Helen Joyce & Julie Bindel: Should TERFs unite with the Right?

[ILikeDungs]

By Unherd, a debate-style response to the purity spiral after Brighton. I do admire Helen Joyce and her ability to calmly and logically discuss the issues. Unherd have made it age restricted (because of all the fucks, I suppose!):

Well, only if you believe that only left-wing people care about poverty! Isn't that the point HJ was making - that people think the right are morally bad? When in reality, most people on the right care just as much about these kinds of problems, but have a different set of ideas as to how they've arisen and what would solve them.

I think that saying that a lesbian should have worked with deeply homophobic groups set on entrenching sex-based gender divisions for pragmatic reasons because they had a similar position on pornography is pretty staggering to be honest.

No, I said it was fair enough for her to choose not to. But pragmatism is what moves political causes forward.

Pragmatism is practical ways forward that all parties can live with.

I can't see how lesbians can do that with out and out homophobes, not least because this is what would reduce them to the status of being 'freaks' as she explained in the discussion.

JB is very pragmatic about where she is published though, which has certainly amplified the voices of marginalised women. Fortunately, as the left won't.

I can't see how lesbians can do that with out and out homophobes, not least because this is what would reduce them to the status of being 'freaks' as she explained in the discussion.

I'm not sure how lesbians collaborating with homophobes would make them "freaks"? But you also have to consider the other side in these collaborations - if homphobes are willing to collaborate with lesbians, maybe they're less homophobic than they seem? Or maybe they feel the goal is important enough to put beliefs to one side?

I think it's fine for any group or individual to say they won't work with certain other groups or individuals. But I don't think there's a hard and fast rule about it that can be applied to everyone. Some lesbians might choose to work with the religious right because it suits their needs to do so, and that's also fine.

I tend to think of it along the lines of the Northern Irish peace process - it was only by "negotiating with terrorists" that peace was finally brokered. If you want to make huge changes then you probably have to work with people with whom you have profound ideological differences. If you want to keep your side "pure" then you will probably have to accept that you won't be able to make the huge changes you want to make.

I am just watching this now, but I am finding it a bit frustrating that JB seems to be missing logical steps i her args - she’ll throw something in without spelling it out. She talked about being freaks - bit of a curveball ? What was that ? Soon after says that the right want women in the kitchen, brothels, etc, without explaining how the left are any different. She seems to be arguing that women shouldn’t work with men, not that the ‘terfs’ shouldn’t work with the right…

What on earth does Julie know about what the right want? She isolates herself from conservative women completely, otherwise she might tripped over many, many successful female politicians, business owners and corporate leaders. A lot more than on the effing left, that's for sure.

Conservative values are about taking responsibility for your own success, and yet she believes conservative women want men to take responsibility for women. She's so out of touch, she's the perfect illustration of the red wall Labour party defeat.

JB's point about 'freaks' was that if issues like single sex spaces and the medical transitioning of children are fought as single issue campaigns they ignore broader feminist understandings and criticism of the extent of harms caused by male violence towards women including the hate directed towards lesbians.

If success is measured solely in terms of single sex spaces being reclaimed and it not being permissible to involve children in body and life changing medical procedures, that maintains every other structure and mechanism of patriarchial oppression. That was the status quo in the UK, what, 15 year ago and while undoubtedly better than the situation today, women and girls were still prostituted, raped oppressed and exploited in a million different ways.

These aims are shared by various homophobic groups, on the right, left and/or with religious convictions (obvs not all) who, at best, regard gay men and lesbians as freaks of nature. That means that lesbians would have to not challenge/ignore/go along with beliefs and practices that dehumanise them in various ways. They'd be tolerated freaks when they were useful, then untolerated freaks when not.

Yes, some lesbians are fine with this, in the same way that some immigrants are happy to work with or within anti-immigration groups.

JB can't stand most of the Labour party btw. She does jump about a bit in her arguments, I think because she's thought about and spoken about it all so much that she forgets that they're new to some people. I'd recommend reading some of her books, articles, or listening to her podcasts if you're interested in more context.

I felt the same about Helen Joyce. I've read and loved 'Trans' but her concept of market economics that don't rely on some social groups being oppressed was a novel one to me, and not one that she fully explained.

I suppose Helen Joyce wasn’t really there to discuss her concept of market economics. I agree that JB seemed to take it for granted that you’d already been walked through the steps at some point.

Having finished the whole thing now, I feel that I am probably one of those kinds of feminists she would be disappointed in, in that I have the class analysis of sex and male violence, etc, but I am diverging from the lesbian separatist/political ideas which I, starry eyed, accepted in the past, but which underpin her view.

This ‘trans’ issue, like JB, I totally see as a movement of male sexual entitlement aided and abetted by handmaidens of the patriarchy, but I am coming to realise that a lot of the radical/separatist/political lesbian ideology around the nature of men and boys, and around motherhood and nuclear families, is pretty far off the mark, in my experiential reality.

JB's point about 'freaks' was that if issues like single sex spaces and the medical transitioning of children are fought as single issue campaigns they ignore broader feminist understandings and criticism of the extent of harms caused by male violence towards women including the hate directed towards lesbians.

The point is that surely that you agree with others to fight it as a single issue campaign to include the broader feminist voice in a discussion that will happen with or without it, and so you don't have to agree with them on other issues? It's single issue to avoid the need to "work with" them more generally.

That means that lesbians would have to not challenge/ignore/go along with beliefs and practices that dehumanise them in various ways. They'd be tolerated freaks when they were useful, then untolerated freaks when not.

Can't you see this is symmetrical? The people you're ranting about would have to not challenge/ignore/go along with your beliefs and practices that dehumanise them in various ways too!

I still have the sense that I don't really know what we're talking or disagreeing about anyway, because I don't really know what we mean by "work with". KJK gets a hell of a lot of stick despite being mind-bogglingly independent and never doing anything I'd define as "working with".

The only example I've ever seen where that seems like an applicable phrase for for me was the WoLF / Heritage Foundation / ADF crossover in the USA. Has anything like that ever happened in the UK?

That means that lesbians would have to not challenge/ignore/go along with beliefs and practices that dehumanise them in various ways. They'd be tolerated freaks when they were useful, then untolerated freaks when not.

Not really. It's possible to work on single issues with people you disagree with on almost everything else. The trick is for all parties to acknowledge their differences and mutually agree to set them aside to do this work together on this one thing. Then everyone can go back to being appalled by each other.

Not everyone will be willing or able to work like that and that's fine, people's personal boundaries are their own to make. But it's not a terrible or disgraceful way of working and it can be very effective. Women who are working this way should not be trashed for it.

Has anything like that ever happened in the UK?

The only thing I can think of is hiring Paul Conrathe for the Keira Bell case. He has a reputation for ADF type cases. He represented Heidi Crowter and Maire Lea-Wilson in the recent abortion case.

I make no moral judgment of who someone hires to represent them in court. If I've chipped in for a crowdfunder then I hope they hire whoever is most likely to win. (I also hope they won't be profligate with my money and do something like hire three top barristers (two of them KC) while still at the letters stage.)

I would just let to say that, although Julie Bindel pisses me off sometimes, I can never stay mad at her for long.

Same.

Both these women are ace.

Setting aside differences isn't an equitable thing though, if one party has more power than the other. It's using the resources of the less powerful party to shore up the resources of the more powerful, who are the ultimate winners.

Look at all the women on the left who tried to overlook the misogyny and sexism for the shared causes like social justice.

It's not terrible or disgraceful to have done this, but it hasn't done much to progress women's politics in this space which I guess is why women like JB rarely work with leftist men and orgs like WPUK would never have emerged from the Labour party and aren't supported by them.

JB's point about 'freaks' was that if issues like single sex spaces and the medical transitioning of children are fought as single issue campaigns they ignore broader feminist understandings and criticism of the extent of harms caused by male violence towards women including the hate directed towards lesbians.

If success is measured solely in terms of single sex spaces being reclaimed and it not being permissible to involve children in body and life changing medical procedures, that maintains every other structure and mechanism of patriarchial oppression. That was the status quo in the UK, what, 15 year ago and while undoubtedly better than the situation today, women and girls were still prostituted, raped oppressed and exploited in a million different ways.

It's up to all of us who say we are feminists to shout loudly about the broader context of MVAW, lesbian erasure and female oppression and to carry on shouting after we have won these battles.

Meanwhile we can't stop lots of other people agreeing with us on gender issues who are not feminists and who come from across the political spectrum. Because it's obvious dangerous bobbins and people are not stupid.

What's the plan here? Keep telling people they're not allowed to agree with us until we're ready to overthrow the patriarchy?

I think the house is a bit more on fire than that.

Setting aside differences isn't an equitable thing though, if one party has more power than the other. It's using the resources of the less powerful party to shore up the resources of the more powerful, who are the ultimate winners.

What if feminists are the more powerful group? In most of the examples they talked about, I'd say they were.

I don't think anyone on 'our side' of gender ideology has tried to persuade anyone else that they shouldn't agree with us, have they? That would be absurd?

In what political context are feminists the more powerful group beastlyslumber?

More reach, bigger platform, more legitimacy, more mainstream.

Than who?

This mantra of the right want women barefoot and pregnant is one of the more bizarre things you hear. It often seems like they are talking about some of those weird sects like the Duggers (tv show family with huge numbers of kids and belong to a sort of cult group). They don't realize that even most members of the evangelical Christian right think those people are weirdos.

Women among the Christian right do have some political/value differences - they tend to put more value on a traditional family life and motherhood as a vocation. But most of the women still get an education, work, some never marry and have kids and maintain a career instead, they pretty much all vote and have their own political opinions.

Than the groups mentioned in this debate.

Yes.

I am also not convinced by her argument that ‘the house is always on fire for women and girls’ either. Through feminist efforts, FGM is being fought against, it is on the decline. However, double mastectomies, horrendous phalloplasties, body altering poisons are on the rise for young women, the insane ideology is mushrooming - spreading like wildfire - it is an acute situation, not a chronic one. I had to skip past the bit where she was about to say something horrendous about the six year old girl because i could tell it was going to be too upsetting, but I don’t think shock tactics give her a better point, its just traumatising.

It comes across as a bit territorial imo. Like “urgh.. fighting for women’s rights is well old and you’re acting like it’s just in fashion.”

After decades of fighting against male violence to women and girls and having spoken to hundreds of women and girls who have been raped, prostituted, sexually abused as children, forcibly strip searched by men, forced to share intimate spaces with men, who have survived domestic abuse, medical violence, been denied healthcare like abortion, or education, been exploited into pornography, hounded out of their workplace etc etc, it's conceivable that JB does feel a bit like that.

Her point about FGM wasn't a shock tactic anymore than the photos and stories that get shared about double mastectomies of healthy breast tissue in teenage girls.It's interesting that you found it more shocking though.

Male violence against women and girls is a centuries long, structural and global problem that is on the rise.Sadly, it is very much x chronic problem.