I met Claudia in a pub in Hackney in 2003. I was researching diagnoses of transsexuality at the time, and a mutual friend introduced us. I had thought, as I do now, that the notion of being "trapped in the wrong body" was deeply sexist and conservative; we should all be able to present how we wish, whatever sex we are born into.
Dressed head to toe in black, her hair swept into a glorious silver-grey chignon, she told me she was “in mourning” for her former lover David, who had not died but left Claudia many years ago. Describing David as “a cross between George Best and Jesus Christ”, Claudia told me her life story.
Born male, Claudia grew up on a run-down estate in Glasgow, where she was mercilessly bullied for being gay. Then, in the early Eighties, Claudia met David, who soon announced he was “not gay” and that therefore Claudia “must be a woman”. She had genital surgery in 1986.
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“I changed for all the wrong reasons,” Claudia told me. David walked out a year after the operation. Claudia and I became firm friends and remain so to this day. I later wrote about her for the Sunday Telegraph Magazine, but the editors decided not to put the article online, so it was not widely read.
Not so my now-infamous column in the Guardian, entitled “Gender Benders, Beware”, in which I railed against a trans woman who had tried to have a rape crisis centre in Vancouver shut down by tying its staff up in years of litigation. The fall-out was immediate; the Reader’s Editor received more than 200 letters of complaint, many as a result of lobbying by trans activists. (He would later distance himself from the article, claiming “it abused an already abused minority”.)
[su_unherd_related fttitle="Suggested reading" author="Timandra Harkness"]https://staging.unherd.com/2021/10/the-hounding-of-kathleen-stock/[/su_unherd_related]
I began to receive death and rape threats by email, as well as messages that I was “being watched”. I was used to my feminist views being unpopular: those of us who name and blame men for violence towards women are often warned to keep quiet. But nothing could prepare me for the misogyny of extreme transgender activists.
Despite the hostility, I contacted a number of trans people to see if they were willing to talk. Over the years I had debated countless prominent activists at public events. It was always respectful, warm and, in some cases, truly enlightening for both sides. I kept in touch with some of my opponents and friendships were formed.
In 2007, I was asked by the BBC to take part in Hecklers, a live radio programme with an aggressive format. I was asked to put forward my view — that sex-change operations constitute unnecessary mutilation — before an audience of doctors and transgender people at the Royal Society of Medicine. Two trans people, a gender clinician and Peter Tatchell were put up to argue against me.
I was convinced I would mess up, and was too scared to invite my feminist allies to watch. But I survived, and afterwards stayed for a drink with several of the audience. Two individual trans men came up to me, lifted their T-shirts and showed me their double mastectomy scars. A trans woman told me that before transition and hormones she was being "poisoned by testosterone". There was no animosity, except for the fact that Claudia, who had insisted on coming along to support me, was cruelly snubbed by her own community. Solidarity never extends to those who speak out against the transgender doctrine.
The following year, I was nominated for the Journalist of the Year award by Stonewall for my work on anti-lesbian violence. I had no interest in the nomination, which had come from the public as opposed to an internal vote by the charity. But when the gay media decided to go absolutely berserk about my nomination, I changed my mind: I had to go, despite the fact that I had long made public my view that Stonewall prioritised rich gay men over lesbians.
Soon social media was awash with petitions, open letters and plans for a demonstration at the event. There was talk of how to storm the Victoria and Albert Museum, where the event was being held. But Stonewall held firm.
[su_unherd_related fttitle="Suggested reading" author="Jonny Best"]https://staging.unherd.com/2021/08/stonewalls-greatest-betrayal/[/su_unherd_related]
The crowd greeting me on arrival was loud and aggressive. My name was plastered over dozens of placards, and “Bindel the bigot” was being screamed through loudhailers. Once I had managed to enter the building, I was told by one of the judges that I was the clear winner, but the panel had received strict instructions that I was not to be given the award. So it was given to a heterosexual agony aunt.
The impact of that decision would extend far beyond the handing-out of a mundane prize. It galvanised the modern day trans-rights movement: the old guard — such as Press for Change founders Christine Burns and Stephen Whittle — started to be dismissed as irrelevant and too conciliatory, with the younger blue-fringe crew declaring themselves the new overlords.
From 2008 onwards, whenever I was invited to speak alongside a transgender activist or ally, the event would face threats of being shut down or disrupted. In 2010 I was invited to speak at “Queer Question Time” at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern. I turned up to face a massive demonstration of well over 100 trans activists, shouting my name through loudhailers, jostling me as I tried to enter the building. Many of the protesters came inside for the event, and every time I opened my mouth, screamed over me.
The atmosphere became so toxic that one of my co-panellists, former London Mayor Ken Livingstone, was forced to say: “I’m sure that you do have people that put you in danger, but I can’t imagine Julie Bindel is one.” From the floor, an object was thrown across the room and hit me just below the eye. I was terrified, even though it turned out to be a lanyard, thrown by a trans woman.
But at least the event had been able to take place. From 2008, the UK National Union of Students (NUS) has included me on its “no-platform” list, alongside fascist groups and individuals. This meant that even when I was invited to speak at universities on male violence towards women and girls, the NUS would threaten to withdraw any financial support it had given to the organiser. Inevitably I would be dropped, publicly, to protect the event.
For many that still wasn’t enough. In 2011, upset that I was still invited to speak at the occasional university event, the NUS Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender (GLBT) conference voted to no-platform me once and for all. The motion summed up their spiteful worldview: “This conference believes that Julie Bindle [sic] is vile.”
And on it went. In Denmark, at a conference on how to end the harms caused to women by the global sex trade, I had to be escorted out of the venue by police officers after an angry mob started to bang loudly on the windows and scream through loudhailers. At another event, in Spain, where I was asked to deliver a keynote speech on rape, I was stopped from going on stage with minutes to spare. I later discovered that a major funder of the organising group had raised concerns about “transphobia, as reflected by the invitation to Julie Bindel to speak.”
[su_unherd_related fttitle="Suggested reading" author="Debbie Hayton"]https://staging.unherd.com/2021/08/why-i-became-trans/[/su_unherd_related]
I am, of course, not the only activist to be harassed. Over the years, I have made friends with a number of trans people who have also been harassed and de-platformed when attempting to have discussions with feminists such as myself. I've interviewed dozens of de-transitioners who have been cast asunder after expressing regret about transitioning. I also know many trans people who are perfectly happy with their decision — but none of them believe it is reasonable to demand that they encroach women-only spaces such as domestic violence refuges, rape crisis services, prisons or hospital wards.
The problem, after all, is not trans people. It is extreme trans activism — a men's rights movement which has grown out of the backlash against feminism, in particular the type of feminism that seeks to eradicate male violence towards women and girls.
For me, the costs of being targeted in this way have been enormous — and not just in relation to my unpaid activism. The mob follows me around, preventing me from speaking on how to end male violence under the guise of "protecting trans-rights". Whenever I speak about prostitution, an expertise of mine, I am told that I “clearly hate trans sex workers”, as though everything comes back to that.
Faced with such vitriol, my mental health took a hammering. I began to feel ashamed of the trouble I was causing for those who invited me to speak. I would find myself apologising to them, which they would graciously accept as though they had done something commendable by having me there, despite my decades of active feminism and public profile.
I started to wonder if perhaps I was a monster — and I was ridiculously grateful to those who did not hide or apologise for the fact that they had any public connection to me. My self-confidence fell to rock bottom, as I doubted my abilities, skills and knowledge. On hearing of the latest cancellation, I would end up highly distressed and in floods of tears, knowing that mud often sticks. I was offered a newspaper column only to have it withdrawn after several staff members announced they would publicly argue against my appointment.
I spent years trying to warn my fellow feminists that if they stood by and let them scapegoat me, eventually they would come after every dissenter. First on the list would be the lesbians, because we are a thorn in the side of misogynistic gay men. Yet when I appealed to academics to stand with me and not cancel an event I was speaking at, most turned the other cheek and decided a quiet life was better.
And so now, here we are. The witches are being drowned and the bitches burned at the stake. Kathleen Stock, Jo Phoenix, Selina Todd and many other women whose names you will never know are being put through hell.
But another, largely hidden cost of this war is the lost opportunity for solidarity. As a young lesbian, trans people were my friends and allies. That is how it should be. Those of us who live on the margins of society, and who are discriminated against, should have each other’s backs. We are all victims of this bloody battle.
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Subscribe“The problem, after all, is not trans people. It is extreme trans activism — a men’s rights movement…”
No, I think the problem is quite simply activism. All activism. Activists are people who are so convinced of their own rightness and righteousness that they view the democratic process with disdain. Instead of getting themselves elected and working together with others to craft policies that balance the needs and concerns of all groups and improve the lot of all members of society, they use disruption, shouting, abuse, and threats of violence to try to force their own agenda on everybody else without having to engage in the onerous business of persuasion through discourse, which of course would entail actually listening to other people. Activists of all hues have become a plague. They are proto-totalitarians, whose moral certainty endangers us all.
I agree with what you say. It is reminiscent of Weimar Germany where the State failed to quash the intolerant and violent behaviour of both Communist and the National Socialist parties. Unfortunately, too many organisations have a defeatist attitude to disruption by the intolerant.
If Julie Bindle is invited to speak or submit an article and there are protests they should be disregarded and any one shouting her down or throwing anything at her should be ejected by burley stewards of both sexes and arrested outside for conduct likely to lead to a breach of the peace. Unfortunately, too many leftists in academia and publishing consider there are no enemies to the left and fail to enforce tolerant behaviour. Similarly Kathleen Stock should be actively supported against the intolerant.
I have little doubt I would not be impressed by Julie Bindle’s forthcoming book and regard the articles I have previously read in the Guardian by her as misconceived and poisonous ant-male diatribes. But she should be entitled to speak and publish what she likes so long as it does not contravene the law. That seems fundamental to a Liberal society.
Laws can be changed for the worse. The law does not protect freedom ; it can take it away. I suggest people can do and say what they want unless it reduces other peoples freedom and ability to live their life unmolested.
It may be worth pointing out that without political activism our own democracy would not exist. We would still be in the world of 1832 in which parliament was run by aristocrats and the rich in their own interests. Ruling elites do not share or surrender their power willingly. Without suffragette activism, women would never have won the vote. Julie Bindel may not be easy to agree with on everything but I admire her warrior stance especially on the trans rights activists. As she reputedly announces herself: “I’m a feminist. Not the fun kind.” That is so brilliant.
Change happens in societies it’s wrong to argue that only extremism’ makes it change. Communists did that….
I agree with you. Activists have certainly had a positive impact through history. They are the people who fought for liberty and freedom of speech and equal opportunity. It is ludicrous to brand all activists as a problem because of the over-correction and illiberal behaviour we are seeing now.
What the British desired was freedom from taxation and government.
“Without suffragette activism, women would never have won the vote.”
The suffragette fairy story is forced upon us from school onwards but it is false, suffragette terrorist activity in the years running up to the First World War probably delayed all women getting the vote by at least a decade.
Suffragists (not suffragettes) and their male allies in government kept up a steady peaceful pressure for the vote, but it was only given to property owning women alongside all men in 1918 as a reward for their great efforts in helping to win the war. In other words they got it for behaving well. No government in it’s right mind rewards terrorism.
Universal suffrage did’nt come until 1928, there was no suffragette “activism” from 1918 – 1928.
Women were being given the vote across Europe and beyond from the late 19th century onwards, New Zealand in 1893, largely due to peaceful campaigning by suffragists.
Glad you set out the true position. Unfortunately the myth is more widely known than the truth.
Agreed, good points.
Without suffragette activism women would have had the vote a lot sooner.
I was, and still am, an “activist”. I’ve become increasingly alienated from much protesting and rallying for the very reasons you state.
Perhaps we will ask ourselves, in a few years time, why we allowed a small group of people with serious mental health problems, to set the agenda.
The same could be said about climate change
And the crazy pandemic policies.
It’s my right as a man to identify as a tractor. Also, I demand my own parking space!! (Head in hands).
That’s what I’ve always wondered. If you think you’re Napoleon you aren’t provided with armies to command a palace, or a retinue of marshals. If you’re a man and you want to be a woman on the other hand…
One can only hope.
I admit to being a well off gay man, but one who shares your disgust at the way others treat lesbians. Your description of your treatment, from those who should know better, when standing up for women in our society and the societies of others evokes anger and frustration. But, being heroic is not an easy road, and to me and many people I know you are a hero, and have been for many many years. X
Maybe he thinks that by pointing out that he has considerably more money than the average Joe, his opinions are automatically more valid than the opinions of his lowly brethren.
If you read the article you’ll see the reason for his comment.
Well said, sir, from a doing OK gay man. I remember coming out in western Canada in the 90s – the redneckiest of places back then – and remember that it was the lesbians who always had our backs when times were tough. We owe our solidarity to them now more than ever. Julie Bindel is hated by some for the sin of truth telling.
But she’s hated mostly for being a bigot. She is manifestly a misandrist and transphobe. They are actually right about her.
One assumes that you are the who hates. JB is not transphobic or a misandrist. She does not hate trans people she disagrees with the ones who use violence and bullying, she does not hate men she wants to stop the violence some men inflict on women (and probably other men), much like all decent people. Pointing out that such deplorable things exist and should be countered does not imply that she thinks all men or all trans people are monsters. Judging her as a person by things she has said when upset after being bullied and attacked by a mob seems disingenuous, and it has to said somewhat craven.
You are, in fact, the bigot.
We are dealing with deeply damaged personalities whose behaviour is at once laughable and contemptible. And that’s just the universities.
I find it all funny, and think it great they are all attacking each other. From the outside it seems like various Hate Cults are fighting it out, and that is good – let them destroy each other.
I’m afraid the plain fact is that JB hates men, and sees trans women as a branch of that hated group.
Whether we are looking at activists like JB or the trans activists she opposes, we need a radical shift of focus. Instead of viewing them as the caring, concerned individuals they claim to be, the motors of history and change, we need to look deep into the psychology of the activist. And we need to look at activist movements to determine what their psychological appeal is.
Everyone who has met extreme activists has sensed that their claimed motivation is not their real motivation, and that their real motivation is far darker. It’s time to shine some light into that darkness.
power
the power to force women into sexual compliance:
speaking on political lesbianism, on the BBC documentary Lefties: Angry Wimmin
Julie Bindel “ with hetreosexual women, what i could never understand, and I did resent, was them going home to men at night. It just seemed such a contradiction and often I would get very angry when i challenged them, and they would say thats just the way they are. They had no understanding that in fact sexuality is a social construct, and that we all make choices about the way we want to live in the world” (appears about 6 minutes in)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCRohDqWDcw
could anyone downvoting this explain why they take exception to Bindel’s own words?
Because she is a misandrist?
And her outbursts are driven by misandry.
In fact such is the level of her hatred that the only explanation is that she was once rejected by the object of her desire and was unable to cope with the rejection.
Whatever the combination of dark traits that leads to extreme activism is, it seems to be the same as that which leads to terrorism.
i think theres truth to that Sheryl, activist are often the cheerleaders, apologists and rabble rousers to promote others within the cause to commit violence. I think its a problem the Guardian has with its audience, the rhetoric of the Guardian is incredibly violent and they want they their supports to attack Tories / Republicans / populists ( whatever name they are giving their hated outgroup) but the audience for the Guardian is pacifist social works, bbc journos and teachers, so the rhetoric gets ramped up higher and higher, the enemy ever more evil until finally they can get their supporters to act violently.
Check out Geary Johnasen at The Omega Inflection substack for a treatment of activists-as-psychopaths.
thx will do
“…the plain fact is that JB hates men…” This ‘fact,’ Mr Morley, is not plain to me. Haven’t you noticed that in the comments alluded to and quoted by Mr Glashan and others Ms Bindel uses the past tence? Haven’t you consider the fact — yes the plain fact — that Ms Bindel was describing her feelings when she was a teenager? I can imagine from her limited experiences as a young person she could well have harboured a hatred for men generally as well as failing to comprehend and resent how women, even after being assaulted by men or just believing in a power imbalance of men over women, could continue to be sexually attracted to men. But you can’t conclude from her current writings that she still thinks that way! I mean it’s clearly absurd to assert that it’s a plain fact that she hates men. It risks making you seem absurd, doesn’t it?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/nov/02/whyihatemen
or something more recent still:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150904155320/http://www.radfemcollective.org/news/2015/8/29/an-interview-with-julie-bindel
or this one
“All men are rapists and should be put in prison then shot.”
https://www.dailywire.com/news/feminist-journalist-all-men-are-rapists-and-should-amanda-prestigiacomo
now none of that will actually make any dent in your opinion on Bindel, so here is something completely different.
its a insightful article on internet conflict and its champions, Julie Bindel is not the knight you are looking for.
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2020/01/16/the-internet-of-beefs/
Nice one, Mr Glashan — George, you knew I’d read right to the end of your linked article in case I could find you had misrepresented something in it. Distraction technique COMPLETELY SUCCESSFUL! WELL DONE!
I must offer you my gratitude for a second time for drawing my attention to it. Whether the contents of the article has any real merit I wouldn’t immediately like to say; I’m not sure I’m even qualified to make such a judgment at present. There’s a lot to absorb and not a little background reading to be done before that. Nevertheless I’m always open to having my perspectives widened. I have to say, though, that I have come across Julie Bindel only recently, and she has also widened my perspectives. If I’m to be honest with myself I of course should also try to read your other references to enrich my view of Ms Bindel. She might change my mind about her yet. But I also believe in the possibility of redemption and that she, too, might have changed her mind.
mods are banning some of these words so you’ll have to do a wee bit of google on your own here , pal
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/nov/02/whyihatemen
or something more recent still:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150904155320/http://www.radfemcollective.org/news/2015/8/29/an-interview-with-julie-bindel
or this one
“All men are r*8ists and should be put in prison then shot.”
https://www.dailywire.com/news/feminist-journalist-all-men-are-ra**sts-and-should-amanda-prestigiacomo
mods are banning some of these words so you’ll have to do a wee bit of google on your own here , pal
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/nov/02/whyih*temen
or something more recent still:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150904155320/http://www.radfemcollective.org/news/2015/8/29/an-interview-with-julie-bindel
or this one
“All men are r***sts and should be put in pris*n then sh*t.”
https://www.dailywire.com/news/feminist-journalist-all-men-are-ra**sts-and-should-amanda-prestigiacomo
Why I hate men
by Julie Bindel
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/nov/02/whyihatemen
or something more recent still:
“I mean, I would actually put them all in some kind of camp where they can all drive around in quad bikes, or bicycles, or white vans. I would give them a choice of vehicles to drive around with, give them no porn, they wouldn’t be able to fight – we would have wardens, of course! Women who want to see their sons or male loved ones would be able to go and visit, or take them out like a library book, and then bring them back. “
https://web.archive.org/web/20150904155320/http://www.radfemcollective.org/news/2015/8/29/an-interview-with-julie-bindel
or this one
“All men are rapists and should be put in prison then shot.”
https://www.dailywire.com/news/feminist-journalist-all-men-are-rapists-and-should-amanda-prestigiacomo
Sorry Kristof, im trying to respond but have multiple comments pending approval, if you were so inclind to look ( ive tried to send links but moderators seem to have a ban on these links)
Nov 2nd 2006 JB penned a guardian article titled – Why i hate men
Aug 29 2015 on rad fem collective .org.
questionaremid page. on men, all men. i would put them all in some kind on camp.
Aug 15 2016 on twitter, i think now deleted.
all men are R”P1S*’s and should be S&£T
Wow! you have been going the extra mile to persuade me. Now, I can forgive nearly anything anyone emits during a Twitter outburst, but I cannot dismiss the interview for the Rad’ Fem’ Collective. That must be Ms Bindel’s considered view, albeit aimed at a friendly audience. I don’t think she could continue to get my unqualified support for her cause if she says she hates me. Whilst I understand her anger, I now see the way she directs it might not prove the most effective way to advocate for her cause.
sorry to spam you with those KristofK, the links were automatically put in pending moderator approval. and thanks for being open enough to listen, this is generally a good community but even here its becoming more polarised and confrontational in the comments in the past few months. Im glad you liked the internet of beefs article, its very insightful.
I don’t doubt that the problem is extreme trans activism, not trans people in general. But unless Julie Bindell can provide some serious evidence to back up the claim that it is a men’s rights movement …. then I suggest that Bindell is delusional, irrespective of what you think of men’s rights.
Each time I read an article like this, I pretty much agree, but can’t help but think that what is described in just another step on from the anti-male bigotry of sections of the feminist movement.
I guess that makes me a “usual suspect”, pace Lesley van Reenen.
To be honest it’s pretty evident to everyone with an open mind. JB is just particularly unreflective and can’t help revealing her true colours. I guess in that she is kind of useful.
unherd Moderators are banning links to these articles. so some googling on your own is required.
Nov 2nd 2006 JB penned a guardian article titled – Why i hate men
Aug 29 2015JB interview on rad fem collective .org.
mid page. on all men. ” i would put them all in some kind on camp.”
Aug 15 2016 on twitter, i think now deleted. captured on dailywire
“all men are R”P1S*’s and should be S&£T”
Yes, this was the point where the author lost me as well.
I am a male with a healthy and respectful attitude to women (I like to think). Yet my ex-wife, aided by the feminist current within the family court system, has taken away my son. who has not had access to his father for 9 years now. I’m not sure he is even aware that I exist (despite my frequent efforts to contact him through courts and social workers). His name is Daniel.
Daniel is but one victim among many men’s rights cases that are muted as a consequence of this kind of blithe dismissal of men’s rights in the context of fallacious claims of domestic violence against women.
Yet I remain convinced that the path out of all this mess is sincere dialogue and a gender-blind respect for human rights, due process and – perhaps most importantly, a return to kindness and normalcy in how we treat each other.
A belief in fairness and due process is not, Julie, an attempt to normalise violence against women, any more than your campaign to have safe spaces for biological women should be viewed as a threat to the trans community.
I think it’s poorly expressed, but you can’t get away from the impression that the vast majority of aggressive trans activists are trans ‘women’, ie, biological men. However much their testosterone has been reduced it clearly isn’t enough.
!!
On the contrary, I thought your comment very enquiring and reasonable in respect of the men’s rights comment. I also appreciate that you acknowledge that there are sections of the feminist movement who are different from all feminists and indeed, all women.
Julie Bindle from the BBC documentary Lefties: Angry Wimmin
Julie Bindel ” Kill men now, ask me how” (appears only 10 seconds into this documentary),
maybe Julie could also explain the difference between trans women demand that lesbians sleep with them and political lesbianism, which decreed heterosexual feminists should sleep with lesbian activists whether they were attracted to them or not?
Julie Bindel “ with hetreosexual women, what i could never understand, and I did resent, was them going home to men at night. It just seemed such a contradiction and often I would get very angry when i challenged them, and they would say thats just the way they are. They had no understanding that in fact sexuality is a social construct, and that we all make choices about the way we want to live in the world” (appears about 6 minutes in)
Violent fantasy’s, Entitlement, Resentment at the lack of success with the object of her sexual desire….. sounds a lot like a trans activist / MRA / incel to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCRohDqWDcw
Deleted, realised I just added what you had already said!
yeah that point on sexuality being a social construction makes a mockery of her argument against Trans people, who say gender is socially constructed ( for clarity i think that argument is nonsense in both their cases). Oddly the social construction doesn’t apply to themselves, they are naturally trans or lesbian, but the women they want to get into bed should have to socially construct the correct identity to comply with Bindle / the trans activist.
I find it deeply disturbing that any group of people feel entitled to make demands regarding the type of person someone else should be sexually attracted to. It reminds of the obese women railing against men who don’t want to have sex with them, as if that’s some variation on monstrous sexism. It’s ludicrous. You can’t legislate someone else’s sexual preferences. I’m getting tired of everyone’s sexuality being up for public discussion constantly, as if it’s a spectator sport. Keep your clothes on or get a room, and if you get a room I really don’t care what you’re doing in there or who with, as long as everyone is old enough and consenting. That’s it. Leave me alone.
Well Mr Glashan, thx for the link to the documentary about Rev’ Fem. I found it really interesting.
Anyone paying full attention to it will see that many UnHerd readers seek to seriously misrepresent Ms Bindel in their comments — probably deliberately.
It is clear to me that her comments for this documentary reflect how she felt in the late seventies when Ms Bindel was still in her teens. For me, her recent writing is much more considered, cogently argued and, as far as I can easily tell, based on scrupulously gathered evidence.
From now on I will attach zero credibility to anything anyone continuing to misrepresent her writes here. I hope such might try shedding their own bigotry and do some thinking for a change. If Ms Bindel still hates men she no longer says so, and I seriously doubt she does. What she patently hates is violence by men against women: what’s not to like?
The times change and people sometimes change too. Extreme is a relative term and the centre of gravity has shifted. Germaine Greer is looking a lot more sensible these days.
So, you watched the first seven minutes, extracted quotes that described the reactions at the time including her own and ignored the following hour of the documentary. The quotes you have provided here, the usual ‘go to’ quotes, are part of the multiple interviews of women including Bindel involved in the 1970s feminist separatist/radical feminist movement. A great documentary that is frank about some of the more bizarre analysis and conclusions from the feminist movement that was in its early days and exploring all aspects of patriarchy and men’s power over women, how much of the left simply believed that liberation was an issue for ‘after the revolution’, how race recognition came into being in the 80’s to recognise different experiences.
What is also evident from this doco is that we are still fighting for much of the same things still.
Surely political lesbianism is an example of gay rape? But nowhere did Ms Bindel suggest in the documentary that she forced straight women to sleep with her, it’s just that (when she was a teenager) she might have resented their not doing so.
That highlighted paragraph speaks to one of the issues I’ve always wondered about, as a straight woman, in regard to lesbians vs. gay men. I always got the impression that gay men were gay because they were truly physically attracted to other men, but that many if not most lesbians were “attracted” to other women based on politically motivated decisions rather than organic physical desire. “Social construct,” indeed. I didn’t do gender studies in school, and with all the yelling and threatening and canceling going on, I can’t figure it out.
The problem with JB’s attitude to men is twofold.
First, she insists on characterising all violence suffered by women as happening in express consequence of their being women. This assumption is completely undermined logically by the fact that men are hugely more likely to be victims of violence than are women. Ergo, if there is any sex-specific motivation for such crime, it is sexism against other men, not women.
Second, she habitually attacks all men. She doesn’t refer to some men, but to “men”. She wouldn’t dare talk about any other minority (yes, men are a minority) in the same way. She wouldn’t characterise mugging as typical of all blacks, or paedophile rape as typical of all Asians. The blanket attribution of discreditable characteristics to an entire demographic is accurately called “hate speech” in all other contexts, and that’s what hers is here, too.
Either she understands all this and is a sexist, or she does not understand any of it and hence is simply rather dim. For my money, she hates men simply because they remove 98% of women from the lesbian dating pool. Probably she imagines that if there were somehow no men, all women would have to become lesbians, instead of being incomprehensibly heterosexual.
Regardless of which it is (and the internal psychodrama of a misandrist is uninteresting whichever it is), her contributions are offensive screeds of sloppy thinking, and on this further count in addition to the two previous she demonstrates herself as Unfit to be Herd.
It’s the incomprehensibly aspect which is most interesting. I have read quite a number of articles by Julie Bindel, and it seems to me that her worldview is distorted by this extraordinary blindspot. Her imagination about other people’s thoughts and feelings just has a bit missing.
I don’t doubt that she is determined and courageous in her mission. But the focus of her vision comes at the cost of viewing the world through the narrowness of a drinking-straw.
Here is JB in a 2015 BBC documentary, admitting total incomprehension of female heterosexuality:
https://youtu.be/sCRohDqWDcw?t=378
Note she claims that “sexuality is a social construct”, i.e. a choice. If so, she undermines the entire basis of gay rights which is that people should not be oppressed for a characteristic they didn’t choose and cannot change. But she must have “chosen” to be a lesbian for some reason, and that reason she gives here is that she hates men. Here she is admitting that she hates men so much she would walk rather than take a bus that had men on it:
https://youtu.be/sCRohDqWDcw?t=1151
So first she hated men, and then she started using feminism to justify it, and to misrepresent mere hatred as a somehow principled position. It’s not a coincidence that feminism is a thing on the left.
Dear Mr Redman,
Even had I the inclination, I certainly don’t have the time to carry out a formal textual analysis of all of Ms Bindel’s written and spoken materials. But I really think you’re getting your syntactic and semantic knickers in a twist.
I mean you keep objecting to her referring to men rather than some men: are you saying that she should be against violence by some men against women, which, due to the vicissitudes of the English language, could be seen to imply that violence by other men against women is OK?
You also entertain and repeatedly express this idea (based possibly on her comments in the documentary already referred to, and maybe other of her works) that she regards every man as a sexual rival for the women she would love to sleep with. To me this is a pathology, I think you might seriously need some kind of psychotherapeutic help. I wonder whether you might not think of her as a sexual rival to all the women you’d love to sleep with? Think about it. I mean aren’t you doing the same thing as you accuse her of: there *might* be an individual or a small group of women she’s been personally involved with in her life that she fancied but who were straight. This hardly extends to seeing all men as sexual rivals, does it?
Finally, Mr Redman, I look forward to your campaign on violence by men (some men if you will) against other men. But when you start it, I really hope you can carry it out without continually trivialising people who are just as passionate and sincere — and in my view justified — in their campaigning against the undoubted phenomenon of violence by some males against some females. My best wishes, and I look forward to supporting you in your endeavours.
I don’t think that it is a men’s rights movement (and you’re right that does seem somewhat anti-male to me too), but I do think that there is more than a smidgen of misogeny involved.
Can you really call it misogeny when the people “applying it” think they are women? There must be a proper descriptive word for what they are doing.
Autogynephobia??
Thanks – I did eventually find it on a wikilist. It’s not an everyday word in my circle. Not even everyyear!
Perhaps they realise, at some subconscious level, that they are not women. Hence their hatred of those who by their very existence, illustrate so elequently, that you cannot become a woman except by being born a woman.
I tend to agree with you, Mr Needham. One thing trans women cannot be is a biological mother (though they can be [/have been] a biological father). Maybe that’s one of the things transgender women resent about biological women. I think the truly insightful Mary Harrington has written eloquently and with admirable objectivity on that theme in this organ.
Re the description that it is a ‘men’s rights movement’ is another way of saying the rights being demanded is to benefit men only*. Feminists fought for women only spaces and services because we ARE more vulnerable to harassment and attack from men**. It is men demanding they have the right to use women’s changing rooms, toilets, hospital wards, prisons etc.
*men who identify as women
**not all men, but we do not know who is safe and who isn’t hence the need to be alert and aware when in the company or space of men who are strangers.
Personally, I see the that the ‘men’s right’ part of that is not referring to all males, but that high percentage within Trans activism who are heterosexual, male cross-dressers/fetishists desperate to get the same kind of fuss, attention and celebration that the LGBT movement has received over the last decade or so. Added to that there may well be incel types who attracted to the cause for obvious reasons. Top women’s positions within organisations or political parties are always at pains to welcome ‘all who identify as women’ and quite often a trans woman will get the job over a woman who is eminently more qualified (e.g The Green Party). The TRAs want a slice of the pie, they want to be celebrated but more importantly, they want their needs to surpass everyone else’s.
Nearly always (as a tactic) they are bullying and narcissistic – certainly when any women’s conferences take place, They decree no debate. I think that is because there are few facts to back them up. Banging on about Clownfish all the time doesn’t particularly help their cause. This is an attempted takeover pure and simple. People who answer back or ask to be involved in a discussion about safety etc, are demonised as transphobic The ‘male’ part of it is that you rarely see trans men (f to m) being as aggressive or demanding.
I remember when I was at Uni, in the 90’s, the BNP were going to come and speak. Many of us were surprised that they were being given a platform to speak and it was pointed out that the Union supported everyone’s right to speak. if we wanted to engage in debate we could do so and if we wanted to avoid them and not engage, we had that right too but we did not have the right to refuse them or silence them. That was against the ethos. There was even a sign above the union bar door that stated this (more eloquently than I). I think they need to dig out those signs again!
It’s a dog eat dog world. (Yes, an unfortunate turn of phrase in this context, but it still raised a smile, however it isn’t said with malice or meant to imply anything about Julie, and the company she keeps)
It seems, to me, that Julie is decrying the tactics that she, and no doubt her allies, have used themselves in years gone by. In the past, I imagine, she saw her position and views, along with the cause she championed, as MORALLY unassailable. Arguments that opposed, or questioned those beliefs, could be dismissed or ridiculed, as morally inferior, a position where she now finds herself on the receiving end. She finds herself arguing, in a game of VALUES one-up-man ship (maybe that should be person) with groups that see themselves as out trumping the trumpers (Trump would be proud). It seems that ‘modern’ activism has created a world in which feminism, and particularly gay feminism, is no longer seen as top dog in a hierarchy of victim status.
I may not agree with many of Julies views, but I would still defend her right to be able to stand up and say it, especially if her views can be debated, rather than simply given a moral pedestal, but maybe that’s what I’ve been trying to say, she simply finds herself down at the bottom of the pedestal, along with everyone else, among the great unwashed, and she doesn’t like it, as L/cpl Jones might have said.
Quoting Cpl Jones in this context seems to be a bit close to the bone.
Where will this all end, I wonder? In a year or two will publications such as Unherd or Spiked be unable to print this type of article, due to ‘hate speech’ laws or something? It’s quite mad to the vast majority of rational people out there, yet as long as every institution/ corporation just capitulates to it, they seem to have all the the power over public discourse. Strange times.
I admire your stubbornness, JB, I really do. Thank you. The pendulum will swing back from this lunacy – but probably not without a good kick.
If the author seriously does not understand why heterosexual women went home to men, and truly believes that sexuality is merely a social construct, then I’m afraid she is simply delusional.
It’s frightening that we are at a point in history where this sort of claptrap is being taken seriously vs. being laughed off the public stage. In harsher times, they would be admitted to the insanity ward.
That quote was about her views 50 years ago, in the feminist separatist movement. It is always brought up to attack her, and brought up in response to her article here (did you actually read it?) about the hounding, harassment, attacks, threats, deplatforming and censorship she has copped from the transactivist extremists over the past ten years. A bit more than being ‘laughed off the public stage’.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/nov/02/whyihatemen
or something more recent still:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150904155320/http://www.radfemcollective.org/news/2015/8/29/an-interview-with-julie-bindel
or this one
“All men are rapists and should be put in prison then shot.”
https://www.dailywire.com/news/feminist-journalist-all-men-are-rapists-and-should-amanda-prestigiacomo
now none of that will actually make any dent in your opinion on Bindel, so here is something completely different.
its a insightful article on internet conflict and its champions, Julie Bindel is not the knight you are looking for.
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2020/01/16/the-internet-of-beefs/
Bindel’s views remain the same today.
She is vilified as a transphobe because she is one.
Also things that happened at least 50 years or more back in time:
– Women nor being allowed to vote (at a time when most men couldn’t, either, and only men were sent to trenches)
– Barriers to women in some professions (at a time when men were supposed to be responsible for being breadwinners. Note, women haven’t been as keen on scrapping alimony as they have been on no fault divorce
– Minimal female participants in government.
How is the ward?
“The problem, after all, is not trans people. It is extreme trans activism — a men’s rights movement which has grown out of the backlash against feminism, in particular the type of feminism that seeks to eradicate male violence towards women and girls.”
Await the backlash against this statement by the usual suspects.
I haven’t been hanging out here long and don’t have any deep background on Bindel, but I was struck by the tone and content of the threats she has received, regarding physical violence, rape, death, etc. It reminded me of the threats women got when they inserted themselves, as players or as developers, into the world of online gaming, which many of the men ensconced there see as their space, and women are not welcome. People who issue threats like these are men, through and through, even if they are “identifying” as women. If it quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.
“threats women got when they inserted themselves, as players or as developers, into the world of online gaming”
In about 15 years of online gaming, I have come across one guy being disparaging towards a female player – and he was offensive towards me as well incidentally.
Your comment is amusingly sexist. One would think men never get abused or threatened online. But then, those are against men, right? So they don’t count, just like the majority of suicide victims, majority of victims of violent crime and 50% of DV victims who are male
“[W]e should all be able to present how we wish, whatever sex we are born into.”
But I am told that I am a reactionary ‘transphobe’ to agree with this. How can this be? How is it better to encourage physically healthy people to embark on a lifetime of medications and painful surgeries?
Perhaps we would all fare well if straight women and lesbians joined forces. The current erasure of “woman” affects all of us, we of the bodies with vaginas.
I do wonder how many trans women would complain if we started using the term ‘people with prostates’. I do not appreciate being referred to by my anatomy whilst simultaneously being told that trans women are women!
Don’t we stand together in the main? I feel we do.
“I had thought, as I do now, that the notion of being “trapped in the wrong body” was deeply sexist and conservative;”
The author states that trans activism is a “men’s right movement.” I highly doubt anybody in that movement would agree with her.
But I do wonder if anybody who calls themselves “conservative” (or actual mens right movement) has treated her as badly as she has been treated by the trans movement. I doubt it. Leftists really are dreadful people.
By the way, an excellent article. I knew this was an issue, but I didn’t know how bad it was.
I think that we need to start with a basic premise: democratic debate is better than totalitarianism. Some activists obviously do not agree. But this debate is central to the continuance of a reasonable society. So, not one in any position of authority can take the position that it’s nothing to do with them and opt for the quiet life.
Hounded by the mob. We need to stand up against all intolerance, threats to freedom to speech and harassment.
The most disappointing part of the dreadful treatment these activists have dished out is the silence from those who should be speaking up in her defence, but who are too cowardly. How weak and compliant academia has become, how conformist and timid are most in the Left now, always buckling under to whatever view is deemed acceptable.
The trouble is that her erstwhile allies in academia have moved on to new victims and new shades of dogma, while those who agree with her on the theory – that someone who is born a man can never truly be a woman – are precisely the people she has alienated most with her spite and vindictiveness.
Meanwhile the people she attacks, but thinks should be her allies are attacking back. And they are just as nasty as she is.
Do I think she should be hurt or silenced? No! Do I feel much inclination to come to her defence after all she has said about people like me? No, not really.
Yup. She’s a hatemonger and a bigot. She genuinely is a transphobe, she genuinely is a misandrist and her “journalism ” is hate speech, nothing more.
She’s guilty exactly as charged.
Great article.
This is way beyond trans issue or a feminist issue; it is a free speech and free thought issue.
The problem is not with the fact (as, in common I think, with the overwhelming majority, believe it to be) that the ideology of the trans activists is analytically wrong; bad science and bad philosophy. Everyone has a right to make their case right or wrong. The issue is the violence and the attempt to silence anyone who disagrees. This is intolerable and needs to be fought by anyone and everyone who believes in free speech and free thought.
In the meantime, Julie, the likes of you and Kathleen Stock and Suzanne Moore need to bear in mind the vast bulk of the country are with you on this, and that you don’t need, and shouldn’t want, the approval of people who are ignorant and nasty and, in many cases, both.
As they have said countless times themselves, they are not prepared to discuss their views. So don’t. We just need to beat them.
On this issue, worth checking out is Bev Jackson on the Brendan O’Neill podcast: https://podfollow.com/1436524071/episode/a834fe5561ff50098b101a7f975b72bb4d4302d6/view
She not only defends the rights of lesbians, she helps refugees on the island of Lesbos.
Was just about to mention it. It was actually very interesting (and I hadn’t thought it would be)
An excellent piece. I was thinking of Jan Morris who quietly got on with her life and writing. I am sure that she would have been alarmed about the events described in this article.
When group think takes over as described, then rational discussion is not possible. Anybody disagreeing becomes an enemy to be attacked and this reinforces the views of the group. The group needs people like Julie to enable them to promote their views. It is just the same as witchcraft. It needed rational people to feed off and many became victims or had to hide in fear.
A society that turns against its men eventually turns against its women.
https://quillette.com/2019/08/01/how-feminism-paved-the-way-for-transgenderism/
thx for link
Read Julie’s Guardian article of 2004 linked above. I get that her editor repudiated the piece, but it couldn’t even be published now. It would be unthinkable.
I have just done so.
It is actually interesting, but most definitely it would not be published now.
I agree…. When I read it I mulled over the extent to which we have been bullied and manipulated into sanitising every thought we put forward.
Call me cynical, but why do I have the feeling that the author Treats the men’s rights crowd the same way the trans activists treat her.
–
–
”I turned up to face a massive demonstration of well over 100 trans activists”
Wow, I wonder what she would call a demonstration of 1,000 or 10,000 or 100,000 etc etc people.
If you have no back-up even 20 persons screaming for your blood can be a bit more than worrying. If they start jostling you the worry is that you fall. then the “jostling” is with the feet and a couple of high heels can be your complete undoing. I’m glad that I’ve only have to disarm men with knives or firearms (including 2 with sub-machine guns). You might not have time to be afraid but even a few seconds of worry can be bad for your future.