People have been telling me for ages to listen to the series of Stephen Nolan podcasts about the highly unusual relationship that various public bodies have with the lobbying group Stonewall. Ironically I haven’t really had the time to do that until now because I’ve been so tied up over the last month with exploring options for getting the Scot Goes Pop poll on GRA reform off the ground – which, for reasons I’ll never be able to publicly explain, has been one of the most stressful things I’ve done in a long time (although those reasons do relate to some of the issues covered by the podcasts). Anyway, I’ve finally had a chance to draw breath, and I listened in full to the episode about Stonewall’s dealings with the various governments of the UK. Roughly half of the episode is about the Scottish Government, and in particular its decision – at Stonewall’s urging – to stop using the word “mother” in documents relating to maternity and replace it with “pregnant person”. The original replacement term was “pregnant woman”, but even that wasn’t satisfactory enough for Stonewall, who insisted on a gender-neutral term instead.
My first reaction was that this is all a bit comical and trivial, because it’s merely about words (albeit slightly ludicrous words) rather than about substantive policy changes that affect people’s lives. But as anyone who has read Orwell knows, language shapes our experience of the world around us, particularly the way we categorise people and things. A useful example that is sometimes cited is how the English and Welsh languages encode different perceptions of where one colour ends and another colour begins – with an equivalent Welsh word for ‘green’ encompassing what we as native English speakers would regard as shades of grey. In a sense the word in each language actually creates the colour, at least as a broad category, rather than the other way around. By the same token, if we become compelled to use the “cis” prefix before “man” or “woman” (another issue touched on by the Nolan episode), reality will become encoded by the words, and what we previously thought of as men and women will come to be understood instead as merely sub-categories of each gender. That will affect people’s real life behaviour and the way we interact with each other – which of course is the whole point of trying to reshape our language in the first place.
On the subject of Orwellian language, it was incredibly dispiriting to hear in the podcast that the Scottish Government had refused to be interviewed or to answer detailed questions, and instead simply sent the producers a very brief written statement full of ultra-politically correct buzz-phrases that bore only a tenuous relation to what was being asked. This is obviously in keeping with the militant “it’s not up for debate” stance on gender issues, but I think the Scottish Government would be well-advised to consider how they’re suddenly putting up walls between themselves and the people they serve and represent. Previously they’ve always been noted for breaking those barriers down, with Nicola Sturgeon being much-praised for being informal and accessible, and interacting like a real person on social media. Much of that good work is now being put to the sword in the service of a dogma that most people simply cannot understand. There was a golden opportunity for Christina McKelvie to go on the podcast as Equalities Minister and to have a real conversation, using plain language, to demystify what the Scottish Government is doing. Instead, the government did the complete opposite and made itself look remote and aloof.
As for the BBC, which is also one of the public bodies that has a weird relationship with Stonewall, Stephen Nolan has made the point that it funded, supported and published the podcasts. But this just makes me think about what a deeply peculiar organisation the BBC is. It’s somehow been subject to institutional capture from two groups that have nothing in common with each other – gender identity activists on the one hand, and Brexit hardliners on the other. The BBC self-censors on gender to please one particular part of the trendy liberal left, but it also self-censors to please populist right-wingers by failing to report on Brexit as the root cause of many of the challenges the UK currently faces. Shortages of goods and petrol are presented as bafflingly random acts of God, rather than events with a very simple cause-and-effect explanation.
And, yes, the BBC’s all-time favourite subject is itself and it does very often engage in self-analysis and self-scrutiny. But it’s nevertheless curious how there is an unspoken understanding of the acceptable boundaries of that self-scrutiny. It remains utterly unthinkable for there to be a BBC documentary or podcast series exploring the reasons behind the BBC’s extraordinary behaviour in the crucial penultimate week of the independence referendum campaign.
Funding for Scot Goes Pop polling: During the summer, I crowdfunded for two polls – one on GRA reform and related gender issues, and one on independence and related issues. Neither set of funding raised enough for the type of full-scale poll I ideally wanted to commission, although a substantial amount was raised for the GRA poll, and I was initially confident that it would be enough as long as I shopped around and limited the number of questions. Unfortunately I was wrong, and it proved to be impossible to commission a more limited poll with a questionnaire that resembled the one I had intended. In order to break the logjam, I’ve gone ahead and commissioned a comprehensive GRA poll from my first-choice firm (with a few topical political questions added on). The results are anticipated over the coming week. This is a much better option, but it’s also more expensive, and I’m covering the shortfall from the crowdfunding with my own money. Obviously I’d prefer to only lose that money temporarily, though, and I also still need to complete the funding for the independence poll, which I hope to run over the coming months. In an effort to solve both problems, I’ve set up a new dedicated polling fundraiser which you can find HERE. Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far. Running total as of lunchtime on Sunday: £875 raised out of £6500 target figure (13% funded). You can also find an alternative payment method HERE (scroll down the post).
