The Conflict of Disinterest

By Sophia Siedlberg

15 October 2008

When Julie Bindel was nominated for the Journalist of the Year Award by Stonewall, there was a storm of protest from the transgender and transsexual communities. This is hardly surprising when in the past Bindel wrote literary "masterpieces" with titles like "Gender Benders Beware". As always I have produced my gut reaction. And as is often the case, a few friends of mine have contacted me explaining the positive and negatives sides to Julie Bindel. And yes I am at the stage again where I have to sit down and try to explain clearly what my objections to Bindel actually are.

I think the main problem I have with Bindel is the fatalism. To begin with she seems to say that in principle she is opposed to the enforcement of the gender binary, she describes gender as a "social construct" and often talks of freeing people from its shackles. So why does she keep saying that a transsexual man or woman will never be the sex they become via surgery?

Because they were raised as their natal sex and are conditioned to be that sex. Well is that not being fatalistic?

Her second argument against transsexual folks is that they somehow enforce the gender binary by adopting the stereotypical aspects of their post operative sex.

In fact she goes further by saying that the surgeons themselves are somehow treating transsexual folks and encouraging them to change their physical sex so they are not gay or lesbian. She thinks that reparative therapy is perhaps a better solution where someone is dissuaded from having sex reassignment surgery and accepting the physical sex they were born into, but isn't that also propping up sex stereotypes? "Better  a gay man than a transsexual women" or "better a lesbian than a transsexual man." Is that not another form of sex stereotyping?

I can see where Bindel is facing a problem where you cannot avoid sex stereotyping when there are two sexes. Even though she maintains there is some way to avoid the stereotyping, I suspect that this is very difficult while there are two sexes.

It is not her core ideas I object to. It is the fatalism. In fairness you could say that my comment about it being difficult to end sex stereotyping while there are two sexes is also fatalistic, but I am being a realist, and difficult does not mean impossible.  As always I wanted to join in the bloodsport of Bindel Bashing. I find that very easy because with me, I have been subjected to non-consensual surgery as a child, because men and women wanted me to be either a victim (female) or a villain (male) and not a human being that just happened to be born without any viable reproductive organs. Bindel claims to be opposed to that sort of thing, and yet everything she says repeats the mantra: "male = villain and female = victim".

Her apparent hostility to anyone ("Gender benders" who should beware for example) is visceral. I was born physiologically intersexed and wish I was left alone by surgeons, mainly because I had no choice about what was done and could not give or refuse consent. But she never seems to mention people in my situation. She always seems to discuss people who have surgery to become physically one or the other sex as consenting adults, often claiming they were somehow deceived

into having this surgery. Well fine, but it still does not make sense when they sign a consent form as adults and I did not as a child. The problem with her reasoning is it looks like someone who takes a particularly sadistic line on all this, implying by her silence that surgery on intersex kids to make them fit the gender binary is fine, but adults who are clearly distressed by being one sex physically and who seek, pay for and consent to surgery to change their physical sex are somehow wrong and bad.

It is the way it comes across, regardless of what Bindel is actually saying. I read her articles and sense a sort of hateful sadism. I cannot be right surely?

The message I get from that is simple: "People will be the sex Bindel's philosophy decides and anyone who seeks otherwise must be made to suffer even more as the sex they don't want to be."

Does Bindel really want a society like that? Well the way she talks you would think so. She seems to take a few other lines of reasoning that strike me as particularly nasty. A "male" to female transsexual was born a "male" in her eyes. Now clearly they don't like being "male", and being reminded of that by having Bindel remind them over and over again that they are "male" and she hates males. Seems a bit sadistic?

This is my problem with Bindel. I often regard "norm borns" as inherently sadistic. Sometimes I can be as scathing about both sexes as Bindel is about men, for good reason I add. My body was violated as an 18 month old child, whatever I decided later on in life to accommodate the diktats of men and women was wrong in the eyes of men and women, and when between the age of 12 and 17 I was sexually abused as a "novelty", I was blamed for it by the abusers, who were men and women. (Sorry to burst the bubble but men and women can be as abusive as each other).

To a lot of transgender and transsexual folks she is a bigot. To me she is another "norm born" with a sense of superiority based on being born a "norm born" with viable reproductive organs.

Perhaps Julie Bindel can tell me where I am wrong. I don't hate her, I just hate the sense that in her eyes I would be sub human because I do not conform to the two sex system, and yet she is constantly presented by the likes of Stonewall as someone who is fighting against the "Gender binary" and the "Two sex system".

I am simply unconvinced. And as someone who was born totally outside the two sex system, I am someone she needs to convince. If she responds to what I am saying, then at least I will know she recognizes me as human. That would be a start. If she addresses my questions and sees them as questions (in this article) and corrects me on where I may have got it wrong, then hell she respects the opinion of the lowest of the low like myself enough to explain her viewpoint clearly. If she actually engages me in discussion even after my more angry rantings elsewhere, then she may even regard me as an equal human being. But if I hear nothing, then she is another "norm born" wanting to give the likes of me grief. Because those like me are what such "norm borns" are really uneasy about. Transsexual and transgender folks represent the "Bending" of gender, and intersex people like me are a "sociomedical emergency" and an intersex person who openly attacks the two sex system on a regular basis (such as myself) is just a monster in some people's eyes.

But this is just it. I should not be seen as a monster. I am a human being. And this is what the whole Bindel issue is all about. Which brings me on to the subject of this nomination for an award.

Stonewall UK are supposed to be a human rights organization. They advocate for Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual folks. Their not having "T" for "Transgender" is perhaps telling in my opinion. But then it is always unclear just what "LGBT" groups actually mean by "Transgender". I say this because they tend to define Transgender (as in self identified as transgender), Transsexual and Intersex people as a homogenous entity, they are lumped under this "umbrella term". So it is reasonable to assume that in giving Julie Bindel this award, they perceive her negative views about "Transgender" people as basically views about people who do not really conform to the diktats of the two sex system.

After many complaints from "The Transgender community", (keep in mind they are not entirely clear what "Transgender" actually means) Stonewall had The Gender trust publish the following (presumably on their behalf):

"Britain - Stonewall's Response to Oppose Stonewall Award to transphobic nominee Julie Bindell... [2008-10-15 Gender Trust]

Courtesy The Gender Trust

Date: 2008-10-15 20.01.42 BST

GT Newsletter - Stonewall's Response

Issue No: 08/07 - 15 October 2008

Julie Bindel - Stonewall's Response

Following the receipt of the letter we sent to Ben Summerskill, Chief Executive on this matter he was in touch with the Trust.

He acknowledged that he was aware that the decision of Julie Bindel being in the nominees list has been controversial and that they had received a volume of complaints on the matter.

However he went on to explain that nominations had had to meet criteria which related to the work that a nominee had been involved in during the preceding year, and whilst acknowledging that Ms Bindel has written material in previous years that is of concern to the trans community, judges were expected to work strictly within this criteria.

Strong support

Julie Bindel's nomination had received especially strong support from within the Lesbian community for whom she has become one of the few mouthpieces within the general media. It is also to be noted that there has been some support for her from within the trans community from individuals who have dissociated her previous edicts from current work.

He did accept that as all award judging can be somewhat subjective it is possible, regardless of the criteria, that judges may use their knowledge of a nominees previous work when arriving at their decision. As the judging has already been completed in preparation for the awards ceremony Stonewall is unable to withdraw her name from the list of nominees as this would be unfair to the members of the judging panel.

Committment to fight transphobia

Further he went on to explain that as an organisation Stonewall stood foursquare with the trans community in fighting transphobia and would continue to do so. Although as an organisation Stonewall's remit does not explicitly include transgender people they have and will continue to offer sensitive support in partnership to the trans community.

The Gender Trust while sticking with its original objections to the inclusion of Julie Bindel in the list of nominees accepts that on the basis of the criteria set down for judging individual categories, the reassurances given and the fact that our objection has not been rejected out of hand, it would be churlish to protest further.

The Trust hopes that as a result of this that a dialogue can be started with Stonewall to increase the understanding by both organisations of the needs and aspirations of the communities that we support."

To me that reads like second hand spin, like why issue a statement that is in truth simply correspondence with a "trans organization"? Why not publish an open press statement? Am I to assume that Stonewall will not accept any communication from individual activists who may be able to explain more clearly what the objections to Bindel actually are? It sort of smacks of people being individuals unless they are deemed "Trans" and then the response is simply, "Oh throw some empty words to the unwashed masses".

I will be honest. Yes I am so cynical. That is how it looks to me. But look at this statement:

"Strong support

Julie Bindel's nomination had received especially strong support from within the Lesbian community for whom she has become one of the few mouthpieces within the general media. It is also to be noted that there has been some support for her from within the trans community from individuals who have dissociated her previous edicts from current work."

Well of course the lesbian community will give her strong support. She is a lesbian and she is one of a considerable number of "one and only mouthpieces" for "the lesbian community". How many Transsexual journalists are there? I wonder about that.

As for support from within the "Transsexual community". Well that will be Stephen Whittle, who had some very interesting views in 1973 as a "Radical feminist", and I am not on his Christmas card list because I regard his interference in intersex affairs to be rather annoying. And if what Bindel says is to be believed, then Whittle is "a woman with a radical feminist lesbian agenda" (I know Stephen will not like that being said of him, but that is exactly what Bindel says, remember Stephen? hosepipes and Levi 501's). Well I don't like "radical feminist lesbians" poking their noses into intersex affairs. (Not after the Cheryl Chase-ISNA fiasco).

Now that would be seen as my attacking Stephen Whittle, and my being a bigot right? Well no, because I am only drawing this from what Julie Bindel says of someone like Stephen Whittle. And that is the problem, isn't it? It is what Bindel says about someone in Stephen Whittle's situation, I find it much easier to call him a guy who does this activism for Press for Change. (Though his opinions annoy me a lot.)

This is where the nomination does not really add up with what Stonewall claim to be their "human rights" agenda. Either those transsexual folks who support Bindel have a bad dose of the Stockholm syndrome, or there is a bit of cosy spindoctoring going on there, and no I do not buy it.

I mean Stephen Whittle seems to like painting me as a lunatic, while I have removed what he considers "slanderous remarks" from the website I write for, he has not removed his slanderous remarks about me. So no I do not trust that statement about "supportive transsexual". It just looks like some big (Male) fish from a little pond encroaching on my space yet again telling me what I am and what to do.

The underlying narrative with regards to Stonewall and their nomination of Julie Bindel is a simple one. She can say what she wants about invisible and silenced people. Stonewall don't give a damn about the "Transgender" community (whatever that is supposed to be aside from a political ghetto where people who do not obey stupid rules are dumped by "norm borns" who have issues about who they can and cannot sleep with).

I will say this though. It is those people, the invisible people, Bindel has to convince if Stonewall are going to have any mandate after giving her this award. (I suspect they will).

Personally I don't care if Stonewall nominate Germaine Greer (a one and only mouthpiece), Sheila Jeffrys (a one and only mouthpiece), Janice Raymond (a one and only mouthpiece), Julie Burchill (a one and only mouthpiece, it gets less convincing this "one and only mouthpiece" bit, doesn't it?) Well that is "Norm born Privilege" for you. What I do care about is people inciting hatred that may just cause others including people like me to suffer.

Having said that, if they ignore this article, call me "unstable" or "unbalanced" or try to call me "transgendered" (I do not actually accept the term) and then ignore what I am sayng, they will only be acting in a bigoted fashion. And I am more used to that than other folks because I have had to put up with it all my life.

As always the door is open for discussion. Let's just hope I am just being too cynical in expecting no response and they actually do respond.