Questioning Transphobia

Sarah Brown posted this earlier today. It’s prompted by the recent Stonewall UK thing, Christine Burns’ podcast interview of Julie Bindel, as well as her request that we be nicer to Ms. Bindel. Also, other details:

Many people will be aware of the current furore surrounding the UK GLB rights group, Stonewall, and their nomination of notorious journalist, Julie Bindel, for their “Journalist of the Year” award (note, a nomination – the indications are that she hasn’t actually won it). For those not familiar, there is some background via lisaquestions‘ superb blog, Questioning Transphobia where she’s done a good job of collating much of what’s been happening.

Anyway, it feels like a line has been drawn in the sand over this issue, with many grass-roots transpeople in the UK absolutely incensed over it. This seems to have caused a division between many transpeople who are seething with a sense of betrayal which is getting an outpouring on social networking sites, especially Facebook, and the older generation of trans campaigners, who seem to be taking, by and large, an approach many regard as capitulation.

In the last two days, this is escalating as a result of an interview of Bindel that veteran trans woman campaigner, Christine Burns conducted. Christine seems to take the view that an apology over the tone of Bindel’s infamous “set of Grease” article, which the Guardian has already apologised over anyway is reason enough for everyone to calm down, even though Bindel clearly remains unrepentant about her core message – that she wants to open a “dialogue” about why trans people shouldn’t be allowed medical transition.

When this didn’t happen, and people continued to be angry, Christine got a bit upset, and suggested that the continued anger at Stonewall’s essentially indifferent attitude towards the offence caused to transpeople shows that we are “not the kind of trans people I’ve spent all these years thinking I was representing”.

This seems to be going down badly, and much as I admire the work that Christine has done for transpeople over the years, and appreciate her adding to the body of evidence which shows Bindel’s evasiveness and unrepentant nature over her attack on the trans community, I think she is going too far here and risks alienating the large numbers of trans people in the UK who are, frankly, utterly fed-up of the GLB movement tolerating and turning a blind eye to the transphobia within its ranks.

This is an issue which, I think, came to a head in the US last year over the HRC/ENDA debacle, and now the Stonewall incident seems to (somewhat aptly, given the name) be becoming a catalyst for the same wave of anger breaking in the UK. A lot of trans people seem to have decided that the time is right to draw a line in the sand over GLB-transphobia, and it’s notable that many non-trans GLB youth seem to be right alongside us on this.

Attitudes are shifting, and some of the veteran campaigners of both the trans movement, and the trans-exclusive GLB movement are perhaps starting to look a bit like dinosaurs safe in the knowledge that they understood the way the world worked and would continue to work, while the comet that now marks the K-T boundary blazed overhead in the night sky.

I just want to re-affirm here that this isn’t about Julie Bindel, although she’s been the topic of much conversation. This is about Stonewall nominating an openly transphobic journalist for a “Journalist of the Year” award.