Fionne Orlander is a British transwoman who finds themselves at odds with the trans ideology & activism that represents that supposedly represents them. (Fionne’s choice of pronouns.) Despite a more controversial stance, Fionne is a rare and charming breath of air on Twitter, and her common sense and politeness might be what earned her a public invitation to go for a drink with JK Rowling. We talked about realising they were trans, what it means to them, being an outlier in the trans community, surviving hostile social media, and why we are all standing in the ruins of gender.

 

Find Fionne on Twitter: https://twitter.com/FionneOrlander 

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Fionne’s freethinking recommendation is an article by Miranda Yardley which imagines society without gender: https://mirandayardley.com/en/judith-lorber-imagining-a-world-without-gender/ 

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Thinking is free but podcasts are not! Please support more #Freethinking on Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/lauradodsworth

Dr Naomi Murphy is a consultant clinical and forensic psychologist. She has over 20 years of experience of finding ways to make psychological treatment accessible to people who’ve found it hard to access mainstream services and have often been labelled “untreatable”. She is currently Clinical Director of the Fens Unit within a high secure prison at HMP Whitemoor which offers an innovative trauma-focused treatment programme incorporating body based therapy, mindfulness, yoga, virtual reality and bioneurofeedback. 

 

Naomi and I talked about treating the ‘untreatable’, what it’s like working in a high secure prison, and what drew her to this work.

 

@NMPsychologist on Twitter Her freethinking recommendation is César Hidalgo, who has a radical suggestion for fixing our broken political system: automate it! This is his TED talk on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyGWML6cI_k She also recommended by 'Range' by David Epstein which, in turn, I can recommend!

 

Please help me create more episodes of Freethinking by supporting my Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/lauradodsworth

Mike is an independent Funeral Celebrant and Dying Doula. He runs workshops on 'death and dying' including Dying To Talk sessions, creating safe spaces to talk about death. He offers support to families to help them make informed choices about all aspects of dying and Funerals, especially Home Funerals.

 

I met Mike at one of his death and dying workshops about 10 years ago and it prompted to me think about death differently. His approach is 180 degrees away from the 24 hour funeral service approach. We talked about the impact of World War 1 on attitudes to death, how his mother died, using Zoom at funerals in lockdown and talking to the bees.

 

His freethinking recommendations: ‘Die Wise’ by Stephen Jenkins and a film about him called ’Griefwalker’ at https://www.nfb.ca/film/griefwalker/ 

 

Please support more Freethinking episodes on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lauradodsworth

Stephanie Davies-Arai is a communication skills trainer, writer and author of the book Communicating with Kids. Concerned about the trend to diagnose gender variant children, she founded the organisation Transgender Trend in 2015, produced a schools guide Supporting gender variant and trans-identified students in schools in 2018 and has delivered presentations on the subject of transgender children at events across the UK, including in the House of Commons and House of Lords. We talked about why she set up Transgender Trend, what's going on when gender variant children are diagnosed as trans, the difficulties she's faced in this most contentious of the culture wars, and how her background as a sculptor has influenced her.

Links:

https://www.cambridgescholars.com/transgender-children-and-young-people

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https://www.transgendertrend.com/

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https://stephaniedaviesarai.com/

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Stephanie’s freethinking recommendation is The Madness of Crowds by Douglas Murray.

Zuby is an independent rapper, podcast host, author, public speaker and creative entrepreneur, with over 400,000 followers online. He was born in England, raised in Saudi Arabia and is a graduate of Oxford University. He has sold over 25,000 albums independently, performed in 8 countries and achieved over 10 million online video views. Zuby has featured on The Joe Rogan Experience, BBC, Fox News, Sky News, The Adam Carolla Show, The Rubin Report, The Candace Owens Show and The Ben Shapiro Show, amongst others. Zuby and I talked about what's behind his versatility and freethinking, having an international perspective, courage, social media, Black Lives Matters and transwomen and sport. 

Links:

zubymusic.com

twitter.com/zubymusic

instagram.com/zubymusic

youtube.com/zubymusic

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His freethinking recommendations: 'Real Talk with Zuby' podcast - fanlink.to/zubypodcast

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Please support Freethinking on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lauradodsworth

Welcome to my first Freethinking podcast episode with Alistair Haimes! Alistair has been analysing and sharing Covid-19 graphs and information to the delight of discerning data lovers throughout lockdown.  

Alistair has worked in finance since 1997 and has run a private asset management company since 2003. Being successful in investment relies on accuracy, numeracy and delivering results, and his analysis of the data has offered a fascinating counterpoint to the Downing Street briefings. We discussed Covid-19 data and media coverage from the early days till now, and how his interpretation of the data has made him a lockdown sceptic. 

I hope you enjoy the episode, but I also encourage you to follow Alistair for more data and insight.

Find Alistair on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlistairHaimes . 

A collection of graphs and data created by Alistair: https://twitter.com/AlistairHaimes/status/1275369958382481410?s=20

 . Articles by Alistair on Covid-19:https://thecritic.co.uk/author/alistair-haimes/ . 

https://hectordrummond.com/2020/05/09/alistair-haimes-the-virus-that-turned-up-late/ . 

His freethinking recommendations:  "Think Like a Freak” by the authors of “Freakonomics”, Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner. But I’d also like to recommend something active, which is for people to start taking part in GJOPEN super forecasting.

Hello and welcome to my new podcast, Freethinking. I'll be interviewing fascinating freethinkers about their worldview, and how their conviction overcame consensus.