Boom! Germaine Greer Gets Glitterbombed

Had to post this one because it made me smile.  

According to Pink News UK longtime transphobic feminist Germaine Greer was glitterbombed while in New Zealand.  A group calling themselves the Queer Avengers claimed responsibility for the March 14 glitterbombing of one of the patron saints of transphobic feminism 

The 73 year old Greer was in the country as part of Writers and Readers Week for the New Zealand International Arts Festival when she was glittered in Wellington..


"Transphobic feminism is so 20th Century,” asserted Stacey of the Queer Avengers. “It wasn’t okay then and it’s not okay now. Women’s liberation must mean the right to refuse imposed gender roles, to fight for diverse gender expression.”

Greer has a long history of transphobic statements and negativity directed at transwomen, most recently in an August 2009 op-ed she wrote during the height of the Caster Semenya kerfluffle in which she referred to transwomen as 'ghastly parodies' of women.

As far as I'm concerned, this ghastly parody of a human being got what was coming to her and this glitterbombing couldn't have happened to a nicer transphobe..

Queerty Racism And Transphobia On Display Again

There's no love lost between me and Queerty as many of you longtime readers are aware of.  I've written more than a few times about the failures Queerty regularly gets into when it comes to race and trans people.

It seems this rainbow themed site never fails to take the low road when it concerns the way transpeople are covered, the transphobia that is unleashed in its comment threads, the racism it sinks to or with gleefully wallowing in white gay male vanillacentric privilege .

But this was the latest classless move by this site that was revived from the dead in 2011 when it disrespectfully penned the headline in its take on the Daily Mail story about Evie, President Obama's Indonesian trans nanny.

Queerty referred to Evie in its headline about the story as "a tranny ho' 

Seriously Queerty?  Your pink sheets are showing again.   And don't forget the pointed hood.

How apoplectic would you be if a trans themed publication aimed a word you consider a slur to your community at you and your readership?  Umm, never mind, we already know the answer to that question.

Queerty and other stops in the Gayosphere, this transphobia in gay circles is really getting old.

This time you got a two-fer in terms of letting your transphobia and racism shine through in your headline aimed at Evie.

As Evie's story points out, transpeople are part of the diverse mosaic of human life and we are intertwined with it to the point in which we not only make history, a transperson was the nanny for the future president of the United States.

Evie's story also reminds us of where we don't want to go in the international trans community of being unhappily forced to perform and live a gender role we don't feel comfortable with. 

The discrimination and transphobia aimed at my Indonesian transsisters is no joke, and only someone wallowing in vanillacentric privilege would see it that way. 

You Queerty peeps and your like minded acolytes may think being trans is a joke or we don't belong in 'your GL community',  but if you define your community as having the same whiteness and vanillacentric 'special right' to other, discriminate and harass people as cis straight people do without being called on it, that's a community I don't want to be a part of.

Unjust Tennessee Transphobic Bill Dead For Now

The transphobic HB 2279 bill that Tennessee state representative transbigot Richard Floyd (R-Chattanooga) introduced that sought to make it a Class C misdemeanor crime punishable by a $50 fine to use a public restroom or dressing room "designated for one particular sex" if not a member of that designated sex.appears to be dead for now.

Rep. Floyd told Nashville's WTVF-TV his motivation for introducing HB 2279 was reading news reports about the San Antonio Macy's dressing room incident involving transphobic clerk Natalie Johnson.  She denied access to the transwoman in violation of Macy's corporate policy and was subsequently terminated

"I just do not want the same sort of thing happening in Tennessee," Floyd said in a WTVF-TV interview, adding that he believes "society is on the slippery slope to depravity" and the bill would help average citizens avoid being forced to "go along with the perverted way of thinking" promoted by a few persons.

Yeah, right.  And what about us citizens who don't want your conservabigotry imposed on us?  

Moving on to the good news.   The bill was effectively killed (for now) thanks to Sen. Bo Watson (R-Hixson) withdrawing his Senate version of the unjust bill. 

For the unjust bill to become law it not only had to pass both chambers of the Tennessee General Assembly, it needed at least one sponsor in the Senate to do so.  

As of this writing no one in the Senate has stepped up to be the sponsor for Rep Floyd's transphobic bill.  
 
As Marisa Richmond of the Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition pointed out in a MetroWeekly article, in the TTPC's view the bill had it been enacted would be unconstitutional: "For any gender non-conforming, or gender variant person, we see this as a violation of their Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures."

In addition, the bill would have put transpeople and androgynous looking cis people transiting the Volunteer State either in its airports, bus stations or interstate highways traversing the state in the position of being cited for violating the draconian bill.   That's before we even talk about cleaning staffs and parents who bring children of the opposite gender into restrooms with them or fitting rooms.

So yeah, this was a bad bill that needed to die.   This is a prime example of a legislator seeking to write an unjust law targeting a minority group and in the process not seeing (or caring) that it would have ripple effects far beyond the group they were singling out for vindictive action.

The TTPC will keep a watchful eye on the HB 2279 situation and so will I.  .

Unjust Tennessee Transphobic Bill Update

Since I posted about the transphobic 'Bathroom Harassment Bills' that two Tennessee legislators filed less than 24 hours after the session started January 10, there have been some new developments since I first posted the story.

SB 2292, the Senate version of the unjust bill that was sponsored by Bo Watson (R-Hixson) as a favor to Rep. Richard Floyd has been withdrawn with the senator's communications director stating his reason for it was that “Sen. Watson concluded that there are far more pressing issues facing the state of Tennessee at this time.”

That is not deterring Rep Floyd (R-Chattanooga)  who is doubling down on the transbigotry, ramping up the transphobic rhetoric and continuing to push HB 2279. 

He said he'd resort to violence if a transwoman was in the restroom with his wife or daughters.

FLOYD: I believe if I was standing at a dressing room and my wife or one of my daughters was in the dressing room and a man tried to go in there — I don’t care if he thinks he’s a woman and tries on clothes with them in there — I’d just try to stomp a mudhole in him and then stomp him dry.

Don’t ask me to adjust to their perverted way of thinking and put my family at risk. We cannot continue to let these people dominate how society acts and reacts. Now if somebody thinks he’s a woman and he’s a man and wants to try on women’s clothes, let him take them into the men’s bathroom or dressing room.

He also doubled down on the transphobic insanity by trying to claim his bill doesn't 'penalize anybody', would 'protect everybody' and he doesn't care what transpeople or trans advocacy groups think about it'

Vanillacentric cis privilege in action folks. .



Yeah Richard, that was the same excuse and jacked up thinking people who shared your ethnicity used over five decades ago to justify segregated bathrooms during the Jim Crow era.  

Stay tuned, this is going to continue to be interesting to watch.

God bless them, the TTPC will have their hands full as they always do every legislative session as they battle to make life better for Tennessee trans people. . 

It's also a living example of what I consistently point out to liberal-progressive people.  

You cannot expect liberal-progressive social policies to come out of conservative politicians.  We need to be as zealous in sending our people to public office to represent our values and agenda as the conservafools have been in electing people like Rep. Richard Floyd to represent their bigoted values and devoid of logic agenda.