Hey, are you ready for part 2 of my super long interview with the glorious Sadia Hameed. If you haven’t yet heard part 1, it was just a couple of weeks ago, when Sadia told us about how social services in the UK actually helped her family to kidnap her when she was 15, and move her to Pakistan, where they starved and tortured her. They suspected her of sleeping with a white man. She later became a spokesperson for the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, although she is no longer involved with them, instead working with cases of domestic abuse.
This second part is very different. She continues talking a little about her personal situation, and the men who demanded their feet be washed by their wives or sisters…and she speaks beautifully about her long-term partner Jack and a woman called Linda who wanted to adopt her as an adult. After the horrors of the previous episode, it’s a relief to be able to discuss the lights of her life.
We then go on to chat about a lot of different things. Having discovered who she is outside of her religious upbringing, Sadia has become worn out by some of the identity politics going on today, and speaks passionately about everything from feminism to trans movements…and she’s got some controversial opinions to share, including the notion that Pakistan has a high rate of trans because parents are so scared of having a gay child.
When she criticises some trans people, I hope it’s not lost on any listeners that she first makes an impassioned defence of the majority of trans people who have suffered incalculable harm and, as she says, need and deserve all our support. Only after making that point, does she go on to critique what she perceives to be a faction of people who use their attained victimhood attack and silence others.