the last, what, 40 years and which I've been involved with it, have developed a narrative around what we call the social model, moving from a medicalization approach. And I think there's probably quite a lot for the LGBT community, particularly the trans community, that can learn from what the disability movement has done in shaping that narrative from a care-based approach to a rights approach. So you know, while disabled people, you know, needed to fit in, you know, what we called it integration, many years ago, well actually society needs to change to meet our needs and aspirations, and that's what we call inclusion. Moving from, you know, our lives being run by doctors and social workers to actually ourselves as disabled people, making independent choices, and the movement around independent living and, you know, being shaped by the the rights that are underpinned by the UN CPRD, which is the United Nations Convention on the rights of disabled people, so a much more rights approach, which needs to be enshrined in UK law in the future. So I think that's something the trans community could could learn from. I think the disability movement could learn from, perhaps the broader LGBT community, in terms of how it how it kind of, in quite a professional way, interacts in terms of communications and engagement. I think the disability movement could learn more about that, those communication methods, I think of the LGBT community. And also I think the social interaction that it does very well, with Pride and various other events. I mean, a lot of people find a lot of - a great deal of solidarity from Pride events and other similar getting together opportunities. And I think the disability in movement is perhaps a bit more, yeah, perhaps a bit rigid in its approach, and could perhaps celebrate and communicate a bit better about disability. So of course, see, you know, trans community is much more disperate, in the sense that there's very little resource available. It's very much about self organisation, and that can be quite patchy, and so there's quite a bit that those groups and individuals could learn in terms of how we develop ourselves as a movement. In terms of the intersectionality, then I think, for me that, you know, different things interplay at different times. So, yeah, I might experience some, you know, discrimination or prejudice because of my disability one day or an hour. And then something else another day, or hour, in terms of my gender identity.
Sarah Stephenson-Hunter:Well, I don't know about you. But that was a really, really fantastic interview. I'm really grateful to Emily for sharing her expertise, her experienced, being open, being honest. And I think it really does shine through there, the determination that she's had, to if you like, pick something in life and just go for it. And that's very much the way I try and live my life too. So that's the end of another episode. Do feel free to leave some feedback or get in touch with me, but if not, take care and I'll be back soon. Thanks. Bye.