Radfem Sheila Jeffreys, transphobe, barred from speaking at the RadFem 2012 venue!
(Some background here)May 29, 2012
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Kickass feminist and activist, the thoroughly inspirational Roz Kaveney recently wrote a takedown of this particular branch of radical feminism, rightly likening it to a cult (although arguably there are also fascistic overtones to the radfem party line on this issue). If you haven’t read it yet, please do. It’s utterly brilliant.
Sheila Jeffreys has responded to Roz’s excellent piece with an argument with so many holes it would be better suited to function as a colander. Again, this piece is worth reading, though for the exact opposite reasons to the one above. Jeffreys’s entire argument hinges upon the idea that it is only trans people who could possibly ever object to this particular murky brand of transphobia.
This is, of course, patently untrue. I’ve written myself that transphobia has no place in feminism, and I’m hardly the only one. One does not have to be trans to care about the rights of trans people. One simply has to be free from bigotry.
Jeffreys claims persecution from the trans community in the form of utter horrors such as glitter bombing and captioned photographs. Perhaps the most stark example of the hideous persecution faced by poor Jeffreys and her transphobic ilk is that Jeffreys claims the RadFem2012 conference venue to have banned her from speaking, citing evidence of her hate speech that she believes to be entirely reasonable. Throughout, notably, Jeffreys can only blame a shadowy cabal of trans people: the idea that cis allies may have in any way been involved simply fails to occur to her.
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http://stavvers.wordpress.com/2012/05/29/sheila-jeffreys-radfem2012-and-the-imaginary-trans-conspiracy/
The above article merits reading in its entirety.
Here's the opening of her ridiculous complaint in the Guardian:
Though Kaveney's comments about me are comparatively mild in tone, the campaign by transgender activists in general is anything but. This particular campaign persuaded Conway Hall, the conference venue, to ban me from speaking on the grounds that I "foster hatred" and "actively discriminate". On being asked to account for this, Conway Hall appeared to compare me to "David Irving the holocaust denier". The proffered evidence consists of quotes from me arguing that transgender surgery should be considered a human rights violation – hardly evidence of hate speech.
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What is clear is that transgender activists do not want any criticism of the practice to be made. They do not just target me, but the few other feminists who have ever been critical. Germaine Greer was glitterbombed, a practice that can be seen as assault and can endanger eyesight,
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/29/transgenderism-hate-speech?fb=optOut
"hardly evidence of hate speech"? Really Sheila?
= new reply since forum marked as read
human rights are up for debate. What the hell is the "practice of transgenderism"? Children know at an early early age what gender they feel they are...this sounds like the old "lifestyle" debate for gays and lesbians, like it is some kind of sexual tourism.
From the bigot:
Psychiatrists and sexologists who are critical of the practice are targeted too. Transgender activism was successful in gaining the cancellation of a London conference entitled Transgender: Time for Change, organised by the Royal College of Psychiatrists' lesbian and gay special interest group for May 2011. When, in 2003, US sexologist Michael Bailey published a book, The Man Who Would Be Queen, which argued that transgenderism was a practice based on sexual fetishism, he became subject to a campaign of vilification, which included placing photographs of his children on a website with insulting captions. The effect is to scare off any researchers from touching the topic.
I've never been so angry at anyone's disingenuous words. Michael Bailey's book is listed on the Southern Poverty Law Center as hate speech. Michael Bailey was uncovered as a commentator on VDARE's commentary site the Human Biodiversity Institute.
This is the same VDARE that is connected to Charles Murray's The Bell Curve. John Derbyshire, who was just fired from ultra-conservative National Review for actually being too racist for their readership over Trayvon Martin's murder is also listed there.
Take a long walk off a short pier Sheila. Walk until your hat floats.
Yeah, a lot of us are foursquare against Nazi science. You have been swimming in racist eugenicist waters. Stay there and leave the rest of us.
Hot mess angry.
Not only does the transphobia discredit her because of the angle she's coming from, but her logic on other things is faulty. She also plays very loose with facts and omits, flat out dismisses, anything that contradicts her assertions.
Everything in her books is always frozen in time, without a thought for the larger picture, as if things happened in a rigid, static, sterile vacuum with no deviation from what she set out to *prove* in the first place.
That's all you missed dear Gormy. I want all the time I was forced to spend on Sheila Jeffreys' works back.
You can't even make up some of the stuff she wrote. Here's just an example, as quoted by her friend Bindel
and this, explained by Bindel here
The message of LYE immediately provoked a strong and often negative reaction. While some radical feminists agreed with the group's arguments, many went wild at being told they were "counter-revolutionaries", undermining the fight for women's liberation by sleeping with men. The main author of LYE, Sheila Jeffreys, says that the backlash to the booklet "even among lesbians, was quite shocking. Quite a few were angry with the group for writing it. They felt it exposed them to hostility from outraged heterosexual feminists."
It's no surprise that the booklet was so controversial. "We think serious feminists have no choice but to abandon heterosexuality," it reads. "Only in the system of oppression that is male supremacy does the oppressor actually invade and colonise the interior of the body of the oppressed." It also asserted that penetration "is more than a symbol, its function and effect is the punishment and control of women".
Maybe my words are too harsh but I can't get past the transphobia either and what I saw as deliberately divisive rhetoric that wasn't coming from a position of love for all women or equity for all humans.
It's good to see you btw
I told her she was bonkers. Thanks for doing the time reading Jeffreys and saving me from the experience.
Have you ever heard of Cynthia Enloe?
I just came across her a few minutes ago and I'm already in 
.
This is the paragraph that did it and I started a thread here
The responses to RadFem2012 show our queer and feminist communities to be standing strong against transphobia
Earlier this month, feminists were dismayed to see that the upcoming radical feminist conference RadFem2012 had installed a policy of only allowing ‘women born women living as women’ to attend – a clumsy phrase originally reading ‘biological women only’, and specifically intended to exclude transgender women.
Further, RadFem2012 had booked Sheila Jeffreys to speak – an old-school, terrifyingly transphobic radfem activist who has before called for transition-related surgery to be banned and who has a forthcoming book in which she criticises the very existence of transgender people. I was amazed that feminists existed who still felt that the human rights of trans folks could be a matter up for debate by cisgender people, let alone that there was evidently an entire feminist conference willing to platform and support these views.
A resistance quickly mobilised in response to RadFem2012 – a few people got angry on Twitter, and the conversation grew to a huge group of trans feminists, cis allies and many people in between. The blogosphere has exploded with messages of support and solidarity.
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Large organisations have also expressed their support. The NUS Women’s Campaign said, ‘”We are committed to ending transphobia … and as such we condemn RadFem’s policy.” The Brighton Feminist Collective said, ‘”We will not support an event which fights for equality by promoting inequality, nor will we accept this strange formation of a hierarchy of women.’” Individual university-based feminist societies, including the Royal Holloway and Oxford groups, have also issued statements of support.
The venue, Conway Hall, has now expressed concerns to the conference’s organisers over hate speech and the legality of excluding transgender women from the conference, and they are currently in discussions.
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http://www.lesbilicious.co.uk/the-responses-to-radfem2012-show-our-queer-and-feminist-communities-to-be-standing-strong-against-transphobia/
Together, standing strong against hate! 