On Monday 11 August, I was asked to appear on the BBC’s Newsnight with two other trans activists and journalists, Paris Lees and Fred McConnell. In light of Frank Maloney’s announcement that she is well into the process of gender transition and is now known as Kellie Maloney, we were going to discuss what it means for someone to “identify as a woman”.
A researcher from the BBC approached a number of feminists, including the journalist Julie Bindel and the broadcaster Gia Milinovich, asking them to participate. Both declined because, in Milinovich’s own words, “anything even slightly ‘gender critical’ or with a feminist analysis will [be] met with death threats . . . that’s the real story.” The researcher then asked for suggestions, adding: “Should say we’re not looking for hostilities.”
I put myself forward and I was invited to debate on “What are the issues that you have with someone identifying as a woman?” from the point of view of a trans woman who supports a gender critical approach informed by feminism.
The gender critical approach establishes that “being a woman” is not a matter of an individual’s identity. Someone who is gender critical recognises that trans women are biologically male (and trans men are biologically female), that human beings are sexually dimorphic, that we are all subject to sex-based socialisation from birth. These are not value judgements; being biologically male is neither a good thing nor a bad thing. It is morally neutral.
This feminist approach views gender essentialism as the basis of women’s oppression, which as an extreme example would include violence (by men) against women. This is not to say that all men are violent, rather that male socialisation has violent aspects (like female socialisation has aspects that are, to quote a phrase, “sugar and spice and all things nice”). I therefore view gender as a harmful social construct which divides power unequally. I think of it as a hierarchy, with the sex-class “male” at the top.
The gender critical approach is by no means a generally accepted analysis among other trans people. For example, Paris Lees argued last week in The Independent that “Kellie Maloney has always been female”, which is clearly at odds with gender critical feminist analysis and my own position as a gender critical trans woman. On the basis that being trans is defined using terms such as “gender identity disorder” and “gender dysphoria”, I am probably beginning to sound like a turkey who is in favour of Christmas!
Back to the story. At around 6.45pm on the day, I was advised that I would be debating these ideas with Paris Lees. (I presume Paris received a similar email.) As the evening progressed, a section of the trans community had taken to Twitter to protest my presence in this debate, describing me as “a self-hating transphobic trans woman” and a “bigot”. These accusations were also directed at members of the show’s production team, and had reached Paris and Fred. One activist had called producer Toby Bakare a “piece of scum” for inviting Milinovich to discuss gender on the show.
I offered to make my own way to the studio to join the debate, however the BBC insisted on sending a car for me and this arrived around 8.30pm. At 8:48pm, Paris tweeted that she was “not prepared to enter into a fabricated debate about trans people’s right to exist/express themselves.” I arrived at the studio around 10pm. I was taken to make-up and then asked to wait in the Green Room. At 10:09pm Fred tweeted that “thanks to this awesome trans community” he had avoided a “TERF-filled trap” (“TERF” stands for “trans-exclusionary radical feminist”). At around 10:20pm I was informed that because both Fred and Paris had withdrawn from the debate, it was cancelled. I was advised that there had been “misinformation” spread about what the debate was to be centered on.
So, what was it that had led to the BBC’s flagship news and current affairs programme dropping a section on what it means to be trans and trans identity itself? An exchange on twitter had journalist Jennie Kermode stating that she was “Shocked that #Newsnight has decided to debate whether or not trans people have a right to exist. How would that go down about another group?”
This was never on the agenda (why would I engage in a metaphysical discussion of my own existence? Trans people do exist!) and the show’s editor Ian Katz responded that the show “was never debating whether trans people have right to exist . . . that’s a ludicrous misrepresentation”’ and “it was an item considering the impact of Kellie Maloney announcement on attitudes to trans people, and trans identity.”
He added: “we invitd several trans guests. Unfortunately there ws concerted – and intolerant – effort to close dwn discussion”. The reaction to his tweet included suggestions I was a “random transphobe”, “openly transphobic”, a “violent transphobe”. “Why give bigotry a voice?” one tweeter asked Katz. The same person compared me to homophobic American preacher Fred Phelps, and said: “so ask trans people, we actually fucking exist, we’re not a figment of the imagination. Fucking lazy effort.” Another said: “Perhaps you should check what the law is on transphobia and what your invited guests espouse?”
I think at this point it is worth giving a little bit more information on my background. As I’ve already explained, I am a trans woman. I publish a small music magazine called Terrorizer which covers extreme music, much of which may be described as extreme heavy metal. I am very active within that world and I am known as being a trans woman who gets along in a world that’s very male dominated, not that I would ever deny the male privilege that got me here. The metal scene, like many music scenes, has problems with homophobia, indeed we have just published a significant piece attacking homophobia in the metal scene.
Most of that previous weekend, I had spent at the Bloodstock Open Air festival in Derby, where I’d stood in the middle of a cold, wet and windy field telling people all about my magazine. Obviously, when I am doing this, I am conscious that I am standing in front of up to 10,000 people as an openly trans woman. This is hardly erasing of trans identities, in fact it demonstrates that someone who is trans can do things that are affirming and I would suggest that my actions as a trans woman in this world have a positive effect on the image of trans people in wider society.
I suggest that the claims of “transphobia” and “erasure” are red herrings, used to conceal the fact that there is a difference of opinion between me and the people involved in the Twitter barrage (apparently as well as Paris and Fred). I therefore suspect the real reason to avoid this debate is that Kellie’s transition rasies a number of difficult questions, and confronting these is something the trans community struggles to do, not least because they are at the very heart of what it means to be trans.
Kellie Maloney has spoken of “being born in the wrong body”, “having a female brain” and that she has “always known I was a woman”. But what do these statements mean? Do women and men have different brains? (The science would suggest not.) What does it actually mean to be a woman? Can someone who has lived 60 years as a boy and then a man, with all the privileges that entails, really lay claim to womanhood, and then demand unrestricted access to women’s spaces like changing rooms and refuges – spaces that exist for the dignity, comfort and protection of women?
These questions divide trans activists and radical feminists. What are the implications for women of positing the existence of a “female brain” in a society where to be female is to be considered inferior? Should someone be accepted as a woman just because they say they are? Do the rights of a trans woman who has lived as a man for 60 years to not feel intimidated by having to use male facilities trump the rights of women to have a safe space where they do not need to be concerned about voyeurism or sexual violence?
Neither of these are settled arguments. This is not black and white. There is room for nuance and debate. But unless we are able to discuss these issues, our politics will become a dead dogma and never evolve. This is the antithesis of what it means to be progressive and so we find trans women working against women, instead of working together.
This was a great opportunity to show the world that there is intelligent debate to be had around trans issues, and communicate some of the complex ideas and issues at the heart of both feminism and the trans community to a wider audience. It was a chance for three trans individuals to take part in a high-profile televised debate. It saddens me that we were unable to have this discussion: it sends out the message that the broader trans community is so insecure in itself that we are unable to analyse ourselves and ask difficult questions.
As a final irony, after the Newsnight segment was ditched, both Paris Lees and I were asked to write about the experience for the Independent. I filed my copy around midday on Thursday 14 August, but was told the following day that Paris had, again, pulled out. What you are reading now is an expanded version of what I wanted to say then. Is it really so unsayable?
Miranda Yardley is the publisher of extreme music magazine Terrorizer and a trans woman. She tweets @TerrorizerMir
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