Entitled Men Talking About Trans

What's quite dispiriting at the moment is how many people I used to admire are now coming out and saying blatantly transphobic things, and digging their heels in even after its been explained to them why their views are not acceptable. I come from a working class background where misogyny and LGBT issues were never discussed. You just got on with your life and defended yourself the best you could. In that environment, while rejecting out and out bigotry, I think I picked up a fair few ideas that were misogynist, transphobic and racist too for that matter. But now we live in an age where we able to reflect on these ideas, and to be able to question our internalised bigotry. I mean, I never believed trans women were able to be women, until I did this thing for myself. I used to think trans women were pretending, I really did. I thought it was an elaborate act. It's not until you experience transitioning for yourself, or experience it by seeing someone you know well go through it, that you see what is really going on.

So I think I understand where Perry is coming from in this interview but I cannot forgive him for spouting off in the face of enormous opposition from trans people, where he has had every opportunity to educate himself. He works in an academic environment so he really ought to know better.

He stresses he is a transvestite, not transgender: he dresses up for sexual thrills. Transvestitism is bound up in his taste for fetish sex, PVC clobber and sadomasochism, which featured often in his early work. “The trans spectrum is a whole different thing. I wouldn’t particularly want to live full-time as a woman. It’d be such a fag for starters, the amount of preparation every day!” (It takes him 90 minutes to apply the wig, make-up and padding.)

I have to wonder what he means by this word "preparation". I mean I am a woman and the amount of preparation it takes for me to be able to be a woman every day is zero. I'm a woman while I sleep, and I'm a woman the moment I awake. The "preparation" he talks about isn't about being a woman, its about having others see you as a woman. And if you're confident in yourself and its safe to do so you may well not bother. Quite often I get up, put on the easiest thing I can find to put on and just get on with my day. I do not consciously think, right, time to be a woman now. But maybe the truth is that Perry wouldn't want to live as a "full-time" woman because he isn't one. Simple as that. I do because I am a woman.

 If a trans woman doesn't pass then there might be some preparation time, but not to be a woman, but to be able to fit in with what cis gender people consider to be the outward appearance of a woman.

If I'm going to work then I have to take a bit longer, but tbh its not such a big deal. My clothes are organised and laundered, I do my make up on the train travelling in - my only issue particularly is my hair which has to look clean and not so much like a birds nest.

I moisturise, I remove unwanted hair, I faff about a lot trying to convince myself that I look OK to go out the door - and that isn't just a trans thing. Sometimes I end up struggling to find something to wear for odd reasons, such as, I feel fat, or because it triggers dysphoric feelings.

So what does Perry mean by "preparation"? I'm tempted to think he means like a drag queen or a transvestite, ie, a man trying to make himself look a woman, but not identifying as one. Trans women aren;t drag queens.

The interviewer, Janice turner seems to agree:

I say I don’t find being a woman nearly so onerous. I’m being facetious, but like many feminists, I’m weary of womanhood being defined as an elaborate façade: fancy nails, false eyelashes, lingerie, sparkly clothes, heels.

She immediate uses Perry's comment as an excuse to shove in one of the more well used straw men arguments that TERFs like to trot out. But womanhood is no more an elaborate façade for me than it is for any woman, and I too don't find it as onerous. I don;t really find fancy nails, false eyelashes, lingerie, sparkly clothes or heels to be an essential part of my every day life.

Perry thinks the transgender lobby “is a very vocal group. They punch above their weight. I do wonder why they are so angry.” Maybe because trans women almost always began as heterosexual men? Perry laughs. “Yes, so they have that entitlement. Yes, it could be.”

This is the clincher for me - and shows that Perry has heard us and has decided to just disregard our concerns.

Here, he calls us 'entitled men', which of course is what he is. So that must mean, by his own logic,that his opinion is to be disregarded. He is also completely ignoring transgender men, and considering his new programme is about masculinity, isn't this a bit bizarre?

As Germaine Greer and Ian McEwan have discovered, there are vicious words and possible “no-platform” edicts for anyone who doubts the new ethos that anyone who “identifies” as female – even if in possession of a penis – is a woman. In his lectures Perry has learnt to insert endless caveats to ward against those seeking out offence.

No-one knows vicious words better than trans women. This is TERF language - apparently transgender people must not speak up against the hate we hear all the time, or the erasure of our lived experiences. Oh, and definitely mention "penis". But trans people don't "no platform" anyone. We refuse to engage with out abusers. We refuse to engage because there are people who are not trans telling us how we should indentify, and she's a bigot, she speaks with absolutely no evidence - doesn't even pretend to be evidenced and seems to take great delight in trolling us. Also she's all over the frigging media; she effectively talks all over us with her far greater reach in the media than we have all put together; she inspires hatred in the communities we have to live in; her pointless trolling adds nothing to the debate trans people would like to be having; she effectively ensures that trans women (in particular) feel unable to engage with feminism. She is creating fear and isolation in our community.

He argues all identity is “co-created: other people have to believe it. It is not enough for me to say, for example, ‘I am a black man,’ if no one agrees with me.”

Which suddenly means that men are allowed to shape women's identities...? I mean this is such a dangerous thing to believe. You can't be a woman until every other person agrees with you? Or do you just need a working majority? Many cis women agree trans women are women so why do I need to convince the haters? If I walk out of a room where everyone thinks I'm a woman and into one full of transphobes do I suddenly change back to a man? Actually it doens't matter how many people thought I was a man before - they were all wrong.

He tells me of a theory in psychotherapy – of which he has had a great deal – whereby a victim feels entitled because of their perceived oppression to become a persecutor. “And they enjoy the persecuting rather too much. Self-righteousness is an addictive drug,” he says. “People need to be weaned off.”

He's strongly implying here that we are mentally ill and are the oppressors. This entitled man needs to be weaned off his own self righteousness.

Perry says, “I have no special insight into being a woman. And I would never claim that. I am just a bloke in a dress.”

That's because Perry is a man, not a woman and not transgender.But because he wears dresses he still thinks he can talk about being trans. What sheer entitlement.

Maybe, he says, the whole gender-fluid, transgender explosion is fuelled by men trying to escape masculinity’s narrow parameters. Meanwhile, as a new wave of feminism has gained force, “being a man has negative associations: I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a crisis because of the guilt young men hold now for being men. They’re so demonised.”

Because that would really explain trans men wouldn't it and assigned female people who idneitify as non binary? There is a conspiracy by the media and feminism, and male transphobes, to completely ignore trans men and non binary people.

And for the record, I never felt guilt about being assigned male. It just felt wrong. I had nothing to feel guilty about.

 Perry even admits trans women do not present as the most feminine women, and will struggle for years with their identity, often identifying as transvestites before finally finding the truth.