After appearing to speak to a debating society at prestigious Cambirdge University, 'feminist' Germaine Greer has had to face the anger expressed by a large number of students after claiming that transphobia doesn't exist.
Expressing long held opinions that she is some kind of superior being to the rest of the world Greer firstly attacked 'hoards of feminist journalists' who she believes are 'too stupid' to understand wider issues and reinforce gender stereotyping.
Greer soon went on to argue that the Everyday Sexism campaign, claiming that it made misogyny sexy. Really?! Anyone who is familiar with Everyday Sexism will tell you that the hundreds of thousands of accounts of women and girls who face sexism and sexual abuse is in no way sexy. It's eye opening, it's anger inducing and heartbreaking. But perhaps that's just my opinion, maybe Germaine Greer finds 13 year old girls talking about rape a big turn on.
Transphobia, a topic that Greer has had frequent opinions of over the years, soon became a target of her speech. Greer went on to say; 'Women are 51% of the worlds population and I've got to worry about transphobia. I didn't know there was such a thing. Arachnophobia, yes. Transphobia, no.'
Greer has been very vocal about her hatred of trans women over the course of her career, frequently denying people their correct pronouns and disrespecting their gender expression. In her book The Female Eunuch she describes trans women as 'men who mutilate themselves' and in The Whole Woman she describes us as 'men who believe they are women and had themselves castrated'.
When faced with angry responses from the students she was talking to she quickly felt the need to defend herself, insisting that trans people are 'the one's throwing stuff at me', possibly referring to the incident where she was glitter-bombed during a book signing. Yes Germaine, all that hurtful glitter getting thrown at you is indeed reason enough to spread hate speech about a whole marginalised minority,
This isn't the first time that Greer has faced trouble at Cambridge University due to her transphobic views, in 1996 she resigned from her lecturing position after unsuccessfully trying to destroy the career of transgender fellow Rachael Padman.
In addition to those in attendance of the talk that took disagreement with Greer's views there were many members of the Cambridge University's LGBT+ Campaign who boycotted the event and even handed out flyers outlining Greers history of transphobia outside of the event.
Student Em Travis wrote in favour of the boycott for Cambridge's LBGT+ magazine Get Real. They described Greer's views as 'twisted and misinformed'. They went on to say 'I do not want to share a building with Germaine Greer. I don't particularly want to share a city or even a planet with her, for that matter, or with any other person who contributes to the marginalisation, oppression and death of my trans siblings.
I would say that hopefully this will be the last we hear of Greer and her transphobic views after receiving such a negative reaction for them, but if her past tells us one thing she will continue to attack the transgender community at any given opportunity.
Germaine Greer turns 76 today, so hopefully she won't be alive much longer and the world can start being a better place. Happy birthday Germaine, you vicious old hag.
Amy.
xx
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