Germaine Greer On Transgender Issues

[vetuste_ennemi]

Just came across this excerpt from Newsnight two years ago. It's great fun to see Kirsty Wark trying (and failing) to understand how anybody can hold a belief which does not conform to today's orthodoxy. And trying (and failing) to convince the heretic of her sin.

Here's a snippet:

Wark: If a man has been gender-reassigned... and inwardly feels like a woman... do you think he can ever be a woman?
Greer: No.
Wark: Do you think how people might think that's insulting?
Greer: I don't care. [trigger warning: Greer does use the more direct "don't give a ***" in another part of the interview]

Here's the full thing:

[jim360]

Germaine Greer is, of course, entitled to her opinion.

[Old_Geezer]

"Other people" need to work out why they feel that stating the correct answer to a direct question, is insulting. Or maybe it's Kirsty Wark who feels insulted over nothing ?

[vetuste_ennemi]

Ms Greer's opinion was the fashionable orthodoxy forty odd years ago, Jim. I remember reading (and disagreeing with) "The Female Eunuch in my twenties. How times change, eh?

[woofgang]

I think she was always a bit blinkered in her views.....sort of "my way or the highway" feminism. And of course she may well be right by a given definition (hers) of woman.

[vetuste_ennemi]

//I think she was always a bit blinkered in her views//

I'm going to sound a bit cynical, Woofgang:

Are you saying that because you've always thought she was somewhat "blinkered", or because she hasn't kept up with advanced thinking on trans-gender issues? (I take it you've read The Female Eunuch by the way.)

I ask that because this LGBTQWERTY thing is only a few years old, isn't it? In my day there were quite a few homosexuals (of both traditional sexes) and the occasional April Ashley. Now people are being vilified and public policy made on the basis that you must recognise sexual categories which are, if not fictitious, at least invisible to the naked eye.

[ToraToraTora]

Germaine Greer is, of course, bang on!

[woofgang]

yes I read it but years ago and TBH I can't remember a word of it....and yes I did always think she was a bit blinkered in her views and so blooming serious.

[woofgang]

As an aside...I have just been vilified on a forum, not this one, a forum for discussing regency novels of all things, by saying that the only reason to care about someones sexuality or gender is if you are looking to have a physical relationship with them....other things like their love of gardening and dogs or their views on who should win Strictly or whether the C4 version of Bakeoff is as good as the Beeb version, plus of course minor matters like their manners, moral and ethics, kindness and so on, being much more important.

[ummmm]

That I agree with, Woof.

[vetuste_ennemi]

I'm sorry to here you've been vilified, Woofgang. You might have hoped that the only violence on such a forum would have been done to the bodice.

[vetuste_ennemi]

...hear

[vetuste_ennemi]

The thesis of the book was that (male-prescribed) cultural norms like the nuclear family had robbed the woman of her real self, Woofgang, hence its metaphorical title. So very much up to speed on the "patriarchy" and "male privilege". Everybody (who counted) loved her in those days. Couldn't get enough of her.

[vetuste_ennemi]

A propos of nothing in particular, except that I was amused at the time, I also read around the same time Valerie Solanas' SCUM Manifesto. SCUM being the movement she founded: the Society for Cutting-Up Men".

I remember (after a fashion) a super line from it: "Any man will walk five miles nostril deep in **** to find a friendly pussy.".

[woofgang]

" The thesis of the book was that (male-prescribed) cultural norms like the nuclear family had robbed the woman of her real self, Woofgang, hence its metaphorical title. So very much up to speed on the "patriarchy" and "male privilege". Everybody (who counted) loved her in those days. Couldn't get enough of her."

Oh yes, I remember now.....I was at college at the time.... I am not sure how you define the "people who counted" but my peers and I, who were training to be Occupational Therapists, a traditionally female led profession whose mores even then, were centred around personal choice and independence, thought that she was a bit behind the beat.

[naomi24]

//Wark: If a man has been gender-reassigned... and inwardly feels like a woman...//

How would he know he feels like a woman when he can only imagine what a woman feels like? He might imagine he feels like a woman, but that's all he can do. I agree with her.

[woofgang]

I think that applies to all of us.....what feels like being a woman to me (I am cis gender hetero female) probably differs markedly from what it feels like to....well practically any other cis gender hetero female in the known universe. None of them know or can imagine what it feels like to be me, despite what we may have in common. I guess its the same for blokes. That's what I meant when I said it depended on GG's definition of being a woman.

[naomi24]

// cis gender //

Never having heard of it, I looked that up when Jim mentioned it recently. In the interests of fashionable, right-on 'multi-whatever it is', the people who make up these things have now given us a daft word for 'normal'. :o/

[douglas9401]

Yet another circle completed on Answerbank. :-)

[Old_Geezer]

So do I, but I don't expect I'll get one.