Germaine Greer glitter-bombed for trans comments

[La Lioness Priyanka]

Feminist writer Germaine Greer has been glitter-bombed at a book-signing today in New Zealand for her comments about trans women, including a 2009 column which said they ‘seem to us ghastly parodies’ and claimed being trans was a ‘delusion’.

The Queer Avengers group took exception to Greer’s brand of what it termed “transphobic feminism” and delivered the glitter in a move more often seen deployed on homophobic politicians in the US.

Germaine Greer unsuccessfully opposed the election of a trans woman to the staff at the women-only Newnham College, Cambridge in the 1990s and the group highlighted her opposition to regarding trans women as women.

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2012/03/14/in-photos-germaine-greer-glitter-bombed-for-trans-comments/

[Warpy]

1. She richly deserved it

I'm close to a major sex reassignment surgery center, and I see mostly trans women (the trans men seem to blend a bit more as short males than very tall trans women do as tall females) shopping for things to clothe their new bodies. In the hospital, pre op transsexuals got private rooms. Post op transsexuals were put into semi privates but with roommate approval. Most people didn't care one way or another, you had to be deathly sick to be on any of the units I worked on.

I don't begin to understand gender dysphoria, but I don't think that's really my job. My job is not to add to the already heavy psychological, financial, social, and surgical burdens they have by making tactless remarks.

Glitter is the herpes of the crafting world. Greer will be finding it all over her clothing and in her hair for days.

And yes, she did deserve it.

[socialindependocrat]

2. Interesting conundrum

I support Bglat but,

If someone puts on a wig and a dress, are they a woman?

If someone is medically altered, are they a woman?

If someone has hormone injections, are they a woman?
(even without being surgically altered?)

If a baby is a hermaphrodite do the hormones determine
that they are one sex or the other (or are they both).

In this case, the person was elected. I guess the people
decided and the board will find out if there are any glitches
in the choice.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

4. if someone genuinely identifies as a woman they are

there is no interesting conundrum here.

[roguevalley]

7. it is the internal identity that counts, not the external. Old cow. she needs to rethink`

her own definitions of persecution. there are fewer groups more harassed. some old biddies get caught up in their own 'mystique'.

[yardwork]

8. You are skating very, very close.

If a person identifies as a woman, then they are a woman. That has nothing to do with putting on a "wig and a dress." Cross dressing is completely different from being transgender. If a baby is born with ambiguous genitals, then that person gets to decide if they are a man or a woman. There are many heartbreaking stories of babies being assigned one sex or the other at birth by "experts" who guessed wrong. A person knows if they are a man or a woman. Our only responsibility is to accept each person's identity. Period.

Be careful with words like "hermaphrodite" and phrases like "puts on a wig and a dress." Read some more about transgender people at the GLAAD site here:http://www.glaad.org/transgender

[ZombieHorde]

12. Transgender folks have some brains differences compared to cisgender folks.

Cisgender means the person's gender and sex match up.

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2011/01/26/scans-show-difference-in-transgender-brains/

[qb]

3. If you're seeking equality for your own class, why would you shit on another oppressed class?

She's lost all credibility as a feminist IMO.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

5. yup.

[ZombieHorde]

11. I don't know, but the phenomenon seems very common. nt

[Whisp]

17. yep.

I sure am getting myself an education these last few weeks.

[mitchtv]

6. good, she needed that

I hope she gets it again

[ProgressiveProfessor]

9. Similar thread in LGBT

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11377329

[La Lioness Priyanka]

10. yes, i deliberately cross posted

i was almost going to post it in feminism and diversity too but got lazy

[Sarah Ibarruri]

13. I corresponded in e-mail for a while with a trannie...

She found me in a political chat room where I spent half my life calling Republicans ugly names. She taught me a lot about transexuals, and I taught her a lot about how non-transexuals sometimes feel about transexuals. She sent me photos of her dressed up. She told me how much she suffered. She told me how angry she was that she hadn't started this young so she could look more like a woman. She told me how her ex-wife (his ex-wife?) had suffered because he came out and told her the truth, that he didn't want to be living life as a man anymore.

My feelings were that if a man had married me, proclaimed his love for me, told me beautiful things, and nurtured my love, I would feel incredibly deceived to suddenly find out that his feelings all that time were that he was female, and that he'd been pretending with me. I would feel the same if it were a gay man who married me knowing he was gay. It's marriage under false pretenses. Deception of my emotions, my soul, my heart.

I understand now that it is real, the feeling of being transexual, but it sure isn't easy for everyone around to acclimate to the sudden, dramatic, complete change. It means all of them have to change the way they deal with the person, the way they view the person, in short, every single thing.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

14. she should have taught you not to refer to transgender folks as trannies. nt

[Sarah Ibarruri]

15. She referred to herself and to others as trannies, and never with any other name. nt

[La Lioness Priyanka]

16. i can call myself queer, it wouldn't be ok for you to do it. surely you get that.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

19. Do you make it a point to tell others that fact, or do you expect that they will be

psychic and just know it?

[La Lioness Priyanka]

21. i expect people to know what speech is and is not acceptable, when you are not part of the in-group

its really not that hard. its like when white people complain that they cant use the n-word but black people can. i think they know the difference but want to pretend that they don't.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

25. And they are supposed to "know" this through mental communication? Or do you tell them? nt

[La Lioness Priyanka]

26. reading. exposure. wanting to care. same way most liberal whites know the difference

between why they can't say the N-word, but african americans can.

[mtnester]

20. "She told me how her ex-wife (his ex-wife?)...."

this sentence you wrote should have only said HER ex wife..there is no question on it, which is part of course of what she must have been discussing with you.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

22. +1

[Sarah Ibarruri]

24. That was before she underwent all the hormones and surgeries. nt

[La Lioness Priyanka]

27. its not the hormones and the surgery that makes the gender. thats the biggest point about all this

its the way we feel about our sex and how we see our gender, that makes our gender.

[yardwork]

23. Please edit your post to eliminate the offensive term "trannie."

I don't care how many of your friends call themselves that. The term is deeply offensive. Please edit.

[ismnotwasm]

18. Greer's comments in

"The Whole Woman"were thought provoking for me. As a purely intellectual exercise, how does one identify as female? Make up? Clothes? Sexual attraction that is not homosexual, but something much harder to describe?
I think part of the problem is not understanding the difference between transgendered and transsexual.
Another part is thinking that there are only two genders.

If we acknowledge that social gender is a social construct we're getting somewhere because nobody who is transgendered would put themselves through the hell they have to go through. Greer thinks that letting the transgendered default to female somehow lessens the female experience, it reinforces the idea that females are lesser, and less complete than males, it lessens any power females may have or gain (I'm totally paraphrasing, I have the book somewhere)

A good friend, a M-F, has helped me clarify a lot of my own conflict. She Is an incredible woman, one who inspires. As a male she was lost, crazy, a little creepy. As a woman, when she walks in a room she has presence that goes far beyond the physical. (she's comely and middle-aged)
She is clearly a woman. She clearly always has been. She also suffers from PTSD from her tours in Vietnam. Now THERE'S a special insight. They say women aren't allowed in combat? Bullshit they weren't, no matter what genitalia they were dangling at the time