What ever happened to gay pride. We don't
have gay pride any more. It's not 'I'm here,
I'm queer, get used to it', it's 'I'm here,
I'm queer, I can't help it.
Hello and welcome to Talking Shop. My name's
Alex Hudson and I'm talking to Julie Bindel,
a journalist and a campaigner and, according
to Patrick Strudwick, a searing pain in patriarchy's
arse. That's how he described you.
Oh, what a compliment, thank you Patrick.
So we're going to talk about the concept about
what the LGBT community is now, whether the
gay liberation front has succeeded and what
happens next.
It's no coincidence that equal maraige was
brought through by a Tory government, it's
a very conservative move. And of course it
is there to say there are good gays and bad
gays now. The good gays are the ones who get
married, are in couples, can afford to get
married, are solvent, are not bleeding off
the state.
The bad gays - and we all used to be bad gays
- are the ones who are single, who want to
live in different kind of relationship structures
and who say 'I don't want the state involved
in my relationship at all.
The marker now as to whether you are accepted
as a woman - I'm no longer judged in the same
way for being a lesbian but I'm judged for
not having children.
So, things are shifting. So now we're expected
to marry our same-sex partner and have children
together and that's the marker of acceptance.
Your argument is that there are way too many
people in this, you even call for lesbians,
as in lesbian women, and gay men, to not fight
the same battle any more, or you shouldn't
be fighting the same battle any more.
Well, first of all, thereby lies the problem
in the fact that all women are railroaded
in to having children and being married. As
lesbians, we wanted to be liberated from that
during the early women's movement where many,
many feminists were lesbians, including some
of the miners' wives, that's a whole other
story
The what now?
Watch Pride, it's a brilliant, brilliant film.
So we actually wanted something different,
a liberatory sexual identity, now you're just
lumped in with everyone else and women haven't
yet been liberated from that compulsory heterosexuality.
We're almost being railroaded in to that kind
of confinement of other women. I used to be
so relieved - thank God I live my life as
a lesbian, thank God I'm a lesbian, every
day I would say this. I don't have to get
married, I don't have to have children. And
now look. But then you talk about the LGBTQQI
and the fact that I wanted to assert our difference
between, say, lesbians and gay men, that we
have different issues to campaign for.
That then plays into your idea of choice.
You're so glad you 'chose' to live your life
this way.
Can we just put that slightly aside while
I answer your other question?
Yes you may.
Thank you very much.
It's nice that you think I'm in charge of
this debate.
Well lesbians and gay men. I really hate to
have to say this but I have some really good
friends who are gay men who I have a lot in
common with in that we are challenging the
status quo and that we experience anti-gay,
anti-lesbian prejudice, some of which is exactly
the same whether that be thrown at men or
women.
Then there are separate issues about sexism
in the gay male community, some of gay male
culture which I as a feminist find highly
problematic and I know many younger gay men
coming out into the scene also do. And the
fact that we have to deal with sexism as women
and men do not.
So how can we be this one big happy family
when you're men and we're women and we haven't
yet been liberated by feminism so when we
are liberated by feminism, we'll all be on
a level playing field. But in the meantime,
we've got some battles to fight.
Coming on to this LGBT..., moving on from
that, you have in the past removed T from
that, and you've since apologised for the
way that was perceived.
Well, we could go through every single...
asexual, polyamorous, queer, questioning,
take queer for example. I know there are many
bisexual women, even some that identify as
lesbian on another level, who use the term
queer rather than lesbian. Now that gender
neutralises it.
The reason that I think it's important to
use the word lesbian is because we face specific
prejudice because we're women so we get sexism
and misogyny as well as what you may call
homophobia that gay men get. I call it anti-gay
prejudice because I don't think it's a phobia.
That's the problem with queer, it completely
neutralises in terms of gender and I think
it's important to say that lesbianism poses
a particular challenge for many people because
we're women, rejecting men and we're rejecting
hetereosexuality and women are far greater
punished for that.
You're not rejecting men are you?
Of course we are
You're just choosing not to sleep with them,
or not having sexual attraction to them.
That's the perception, what we're saying is
that no, no, no, I'm not in the market for
marriage and to have a man at the head of
my family, I'm an autonomous human being who
is with a woman on a far more level playing
field than you would in a heterosexual relationship,
generally speaking.
I'm glad you added that.
So I think it's important to use the term
lesbian rather than queer for political reasons,
so we can say we have specific problems and
we are specifically targeted. Then there are
some ways that lesbians and gay men are targeted
together, then there are some ways that everyone
who shops around the corner, in whichever
way they do, whether they say I'm celibate
and I'm proud, I'm polyamorous, I don't wish
to be monogamous, then of course some of the
really straight, defined, traditionalists
will say 'you're all bloody queers and you
can all fuck off' but that's where the connection...
Are people still saying that now?
I suppose those gun-toters in the States do
but I think that's the only connection that
we've got. What else is there?
That's true so, if you're trying to un-group
all of these things, like feminism, there
are so many different arguments and...
Much of fun feminism, now, has become a personal
choice so thanks to feminism I can now pole
dance, strip, do BDSM and it's all feminism
well, it's definitely her choice, she definitely
has the right and I don't have any right to
question that to her personally but it hasn't
come out of thin air. It's based on something
that's been going on for a long, long time
that's deeply embedded within our culture
- in other words, patriarchy and feminism
isn't actually about I work my arse off for
three decades to end violence against women
along with a global movement so that women
can say 'thanks very much sister, I'm now
going to pole dance and call it feminism and
call you an anti-sex fuckwit'.
It's a Swerf and Terf...
It's choice, like I say, something from Harvesters.
Going back. The gay community has become less
radical. Is that because they don't need to
be radical anymore?
We still have serious anti-gay bigotry in
schools, we still have prejudice towards lesbians
and gay men in the workplace, we still have
gay men being murdered and being queer-bashed.
We have lesbians being punishment raped. We
have lesbians and gay men who are secretly
seeking asylum in the UK being sent back to
the countries where they've escaped because
their lives are in danger, all in Britain.
We still have this so we have a long way still
to catch up to the legislation before we can
say our job is done. That's my point.
So we still don't know how many people there
are. Is that because people are still scared
about coming forward?
There are some towns in the North East of
England for example, where I'm from, there's
one in particular that I can't name because
it might have adverse effects, where there
are no out lesbians at all. Now if you think
that coming out is so easy now and coming
out is so last season in a way because we're
all just...
Coming out is going out of fashion...
It's going out of fashion because we have
the first generation of young lesbian and
gay people who don't need to come out, they're
just there and have never been in. If it's
so last season to come out, why is it everybody
goes absolutely bonkers when a sports star
or an actor comes out?
Why is it that there are very, very few out
lesbians in certain professions compared to
gay men. It's not alright.
You've been quoted before as saying you don't
really understand the concept of bisexuality
or, you understand it but you don't agree
it's a thing, or a widespread thing.
Well, I wrote a piece in the Huffington Post,
I don;t know, about a year ago, and if there's
one thing in my entire journalistic career
that I can say that I really, really wish
I hadn't written - not because of the flak
but just cos it was so shite - that is it.
It was an appalling piece. I actually can't
believe I wrote it, it's a shame that it's
up there forevermore but there you go. It
was just shite, what can I say?
But in terms of bisexuality, it's kind of...
OK, we'll put a link to that below if you
want to read it
It's more a.. thanks very much for that...
it's more a sense of it being, for some, a
nice little transition, so I said I was bisexual
when I was at school. I was being bullied
because I thought at least that was a little
bit more respectable.
For many, for Tom Daley for example, he had
to do the softly, softly, coming out when
he's gay. He's gay.
Tom Daley hasn't, he's just said 'I have a
boyfriend, I'm perfectly happy with my boyfriend,
I've dated girls before, I wouldn't exclude
dating girls again'.
Of course, sure. Let's wait for that shall
we?
Just because one is not in the present tense,
as an active present tense, it can still be
passive present tense you can still be experiencing
those feelings...
If I'm alive in 20 years time, shall we come
back and talk about Tom Daley and his dating
habits.
That would be a boring discussion.
God it would. There's an argument about whether
one is born gay or whether same sex attraction
is immutable and mainly it's lesbians who
are saying 'no, we don;t actually want to
use that as a way to call for our rights',
we want to say it doesn't matter how we got
here, we deserve our rights, we deserve equality.
And so it's often used in a cowardly way to
capitulate and to placate and say 'it's not
catching you know, some of us are born this
way and if you're not born that way, you can't
be it'. Tell that to the women - and again,
see the film Pride - who were happily married
and met a lesbian and thought, my God, the
sex is much better.
You say that sexuality is not this inherent
genetic thing because you say there's no evidence
for that...
I'm really interested to know why so many
gay men are rabidly defensive of this position
and why they call me and others - Suzanna
Walters in the States who's an author, just
written a brilliant book called the Tolerance
Trap, also Cynthia Nixon who said I've been
gay and I've been straight and being gay is
better - why we have so much hatred directed
towards us when we say this can be a positive
choice. Whatever happened to gay pride? Now
we don't have gay pride any more, we have,
not 'I'm here, I'm queer, get used to it',
it's 'I'm here, I'm queer, I can't help it'.
Well, actually, there are many people who
like being gay and lesbian, who would not
flick a switch to turn heterosexual as Patrick
Strudwick suggested, if it was possible. Who,
despite the fact we get prejudice and bigotry,
still love being gay or lesbian.
And I think that people like Patrick Strudwick
confuse homophobia - whether you would choose
to live around homophobia - with choosing
to live as a gay or lesbian.
Of course, none of us want to live with that
prejudice, that's why some of us campaigned
to end it.
If all these people choose to live in a gay
lifestyle and a heterosexual lifestyle and
they oscillate, or a better word than oscillate,
that's bisexuality by a lot of people's definitions.
No, not necessarily at all. What you can do
it look at the conditions in which women live
under patriarchy and I know it's an old-fashioned
word but it's absolutely pertinent to this
discussion. Women gain by leaving heterosexuality
behind. We gain autonomy, independence, liberation
so when people say 'yeah, but you wouldn't
choose to be gay'. Yes I bloody well would.
I wake up every day and thank God I'm a lesbian,
it's brilliant.
But you can't thank God for it if you chose
it. If you can choose this, you're just thanking
your decision-making process.
It's not a consumer choice, it's not like
washing powder or jeans or where you go on
holiday at all and for women living under
the kosh of compulsory heterosexuality, opening
up your mind and thinking 'you know what,
I don't have to marry Mick around the road,
I actually quite fancy that woman I met in
that club'. For women, you're married, you're
pretty stuck. Again it's a generalisation
but women have far less power in the private
sphere and in the public sphere than men do
and so for women, the expectation of marriage
is far stronger.
That's why we've got forced marriage, early
marriage, that's why women are the majority
of victims of domestic violence. That's why
most women file for divorce, citing domestic
violence and unreasonable behaviour because
marriage is actually a pretty bad lot for
women and it's one where women are constrained.
Men have far more freedom than women, sexually
and socially so I think lesbianism can be
a great liberation for women.
So everyone should try it?
Absolutely. I mean, why would you not try
it? Julie Burchill said something very funny
once - she said that she had had an affair
with a women only one time and I said 'why
did you not do it again?' She said 'oh come
on, it's like visiting Iceland, you only want
to do it once'. She's quite unusual in that
sense.
Most women who try it once, there's no going
back.
Julie Bindel, thank you very much.
If you would like to subscribe, do so up here,
down there, it'll be above here somewhere,
Leave comments below about what you think
we should cover, what you thought of that,
what you thought of Patrick's quotes, what
you thought of Julie's quotes or what you
think of anything that we might have put up
during this that I might have mentioned but
forgotten about already because that was probably
around 20 minutes ago.
Thank you very much for watching and see you
soon.
