Transgender discrimination, thanks Julie Bindel

This, quite narrow minded article, was brought to my attention by our blogging friends over at It’s not enough.

Julie Bindel has written an article over at Standpoint Magazine; The Operation That Can Ruin Your Life. My conclusion after reading the article back and forth is a sighing “What a piece of shit!”

Julie Bindel is a self-proclaimed columnist who has, according to herself, been campaigning against child abuse, gender discrimination and domestic violence for 30 years. And also she labels herself to be a leading feminist writer. (This claim and the opinions she would claim to be feminist enrages our resident feminist Cloud.)

Julie has been “out in the cold” now and then due to a column she wrote back in 2004 in which she questioned if a sex change would turn someone into a woman or just a man without a penis. The column caused a riot within the transgender community, Bindel had to have police protection at times.

Her latest article is a continuation of her campaign for a gender cleansed world where man and women, as the only genders, live in equality. There are of course a couple of minor flaws in her argumentation, as always when self-proclaimed advocates of “in the name of all good” argue their standpoints. (Cloud whispers, demagogues, Master – the word for her is demagogue) Let us look at the argumentation, piece by piece.

Gender dysphoria (GD) was invented in the 1950s by reactionary male psychiatrists in an era when men were men and women were doormats. It is a term used to describe someone who feels strongly that they should belong to the opposite sex and that they were born in the wrong body. GD has no proven genetic or physiological basis.

A quite bold statement by someone that is inserting a so called feminist political agenda into what she is writing;

This is nothing that Bindel tries to hide, but her statements are unfounded as she doesn’t use any references to support her claim. Saying that GD was invented by aliens destined to take over the earth slowly,  by making all men into women, would be equally valid with the same type of argumentation. This argument falls on its own absurdity and it’s merely an opinion, nothing else.

Bindel continues her article with the following paragraph:

A review for the Guardian in 2005 of more than 100 international medical studies of post-operative transsexuals by the University of Birmingham’s Aggressive Research Intelligence Facility found no robust scientific evidence that gender reassignment surgery was clinically effective. It warned that the results of many gender reassignment studies were unsound because researchers lost track of more than half of the participants.

This reflects a classic rhetorical trick; Pick one study that is supporting your claim and is often used by skeptics to validate their advocated truth. The problem with most skeptics is that they often don’t use the same tactics on themselves, which would have made them more credible. Skepticism within science and politics is often tested by utilizing different strategies to debunk theories stated.

Bindel is using one single study as a tool to invalidate a majority of studies that has been carried out on this particular matter. Bindel mention a review carried out by Aggressive Research Intelligence Facility (ARIF) for The Guardian in 2005.

And this is what it says on their page that relates to the study Bindel refers to.

WARNING
This is a brief summary of the evidence available at the time. Readers should not use the comments made in isolation and may wish to consult the references provided. Please be aware that new evidence may have become available since the request’s completion in April 1997 and Update in July 2004.

The research question that ARIF was requested to investigate in 1997 was the following:

What are the effects of gender reassignment surgery, and does the balance of positive and negative effects suggest that this procedure is clinically effective overall?

Let us first have a look at ARIF which is a specialist unit based at the University of Birmingham. ARIF’s raison d’etre is to improve the incorporation of research findings into population level health care decisions in the NHS in the West Midlands region. This is done by helping health care workers access and interpret research evidence, particularly systematic reviews of research, in response to particular problems they are experiencing.

What ARIF does is interpretative reviews of other scientific studies within the field of Health sciences. Operative word here is interpretative. I am a relativist at heart, so I am no believer of the infamous objective truth, no such thing exists – Not even within sciences and I base this statement on my 10 years of experience within higher education, qualitative research and scientific methodologies – The objective truth is just a mirage created by the positivist science tradition. This means that the conclusion that comes out from the review might be biased as well, which is something that ARIF claims as well:

The points above, by raising significant problems in the conduct of much of the research claiming to show that gender reassignment surgery is beneficial, suggests that the true conclusion from the available research is that we genuinely cannot be certain about what its effects are. A systematic review could help reduce this uncertainty, but because of the flawed nature of the majority of the research it is likely that the only way to reduce the level of uncertainty is to undertake more research using more rigorous designs with a control group, ideally randomly assigned, and blind independent assessment of outcomes (Abramowitz SI, 1986).

ARIF states that there is a great deal uncertainty to what the effects actually are. Bindel has taken a part of the research question and infused it into the conclusions made by ARIF. The general conclusion, based on the material at ARIF’s disposal in 1997 and in 2004, is that the design of the reviewed research is not good enough (according to ARIF’s standards) to reveal what the effects of gender reassignment actually are – The results are inconclusive.

Bindel has probably just read the media chewed version of the review in The Guardian without checking the actual source as she even got the year of the review wrong. She has taken an inconclusive result and stated it in a manner that makes it look like the effects were actually negative – Which is something ARIF cannot even answer according to themselves.

The article states a lot of numbers based on statistics, which seems to be valid. Then yet another rhetorical trickery hidden among all the objective facts:

Apart from Thailand, the country with the highest number of sex-change operations is Iran where, homosexuality is illegal and punishable by death. When sex-change surgery is performed on gay men, they become, in the eyes of the gender defenders, heterosexual women. Transsexual surgery becomes modern-day aversion therapy for gays and lesbians.

This is an opinion which is distilled from the statistical figures mentioned and it cannot be supported by the statistics as they don’t reflect the social construct of what transsexual surgery actually becomes to everyone involved, especially gay men in Iran as they would be very hard to gain access to from a research perspective.

Bindel continues with adding very polarized words into her article. She describes the male-to-female surgery as “brutal”, which is a highly subjective opinion, and the fact that it is carried out with governmental founds (in the UK).  This is also a common rhetorical trick made by people with extreme opinions and political agendas. If you have a hard time to gain followers supporting your, usually flawed, opinion then talk to the thing that will make most people listen; Their wallet. Pull out the old argumentation saying “This madness is being paid for with your money”. When using this argumentation Bindel chooses to not discuss the psychological implications of being of the wrong gender, which is something that points out her limited scope as she seems to base her whole article on the physical gender.

The next argument in her crusade against gender reassignment surgery is to involve children. She claims that the latest case that made her react was an 18 month baby diagnosed with GD. There are of course no references to where she have found this information and based on how she has used references in her article prior to this claim, then I would say that what she says has no validity due to her habit of interpreting information and facts. But the rhethorical strategy is obvious; mention brutal, child abuse and tax money in the same article and you might have a winner.

She goes on citing people that regret having done gender reassignment surgery who claims that it was too easy to get the surgery done. Where I live (Sweden) it’s not easy. You have to go through a bunch of investigative gateways where you can be denied surgery based on your mindset and psychological health. Some people probably regret their surgery no matter what, but by mentioning the “negative facts” then you have to look at the opposite side of things as well. There are a majority of people out there that have been helped by gender reassignment surgery.

Bindel writes the following:

Medical science cannot turn a biological male into a biological female — it can only alter the appearance of body parts

This clearly reflects the narrow biological perspective Bindel is applying when attacking transsexuals. She excludes females that have become females through gender reassignment surgery, making being a female into something exclusive. Gender is not only about being accepted, it is also how you feel about yourself and gender reassignment surgery helps this. Bindel totally misses the dialog that goes on between your subconscious and your appearance which affects your well being.

There is a handful of radicals in the world today who have dared to challenge the diagnosis of transsexualism. Those who do are called “transphobic” and treated with staggering vitriol. There is a form of cultural relativism at play here. Defenders of female genital mutilation or forced marriage often use the argument that such practices can be justified within certain communities (i.e. non-Western cultures), despite the fact that they serve to dehumanise women, because it is the “truth” of that particular community. After I had been shortlisted for the Stonewall award, scores of blogs and message boards filled with a call to arms against me.

There is a big difference between challenge and a display of unfounded claims based on twisting facts and figures so it suits your cause. The attempt to demonise people that are pro gender reassignment surgery is ridiculous. It’s done with a simple binary statement; if you are pro gender reassignment surgery, then you must be pro genital mutilation and forced marriage based on cultural relativism. What a nonsense

There is no cultural relativism at play here. What we have is a society that is slowly showing more acceptance towards different sexual and gender related expressions. We have a society that is starting to respect the right to an individual choice – No matter what the “collective” might think is the “right thing”. Gender mutilation doesn’t involve any form of consent, gender reassignment surgery is based on consent. There’s a big difference which makes these to incomparable, even though Bindel tries to.

An eminent medical ethicist who had dared to defend a fellow professional who had questioned the diagnosis of GD from a scientific point of view almost lost his career and reputation. And several women from feminist organisations have been bullied and vilified for challenging the “right” of male-to-female transsexuals to work in women-only organisations.

Yet another statement with no references, but described as the truth. In free society we have the right to challenge, but when we do that then we also accept the fact that we can be challenged. Bindel is making a quite interesting statement here that might put her article in a different light. Is her article just a revenge for all these bullied and vilified feminists? Some statements in Bindel’s article serve no other purpose than to ridicule and demonise transsexuals and the transsexual movement.

In a world where equality between men and women was reality, transsexualism would not exist. The diagnosis of GD needs to be questioned and challenged. We live in a society that, on the whole, respects the human rights of others. Accepting a situation where the surgeon’s knife and lifelong hormonal treatment are replacing the acceptance of difference is a scandal. Sex-change surgery is unnecessary mutilation. Using human rights laws to normalise trans-sexualism has resulted in a backward step in the feminist campaign for gender equality. Perhaps we should give up and become men.

A world based on equality will be a world where race, gender, personal appearence and choice makes no difference. Everyone have equal rights to grow and evolve as human beings and everyone has the right to change if they feel that they belong to the wrong biological gender compared to their psychological gender, Bindel wants to minimize that right which makes me question her quest for a world based on equality. Bindel also has an interesting perspective on things as she feels sorry for those who has regretted their gender reassignment surgery and tries to exclude those who live perfectly happy with their sex change – Exclude them from becoming females.

There is another peculiar fact to Bindel’s article. She has made a choice to not discuss female to male transsexuals. Are they seen as “female traitors” by Bindel in the same way as female bisexuals have been seen as traitors to the lesbian community in the past?

It sure makes you wonder. 

What Bindel wants is a world built on sexual discrimination, as long as she has the right to define what a female is – And transsexual people are not females in Bindel’s world. What she advocates is a discrimination based on the exclusive right that, true and biological, females have to their gender. But equality combined discrimination do not go very well together – Especially when you try to put them both in the same article.