Germaine Greer: ‘Transphobia doesn’t exist’

Germaine Greer has claimed that transphobia doesn’t exist.

According to The Cambridge Student, the outspoken feminist made the remark during a speech at Cambridge University this week, where she also argued that trans women don’t know what it’s like to “have a big, hairy, smelly vagina”.

“Women are 51% of the world’s population and [I’ve been told] I’ve got to worry about transphobia. I didn’t know there was such a thing [as transphobia]. Arachnophobia, yes. Transphobia, no,” said Greer.

“There’s a hardship about being a woman. I always wanted to be a Jew, but I can’t be,” she said, before going on to add that trans women don’t understand the “pressure on women to be clean, sweet, perfumed and submissive”.

Greer quit her position at Cambridge back in 1996, shortly after she campaigned against the election of the university’s first ever transgender fellow, Rachael Padman.

Cambridge University’s LGBT society have condemned Greer’s comments, saying in a statement that she shouldn’t have been invited to speak because of her “history of hate speech”.

“To invite Germaine Greer back to speak in Cambridge condones her transmisogynistic words and actions. The Campaign will no longer hold events at the Union until such time as the Union introduces a policy of not inviting those with a history of hate speech,” said the society.

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