The highly respected UK organization
TransMedia Watch tweeted about
TERF Julie Bindel's announcement that she was withdrawing from a university debate on whether or not porn is empowering for women. In a revealing set of tweets Bindel revealed her true motivation for withdrawing.
Source
The Independent: "
Bindel was invited to speak at the Manchester Debating Union event against the motion that porn empowers women, but her role in the lineup alongside No More Page 3 founder Lucy Holmes and former porn actress Renee Richards was met with fierce criticism from students and transgender activists."
"The opposition is thought to stem from an article on transgender issues that Bindel wrote for The Guardian in 2004, in which she described gender reassignment clinics as places where lesbians can go to ‘have their breasts sliced off and a penis made out of their beer bellies".
Further controversial comments included the apparently dismissive conclusion, "I don’t have a problem with men disposing of their genitals, but it does not make them women, in the same way that shoving a big of vacuum hose down your 501s does not make you a man".
It's unknown what if any protests were made to Bindel's approaching appearance by trans peoples and our allies or whether there was in fact any protests planned in the event she appeared like the ones in 2008
here and
here. However Independent, repeating a byline does not make it the fact.
I want to reiterate my strong condemnation of violence or the threats of violence. If it were in fact a trans person who made those purported threats against Bindle I would advocate for justice, but with that being said, its a all to common practice of TERF's to put themselves in a position where they can claim rape and other threats were made against them, usually by trans people.
Bindel's ltweet on this qualifies may last statement all too well
She later tweets trying to qualify 'tiny'.
Which to some extent is true. There is a contingent within our community who are,
like myself, rather militant in response to TERF rhetoric but for good reason. TERF's like Bindel have honed there skills in provoking angry responses, obfuscating truths and derailing conversations to a fine art. And just like this instance, in hopes of placing themselves in the victim role.
And for the record it's not a tiny minority Bindel. The overwhelming majority of trans people respond to TERF transphobia in one way or another be it cerebral or militant in nature. That may seem like a ineffectual response to you since we are in truth a 'tiny' minority but even more ineffectual is your worn out dog eared victim card.
And isn't sad that
we agree on so many feminist issues like the one you could have spoken up about?
