Bindel's journalistic writing began while she was Assistant Director of the Research Centre on Violence, Abuse and Gender Relations at Leeds Metropolitan University. She was first published by the UK Independent newspaper in 1998 concerning prostitution in the UK. According to her writing, the life and death of her friend Emma Humphreys in 1998 led her into journalism. Bindel had campaigned for Emma to be acquitted and released from prison following Emma's conviction for the murder of a violent pimp.
In 2001 she began writing an occasional column for The Guardian, from the start covering gay and lesbian issues, child protection, prostitution and violence against women. From October 2003, her contributions in The Guardian became more frequent, and she wrote about the main themes that concerned her: rape, child sexual abuse, domestic violence, men who murder women, men who murder partners, child protection, sex offenders, prostitution, gay and lesbian issues, broader LGBT issues including transsexualism and reassignment surgery, human trafficking, sex tourism, women who murder violent men, and lesbian issues. Her style is often controversial. During her time at The Guardian, Bindel also broadened her range of topics to include vegetarianism, Barbie, Sylvia Pankhurst memorial, and wrote columns on Andrea Dworkin, Sheila Jeffreys and Louis Armstrong.
In March 2006 the Guardian started to open some of her columns to reader comments in the 'Comment is Free' section. Her articles occasionally received comments in the hundreds, and the focus of her 'hates' that started with vegetarians also encompassed the Arsenal football team, was soon followed by men who rape and abuse women. In 2006 her output increased. Some of her writing has voluminous comments, such as on prostitution (311), rape (352), drug rape (403), women murdered by violent partners (348), transsexualism (203), and LGBT inclusion (374). In January 2009, her espousal of radical lesbian feminism attracted the most comments (560) for her writing at that time.
Domestic violence and murder
Bindel's writing on the issue of violence against women in domestic and personal relationships with men has featured in her journalism from the start,and continues to do so.
In 2008 her activism and writing coincided when the issue she had campaigned on for over a decade became the focus of government legislation. Since the death of Emma Humphreys, who she helped to get released from prison, Bindel had sought to get a law changed that had historically protected men and penalised women. If men murdered a partner in the heat of the moment, an appeal to 'provocation' had been admissible in mitigation. Such an appeal was not practical for women trapped in violent relationships, because murders carried out in the context of ongoing subjection to violence tended not to occur in the heat of the moment, but would be often be calculated as a solution which provided an escape from violence. Bindel's campaign against violence against women on the one hand sought to resist the mitigation men could appeal to when partners were murdered, and allow the sustained violence women could be subjected to act as a mitigating factor if they murdered their partner. Harriet Harmen, Minister for Women and Equality, was of a similar mind on this issue, and legislation was proposed that would change the law to this effect. Bindel explained her support for this legislation in her column. Erin Pizzey, one of the early founders of women's refuges, was critical of the new law, and other newspapers leveled their criticisms at both Harman and Bindel.
Using titles like "Why I hate men" and "Why men hate me", Bindel has discussed her views on men, violence, and the way men relate to women, and what is revealed in their comments about her writing.
Sex work, trafficking and sex tourism
Bindel has written and worked on issues concerning prostitution and sex work since 1998, and this is reflected in her Guardian writing.
In 2008 Julie Bindel co-authored a report commissioned by the POPPY Project on British brothels, named Big Brothel (a play on the title of the Channel 4 reality TV program Big Brother). The report found that unprotected anal sex was available from £10, and penetrative sex from £15, in over 900 brothels operating as legitimate business across every borough in London; many of the premises involved offered "very young girls", but denied any were under age, and many of the women were from Eastern Europe and South East Asia. Bindel wrote about the findings in her Guardian column, describing experiences such as those of a young woman having sex with twenty men a day, and discussed Harriet Harman's (UK Minister for Women and Equality) plans to make paying for sex illegal..
The report was criticised by 27 leading academics involved in sex work research, claiming that the report was carried out without formal academic ethical approval, without acknowledgement of existing sources, and co-authored by a journalist with anti-prostitution views. The POPPY project responded that the report was one they produced independently, that the POPPY project was not an academic institution, and because significant media attention was usually lacking in this area of research it was important to provide a counterbalance to the positive media focus on the sex industry.
Transsexualism and transgenderism
Bindel's writings on gender reassignment surgery, transsexualism and transgender issues have upset people in transsexual and transgender communities, particularly the 2004 piece that cast transsexual people as ungenuinely transitioning while ridiculing their experiences.
Bindel's first published article on transsexualism was a December 2003 Sunday Telegraph Magazine report; it was the first example of coverage of a narrative of 'transsexual regret' in the UK media. Bindel interviewed 'Claudia', a post-operative transsexual, who regretted her decision to have surgery and felt that the psychiatrist involved did not take sufficient care in reaching a diagnosis. Bindel questioned the medical approach in the article.
A month later a piece, "Gender Benders, beware" was printed in The Guardian concerning her anger about a rape crisis centre's dispute with a transsexual rape counselor; the article also expressed her views about transsexuals and transsexualism. Many considered the language used to be offensive and demeaning. The Guardian received more than two hundred letters of complaint from transsexual people, doctors, therapists, academics and others. Transgender activist group Press for Change cite this article as an example of 'discriminatory writing' about transsexual people in the press. Complaints focussed on the title, "Gender benders, beware", the cartoon accompanying the piece, and the disparaging tone, such as "Think about a world inhabited just by transsexuals. It would look like the set of Grease." and "I don't have a problem with men disposing of their genitals, but it does not make them women, in the same way that shoving a bit of vacuum hose down your 501s [jeans] does not make you a man."
Four responses were published, including one from Julie Hesmondhalgh, an actress who played transsexual character 'Hayley' in the ITV soap Coronation Street: "Men in dresses with birds'-nest hair chopping off their meat and two veg in order to enjoy the privileges of using the women's bog or snogging their same sex partner without fear of ridicule?! Can someone please inform the intelligent and compassionate Julie Bindel, whose amazing work for Justice for Women I have long admired, that Les Battersby is using her name to masquerade as a Sun [tabloid] reporter? And that the Guardian is accidentally printing his column?"
In response to the complaints, the Guardian editor wrote that the newspaper received about 200 letters, and noted that international lobbying did not account for all of these, and that most condemned the views expressed in the column, the Guardian for publishing it, and the illustration accompanying it. Twelve of the letters were complaints. He said, "Dismay at the piece was registered not only by transsexual people but by doctors, therapists, academics and others involved in the field." Referring to her as "a lesbian activist for the rights of women and children [ ... ] a rare kind of writer who puts her money where her mouth is," he explained that Bindel understood that there were problems with the way the article was written. He echoed the sentiments of one therapist in concluding, "This column, which obscured any argument in discriminatory language, [...] abused an already abused minority that the Guardian might have been expected to protect."
Bindel expressed her views about transsexualism and reassignment surgery three years later in the context of psychiatrist Russell Reid's censure by the GMC due to his the care of some transsexual patients. Reid was the private psychiatrist who had treated Claudia, and her second Guardian article on this topic followed a series of more than 20 reports in the Guardian focusing transsexulism, Russell Reid and approaches to treatment from the time of Bindel's first article in 2004, when Reid began to be investigated, and his censure and hearing in 2007. The second article appeared after the results of the hearing were announced, and contained interview material with Claudia, and Bindel's views on reassignment surgery.
In the summer of 2007, Bindel was invited to present her views on transsexual reassignment surgery on BBC Radio 4's "Hecklers", a series in which someone argues a provocative thesis, and a panel of speakers challenges them, She proposed that "sex change surgery is unnecessary mutilation". the panelists who opposed this were Professor Stephen Whittle (Law professor and trans activist), Peter Tatchell (gay activist), Dr. Kevan Wylie (psychiatrist) and Michelle Bridgman (therapist and trans activist). She wrote about her appearance on the show in her column the same day, and summarised her position on transsexualism. On his website, Tatchell endorsed Bindel's criticism of "traditional male and female roles and the social pressure to conform to cultural expectations of how men and women are supposed to behave," recognising these as "often profoundly oppressive." But he criticises her for "putting gender theory and ideology before the happiness of individual human beings who feel out of place and unhappy in their birth sex." A year later, in 2008, Bindel's apology for the 2004 piece was noted by Christine Burns of Press for Change when she interviewed her in 2008, and Bindel repeated her apology for the tone of the original piece.
In autumn 2008 Bindel was nominated for the UK LGB rights organisation Stonewall's 2008 "Journalist of the year" award. Stonewall's nomination was protested by independent trans and queer groups. Bindel put out a release via the London Feminist Network, There was a picket of the awards ceremony on November 6, 2008 with mixed support from attendees of the event. Bindel attended, although she did not receive an award. Bindel responded to the protest in a piece in the Guardian which covered the way the LGBT movement had developed since her early days as a radical lesbian feminist. She suggested that the protest was as much about "Stonewall for refusing to add the T (for transsexual) on to the LGB (for lesbian, gay and bisexual).". She detailed her frustration with the bullying tactics of those involved, how she was expected to be part of the LGBTQQI movement, yet was criticised for expressing opinions on trans issues while at the same time being told to be inclusive to trans people and issues, concluding that she wanted nothing to do with it. The protest did not receive mainstream press attention, but was covered in the UK gay press. A spokesperson for the protest confirmed that the protest was about Stonewall rather than Bindel herself: "'We're quite happy to leave her alone,' said Zoe O'Connell from the London TransFeminist Group. 'The protest was very much against Stonewall and not Bindel.'"
Bindel is reported as still maintaining that "people should question the basis of the diagnosis of male psychiatrists, 'at a time when gender polarisation and homophobia work hand-in-hand.'" She argues that "Iran carries out the highest number of sex change surgeries in the world" that "surgery is an attempt to keep gender stereotypes intact" and that "the idea that certain distinct behaviours are appropriate for males and females underlies feminist criticism of the phenomenon of 'transgenderism'." Following the Stonewall protest Whittle invited her to debate these issues again with Susan Stryker, a trans academic and activist from the USA, in front of an audience at Manchester Metropolitan University on Dec 12th 2008. The debate was broadcast live on the internet, but has not been made available as a podcast at the time of writing.
Lesbian feminism, gay and lesbian
Bindel began writing about lesbian issues as a radical lesbian feminist before her entry into journalism; her time with the Guardian saw her interest on lesbian and feminist issues come to include gay issues, scientific theories about sexuality, the way gender roles are taught to children, the cosmetics industry, cosmetic surgery for women, the media portrayal of lesbian chic, and lesbian child-bearing.
In her Nov 2008 piece written after the Stonewall protest, Bindel talked about her frustration with being in a movement that insisted she accept trans people, yet resulted in her being criticised whenever she spoke on trans issues. She said that as a longtime active member of the lesbian community she felt uncomfortable with the increasing inclusion of sexuality and gender-variant communities into the expanding LGBT 'rainbow alliance': "the mantra now at 'gay' meetings is a tongue-twisting LGBTQQI." "It is all a bit of an unholy alliance. We have been put in a room together and told to play nicely." "I for one do not wish to be lumped in with an ever-increasing list of folk defined by 'odd' sexual habits or characteristics." "I just want to be left alone. I am not in your gang, I did not ask to be, so please don't tell me I am one of yours, and then tell me off for offending your orthodoxy." In Jan 2009 she wrote about the radical lesbian feminism of the 1970s and 1980s, and her desire to return to those values. She concluded with an invitation to heterosexual women to adopt lesbianism, saying "Come on sisters, you know it makes sense. Stop pretending you think lesbianism is an exclusive members' club, and join the ranks. I promise that you will not regret it."
Rape
During her time at the Guardian Bindel has begun to write more on issues about rape, such as drug rape and date rape. She is critical of how difficult life is made for women who report rape, how the investigative and legal process ends up with women being dealt with more like the offender than the victim in an environment where some appear to think it is more important to safeguard the rights of men who might be accused maliciously than women who are victims. Bindel responded to the difficulties of reporting and prosecuting rape by saying she would not report it herself, "we may as well forget about the criminal justice system and train groups of vigilantes to exact revenge and, hopefully, deter attacks. Because if I were raped, I would rather take my chances as a defendant in court, than as a complainant in a system that seems bent on proving that rape is a figment of malicious women's imagination." Her writing on rape has appeared in newspapers in the Middle East and India, and her views have been reported by the BBC.
Child protection and sex offenders
Bindel has written about child protection issues, the way sex offenders are dealt with and biological theories about what drives sex offenders.
Other topics
Bindel has written articles that depart from themes central to her lesbian feminist background, such as vegetarianism, Arsenal, and questioned the point of gender-neutral toilets at the Royal festival Hall, at the expense of one of the women's toilet facilities there.
