You’re So Hot

Dear Blanchard, Bailey & Lawrence,

Have a big fat fucking ‘I Told You So‘.

Autogynephilia, an erotic interest in the thought or image of oneself as a woman, has been described as a sexual interest of some male-to-female transsexuals (MTFs); the term has not been applied to natal women. To test the possibility that natal women also experience autogynephilia, an Autogynephilia Scale for Women (ASW) was created from items used to categorize MTFs as autogynephilic in other studies. A questionnaire which included the ASW was distributed to a sample of 51 professional women employed at an urban hospital, 29 completed questionnaires were returned for analysis. By the common definition of ever having erotic arousal to the thought or image of oneself as a woman, 93% of the respondents would be classified as autogynephilic. Using a more rigorous definition of “frequent” arousal to multiple items, 28% would be classified as autogynephilic. The implications of these findings are discussed concerning the sexuality of women and the meaning of autogynephilia for MTFs.

Love xx

Trans Inclusion Post-Stonewall

It’s not up at The Skinny’s official site yet, but if you want a read then you can find the article I wrote for this months issue here.

Love xx

Don’t Bogart That Point, My Friend

Oh hooray!

That debate between Susan Stryker & Julie Bindel has done exactly what I hoped it would do, which is make Julie Bindel sound like an overpriviledged moron.

Notes from the debate.

Sarah Brown’s analysis (she who suggested that bindel might, shock horror, be a ‘politcal lesbian’. and, you’ll have to excuse me, but i thought that was kinda a keystone point of the late 70’s-early 80’s radfem politics that ms bindel languishes in).

Christina Alley’s analysis.

I’m not going to pick apart through the links myself. Indeed, I didn’t even bother watching the webcast (although i did click the link several hours later and discovered a particularly boring, but oddly hypnotising, law lecture). I think I was doing something much more worthy, like learning about natural treatments for breast cancer.

Still, thank you so much Julie for refusing to put down that shovel. You’ve amused and titilated this trans woman beyond measure.

Love xx

p.s. Ms Bindel. I don’t believe you’re a Lesbian either, because, like Queen Victoria, I don’t believe such a thing exists. Wanna see me in court? You won’t get much. I’m broke.

Talk About

The EUobserver,

The Council of Europe, the Strasbourg-based European integration organisation – not to be confused with the Council of the European Union – has recently taken up the cause of promoting transgender rights across Europe.

On the day of remembrance, the EUobserver spoke to Thomas Hammarberg, the council’s human rights commissioner.

A lack of awareness on the subject together with old ideas about gender provide the breeding ground for hate, he believes, and is working hard to enlighten people about the issue.

Earlier this week, Mr Hammarberg held a meeting bringing together experts on the subject from Portugal, Serbia, Turkey, the Netherlands, the UK, Germany, Sweden, and France to help devise a work programme for his organisation to tackle discrimination against transgender people.

“Ignorance seems to be the main reason [behind the discrimination] and this lack of knowledge has led to prejudices which in turn have opened for discrimination and even hate crimes,” he said.

“But it also stems from traditional concepts of what it means to be masculine or feminine in our society. We tend to shy away from discussions about sexuality and gender identity, but we need to deal with these issues head on.”

The New India Express Group,

Bangalore has long been accepting of sexual minorities, with activists and LGBT rights’ groups saying they’ve seen only support and encouragement from both society and the authorities over the past 10 years. In the past six months, though, things have changed. The world’s got tougher for the gays too. For instance, 41 activists were dragged into police custody barely a month ago. Some women activists were even molested in the police station when they tried to negotiate the release of five hijras arrested for alleged extortion.

Shortly after, police claimed they had rescued a teenage boy from a “gang of hijras” who had allegedly castrated him without consent. They claim they have broken up a racket, but there are many unanswered questions about the case, which is still under investigation. Nothing has been proved yet but this hasn’t stopped the authorities from using the incident to vilify the community and justify its harassment.

As Jenny (name changed) puts it, “After this case, everybody is looking at us as if we are monsters out on the prowl. If this abusive and discriminatory atmosphere prevails, I am worried about what the future holds for us.” To make matters worse, two weeks ago, at least 100 hijras were forced onto the streets in Bangalore’s Dasarahalli locality. “We are living in a constant state of tension. People are being arrested every other day. It was never like this before,” an activist said.

The Sun, UK,

Even more excruciating was his (Danny Cipriani’s) hilarious late-night dalliance with a well-upholstered member of the “opposite sex” who, sadly for him, turned out to be a transsexual.

To his credit, he took that on the chin. And in the glorious Kelly Brook, he now has a girlfriend who could never be mistaken for anything other than pure woman.

Love xx

images and information sourced from http://www.transgenderdor.org/, as per the stated creative commons licence.

Going Down

As an absolute aside to everything else, I need to tell you about a positively wonderful advert I happened to pass under in London Euston the other week. At the moment, if you head off the trains and down the escalators towards the tube lines you will be confronted by a giant picture like this……

…..sailing over your head. Obviously, my first thought was that all the homosexual male travellers must be in heaven, and when I heard some women behind me say something along the lines of “mmmmmm, that’s rather nice isn’t it! we should have more adverts like that!” I remembered I am also heterosexual myself some of the time, so I stood there, on the escalator, admiring the glorious image as it gracefully sailed over above me.

Thank you Dolce & Gabbana, and thank you London Euston for providing such a pleasurable manner with which to start a tube journey. In fact, I almost forgive you for cleaning off the “we have a problem” graffiti from one of your tube signs before I could get a photo of it.

Love xx

Penny Red On The Poppy Project

Considering my closing comment in yesterdays post, I think I should link to Penny Red’s fantastic blog entry on her interview with the Poppy Project.

Even former employees agree that the academic rigour of the Poppy Project’s research leaves much to be desired, and the actions of government based on their recommendations more still. Our ideological differences are considerable, and we will come to those differences if and when there is a real chance of the most misplaced aspects of that research becoming law. Right now, though, we are more alike than we are unalike. And we have work to do.

Love xx

Large Bag Of Sweet, Please

Yes, trans people get trafficked too.

Detectives today revealed how the rescue of a woman from a life of prostitution in the city led to the capture of a gang behind a massive sex-trafficking network.

Earlier this week nine people from Thailand were jailed for their part in an operation in which women were being sold for sex via the internet.

The gang had set up a website called Oriental Gems which advertised the “services” of 67 women and three transsexual males in what has been referred to as a “modern day form of slavery”.

Although, you’ll have to forgive my kneejerk opinion that ‘transsexual males’ may be a trifling misleading.

Otherwise, am I the only one who is feeling completely non-plussed by the recently proposed debate between Julie Bindel and Susan Stryker? I felt quite strongly about the recent controvesy over Stonewall nominating Julie Bindel for best journalist 2008, partly due to the long history of tokenism and ignorance of trans people in the modern LG movement (not to mention the history of attacks from politicised radical lesbian feminins) but this one……..

Firstly, people have been rightly annoyed about the suggestion that ‘transsexualism’ is actually open for debate. I totally agree that it shouldn’t be, but currently it *is*. There are still publicised opinions that would say that trans people should not be offered surgery, and by extension any form of gender services, on the NHS. Anybody remember that opinion poll where an (apparantly) worryingly high number of GPs suggested that the NHS shouldn’t fund trans services? Anybody remember the headlines where the facts were skewed to suggest that a ridiculous amount of money is spent on trans services in Scotland (at the expense of, we presume, hip replacements and cardiac services. yes)? True, this facts and figures don’t normally hold up to scrutiny, and they are often published in newspapers that you expect such drivel to emanate from, but the sad truth is that most people don’t have the time, knowledge, or inclination to scrutinise such reports. Furthermore, those same newspapers are read by an alarming percentage of the population. Hence, as much as I’d like to say that there is no debate, one still exists. We haven’t won it yet, so we’ve got to keep talking.

Secondly, I’d even go so far as to suggest this debate is timely. True, it shouldn’t be the main focal point right now; a much more pertinent debate would be between, say, Ben Summerskill and a trans inclusionist regarding the current standing of the T in LGB. However, a stink has recently been cooked up around Julie Bindel’s opinions; the waters have been stirred and I personally think it’s fairly naive to expect them to suddenly come clear. Her opinions have once again been thrown into stark relief, and this was largely due to the activism around her nomination. I know, I know: the protest was not about her, but about Stonewall. Still, she was the central figure in the controvesy whichever way you like to look at it. After all, ask yourself this: how many people protested the Guardian winning the award last year, even though David Batty was still writing rather one-sided articles in that rag about the GMC case against Russel Reid? Especially considering that it is the Guardian, as a media platform, that allows these opinions to go out in the first place? I hear many people talk about severing their contributions to Stonewall and PfC, but how many people refuse to buy that paper?

I know that my opinion is not one shared by many online right now, but I honestly think this debate is a logical extension of the recent happenings, and I actually welcome it. However, I welcome it for some rather cynical reasons. First off, I see it largely as than entertainment. Far classier entertainment than, say, the Hecklers debate from last year, but a popcorn fest nonetheless. I don’t expect much else to come from the debate apart from how daft the debate is in the first place. The argument has been running circles around itself for decades now, chasing it’s own tail and sometimes even choking on it, and still it spins. I expect it to run something like this:

Julie Bindel: blahblahblahblahMY OPINIONblahblahblahCLAUDIAblahblahblahIRAN

Susan Stryker: blahblahblahACTUAL FACTSblahblahblahYOU HAVE NO CLUE DO YOUblahblah

Stephen Whittle: well, that’s very intresting, but in my capacity as the chair i can’t pass opinion so i’m just going to sit here and look professional

I fully expect no consensus between Julie and Susan, but I do expect Susan to intellectually wipe the floor with her, and I hope that Julie’s terribly misinformed and shockingly underdeveloped arguments become clear to the audience. I then expect everybody to go home and forget all about it, pretty much. If anything, I expect this debate, with it’s pompous air of academic respectibility, to be a step-forward from the Hecklers debate last year, which was framed in the most base, albeit common, terms. It’s not much of a step forward, I admit, and it’s still popcorn fare, but sometimes you’ve gotta look on the bright side as well.

Then, after all this is over, maybe people will start getting annoyed over Julie’s shockingly simplistic approaches to violence against women and the sex trade, because those things really do make me angry.

Love xx

Turn Off

This post is awesome. You should go and read it.

Now, I don’t wish to imply a lesbian-based press are in bed with the patriarchy but there’s a point here at which het fem sexuality is getting squeezed out by two apparently opposite forces, male heterosexuality and lesbian sexuality. And that’s because those two forces overlap in one particular area, their mutual lust for women. Most lesbians are probably hopping mad about the constant falsification of their sexuality for the titillation of straight guys. And rightly so. But here’s a thing: I’m also hopping mad about the falsification of my sexuality for the titillation of straight guys.

Because it’s false if the object of my desire, the male form, is never seen. It’s false if my sexuality is represented as my sexualised body – because this is what’s going on when I’m expected to identify with a cover model. My desire is seen to originate in how I appear, my attractiveness to men, my capacity to seduce the viewer. My desire then is actually someone else’s. My desire, in fact, is absent.

In fact, I think I’ve generally fallen in love with the whole blog. I’ll be checking it every Monday!

This disparity suits erotica covers very well. Female sexuality is treated as a job lot, an all-accommodating hunger that will not merely accept but *embrace* its woman-loving side. It will happily sit down with the straight guys who’ve been enjoying tits and ass on their porn for years and say, ‘My, ain’t she hot?’ And the guys will say, ‘Welcome to the party! I love your open-minded radical sexuality. Will you be kissing your bestfriend later? Mind if we watch?’

And once again, so many women are sidelined and made invisible; are forced to go and gatecrash the gay guys’ party because that’s the only place we can get cock.

Love xx

Comment is Free

If you haven’t heard of this then, seriously, where have you been?

Maybe I’m just in an evil mood, but I was wondering what would actually happen if she didn’t get pulled from the nominations and she did win the award. Would it be the second time there was a riot at Stonewall?

“You’ve been treating us like shit all these years? Uh-uh. Now it’s our turn!… It was one of the greatest moments in my life.” – Sylvia Rivera

Love xx