Horrible transphobic piece in the Observer

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mayqueen

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The whole article filled me with rage, for all of the reasons mentioned so far. Julie Burchill essentializes gender and polices other women's gender ("real or imagined"????? UGH). That's not my feminism.
 

eyeblink

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Just to add that the Observer's readers' editor has posted in the online comments to Burchill's article (approaching 2000 last I looked) and is reviewing the piece and will respond in due course. Probably too little too late, but let's see.

Meanwhile, Roz Kaveney's rebuttal puts Burchill's disgraceful piece in its place very effectively.
 

Alessandra Kelley

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I'm sorry if my post is awkward. I hope I am not using incorrect language.

That was a horrible piece of garbage. This sort of hateful grossed-out rage at transsexuals is beyond offensive.

Roz Kaveney's rebuttal in the Guardian was very well written. "Once you decide that some people's lives are not real, it becomes OK to abuse them."

The ... the wrath Julie Burchill evinces, the bitterness, the bile, the refusal to even call transsexual women women, is a disgrace to feminism.

I have been a feminist all my life. I believe in dignity and respect for people's gender identification, if that's the phrase I'm looking for.

I can only hope this raises awareness of the conditions transsexuals face worldwide.
 

areteus

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Sorry, it was my misconception that pointed the finger at the Guardian. I mistook one of the links... yes it is the Observer which also makes me feel better because it is more expected but still awful.

In the last few hours on my facebook feed one friend (who is transexual) has posted about how she now feels threatened by this article - how she imagines that it could lead to more hate attacks against her and others like her and asked for everyone to lodge their complaints to the PCC and the newspaper editorial team. According to someone who posted a comment to that status, it seems as if the PCC is already taking an interest and is investigating already.

Another friend (a former journalist turned freelance writer and reviewer) has posted a warning about this article which basically reads 'do not feed the troll'. By which I take to mean 'respond through proper channels in a calm and mature way and do not give them the oxygen of publicity'.

Just a FYI...
 

mirandashell

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It's about time they sacked Burchill. She's neither a journalist nor a feminist. She's just a horrible waste of good oxygen.
 

eyeblink

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AFAIK she's a freelance, so they should just cease to employ her services.

I remember quite a while back (early 1990s) when Burchill was "reduced" (her words) to writing for the same Brighton-based listings mag I used to write film reviews for.
 

mirandashell

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Have the Observer lost a lot of readers? Because the only reason I can see for giving her a piece is that they wanted something controversial to raise their profile.
 

Kitty27

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The hell is wrong with this pressed soul? Every word is dripping with malicious venom and frankly, insanity. You can literally feel this woman's rage coming through in her words. She acts like a trans sister snatched her edges or her man.

This is some vile and low down crap. This is a major reason why I identify as a womanist,instead of feminist. I support ALL women and that includes my trans sisters.

The total lack of respect/understanding for women who differ from what they are/define womanhood to be is a major issue with some in the feminist movement.
 

Thump

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Wow... just... wow...

As a cis female feminist, can I kick her out of the cis female feminist group? Because, she sucks and I do not want to be lumped with her and her kind.

Sounds to me like her sense of being a woman is threatened by the fact that "anyone can be a woman these day". It's a disgusting, elitist, clan-ish sort of thinking that IS NOT what feminism is about. If your philosophy is "more rights for my friends and fewer for those other people", I don't want to know you.
 

Diana Hignutt

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I find it convenient when my secret enemies reveal themselves...and, sadly, there are many people who identify as "feminists" who are quick to throw so-called "fake" women off the bus. This is the world we live in. They tell me it's getting better...
 

areteus

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The editor has today withdrawn the article and apologised. Whether any other action will be taken remains to be seen. However, I consider that to be a win for the art of good old fashioned complaining...
 

mirandashell

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It's what she does. No matter what the subject, she will be vicious and horrible about it. Even more so when it involves sex and gender.

It is better just to ignore her. She's not worthy of notice.
 

Celia Cyanide

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To have your cock cut off and then plead special privileges as women – above natural-born women, who don't know the meaning of suffering, apparently – is a bit like the old definition of chutzpah: the boy who killed his parents and then asked the jury for clemency on the grounds he was an orphan.

This sentence disgusts me on so many levels.
 

Isobel Lindley

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The whole thing makes me shaky with rage, really. The comments in the Telegraph, where it was reposted...

As a cisgendered white, first world feminist, it makes me sick that so-called feminists were disparaging Brazilian transwomen in the first place, because aren't women who are murdered just for existing exactly who we, who are more privileged, should be fighting for? But Burchill's piece is so ugly I can barely understand it exists. That Black and White minstrels bit! As as for Moore's "I'm not phobic, I had a crush on David Bowie" crap...

Just... Rage to the point of tears. I wish I could take away their right to claim to be feminists, because abusing women lower down the privilege scale is as Antifeminist as it gets. But aw, Burchill didn't have "family money", she's so oppressed that no one else gets a look in. Never mind that very very few people have family money, she's still worse off than the more than a hundred Brazilian transsexuals killed in a year.

Sorry, venting. This has been preying on my mind for days.
 

mirandashell

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Isobel, just ignore her. Seriously. She really isn't worth getting upset over. She's a waste of space who just likes to WUM. Only she gets a newspaper to do it in.

Don't let her upset you. She is really not worth it.
 

Isobel Lindley

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Isobel, just ignore her. Seriously. She really isn't worth getting upset over. She's a waste of space who just likes to WUM. Only she gets a newspaper to do it in.

Don't let her upset you. She is really not worth it.
You're right, I know. It just really got to me and got stuck in my head, especially all the comments and other blog posts and opinion pieces lauding her for being witty and iconoclast for heaping slurs on an already abused group of women. (Neither seems to know transmen even exist.) And I hate it when people are negative about feminism because of the people the media choose to speak for feminists, while at the same time, I can't really blame them when screeds like this get called feminist.

Maybe it's just pregnancy hormones making me particularly thin skinned, our evil lesbian baby is popping out any day now. :)
 

Kim Fierce

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http://www.everydayfamily.com/blog/pregnant-man-wants-fourth-child/

Here is another example of a transphobic piece claming to not be . . . it was posted in September but I just read it now. What do you think? The writer is claming Thomas Beattie is not really a man because a man would never voluntarily go through pregnancy and a C-section.
 
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