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Scottish Government consultation on gender recognition laws, Hazel Hunt, Pragna Patel, Rosie de Courcy & Megan Nolan

Consultation on changing gender recognition laws: policy analyst Lisa Mackenzie says the SNP is breaking a manifesto commitment by only meeting trans rights groups.

How widely is the Scottish Government consulting on its plans to allow people to legally change sex without a medical diagnosis? Emma Barnett speaks to Lisa Mackenzie from MurrayBlackburnMackenzie, an Edinburgh-based policy analysis collective who say the SNP is breaking a manifesto promise, by only meeting with groups representing trans rights since last May’s Holyrood election.

Military mums rally in protest at the decision to award former Prime Minister Tony Blair a knighthood. Hazel Hunt, whose son Richard died in Afghanistan, is considering sending back the Elizabeth Cross that her family had received as a mark of protest.

Southall Black Sisters was founded in 1979 to address the needs of Asian, African-Caribbean and minority women and to empower them to escape violence. Pragna Patel was one of the founders of Southall Black Sisters and today is her last day as Director. We talk to her about the chages she’s witnessed and the role she’s held for over 30 years.

It's ten years since the popular fiction writer Maeve Binchy died and forty years since her first best seller Light a Penny Candle was published. What has been her legacy for the generation of Irish women writers that followed and what is the role of editors in creating best-sellers? We talk to Rosie de Courcy Senior Editor at Head of Zeus publishers and Maeve's long-time editor, and Irish author and journalist Megan Nolan.

Taking photos or video recordings of breastfeeding mothers in public without their consent is to be made a crime in England and Wales, punishable by up to two years in prison. We catch up with the woman who started the campaign Julia Cooper.

Presenter: Emma Barnett
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson
Studio Manager: Donald McDonald

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58 minutes

Broadcast

  • Wed 5 Jan 2022 10:00

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