I love Burchill's lack of shit-giving and I enjoy the way she plays with words and phrases. I also Love capital L Love the way she uses her sweetly pitched voice and (hardly ever heard in the media) Bristol accent to take the piss and say whatever she pleases with no filter attached.
I do like this article and especially this bit:
And if only the likes of Mumsnet and the Guardian – who are belatedly taking on the trans-lobby – had had the nerve to be feminists five years ago.
BUT I would also like to add that feminists (the radical kind, which is to say the unapologetically woman centred feminists) have been pointing all of this out for a lot longer than five years, and the lesbians among them have been doing it the longest. The Internet had a lively but thoughtful bunch of radical feminist blogs 10-15 years ago who applied a strong and intelligent analysis to the trans issue. Can you guess what happened to them, one by one? The trans lobby and the prostitution lobby has been targeting political women for a long time.
Between that time and this, Gallus Mag on Gendertrender has been an incredible source for proper, investigative journalism into all things trans and this ideology's impact on women. Is she employed and paid for her impeccable work? The women who find her blog invaluable give donations but frankly the fact she isn't more widely lauded for all that she has done in recording in clear language the trajectory and damage done by the trans movement shames the wider feminist movement. I note that she is a never acknowledged persona non grata by all the main gender critical writers, including Rebecca Reilly Cooper, Glosswitch, Sarah Ditum et Al, despite their work being a lighter derivative version of hers. No offence to them personally, but there is no way they aren't aware of her work and yet they never acknowledge it.
Which shows another contrast between those writers, and Gallus and those radical feminist writers and bloggers (and you can find several more on tumblr) - those women openly recognised and credited the women that came before them - Germaine Greer, Sheila Jeffreys, Andrea Dworkin, Mary Daly, for example.
As more women become aware of this issue, instead of dismissing these feminist writers as transphobes from the past, maybe we could view them as pioneers and valuable continuing sources of wisdom, and give them some credit for their work.
Gendertrender.wordpress.com
Add it to your bookmarks if you don't know it yet! And if you think you've peaked now, wait til you see her archives.