The Women’s Equality Party, the brainchild of Sandi Toksvig, officially launched to luvvie acclaim yesterday. But the cracks in the sheen were showing while the journalists were eating their canapés. Not only does their policy document not talk about trans women’ equality needs at all – a major omission given the two mainstream parties with comprehensive policy, one with developing policy, and one with a Select Committee – their policy on sex work came out with a left-field proposal nobody is seriously considering:
Feminism
A longer statement regarding the “kill all men” controversy
For the past few weeks, I and my party have been receiving complaints regarding a comment I made at NUS Women’s Conference: after voting to remove the word “men” from a motion regarding VAT-free products and the tampon tax – as all razors are VAT-free – I made a joke from the podium that we … Read more
What I said at the Liberal Democrat Conference, Pt. 1: On Sex Work
I had two opportunities to speak at the Liberal Democrats’ Autumn Conference; the first was moving the policy motion Towards Safer Sex Work on Saturday evening. I had never moved a policy before, so it was radically different to in Spring when I made a supporting speech to a third-party policy motion. Although I was given seven minutes, I was called for time after four, hopefully by error of the chair of the debate, leading me to cut out some of the speech.
We also had to see off an attempt to wreck the motion from Oxford East, which would’ve deleted all lines regarding the Nordic model and weaken the policy regarding bodily autonomy. Thankfully, in the attempt, we succeeded, incredibly annoying arch-transphobe Julie Bindel in the process.
Due to devolutionary aspects, the policy only applies to England and Wales, although several Scottish speakers spoke in favour of it, including a hilarious rant by Kirkcaldy-based Callum Leslie, which makes me rather happy that the Scottish mood is the same and I expect that the Scottish party will pass its own policy at their own Conference in Dunfermline next month.
The text of the full speech is below the cut:
Deconstructing “male violence”
I know the statistics.
I know that when a woman is attacked, it’s often at the hands of a man. The same applies for when she is raped, or killed. And that goes doubly so for trans people. Our murderers tend to be, more often than not, men.
And it has an effect on some women, including myself. Try as I might, even though I know that most men mean me no harm, I can’t be comfortable around men the way I can be comfortable around women. It’s a fear that cripples many of us.
So why, then, do I feel so much wary about the term “male violence”?
Are you Jason? Wotever, I don’t care.
Two weeks ago, fresh from presenting at the hate rally that was RadFem 2013, Cathy “Bug” Brennan made a trip with some fellow transphobes to a bar in London to watch some gay cabaret, at which point she was ejected for being a lesbian, as she claims. This in indicative of lesbophobia in British culture run amok, with the trans cabal of heterosexual men running the LGBT show.
Except, you know, that’s the opposite of what happened.
RadFem 2013 correspondence
With this weekend’s RadFem2013 conference, there has been sizeable controversy due to it taking place at the Camden Centre, which is a conference venue owned by the London Borough of Camden Council. Because of this, several people, including myself, have FOIed the council for documents relating to the booking. While we’re waiting for that, one of the councillors for the ward the centre is in – Sarah Hayward, Leader of the Council and one of the three councillors for Kings Cross – has been rather helpful in elaborating some of the council’s reasons over the weekend. With her permission, I am publishing the correspondence.
Queer elephants in the room
This is the third, and most likely the last, post in a series of recent posts about feminist circles; the first was a rather theoretical post on the roots and problems within neoradical communities, the second then followed on and talked about political acts of sexuality. This third post looks at problems within queer feminist and otherwise queer circles, and how we can fix them. Some of this is inspired by a blog post/talk called “Communities Built on Exclusion”, which has since been taken down, itself partially inspired by the Jo Freeman essay The Tyranny of Structurelessness.
I identify as queer, and more or less, I do enjoy queer spaces. However, as a trans woman, I do sometimes feel unsafe too. Queer spaces are good as a bulwark against patriarchal forces, but we must recognise that we cannot escape patriarchy and even choices to reject patriarchy may reinforce it. With this post, as I know many people who are as queer as I am, I would like to emphasise more than most that no harm is meant by this post; indeed, I would like a safer space for myself, as a trans woman, within queer spaces. Because these are issues that we, as queers, do need to recognise.
The real pretendbians?
This is a shorter post compared to the earlier one this week. And in some cases, it’s a bridge between the previous and next post.
As a lesbian trans woman, like other lesbian trans women, I am often criticised by neoradical feminists for being a “pretendbian”; I am pretending to be a lesbian. Because I’m really a man, you see. And as such, by my very existence as a trans lesbian, I run the risk of appearing on the site of the same name, which is basically an excuse for transphobes to dox trans people. Because that’s what feminists do, apparently, put other women in danger.
Examining neoradical feminism
I’ve written on transphobic radical feminism before, and I’ve talked about it outside this blog too. Over the past few years, there has been a renewed focus on examining the sort of radical feminism espoused these days, where criticism is often laid on it for being transphobic, whorephobic, or otherwise prejudiced, as opposed to the prima facie more exclusive intersectional feminism. And it should come to no surprise that I identify more with intersectionialism, given personal circumstances; arguably, it should follow, lived experience would lead to a similar conclusion. And while today’s radical feminists claim lineage from those of old, from the Steinems and the Dworkins and the Firestones, I would personally think that they would flock to the banner of intersectionality.
The F-Word: Her Name was Lucy Meadows
It’s a bit late, but on Saturday I wrote a guest blog for The F-Word entitled “Her Name was Lucy Meadows“. It talks about the complicity of the entire press system in the transphobia that may have led Ms. Meadows to take her own life. It’s very much worth a read, so follow the link … Read more