The Pride industrial complex ignores threats against women and doubles down on the myth of 2SLGBTQ+ ‘hate’

NYC Pride – 6/25/2023
My name is K. Yang, I’m a former trans rights activist & LGBT non-profit whistleblower. I was just kicked, hit, pushed, mobbed by dozens of people in Washington Square Park. who identify as called me “bitch” & assaulted me. @KnownHeretic @bjportraits pic.twitter.com/4J9AaFXSEf

— Stop Female Erasure / K Yang (@StopXXErasure) June 25, 2023

“Two [men] followed me calling me a “bitch.” They began to explain misogyny to me. I was called a “cis bitch” by a [man] who claims to be a [woman]. Another begins the gang assault by hitting me, yet another kicks me from behind. #CisIsASlur“

Many of you have likely observed the endless stream of fear-mongering propaganda force-fed to us by mainstream media outlets, politicians, and NGOs, insisting “attacks” against the  “2SLGBTQ+ community” are on the rise. In the month leading up to Pride, these claims have been amplified in what has become an ongoing war against reality.

On June 6, the Human Rights Campaign declared a national “state of emergency for LGBTQ+ people in the United States… following an unprecedented and dangerous spike in anti-LGBTQ+ legislative assaults sweeping state houses this year.”

What they are referencing is not, in fact, any actual “assault” — legislative or otherwise — but a series of bills passed in various red states preventing youth from being given harmful puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries on account of a declared “trans” identity.

What has happened is that states like Oklahoma, Iowa, North Dakota, and Kentucky (among others) have passed laws preventing the medical transition of kids. This legislation protects minors from making adult-influenced decisions that cause irreparable damage, rendering youth sterile before they have even had a chance to explore intimate relationships and their sexualities. The long term effects of these drugs are both known and unknown, leading to bone loss, increased risk of cancer, and all sorts of other obvious and perhaps less obvious problems related to interference in the natural, healthy development of human bodies. We don’t have enough long term research on this kind of experimentation to know the extent of the damage, but we do know there is damage.

The tragic story of Jazz Jennings, whose mother thrust him into the spotlight as a “trans child,” and who has now undergone four “sex reassignment” surgeries, all of which have resulted in painful complications, should have acted as a warning. Today, the 22-year-old struggles with eating disorders and depression, and will likely never experience sexual pleasure or be able to have children.

You cannot simply stop puberty, feed a developing child or teen hormones that increase cancer risk and result in a host of other side-effects in adults, and assume no harmful repercussions for youth. Yet, that’s what these NGOs insist, claiming these treatments are “life-saving” and medically necessary, and that laws limiting these interventions constitute an “assault” on “LGBTQ+ people.”

The response to this legislation has been hyperbolic, to say the least, suggesting that kids feeling confused or troubled by their changing bodies and entry into adulthood flee their hometowns in search of states that will allow these interventions.

An HRC guidebook directs youth in their decision to leave their homes for “friendly states” that allow minors to alter their IDs and bodies, no questions asked, and encourage them to find their “chosen families,” described as “people who are in your life, not because of biological ties, but for love and support, to celebrate you and help you no matter what.”

This kind of rhetoric is common to trans activists, who often recommend youth identifying as trans abandon their “non-supportive” families (labelled “abusive” for failing to encourage transition) for a “chosen family,” who support and validate their transition. “Come talk to me about your secrets — your parents don’t really love or understand you, but I do” should be treated as a red flag of epic proportions, but within trans activism is normalized.

Moreover, the irony of describing a “dizzying patchwork of discriminatory state laws that have created increasingly hostile and dangerous environments for LGBTQ+ people” becomes obviously rich when we look at how women are treated by these groups. In the past five odd years, women and girls have not only lost the right to women-only spaces — including change rooms, shelters, and prisons — and lost the right to compete on fair grounds, among females, in sport, but have lost the right to speak out about this. Women who have challenged gender identity legislation and policy have been fired, assaulted, censored, threatened, blackballed, ostracized, deplatformed, and banned from social media.

And all this has been perpetrated against women with impunity while being gaslit into oblivion by public officials, the media, institutions, corporations, progressives, activists, NGOs, and human rights organizations. We are told over and over again that it is not women, but the “LGBTQ community” who are under attack and in dire need of our support.

Nonetheless, yesterday, GLAAD, a non-profit originally founded to fight for gay rights (recently expanded to advocate the LGBTQ cultural revolution) published an open letter calling on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter to “Stop the flow of anti-trans hate and malicious disinformation about trans healthcare.” Signed by a dizzying number of celebrities such as Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato, Haley Bieber, Elliot (nee Ellen) Page, and Jamie Lee Curtis, the letter claims “Dangerous posts (both content and ads) created and circulated by high-follower anti-LGBTQ hate accounts targeting transgender, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming people are thriving across your platforms, directly resulting in terrifying real-life harm.

The letter labels “misgendering and deadnaming” as “hate speech,” claiming that correctly sexing individuals or daring to acknowledge a name change is “utilized to bully and harass prominent public figures while simultaneously expressing hatred and contempt for trans people and non-binary people in general.”

By framing pushback against and discussion of the harms of transing kids as “disinformation and hate,” and claiming refusal to call men women as “dangerous,” GLAAD is able to demand censorship, insisting these social media companies “urgently take action to protect trans and LGBTQ users on your platforms (including protecting us from over-enforcement and censorship).”

It is all very urgent. An emergency. People are dying because of true statements and free speech. Not any real people, but certainly people in our imaginations. Either way, we are not used to being challenged and it is triggering.

On June 1, Marci Ien, minister for women and gender equality and youth, issued a statement to mark the start of what the Canadian government has rebranded as “Pride Season,” saying:

“While it is important that we take the opportunity to recognize the hard-earned victories of the Pride movement, we must continue pushing back on the sharp rise in anti-trans hate and anti-2SLGBTQI+ legislation, protests at drag events, the banning of educational books in schools, and calls against raising the Pride flag.”

She followed this statement with the announcement that the Liberal government would be “moving forward with the development of a new Action Plan to Combat Hate – that will address hate faced by 2SLGBTQI+ communities and, specifically, hate faced by trans people.”

Where is the Canadian government’s action plan to address the silencing, marginalization, and harassment of women who speak up about their sex-based rights and about biological reality? Where is our “feminist” Prime Minister on women’s rights and the actual assaults perpetrated against female inmates by the violent male criminals he has allowed to be transferred to female prisons?

Nowhere.

Justin Trudeau’s government didn’t stop with an action plan. On June 5, Ien announced that the government would be pledging $1.5million in “emergency funding to ensure Pride festivals stay safe across Canada.”

Safe from what? Where is the emergency?

Half of the population are losing their rights without any genuine public consultation or debate, and the government leaps to action, pouring money into a trend that is already the most well-funded marketing campaign I have seen in my life.

Today, Pride is a corporate-sponsored event that is celebrated as though it is the national religion. Dissent is unacceptable, but even if it were allowed, who is attacking Pride-goers? Nothing of the sort has been reported, nor was anything of the sort even threatened. What I did see was a lone woman mobbed by deranged, violent Pride fanatics, enraged that anyone would dare challenge their faith.

I would, frankly, never attend one of these things out of fear of being assaulted or worse, so clearly Yang is braver than I. We should all be enraged at the lack of support for women and women’s voices from those in power, who dare lie to our faces while we suffer the consequences.

The post The Pride industrial complex ignores threats against women and doubles down on the myth of 2SLGBTQ+ ‘hate’ appeared first on Feminist Current.

Is a 15-week limit on abortion an acceptable compromise?

Is a 15-week limit on abortion an acceptable compromise?

A recent opinion piece by George F. Will, “Ambivalent about abortion, the American middle begins to find its voice” in the Washington Post made the startling claim that the overturning of Roe v. Wade (Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 2022) has resulted in “a partial healing of the nation’s civic culture.” One might think exactly the reverse. The Dobbs decision energized voters, especially women and young people, resulting in numerous Republican electoral defeats across the country. However, Will argues that the return of abortion policy to the states gives voters the opportunity of choosing moderate restrictions on abortion. Since most Americans support early abortion while opposing late-gestation abortion, Will thinks that a 15-week ban on abortion would be an acceptable compromise.

Why 15 weeks? Two reasons can be given. Almost all abortions in the US—93%—occur within the first 15 weeks of pregnancy. For this reason, making abortion illegal after 15 weeks would not, it would seem, impose serious burdens on most people seeking abortions. 

Another reason is that several European countries limit abortion on request to the first trimester, leading some US lawmakers to suggest that a 15-week ban would bring our abortion law in line with theirs. This is disingenuous, to say the least. While elective abortion is limited in some European countries, it is not banned afterwards, but is allowed on other grounds, including economic or social reasons, or a threat to the woman’s physical or mental health. Moreover, in most European countries, patients do not have to pay for abortion; it is covered under universal health coverage. The fact is that the trend in Europe has not been to limit abortion, but to expand access to it. Countries in Europe “… have removed bans, increased abortion’s legality and taken steps to ensure laws and policies on abortion are guided by public health evidence and clinical best practices.”

Were states to guarantee access to abortion prior to 15 weeks, a 15-week ban might be acceptable. However, even before Dobbs, many women in the US lacked access to abortion, due to a dearth of providers, especially in rural areas. They often had to travel many miles to find an abortion clinic, which meant that they had to arrange childcare if they have other children or take time off work. Delay is also caused by the need to raise money for an abortion, which is not paid for by Medicaid in most states, except in cases of rape, incest, or a life-threatening condition. To be sure, even if there were none of these roadblocks, some women would still not be able to have early abortions because they do not know that they are pregnant, due to youth, being menopausal, chronic obesity, or a lack of pregnancy symptoms. Any time limits will pose hardships for some people. But if access to early abortions were guaranteed, a compromise on a 15-week limit might be worth it.

I suspect that time-limit advocates are not particularly interested in making sure that women who have abortions get them early in pregnancy. They want to place roadblocks in the way of getting abortions, full stop. That these roadblocks increase the numbers of late abortions is of little concern to them, however much they wring their hands over late abortions. Abortion can be reduced by reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies, something that has been shown to be achieved by access to contraceptives and science-based sex education in the schools. Remember when pro-lifers emphasized those methods? Me neither. 

My second concern is with abortions sought after 15 weeks. The reason for a late abortion may be that the woman has a medical condition that has not developed, or has not been detected, until later in pregnancy. In such cases, the pregnancy is almost always a wanted pregnancy, and the decision to terminate imposes a tragic choice.

It may be responded that all states allow abortions to be performed when this is necessary to save the pregnant woman’s life, and many allow for abortions to protect her from a serious health risk. The problem is that these exceptions conflict with standard medical care, especially in the case of miscarriage. Once the woman has begun to miscarry, the failure to remove the fetus is likely to cause her sepsis, which can be life-threatening. However, in states with restrictive abortion laws, doctors cannot perform an immediate abortion, which is the standard of care in such situations. They have to wait until her death is imminent and, in some states, they cannot remove the fetus until its heart stops. 

Ireland’s restrictive abortion law was repealed after a woman who was denied an abortion during a miscarriage died from septicemia. To the best of my knowledge, no woman in the US has died as a result of restrictive abortion laws, but some have come close. An OB-GYN in San Antonio had to wait until the fetal heartbeat stopped to treat a miscarrying patient who developed a dangerous womb infection. The delay caused complications which required her to have surgery, lose multiple liters of blood, and be put on a breathing machine. Texas law essentially requires doctors to commit malpractice.

Conservatives often portray those in the pro-choice camp as advocating abortion until the day of delivery, for trivial reasons. This is deeply unfair. If they want us to compromise on time limits, they should be willing to guarantee access to abortion before 15 weeks. They should be willing to compromise on pregnancy prevention through contraception and sex education. And they should agree to drop all restrictions on late-term abortions that make legislators, rather than doctors, in charge of deciding what is appropriate medical care for their patients.

_{Featured image: Gayatri Malhotra via Unsplash (public domain)}

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Jill Ovens resigned from New Zealand’s Labour Party to start the Women’s Rights Party

After women’s rights campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen was mobbed and assaulted in New Zealand, longtime feminist and socialist Jill Ovens decided she’d had enough. The following week, Jill resigned from the Labour Party and founded the Women’s Rights Party, which states, on their website:

“We want a world that is safe and fair for women and girls

The Women’s Rights Party is a party of women and men who believe in democracy, equality, and biological reality.

Sex is binary

Human beings cannot change sex

Women are adult humans of the female sex”

Jill had been an active member of the Labour Party but had become increasingly angered as women’s voices were not being listened to. Since retiring from the union movement, she has thrown her energy into the Women’s Rights Party, which has set out to recruit 500 members so they can register as a political party and be on the ballot in the New Zealand General Election in October.

The Women’s Rights Party aims to give women an option on the ballot paper who
find themselves politically homeless as mainstream parties have stopped listening to women and their concerns. In addition to contesting Parliamentary and local body elections, they hope to influence cross party policies to promote and uphold the rights and status of women and girls.

In this episode, I speak with Jill about her political history and why she formed the Women’s Rights Party. 

The post Jill Ovens resigned from New Zealand’s Labour Party to start the Women’s Rights Party appeared first on Feminist Current.

Transcript: Why are dangerous men still being housed in women’s prisons?

In recent years, prisons across the Western world have been allowing men who identify as women to be housed alongside female inmates, leading to sexual harassment, sexual assaults, pregnancies, and complaints from women both in prison and among the general public. These complaints have been mostly ignored by governments and those with the power to do something. That said, the policy in the UK was changed in February in response to one high profile case in particular, wherein a rapist name Adam Graham renamed himself “Isla Bryson” and claimed to be a woman in order to be reassigned to a women’s prison in Scotland. The new policy prevents men who “retain male genitalia or have been convicted of a violent or sexual offence” from being moved to women’s prisons.

The US and Canada, though, continue to lag on addressing this issue, and dangerous men remain in women’s prisons across North America.

I spoke with two women who are taking action: Amanda Stulman is the USA director of Keep Prisons Single Sex, and Jennifer Thomas is the founder of Free Speech for Women and runs an action group called “Get Men Out.”

You can listen to this interview on the podcast. This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity.

~~~

Meghan: I would love if you could tell our listeners a little bit about the work that you do and how you came to be involved in this issue.

Amanda: Thanks for having us. I became involved in this issue in particular because I have a background in administrative law and policy, and because the issue of prisons is so distinct in so many different jurisdictions. On top of the 50 states, there’s the federal system and there are over 2000 separate municipal jails.. County… city… Each one can have its own, unique policy or law which applies to it. So I thought I could be useful in breaking down what those policies look like and how they end up applying in the real world.

So I worked with Kate Coleman, who is the founder of Keep Prisons Single Sex. She’s based in the UK and we opened a branch of Keep  Prisons Single Sex in the US over two years ago. The goal of Keep Prisons Single Sex is obviously to advocate against mixed sex prisons, and we do that by obtaining data, gathering research, lobbying lawmakers and policymakers, and trying to bring public awareness to the issue.

Meghan: Great. I’m so glad that you’re doing this work. This issue of of men being transferred into women’s prisons is so troubling, and I’ve been extremely frustrated, as I’m sure you both have as well, over the past few years that Governments in North America are really not paying attention to this and really not addressing women’s concerns.

Jennifer, can you tell us a little bit about your work and background and the activism that you are doing?

Jennifer: Well, I’m, I’m sort of an action group. So I focus on all the issues with that affect women, girls, and gender. I love working with Amanda because she’s so knowledgeable with the policies. And this last protest, Get Men Out, that was an action group I started. The first thing I wanted to do was aim at the prison situation because that is so abhorrent, you know, and it’s so obvious that it’s wrong. But I also diirect that towards the bathroom issue and other issues too — Get Men Out, Save Our Spaces… It sort of covers everything. What I like to do is read the temperature of what’s going on and try to anticipate where I will get the most exposure.

So that’s what I do. I don’t solely focus on the prison issue, but as with everything in this issue of the harms of gender ideology, you focus on one and the prison issue will lead you to the ACLU because they’re the ones that  sued for that policy to get in there. So I’ll start there and dig deeper just to try to see where I can get more action and more attention focused on that issue. I’ve worked with Amanda a few times, I’ve worked with Beth Steltzer from Save Women Sports, I’ve worked with a Partners for Ethical Care…

When they have an action that I think will really hit the temperature, of where I think America’s at,  then I go full force. So that’s what happened with this Get Men Out action. We worked with Amanda and Amy Ichikawa and we had a sense that the population was starting to be willing to see this. This issue is such a violation — we’re talking about women in prison, we’re talking about really some of the most vulnerable women in the country.

Meghan: Same thing in Canada. I interviewed Heather Mason a while back, who’s a really brave advocate and an ex inmate herself. She’s been one of the only ones speaking out in Canada about this issue. We’re talking about women who already have almost no rights, have no voice because they’re in prison, and they’re being housed with not just men, but the worst men — violent offenders, rapists, child molesters, and so on.

Jennifer, you mentioned that the ACLU was heavily involved  in pushing for this policy allowing men to be transferred into women’s prisons. Amanda, maybe you can speak to that a little bit — how did that happen?

Amanda: Sure. On top of the usual ire one should feel for the ACLU and their complete betrayal of what their mission is supposed to be and what they’re supposed to stand for, I have some extra ire for it. I, as a young adult in the early 90s, I interned at the ACLU in the exact same program that is now their LGBTQ++AI when it was the Lesbian and Gay Rights and HIV project. And to see them stray so far afield, not just from the substance of this issue in particular in terms of protecting women, but even on some of the ancillary issues. For example, they were the main drivers behind preventing a woman from requesting public records in Washington State. She was trying to learn how many men were in women’s prisons, how recently they’d been moved… People were starting to get wind of the policy change in Washington several years ago, and it was the A C L U who worked with several inmates representing them to fight the disclosure by Washington State Department of Corrections for a public records request.

The enormous irony of this is that this woman learned how to make her public records request from the ACLU’s own website. The ACLU’s  mission is transparency, public awareness, obtaining data from the government, you know, the government works for you, etc. And they actively worked to suppress access to data that would allow the public to learn the impact of these policies, and they were so successful.

That they managed to work with the Washington State legislature and actually passed a law modifying their public records  law to exclude disclosure of issues related to gender identity and prisoners. So unless you get information directly from women housed there, which you know, is incredibly dangerous and risky for them, there’s no way to do it on paper, publicly, directly because of the ACLU.

But getting back to the primary issue of pushing for this policy, the New York Civil Liberties Union, which is kinda a local version of the ACLU, I believe it originated with them. I haven’t been able to track it back any further, but they’re the ones who have developed the model transgender inmate policy that was enacted in California, that legislatures tried to enact in Maryland. They’re actively trying to enact a version of it in New York state right now, which is even more extreme than the version in California. So, they’re not only rhetorically pushing this issue, they are actively developing model laws. They’re actively pushing for those laws and actively working to prevent the public from learning about this issue.

Meghan: This is so appalling. I mean, for these kinds of organizations to be fighting against the rights of incredibly marginalized people. It’s really mindblowing that this is happening.

Jennifer: They’re acting as a legal agent of the gender industry. We have to expose and fight the ACLU because they are basically a legal firm that is pushing their policy.

It’s not just as simple as just saying, ok only men and women’s prisons. You have to dig deeper. I’m planning a protest in August against the ACLU in Washington DC because, you know, we can at least go after their donors — all the people that think the ACLU is so great because they protected the Nazis and Skokie and they believe in free speech and all that.

The whole narrative behind them that they’ve managed to hide—the new narrative—is still believed by a lot of Democrats. And I think if the Democrats knew what the ACLU have been doing with our civil liberties, they would stop donating.

Would that stop the ACLU? No, because the gender industry would just make up for that money. But you could see then a shift with the populace, you know, a shift of awareness.

Meghan: I’m glad that you brought that up, in terms of the donors, because one of the major obstacles to fighting gender identity ideology is that it’s infiltrated almost every single institution. Certainly every single civil rights organization, reproductive rights organization, LG now BTQ etc organizations. I mean, the reason that they’re doing this is because they’re getting all this funding to do it. Alternatively, you could look at it as they risk losing funding if they don’t push this.

Let’s talk about that. Where do we go to advocate against these policies when we’re dealing with these massive organizations and institutions? And clearly this ideology has infiltrated the Democratic Party. It feels so big and I know that people are getting really angry about it thanks to activism, like what you two are doing, but it feels like a big hill to climb. Have you had any successes? Or do you have suggestions in terms of who might be a productive target?

Amanda: I have found that to be among the most depressing part of working in this area, which is that there is not a single legacy civil rights organization or women’s rights group that understands this issue, or at least, pretends to. Every single one of them has been absolutely ideologically captured. So it really does seem as though either these organizations have to be built anew from the ground up — some other version of them. Or it’s going to take what Jennifer does an enormous amount of, which is on the street campaigning to bring awareness to force media to pay attention to the issue and to bring it to the public. We don’t have the numbers in North America of people advocating on this issue. We certainly don’t have the dollars. The reason that the ACLU changed the name of the program that addresses this is because they received a $15 million gift from John Stryker. That is what led to the change of the name and to their absolute commitment to the “T” all the time and none of the LGB. So I don’t think there’s a good answer to how we deal with the established organizations. I think people and especially women like Jennifer are the ones sort of creating a public groundswell.

Meghan: Right. I mean I’m, I’m verging towards thinking all these organizations need to be defunded and taken apart and started over again so that they’re not so tied up with this money that’s corrupted them so deeply.

Jennifer: The only real solution is the public against this, right? When we see thousands of people in the streets, fighting against this, that’s when we’ll see some change. People have to get mad enough to get out on the streets and this complacency that they’re under.

But inevitably I do think we will see a ground swell and that’s when we’ll regain our power. We won’t feel so helpless because we’ll look around and instead of seeing 20 or 30 people standing next to us, it’s thousands.

That’s how we know about Martin Luther King — because he went to the street. So it’s going to take that and it’s going to take an awareness level where we just have to keep plugging along and hitting these stories.

Now there’s this new media that is hungry for these stories. Tucker just got fired. James O’Keefe got fired. They’re looking for stories, right? Because they’re going to build their own thing. So we do have this interesting time right now where there’s new media that we can tap into that will tell our story. It’s getting out more and more, but it’s going to take work.

Meghan: So I wanna talk a bit about the law. I know that Joe Biden’s administration pushed through a policy allowing men to be transferred into women’s prisons. But I also am under the impression that things differ from state to state.

I know that New York lawmakers are pushing or trying to push through this bill called the Gender Identity Respect, Dignity and Safety Act, which would automatically place male prisoners in women’s facilities if they identify as women. I’m curious to know, first, if you know what’s happening with this bill, and second, if this is something that we actually need to be fighting on a state to state basis or that we can fight on a federal level.

Amanda: So the New York State Bill, as you say, presumptively houses people according to their self-declared gender identity. And there is such an insanely high burden and such a quick turnaround time required to deny that to someone that the bill was clearly drafted in New York with the intent to never, ever, ever deny someone. There are also mechanisms built in for the state to be sued if someone is denied, and to have attorney’s fees and damages paid. So it is so unidirectional a law, it’s a little frightening that that came about after all we’ve heard coming out of California and New Jersey and Canada, to the extent that people hear about it, um, the, the answer more broadly is yes, for right now, this is having to be fought on a state by state basis.

When this administration — the Biden administration — came in on its first day in office, it issued an executive order directing federal agencies to interpret the laws and regulations that they have some control over and that they manage in the various agencies to interpret sex to include gender identity. So with one pen stroke on his first day in office, he directed every federal agency to work through that process for the Bureau of Prisons, which is the only direct mechanism the federal government has. There are some indirect ones, which I’ll mention, but it’s the only direct prison system that the federal government controls, putting aside military.

During the Obama administration’s last month in office, they created a transgender offender manual and literally chucked it in the air and walked out the door and left that for the Trump administration to deal with. It was a very aggressive policy. Again, not a federal law, not a regulation, didn’t go through any voting process, didn’t go through any public comment process.

It was merely an in-house manual that the Federal Bureau of Prisons was expected to follow. It took the Trump administration two years to grapple with that policy and try to modify it, which they did, in kind of half-hearted way.

And then following Biden’s executive order and a few other similar executive orders, the Federal Bureau of Prisons again reissued the transgender offender manual and again leaning much more heavily towards a pathway for men to be moved into the women’s prisons based on self declaration. So that’s what covers the federal prison.

The way that the federal government impacts the state prison system is they have money and there’s a federal regulation called the PREA regulations, and it derives from the Prison Rape Elimination Act. The PREA regulations provide — and those did go through a public comment period, but that was so long before this issue was in the public’s line of vision.. You know, it was over a decade ago, nobody was paying attention to this… Well, some rare people were paying attention, but very few people were paying attention… And through the regulatory process, the Obama Department of Justice issued regulations that contemplated cross-sex housing. The act itself did not. And that’s the first time in the federal legal system there was anything speaking to even the concept of developing cross-sex housing. So what those regulations provide is that in order to maintain full federal funding — and every state receives some in order to maintain that —  you get massively dinged until you receive no money. Year after year, you get successively more dinged if you do not adhere to those regulations. So every state has to, at least on paper, consider housing people based on their self-declared trans identity. So for a number of years, most states were like, “okay.” And then went about their business. But some of them took it really seriously.

So now a number of states have either laws or policies that not only implement those regulations of contemplating cross-sex housing, but presumptively housed according to self-declared gender identity.

Jennifer: And this is how the federal government influences states throughout, like the federal government has the right — the president can come in and put out an executive order.

That’s what he did. This crazy executive order that virtually anybody would think was insane, you know, prioritizing gender identity above sex-based rights. They can come in and do that, and then they have this mechanism. The schools are funded federally, so they basically blackmail them into adopting these policies by withholding money.

So you think, well, why would the states go along with this? Well, they wouldn’t get their money. They even threatened the school lunch program at one point with, you know, “if you don’t adopt these policies, your school lunch program is going to be threatened.”

It’s a withholding of money if you don’t do this right. So like the universities that are, there are some laws in there, but they’re just not pursuing them. These executive orders have a lot of control even with Title IX. Amanda could probably speak better to this, but that’s why it’s being messed with, because it’s not, it’s not a law per se?

Amanda: Right. Just to clarify, Title IX is itself a law, but it’s the regulations that they’re kind of messing with right now. And what they’re trying to do is trying to apply what both Jennifer and I have been talking about in terms of the executive orders — redefining sex to mean sex or gender identity. The reason we’ve heard a lot about Title IX is they are going through the formal rulemaking process and putting it out for public comment. They received a record number of comments, which is really heartening, about modifying the language of the regulations, which is where you’ll find all the meaty stuff about what you have to do to get money if you’re a state or a state entity.

Meghan: I want to talk about some specific cases. I believe that there are 27 males currently being housed at Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for women? Which was a central focus of the Get Men Out protest in New Jersey last month. Is that normal throughout the states?

Amanda: Well, woohoo, now there’s only about 10. A number of them managed to behave so poorly they got themselves moved out.

About two years ago, we worked with Women’s Declaration International to do a statewide FOIA project of every state prison to try to see what the numbers were in each location. Many were extremely uncooperative and we were not able to get a completely exhaustive list. But there are states that are in that range… admittedly not many two years ago. I think there’s probably more now, if we were to circle back and do it again. But even in states where you wouldn’t necessarily think of it, there’s a handful.

Virginia had one for decades, even before this recent push. But a number of states have several dozen. Obviously California does now. Washington State is getting up there. Illinois’ numbers are growing and they have neither a policy nor a law. A federal judge keeps putting men in women’s prison in Illinois. So it’s everywhere, though the numbers change. But we’re, we’re only seeing them go up. We’re not seeing them go down much. New Jersey went down just because they had a kind of freak out placement of men in there when they reached the settlement with the ACLU that Jennifer referenced, and then they had another panic in the other direction when it went so badly.

Meghan: And what are some of the cases — like what are we hearing about what’s actually going on in these prisons? I know that when I talk about this issue online, people will respond in these very blase ways. People will say like, “Well, you know, women get raped in prison either way.” Or they say, “If they’re in male prisons, then these males who identify as women are going to get raped.” Or they say, “Well prison is really bad.” And I don’t know, maybe they’re just not able to picture the situation and what’s actually going down and what the danger is when you’re putting men in women’s prisons. Can you talk to some specific cases that have happened?

Jennifer: So when a woman gets convicted of a crime and the judge reads out her sentence, he doesn’t say, “Okay, your sentence is possible rape, possible forced childbirth or an abortion, and then possible abandonment of your child.”

We don’t agree. We don’t have agreed upon laws to cover this. The public is not in agreement on this. Otherwise, that would be the sentence. This apathy around it just upsets me to no end. I also think people think it can’t happen to them.

The fastest growing category of inmates is women. When women get convicted, it’s harsher sentences for lesser crimes.

I think this sort of bleeds into that industrial complex. Like in New Jersey they were making $61,000 per person off of their prisoners. And women are easier to manage than men. Actually, prison reform is working for men and not women. So men are getting shorter sentences for worse crimes and getting out. They can add more to that prison population by adding men. Right now, if Bundy applied, he would get into a woman’s prisons. If Richard Speck, who killed eight nurses in Chicago, took hormones and dressed like a woman when he was in jail he would be in there with them. There’s no distinction of how bad the crime is.

Amanda: I think those are really good points, and I think a lot of it speaks to, aside from the sort of disregard for prisoners in general, it’s just treated as a kind of a throwaway population. But aside from that, I think it is largely a misconception. This is a subset of, at best, men they’re imagining are a particular kind of man or worse, they think there’s some sort of version of a subset of women. But I think most people imagine that it’s non-violent criminals, that it’s men who have had genital surgery, that it’s men who are on hormones, that it’s men who are tiny and pretty and vulnerable. All of those assumptions are out there and obviously, even if somebody is those things and not a violent criminal who is tiny and has had genital surgery and is on hormones, if they’re a man, they still don’t belong in a woman’s prison.

But I think that is what most of the public imagines when they hear these stories, which is one reason that it’s so important for the stories and the names and the visuals and the crimes and all of that to be made really right in people’s faces so they can see the criminal history of these men. They can see what they look like, which I know seems really superficial, That page on Keep Prisons’s Single-Sex’s website that has a sample of men and their crimes who are in women’s prisons, I mean, I’ve peaked people in 30 seconds by showing them that page. Just the, the visual of is sometimes what people need. Like, oh, still has a penis and is massive? That’s crazy.

Meghan: Yeah. And I guess, probably a lot of people — I’m gonna give them the benefit of the doubt — are imagining these men who are identifying as women or trans women as being men who “pass.” So men who “look like women,” probably men who’ve gone through all the surgeries and so on and so forth. So I imagine that what’s happening there when you’re showing them that actually these are the men who are in these women’s facilities: they just look like regular dudes. Like not even trying to look like women.

Amanda: Or they look exactly like men who have literally put their hair in pigtails, which is somehow even more alarming. You know, the superficiality of it.

Jennifer: The women said in their letters at the protest that these men dropped that act right when get into the facility then it’s a million dollar baby game, you know, let’s make a baby.

They’re not acting vulnerable when that’s going on. It’s a complete facade.

Meghan: In the UK they’ve actually had some success and have started to change their policies in order to bar violent offenders, as I understand it, from being transferred to women’s prisons. Do I have that right?

Amanda: I believe that’s right. There’s a certain category where the answer is just “no.”

Meghan: Have you had any success in that regard? In terms of advocating for change in the US or have you managed to have an impact when you talk to politicians, for example?

Amanda: Aside from public awareness, which is kind of hard to measure, but in terms of objective successes, a number of organizations and women, including Keep Prisons Single Sex and me, fought very hard in Maryland to keep a proposed law there from getting out of committee, and that was successful.

A year or two ago, New York State’s law sat in committee the last legislative session, um, through a letter writing campaign from Keep Prisons Single Sex, and I like to think we had something to do with it not making it out of committee. No successes in terms of turning things around necessarily, but like putting a hand up to the train that just keeps going faster.

But the public awareness is huge. That some mainstream media in the New York Post did a story about Jennifer’s action  last month…  They’re covering it, as Jennifer mentioned, and alternative media is becoming more interested in it. So in terms of public awareness, I think that’s where we’re seeing success.

I can’t say so much elsewhere.

Jennifer: Yeah. And public awareness is a tricky thing because you have to get ’em mad enough to come out. I think there’s a sense of helplessness that can be overcome with just more people on the ground and you know, the more people rally and organize and get together because we have to rebuild almost all our organizations. So we’re going to be needing to mesh with new people, churches that have retained their organization  and can relay messages without the dictatorship of social media and tech… We’re going have to come up with alternatives, and alternative ways of networking, and different people to network with to really get the ball rolling. Because it’s too scary alone. I think a lot of people are aware, and we’re at the stage of how do we get them to join us? How do we get them to come and let us ease some of that helplessness they’re feeling about this by joining together. And then lawyers mix in, and then we’re cooking with gas, you know, and we can make change.

We’re behind England. We have different laws here. It’s a totally different landscape here. But I do feel like it’s changed over the past couple of years in America. And there are more people interested in fighting this. So we are at the stage of just kind of weaving that blanket together.

We’re going to get better at this. I have hope for the future.

Meghan: I’m glad to hear that. I think that unfortunately, we — and I’m speaking like for myself, I’m not speaking for you two because I don’t know how long you guys have all been involved in this work — but we, a lot of the radical feminists who were worried about this early on, really didn’t understand how big this was and how deep the issue goes, so probably naively thought, “If we can just get the word out, then we can stop it,” not realizing that this was coming top down from these very wealthy funders. Just letting people know about it may have not been enough. Although, of course, the more people that know, the more people will push back, especially at a government level, and hopefully we can have an impact on things like legislation that way.

Amanda: You had asked about politicians, and I think there’s something relevant on that issue, particularly to contrast how it’s gone in the US and Canada vs the UK and that is that our politicians, you know, the Democratic party — liberal politicians, or I should say lefty politicians — are absolutely committed to holding onto the belief that the only people who could object to these policies are religious conservatives.

You know, I write as a constituent to my own representatives, and I’m in New York, so they’re all Democrats. And every time I do, I get back a form letter that says, “We’re excited to learn about your interest in religious freedom, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You must be concerned about this for religious reasons.” And I write back and I say, that is not my concern. My concern is this. And I get another form letter that’s their like letter two in this letter tree, saying, you know, “Thank you for demonstrating your interest in religious freedom. We’re concerned about that too.”

So some of what’s happened and some of the challenge in the US and perhaps to some extent in Canada too, probably to a slightly lesser degree, is there is this artificial reinforced divide about who’s for these policies and who’s against them and why.

It becomes additionally challenging when much of the media who will cover this is either conservative or religious or both, and bless them. I am so thankful that they do. But all of us who need to be interested and concerned about this issue are just allergic to the arguments because they come out of the gate thinking this is tribal and we’re not in that tribe, so we’re not joining hands with you.

Meghan: Yeah. I mean that’s been the media and the political view from the get-go, which is why it was so difficult for feminists to get their perspectives out in the first place.

In Canada the media would only cover this issue as one of the religious right — which is strange because the religious right in Canada is really pretty marginal — as though it was only a debate between the religious right and everybody else.

Clearly they’ve done the same thing to a larger extent in the US which is frustrating because as you say people kind of just shut down and think, “Well, I guess you must be a religious right, Christian, gay hating jerk.”

Jennifer: And throw abortion on top of that, which they have done, and it’s just division everywhere. But there is this new media and there are so many people who are politically homeless who just want good schools for their kids and don’t want them brainwashed. So I think people are converging on almost every issue in gender. We’re all starting to kind of sing the same message. We want to work together, we can set aside whatever differences we have. This is too important. So I think there’s hope. There’s always hope, right?

We’re basically fighting the one percent. And if everyone could come in on even the free speech issue where, you know, if we don’t have it, we are literally slaves — then they can tell us to say anything and do anything..

Even with Covid, it galvanized people. But we’re fighting a big machine. Like even with Tucker, you know, he was the top — the top host of the top show in America, and they showed us he can be taken off the throne. They want to model behavior of defeat with us. And we have to fight that with modeling behavior of not using pronouns and demanding our autonomy. Individually and then together. And I think we are getting there and more and more people are getting pissed about this.

I have sisters and a lot of them were against me. But after Tucker, a couple of them came around, so the temperature has changed. My sisters are full on Democrats raised in Chicago, but they’re coming around because they’re seeing it affect them. And you know, that’s how it goes with issues. It has to affect you. Your kid has to be in peril. So I think we are going to see game momentum and then it’ll kind of rub off on Canada because we’re so close.

That’s what I’m hoping for. I’m so sorry. That’s all I have to say about Canada.

Meghan: I mean, it’s really, really bad. It’s a really bad situation in Canada and nothing’s really changing and there’s a little bit of pushback here and there, but not nearly enough and nothing comparable to what’s going on in the US, but you’re right that Canada does follow America’s lead, so, I think you might be right on that end.

And I’m glad that you made the point about we’re fighting the one percent because this trans rights movement has done so much work very successfully to present itself as just another grassroots civil rights movement. Like this is just about these marginalized people who don’t have rights, fighting for their lives, fighting back for their rights, fighting back for them, their safety. And that is not how any of this happened. This was fully a top down thing. And those of us fighting back are the ones who have very, very, very little power.

Jennifer: They always say, You don’t want us to exist.” And then they erase the word women. Bizarre. You know, when this mass propaganda machine captured all the young people online, basically they internalized this dialogue with everything they’re doing to us.

That’s why there’s no dialogue with them. I think what they don’t want people to hear is how ridiculous their answers are.

Meghan: Of course. It’s always a reversal. It’s always about the trans activists presenting themselves as these downtrodden, silencenced, everyone’s after them, they’re being threatened and harassed all the time, etc. And we know as women who are trying to speak out on this that it’s the total opposite. And I mean, I think anyone who’s really paying attention to this debate can see what happens  to women in particular who speak out and who really has the power in all of this institutionally. And in a lot of cases literally the physical power as well as we’re talking about men.

Before I let you go can you please tell me how to find your work, your organizations, and how to support your work, as well as if you have any upcoming actions that people might be able to support or attend?

Amanda: Sure. So the USA website for Keep Prisons Single Sex is kpssinfo.org. Other than that, we’re most active on Twitter, which is @NoXY_USA. We’re also on Facebook.

Meghan: Awesome. And can people support your work in any way?

Amanda: Yes. Thank you for asking about that. We do have a donate button on our website and just so people are aware, everything gets funded through the UK. So if it is in pounds, don’t be surprised. The UK group will honour requests to direct that towards the USA efforts. That’s what funds all of our work. Everyone is a volunteer. Any expenses we have get paid through fundraisers to the UK Keep Prisons Single Sex.

Jennifer: I’m Jennifer Thomas Rev @RevFemStBeatfem. I run the action group, Get Men Out.

My next event is on June 16th in Pittsburgh at the City Council building at 1PM. I’m aiming to get men out of women’s bathrooms. And of course it’s a Free Speech for Women event, so we’ll invite speakers. The following protest I have on the calendar is for the ACLU and that is Friday, August 11th in Washington, DC on the Supreme Court steps. You can email me at [email protected] for more info and I’ll get back to you. I do fundraising, but I peg it to each protest. So the fundraiser won’t come out for the Pittsburgh event until about a month before. So if you just follow me on Twitter, that’s the best way to find me. Or email me.

Meghan: Okay, perfect. Thank you both so much for speaking with me about this.

I’m really excited about the work that you’re doing, and I’m glad that you both feel hopeful about affecting change and I’m really grateful for your willingness to fight and for all the hard work that you’re doing.

Jennifer: Oh, well thank you Meghan. It’s such a pleasure and you are a woman that I admire, and I thank you so much for the interview.

Amanda: Same. Thank you.

The post Transcript: Why are dangerous men still being housed in women’s prisons? appeared first on Feminist Current.

A letter to Judy Rebick, from Lee Lakeman, on changing one’s mind

Attacks against Trans women are attacks against the women’s movement and the fight for better equality and justice.#TransDayOfVisibility #TransRightsAreHumanRights

Read the full story by https://t.co/ZIUBAuI38Q‘s founding publisher, Judy Rebick: https://t.co/G8o62tC3Zo

— rabble.ca (@rabbleca) March 31, 2023

Last week, longtime Canadian feminist and leftist, Judy Rebick, published a piece at rabble.ca, the site she founded, entitled “My feminism is Trans inclusive.” It in, Rebick explains that she has never written on trans issues before, but having been accused of being a “TERF” (trans-exclusionary radical feminist), she wished to reject the label, and offered an apology of sorts for having testified in support of Vancouver Rape Relief (VRR), who were forced into a human rights case brought against the transition house and rape crisis line by Kimberly Nixon in 1995. Nixon had been rejected from a training group with the collective on account of having been born a man, and on account of the fact the transition house and collective was women-only. Under apparent pressure from her leftist comrades, Rebick explained, in her recent piece, that she “didn’t really understand the issues involved,” that she had “believed that gender was socially constructed,” but was “ignorant,” and has since learned and changed her position. Rebick does not explicitly say she disagrees with the ruling in favour of VRR, and no longer believes VRR should have the right to define their own membership and maintain a women-only space, though she does criticize the organization for “excluding trans women.”

In the following letter, Lee Lakeman, a founding member of the Vancouver Rape Relief collective, responds.

~~~

Dear Jude,

Over the last couple of days, three friends have sent me your statement published at Rabble. Like many, I have not read Rabble in years. The suppression there of any debate about ideas not supported by the party put me off. As it happens, I was reading the work of a young feminist in New Zealand writing about the barriers and difficulties of responding with integrity to the events in our lives. So, with her example, I think it best that I try.

You published your piece, “My Feminist is Trans Inclusive,” at Rabble, so I am submitting to Feminista, Feminist Current, Vancouver Women’s Space and Fairer Disputations, which may not be perfect media, but that’s what I have, just as you have Rabble. Perhaps a friend will forward it to you. If not, then maybe we have no remaining connections. I haven’t yet responded to my other friends who contacted me about your statement, but as you and I have been friends and comrades, my first response is to you:

I’m sorry that you have been pressured to apologize for doing what you thought was your ethical obligation when you provided testimony in the BC Human Rights Court to protect the legislated rights of Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter from a wrongful accusation. I was grateful at the time and I remain grateful that you gave of your commitment to women’s liberation. If it is of any consolation to you or if it can satisfy those pressuring you, I don’t think it was your testimony, but rather the BC NDP government’s provision in Human Rights Law, ensuring equality-seeking groups have the right to define their own membership, that convinced the judges. And I’m sure you can argue that you have avoided the many situations since (including those before the various courts now) in which women have asserted this legal right that we confirmed in 2005. I’m sure that this excellent legislation is the real target. They want you to mislead what remains of second wave feminist support for the NDP.

Your explanation that you were ignorant at the time and have been educated since (presumably about whether women get to organize on our own terms) seems unlikely to satisfy those who press you for apology and contrition. It’s obvious that some want to display your contrition, to expose an image of you bowing down in contrite humiliation (perhaps as a cautionary tale before those in debate or confusion) while you still have a Canadian level of fame and importance as the legacy media’s chosen face of second wave feminism.

I must say that such a change of mind and your right to express it is completely understandable given the current state of things and your choice to express a change of mind is something I defend even as I find this change wrongheaded. I hope they are satisfied with this halfway measure and you won’t need further defending.

Those of us who believe the evidence of bodies — especially of our eyes and ears — that sex differences are real and matter, who think and recognize important patterns of oppression based in part on those differences, who still struggle for women’s equality and liberty (and particularly among those of us who struggle against rape, some of whom have chosen to support women’s rights by organizing separately), beg to differ.

Who knows how all this division and disagreement will end, but forcing women or any people to say what they do not perceive, believe, or think; disallowing groups of like-minded women to organize against sexist violence and in our own egalitarian and humanist interests; forcing individuals or groups of the oppressed to stand silent while witnessing the oppression of others; and forcing pathetic examples of insincere contrition or renunciation of women’s genuine efforts does not bode well.

Lee Lakeman

The post A letter to Judy Rebick, from Lee Lakeman, on changing one’s mind appeared first on Feminist Current.

Adam’s Rib: I escaped a fundamentalist religion only to find women’s rights under threat on the outside

It is just over 200 years since the women’s suffrage movement began in Canada. Not even 100 years has passed since we were declared legal persons, and all women, regardless of race, won the right to vote. A mere handful of generations have passed (which, historically speaking, represent only a drop) since women won their sex-based human rights. And once again, our rights are uncertain.

I am of a generation of women whom feminists warned not to become complacent. I reaped the benefits of the sacrifices of first and second wave feminists. I took for granted that women had gained inalienable rights that could not be revoked. I have been in a long slumber of complacency.

As a therapist, I think a lot about the concept of “the shadow”: the power of that which we do not want to face within ourselves — things like complacency and fear. If we do not turn towards our shadow, it can obscure our consciousness and blind us to psychological forces that may become unseen drivers of our actions, such as misogyny.

~~~

I grew up in a radicalized, fundamentalist religious organization run by a hierarchy of men. Women were not permitted leadership roles that might allow them to disrupt the established power structures. The organization’s dominion was cult-like: people were instructed not to befriend anyone outside the organization and to cut off even family members who did not believe. Followers were convinced of an impending apocalypse — a doomsday that would never arrive.

The male fraternity of leaders claimed they possessed the one true interpretation of what God himself demanded from earthly beings. The organization’s views were often science-denying. They forbid followers certain life-saving Western medical interventions, and taught that dinosaur fossils were fakes, evolution was a lie, and humans were only a few thousand years old, created by an aged, male God. They brainwashed followers into believing magical stories of demons hovering nearby, waiting to enter followers’ minds if they were not vigilant against the intrusion of “misinformation” or evil from the outside world.

The organization’s leaders demanded converts believe that myths and lies were real. They interpreted biblical teachings literally in order to legitimize enforcing women’s subservience to men and to gender-stratified roles. We were taught that women were only an extension of men, because we were made from the original man — Adam’s — rib.

Dissent from the dominant narrative was prohibited. Followers who could not reconcile material reality and scientific facts with the magic and superstition the organization fed us were deemed heretics. Anyone found to be introducing ideas that challenged the approved narrative, no matter how rational, was labelled an apostate. Punishment was meted out through forms of humiliation, public shaming, and ostracism. Likewise, those who left on their own accord were shunned — treated as though they were dead.

~~~

I took for granted that, when I left at age 15, I would survive. I sought freedom and autonomy. I wanted to define myself as a young woman distinct from who I had learned I was under extremist, fundamentalist religious dictates — merely the rib of Adam.

So one cold fall evening, with several plastic grocery bags stuffed with clothing, I left. I used the money I had been saving for driver’s education to pay for my first month’s rent in a rooming home. In my room I had a small fridge, a countertop stove, a pillow, and a sleeping bag. Most importantly for a girl on her own, I had a door that locked.

I was courageous (and likely also reckless, given my adolescent brain’s propensity to underestimate risk), yet never reflected on how my courage rested on the backs of the women who came before me. It was only because of the relentless work of women who had fought for my freedom that I was able to leave and get a job, make money, and provide myself shelter.

I was struck by the freedom I could exercise by choice. I knew even at the most difficult times that there was hope because I could make choices that would determine the course of my life, for good or ill. No one would force me. I was free.

Decades passed and it never occurred to me that my rights could be precarious.

~~~

When I saw the attack on women’s sex-based rights begin to gain momentum in the West, in the form of gender identity ideology, alongside the hard left’s science-denying radicalism, I did not join the public outcry. I watched as the very same sort of magical thinking from the extremist religion I grew up in took over many faculties of post-secondary education. The academy — once a bastion for the pursuit of truth through critical thinking, science, and debate — began to look a lot like a religious cult of the left.

I watched as ideology moved from the academy into our cultural institutions and then through society. Some parts of history became acceptable to remember, and others not, creating selective cultural amnesia. It was suddenly a social justice right to spew hate and vitriol, or to deface, burn, or otherwise destroy cultural symbols and institutions. Science — the method of investigative observation, questioning, hypothesizing, and testing that helps create knowledge — was labelled a politically-biased, colonial “idea.” Not even math was immune, with some academics suggesting the “belief” that 2+2=4 was not reflective of “other ways of learning,” and therefore not always true.

Gender studies — an outcrop of postmodernism and constructionism — chipped away at the biological, immutable fact of sex differentiation, insisting the sex binary was not real. It posited that humans could be deconstructed into disparate parts and existed on “spectrums,” that perhaps dozens of “genders” existed, and that male and female were not fixed categories. Those who wanted to erase the sex binary weaponized both invented genders and pronouns, targeting any person who did not agree as “discriminatory.” As this ideology dismantled sex, it also deconstructed age, turning its gaze towards the normalization of adult sexual attraction to children within the academic stream of gender studies.

When these beliefs were challenged using scientific evidence, data, or historical and present realities, in a further Orwellian turn, truth itself was labelled bigoted.

It may have been institutions that introduced these ideologies and newspeak, but it is individuals that ushered in the crisis we face now. It is only because of each person’s willingness to ignore, conform, pretend, and lie that we allowed science-denying ideology to first become common vernacular, then the dominant narrative.

I had lived this before. Humans with rational faculties will abandon reason, sacrifice their own family members, and subscribe to outrageous and harmful ideas in order to maintain their position in the tribe.

I watched from the sidelines as women were deconstructed into non-entities, and children were set on by those determined to dismantle immutable categories dictated by nature. I sat in a terrible mix of fear and lethargy until I could not anymore.

I needed to investigate my shadow.

~~~

I understand now that I was acting from a part of me that still subscribed to the internalized misogyny I had learned in my youth. I knew that taking powerful action —  to not comply and to speak the truth — meant that I had to confront two specific fears.

One I had met before in the rare, but dangerous, predatorial men with whom I had crossed paths as a young, vulnerable girl on her own. And, as any woman who has been intimidated, overpowered, or physically or sexually assaulted by a man knows, men and women are very different indeed. This is a physical reality that vulnerable women face more often. If a man loses his way and combines predatorial behaviour with physical prowess, he becomes a danger that can not only harm, but kill us. For women, sex-based rights, such as the right to women-only spaces, are not optional.

In 2017, trans-identified people were granted special rights and protection under the Canadian Human Rights Act, preventing discrimination on account of gender identity or expression. This was not enough for some. The demands became intrusive, as self-identified transwomen insisted also on access to women’s spaces and sports.

Some women said “no.”  These women have been subjected to an endless barrage of threats and hate from trans activists who demanded subservience.

This scared me for a time. No one wants to meet the mob.

I don’t believe that most men are misogynist or that all transwomen want to destroy women’s rights and safety. But we must ask what it says about a man — trans-identified or not —  who refuses to respect a woman’s “no.”

It is important also to note that there are numerous women supporting this ideology, allowing men to trample over women’s boundaries. The phenomenon of women offering up women’s identities and sex-segregated spaces to men who demand it may be related to internalized misogyny, but is more likely a part of what Jungian analyst Marie-Louise von Franz described as the confusion of offering the teat of compassion when one should be wielding the sword of discernment. These women believe they are helping a marginalized population, but they are hurting half the population and abandoning their own, and others, rights and safety in order to “be nice.”

Fear also visited me because I had previously experienced exile from the group. Although I gained my freedom and autonomy at a young age, it came at a high cost: losing my family and community. Shunning takes an incredible psychological, emotional, and physical toll. Those of us who want to say “no,” and fight to protect our sex-based rights know we will be subjected to a modern version of old-fashioned mobbing and shunning. The deep slumber of unconsciousness can be a compelling alternative to facing our fear.

Yet there is a driver even more powerful than fear, and it is the protective and courageous force of love. A woman who watches another woman be harmed and does nothing psychologically damages herself. Women also cannot collectively watch children become victims of delusional ideologies and still face the mirror. Ignoring our protective instincts demands an incredible separation from ourselves. When we are connected to love for self and other, we know both rationally and instinctively that we have a responsibility to protect each other and children.

~~~

We are at a profound historical moment. In a few short years, efforts to erase biological women have snowballed. The ideologies that seek to deconstruct all categories and boundaries of protection are now dominant narratives in our mainstream media, public school systems, legal and justice systems, workplaces, and even, disturbingly, our medical and related health institutions. It is a surreal experience to witness ideology get into bed with science.

Community organizations across Canada have quickly fallen in line. Women’s centres have opened their doors to “self-identified women,” obliterating long-standing community supports for women. Even women’s rape shelters are open to biological males. The oldest rape crisis centre in Canada, Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter, was subject to vitriolic attack after refusing to allow access to biological males. The shelter was targeted with hate. Dead vermin were nailed to their door. “F**k TERFs”  and “Kill TERFs, trans power” was graffitied across their windows. Activists petitioned to have this community pillar’s funding pulled, and Vancouver City Council caved. The shelter did not. They were attacked for saying the one word perpetrators of aggression or violence against women do not respect.

In 2017, Canada’s Liberal government paved the way to compromising women’s sex-based rights when they passed legislation ostensibly to protect people from discrimination based on gender identity and expression, but which far exceeded its purported aim. These laws entitled activists to manipulate language, which is what allows us to speak about and understand reality, so women could no longer be spoken about. Progressives applauded such female-obliterating language. Women became “birthing people” and “uterus-bearers.” They produced chest milk. A woman might have a penis, or male gametes. A woman was a thought. A woman was a feeling. A woman was a fiction.

Around the developed world, men who self-identified as women were allowed into women’s prisons, health centres, bathrooms, shelters, changerooms, and gyms. Men were self-identifying as female competitors in women’s sports. These men started smashing records. Women who had worked their whole lives to reach their competitive potential were being beaten by biological men. It was — it is — unbelievable.

In 2023, we are at the precise place feminists warned we would arrive should we fall into complacency. Hard left extremism, fervently religious in nature, has pulled us nearly to the nadir of its radicalized, science-denying demolition of rights and protections. Science denial harms women and children the most. It defines women as non-persons, viewing them instead as subjects of men, and uses children in harmful ways as pawns of radicalized ideologies.

In Canada, we are led by a head of state, Justin Trudeau, who is leading the demolition, declaring “transwomen are women,” and whose government has paved the way for the decimation of women’s sex-based rights and the ability to differentiate ourselves autonomously as persons from men.

We must make conscious what has been alive in the shadows all this time. There are still some men who believe women’s identities belong to them. To them, women are only a rib of Adam, bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh. This historical moment is evidence of the society we create when we fall into slumber, refuse to see our shadow, accept myths as reality, and deny science and history.

Women have historically been refused legal personhood specifically and only because of our sex. The purpose of the women’s suffrage movement was so we could take equal part in the political system, just like the only other sex: men. This was not only so we could participate fully in public life, but so we could vote in favour of our own interests.

Those of us who have been complacent are waking from a long slumber precisely because the threat of not facing the shadow of cultural misogyny is so high. Each time those who want to erase women threaten or intimidate one of us, they wake up legions more. As our right to exist as biological beings unique from men, to choose women-only spaces, and to represent ourselves are again being colonized, we must not allow ourselves to shirk from fear but face it. Women know we are not a fiction. And we will force leaders who dwell in the shadows, believing we do not exist, back into reality when as embodied females we enact our legal right to vote and remove them from power.

Carla Duda is a therapist and author of the upcoming book, “The Art & Practice of Responsibility: Improve relationships, create meaning, foster well-being.” Learn more about her work and writing on topics like ethical therapy, relationships, and parenting at carladuda.com.

The post Adam’s Rib: I escaped a fundamentalist religion only to find women’s rights under threat on the outside appeared first on Feminist Current.

Kellie-Jay Keen is attacked and mobbed by trans activists in New Zealand

The grotesque irony of accusing @ThePosieParker of being a violent threat. I hope at very least this incident shows the world the truth about this movement. https://t.co/n1DQloKSse

— Meghan Murphy (@MeghanEMurphy) March 25, 2023

Kellie-Jay Keen (also known as Posie Parker), founder of Standing for Women, was to host her Let Women Speak event on Saturday morning in Auckland, but was met with a mob of protesters who pelted her with tomato juice and water, yelling, “fuck you cunt” and “go home Posie, go home.” Trans activists pushed down metal barriers to mob the 5’1” mother of four. Keen was forced to abandon the event, fearing for her life, and was escorted away through a crowd of deranged, screaming protesters by police and her security team.

Keen had been smeared as a Nazi in the country after a small group of men at her Melbourne event gave Nazi salutes. Keen had no association with these men, and said she doubts they were in fact neo-Nazis:

“All of this doesn’t make any sense, it feels really off. I mean, look in the UK. We had police impregnating animal rights campaigners. And we had those police infiltrating those groups. I don’t think it’s beyond the wits of anyone to think that either that was TRAs [trans rights activists] dressed up, or police, or, something was just off.”

When asked about the men giving Nazi salutes, she told The Herald:

“They’re absolutely not associated with me whatsoever. I absolutely abhor anything to do with Nazis. It’s preposterous they even exist in 2023.”

The executive director of Gender Minorities Aotearoa, a New Zealand trans organization, Ahi Wi-Hongi, said they are thrilled at the display of opposition to Keen’s event:

“People have really showed her that we don’t want that here, it’s not welcome. Perhaps she’s gonna pack up and leave — hopefully.

For us the takeaway is that people like her shouldn’t be allowed to come here and spread hateful views and carry out actions that result in people being harmed.”

The Let Women Speak gathering in Wellington planned for tomorrow has been cancelled as Keen’s security team say they cannot keep her safe from violence.

Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau said she “condemns the views and actions” espoused by Keen and that, “In Wellington we proudly celebrate and welcome diversity and inclusion of all members of our community.”

Members of the Rainbow Greens party had called for Keen to be blocked entry to New Zealand, saying she has a “longstanding track record of hateful speech and the incitement of violence towards trans and gender diverse people as well as other marginalized communities.”

“This is because it directly threatens the human rights and bodily integrity of people—in this case, our takatāpui, trans and gender-diverse communities. It is also because these networks of extremists are connected and reinforce one another.”

These kinds of comments offer a particularly glaring irony considering the very real threats women like Keen continue to face every time they attempt to speak publicly about the conflict between gender identity ideology and women’s rights.

Keen told The Daily Mail:

“I do feel like public enemy No 1 out here, genuinely I feel afraid. I am a hate figure. I didn’t realize how much women are hated by some parts of society before I came here. I feel like there are some great powers somewhere who don’t want women talking.

I can take being called a transphobe, but calling someone a Nazi? One of the politicians here called me a c***. They used rhyming slang of ‘dropkick and punt.

The war on women in these countries is absolutely frightening.

I have got to have a team of seven security guards out here with me. I genuinely do feel my life could be in danger sometimes.”

Meanwhile, Eliana Rubashkyn, the protester who threw juice on Keen explained:

“We have to stop the hate against our communities because the world is, right now. It feels like we are in the 1930s again.

New Zealand needs to stand up in front of the world and say this is not welcome here. We protect trans people.”

Rubashkyn told 1News the juice because represented the blood of “our people.”

“I want her to know that her words are blood.”

The post Kellie-Jay Keen is attacked and mobbed by trans activists in New Zealand appeared first on Feminist Current.

At Wellesley College, Students Vote to Admit Trans Men

Outside of The Lulu Chow Wang Campus Center at Wellesley College, on Monday.

Viewpoint: Protecting Women Politicians from Online Abuse

Guest post by Ladyane Souza, Luise Koch, Maria Paula Russo Riva, and Natália Leal

Women who break the glass ceiling in politics are often depicted as disrupting the long-standing patriarchal structures that have traditionally kept women away from the public eye. The stereotypical “ideal” politician is usually based on a male perspective of strength and having a “thick skin,” which reinforces these patriarchal norms. Efforts to maintain the gendered status quo in politics are widespread, and include delegitimization and intimidation tactics such as misogynistic attacks or rape threats. Technological innovations provide additional fertile ground for such intimidation—and even violence—against women in politics. Though much of online hate is shared through social media, the consequences spill over into the offline world. Online abuse imposes financial and time-consuming burdens on female politicians who must, in addition to other pressing tasks, improve security, combat disinformation, and report perpetrators.

Many women politicians believe that they simply have to endure violence in order not to be perceived as emotional, weak, or unfit for the job. Some have managed to thrive politically despite being confronted with severe digital violence, like the 2021 German Green party candidate for chancellor, Annalena Baerbock, who is now minister for foreign affairs. Other female politicians decide to exit politics, like two former leftist congresswomen from Brazil who publicly announced their decision to not run in the 2022 elections after being targeted by severe online hate.

Why do some female candidates and victims of online violence drop out of politics while others endure? Our research shows that there are no simple answers. As part of a research project on online misogyny against politically active women, we interviewed five female Brazilian candidates for parliament. We found that women react differently to online violence: some simply ignore it or shrug it off, some choose to respond, and others stop engaging online altogether.

Since the use of social media is greatest among 25–34 year-olds, it is likely that younger female politicians who rely on social media are especially susceptible to being targeted. Black, Asian, and minority ethnic groups also tend to receive disproportionately higher amounts of abuse than many white female politicians. Personal characteristics such as age, skin color, and ethnicity are thus factors likely to increase the risk of women being targets of abuse and leaving politics. Furthermore, the severity of abuse, recurrence of attacks, and countries’ legal support mechanisms may play a crucial role in women’s decisions to persist in or exit politics.

The ultimate goal of violence against women in politics is to convey that women are not welcome at the political table. This means that when female politicians leave public life due to online violence, it is not because they choose to do so, but rather because patriarchally led structural forces succeeded in achieving their intended end, which is to cast off all women to political ostracism one by one. Because the problem is structural, the solutions need to be structural too. The blame for quitting must not be put on the female politicians individually, but rather on the absence of mechanisms to protect these women in the first place. Yet, the topic continues to be covered as a matter of personal choice and weakness, which disregards that online violence seeks to achieve political outcomes.

What must be done then to protect women in office from online violence? Apart from obvious proposals involving social media platforms preemptively countering and removing hateful content, multi-sectoral responses should be considered. This could involve putting in place initiatives such as developing support networks; creating comprehensive legal frameworks protecting digital rights; improving data collection on prevalence, incidences, and experiences of online harassment; and training public servants, communicators, and psychologists to address violence against women in politics and its victims.

Australia’s online safety regulator eSafety is a good model. The world’s first government agency dedicated to keeping people safer online, eSafety has formed a global partnership involving international organizations, civil society, and the private sector to strengthen laws to deter perpetrators of abuse and hold them accountable. The German non-profit HateAid is another—the group provides counseling and legal support in cases of digital violence.

One further blind spot that must be urgently tackled is the lack of funding to address the digital and physical security of female candidates. An understanding is beginning to emerge on the harms from gender-based attacks online, with Sweden leading the way with its first “online rape” conviction.

Women’s participation in politics is crucial, and much progress has been made in opening up the political space. But more needs to be done to protect women from the special burden they face of online abuse.

Ladyane Souza is a lawyer, consultant, and researcher who holds a Master’s in Human Rights from the University of Brasilia. Luise Koch is an economist and researcher who is pursuing her PhD at the Technical University of Munich. Maria Paula Russo Riva is a human rights lawyer and political scientist. Natália Leal is a journalist and CEO at Agência Lupa, the first fact-checking institution in Brazil and the 2021 Knight International Journalism Award winner.

Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization and doctors’ conscientious commitment to provide abortion

Alberto Giubilini, University of Oxford 

Udo Schuklenk, Queen’s University

Francesca Minerva, University of Milan 

Julian Savulescu, National University of Singapore and University of Oxford

(reposted from the Journal of Medical Ethics Blog )

The reversal of the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling by the US Supreme Court in the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization removed the Constitutional protection of women’s right to access abortion services in the US. This decision has resulted in renewed interest in the morality of conscientious commitment by health care professionals to provide abortion care.

Typically, ethical debates on conscience in health care revolve around the morality of doctors refusing to provide professional services on idiosyncratic personal conscience claims. Here the issue is different in that conscientious doctors, motivated by a commitment to professional values, might want to provide services that are arguably in their patients’ best interest, but that are illegal.

Most of the time, the type of health care we are legally entitled to coincides with what is considered good medical and medical ethics standards by relevant professional bodies. At the moment, most non-sectarian (e.g. non-religious) mainstream medical organizations in Western countries, as well as the World Medical Association support the provision of abortion care.

However, as Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization shows, professional and legal expectations sometimes come apart.

The question arises as to what professional obligations healthcare professionals are subject to in such cases, and how professional organizations’ codes of practice should handle such cases. These are the questions we address in our recent article in the Journal of Medical Ethics.

The central professional obligation for doctors is to act in the best medical interests of their patients. On the assumption that it is at least reasonable to think that foetuses do not have a moral status that outweighs the value of women’s health and autonomy, the “best medical interest” criterion implies that at very least doctors will be professionally justified in providing abortions to women in jurisdictions where it is illegal, when there is a serious threat either to their life or to their health. As things stand now, professional organizations’ codes recognise the woman as the primary patient, which is consistent with a plausible understanding of the Best Medical Interest standard of professional obligations based on reasonable, defensible ethical arguments.

Importantly, that doctors are professionally justified in providing illegal abortions does not mean that they are ethically justified, or that they should be exempted from the legal consequences of acting against the law. The rule of law prevails and legal obligations trump professional ones. However, it means that professional organizations have a duty to support and to not sanction members who act according to professional standards, even if against the law. It is the responsibility of relevant authorities to enforce the law, but it is the responsibility of professional organizations to uphold professional standards.

At the moment conscientious commitment claims do not enjoy legal protection. This raises the question how professional organizations should regulate the matter in their professional guidelines and codes of practice, given this lack of legal protection.

Professional organizations often include in their professional codes of practice the professional requirement to operate within the law. This means that a practitioner who acts against the law, but according to what would otherwise be professional standards (e.g. beneficence) is acting unprofessionally and therefore could lose their licence.

If we think abortion is in the best medical interest of a woman and considerations of women’s interests trump considerations of a foetus’ moral status, then professional codes should remove the explicit professional requirement to operate within the law in their guidelines on abortion. Also, professional organizations should not punish their members and should indeed lobby to protect them against legal sanctions that pertain to the professional sphere, such as the deregistration of professionals that adhere to good standards of medical ethics.  After all, they were following professional standards, which is the only thing that falls within the area of competence of professional organisations.

When a law regulates a professional practice that is considered consistent with professional standards, like abortion, the potential for conflict should be acknowledged by the relevant professional organizations. To simply claim that professionals should act within the terms of the law is to refuse to acknowledge the possibility of a conflict between standards of medical ethics and the law. This is a mistake. The role of professional organizations is to regulate professional conduct, not to enforce the law.