Feminism

A Pride of Our Own

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Trans Pride 2013 - photo by Sharon Offield-Munnings
I spent most of today in Brighton attending their Trans Pride festival. They have billed it as the first ever such event in the UK, though I understand that Manchester regards the long-running Sparkle event as a Pride in all but name. Whatever the situation with bragging rights, however, this was an enormous achievement. As you can see from the photo (thank you, Sharon Offield-Munnings), there was a great crowd, and the sun stayed out for much of the day.

The event started last night with some films, which I did not attend as I had restaurant reviewing to do. I gather that around 100 people attended, and that blew people’s minds. Sarah Savage (one of the stars of My Transsexual Summer), who was on the organizing committee for the Pride, said that when they started out they figured that if they got 50 people attending the main day then they would be happy. Fox just tweeted that the footfall at the event today was 1531. Given that it is a free event, attendance-counting is difficult. That number will have double-counted some people who came in, left to get food, and came back again. Even so, attendance surpassed everyone’s wildest dreams.

While many of the attendees were fairly obviously trans, others were not so. The event took place in Kemptown, Brighton’s gay quarter, and a number of gay and lesbian couples could be seen checking out the stalls. Of course some of those might be trans-identified. A few younger trans folk had come with their parents. A special shout out is due to Tara and her friend who had come all the way from Newcastle to support the event. I even spotted what looked suspiciously like a small hen night party who had presumably come in because there was somewhere to relax with good music.

The stalls, somewhat sadly but inevitably, were mainly from organizations that dealt with providing support, domestic abuse, AIDS prevention and so on. I was very impressed with the Just like You campaign which is trying to do something about the horrendous death toll amongst trans women in Latin America. Please take a look at their website and sign the petition.

The opening ceremonies were well supported by local politicians, including, much to my astonishment, a rousing speech in favour of trans rights by a Conservative councilor. Labour and the Green Party were also represented, but not the LibDems. Perhaps they don’t have any councilors in Brighton.

Throughout the day various trans artists performed on the main stage. I was impressed with Wild, a folk singer, and Hel Gurney, a performance poet. Roz, sadly, wasn’t there, but CN Lester and Bethany Black were. Unfortunately, because I had to get back home for an SFSFC board meeting, I missed their sets. I did get to hang out with CN, which was great, and Beth tweeted that someone reported her act to the police, which probably made her very happy.

The one glaring absence from the event was high profile trans activists/celebrities. Sarah and Fox were then, of course, as was Karen Gale, though I didn’t see her. But neither Press for Change nor Trans Media Watch had a presence at the event. I know that there is a limit to how much travel people can do, but I would have thought that this was an event worth supporting.

Next year, then. Because I am sure that there will be a next year. This one, after all, was very successful, and the people of Brighton clearly backed it. Next year will be bigger. Next year will be better. And following on from this I hope to see Trans Pride events in other cities around the country. Brighton has proved that it can be done, and if we do want a Pride that highlights our own issues then we have to organize it ourselves. No one else is going to do it for us.

LGBT Rights – The EU Survey

~ Cheryl

Conveniently timed for Trans Pride, the EU has released the results of a major survey of the lives of LGBT people in member countries and Croatia (which was not a member when the survey was undertaken). I haven’t had a chance to read the full document yet (you can download it free here), but I have had a browse through their interactive data map here. Some of the data is quite interesting.

One thing you can try is looking at the results produced by the trans-related questions when answered by all respondents as compared to responses from self-identified trans people. For example, in answer to the question, “In your opinion, how widespread are positive measures to promote respect for the human rights of transgender people in the country where you live?” the total survey puts The Netherlands and Sweden on top, but if you look just at trans people then Belgium and Spain come out the most transphobic.

The question, “In your opinion, in the country where you live, how widespread is discrimination because a person is Transgender?” puts Croatia top of the list, which rather surprised, me. But again if you ask only trans people then numbers are different. Cyprus, Bulgaria and Romania are apparently the worst places. (The survey took place before all of the unpleasantness in Greece started.)

This, however, is still a question about the perception of discrimination. When the survey asked, “In the last 12 months, in the country where you live, have you personally felt discriminated against or harassed because of being perceived as Transgender?” the top country was (…drumroll…) The United Kingdom.

Oh dear.

Gender Imbalance – Why It Happens

~ Cheryl ~ 5 Comments

Articles about gender imbalance in publishing are ten-a-penny these days. Everyone has an opinion, and I’ve been starting to ignore them unless they have something new and interesting to say. Last night I found one such article: this one.

The article begins by recapping the usual story about the VIDA survey, but it very quickly gets onto asking why men dominate publication stats, and what can be done about it. The usual excuse trotted out for an imbalance is, “we can’t publish what we don’t get,” accompanied by stats showing that men dominate submissions. But why don’t publishers get submissions from women? Rob Spillman, founder and editor of the literary magazine Tin House, decided to dig deeper.

The first thing to note is that Tin House does solicit some contributions. It isn’t clear what the balance of those solicitations is, but Spillman notes that, when he does solicit material, men are twice as likely to send him something.

Beyond that, he also looked at how male and female writers responded to rejection of unsolicited submissions. As of when he was interviewed, 100% of the men that Spillman had sent a rejection letter to had tried again at least once. Only 20% of the rejected women had done so.

What is the explanation for this? Well I’m sure that some people will assume that this proves that women are lazy, stupid and incompetent. If they can’t manage to submit to magazines, how can they expect to get published in them?

Spillman and his team, however, decided to try to encourage more women to contribute. And while they were still happy to accept material from male writers, they stopped actively soliciting them. After all, they didn’t need to. The men would submit anyway. The result was a much more even gender split (42 men and 56 women in 2012).

But wait, surely this is positive discrimination! It is Politically Correct, and hugely unfair to men! Material from lazy incompetents is being encouraged! Surely quality will suffer! (I’m resisting going into all caps here, but only just.)

Here too, Spillman was prepared. His magazine is well thought of in the literary community and regularly wins awards. The 2012 experiment with women writers caused very little difference in the number of nominations for Best American Short Stories, O. Henry awards, and the Pushcart Prize that the magazine received.

So is there another reason why women are so reluctant to submit? Spillman’s explanation is that they are just shy. “You’ve got to draw them into the conversation,” he said. And that is probably true. In most cultures girls are trained from an early age to keep quiet and let men talk. But I’d like to suggest some additional theories.

Willingness to put yourself forward is all a matter of confidence. You have to be confident in your own ability, and you have to be confident that you will be treated fairly.

As far as self-confidence goes, aggression directed towards women who are publicly visible, and the lack of reviews for women writers, clearly aren’t going to help. Women writers expect that, if they are published, they will be held to a far higher standard than their male counterparts, and that will naturally make them reluctant to submit unless they think their work is of exceptional quality.

Expectation of fairness may also be an issue. The more experience you have of discrimination, the more likely you are to expect it in future, and the more likely it is that you will ascribe any setback to discrimination rather than to fair judgement of your work. If you are already used to people telling you that you are no good because you are a woman, or because you are black, or because you are queer, then when you get rejected from a venue you may well assume that discrimination was the reason, and that will lead you to not bothering to submit there again.

I can, of course, see reasons why a major publishing house might be unable to implement the sort of strategies used by Spillman at Tin House. There will be penny-pinching middle managers who are liable to get in the way if additional effort and expense is involved. In these days of miniscule PR budgets, you might prefer to sign someone who is self-confident and pushy over someone who is a better writer but unlikely to promote herself well. You might even run into trouble with your corporate ethics people if you seem to be engaging in “positive discrimination”. Nevertheless, I do think that actively seeking out good quality submissions is likely to result in better quality product.

Whether it will result in a more profitable product is, of course, another matter. If some readers are reluctant to buy books by authors who are female, people of color, queer and so on, you can see why a large, profit-driven organization might be reluctant to sign such authors, no matter how keen editors are on their books.

That Was The (LGb) Pride That Was

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

As you doubtless know, I spent last Saturday at Bristol Pride. For the most part it was an absolute blast. The weather was great (at least for exiled California girls), and it was wonderful to see so many people of all genders and sexualities out enjoying the fun. I got to do the BCFM Sports Show, and spend much of the day in the Shout Out field studio, which was one of the best places in the park to see all of the action on the main stage.

Having said that, however, I still came away from the event with a sense of unease, and I’ve been trying to work through that and find out what it was all about. The explanation I have come up with is that Pride isn’t political any more.

Now of course I need to explain exactly what I mean by that. Mostly when people complain about Pride not being political they are complaining that it is no longer anti-establishment, and specifically no longer anti-capitalist. While I have some sympathy with that view I think it is inevitable that, as a wide spectrum of sexualities becomes more acceptable in mainstream society, broad political activism is bound to wane. Gays and lesbians are no longer considered to be outsiders, and some of them are quite wealthy. Heck, this year Bristol had a VIP tent where rich people could enjoy Pride in comfort.

I should also note that politics wasn’t absent from the event. Lots of politicians were there to celebrate alongside us, including the Elected Mayor, George Ferguson; the Lord Mayor, Faruk Choudhury; the (gay) Deputy Lord Mayor, Peter Main; the (gay) head of South Gloucestershire Council, Ian Boulton; and the two city centre MPs, Stephen Williams (gay) and Kerry McCarthy. All of them were, of course, very happy about the impending passage of the marriage equality bill into law. That duly happened this week. There was definitely a sense of victory in the air.

Victory, however, means that the battle for QUITBAG rights is over. Many gay and lesbian people probably assume that it is. And yet the marriage bill, as it turned out, was not a “marriage equality” bill; it was a “different but equal same-sex marriage” bill. During the campaign, most QUILTBAG activists tried to refer to it as a “marriage equality” bill, but the government and the media steadfastly insisted on referring to it as a “same-sex marriage” bill, because equality was something they really didn’t want.

For most practical purposes, of course, same-sex marriages and opposite-sex marriages are equal. Where they are not, it mostly affects people who are outside the gender binary. And there’s the rub. Because while the fight for rights for G and L people may be almost over, for Trans people it is still very much in progress, and for others such as Intersex folks it has barely begun.

This is what I mean by Pride no longer being political. There is an assumption that we have won. We don’t have to protest any more. Indeed, having anyone else complaining that their own rights haven’t yet been granted is seen as “raining on the parade”. Trans people were certainly welcome at Bristol Pride. They weren’t shut out the way that they were in Toronto, for example. The organisers certainly tried to provide trans-specific events, and it isn’t their fault that many trans people are still terrified of being out. But the impression I got from Saturday was that trans people were only fully welcome if they were happy, celebrating Trans people.

There is, of course, an argument to be made that gay rights have been won, not because gays are seen as angry political protestors who need to be accommodated, but because gays and lesbians are seen as people “just like us” who happen to have better parties. The general public doesn’t much like angry complaining people. It likes happy, dancing people who are all about love and happiness.

Possibly trans people need to be happier too. There is, perhaps, a suggestion of a start of this in the “Untragic Trans” panel that was held at this year’s WisCon and is available as an Outer Alliance podcast. Initially that panel made me very angry, because tragic trans people are certainly not a myth. It is great that so many people are making a success of transition these days, but to do so you need a combination of privileges in wealth, social class, geographic location, race and so on. While trans women are still being murdered at a rate of around 5 a week worldwide no one should be claiming that transition is easy and risk free. But as the panel went on the panelists made it clear that they were aware of this. What they wanted to do was provide positive role models to counteract the negative ones. That’s a worthwhile project.

So yes, we need images of happy, successful trans people to present to the general public. Bristol Pride certainly provided that. The younger attendees, in particular, seemed very willing to experiment with gender and sexuality. Given how far we have come in two decades, it may well be that we are only a generation or two away from a society that accepts gender diversity as much as it now accepts diversity of sexuality. On the other hand, it isn’t there right now.

That’s my problem. I’m very happy to celebrate the victory that the marriage legislation represents. I’m absolutely delighted for all of the lesbian and gay friends I have who are now able to marry. But I can’t enjoy a supposedly LGBT event that is all about celebration of victory when my own civil rights are being systematically stripped away. Make it an LG, or LGB, event and I’ll be very happy, but I can’t join in something that purports to be an LGBT celebration if all mention of what is being done to trans people is omitted because it would spoil the party atmosphere.

What I expect will need to happen is that independent Trans Pride organizations will spring up, running their own events which are still very much about political protest as well as having a good time. Indeed, there is one such event happening in Brighton at the end of the month, and I intend to be there. Manchester’s Sparkle event has, of course, been happening for years, but it conflicted with Bristol Pride this year. Next year, if the same conflict of dates happens, I might go to Manchester instead. Or I might just stay home.

By the way, if you are interested in an update on what the marriage legislation has done to Trans people, Sarah Brown has an excellent and in depth explanation.

Today on Ujima – Militant Feminists & Bristol Pride

~ Cheryl

It was a busy day for us at Ujima Radio. Paulette was occupied with a bunch of young lads who were doing some sort of community involvement training. She spent the first half of each hour talking to some of them. I had them in my segments as well, but given that I was talking about feminism and Bristol Pride rather than football they didn’t have a lot to say, and who can blame them.

In the second half of the first hour I talked to local writer, Lucienne Boyce, about suffragette militancy. That was a trailer for this event at M-Shed on Saturday. Given discussions online, I asked Lucienne whether British suffragettes had been as racist as we are learning American ones were. She says she has seen no evidence for it, and that there are records of Indian women being involved, which is encouraging. The main point, however, is that those ladies were seriously militant. If they did stuff like that these days they would be shipped off for extraordinary rendition faster than you can say “terrorist”. Take a listen and see. I was also amused to discover that (male) Bristol MPs engaged in trolling and victim politics in a bid to thwart the suffragettes.

The second half of hour two was given over to discussion of Bristol Pride. Daryn Carter joined me in the studio. We took a look through some of the many events that will be taking place during the rest of the week, and especially on Saturday. Then we talked a little bit about the marriage equality bill and other current LGBT rights issues.

Saturday is the main Pride Day for Bristol, and my pals at Shout Out will be taking over the Bristol Community Radio airwaves for the whole day. Some of the content will be broadcast on Ujima as well. I’ll be spending much of the day wandering around Castle Park looking for victims volunteers to interview. Also, between 3:00pm and 4:00pm I will be in the field studio with Paul Davis doing the Sports Show live from Pride. Given what went on today, it looks like we might be discussing the early end of the Test Match rather than following scores. If you want to follow the day’s broadcasts, you can do so on 93.2fm in Bristol, or streamed over the BCFM website. The shows will also eventually appear on Shout Out’s Listen Again pages.

UK Government: Transphobic or Homophobic?

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

One of the questions that has been exercising my mind over the past few weeks is where the virulent hatred of trans people being exhibited by various branches of the UK government comes from. Because unless you understand the problem, you are not going to be able to find a solution.

At first sight this seems to be a clear case of transphobia. The singling out of trans people for special discrimination in the Equality Act, the Same-Sex Marriage Bill and the recent court decision about “obtaining sex by deception” all seem to point to a deep-seated dislike of trans people similar to that expressed by some radical feminists.

However, when you look deeper, things are not so simple. Transphobia generally comes about because people are unable to accept trans people in their preferred gender (whatever that might be). For people like Julie Bindel, trans women are all “really men”. (For most trans-hating feminists, trans men either don’t exist or are also “really men”, but I’m not sure what line Bindel takes on that these days.) If you are a radical lesbian separatist, clearly you don’t want to associate with anyone that you believe to be a man, so you don’t accept trans women into your community if you believe them to be men. That last step is logical, even if the rest of it is very confused.

This can’t be the case with government or the courts, neither of which are run by radical lesbian separatists. Their reasons for disliking trans people may stem from the same failure of acceptance, but it cannot be based on a desire to distance themselves from men. Some other prejudice must be at work.

In the case of the courts, the issue is pretty clearly one of sexuality. That is, if a man has sex with a trans woman, but believes her to be “really” a man, then he must be having gay sex. Even if he finds the girl really hot, his mates are going to tease him for being “gay”. We know this is the case. It comes up time and time again in murder cases.

The court decision, therefore, is not one about obtaining sex by “deception”, it is about obtaining gay sex by “deception”. The accusation is that, by having sex with a man, a trans woman tricks him into a homosexual encounter, which he is entitled to find repugnant.

What about marriage? As you may remember, a key discriminatory aspect of the Gender Recognition Act was that, in order to obtain legal recognition in their new gender, trans people could not be married. If they were married, it was not sufficient to divorce, the marriage had to be annulled. Annulment means not just that the marriage is dissolved, but that it never existed in the first place.

The reason the government gave for this at the time was that if this was not done it would create a legal same-sex marriage, and that would cause the sky to fall and the world to end.

Less than a decade later, Parliament is discussing a same-sex marriage bill. Note that it is not a “marriage equality” bill, and indeed both government ministers and the BBC insist on referring to it as “gay marriage”, despite the expressed desire of most campaigners for “marriage equality”. That difference in nomenclature is telling.

To start with, same-sex marriages are not seen as equal to opposite-sex marriages, because the Church of England has been banned from conducting them. In addition, the legislation is deeply discriminatory towards trans people. Particular ire has been aroused by a provision knows as the “spousal veto”.

Because same-sex marriages will soon be legal, it would obviously be unfair to force a couple to divorce when one of them transitions. However, there is a provision in the Bill regarding Gender Recognition Certificates. It is perfectly OK for a married trans person to transition socially, take medication, and even undergo surgery. However, if that trans person wants legal recognition of their gender, they must obtain their spouse’s permission.

Now you may think that if a spouse doesn’t want you to obtain legal recognition in your new gender then they would probably want a divorce anyway. However, things don’t always go smoothly. If a spouse is unhappy about a transition, one of the things they may do is refuse to recognise it. You see this with parents as well. People continue to insist that their son or daughter is still a son or daughter, not a daughter, son or otherly-gendered person. (Remember what Wanda’s parents did to her in Neil Gaiman’s A Game of You?). In a relationship that has broken down badly, it is quite possible that the trans person’s spouse will refuse a divorce, and refuse permission for gender recognition. Sorting this out could take years.

In an effort to offer an olive branch, trans activists worked with some sympathetic peers to craft an amendment that would limit the effect of the spousal veto to just one year. Surely if, after that time, agreement could not be reached, the trans person should be allowed to get on with his or her life (legal gender recognition is only allowed within the binary in the UK)? This was put forward in the recent debate on the marriage bill in the House of Lords. The government adamantly refused to accept it. They insisted that it was necessary for the spousal veto to last indefinitely if that was what the spouse wanted.

What is going on here? Why annulment rather than divorce? Why the indefinite spousal veto? The only explanation that makes sense to me involves the nature of legal gender recognition. You see, when you get your Gender Recognition Certificate, the effect is back-dated. As I have said before, I now have a birth certificate stating that I was born female, and have always been female. That makes me happy, but it has implications.

The problem is that if gender recognition is back-dated, and the trans person has been married, then that marriage automatically becomes same-sex rather than opposite-sex. And, as far as the government and their civil service advisors are concerned, this would be a disaster for the other partner in the marriage. You thought you had an opposite-sex marriage, and suddenly you found that you had a same-sex one. OMG! The sky will fall and the world will end.

This makes the marriage situation exactly analogous to the “sex by deception” one. In both cases the extreme levels of discrimination being levelled at trans people are not a result of abhorrence of gender changes per se, but as a result of a deep-seated horror of being “tricked” into a same-sex relationship.

I can’t see the LG activist community getting overly concerned about this. They are all busily celebrating the likely passage of the marriage bill and don’t want anything to rain on their parade. Besides, many of them are just as bad as Bindel when it comes to attitudes towards trans people. But they should be concerned. The UK is not getting equal marriage (not even in Scotland, where the same nonsense about spousal vetoes is being introduced to their bill); it is getting different marriage, and it is getting it from a government that is still consumed with horror at the thought of same-sex relationships. As far as the government is concerned, being gay is now OK between consenting adults, but if one partner does not consent in any way then the sky will still fall and the world will still end. This is not victory, it is just a step along the way.

Farah To Edit Wiscon Chronicles #8

~ Cheryl

Talking of the Wiscon Chronicles, the next edition, #8, will be edited by Farah Mendlesohn. According to her call for materials on the Aqueduct Press blog:

The title will be Feminism(s), and I invite non fiction and fiction contributions which draw on experiences at this years; Wiscon, and express the diversity of feminist thinking: issues that might be considered include intersectional feminism, issues of race, generation, disability, gender identity, size and class. I want both serious pieces and playful pieces. Art, graphics and music will be considered.

For more information on the requirements and how to submit, go here.

Yet More From Aqueduct

~ Cheryl

The last of the batch of new books from Aqueduct Press includes some non-fiction, and one book I am not sure about.

Missing Links and Secret Histories, edited by L Timmel Duchamp, purports to be, “A Selection of Wikipedia entries from Across the Known Multiverse.” But are they about real things, or made up? You may have to read the book to find out. And you may still be confused after reading it.

Strange Matings, edited by Rebecca J. Holden & Nisi Shawl, is a collection of essays about the work of the great Octavia Butler. It is absolutely essential for anyone with interest in Feminist science fiction.

The WisCon Chronicles is a regular series of books highlighting issues discussed at the annual Feminist science fiction convention. The latest issue, #7, is edited by JoSelle Vanderhooft and focuses on disability issues.

Radio: Jo Hall, Wendy Davis & Julia Gillard

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Yesterday’s radio was a bit manic as we had a number of guests scheduled to come in, some of whom might not be able to make it. Thankfully my guests are always well behaved, and the first half hour of the show was devoted to me quizzing Jo Hall about her great new fantasy novel, The Art of Forgetting: Rider. I’m delighted at the way Jo has busily subverted several of the common tropes of epic fantasy. Good QUILTBAG content too. Must write a review. And if you are local and are not coming to the launch event tonight I want to know why.

The next segment was the “lighter look at life” thing, in which we finally managed to make ourselves laugh. Then again, we were talking about pet hates. If you want to know what some of mine are, do listen in.

Finally in the first hour, with guests missing, I bullied the team into letting me talk about Wendy Davis and Julia Gillard. We might be local radio, but we do care about what happens elsewhere in the world. That’s especially true when the only news that gets out comes via another local news service: well done Texas Tribune.

You can listen to the whole of the first hour as a podcast here.

I was thinking I was all done by 13:00, but Paulette ambushed me with another interview. Still minus guests, we dragged in one of the Ujima staff, Caroline Oldland, to talk about the work she does devising youth projects for the station. It turned out to be a great interview and I’m really pleased to have got to talk to Caroline.

The second hour of the show is podcast here. I’m done after the interview with Caroline. The rest of the show is about local politics, but still worth a listen if you want to hear local people standing up to austerity culture.

Update: Fixed spelling of Wendy’s name. Sorry.

Madeline Ashby Interview

~ Cheryl

One of the things I did while I was in Toronto was meet up with one the the most promising new feminist SF writers, Madeline Ashby. I had originally intended to do an interview with her for my Talking Books slot on Ujima Radio, but as Madeline and I got talking it soon became apparent that this was going to be too long for the show, and probably also it bit too academic for a mainstream radio audience. It is, however, a great interview, and Madeline has some fascinating things to say about how she uses the well-worn trope of the robot to ask interesting questions about gender.

Madeline’s new book, iD, isn’t out in print in the UK until next week, but the ebook and North American releases are tomorrow, so this is an ideal time to air the interview. Hopefully most of you can see the media player below, but for those who can’t you can also find it here, or download it directly from this link. As and when Apple get their act together, it will also appear in the Salon Futura podcast feed.

Geeks and Professionalism

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Most of the time I don’t bother posting here when some high profile person goes on an anti-trans rant. It would get very boring if I did, because there is at least one a week. Besides, many of these people are folks I’ve not heard of, and don’t care about. I have little interest in video games or web comics, and consequently was only vaguely aware of Penny Arcade. I still wouldn’t have any interest, had I not found out about them from this article.

What’s so special about it? Well, it is in the National Post, which is a right-leaning newspaper from Canada. What is more, it is in the financial pages of that newspaper. Succinctly, a young geek with a successful business is being taken to task by a financial newspaper for damaging his brand by going on an online rant about trans people.

That’s amazing to me. What people regard as offensive changes with time. When I first transitioned, the mere existence of trans people was deemed offensive by many. For an employer to send me to a meeting with a client would have been seen as an insult to that client. Many people, of course, still think that way, including, apparently, lots of people in the UK’s Civil Service, and a substantial majority of the House of Lords. And yet here is a financial newspaper telling a young man that he should be more circumspect about airing his prejudices, because it will offend potential customers and cost him business. How the world has changed.

Personal issues aside, however, this is another prime example of the issue confronting SFWA. Painful as it may be for some people, the world does change. Nowadays, if you express contempt, not just for trans people, but for the whole QUILTBAG community, for people of color, for women, and so on, the Internet is liable to fall on your head. People may think that this is horribly unfair. They may decide to form pressure groups to fight for the right to be allowed to hate and despise their fellow human beings without being discriminated against for doing so. Perhaps one day the world will change again and they will be able to vent their spite more freely. But until that time, if you are running a business or a professional organization, you need to be aware that certain types of behavior can cost you dearly.

I’m sure that there will be people who find this outrageous. But you know, having spent most of my life being told that people like me are freakish, disgusting and a social embarrassment, not to mention a danger to children by our mere existence, I have very little sympathy. Boot, welcome to the other foot.

Clarkesworld Update

~ Cheryl

Due to being in Canada at the start of the month, I managed to miss doing the magazines update. This is a belated attempt at catch-up. The new Clarkesworld is not that new any more, but you can still find it in the usual place. The highlights of this issue are a new story by the incredibly talented E. Lily Yu, and (Kevin please note) an article by Jason Heller on the history of locomotives in science fiction. Should you feel like supporting the magazine, you can buy this issue from my bookstore.

I should also note that Neil has just launched a new project: Upgraded: A Cyborg Anthology. This is on Kickstarter, and I know that many of you are deeply unhappy with Kickstarter right now. Goodness knows, I am. However, Neil launched this project before yesterday’s shit storm took off. If people decide that they no longer want to use Kickstarter for funding new projects, that’s fine, they could do with competition. But I’m not sure that it is helpful to try to punish Kickstarter by wrecking small projects already in process.

Anyway, Neil already has promises of stories from Elizabeth Bear, Tobias S. Buckell, Yoon Ha Lee, Ken Liu, Genevieve Valentine and E. Lily Yu, so it is looking fabulous already. And you can get the ebook for just $10. If you want to back the project, go here.

Biology Is Not Faith-Based

~ Cheryl ~ 13 Comments

There’s an awful lot of fairly crass sexism and misogyny going on in my corner of the Internet these days, and equally a lot of very capable people debunking it. I’ve largely stayed out of it because other people are doing a perfectly good job without me. Anyway, it doesn’t take a lot of effort to debunk the “women are naturally inferior” argument. Where I do want to stick my oar in is to caution against using the same type of faith-based biology to argue that men and women are in fact identical. Specifically I saw someone tweet that if you did brain scans of men and women you would not be able to tell the difference. Tweets are, of necessity, devoid of subtlety, so I don’t want to call anyone out, but I do want to explain why that sort of argument worries me.

Firstly I think it is probably factually wrong. I’m not a neuroscientist myself, but do take an interest in brain science and I’m pretty sure that a trained professional in that field would stand a good chance of telling a scan of a male brain from a scan of a female one, in much the same way as a trained medical professional can tell a male skeleton from a female skeleton.

Secondly, medical science is slowly coming to the realization that there are important differences in the way that male and female bodies respond to treatment. It is crucially important for women’s health that these differences are recognized and studied. Insisting that we are “all the same” will tend to result in medical treatment defaulting to the current social norm, which means favoring males over females (see here for some of the issues).

And finally, this is the sort of thing that leads to transphobia. The idea that men and women are identical in all respects except possession or not of ovaries was a major factor in causing second wave feminists to insist that trans people could not possibly exist.

When people attack the idea of gender-based brain difference they often quote Cordelia Fine. But Fine doesn’t say that there are no physical differences. Some of the studies that purport to identify differences are highly dodgy, but much more importantly the arguments that extrapolate from real or supposed differences in brain structure to differences is abilities and behavior are, at best, bad science, and at worst pure snake oil.

The thing about human beings is that they come in all shapes and sizes. Some of us are better at some things than others. Some of this is biological, and some of it down to cultural influences. What isn’t true is that all of Group X are naturally better than all of Group Y because of their characteristic, Z. People are people, and no one should be assumed inferior because of their gender, ethnicity, sexuality and so on.

Besides, most of you, dear readers, also read science fiction. Even if we never encounter sentient aliens, it seems increasingly likely that we will soon be able to make people that are, in biological terms, a different species from us. Those people will still be people, and our understanding of “human” rights will have to evolve to cope with that.

Thank You, European Parliament

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

A press release today on behalf of the LGBT group at the European Parliament reveals that member states will henceforth be required to adopt laws so that their immigration services “identify asylum-seekers who need special procedural guarantees, determine the nature of these needs, and respond to them adequately.” Areas of concern include people who are seeking asylum on grounds of gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity. French MEP, Sylvie Guillaume, said: “This was strongly opposed by most Member States, and it’s one of our very clear achievements.”

I can’t speak for other EU countries, but in the UK the Border Agency has become notorious for asking intrusive and inappropriate questions of asylum seekers who claim to be gay or lesbian. Anyone who doesn’t conform to a gross stereotype is in big trouble. Things have got so bad that some asylum seekers are reportedly resorting to filming themselves having sex before leaving for the UK so they can prove their case.

Once appropriate legislation has been passed, this sort of thing should stop. Of course this is Europe we are talking about. Getting everyone to toe the line is hard. And indeed there are a couple of countries whose governments are so hopelessly backward and homophobic that they have refused to have anything to do with this and have opted out of the process. I’m sure you can guess what sort of countries they are. So, drum roll of shame, please for…

The United Kingdom, and Ireland.

*headdesk*

I Get Melded

~ Cheryl

I’m off to Bristol shortly to do some radio. While I’m away, you might like to take a look at SF Signal where they have a new Mind Meld up: LGBT Themes in Fantasy and SF – Recommendations. There are lots of very splendid people involved. And me.

Reading through the other contributions, I would particularly like to second the mentions of Laurie Marks (from Delia Sherman) and Elizabeth Knox (from Ellen Kushner).

I Get Podcast

~ Cheryl

I am so behind on podcast listening. There are episodes of Coode Street, Galactic Suburbia, The Writer & The Critic, Shout Out and For Books Sake that I need to listen to. I have, however, managed to catch the latest Outer Alliance podcast. Yes, that’s ego-driven. I’m on it.

In episode #31 the fabulous Julia Rios talks to a number of Outer Alliance members on a variety of subjects. I get to pontificate about awards, recycle an old joke about the difference between Raiders and 49ers fans, and enthuse about Caitlín R. Kiernan, Gail Simone, Stephanie Saulter and other great people. The other guests have really good contributions as well, and the variety of reactions to QUILTBAG as a term is fascinating. You can listen here.

By the way, the recording was made a couple of week ago, so neither Julia nor I was able to react to the Aurealis Awards being just as much of a vagfest as the Ditmars.

Thanks as always to Julia for having me as a guest.

Equality Begins At Home

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Today is the International Day Against Homophobia (and whatever additional QUILTBAG phobias you see fit to add). I feel that I should be writing something about it. However, over the past week I have seen rather too much of:

  • Feminists hating on trans women, single mothers, sex workers, etc.
  • Gays and lesbians frantically disassociating themselves from trans people
  • Trans people explaining to other trans people that they are Doing Trans Wrong

It seems pretty pointless to try to get the wider world to stop discriminating against us when we can’t stop discriminating against each other.

Me Elsewhere – Feminist SF at For Books’ Sake

~ Cheryl

I have a new article up at the For Books’ Sake blog. They originally asked me to list 10 top women SF writers. I rather stretched that, and even so all of the comments I’ve got are about (very fine) writers who I chose to leave out. I’m sure that you folks can think of even more. Why not pop over there and add some more suggestions.

Woman’s Hour on SF – A Train Wreck

~ Cheryl ~ 6 Comments

Well, that was dreadful: a self-fulfilling prophecy full of misinformation.

I suspect that today’s Woman’s Hour feature on science fiction was doomed from the start, because the initial assumption of the piece appears to have been that SF is only for boys and therefore it is necessary to get a man into the studio to explain to women how they are portrayed in SF.

Dean Conrad is an academic specializing in movies. He may well be very good at what he does, but as far as this feature is concerned he had a major drawback: he presents science fiction as something that only happens in the movies. As I feared when I first heard about the feature, his thesis can be summed up as “there was Ripley, and now there’s Prometheus“. So science fiction only happens in the movies of Ridley Scott.

Conrad explains this by saying that SF movies are now ferociously expensive to produce, so Hollywood studios have decided to protect their investment by ensuring that their films only appeal to 50% of their intended audience. Well, he didn’t actually say that, but a little judicious rewording explains just how ludicrous the idea is. Which, of course, is not a barrier to Hollywood executives believing it.

In search of “balance” Woman’s Hour brought on Dr Christine Cornea of from the University of East Anglia. She widened the discussion to the extent that now we were asked to believe that science fiction is something that only happens in movies and TV. Dr Cornea wanted to talk about Starbuck. Woman’s Hour, understandably, wanted to talk about Doctor Who, a show in which the role of women as merely sidekicks has been integral to the very structure from the start.

I’m going to take a brief detour here for the benefit of my friends at The Women’s Room. When the BBC wants an “expert” on science fiction they often get someone who only knows about film and TV. This is because it has been very difficult in the UK to get an academic job looking at SF unless you work in film, TV, video games or some other such medium. Science fiction in books is deemed unworthy by British universities. There are some very good SF academics — Andrew Butler, Mark Bould, Roger Luckhurst, for example — who could write about books, but have to work in film to get jobs. Others, such as Adam Roberts and Farah Mendlesohn, have wormed their way through academic back doors. My knowledge of this is a bit out of date as I haven’t been to a Foundation conference in years. Hopefully Farah can correct me if things are changing.

Anyway, Dr. Cornea tried bravely to fly the flag for women, but didn’t do very well. She struggled a lot trying to articulate the idea that a “strong woman” does not mean a leather-clad, boobalicious bimbo who acts like a man. And of course she was stuck in a film and TV mindset, so she ended up explaining how all science fiction was written by men, for men.

Of course this is nonsense. There are plenty of great women writers (and readers) of science fiction out there. But they tend to be confined to books. Once you get to film and TV, women get excluded. You can see the divide very clearly if you compare the fiction and drama categories of this year’s Hugos.

It makes me very sad and angry to hear a supposed women’s program on national radio claim that there are no prominent women in science fiction, and to back up their claim by deliberately excluding those women who are doing wonderful work in the field. It is especially annoying in the week in which Kameron Hurley’s wonderful God’s War finally achieves UK publication. Nyx is not just the toughest female character I’ve ever encountered in SF; she’s tougher than almost all of the male characters I’ve encountered.

Ah well, at least I have my own radio show, where I can showcase fine women science fiction writers. Here, go and have a listen to this.

Update: I forgot to note that there are lots of fine male writers who do good female characters in books, but with a few honorable exceptions (hi Neil!) they tend not to end up doing TV and films either.

Update 2: Farah has reminded me that the study of science fiction has always been an interdisciplinary affair. It is good that people who got their start in areas other than Literature get involved. Persuading the BBC to call on people who are not literature or film studies experts will be harder, but as I expected the field is changing. Farah tells me she thinks she’s the first UK academic who specializes in SF literature to be made a full professor, and in her department 6 of the staff have SF research experience. (Note to Americans, “professor” has a specific meaning in the UK, not all university lecturers can call themselves professors.) The upshot of all this is that these days there’s no excuse for having “experts” on science fiction who can’t see beyond film and TV.

Ujima: May Day, Bank Notes & Job Searching

~ Cheryl

Yesterday’s Ujima shows are available under our Listen Again feature now. The first hour kicks off with some discussion of May Day. Paulette wants to talk about International Labour Day. I want to talk about Beltane and maypoles. It sort of works.

In the second part of the show we welcome two fabulous young ladies from Bristol University — Naomi and Holly — to talk about feminism. We get all intersectional. One of the main topics is the women on banknotes petition. I note that we got around 5,000 extra signatures yesterday after the show was broadcast, though apparently the petition got mentioned on something called Radio 4 where they also have a women’s show so I guess Bristol can’t take all the credit. 😉

The second hour varies from the tragic (remembering the Hillsborough disaster) to the ridiculous (learning to drive, in which I complain about Kevin being a Bad Passenger). The final half hour is well worth a listen if you are interested in UK politics. It features two young men who work with community groups that help job seekers in Bristol. These days, it appears, the only legitimate way to look for a job is through the official government website. If you don’t log onto that and register activity on a daily basis, you can lose your benefits. If you don’t have a computer, can’t afford broadband, can’t work out how the use the appallingly designed interface, or have lost your passport, you are screwed. It really is evil, and the St.Paul’s area of Bristol is lucky to have such proactive community organizations available to help people through the minefield.