Long, well written details in a number of places, but I found out the details via
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auntysarah.
Short version: fuck your casual attitude to transphobia, Stonewall. FUCK YOU.
You can send an email at info@stonewall.org.uk to complain. I sent this:
I am writing to complain about the poor judgment, if not deliberate bigotry, that Stonewall have displayed by nominating Julie Bindel for a journalism award.
Put plainly, Bindel is transphobic. She has written that she consider sex-reassignment surgery to be “mutilation” and argues that it would not exist in a world that was less mired in gender roles. This has been contrary to what many trans people say about their own lives. In most cases transsexuality is about changing the body to match internal and personal body image (subconscious sex), not a desire to act out gender stereotypes. Bindel has in fact spoken over the voices of an oppressed group and erased their real lives to promote her theories about gender. She describes trans woman Kimberley Nixon derisively, saying that:
“The arrogance is staggering: having not experienced life as a "woman" until middle age, Nixon assumed "she" would be suitable to counsel women who have chosen to access a service that offers support from women who have suffered similar experiences, not from a man in a dress! The Rape Relief sisters, who do not believe a surgically constructed vagina and hormonally grown breasts make you a woman, successfully challenged the ruling and, for now at least, the law says that to suffer discrimination as a woman you have to be, er, a woman.”
It is obvious from the tone of this extract that she does not consider trans women to be women, regardless of their own identification. This is transphobic.
Although your organisation does not seem to include trans issues (despite taking its name from a fundamental event in the LGBT rights movement that was sparked off by trans people), I consider that this action shames your organisation as a whole. It may be arguable that you have nominated Bindel for her other journalist work and not her entire body of writing, but consider whether this would be appropriate if a writer known for outstanding work on lesbian, gay and bisexual rights had also written blatantly racist articles. The obvious answer is that it is that is not. You seem to have overlooked the fact that many trans people are gay, lesbian, bisexual or queer and that this nomination has caused them great offence and shown that this organisation is not a welcoming place for them.
Additionally, Bindel writes as a cissexual (i.e. non trans) person and claims to know the motivations of trans people in transitioning, rather than listening to their own experiences. I can imagine that you would look negatively on a straight writer who claimed to know the true motivations of queer sexuality. A crucial part of the LGBT rights movement has been in allowing queer people to self-define and not to be trapped in the descriptions and names given by a hostile and hetronormative society. Bindel denies the gender-identification of trans people. She argues that trans people need psychological help, a description eerily close to the reparative therapy that GLB people have had to (and continue to) go through.
To make it clear, I am not taking issue with feminism or GLB rights (indeed I consider myself a feminist and I am queer myself) but simply the transphobic views expressed by some in these movements, of which Julie Bindel is a vocal element. I would urge Stonewall to reconsider.
Yours Sincerely,
x
There is a petition (
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Stonewall1/) and a facebook group for a protest (
http://www.facebook.com/login.php)
.
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rs_small_gifts art reposted.
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