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Sometimes one doesn’t have time to cut through the academicese to right proper call out the bullshite, the Legal Feminist had the energy and time to do so. A million thanks to her. Here are her words.
[JB] …[W]e can see that a domain of fantasy is at work, one which reflects more about the feminist who has such a fear than any actually existing situation in trans life. The feminist who holds such a view presumes that the penis does define the person, and that anyone with a penis would identify as a woman for the purposes of entering such changing rooms and posing a threat to the women inside. It assumes that the penis is the threat, or that any person who has a penis who identifies as a woman is engaging in a base, deceitful, and harmful form of disguise. This is a rich fantasy, and one that comes from powerful fears, but it does not describe a social reality…
“In other words, anyone who thinks that it is dangerous to let male-bodied people self-identify into women-only spaces is guilty of a transphobic assumption that all trans women are sex-offending ‘cis’ males in disguise, and their only purpose in entering women’s spaces is to offend. This is a familiar move in the debate: “If you won’t let me into the ladies’ it means you think that because I’m trans I must be a perv! Transphobe!”
But that misses the point. Sorry, I’m going to rant a bit here.
The point is male violence, especially but not exclusively male sexual violence. We don’t want to exclude trans women from the spaces where we are undressed and vulnerable because they are trans, but because they are biologically male. They are members of the half of humanity that poses a far greater threat to women than the other half.
We want to exclude males because we are afraid of them. And we are right to be afraid of them. We don’t want to exclude trans women because we think they are more likely than any other male-bodied person to be violent offenders; but because there is no reason to think they are any less likely to be violent offenders. Men are unwelcome in women-only spaces not because we think all men are sex offenders, but because we know that almost all sex offenders are men.
And remember that we are not just spontaneously afraid! We are taught from early childhood that men are a source of danger. We are told it is our responsibility to keep ourselves safe from the ever-present risk of male violence; with the barely-concealed message that it’s our fault if we fail. We learn to limit our freedoms. We try not to be out alone late at night. We learn to be alert to the possibility of being followed; not to make eye contact; to shut down drunken attempts to chat us up without provoking male rage; to walk in the middle of the road so that it’s harder to ambush us from the shadows; to conduct a lightning risk assessment of every other passenger on the night bus; to clutch our keys in one hand in case we need a weapon; to carry a pepper spray, or a personal alarm. And we learn the hard way that these fears that have been deliberately inculcated in us are justified. We are followed, leered at, flashed, groped, cat-called; and that’s those of us who get off lightly. Every woman has stories of male abuse.
We are systematically trained in fear
And then we are told that we must lay aside, at a moment’s notice, the fears we have so obediently learned as soon as a person with a male body asserts a female identity.
Does this give you any insight into why we are so angry?
Let me make it even plainer. There is an attempt to force male bodies into female spaces where they are not welcome; and when we say “no,” that is met with rage, entitlement, abuse and threats of violence – attempts to overbear our consent by force. There are unmistakable echoes of rape. When it comes to attempts to force women who have asked for a female health care provider to accept a trans woman to undertake an intimate procedure, the echoes become deafening.”
Sara Ditum writes for Unherd on the strange route mainstream feminist politics has taken in the UK. The ‘strange turn’ is also prevalent in Canada as many feminists whose goals include female liberation have found themselves without a political home as the parties that traditionally fought for their rights are now advocating for female erasure in society under the guise of being ‘trans-inclusive’.
Any political party that takes the material conditions of women in society for granted will not get my vote.
“Progressive movements, he argues, are no longer beholden to conventional liberal principles. Instead, they “contain within themselves both reformist and revolutionary tendencies, and progressives regularly move back and forth between the two”. This is, he points out, what Wesley Yang calls the “successor ideology” – successor, because it is primed to succeed liberalism, although it so far lacks an internal coherence of its own.
So a feminist might ask how self-identification would work in the prison system where vulnerable women need to be protected from predatory male offenders, and the successor ideology response would be that we should abolish the prison-industrial complex, at which point segregation would cease to be an issue. Or, if the issue is how to include trans women in refuges, the successor ideology could answer that the real aim should be ending all male violence rather than just ameliorating its effects — a laudable goal, but a remote one.
It’s a shift to utopianism that evades all responsibility for material conditions in the present, while justifying the removal of rights now as a trade-off against the glorious kingdom to come. Why do you need free speech to talk about sex when you have the post-gender future to look forward to? (Means of reaching the post-gender future remaining very much TBC.) For feminism, which has to be about directly improving women’s lives and prospects if it’s to be about anything at all, this is all deeply unsatisfying. If the Right is able to offer at least a common ground of norms, why not work there?
In any case, the idea that feminism inherently belongs to the Left is — if not false, at least a bit flaky. The suffragists and suffragettes covered a whole range of political opinion with outliers on Left and Right, united by their belief that they should be able to express those opinions at the ballot box. The second wave was galvanised by a split between the women’s movement and the anti-war Left.”
A segment of the left has really lost the plot and gone of the rails. The idea that feelings are more important that material reality, that one should expect others to validate your personal choice and that sex is changeable have all originated from the political wing I used to call my home. It was bullshite like this that made me distance myself from the so called ‘progressives’ because much of their ideology is a regressive, male-centric circus shit shitshow of tragically absurd assertions and baseless presuppositions. Meghan Murphy writes on the Feminism Current about the superciliousness of the woke left:
“Last year, Sessi Kuwabara Blanchard published an article at Vice complaining that his heterosexual male friends didn’t want to sleep with him, writing:
“I’m single this Valentine’s Day, and I feel like shit. I feel undesirable, and I feel powerless to change that. Most of all, I want to know why the guys I crush on, namely cis, straight, male 20-somethings, won’t fuck me.”
When Blanchard discussed this problem with his friends, they tried to ease him into the truth, letting Blanchard know that pestering his male friends about this would only make him feel bad: “They said the guys I like won’t fuck me because they’re straight.” Blanchard wrote this off as “transphobia” — his friends were *gasp* “implying that heterosexuality is male attraction to women,” meaning he didn’t “make the cut.”
Despite Blanchard’s insistence that “desire is fluid,” the categories of “gay” and “straight” exist for a reason: this describes the vast majority of people’s sexual preferences. And there is very little politicizing can do about this.
A hard-to-hear reality I’ve made clear many times is that the crux of transgenderism, for many who identify as trans, is delusion. And that trans identity rests on others — the “woke,” as it were — playing along. When we use preferred pronouns, we participate in this, as we do when we refer to trans-identified males as women, and trans-identified females as male. Many claim this is simply an issue of being kind, respectful, and polite, but, in the end, these lies hurt trans-identified people, as well as the rest of us. The result is a group of males left wondering why, despite being told they are literally women, are not viewed as or treated as literal women. And women are left without rights, boundaries, or the ability to speak the truth.
The woke, I’m sorry to tell you, are liars. This is not a coincidence; it is the basis of their politics.
The answers to the questions asked by the woke are easy. But they pretend there is some long, deep discussion to be had about, as Blanchard puts it, “what it would take for someone to want to fuck me.”
The question is wrong, of course, and intentionally so. And the answer is obvious. If we were to engage with the truth, Blanchard and Violet would be less hurt by the answers. Instead, we’ve decided the lie is what is “nice.”
The time for ‘nice’ is fucking over. Entitled males need to step back and get themselves waaaaay back to their own lane.
“After losing $34,312 CAD in annual municipal funding, Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter (VRR) say they have no plans to change or scale back their services or public education. The organization will rely on donations to make up for their budget shortfall.
On February 26, Vancouver City Council unanimously voted to strip grant funding from VRR. The annual grant from the city only represented a small portion of VRR’s budget and was allocated to public education and outreach.
A year ago, the council agreed to maintain funding for 2019, but threatened to rescind the grant should the organization refuse to change its policy (protected by law) and allow males who self-identify as women to access their rape crisis services and shelter. VRR refused to buckle, instead maintaining a commitment to women’s safety and liberation via their sex-segregated services. The council claimed that VRR’s female-only policy violates their grant eligibility criteria, which protects “gender identities,” but not “sex,” as characteristics requiring accommodation.
In an email, Karla Gjini, a VRR collective member, said the organization will “work hard” to make up for their new shortfall. “While we’re feeling disappointed by the decision, we’re also so, so encouraged and comforted by those who spoke out and wrote letters in support of our work, and in support of women,” she told me.”
The VRR will not bend the knee to gender delusional men and will keep the female only safe space open.
“In the meantime, VRR plans to host their annual fundraiser walk-a-thon on June 7. “It’s a great community event with live music and a free picnic, and anyone can make a team and ask for pledges. We’re hoping for a great, big turnout to help make up some of the money,” said Gjini.
Many prominent feminists and allies have publicly offered support for VRR. Julie Bindel, UK journalist and feminist, announced plans for a pop-up restaurant in London to raise funds. Donations to VRR can also be made online.
Vancouver Rape Relief and Shelter will surely (and maddeningly) face continued backlash from trans activists determined to infiltrate or destroy women-only spaces. The women of VRR, however, are clearly up to the task.”
Help women out, donate now.
“A response to my Leftie friend who agrees with my criticisms of gender identity ideology & politics but is too afraid to say so openly for fear of losing his “woke” Leftie and transgender friends. – By Priya Reddy
Thanks for sharing your concerns as one of the few leftie friends I have who had the courage to be honest about these controversial and conflicting issues. I appreciate your encouragement. Some leftie friends have told me privately they support my posts but can’t like, comment or share them. They’re also too afraid too.
Fear… should be a red flag. What are you afraid of exactly? Losing your friends? I understand that’s a strong disincentive to speaking up, but ultimately it’s your own conscience you have to answer to. I’ve lost some friends over these issues over the years… and yes that can be hurtful but I’m more worried about losing my basic human rights and far more concerned about this unprecedented backlash to feminism and frontal attack on sex based legal rights for females, as well as on scientific integrity, freedom of speech, our fundamental Constitutional principles and protections, and even on objectivity itself. The totality of which has serious human rights impacts, political and totalitarian implications.
By the way, we are not discussing individuals or your transgender friends or mine for that matter. We are discussing ideology, and it’s political implications. Any and every ideology can be subject to critical thinking. Gender identity ideology is not above criticism. No ideology, religion, belief system is above examination – not even feminisms as there appears to be varying interpretations of feminism. If you have been following my posts then you would know that transgender political discourse is extremely misogynistic and often violently so towards women for even acknowledging biological facts or their social relevance and political implications. I’ve posted many articles about political extremism in the gender identity movement so you should know that it is now unfortunately dominated by MRA (alt Right Men’s Rights Activists) ..who hate women so much they use hate speech to vilify non compliant women as “terfs” and threaten to beat and kill “terfs” who dare to assert their own ideas or boundaries. Nothing “woke” about that is there?
I refuse to normalize this injustice or any other injustice on any issue. I don’t care whether my stance is popular or not. Facts are facts whether they are popular or not. The truth is more important than peer approval or group think. Facts are more important than feelings.
The Right recognizes female biology but seeks to control and criminalize it. The Left denies the material fact of the female sex altogether and also seeks to define its parameters. Neither approach is respectful or helpful to the female sex and both pose a significant threat to women’s hard won rights. That’s not acceptable. Enemies of women are not my friends. There’s nothing friendly about being complicit in this unprecedented assault on women’s rights. That’s like being silent about racist aggression which also makes one complicit with abuse.
Normalizing Leftist collusion and complicity with a violently hateful misogynistic fascistic movement is sheer cowardice and a drastic moral/ethical/political compromise I would never make. It’s ironic that I’ve been accused of vilifying the Left.. when the social scene you have described is exactly what I was referring to when I said contemporary “woke” identarian Left… or the postmodern queer theory indoctrinated academic Left… which now dominates nearly all politically Left identified groups with few exceptions. Making that self evident observation is not “vilifying” the Left. The liberal left has shown us they they are unwilling to think rationally, critically or fairly about these issues. Rather, the Left has revealed a strong preference for dogma, irrational pseudo religious, unscientific beliefs and vicious authoritarian tendencies, as well as an ugly virulent misogyny.
Any political ideology or culture that requires us to be silent and afraid instead of aligned with our own secular rational ethical principles – is seriously problematic…. and should be vigorously questioned. Am I afraid of hurting people’s feelings? Does saying “the earth is round” hurt the feelings of flat earthers? Maybe… but why would I give a fuck? I’m not afraid to hurt the Patriarchy’s feelings either… regardless of what new form Patriarchy assumes, or how it rebrands itself as a “woke” radical leftist civil rights breakthrough.
I personally don’t find cowardice, nihilism, cultish irrationality, misogyny, science denialism, and violent totalitarian tendencies combined with sheer unadulterated stupidity… to be attractive qualities. I would not be comfortable around people like that no matter how artsy and clever they were. Being a useless morally corrupted ethical failure is a buzzkill for me I guess.
That’s why I avoid most Left, Anarchist or radical events unless it’s specific to an issue like torture, war, climate change, Palestine, Police brutality, etc. for example. I just can’t trust anyone who shows signs of being indoctrinated and possibly fascistic.
A recent example would be the defunding of the Vancouver Rape Shelter for maintaining a female only space, though they referred transgender identified makes to other shelters. This female safe space for victims of trauma was harassed, targeted, and threatened by transgender extremists and finally defunded by the city with capitulated to pressure from transgender extremists. Just ask yourself… what kind of psychotic fascist piece of shit feels entitled to threaten a rape shelter for women victimized by male violence, who have absolutely no where else to go?
These vulnerable often penniless women are not privileged graduates with degrees in gender studies (Post modernist queer theory is the academic origin of gender identity ideology) ..as these traumatized women are the victims of gender identity ideology and its advocates and supporters. They can’t simply “identify” their way out of being female rape victims or negate the threat of male violence by identifying as men.
You know why the article below is from a Conservative magazine? Because the liberal/Left press and media outlets has chosen to ignore the dark ugly side of gender identity ideology and transgender politics. How can anyone respect such shameful pathetic cowardice? The liberal & “progressive” media are fully complicit with a misogynistic ideology that has now metastasized into violent extremism and even domestic terrorism as transgender extremists target women with violence much the way anti choice extremists on the Right threaten non compliant women with violence.
How could the sane, rational and ethical among us (regardless of where we see ourselves on the political spectrum) … legitimate or even tolerate these horrid alarming developments? As the old saying goes, “if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.” We have lost our fear, refuse to be bullied and don’t give a fuck about hurting the enemy’s feelings. In fact we plan to cut off the enemy’s head (not like physically… but metaphorically…) just like Uma Thurman’s determined character did in my favorite film, Kill Bill Vol. I. as she sliced her way through her opposition.
We the people, will collectively continue to resist this morally degenerate slide into the abyss of totalitarianism at any cost and also leave a figurative trail of bodies in our wake.”
From the National Review, the article Priya Reddy menions –
“Despite boycotts, threats, and a slaughtered rat nailed to its front door, this Canadian women’s shelter soldiers on.
This week, staff of the Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter (VRRWS) in British Columbia found messages such as “Kill TERFS,” “F*** TERFS,” and — what else? — “Trans women are women” scrawled across their windows and walls. (“TERF,” for “trans-exclusionary radical feminist,” is a generally derogatory term for feminists who do not believe certain things about transgenderism.) This is not the first time something like this has happened. Three weeks ago, a woman seeking the shelter’s services was alarmed to find a dead rat nailed to the front door.
“The women who come to our support groups are rape victims and battered women,” says Hilla Kerner, VRRWS’s spokeswoman, who has worked at the shelter for 14 years. “One of them said to me, ‘Haven’t we suffered enough?’”
Kerner spoke to me by phone, explaining that though the staff at the shelter called the non-emergency law-enforcement line to report the vandalism, they think it unlikely, or rather “mission impossible,” that they’ll find the culprit. In any case, they have bigger and more important things to worry about, such as operating their 24-hour crisis line and helping to shelter women escaping domestic violence and prostitution. Indeed, it is striking that — unlike many trans activists — Kerner draws a distinction between language and behavior:
We deal with real violence and physical violence, so I don’t want to blur the real threat on women’s lives and real dangers to women’s safety [with] abusive and intimidating language . . . This is not the same level of threatened violence.
Founded in 1973, VRRWS is the oldest rape-relief center in Canada. Their staff is a collective made up of 20 women who serve around 1,200 women every year. Some of the staff are paid, others are volunteers, but they all do a lot of voluntary work. “Because you cannot change the world Monday to Friday, 9 to 5,” Kerner explains. “It’s a full-time life.”
VRRWS’s mission is inspired by feminist philosophy. Specifically, by the belief that women — meaning the female sex — are born into an oppressed class. This is why their peer-support groups and housing programs are reserved for those who are “born female” and who therefore have “shared experience.” Beyond sex-based services, VRRWS’s staff are generally happy to assist people of both sexes and all gender identities insofar as they can. For instance, Kerner recalls an instance when “someone called and said they were a transgender woman — which means they were born male — and we made sure that they were safe.”
Brings a smile to your face.
When two parallel universes collide in one stunning picture. Reality meets fantasy and the clear winner is a life that has been lived. – Dr. Andrew Thorne
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