Death Care, Trans Rights & The Rise Of Direct Cremation | Angie McLachlan & Ash James Hayhurst

On this episode of Dead Honest, Dr Natasha Davendralingam is joined by two practitioners who work at the heart of death care — Angie McLachlan, thanatologist, embalmer, educator, and creator of the Ichabodies Death Dummies; and Ash James Hayhurst, funeral professional, co-founder of the Queer Death Network, and author of The Queer Funeral Guide. Together they explore what dignity actually looks like in death care — from the intimate work of washing and dressing a body, to the legal grey zones that determine whose identity survives them. The conversation moves through the AIDS pandemic and the early days of inclusive embalming, gallows humour as a coping tool, the rise of direct cremation, the recent UK Supreme Court ruling on biological sex, and the new funerary methods reshaping how we say goodbye. Underneath all of it sits a single question: what does it mean to be a custodian of the dead? Chapters: 00:00 — Cold open 01:32 — Welcome to Dead Honest 03:19 — Meet Angie McLachlan: thanatologist, embalmer, priest 05:11 — From furniture restorer to funeral director 12:22 — Meet Ash James Hayhurst: from music teacher to funeral professional 16:44 — How Angie and Ash met: the Good Funeral Guild 19:30 — The Being Ready project: training across the death pathway 21:52 — Gender inclusivity in death care: when rights die with you 25:29 — The Ichabodies: realistic death dummies for inclusive training 33:21 — What's broken in death care: the case for regulation 41:04 — Writing The Queer Funeral Guide 44:17 — Gallows humour and private tears: a coping strategy 49:46 — Personal coping: meditation, French polishing coffins, AIDS embalming 56:11 — Career highs and lows: a friend's funeral, an unspoken relationship 58:50 — New funerary methods: human composting and alkaline hydrolysis 01:13:00 — Ritual, spirituality, and the spirit cards 01:18:43 — Closing messages: direct cremation, funeral plans, and talking about it 01:28:09 — The objects we carry: a coffin trinket box and grandmother's gloves 01:35:18 — On the Supreme Court ruling and the trans community Dead Honest is a Future Medicine TV production exploring the realities of death, dying, and the people who do this work. #DeadHonest #FMTV #DeathCare #FuneralProfession #QueerDeathNetwork #Embalming #Thanatology #PalliativeCare #InclusiveCare