Stop the silencing
But there’s a counter-petition.
There is a petition to Cardiff to cancel Germaine Greer’s talk. I find it abhorrent that I must make a counterpetition so a second wave feminist isn’t silenced by those who could just as easily not go to the lecture yet instead have decided to try and no platform her, to silence her. They’ve given no evidence in the petition either, just slurs.
This reactionary tactic of calling a woman a ‘transphobe’ is no different than calling someone a ‘commie’ in 1960’s America during the cold war. It’s a slur that contains no analysis, just an emotional response that is primarily used against women who talk about women’s biological realities, not gender identities.
Greer centers females/women in her work. I fail to see how anyone who centers women is encouraging violence against anyone.
Her position on gender doesn’t make anyone unsafe. The very marginalized group that Greer talks to and about is women. We are a protected class. Silencing her is silencing us.
Enough is enough. Stop no platforming women who only want to talk about women’s rights and women’s lives.
Signed the counter-petition.
I also signed the counter-petition.
I feel Dr Greer is wrong in these views on transgender and intersex, but it’s certainly not worth a shouty bunch of students no-platforming her for what would have been a fascinating talk on “Women and Power – the lessons of the 20th century”.
The subsequent interview for BBC Newsnight (23 Oct) seemed a bit muddled and did not go too well: it helped clarify her views in context, but at the same time it provided more cherry-pickable ammunition for her critics. I fear that large numbers of anti-feminists will sign the no-platform petition just to mess with Dr Greer and create a fuss.
Here’s an (amateur) transcript of the BBC Newsnight broadcast:
Newsnight 23 October 2015
STUDIO INTRO: Kirsty Wark, presenter of BBC’s “Newsnight”.
KW: Dr Germaine Greer has always been outspoken, but never before has she been “no-platformed”. A petition has been launched asking Cardiff University to cancel a lecture she’s due to give next month entitled “Women and Power – the Lessons of the 20th Century” saying that her views – on something else, transgender people – are problematic.
KW: She believes that men who transition can not then be “women”. And Cardiff Student Union Women’s Officer has said that her views towards transgender women are misogynist. The university’s vice-chancellor has said that the university is committed to freedom of speech and open debate.
KW: Well I spoke to Germaine Greer this afternoon at her home near Cambridge and started by asking her why she thought she’d been no-platformed. During the interview she employed some forthright language.
INTERVIEW WITH GERMAINE GREER, Academic and writer
GG: I was going to talk about women in power, the lessons of the 20th century, because I think there’s a lot of triumphalist talk that masks the real historic situation. And apparently people have decided that because I don’t think that post-operative trans-gender men, i.e. M-to-F transgender people are ‘women’, I’m not to be allowed to talk!
KW: But surely if a man who feels that he actually would like gender reassignment to make him…her be more comfortable in her body, then that’s what should be done – that’s … they should be allowed to do that.
GG I’m not saying that people should not be allowed to go through that procedure. What I’m saying is it doesn’t make them a woman. It happens to be an opinion. It’s not a prohibition. Carry on if …if that’s what you think it is you want to do.
GG I’ve been accused of inciting violence against transsexual people – that’s absolute nonsense.
KW But do you feel that the transgender community has too big a voice now? It seems to me you’re saying that that they’re becoming what you might… what feminists were often called – ‘strident’?
GG (LAUGHS) Yes but they very seldom were strident, alas. I think that a very great many women don’t think that, um, post-operative or even non post-operative transexual M-to-F transexual people look like, sound like, or behave like women. They daren’t say so.
KW But just because they daren’t say so doesn’t mean that person can’t feel like that and feels more comfortable with themselves.
GG Yeah, but so what? That’s not my issue. I don’t even talk about it. Not everybody does feel comfortable, by the way – post-operatively. There’s been a couple of cases I found very interesting where the actual accepter of the procedure has felt that it’s been a disaster.
KW But for those who do not feel it’s been a disaster and feel more comfortable then do you understand that they might feel that you are being hurtful to them?
GG (SHAKES HEAD) People are hurtful to me all the time. Try being an old woman! For goodness sake – people get hurt all the time. I’m not about to walk on eggshells.
KW: So you believe in free speech really – no matter what?
GG Well not quite ‘no matter what’. You don’t have to say everything that’s in your mind. You do use tact in the usual way. I would for example, with someone who wished to be known as female, use female speech forms. As a courtesy.
KW: Now though, people who are intersex are feeling a little more confident about coming forward and … and, a level of acceptance. But for example a woman, who outwardly has female genitalia but who inside has testes and doesn’t wish to have them rather than accepting that she has them – she should be allowed, shouldn’t she, and offered the chance to remove these inner testes?
GG We remove undescended testicles … from men, because they’re dangerous. I’m sure they wouldn’t be allowed to just lurk because that would be – I think – that would be a problem. I mean physically a problem. But then it’s also a problem if what you have to do after sex, er, gender reassignment, is use steroids [SIC, IMPLIED HORMONES?] every day of your life. That’s not a happy outcome either.
KW But it may be a happy outcome for them and they may feel that you are in a way denigrating them for taking that road.
GG I don’t even talk about them. They’re not my issue. I don’t … haven’t published anything about transgender for years!
KW So how do you feel that Newnham College, your own college, is considering not giving you an honorary doctorate –apparently– because of what you said about the transgender community?
GG There’s been two votes at my college about whether I should have an honorary degree and I’m , um, I’m not going to get one. They’ve been turned down. Which is thought by some to be astonishing. But not by me.
KW So someone like Caitlyn Jenner, for example, who’s been …/
GG /…must you? ! …
KW /…yes, who’s been on the front of lots of magazines and apparently is – I think I’m right in saying – is getting an award for being kind of glamour woman of the year. What do you think about that?
GG I think it’s misogynist. I think misogyny plays a really big part in all of this. That a man who goes to all of these lengths to be a woman will be a better woman than someone who is just born a woman.
KW But are people, you would say necessarily, born a woman, or born feeling female. And if he feels more female …? (OPEN HANDS QUESTION GESTURE) …
GG It seems to me that he … that, ah, what was going on there is that he … he/she … ah, wanted the limelight that the other female members of the family were enjoying. And has conquered it – just like that!
KW Will Young apparently has a new video out, I don’t think you’ve seen it, in which a transgender person is going down the road and is abused. Reasonable position?
GG Ah, am I mistaken in thinking that this individual is naked … /
KW (AFFIRMATIVE)
GG / …and running down the street with just a hand over his/her genitals?
KW (AFFIRMATIVE)
GG You try running with your sagging breasts down the middle of the fucking street! And see what people will … throw a… a…a blanket over you! And grab you and call the police! For fuck’s sake! It is simply not true that intersexual people suffer in a way that other people don’t suffer.
KW Would you ever consider saying something more – ameliorating?
GG No! I’m getting fed up with it, you know. I’ve had things thrown at me, I’ve been accused of things I’ve never done or said. People seem to have no concern about evidence or indeed even about libel.
KW If a man who is gender reassigned, and outwardly – and he feels, inwardly, is a woman – in your view can he be a woman or not?
GG No.
KW Do you understand how some people feel that’s insulting?
GG I don’t care! People get insulted all the time. Australians get insulted ever day of the week.
KW Finally – if your safety is guaranteed, will you go to Cardiff?
GG I’m getting a bit old for all of this. I’m 76, I don’t want to go down there and be screamed at and have things thrown at me. Bugger it. It’s not that interesting, or rewarding.
KW Germaine Greer, thankyou very much.
(INTERVIEW ENDS)
Oh hey, thank you for the transcript.
J.B. – Who is the “you” in your comment? You seem to be talking to Germaine Greer, but she’s not around. I’m not Germaine Greer, and I didn’t write what she said in that interview.
Never mind.
Nonsense. It reminds me so strongly of people who are more upset about being called “racist” than actually being racist – they can brand themselves as “race realists” or “race critical” instead, but they’re not exactly fooling anybody who doesn’t also share their prejudice.
Calling trans women “ghastly parodies of women” is pretty fucking transphobic (as is the fact that Greer campaigned against a transgender woman’s fellowship at Newnham college and even resigned after her bid to prevent the fellowship was unsuccessful – isn’t that all kinds of ironic in the light of this discussion about “no platforming”?). Me saying so is no more a slur than pointing out the GOP party platform is sexist and homophobic.
Here’s a piece that argues against Greer’s no platforming without sweeping her prejudice under the rug, by the way:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/25/germaine-greer-prejudice-trans-people
“The application of this to the no-platforming debate is as follows: it is precisely because there is still so much prejudice against trans people that nobody should be silenced. In terms of social ideas, you progress from A to B – from saying homosexuality is aberrant, for instance, towards homosexuality is normal – not by shutting down homophobes but by argument, persuasion, rage and ridicule, openness and candour.”
(Though mind you, I don’t agree with everything in that article – “The mainstream should never be described by a government, still less policed” and “The government has effectively awarded itself the power to redraw the map of political dissent” is weirdly irrelevant, since the government had nothing to do with this lecture being cancelled. Greer was the one who cancelled the lecture in response to protests and ridicule, and the petition wasn’t appealing to the government but to Cardiff university.)
@ 8 Falcon
You’ve misread. The sentences you quoted in italics are not in reference to Greer, they’re in reference to this.
I know she was referring to Theresa May. However, I don’t see what May and governmental overreach has to do with Greer and the student protests – it’s weirdly irrelevant and feels like two different articles, one about Greer and one about May, smashed together.
Falcon, I agree that ‘transphobic’ doesn’t seem too strong in some of these cases. I also agree that campaigns against no-platforming shouldn’t sweep it under the rug.
Perhaps. But it’s also remarkable and worth emphasising that some time ago Rachael Padman (the transwoman in question) didn’t want to join the no-platformers. See here.
That is interesting. I think that says less about Greer than it does about Padman’s patience and kindness.
I just realized that the petitioner is the person who comments here as Mancheeze and has a blog of the same name. She calls trans women “twanz males” (always that focus on trans women), and the blog is filled with stuff like “The absurdity of transgenderism,” “Why trans is a delusion,” “Transgender is a paraphilia,” and so on.
She’s updated the petition after 1500 signatures to say that trans women are men with “a fetish about vaginas,” and the blog elaborates on this to explain that trans women are sexually deviant and narcissistic men with “autogynephelia.”
Wow. I will never side with people calling Greer a “cunt” and a “bitch” – that’s fighting transphobia by employing misogyny, which is vile. I’m in two minds about the issue of no-platforming and speech at universities, and can see the points of arguments on both sides.
But this? Nope. It’s ignorant, transphobic hate.
@ 13 Falcon
Oh come now, Falcon. Didn’t you get the memo? There’s no such thing as “transphobia” because phobia means fear and if Mancheeze isn’t afraid of trans people that doesn’t count. People just stick phobia on any old thing these days.
Also, unless you go around bashing trans people it doesn’t count as bigotry — it’s just “disagreement”. Stop trying to blame women for male violence! What are you, some kind of misogynist?
(/sarcasm)
Damn. How did you realize it?
Call me clueless but I can’t see anything on the petition that reveals that.
Googling diana boston [the name on the petition] and mancheeze seems to confirm it (unless there’a another Diana Boston), but what tipped you off in the first place?
I was reading the updates to the petition and saw that the one after 1500 signatures (with “fetish about vaginas”) was signed at the bottom as “~Diana Boston aka Mancheeze”…so not much of a realization on my part when she revealed the link herself I guess lol.
Mancheeze says so.
Silentbob – just in case it wasn’t clear – I wasn’t doubting, I really wanted to know what the tip-off was. Partly because I wanted to know what I’d overlooked (not wanting to overlook it in future).
@ 20 Ophelia Benson
No worries! I was responding to “unless there’a another Diana Boston”.
The paragraph I highlighted earlier (“There’s no such thing as transphobia, it’s a slur” and “Greer centers females/women in her work,” etc etc) was already a warning sign. I checked back again and read the updates to see if she would elaborate on it and lo and behold, there was the bigotry.
Several people who signed the petition are extremely unhappy that Mancheeze’s anti-trans bullshit, coming through in all of the updates to the petition, is what they have inadvertently supported: