@parislees 1)This illustrates much of what’s wrong with trans activism atm. Instead of targeting toxic masculinity, male violence & a male dominated economic system whose employment practices, tabloid scapegoating & priorities oppress us, it’s women (themselves oppressed) who are targeted.
@parislees 2) We’re not stigmatised because people understand the validity of sex and that you can’t fundamentally change it. That’s just a biological fact, not hate. No, we’re stigmatised & discriminated against as transwomen and transmen because
@parislees 3) successive conservative, political and religious elites & their right wing supporters in the media, politics & culture perpetuate harmful gender norms & the idea that gender non conformity is deviance, perversion, even sickness.
@parislees 4) In case you hadn’t noticed, politics, media, religion, culture, business, every aspect of power is dominated by super rich and overwhelmingly male individuals, powerful elites with an interest in dividing ordinary people, oppressing women
@parislees 5) & reinforcing gender norms with ridicule, prejudice, porn culture & toxic masculinity. Last time I checked Julie Bindel is not a hate-mongering tabloid newspaper baron, a movie mogul pushing toxic masculinity, a religious conservative equating trans with sin,
@parislees 6) a bigoted Tory looking to scapegoat a minority to deflect anger from bankers & the elite, a homophobic street thug or a rich defender of savaging public services. She doesn’t believe trans people should suffer discrimination or violence
@parislees 7) she simply insists as I do that transwomen are not fundamentally female because women are a sex and sex matters in a sexist world. But hey, why target our real oppressors, the real enemies of trans people when you can pick on women who dare not to know their place
@parislees 8) and heaven forbid, are insensitive about not knowing their place? What a cowardly, sexist & utterly bankrupt approach. Julie Bindel is a feminist journalist who (whatever my differences with her may be) has dedicated her life to fighting for the most vulnerable of women.
@parislees 9) To blame her, not the truly powerful elite for the culture of stigma & discrimination we trans people can suffer is frankly pathetic and deeply damaging to a trans rights vision based in any kind of progressive reality.
@parislees 10) We should be working to build solidarity with women, not in the face of fierce female opposition - trying to shame & silence, not redefining them, coercing them, colonising them & demonising those who dare to say no. Screw that. I’m for trans liberation & women’s liberation
