Some commentary from Eddie’s run today - available on YouTube.
Women in science in my youth, you know women on computers, women in science it just wasn’t encouraged but that’s great to see that out of the 3 people I know in charge of the teams and vaccines, two thirds of them are women so well done those women and I encourage more women.... I’ve said this and I’ll say it again until I’m blue in the face if you read the sapiens book 70 thousand years ago was the cognitive revolution and as soon as we realised that it was brain power that was going to make a difference there should have been equal pay, equal status, equal everything, voting rights... how long did that take... they were arguing for them back in the Greek democracy, that was 2 thousand years before we got them through. I mean how...why? it was delayed because of weak character men, weak character men have been the problem all the way down the centuries.
There are some weak character women, I mean yes that’s perfectly true, some of them signed up to work in the death camps, do very negative things but potentially our trajectory has been affected and the progress of tolerance of equality has been blunted and blocked by weak character men. Study that. Have a look at that. And now there are more and more laws going up that say no you can’t do that, you have to be equitable, we have to be open minded, tolerant, live and let live. If people are attacking trans people or gay people, lgbt people, people in the black community, people with any different skin colour then it is now that is hate crimes in a number of developed countries and developing countries hopefully.
I was talking to the gentlemen yesterday, one of the charities, saying we can change things, I think he was Care International who are trying to help girls and young women who are being oppressed by the system they are in, whether its administrative government or the systems or whatever it is and those things can be changed and quite quickly, that was his point, quicker than you think. You sometimes think we’ll try and effect change, it’ll take forever but [gets distracted by people walking by his building and begins talking about FairShare]
... there is a covid hell out there. No one is coming to help us. It is up to humanity. If there is a god I believe in it is humanity so people say non believers well we are believers, we believe in humanity. If you take any prayer, take out the word god and put the word humanity in it. Dear humanity thank you for letting me exist. I know it was just a roll of the dice. Thank you for my parents meeting in the city of xxx in Yemen that was a beautiful thing and my Dad’s previous wife, who went off with someone and really pissed off my Dad but then my Dad met my Mum so I must salute that woman who I wasn’t very positive about but if she hadn’t gone off at that time, timing is everything, then mum couldn’t have been there. My mother Dorothy who died far to young in 1968. So yes, hopefully she will be ok about this.
When I came out interestingly, actually, I came out first to my friends back in 85 and it took another 6 years of worrying about telling my Dad. I thought no screw this, I’m telling him. After a Crystal Palace football match, he had 2 season tickets, sometimes I would go, sometimes my brother would go and in a café in Croydon I told him. Actually the story is quite good, so football match me sitting next to Dad, now if you support a football team or any team, if your team loses that’s not a good time to tell difficult information. A draw is ok, a win is probably a good time but I was there sitting next to him and I didn’t want him to go. At that time I was TV. There was TV and TS. The language has changed over the years. Transgender has always been the overall name – the overall word in my head. But it wasn’t then, it was TV or TS but obviously these were horribly large latin words that had been demonised over many centuries so TV seemed a lot better. So I’m TV, that’s what he said. People say you are a TV, no I say I’m TV. What does that mean? That was in 85 so anyone who’s been puzzling over the language that I have adjusted over the years its because you do adjust language, you do get to a better place. More inclusive. Or a better defined place with your language, with our language. So I decided to reclaim the TV word, like many people who decided the word queer, they want to reclaim that, they took that back, good for them. I decided to take back the whole latin word TV, I decided I was an executive TV or an action TV. These where the 2 things and this is me being an action TV.
Then trans the movement, the word trans, transgender coming up, I always knew I was part of that group but I thought if that’s where everyone’s going I’m going to change my title to that. Not title but how I define my sexual[ity]....trans transgender a trans person. No big deal, don’t get obsessed about it. People get obsessed.
Imagine you are being attacked by a tiger. Ok. Now I doubt you’ll be going, well I doubt the tiger would be shouting to the tigers mate, there this man...it could be a woman...guy with long hair...I’m not sure...his features...could be trans...could be gay could be lesb... they just go this is a human being and if they are a tiger and they are attacking you, they are probably going to munch you...not a good situation. But they’re not really bothered about all that stuff. We’re bothered, they’re not bothered. Also you’re not bothered the other way round. You’re not going I’m being attacked by a tiger, a male tiger...a female...?...they kinda look the same, I cant tell, I’ll need to check.
We all start as human units. We all start as girls. In the foetus. Then some of us get coded boys. If you didn’t know that look that up. The ovaries and testis start as the same thing and get coded one way or the other and remember its XX and XY. Its not YY and XX. It’s XX and XY. That’s interesting. So everyone is somewhere on the spectrum. You can look very man and boy but you can feel more woman more girl and I think there’s 3 levels of spectrum. How you look, how you self identify and who you fancy. Those 3. The sliders can be anywhere. It’s just mother nature has given us that. Those are the cards you get given at birth. The genetic cards. Some of them are really tough cards.
In the end being trans isn’t as tough as I thought it would be. I’ve actually heard, there’s a number of people out there who feel that they have a tough time I think people can get to coming out... this could be anyone who is LGBT, particularly people who are trans to come out is much easier. Its much easier to come out now than ever before but once you come out you’ve got a 10 year fight to sort of reclaim your place in society. You had one as the biological boy... or girl you were born as looking like but then you need to readjust that in the world. That’s about a 10 year fight. Its a slog. People have a tough time on that fight. I think they think once you come out everything will be fine and that you’ll get a job, you’ll get a partner, it will all work out but its still as hard as it is for any straight person trying to get on in the world. So erm yeah, that’s just something, my analysis of the situation. so once I came out yeah it was in 85 but it was another 10 years but nothing really changed for anyone who is trans until 2014.
That was the tipping point in America, America is very good at sending out news around the world so I think that affected the world in 2014 with different things and er Laverne cox was named person of the year – a great transactivist - orange is the new black. She’s in that series. And Caitlyn Jenna in Vanity Fayre and how that was a front page item. Transparent series winning Golden Globes. Those 3 things at once. A triple hit. I think those things were all 2014. So that has moved the needle and made it easier in some ways but still some people will be very negative but now in Britain and hopefully in America....it could be a [inaudible] thing...these are hate crimes if people give you grief and I have had grief come my way and I have had fights in the street or people hurling abuse at me so I hurl it back, like a tennis racket of abuse. So yeah its not perfect but we’re in a better place.