Monopolising struggle

[DanaC]

Some of our recent discussions on bigotry and oppression (definitions of, and ranks/divisions of oppression) have been playing on my mind of late. Now, I really don't intend any of this as an attack on Ibs. I respect her stance and admire her passion. But the conversations we've had in here have echoed a wider discourse that interests me.

So I found a couple of recent articles about a minor spat in the twitterverse really interesting. Basically, a feminist writer penned an essay for a collection in which she referred to women being expected to conform to the body shape of 'a Brazilian transsexual'.

The response from transexual twitterers was to drive this woman off twitter entirely. Amongst the really vile stuff she was also accused of not understanding struggle, of operating from a 'priveleged white feminist' perspective and of essentially being a part of the oppressor class/patriarchy etc.

Her mentor, and Godmother to her daughters, Julie Burchill wrote a scathing piece in the Guardian. Some of the language she employs is clearly designed to offend, but I get the sense she is really angry about this.

To my mind – I have given cool-headed consideration to the matter – a gaggle of transsexuals telling Suzanne Moore how to write looks a lot like how I'd imagine the Black and White Minstrels telling Usain Bolt how to run would look. That rude and ridic.

Here's what happened. In a book of essays called Red: The Waterstones Anthology, Suzanne contributed a piece about women's anger. She wrote that, among other things, women were angry about "not having the ideal body shape – that of a Brazilian transsexual". Rather than join her in decrying the idea that every broad should aim to look like an oven-ready porn star, the very vociferous transsexual lobby and their grim groupies picked on the messenger instead.

I must say that my only experience of the trans lobby thus far was hearing about the vile way they have persecuted another of my friends, the veteran women's rights and anti-domestic violence activist Julie Bindel – picketing events where she is speaking about such minor issues as the rape of children and the trafficking of women just because she refuses to accept that their relationship with their phantom limb is the most pressing problem that women – real and imagined – are facing right now.

So, what was it that Bindell said that was so awful it warranted protests at the Stonewall awards?

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2008/11/07...newall-awards/

Campaigner Ros Kaveney said:

“Ms Bindel is advocating talking therapies for trans people in a way that almost entirely parallels the advocacy of talking therapies by the Christian right as a way of extirpating all LGBT people.

“If she does not understand that, as a lesbian, she is a turkey advocating Christmas for turkeys in an adjacent bit of the farmyard, then she is being obtuse; what she is doing is betraying not only the trans community but the entire LGBT community, and it is wrong to honour her for her other work when there is this colossal stain on her career.”

Ms Bindel has apologised over the tone of a 2004 article Gender Benders Beware but stands by her view that people should question the basis of the diagnosis of male psychiatrists, “at a time when gender polarisation and homophobia work hand-in-hand.”

“Iran carries out the highest number of sex change surgeries in the world,” she said.

“It is unnecessary mutilation – in my opinion there is nothing ‘wrong’ with those who are currently seen as candidates for transgender surgery – they just don’t fit the gender stereotype.

“Surgery is an attempt to keep gender stereotypes intact. The diagnosis of childhood GID (gender identity disorder) follows old-fashioned notions of what constitutes appropriate behaviour for those assigned to the sex classes of male and female.

“It is precisely this idea that certain distinct behaviours are appropriate for males and females that underlies feminist criticism of the phenomenon of ‘transgenderism’. This view is shared by a large number of feminists of all ages and backgrounds.”