The Other Sarah

Blog

  • On transphobic “feminism”

    “Again with the trans related posts!”, I hear you say. When you spend so long hanging around with feminists and trans people, you can’t help but think about trans issues and feminism a lot. And one of the issues that came up quite a bit while I was at a party with some cool trans people and feminists earlier this week was RadFem 2012, the upcoming “radical feminist” conference in London. But however good it sounds, it has a horrible policy:

    In turn we ask that RadFem 2012 be respected as a space where women born women living as women are able to meet and share information in a peaceful and safe environment.

    Radical feminism, as it’s commonly understood these days, is a continuation/evolution of second-wave feminism separate from third-wave feminism. This, in turn, belies a problem: coming from the strong roots of the second wave (indeed, some view the third wave as revisionism in the Marxist sense), it can’t adapt itself well to the ideas of the twenty-first century (as opposed to the ’60s through ’80s). One of the most obvious flaws is the reaction to men in the movement. And when I say men, I generally mean anyone born with a penis. (more…)

  • Headingley

    It’s one of those things that every Lib Dem was dreading to hear: that, even with months of campaigning, their candidate had lost to the Labour candidate. Not more was the hurt felt in Headingley two weeks ago. We – as in Leeds Liberal Youth – had been campaigning hard since last September to ensure that the then-incumbent councillor, Jamie Matthews, was re-elected. Jamie was a superb councillor, and was a better pick to represent students than the Labour candidate. Even after tuition fees. When thousands of students had problems with their internet connection, Labour, with a majority on the council, were nowhere to be seen. But Jamie carved out the niche of the “councillor who took on Virgin Media”.

    I use the past tense, because he lost. By 32 votes. (more…)

  • On Wikipedia and Breanna Manning

    Another blog post about trans issues, bear with me. 🙂

    One thing that really annoys me about Wikipedia is that it’s really progressive about LGBT issues (thanks to the very well-organised LGBT WikiProject), except where it really matters. And where it really matters is in the case of Breanna Manning, although you probably know her better as “Bradley”. Yes, I’m talking about the Wikileaks whistleblower. Her gender incongruence has been known to her counsellor and CO for at least two years, and confirmed by her defence lawyers six months ago, so why do Wikipedia still refer to her as a man? (more…)

  • The American justice system is rockin’ the suburbs

    Let me tell y’all what it’s like 
    Being male, middle class and white 
    It’s a bitch, if you don’t believe,
    Listen up to my new cd, shamone

    –Ben Folds, “Rockin’ the Suburbs”

    First off, I apologise to Mr. Folds for using his song about nu metal bands in a blog post about racism.

    A common meme in the political systems is that “racism is over”, because Barack Obama was elected in 2012. It’s pretty patently bullshit, though, because Obama is subject to a lot of racist shit that Bush, Clinton, Reagan, et cetera, did not receive as President, and it’s all sugar-coated in the guise of “I’m just asking questions” or “I’m just a concerned citizen”. Take a look at the birth certificate conspiracy theories, for example. Where are the people demanding Romney’s birth certificate? When you consider that the only other President to have received such questions was Chester A. Arthur, who was a) born close to the border and b) was Irish by descent (and therefore, the argument goes, Catholic, a political suicide in the 1800s), it’s seen in a different light. It runs through American conservatism, where the patriarchy of straight cis white Christian men must be upheld: look at their erasure of the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement as racial conflicts, which they claim was about “state’s rights”, when it was about keeping the black population as second class citizens. (more…)

  • Transgender health in Leeds: An addendum

    Last month I wrote a post about the state of transgender health in the NHS in Leeds. However, I realise that the post, written from the perspective of a cisgender ally, misses out the most important aspect of all: the transgender perspective. I hence asked on the LUU LGBT Society’s group page for said perspective, which kind of confirmed what I thought: that the doctors at the student medical practice are really accepting of a person’s trans status, but it’s lagging in some areas: the lack of publicity and literature in the student practice, a lack of support groups, and a perceived slowness in the NHS (although that may just be the NHS’s inertia, and not just limited to transgender health).

    That said, other than the lack of awareness of these issues, I’m left with a slightly higher opinion of how Leeds treats trans people. Anyone who knows me personally knows that I don’t shut up about LGBT issues, and, of the people I know (although, given the circles I associate with, this may be skewed), nearly all of them are trans-positive. Especially the university’s LGBT society, who are absolutely brilliant. I did go back to the GP the other day, though, and there isn’t any literature I could find on gender issues, but, again, it may just be inertia. I hope that, even with the NHS changes coming through, that trans people will get better treatment (as it does needs to improved), and not worse over time. I personally think it will.