Why #ImWithHer (Hillary Clinton) Part 1: I'm #NeverTrump

"There is nothing more rare, nor more beautiful than a woman being unapologetically herself; comfortable in her own perfect imperfection". Steve Maraboli

I don't know where to begin with this blogpost. 2016 has been a year of political shake-ups of the super cray cray variety and not necessarily with the public's best interests in mind. Progressives have been steadily losing ground thanks to a whipping up of Islamophobic, anti immigration rhetoric by Alt-Right journalistic hacks and opportunistic partisan politicians who would rather divide us than bring us together to achieve their perverted ends. Terrorist attacks have been widely reported by the Mainstream Media (MSM) outlets with the blame being solely laid at Islam's door. Ordinary Muslims have been found guilty by association with radical terrorist groups and now feel less trusted and less welcome in the West than never before.

Brexit continues to concern me greatly, especially with the raft of legislative proposals that have been sneaked through the UK Parliament without much ability to scrutinise those measures in any great depth. Brexit voters are meant to have voted to leave the EU to "Take Back Control" of
Parliament in order to "Make Parliament Sovereign Again" but so far the decisions made re fracking in Lancashire, higher energy bills for consumers as a result of a deal between China, France's EDF and the Government to build a new nuclear power station (Hinckley Point C) and to build a third runaway at Heathrow do not seem to chime well with progressive voters. Nor with centrist/moderate like me either. I guess many will dismiss my concerns because I am a Remainer. My views have not changed. If you've been a keen blog reader of mine, you'd know I am a Remainer at heart, a globalist that believes more international cooperation on social issues such as abortion rights, workers rights, transparency and LGBTQIA rights is needed, not less.

Perhaps what is more troubling to me than lack of sovereignty being realised is that hate crime has risen in the UK as a result of the Brexit vote, with Eastern European immigrants and Muslims (both
British and foreign-born Citizens) feeling they are no longer valued for the solid contribution they have made to the success of the UK economy and society over the past 40 years. I feel the blame is truly misplaced; instead of mocking and insulting hard workers based on their nationality or creed, we should be blaming successful Governments for not investing enough in regional areas, especially in the North.

It's been quite sad to see a visceral amount of hate towards immigrants and Muslims also being emulated in US Presidential Election coverage. I've read on Twitter about a recent story (October 2016) about an Arizonan teacher telling a 10 year old Muslim student that he'll no longer be allowed to stay in the US if Donald Trump wins, purely based on his religion. Such statements get dismissed as "rare" by Trump supporters. However, having watched the US Election campaign unfold in its entirety (first time ever), I know that Trump's built his campaign around alienation tactics that were designed to only speak to a certain base: "angry white people" who hate progressive liberalism with a passion that could rival Jesus's unfiltered compassion.

Only recently, loud mouth Trash filled Donald Trump decided to stereotypically categorise Latino immigrants as "Nasty Hombres" and he is yet to fully row back his proposal to "Build a Wall" on the Mexican border and to make "Mexico Pay For It" (without ironically seeing that "illegal" immigrant builders might actually be helping to build the wall which is meant to "keep them out" in the first place). Donald Trump's campaign is all about "Building a Wall of Ideas"- whether it be preventing women and girls from obtaining an abortion when they have a right to choose what they want to do with their own bodies and lives, to allowing transgender, queer, gender-neutral/fluid folks to use the bathroom that most closely aligns to their gender or no gender. Trump never spoke openly against the draconian North Carolinian HB2 law; in fact he seems to suggest that LGBTQIA rights should be entirely devolved to state governments to decide, meaning that same sex marriage laws could come under threat in the event of a Trump presidency emboldening Alt-Right, homophobic conservatives to repeal rights at will to suit their own bigoted agendas, all in the name of "Christian ethical purity".

Trump can't help but be a beacon of "hope" for the Alt-Right media (essentially white supremacists/ fear mongers/ hate peddlers packaged under a new name to make them seem "hip"). When Trump make recourse to Lügenpresse principles (where the Mainstream Media (MSM) outlets are demonised as rigged to delegitimise any sentient analysis of a political candidate's personal/moral character temperament or even their basic policy details that would matter to ordinary Americans, unless the  MSM is critiquing their opponent(s), it leads to an emboldened enthusiasm from this crowd of self-confessed narcissists. They see Trump as a way of destroying the mainstream media outlets, silencing liberal opponents, repealing progressive laws, making American "Evangelical Christian" again at the expense of other Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, agnostics and atheists. To use religious principles to control a woman's body by denying them abortion rights appears to be the very height of hypocrisy when they know Islamic terrorists use theirs to enforce an anti-LGBTQIA agenda on the Syrian people. The semantic battles surrounding Terrorism in America is just beyond uber stupid; we all know that some terrorists identify with Islam, regardless of whether you feel the need to use the "right term" to describe them. Yes Americans and Brits want solutions to prevent terror attacks from occurring in the West, but if you think putting an outright ban on foreign Muslims from entering the country or deporting domestic Muslim to internment camps will stop every attack from happening, you're living in cookoo land. The key is de-radicalisation schemes which allow close teamworking with liberal Muslims to try and combat fundamentalist Islamic Jihadi ideology, coupled with teamworking with allies in the Middle East (not just Russia) to destroy the capability of ISIS to destroy their dream of a "Hate Homeland State". You think Trump has the awareness or temperament needed to set up these teamworking schemes without peddling hate discourse against Muslims at the same time? Every speech, every press conference I've seen during the Republican primary and every Presidential debate/ supporter rally I've seen during the Presidential campaign makes me doubt his ability to foster appropriate relations with foreign powers. Unless you count Russia. Or North Korea. I'm guessing he goes down pretty well with any dictator/ autocrat that may be salivating at the prospect of a compromised USA over the next 4 years.

What makes me most angry at Trump even being a Presidential candidate is his treatment of women. I've seen and heard about some of the scandals- grabbing his daughter Ivanka by her chest in public being one which I guess is open to interpretation (I'd say he was grabbing inappropriately) but many are clear-cut examples of a man who has mastered the art of misogyny.

Recently, Trump has started a hate campaign against NBC reporter Katy Tur, who has been covering his rallies comprehensively since mid-2015 by bullying her during a rally in Miami, Florida. Apparently Trump was angry with the media for not accurately reporting the size of his rallies because the cameras "didn't show the crowd" to the public viewing NBC news at home. It's part of Trump "Winning" myth that he has to have the "biggest rallies" because it apparently shows he has the majority of support in the US needed to become POTUS. So he has a go at Katy in front of 4000 people which resulted in mass booing of her. OK it adds to the Lügenpresse dialogue mentioned earlier, but I don't think I've heard such an explicit attempt to humiliate a journalist by lying about her not doing her job when the camera playback shows she was actually doing her job well. Besides Katy isn't a camera-operator so isn't fully responsible for how NBC reports his rally. It just seems he wanted to bully a journalist in public and the journalist in question just happened to be female.

Trump's singling out of women and accusing them of mistakes doesn't seem to be a rare occurrence. Trump seems to have an on-going feud with female conservative presenter Megyn Kelly of Fox News
who dared to question Trump's moral character and misogyny head-on at the first Republican Presidential debate on August 6, 2015: "You’ve called women you don’t like fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals." Trump twitter trolled Megyn by saying she "bombed" at the debate and "had blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her whatever" a deliberate alluding to women's menstruation cycles and an attempt to blame going through a "period" on Megyn Kelly's harsh criticism. Ironic that Megyn was only drawing attention to the fact that Trump had made misogynistic comments in the past and Trump answered that criticism with more misogyny. You'd think that would have reduced his support during the Primary but alas, No. Now Trump continues to attack Megyn Kelly and has emboldened supporters to use misogyny and slut shaming to carry on doing it for him; for example, Newt Gingrich blew up after Megyn tried to question him about Trump being labelled a "sexual predator" in the press and Gingrich accused her of being "fascinated with sex" to which Megyn replied "I'm fascinated by the protection of women, and understanding what we're getting in the Oval Office", which I feel was a most dignified response to Gingrich's unfounded insinuations.

The Gingrich Interview was an attempt by Trump to address a tape that was released by The Washington Post on October 7th, 2016 of a conversation between Access Hollywood presenter Billy Bush and Trump talking about women in an extremely lewd fashion in September 2005. Now I believe we all pretty much know the contents of the tape by now; a failed attempt at seducing Bush's co-presenter Nancy O'Dell who he moved on "very heavily" despite her married status. I don't think his comments about attempting to commit adultery shocked liberals particularly, it was more his demeaning of O'Dell's looks after she decided to go through breast-enlargement surgery that caused offence. Lookism seems to be at the heart of Trump's campaign against women. If they don't fancy him or they do something he disapproves of, he demeans them. Yet the worst comments came when Trump was talking about Arianne Zucker, whom he was going to meet in the recording. Trump was bragging that he could grab any woman by their genitals because they are objects drawn to him being in a position of power. Describing women as objects to be grabbed is the very essence of misogyny and Trump and his supporters must realise that it is not acceptable to demean women on tape knowing that other men/boys could follow his example and start treating women as "objects" that can be grabbed by their genital parts and can be rated out of 10, just because they are "stars" in a position of power afforded to them by cis-white patriarchal privilege. 

Now I know some are "forgiving" Trump for what he said on the 1996 tape because he offered a tepid, forced apology on camera (which I didn't feel was sincere, honest or even well thought out at the time) but his actions during the Presidential campaign have been nothing short of deplorable and entirely misogynistic. For example, in the second debate, Trump seemed to be hell bent on stalking Hillary around the stage rather than trying to engage with undecided voters. Moments where Trump was literally behind Hillary, leaning in on her, breathing behind her made me feel extremely uncomfortable. No man has a right to violate a woman's personal space and I'm in awe of the fact that Hillary didn't even flinch! I guess one reason why I love Hillary so much as a candidate is her refusal to let Trump intimidate her, to let him know he has knocked her self-confidence. Some interpret this as vanity but it is a sign of strength. FLOTUS Michelle Obama gave a voice to Hillary's lack of Trump-Flinching, something she shares with millions of members of Team #NeverTrump: "When he goes low, we go high".

Trump, unlike Hillary, never seems to be able to "turn the other cheek" when he gets challenged; it seems his only real "Trumpcard" is to threaten to sue them in the hope of intimidating them into silence. His Alt-Right supporters emulate this, falsely believing it is a "sign of strength" to intimidate, bully and slander. Yet when Hillary and her supporters get threatened with physical violence, illogical incarceration or assassination by the NRA "2A protection even at the cost of 1A" crew (btw not all gun owners belong to that crew) because of Trump emboldening them to do this, I can't see how anyone can vote for him. Honestly.

Hillary is an amazing candidate in her own right (I'll be demonstrating that in my second blogpost). However I know that some voters will be #NeverTrump and will vote for the Green Party candidate, Jill Stein, the Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson or the Independent candidate Evan McMullin. I am encouraged that there are voters who are prepared to exercise their democratic right to vote for whoever they choose to support and that they want to make the US less of a 2-party monopoly democracy. The movement of Bernie Sanders during the Democratic Primary (who I supported emphatically before Hillary won) was inspiring and showed that Millennials want to make their voices heard within the political system and fight against corruption and big business lobbying controls and fight for LGBTQIA and Pro Choice rights, Renewable Energy and Gun Sense policies. I believe that Bernie's message hasn't been in vain and that even if you have not voted for Hillary, you are at least engaged in progressive, liberal politics in some way. As for McMullin/Johnson voters, I guess I'm just grateful you didn't choose Trump. I am hopeful that Hillary will win the US election, if only by a whisker but all those voting against Trump will have the right to pat themselves on the back for saving the US and the international community from having to deal with a self confessed conspiracy peddling, xenophobic, misogynistic ego-maniac. I don't hate Trump as a human being; Jesus taught us to love our enemies as we would love ourselves as Luke 6:27-32 tells us: "But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you." This is the essence of the FLOTUS's "When they go low, you go high" message, founded in Christian doctrine from over 2000 years ago. I pity Trump for his need to be bitter and unforgiving towards those who differ ideologically from him. I hope one day Trump will be able to follow Jesus's example and be prepared to "turn the other cheek" instead of trying to sue his opponents on a daily basis.
  

A Plea to Jeremy Corbyn and Labour Party supporters from a well-intentioned, independent, non-party affiliated Lincs voter

Dear Jeremy and Labour Party supporters,

I am very encouraged by the campaign Jeremy is running for re-election as Leader of the Labour Party. Jeremy's 10 point plan to address key concerns of UK constituents is concise, easy to disseminate amongst potential voters and shows how deeply Jeremy and the Labour Party cares about changing the circumstances of ordinary, hard working constituents all across the UK. However I feel there are a few nagging issues that I need resolving in order to allow me to vote with my conscience for Jeremy and the Labour party during the next General Election cycle. Perhaps the points I shall make below shall also be relevant for Jeremy whilst he continues to conduct his Leadership campaign. Naturally I'm sure Jeremy shares my feeling that nobody is above scrutiny, provided it is constructive and well intentioned. So I hope he finds my comments fall into that vein of understanding:

• Great PR makes or breaks a great leader. As a person in a key position of power it has to be taken as read that there has to be a PR team of some description designed to market Jeremy's  narrative to the nation in an effective manner. I appreciate Jeremy has managed to organise successful rallies, with the support of grassroots groups such as Momentum that are full of passionate, well intentioned supporters who want to change the political narrative of the country for the better. In fact I rather see Jeremy in the same vein as Bernie Sanders, a champion for workers' rights and equality in the US whose tagline "Raise the Minimum Wage to $15 an hour" has enthused young people all across America. However I just feel that the appearances Jeremy and his team have made thus far have focussed on Labour heartlands instead of trying to garner and support potential new Labour and independent Labour leaning voters in rural parts of England. For example, Labour's Lincoln CLP has recently overwhelmingly voted in favour of Jeremy remaining as Labour Leader, which is surprising considering they had not made a recommendation for the Leadership contest last year, yet I am not aware that Jeremy has made an appearance in Lincoln to support the CLP when they wished to highlight issues that affect our area of the country or even to promote the success of our Labour held council. For example, there was a play recently put on by the local large scale community project  Green Fields Beyond to celebrate the centenary of the first tank test near Tritton Road, Lincoln, a pivotal part of the history of defence and innovation, yet there was no recognition by either a senior Tory minister or Labour minister that the event had taken place and had been a great success for the creative community in Lincoln. I'm a pacifist yet even I appreciate the innovation of the designers involved. Any sense of recognition, even on Social Media, will certainly have been warmly received and would have shown independent voters like me that central Labour party members and MPs care about success outside of the major UK Labour dominated cities. 

• Lincolnshire folk have been ignored for decades by politicians too afraid to fight for local votes by investing in the time and effort needed to put up strong, passionate, local candidates coming from a diverse range backgrounds who want to help their fellow constituents to improve their quality of life and positively promote their local area with gusto and flair. The Tory party should not be allowed to take such a clean sweep of Lincolnshire, especially when there are issues all Labour supporters care about being swept under the carpet in those areas. For example, I'd love to see Jeremy and Ms Diane Abbott attend a demo asking for the reopening of Grantham's A&E department which is vital considering how far patients in Grantham will have to travel in the event of a medical emergency (it takes 47 minutes to travel between Grantham and Lincoln and that's not even in the rush hour!). Equally the Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Trust wish to reduce the "number of acute services" available in hospitals in the area from 3 to 2 because they need to make "efficiency savings" as well as review the number of GP surgeries because of a "shortage of funding" (NHS Cuts "Planned Across England" BBC News website, Sarah Bloch-Budzier, 26/08/2016). Yet such a foolhardy emphasis on efficiency savings could potentially put patient lives at risk and increase pressure on the remaining A&E departments across the East Midlands. Now I understand that the primary bases of Labour support are in the old industrial heartlands of Newcastle, Manchester et al and it's important to keep them enthused about the party by attending important events that occur there, such as London Pride. Notwithstanding this, if Labour abandons Lincolnshire rural constituents to yet another half-century of  unopposed Tory control and ignore their valid concerns as the party seemingly continues to do, how does Labour expect to grow their support to levels needed to gain a majority in Parliament without a huge turnaround of support in Scotland and further inroads being made in Wales which appears to be increasingly unlikely within the next 4 years? 

•  I appreciate the passion Jeremy shows for defending workers' rights, especially in those occupations that are racked with low wage inequality and lack of respect, dignity and praise, such as the hospitality, catering, retail and care sectors. I'd love to see Jeremy apply that passion to fighting for agricultural and seaside workers' rights, especially those of foreign seasonal workers who often feel undervalued, unwanted and as evidenced by the recent Brexit campaigns in Boston, demonised as the "scrounging enemy" by casual racists and embittered local residents. Yes we need to improve educational, health and housing services in areas which have experienced high immigration rates from Eastern Europe. Yes local British born workers need to be given more opportunities to enter the workforce and to earn a "decent wage". There needs to be more positive branding of occupations such as agricultural or care work in schools so that teenagers can see the benefits of working as part of a team that employers believe is basic "work ethic" that those teenagers haven't yet seemed to master to their satisfaction, hence locking them out of other occupational fields such as Administration or Finance.  The only way we'll achieve that is by encouraging local companies to stop avoiding paying the Living Wage by using illegal workers to undercut wage levels. Employer practices have got to be improved; full awareness courses must be given to employers who have a large workforce but choose not to employ appropriately qualified HR staff.  Let's stop blaming employees entirely for unscrupulous working practices; if the culture of a company is crooked, the blame lies with owners, shareholders and operational management for openly choosing not to change it. If companies are unproductive, they need to look at their operational strategies such as recruitment and retention practices to see why productivity is low. If a company (such as Byron Burgers) knowingly employees illegal workers and then exposes them in a cruel PR stunt to avoid being fined by the Home Office, that company needs to be fined and exposed for hiring illegal workers in the first place. I can see Labour is beginning to pivot in this direction and it is pleasing but let's make sure the pivot is made across all industries across the UK.

• As a male to female (MTF) transgender person I feel that the Labour party hasn't always fully addressed the challenges faced by trans people across the UK, both in their personal lives and in the workplace. Trans people continue to be demonised for having the audacity to ask for time off to schedule vital surgical operations that will make them feel they can live their lives fully in their own skin which could make them more productive and valuable to their employers than ever before. Gender neutral bathrooms have not yet been provided by every major company to accommodate gender-fluid, queer and non-binary employees. More importantly, employers and employees remain ignorant on trans, queer and non-binary issues because they lack even a basic awareness of the terminology, let alone how to deal respectfully with situations surrounding bathroom use or clothing styles. I believe the Labour Party has to endorse mandatory Sexual and Relationships Education (SRE) roll-out across the UK for all secondary school students, so that they leave their school fully aware of the "diverse spices of life". SRE has to include lessons on rape and consent and highlight the fact that even if 85,000 people raped annually are women, approximately 12,000 men are raped annually and this is a figure that can be reduced if both men and women are taught what the notion of consent actually entails (both legally and morally).

• The Labour Party has to increase their appeal with older voters if they wish to win the next GE. However Labour needs to do this without alienating the tens of thousands of voters aged 40 and under who identify as left-leaning. So I asked my father, who is 66 and has never voted what he felt needed to be done to encourage older voters to choose the Labour party on their next ballot paper. For him, there has to be more practical solutions to reduce the cost of gas and electricity for elderly residents who are on Pension Credit, there has to be more activity clubs and groups available for widowed and disabled elderly people to access within their local areas, there has to be more dialogue and cooperation between the elderly and youth groups to understand the issues which affect them, especially with disabled and LGBTQIA people. Equally the issue of social care provision has got to be resolved in England and Wales. This means mandatory full funding of care workers from central Government for those who are unable to care for themselves in their own home so people can decide where they want care to be delivered.

• Finally, I'd like to address the manic way parts of the Labour Hustings process have been conducted by all members of the party in the past couple of weeks. Being passionate and supportive is one thing but "booing, hissing and cussing" of opponent views just because they do not like what is being said within a debating space is childish, crude and unacceptable. Yes, Owen Smith may come across as a "member of the school debating team" to supporters of Mr Corbyn, too polished and primed for grassroots members' tastes but to allow members to try and disrupt the message he is allowed to give during an election process looks very amateurish and "school debate" style too! The reason why some social media commentators joke that the "Tories are winning the Hustings" is because this jingoistic behaviour is being tolerated without being challenged at its source. It's rather interesting to note that jeering was a regular tactic used by Mr Farage and UKIP supporters during the Brexit campaign and it was an element that put me off voting to Leave during the recent referendum. I hope that it won't put me off choosing to vote Labour at my next opportunity.

If the Labour party can address issues of rural underfunding of services, think about Labour representation in rural areas dominated by the Tories in England, defend rural workers' rights, highlight more effectively the work that still needs to be done on trans acceptance in the workplace, endorse SRE implementation for secondary schools, address older voters' concerns regarding service provision and improve party discipline and behaviour at key events, then Jeremy can gain the votes of independents like me who voted Tory in the 2015 GE. It's not really that much of a tough ask to widen the message just a little bit, surely? Then Labour can increase its chances of winning with a sizeable majority without the unrealistic necessity of winning back all Scottish constituencies from the SNP.

Best wishes and Good Luck in the upcoming Leadership election,

Matti Colley

Transgender Activism and Feminism: An Uneasy Coalition of Ideals?

So I had a rather heated exchange last week with a fellow transgender (male) activist about the place of feminism within the transgender community. I've read what seems to be an alarming basket full of  brazenly defensive articles proclaiming that "transgender activism and feminism cannot co-exist".
For me, I have always felt as I've dissected and analysed various elements of traditional 2nd Wave feminism (such as Germaine Greer's proclamation that transgender women need to be equivocated to "Christopher Biggins's Panto Dame standards" and cannot be taken seriously when trying to enter the feminist movement) and radical 3rd Wave feminism (based on moving towards a gender/queer analysis akin to Judith Butler's ironic gender as performance theory) to the creation of a trans variant of feminism (what Robert Hill defines as Transfeminism) where there has to be a place for trans women within the mainstream feminist community and beyond that, that trans men have to realise that trans women should be allowed to espouse feminist values without recourse to being called "traitors to their biological sex". I'd have thought rather than arguing regressively towards an essence of "biological determinism" that is still part of Catholic doctrine (traditionally seen as restricting feminists because of their views on abortion and contraception) we should be embracing the need to recognise that gender identities shift and are of equal worth. I'm not saying that biological cis women should not celebrate their uteruses and have "womb prayer parties" a la Ab Fab Episode 4 with Beth De Woody taking the lead but do not feel the need to destroy trans women in the process of celebrating these differences; most trans women appreciate that cis women go through the menstruation cycle and wouldn't proclaim that they know how it feels to have to buy sanitary towels on a regular basis to soak up the bleeding. After all I've bought sanitary products for my Mum on a regular basis. Equally, feminists must be careful not to denigrate the choices trans men have made if they have chosen to take testosterone and go for the removal of their breasts and uteruses and ovaries. In fact until they get to that point trans men still have to buy sanitary products and use femidoms and contraceptives to prevent unwanted pregnancy, issues that many self-proclaimed radical feminists have to deal with daily. So what sorts of theories have abounded about transgender people within feminism and what have transgender people done to try and change those feminist's minds, if anything?

Second Wave Feminist Critics against Transgender Activism:

Germaine Greer has been a vocal opponent of trans women trying to enter the mainstream feminist debate. In 1997 for example Greer voted against the offering of a fellowship to the trans physicist Rachel Padman to the all female Newham College because she had been born male. In her follow up to her seminal work The Female Eunuch, The Whole Woman (1999) Greer lamented the progress second wave feminism had made within Western European society. Part of her lamentation related to the fact that feminists had been unable to "shake off" transfeminists (see below). In a chapter titled "Pantomime Dames", Greer blasted trans women as pitiful parodies of sisterhood. Trans women have a desire to "castrate themselves" because they want to prove women are "non sex." They don't ask for a "uterus and ovaries transplant" and if made mandatory demand for sex reassignment surgery would "disappear overnight". Not true because I'd be more than happy to undergo that kinda transplant even if it led to me starting to go through menstruation but Greer seems keen to pass blanket judgement on men without fully realising the nuances behind gender identification. This is evident from Greer's assertion on BBC's Newsnight in 2015 that she does not "regard transgender women as women."

Julie Bindel, founder of Justice For Women an organisation that opposes violence against women and helps women prosecuted for murdering their violent male partners in self defence and self-proclaimed radical feminist has repeatedly campaigned against transgender women being offered the same rights as cisgender women. In her May Guardian 2007 article Mistaken Identity Bindel interviewed MTF trans "Claudia" who regretted her decision to go through sex reassignment surgery and blamed the male psychiatrist for not guiding Claudia through the process effectively. Bindel goes as far as to say these male psychiatrists want to diagnose men as having Gender Dysphoria to normalise them into fitting with traditional gender stereotypes. This view comes admittedly from Bindel's self-representation of radical lesbian feminism which may colour her interpretation of sexual psychiatry. Claudia was recently found dead but her suicide may have resulted from underlying mental health issues that had been neglected by CAMHS (NHS's Mental Health referral service) but important to emphasis Claudia is not representative of the trans community. A month after this article was published, Bindel published Gender Benders: beware where she criticised a transgender rape councillor's dispute with a rape crisis centre and used the article to attack trans people. In the article Bindel contends that readers think of a world wholly populated by transgender people because it would "look like the set of Grease" and "jokes" that "I don't have a problem with men disposing of their genitals, but it does not make them women, in the same way shoving a bit of hose down your 501s doesn't make you a man".
The Guardian  article attracted over 200 complaints from trans individuals, doctors and the UK trans activist group Press For Change have designated the article as a key example of transphobia. Bindel has continued to court controversy by positing sex reassignment surgery as society's way of "reinforcing gender stereotypes" citing Iran's status as the "most numerous sex change country of the world" as proof of this.
Bindel feels uncomfortable with the ever expanding LGBTQIA community- she says the tongue-twisting acronym helps to silence discussion within the lesbian section of the community: "the mantra at "gay" meetings...is all a bit of an unholy alliance. We have been put in a room together and told to play nicely". Well I say Bindel needs to try harder to understand the changing face of gender and sexuality studies and show the compassion and respect for those who are feeling just as oppressed as she is instead of trying to disrupt and dissect the community. Perhaps she'd feel right at home with the "Free Milo" #ArmTheGays crowd who argue the LGBTQIA community needs to be separated and yet also argue "Feminism is Cancer". What a crowded room that would be ;)

Second and Third Wave Feminist Critics supporting Transgender Activists:

Andrea Dworkin was one of the first radical second wave feminist to speak out against transphobia: in her work Woman Hating: A Radical Look at Sexuality (1974) Dworkin argues that transgender people were in a "state of primary emergency" because of the "culture of male-female discreteness" -i.e. the indoctrinated binary system of "man and woman" that had not been challenged in an effective way until the early 1960's. Dworkin contends that "every transsexual has the right to survive on their own terms" meaning they should be entitled to sex reassignment surgery and furthermore it should be provided free of charge by community health services. Optimistically Dworkin believed that the "phenomenon of transsexuality" might disappear, giving way to new (queer) gender identities.

Judith Butler - in an interview in 2014 showed her unfretted support for transgender people: "Nothing is more important for transgender people than to have access to excellent health care in trans-affirmative environments, to have the legal and institutional freedom to pursue their own lives as they wish, and to have the freedom and desire affirmed by the rest of the world.  Butler has also criticised the transphobic words of TERFs (see below) such as Janice Raymond who have used their biological essentialism as a form of "tyranny" over those who can only self-ascribe as female. Butler believes trans people have to go beyond their creation through medical discourse (i.e.  they become trans only when diagnosed with Gender Dysphoria) and focus on developing new discourses through looking at the commonality of their self-determination (i.e. removing the victim narrative and showing the strength of their freedom to choose the gender role in which they wish to be perceived.)

Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist (TERF):
TERFs believe in biological gender essentialism; if you are born with male genitals you remain male and if you are born with a womb and breasts you are a woman. Generally speaking they will disown any socially determined labels that challenge the essentialism they espouse. Some TERFs have argued that trans women are nothing more than "effeminate men" who have been relegated to the bottom of the patriarchal pile by machismo centric egotistical men, whereas trans men, (when they bother to mention them) are relegated to the status of wannabes "wanting to claim patriarchal privilege for themselves". TERFs go beyond calling trans women ideological rapists but to accuse them of using their transition to become actual rapists, hence the distinction I make between them and second wave feminists.

Key TERFs include:

Cathy Brennan believes trans women are de facto animals who cannot control themselves: "transgender women are in fact men using an artificially constructed feminine appearance to exert patriarchy from the inside of feminism and believe it or not, to gain access to women's bathrooms in order to rape them". Now I have a key issue with Ms Brennan's comment; some trans women are perceived as gay men before they transition and although the media may be saturated with examples of straight married men transitioning into women whilst still married it is unfair to blanket all trans women as heterosexual turned lesbian rapists.

Janice Raymond in her work The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male (1979) refers to transgender people as transsexuals and maintains that transsexualism exists because it is based on "patriarchal myths" of "male mothering" and "making woman in man's image". Transgender women are only interested in creating a "perfect type of woman" for themselves which has none of the negative connotations traditionally associated with womanhood such as the lookism associated with slut shaming culture and plus size curve disapproval. I have heard several conservative trans women such as Blair White talk about only going through sex reassignment surgery to become beautiful so I can understand why such comments would rile some feminist's feathers. I would, however, disavow Raymond's distorted comments that all trans women "rape women's bodies by reducing the female form to an artefact". I'm certainly not going through the transition process in the vain hope of making myself more beautiful at the expense of destroying cis women's conceptions of beauty. I'm going through the transition process because I believe it is the best way of ensuring I feel happier emotionally in the future. I'm a size 20 at the moment and even after surgery the likelihood is I won't have a "svelte" figure for long, but that's my choice. Most feminists proclaim they have rights over their bodies so I definitely have a right over mine!

TERFs tend to be anti Third Wave Feminism because they are angry that these feminists have taken the best aspects of the feminist argument, such as fighting rape culture and understanding health care and reproductive rights for all that self-identify in part as a woman and left behind the dogmatism and "one size fits all strategy" that is espoused by Second Wave and TERFs.

TERFs have also been known to collaborate with Conservative, evangelical and Alt-Right groups to harass and oppress transgender people despite holding themselves up as the "pillar of the feminist movement". Cathy Brennan collaborated with the Pacific Justice Institute to harass a trans woman using death threats. Janice Raymond has written a paper Technology on the Social and Ethical Aspects of Transsexual Surgery to advocate for mandatory reparative therapy for trans people to prevent them from being diagnosed with Gender Dysphoria to access the hormone and surgical treatment they are entitled to access if they are to have a right over their bodies.

Transfeminism:
Transfeminism predominately concerns the integration of trans discourse into mainstream feminism. Robert Hill has stated that it "has specific content that applies to transgender and transsexual people but the thinking and theory of which is also applicable to all women".

Transfeminists try and dissect the view espoused by TERFs that biological essentialism eliminates trans people from advocating for all women's rights. For example they ask such questions as :

• Is femininity an entirely socially constructed label?
• Does taking oestrogen and having breast enhancement surgery make someone more feminine?
• What is a woman?
• What does the label "woman" actually mean?
• What does the label "man" even mean outside of biological essentialism?

Key transfeminists include:

Sandy Stone who wrote the essay The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto in 1987 as a reaction to Raymond's article. A central tenet of Stone's essay is that transgender people shouldn't hide their status and should "read themselves aloud" or come out because that act leads to greater self-empowerment. By developing such a speaking position within mainstream feminism to prevent transgender people being automatically dismissed as "damaged, deluded, second-rate, or somehow internally compromised".

Sylvia Rivera who had been a prominent Stonewall rioter and founder of Street Transvestite Revolutionaries who took in homeless LGBT youth including black and Asian drag queens and trans youth and helped to give them a voice and promising future away from crime and prostitution.

Krista Scott-Dixon who edited the first book on transfeminism Trans/Forming Feminisms: Transfeminist Voices Speak Out (2006)

Julia Serano is a trans-bi activist and prominent biologist who wrote Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007) which argues that transphobia is rooted in sexism which is a twofold phenomenon- the idea that "maleness and masculinity is superior to femaleness and femininity" coupled with the belief that "female and male are rigid, mutually exclusive categories" that Serano calls oppositional sexism . Serano has coined the term effemimania to describe societal obsession with trans expressions of femininity and posits that it is just another example of oppositional sexism that lies at the root of homophobia as well as transphobia. Cisgender people (who are happy identifying with the gender in which they were born and have no experience of meeting those unhappy with their gender identity) propagate their experience onto other people and automatically assume everyone they meet will be cisgender like them. This is known as cisgender assumption. Such terms are now regularly used in gender studies courses.

Is Transgender Activism incompatible with Feminism?

Having conducted a wide ranging analysis and research of both transgender activism and feminism over my years as an English and Philosophy student and graduate I am yet to be dissuaded that trans people have a part to play in trying to improve equality of opportunity for both women and men, especially when it comes to the freedom to choice to identify in the gender in which a person feels most comfortable. I am sympathetic to radical feminist calls for women to try and dominate political discussion to enact changes which matter specifically to cisgender women such as ensuring sanitary products are available for women in third world countries and battling human trafficking to prevent sex slavery numbers from increasing in Europe. However I also believe that feminists must advocate for freedom of choice for all those who identify as female and that includes those who want to choose whether they want to have breast surgery to "look more feminine" for their own piece of mind. As a trans woman I certainly want to advocate for changes in the law to increase sentencing rates for male rapists and protect domestic abuse shelters from closing their doors due to lack of government funding. I also realise that females can be rapists too and that there should be domestic abuse shelter accommodation available for male victims and that includes transmen. If we are truly to improve women's rights even further in the UK we have to work together. That means stop focussing on purely biological issues and think of the battle as wide-ranging. If all those who identify as female work together on at least some of the issues mentioned, we can change attitudes and lives for the better. Positivity from all breeds broader, longer term success.