Julie Bindel works with women and children who have been abused. She's the co-founder of the organisation Justice for Women, which has campaigned around the imprisonment of women who killed after being abused by their partners. She's written feminist books and is a self-described "expert in trafficking and prostitution."

She's also just taken over, temporarily, the recently vacated Julie Burchill slot in The Guardian. This is possibly because, like her predecessor, she's a really mouthy, argumentative, somewhat ill-informed dyke who'll say anything to get a rise. But it could be the fact that their names sound alike and the editors hoped no one would notice the difference.

Things started to unravel a couple of weeks ago when Bindel wrote a column about transgendered people. It wasn't very nice. No, I mean really, it wasn't very nice. Bindel trotted out the usual old skool lesbian crap about trannie women being men in skirts and how legal rights for trans people are a very bad idea.

In just one page Bindel used her own seemingly untouchable minority status to pick on another, which is just plain mean. She attacks the idea that as a minority, trans people have every right to equal treatment as anyone else - including lesbians. She made out that the decision to go through a gender transition is one that is taken lightly, and that a lesbian might want to become a man just so that they can snog their girlfriend in public without being ostracised. In reality transsexuals during and after transition face many problems, including abuse, loneliness, violence and also painful, dangerous and health-damaging surgery - and this is before they get publicly slandered by members of their own queer community. Bindel also based her comments on outdated ideas of what constitutes a man and a woman, failed to recognise gender ambiguity, or challenge binary notions of gender (Read Kate Bornstein's book 'Gender Outlaw,' babe). She criticised a transsexual woman for wanting to work at a rape crisis centre but failed to mention that that woman was herself a rape survivor and therefore might have a good reason for wanting to do this work. Bindel also, rudely, failed to use the appropriate gender pronouns, describing trans women as "she," with inverted commas, as though they are not real women. There's more, but you get the picture?

What angers Bindel and the old skool of transphobes is that the House of Lords has just passed the Gender Recognition Bill. It's not law yet, it needs to go through the House of Commons, but it probably will be adopted sometime soon. When it does it will mean that transsexuals will be legally recognised in their chosen gender. At the moment transsexuals are bound by the gender that appears on their birth certificate, and sometimes they are required by law to disclose it. This is a right royal pain if you are now living in a different gender and have been doing so for a long time. The new law will protect trans people from having to constantly and unnecessarily reveal their past gender identity. Oh yes, and it will mean that transsexuals will be able to get married too, or register same-sex partnerships.

I love being a dyke, and I'm not transgendered (as far as I know), but I'd become a straight man in an instant in order to avoid being associated with lesbians like the Bindel. It's like being at a party with a guest from hell: funny at first, then irritating, then downright horrifying as they puke all over themselves, steal the cutlery, break the furniture, pick fights with your mates and try to shag you. Just keep her away, that Bindel's nothing to do with me, okay?

But times are changing. I was a fledgling queer in the 80s when women like Bindel were lionised for their "uncompromising" tranny and bi-baiting dogma. Now, in 2004, it must be quite a shock to find out that they are no longer at the top of the lesbian food chain. They're finding it out the hard way.

Since her hate-mongering article was published, Bindel and The Guardian have probably had more angry letters sent their way than they could possibly have anticipated. Some queers have talked about organising anti-Bindel campaigns. Then there are the letters being sent to the Press Complaints Commission and Bindel's employers, suggesting that the article was an incitement of hatred, a pretty heavy accusation. Luckily for her it isn't bonfire night, or else we'd all be burning Bindel effigies. She's confident that her work is secure, and she's boasted about her good reputation, but will this really carry her through? And will her projects with vulnerable people continue to be funded now that the nation knows how insensitive she is to a whole minority? If I was Bindel, I'd be quite scared. In fact I'd be grovelling and issuing public apologies like crazy.

It's gratifying to know that there's a lot of support and goodwill towards trans people out in the ether, and that view like Bindel's can inspire such outrage. But Bindel herself remains unrepentant. She's been pestering people who disagree with her with private messages on www.Technodyke.com, posting bile under an assumed screen name and behaving so ungraciously that the site owner banned her. She's pulled the "some of my best friends are transgendered" line, which has been met with an angry response from the trans women she's named, who are livid about her article. Despite overwhelming evidence from the world in general and her own community that she's overstepped her mark, Bindel is one of those dykes who knows that she is always right.

So, to clear this up once and for all, I'm offering Bindel the chance to save face. That's right Julie, if you are reading this, I challenge you to a public wrestling match. With me. In bikinis. In a gigantic tub of baked beans. You know I'll win because I'm bigger and stronger than you and I can wrestle like a motherfucker. And if you don't want to lose to me, I'll even let you take a dive in the fifth round. Plus I'd love to sit on your head and do a big fart and, you know, I have a funny feeling that others would like to see that happen too, maybe they'd pay for it.

My generous offer will save you having to try and substantiate your blatant transphobia. It will take off the heat so you can go back to being a faceless academic stuck in an ivory tower once again. Balance will have been restored in the world. But even if you don't want to wrestle me, you could always donate your fees from The Guardian to Press for Change, the excellent transgender lobbying group. That'll help make things better. How about it?

Read Julie Bindel's original article: Gender benders, beware