Today's Battle

At the Grauniad, where noted Transphobe Julie Bindel was nominated for an award as "Journalist of the Year" by UK GLB(but not T) group STONEWALL. Named after a riot against police oppression of trans* and gays started by a Transgendered woman, to add a touch of Irony.

Julie B is what is known as a second wave Radical Feminist Lesbian. Meaning she hates men. Literally, she's written an article on why she feels that way. She also is committed to dissolving gender boundaries, stating as an axiomatic matter of faith that all gender is purely a social construct, so men don't actually exist. So that's why she wants a woman-only space with strict gender apartheid, and wishes to eliminate or deny the existence of anyone who proves that gender is partly biological.

Consistency - and even basic humanity - are not her strong suites.

Here's Julie in full cry :

Call me old-fashioned, but I thought the one battle we feminists won fair and square was to convince at least those left of centre that gender roles are made up. They are not real. We play at them. We develop traditional masculine or feminine traits by being indoctrinated, not because we are biologically programmed to behave in those ways.
...
Think about a world inhabited just by transsexuals. It would look like the set of Grease.

The paper was forced to apologise for that one - though Julie says she was just apologising for the gratuitous insults and tone, not the content.

Here she is though after being given the news that her nomination came last in the field. You see, the largest transgender demonstration ever held in the UK protested - in a very civilised English way - outside STONEWALL's galah awards, and she didn't like that, not one little bit. How dare they!

Being nominated for an award is supposed to be a nice thing, right? Well not for me. When I was told a few weeks ago that I had been shortlisted for a journalist of the year award by the gay rights organisation Stonewall, I knew I would not win. I was certainly a worthy contender, but I knew from that moment that all hell was about to break loose.

You need a little history first: in 2004 I wrote a column in this newspaper about a Canadian male-to-female transsexual who had taken a rape crisis centre to court over its decision not to invite her to be a counsellor for rape victims. I questioned whether a sex change would make someone a woman, or simply a man who has had surgery.

The fact that the counsellor had been raped herself, and had previous experience counselling other victims, with ratings such as "excellent" and "gifted"... that doesn't matter.

We became "lesbian and gay", but soon bisexuals shouted, "Us too". Transsexuals, having received short shrift from heterosexual society, asked to be included in our rainbow alliance, followed by Queer (anyone who is into "kinky" sex), then Questioning (those having a think about who and how they might shag in the future), and finally (for now) Intersex (those born with biological features that are simultaneously perceived as male and female).

Queer meaning anyone into "kinky" sex? I can't believe the depth of pig-ignorance this displays. It's exactly the kind of thing I'd expect from flat-earth fundamentalists. To continue:

But I for one do not wish to be lumped in with an ever-increasing list of folk defined by "odd" sexual habits or characteristics.

You know, like those Freaks with Intersex conditions. She's Normal, and so has the right to dictate what others should and should not do, in the name of Politically Pure Radical Lesbian Feminism.

Shall we just start with A and work our way through the alphabet? A, androgynous, b, bisexual, c, cat-fancying d, devil worshipping. Where will it ever end?

Hopefully with a change of career for her, from a noted columnist an a national newspaper. Well, maybe if she didn't classify transsexuals, bisexuals and the intersexed amongst satanists and practicers of bestiality, it might help.

Anyway, here's what I wrote in the comments. The usual attempt to inform rather than insult.

Intersexed people tend to keep a low profile. It's safer for us, and besides which, so much of the Gender Politics based on competing philosophies that ignore medical facts reminds us too much of Kindergarten. Not a happy place for some of us, by the way, And medical facts are things that can kill us if we ignore them, some of our medical conditions are life-threatening.

There are amongst us people who identify as male - but with a congenital medical problem. There are those of us who identify as female, again with a congenital medical problem. I'm in that group, by the way. There are those of us who identify as neither, as Neutrius. And those who identify as Androgyne, something of both. Actual degree of physical Intersexuality has little impact on this, women can be born with bodies that look mainly male, and the reverse.

There are a few of us whose appearance naturally changes over time - see Gender change in 46,XY persons with 5alpha-reductase-2 deficiency and 17beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase-3 deficiency. by Cohen-Ketternis. Most such natural "sex reversals" are Female to Male, I'm in the tiny minority that go the other way, but the legal and social problems are much the same. Unlike most who are Intersexed, we can't hide.

JB doesn't think we exist - or less charitably, if we do, then she thinks we shouldn't. You see, we are acutely aware of the real differences between Typical Male and Typical Female, as well as all the bluriness and complexity that makes a strict binary model of either Gender or Sex meaningless. We know that for some, the binary models fit really well, no matter what political philosophy you espouse. And for some, they don't fit at all, regardless of what various religious or political beliefs you hold. Reality doesn't care.

Call me old-fashioned, but I thought the one battle we feminists won fair and square was to convince at least those left of centre that gender roles are made up. They are not real. We play at them. We develop traditional masculine or feminine traits by being indoctrinated, not because we are biologically programmed to behave in those ways.

Our very existence denies that. Gender Roles are a social construct, there's no "gene" for girls preferring pink and boys blue. But Gender is not. There are very real neurological differences in the way we think. It's a Bi-Modal distribution, two peaks, one typically female, the other typically male, but with overlap and some who are in the middle. Complex I know, not simple, but biology is like that.

Transsexuals - those whose emotional responses and thinking patterns (as opposed to learned Gender Role) are atypical for their body form get extreme discomfort. Some have neurology, a brain-body map, that gives them instincts contrary to their anatomy.This gives such intense discomfort, it's indescribable. Many suicide, and substance abuse and induced mental illness is common. Surgery to align brain and body has a 98% success rate (though the co-morbidities may remain after the cause is removed), and every other treatment - from "talking cures" to the full "Clockwork Orange" aversion therapy has a 0.000% success rate. That's in the literature, anyone on the net can verify it.

See BiGender and the Brain for some of the science about gender.

JB is Transphobic by the definition in Stonewall's own pamphlet, but this post by her shows it goes beyond that. She doesn't want to be associated with anyone at all different from her. And she claims the right to decide what's best for others on the basis of her normality, and in the name of philosophically pure Radical Feminist Lesbianism.

She's a "worthy contender" for "Journalist of the year" - in her own mind. Others differ, and in her opinion, they have no right to.

The problem is that STONEWALL, the organisation, is guilty not of Transphobia, but of "aiding and abetting". JB is just another shock-jock columnist, one who gets the Grauniad extra readers by being "controversial". A professional Troll, whose eccentric views are exploited to sell papers. That she often writes articles on genuine issues such as gynephobic violence is a bonus.

Having such a person, one who has now revealed herself in this article as highly Xenophobic, nominated for an award is against every principle of diversity STONEWALL stands for. Or should do. We have been given good reason to doubt that now.

So why does all this matter? Surely it's just more silly sophomoric political games, people shouting at each other in the battle of the -isms, with no-one but they interested in the outcome?

It matters because of this - the events I wrote about in Nothing Unusual. I'd ask you to read that first. Here's the video anyway.

There's a sequel. From Eyewitness News :

MEMPHIS, TN – Duanna Johnson was found shot to death in North Memphis, according to her lawyer.

Memphis police say it happened just before midnight at Hollywood near Staten Avenue, Sunday, November 9, 2008.

According to detectives, when officers arrived at the scene, they found the body lying in the street. Police say a witness heard gunfire and then saw three people running away from the scene. Investigators do not have any suspects at this time.

Lawyer Murray Wells confirmed to Eyewitness News that the person who was killed is his client Duanna Johnson. He says Johnson was often in the area where she was killed.

Murray says Johnson was trying to leave Memphis and go back to her hometown of Chicago. According to Murray, Jonson was just about homeless trying to live in Memphis. He says the apartment where Jonson was living did not have power. Murray says he was helping Johnson buy a bus ticket to Chicago.

It matters because just as the beating of Duanna Johnson was not widely publicised in MSM, her murder will go unremarked either, even if a ballistics exam shows (purely by coincidence) a police-issue weapon was involved. It matters because if the Julie Bindels of the world are allowed to preach their poisonous Xenophobia without being called on it, then consequences such as this are inescapable.