October 12, 2023 - 5:30pm
Trans activists all too often act as the militia wing of the men’s rights movement. Their movement is perfectly designed to bully, harass, intimidate and silence feminists — or just any woman who dares to question male dominance.
An organisation called Glasgow Trans Rally demonstrated such an attitude this week, posting on social media about a conference in the city, and planned for Friday. The event was organised by the women’s rights group FiLiA, which advocates for female-only spaces, and was set to feature discussions on sex-based injustice and male violence.
Followers of Glasgow Trans Rally were encouraged to target the venue, harassing the organisers on social media and over the phone.
“This weekend, a transphobic ‘women’s rights’ conference will be held at [venue],” the Instagram post read. “Prominent transphobes such as Joanna Cherry and Julie Bindel will be speaking, amongst many many others. STAND WITH US in telling [the venue] that Glasgow DOES NOT ACCEPT THIS, and that they MUST DROP THE EVENT!”
Two days before the conference, the venue caved into pressure and informed FiLiA that the event was cancelled.
After putting the venue and the organisers through hell, legal advice was sought, and it was established that to cancel the event would risk a legal challenge. So, as per a statement put out on Thursday afternoon, FiLiA is going ahead, and the venue has ultimately not caved to the protestors.
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SubscribeThey try to shut you down because they don’t have an argument which stands up to any sort of challenge.
Your fight is not just for the rights, safety and dignity of women and girls, which of course are in themselves vital. But gender critical women have slso been thrust into the role of standard bearers for freedom of speech, on which all our other freedoms ultimately depend.
I believe and hope that one day this period of Trans-McCarthyism will be over and it will be to women like Julie Bindel and Maya Forstater who fought for the right to say that 2+2=4 that we will all be indebted.
I’m trying to figure out if you are being ironic. How old are you? Do you not remember political correctness? Way back before trans, and with the current crop of born again free speech warriors merrily trying to shut up everyone they disagreed with!
Have you not seen the videos on YouTube of feminists trying to close down anything even vaguely to do with men’s rights? Do you honestly think trans activists invented these tactics?
David, well said. Trans activists are indeed following in the footsteps of feminists.
Judging by the downvotes, I think that disappeared into the memory hole.
This is why I hate identity politics; it’s the scourge of western civilization.
Being female is not an ‘identity’. It is a biological reality. Feminism is not ‘identity politics’
”Feminism” is all politics. Being female isn’t an “ism”
But feminism is an “ism”, as you rightly point out.
Feminism demanded that women have the right to work all day in a job. And now, the majority of households require two incomes to survive.
Rights for women to work all day in a job have become a trap that few women can escape. They have to work.
That’s liberation …
Of course it is:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-politics/
I remember very well political correctness. I started my undergraduate career in 1993 and finished my brief academic career in 2002, with a PhD in between. That was the period when PC really started taking hold in UK academia.
I argued then as I do now: that being able to say things which others may find offensive is fundamental to academic debate, a free society, and ultimately human progress.
Furthermore, I argued that what starts as erasure of certain “unacceptable” words, sooner or later becomes erasure of certain “unacceptable” ideas, and then erasure of certain “unacceptable” groups or classes of people.
I think history has borne me out on this. The Australian equivalent of an equalities commission has recently ruled that lesbians cannot organise as a group without including men-who-identify-as lesbian-women. The class of same-sex attracted women, known in the English-speaking world by the term lesbian since at least the mid-19th century, have to all intents and purposes been deemed not to exist anymore.
Your point is that there are some among the current gender critical feminists who would have applauded political correctness. Whether because they supported the principle or simply as a useful tactical means for shutting down their opponents, never imagining that it would one day be them being shut down by baying mobs high on their own virtue and spurious accusations of hate and harm. I’m sure this is true.
But it doesn’t matter. I don’t care about settling scores or relitigating the past. I’m sure I disagree with Julie Bindel on many subjects, but where I agree with her 100% is that if a woman cannot say publicly that a man is not a woman, then all her hard-won rights are in jeopardy.
Then you’ll understand that I am calling out hypocrisy (and bad writing and thinking) and simple propaganda pieces. I don’t think Unherd is the platform for this.
On much else we agree, and are arguing about nothing.
“…that what starts as erasure of certain “unacceptable” words, sooner or later becomes erasure of certain “unacceptable” ideas, and then erasure of certain “unacceptable” groups or classes of people.”
This is a profound insight. Thank you!
As George Carlin had it, ‘Fascism disguised as good manners’.
I’m plenty old and an American, and I don’t remember feminists trying to shut down men’s rights groups. I remember the poet Robert Bly, who started the Iron John men’s movement. People joked about it (men too) , but feminists did not try to shut it down. I’m a feminist and have no problem with the men’s movement as long as it’s not based on hate. I’m also aware that some feminists hate men. I don’t. As far as political correctness goes, just about everyone and everything was targeted.
Wrong movement. And plenty was caught on video.
You make a valid point here. A plausible view is that militant feminism over many decades, especially that reflecting on the Marxist orthodoxy of the ‘oppressed vs their oppressors’, may have spawned some unintended offshoots, not least the current trans madness.
It is ironical that ‘Trans-McCarthyism’ has rebounded on the feminist worldview in a manner that has placed them on the ‘wrong side’ of the progressive mainstream.
The high number of downticks for your post suggests that perhaps you have enraged some feminists amongst the Unherd readership.
The revolution is eating its children.
Feminism helped spawn the Transgender movement and now the new generation of revolutionaries is turning on the oldies.
It happens every time.
For example, by the time Stalin had finished, every one of the old Bolsheviks who had fought alongside Lenin in 1917 were dead because he’d had most of them shot.
Bindel’s one track mind has become a bore.
I feel Nicola’s Sturgeon’s hubris and arrogance will be seen as a high water mark, not just for the toxic sludge that transgender ideology has become, but for similar antifa style, anarchic marxist movement like BLM, for sure, and the whole pro-Hamas, anti-Semitic establishment across the UK and Europe.
Sturgeon, and her truly bizarre partners in the Scottish Greens, pushed a clearly flawed legislation and then called anyone criticising it ‘transphobic, homophobic, misogynist , and , probably (?!) racist’.
Julie, At some stage it would be good to see a roundup of the attitude of the police at events like this. Drive at 24mph in one of these new 20 mph zones – you get a ticket. Yell obscenities in an intimidating way at a group of law-abiding women, you get… what?
I very much appreciate Julie Bindel’s work on behalf of women everywhere, and particularly her focus on the most marginalized, whose stories are all too often invisible to most. I hope and expect the FiLiA conference will be a great success.
You have to distinguish between working on behalf of women she simply hating men.
Thank you so much for the update and all your work. I’m so sorry I could not make it to FiLia this year, I cannot wait to hear the output and I’m so grateful that the event went ahead.
Congratulations on the efforts involved.
Thank you thank you Julie and all the women involved for all you do and all you have done.
A key distinction to be made is between transsexuals and the gender self-identification lot who call themselves ‘transgender’ and who seemed to have arisen from Judith Butler’s disciples in the Millennial generation.
The second group are making life more difficult for the older group, and in terms of raising public prejudice not just threatening their medical care.
The ‘Butlerian Jihad’ as it has been called.
A lot of transvestites escape the stigma of transvestism (still not a cool thing to be unless you’re a member of the Grayson Perry crowd) by claiming to be transgender. They don’t really think they are ‘born in the wrong body’; in fact, their (intact) male bodies are crucial to the performance of their fetishes. But by claiming to be transgender, they qualify as victims, the ‘most oppressed people in the world’, etc. And a lot of them are seriously misogynistic.
Transsexuals have a fetish. Transgender have a psychotric delusion.
Lets say it loud and clear
A real woman CANNOT have a p***s
And a real feminist cannot have a healthy b***n.
It really is strange what the sex revolution hath wrought. It’s as though the worst sort of men all got together to figure out what would work best for them (no fault divorce, abortion on demand, pornography everywhere, sex without consequences—for men) and came up with our exact culture. And then called it Feminism.
Believe me, if men had had a hand in this we’d have done a far better job. But yes, there is a certain amount of historical irony at work here.
You must get a real kick out of watching women suffer as a result of the rights we fought so hard for. If only we’d had the good sense never to try to escape from under the protective wing of our fathers/husbands. We’ve really got what was coming to us. Don’t you thinK?
Actually no, I don’t think that.
I’m a woman. There is no negative consequence of the sexual revolution that I haven’t had to suffer. So, no, I wouldn’t say I’m getting much of a kick out of it. Niether am I ungrateful for my rights. Not for one damned second. AND it is not just okay for me to speak truth into this mess we find ourselves in but it is absolutely necessary. Don’t shut other women down when we look around and notice that the ungendered utopia we were taught we wanted and needed is actually a playground for exactly the sort of bad men our liberation was supposed to free us from.
In the immortal words of John McEnroe, “You cannot be serious!!!” Taking just one issue, we can lay the blame squarely at the door of feminists for the largest genocide ever known, and one continuing with feminist support – abortion. The WHO estimates 73+ million unborn children are killed every year. I have met many campaigners against abortion, none were feminists. Feel free to direct us all towards prominent feminists who are pro-lifers rather than anti-lifers.
So, no prominent feminist pro-lifers, only downvotes?
I agree. Feminism has been marvelous for men. It’s strange that many don’t realize it.
Every time I see photos of crowds screaming in public – and they’re ubiquitous – my heart sinks. Are these people employed? Do they have families? Are they paid to turn up at various events to be as weird and offensive as possible?
One would think the heinous butchery visited on innocents in Israel would put their ludicrous little luxury complaints into perspective.
You would think, except that the far left has unequivocally shown its support for the butchery in Israel. We shouldn’t be surprised, considering the trans activists’ advocacy for the mutilation of children. These people are truly vile, beyond redemption.
Minority bullies are getting too much power and influence. They should be re-educated if they believe women can have penises. They need a course in biology. Chromosomes!
Ms. Bindel, You represent, speak for and write for millions of true feminists, who have fought for the rights of women for many decades. Thank you.
Good boy! You’ve been so well trained!!!
I disagree with the author’s characterization of hypernarcistic trans activists as in any form representative of the men’s rights movement. That’s not the way forward.
“Trans activists all too often act as the militia wing of the men’s rights movement. ”
What? So men get blamed for everything again! I am a firm supporter of reality and that men are men and cannot be women (and vice versa) but this trans lunacy is just as much, if not more, the fault of women as men.
There is a Washington Post article titled “Feminists have long supported trans rights” citing statistic where feminists support trans rights at a higher rate than women as a whole in the US. Furthermore Pew Research has stats showing women supporting trans rights more than men.
Calling these young women who support trans rights a poster for patriarchy is sinister. As is the line about the militia for men’s trans movement.
I would like to see this author address this support for trans movement among women and feminist. And while at it examine if there is anything that feminists have done over the past two, three decades to cause these attitudes among women.
Spot on, though I would say more paranoid than sinister. Ideologically this is a fight within feminism, with the lines largely drawn on generational lines.
It would be interesting to see an article on Unherd making the pro trans case from a feminist point of view. I’d probably disagree, but I would like to see their perspective.
The opening sentence of this piece:
“Trans activists all too often act as the militia wing of the men’s rights movement.”
Absolute garbage, as we’d reliably expect from Bindel. I’ve been involved for 15 years in the movement and have never encountered any trans activists, nor heard of any existing in the movement.
For the source of trans ideology we need only look to feminists themselves. Professor Janice Fiamengo has written extensively on feminism and feminists, and a good place to start on feminism and the trans issue would be her article “Anti-trans Feminists Are Now Reaping the Whirlwind”:
https://fiamengofile.substack.com/p/anti-trans-feminists-are-now-reaping?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
Elizabeth Hobson https://j4mb.org.uk/elizabeth-hobson-2-2/ and I know all about feminist attempts to cancel events. In 2019 Cambridge University feminist ‘academics’, students and others did all in their power to stop us giving talks. The highlight of the day was possibly Natty Raymond, a supporter, running after and apprehending the feminist who threw a milkshake over us. Enjoy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5epds6bs4M
It’s difficult not to be amused by Bindel’s claims to be “cancelled”. For many years she’s had articles regularly published by the mainstream media including so-called “right-leaning” publications such as The Spectator (50+ articles to date) and the Daily Mail. If this is what being cancelled looks like, MRAs would love to be cancelled.
Mike Buchanan
JUSTICE FOR MEN & BOYS
http://j4mb.org.uk
So Woke Cancel Culture is all Men’s fault now? Funny that. Most of us have been tiptoeing around trying to keep quiet so the feminists in our lives dont call us bigots, rightwingers and homophobes. I watched Evergreen, and it seems like its mostly aggressive woke women and passive men in woke culture. Except for the actual trans people who are men. They are aggressive. They are self-hating men. But they got that from feminism.
Absolutely nailed it again, thank you. Tis true, trans ideologues and activists are just a new variant of the virus that is misogyny!
Glad to hear the men didn’t stop the women – have a great, FiLiA weekend JB!!
“Trans activists all too often act as the militia wing of the men’s rights movement. Their movement is perfectly designed to bully, harass, intimidate and silence feminists — or just any woman who dares to question male dominance.“
The irony in that sentence is lost on its author and most commenters here. The trans movement is a direct offspring of feminism and they are simply taking gender ideology to its logical conclusion. There is NO difference between men and women? Well, if you insist… Activist like Bindel are just getting a good dose of their own medicine.
Feminists in 2012 trying to close down an event. These tactics were not invented by trans activists.
https://youtu.be/YiRasOrIoYQ?si=A4-vtoxGlJ_cMBSU
There is a trans woman in my women’s social group. She was diagnosed with gender dysphoria in her teens (and she is now in her early sixties) and you do not want to know some of the treatment she was put through in order to try and “cure” her. She spent many years going through psychotherapy, HRT and surgery in order to finally gain a gender recognition certificate. She hates trans activists as they make her life more difficult and she just wants to quietly get on with her life. We need to separate genuine trans people like her, who have diagnosed dysphoria and are prepared to fully transition, from men who basically like to wear dresses and want to trample all over womens’ rights. Hardly any genuine trans people are involved in this movement – “trans” has become an umbrella term for crossdressers, transvestites and transsexuals – only the latter are genuinely trans and they are a tiny proportion of the so-called trans population.
I’d imagine the Colonisers of Womanhood would be plenty okay with attacking indigenous women?
No surprises there!!
After reading the posts up to now, along with many Julie Bindle articles, I hope UnHerd continues to publish her work.
IMHO, she writes in a mostly evenhanded way and if I were to meet her, I doubt she would hate me because I am male and heterosexual.
Apologies for downvoting you if this is sarcasm. Sometimes it’s just so hard to tell.
Hi David,
Thank you for thinking about what I wrote.
i was not being sarcastic. Although I love irony, I hate sarcasm. Sarcasm is a step too far and, INMO, nothing good ever comes from sarcasm.
There isn’t a men’s rights movement, Julie, but given your frequently expressed mysandry perhaps there should be.
I’m with Dougie on this one. Trans rights activists do not ‘somehow’ represent a militant misogamist appendage of all the male species, they are nothing more than an annoying, minuscule, shouty, wanna-be twats, trying to bully another group of sometimes annoying, shouty, actual twats. I would take Julie’s writing more seriously if she took the blinkers off and didn’t lump ALL men together.
As an aside, why just ‘black women’ ? Don’t the ‘white adjacent’ Israeli women count too when it comes to violence by armed authorities ?
Sorry, I’ve just realised, instead of “wanna-be twats”, it should have read ‘wanna-have twats’.
She is so lacking in self awareness that she gives herself away in her own writing!
Hi Dougie. FYI there IS a men’s rights movement. I’m hosting the next International Conference on Men’s Issues in Budapest next August, the 12 speakers include four women:
https://icmi2024.icmi.info/?page_id=21
Try googling “men’s rights movement.” I just did so, and got 145 million hits.
Thanks Geoff, very good! However the Wikipedia page on the MRM is utterly ludicrous, being the creation of feminists (along with my own Wiki page).
Doug, talk about making Julie’s point for her. Do you deny that subjugating women has existed as a male sexual perversion throughout history? “Perhaps there should be?” Your comment is odious.
“Trans activists all too often act as the militia wing of the men’s rights movement. Their movement is perfectly designed to bully, harass, intimidate and silence feminists — or just any woman who dares to question male dominance.”
Come on. Trans activists have nothing to do with “male dominance,” except at several layers of remove. They’re just belligerent bullies who should be ignored and/or suppressed when they become violent (which is often) – just another branch of the fascist Left, in other words.
Had to stop reading at the first sentence. The author truly is a revolting person on occasion.
A good point, well made. The words “on occasion” are superfluous, however.
Give it a rest Julie. Your obvious hatred of men has become wearisome to say the least.
Feminists have been hurling insults at men, invading their spaces and attacking the very notion of masculinity for decades. And while I condemn the Trans activists, it’s hard to ignore the irony as they use the same tactics against you.
And by the way, not all women are “survivors of male violence”. Some of us are survivors of female violence.
Worse – it’s their theorists that underlie the whole gender fluid thing, it’s their tactics the trans activists are copying, and it’s entirely possible that their impact on education is what has left so many young people gender confused and ill at ease in their own bodies.
Upvoted.
Thanks Ida, good points. It’s long been known that women are at higher risk of abuse from female partners than male partners, but of course Bindel has zero interest in abused lesbians. One of our blog pieces on the relative risk to women from male and female partners:
https://j4mb.org.uk/2022/12/09/are-women-more-likely-to-be-abused-in-lesbian-or-heterosexual-relationships/
I am genuinely puzzled by the downvoting. Why, exactly, are those of you who are downvoting my comments, doing so? Are you displeased with the revelation of the long-established fact (as shown by ONS stats, click on the link) that women are at higher risk of abuse from female partners than male partners? You’re downvoting facts? Would you rather this fact not be known? Why?
If you get downvotes but no coherent replies, it means they have no response. And they don’t like that. Presumably they are haunted by the suspicion that they may be wrong.
Imagine the cognitive dissonance.
The usual diarrhea bindeling transphobia and misandry.
Good god it gets worse. What on earth is this doing on Unherd?
Like it or not, lots of younger feminists support the whole trans thing. Some of them may even think that terfs are acting on behalf of the “patriarchy”. Who knows? Who cares? But let’s have some real analysis instead of this silly stuff.
What’s it doing on Unherd? Giving you plenty of scope to make a fool of yourself. If you don’t like it, unsubscribe.
Why should he unsubscribe? Is only one point of view allowed?
As a woman, I find Julie Bindel’s accusation that some women are “poster girls for the patriarchy” quite insulting.
What a nerve she has, saying such a thing.
It’s a simple fact that they have. I’m sure Julie’s nerve will survive the insularity of your opinion
Apart from which, DM’s the one trying to curtail what gets published. Irony unbounded.
.
Do you not realise that you are caught in a loop, a sort of activist algorithm? Used by the dogmatic to dispose of those they don’t agree with:
working class people who didn’t toe the party line – were class traitors or suffering from false consciousness
black people are uncle toms
women are suffering internalised misogyny
and now they are poster girls for patriarchy
Some women are, it’s beyond question. The vast majority aren’t, but Julie is simply right. What “i realise” is far wider in scope than your narrow perspective.
Some just can’t help but think that Julie is referring to “all women” being poster girls for the patriarchy when it’s patently obvious she’s not. If she were, that’d include both herself and the 1500 at the conference she writes about. See what i mean, about making a fool of yourself?
Shot yourself in the foot I’m afraid. She applies it to the women who disagree with her. Of course she isn’t applying it to those who share her views. Duh!
Not good enough, i’m afraid. You and your acolyte Ida have been commenting as if Julie applies her comments to either “all women” or “all men”, in whichever regard.
It’s just basic lack of insight and nuance. But keep it coming, i’m enjoying this.
On grounds of quality! I’m a fan of K Strong because she can both think and write and she doesn’t produce silly (and bitter) propaganda pieces.
Good for her. But is she prepared to stand up to a baying mob, take those who seek to silence her to court, or get involved in the day to day business of helping out in refuges?
It’s a messy business, and opinions are cheap.
Hi David, do you mean Karen Straughan, the legendary GirlWritesWhat? Her YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@girlwriteswhat
Pearl Davies (1.8+ million YT subscribers, #JustPearlyThings) recently interviewed Karen along with another legendary MRA, Paul Elam:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qo9IHu74iE8
I’d forgotten about that KS. No the KS who writes on Unherd. Her position is not so different from JB, but she is capable of both thinking and writing.
Thanks David. You write:
“Her position is not so different from JB, but she is capable of both thinking and writing.”
I thjink that’s what’s called a logical fallacy?
Kathleen Stock – my apology.
I read no more than the first sentence.
She really puts the RF in TERF, doesn’t she?
I hope that your reading skills improve soon.
Sometimes the first line is all you need.
This tells us far more about the paranoid psychology of some feminists than it does about the situation on the ground.
Doubtless there are some real concerns around the trans issue – but some of the actors on the terf side are clearly driven by the hatred of men that they have nursed since their youth decades ago.