More from JB, I fear

[rozk]

But I for one do not wish to be lumped in with an ever-increasing list of folk defined by "odd" sexual habits or characteristics. Shall we just start with A and work our way through the alphabet? A, androgynous, b, bisexual, c, cat-fancying d, devil worshipping. Where will it ever end?

She didn't just compare bisexuals to Satanists and pet-fuckers? Yep, she did.here.. Julie, Julie - sometimes you transcend satire.

Comments

[lisaquestions.livejournal.com]

This is a time-honored fundamentalist homophobic Christian tactic.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

I read her piece and felt like sending her a brief email: "Welcome to the white male hetero-patriarchy."

Just to, like, stir things a bit.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of you when I read the article on the Tube into work this morning. I thought, "Roz will be even more furious than I am!"

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

My favourite was the comment in reply to 'where will it end?' which said simply 'zebra fuckers?'

[charlottecooper.livejournal.com]

I'm weeping with laughter. Her definition of queer is pretty amazing too.

I've been quiet on these discussions. People know my attitude towards her, I still get random emails from transwomen now and again about my article challenging JB to a wrestling match in bikinis and baked beans. I think she'd probably beat me, because she is tough, crazy and mean, but I've got the advantage of heft.

Anyway, just to say: go you. Thanks for stating the history behind this row, and putting the Stonewall stuff into context through posts and conversations with others. People do forget that history, as you know. I'm awed by your tenacity, articulacy and memory and cheering you and the other protestors on from West Ireland.

[lisaquestions.livejournal.com]

Oh, hey - thank you for recording her incident with Technodyke, too. Since the forum's down, your blog is pretty much the only place that still has the incident recorded.

[charlottecooper.livejournal.com]

No problem. She's such a troll!

[lisaquestions.livejournal.com]

Very much so!

One who gets paid for using trolling as 'research', sadly.

hee hee

[(Anonymous)]

the more we de-construct her article, the more she seems to have allowed her petulant rage to overstate her position. This buckshot polemic has peppered more constituencies in the LGB community than just us, her intended target.

And it wasn't just bisexuals she compared to pet fuckers; if you look at the narrative logic to that point, she's drawn the net of those defined by "kinky" sex play as being practically the whole of the LGBT etc community. Better editing and a moment's reflection might have saved her, but instead of soberly pressing delete on this car-crash, she pressed "send to the Guardian".

Whoops. Sit back and enjoy as other groups realise what she said.

[pigeonhed.livejournal.com]

I liked the first sentence, I don't want to be defined by just one facet of my complex existence. My first thought on the rest was that it was a clumsy attempt at wit rather than actually suggesting that bisexuals and satanists are equivalent, and being generous, perhaps that was JB's intent too. What reading your other posts, and various comments on other civil rights issues lately, has made me realise is several things.

a) such 'jokes' will inevitably be taken out of context (I'm not saying you did this, but others may) so need to be totally unambiguous.

b) context is broader than the actual piece but includes a history that is traumatic and hate-filled.

c) even if the 'joke' is funny, or non-harmful, in the midst of a heated debate it may not be taken that way.

So, regardless of the rights or wrongs of JB's arguments or yours (and I am too poorly informed to comment) it just seems that an experienced writer should know better than to make such clumsy comments.

[redbird]

I would like not to be defined entirely by one facet of my complex existence, too. But often the best I can do is to try for some control of which facet, and how it's read. For example, people looking at my life will know that I'm bisexual: the question is, then, whether that is taken as a perfectly normal thing to be, part of the range of human sexuality, or whether it's read as "indecisive," a "phase," or as the willingness/desire to have sex with "anything that moves."

I also note that this post is about an article by someone who is more than happy to be defined by her sexuality.

[auroramama]

Be defined by it? That essay was written by a woman who wants to define it.

[10zlaine.livejournal.com]

Androgyny as an odd sexual act or characteristic. How ever am I allowed in public?

[esmeraldus-neo.livejournal.com]

As an androgynous bisexual cat-fancier (although my cats and I are just good friends), I feel very alone.

[lisaquestions.livejournal.com]

At least you stopped short of demon worship.

[luminosity]

I've been reading your posts about this since the incident at the public restroom, and I've been just appalled--not only at the behavior, but at the roots of intolerance that are so easily occluded by mockery and self righteousness. This JB person. I just... She's digging herself in so deep that she's about to hit water, isn't she?

And yes, I fear she did just compare bisexuals to Satanists. I suppose that, should she reach "I", it wouldn't stand for "intolerant ingrate," would it?

[auntysarah.livejournal.com]

I fear she did just compare bisexuals to Satanists

Never mind Satan - will nobody think of the poor cats?!

[alicephilippa.livejournal.com]

Mew?

=^.^=

I Am NOT a "PET FUCKER"

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

While it is true that my dog has tried to bury her head in my crotch after lovemaking (prompting me to wonder how she will deal with the absence of "dangly bits" after I have my surgery) I have NEVER tried to have intercourse with her.

[norabombay.livejournal.com]

The worst part is that you know that some where out there is a small group of highly homophobic satanists (all three of them) who are going to write in and protest being lumped in with the bisexuals.

This JB is a nutter.

From Mair

[(Anonymous)]

Oh dear Poor Julie she is getting really really cross She needs to go to the doctors to get some valium .lol

[biascut.livejournal.com]

The comments are fantastic, though. There's about two supportive comments, five of the usual CIF arseholes and then pretty much all the rest pointing out that her position is indefensible.

Do you know whether anyone involved in the protests has plans to pitch an article to the Guardian giving the other side of the story? I would be interested to know whether the Guardian publishes Bindel because they have sympathies with her transphobia or whether they think they're pushing the envelope by publishing both sides of a "debate". Kira Cochrane appears to sympathise with Bindel's abolitionist position on sex work issues, so I wonder whether she also agrees with her transphobia.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not sure that, apart from one CiF article about Isis, the Guardian has ever published a sympathetic article about the transgendered.

But then again, having employed writers such as Bindel, Burchill, Batty & Greer you can suppose that at the Guardian you don't have to be transphobic, but it does seem to help.

[(Anonymous)]

i worked out quite a while ago thanks to greer, grosz and a few others that the simplest and most accurate way to work out if some writer was bigoted was to search the index for 'trans' and read what they had to say.

the guardian i would say supports this proof quite snugly. (oh and their arts column has become a similar bastion of strident liberal conservatism)


frances

[biascut.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. And I certainly wouldn't want to suggest that anyone has a duty to keep battering their heads against a shut door, if it's been tried before or anything. But some of the comments on CiF from the demo organisers were really brilliant, and it would be great to see them get a wider readership if it were possible.

[oatc.livejournal.com]

A little while back they had a trans woman did CiF at least twice. I cannot find her name now. Richard Green's CiF announcing his conference on children was highly sympathetic. And the freelance writer Viv Grosop's CiF on children, that Green refers back to, was excellent.

[shelleybear.livejournal.com]

«   »

I just want to be left alone. I am not in your gang, I did not ask to be, so please don't tell me I am one of yours, and then tell me off for offending your orthodoxy.

Auctor.

So, what part of if you want to be left alone, leave us alone does she not get?

[some-fox.livejournal.com]

*boggle*

Thanks so much for all your hard work on this.

[rozk.livejournal.com]

Sometimes it's hard work, but sometimes, as now, it is sheer delirious pleasure all the way. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee like the man said.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

While the evocation of 'First they came for the...' sometimes seems overused to the point of worn-out cliche, I wonder if JB has ever encountered it, judging by that.

[pirates-daily.livejournal.com]

I've got to say, all the references to JB and the JB Fan Club are deeply confusing to a Torchwood fan.

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

well, if we take the 'bisexual, shags any consenting lifeform and androgynous' parts of that bit, it would fit most Time Agents.

<-- considers forming 'Time Agents annoyed with being lumped in with satanists'.

[pirates-daily.livejournal.com]

*has a feeling Captain John would have liked cats too, and quite possibly satanists*

I'm sorry, was I supposed to be taking her seriously?

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

I see the need for a line of 'bisexual satanist pet-fuckers against transphobia' t-shirts.

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

I found the whole "oh, if only all those minorities oppressed because of their sexuality hadn't got together for mutual support, life would have been so much better" schtick rather confusing ...

[natalie-456.livejournal.com]

A great example of try, fail, try again, fail harder.