Julie Bindel is a feminist campaigner against sexual violence
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
I was invited to speak at a conference in Barcelona in the late 1990s. At the end of a very long, hard day, my genial Spanish feminist hosts invited me to dinner, telling me they would meet me in the hotel lobby at 10.30 p.m. I almost went into some sort of traumatic shock. I
I’m always a bit wary when invited for the first time to a dinner party at a friend’s home; some of the least enjoyable social occasions I’ve ever attended have been misleadingly advertised as such. The inevitable email about ‘dietary requirements’ has been duly responded to. You’ve muttered to yourself about the time (8 o’clock?
I don’t really care who takes part in Celebrity MasterChef, partly because I was put off commenting on such matters when one of the judges, an eminent food critic sent me some fairly strongly worded emails in response to me having a laugh – in print – about how seriously said judge took the process. After all, it is
Lesbian speed dating sounds fun. It reminds me of the old joke ‘What does a lesbian bring on her first date? Her cat, the toothbrush and a removal van.’ It refers to the outdated image of lesbians instantly committing to each other, falling madly in love, then taking seven years to split up. In
One Sunday morning, in an upmarket bakery packed to the hilt with women clutching yoga mats and men proudly carrying papoose-swaddled babies, I glanced around in search of a fresh loaf to serve for lunch. I saw the myriad of shapes, sizes, colours and textures of the loaves on display, and then noticed something. All
It would appear that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has finally caved completely to gender ideology. New CPS guidelines for prosecutors spell out that it could be a criminal offence for spouses to refuse to fund their partner’s gender surgery. In the new guidance, the CPS has listed certain behaviours, such as ‘withholding money for
Whenever it is suggested travelling south or north of the Thames to visit an ‘amazing’ restaurant I usually start conjuring up excuses. Across London seems a journey too far for food – but going across an ocean for it can be worthwhile. In NYC last year, I found myself with an evening off and, staying
Since my squatting experience back in the 1980s, the practice has gone somewhat out of fashion. Squatting laws in the UK have become much stricter, and eviction by police and landlords is easier. Spanish squatters have it relatively good at the moment, with criminal gangs targeting second homes in Spain, claiming to be homeless and
While I was writing about the latest scandalous revelation involving the children’s charity Mermaids and the Tavistock Gender identity development service (GIDS) it occurred to me that readers of these pages will already be familiar with the key planks of this terrible tale. You will doubtless have seen countless articles critiquing gender ideology and the medical treatments
It is not the first time Fiona Bruce has been slated on social media. She has long been accused of being a Tory sympathiser and denounced for impartiality when it comes to party politics. She has also been accused, since Dimbleby’s departure, of being a dreadful chair of Question Time. I am genuinely impartial when it
Certain foods taste and look better in the sun, with the sea lapping against your feet. Fish and chips on the pier, oysters from a shack right by the water, or a supermarket sandwich, held with one hand while the other holds on to a tin of ready-mixed gin and tonic, sitting on a beach
Another week, another blast of evidence as to why putting kids on hormone blockers is an abomination. Time to Think: The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Tavistock’s Gender Service for Children by BBC journalist Hannah Barnes, which is released on 16 February, is dynamite. The revelations it contains are horrifying: former clinicians at
Emma Pattison and her seven-year-old daughter Lettie were almost certainly killed by her husband George Pattison. As so often happens with cases of family annihilation, George Pattison escaped any criminal sanctions by shooting himself. Emma, who was 45, called a close relative last Saturday, hours before she and her daughter died, sounding ‘distressed’. We also
It’s interesting, the way that laws and policy can change seemingly out of the blue. In April last year, following a massive outcry from feminists and others concerned about trivial matters such as the safety and wellbeing of incarcerated women, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) released a press statement about changes to the policy on transgender prisoners,
The news that serving Met Police officer David Carrick has pleaded guilty to 49 sexual offences against women spanning more than two decades took me back to Leeds, 1981. My feminist group was aghast at the news that a young woman we knew had been raped in the back of a police van, but had
I hate the fact that I felt a major sense of relief when I saw the news that the World Boxing Council (WBC) has rejected calls from trans-activists to allow male bodied people to compete against females. Rather, they are recommending that a special transgender category is set up, and further, that only male born people can
Last time I visited Toronto, Canada, I stayed in Greektown, home to one of the largest Greek communities in North America. Several scenes from My Big Fat Greek Wedding were filmed here, and street signs are in Greek as well as English. On the day I arrived, jetlagged and disorientated, I happened upon a restaurant that was
It’s been a pretty bad week for the women of Scotland. As Nicola Sturgeon doubles down on the pending legislation that would permit men to self-identify as women – legislation that around two thirds of voters are opposed to – the feminist NGO, For Women Scotland, lost a legal case against the Scottish government over its definition
Farewell Susie Green, the CEO of Mermaids, a charity that describes itself as supporting ‘trans, non-binary and gender-variant children, young people and their families’. Green resigned rather abruptly on Friday, and the statement from its chair was short and to the point. An interim CEO will be appointed in due course. Mermaids has found itself under
