We all know that the natural world is subject to certain rules. Seasons change, for example. Stars die. Eclipses occur. And Germaine Greer spews transphobic bile.
In writing about runner Caster Semenya for her latest column, Greer slipped in this little gem:
Nowadays we are all likely to meet people who think they are women, have women’s names, and feminine clothes and lots of eyeshadow, who seem to us to be some kind of ghastly parody, though it isn’t polite to say so. We pretend that all the people passing for female really are. Other delusions may be challenged, but not a man’s delusion that he is female.
I don’t know about you, but when I read this paragraph, I was overcome with a serious case of the sniffles. Poor Germaine is being prevented from harassing trans women! Good God, what is this world coming to?!?!? I, for one, won’t stand for such blatant oppression! I’ll… I’ll… I’ll shake my fist in righteous indignation, that’s what I’ll do!
Of course, this wouldn’t be the first time that evil trans people have made Germaine’s cozy life at the top of the cultural critic foodchain a veritable nightmare. Rachel Padman, for example, insulted Germaine horribly by merely existing. She really shouldn’t have been a little more thoughtful than that, this Rachel Padman. Tsk.
Neither would this be the first time that other people’s bodies have irritated poor Germaine. Just look at what she has to put up with from Cheryl Cole, who walks around being all skinny n’ stuff.
Honestly, I think it’s time we liberate Germaine from the terrible bondage she has found herself in. Civilization is simply too oppressive a system for her to participate in. Her talents are wasted on us, for truly. Plenty of attractive desert islands still left in the world, on the other hand…
Natalia A. 
Wow, she really is full of the most tedious, ignorant crap isn’t she? But then again so is just about every self-styled ‘intellectual’ I’ve come across.
I know, dude. With her, it’s extra-special though. Because people say stuff like – “so, you’re a feminist? Like Germaine Greer n’ stuff?”
And I go,
“FIE FIE FIE!!!!!!! DO NOT MENTION MY FEMINISM IN THE SAME SENTENCE LEST IT IS CURSED 4-EVA!”
Germain Greer, Janice Raymond and her ilk are the reason I Identify as a womanist.
Can’t a good-natured media baron just pay her to shut up about these issues? – Is what I wonder myself.
“Other delusions may be challenged, but not a man’s delusion that he is female.”
I recall seeing Greer on Richard & Judy, where precisely nobody challenged her delusion that writing a book about how attractive pre-pubescent boys were (there’s a big dip in beauty after they start having to shave, iirc) was in any way appropriate.
That reminds me – the boy whose picture was used for the cover of that book was apparently pretty creeped out by the entire thing. As he probably should have been.
While I can’t imagine a man getting away with that, that!s a piece of female privilege Ms. Greer is entirely welcome to.
Yeah, it’s just gross, you know? I have a little brother who definitely falls under the rubric of pretty, and there are certain lines that no adult, male or female, should ever cross with him. I mean, people commenting on how pretty he is is perfectly normal – but Greer just took all that beauty and debased it, in my opinion. And I am all for the female gaze & desire.
We have the Germain Greer book in the art section of the library on campus. I haven’t read it yet but I did feel uncomfortable about the cover yet wasn’t sure why.
I’ll now have to read it and see what I think.
James, you highlighted a very interesting double-standard there.
The picture at the top of this entry cracked me up.
Hummm, I have a gender-non specific name, fake boobies, detest gaudy eyeshadow and dresses, have huge shoulders, and have to pluck an out of control unibrow….
I must really be a man then, eh? If that is the case, I’d really like to stop having a period now, thanks!
And the little boy thing? ICK, just…no….ICK.
Ugh! Pedophilia is unacceptable regardless of gender. Germaine Greer can go fuck herself.