Ludovic Parsons

@ludovicparsons.bsky.social

🗞️ Queer British journalist 🏳️‍🌈 Reporting on LGBTQ+ issues for Gay Times, Vogue, Novara etc. 🕵🏻‍♂️ Lead investigative journalist @wearequeeraf.com 🏳️‍⚧️ He/him ludovicparsons.com

This section by the awesome @ludovicparsons.bsky.social in QAF sums up in a nutshell the nature of the entire campaign against trans people by the rightwing media establishment. These “journalists” are also the ones claiming that - somehow - trans people are silencing transphobes.

Seventeen thousand articles were published about so-called 'trans issues' by just four British newspapers in five years, according to new research from Amnesty International UK.
The vast majority of the reporting excludes Trans+ perspectives and platforms' anti-trans talking points, the research found.
The four newspapers - The Sun, The Times, The Guardian and The Telegraph - mentioned JK Rowling 106 times in their coverage, with 202 mentions of a prime minister or political party leader.
Trans people themselves were mentioned by name just 24 times. Sixteen of those mentions were murdered teen Brianna Ghey, and eight were convicted rapist Isla Bryson.
QueerAF@wearequeeraf.com · 2mo ago

The rapid rise of 'gender critical' organisations and high volume of anti-trans media coverage has been mapped for the first time by @amnestyuk.bsky.social 

Wes Streeting says in this piece the 'honest truth' is he and Labour don't know what's behind rising demand for mental-health services. embarrassing for anyone to admit in a national paper that they can't join those dots, but especially so when you are literally the health secretary.

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“The gender clinic system is structurally flawed, working not for Trans+ people’s health and wellbeing but against Trans+ existence itself.” The views of cis people determine whether trans folk can access medical transition. We need a health system to better support trans people’s bodily autonomy.

A brief history of how the UK’s broken Trans+ healthcare system only serves its cisgender doctors

History shows us that the UK’s Trans+ healthcare system isn’t broken – it’s working exactly as it was meant to, right from the very start

wearequeeraf.com

“The clinics and the diagnosis don’t have to exist.” Take the time out to get into this hugely informative and prescient long read from @ludovicparsons.bsky.social about the history of our healthcare. Our healthcare doesn’t have to and shouldn’t be this way.

QueerAF@wearequeeraf.com · 5mo ago

History shows us the UK’s Trans+ healthcare system isn’t broken – it’s working exactly as it was meant to. @ludovicparsons.bsky.social, explores the history of the creation of the Trans+ healthcare system, and its gatekeeping by design 👇 www.wearequeeraf.com/a-brief-hist...

Given the news about adult Trans+ healthcare reviews, and the removal of care for under 18s, this excellent piece of journalism by @ludovicparsons.bsky.social - is incredibly timely To fight back, we all need to better understand the system that was built to gatekeep, not help Trans+ people 👇

QueerAF@wearequeeraf.com · 5mo ago

History shows us the UK’s Trans+ healthcare system isn’t broken – it’s working exactly as it was meant to. @ludovicparsons.bsky.social, explores the history of the creation of the Trans+ healthcare system, and its gatekeeping by design 👇 www.wearequeeraf.com/a-brief-hist...

timely for this to be out this week: a longread from me about the history of trans healthcare in the UK i.e. why we are in the mess we are in featuring some historical enemies – Richard von Krafft-Ebing, John Randell – and an amazing line about gender doctors from @notrightruth.bsky.social

QueerAF@wearequeeraf.com · 5mo ago

History shows us the UK’s Trans+ healthcare system isn’t broken – it’s working exactly as it was meant to. @ludovicparsons.bsky.social, explores the history of the creation of the Trans+ healthcare system, and its gatekeeping by design 👇 www.wearequeeraf.com/a-brief-hist...

Important journalism by @sasha98.bsky.social, one of very few news outlets actually capturing the severity of the threat to trans children in the draft school guidance.

QueerAF@wearequeeraf.com · 5mo ago

“The government has engineered a situation where materially accommodating a Trans+ child now presents a major headache for even the most well-intentioned school administrator,” @sasha98.bsky.social We spoke to 19 Trans+ pupils about the latest education guidance ⬇️

Worth noting that this risk of outing was one of the features that won Goodwin v UK in the European court of human rights. It's treatment institutionally that can cause outing that resulted in the UK losing against Christine Goodwin and being forced to implement the gender recognition act.

QueerAF@wearequeeraf.com · 6mo ago

High Court dismisses fears Trans+ people would be outed as “gossip at work” in rejection to challenge to EHRC single-sex guidance. Understand the judgement: www.wearequeeraf.com/grim-decisio...

From section 73 of the judgement that reads: 
73. I accept these concerns are sincerely held. However, the existence of less favourable treatment is a question for the court to decide; a Claimant’s subjective beliefs are not determinative.  On this issue, the circumstances of a particular situation could, as a matter of theory, lead to the conclusion that a requirement to use the unisex or accessible lavatory rather than an available single sex one might amount to less favourable treatment, but I consider this is likely to be the more rare rather than more common conclusion. So far as concerns use of public lavatories it ought rarely, if ever, be the case that a person using a unisex lavatory rather than an available single-sex one will ever be a matter of comment by others.  One point  raised was that the unisex provision is often labelled “accessible” or “disabled”. That is a current common practice, but it is not a practice that is invariable or need continue. There is no reason why, if only as a matter of sensible accommodation, the labelling could not change. A propensity for gossip is a feature of every workplace. So far as concerns gossip at work, no employee can expect not to be the subject of gossip about something on some occasion.  Gossip is usually temporary; it is in its nature to be short-lived, as one subject is quickly overtaken by another. Up to a point, being the subject of comment by others is burden that anyone can expect to bear from time to time, and ought not to be a foundation for legal redress.

get an accessible, straightforward explainer of today's High Court ruling against the Good Law Project's challenge to the EHRC interim guidance on single-sex spaces – direct to your inbox tomorrow morning. sign up here: www.wearequeeraf.com/subscribe/

QueerAF@wearequeeraf.com · 6mo ago

This is a breaking story 🚨 We're working with our lead Trans+ journalist @ludovicparsons.bsky.social to respond, analyse the judgment and bring you a full explainer in our newsletter tomorrow 💪 Join 10,000+ readers, who'll get an accessible, nuanced understanding 🏳️‍⚧️ wearequeeraf.com/subscribe

We heard last week from @ludovicparsons.bsky.social at the After Section 28 conference on the importance of journalism that both supports and employs LGBTQ+ people and their allies. QueerAF are a shining example, and they could reach a wider audience with a little more support

QueerAF@wearequeeraf.com · 6mo ago

🏳️‍⚧️ In the past year, our investigations have set the news agenda - and have been used in debates about Trans+ rights in Parliament. Here’s the impact your support makes possible 👇🧵 www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/queeraf202...

QueerAF graphic showing screenshots of investigative reporting on trans healthcare and parliamentary debate, displayed on a website and phone screen. Text reads: “If we can deliver investigative journalism that shapes parliamentary debates like this on a shoe-string — imagine what more we can do if we hit our crowdfunder target?”

when i started working as a journalist in 2014, there were trans reporters in multiple national newsrooms. almost all have left. the high output of anti-trans articles & the near absence of articles by trans journalists are two sides of the same coin: institutional transphobia in the UK media.

Not In Our Name (NION) Women@nionwomen.bsky.social · 6mo ago

And now @ludovicparsons.bsky.social highlights the huge increase in anti-trans articles over the last 10 years, as the number of trans journalists falls. The challenge to get positive ripples of trans lives covered, in a sea of gender critical misinformation