The BBC has seen fit to give voice to Julie Bindel, “a radical feminist and journalist, who [is] trying to persuade medics and trans people that sex change surgery is unnecessary mutilation.”
I’m not at all clear from the article whether or not Bindel identifies as a radfem or if radical is just the adjective chosen by the writer, although I do suspect that the author is unaware that radical feminist is a term of art (instead of just an epithet like devout Catholic.) What I am clear on is that Bindel is using the guise of feminism in whatever form to advance views that are blatantly transphobic.
Bindel expounds upon her views in an an op-ed in the Guardian, where she explains that the acceptance of transsexuality “arises from the strong stereotyping of girls and boys into strict gender roles.” She whines about how people were upset when she referred to transwomen as “men in dresses” and claimed that a world inhabited by transsexuals “would look like the set of Grease.” The nerve of those letter writers! Having the audacity to claim that she was being bigoted and intolerant when all she wanted to do was make mock of a group of people on the basis of their identity!
Bindel also frets that had she been sent to see a psychologist who endorsed the idea of sex reassignment as a child, she (as a lesbian) could now be writing as a transman. I have no idea where Bindel gets the idea that sex reassignment is somehow like having your tonsils out. It’s not something that your physician proposes to you, you respond that you’ll trust their judgment, and then sign on the line. There are many readers here far more qualified than I am to explain what their doctors required before performing surgery, but the typical requirements include living at least a year full-time in one’s new gender role, taking hormones for extended periods of time, and extensive psychological counseling. There is no possible way, whatsoever, that Bindel would have been forced into becoming a transman merely by saying she wasn’t attracted to men.
I’m also really irked that the BBC has attempted to ascribe Bindel’s bigotry to either feminism as a whole or radical feminism in particular.
Radical feminists have ideological reasons for opposing sex change surgery.
To them, the claim that someone can be “born into the wrong sex” is a deeply threatening concept.
Many feminists believe that the behaviours and feelings which are considered typically masculine or typically feminine are purely socially conditioned.
There are so many things wrong with these sentences, my head hurts. 1) “Radical feminists” (however defined) are not some sort of monolith. 2) Threatening to what, exactly? 3) The idea that gendered behaviors are conditioned and not innate is not the exclusive province of feminists. In fact, there’s a huge field called sociology which makes the same argument.
Then there’s Bindel’s take on the sine qua non of feminism: She seems to think that because “Feminists want to rid the world of gender rules and regulations…how [can it be] possible to support a theory which has at its centre the notion that there is something essential and biological about the way boys and girls behave?”
How, exactly, are these views incompatible? I don’t dispute, for example, that people who are born sexed male have, on average, more testosterone than those born sexed female. I do dispute that testosterone levels should have any kind of moral meaning or result in a judgment of superiority or inferiority. There is something innate and biological about the ways that *humans* behave. The gender roles are something that we’ve created.
NOTE: This post is not to be construed as radfem bash-fest or anything of the sort.
Via Vanessa at Feministing.