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"Julie Burchill&amp;#039;s controversial column about transsexuals is now the subject of an inquiry by The Observer&amp;#039;s readers&amp;#039; editor The article was published in yesterday&amp;#039;s newspaper (January 13) after appearing online the evening before on The Guardian website. Headlined &amp;quot;Transsexuals should cut it out&amp;quot;, the piece has received much criticism for its content and use of transphobic language. The piece referred to &amp;quot;a bunch of dicks in chicks&amp;#039; clothing&amp;quot;, and argued that &amp;quot;a gaggle of transsexuals&amp;quot; criticising her friend Suzanne Moore&amp;#039;s writing was like &amp;quot;the Black and White Minstrels telling Usain Bolt how to run&amp;quot;. Burchill&amp;#039;s piece was ostensibly written in support of The Guardian columnist Moore, who had offended some by writing in an essay reprinted by the New Statesman that society pressured women to have the body of &amp;quot;a Brazilian transsexual&amp;quot;. Moore wrote a column last Wednesday arguing that criticisms of her as transphobic were &amp;quot;irrelevant&amp;quot; given the wider social picture. This piece prompted further criticism, which led Moore to suspend her Twitter profile. Burchill&amp;#039;s piece made repeated reference to the &amp;quot;trans lobby&amp;quot; and suggested that transsexuals have a &amp;quot;relationship with their phantom limb&amp;quot;, while also denigrating transsexuals by referring to &amp;quot;women - real and imagined&amp;quot;. She added: &amp;quot;To be fair, after having one&amp;#039;s nuts taken off (see what I did there?) by endless decades in academia, it&amp;#039;s all most of them are fit to do. &amp;quot;Educated beyond all common sense and honesty, it was a hoot to see the screaming mimis accuse Suze of white feminist privilege.&amp;quot;  After referring to transsexuals as &amp;quot;trannies&amp;quot;, Burchill continued: &amp;quot;I know that&amp;#039;s a wrong word, but having recently discovered that their lot describe born women as &amp;#039;Cis&amp;#039; - sounds like syph, cyst, cistern; all nasty stuff - they&amp;#039;re lucky I&amp;#039;m not calling them shemales. Or shims.&amp;quot; She allied herself with Moore and Julie Bindel as the &amp;quot;minority of women of working-class origin&amp;quot; in the media and added: &amp;quot;We are damned if we are going to be accused of being privileged by a bunch of bed-wetters in bad wigs.&amp;quot; Burchill added: &amp;quot;To have your cock cut off and then plead special privileges as women - above natural-born women, who don&amp;#039;t know the meaning of suffering, apparently - is a bit like the old definition of chutzpah: the boy who killed his parents and then asked the jury for clemency on the grounds he was an orphan. &amp;quot;Shims, shemales, whatever you&amp;#039;re calling yourselves these days - don&amp;#039;t threaten or bully us lowly natural-born women, I warn you. &amp;quot;We may not have as many lovely big swinging Phds as you, but we&amp;#039;ve experienced a lifetime of PMT and sexual harassment and many of us are now staring HRT and the menopause straight in the face - and still not flinching. &amp;quot;Trust me, you ain&amp;#039;t seen nothing yet. You really won&amp;#039;t like us when we&amp;#039;re angry.&amp;quot; A notice at the top of the column now reads: &amp;quot;This article is the subject of an inquiry by The Observer readers&amp;#039; editor. &amp;quot;His post reads as follows, &amp;#039;As you might imagine, I have received many emails protesting about this piece this morning. Thank you to those who have written. I will be looking at this issue and will be replying to all in due course&amp;#039;.&amp;quot; The editor of The Guardian Alan Rusbridger later distanced his own newspaper from the column. Rusbridger replied to several Twitter users who had contacted him about Burchill&amp;#039;s piece, underlining the fact that it was published in The Guardian&amp;#039;s Sunday sister paper and not the paper he edits. He pointed readers to John Mulholland, editor of The Observer, who said: &amp;quot;Have seen comments re Burchill&amp;#039;s piece. Observer takes such reactions v seriously. Have asked Readers&amp;#039; Editor to consider issues &amp;amp; respond.&amp;quot; Writing on the flyingontherainbow site, transsexual blogger Hannah Buchanan said of Burchill&amp;#039;s column: &amp;quot;There were predictable insults, chicks with dicks and shims. &amp;quot;I am sorry but this was just childish. Is that really the best sort of sort of playground bullying Burchill can muster?&amp;quot; She added: &amp;quot;Julie Burchill may have felt her friend was being monstered. But she has given the monster of discrimination enough food to keep it going. &amp;quot;The irony is, her article is worse than what Suzanne produced. As she would have it, it is free speech. To me it is also hate speech.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/media/news/a450750/julie-burchill-observer-transsexual-column-faces-inquiry-after-outcry/>