Cross-posted from Twitter.
When I first found out about trans activism/gender identity ideology, about 5 years ago, I was baffled by the concerns and the anger being expressed by accounts I followed on Twitter - mostly around domestic abuse, coercive control, women’s rights, CSA/sexual abuse etc. But people I trusted and respected were saying trans activism was a genuine and serious problem, not just for women’s rights, safety and protections, but also for gay and lesbian people and gender nonconforming children.
So, I researched.
After research - on both sides of the argument - it was impossible not to see the misogyny, homophobia and men’s rights activism at the heart of gender identity ideology, and the Trojan horse of tying it to liberal/progressive politics, gay rights etc. Ever since then, like so many other ordinary (and some extraordinary) women, I’ve tried to alert people - friends, family, on social media and on Substack and Medium. I wrote this in 2018.
I always stressed that I was not “anti-trans”, but motivated by concerns with rigid gender traditionalism, erosion of women’s sex-based rights and protections, attacks on the rights of same-sex attracted people, and indoctrination/medicalisation of gender nonconforming children. I couldn’t believe that for my views, along with so many other women, I was called a Nazi, a fascist, a bigot and a transphobe. I thought it was a ludicrous, incredible slur. I wrote a thread about it here. In the US and Canada, it seemed the only countermovement against trans activism had been destroyed by associating all criticisms of gender identity ideology with the far right/Christian right. In the UK and Europe, trans activism attempted the same.
But in the UK, left-wing women and women’s grassroots organisations mounted a powerful campaign. Groups like Womans Place UK and women like Emma Hilton, Jane Clare Jones, Karen Ingala Smith, Joan Smith, Julie Bindel and so very many others, all on the left politically, worked tirelessly. Left-wing women battled to win hearts and minds, to raise public awareness that criticising trans activism did NOT equal being “anti-trans/fascist”. And their efforts paid off.
As their messages began to seep through into public consciousness, policies began to change in our favour. Sports bodies saw sense and recognised the reality of male advantage. Tavistock/GIDS was halted. The left-wing media, even the Guardian, couldn’t ignore us anymore, and left-wing politicians began to realise how unelectable their abandonment of women’s rights was making them. As it became clear to people on the left that there are genuine reasons for concern, and that voicing criticism does NOT align you with Nazis, many of those previously firmly of the TWAW mindset began to look again at the mantras. It seemed we had shifted the mindset!
But then.
A section of the gender critical movement began to insist that we were in midst of an emergency and therefore, that “all were welcome” to join us against trans activism. They claimed that platforming racist/right-wing women equals “supporting all women”. They denied any need to state a clear rejection of far-right politics, even when far-right organisations like Hearts of Oak and Proud Boys attended women’s events, filming them and sharing their footage approvingly. They worked with anti-abortionists and took money from homophobes.
When women on the left expressed horror at these developments, they were derided as “academic feminists” and demonised as spiteful/jealous. Carefully written political critiques were smeared as personal attacks. Left-wing women were called “as bad as TRAs” and blamed for Male Violence Against Women. Now, after Nazis and TRAs attended the KJK rallies in Australia and New Zealand and viciously intimidated and attacked the women leading and attending these events, a segment of the GC movement is again blaming left-wing feminists for the horrific shows of Male Violence Against Women.
Please stop.
Women are not responsible for male violence. Criticising the politics of other women does not equal violence/incitement to violence. Aligning with or even tolerating the far right is not compatible with women’s rights, gay rights, or the rights of gender-nonconforming children. We are on the cusp of turning things around. We are on the point of persuading liberal progressives and the left to listen to us AND we are winning real change in law, policy and practice.
All this will be lost if we go the way of the US and Canada, where GC is conflated with Nazis.
Don’t let that happen!
Stand against the far right.
Stand against the forced birthers.
Stand against the homophobes.
Stand against gender traditionalism.
And fight, with your sisters, not against your sisters, for our sex-based rights and protections.
What a one sided, over simplified account. Things didn't suddenly go wrong because some gc women suddenly decided to work with 'the right'. The situation has been complicated from the start, all of us, whatever our left credentials have been accused of being nazi bigots from the beginning- its a deliberate tactic to discredit any and all opposition and an excuse not to engage with us. Many of us have worked cross party with conservative women who don't share our views on anything else- in order to prevent legislation and further capture of our institutions. If the international situation of capture across many countries is not an emergency, i don't know what is. That isn't to say that feminists should make alliances with the far right, of course not. But no one is. You refer to one woman essentially who has made it clear that this is single issue for her and who none the less has provided a platform for a great many women to speak out, to express the injustice they are experiencing, their fears and their anger. Many of those women not previously politically engaged. And who has also placed the issue firmly in the public square. The increasing violence being shown to any and all women who refuse to accept the reality denying, male supremacist gender identity ideoligy is the give away as to the misogynistic nature of this response to women's activism. Its not a reasoned response to political difference. The focus some women have had on this one aspect of the women's uprising we are witnessing is misplaced abd sekf-defeating. Criticism debate and clarification are fine, but the single minded focus insinuates blame for the violent response to our whole movement, and this article suggests that it is this one woman and those who support her/their right to speak without violence who will be responsible for derailing the whole thing.
Rubbish. Yet more double standards, the T A movement is full of truly disgusting, unprincipled violent individuals. Somehow that doesn't seem to count as discrediting their movement, and why aren't our assiduous critics focusing on the enemy instead?
When the left is destroying itself, betraying its own founding principles, revelling in untrammeled misogyny and anti-lesbianism it ceases to be the left or progressive in any meaningful way. When parties such as Podemos in Spain, the Democrats in the US, liberals in Canada etc etc are leading the charge in this war on women, the erasure iof our sex, our reality, even our rights to associate or speak out then feminism no longer belongs on the left. We are the only hope that a radical, progressive movement can survive- because their version of politics is now based on unreality and the increasingly violent suppression of half the population.
Brilliant. Thank you