The good news is, Julie Bindel did not win the Stonewall Journalist of the Year award. The bad news is, she still thinks "It's not me. It's you". In that article she explains the storm she predicted as soon as she got the nomination. A storm she thinks is down purely to her 2004 article. Unfortunately, her nomination and article were only part of a wider problem.

There is a big gap in philosophy between a new wave of queer youths and the old guard. The old guard who did so much to fight for their, and our, rights. The Old guard who did so much to make our plight visible and start to turn politicians and some parts of the public to our side. Who did it by showing how normal we all are. How we are no different to heterosexuals really. The old guard who, in so doing, have left us with a community that is losing individuality, a community which is disdainful towards large sections it should be supporting or asking the support of.

This is shown clearly by her definition of how the LGB community came about and grew to LGBTQQI. She sees The Lesbians coming to help the poor, ravished, pathetic gays. Before reluctantly taking on the bisexuals who "shouted 'us too'" and now she sees the community as becoming an amalgamation of offensively defined other labels. Below is the impression I get of how Julie views the different boxes from her article:

• Gay - those left over from the 80s AIDS epidemic realising they needed support
• Lesbians - Saviours who came along and provided gays with the support they needed and to lead us in the anti-Section 28 battle
• Bisexuals - Those who "shouted 'us too'" seeing our community beginning to form - only in because they shouted, not because they belong there
• Transsexuals - Men in dresses, women traitors who are re-affirming the gender divide and have now (rightly) "received short shift from the heterosexual society"
• Queer - "anyone into 'kinky sex'"
• Questioning - "those having a think about who and how they might shag in the future" - implying that everyone else doesn't think just does?
• Intersex - The last in a long line wanting to join us

It goes, I would hope, without saying that I disagree with her. And I think that many people in the new wave do. We want a unified community. I want a unified term - to escape from these boxes that Julie, and straight society, want to impose on us. I see Queer as that word. I know others don't. I'm not too attached, but no-one's suggested anything better.

Stonewall represents that old guard. It is exclusively LGB. It's chief executive repeatedly says "gay men and lesbians" ignoring the bisexual people he is also meant to be representing. It advertises on Stagecoach. It ran a "Some people are gay, get over it campaign" (very simple, very clear, a good campaign) which excluded the lesbian women and bisexual people it's also meant to be representing. It settles for separate (second class) treatment with Civil Partnerships. It clings to the divisional boxes that propagate hatred and misunderstanding both from outside and inside our community.

Julie's latest article was a clear show of the Old Guard and her nomination showed a clear anti-trans stance if not by Stonewall then by it's members.

There is a genuine difference in the gay community. Those who want to include and those who want to exclude. Those who admit our cultural and social differences, both between ourselves and from the straight community and want to embrace that in a single fight for equality and liberation, and those who want to pull on those differences to homogenify themselves with mainstream society. The New Wave and The Old Guard.

Alex
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