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Government considers watered down same-sex marriage bill to minimise Tory rebellion
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London: Gay couple threatened with death in violent late night homophobic assault
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Tory MP Nadine Dorries: 'The gay marriage bill is taking the sex out of marriage'
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Philip Hammond: 'No great demand for gay marriage and it's upsetting vast numbers of people'
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Government to consider abolishing civil partnerships or opening up to straight couples
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Bret Easton Ellis slams GLAAD and says gay basketball player Jason Collins treated like a 'baby panda'
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US Radio host: Gay news websites are covered with porn that is turning teens gay
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Lib Dem MP Sarah Teather tells Catholic newspaper 'I never went into politics to tackle equal marriage'
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Tory MP David Burrowes: 'I'm not anti-gay; I'm just pro-marriage'
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Tory MP David Burrowes: I only want a referendum on same-sex marriage so I can defeat the government's bill
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Robert in S. Kensington 831
Eddy 389
Rehan 267
Jock S. Trap 243
bobbleobble 222
D.McCabe 221
rapture 202
Midnighter 187
Ray123 181
Iris 179
If there are death threats, by all means report them. It’s not acceptable in any way.
Other than that, consider Twitter (or, indeed, any kind of publishing of remarks – including this) to be like Speaker’s Corner. You can get up on your soap box if you want but no one guarantees you approval or a silent audience.
The behaviour was rancid, especially one of the tweets quoted in the article that I don’t know will pass automated moderation. Using trans women as a punchline was foolish.
And you know – If someone tells you that you are taking their experience and co-opting it or asserting insight and authority while having neither, or outright being offensive, why not listen to what they say rather than lash out?
If someone who is trans tells me that I have offended them, I will apologise. If I don’t understand why, I will ask. What purpose is actually served by engaging in conflict this way UNLESS it is to serve a deeper prejudice (which we already know Bindel has).
“If someone who is trans tells me that I have offended them, I will apologise. If I don’t understand why, I will ask. ”
Exactly what any decent person should do. Offending people unknowingly is one thing, but to persist and to knowingly offend is disgusting. As I always say, it says more about the abusive person’s issues than about the people they’re referring to.
I would suggest that if someone or something offends you, you simply avoid them or it. If someone does not wish to apologise, forcing them to do so through shouting the odds is pretty pointless.
That works well at a cocktail party, not so well when the person being offensive is having their offensive statements published in your morning newspaper. Are we supposed to walk away from society itself to avoid calling out society’s errors, because trying to persuade is pointless?
Did gay rights advance more by walking away from homophobes, or by challenging them?
Funny, I’ve always thought it was Julie and the radical feminists witch-hunting Trans people. They have a long enough history of doing so.
Incidentally Ms Bindel has written opposing equal marriage in the Spectator this week http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/8812671/wedding-hells/
Professional mouthpiece.
I campaigned for equal marriage although I know I shall never have one, because there is something sacred to me about the right to choose. But for that choice to be available, it takes some effort. This need to stick oars in to other people’s lives boggles my mind.
If some people chose to marry – may it bring them joy. If some don’t – hope you have a good life that brings you much contentment. But since I’m not a part of either option, it’s none of my bloody business and I’m happy enough to simply, disregard.
But this concept of us all having a hive mind and there being a “right” way to be LGBT is a bloody absurdity. Because I assume that, in her mind, her way is the “right” way and that is tyranny.
I bet you she wouldn’t want a civil partnership for herself is it were available to straights? Why don’t people start asking these idiots that very question when opponents keep bringing up the CP nonsense as pefectly adequate to justify a ban on our marrying? I suspect people like her would oppose heterosexuals’ access to a CP and I can just imagine the lame excuses put forward. It would really put them in a bind to come up with a reasonable response.
Now what if there was legislation to abolish marriage altogether and replace it with CPs, not that I’d be in favour? You can bet there would be public uproar from the bigots. It would really call their bluff and we all know why, don’t we?
Thanks that was an interesting article , that for me just proved the author has no idea of the issue at all “These privileged gay men, for whom the battle has largely been won, have money, social standing, cosy domestic arrangements and move in circles where they are protected from the worst excesses of anti-gay bigotry. They show little interest about gay rights more broadly, or care that (for example) homosexuality remains criminal in 80 countries. They have now walked into the open arms of a Tory leadership, which sees in the gay marriage issue a chance to launder the party’s reputation for nastiness.” That alone proves the author to be an idiot. Women want marriage too, but that doesn’t play well to the weird seemingly feminist agenda she is putting across ( it actually just feels male homophobic to me ) I for one will never vote Tory, and never vote on one issue regardless. And these accusations of “cabal” feel more like a sulk because these days We tell phobes to shut up.
She probably opposes equal marriage because it relieves stress from transgendered people who want official recognition of their new gender but they are already married and wish to stay married.
For a feminist shes not very smart!
I’m up for criticising marriage but… can’t… read……….. Bindel….
Seriously? This whole thing has been blown out of proportion. Only, from what I see it isn’t the trans community whose engaging in melodrama.
This could all have been finished long ago if Susan Moore had acknowledged why her language made people angry instead of talking down to the people she had upset, and now Bindel steps in?
This has got to be a joke.
Gives them more articles to write though, more grist for the mill. I’m not sure it’s not 50% ego and 50% carnival barker.
Unfortunately, the entirety of the media doesn’t quite understand trans issues. I read The Guardian, yet then they’ll publish transphobic articles, or allow rambling articles where someone attempts to cisplain how they haven’t been transphobic: aka. dig themselves a big hole. I swear all this drama must be giving them more hits on their website as people go to read the articles in outrage.
I honestly don’t think Susan Moore was consciously being transphobic, what annoys me is that she’s sticker her fingers in her ears and going “la la la, I’m not listening!”
Ms Bindel is writing as if she believes “people who are well paid to write self indulgent transphobia in the national press” are a persecuted minority.
What she describes as a “witch hunt” looks, from the outside, an awful lot like a bunch of media luvvies crying about how hard it is to have the people they use their newspaper columns to insult talk back to them.
This is about as unedifying as watching the pope complain about how his religious freedom is being attacked if gay people are allowed human rights.
Suzanne Moore’s original article, which was on the theme of women’s anger, contained the following:
“Maybe your man can read Men’s Health and use the ’11 ways to deal with an angry woman’ advice. Eye contact and admitting you are were wrong come into it!”
It might have been helpful if she had followed her own advice from the outset, when initially challenged, and admitted that the reference to brazilian transsexuals was ill-judged. However she chose not to do so.
It is not just the use of the phrase which offends, but the refusal to acknowledge that she may have made a mistake, which has led to the entrenched positions which people are now taking on this matter.
And she really ought to have done some research before trying to deflect the argument by suggesting that trans people are not engaging in debate on socio-econmic issues because all she has succeeded in doing is make herself appear an idiot.
Oh and another thought, since the headline alone makes me grind my teeth. Don’t assume this is a “trans cabal” please.
I have, and will again, spoken out against a racism, although I have never been its target. I have, and will again, responded to other forms of bigotry that I – personally – am not being subjected to.
Put it this way:
People who lie think everyone lies
People who steal think everyone steals
People who have prejudice apparently assume that everyone else will.
And it is just not true.
Well I agree with Bindel. The stooshie about Suzanne Moore was absurd. Utterly absurd. She quite obviously did not intend to give offence to anyone and the simile itself could not possibly be construed as offensive unless you are some sort of militant Trotskyist thin skinned über sensitive trans activist with a grudge against the rest of the world.
Its the fact that she was called out for her offensive language and instead of doing the decent thing and apologiesing which she would have done if she didn’t mean to offend. Instead she tries to justify her offensive remarks – to me that suggests that she INTENDS to offend.
She had nothing whatsoever to apologise for. If she had said instead that Scottish gay guys had perfect bodies I would have been chuffed and NOT offended and would have regarded as totally absurd any gay man being offended by it. Why is it any different for trans folk? Just looks to me that they are on the hunt for any feminist or gay person to manufacture offence too. Good on Suzanne for not giving in to them.
It’s not just offensive to trans people, it’s offensive to women too. To use your analogy, what if she’d said that gay men are all miserable, hate their bodies and really want the ideal body of a woman? You’d be chuffed, would you? Chuffed that she thinks she knows you better than you know yourself apparently?
What she said was utter crap on so many levels.
But she didn’t saying anything about “all” trans people. She merely used a rather tired stereotype. The worst you could accuse her off is crass cliche, something Suzanne Moore has been guilty of for years.
“trans cabal”?? No, I was offended and I’m not trans. Every person I showed the comment to also thought it was uncalled for and nasty and none of them were trans either.
I’d also point out that I felt it was offensive to women in general – the idea that we’re all sad, miserable people who hate ourselves. Then to top that with such an offensive remark was absolutely disgusting.
Bullies are always the same. They always say it’s a minority ‘making a fuss about nothing’ blah blah because they don’t want to admit that they were in the wrong.
Oh grow up for heaven sake. Offended? There is real and profound prejudice out there that ordinary trans and gay people have to confront. This is just manufactured outrage over nothing.
A concern troll says what?
Like Suzanne Moore wrote in her article, both herself and Bindel are ‘ANGRY with themselves for NOT BEING HAPPY’. They’re also PATHETIC for taking out their anger and unhappiness on a minority of people who already find life incredibly difficult because of bullies like both of them.
If Moore or Bindel had read a piece criticizing women who, in their opinion, look like “fat lesbians” you can bet they’d be on to the author like a ton of bricks. Moore’s comment on Brazilian transsexuals was both nasty and racist, as well as transphobic. As for a “witch hunt” – I mean, really? Members of a small minority, vulnerable to violence and and mocker,y decide to speak back – just like the lesbian feminists did to the people who insulted them back in the day – and that’s not fair?
This is all very confusing. But I do wonder what Julie Bindel would say if someone described her and some of her lesbian friends as a ‘cabal’. She doesnt seem to respect any trans people.
Why should any woman respect “trans people” as a group?
What have “trans people” done to earn respect from women?
“Trans people” subject women to threats on a daily basis. Want to get some death threats of your very own? Create a fake female moniker on HuffPo or Tumblr, post anything that could be perceived as even SLIGHTLY critical of “trans” people, and you, too, will be told to go off yourself, drink bleach, die in a fire, etc. etc. etc.
I guarantee it. Give it a try. Maybe you’ll have your eyes opened a smidge.
Hi Julie!
Thanks for the compliment, but no, not Julie. Just one of thousands of feminist women who have been threatened with sexual violation, told to “go off yourself”, told to “go drink bleach”, told to “go die in a fire”, told that I’m doing feminism wrong if I don’t want to drop my cotton panties for “lady stick”, etc. etc. etc.
There’s an epidemic of extremely violent hate-speech against natal (real) women for the thought crime of knowing biology.
Women are starting to wake up and pay attention. The so-called “trans” movement is over-run with violent, hateful, misogynist heterosexual males (many of who are in their late forties or older, have a military background, espouse the beliefs of the MRA movement, have a history of sexual violence against women, etc.
Wake up, women. These dudes are not your cuties from Le Cage au Folles. These guys are posting pictures of themselves on-line with seven-foot-tall machetes on a spear and bragging about taking their weapons to MichFest.
So nice to see pink news ignboring the actual matter and instead giving space to this known hate speech criminal (TransPanthers listed her along with that Brennan creature 2 years ago as an international hate speech criminal)
The only T in LGBT stands for Tokenism., and just as a surprise, not every trans* person identifies as LGB and more than a few protested at being “included” at the outset for the very reasons which become so very clear when creatures like Bindel are given space to spout their hate, and the endemic transphobia experienced within the LGB community. IF this “news” site wants some credibility on trans* issues then it’s time to shape up and start reporting our issues, rather than allowing these hateful people a mouthpiece.
“Hate speech criminal”????????
Will you listen to yourself! Absurd. Totally absurd. I am not a fan of Bindel or Moore but this is just idiotic
HHmm.
I wonder which glove puppet Bindel is running on the Suzanne Moore Comments thread…
Chrissie
It’s sock puppet.
I stand corrected… I just don’t have my finger on the pulse of social media today… :-)
Can I tweet “Julie Bindel is a fugly dyke” and not expect criticism? Its basically what’s she’s suggesting.
I don’t see why you should apologise for it if that’s what you really think.
Bindel has consistently said that trans people put themselves through ‘self mutilation’ . . . that ‘gays’ are nurtured and not ‘nature’ . . . and has had a go at HIV positive gay men . . .
Who’s the bully here then? . . .
http://www.rainbow-citizen.com
What a nasty pair. I’ve never had much time for Bindel anyway. She has past form for transphobia and is generally a man hater to the extent that it makes Viz’s Millie Tant look rational.
The whole thing has kicked off by Moore making a completely unacceptable remark and then refusing to do the civilised thing – apologise. Never one to leave a feminist bandwagon unjumped on, Bindel adds her voice. Typical that she should deploy the usual dishonest tactic of painting themselves as victims.
“Never one to leave a feminist bandwagon unjumped on”
Brilliant :)
Why would a homophobe such as her bother to tweet Pink News? Does she really believe we’re going to take her or Moore’s side? She’s delusional. Looking at that photo of hers which I doubt is recent, my gaydar suddenly goes off like a siren. It’s surprising that the Guardian, a strong support of equal marriage would pay these types spewing all this nasty stuff, especially since Bindel opposes equal marriage.
Julie Bindel would know all about offending Trans people, given that she’s a RadFem who constantly dehumanizes us, calls us mutilated men in dresses, thinks we exist only to invade and conquer women only spaces, and generally talks about wanting us all to stop existing, then defends her BLATANTLY transphobic BS by saying she wants to “abolish gender”. There is no “Trans Cabal”, just women this twat has denigrated who started standing up to her.
Bindel is a horrible person. I remember seeing someone mention her on YouTube and when I read some of her remarks on trans people I was horrified. A complete lack of empathy and exhibiting all of the nasty bigotry that she so vocally condemns in others when it comes to lesbians and women in general. She is a parody made real.
While the incensed trans remarks about Suzanne Moore are unfortunate, Bindel’s tired old transphobia is so seventies Janice Raymond. Feminism has moved on since then, Ms. Bindel. Please, deal with that.
LMAO! A dude named Craig is telling women how to do feminism right.
The irony is delicious around here.
Quite from people who use the word ‘intersectionality’ bigotry ahoy
This is a witch hunt against the most persecuted minority of them all: Upper-Middle-Class White Lesbians with regular newspaper columns. I imagine Bindel and Moore are crying real tears into their expensive Chardonnay today. I can just see them high-fiving each other across a table at a chic little eatery on the High Street over that “Not one trans activist has engaged with economic argument or attack on welfare, why not?” line.
oh that made me cross. loads of us have been campaigning about cuts, etc, how the heck would Moore know?!
great post by the way. these people are enough to put any women off feminism ever. they need to get with the times or retire.
when you stop being able to learn you;re becoming a dinosaur in politics.
go back to your occupy tent
slight error – Bindel is a Radical Lesbian, which means she chose to be a lesbian for political reasons of patriarchy.
we all perpetuate patriarchy get a life
If the “trans” cabal is not telling you to drink bleach, to die in a fire, that you need “a good hard dicking” or something else hideous, sexist, violent and threatening, then you’re not doing feminism right.
Their hatred for natal (real) women who prioritize natal (real) women in political analysis is palpable and, frankly, insane.
“Their hatred for natal (real) women who prioritize natal (real) women in political analysis is palpable and, frankly, insane.”
I’m a trans woman, and the majority of my friends are bisexual or lesbian cis women. The entire LGBT community in my city is trans positive and inclusive, and also vocally anti-transphobic.
The only angry, hateful bigot standing out in my world is you … and the rest of the “TERF cabal”.
Before you criticise people of doing feminism wrong, maybe you should drop the cis sexism and trans misogyny yourself.
I have to admit that at first I was mystified as to where the offense was. The article seemed to suggest that “Brazilian Transsexuals” had ideal bodies. This “joke” is often made about Gay gym bunnies too. It didn’t seem to be a malicious comment compared to many the GLBT community suffers. However, some further research does show both these women to be extremely obnoxious.
oh dear julie. look if someone commits a crime report them ok. that’s right. other than tat, you don’t like being criticised…. how about you stop attacking the trans community, demonising people and then people will stop calling you out responding to it angrily. simple really. unless you’re about to ccome out as trans you are not and never will be someone of direct experience so you can and never will be an expert on these issues. Your ignorance on these matters is world famous. simply people can;t win – if one or two voices complain its taken for a non issue, if lots of people complain, it becomes a cabal whateber the heck that is. we are PEOPLE. when we are attacked by powerful people like you who simply don’t understand we will answer you back. how nasty of you to attempt to make our voices en mass an irrelevance. maybe julie just maybe when there;s a mass response it means you, or your mates are wrong. if you cannot accept sometmes you’re wrong then youre past it really.
doh being dense PN is not supporting bindel. sigh. tired today. my bad!! thanks for reporting this pink news. all she wants to do is shut up people wwho dare to challenge her. offensive lady!
PS PINK NEWS why are you publishing such transphobic horror?!
shut up!!! please remove this is a mistake! tired,
The fact that they call themselves feminists pi**es me off. Since when did oppressing other women become a feminist activity?!
Since when are heterosexual men in drag “women”?
Guardian in being lousy to queers shocker. Remember when it gave its support to Clause 28 because its crib sheet from Labour HQ told it to?
Heterosexual men in drag are not “queer”.
Shh…grown-ups are talking.
That an academic at the beginning of the 21st century like Julie Bindel seems to buy into historically discredited and tragically damaging conspiracy theories such as the existence of ‘cabals’ is very sad.
ok lets use a 21st century one how about Trans Illuminati?
It’s a bit rich of Bindel to be complaining about witch hunts, when she has been the instigator of so many! I happen to believe Bindel is a seriously emotionally damaged person, who then goes on to present reality from a peculiarly warped and limited perspective. If you live in a tiny community of fading Radical Lesbians (the ones who chose…. to be ) then you are kinda out on a limb already. At least the Trans community Know what and Who they are.. unlike the RL’s who are stuck in a time-warp. Greenham is closed luv!
Lesbians and Gay brothers can you see what s happenning here with our hard fought movement…they came for the women, then the gays….and we no longer had a common discourse. A minority within a minority is eating us from inside.
“These new conservative gays accept the theory that people are born genetically predisposed to homosexuality. They give the impression that no one would actually choose to be gay, if it could be helped. It ignores the evidence that many lesbians and gay men only come out in later life, when the opportunity to bat for the other side arises. The ‘born this way’ theory seeks to debar from the debate those of us who believe that being gay is a fabulous alternative to heterosexuality.” From http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/8812671/wedding-hells/
Here Bindel admits her folly, and clings to the days when she was regarded as a political radical, her ‘claim to fame’ now is as a sponsor /supporter of battered women, but I wonder, If she isn’t actually a lesbian, and has a warped perspective on LGBT’s is she a battered woman – or is that fake too?
Tell that to the preacher man in a frock the one with the power to marry you….but he won’t ….maybe he will if you batter him! julie oh Jule do you help battered idiots as a lesbian?
Having followed up claims of transphobia across the Net, I’ve been truly horrified at attacks by M2F transactivists on radfem blogs. Seems to be a very small, but hyperactive group. Some seek to prevent women from discussing or organising anything that can be perceived to exclude transwomen. Discussing personal experiences of menstruation is labelled transphobic, ffs. The attackers seem to be heterosexual rather than gay M2F, and very aggressive.
Here’s a quote from a notorious M2F poster attacking a feminist blog (Google “Jonathan Reid “Aeryn” Fulton”):
“I’m sure not all lesbians are against transpersons. Just the run of the mill obese, Type II DM, old, less-than-photogenic, bitter ones sadly in need of a good deep dicking.
And have you heard about the “cotton ceiling”? Cotton as in underwear? Transactivists are complaining that lesbians who don’t find women who have male genitals sexually attractive are transphobic.