This is not really a point for debate
But don’t worry – Huffington Post UK has a post by another Cardiff student who explains why it’s such a good idea to cancel Germaine Greer’s lecture.
So, notable second-wave feminist writer and scholar Germaine Greer is transphobic (more specifically transmisogynistic).
That’s the first sentence. It made me want very badly to stop reading. Why? That stupid “second-wave” shit. That label makes it sound as if Germaine Greer simply stopped thinking around 1975, and morphed into a statue that can be wheeled out to say 1975 things but nothing else.
Also, of course, the “transphobic (more specifically transmisogynistic)” part, which I have learned to be deeply suspicious of.
But maybe the student, Payton Quinn, goes on to make a case?
No.
This is not really a point for debate because there is a plethora of accounts from her talks, books and articles, where she’s been clear about her position on trans women and by extension all trans people.
Five links there. Let’s check them:
1. Pink News reporting on other students at another university citing her “transmisogynistic words and actions.” Worthless.
2. IBTimes including these two paragraphs in a long article:
Some feminists, however, have maintained an anti-trans stance. In The Whole Woman, Germaine Greer compares trans women to rapists: “When he forces his way into the few private spaces woman may enjoy and shouts down their objections, and bombards the women who will not accept him with hate mail, he does as rapists have always done.”
Earlier this year, Greer claimed there was no such thing as transphobia, suggesting trans women are not women because they do not know what it is like to have a “smelly vagina”.
3. A 2009 piece from a US feminist blog, quoting two paragraphs from a Guardian article by Greer:
In plainer terms what the academic feminists could be taken to be saying is that (a) you’re a woman if you think you are and (b) you’re a woman if other people think you are. Unfortunately (b) cannot be made to follow from (a).
Nowadays we are all likely to meet people who think they are women, have women’s names, and feminine clothes and lots of eyeshadow, who seem to us to be some kind of ghastly parody, though it isn’t polite to say so. We pretend that all the people passing for female really are. Other delusions may be challenged, but not a man’s delusion that he is female.
4. A piece from Green Left Weekly rehashing the same material.
5. A 404 Error.
Not remotely what it purports to be, a plethora of accounts from her talks, books and articles – rather, four quoted paragraphs, and a lot of secondary comment – in short, four paragraphs and a bunch of recycled accusations. I’m well familiar with this tactic – this recycling of each other’s accusations and cries of outrage and treating that as evidence of something. “Look how loudly we’re all shouting about her! Obviously that means she’s as bad as we say, and worse!”
Payton Quinn goes on:
If you believe that trans women are women, as you should because they are, then what Germaine Greer is espousing in her campaign against them is misogyny and surely no feminism should include any form of misogyny.
Her premises are wrong, and her conclusion doesn’t follow from them in any case.
Hopefully you’re still on board so far, because if you’re not it can be assumed that no matter how measured and reasoned my position on no-platforming is in this instance, you’re not going to agree.
Well that settles that then.
I won’t inflict much more of Payton Quinn on you, but near the end there is this also-familiar trick of blaming a feminist woman for violence against trans women – yes specifically trans women, not trans people:
When we’re living in a climate where trans women (particularly trans women of colour) are being murdered with little to no repercussions, are not even allowed to use the correct bathrooms, are harassed in their own home and hate crimes against them is still on the rise – do you think that debating Germaine Greer once again on whether or not trans women deserve basic human rights and protection is the key to a resolution?
For me the answer is clear: The safety of trans people outweighs the right of cis women to question the validity of their gender expression.
Always.
It’s always about the cis women, and making them shut the fuck up.
“do you think that debating Germaine Greer once again on whether or not trans women deserve basic human rights and protection is the key to a resolution?”
Greer wasn’t due to lecture on trans issues, but on ‘Women & Power: The Lessons of the 20th Century’. So the argument is a non sequitur. And frankly, I doubt Greer ever argued against basic human rights for anyone.
Safe (1) as in “unlikely to be physically harmed” is not equal to safe (2) as “in a touchy-feely-comfy environment where nobody’s views are challenged, cf. safe space”. For me, no-platforming should be restricted to issues around safety (1), which is clearly not involved here. I’m sorry if young women and men are deprived of the chance to encounter an important figure from the women’s movement and an interesting speaker, even if they don’t agree with every one of her views.
Yes, this business of translating “are trans women women in exactly the same sense cis women are?” into denying human rights to trans women – it’s a very filthy business indeed.
I encountered the “smelly vagina” and “lots of eyeshadow” quotes a while back, and, unless there is a whole lot of context missing, I’m disappointed to say that I can’t interpret them as being other than completely dismissive of the idea that transwomen should be accepted as women. So, despite the fact that Greer was one of my heroes back in the day, I have to strongly disagree with her on this count. Does that mean that she should be banned from speaking? I guess that depends on the nature of the event. But it does seem to me that ideas should be fought with better ideas, and that a demand to present dissenting views would be a more enlightened (and enlightening) approach than no-platforming.
(Amusingly, in the course of googling for more info on this, I discovered that there is a trucking company called Pro Trans based in Greer, South Carolina)
To the best of my recollection I disagree with Greer on lots of things.
I haven’t read her in a good while. I recall that she has made me laugh, made me angry, made me stop and think and made me change my mind. She’s certainly never bored me.
With her complaint about transwomen forcing their way into private spaces, it does sound like her words could be used to support limiting bathroom access. The complaints about her don’t seem inaccurate. However, since it is not the main thrust of her work, and feminism is, does no-platforming her actually create a social benefit?
Ophelia thank you for posting this and for tracking down the “plethora” that Peyton Q. claims as her evidence. Thank you! Thank you!
You’re welcome, Claire! It was a pain in the neck because I’m so lazy, but once I saw how worthless the first link was for substantiating her claim…I had to open them all.
Our Germs has been a cranky ratbag for a long time. But that doesn’t mean she should be shut down.