Transgender agenda

IDECIPHERED a new acronym this week. TERF; transexclusionary radical feminist. Stay with me. Yes, I know many of you find this stuff irritating because it only seems to footer in the sidelines of history when the main game right now is will China invade Taiwan and what will ScoMo take to Glasgow, if he goes there? A lump of coal, a handful of uranium or a block of melting polar ice?

Realistically you can’t get to Taiwan and be of any help over there. Nor can you, like ScoMo apparently, very easily get yourself to Glasgow. But you can attend a public forum at the Hobart Town Hall on Saturday November 27 where you should have a lively and informative night. You will hear all about those so-called TERFs, feminists whose perceived hostility to “transgender” people is considered “transphobic”. Both those words are accepted in the game of scrabble. In the game of life, they might not be universally received as you will no doubt learn next month. Unless Hobart council backs down from its disputed decision to rent out the town hall to an organisation called Women Speak Tasmania.

The group plans to hold a forum on what they see as the dangers of “transgenderism”. That is a term so recently in use that its meanings are still under construction. It is a word rejected by the trans community, which argues it suggests transitioning as an ideology rather than a natural part of human diversity. Certainly, it is not yet a scrabble word. As good and sympathetic an explanation as I have seen for people who identify as trans is Susan Stryker’s early and informative “Transgender History” (Seal Press 2008). Stryker explains, “I am one of those people who, from earliest memory, always felt I was a girl even though I had a male body at birth, and everybody considered me to be a boy. I didn’t have an explanation for those feelings when I was younger, and after a lifetime of reflection and study I am still open minded about how to explain them.”

Open mindedness is a scarce commodity in today’s gender wars. The old two-way battle of the sexes has morphed into a hydra-headed monster with as many warring tendencies, sects, cults and divisions as any major religion. As always in human history, there are no fiercer enemies than those who worship the same god and no more bitter falling-out than among those who passionately believe (almost) the same thing.

The Battle of the Hobart Town Hall has distant origins in the 1960s Female Liberation movement, inspired by Germaine Greer, which forever challenged white male privilege and the oppression of women. A good cause, whose scattered adherents are now looking every bit as disputative as the followers of Jesus and as divided as the followers of Mohammed. (Note to self: that was a lot of enemies to make in one paragraph. But you can’t expect to make many new friends writing about any form of ideological intolerance.)

I’m indebted for this poisoned chalice to a brave young Mercury reporter Kenji Sato who waded in this week, where angels might fear to tread. (Mercury, October 4). Sato reported; “‘Self-styled radical feminists’ who liken what they call ‘transgenderism’ to a ‘cult’ , ‘social contagion’ and a ‘male fetish’ , are holding a forum at the Hobart Town Hall.”

Hobart City Councillor Jax Fox, formerly known as Jax Ewin, reportedly strongly opposed the Women Speak

Tasmania group’s booking of the publicly owned town hall for their meeting. The group appears to include traditional feminists like Germaine Greer who got into trouble when she said, “It isn’t fair that a man who has lived for 40 years as man and had children with a woman and enjoyed the services, the unpaid services of a wife, which no women will ever know, then decides that the whole time he has been a woman.” There might also be some concern on the part of feminists that transgender men are muscling in on their patch; there is disquiet over public dunnies and female sporting facilities.

In sport of course there are athletic controversies as we saw across the Tasman this week when the transgender weightlifter Laurel Hubbard, at 43 years of age, was named New Zealand Athlete of the Year. Critics said that Hubbard had used the benefits of a natural male physique to dominate in a female competition. Back in 2017 Hubbard, who understandably avoids publicity and rarely speaks to the media, addressed the controversy. “All you can do is focus on the task at hand and if you keep doing that it will get you through. I’m mindful I won’t be supported by everyone, but I hope that people can keep an open mind and perhaps look at my performance in a broader context.”

An open mind and a broader context might be the best outcome if the November 27 event goes ahead as planned. Councillor Fox, clearly not for turning on the town hall forum, told this paper on Monday, “I cannot imagine any other venue anywhere else in Hobart would be comfortable with hosting such an event.” Look at it another way, which of course true believers can never do; surely the fact that our too often distracted and discordant HCC is facilitating free social discussion is good for democracy.

The contest of ideas (no matter how deep the division) is the difference between our society and totalitarianism. Our way or China’s. You choose. Fox can still close down the forum if that is what the city councillor wants to do. Jax probably won’t know of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Launch in Hobart in 1997 when 3000 protesters closeddown a much smaller meeting of Hanson supporters in the same Town Hall. Hanson’s was also a legitimate public meeting and the venue had been hired from the HCC. The protest was organised by Jennifer Brown a former unsuccessful Greens candidate for the then seat of Denison. Brown later wrote an opinion piece for the Mercury. She revealed how elated she was on the night when her group drowned out Hanson with the chant, “Migrants are welcome. Racists are not! Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho.” Brown wrote of always “proudly” recalling how her supporters, “swamped the town hall with their chant.” And how, “Pauline and her few supporters were forced to abandon it.” I’m sure more than two decades later Jen Brown whom I understand went on to do most useful work in the fields of Law and Public Health would now consider it was an inglorious victory.

Jen has moved on and Pauline is still in federal politics.

Saturday 27 next month should be an interesting night if all opinions are countenanced, and if a strong and unbiased moderator makes sure everyone gets a fair hearing. I’m not putting my hand up for that job. Instead, I nominate the young journalist Kenji Sato who has already done the research.

He has assembled a diverse and interesting cast of characters and opinion.

There is a sociologist from the ‘it takes two to tango’ school of human biology who says “transgenderism is a complete denial of sex as binary.” There is a former antidiscrimination commissioner who defends the right to hold the forum but cautions, “There are a lot of people who are just trying to get on with their lives in a world that doesn’t understand their circumstances.” And there is that Councillor Jax Fox who is a self-described Marxist (Karl not Groucho) and who describes the position of Women Speak Tasmania thus: “It’s illogical, it’s offensive, it’s anti-science, it’s anti-peerreviewed (sic) research and it’s totally discriminatory.” Which is of course substantially what the other side will also say. Let’s hope on the last Saturday in November the organisers invite all sides to argue their case and to inform the public on a subject that is not at all well understood.

Why have the arguments about men who transition to become women been better aired than those about women who transition to become men?

Is that less common or just less controversial? And if so, why and what am I missing here? There’s a lot to learn from such a forum but try to go armed with at least some background.

Read Stryker’s ‘Transgender History’ and brush up on Greer’s ‘Female Eunuch’ which got this whole show on the road in the first place. If you have time, read some basic biology and psychology. Accordingly, I have given you some weeks warning but if that’s all too much homework, just bring along compassion, common sense and an open mind.

Then you might even finish up wondering, what the hell are they all fighting about?

And why?