3/2/2021 that you should be unpersoned if you bring any of this up, has me despairing and looking to see if there's any elsewhere for me to goRead Now I'm a life-long Democratic voter, but the unwillingness to even consider that there could be conflicting access needs between women and trans-feminine males, that there might be issues with the sudden rise in trans identification in teen girls might indicate something's rotten in Denmark, that you should be unpersoned if you bring any of this up, has me despairing and looking to see if there's any elsewhere for me to go. I've also stopped supporting any organization that undermines women's rights, so the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, pretty much all of the LGBT organizations I used to support? No more.
Even the local grassroots organizations that long supported that had been about marginalized, abused women now focus more on transgender issues and needs. No more support for them from me. No support for the PTA when the schools are socially transitioning children without their parents' input. And my congresswoman? I'm hoping she gets an opponent I can stomach, because has a trans-feminine child she was front and center waving the pink, white, and blue when they passed the Equality Act in the house, so there's no hope she'll ever care about women and girls. I'm quiet about this, as my daughter's caught up in the gender nonsense, as are all her female friends, but that doesn't mean it's not a huge part of the choices I'm making on what I support going forward. Oh yeah, and how I vote. I've pulled my donations for Planned Parenthood and the ACLU. Every time they send an envelope to me asking for money I send it back with a reason why I regretfully (and understand it's true regret) will not be sending them money.
I've also discontinued my membership the the NSTA (National Science Teacher Association) which has been a reliable advocate of democratic causes that I believe in such as education and action about climate change. Now even they have published material suggesting that biology teachers change their language around genetics lessons. I've fought the good fight making sure students understand climate change and evolution in the face of pushback from conservative families and organizations. I can't believe I now have to fight with the left, and TRANS is the big issue they want to prioritize. It's hard to imagine feeling welcome on the left anymore, though my own politics haven't changed. I haven't left the left, but it feels like it's left me. I looked for a climate-action group to join and found all kinds of ideological expectations I couldn't submit to (e.g., climate-action groups dictating "transwomen are women"). After years of donating to Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union, I had to walk away from both organizations. Planned Parenthood wouldn't ensure that my donations would go to abortion and contraception and I refuse to fund PP's involvement in what I see as a huge medical scandal: transitioning young people. It's hard not to feel cynical about who benefits from these divisions, this sapping of energy that could go to something practical and material but instead spins endlessly around matters of identitarian decorum. Why is trans activism such an effective instrument of division within the Left and destruction of women’s rights, yet such a poor vehicle for delivering actual services and protections that trans people need?
Rewind five or six years. Did I ever imagine that an ideology would come between some of my closest friends and me, and that rather than sorting through it, those friends would refuse to hear a word I said? No, I couldn't imagine anything like that. Nor could I imagine that friends who were writers and artists and intellectuals and creative people would express themselves not with their own words and ideas but through slogans that stop thought in its tracks. Did I ever think I would be rejected or repelled by the activist circles where I spent so much time? That issues as diverse and urgent as climate change and racial justice would expect me to submit to a set of ideological beliefs about gender? What does parroting gender ideology have to do with fighting climate change? What does this requirement do but divide the left? Just a few years ago, I couldn't have foreseen any of this. Yet it's plowed through the left like a runaway freight train. Where's this really coming from? Where's it headed? I have always been a feminist, since I was a child, being a tomboy (now called gender non-conforming). I was free to do things that traditionally were viewed as for boys. I did not believe in that non-sense. That attitude was what led me to being a far-left Democrat. Until last year, when I learned that Democrats betrayed us. How they allowed language to be changed, compelling us to censor our speech, our thinking, and going so far to criminalize people for saying things that are biologically true. Then I fell hard when I learned public education has drunk deeply of gender ideology so deeply that my daughters came home thinking they are boys when in truth they are gender non-conforming. Learning that the way law is set up, the way technological companies, the healthcare, and many more are geared toward gender-affirming children without any regard to typical child and adolescent development, to medicalize their usual feelings of discomfort over growing up, to finding out that the allies of gender ideology are not friends to women and children has torn me out of my allegiance to the Democrat Party, and I still can't find myself aligned with the Republican Party because there are a lot of issues I do not agree with in that party. So I am politically homeless, and I am angry. I am angry that so many people who have-not taken the time to think critically how gender ideology has caused them harm, has caused them to be compelled to call us terfs for asking legitimate questions. Then I find out UN, ACLU, Planned Parenthood, so many more that I have donating to, have joined in the kool-aid of gender cult. It is clear to me that both political parties and human rights organizations view women and children as sub-human. That certainly is nothing new, something we have been fighting for a long long long time. Every right we won for the women and children, we lose it. I am taking my vote and money to a party and organizations that prioritize women and children. Every single one of you on Earth came from a woman. Gender ideology means you spit on every single mother that bore you.
I am a millennial writing from the US. Ever since I turned 18 and gained the right to vote, I have voted as a Democrat. I have also supported Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, my university’s union, and a number of causes associated with the left. I have been a proud feminist ever since discovering feminism as a teenager. In fact, much of my artwork is focused on themes of biology, the female form, and life and decay. For years now, I have been observing the erasure of females in feminist circles in the name of “inclusivity” toward men “identifying as women” or “identifying as gender minorities”. For example, I have witnessed feminist artists being pressured to depict penises in their art, and women being told “not all women get periods” when merely describing their own experiences. I have been increasingly troubled to see the intrusion of gender ideology beyond feminist circles, into areas such as politics, universities, and workplaces.
The first time I expressed my concerns about women’s bathrooms being unsafe due to self-ID policies, I was accused of spouting Fox News, right-wing myths and dismissed by a young male at work. This was stunning to me, as a feminist and Democrat who has personally experienced street harassment. It seems like common sense to me that if I am harassed in broad daylight in public by strange males, then obviously they will continue their harassment in the bathroom once they discover it’s a “free-for-all”. After this incident, I stayed quiet for a few years but became upset once more when I was referred to as a “person with a cervix” when receiving a pap smear at a doctor’s office. I was previously diagnosed with HPV, so it was upsetting to be suggested as “less than a woman” while receiving such a sensitive exam and worrying about cervical cancer. Meanwhile, I was on a diversity committee at the university and asked for “sex” to be included with the listed categories; a male student identifying as a “genderqueer non-male” asked me, “Why would sex matter?” Finally, I expressed my opposition to a law that would allow any male prisoner to self-ID as a woman and be transferred to a women’s prison. I clarified that my opposition was to the self-ID aspect of the law, but I would support vetted transfers, creation of third prisons or wings, etc. The female friend of the same “genderqueer non-male” started interrogating me about this, and I finally stepped down from the diversity committee, fearing for my university position. In the past year or so, I have been sending detailed letters and phone calls to my Democratic representatives expressing my opposition to laws that push extreme gender ideology. My communications have been ignored. For the first time in 2020, I changed my voter registration to Independent and voted for third-party candidates. I have also stopped donating to ACLU and Planned Parenthood. I have stopped participating in the university union. I never intended to be a “single issue” voter or person, but I cannot in good conscience contribute to a party or organization that is stripping away the hard-earned rights of half the population. How many women must object, before leftists will listen? How many women and girls will be harmed, before leftists will admit there are conflicts of rights? I had always assumed women’s rights would improve in my lifetime, but I am saddened to discover that my daughter may be born into a world with less freedoms than what I enjoyed as a girl. My only consolation is that females are incredibly strong. We have weathered tremendous hardships in the past and will survive them in the future. |
Details
ArchivesCategories
All
|