Blah Blah Flowers

Posting this on behalf of others, so I am not one of the 'we', though I know some of them and support all of them:

London trans activists call for boycott of sham demo on October 17th

We are a group of trans activists who wish to make known our concerns about a demo, claiming to support the depathologisation of trans people, in London on 17th of October. The facebook group for the demo can be found here:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=147494409183

The description of the event reads:

"Being transgendered is not a mental illness. We are simply part of the diversity of humanity. Gender Identity Disorder is therefore not a valid diagnosis. Homosexuality we removed as a mental health diagnosis diagnosis in 1987. For us to achieve true liberation and recognition we need to throw off this unjust stigma. We are not ill, just different"

A large number of people were invited by the demo organiser, a non-trans man by the name of Dennis Hambridge, and some of us were initially concerned by the rationale for the demo. In particular, we were worried that campaigning for the removal of Gender Identity Disorder as a medical diagnosis without proposing an alternative mechanism by which transsexual people would be able to access medical transition resources was premature and dangerous, especially in a climate where NHS primary care trusts need only a minimal excuse to deny funding for our hormonal and surgical procedures. We do not support the labelling of our gender identities as disordered, and realise that our relationship with the medical community is far from ideal, but do not wish to support a movement which may give the impression that we seek complete divorce from the medical community.

These concerns were put to the Facebook group by a number of trans activists. Rather than address them, Mr Hambridge entrenched his position, making claims that gender dysphoria was an artefact of society and the medical community, and that removal of any form of classification of gender dysphoria by the WHO was "non-negotiable".

In moves more reminiscent of the actions of transphobic radical feminists than supposed allies of trans people, Mr Hambridge started deleting some of the comments from those trans people who were concerned about our future access to hormones and surgery. Subsequently he banned a number of those trans people from the group, silencing them in that space.

To reiterate - Mr Hambridge, who is organising a demo which is allegedly supporting the rights of transsexual people is using his position as a group organiser to silence and shut out the voices of the very people he claims to support.

In light of Mr Hambridge's intransigence and refusal to listen to the voices of actual transsexual people, we are calling on all activists who support the concept of transsexual people having a say in our own medical care to boycott this demo. We further call on Mr Hambridge, who is not trans himself, to stop claiming to speak on our behalf when he is ignoring our protestations and silencing our voices, and to call off his demo.

Please spread this open letter widely.

Roz Kaveney has more information here and Aunty Sarah here.

Labels: demonstrations, NHS, transgenderism, transpersons, transphobia

Derailing for Dummies: A simple, step-by-step guide to derailing awkward conversations by dismissing and trivialising your opponent's perspective and experience.

[via Questioning Transphobia.]

Labels: arguing, humour, transgenderism, transphobia

The Julie Bindel Clearing House. For all your hilariously out-of-touch transphobic needs.

Labels: Julie Bindel, transphobia

Labels: Julie Bindel, Stonewall, transgenderism, transphobia, YouTube

Had several fun and exciting days, so much so that I'm just about ready to head back to work so I can relax for a bit. On Thursday was the demo outside the Stonewall Awards at the V&A, Aunty Sarah has more here and here. A fun time was had by all, except Ben Summerskill and Julie Bindel. I have emailed Stonewall to see whether they are now more open to discussing how this sort of situation might be avoided in future. They were presumably too busy nursing hangovers on Friday to reply so that's something to look forward to in the coming week.

Julie responded to events on Saturday in her usual way, a column in the Guardian. In a national newspaper she misrepresented every fact she possibly could, slagged off more people and then demanded to be left alone. She seems to take a view of separatism that allows her to make full use of what society offers but doesn't allow society to talk back to her. Luckily that's not how it tends to work. The comments thread for her article is heartening in that her fanclub didn't really get themselves motivated to post defending her, so it consists mainly of people telling her how foolish she is being. I posted twice in the comments and also sent a letter to the paper, they really need to stop enabling her like this, it's also terrible that the one person they give space to talk about transgender issues is someone ignorant of the facts and who is virulently anti-transgender. And anti-gay. And anti-kink. And anti-lesbian.

And then, yesterday evening to the Ravenscourt Park fireworks display over in Hammersmith with friends and a friend of friends. Seeing a proper professional display like this makes me wonder why anyone buys fireworks and does them on their own in the back garden, the two events cannot compare and back garden Dad has just wasted far more money than taking his family to a professional event. Every couple of years I go to proper events but this was the biggest and best event I've seen, despite the drizzle and the inflicting of bad music (David Gray, an awful new version of Van Halen's 'Jump' with a disco beat and, oddly, 'I Want to Ride my Bicycle' by Queen) it was a spectacular display, finishing with a carefully choreographed series of explosions that seemed to fill the entire sky with colour. Then back to the FOAF's for gin, food and arguments about 11/09/01 conspiracy theories before trudging to the tube station for the journey home.

Today we're off to the cinema to see Quantum of Solace. Should be fun!

Labels: Flickr, Julie Bindel, London, Stonewall, The Guardian, transgenderism, transphobia

Labels: demonstrations, Flickr, Julie Bindel, Stonewall, transgenderism, transphobia

Stonewall, despite naming itself after an event in which trannies took part, has never made any bones about being an organisation that does not represent transsexual people. However, for it's 2008 awards it decided to accept a nomination for best journalist for Julie Bindel, a writer with a history of transphobic opinions and writing.

So a group of about 150 pissed-off transsexual people and their allies held a fun and trouble-free protest outside of the Stonewall Awards at the Victoria and Albert Museum on the evening of the 6th of November 2008 to remind them of what they seemed keen to forget or ignore.

Stonewall should never allow itself to be an organisation that champions bigotry in any form. What is especially short-sighted is that they are trying to see transpeople as just that, ignoring that they can also be lesbians, gays or bisexuals. A nomination for Julie Bindel is a nomination that is also for hate against gays, lesbians and bisexuals.

She didn't win in the end :-)

Labels: demonstrations, Flickr, Julie Bindel, Stonewall, transgenderism, transphobia

So, if you're not busy tomorrow evening and in or near London, why not come and demonstrate with us outside the Victoria and Albert Museum? Stonewall are having their awards ceremony and some of us are going to demonstrating at their total lack of trans-awareness. The flashpoint for this was the nomination of Julie Bindel as journalist of the year. Bindel has had a visible presence as a transphobic lesbian feminist for around four years now, a position she maintains to this day. However, Stonewall have decided that at they are not an organisation for trans-people they do not need to show any concern about validating people who are against the trans-community, conveniently overlooking the fact that they may have many gay, queer, lesbian , questioning or bisexual supporters who... also happen to be transpeople too. Stonewall have consistently claimed that the awards were decided and couldn't be altered but have also avoided answering the question of what would happen if they were faced with the prospect of giving an award to someone who was on record as being racist or sexist?

There is a Facebook Group set up to discuss this where, if you look through the threads, you will see Bindel troll, claim she will sue people, ask for a discussion and then clam up when people start talking to her, all the fun of the fair. (Friend_of_tofu on LJ has more specific links here).

This is not, as Bindel and her supporters have tried to claim, homophobia. This is not even directly about her (though it's sad if a prominent lesbian journalist uses her position to promote hatespeech). Stonewall have, in emails and phone calls, suggested that Bindel was not going to win the award. The target of this demonstration is Stonewall themselves, for allowing this situation to come up like this. In the past Stonewall put out leaflets describing what transphobia is and what should be done to stop it. And while they may believe that they have nothing to do with the transcommunity, it was that community that helped start the campaign for gay equality that is still not over today, that makes up a proportion of their numbers today and that by ignoring that community they only diminish themselves and set their cause back.

Oh yeah, and we'll probably go to a pub afterwards too!

Thursday, November 6, 2008
Time: 6:30pm - 8:30pm
Location: Outside the Victoria & Albert Museum
Street: Cromwell Road SW7 2RL.
Nearest Tube: South Kensington.

Labels: demonstrations, Julie Bindel, Stonewall, transgenderism, transphobia

OK, you're young, glamorous and filled with rage at the injustices at the world. When you find a demonstration to go to, what you DO NOT DO is invite the person that caused the demonstration to happen because that would be an incredibly stupid thing which would devalue the whole point of the demonstration. It would also help not to get angry and self-defensive when you are criticised and instead try and understand other people's anger at your incredibly boneheaded move.

So I'd just like to welcome the Queer Youth Network to leftist politics. They are having their own demonstration at the same place as the older people, with Julie Bindel as 'their' extra special guest. Does that make them the Judean People's Front or the People's Front of Judea?

Labels: demonstrations, Julie Bindel, stupidity, transphobia

Stonewall, the organisation that does so much for gays and lesbians but not so much for bisexuals, is having a party, complete with trinkets. At the moment, up for 'journalist of the year' is Julie Bindel. Yes, that Julie Bindel. She's not won anything, yet, she's just up for the award. The fact that Stonewall, who let's not forget, even if they pointedly don't campaign for transsexuals rights must by the law of averages have transsexuals amongst their gay, lesbian and bisexual community, are willing to offer the possibility of a nod towards La Bindel has annoyed people. People with blogs and emails.

At the moment, emailing Stonewall at info@stonewall.org.uk just gets you something that they've been cut'n'pasting a lot over the last few days:

Thank you for your email.

Julie Bindel was shortlisted for a Stonewall award in recognition of her journalism during the last 12 months which often brings a lesbian perspective into the mainstream press.

The awards nominating panel are not endorsing everything she has ever written. A nomination in any category does not mean that the awards panel agree with all of someone’s opinions. Stonewall recognises that some people may disagree with shortlisted nominees.

Boy, does that make me feel included. I've just emailed them back to see if they know any other songs. To be honest, I'm not expecting anything here, they don't include trannies and they've pretty much whitewashed them from their version of history and they do pretty much nothing for bisexuals, who they do claim to be a voice for, but as the prospect of a Tory Government returning comes ever closer it might be nice if we can kick Stonewall into some sort of shape before we get there.

Labels: bisexual, gay, Julie Bindel, lesbians, Stonewall, transgenderism, transphobia

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to urgently review the way LGBT asylum seekers are treated.

Labels: asylum seekers, bisexual, gay, Government, homophobia, immigration, lesbians, LGBT, petitions, transgenderism, transphobia

Oh dear. This probably won't end well.

Still, I will look on this as a learning experience, it's not every day that I find someone with a more extreme position than Julie Bindel, but then it's not everyday that I find Julie Bindel either, the Guardian seeming to be behaving itself recently.

Labels: feminism, transgenderism, transphobia, transvestites

The Drug and Alcohol Service for London want an advertising campaign for their services, targeting women especially. They go to TBWA-London. I can only assume that everyone in both organisations is suffering from their own massive substance abuse issues because they decided upon this, photograph a man in bad-make-up/photoshop his face on to a woman's head, and then go for the hilarious 'if you drink like a man then you may end up looking like one'

The press and poster campaign is based on the belief that women are more likely to revise their drinking habits to preserve their looks than to maintain good health.

So, women are vain creatures, alcohol causes most of the main characteristics of SRS (F-to-Ms reading, take notes then head down the offie for that special offer they're doing on Special Brew) and there are fewer funnier images than a man dressed as a woman.

And that is why creative people are scum.

Labels: advertising wankers, alcohol, health, transphobia, transvestites

There's no news today, so a number of papers have followed The Sun on the Thomas Beatie story...

'Pregnant' man stuns medical profession.

Married 'man' claims to be five months pregnant.

American man claims to be five months pregnant with a baby girl.

Sex change bloke set to be a mum.

Interesting that it's only the Indy that feel it necessary to question his gender in their headline. They also, for some reason, quote one Margaret Somerville who also has a reputation as being down on gay-marriage.

"You're not a man, you're a woman and you're having a baby and you're actually having your own baby."

Um yes, in the way that women always have their own babies. Unless they are surrogates I suppose... Or is she trying to suggest that Beatie supplied both sperm and egg?

"Just because you put on a clown suit, doesn't mean that you don't still exist underneath.'"

I don't even know what this is supposed to mean!

Labels: children, transgenderism, transphobia

The Hypocrisy of anti-trans "feminism" at National Women's Studies Association. [via Feministing]. I've not really talked too much about the Julie Bindel/Hecklers thing here, it's something I posted to my LJ but it's made me interested in the anti-trans 'Feminist' position.

Labels: feminism, Julie Bindel, Radio 4, transgenderism, transphobia

"Oh God, we've got to put up with an hour of Julie Bindel's rationalisations for her transphobia based on unreconstructed Seventies seperatist-lesbian-feminism? Can I club myself into unconsciousness with the DSM-IV first?"
"Cheer up, there's four of us, one of her, we're supposed to be mean, Evan Davis is over there, just think of it as 'Dragons Den' with better lighting."

Labels: BBC, Flickr, Julie Bindel, Radio 4, transgenderism, transphobia