We thank Sonia Sodha for her admirable article on adults with learning disabilities (“The worst of Covid is over for most of us, but it still lingers for those with learning disabilities”, Comment). We agree wholeheartedly with her conclusion about their treatment as second-class citizens. She refers to the excessive Covid mortality rate, but premature deaths have occurred for years. The recently published 2021 learning disabilities mortality report finds 49% of deaths were rated as “avoidable” for people with a learning disability. This compares with 22% for the general population.
Our beloved daughter Juliet, born with Cornelia de Lange syndrome, died suddenly in 2020, aged 25, and she is one of those statistics. She died because of misdiagnoses and systemic failings in our local A&E department. A coroner’s inquest concluded that neglect contributed to her death and he issued a prevention of future deaths notice. Our MP, Sam Tarry, wrote an excellent letter to the Department for Health and Social Care asking it to address this and other serious concerns. The eventual reply ignored the mortality rate, concentrating on the England rare diseases action plan. This has just one reference to learning disabilities.
Until her final weekend, Juliet was happy. She received immeasurable love and kindness, but returned equal laughter and happiness. She was the heart of our world. Without her, all joy has gone. Please, continue to speak out loudly for the voiceless.
Christine and Francis Saunders
Romford, Essex
Lifeline libraries
Libraries have been offering shelter and safe havens for homeless people and those unable to afford to heat their homes for many years (“Libraries to offer warm shelter for winter”, News). Here in Devon, our libraries also provide help in many other forms, ranging from overcoats and warm clothes donated by members of the community to free computer services so people can search for homes or jobs. The government needs to recognise the range of services libraries provide and how many otherwise marginalised people depend on those services. When, as seems inevitable, there is a further round of library closures, many of those people will lose their one secure lifeline.
Morgen Witzel
Northlew, Devon
Society of Authors and me
Contrary to the concern of Society of Authors critics described in your report, the SoA did help me in my claim for my judging fee from Mslexia, following my cancellation as a result of signing the letter in defence of JK Rowling (“Leading writers call for overhaul of Society of Authors as row deepens”, News). Nicola Solomon, chief executive, read my claim before I emailed it, and later spoke to Mslexia. I thanked her privately. It is true is that Joanne Harris, the chair of the SoA, did not give me any support, either public or private – something I would not have expected, or requested, given our public differences about sex-based rights and transactivism, and her online statements.
Amanda Craig
London NW1
School role in gender identity
For the many hundreds of families supporting a gender-questioning child, the idea that the “trans issue” in schools is mere culture war fodder generated by the government is a misrepresentation (“Are schools set to be the new frontline in the gender wars?”, Special report). The recent interim NHS Cass review concluded that schools have an important role to play and are facing challenges in “responding appropriately to gender-questioning children and young people”.
The unquestioning way in which many schools have facilitated social transition (name and pronoun changes) is now rightly coming under scrutiny, with Cass emphasising that this is “not a neutral act”. There are mounting concerns that enabling children to adopt an opposite-sex identity may increase the likelihood of subsequent medicalisation. The stakes could not be higher for families affected.
Name supplied
London SE15
Wanted: new kind of girlboss
Martha Gill is concerned that “girlboss” feminists are subject to increasing “sexist putdowns” (“‘Girlboss’ used to suggest a kind of role model. How did it become a sexist putdown?”, Comment). In attributing this to “old-fashioned misogyny”, I fear she misses the mark. Many self-styled girlboss corporate leaders – I’m looking at you, Sheryl Sandberg, and you, Sophia Amoruso – have publicly spoken about their commitment to the feminist project and have advised women on how to tackle inequality in the workplace.
From where I sit, the critiques of these girlbosses relate to the mismatch between their publicly espoused feminist values and the reality of types of workplace some of them have been complicit in creating – rife with bullying, racism and overworked staff (just take a look at what recently happened with employees at Glossier and Nasty Gal). Should we not hold feet to the fire just because these leaders are women?
The backlash against girlbosses is also a rejection by many feminists of the idea that one (usually white) woman rising to power in a capitalist system is some kind of emancipatory victory for all women. Feminist leaders today are longing for a different kind of girlboss – one who focuses on collective rather than individual empowerment, one who pushes back against patriarchal structures and one who works with others to refuse to give the system what it needs We don’t want just one woman who is laser-focused on her own individual success at the boardroom table – hell, let’s break that table up.
Leila Billing, co-founder,
We Are Feminist Leaders
Cambridge
Plus ça change…
I read that there is hope in the Tory party that “if Truss does win, she will dump much of the agenda outlined in her campaign, and cast aside the rightwing supporters she is said to be considering appointing to high positions” (“Truss’s likely victory makes Tories nervous and opposition more confident”, News). However, wasn’t this he’ll-change-once-PM the very common hope in 2019 when Boris Johnson was voted in as PM by predominantly the same unrepresentative bunch of Tory members as now? And look how that worked out!
Gary Bennett
Exeter
Super Martin, not Mario
I was surprised to read that people travel all the way from London to do the notorious “Otley run” in Leeds but, as a native of the city, feel compelled to point out that there are reasons to visit Headingley other than to vomit your way from pub to pub dressed as Super Mario or Bananaman (“Stag parties turn city’s student pub crawl into ‘a trail of destruction’”, News). One is that it was once the site of a laboratory where, in 1941, the scientists Archer Martin and Richard Synge made a discovery that helped unravel the chemical structure of insulin and offered the first hint at how DNA might carry the genetic code.
In 2019, the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society unveiled a plaque in Headingley to commemorate this achievement, which had earned Martin and Synge the 1952 Nobel prize in chemistry. When recently passing a group of revellers and seeing one slurp the dregs of his can of lager before casually tossing it over the wall of where Martin and Synge worked, I did consider pointing out the significance of this site; on this occasion discretion proved the better part of valour.
Kersten Hall
School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science, University of Leeds
