To think trying to close down a library/archive because you don't like a event is just not on

[thecraftyfox]

Yes, it's trans related. If that gets your hackles up, stop reading now.

The small but very important Working Class Movement Library in Salford has been around for ages and does what it does brilliantly on a teeny budget and wth predominantly volunteers. It's such a valuable resource for historians and well, anybody interested in things like the Suffragettes, the Union movement etc.

In February they're hosting a talk by Julie Bindel on growing up and coming out as a lesbian in 1970s North East England. Julie Bindel wrote this article in 2004 which states that transwomen are not the same as women. www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jan/31/gender.weekend7 Since then she has been harrassed and hounded for it.

As a result the WCML is being bombarded online by transactivists in an attempt to punish them. They are giving them dreadful reviews despite never going there, attempting to cause financial damage by trying to stop funding and promotion of the place and getting people to call them. If you don't like it, don't attend. The talk is not about transpeople, it's about Julie's life and work which has been enormously important for many women, especially her work with women who have been abused. I can't understand why a small library can't host this event without being subjected to such vitriol and harrassment. Am I being unreasonable to think that if you don't like what somebody writes or says, you don't start a campaign of harrassment and act like a spoilt child. www.facebook.com/wcmlibrary/ the comments and posts are just unbelievably spiteful.

1horatio. "wouldn't that make homosexuality look like a choice, which is the last thing anybody actually trying to improve the lives of homosexuals (especially young ones) should have wanted."

Actually, Bindel and many others disagree that homosexuality is innate. She's written a book 'Straight Expectations' which is in large part about the effect that the 'Born this way' argument has had in undermining the radical potential of homosexual liberation movements. So, I don't think Bindel would mind at all if people undermine or challenge 'Born this way' arguments - she does so herself.

It's a complex argument but a legitimate one - and laid out quite nicely here
in this article by Delilah Campbell 'Who owns Gender?'

"If you adopt a social constructionist view of gender and sexuality, then lesbians, gay men and gender non-conformists are a challenge to the status quo: they represent the possibility that there are other ways for everyone to live their lives, and that society does not have to be organized around our current conceptions of what is ‘natural’ and ‘normal’. By contrast, if you make the essentialist argument that some people are just ‘born different’, then all gay men, lesbians or gender non-conformists represent is the more anodyne proposition that diversity should be respected. This message does not require ‘normal’ people to question who they are, or how society is structured. It just requires them to accept that what’s natural for them may not be natural for everyone. Die-hard bigots won’t be impressed with that argument, but for anyone vaguely liberal it is persuasive, appealing to basic principles of tolerance while reassuring the majority that support for minority rights will not impinge on their own prerogatives."

Oops - meant to post the link to that article www.troubleandstrife.org/new-articles/who-owns-gender/

But easier just to scream that she hates bisexuals, than to actually read an article like that.

Elendon I don't think it matters, tbh. Generally speaking people are free to refrain from having any kind of sex, without being discriminated against. Asexual people are not a specific group and don't require special representation.
Adding Asexual people to the LGBT 'banner' really does smack of 'special little snowflakism', IMO.
Don't know enough about the Q and I to comment on them.

No one is screaming that she hates bisexuals

She certainly doesn't seem to like bisexual very much and I find her quite obnoxious in her views, but I certainly don't support no-platforming etc.

They are though. The events page is full of people screaming about her biphobia.

While I am a trans supporter (for lack of a better phrase), these kind of tactics only hurt the library system, not the person that's got them upset. It's childish and I find it, in most cases, inexcusable. Write letters to pressure them to cancel her appearance, give all the good reasons why they should, plan a protest, whatever, but don't destroy a library over it.

What are the chances of the library losing funding or the talk not going ahead? There doesn't seem to be any indication at the moment that either of those things will happen. The additional publicity provided by objections to those suggestions seems to be making this into a much bigger story than it needs to be.

The library don't seem to be looking at cancelling the talk. Given the amount of pressure they have had, I think they would have already cancelled it if they were going to. But some against this talk are contacting funders and trying to get funding taken away. I don't know who funds it, so I don't know if this will be successful or not. If it is, I personally will spend time raising money for them. This library is a unique resource, there is nothing else like it in the country. People come from all over to do research from their materials. It would be an enormous loss if it did not exist.

I think it's disgusting the way that both Julie Bindel and the library are being attacked. The level of abuse she has received has shocked me. I have seen thinly veiled death threats aimed at Julie as well as the plan to try and cut off the library's funding. It's just awful. It worries me that so many people seem to think that is an acceptable way to behave. I disagree with lots of people on lots of things. I'd never stage a hate campaign against them.

LGBT History Month have released a statement as below.

Message from LGBT History Month:

Julie Bindel

"Schools OUT UK wishes to make a statement concerning the proposed appearance of Julie Bindel at The Working Class Movement Library in Manchester on the 4th of February, which is promoted on the LGBT History Month Calendar.

As the creators of LGBT History Month and the owners of the website and associated social media, we wish to make clear that the only events for which we are responsible are OUTing the Past: The National LGBT History Festivals taking place in fifteen venues around the country throughout the month of February. These are run locally and we provide much of the wherewithal, rather than taking responsibility for their overall management. We have no responsibility for the organisation of any other events during the month, whether or not they are promoted on our calendar; including this one.
That said, we recognise that this event is on our calendar and we have the editorial power to remove it. We have chosen not to and we wish to explain why.

Let’s consider Julie Bindel herself. As the blurb in the calendar says, “Julie has been active in the global campaign to end violence towards women and children since 1979, and has written extensively on topics such as rape, domestic violence, prostitution and trafficking”. This is hardly stuff that should cause objections. We gather she will be discussing what it was like to be a working class feminist lesbian in the 1970s, about which, as a middle class gay teenager in the 70s, I for one would like to know more. Her views are valuable and need to be heard. She made the comments that questioned the existence of trans women in 2004 and has said she would have phrase things differently now. But when the event went up on the calendar we were bombarded with demands that it be removed and threats to ‘withdraw support’ from LGBT History Month. Now a protest is being organised and petitions have been presented on social media to ban her from the event and to attempt to remove funding from the Working Class Museum; as if shutting down the only museum of its kind in the country would be to anyone’s benefit. The struggle for equality is everyone’s struggle and the working classes need more visibility; not less.

There’s no denying that Julie Bindel will say things people don’t want to hear and that she will upset people. I was disappointed at an article she wrote challenging medical intervention to forestall puberty in trans children; especially as the organ that published it was that enemy of equality and human rights The Daily Mail. She has a right to speak just as we have a right to challenge what she says. That is the nature of debate and it allows us to make change happen in society."

www.facebook.com/LGBTHistoryMonth/?fref=nf

And I have NEVER seen anyone doing a similar campaign against people like Farage who have much more power, and says lots of very offensive things. But then he is a man and not such an easy target.

Maybe all the transactivists and especially the trans feminists should campaign like that against Milo Yannopoulos? But no, they actually don't.

A man that denies that lesbian exists, claims there was an active choice in him being gay, things feminism is cancer and preaches hatred against the trans community...

But for some reason they don't. I wonder why?

When is the talk anyway? I might go.

The talk is on the 4th of February www.wcml.org.uk/whats-on/events/lgbt-history-month--julie-bindel/

Check the comments under it though.

This is going to be very loud.

I've blundered into this not understanding a damn thing.

The language, the acronyms, the slang, the abuse, nothing.

AFAIUI, transgenders are a tiny minority, but seem to have a rabid support base.

Trans women with dicks? Nope.

Trans men giving birth? Nope.

Colour me confused as hell.

Btw, trans women with dicks...

I made the big big mistake of googling srs results. I do see why many want to keep their dicks.

Hair inside the neovagina, dilation, weird shapes, sensory loss, more weird shapes, scars etc.

@1horatio even so, claiming to be female and then sending dick pics to someone who disagrees with you about something is not very 'ladylike' behaviour...

Roaming the landscape like some Little Britain "I'm a laydee" character, then demanding sexual gratification from penetrative sex with a 'fellow lesbian' is dickish behaviour.

Poor surgical results isn't the only reason transwoman overwhelmingly choose to keep their penises though, especially those who have a fetish for dressing as women (but that doesn't happen, nope, "born in the wrong body", etc).

Gosh
I'm not denying that. Just saying. Googling that kind of scarred me. I love my vagina/vulva/everything down there (well, except for periods)c

But if I had to choose between one of these neovaginas and a penis I'd take the penis. :0

I really need some sort of Ladybird book on gender politics, because the hate filled landscape I'm seeing is a far cry from the world I grew up with.....

It's probably already been shared but worth sharing again I think. Here's a petition to support the Working Class Movement Library.

www.change.org/p/working-class-movement-library-support-the-working-class-movement-library?recruiter=45464247&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink

Already signed and donated to the library.

Actually with a decent surgeon, the results can be very convincing. Different though for the surgery trying to construct a penis.

Can they really be?

Because I researched it quite a bit and found no picture where I was like... oh, yes. That looks like an 'average' vagina.

I was actually interested in it because there was a court case of a 'tricked' (lied to? Deceived?) groom.

I know, in the case of ftm bottom surgery it's difficult. Although, apparently, there can be cliteral growth which can be somehow elevated and shaped...