Julie Bindel

Julie Bindel

Julie Bindel is a feminist campaigner against sexual violence. She is the host of The Lesbian Project podcast, with Kathleen Stock.

Does Australia know what a woman is?

When Australian businesswoman Sall Grover set up Giggle – an app exclusively for women – in 2020, it never occurred to her that men identifying as ‘transwomen’ would demand the right to use it. Today, a landmark case will hit the Federal Court in Sydney, brought by a transwoman called Roxanne Tickle. It will either

The justice system is failing domestic abuse victims

Remember the days when our TV screens were full of men cracking jokes about ‘giving the missus a backhander’ if she complained about him coming home drunk? That was back when rank misogyny dominated police forces, and domestic violence was described as a private matter ‘between a man and his wife’.   Then along came those

The snobbery of lemon supremacists

I love certain sour flavours, such as the sprinkle of lemon on a piece of oily fish, or fatty meat. It is perfect with food that is naturally sweet, such as brown shrimp, scallops, or young, fresh peas. But spare me the heavy hand with the acid, which seems to be getting more and more

Bored of generic hot sauce? Try these

Sick of sriracha? Try Sambal Oelek, an Indonesian chilli sauce that’s easy to make in minutes, by blending red chillies, salt and either vinegar or lime juice together. Or buy a jar ready-made. If I were to be consigned to a desert island and could take only one spicy condiment it would be molho apimentado

Shame on the Met Police for hiring Wayne Couzens

Three years after the murder of Sarah Everard, the long-awaited Home Office-commissioned Angiolini Inquiry into Wayne Couzens has been published – and it is damning of the Metropolitan Police. Those who turned a blind eye, ignoring the attitudes and actions of the officer, should hang their heads in shame. Former Met Commissioner Cressida Dick’s description

Britain’s Italian restaurants are rubbish

You are in an Italian restaurant when a waiter appears brandishing a giant pepper grinder. The spaghetti carbonara is made with cream and garnished with a sprig of parsley. You suddenly realise that you are not, after all, in the Tuscan hills, but somewhere in the UK. An Italian restaurant in London will serve you

Why does the NHS care what Stonewall thinks of it?

One might reasonably assume that NHS employees would consider biological sex to be extremely important. After all, there are huge differences in male and female bodies and their functions. The type of illnesses we are prone to can be affected by whether a patient is male or female. Women and men also have different reproductive

My 1970s kitchen nightmare

During the Covid lockdowns, I accrued a number of kitchen implements I used only once or twice before confining them to the back of the cupboard. One item that lurks among the mismatched Tupperware is a rather expensive chip pan, namely a deep fat fryer with a whacking three litre capacity, in stainless steel, with

Oscar Pistorius should still be in prison

The murderer Oscar Pistorius was released from prison on parole today, more than a decade after shooting his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. He killed her in an horrific act of femicide: the murder of females by males because they are female. Because such crimes are so normalised and common, criminal justice systems around the world tend to

It’s no surprise Mhairi Black has turned on Nicola Sturgeon

Mhairi Black can clearly see which way the wind is blowing. ‘I did always feel a wee bit uncomfortable,’ the SNP’s deputy leader at Westminster has said of the cult of personality around former first minister Nicola Sturgeon. ‘We shouldn’t be relying on one face or one person,’ Black told Times Radio, adding that she

Give sherry a chance

My grannie, a proud working-class woman, had a fake crystal decanter on display in a glass cabinet, filled with weak tea. We all assumed it was sherry, and she didn’t disabuse us. I discovered the truth when I opened the lock with a hairgrip and took a swift glug. My face must have been a

Admit it, there’s nothing worse than restaurants at Christmas

We’ve all been there, dragged along to the office/company/feminist protest group/a cappella throat-singing-society Christmas meal out. The idea of sitting around a huge table eating bad food with a group of people who either bore you rigid or who you actively dislike doesn’t seem particularly appealing. Why will the food inevitably be terrible, wherever you

Rosie Duffield’s opponents are intent on destroying her

Rosie Duffield is a national treasure but try telling that to the trans rights mob. When Duffield won the seat of Canterbury in 2017, she became the constituency’s first Labour MP for 99 years. She has used her position to speak up for women’s rights, most notably during a powerful and moving speech in parliament

Who is Sandi Toksvig to lecture ‘radical feminists’ like me?

Another day, another virtue signaller standing by their ‘trans siblings’ and taking a pop at feminists. Sandi Toksvig, she of the unfunny Radio 4 shows more recently known for her involvement in the Women’s Equality Party (WEP) – has denounced feminists who are ‘anti trans’. ‘I am so distressed by people who call themselves “radical

The interview that exposed the ridiculousness of trans ideology 

On hearing that a trans-woman, the activist Steph Richards, was to be appointed CEO of an endometriosis charity, many feminists rolled our eyes, wondering if parody was dead.    There has been huge pushback against appointing a biological male as head of an organisation concerned with women’s gynaecological health, for obvious reasons. Many newspapers covered

Do asexuals really face ‘dehumanising discrimination’?

Bored with hearing about discrimination towards lesbians and gay men? Having an empathy meltdown when listening to stories of violence, discrimination and prejudice? Don’t much care about lesbians being sexually harassed by men on a night out? Not to worry! We have a new kid on the block, poised and ready to join the unbreakable

It’s time to ban balsamic

Balsamic vinegar, according to a recent poll, is now considered an essential store cupboard ingredient by a quarter of all Brits. I detest it. This dark, syrupy fermented grape juice is like Marmite – you love it or hate it. Partly because it is overused, and also the numerous versions produced, I find myself flinching

My mistaken Balkan raid

It was September 2001 and I was in Zagreb, Croatia, at the end of two weeks in the Balkans. I was there to train law enforcers in counter-trafficking initiatives: the importation of women from that region into Western European sex markets was rife following the war in the 1990s. Police in the UK had disrupted