submerging homes and roads, in the capital seoul. at least eight people have died. the south korean president has called an emergency meeting now on bbc news, it s hardtalk with stephen sackur. welcome to hardtalk. i m stephen sackur. according to research in the us and the uk, roughly one in 100 people is transgender. but the fact that the debate about transgender rights has become a political and even health care battleground isn t driven so much by the numbers, but more by conflicting ideologies. my guest today has a prominent voice in that debate. shon faye is trans, a writer and a former lawyer. is all this attention on issues of sex, gender and identity making it easier to be trans, or not? shon faye, welcome to hardtalk. pleasure to be here. thank you for having me. it s great to have you here. i also have a copy of your book, the transgender issue, which you wrote. published last year. it s described on the cover as a landmark bestseller. it has done well. and in the
shon faye is trans, a writer and a former lawyer. is all this attention on issues of sex, gender and identity making it easier to be trans, or not? shon faye, welcome to hardtalk. pleasure to be here. thank you for having me. it s great to have you here. i also have a copy of your book, the transgender issue, which you wrote. published last year. it s described on the cover as a landmark bestseller. it has done well. and in the intervening months since you published it, the transgender story, as we put it, the issues around transgender rights has consistently been prominent in the political debate. would it be right to assume that you are delighted those issues are so prominent? shon laughs er, ithink. in one way, i feel vindicated. the argument that i make in the book, essentially, is that there has been an explosion in discussion of transgender people across all forms of media and in politics. but what i argue in the book is that trans people are often not at the centre of
41 people were killed, many of them children. they blamed the blaze on an electrical fault in the air conditioning system. now on bbc news, it s hardtalk with stephen sackur. welcome to hardtalk. i m stephen sackur. according to research in the us and the uk, roughly one in 100 people is transgender. but the fact that the debate about transgender rights has become a political and even health care battleground isn t driven so much by the numbers, but more by conflicting ideologies. my guest today has a prominent voice in that debate. shon faye is trans, a writer and a former lawyer. is all this attention on issues of sex, gender and identity making it easier to be trans, or not? shon faye, welcome to hardtalk. pleasure to be here. thank you for having me. it s great to have you here. i also have a copy of your book, the transgender issue, which you wrote. published last year. it s described on the cover as a landmark bestseller. it has done well. and in the intervening months
transgender rights has consistently been prominent in the political debate. would it be right to assume that you are delighted those issues are so prominent? shon laughs er, ithink. in one way, i feel vindicated. the argument that i make in the book, essentially, is that there has been an explosion in discussion of transgender people across all forms of media and in politics. but what i argue in the book is that trans people are often not at the centre of these conversations, and the actual issues facing most trans people day to day do not form the substance of what is being discussed in the media. and i think we ve seen this a lot recently in our own tory leadership election here in the uk, where often this is used as a sort of sound bite issue to kind of gotcha with politicians, but doesn t actually address the key issues facing a group which all evidence shows are somewhat marginalised, likely to be discriminated against and in some cases suffer greatly still.
transgender rights has consistently been prominent in the political debate. would it be right to assume that you are delighted those issues are so prominent? shon laughs er, ithink. in one way, i feel vindicated. the argument that i make in the book, essentially, is that there has been an explosion in discussion of transgender people across all forms of media and in politics. but what i argue in the book is that trans people are often not at the centre of these conversations, and the actual issues facing most trans people day to day do not form the substance of what is being discussed in the media. and i think we ve seen this a lot recently in our own tory leadership election here in the uk, where often this is used as a sort of sound bite issue to kind of gotcha with politicians, but doesn t actually address the key issues facing a group which all evidence shows are somewhat marginalised, likely to be discriminated against and in some cases suffer greatly still. we ll talk a little