Is Germaine Greer Transphobic ?

[Ridgley]

Germaine Greer has said she will not attend a planned lecture at Cardiff University after a petition called on her to be barred because of her ?misogynistic views towards trans women?.

I think Germaine is right on this, she not saying if a man wants to have a sex change he can?t she just saying genetically he still a man how is this transphobic?

[Louisa]

A person who undergoes gender reassignment goes through rigorous and lengthy psychological counselling to ensure it is exactly what they want. A person cannot help being born into a body which they do not feel comfortable in, and if after consideration (often traumatic and drawn out over years) they decide to physically be in a body which matches their psychological gender, who is Germaine Greer or anyone else for that matter to question them? Moreover, how offensive is it, for someone of her academic stature to publicly make the point that a trans person isn't the gender they choose? Why does she feel the need to be so offensive and patronising towards anyone who has made such a difficult and public life choice?

Louisa.

[JohnL]

This TERF thing is all over twitter and has been for a while.

Got nasty on both sides - it's pretty complex to me and both sides have points.

[miga]

Louisa - I think no-one is beyond questioning. The whole "no platform" thing was meant to shut down things like BNP activists dragging debates down with basic prejudice - and I disagree with that too, by the way. In this instance though, she hasn't said anything hateful, it's merely her opinion (if I understand it) that gender isn't something you decide on. I guess she in particular must have felt over the last few decades the atmosphere in universities shifting away from talking about women's experiences to the experiences of men who want to be/feel like women, while a whole host of practical issues for women haven't been sorted out (violence, equal pay, home work, reproductive rights etc.).

[Ridgley]

Louisa wrote

A person who undergoes gender reassignment goes through rigorous and lengthy psychological counselling to ensure it is exactly what they want. A person cannot help being born into a body which they do not feel comfortable in, and if after consideration (often traumatic and drawn out over years) they decide to physically be in a body which matches their psychological gender, who is Germaine Greer or anyone else for that matter to question them? Moreover, how offensive is it, for someone of her academic stature to publicly make the point that a trans person isn't the gender they choose? Why does she feel the need to be so offensive and patronising towards anyone who has made such a difficult and public life choice?

Louisa.

I don?t think she is being offensive, like I said she does not have problem with transgender she just stating a biological fact what really get up my nose is if you don?t have the same opinions has the majority you get the same can of abuse she getting on twitter.

[DaveR]

I don't have a view on the underlying issue, and I generally have little truck with la Greer's views, but this is a free speech issue, and IMHO this is becoming a serious problem, particularly in universities. When the line between incitement to violence and so-called 'hate speech' is blurred (often deliberately) you end up criminalising anything that offends anybody. Then it's just a case of who shouts the loudest. See Roger Scruton on BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06j6byb

[Louisa]

I disagree miga, unintentionally she has said something which will be hurtful and damaging to a lot of people, many of whom are in the process of, or undergoing gender reassignment. Greer is an intelligent person who need not have raised this particularly sensitive issue in the way she has, knowing full well how hurtful it could be to trans people in the early stages of feeling something isn't right with their physical body. You say Greer is concerned that transgender issues are overshadowing unresolved feminist issues? What about the many males born into female bodies, and their experiences? are they still considered female by her?

Louisa.

[miga]

She has form on this issue stretching back to the mid 90s. She hasn't changed her thinking on the subject - and what makes her entertaining and newsworthy is that she has an explosive and colourful way of expressing ideas. So I guess the issue of hurting people's feelings is a distraction from the trashing out of ideas. AFAICT she didn't claim those people should/shouldn't feel a particular way, or undergo plastic surgery, she merely said that she doesn't think they're women. So the discussion is about gender, and she has valid and interesting ideas on the subject (whether you agree or not). Her way of expressing ideas comes from a showy, firebrand, academic tradition (to sound like a wanker - maybe even a tradition of Socratic questioning?), and isn't it interesting that young zealots in academic institutions are the ones who want to shut that tradition down on grounds of "hurt feelings".

As far as "males being born into female bodies" - the bits and pieces I read on "trans-issues" in mainstream media always seem to be about blokes deciding they want to be women...which I also find interesting.

[Otta]

I agree with DaveR on this.

[Jeremy]

Saying something which is (arguably) factually correct doesn't necessarily make it OK, when it's nevertheless insensitive and potentially hurtful.

Saying that, I don't think trying to silence differing opinions is at all constructive.

[miga]

Exactly, there's a difference between what you or I feel is OK to say ('cause we're nice guys and don't want to hurt people's feelings), and shutting people up.

[DaveR]

"Saying something which is (arguably) factually correct doesn't necessarily make it OK, when it's nevertheless insensitive and potentially hurtful."

The problem with this is, what consequences flow from something being "not OK"? Is it a crime? Is it illegal in another way, so you can be sued for damages, so someone can get an injunction to stop you saying it? Is it OK for you to be sacked? Excluded from school? Prevented from campaigning in public?

Scruton in the link above identifies the inherent conflict between trying to satisfy the proponents on the one hand of "Islamophobia" and on the other "homophobia", two very vocal groups who are quick to try and justify their right not to be offended. If a Muslim wants to stand on a street corner shouting that homosexuality is a sin, and a gay man wants to stand on the opposite corner shouting that Islam is an evil religion, do you stop either or both of them? The only principled stand is to let them both do it, and you only stop it when violence is an immediate threat, and then only to stop the violence. That's what free speech really means. If you are offended by what people say, don't listen, or confront them and argue your case. If you are running a university, encountering views that challenge everything you believe to be right and true is a valuable part of your education (and a preparation for the rest of your life - after you have graduated, very few people are going to agree with you about how smart and generally fantastic you are).

[Loz]

On the wider issue, I'm with DaveR as well. Censorship in universities is raising it's ugly head as a real issue. The whole concept of 'no-platforming' should be dispensed with. Unis are a place for learning, not a place for censoring. I can't say I agree with Greer or Bindel, but I think they should be heard.

[Blah Blah]

Ridgely, genes do not just determine physical appearance, they also determine a whole host of character and cognitive aspects too. There is a lot of research in this area, including the impacts of stress induced hormonal imbalances during prenancy. There are babies born with both male and female genitalia, what would Germaine Greer say they are?

I think she displays and has always displayed ignorance on this issue, odd because she is an academic and therefore should be interested in reading the massive advances in research over the last 30 years. BUT I also think that ideas are always better in the open where they can be challenged and debated, so think the University is wrong, and agree with DaveR and Loz. Universities are places of learning, where students are supposed to be exposed to a wide range of opinion and views, to learn how to analyse, challenge and form debate.

[uncleglen]

Just because she is 76 and Australian and has promoted rights for women she thinks she has a golden ticket to inappropriately open her ignorant mouth. I heard a Jehovah's Witness say the very same thing when explaining why transgender people cannot be baptised (or whatever they do)

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/germaine-greer-defends-grossly-offensive-comments-about-transgender-women-just-because-you-lop-off-a6709061.html

Transgender people have a much higher suicide rate than the general population, their families disown them, and the likes of these comments do not help...dozy mare

[????]

Half the fun of students and academia is that they're such a bunch of illiberall twats wrapped up in an ever complex and increasingly paradaoxical web of lefty ideology and identity politics. Obvioulsy not that great for true philisophical thought.

[Ridgley]

Germaine is not anti-transgender she never said that, we seem to living in a world where if you have a different opinion you are classed as some sort of phobic. How double standard are some Universities anyway when they are quite happy to have speakers with extreme views.

[Saffron]

Ridgley Wrote:

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>

> I don?t think she is being offensive, like I said

> she does not have problem with transgender she

> just stating a biological fact

Gender and (to a relative degree) sex are not so much "biological facts", as a fluid set of postulates governing reproduction, growth, and development, both socially and biologically. Our understanding of the physical production and release of gonadotropins and steroids such as androgens in utero has advanced phenomenally in the last 50 years, along with our understanding of chromosomal irregularities, and the psychological and social constructs of gender.

I think it would be a disservice to women everywhere, to think that it's only 2Xs and some reproductive plumbing that makes us women! What about XX women who are born without a uterus?

What about XY men who were born without external genitals, then raised female as children... but later returned to male by choice? Can they never stop being women, because they were raised with breasts and oestrogen?

> what really get up

> my nose is if you don?t have the same opinions

> has the majority you get the same can of abuse she

> getting on twitter.

I agree it's wrong to heap abuse on people. And I also don't think GG is necessarily transphobic. I think she's just an insensitive twit. Just because you CAN express and opinion, doesn't mean you have to do so in a way that's insensitive to others.

I also agree it's wrong to stifle the academic exchange of opinions. However, GG could have still given her talk, no? It was her choice not to go. My understanding is that she could have spoken if she wanted to do so.

[Just out of curiosity... I'm assuming GG has never given publically the results of any chromosomal testing on herself or her children (if she has them) to verify that (a) she has XX chromosomes, and (b) a uterus? How do we know that she IS a woman? We accept that she is a woman by means of social construct because she conforms to what society accepts as female? Surely this applies to transgendered individuals in their chosen gender identity?]

Social media is a modern crucible, and she's not done herself any favours by being controversial... or has she? She's certainly had plenty of free press. She's a provocateur with a back-catalogue of books to sell. She's not an equality feminist. She's previously endorsed FGM. She took the coward's way out of the debate, not a real academic imho.

[miga]

Saffron Wrote:

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> She's previously endorsed FGM.

Her view on FGM is a lot more nuanced than that.

> I think it would be a disservice to women everywhere, to think that it's only 2Xs and some reproductive plumbing that makes us women!

I don't think she ever said that.

[Blah Blah]

Didn't she also one time say that rape wasn't that big a deal too?

[miga]

Blah Blah Wrote:

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> Didn't she also one time say that rape wasn't that

> big a deal too?

I heard she bites off bats' heads like Ozzy Osbourne, than meets in the forest with her coven to dance under moonlight. Get the kindling!

[Saffron]

miga Wrote:

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> Saffron Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > She's previously endorsed FGM.

>

> Her view on FGM is a lot more nuanced than that.

>

> > I think it would be a disservice to women

> everywhere, to think that it's only 2Xs and some

> reproductive plumbing that makes us women!

>

> I don't think she ever said that.

I never stated that she did say that. But consider how transwomen differ from GG's idea of 'real' women. Transwomen may have chromosomal differences, and/or differences in reproductive physiology (etc). So real women, in contrast, must be defined by those things, by her logic.

There is no nuanced view on FGM. The clue is in the name.

[Saffron]

miga Wrote:

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> Blah Blah Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > Didn't she also one time say that rape wasn't

> that

> > big a deal too?

>

> I heard she bites off bats' heads like Ozzy

> Osbourne, than meets in the forest with her coven

> to dance under moonlight.

You hear some strange things. Perhaps a visit to an audiologist is in order.

[miga]

Saffron Wrote:

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> miga Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > Saffron Wrote:

> >

> --------------------------------------------------

> There is no nuanced view on FGM. The clue is in

> the name.

Just because your view on the subject is black and white doesn't mean that a third, considered view doesn't exist, or that GG does not hold such a view. I won't summarise it, it's easy enough to find, but she is very far from "endorsing FGM"!

As for the idea that GG has a purely biological view of gender, I'm pretty sure she has been saying something very different for decades. I think her point was that it's the experiences of growing up female that make a woman, in addition to the physiology. And actually, by changing physiology in the transition, it's the physical that is mimicked. Something along those lines, and a whole heap besides.

She is a shit stirrer, I don't agree with a lot of what she says, but her views have been reduced to a caricature, which is a shame.

[Saffron]

miga Wrote:

> As for the idea that GG has a purely biological

> view of gender, I'm pretty sure she has been

> saying something very different for decades. I

> think her point was that it's the experiences of

> growing up female that make a woman, in addition

> to the physiology. And actually, by changing

> physiology in the transition, it's the physical

> that is mimicked. Something along those lines, and

> a whole heap besides.

>

And here is where we part company, because if 'growing up female' was a necessary and immoveable feature of being a 'women', then women everywhere --all over the world in all societies-- would have to have the same background experience in order to define themselves. Let me put it another way... if the ONLY thing you know about someone is that the person grew up as a woman, can you pre-judge them (positive or negative) based on that alone?

If one says that they can be judged on this alone, as women have different experiences to men, this answer would be negated by the fact that we all have different experiences to each other.

It also doesn't answer that question of how transmen stop being 'women', if they were raised female.

> She is a shit stirrer, I don't agree with a lot of

> what she says, but her views have been reduced to

> a caricature, which is a shame.

Well, she could have defended her views by speaking at the university, but she declined. She's had loads of free publicity in the press, and she can now go home and cry in to her considerable fortune while she continues to sell her books. She has courted the controversy that has made her a caricature. She seems to sleep quite comfy in the bed she made for herself.