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| Screenshot from Dys4ia, an autobiographical game about gender reassignment surgery |
I should start with a bit of a set up for this, since it's a bit out there as far as a Clinkening topic (although I’ve touched on gender politics before). I originally wanted to write this for the Clinkening last week, but thanks to my phenomenally stupid time management skills, I was two busy fighting the two headed viper of essay deadlines and sleep deprivation to really be able to do it justice.
And I suspect I'll have to to get away with this one.
My attention was drawn during one of my
all-too-frequent breaks from my essays to an article by bastion of
tact Julie Birchill and her article “Transsexuals Should Cut it
Out” (now removed from Comment is Free, so reference will be to the
“We've got some clowns...” archived version of it), in which she
throws out every trans slur possible in the name of explaining how a
“bunch of dicks in chicks' clothing” have no right to contribute
to the feminist agenda, and that apparently their issues aren't
important enough to discuss.
I originally was a bit wary of entering
a debate where, as not a woman, nor a transsexual outside of maybe
Baudrillard's definition (where we all are), but since this is as
much a debate on excluding voices as it is on the feminist Zeitgeist,
I figured it'd be ironic enough for me to get away with it. So let's
be balanced about it, let Birchill get her day in court.
The purpose of the article was as a
response to criticism of lauded (and controversial: infamous feminist
critic Germaine Greer famously describing her: “hair birds-nested
all over the place, f***-me shoes and three inches of fat cleavage”)
feminist writer Suzanne Moore, who posted an extract from her latest
book Red: The Waterstones Anthology
about the power of female anger. For the most part the piece was
Marxist-inspired discussion of the seeming reversal in gender
equality in the last five years, its causes and the
warning to the powers that be that women wouldn't be put down and
pulled down anymore by identity politics and
tokenism. However, in what
she calls a “throwaway line”, she comments on the subject of
image and gender politics:
The cliché is
that female anger is always turned inwards rather than outwards into
despair. We are angry with ourselves for not being happier, not being
loved properly and not having the ideal body shape – that of a
Brazilian transsexual.
The “Brazilian transsexual” line
was a moment of pretty phallic stupidity to be quite honest, a point
where Moore lost the point of her argument and relied on pretty lurid
stereotypes. Unless she was talking in a kind of Baudrillardian sense
– that the body has become an “artifice” that is crafted and
constructed to the point where it is no longer sexually attractive in
a physiological sense but in the sense of its image, it's constructed
image – then perhaps I can see where Moore was going with that. But
as she later admitted it was a throwaway line meant to spice it up,
transsexual commenters, writers and the like were justifiably upset,
as were actual Brazilian transsexuals, given Brazil's appalling
record on trans crime, despite it's Carnival reputation. Moore's
responses weren't entirely convincing, mainly because she didn't
offer a true act of contrition for it (she has apologised for it
though, that should be pointed out), more asking for perspective on
the 'real issues' and the real enemies.
Yeah, denigrating trans issues is TOTALLY going to make them feel united and that they are part of a universal struggle for equality.
So yeah, there was a lot of classic
“Feminism is Middle Aged White Women” issues with Moore's
article, and that arrogant lack of self-awareness that broke down the
Women's Liberation Movement by the early eighties (Women's liberation
being the name for the largest fragment of second wave feminism), but
on the whole its focus was elsewhere, and the issue the trans
community seemed to have with it was as much about flippancy as it
was about actual offence.
Birchill on the other hand...
Right, I'd better get this out of the
way; I have a lot of bile built up from reading the piece repeatedly
so I'd better get it out of the way. The article was pretty close to
fucking abuse, and it's fairly fucking ironic that she in the tagline
harps on that “it's never a good idea for those who feel oppressed
to start bullying others in turn” as she spends the entire article
denigrating, belittling and attempting to silence trans people,
ending with an outright threat:
“Shims, shemales, whatever you're
calling yourselves these days – don't threaten or bully us lowly
natural-born women, I warn you. We may not have as many lovely big
swinging Phds as you, but we've experienced a lifetime of PMT and
sexual harassment and many of us are now staring HRT and the
menopause straight in the face – and still not flinching. Trust me,
you ain't seen nothing yet. You really won't like us when we're
angry.”
Yes Ms Birchill, it really isn't a good
idea to bully others because you feel oppressed, is it?
Right, with that out of the way, my
vitriol back to safe levels, it's time to try and break down
Birchill's argument, such that it is. What is Birchill trying to say,
other than “chicks with dicks” need to stop haressing her friend
because they have the foolish right to believe that they can be
accepted as women, who they mentally have always been but physiology
has betrayed? Because, if one line sums up Birchill's argument is,
funnily enough, a quote from Moore herself “'People can just fuck
off really. Cut their dicks off and be more feminist than me. Good
for them.'” There is the notion that there is some kind of
competition between M to F transsexuals and born women, as if only
one of these groups represents “true” feminism, and more
tellingly that there is somehow a conspiracy that men undergo gender
reassignment therapy (a series of painful, intrusive, long term
procedures) purely, as Birchill eloquently puts it “to have your
cock cut off and then plead special privileges as women”. Actually,
she summed it up much better here in a piece simply entitled 'Gender Bending':
Transsexualism is, basically, just
another, more drastic twist on the male menopause, which in turn is
just another excuse for men to do as they please.
You really do become the thing you hate
don't you? Also, I'm glad thirteen years of thought has led you to
the same tired conclusion Ms Birchill.
So, to summate, she's a hateful writer
who apparently twists an agenda initially based on the fight for
equality to turn it against people she considers “no true Sco- I
mean Women!” and in doing so undermines her cause, the cause for
feminism (by proving a lot of crtics of feminism absolutely right)
and damaged the credibility of The Observer, the newspaper this
hateful polemic initially appeared in. This has sent ripples throughthe intelligentsia, most of which siding against Birchill if not for
her toxic views than at least for the way she said it and has led to
the removal of the article (for breaking large swathes of the code of
conduct, namely the bit about using language offensive to various
groups) and really in the end proving her own immaturity while doing
so.
I'd say that Julie Birchill should cut
it out, but I don't think the choice is in her hands now that the PCC
is involved...
It's a pretty incendiary debate, so comments are welcome, but try to keep them civil.
Stay safe and always hug it out, no
matter who you are
Huggy Dave
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