In today’s episode, we speak with Alison Teal, a clinical psychologist and former Green Party councillor whose journey from celebrated environmental activist to political outcast reveals the fault lines tearing through progressive politics. Alison was arrested defending Sheffield's street trees, survived an attempt to imprison her, and became a Green Party hero, until she raised questions about gender self-identification. Within weeks of sharing a single blog post, she was suspended from the party she had served for nearly a decade. Drawing on her clinical experience working with patients with gender dysphoria, Alison offers a nuanced perspective on how diagnostic categories have shifted, why emotional appeals have overtaken critical discussion, and what this conflict reveals about class, victim culture, and the professionalisation of social movements. We also explore the commodification of healthcare, the disconnect between middle-class activism and working-class communities, and whether the current backlash against "woke" ideology offers any genuine path forward or simply replaces one authoritarianism with another.Takeaways:
* Alison’s suspension from the Green Party followed years of complaints about her gender-critical views, but her elected status had previously offered some protection
* The shift from “gender identity disorder” to “gender dysphoria” in diagnostic manuals reflected lobbying efforts to align trans rights with gay liberation, despite fundamental differences between the two
* Affirmation-only approaches in clinical settings represent a radical departure from traditional therapeutic practice, which emphasises open, non-judgmental exploration
* The Green Party’s trans-inclusive policies were partly driven by highly emotional conference presentations that discouraged critical scrutiny
* Corporate support for gender identity politics may reflect its compatibility with neoliberal individualism and its non-threatening stance toward capital
* Victim culture and claims to vulnerability have become powerful political tools, even when the claimed victimhood contradicts material reality
* The fracturing of the left along identity lines has made unified political struggle increasingly difficult
* Working-class communities have been alienated by middle-class parties and NGOs that claim to represent them without genuine engagement
* The current anti-woke backlash may be equally authoritarian, offering no space for nuanced discussion
* Mental health labels, including gender dysphoria, need not be permanent, yet society often treats psychological diagnoses as more fixed than physical ones
