Understanding and accepting gender diversity as a natural state of being is crucial in protecting the wellbeing and lives of trans and non-binary people.

If you were to write two lists of characteristics headed ‘male’ and ‘female’ (and I would encourage you to do this briefly), we often find these characteristics fall into two extremes. Males are supposedly ‘dominant’, ‘loud’, ‘strong’, ‘rugged’; females by contrast something like ‘passive’, ‘quiet’, ‘sensitive’, ‘warm’, ‘pretty’, ‘small’. We may then ask ourselves, do we fit either of those binaries? Perhaps more importantly, do we know anyone that does?
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Probably not. However, these stereotypes have the effect that many of us often feel that we are ‘failing’ at our gender. Failing to a woman may mean not feeling attractive enough, petite enough, being unable to carry a child. Men similarly may feel they are not athletic enough, successful enough or they may encounter these feelings through experiencing infertility. Feeling that we do not fit the mould of our gender expectations is not the preserve of people who attend gender clinics and affects most of us at some point. Gender issues exist on a spectrum. And like other issues of intersectionality (race, age, ability), individuals who are unable to entirely fit the cis, white, able-bodied mould are likely to find themselves excluded by mainstream society in one way or another.

by Elena Zeniou, PSC member

In the landscape of Covid19, we are discovering a world that is not fit for our needs. How we socialise, travel, work, celebrate, grieve - all require extra layers of planning and thinking about uncomfortable questions. 

Do we hug when we meet? Do we shake hands? Will you be offended if we don’t? Or if we do? How do I travel safely? How often do I change masks? Will my job understand that I’m finding this really tough? Will they make adjustments? Do I ask the person next to me to put their mask on? Would they be offended? Do I just avoid seeing people altogether?

Consider the above questions, and perhaps add to the list what comes to mind right now. Do you plan for these questions because you should have been immune to the virus but you aren’t? Or would you say that because of the virus our world set-up no longer allows for us to be safe, comfortable,and able to do things as in non-pandemic times? We’ve designed a world that allows us to be functional without a pandemic on the loose. Whereas before we would be free and able to navigate through our social interactions and daily activities, we are now limited, needing adjustments.

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Dear Rt Honorable Gavin Williamson CBE (Secretary of State for Education) and Sally Collier (Chief Regulator; Ofqual),

Psychologists for Social Change is a network of applied psychologists, researchers, academics, therapists and students who are interested in applying psychology to policy. We aim to generate social and political action towards a psychologically-healthier society. We felt compelled to write to you with regards to the BTEC and A-Level exam results in order to outline our concerns. We initially prepared to request a rapid revision of the application of the A-Level exam results algorithm. We are pleased to see that this process has been revised. However, our concerns about the impact of the use of the algorithm and subsequent U-turn remain. 

Our concerns are as follows:
The algorithm used to award students’ A-Level grades was flawed in a way that benefited those with greater privilege and penalised those who were already disadvantaged. Data show that independent schools in England saw the greatest improvement of A* and A grades, up 4.7 percentage points. This is compared with an increase of just 1.7, 2 and 0.3 percentage points in England’s academies, comprehensives and colleges, respectively. This unfair advantage was conferred to private schools purely because the small cohort sizes meant the algorithm gave more weight to teacher predicted grades than historical data or prior student attainment. Thus, in private schools, teacher predictions were less likely to be downgraded and students who already held a privileged position in the education system were rewarded. 

I like to think of the summer of 2014, around the time I was finishing up the second year of my bachelor’s degree, as the period when I started becoming a social psychologist. For a couple of sticky, hot months in Beirut, sitting under a distinctly loud and largely useless fan, I listened to my professor share what seemed like mind-shattering theoretical and empirical knowledge on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Every bit of information that was sprung onto me felt like a revelation – the usual suspects of any Intro to Social Psych class; Milgram, Zimbardo, Asch, and their likes. Every theory, every finding, seemed to explain phenomena I had been witnessing and marvelling at for years. So much so that I went around spraying my newly found discoveries onto friends who were rather unenthused, and claiming with reverberating confidence that the world would be a better place if everyone were mandatorily exposed to social psychological knowledge. It truly felt like I, a biology student who had randomly taken this conveniently timed elective, had finally found the discipline that would equip me to fight for the world I wanted; a just world. On the last day of lectures, in between questions about the final exam’s format and informal feedback on the course, the professor asked us what we thought the main insight of social psychology was – what were we taking home with us, us liberal arts students from across disciplines who would go back to investing in whatever major we had signed up for? After a string of pseudo-sophisticated answers (one of which was very likely mine, although my motivated memory conveniently leaves that out today), the professor concluded the class with his own takeaway; “context matters.” ​

By PSC Leicester

Communities in Leicester are facing an extended lockdown following a ‘spike’ in cases of COVID-19. Public Health England are yet to find obvious reasons for this and emerging data from ‘backward contact tracing’ trials in Leicester indicate most were following stay at home guidance. The absence of a clear narrative, however, has resulted in widespread stories which ‘other’ and blame. We live in an age where unchecked soundbites or fragments of information spread quickly and carry immense power, often resulting in divisive rhetoric that damages community cohesion and obscures the bigger picture. It’s easy to fall into these traps. We must therefore continue to be curious about wider factors that are likely to have contributed.
 
Psychologists for Social Change have previously warned that the COVID-19 crisis has increased the visibility of existing social inequalities in our society and could further compound divisions in our communities. Tragically, we are experiencing this in Leicester today. Many of the speculative narratives focus on personal responsibility with even the Prime Minister bemoaning problems “getting people to understand what was necessary to do” in Leicester. This caricatures residents as either unintelligent or unable to speak English; the latter pointing unfairly to our Eastern European, Somali and Asian communities. There is no evidence that social distancing was understood any less here than in other parts of the country, and the reality is far more complex than that narrative implies. Blaming individuals in this way is unhelpful, shaming, feeds into nationalist rhetoric, and takes the focus away from a government who have been slow to act not just in Leicester but from the outset of the pandemic. It also obscures the more powerful and intersected systemic influences at play that people cannot change.