Germaine Greer should really keep her opinions to herself

Germaine Greer

Over recent months, Germaine Greer's rants about transgender people have become the stuff of legend - from her obnoxious "Trans women are not women because they don't know what it is like to have a smelly vagina" (we do - but we choose to wash them to keep them clean) - but it would appear from this comment that Greer is simply equating women to be walking vaginas (should have chosen your words better Germaine). Then her comment recently about Caitlyn Jenner "........Jenner’s transition was nothing more than a “desperate attempt” to steal attention away from the other females in her infamous family" (as if any transgender person would go through the pain and ostracisation of transition just for that - plus the occasional obnoxious remark from Ms. Greer) to her now most famous rant on BBC's 'Newsnight' show after she had been "no-platformed" by students at Cardiff University “Just because you lop off your d**k and then wear a dress doesn’t make you a f***ing woman. I’ve asked my doctor to give me long ears (that must be why she wears her hair long over her ears then) and liver spots (hmmmm, can't comment on that bit Germaine) and I’m going to wear a brown coat but that doesn’t turn me into a f***ing cocker spaniel." (no Germaine, I doubt you have ever identified as a cocker spaniel - but trans people have identified with the gender that we transition to since a very young age). It is also extremely strange that she never, ever rants about trans men having chest surgery or phalloplasty - all her venom is directed towards trans women. Maybe she is just insanely jealous of Jenna Talackova, Janet Mock, Laverne Cox and the many other beautiful transgender women out there in today's society. 

Let me inform you Germaine, it is never about being a better woman than you or any other women, it is about being proud of who we are, the battles that we have had to overcome, about being true to ourselves in a world that is hostile towards transgender people and made more hostile by your increasingly shrill and strident (and generally completely nonsensical) pronouncements about us. 

Whilst the concept of free speech should be upheld wherever possible, when that free speech threatens the life of people who are already victimised, then maybe it should be curtailed slightly. Nobody objects to the the voices of the far right BNP and Britain First being censored, yet there is a huge outcry by the TERF's when similarly damaging opinions expressed about transgender people (and transgender women particularly) are sought to be suppressed. Germaine Greer has immediate access to lots of publicity (so she is hardly being no-platformed) - she just picks up the phone, plays the "poor me, people are picking on me" card and she is immediately invited onto major television shows to discuss her opinions - opinions which are hugely damaging to transgender people. If I tried to do the same, then the BBC wouldn't even bother to return my call. When a prominent actress was invited onto the Victoria Derbyshire show to rebut Greer's outburst, Greer was also invited onto the show to debate the issue - she decided that she wouldn't debate it and just sent in a repeat of her previous foul mouthed statement.

Maybe the answer would be for Greer to read up about how eminent neuroscientists and other medical practitioners regard the aetiology of transsexuality and to see that the world (and gender) is not binary, a black or white choice - but a dazzling array of colours. Rather than expect the world to adjust to her myopic view of transgender people, for her to shift her way of thinking and to become more inclusive.

Whilst I would agree that as a young woman she shifted the dynamics of feminism in the sixties and seventies radically to change hearts and minds, she now fails to grasp that feminist theory has moved on since then and she is stuck in the past.

Any scientist will tell you that if the data doesn't fit the theory, you don't try to erase parts of the data so that the remaining data does fit the theory, you modify the theory so that all the data is explained by the theory. Greer and others such as Bindel, Moore et al, have failed to grasp that simple concept and so remain firmly welded to the past.

Another young trans woman of colour dies in the US.

Zella Ziona (from her Facebook page)
#BlackTransLivesMatter #‎MasculinitySoFragile‬

A young, 21 year old transgender woman of colour was murdered when a group of men who knew her from school decided to take her life whilst she was on her way to lay flowers on the grave of her grandmother who died a year ago. She was shot in the head several times and also in the groin - and died whilst she was being taken to hospital.

A guy who has been named as Rico Leblond has been arrested and charged with her murder and is trying to use a trans-panic defence to justify taking her life, According to Leblond,  Zella is said to have liked him and he shot her to stop his friends thinking that he liked her.

Is a man's perceived masculinity so frail that in order to justify that masculinity he has to murder anybody who might in any way threaten it? Another young woman's life is savagely and brutally taken away from her in order to inflate a man's ego.

This happens too many times, in the United States, in Central and South America. Already in the US alone this year 21 trans women have been murdered, the majority being trans women of colour.

RIP Zella Ziona  #alltranslivesmatter

Heathwatch Devon launches new survey for trans people

Healthwatch Devon acting as lead partner but in association with Healthwatch Torbay and Healthwatch Plymouth, have launched a survey asking for your experiences of Gender Identity Services in England. Your answers will help form a report that will be fed back to numerous organisations including NHS England. If you are transgender and live in England (not Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland) you can contribute towards the survey at:-
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/HWGenderID

This survey is open to everybody in England but please be quick as the closing date for this survey is the 25th November 2015.

To request a postal survey please either telephone 0800 520 0640, email info@healthwatchdevon.co.uk or write to:
Healthwatch Devon,
FREEPOST RTEK-TZZT-RXAL
First Floor, 3 & 4 Cranmere Court,
Lustleigh Close,
Matford Business Park,
Exeter
EX2 8PW

Please consider contributing to this survey - the results will be fed back up to NHS England as a means of forcing NHS England to allow more money to flow into the GIC's to help with recruiting more personnel (surgeons, psychiatrists, psychologists) to help end the long queues for treatment.
Every single contribution will help their efforts as it will provide hard statistics that they can then use to bring about change. Sitting back and doing nothing will not help to bring about this change.

I should add that it was because of the efforts of Healthwatch Torbay and others that the funding shortfall was rescinded last October - so providing hard statistics for Healthwatches to operate with does produce results.
 
Don't just sit back and moan that they never listen (like one person did last night in a PM) - do something POSITIVE to bring about much needed change.