Feminist writer Germaine Greer has refused to back down in a debate over whether transgender women are actually women.
Dr Greer told the BBC that she is “not about to walk on eggshells” simply because some people are offended by her views.
Dr Greer says that men who transition to womanhood – she had in mind Caitlyn Jenner, who was previously Bruce Jenner, who is Kim Kardashian’s stepfather – do not become women when they transition.
“Some people have decided that because I don’t think that post-operative transgender men are women, I’m not to be allowed to talk,” Dr Greer said.
“I’m not saying that people should not be allowed to go through that procedure, what I’m saying is it doesn’t make them a woman. It happens to be an opinion, it’s not a prohibition.”
Her stance has angered some students at Cardiff University, where a petition to prevent Dr Greer from delivering a lecture called Women & Power: The Lessons of the 20th Century is now circulating.
“Greer has demonstrated time and time again her misogynistic views towards trans women, including continually misgendering trans women and denying the existence of transphobia altogether,” the petition says.
Greer says transgender women are “not women” and do not “look like, sound like or behave like women.”
“I think misogyny plays a really big part in all of this,” Greer said, “that a man who goes to these lengths to become a woman will be a better woman than someone who is just born a woman.”
