![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Bindelling
Oct. 18th, 2008 11:40 amChristine Burns has lunch with Julie Bindel.
2:21 "I don't think being a lesbian or a gay man is a choice like what washing powder to use or what you fancy for your lunch, I do think however that is has to be either that you're born a lesbian or a gay man, a gay person, or that you learn it through socialisation, I don't think it can be anywhere in the middle."
So either you're born as a male-in-a-female body (or vice versa) or you learn it through socialisation. Where is the social pressure to conform to the opposite sex (especially for m-to-fs?) Surely if this were the case we'd have a society made up almost entirely of f-to-m transsexuals, we'd be complaining about Julian Bindel and he'd be seeking talking therapies for being a self-hating transsexual.
7:50 "I don't ever, ever, set out to be controversial."
8:05 "I've said things in the past that are ridiculous, that I now think are wrong, misguided, I don't always stand by things I've said in the past and in fact I think that's a position I'm very proud of because I learn all the time and politics evolve don't they?"
But then she talks about the 'tongue in cheek' comments she made about humourless vegetarians.
9:45 "There are things I've written which I feel a little bit embarrassed about, things that I've written where I think I'd take a different line now, and they [the articles] do follow you around."
11:00 Where the trans discussion stuff starts.
13:30 CB: "Is your view changing?"
JB: "No, my view hasn't changed on, I think the 1950s psychiatrists are very, are not known for their liberal attitudes I think , who operated in, during the time the diagnosis was first actually, coming to fruition. I'm very very clear that it is totally against the work of feminism in challenging gender roles when traditional psychiatrists and medical practitioners see men and women as odd or suffering from a syndrome if they behave outside of their gender norms and I do think that practice still continues in diagnosing people as transgender or transsexual but obviously what I have learnt is that those practises are shifting because of the education of some people within the transsexual community, such as yourself."
14:48 JB: "I know some of the things I said in my 2004 column in Weekend were hurtful and defensive and could actually incite hateful behaviour towards transsexual people, but everything I've actually written and said I would argue since then has not actually been to hurt or cause offence to people in the community but has been to start a debate or to continue with the debate about" (it's unclear here but it's either 'the' or 'their') "so-called 'condition', and about surgery as a solution to the diagnosis of transgenderism/transsexualism. Obviously being told that I'm a bigot or that I've caused hurt or pain is something that I don't take lightly my work and my life has been about reducing the bigotry that people face obviously, particularly women with sexual violence and misogyny."
CB: "But I think you're saying you're listening."
16:38 "I would unreservedly apologise for the tone in that article [the 2004 article]. I absolutely stand by the core premise which was my anger at a particular member of the community that almost brought a rape crisis centre to it's knees, I have not changed my position on that case at all... To use a column to make jokes about an oppressed minority, jokes that would actually would feed in to the prejudices of bigots was unforgivable and I actually reservedly apologise."
(I should point out that there is no silent 'un' in that penultimate word.)
17:42 I'm not going to write all this bit out because it's rather tortured but Christine asks Julie whether she would consider Christine to be a woman, Julie then responds by talking about how she always found it offensive to be told by bigots that, as a lesbian, she wasn't a real woman. She then goes straight on to how she wants to move away from being seen as a real woman (which seems contradictory) while she sees some transsexual woman as moving towards the traditional view of what a woman is "which therefore affects badly the work I'm doing". "Everyone has a right to self-determination, it's more about 'what do you mean by that?' What is a woman? What makes you a woman? And part of that has to be the socialisation we experience when we grow up. Now, that's only really relevant if we talk about particular issues that affect girls living as girls in girls bodies as they're growing up. Otherwise, I don't know, what does make you a woman? What makes you a man?"
19:48 Julie wants to put down on paper her views on the matter because she feels she has been misunderstood, she wants to clarify both what she is and isn't saying.
2:21 "I don't think being a lesbian or a gay man is a choice like what washing powder to use or what you fancy for your lunch, I do think however that is has to be either that you're born a lesbian or a gay man, a gay person, or that you learn it through socialisation, I don't think it can be anywhere in the middle."
So either you're born as a male-in-a-female body (or vice versa) or you learn it through socialisation. Where is the social pressure to conform to the opposite sex (especially for m-to-fs?) Surely if this were the case we'd have a society made up almost entirely of f-to-m transsexuals, we'd be complaining about Julian Bindel and he'd be seeking talking therapies for being a self-hating transsexual.
7:50 "I don't ever, ever, set out to be controversial."
8:05 "I've said things in the past that are ridiculous, that I now think are wrong, misguided, I don't always stand by things I've said in the past and in fact I think that's a position I'm very proud of because I learn all the time and politics evolve don't they?"
But then she talks about the 'tongue in cheek' comments she made about humourless vegetarians.
9:45 "There are things I've written which I feel a little bit embarrassed about, things that I've written where I think I'd take a different line now, and they [the articles] do follow you around."
11:00 Where the trans discussion stuff starts.
13:30 CB: "Is your view changing?"
JB: "No, my view hasn't changed on, I think the 1950s psychiatrists are very, are not known for their liberal attitudes I think , who operated in, during the time the diagnosis was first actually, coming to fruition. I'm very very clear that it is totally against the work of feminism in challenging gender roles when traditional psychiatrists and medical practitioners see men and women as odd or suffering from a syndrome if they behave outside of their gender norms and I do think that practice still continues in diagnosing people as transgender or transsexual but obviously what I have learnt is that those practises are shifting because of the education of some people within the transsexual community, such as yourself."
14:48 JB: "I know some of the things I said in my 2004 column in Weekend were hurtful and defensive and could actually incite hateful behaviour towards transsexual people, but everything I've actually written and said I would argue since then has not actually been to hurt or cause offence to people in the community but has been to start a debate or to continue with the debate about" (it's unclear here but it's either 'the' or 'their') "so-called 'condition', and about surgery as a solution to the diagnosis of transgenderism/transsexualism. Obviously being told that I'm a bigot or that I've caused hurt or pain is something that I don't take lightly my work and my life has been about reducing the bigotry that people face obviously, particularly women with sexual violence and misogyny."
CB: "But I think you're saying you're listening."
16:38 "I would unreservedly apologise for the tone in that article [the 2004 article]. I absolutely stand by the core premise which was my anger at a particular member of the community that almost brought a rape crisis centre to it's knees, I have not changed my position on that case at all... To use a column to make jokes about an oppressed minority, jokes that would actually would feed in to the prejudices of bigots was unforgivable and I actually reservedly apologise."
(I should point out that there is no silent 'un' in that penultimate word.)
17:42 I'm not going to write all this bit out because it's rather tortured but Christine asks Julie whether she would consider Christine to be a woman, Julie then responds by talking about how she always found it offensive to be told by bigots that, as a lesbian, she wasn't a real woman. She then goes straight on to how she wants to move away from being seen as a real woman (which seems contradictory) while she sees some transsexual woman as moving towards the traditional view of what a woman is "which therefore affects badly the work I'm doing". "Everyone has a right to self-determination, it's more about 'what do you mean by that?' What is a woman? What makes you a woman? And part of that has to be the socialisation we experience when we grow up. Now, that's only really relevant if we talk about particular issues that affect girls living as girls in girls bodies as they're growing up. Otherwise, I don't know, what does make you a woman? What makes you a man?"
19:48 Julie wants to put down on paper her views on the matter because she feels she has been misunderstood, she wants to clarify both what she is and isn't saying.