Julie Burchill: possibly the most ridiculous comment of the year so far

You’ve gotta hand it to Julie Burchill; possibly the most ridiculous comment of the year (with the possible exception of David Cameron’s claim that the Tories are the party of Social Justice) about Caitlyn Jenner.

Her comment can only be interpreted as an extreme form of Greering• for it to make sense. The idea that it would have been braver for Caitlyn to come out as a gay man is not merely ridiculous but demonstrably so judging by recent events. Jenner came out as a trans woman amid a careful media campaign on her part. This was organised for a reason; trans celebs coming out face a huge barage of negative publicity, one only has to read the predictable output of the transphobes, TERFs and individuals whose personality disorders get splashed across various struggling media platforms by irresponsible and desperate editors to see that. 

In contrast this weekend a junior minister in the Tory government came out as gay in order to announce that he would be marrying his long-term partner. This passed off with barely a whisper in the media. The Spectator didn’t arrange for a prominent homophobe to pronounce on how horrible gay sex is, minor “maverick” media outlets didn’t get onnthe phone to some ignorant Kipper or a member of the Westboro Baptist Church to write an op-ed about how he will accompany his patrtner in Hell and shouldn’t be allowed in a job that relates to children. In contrast Caitlyn Jenner has inspired bigots of the nutty left and fanatical right, from the likes of establishment insider Guido Fawkes downwards. 

Even for someone who is very rich, Jenner is still brave, if she had come out as a gay man the news would probably have been ignored in most circles.

Of course Burchill’s article has another barb to it; her suggestion is designed to insinuate (but without actually saying so) that trans women are just repressed gay men. Now there’s an old canard, disenterred from the 1970s; the idea, once peddled by the more mindless TERFs, that trans women are just gay men who can’t admit it. It would have been less cowardly if Ms Burchill had actually said that in so many words but of course she doesn’t have that kind of couraage. Like most media bullies she uses her bully pulpit to harass and abuse others then ducks down out of sight again. 

However Burchill is also missing a very important point; manely that Cautlyn Jenner is not merely coming out as a trans woman but as a lesbian also. Somebody didn’t do the maths did they? 

The fact is that coming out as trans is still very difficult, not only do trans people get harassed in the media by bullies with personality problems, but we tend to attract discrimination in all sorts of places. For example, when I was a primary school teacher in the early noughties I tried to come out and transition after the school has successfully and sensitively accepted and supported a trans girl aged 10 coming out and socially transitioning, however I was told in no uncertain terms that it would be unacceptable, and that I would lose my job. This was in a school with one out gay male teacher and two out lesbian teachers, one of whom became deputy head. Since coming out I have been stalked both online and offline by transphobes and abused regularly.

So Burchill’s assertion deserves the derision it appears to be receiving, this time she has really made a fool of herself. She has allowed her transphobia to get the better of her, which serves as an illustration as to what transphobia can do. Not that I consider Burchill to be the most logical and reasoned individual but clearly her hatred of trans people has taken away what little residual powers of reasoning remain. And in effect her outburst has, in and of itself, served to contradict her own case.

This and other articles by people opposed to people like me existing, motivated by Caitlyn Jenner, has graphically exposed the transphobic community’s problems, a group of people for whom their own petty hatreds, hangups, fanaticisms and personality problems are exposed by their desire to attack trans people. This clutch of transphoibic drivel from these people has truly revealed more about the state of 21st century transphobia than it has about anyone else.

*To Greer; v.i; to say something designed to attract media attention rather than make sense, usually employed by has-been minor celebs who are desperate to maintain the limelight. Eg Germaine Greer.

Transphobic media articles: Edginess, Balance or Desperation...?

It has become as regular as the annual September/October gutter media hunt for trans children used to be; a celebrity comes out as trans and the press searches high and low for the fanatics, the people with persoanlity disorders, the sad cases, to write articles dripping with transphobia in order to… well, in order to what…?

Balance maybe? Like everyone else, when it comes to trans issues, the media has to publish something by trans haters, after all when Nick Gibb, a junior government minister came out as gay, to balance the positive response he got the media was full of homophobia… Oh wait…! 

Edginess perhaps? Since high-profile trans people like Chelsea Manning, Kellie Maloney, Laverne Cox and Caitlyn Jenner have become household names, these organs have to compete with the sensitive, positive and informed coverage of other publications. Their disingenuous and dishonest attempts to paint trans people as somehow representing a new othodoxy, against which their brave, insightful, maverick writers courageously struggle; “trans people are not who they say they are but who we say they are.” As if there was something new, radical, heroic or audacious about applying your own definitions to other people you hate. History is littered with the most conservative, duplicitious, violent, authoritarian and oppressive tyrants who have done just that.

Desperation perchance? Articles by those with obvious personality problems seem to be sought and published mostly by rags strugging with circulation problems. Editorial teams hunger for those whose personal problems they can exploit; clickbait by people whose fanatical obsession with trans people seems to have eaten away at what may once have passed as souls, just as the Murdoch propaganda machine is prepared to exploit the fanaticism of Katie Hopkins’ troubled mind.

The problem with these articles is not their content; trans people have encountered such concentrated drivel many times before, it is the way the editors of these media platforms expose these individuals’ problems in the raw. Reading the material spewed out by the likes of Brendan O’Neil and others is like being exposed to the worst recesses of a profoundly and desperately troubled personality over one’s muesli of a morning. There are many such individuals whose output exposes their inner obsessions and torments; it seems that the existence of trans people only brings out the inner fanatic in some people. 

Hatred is never edgy, hatred can never provide balance, the only reason I can see for media editors to publish hate-screeds is desperation, desperation for pageviews, for below-the-line loathing and antagonism from acutely lonely, intensely malevolent and poisonously vindictive spirits. These editors should take a more responsible attitude towards the poor individuals they exploit. It is time for them to ask themselves whether they would unleash the troubled personalities of the likes of the Westboro Baptist Church every time somone came out as gay or lesbian. If not why are they dragging up from the gutter the same old predictable transphobes?

The M-Word: Mensch...

My view of Louise Mensch’s action against young Abby

The episode where Louise Mensch has a go at the prime mover behind the brief “Milifandom” craze is now well-known. In my view this is symptomatic of the general Tory attitude to everyone who is not a senior member of the Tory establishment (Tory politicians, Tory journalists, the Tory City klepto-oligarchy and Tory busniessmen - and yes they are normally men). This attitude distils down to the feeling of entitlement to bully, harass and intimidate those they consider the ‘other’ or who they consider to be below them. This is the way Tories work, from Nicky Morgan’s threat to teachers in supposedly “coasting” schools - whatever that may mean (she conveniently doesn’t define ‘coasting’) to Theresa May’s attempts to silence the Police Federation while she sacks a whole load of their members. It is their MO; bully the opposition, use the power of big money, the panoptic power of the media and its ability to set the debate on the Tories’ terms to win without ever allowing a debate.

The thing about this bullying, is that it is so ubiquitous that it rarely becomes visible to everyone. In this sense Mensch has done everyone a big service, everyone except a spirited 17-year-old called Abby. This establishment bullying only becomes visible when it is directed, by an adult, at a child. And not only that, by an adult who has a great deal of power, an adult who writes for one of the largest-circulation Tory propaganda rags in the UK, and the most manipulative. Mensch is not merely an articluate adult who is very rich, she has access to an audience of millions. A power imbalance of immense proportions. 

This is the meat and drink of bullying, a power imbalance between bully and victim, this is the prerequisite of any bullying action. Like I say, when it is Morgan bullying teachers or May bullying coppers we don’t see it for what it is, but when Mensch has a go at a teenage girl it is revealed. As with the type of bullying everyone experiences in school, the workplace, the family, the local community or elsewhere not only does the bully have the power to repeatedly do things that harm the victim but the bully has the power to portray the victim as as the bully and herself as the victim.

Mensch’s excuse for bullying Abby is the suggestion that someone other than Abby was the originator of Milifandom. This is a red herring. It does not matter, it was Abby who was responsible for spreading the phenomenon. On Mensch’s part it was nothing more than a justification for bullying. 

However the issue that concerns me is how it makes it just that little bit less of a taboo for adults to bully children, or be seen to bully them. It presents a precedent which makes it easier for adults to bully kids online. We have already seen, how TERFs, MRAs, anti-‘censorship’ advocates and other unsavory individuals who abuse, doxx and harass people online behave. This is why I believe Mensch’s action is unforgiveable. She is a prominent celeb who can easily whip up hatred of a relatively powerless young girl, not only that but while Mensch can influence the opinions of people around Abby, Abby cannot do the same to Mensch.

The Tory power-klepto establishment is a multilayered, complex, ruthless machine for the repression of those who are powerless and who might present a threat to their interests. It is at its most visible when the likes of Mensch exercise its power in a more vindictive and fanatical way than usual. Her vindictiveness and fanaticism has exposed it in all its cruelty and visciousness. In doing so either she will have produced a backlash against adults bullying teenagers in the way she did or will have made that sort of intimidation more acceptable, at least online. I fear, given the current trajectory of British culture, the latter will be the case.

Is there a future?

Let us be honest, tonights election results are a disaster, and not just a disaster for Labour, they are a disaster for the country. As I write the possibility of an overall majority for the Tories is on the cards. So what went wrong for Labour.

Firstly we need to get real about the influence of mainstream media vs social media. The idea that MSM is losing its power is over. Some people have been suggesting that, because newspapers are losing sales of paper copies, they are losing influence over the electorate. They are not, online versions are still very popular and the go-to places for news. The MailOnline site is still one of the most-visited sites in the world.

Secondly we need to ubderstand the way the Tory commander Lynton Crosby manipulated Ukip to take votes from Labour, so although Labour won votes from the LDs lots of Labour votes transfered to Ukip. This is a strategy he ised in the past in Australia and it has worked here, divide and rule, pure and simple. He is playing the first-past-the-post system for all it is worth and it is working for the Tories.

Thirdly Labour needs to be honest about the party it has become; it is no longer a party that appeals to traditional working-class voters; it urgently needs to expand its number of working-class MPs and candidates. This is likely to be difficult.

The problem for Laboutr now is going to be that there will be two assessments of the result, one will be that Labour wasn’t left enough and another that Labour wasn’t right-wing enough. Both will view the results from their own perspective and both will be wrong, and both will be right. Labour will need to consider this carefully before deciding on who to elect as leader. A comprehensive analysis of the demographic it needs to vote for it will need to be done and policies chosen that appeal to that demographic. In my oipinion that demographic must be the working-class. They are the people who have suffered under the coalition and austerity; they are the people who will suffer from the inevitable break-up of the UK and withdrawl from the EU.  However we owe it to the working-class, the poor, the disenfranchised and the excluded to get our act together sooner rather than later. In a sense Labour is in a cleft; beeing more left-wing will attract more people opposed to austerity, but will expose Labour to criticism in the media about profligacy and worries about the economy. Labour needs to be clever about this and learn from this.

Finally we need to be careful to apportion blame where it is due, and that is not one single thing. The way Cameron has put party advantage before the needs of the country is going to be a feature of the next parliament; he will do a great deal to cement his advantage by changing boundaries and fixing seats, he will use the power of the media to ensure he has a huge advantage over Labour and he will continue to divide and rule and continue to use the threat of the SNP against Labour.

Finally the Labour conversations on the doorstep, that we have been having, we need a better ground campaign and we also need to recognise the limits of that style of campaigning. It has not worked. We also need to recognise the rise of an ugly nationalism in the UK which is going to reduce this country to ruins. The zero-hours culture, the NHS cuts, the privatisation of the school system, ever higher university fees and laws to protect people from bullying at work and to restrict unions power will proliferate, as will short-term renting and greater inequality. All these will make it harder for Labour to get back to winning ways. 

We need to have a more sensible conversation about whether to more to the left, the right, or to construct a new type of party which campaigns on the issues that the voters are really concerned with. We need to avoid a left-right fight, we need to be more analytical than that, and face up to what has happened with clear eyes and a clear head. We also need to accept that PR is the only way forward for the left in the UK, or what is left of it. 

Lastly, in 2010 I predicted that David Cameron would be the last Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. It looks like this is going to happen.

Progress will always be uneven.

It has been a week of ups and down for trans people. The ups include THAT photo that the awesome Laverne Cox managed to score with Obama at the Whitehouse (or was it THAT photo that the awesome Barack Obama managed to score with Laverne Cox, I don’t know), the positive reception Burce Jenner has had coming out as trans and Ed Miliband saying he would love and support his children unconditionally if they turned out to be trans.

This has to be set against the tragic death of Rachel Bryk, killed by induced suicide after bullying from a troll. This has to be set against a number of suicides of young trans people since before Leelah Alcorn’s tragic death by suicide. Of course Rachel’s death has to be set in a wider context; the suspicion for her death has to be placed on the shoulders of the Gamergate/4Chan haters and bigots.

Of course the suspicion that this is the indirect result of TERF action (especially via the 4Chan group) will also hang over her death, after all most people accept that one of the prime TERF MOs has always been instigating violence, abuse, exclusion and hatred by proxy.

However it is clear that trans people are advancing in terms of our acceptance. I can remember coming out in the 1980s at school in Scandinavia and promptly having to go back in the closet again when I got back to England. I can remember trans people being warned, in the 1990s not to use the tube unless they was confident of passing. I can remember being told, in the noughties, at the primary school where I was teaching that if I came out as trans, I would be sacked. I can remember the nervousness of the staff at the Guardian when I wrote my first (and massively out-of-date, on many levels) article in Comment Is Free in 2008, and how they wanted me to be online to respond below the line when the article was published. I can remember the awful comments below the line, which nowadays would not be allowed.

Then the elation at the great speech by Juno Roche at a teachers union conference, seeing the amazing Paris Lees on Question Time, with that wonderful line about Ed Miliband having “Oak in his penis”. After all that I feel lucky to be able to be myself all the time even joining in the chanting at the Emirates North Bank, is not a problem any more; Arsenal fans respect red-and-white scarves. Today I use the tube to get to work and around London every day, and the bus, and all the crap privatised trains you get everywhere else.

Yet it is not the case for everyone, progress has been patchy. There are still people and places where being identifiably trans is to invite abuse, harassment, exclusion, bullying and violence. It is fitting that Laverne Cox understands how she is in a privileged position; she can talk to the president of the United States while (mostly) black and Hispanic trans women are murdered, and young trans people are driven to suicide. Change will always be patchy, but it is hopeful that, by working to increase trans visibility at the top, this will change attitudes elsewhere. This is why groups like TMW and AAT have been so important, but it is also why groups like GLAAD, GI, many local groups and Stonewall are still much needed, to work at a more grassroots level. There is obviously much still left to do. While the fantastic work of Juno Roche and others has probably made it possible for trans teachers to come out in work, it is still debatable whether an openly trans teacher would get through a job interview with a positive result in most schools, especially primary schools. There are still plenty of trans people living on estates where they are subject to violence, or indeed are effectively prisoners in their own homes.

I know a number of trans women, mostly from working-class backgrounds, who still have to spend most of their lives pretending to be male, because the massive consequences, either at work, in their local community or for their relationships with their families and children. Trans people are still being denied access to their children or being threatened with that, trans people are still being beaten walking home, trans people are still too scared to come out at work because the stakes are so high and losing their job would have consequences for thewir family and dependents.

So while we must celebrate the victories of people like Laverne Cox and others we must remember that there is still a long way to go for many people. In too many parts of the world being trans is a death sentence; remember Fernanda Milan describing how there were no trans women over 35 in Guatemala because they have all been murdered by then. Yet progress is being made and the visibility of people like Laverne Cox. Paris Lees and Bruce Jenner and their intelligent representations of trans people in the media undoubtably helps generate that progress widely. This does not mean that transphobic harm will abate everywhere and for everyone, but it will help, there is still much work to do.

Simplistic certainties: Has Dawkins chosen the side of the oppressor?

Richard Dawkins has decided to jump headlong into the no-platforming debate with a simplistic tweet about no-platforming in universities. 

To suggest that people should not be at a university of they oppose such a debate is, in my opinion, simplistic, childish and puerile. There is a serious debate to be had about this issue and it appears to be one that people like Dawkins increasingly refuse to engage with. University is not merely about exposing people to old, accepted certainties, academia is about examining the nuances of an issue. I don’t know about Dawkins but my scholarship is about looking behind the obvious, the simplistic assumptions made about the world and exposing complexities, nuances, contradictions and differences which underlie many of the oversimplified assumptions accepted in our daily lives or in public debate. That is what academia is about, challenging certainties and undermining the simplistic. I would even go so far as to suggest that, if you accept the simplistic without question you should not be in academia.

Which is why his simplistic assumptions about the no-platforming debate are disturbing. He has clearly not engaged with the arguments regarding the TERFs, a group of trans-haters, bigots and harassers who hide behind the label of “feminism’ to harm trans people. My arguments against allowing transphobes to speak in universities (which TERFs have conspicuously failed to engage with) are here and here, I have yet to hear any significant challenge to these arguments, the silence is deafening; the issue of no-platforming TERF transphobia is not as straightforward as Dawkins, Bea Campbell or many others would like it to be.

Dawkins’ intervention comes at a time when the TERFs themselves have actually demonstrated how unwilling they are to engage in a genuine debate about their behaviour. Recently pressure was applied by a number of organisations regarding the Michigan TERF Music Festival, a transphobic event from which trans women are excluded. Indeed, in order to prevent TERFs from derailing negotiations about the future of this festival, and ending its transphobic discrimination, a number of people suspended their names from a petition against the Festival, so there would be no impediment to negotiations. But rather than talk to people about the Festival it appears that the TERFs have decided to abandon it completely, in other words when the discussion is about them, the TERFs, when it focusses on TERF behaviour, hatred, exclusion, discrimination, harassment, abuse and violence against trans people, they do not want to engage in that discussion, funny that... 

Yet somehow Dawkins appears to support their right to come into universities and argue against my right to exist. Dawkins also seems to be unaware of the fact that university is the number one place where young trans people come out for the first time, away from hostile or unsupportive homes or stifling and violent local communities, thus rendering any ‘debate’ far from neutral. The mere existence of a debate in a university at all, would be a big advantage to the TERFs. Young trans people don’t want to have to spend their time in halls of residence, the coffee bar, the SU or lectures/seminars/discussions having to justify their existence to other students who have had some half-baked TERF (inevitably untrue) simplistic certainty planted into their heads. They want to get on with transitioning, their lives and their studies. Being "safe" is easy for a wealthy straight, cis, white man. Safety for a young trans person coming out for the first time in a hostile world is very different, as the trans suicide and self-harm statistics suggest.

As Archbishop Desmond Tutu put it “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” There is no neutral position in this situation, a neutral debate cannot be had, there is no fence to sit on, there are no “reasonable” positions to be held in which one can understand the “positions of both sides”. You are either on one side or the other. Dawkins needs to decide which side he is on from a position of understanding the complexities of the situation, not from swallowing simplistic mendacities of the TERFs. He needs to engage in this debate, or maybe confronting these unfamiliar ideas is too far out of his comfort zone...?

Vermin

A very quick blog before I go out and canvas for the Labour Party today.

Katie Hopkins latest Nazi rant in the Sun (yes it was just like Nazi oratory from the 1930s) once again seeks to divide and rule, to dehumanise and to portray other human beings as a disease. Her words are designed to be deeply offensive and she comes from a long line of deeply offensive rightwing ranters like Littlejohn and Melanie Phillips; people who make their living out of being deliberately offensive.

Yet we need to step back from the vileness and hatred expressed in her obnoxious tirade and ask why.

Why is Rupert Murdoch giving this woman space in his newspaper? Why does a rightwing neoliberal multibillionaire need someone like her to attack other human beings?

The answer is twofold.

Firstly, business as usual for the Global Neoliberal Establishment (GNE), they are only able to sustain their economic hegemony by divide and rule. This is part of their quotidian everyday propaganda that they need to churn out to maintain their unfair advantage and exploitative dominance.

Secondly it is a classic manifestation of “look over there!” Rupert Murdoch wants to distract you from other things, depending on your gullibility level and political instincts he wants you either to spend time hating foreigners life a disease or to spend time hating Katie Hopkins. Either way he wins.

So what are the things he (and people like him) want to distract you from?

• The NHS crisis (which the BBC deliberately edited out of the TV debate last week)
• Zero-hours contracts
• The racket of schools privatisation (which rivals the extprtion rackets of any mafioso)
• Low-pay and poverty wages
• High fees for university students
• The lack of training and opportunities for young people
• The housing crisis; high rents and the impossibility for young people ever to become home owners.
• The deficit which has ballooned under Cameron
• The scandal of tax avoidance by the super-rich

This is what he is doing. The next three weeks up to the election will be the media vs the Labour Party. The media, from the BBC to the Telegraph and the Sun will be looking to do four things;

They will paint David Cameron in the best possible light on every occasion.

• They will select for publisction stories that are advantageous to the Tories and deselect those that are advantageous for Labour.
• They will continue to subject Ed Miliband to personal attacks (something the Green Party has joined in with now).
• They will subject Labour to microscopic scrutiny while pixelating the Tories.
• They will seek to focus attention away from the issues I have listed above, especially the NHS.

So what’s the best way to get back at Hopkins, Murdoch and the rest of the GNE and their lackeys in the propaganda machine that our "media" has become?

Talk about the NHS, Zero-hours contracts, housing, tax avoidance, low pay, etc. That is what I am off to do now.

Stay strong and don’t let yourself be distracted.