Short Cuts today: Arlie Arlington

[Shedbuilder]

I think Josie Long, presenter of Short Cuts, has already established her woke credentials but poor Arlie Arlington was new to me. Arlie went to Goldsmiths by the way.

Arlie's segment, from 17 minutes in, is about the horrors of having to use the loo when you're out and about as a transperson. Particularly the horrors of using the ladies loo when you don't identify as a lady even if you were born one. The horror, the absolute screaming horror, of people not seeing you as you know yourself to be — I mean, who could ever understand?

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000k9bc

Most women, Arlie. Me, certainly. Inside I'm a young kd lang. Outside I'm just a rather plain and chunky 58-year-old butch-looking dyke who, like you, gets stared at in the ladies but doesn't live in the agony of existential angst you seem to celebrate.

Towards the end of the segment Arlie talks about the sacredness of Arlie's gender and self. Arlie has a transcendent moment on a bus and suddenly things get distinctly religious and visionary, with all the sacred transpeople radiating light and recognising each other. I was driving a van while I listened to this so if I haven't remembered it all precisely it'll be because of the traffic.

We talk about trans ideology as being a cult and there were moments in this when it felt like a religion. If you have 12 minutes, try it.

Radio is not the right medium for a female voice to be describing existential angst about going in female toilets.

"all day you get treated like you are someone else"

She's talking about going to the toilet. Such foolishness.

I heard it first go around. I ground my teeth so much it reminded me I really need to book at the dentists.

From the account in the programme you would think that Arlie Adlington going to the women's toilets was an exercise of such extraordinary peril they are lucky to survive each encounter. I wanted to ask two questions:

1. If going to the women's toilet means you're taking your life in your hands each time, why not use the men's? (The answer to that is pretty obvious.)
2. If you simply said to the incredibly threatening women in the women's toilets "I'm actually a woman" they'd go "oh, right, no worries then". So why not just use communication? (The answer to that is there would be no drama to revolve around Arlie.)

As Shedbuilder wrote, the second part of the segment was bizarrely mystical and religious. It seemed to be a through-the-looking-glass account of Arlie feeling that they were passing and everyone around them was accepting of their identity. Rather than just going to work and not making Arlie the entire point of their journey.