It Ain’t Me, Babe: Julie Bindel on Queerty Alphabet Soup
Nov 15th, 2008 by admin
Julie Bindel continues to knock it out of the ball park:
In the 1970s and 80s, lesbians were left to our own devices, and mainly organised and socialised separately from gay men. Then, in the late 1980s, along came Section 28, homophobic legislation which forbade schools to “promote homosexuality”. HIV/Aids was affecting increasing numbers of gay men, so lesbians offered support and solidarity.
We became “lesbian and gay”, but soon bisexuals shouted, “Us too”. Transsexuals, having received short shrift from heterosexual society, asked to be included in our rainbow alliance, followed by Queer (anyone who is into “kinky” sex), then Questioning (those having a think about who and how they might shag in the future), and finally (for now) Intersex (those born with biological features that are simultaneously perceived as male and female). The mantra now at “gay” meetings is a tongue-twisting LGBTQQI.
…On various message boards discussing my nomination, one poster said of me: “She does not have the right to express an opinion on trans matters as she is not trans. Any more than someone who is straight can express an opinion on homosexuality. It’s not that her views are different, it is that she is expressing them at all. She has no right!”
Do you see the contradiction here? I am told I should not be nominated for awards from a gay organisation because I am part of one big “queer family” which should, they say, include transsexuals; but I am not allowed to comment on transsexualism. In the meantime, on the same websites, an intersex person was told to shut up by a transsexual, and lesbian feminists who were born women are being told they are neither of these things by a number of women who were born male but believe they make better lesbians than me.
I just want to be left alone. I am not in your gang, I did not ask to be, so please don’t tell me I am one of yours, and then tell me off for offending your orthodoxy. Let’s have an amicable split…
Link and h/t to Rain of Women’s Lives Matter and Women’s Life Matters.
Mary Daly suggests in her book, Quintessence, the individuality necessary to evolve forward into the “background” (natural/cosmological/ elemental) dimensions away from the patriarchal “foreground.” I’ve been reading the book out loud to myself, to savor the radical images of spinning forward on the spiritual spiral with foresisters and those of the future who will break time/space bondage.
Regarding the news item, I’m so clear that sadists (the other half of kink-queer couples) are not liberated any more than are masochists, and that “power exchange” ideology is addiction. Thus, because my feminism is about liberation and spiritual growth, I for years have not appreciated the politicized Queer Nation that also includes the trans-menz who think (in their social-class, gender-role way) that they are better women than women-born women. The acronym now begins in most quarters, any way, not with the women but with the menz: GLBT [etc., etc.].
All of the philosophizing and activism for “rights” within patriarchy seems to me a waste of time. But to each her own.
Julie Bindel explains it exactly right! I really wanted to read the entire piece, but the links don’t link
How do I find the rest of her article?
Why do women think we have the luxury of being in everyone else’s group except our own? There is a reason for lesbian separatism with solid straight women allies being welcome as well. And the reason is women need to be the number one subject in each other’s lives. I have no objection to straight women being separatists too. Woman centered is fine, as long as it is really woman centered.
The alphabet soup is really about men…. FTM, MTF, queer whatever, it is again male sexuality and male standards sneaking in the back door yet again. I think all this porn nonsense and weird sexual awfulness is the contamination of the lesbian community when we signed on for the gay male agenda. It’s been downhill ever since.
It is very hard for women to keep focused on women. We get distracted by men’s issues and men’s this or that all the time.
Bottom line, lesbians are not the main focus any tme men are there — I don’t careif they are FTM, gay men or straight women insisting on bringing their boyfriends into the mix. The end result is the same, we are slowing down radical lesbian progress. Younger women might not be aware of this, because patriarchy is a clever chameleon creature that only “pretends” to change. Witness the NOW fears that Obama is going to have a male dominated cabinet–big surpirse
there. Obama is not a feminist, cares little for women’s issues, and in fact has no interest in them whatsoever. Why am I always the only one who seems to see this in him? I know, Aletha sees this, and Branjor and Mary Sunshine and Heart… ok, I’m not the only one 
Whaooo.
Any movement that doesn’t put women front and center all the time, any movement that allots token 5 minute slots to lesbians (gay men grudgingly do this and 5 minutes is still too much for them), but the bottom line is how Bindel calls it. You tell them Julie! Queer does not mean women, transgender is about men, gay is about men…. Lesbians do not need to dilute our movement at all, and if we do decide to have coalitions, we get written agreements up front as to what we get in return…we get the political apointees up front too.
Sorry about the link, Satsuma, here’s the right one:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/08/lesbianism
You’ll like the whole thing.
Yahoo, the link was great. I even forwarded this article to a friend it was THAT good. This really hit the jackpot with me. Everytime I end up at community meetings, protests, or academic events these days, I feel that feminism and plain old lesbian feminism seems to be the last of the “issues” even commented on. You get these crack pot ideas (post-modern naturally) that are just horrendous. You have a weird transgender idea that real women don’t have a life. You have famous lesbians of long ago (Radclyffe Hall for one) being called transgender men (I kid you not), and you have a bunch of very impressionable young kids on campus these days who are all into the transgender rage. We’re talking about body chemistry altering drugs, body surgery and you name it. I won’t get into the weird defenses of all things pornographic…
Anyway, I find all of this terribly wrong, and not right for women. It’s sad that young lesbians don’t have the same kind of pure and unadulterated lesbian life that I had, and that they have to take feminist classes taught by men for goddess sake!
Soemthing is undermining and degrading the movement for women as women running our own lives and our own politics. I don’t know how many feminists here are coming across all of this, but it is deeply disturbing, and it is yet again UNDERMINING women and all we want in the world. It’s all about everyone else BUT women, and this is the tip off. It was the tip off for Obama-mania, it was the tip off of “queer studies” and it is the tip off for weirdo sexual “outlaws” invading and degrading what was once lesbian only space. I’ve written about this before, so thank goddess for the voice of sanity in Julie Bindel.
I didn’t sign up for the alphabet soup either, nor did I sign on to the bacon lettuce and tomato sandwich activist groups that are taking over everything that is sacred about feminism to all of us. I know I’m going on and on here, but it shocks the heck out of me to see feminism take a back seat to FOR GODDESS sake men turning into women claiming lesbians aren’t real women anymore!!!
Is it really true that “queer” now specifically means sado-masochistic? I see commenters all over the blogosphere saying that they are “queer” and I assumed this meant gay or lesbian. I’m going to clutch my pearls, now!
Who knows what these words are supposed to mean any more. I read some of the comments. One commenter taking Julie Bindel to task said:
Aside from all the grammatical errors, I imagine this definition of transgender would explain how Radclyffe Hall could be called a transgender man, since transgender theory is evidently claimed to be the original theory to challenge gender stereotypes! I must be transgender as well, imagine that! Males making feminist herstory invisible, what else is new. With friends like these, who needs enemies?