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coochiequeens · 3 years

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Please show British Pregnancy Advice Service (BPAS) some support. They are getting flack from the trans cult for saying ”woman”.

A pregnancy charity has rejected pressure to stop using the word “women” on the basis that it would make services more trans-friendly.

The British Pregnancy Advice Service (BPAS) is believed to be the first major organisation to publicly state that it will not remove gendered language, arguing that it is harder to fight against restrictions based on sexism if they “cannot clearly articulate” that it is “predominantly” women impacted.

It was described as a “hugely significant” move by feminist campaigners after major organisations, government departments and NHS Trusts have all dropped terms including mother and women from their policies.

Those changes came after pressure from groups including controversial LGBT charity Stonewall, which has advised organisations that they should remove all gendered language in order to be more inclusive.

Setting out its “values, vision and ambitions” for the next two years, BPAS said that its services were “inclusive” and that it was building “specialist pathways to meet individual needs”.

However, it refused to remove the word women from “campaigning, advocacy and general client materials” in part because it was how the “majority of those using our services see themselves”.

“We will also continue to use the word “women” over “people” so we can continue to campaign effectively for reproductive rights,” the charity said.

“Women’s reproductive healthcare and choices remain regulated and restricted in the way they are precisely because they are women’s issues, sadly still bound up with heavily gendered and judgmental approaches to female sexuality, ideals of motherhood and expectations of maternal sacrifice, and the need to control women’s bodies and choices.

‘We cannot – and will not – shy away from this’

“If we cannot clearly articulate that it is predominantly women, rather than people at large, who are affected by this, we will find it much harder to dismantle a framework that today is still underpinned by sexism.”

The move was welcomed by women’s rights campaigners, including birthing expert Milli Hill,who was attacked for questioning the use of the term “birthing people”.

She said that the move by BPAS felt “hugely significant”, adding: “I hope this is the beginning of an overdue re-centering of women in maternity, infant feeding, menstruation and reproductive healthcare.

Dr Nicola Williams, director of Fair Play for Women, also welcomed the decision, telling The Telegraph: “In political communications, women’s rights are the correct words to use.

“It is about balancing the needs of everyone in society rather than focusing on one small group and I think BPAS have got that balance right because in this instance the benefits of using the word woman outweighs the negative effects of using it.”

Health organisations have faced criticism for deleting gendered language, including Cancer Research which removed the word "women" from its smear test screening campaign and an NHS Trust which advised midwives to consider using terms such as “chestfeeding”.

Clare Murphy, the chief executive of BPAS, said that it had received a “hugely positive response” that showed “that this is not a controversial position… offering inclusive services is in no way incompatible with retaining the term ‘woman’.

She added: “From choice in childbirth to access to emergency contraception, our reproductive rights are undermined precisely because these are issues that affect women. We cannot – and will not – shy away from this as we continue to fight for a future where everyone can exercise reproductive autonomy and women are empowered to make their own decisions around pregnancy.”

#British Pregnancy Advice Service (BPAS)#BPAS is saying Woman #How oppressed are trans activists if they have the time and energy to attack a group that provided services to expecting mothers?#They would be trans inclusive anyway since transmen could use their services #Transmen are biologically women #If transpeople today don’t want to admit their biological reality that’s their problem

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a-room-of-my-own · 4 years

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Hi! Did you see the NewStasteman interview with Judith Butler? The way she framed the whole debate about gender is so depressing, I cannot believe it... And that's without going into the Rowling debate, the more I read about it on Twitter and tumblr and the most depressed I get. How can womanhood be reduced to a feeling anyone can claim?

https://www.newstatesman.com/international/2020/09/judith-butler-culture-wars-jk-rowling-and-living-anti-intellectual-times

I had not seen it so thank you for giving me the opportunity to read it. She’s really manipulative and that’s pretty scary honestly. I picked up a few examples to show you

“I want to first question whether trans-exclusionary feminists are really the same as mainstream feminists. (…) I want to first question whether trans-exclusionary feminists are really the same as mainstream feminists. (…)I think it is actually a fringe movement that is seeking to speak in the name of the mainstream, and that our responsibility is to refuse to let that happen.

It’s “our” responsibility to act on something she cannot prove? It’s quite easy to observe that trans-activists are an active minority within the feminist movement. On the other hand, it’s much harder to prove than most people support modern trans-activism in all its implications. She doesn’t give any source, proof or figures to support her claim but ask people to fight for it, nevertheless. That’s faith, not fact.

If we look closely at the example that you characterise as “mainstream” [the problem of men claiming to be trans to access women’s space] we can see that a domain of fantasy is at work, one which reflects more about the feminist who has such a fear than any actually existing situation in trans life.

Then again, no proof, when many gender critical bloggers have lists of dozens of examples of men using self-ID to access bathrooms, women’s shelters, women’s prisons, some of them sex offenders.

The feminist who holds such a view presumes that the penis does define the person, and that anyone with a penis would identify as a woman for the purposes of entering such changing rooms and posing a threat to the women inside. It assumes that the penis is the threat, or that any person who has a penis who identifies as a woman is engaging in a base, deceitful, and harmful form of disguise. This is a rich fantasy, and one that comes from powerful fears, but it does not describe a social reality.

That’s a lot of words to call women who are afraid of men “hysterical”. #sorority

Trans women are often discriminated against in men’s bathrooms, and their modes of self-identification are ways of describing a lived reality, one that cannot be captured or regulated by the fantasies brought to bear upon them. The fact that such fantasies pass as public argument is itself cause for worry.

Word salad that could be translated like this: our priority shouldn’t be protecting women from men, it should be accommodating men, because #notallmen are predators, so it would be very unfair to them, uwu. Men’s concerns should always be considered while women who are afraid are irrational.

I am not aware that terf is used as a slur.

I’m 99% sure that’s a lie, but okay.

I wonder what name self-declared feminists who wish to exclude trans women from women's spaces would be called? If they do favour exclusion, why not call them exclusionary?

Women who want to have spaces without men should be called exclusionary, because we define women based on their relationship with men and how they include them. Suuuuure.

If they understand themselves as belonging to that strain of radical feminism that opposes gender reassignment, why not call them radical feminists? My only regret is that there was a movement of radical sexual freedom that once travelled under the name of radical feminism, but it has sadly morphed into a campaign to pathologise trans and gender non-conforming peoples.

We’re not the ones telling you can cure a psychological problem with cross-sex hormones and amputations, but we are the one pathologizing trans and GNC people. That’s hi-la-rious.

My sense is that we have to renew the feminist commitment to gender equality and gender freedom in order to affirm the complexity of gendered lives as they are currently being lived.

Meaningless word salad > "women should let men redefine the word woman as they please"

Let us be clear that the debate here [between people who support JKR and others] is not between feminists and trans activists. There are trans-affirmative feminists, and many trans people are also committed feminists. So one clear problem is the framing that acts as if the debate is between feminists and trans people. It is not. One reason to militate against this framing is because trans activism is linked to queer activism and to feminist legacies that remain very alive today.

TLDR: Real feminist can only be trans-supporters.

Feminism has always been committed to the proposition that the social meanings of what it is to be a man or a woman are not yet settled. We tell histories about what it meant to be a woman at a certain time and place, and we track the transformation of those categories over time.

That’s gender for you Judith, not biological sex. Social identities vary, biological sex is a constant. Saying that isn't essentialism.

We depend on gender as a historical category, and that means we do not yet know all the ways it may come to signify, and we are open to new understandings of its social meanings. It would be a disaster for feminism to return either to a strictly biological understanding of gender or to reduce social conduct to a body part or to impose fearful fantasies, their own anxieties, on trans women...

“Women who are afraid of men are irrational” third instalment.

Their abiding and very real sense of gender ought to be recognised socially and publicly as a relatively simple matter of according another human dignity. The trans-exclusionary radical feminist position attacks the dignity of trans people.

Men are whoever they say they are, women are whoever men say they are.

One does not have to be a woman to be a feminist, and we should not confuse the categories. Men who are feminists, non-binary and trans people who are feminists, are part of the movement if they hold to the basic propositions of freedom and equality that are part of any feminist political struggle.

Many feminists consider that men can only be feminist allies, so the debate is clearly not settled.

When laws and social policies represent women, they make tacit decisions about who counts as a woman, and very often make presuppositions about what a woman is. We have seen this in the domain of reproductive rights. So the question I was asking then is: do we need to have a settled idea of women, or of any gender, in order to advance feminist goals?

Does “woman” need to have a *gasp* definition? Judith is saying it doesn’t. You’ll notice that she doesn’t say that anything about “man” not having a stable definition. She believes it’s possible to fight against misogyny while having no stable definition for what a woman is. Laughable.

I put the question that way… to remind us that feminists are committed to thinking about the diverse and historically shifting meanings of gender, and to the ideals of gender freedom. By gender freedom, I do not mean we all get to choose our gender. Rather, we get to make a political claim to live freely and without fear of discrimination and violence against the genders that we are.

Word salad > “we don’t get to choose our gender but we get to choose it I am very smart"

Many people who were assigned “female” at birth never felt at home with that assignment, and those people (including me) tell all of us something important about the constraints of traditional gender norms for many who fall outside its terms.

Many women have internalized misogyny and homophobia, which in turn had a huge impact on their sense of self and self-esteem, but that doesn’t mean they’re not women Judith. And I don’t think any woman who was forcefully married, who had her vulva mutilated for religious reasons, had to wear a veil since she was a toddler, or was sold as a child into prostitution ever “felt at home” with having been born a girl, you absolute unit.

Feminists know that women with ambition are called “monstrous” or that women who are not heterosexual are pathologised. We fight those misrepresentations because they are false and because they reflect more about the misogyny of those who make demeaning caricatures than they do about the complex social diversity of women. Women should not engage in the forms of phobic caricature by which they have been traditionally demeaned. And by “women” I mean all those who identify in that way.

That was going so well until the last sentence

I think we are living in anti-intellectual times, and that this is evident across the political spectrum.

JB, darling, just read your own word salad and get some self-awareness.

The quickness of social media allows for forms of vitriol that do not exactly support thoughtful debate. We need to cherish the longer forms.

Tell that to your supporters Miss I Wasn't Aware TERF Were A Slur.

I am against online abuse of all kinds. I confess to being perplexed by the fact that you point out the abuse levelled against JK Rowling, but you do not cite the abuse against trans people and their allies that happens online and in person.

Kindergarten argument, but sure. Also, yet again, no proof.

I disagree with JK Rowling's view on trans people, but I do not think she should suffer harassment and threats. Let us also remember, though, the threats against trans people in places like Brazil, the harassment of trans people in the streets and on the job in places like Poland and Romania – or indeed right here in the US.

“Threats against JKR are bad BUT have you seen what’s happening in Brazil?”. I’m sorry what? Also, could trans-activist please stop instrumentalizing Brazilian stats, since they reflect the situation of prostituted homosexual transsexuals ?

So if we are going to object to harassment and threats, as we surely should, we should also make sure we have a large picture of where that is happening, who is most profoundly affected, and whether it is tolerated by those who should be opposing it. It won’t do to say that threats against some people are tolerable but against others are intolerable.

NO ONE, literally NO ONE said that threats against trans people were acceptable. In fact, most, if not pretty much all threats, especially physical threats, don’t come from radical feminists, but from men. Basically, what she’s saying is “who cares about threats against JKR, trans people (men) matter more”.

If trans-exclusionary radical feminists understood themselves as sharing a world with trans people, in a common struggle for equality, freedom from violence, and for social recognition, there would be no more trans-exclusionary radical feminists.

♫ Kumbaya my Lord, Kumbaya ♪

It is a sad day when some feminists promote the anti-gender ideology position of the most reactionary forces in our society.

All radical feminists are right wingers, sure.

Anyway, it's terrible that this kind of article is taken seriously when it could be summed up as "women are irrational and hysterical, men can be women and redefine the word woman if they so wish"...

#Gender critical #Judith Butler #And that's sooo pompous #Way to hide the emptiness of your reasoning ma'am

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transmedicalism-saves-lives · 4 years

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I am pretty sure I was blocked by the OP of this post, so.

tervenwitch

the brain sex theory is inherently misogynistic and was debunked years ago. Try reading Cordelia Fine for a change instead on blindly clinging to the delusions of misogynists

@tervenwitch You mean the feminist philosopher? Why would I get any information on neurology from her, she’s not a neurologist? Studying the philosophy of science does not equate to studying science itself.

Also, we’re a sexually dimorphic species. Down to a cellular level, our organs are different between males and females. As a transsexual I am extremely aware of the female-ness of my body, it’s in my vocal chords, my fat distribution, and the size and thickness of many body parts. Why is acknowledging that one of the things that’s bigger in males is the brain stem “misogyny”? Brain sex isn’t about how smart you are, or whether you’re naturally emotional, or anything of the sort- it’s just about the physical differences between the physical organs, and there are several of those. I’ve compiled a list of sources for this claim, and if you’d like to read what actual neuroscientists, not philosophers, have to say on the topic of brain sex, feel free to give it a look.

realwomenarewomen said: @transmedicalism-saves-lives Firstly its not possibly to be “neurologically a woman” because there is literally no such thing as a “female brain”. Brains are not gendered. The only human organs that are gender are sexual reproductive organs. The idea of “lady and gentlemen brains” is antiquated Neurosexism akin to eugenics or phrenology. So just stop that nonsense.

I can’t tag her, unfortunately, so apologies for that. I’m not sure you understand that, as stated above, we are a sexually dimorphic species. Voices, for example, aren’t at all related to the reproductive system and yet, in males, vocal chords are thicker than in females. Most organs have a differentiation between sexes. Now, maybe when you think “brain” you think “intellect,” but that’s only a small part of what brains do, how they function. The brain is a physical organ, and there are many small differences between male and female brains. It’s been shown, in transsexuals, that our brains are the same as those of the opposite sex. Here’s my list of vetted sources again.

realwomenarewomen said: @transmedicalism-saves-lives Women’s historic and continued subordination has not arisen because some members of our species choose to identify with an inferior social role (and it would be an act of egregious victim-blaming to suggest that it has). It has emerged as a means by which males can dominate that half of the species that is capable of gestating children, and exploit their sexual and reproductive labour. This is why Title IX protections exist.

No, it’s got a lot to do with the fact that testosterone makes you a lot more physically strong and in less advanced societies that matters quite a bit. However, in the current first world countries, women are absolutely not oppressed. Women graduate every level of education at higher rates than men, are imprisoned far less frequently for the same crimes, are more likely to be hired, and have every legal right that a man has, plus a few that men don’t have, such as the right to refuse genital mutilation, and human rights that are not contingent on signing up for the selective service. As a matter of fact, most Title IX violations this year have been all-female groups that don’t allow men in. Ohio State was sued this year for discriminating against men, and Title IX was the reason.

realwomenarewomen said: @transmedicalism-saves-lives The term “terf” is a manipulation intended to reframe feminist ideas and activism as “exclusionary”, rather than foundational to the woman’s liberation movement. In other words it as an attack on women centered political organizing and the basic theory that underpins feminist analysis of patriarchy.

What “feminist ideas,” exactly? Because first off, y’all never actually proved patriarchy theory, so if we’re going after antiquated theories here...

But I digress. What exactly would you call yourself? You have an entire blog dedicated to the exclusion of a small minority of people. You seem obsessed with trans people, and our exclusion from your group (well, at least, trans womens, I’m not sure your thoughts on me, but it’d be a bit funny if it was only the straight guy you found to be acceptable, all things considered). Why do you put so much time and effort into excluding trans women, and then get upset when people point that out? It’s ridiculous to me.

realwomenarewomen said: @transmedicalism-saves-lives ‘Cis’ is a term that has been hijacked from the field of chemistry. It basically refers to isomers of the same molecule on the same side of a plane. This term was never meant to be used to erase the differences between biological women and biological men who want to be biological women, whether from a dysphoria or anything else.

No, it hasn’t been hijacked. It’s a prefix. It’s Latin for “this side of,” and the opposite of the prefix “trans,” which means “across” in Latin. “Transsexual” means “crossing sexes,” whereas “cissexual” means “remaining on the same side of sex.” It’s not altogether that deep.

Also, believe me, we’re aware of the differences. We wouldn’t go through all the trouble of getting surgery and taking hormones for the rest of our lives if we weren’t very much aware of the differences. However, those differences can be altered to a pretty dramatic effect, and ignoring that seems dishonest at best. I highly doubt you’d look at me, for example, and think “woman,” and I haven’t lived socially as a woman for years. There’s also the fact that my brain is physically male, but we’ve already covered that...

realwomenarewomen said: @transmedicalism-saves-lives No one – women, men, children, or transgendered persons – should be subjected to any form of exploitation or targeted for discrimination. Transsexual and transgendered persons are entitled to the same human and civil rights as others.

Thanks, I agree. Everyone should have human and civil rights, no matter what, and I believe everyone should be as kind as possible to everyone else. That includes you.

realwomenarewomen said: @transmedicalism-saves-lives Recognizing these rights, however, does not mean that we must accept that hormones and surgery transform men into women and women into men; or that persons who self-identify as members of the opposite sex are what they subjectively claim to be. So stop suicide baiting.

Where did I suicide bait? I’m sorry if that seemed to be apparent in anything I said, but I’m very much against any kind of suicide or self-harm. If you’re feeling suicidal, I’d recommend calling a mental health hotline: 1-800-273-8255 is the number for the American National Suicide Hotline.

That said, HRT and surgery aren’t completely perfect, but they can get us pretty far- by the end of transition, I’ll be closer to biologically male than biologically female, for example. Not entirely biologically male- I’m still going to have a lot of sexual difficulties, and to have biological children will require an invasive surgery involving bone marrow- but closer.

realwomenarewomen said: @transmedicalism-saves-lives “Cis” implies that women—lesbians, call center workers, single mothers—have an inherent privilege over trans people. Again, let’s not forget that trans is an umbrella term. A gender non conforming male is not more ‘oppressed’ than a lesbian. The cis/trans dichotomy obscures that and allows men to shout ‘oppressor’ at women. Sex change is impossible and unnecessary. Stop using trans activism to perpetuate your misogynistic internalized homophobia.

I don’t believe any group has an inherent privilege over any other group. Being a member of certain groups might change your probabilities of experiencing specific forms of oppression, but no group is entirely full of oppressed people, and no group has no oppressed members- except, perhaps, the billionaire class. When it comes down to it, privilege is based in money, and there are people of every race, sex, sexuality, and religion living in poverty, and people of every race, sex, sexuality, and religion in the ruling class too. The percentages, however, are a bit different.

So no, being trans doesn’t make someone oppressed, and being cis doesn’t make someone not oppressed. However, being trans does increase chances of oppression, particularly being a trans woman, as they’ve almost all been forced into sex work up until the late eighties to early nineties, which is closely associated with poverty and low quality of life in countries where it’s not regulated legally, such as America.

And for the record- transsexual is not an “umbrella term.” Don’t lump us in with drag queens or GNC people in general. Trans means someone suffering from gender dysphoria, nothing else.

Sex change is not impossible, and it’s absolutely necessary for trans people to have any quality of life at all. We have a serious neurological disease. We cannot physically change our brains yet. I’d love to be able to be a normal female woman, that would be a great thing for me, it’d be a lot easier than this, and to be honest, I made a damn pretty girl, life is very easy for pretty girls. Unfortunately, my chest tissue makes me so dysphoric that I’ve taken a knife to it multiple times, can’t concentrate if I don’t bind, and as for my genitalia, well, let’s just say that I really wish that was in a better order because being a teenager with a sex drive and dysphoria is extremely, unendingly frustrating.

As for internalized homophobia on my part- I genuinely thought I was bisexual until I started taking HRT. I didn’t even know I only liked women before. Maybe I didn’t. Who knows? But yeah, if you actually believe I’m a lesbian, or that I’ll be a lesbian next year... well. Have fun with that.

Have a nice day!

#tw: terf #tw: sex mention #tw: transphobia #tw: transmisogyny #tw: chest mention #tw: genital mention #tw: dysphoria #tw: misgendering

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rapeculturerealities · 6 years

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When the internet metamorphoses into a hate-filled wasteland where strangers hurl the most vicious comments imaginable, the words “hope” or “love” can feel entirely alien to the experience of women online.

For many women, simply existing in an online space and voicing an opinion can render them a target for abuse. Those targets include: Women of colour, women in the LGBTQ community, liberal women, conservative women, women fighting for reproductive rights, women speaking up about sexual assault, women taking a stand against misogyny and sexism, women with opinions, women who are just doing their job. Women are not the only people subjected to online harassment and abuse — and whose experience of the internet is warped by efforts to silence and shout them down — but for women who speak up, the internet can exacerbate the sexism, both overt and subtle, that they face in real life.

For some of the most harassed women on the internet, all hope is not lost. They told Mashable what they love about the internet, and why, despite the vitriol, they keep logging back on.

MONICA LEWINSKY

Two decades have passed since Monica Lewinsky’s name and the intimate details of her sex life were thrust into the public domain of Bill Clinton’s 1998 impeachment trial, but strangers on the internet are still, to this day, bombarding her with hateful, obscene, and harassing messages.

Lewinsky says that, even though social media can be a source of negativity in women’s lives, it can also be a force for good, and a way of taking control of the stories that define us. “As a woman, what is vital is how social media can be used to amplify our voices or reclaim our narratives,” Lewinsky tells Mashable. “There is something powerful about direct communication — not being mediated through another’s lens.”

Now an anti-cyberbullying campaigner, Lewinsky says she finds hope in the internet’s ability to bring people together and its power to make us all realise we’re not alone. “What gives me hope is that it is so much easier to find your tribe and like-minded people on social media whether people are in your same city or halfway around the world. Knowing we’re not alone is crucial.”

JOHNETTA “NETTA” ELZIE

It didn't take long for trolls to dig up activist Johnetta Elzie’s resume and old tweets in the wake of the 2014 shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. After going to pay her respects at the place of Brown’s shooting in the hours following his death, Elzie tweeted that there was still “blood on the ground” and “a cone in place where his body laid for hours today.” She documented the Ferguson unrest on social media as it unfolded, and the New York Times called Elzie “one of the most reliable real-time observers of the confrontations between the protesters and the police.”

“They were like: ‘How do you know anything about protests, you used to be a customer service agent?’ But, what does it have to do with tragedy arriving in the city where I’m from?” says Elzie, known as “Netta” among her followers.

Elzie says she has been called pretty much every insult under the sun. “I feel like I’ve been called everything possible. I’ve been called ‘nigger,’ as well as white racist combos like ‘nigger bitch’ and the typical racist shit,” says Elzie. “Then there are people who take my photos and do crazy weird things with them. I’ve had a few serious trolls who make new accounts over and over and over to troll me if I block one.”

Faced with all this, it’s not surprising that Elzie says she finds solace “off the internet.” But, that’s not to say that the internet doesn’t bring her joy. “I Iove how easily I get access to music from being online, especially on Twitter or on YouTube, and meeting new people has been fun. I’ve made a few friends from Twitter,” she says

Elzie says when she was younger she used to try to engage, but now that she’s older and wiser, she blocks and mutes anyone trolling her.

“I’ve learned not to engage. 29-year-old me, I’m just all about the block,” she says.

APRIL REIGN

“As a hyper-visible woman of colour, I have had things said to me that people wouldn't dare say to my face,” says April Reign, founder of #OscarsSoWhite. “Both I and my children have been threatened with physical violence. I've had people threaten to attempt to get me fired. Every racial or gender-based slur you can imagine has been hurled at me.”

Reign’s faith in the internet is restored when she sees “the progress that is made” and witnesses crowdfunding campaign goals being met for people “who are in need.”

“As the creator of #OscarsSoWhite, I find hope in the fact that we can see incremental changes reverberating throughout the entertainment industry based on a movement that was started online,” says Reign.

Something she loves about the internet is the ability to interact with people from around the world. “The internet allows us to have meaningful interactions with people we might not otherwise meet offline.”

ROSSALYN WARREN

Rossalyn Warren wasn’t expecting to see anything other than “chit chat and random shit” when she scrolled idly through her Facebook inbox one day. Instead, the journalist was confronted with a photo of a young man who was standing naked and holding a big knife. Even more disturbing than the image itself, however, was the message, which informed Warren that he had created the image especially for her. She reported the message and blocked the sender.

But, in spite of the barrage of gendered insults like “stupid slut” and “bitch” and graphic photos of botched abortions, Warren has not lost faith in the internet. For her, she finds promise in the way women interact and build communities online. “Over the years I’ve seen feminist networks and women from all corners of the world come together to discuss the challenges facing them within their communities, within their countries,” says Warren. “By sharing that knowledge and information they’re able to lift each other up.”

“Watching how feminist campaigners in El Salvador connect with pro-choice campaigners in Europe, watching women connect online makes us all feel a little bit less alone, and it makes us feel like a stronger force,” says Warren.

GABRIELLE BELLOT

“Primarily, they attack me for being queer,” says journalist Gabrielle Bellot. “They deny being trans is 'real' and send me simplistic links about chromosomes or send me propaganda about how LGBTQ people are, supposedly, child molesters.” When her trolls don’t realise she’s trans, Bellot is attacked for being a liberal — or rather, “a libtard,” as they phrase it. “And for being — the worst of all — a feminist — excuse me, a 'feminazi,' an 'SJW.'”

Back in January 2016, Bellot wrote an article for Slate about a bill proposed in Indiana to criminalise trans people for using the bathroom corresponding with the gender they identify with. The bill — which was eventually denied a hearing — was one of several attempts among U.S. states and localities to block trans people from using the bathroom of their choice.

Bellot received an email from a “delightful woman” — an “anti-LGBTQ activist” — with an offer for conversion therapy. “Another man refused to call me Gabrielle, despite that being my actual legal name, and called me a male version of said name — despite me never having had that name.”

Bellot says she feels “lots of optimism,” however, and the internet is “tightly woven” into that.

“We shine a light on and call out bad behaviour now on a scale that just wasn't possible before social media,” says Bellot.

She says that the internet has made way for a “prominent, brave new generation” which refuses to tolerate “archaic prejudices” any longer. “There's this beautiful sense that business-as-usual, boys-club bigotry and/or trolling against women, LGBTQ people, and people of colour can't just exist without consequences, regardless of where it happens, if someone is around to record and call it out.”

“They still tell us to be silent; to that, we say, hell no.”

KARA BROWN

For podcaster and writer Kara Brown, the worst harassment she experienced happened when she worked at Jezebel. “The worst stuff usually came after I wrote something about race. I'd have people calling me a nigger and a stupid black bitch and all that,” says Brown, who co-hosts the Keep It podcast. “The scariest was probably when someone threatened that I'd be "swinging from the trees with the other niggers." That instance was “the most direct threat” she’d ever received. She forwarded it to Jezebel’s legal department so they could monitor it.

“We all also got tons of rape threats constantly,” she adds. “The bad thing about that (aside from the obvious) is that it all ends up sort of bleeding together. You get so used to it that things stop standing out.”

But, Brown finds hope in the fact that the internet is “both real life and not.”

“I can log off. I can turn off my computer and these people no longer have access to me,” she says. “There's also the fact that while the harassment can be legitimately frightening, it's unlikely these people are going to be able to do the harm to me that they threaten.” She reminds herself that people who engage in this kind of behavior are “cowards.”

Asked what she loves about the internet, Brown says it’s the “reason” she has a career. But, she’s also thankful for the internet’s ability to unite people with memes and jokes.

“As irritating as it can be, there are some days on Twitter when a certain meme catches on or everyone hops on and starts contributing to some joke and the material is just so funny and clever.

And you realise we never would have been able to experience all this humour and joy without the internet. It makes me really happy to be able to engage with such a large group of people in those moments.”

JESSICA VALENTI

Two years ago journalist and author Jessica Valenti took a hiatus from Twitter after a troll made a rape and death threat against her then five-year-old daughter.

“I am sick of this shit. Sick of saying over and over how scary this is, sick of being told to suck it up,” she wrote in a series of tweets at the time. “I should not have to fear for my kid's safety because I write about feminism.”

After she returned to social media several months later, she told the Sydney Morning Herald that she had been accustomed to dealing with harassment, but the threat directed at her daughter felt “so different, so scary.”

Valenti told Mashable she is encouraged by the young women who are building communities online.

“Young people — young women, in particular — give me hope on the internet. The communities they foster, the support they provide, it's almost enough to make you forget about the general awfulness of things online,” she says.

She is also reassured by women’s strength and resolve when faced with unrelenting harassment experienced by many people online.

“But most of all, what gives me hope is that they're not ceding these spaces to harassers — in the same way we're not going to stop walking down the street because of harassment there, we're not going to stop using powerful online tools because of misogynists.”

LAUREN DUCA

Faceless, angry strangers send Teen Vogue writer Lauren Duca death threats, rape threats, and doxing threats on a near-daily basis. She writes extensivelyabout what it feels like to be on the receiving end of unyielding hostility. “Having to suffer the anticipation and onslaught of abuse is exhausting, and it takes a toll,” Duca told Mashable.

“If we can understand harassment as a silencing force, then simply speaking up is an act of defiance,” she says. “Using your voice as a woman on the internet shouldn't require righteousness, but unfortunately it does.”

She says she’s thankful to those who continue to raise their voices despite the constant chorus of dissent.

“I'm grateful for all of the women who keep going in spite of all the garbage,” says Duca. “Social media is an integral part of the public square, and we need to fight for including women's voices in the conversation.”

HADLEY FREEMAN

Journalist Hadley Freeman says the abuse she received is “pretty much everything you'd expect a Jewish feminist to get online now, sadly.”

“I get a lot of anti-Semitic stuff, a lot of stuff about Israel (even though I have never written about Israel), a lot of misogynistic garbage,” says Freeman. “It's usually people telling me how ugly I am, how fat I am, and what a hideous Zionist rich bitch apologist I am for Netanyahu.”

But one instance deviated somewhat from the typical barrage of anti-Semitic and misogynist insults: the time she received a bomb threat. “When I got a bomb threat I had to report it to the police, and I wasn't allowed to stay in my apartment that night,” says Freeman. “It was more annoying than scary, to be honest.”

It’s in the “fightback” that Freeman takes heart. “If I was dealing with abuse on my own, it would feel terribly dispiriting and even scary.”

She finds hope when she sees other women fighting back against abuse, racism, misogyny, and anti-Semitism. “I can see online all the other women who get abuse, and how they are fighting back, writing brilliantly and doing incredible things. Women such as Caroline Criado-Perez, Rebecca Traister, Aminatou Sow, Irin Carmon, Jessica Valenti, and Jia Tolentino are just some who come immediately to mind.”

SLOANE CROSLEY

Sloane Crosley’s resolve lies in her unwillingness to give trolls and harassers the same energy they’ve spent.

“The internet expends plenty of energy lauding, objectifying, tearing down, dismissing, demonising and deifying women but that doesn’t mean I have to expend that same energy in return,” says Crosley, author of I Was Told There'd Be Cake and Look Alive Out There.

“Perhaps my ‘hope’ is to be found in my near-total indifference to faceless strangers.”

DANA SCHWARTZ

Journalist and author Dana Schwartz says she’s dealt with so much harassment over the years, she’s found a way to tune it out. “I also turned on the strictest settings that Twitter has so a lot of the time I don't even see it,” says Schwartz. “If someone says something that does get to me, I'll just block or mute depending on my mood.”

The harassment and abuse she receives often has a personal nature to it, but Schwartz says she mostly lets it wash off her. “The most common trolls either harass me for being Jewish or for being ugly, but since I am Jewish, and since I feel pretty good about myself, it doesn't really get to me,” says Schwartz.

The internet isn’t always the kindest space, but Schwartz can’t get enough of it.

“I love the internet like way too much,” she says. “I honestly think I am addicted to the internet, and it's probably ruined my brain. Gotta get that external validation somehow.”

ANNE T. DONAHUE

Journalist Anne T. Donahue says that the types of insults she receives really depends on what her harassers are reacting to. During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, she was on the receiving end of a lot of “gender-based trolling” — including comments pertaining to her physical appearance as well as rape threats. “During the gun debate (well, one of many), I mostly got general hate from people with eagles in their avatars who sounded off about liberals,” says Donahue.

The eagle from America’s national emblem has been co-opted by Trump supporters and those who align themselves with the far-right online.

Thankfully for Donahue, the internet has redeeming qualities that bring her laughter and remind her of the goodness of humanity. “I mean, yes: Twitter and social media and the internet in general can be a hellscape, but there are also parts of those things that make me laugh, or inspire me, or remind me that people can be good,” says Donahue.

“I like the senses of community — the good kind — the internet can help foster,” she adds.

“I think about the way firsthand experiences are shared and can generate movements. I think about the way mental health discourse has evolved; I think about the way Twitter is being used to bring to light issues and conversations that some of us might not be privy to; I love the way someone's work can kick down doors and create incredible opportunities; I also like the friendships; I've made a lot of great friends through Twitter and social media; and that's something I love, obviously.”

Donahue says that even seeing a funny joke can remind her that “levity can be found amidst the darkest timelines.”

“And maybe more specifically, I think of the way Twitter can rally around what's good and around people fighting for what's right. It's not all bad, or so I try to remind myself.”

DOLLY ALDERTON

It was when Dolly Alderton was writing a dating column for The Sunday Times that she experienced the most trolling. Those remarks would be sexually explicit or insulting about her physical appearance. The author and columnist sees hope in the fact that “so many people online, particularly women, are so supportive and cheering of each other, be it promoting each other's work, retweeting each other's jokes or swooping to someone's defence.”

She also loves how the internet connects people with “similar interests, shared ideals, and a sense of humour.”

ANGELA YEE

“You suck, you’re stupid, you’re fat, you can’t get a man, your show is failing, you need a stylist, you look old, you’re useless, you’re ugly, you want to fuck (insert guest name), you’re a thot.”

These are just a few of the names radio personality Angela Yee is called by harassers. Trolls have also posted her address online as well as death threats directed at her and her mother.

Yee has thought a lot about the reasons people would want to write such nasty, hateful comments. “I realise that what these online trolls want the most is a reaction. They WANT you to respond, to be upset, they WANT to ruin your day and that’s a reflection of their own unhappiness,” she says.

She says, through thinking about what it takes to bring a person to make such comments, she feels pity for her trolls. “Imagine how miserable a person has to be that they want company, and the underlying feelings that come with that,” she says.

She finds hope in remembering that she can log out of social media and that real life exists beyond the confines of the internet.

“Just remember that social media is not real life, it is whatever people want to create. It’s so important for me to log off and focus on reality, instead of trying to document what I want to portray,” says Yee.

ALLISON RASKIN

“This is not funny. Are you pregnant? You got fat. What happened to Allison? Why is she so fat? Stick to comedy not politics. I used to like this show but not anymore. Unsubscribe. She’s pregnant right?”

These are just some of the things strangers on the internet say to Allison Raskin, host of Gossip podcast.

But, she keeps logging on because of the “good comments” and “positive feedback” from her friends and family.

“For every nasty sentiment there are at least 10 nice ones and those are the people I try to focus on,” says Raskin. “People have handwritten me letters and posted things that almost make me cry (with joy).”

FEMINISTA JONES

Michelle Taylor, known by her online pseudonym Feminista Jones, experiences online harassment every single day.

While being a woman on the internet means being bombarded with slurs and insults, it also affords opportunities.

“Being online means having access to more resources and opportunities than most people would ever have exposure to, particularly marginalised people like women of colour,” the social worker and writer says.

Hope, she says, can be found in these opportunities.

“What gives me hope is that women have greater opportunity to achieve their goals and realise their dreams because of the opportunities being online affords them.”

These women, in their refusal to cower in the face of vitriol and threats against their lives and the people they love, are sending a powerful message to their harassers: We will not be scared away. We will not be silenced.

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crimethinc · 6 years

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Fuck Abuse, Kill Power: Addressing the Root Causes of Sexual Harassment and Assault

The past year has seen a wave of revelations about powerful people—nearly all men—perpetrating sexual violence against those beneath them. The #MeToo moment has provided a platform for countless courageous survivors. Yet although some men have been made to face consequences for the harm they have done, we are far from being able to solve the problem of male sexual violence. Focusing on the wrongdoings of specific men tends to exceptionalize them, as if their actions took place in a vacuum. This is consistent with the mechanisms of a criminal justice system focused on individual guilt and a reformist politics premised on the idea that the existing government and market economy would serve us perfectly if only the right people were in power. But with the bad behavior of so many men coming to light, we have to consider the possibility that these are not exceptions at all—that these attacks are the inevitable, systemic result of this social order. Is there a way to treat the cause as well as the symptoms?

Trigger warning for descriptions of sexual violence.

Virtually all recent mainstream coverage has treated sexual harassment and assault as an issue distinct from capitalism and hierarchy. When writers admit that capitalism and hierarchy play some role, they imply that what is harmful about these systems can be fixed through reform. They exhort us to appeal to power to solve the problems power causes: we are to pressure corporations to fire their executives, to use the media to shame media moguls, to use democracy to punish politicians. In short, we are supposed to use the very structures through which our abusers hold power to take it away from them.

On the contrary, we can’t be effective against rampant sexual assault without confronting its root causes.

A tattoo by Charline Bataille inspired by Jenny Holzer.

A Very Brief History of Sexual Assault in the United States

Sexual assault and rape are woven into the very origins of the United States. The original colonists did not consider the indigenous inhabitants worthy of the same moral considerations as white Europeans. Sexual assault and rape were systematically employed as colonial tools. Michele de Cuneo, a nobleman and a shipmate of Columbus, described the following scene in a letter, apparently without shame or remorse:

While I was in the boat I captured a very beautiful Carib woman, whom the said Lord Admiral gave to me, and with whom, having taken her to my cabin, she being naked according to their custom, I conceived desire to take pleasure. I wanted to put my desire into execution but she did not want it and treated me with her finger nails in such a manner that I wished I had never begun. But seeing that (to tell you the end of it all), I took a rope and thrashed her well, for which she raised such unheard of screams that you would not have believed your ears. Finally we came to an agreement in such a manner that I can tell you that she seemed to have been brought up in a school of harlots.

Slaves, too, were routinely sexually assaulted. This was an essential aspect of the system of slavery: in addition to domestic labor, enslaved women were forced to engage in sex and reproduction that served to add more slaves to their captor’s holdings.

Workers have also experienced egregious sexual harassment and assault for as long as there has been a workforce.

Throughout all this, women were never passive victims. Women have always fought against their abusers with ferocity, creativity, and diversity of tactics. For example, in the mid-1800s, a slave named Harriet Jacobs fought fiercely against her captor; after resisting his sexual advances, she hid in a crawlspace for seven years to avoid him. She eventually escaped to New York and obtained legal freedom. An early forerunner of the #MeToo movement, she wrote letters to the New York Tribune detailing her experiences and in 1860 published Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, one of the first books to detail enslaved women’s experiences of sexual assault.

Starting in the early 1900s, women formed labor unions that fought for the rights of female workers, including the right not to be sexually harassed and assaulted. Black women’s struggles against workplace harassment led to the creation of the first laws against sexual discrimination and harassment. In 1993, Lorena Bobbitt cut off her abusive husband’s penis and threw it in a field after he raped her. A jury acquitted her. These are all legitimate forms of resistance.

“They passed round the bleeding stump, as if they had finally exterminated a wild animal that had been preying on each and every one of them, and saw it there inert and in their power. They bared their teeth, and spat on it.”

-A passage from Emile Zola’s 1885 novel Germinal in which a mob of starving women workers castrate the corpse of a shopkeeper who has been extorting them for sex in exchange for food.

Corporations Won’t Solve This

It was no secret that many of these men were abusers. Nothing is different now except that corporations have taken a bit more notice. Corporate media outlets have published women’s accounts; some corporations have fired rapists if what they have done is deemed egregious enough. Should we be grateful to corporations for firing serial sexual predators once enough accusations pile up that it becomes a problem for their brand?

These corporations are just plugging the oil leak that finally made the news. But who creates and maintains this pipeline? They do. Let’s not pat them on the back for solving a problem that they caused.

Most of these companies have known about these accusations for years without doing anything. Worse, they’ve allowed these men to rise up the ranks of power to the point that their serial abuse warrants national news attention. In other words, these corporations have facilitated these men’s behavior by giving them additional opportunities with which to harass, assault, and rape women. For every Harvey Weinstein whose actions are finally brought to light, there is another Harvey Weinstein who gets away with serial assault thanks to the assistance of the institution that gives him power.

Why do corporations have a vested interest in helping rapists succeed in business? While misogyny is partly to blame, we have to look at the bigger picture. Corporate success is determined by how much profit a business produces, not by whether it protects women from sexual assault. In capitalism, whether to oust an assaulter becomes a simple economic equation: how is his presence affecting the bottom line?

Take the case of Bill O’Reilly. Since 2002, Fox News and O’Reilly have paid out many millions of dollars to settle sexual harassment claims. During this time, O’Reilly continued to be a rising star at Fox, negotiating a $25 million a year contract as recently as January 2017. While media coverage and exposés finally forced Fox to fire O’Reilly, Fox knew he was an abuser for more than a decade and shelled out millions to silence women he abused. Fox’s behavior is not so mysterious when one learns that in 2015, O’Reilly’s show earned Fox more than $180 million in advertising.

This is not an anomaly; this is a standard utilitarian calculation that businesses make all the time. Imagine you’re O’Reilly’s conscientious supervisor. Having just discovered O’Reilly’s long history of harassing women, you go to your bosses and demand that they fire O’Reilly. Even if your bosses agree with your demand from a moral standpoint, how could they explain the loss of O’Reilly, the golden goose, to their shareholders? Capitalism is designed to maximize profit over everything else, including ethics and safety.

This system also makes it difficult to fight back against abusers. In a hyper-competitive market, a single setback can mean the end of your career, your healthcare, your ability to pay rent. The stakes are higher for women and trans people, especially those of color, who are far more likely to experience poverty than men. Those who have gained a footing in the economy may be understandably hesitant to risk losing it, and it’s no secret that those who resist abuse or call out their abusers often face adverse consequences for doing so.

Targets of sexual harassment face impossible choices: do I allow this abuse to continue or risk losing income I desperately need? Do I report this abuse and risk deportation? Do I leave this job without reporting this abuse? If I do, does that mean that others will be preyed upon after me?

Capitalism, the state, and other forms of hierarchy offer sexual predators many ways of doing harm to those who resist them. O’Reilly, Weinstein, Ailes, Farenthold (the list goes on and on and on) all routinely harmed or ended the careers of those who opposed them.

Fears about job security also affect those who are asked to witness or even abet abusers. Weinstein used his employees to make his victims feel a false sense of security before he assaulted them, often asking staffers to come to the beginning of nighttime meetings and then dismissing them so he could be alone with his victims. One former employee described a scene in a nighttime meeting in which Weinstein demanded she tell a model that Weinstein was a good boyfriend, and became enraged when she said she no longer wished to attend these “meetings.” It is easy to feel self-righteous anger at staffers who abetted Weinstein, but it is undeniable that Weinstein’s position of power enabled him to ruin people’s lives. While we deserve for others to be brave in standing up for us even against the most powerful foes, it is unrealistic to think we could put an end to sexual harassment and assault in a system in which people have to martyr themselves in order to protect each other.

Abolishing capitalism and all other systems that concentrate wealth and power into the hands of a few would not put a stop to sexual assault, but it would greatly reduce the coercive economic power that the rich and powerful wield over the rest of us. Without those structural imbalances in power, assaulters would not have the means to manipulate anyone into complicity and silence. This may sound utopian, but it is the only realistic solution if we’re serious about combatting sexual assault. No system that centralizes wealth and power can prevent that power from being used to coerce or harm people.

No, we really don’t.

The Criminal Justice System Won’t Solve This

The law is no friend to victims of sexual harassment and assault. Police officers across the United States have brought charges of false reporting against sexual assault survivors who went to them for help, only to later see these victim’s stories confirmed when their assaulters were identified and convicted. Sexual assault survivors who manage to convince the police not to arrest them for false reporting can find themselves jailed in order to compel their testimony in court.

ICE uses courts as a trap for undocumented people. Undocumented people cannot even enter a courthouse without risking arrest and deportation. In this way, the state systematically facilitates the sexual assault of those whose papers are not in order.

Even if the police don’t throw you in jail, only three to six percent of workplace harassment claims ever make it to trial. Some of these cases are settled, but many are dismissed due to the law’s high bar for what constitutes harassment (the harassment must qualify as “severe” or “pervasive”). In one typical example, a construction worker brought a case against a supervisor who talked about raping him multiple times. The worker’s case was dropped because the supervisor’s actions occurred over a ten-day period and therefore did not meet the standard of being “pervasive.”

The court system not only punishes those who attempt to utilize it—it also targets those who try to defend themselves. In the New Jersey 4 case, a group of black women defended themselves against a catcaller who threatened and attacked them. They were prosecuted and four were sentenced to between 3.5 and 11 years in Rikers.

The criminal justice system exacerbates all the problems we have already seen in the corporate sector. While corporations implicitly hold people hostage in the context of the capitalist economy, the criminal justice system explicitly holds people hostage via the coercive apparatus of the law and the state. It is the epitome of power being distributed to the few and entirely denied to the many, and as such it is a site of terrifying abuses of power. People in prison are routinely sexually assaulted, often by their jailers. When we appeal to the violent authority of the state to punish our abusers, we are complicit in perpetuating the power dynamics that we claim to oppose.

We need to explore systems of justice that hold people accountable to each other, rather than to a higher power. Wherever we concentrate power, we will see abuse.

Viewing Sexual Harassment through an Intersectional Lens

Although we are framing this primarily in gendered terms, the identities “male” and “female” are just proxies with which to discuss different degrees of power and privilege. Whose voices we hear and how we respond to those voices is determined by a myriad of other factors including race, sexual orientation, economic status, ability status, and first language. In seeking to disentangle ourselves from patriarchy, we need to internalize the way our privileges protect us from harm that others face. We need to listen to the stories of those most likely to be harmed under patriarchy and capitalism: black women’s stories, trans people’s stories, undocumented workers’ stories, poor people’s stories.

We need to take note of whose voices those in power seek to discredit. For example, the only sexual assault charges Harvey Weinstein has specifically disputed came from the only black woman, Lupita Nyong’o, who has accused him of harassment or assault.

This Is about Power, not Sex

Although women also perpetrate sexual assault, we are statistically far less likely to do so than men. Is this because women are inherently better, more moral, or less violent than men? If we are, it is in part because we, as non-men, are not taught that we must embody the norms of toxic masculinity that are symptomatic of patriarchy, i.e., that women are objects, or that our self-worth is based on the number of women we fuck. Men’s internalized toxic masculinity accounts for many of the reasons they sexually assault women.

Some have suggested that the solution to rampant sexual harassment and assault is that women should replace men in all positions of power. But the problem is not the condition of maleness; the problem is patriarchy, an unequal distribution of power. As long as some hold power over others, the powerful will prey on the less powerful, regardless of who occupies these roles.

Patriarchy is not the bad behavior of a few specific men, but the framework of relations that fosters it.

So What Do We Do?

To call out sexual predators without seeking to dismantle the system of power that created them is like bailing water out of a sinking ship. The fundamental problem isn’t a shortfall of publicity, law, policy, or education; the fundamental problem is that the systems that purport to keep us safe make us vulnerable.

We have to weave together the ways that we respond to specific instances of sexual harassment and violence with a determination to confront and undermine the social order that gives rise to them. In every case of male violence, we should be clear that we are not dealing with an exception, but with a problem that is a structural feature of our society. At the same time, we need to create models of transformative justice that can replace the criminal justice system without replicating any feature of it, and to foster new ways of relating in which patriarchy, white supremacy, and other forms of authority do not determine the possibilities of our lives. Every person of every gender stands to gain from this.

Let us join hands, teeth bared.

“I’m not your prey, I still have teeth” by kAt Philbin.

Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex.

SCUM will not picket, demonstrate, march or strike to attempt to achieve its ends. Such tactics are for nice, genteel ladies who scrupulously take only such action as is guaranteed to be ineffective… If SCUM ever marches, it will be over the President’s stupid, sickening face; if SCUM ever strikes, it will be in the dark with a six-inch blade.

–Valerie Solanas, SCUM Manifesto

Further Reading

The history of sexual assault in the United States:

Slavery and the Roots of Sexual Harassment by Adrienne D. Davis

Feminism and the Labor Movement: A Century of Collaboration and Conflict by Eileen Boris and Annelise Orleck writing for CUNY’s New Labor Forum

Sexual Harassment Law Was Shaped by the Battles of Black Women by Raina Lipsitz writing for The Nation

Alternatives to criminal justice:

Sexual Assault Resources from North East Anarchist Network (particularly the Accountability Processes section)

Revolution and Restorative Justice: An Anarchist Perspective by Peter Kletsan writing for Abolition Journal

Accounting for Ourselves: Breaking the Impasse Around Assault and Abuse in Anarchist Scenes from CrimethInc.

Sexual assault and neoliberalism:

Profiting from Rape: Sexual Violence and the Capitalist State by Kelly Rose Pflug-Back writing for The Feminist Wire

The Consent of the Ungoverned by Laurie Penny writing for LongReads

Sexual assault on the margins:

Cultivating Fear: The Vulnerability of Immigrant Farmworkers in the US to Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment by Grace Meng published in Human Rights Watch

Sexual Assault When You’re on the Margins: Can We All Say #MeToo? by Collier Meyerson writing for The Nation

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crossdreamers · 3 years

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It Wasn’t About Bathrooms, and It’s Not About Women’s Sports

Mark Joseph Stern has written an interesting article on Alliance Defending Freedom, the organization that has written most of the transphobic laws in the US right now.

This organization has spent years which has spent years fighting against reproductive women’s rights and LGBTQ equality:

Over the last 28 years, the ADF has defended laws prohibiting same-sex intimacy; opposed marriage, adoption, and surrogacy for same-sex couples; attacked LGBTQ non-discrimination laws, as well as bans on conversion therapy for minors; argued in favor of laws that require transgender people to undergo sterilization before legally changing their gender; challenged access to contraception; and supported the criminalization of abortion at any stage of pregnancy.

Its work stretches beyond the United States; ADF has, for instance, championed Belize’s archaic anti-sodomy law, which allows for the persecution and imprisonment of gay people.

The ADF’s overarching position on gay people is that they should either be converted to heterosexuality or fired from their jobs and imprisoned because of their sexual orientation. This stance has earned the group a controversial designation as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

So ADF is basically trying to use the government to force the American people to live up to its 19th century ideas of proper gender roles and sexuality. The goal is to force LGBTQA kids back into the closet and entice the the rest of the population to police the same kids out of existence.

First they tried to get the local governments to implement bathroom bills, stigmatizing trans kids. That did not work. Now they are trying two different tactics: Using sports to discriminate trans kids and using the health system to erase their existence.

Note that none of this is based on popular demand. They know that they are losing “the culture war”, as they call it. The younger generations support trans people. This is why they are now declaring war on compassion and decency, appealing to prejudices instead of facts.

There is simply no evidence that transgender women are dominating student sports and denying cisgender women the benefits that come with athletic excellence, like scholarships, as Stern points out.

And given the transphobia found in our societies the idea that kids chose to be trans because it is fashionable makes no sense. Moreover, no one is allowed to transition on a whim. Not socially and definitely not medically. The problems are all made up.

It is blatantly clear that they now are using fear of harassment to stop LGBTQA youth from acknowledging their true selves:

North Carolina’s Youth Health Protection Act takes the principles embodied in previous ADF-approved anti-trans laws a few steps further. Under the bill, it’s not just minors who cannot access gender-affirming care, but also adults aged 18-20. Schools are not only required to discriminate against transgender students, but also to out them to their parents. Schools must also inform parents if their children are gay, bisexual, and nonbinary students, since these identities also qualify as “gender nonconformity.”

Did anyone really think this was going to stop with bathrooms? Stern asks. I would add: Do you really think they are going to stop with transgender kids? Of course not: They will go after the rest of the LGBTQA spectrum next, while at the same time intensifying their attacks against women.

#trans #transgender #lgbt #lgbtqa #gender critical #terf #transphobia #lgbt+#trans athletes #feminism

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rametarin · 4 years

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Annoyed at the progression

Step one seemed to be normalizing the idea you use the exact same pronouns for cis women as trans women. Or, cis men and trans men.

That’s fine. Okay. We can adapt. Sure.

But where it becomes irreconcilable is when they decide that is normalized “enough” to where they can decide they’re part of the system and institution enough to start demanding that male and female stop being used for sexes, we marginalize and pretend sexes do not exist or are entirely illegitimate, and all sexuality be determined by genders- which are voluntary and self-identification.

And that someone elses orientation and sex are determined by decision and arbitration, not by biology. Effectively making it something a legal or subjective body can determine or dictate to or for you.

That was nothing less than a desperate attempt at annexing territory based on previous conquest. And it seemed like every year they just try to formulate some new ridiculous argument why biological sex is not a thing and biology has no basis to trump self-identification, and dictate as far as the state and “society” (hilarious) is concerned, your pronouns and reproductive role and gendered characteristics are 100% made-up and class based, not physical, biological state.

This is why I say that the tent for trans rights is swollen above the size and number it should be. Because it’s infested with people that aren’t really for trans rights. They’re under that tent so they can use the legitimacy of the trans rights argument for their own socio-political ambitions. And ultimately, they don’t care about trans people. They care about the bureaucracy and the establishment having the right to dictate what is and isn’t true based on subjective criteria, not biology. To try and minimize biology as a factor, period, not just for trans people, but anybody.

To think they think they have a solid enough foundation to start attacking the credibility of biological sex and the foundation upon which we define things as male or female, because less than 1% of humans are transgendered, and even fewer than those choose to play this “I’m non-binary because I don’t like NASCAR and basketball” game of stupidity.

So they latch onto trans rights and try to lump them together, claiming you can’t have one without the other. You oppose their abolition of physical sex and having pronouns for everybody that is cis, then you “must be a transphobe.” To which I say, bullshit. Throw these bums out. This overreach is nowhere near necessary to obtain and acquire trans rights, and is not just anti-science, but tramples all over the autonomy and physical reality of 99.3% of the human animal. Both of those things disqualify it completely. Social science needs to realize, much like religion, it does not get to trump physical reality with a wink and a prayer and a preferred way of looking at the world.

But given the number of people that have died on the Lysenkoist hills of the world, I doubt that’ll happen any time soon.

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hvnd-x · 7 years

Text

Theoretically, women are equal under the law. And yet, when you look at the numbers… Note: This is copied and pasted from this post. You say rape culture doesn’t exist. And yet: A woman says no, I don’t want to go to prom with you, and gets stabbed to death. A woman says no, I will not sleep with you, and a man go on a shooting spree. A woman says no, I will not give you my number, and is shot outside the club. A woman says no, I don’t want you to buy me a drink, and a man shattered a glass across her face. A woman say no, I’m a lesbian, and a man shoots both her and her girlfriend while they slept in their home. A woman says no, I don’t want to be with you any more, and a man stabs her to death and murders her dog. A woman says no, stop harassing these teenagers, and a group of men beat her to death with stones and bats, smashing her skull on the pavement. A woman says no, we aren’t married any more, leave me alone, and a man shoots her to death. A woman says no, we work together but I’m not interested in you romantically, and a man shoots her to death whilst she’s working. A woman says no, I don’t want to sleep with you, and a man rapes, murders and then hangs her from a tree. A woman says no, I’m not interested, and a man slashes her neck open. A woman says no, I never cheated on you, and a man beats her. A woman says no, I want a divorce, and a man cuts her neck open and stabs her multiple times. Next, this is copied and pasted from one of my own posts that I keep open to refute people like you. “Women hold power over men”. Let’s see: 1 out of every 6 American women have experienced attempted or completed rape. This number is higher for certain demographics - for example, 1 in 3 indigenous/native American women will be raped in her lifetime. This number is even higher for trans women (1 in 5) Men are told they cannot be raped and their experiences are invalidated. Being feminine is degrading in our society - hence, gendered slurs and statements Many people (especially male senators in the GOP) think they have the right to control [what they perceive to be women]’s reproductive organs and dictate what they do with their bodies. The Senate is only composed of 20% women. A shit ton of people (including a lot of “feminists”) don’t consider trans women to be women. Young men (and women) like Brock Turner still exist, and judges like Aaron Persky are still in office. The Brock Turner case was not an exception. White women make 75% of what a white man makes for the same job, while black women make 63%, Latina women make 54%, and Asian women make 85%. Fucking President Obama himself acknowledged the wage gap. Don’t you come to me and say it doesn’t exist without adequate sources. There are still trolls that attack me on Tumblr and Twitter, calling me slurs and threatening to rape me, simply for wanting equal rights. (Almost all other feminist blogs can attest to this). Sorry, but feminists aren’t the ones spewing rape and death threats. Women are afraid to say no to unwanted advances because they could very well be hurt, but then they are criticized for “not being clear” and showing “mixed signals”. People like Donald Trump can run for president and actually stand a chance at winning. College students, when surveyed, said they believed that about 50% of rape allegations made were false, when really, the number is 2-8% - about the same as other crimes. People still think it’s okay to catcall women. Street harassment is a problem that affects ALL women and it’s at the hands of men. Young girls are forced into marriages worldwide (including in the United States!) There are no regulations to ensure that sex workers are kept safe. Even if they choose to work in the sex industry (as opposed to being trafficked) they can still be assaulted or murdered, and they have no government protections. Sex trafficking victims can actually be imprisoned themselves for prostitution.

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informative-feminist · 7 years

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What actual rights are women denied in the west? As in by the law? Go ahead... You'll find that women have more rights than men in terms of law

*sighs* could you maybe search my tags first? You’d find about 5 other asks with this same question. I’m going to copy and paste this answer from another post I made.

Theoretically, women are equal under the law. And yet, when you look at the numbers…

Note: This is copied and pasted from this post.

You say rape culture doesn’t exist. And yet:

A woman says no, I don’t want to go to prom with you, and gets stabbed to death.

A woman says no, I will not sleep with you, and a man go on a shooting spree.

A woman says no, I will not give you my number, and is shot outside the club.

A woman says no, I don’t want you to buy me a drink, and a man shattered a glass across her face.

A woman say no, I’m a lesbian, and a man shoots both her and her girlfriend while they slept in their home.

A woman says no, I don’t want to be with you any more, and a man stabs her to death and murders her dog.

A woman says no, stop harassing these teenagers, and a group of men beat her to death with stones and bats, smashing her skull on the pavement.

A woman says no, we aren’t married any more, leave me alone, and a man shoots her to death.

A woman says no, we work together but I’m not interested in you romantically, and a man shoots her to death whilst she’s working.

A woman says no, I don’t want to sleep with you, and a man rapes, murders and then hangs her from a tree.

A woman says no, I’m not interested, and a man slashes her neck open.

A woman says no, I never cheated on you, and a man beats her.

A woman says no, I want a divorce, and a man cuts her neck open and stabs her multiple times.

Next, this is copied and pasted from one of my own posts that I keep open to refute people like you. “Women hold power over men”. Let’s see:

1 out of every 6 American women have experienced attempted or completed rape. This number is higher for certain demographics - for example, 1 in 3 indigenous/native American women will be raped in her lifetime.

This number is even higher for trans women (1 in 5)

Men are told they cannot be raped and their experiences are invalidated.

Being feminine is degrading in our society - hence, gendered slurs and statements

Many people (especially male senators in the GOP) think they have the right to control [what they perceive to be women]’s reproductive organs and dictate what they do with their bodies.

The Senate is only composed of 20% women.

A shit ton of people (including a lot of “feminists”) don’t consider trans women to be women.

Young men (and women) like Brock Turner still exist, and judges like Aaron Persky are still in office. The Brock Turner case was not an exception.

White women make 75% of what a white man makes for the same job, while black women make 63%, Latina women make 54%, and Asian women make 85%. Fucking President Obama himself acknowledged the wage gap. Don’t you come to me and say it doesn’t exist without adequate sources.

There are still trolls that attack me on Tumblr and Twitter, calling me slurs and threatening to rape me, simply for wanting equal rights. (Almost all other feminist blogs can attest to this). Sorry, but feminists aren’t the ones spewing rape and death threats.

Women are afraid to say no to unwanted advances because they could very well be hurt, but then they are criticized for “not being clear” and showing “mixed signals”.

People like Donald Trump can run for president and actually stand a chance at winning.

College students, when surveyed, said they believed that about 50% of rape allegations made were false, when really, the number is 2-8% - about the same as other crimes.

People still think it’s okay to catcall women. Street harassment is a problem that affects ALL women and it’s at the hands of men.

Young girls are forced into marriages worldwide (including in the United States!)

There are no regulations to ensure that sex workers are kept safe. Even if they choose to work in the sex industry (as opposed to being trafficked) they can still be assaulted or murdered, and they have no government protections.

Sex trafficking victims can actually be imprisoned themselves for prostitution.

#informative feminist #original content #proof of the patriarchy #ask #answered #feminism #why I need feminism #why we need feminism

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