www.feministcurrent.com

dandelionseed #sexist feministcurrent.com

This isn't a political movement, it's a massive acting-out by characterologically-disordered men. This new generation of straight TIMs are masochistic, narcissistic eternal puers: even the simplest question constitutes, for their psyches, a full-on attack, and for their sexual fetish, that full-on attack is as thrilling as it gets.

So they act more provocatively, demand more and more, to engender more questions they can regard as attacks and get more thrill from. IF "TERF"s didn't exist, they'd have to invent them. Well, actually -- they did. Because they need the Witch, precisely to define their Specialness against, and they need the Big Mean Mommy to create all their excuses for refusing to grow out of adolescence, and they need the orgasmic vision of themselves as The Most Punished of All to masturbate to.

Psychiatrists and therapists have a lot to answer for here, enabling these disordered men to regard their mental health issues as political oppression. Really, women diagnosed with BPD (often in fact Complex-PTSD) have far more grounds to regard their mental health issues politically, as do women with eating disorders. But they generally don't. I continue to think het dad, who'll eventually pay attention once genderism starts affecting more girls' athletics, will be the ones who shut this all down, because feminists aren't listened to (and because there are too many handmaidens who are) and because gay men, so far, can't be bothered.

I worry, though, that these het men will wield a broad brush that hits the LGB, because they don't always separate sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as feminism, because even though these het dads are invested at least in their daughters' athletic success, they don't generally connect that to the feminism they currently see in the media.

Most women I talk with about this, even as they'll agree that men don't become women, simply will not move beyond their own yanked heartstrings at the "most oppressed of all" hype. So I take every opportunity I can, with every het man who seems at least willing to listen, to explain the difference between the T and the LGB and to explain that the vast majority of TIMs are intact and straight, with no intention of ever making themselves otherwise. Whenever I say the words "sissy porn," I generally don't need to explain much more -- these men do know where the minds of men can go. The word "girl-dick" raises their eyebrows very high.

Still, politically and personally, it'd be most pleasing to me if feminists were the ones, and were seen to be the ones, taking genderist activism and ideology down. So I retain some hope the TIMs' increasing need to evoke reaction via outrageous demand will shove enough handmaidens toward sanity so that can happen.

CÉCILIA LÉPINE #sexist feministcurrent.com

Cultures that have ‘third genders’ don’t prove transgenderism is either ubiquitous or progressive

When homophobic cultures are embracing transgenderism, we need to question its so-called “progressiveness.”

Last year, Pakistan started issuing passports with a third gender category marked by an “X”. In March, the country took things a step further and passed legislation allowing people to change their sex on legal documents, based on self-identification. Now, people can officially self-identify as male, female, or neither on government-issued ID documents, meaning an individual born male can now be issued a female passport. Al Jazeera reports:

“The law guarantees citizens the right to express their gender as they wish, and to a gender identity that is defined as ‘a person’s innermost and individual sense of self as male, female or a blend of both, or neither; that can correspond or not to the sex assigned at birth.'”

The law has been celebrated by many as a progressive victory. Amnesty International’s Pakistan researcher Rabia Mehmood told Al Jazeera that the implementation of the bill “is crucial to ensure [trans-identified people] can live their lives with dignity and respect.” While this might indeed seem like a step forward to some, an important detail brings up questions: despite Pakistan’s apparent embrace of trans-identified people, homosexuality remains criminalized in the country. What liberals and progressives who support this kind of legislation have failed to ask themselves is why transgender politics are being embraced by conservative and regressive regimes like those in Pakistan and Iran.

Trans activists claim that transgenderism has existed throughout history. To prove that “gender identity” is not a modern invention, they point to non-Western societies where, historically, more than two genders have been culturally accepted. This claim is rarely subjected to critical analysis. A feminist analysis is ignored in favour of a superficial analysis of race and colonialism that goes as follows: if a third gender exists in non-Western, non-white societies, the “sex binary” must be a colonialist Western concept that has been imposed on all of us.

But while a third gender really does exist in some societies, that doesn’t necessarily mean that these non-Western views of sex and gender roles are anti-sexist, nor does it mean the application of this idea to Western societies is automatically progressive.

If you compare India’s transgender population to Pakistan’s, you’ll notice an interesting similarity: an overwhelming majority are males. Hijra, as they are called in India, are men or boys pressured to become women on misogynistic grounds: these males love hanging out with women, help women with domestic work, have features that are considered “feminine,” or are suspected of being homosexual. They are often castrated and aren’t allowed to marry or own property. While they may be called upon to bless newborns and celebrate marriages, society generally shuns them and they are rejected by their ashamed families. Seen as accursed, they are given a ritual, religious purpose to counterbalance their ungodly condition. They often become dancers and prostitutes and, like in Pakistan, have to seek the guardianship of a guru (who essentially functions as their pimp) in order to avoid homelessness.

One Pakistani man named Zara tells The Guardian:

“I was born with a very small male organ. Inside, my feelings are female— I want to live like a woman, cook and do domestic work.”

The implication is that a small penis and a preference for “woman’s work” mean that Zara is not sufficiently masculine, and therefore not male.

A homosexual male born as Iman but calling himself Marie featured in a BBC documentary, Iran’s sex change solution, consulted several psychotherapists, some of whom “worked underground.” One suggested pills (of an unspecified nature), another electric shock treatment. Eventually, one doctor told Iman that he could “change [his] gender” and said he needed to start hormone therapy. After a while, another doctor encouraged him to take a step further and undergo surgery. “The doctor told me that with the surgery he could change the two per cent male features but he said he could not change the 98 per cent female features to be male,” Iman says. It is very probable that the surgery included removal of his genitals. As a boy, Iman was bullied for having soft features and was frequently told he looked “like a girl.” After being pressured to start hormones to emphasize his “feminine” features, Iman noticed that he started to grow breasts and that his body hair was thinning. There is little doubt as to what the doctor referred to when he mentioned his remaining “two per cent male features”— Iman says he felt “damaged,” physically. “What I saw was frightening and abnormal,” he adds.

Iran doesn’t traditionally have any concept of a third gender, but the arguments towards the acceptance of transgenderism are the same as in India or Pakistan: when men don’t conform to gender roles related to masculinity and heterosexuality, they are told they are not men at all. In countries like India or Pakistan, religious beliefs about the “balance” between male and female play a role in how women and men are treated. There are many stories about “hermaphrodites” or tales about eunuchs. Men who fail to conform are told they have a female soul and hold a special spiritual position. But in Iran, the religious explanation is non-existent: instead, men like Iman are told that they need medical treatment.

Those who claim transgenderism is universal will also bring up Indigenous societies to show that “male” and “female” are simply rigid inventions of Western, colonial culture, offering “third genders” and “two spirit” people as proof of this. “Native cultures” are glamourized as gender-fluid utopias that European, Christian, colonial conquest destroyed, imposing a rigid two-gender system instead. It is true that as part of the Christianization and colonization process, missionaries profoundly changed the social dynamics between men and women. Children were uprooted from their cultural and social spheres and sent to residential schools, where they were taught Victorian values and morality regarding men and women’s place in North American societies. Indigenous people were subjected to different social codes than those they’d grown up with. Their appearance, for instance, was refashioned: boys couldn’t have long hair because it was considered feminine — they had to wear suits, while girls needed to keep their hair tied at all times and wear dresses. But it would be false to presume that Indigenous societies — which are not at all homogenous — regarded gender (in its contemporary definition) as an instrument for self-expression. This assumes all of these cultures accepted the liberal notion of individual choice and freedom popularized in the aftermath of the American Revolution. But modern notions of individualism, self-expression, and self-realization were were not likely present in pre-colonial Indigenous societies.

The Navajo, for example, have a traditional third gender class called “nadleeh.” While, today, the term is applied to both trans-identified males and females, it originally referred exclusively to males. According to an essay by Wesley Thomas in the book, Two-Spirit People, “Navajo Cultural Constructions of Gender and Sexuality,” men who showed proclivities for traditionally female activities such as weaving, cooking, and raising children, became nadleeh.

Thomas writes, “From the Navajo view, until the turn of the century, males who demonstrated characteristics of the opposite gender were known to fulfill their roles as nadleeh.” He argues that the Navajo recognized “gender diversity” pre-colonization:

“Multiple genders were part of the norm in the Navajo culture before the 1890s. From the 1890s until the 1930s dramatic changes took place in the lives of Navajos because of exposure to, and constant pressures from, Western culture — not the least of which was the imposition of Christianity—

— Due to the influence of Western culture and Christianity, which attempt to eradicate gender diversity, the pressure still exists.”

However, he also points out that gender roles still existed in Navajo society:

“The traditional social gender system, although based initially on biological sex, divides people into categories based on several criteria: sex-linked occupation, behaviors, and roles. ‘Sex-linked occupation’ refers to expected work specializations associated with being female or male. ‘Sex-linked behaviors’ include body language, speech style and voice pitch, clothing and other adornment, and those aspects of ceremonial activities that are sex-linked (e.g., women wear shawls in dancing and men do not; men use gourd rattles during dances and women do not). Women’s sex-linked activities include those associated with childrearing, cooking and serving meals, making pottery and baskets, and doing or overseeing other work associated with everyday aspects of the domestic sphere. For men, getting wood, preparing cooking fires, building homes, hunting, planting and harvesting various vegetables, and doing or overseeing work associated with the ceremonial aspects of everyday life are appropriate. A nadleeh mixes various aspects of the behaviors, activities, and occupations of both females and males.”

Traditionally, the Navajo believed that the power of creation belonged to women. It is safe to say that they never believed that nadleeh — “feminine males” — were actually women, because they didn’t have the ability to bear children. They were regarded as feminine on the basis of social occupations but were not called women — azdaa — in the Navajo language. Society was organized on the principle of collective work divided by men and women on account of their physiological differences — women’s activities, for example, were based on their reproductive capacity and status as life-givers.

In this case, the concept of nadleeh cannot be understood as “gender identity” or gender/sex dysphoria, as it was related to social occupations and behaviors connected to sex. While the Navajo are one of the most documented Indigenous cultures, many others are not so well-documented and it therefore seems inappropriate to impose modern notions of “gender diversity,” “gender identity,” or, generally, our own concepts of gender, as we understand it today, in Western cultures.

It also is misguided to assume that non-Western, non-white “third genders” necessarily shatter the gender binary. The existence of other “gender” castes shouldn’t be assumed to challenge the “sex/gender binary” — they need to be examined within their own cultural and political contexts, from a feminist perspective.

The fact that those placed in this “third” gender category are usually males raises another red flag. It suggests that, while men can be downgraded to the status of females, women cannot rise up to the status of men. Being associated with femininity is such a disgrace that men are socially emasculated and physically mutilated. This is pure misogyny. The media remain blind to the evidence, claiming to be puzzled that these supposedly “progressive” gender identity politics are being adopted by otherwise conservative societies that are hostile and violent to women and gay people.

In The Guardian, Memphis Barker writes:

“One reason for the growing acceptance of the trans community springs from an unlikely source — Pakistan’s mullahs. The Council of Islamic Ideology, a government body that has deemed nine-year-old girls old enough to marry and approves the right of men to ‘lightly’ beat their wives, has offered some support to trans rights.”

Of course, in reality, this “support” is only for misogyny.

So blinded by our own Western views on transgender politics — certain we are on “the right side of history” — we can’t see how these ideas could be harmful. Our critical minds have been paralyzed, and fear of backlash has caused us to avoid asking questions. Despite what so many would like to believe, transgender ideology, no matter how and where it is promoted, has put women and gay people in danger all around the world.

Hanakai #fundie feministcurrent.com

Women who say they chose prostitution and crow about it and the alleged wonderfulness of the choice to let men rent her vagina and pay for use of her bodily orifices are traitors to their sex, traitors to women.

By misdescribing prostitution as a choice, myths about prostitution are perpetuated: the myth that prostitution is empowering for women and necessary for men; that it is the oldest profession (Fact: Prostitution is not a profession, nor is it the oldest occupation); that it is beneficial for women and a fine normal way to make a living; that women are happy hookers; that all women are basically prostitutes who will exchange sex for material reward; the myth that prostitution causes no harm and the myth that prostitution can exist without contributing to sexism, misogyny and the oppression of women.

Everywhere on this planet, the majority of prostituted women are overwhelmingly suffering from poverty, a fact about which there is no disagreement. Urgent financial need is the most frequent reason mentioned by prostituted women for being in the sex trade. No one chooses to be poor when given other options. In countries where prostituted women have been studied in depth, sexual abuse in childhood prior to entry into prostitution is a significant precondition for entry into the sex trade. One rarely meets women in prostitution who were not sexually or physically abused beforehand. No one chooses to be abused.

In any sane, decent, just world where women were valued as full human beings, there would be no prostitution. It should not exist. Sex and women would not be commodities to be bought and sold and rented by any man with sufficient coin of the realm. Sex is the dynamic that creates life. Nature did not intend sex as a commercial transaction. In humans, sex is elevating to the body and being when it is an ecstatic bonding with real connection, caring and affection between partners who are seeking to give and receive pleasure and bring each other higher. In prostitution, sex coarsens the energy and erodes the ability to love. Those who know how to read the human energetic field can attest to this.

The reality that no woman in her right mind would choose to engage in an activity where she will be dead at age 34 (yes, that is the average lifespan for prostituted women), where she has a 90% chance of being raped on the job, where men will spit on her, ejaculate on her face, jam their dicks up her anus and claim the right to ATM (ass-to-mouth, meaning the trick sticks his dick up her anus, withdraws it and sticks it immediately in her mouth without cleaning off the feces), where she has a large chance of being beaten and brutalized, where she is the most vulnerable and likely victim of a serial killer. Who would chose that for themselves? For her sister? For her daughter? For her mother?

Meghan Murphy #transphobia feministcurrent.com

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

[...]

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.

[...]

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.”

[...]

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.

[…]

Omzig Online #transphobia feministcurrent.com

Damn. That's true. Then it's no wonder so many gay lesbian men and women support removing the "T" from the LGBT movement, since transgenderism isn't a sexuality.

And GLAAD could certainly threaten to sue any publication for reporting using accurate male and female pronouns for male and female people, respectively, but I think the first amendment pretty much protects the press's right to do that, whether GLAAD agrees with the content of an article or not. If they did sue, though, it would only continue to draw the public's attention toward the abusive behavior of TRA's. I don't think GLAAD would want that.

So GLAAD and "Trans Rights Activists" would be in the same boat: either object to the correct use of pronouns and attract the public's attention to TRA's abusive behavior, or keep quiet and let journalists provide fact-based, responsible journalism. The press has the upper hand in this one, really.

Hanakai #moonbat feministcurrent.com

There have always been crimes and perversions, but the crimes and perversions are far, far worse and more common today than they were thirty, fifty, eighty, a hundred years ago. Pornography has, to my mind and according to the data, been a HUGE factor in the proliferation

Anal sex, much less anal rape, was not something in the realm of our consciousnesses when I was in high school. Now, the boys coerce or pressure girls for anal. The Yale chant of "No means yes and yes means anal" is a creature of the Millennial demographic and Age of Porn.

Porn is not the only factor. Rapid technological change and the predations of late-stage capitalism lead to widespread anomie and the breakdown of community. The teaching of such idiocies as queer theory and transgender normalism, the cultural adoption of the homosexual male sexual practices and norms, a general loosening of standards of honor and decency and goodness, the failure so far of humans to adapt wise sexual mores to the new material reality of The Pill giving women and other humans the ability to control fertility for the first time in history --- these and many other factors play into the remarkable depravity of these times.

Having watched things for several decades, it seems that there has been a huge regression in women's consciousness as a whole. Looking at popular culture with its stripper feminism and its support of porn and prostitution, it seems that rights earlier feminists won are being eroded and the cultural pendulum has swung to a severe hatred of women.

The social media, computers, ubiquitous screens have made modern young stupider than older generation; attention spans are short; the ability to think rationally or critically is impaired; mental illness has become the norm; research shows today's young are 40% less empathetic than two decades ago. . Not good on the individual or species level.

Knowing the importance of naming and language, earlier feminists and our foremothers struggled to have adult women referred to as women, instead of as girls, broads, hens, b*tches, c*nts, whores, sluts, etc. These slurs are ugly, they help normalize misogyny and perpetuate sexism. Many of these words should be retired or fade from the language as our consciousness evolves.

But what do young women do? They call themselves sluts and start a campaign called Slutwalk in which they dress like bordello workers and parade around in their underwear, while hordes of male perverts show up to watch, film and photograph. Ugh.

When was the last time men protested or ran a campaign or movement in their underwear???

I would like to have more hope for the god-awful human species, but the objective signs are not positive. C'est la vie.

lk #fundie feministcurrent.com

When is all this trans/I can be whatever sex I feel like/fluid/gender is not a binary/biology is a construct nonsense going to stop? How is all this stuff making its way into the legal system?

The other day I saw that California is now going to add a third gender option on drivers license. *rolling my eyes*

“I am proud to be a member of one of the most diverse parliaments in the world and of the long way we have come as a country on LGBT+ issues – from the Sexual Offences Act 50 years ago to the Same Sex Marriage Act"

Its odd to me how much gay rights is being linked to trans rights. I do not see transrights as an extension of gay rights. So much of trans ideology is anti gay (not to mention anti-woman) that I still don't really understand why so many people who claim to be pro-gay/anti-homophobia are pushing and supporting trans ideology.

In what way does denying biology actually help people who are LGB?

Bronwyn Williams #fundie feministcurrent.com

Whether we like it or not, those of us born female - with XX chromosomes and female genitalia - are socialised to be pretty and passive and deferential, if not by our families, then by a broader society that increasingly demands such attributes of women and girls. When puberty arrives it brings with it the joy of monthly menstrual cramps and the beginnings of a 30 to 40 year battle to avoid unwanted pregnancy.

Our physical capacities and our personal freedoms are diminished by womanhood. But at the same time we see our male counterparts growing bigger and stronger, with fun dangly things between their legs and an unfettered capacity for adventure.

??Most of us understand what it's like to have dreams and aspirations beyond what society expects of us. Because of our 'female' socialisation, we do our best to understand and empathise with the distress and pain felt by others, including transgender persons. We know we cannot live their experience, but we do our best.?

Sadly, as has been demonstrated in innumerable public forums, many transgender persons – particularly male to female transgender persons – are unwilling to afford biological women the same consideration.

Somehow, their suffering must be acknowledged to be greater, their needs must be prioritised, and they must be permitted to insult, label and ridicule biological women who argue against their superior entitlement.

We female-born women are trained to be endlessly accommodating, but the current trans agenda is really testing our patience, particularly when we are set upon by other female-born trans ‘allies’.

In fact, our overtly patriarchal society is working overtime to put women back ‘where they belong’. Women and girls are being sexually assaulted, killed and injured in domestic violence and exploited in pornography and in the sex trade in record numbers. The latter exploitation is promoted by many, including leading human rights organisations, as being ‘empowering’ for women.

And now, we are expected to cede the feminist agenda to male-born persons who identify as female, and accept the blame for male violence against transgender women.

It’s so absurd I’d be laughing, if it weren’t for the tears of anger and frustration and the despair I feel when I look at my two-year old grand-daughter and wonder what life will hold for her.

And, yes, I’ve been called a TERF – before I even knew what it meant.

ROBERT JENSEN #fundie feministcurrent.com

The art of avoiding definitions: A review of ‘Trans*: A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variability’

“Let me define the terms, and I’ll win any debate,” a friend told me years ago, an insight I’ve seen confirmed many times in intellectual and political arenas.

But after reading Jack Halberstam’s new book, Trans*: A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variability, I would amend that observation: Debates also can be won by making sure a term is never clearly defined. The transgender movement has yet to offer coherent explanations of the concepts on which its policy proposals are based, yet support is nearly universal in left/liberal circles. Whether or not it was the author’s intention, Trans* feels like an attempt at an outline of such explanation, but I’m sorry to report that the book offers neither clarity nor coherence.

I say sorry, because I came to the book hoping to gain greater understanding of the claims of the transgender movement, which I have not found elsewhere. Halberstam — a professor in Department of English and Comparative Literature and the Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Columbia University — has been writing about this subject for more than two decades and is one of the most prominent U.S. trans* intellectuals. The table of contents looked promising, but the book only deepened my belief that a radical feminist and ecological critique of the transgender movement’s ideology is necessary.

Rather than be defensive about the ambiguity of the transgender argument, Halberstam celebrates the lack of definition as a strength of the movement, an indication that trans* offers deep insights for everyone. If we shift our focus from “the housing of the body” and embrace “perpetual transition” then “we can commit to a horizon of possibility where the future is not male or female but transgender,” he writes. Instead of “male-ish” and “female-ish” bodies we can realize “the body is always under construction” and “consider whether the foundational binary of male-female may possibly have run its course.”

The very act of naming and categorizing imposes limits that constrain the imagination, according to Halberstam, hence the use of the asterisk:

“I have selected the term ‘trans*’ for this book precisely to open the term up to unfolding categories of being organized around but not confined to forms of gender variance. As we will see, the asterisk modifies the meaning of transitivity by refusing to situate transition in relation to a destination, a final form, a specific shape, or an established configuration of desire and identity. The asterisk holds off the certainty of diagnosis; it keeps at bay any sense of knowing in advance what the meaning of this or that gender variant form may be, and perhaps most importantly, it makes trans* people the authors of their own categorizations. As this book will show, trans* can be a name for expansive forms of difference, haptic [relating to the sense of touch] relations to knowing, uncertain modes of being, and the disaggregation of identity politics predicated upon the separating out of many kinds of experience that actually blend together, intersect, and mix. This terminology, trans*, stands at odds with the history of gender variance, which has been collapsed into concise definitions, sure medical pronouncements, and fierce exclusions.”

I quote at length to demonstrate that in using shorter excerpts from the book I am not cherry-picking a few particularly abstruse phrases to poke fun at a certain form of postmodern academic writing. My concern is not stylistic but about the arguments being presented. After reading that passage a couple of times, I think I can figure out what Halberstam’s trying to say. The problem is that it doesn’t say anything very helpful.

To be fair, Halberstam is correct in pointing out that the instinct to categorize all the world’s life, human and otherwise — “the mania for the godlike function of naming” — went hand in hand with colonialism, part of the overreach of a certain mix of politics and science in attempting to control the world. But like it or not, humans make sense of the world by naming, which need not go forward with claims of imperial domination or divine insight. We define the terms we use in trying to explain the world so that we can meaningfully communicate about that world; when a term means nothing specific, or means everything, or means nothing and everything at the same time, it is of no value unless one wants to obfuscate.

But, if Halberstam is to be believed, this criticism is irrelevant, because transgenderism “has never been simply a new identity among many others competing for space under the rainbow umbrella. Rather, it constitutes radically new knowledge about the experience of being in a body and can be the basis for very different ways of seeing the world.” So, if I don’t get it, the problem apparently is the limits of my imagination — I don’t grasp the radically new knowledge — not because the explanation is lacking.

After reading the book, I continue to believe that the intellectual project of the transgender movement isn’t so much wrong as it is incoherent, and the political project is not liberatory but regressive. What this book “keeps at bay” is a reasonable, honest request: What does any of this mean?

In other writing — here in 2014 and again in 2016, along with a chapter in my 2017 book The End of Patriarchy: Radical Feminism for Men — I’ve asked how we should understand transgenderism if the movement’s claim is that a male human can actually be female (or vice versa) in biological terms. If transgender signals a dissatisfaction with the culturally constructed gender norms of patriarchy — which are rigid, repressive, and reactionary — I’ve suggested it would be more effective to embrace the longstanding radical feminist critique of patriarchy.

Rather than repeat those arguments here, I want to try another approach, stating simply that I have good reason to believe I’m real, that the human species of which I am a member is real, and that the ecosphere of which we are a part is real. That is, there is a material reality to the world within which I, and all other carbon-based life forms, operate. I cannot know everything there is to know about that material world, of course, but I can trust that it is real.

The cultural/political/economic systems that shape human societies make living in the real world complex and confusing, and the ways those systems distribute wealth and power are often morally unacceptable. But to challenge that injustice, it’s necessary to understand that real world and communicate my understanding to others in clear fashion.

In left/liberal circles, especially on college campuses, “trans*” increasingly is where the action is for those concerned with social justice. It offers — for everyone, whether transgender-identified or not — the appearance of serious intellectual work and progressive politics. Endorsing the transgender project is a way to signal one is on the cutting edge, and work like Halberstam’s is embraced in these circles, where support for the transgender movement is required to be truly intersectional.

My challenge to those whose goal is liberation is simple: How does this help us understand the real world we are trying to change? How does it help us understand patriarchy, the system of institutionalized male dominance out of which so much injustice emerges?

Halberstam likely would put me in the category of “transphobic feminism” for “refusing to seriously engage” with transfeminism, but I am not transphobic (if, by that term, we mean one who is afraid of, or hateful toward, people who identify as transgender). Nor do I refuse to seriously engage other views (unless we describe a critique of another intellectual position as de facto evidence of a lack of serious engagement). I am rooted in radical feminism, one of those “versions of feminism that still insist on the centrality of female-bodied women,” according to Halberstam.

On that point, Halberstam is accurate: radical feminists argue that patriarchy is rooted in men’s claim to own or control women’s reproductive power and sexuality. Radical feminists distinguish between sex (male XY and female XX, a matter of biology) and gender (masculinity and femininity, a matter of culture and power), which means that there is no way to understand the rigid gender norms of patriarchy without recognizing the relevance of the category of “female-bodied women.” It’s hard to imagine how the binary of male-female could “run its course” given the reality of sexual reproduction.

This is where an ecological perspective, alongside and consistent with a radical feminist critique, reminds us that the world is real and we are living beings, not machines. In discussing his own top surgery (the removal of breasts), Halberstam speaks of working with the doctor:

“Together we were building something in flesh, changing the architecture of my body forever. The procedure was not about building maleness into my body; it was about editing some part of the femaleness that currently defined me. I did not think I would awake as a new self, only that some of my bodily contours would shift in ways that gave me a different bodily abode.”

We all have a right to understand ourselves as we please, and so here’s my response: My body is not a house that was constructed by an architect but rather — like all other life on the planet — is a product of evolution. I resist the suggestion I can “build” myself and recognize that a sustainable human presence on the planet is more likely if we accept that we are part of a larger living world, which has been profoundly damaged when humans treat it as our property to dominate and control.

This is the irony of Halberstam’s book and the transgender project more generally. After labeling the project of categorizing/defining as imperialist and critiquing the “mania for the godlike function of naming,” he has no problem endorsing the “godlike function” of reshaping bodies as if they were construction materials. There’s a deepening ecological sensibility in progressive politics, an awareness of what happens when humans convince ourselves that we can remake the world and ignore the biophysical limits of the ecosphere. While compassionately recognizing the reasons people who identify as transgender may seek surgery and hormone/drug treatments, we shouldn’t suppress concerns about the movement’s embrace of extreme high-tech intervention into the body, including the surgical destruction of healthy tissue and long-term health issues due to cross-sex hormones and hormone-like drugs.

I have long tried to observe what in rhetoric is sometimes called “the principle of charity,” a commitment in debate to formulating an opponent’s argument in the strongest possible version so that one’s critique is on firm footing. I have tried to do that in this review, though I concede that I’m not always sure what Halberstam is arguing, and so I may not be doing his arguments justice. But that is one of my central points: When I read this book — and many other arguments from transgender people and their allies — I routinely find myself confused, unable to understand just what is being proposed. So, again, I’ll quote at length in the hopes of being fair in my assessment, this time the book’s closing paragraph:

“Trans* bodies, in their fragmented, unfinished, broken-beyond-repair forms, remind all of us that the body is always under construction. Whether trans* bodies are policed in bathrooms or seen as killers and loners, as thwarted, lonely, violent, or tormented, they are also a site for invention, imagination, fabulous projection. Trans* bodies represent the art of becoming, the necessity of imagining, and the fleshy insistence of transitivity.”

Once again, after reading that passage a couple of times, I think I understand, sort of, the point. But, once again, I don’t see how it advances our understanding of sex and gender, of patriarchy and power. I am not alone in this assessment; people I know, including some who are sympathetic to the transgender movement’s political project, have shared similar concerns, though they often mute themselves in public to avoid being labeled transphobic.

I’m not asking of the transgender movement some grand theory to explain all the complexity of sex and gender. I just need a clear and coherent place to start. Asking questions is not transphobic, nor is observing that such clarity and coherence are lacking.

Julian Vigo #sexist feministcurrent.com

In an effort to move to a greener existence, I recently switched to an ecological toothbrush. As I have been living uniquely from solar panels for almost two years, I was forced to ditch my electric toothbrush. In choosing an ecological toothbrush, I studied materials, as well as the advantages of recycled plastic brushes versus those with replaceable heads. In the end, I had to eliminate every single option aside from the single one I chose. Yes, I had to exclude that which did not meet my personal standards and convenience.

I think a lot about exclusion these days. The #MeToo campaign which emerged in reaction to the sexually aggressive acts of Harvey Weinstein is clearly a female-centered campaign. But recently I’ve seen arguments that #MeToo should be extended to include males. While being “inclusive” of everyone might seem like a nice idea, the reality is that there are perfectly rational reasons for exclusivity in many situations. Our shared experiences with certain humans help us form bonds where and when we need them. These bonds can often make life bearable for those experiencing particularly painful moments in their lives. Commonalities help to create community. The truth is that all communities are exclusive, in one way or another, of individuals who don’t share certain experiences or requisites. While some might be tempted to argue exclusion equates to segregation, such arguments are very much apples and oranges, particularly in the context of women’s rights.

There are several key differences which should be underscored, when discussing “exclusion” in the women’s liberation movement, beginning with the myth that feminism must focus on males. Thanks to liberal feminists like Emma Watson, among others, many women have been made to believe that arguing for the inclusion of males in the women’s movement is a worthwhile cause. But any group in protest of its oppression by another group is within its rights to demand that the oppressor not be included in its organizing. For instance, when labour unions secured the legal right to represent employees in 1935, employers were excluded from the class of employees because it was understood that employers (as well as managers and supervisors) held power over workers. In terms of economic class, it seems that most people are on the same page when understanding which group holds power over another.

Similarly, civil rights advocacy began with the premise that there is social inequality between people of colour and white people, making a necessary distinction between who is being oppressed under white supremacy. Robbing a person of the right to distinguish the oppressor class means that she is barred from speaking about and identifying her oppression.

Nobody expected the Black Panthers to consider the marginalization of KKK members from their organization for good reason. Similarly, no such claim of exclusion was made about the Million Man March in Washington D.C. in 1995, when approximately 400,000 African American men converged en masse in the nation’s capital to engage in teach-ins, worship services, and community organizing. While there was a discussion over the fact that women were excluded, there was also recognition that black men had the right to gather without women to discuss their issues, and this action was largely supported by African American women. Two years later, the Million Woman March was held in D.C. to focus on issues specific to women.

This sort of exclusion is not based in hatred or a desire to do harm. Exclusion is how we decide, like me and my ecological toothbrush choices, what meets our needs. Exclusion is not necessarily about owning a card to an elite club — it is about setting a particular direction for an individual, group, activity, community, and so forth. All social groups exclude in some way. While I am a big believer in reaching over the aisle to dialogue with those responsible for our subordination, I also recognize the need of any group to make decisions within its group before reaching across that aisle.

(..)

Does the fact of breast cancer support groups for women mean that males cannot get breast cancer? Of course not. And there are breast cancer support groups for males. Why? Because males and females experience breast cancer differently. Commonalities between same-sexed bodies are part of the social intimacy that both males and females alike cherish across cultures. Be it in the hammam or the steam room, the hospital ward, or the changing room at the gym, there is intimacy between people of the same sex that provides a space of security and dignity. Females especially value these spaces because the public sphere is not safe for women. Being in a female-only changing room can offer women a needed reprieve from the daily sexualization of their bodies, and from unwanted male attention and judgment.

The issue of “exclusion” has become a touchpoint for the left in recent years. Most notably, we have seen exclusion being derided as bigotry in trans activist circles where women who say they would not feel comfortable with a male in their change rooms, their women’s shelters, or in a women’s prison are labelled transphobic. Yet both these examples come from real life paradigms. In 2007, Vancouver Rape Relief Society won a case against Kimberly Nixon, a trans-identified male who had attempted to join the training group for peer counsellors at the women’s shelter.

Nixon was asked to leave the group account of having been born male, and because the shelter operated on the basis that women could best counsel other women, having had the specific experience of growing up female under patriarchy. The B.C. Court of Appeals’ decided that Vancouver Rape Relief had the right to determine its own membership, as any oppressed group of people has the right to “discriminate” when organizing in their own interests, as a class. Currently pending in Texas is the case of three female inmates who are suing Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth, claiming that, “They are living in a degrading and dangerous environment by being forced to share showers and bathrooms with the transgender inmates.” The truth is that, for most women, sex does matter. What is more remarkable is that males who claim to have an internal “female identity” have zero compassion for or comprehension of the reality women face in a male supremacist world, and would prefer women put aside their own material reality, comfort, and safety in order to validate men’s feelings.

Choosing a female gynecologist or desiring a female-only space for changing is not meant to incriminate all males as, to paraphrase George W. Bush, “evil doers.” Rather, a woman might choose a female gynecologist both because she feels a woman would better understand her body, but also because she feels safer in that vulnerable state with someone statistically unlikely to assault them. Women’s desire to change in a locker room without male-bodied persons would likely be based on something similar, as well as a desire to maintain healthy boundaries that too often go unrespected. In excluding males from female spaces, women are demanding that society accept the healthy boundaries of women, even if, in certain scenarios, males might wish to be on the other side of the line.

Last week, Bustle ran a story arguing that “some members of LGBTQ community feel that the [#MeToo] campaign focuses too strongly on the gender binary and seems to erase nonbinary or genderqueer people from the conversation.” But what this statement really conveys is that males feel excluded from a conversation lead by women speaking out about male violence. While I would not deny that males experience violence, it is overwhelmingly violence inflicted by other males. What makes #MeToo important is that violence against women and girls is coded into the structural social hierarchy. When women contribute their #MeToo stories, they are doing so as females who have, from childhood, been groomed as objects that exist for male use.

It cannot be overstated that females suffer disproportionate levels of sex-based discrimination and violence, including sexual harassment, domestic violence, rape, and trafficking. Women are quite aware that they are discriminated against and physically abused because of their sex, regardless of how they may feel, internally, about the gender roles imposed on them. It is entirely insignificant, for example, how the over 200 women who James Toback sexually harassed identified. To demand that #MeToo include non-binary people is to miss the point of the feminist movement: feminism has from its inception been explicitly about breaking the hierarchy and stereotypes reinforced through gender which demanded women not leave the house, not vote, and not work. It is not the “binary” that is the problem so much as it is gender itself, under patriarchy. Men who rape women don’t care whether their victims feel “binary” or not.

What Bustle would like is for women to use a language that is seemingly more neutral, less politically objectionable, and more inclusive— of males. Otherwise there would be no uproar with focusing specifically on women’s voices and experiences in this campaign. Males insisting on being “included” in women’s social protest against sexism is just more of the same sexism — women are being instructed to shut up about their oppression by males unless they include males. Beyond that, under patriarchy, women are always under pressure to be sexually available to men. This new language of “inclusion” that frames “exclusion” as inherently harmful has led to males who identify as transgender to insist that women include them not only in their groups and politics, but in their beds. That this is explicitly sexist is made clear through the fact that I have yet to see any male who identifies as trans pressure heterosexual men into sleeping with him.

A narrative that insists on coercing or goading women into including their oppressor is anything but progressive. Likewise, insisting that the language of gender neutrality is what matters in a conversation about sexual violence is far from revolutionary. Taking up the five-cent terms like “non-binary” and “queer” will have no impact on the facts of sex-based oppression for females. The challenge we face as a society is not to carpet bomb women’s movements with accusations of “exclusivity” and “bigotry” when women recognize that males and females are different and have different needs. Creating linguistic games might seem avant-garde to undergraduates, but the reality is that gender is what prescribes the behavioral cues engrained in females throughout their lives. Gender is what is hammered into females as a class, rendering them subjects of a discourse they have no power to respond to. The notion that gender can ever be neutral is patently absurd since gender is not the solution. It is the problem.

Changing language to be “be more inclusive” is counter-revolutionary and pretending that such language does anything other prevent women from effectively organizing towards their own liberation is delusory. The language of gender inclusivity does nothing to dismantle the social and political inequalities that females face. It does, however, create a lovely illusion (especially for men who want to seem progressive in their attempts to thwart our movement): that saying “genderqueer” makes one a “feminist.”

MEGHAN MURPHY #sexist feministcurrent.com

Trans activism is excusing & advocating violence against women, and it’s time to speak up

Threats of violence against women branded as “TERFs” are increasing — will liberals and progressives speak out before it’s too late?

In January, a woman was photographed holding a sign at the Vancouver Women’s March that included the words, “Trans ideology is misogyny.” This might be viewed as a hyperbolic message for those who consider themselves good, liberal people and who care about a group they have been informed are in extreme danger, and particularly marginalized. And perhaps, if you were unfamiliar with the way women and feminists are addressed by trans activists, you might wonder what statements like this are rooted in. A few years ago, I might have questioned this as well, thinking, “well that’s a bit much, isn’t it.” But as trans activism has gained ground and as I myself — as well as many other women — have begun questioning and speaking out about the aims, ideology, and policies supported in the name of “trans rights,” it has become impossible to deny what is being supported through trans activism: violence against women.

Last week, photographs of an exhibit currently on display at the San Fransisco Public Library emerged online, depicting bloody shirts with the words, “I punch TERFs,” alongside baseball bats and axes, painted pink and blue to reference the gender ideology being touted, some covered in barbed wire, in order to amplify the grotesqueness of the threatened beating. The exhibit was set up by “Scout Tran,” a trans-identified male and founding member of the Degenderettes, a group that now has chapters throughout the United States. The group attends queer and feminist events, including the Dyke March, the Pride parade, and the Women’s March, carrying these weapons, which they claim as defensible activism, but is undeniably a visible threat and incitement to violence against women.

The threats attached to slogans like “I punch TERFs” are not theoretical. Earlier this month, a trans-identified male who goes by the name “Tara Wolf” was convicted of assault after beating 60-year-old Maria MacLauchlan, who had gathered with other women in Hyde Park to attend a meeting discussing gender identity ideology and legislation. Wolf had posted on Facebook about his desire to attend this gathering in order to “fuck up some TERFs.” In what other circumstance would anyone — self-identified progressives, in particular — defend viable threats of violence against women? Sadly, lots.

Liberals and the left have broadly defended violence against women as “art” or “sex,” though perhaps in a less overt way than they have outright threats of violence to feminists who wish to question or discuss the notion of gender identity. Pornography, for example, is one area where violence and abuse is consistently defended on account of it being “sex,” “fantasy,” or “free speech.” The ability of men and their allies to avoid viewing a woman being choked, hit, or gang-raped as “real violence” because it is connected to men’s desire and masturbation is without bounds. Similarly, the notion that a man offering a women financial compensation in exchange for permission to abuse her is framed time and time again as “consent,” regardless of the impact on that woman and the broader message this practice sends to all men and women, everywhere.

What is unique about the approach we’ve seen in the trans movement is that it doesn’t attempt to disguise the incitements to violence against women with rhetoric around “consent” and “empowerment.” The claim is not that this is not “literal” violence, because women like it, or because they consented to it, or because it’s “just fantasy.” Rather the violence advocated for by trans activists is said to be justified on account of opinions, associations, language, or the sharing of articles or links determined to be “wrong” — all of which is dishonestly framed as “violence” (ironic considering where the literal threats and violence are evidenced to be coming from).

The threats of violence against women, on account of having been branded “TERFs,” are frightening not only because we must fear for our physical safety or because of the way these threats act as a silencing mechanism, but because this violence is not being condemned, by and large, by most. Being forced to defend ourselves, alone, with few resources, media platforms, or influential public allies, due to the blacklisting that has occurred en masse in relation to this debate, is challenging, because our voices, interests, and well-being have already been dismissed as we are the baddies who deserve to die.

And indeed, this is where the connection between liberals’ and the left’s treatment of pornography, prostitution, and trans activism coalesce. The way that “TERF” has served to dehumanize women (Bad Women — women who speak unsayable truths and ask questions one is not meant to ask) in order to justify the gruesome violence they are threatened with operates in the same way women are dehumanized in pornography in order to pretend as though they aren’t truly being hurt or abused and, of course, in the same way women were branded witches in order to claim their torture was deserved, on account of their being wicked and dangerous.

Disagreement is not violence. This should not have to be said, yet apparently we must. Violence is violence. And when a group of people are actively advocating for and defending violence against another group of people — particularly an oppressed group of people, like women — there is no defense. At this point, those who accommodate this movement, as it is currently operating, are culpable of something very dangerous indeed.

While the San Fransisco Public Library removed the bloody shirt, they did not remove the exhibit entirely, nor do we know why anyone imagined such a display would be appropriate in the first place. One wonders if they would display bloody shirts with the words, “Kill bitches” or “I beat Muslims” next to a display of baseball bats and axes.

Will liberals and progressives stand up before this gets worse? I fear not.

C.K. Egbert #fundie feministcurrent.com

DEFENDING THE "TERF": GENDER AS POLITICAL

Recently, feminists have been critiqued for attempting to make women-only spaces. Inclusion of “minority genders,” including transgender women, into what have been traditionally all-female colleges is now protected under Title IX and hailed as a progressive development. Restricting space to people who have been born women and continue to experience the world as women is considered discriminatory at best and biologically determinist at worst.

People often fail to recognize that “woman” is not a personal identity but a political identity based upon a shared experience of oppression. The purpose of certain women-only spaces is not about excluding those with or without a particular genitalia (we didn’t decide that having vaginas and uteruses made one subordinate; men did) or excluding those with a particular gender identity. This isn’t about how strongly one identifies as a woman, whether one might subsequently be seen and treated as a woman, or whether one is marginalized and disadvantaged by gender hierarchy (for example, gay men are marginalized by patriarchy even though they are men). It is about controlling for the experience of male privilege. In my white-to-Latina example [at the top of the linked post], it would be legitimate to exclude me from certain spaces or even definitions of “Latina” not because I believe in biological determinism but because I understand the power of socialization. This doesn’t mean I identify less with being Latina than others who were “born that way,” or that I may not subsequently experience racial subordination. It means I recognize that what I am is not determined solely by what I want to be, and the fact that I’ve experienced white privilege is not and never has been up to me.

Of course there is an important dis-analogy between race and gender in my white-to-Latina story: transgendered women cannot experience all forms of subordination that women as women face. Most female-born women are capable of becoming pregnant at some point in their lives. For those who cannot, infertility is often considered a “problem” that needs to be “fixed.” Transgendered women do not experience disadvantage by virtue of their reproductive role (they don’t need abortions, for instance), and neither are they considered somehow “defective” by virtue of not being able to fulfill a particular reproductive role (although they might be considered pathological, etc. by virtue of not identifying with their imposed gender).

I’m not denying that transgendered people are subject to social, emotional, and physical violence at absurdly high rates, and that this violence is a product of sexism. I’m also not denying that transgender people feel deeply alienated from their imposed gender identity. Many of us are, because gender, and the accompanying deformation of our bodies — from pornographied genitalia to what is considered beautiful — is a profound and perverse imposition of identity. It does not reflect our individuality or even some positive notion of social relatedness. It is a function of a deeply pathological and violent social structure.

But this seems to be where some recent developments in “feminist” theory and activism have diverged from their feminist roots. The feminist struggle against heterosexism and gender conformity was not because any self-professed sexual orientation, identity, or gender should be considered equally valid: it was because the disadvantage and violence non-gender conforming and non-heterosexual people experience are the result of patriarchy in which men and the masculine are socially constructed as (sexually) dominant and women and the feminine are socially constructed as the (sexually) subordinate. Feminism does not seek to marginalize or exclude the experience of people not born as women, but to situate these within a systemic and systematic understanding of the functions, mechanisms, and structure of sexual subordination.

Imagining and advocating for a post-racial world is easier for us than advocating for a post-gender world. Perhaps because gender has been with us longer, it cuts deeper, it invades our most intimate relationships and experiences. Unlike with racial subordination, there is no “remainder”: ethnicity (identification with a particular cultural or linguistic tradition) can exist without race (the social construction of an identity based upon one’s racial subordination or privilege), but there is no gender without sexual subordination.

Lori Day #fundie feministcurrent.com

There are not enough baby elephant videos in the world to soothe and distract me from all of the pain and suffering I see daily in the news. At the moment, I am obsessed with the Zika virus, which has just been declared a global emergency by the World Health Organization. As more and more babies are born with microcephaly, male politicians in Latin American countries are requesting that women not get pregnant for the next two years, while simultaneously denying them access to contraception and abortion.

I’m sure that men will wait patiently until 2018 to have sex with their wives and girlfriends, and I’m equally certain the extraordinary number of rapists in those regions will stop raping women during the same time period. But in case the menfolk don’t cooperate, there are always coat hangers, and women’s lives will be at risk along with the risks that the virus poses to their children. Men, however, don’t seem to have much skin in the game (even though they are refereeing it along with the mosquitos.)

And I notice this is a recurring theme. Too many men coasting ahead of their own wake.

Often men do suffer along with women, though. For example, men breathe the same poisoned air and drink the same polluted water women do. They die in wars alongside raped and murdered female civilians. They are among the poor and the homeless. American men perpetrate — but are also killed by — gun violence. When the human race begins to go extinct due to climate change, men will not yet have left the planet— I think. But here’s the thing: Men are experiencing karma. Women, on the other hand, are experiencing toxic masculinity — something that has been actively destroying the world since our first human ancestors, standing upon two legs, started walking around Africa three million years ago. If only “Lucy” were available for comment. I think of her as Patient Zero.

Here’s a list of various domestic and international male-made problems, in no particular order:

Climate change

Domestic violence

War

Rape

Sex trafficking

Wealth gap

Pay gap

Air and water pollution

Gun violence

Under-education of girls

Degrading porn

Religious oppression of women

Overpopulation

Deforestation

Poaching

Slavery

Gender discrimination

Poverty

Hunger

Extinction of species

Terrorism

Torture

Sexual harassment

FGM

Political corruption

Homelessness

Restricted reproductive rights

Exploitation of fossil fuels

Strip mining

Clubbing of baby seals

I’m sorry I didn’t have time to add many things to the list. Feel free to add more in the comments.

What can be done? Well, I’ve decided the Earth needs a Mandemic. The human herd must be culled, and it’s time for buck season.

I know what you’re thinking— Cool! How could this work?

I happened to be watching an episode of Star Trek: Voyager last night when the idea came to me. There could be a virus that causes gene mutations in men that rewrites their DNA. Then, when men have sex with women, they are drained of their DNA, “where it is then implanted into females, causing the death of the males. As a result, new males are constantly created and harvested” by women, as suits their needs. You should have seen the desiccated corpses on the Taresian planet!

But perhaps this is too harsh implausible. It is science fiction, after all.

Look, I’m not an infectious disease specialist. I’m not exactly sure how this could work. I just know that there are 200 million missing females in the world because of patriarchy, so Mother Nature needs to put her finger on the scales, and if She would kindly oblige, just push down a little extra hard.

“But I love men.”

Ok. You probably do love men. Most women have some men in their lives that they dearly love. There are tons of wonderful men! So sure, it will be sad and tragic when the Mandemic rages with the fire of a thousand suns and randomly selects enough male victims to disrupt the current power structure around the world. This will be necessary to create an opening for women to become equal — maybe even dominant.

But isn’t our only hope the removal of excessive male humans from the continents? If women don’t take the reins of this doomed planet and get cracking on resolving those few items listed above, we don’t stand a chance.

C.K. Egbert #fundie feministcurrent.com

ANSWERING OBJECTIONS [to her kink-shaming]

“You can’t shame people for their sexual preferences or sexual orientation.”

First, I have already noted that preferences are (often) socially conditioned. Second, the mere fact of having a preference, orientation, or identity carries no weight. We can, and should, make judgments about the content of that preference or identity. Some people strongly identify as white supremacists and neo-Nazis. Some people may consider their sexual orientation to involve pedophilia or rape or murder; the fact that it is their sexual orientation does not make pedophilia or rape or serial murder acceptable.

“You don’t speak for all women. These women don’t see it as a harm.”

I do not deny that a woman may genuinely feel that pain and subjugation is sexy. This is precisely why consciousness-raising is a necessary component to the feminist political project. As a feminist, I can validate a woman’s experience without endorsing the content, which has been shaped by conditions of inequality. For example, I do not deny that women are ashamed of their bodies and feel the need to be impossibly thin, but I do not endorse that they should be ashamed of their bodies or that they should starve themselves.

Harm is not subjective and cannot merely be a product of someone’s feelings. First, because we know that people, due to socialization, invalidation, and inequality, are not always aware of the harm as harm. Second, because we would not say, for example, that men are “harmed” if they cannot have sex with any woman they want or that Christians are “harmed” by homosexuality — even though many clearly feel that way.

“You are denying women their agency and not valuing their individual choice.”

There is never a question of a woman’s agency. At a trivial and metaphysical level, we are always free to choose what we do unless we are unconscious, under the influence of hallucinogens, or physically disabled. I am not judging or arguing against what women are choosing when they “consent” but what men (and some women) choose to do to them. What is important is the social norms, practices, and conditions that make that choice possible. Prostitution could not be a choice if there were no demand and if we did not think that people were things to be bought and sold.

“What if we make pornography with men in the submissive role?”

Equalizing violence does not create equal conditions. We do not solve the problem of racial inequality by having the police arrest and violate the civil liberties of an equal number of white males; we eradicate inequality by eradicating the conditions of subordination and creating positive, material change that truly values all people as free and equal.

FierceMild #fundie feministcurrent.com

It makes sense that transactivists and ‘sex worker’ rights activists would have an affinity for one another. Transactivists and pimps both blame women for men’s violence. Pimps say men wouldn’t enslave, rape, and brutalize prostituted women if feminists stopped criticizing them for it. Transactivists say that men would stop raping, brutalizing, and killing transwomen if feminists would stop criticizing them for it.

I’m 100% certain that decriminalizing pimps and brothel owners won’t stop Punters from raping and brutalizing prostituted women and children. Likewise I am 100% sure that feminists calling transwomen women wouldn stop men from killing them.

M. Zoidberg #sexist feministcurrent.com

Segregation from men is different than segregation from a race or culture or religion.

It's unique in the fact that it is men who do almost all of the violence on women.

Being able to be somewhere where men cannot do their violence on us is necessary for our development and survival.

Kamilla Vaski #sexist feministcurrent.com

Nothing is being done about this, because transgender ideology is now mainstream liberal doctrine. Masses of people have been successfully confused, and those who won't give in to this mass delusion are intimidated into silence. And articulate transsexual and gender-nonconforming persons who are critical of gender doctrine have faced abuse and threats.

Chaia #fundie feministcurrent.com

Women need to know that men are predatory toward women, that the penis is a weapon men use to control us and we're living in a rape culture. They walk around with a "gun" in their pocket that can be used against us at any time. The further away I stay from them the better. Just self preservation. Separatism forever, we MUST protect ourselves from men. Put your fists up.

Horseshoe Award

susannunes #fundie feministcurrent.com

The ultimate goal of queer theory is allowing and legalizing pedophilia. Queer theory is a movement by and for degenerates and perverts. Might as well use those emotionally charged words.

Queer theory and postmodernism should be banned from college campuses as being no more valid than creationism and Holocaust denial. This is where this poison is coming from, and many millennials have been steeped in it.

Missy #sexist feministcurrent.com

I like to listen to scary stories on YouTube in the background while working at the computer. I prefer the paranormal stuff with ghosts and the like even though I'm not really a believer. I just like the chills that some of those stories give me. Sadly most of the content I listen to is mixed with too many real life stories from the "Let's Not Meet" subreddit which mostly has to do with men harassing and hurting women and children.

All those kind of stories do for me is infuriate me and fuel my hatred for the male of the species. Unlike being spooked when listening to stories about ghostly apparitions, it's not at all pleasant or enjoyable to hear about all the ways real human males torment women. It's gotten to the point where I just fastforward through any story heading in that direction because I just couldn't stand the anger and often rage I felt hearing about these encounters and how women are targeted just for their sex, their biological reality, and only because some freakish male couldn't control his dick.

It pisses me off just thinking about what women go through because of men and how we're just expected to put up with it. I wish somehow all women became physically stronger than all men, just any kind of advantage that would put men in their place and put an end to rape permanently.

cinderchild #sexist feministcurrent.com

This is a really great article about how "terf" has become not only a slur but hate speech but you left out a huge part of the problem that TRAs have with women: lesbians. Lesbians are one of the most vulnerable groups of women already and the vitriol hurled at them for being lesbians is disgusting. Lesbians who acknowledge that a lesbian is a female homosexual, and only attracted to females, is automatically branded a "terf" because TRAs have decided that lesbians are attracted to gender, not sex.

This happens to lesbians who aren't radfems or even gender critical; they're lesbians who seek out females and they are punished for that. There are so few lesbian spaces anymore, having been invaded by TIMs who say they are lesbians and therefore lesbians must consider them viable partners. Lesbians are called bigots for exercising their right to be a female homosexual who is not attracted to males and simply saying that they are not attracted to TIMs brands them "terfs". See Riley J Dennis. While this article was great, leaving out lesbians is a huge disservice to them.

Lesbians endure more than their share of hate piled on them simply because they don't see TIMs as viable dating or sex partners because lesbians are not attracted to males. The transactivist movement is not only incredibly misogynist but also incredibly homophobic by telling lesbians that if they don't see TIMs as women they are disgusting bigoted terfs, and they must consider TIMs as partners because "trans women are women". It's quite akin to corrective rape. I realise this is kind of rambly and out of order, I'm extremely tired right now but wanted to get these thoughts down before I forgot.

gxm17 #fundie feministcurrent.com

I’ve started to realize that transcultists are really just MRAs who like to perform femininity. These folks are cut from the same cloth. The misogyny of people who claim to “feel” like a woman is staggering. It’s weird. It’s as if they think their version of “woman” is more authentic then those of us who were born women. Well, that’s male privilege for ya!

Omzig Online #sexist feministcurrent.com

You are on a feminist website to convince us women into believing that males are women, and that male violence against other males should be another problem that we need to fix for them. This is gaslighting, a form of abuse by your own definition.

I've said this before, but it bears repeating: According to the CDC, our biggest killers and abusers are male, yet you're here on a feminist website claiming that males are the real victims. If you want to turn it into a yearbook superlative for "most murdered," or "most abused" status, go ahead. But the fact is that females are clearly not safe around males, even the ones that wear lipstick. This article, in which the author documents the violence and threats that she's experienced at the hands of transgender-identified males, is proof of that.

If you sincerely believe male sorrow over their internalized experience of gender could ever literally turn a male into a woman, then I'm afraid you may be too indoctrinated to be of much use to the feminist organizations that you say you work for. Try making females a priority in your feminist activism again, then we'll talk.

JingFei #sexist feministcurrent.com

I truly believe this is coming to a head. I've always had a theory that the true reason Trans activism has gotten as far as it has, it because the majority of everyday people on society are still clueless about it. Feminists know about all this stuff, but ask a generic, gardening neighbor over 35; "How do you identify? What are your pronouns? ", And they will think you're touched in the head.

This is why Trans orgs spend all day stalking, vilifying and shutting down all critical voices and events. They know the vast majority have no idea what is going on. And laws are passed without the public knowing wtf they are even about. If the people could openly hear a debate, they would become educated and start paying attention. That is bad for the Trans Lobby. They know it.

Canada also has a profoundly high immigrant population. I can tell you from personal experience that first generation immigrants would reject most of this garbage where biology isn't real, and males can shower beside their daughters. But they're in the dark. Some Trans ideology is so out there, you can't even wrap your head around it. But most of the crossdressing, spoiled, white Western straight males who aggressively head the Trans movement are psychologically unsound.

The crazy, the entitlement, the contempt they harbour for women cannot be kept contained forever. And like this incident, and others like it, they reveal themselves to the public. My only concern is how much violence do Trans males have to inflict on innocent women until it is too brazen for Leftist media to ignore? How bad does it have to get?

Hekate Jayne #sexist feministcurrent.com

Your comment, especially the last half, needs to be shared with women everywhere.

We are trying to work with males.

We ask, we explain, we beg, we protest, we work, and all we get is dudes playing at confusion, or expecting us to wait until they get around to it.

This system is working exactly as males want it to. They get to keep the status quo, which greatly favors them, and we just keep on asking and waiting.

And in the meantime, we get dragged backwards.

Feminism is not about waiting on getting enough male support in hopes that if we can rally enough males, then maybe we can change things.

How long have we been doing that, anyway? It doesn't work, and that's because males don't want it to.

Zuzanna Smith #sexist feministcurrent.com

No one thinks males who identify as trans “girls” are female, they treat them as males, special and worthy of attention, no one treats female children as special. We are raised to be polite and to center males, I certainly don’t see TIMs being raised to cater to other males, they will certainly be raised expecting girls and women to pander to them, sorry not sorry, we don’t worship in the transcult.

susannunes #sexist feministcurrent.com

It is no surprise because these MEN have a mental disorder, a mental illness, and typically more than one in addition to their body delusions. They are NOT normal, not even for men. We need to quit pretending they operate in any kind of sane universe.

Women need to take their rights back and stop catering in any way to the trans movement including using their lingo like "trans woman," "trans man," "gender identity," and so on. The trans are the enemy like every other misogynist group. Transgenderism is woman-hating filth.

susannunes #sexist feministcurrent.com

The sexual revolution had nothing to do with feminism. It in fact is antithetical to feminism. Second-wave feminism, especially radical feminism, was born because of the lousy treatment women received by men in the antiwar and civil rights movements of the 1960s.

Kinsey, Ellis, Ginsburg, Money, Hefner, and the rest of them were to a man--and almost all of them were men--perverts and degenerates. It wasn't generally known at the time but years later what these guys were really all about. They were all about violating appropriate boundaries between the sexes and not just about overthrowing the 1950s "prudery." Queer theory/transgenderism are much more in line with the "sexual revolution" and are the end result of it than feminism ever was.

The best account of the sexual revolution of the 1960s is in Andrea Dworkin's book, Right-Wing Women, in the chapter "Abortion." She knew of what she spoke, and she was dead right.

Omzig Online #sexist feministcurrent.com

According to the CDC, male violence is one of the leading causes of death for women and children, along with heart disease, cancer, and strokes. Limiting our interactions with men is not "segregation", it is controlling a known risk factor for death and injury. It is a pragmatic approach to maintaining our health, along with avoiding tobacco products, engaging in regular exercise, and drinking in moderation.

If you don't like that this limits your access to women, perhaps you should examine your own behavior and the behaviors of the men around you. Do your part to end male violence instead of leaving pointless comments on an anonymous internet.

Also, when you make arguments that involve words like “always”, “never”, “everyone”, “nobody”, etc., you are committing a logical fallacy called reductio ad absurdom. This is rarely a good way to express reasonable talking points. In the future, you may want to avoid appealing to extremes if you want to make valid points.

Djdj Jdjd #sexist feministcurrent.com

Yeah... Justin is definitely not the man for the job, in fact I doubt there's a man alive that would ever do more than the basic minimum when it comes to fighting for women's rights and liberation. After all, the patriarchy makes it very comfortable and is very beneficial to the male sex. Not many are actually all that interested in dismantling it no matter how they act like they are.

I really wish women would stop trying to include men in feminism, and that means the guys who pretend they want to be included too. We've tried for centuries to change them, to teach them how to be decent towards the other half of the world's population, but there's so few who want to change and our time and efforts just end up wasted.

We need to put all our focus on women, build up their strength so that they are strong enough to put up a fight against the patriarchy on at least an individual basis which in turn will eventually snowball into a more collective organizing of women around the world. Feminism is not for teaching men how to be human, it's to stop their dehumanization of women.

Stroke_Your_Own_Ego #sexist feministcurrent.com

This says a lot right there.

Women are oppressed because we are systematically exploited, abused, and denied the right to own our own bodies. Trans women are oppressed because laws, people, and media don't always validate their self image.

When men kill trans women, they kill them for being gender-non-conforming men, the same reason they kill gay men, or otherwise "effeminate" men. Men don't kill trans people by misgendering them, they kill them the same way they kill anyone else, with horrible blind force.

It's been said many times in this comments section but I'll say it again: We're on the same side in wanting to end male violence. Stop fighting us and work with us to stop the people who are actually committing violence against trans people and women.

fluffywhitedog fluffy #sexist feministcurrent.com

Absolutely right, Ashley. Mammal males are a natural defect. Eliminating them out of the reproductive process produced longer living mice in the Kaguya experiment. This is true even judging by fetal development, where the males fetuses suck more resources out of the mother, thus growing bigger and causing more difficult births and pregnancies + leaving bits of the Y chromosome in the mother's brain!! All this is AFTER the default female fetus get hijacked by male hormones several weeks into gestation. = This is the behaviour of a parasite.

I have yet to see proof of genuine humanity or connection with Life in men. It's like they only learn to wear a human mask by copying us. When you isolate them from women > they revert into their natural feral state. This happened in early Aussie colonies; & keeps happening in prisons, armies, sporting teams, excess male populations in China & India. Socialisation is supposed to make them bad, but it seems to be the opposite: it's the only thing keeping them above jungle level. Yet when women are isolated - they thrive!

I spent most of my life contemplating how maleness is a mental illness. It finally made sense when I read up on the pitiful state of the Y chromosome. Men are literal half-wits because they function on only 1 healthy chromosome.

May Z #fundie feministcurrent.com

All I can say is that I cannot take neoliberal feminists, happy hookers, and trans activists seriously when they say they are "against capitalism", yet, they have an elementary understanding of socialism and communism.

Their whole movement is about consumerism and making more money by drawing insecure and confused kids to transition, buying useless shit to "match" their gender identities, and get botched surgeries.

Hearth Moon Rising #sexist feministcurrent.com

When men call themselves "feminist," it serves as a disclaimer that keeps them (and other people) from scrutinizing these men's actions and attitudes.

It can work that way for women, too, but women are socialized to question themselves (not a bad thing), and people of both sexes are super-eager to criticize and condemn women.

People are only too willing to give men credit with nothing to back it up, so a man claiming to be a feminist is a man claiming his male supremacy.

Hekate Jayne #sexist feministcurrent.com

They are entitled to our time and attention. Just like babies.

I used to want males to be active in feminism. Back when I believed that some males could be trusted.

But now? I don't want them involved. And that is for a couple of reasons, but the main one is that I just don't want them there. Because their presence brings 1 of only 2 outcomes I have seen.

The first is that they know better than we do and they take over. The second is that they make everything all about them. Just like dudes at the store, the bank, while walking your dogs, etc.

The world is a malefest. I should be allowed to speak to women outside of a male presence every once in a fucking while.

Lavender #sexist feministcurrent.com

"So what does it mean to feel like a woman? It means that if you are a woman, it’s whatever you are currently feeling." What?!?

I'm baffled that people think this passes for a reasonable statement. If any feeling at all can make you a woman, this means that womanhood has no meaning. If men can be woman, then womanhood is nothing more than a costume. Misogyny has reached its zenith: the erasure of females in the guise of progressive politics. Men who push this propaganda - that's no surprise.

But women who actively indulge in female erasure is always shocking to me and proof positive of just how powerful patriarchy is in convincing women to internalize their own subordination. Men will always use this as an excuse to say that those women who do challenge femininity and gender are just angry, bitter witches.

It's a brilliant system, it really is, and all it needs to perpetuate itself is a critical mass of people who don't care enough about women and girls to question statements that are so clearly nonsensical. If I spend the rest of my life arguing with men and women about this, so be it. Once you realize how insane all of this all is, you just can't keep quiet.

Alienigena #fundie feministcurrent.com

My response would be that women are not a sexual minority we are half the population of the planet (if nature is let to take its course) and femicide (e.g. sex selective abortion, differential treatment and female infanticide) is not part of the equation. So why should we be on the side of sexual minorities when their goals are not the same as ours. They want to use our numbers to legitimate their cause and co-opt our movements to pursue their own, very particular agendas.

The fight of trans-identified males is not our fight. The rights of biological females (lesbian, bisexual, trans-identified females (biological females)) is our fight. Women are not a marginal group in society. I have often felt like the odd person out given my lack of interest in conforming to the notion that women should centre their lives around men. Thing is, you can be heterosexual but not like the behaviour or entitlements of men and not want to spend your life pandering to them. You have a right to reject the company of men, doesn't make you an outlier. But people are intent on making you feel like a weirdo for finding the way society is organized pretty toxic.

Hekate Jayne #sexist feministcurrent.com

This restorative justice bullshit is a male fix to a male created problem. Males do all manner of bullshit, bumbling around, like they are trying oh so fucking hard, straining their teeny man minds, trying just so, so hard to fix it! But they just can't hit on a solution, you see. Confused males are so confused.

As an example, rape is endlessly confusing for males. Is it legitimate rape? Forcible rape? What is consent, anyway? Gee whiz a roonie, it just seems like every interaction with female people is potential sexual harassment, we are trying so hard, but we just can't figure it out. Ladies, can you explain again? Won't you please help us out? Sexual assault hurts males, too, you know!!!!! Yet, they don't accidentally rape or molest each other, do they? So they aren't all that fucking confused.

Males know what rape is, they know how to stop it. But they use confusion as a smokescreen so that they can keep raping while hiding behind this bullshit of MALES SO CONFUSED BUT TRYING SUPER HARD, THO. It's fucking insulting to our intelligence. But they love violence and domination directed at us. They will never choose to stop it. They will have to be stopped.

jose #sexist feministcurrent.com

I'm sorry but if I see a man who says he's a feminist, or even worse, an "intersectional feminist", I can only roll my eyes, smile and nod. Chances are good they just sit on twitter telling everyone to legalize prostitution.

I'm positive 99% of the men who actually do shit are too busy helping to build altars to their ego like that.

Jennifer Adams #fundie feministcurrent.com

[Trans women face many of the same issues and more as cis women. We have the same pay inequality with the added bonus of our employers having the right to fire us in 33 states for just being trans. We are judged to the same beauty standards as cis women. The same body image issues. I'd love to have a thigh gap, I'm envious of the women that do, but I'd have to just about kill myself to get it. Women are often their own worst enemies, trans women are not immune to this. I'm sure there are other issues that I can't think of off the top of my head. We are in the same boat, whether you like it or not.]

Being a woman isn't about knowing the history of the woman's movement or having a set of tits. You will never experience what it is truly like to be a woman. You never grew up with the misogyny, being excluded simply for the fact that you were a girl, you never had to prove yourself, you never had to tone down being too smart, you never grew up on the short end of double standards between men and women. You never had to smile and act lady like when the dirty uncle was making crude remarks, you never had to worry about getting raped your whole life and being extra careful who you hung around, you didn't have to worry your whole life about saying the wrong thing to your boyfriend who could beat you up, you never had to feel the vulnerability I have, you never had to keep your opinions to yourself or were forced to keep quite because that's how ladies act, or men never take you seriously because you were too pretty or men who never wanted to genuinely be your friend because they only wanted to fuck you. You didn't have a lifetime of being held to some high, unobtainable beauty standard. You didn't spend a lifetime being objectified. You never suffered through the embarrassment of bleeding through your panties and not being able to go the pool with all the other kids. You never had to brush off sexist, stupid remarks guys make your whole life. You never have to worry about getting pregnant or the anxiety of waiting on pregnancy test. You never have to worry if having a kid will ruin your whole life or what it will do to your already imperfect, un-model like body. You never had to worry about looking like Barbie. You never had adult men "accidentally" touch your boobs or your butt when you were 12. Or that optometrist that gives you a breast exam. You never had to worry about raising a child on your own. You never had to make a "security risk analysis" in every interaction with the opposite sex because they could potentially hurt you or rape you. You never had to count the days between periods. You've never had to ruin countless clothing because you've bled through. You've never had to worry about having a mental breakdown every 30 days since you were 12, you never grew up thinking that you could be president, an astronaut, a rockstar, a baseball player...because women usually aren't. You were never expected to forego an education for a family...and if you didn't, you would make less anyways. You never had to worry about getting shunned in an engineering class bc you were the only woman, you haven't had the lifelong experience of men dismissing your emotions because you're "on the rag", you didn't have a lifetime of getting forced in the kitchen with your mom while your brothers played ball with your dad, you never grew up thinking that you could be anything, only important people were men...You were never expected to be a full time worker, housekeeper, mother, and slave while some guy just drinks beer and sits on the couch and watches NFL.

All of these things and more, most women can relate to. You're a man-made woman, a sexist byproduct of what a man thinks a woman is.

Just Passing Through #sexist feministcurrent.com

Men seriously suck. I fkn hate 'em... There I've come right out and finally said it. I fucking hate men with a level of hate I never knew I had in me. They terrorize women across the planet and have throughout all of history and the "good ones" stand by and watch it happen and do NOTHING... I want a new world without men. Seriously, a new planet...I just read a story about a disgusting man with half a head try to rape a woman then burn down her house, (I guess the half head part of him is what made him fail at the rape, but it almost happened)....the picture of him just made me want to throw up, even without the majority of his brain, he still has the need to kill, maim, rape etc...it's what they do, it's what they are...they're animals...they are fkng mutants, I'm so convinced...I want a male free planet. NOW. Nuclear war wouldn't even be a threat if it weren't for men. The world and all life on earth will probably end because men need to assert their dominance over all living things and everyone in the world. It's the ultimate dick wag! At least one guy "gets it" about how fucked men are: George Carlin with his "Male Disease" act....but that's about it. I seriously hate men.

Hekate Jayne #sexist feministcurrent.com

I don't know a single woman that hasn't been harassed on at least one job. The only time I ever escaped harassment at a job was when I had a female boss.

And every dude that I have ever told about this responds with *shock*. They gasp, they express disbelief (of course they do). Every woman I have ever told has at least one story of her own, and usually many, many stories.

Women are never shocked when males are predatory and disgusting. Males aren't, either. But they feign distaste, surprise and anger as part of the ruse to keep their disgusting bullshit going. They love being predatory and pretending that they don't see it. It is part of insuring male supremacy.

Djdj Jdjd #sexist feministcurrent.com

Men shouldn't be labeled feminists because they're not women, it's as simple as that. The majority of them, especially extremely privileged ones like Justin Trudeau, only reap the benefits of patriarchy and could never even begin to comprehend what it's like to live as a woman in a world that considers you inferior and second class just because of the biology you were born with, biology, I might add, that is essential to nurturing and bringing life into the world.

Men can help out behind the scenes, be allies, but they can be as much a feminist as a white person can be a Black Lives Matter activist. Like men with feminism, white people can only be allies and support BLM's message and speak out against racism in any and every way possible. True allies for both causes wouldn't expect a pat on the head from the groups they're supporting, nor would they claim themselves members of these groups just because they support them.

I agree with the rest of the points you've made in your post.

Hanakai #sexist feministcurrent.com

No doubt because employers do not want to hire insane people who are delusional and out of touch with reality. Further, transsexual men pretending to be female have a very high rate of criminality generally and as sex offenders particularly, and these are not the sort of folks an employer wants to hire.

If transsexuals would, instead of seeking surgical mutilation and to twist reality to fit their delusional system, get therapy to put their delusions to rest and learn to love themselves and their wonderful bodies as they are, then they would get hired on the same basis as normal people.

Misanthropia #conspiracy feministcurrent.com

I am fully convinced that now transgenderism is a psy-op meant to infiltrate and undermine the feminist movement. Now a male can do anything he wants. He can not only incite horrific crimes against women, he can also steal the label woman from us and force us to accept his delusions that he is a woman, against all evidence of biology and science.

Whatever delusions that males create with regards to women is taken as the truth, while the truth of women's lives and what we truly are is taken to be lies and just paranoid imaginings on our part. Is it any coincidence that transgenderism is all the rage in countries where women are more privileged? No one would want to be a woman in the Middle East, or many Asian and African and even Latin American countries.

They only want to be what the male fantasy of what a woman is. It's also no surprise that countries that are persecuting homosexual people are also forcibly offering sex reassignment surgery to them because they would rather not have two people of the same sex in love with each other.

zbudapest #conspiracy feministcurrent.com

These are not witches. It is yet an other case of cultural appropriation. It is working towards getting the leadership away from the Movement and allow the males claim witchhood and replace the female High priestesses , and gain moral power over women. Merlin Stone has warned us about this. Now is the time to DISOBEY , SABOTAGE and PUSH BACK to these misguided sons.

Tobysgirl #sexist feministcurrent.com

I know this is not a popular viewpoint, but I have a real hard time with women who want to think they are men. I have sympathy for the terrible things young women go through, but to want to become a member of the oppressor class disgusts me. The "rights" of trans-identified females mean nothing to me. When they accept that they are biological females, their rights and needs are of paramount importance to me.

fxduffy #sexist feministcurrent.com

Transgender not only renders true women’s colleges pointless, but also feminism, and women-as-women.

Transgender concludes that there is no women’s identity, and therefore no women’s culture, and no women’s history.

Yet, they insist on being women... because that’s the most effective way to destruct the identity. Their method is as old as empire, as old as patriarchy, as old as males... it’s called colonization, forced assimilation, and forced dissociation.

Women then must either get with the male supremacist program, or get displaced by their transgender superiors. Abstract culture trumps biology and lived reality.

Snork Maiden #sexist feministcurrent.com

I think anything which limits pornography is a step in the right direction, especially enforcing age restrictions. But this bill doesn't nearly go far enough. People who defend pornography while decrying misogyny and racism are the biggest hypocrites on the planet.