Where I stand in light of where I came from
And how it fits in with the Terf' Tranny Alliance.
As the name of this Substack says, this is a place for general musings, so it is somewhere to work out my position on issues, or consider how I reached my position on them.
The 'trans' issue as a political phenomenon came to my attention in the mid 1980s when I was a young 'Trotskist' in the the Labour Party. Not one of those horrible boyish Militant ones, though I had more in common with them in terms of class, but one coming from a much more sophisticated and academic place from as a History and Sociology student at the redbrick University of Manchester in the UK. Can't even remember what the group was called now (Tariq Ali had been involved at some point), but we all had code names and met up on a monthly basis. Very cloak and dagger lol. To be honest we were probably all really democratic socialists in the manner of Jeremy Corbyn. In fact one of us went on to work as a researcher for him after dropping out of his PhD looking at the politics of the revolutionary groups in Nicaragua…even doing fieldwork there in the middle of the Regan backed Contra Wars.
At home, this was the era of Thatcher and her own particular war on women. Section 28 only boosted the attacks on Lesbians who were already losing custody of children to their ex husbands when they left and started up relationships with other women. Second wave feminism and publications like Spare Rib told them they did not need to stay in loveless marriages pretending to be something they were not. The family courts often acted to show the establishment's disapproval. Reports seem to be out of print now, and later references are retold in the queer studies lingua francas but in 1985 it was highlighted in Lesbian Mother's on Trial : Report on Lesbian Mothers and Child Custody, Rights of Women. There was the fight against restrictions on abortion law after a Liberal MP (of all people) David Alton tried to reduce the time limit for legal abortions to 18 weeks. I played an active part locally in an amazing women's led movement opposing the Alton Bill, called FAB, Fight the Alton Bill 1987 to 1988…lobbying and writing letters to local newspapers. The letter writing got me in deep trouble with a local Labour councillor who was the equivalent of the police and crime commissioner at the time in Greater Manchester. He was very pro this bill, which fell on the 3rd reading largely due to the national FAB campaign. He accused me of acting under the orders of some local loudmouth Marxist bloke lol, and literally had me up against a wall while doing it. Happy Days. I could wax lyrical about my experiences of the men on the left but will resist. I will also resist going into any further unnecessary detail of my time as a left wing and women's activist and concentrate on the Trans issue.
Of course there was no such thing as transgender back then. There were transvestites and the very occasional transsexual (Yes the more things change, the more they stay the same). Most were happy to keep their fetish to themselves or attend special nights often in the gay village (more on that later). The most I, and most other people, knew about it was the story of George (Julia) Grant told in the documentary series, A Change of Sex, George and Julia from 1998. Since then it has been retold, glamourized and mystified several times leading to the 'Transgender Pioneer'status he holds today see the obituary:
https://www.itv.com/news/granada/2019-01-03/remembering-manchesters-transgender-pioneer
Like our Tru Trans ‘friends’, George was against the medical transistion of children. Unlike a lot of them them he also disapproved of social transition.
Trying to look up anything from the media on transvestism, though I do vaguely remember programmes dealing with this and other kinks, is virtually impossible on Google. Like the cases of the Lesbians who lost their children, it has disappeared into the thin air. Needless to say, most people would be weary of men in dresses at that time and they were not a common sight.
My first encounter with a (at a guess), tranvestite, was through my left wing activities. The left of the Labour Party set up a faction called The Socialist Campaign Group in 1981. It held a number conferences/workshops over the years. I achieved the emotional status of are you fucking kidding me?, after attending speeches from the floor at the women's caucus which focused on wether feminists should employ female cleaners and nannies. This was toward the end of the 1984 to 1985 miner’s strike!!! Then we wonder why the men didn't take us seriously. Later I was listening to the larger event's speakers from the floor session. After listening to man after man I decided to start a chant about 'let a woman speak' when I reached almost ready to kill somebody levels of frustration. It was the last contribution of the day, when a bloody obvious to a blind man on a flying horse, oldish man in a dress was deliberately chosen to speak for women. Like I said the more things change, the more they stay the same. I had noticed him and had been quite happy with him parking himself next to a bunch of women. That good will disappeared however when he accepted that invitation.
I will continue this later in part 2.
I've found that my thinking is much clearer now that I am not submitting to the linguistic capture of the wealthy, oversexed Canadian "sexologists" and their "official diagnoses" and I go back to saying my ex-husband is a cross-dressing man.
Thank you for sharing your story. It could have been my story too - but with a few variations. I went from being a radical feminist on the extreme left to being a politically homeless, radical grassroots 'femalist'. I became aware of the trans issue in the early 80s but the issue didn't really get in my face and into my life (professionally) until the late 90s. Now, in 2022, I have a niece/nephew and a nephew/niece, a traumatised, fragmented family and nowhere to turn because I live in Tranada. Ute, I'm sorry. I've been screaming from rooftops for decades.