Paper Title
The last twenty years
Keywords
- feminism
- transgender rights
- pride
- lgbtqia+
- sex wars
- gender politics
- kink
- bdsm
- pornography
- sex work
- trans women
- sexuality studies
- feminist politics
- conservative feminism
- intersectionality
- activism
- media representation
- social media
- objectification
- sex
- gender
- marginalized identities
- anti-trans protest
- sexual practices
Article Type
Research Article
Journal
Research Impact Tools
Publication Info
Volume: 21 | Issue: 8 | Pages: 1211–1213
Published On
October, 2018
Downloads
Abstract
As we were pulling together this anniversary issue, the annual Pride in London parade was disrupted by a group of anti trans protestors with banners and flyers describing the trans movement as 'anti-lesbianism' and calling for 'The L to leave this absurd coalition called LGBTQIA +* (see Gabbatis, 2018). As Sally Hines (2018) has argued, although this represents a minority position within feminism - a point made in a number of reports and tweets which emphasized that there were only 10 protestors in a parade of 30,000 - transphobia has become highly visible in the UK because of its support by a number of high-profile journalists and its amplification through social media. It also draws its strength from a long and turbulent history of disagreement over the 'correct' feminist views of bodies, sex and gender; a history that has played out in what are commonly described as the 'sex wars', as Dennis Altman and Rosalind Gill and Shani Orgad note in their pieces for this issue. This has led to some bitter divisions in sex and gender politics, with particular groups of women - notably those who engage in kink and BDSM practices, produce or consume pornography, sex workers and trans women - continuing to bear the brunt of these disputes and to become symbolic as sticking points or limit cases for certain types of feminist politics. In the UK, the group Object! continues to represent this kind of politics with its objections to '5 key issues' of pornography, prostitution, sex encounter venues, surrogacy and trans- gender practices. Across the broad fields which mark out the study and politics of sexuality and gender, more complex, critical and inclusive forms of theory and activism have developed since the sex wars, but what is often most visible and therefore apparently 'mainstream' - certainly in Anglo-American contexts - is a version of feminism that embraces conservative views of sex and gender, and is neglectful of - or even antagonistic towards - marginalized identities and practices.
View more »