This is a women-centered, radical feminism oriented circle to discuss gender from a critical, feminist perspective.
The Sitewide Rules and Sitewide Guidelines are both enforced here.
This circle is especially for discussions about gender and transgender ideology/politics. Please use /o/WomensLiberation is for discussions about other feminist topics. /o/Activism is for calls to action, including petitions and fundraisers, and /o/FeministEvents is for posting events.
This circle is focused on articles, news articles, and discussion posts.
Most images belong in other circles, as do examples of individual trans activists doing off-the-wall things, as do some news subjects and many personal posts that aren't political:
- /o/Radfemmery - memes and jokes
- /o/TransLogic - misogynistic and illogical things trans activists say and do
- /o/TerfIsASlur - examples of TERF being used as a slur
- /o/ItsAFetish - examples of fetishism in the trans community
- /o/ThisNeverHappens - news articles about violent trans-identified males
- /o/NameTheProblem - news articles about all male violence
- /o/Women - for women to post about anything, including rants, raves, personal stories and advice posts
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Gender Critical Feminism
Feminism is the movement to liberate women from patriarchy. We stand up for the rights of women to control our own bodies as individuals and to control women-only spaces as a class.
Women are adult human females. We do not believe that men can become women by 'feeling' like women or 'identifying' as women. We condemn the erasure of females and female-only spaces, the silencing of critical thinking, the cancelling of feminists and critics, the denial of biological reality and of sex-based oppression. We oppose the 'cotton ceiling' and the pressure on lesbians to have sex with men. Women are oppressed to exploit their biological sex characteristics, and women have a right to a movement that is about their own liberation from that oppression. We resist the redefinition of both "women" and "feminism" to make them serve men.
"Women do not decide at some point in adulthood that they would like other people to understand them to be women, because being a woman is not an ‘identity.’ Women’s experience does not resemble that of men who adopt the ‘gender identity’ of being female or being women in any respect. The idea of ‘gender identity’ disappears biology and all the experiences that those with female biology have of being reared in a caste system based on sex." –Sheila Jeffreys, Gender Hurts
28 comments
No one in a position to do anything about it.
Maybe not at the time, but if they had started organizing then (like some others we know) we would be living in a very different world. It strikes me how most of us felt blindsided by Trans Rights and antifeminism, but this was all already understood so long ago. I read a snippet of an article about how San Francisco lesbians faced this stuff back then, Dr Em has a whole series about it which I definitely haven't had time to read, sadly. What I really want to know is how the resistance was subverted back then. Why did their campaign endure and ours didn't? Seems to me there's bound to be some valuable lessons there.
Would I be right in guessing it’s because men will always unite against women’s freedom? There are many elements, of course, but I bet that’s part of it.
Well yeah, but we have known that forever. As fun as it is kicking them back, I'm getting tired of blaming men. I'm actually ready for a break from talking about them at all, for the most part lol
But I seriously think it's time we took a long, hard look in the mirror and asked ourselves what we could do differently. From my own personal work I have learned the power of radical self-assessment. We are flailing around, tons of passion and not enough discipline. It's tedious, but our enemies are meticulous and won't stop until they've taken everything. The stakes are too high to protect the sacred cows any longer.
You're right, they always close ranks against us. What would a similarly simple, universal action for us look like? Something that isn't just retalliation. That's really more their thing, heh.
Maybe one factor is how the T tacked itself onto LGB.
I think this is the key. "Trans rights" activism didn't take off until they latched on to the existing LGB ones. Luckily for them, a lot of the employees of those organizations didn't want to get new jobs once LGB rights were better established in the West, so were happy to fight for "the new gay", and a lot of those organizations were more than happy to accept money from both financially (Big Pharma) and ideologically (Jennifer Pritzker) -motivated donors. Mostly though, it's easier for people to support trans when it's presented as being similar to a gay rights issue, rather than men fighting for others to pretend they're women and claiming their struggle is similar to women's, which most people can see through and would think is ridiculous
Among other things that happened: queer theory arrived and gave transgenderism an organised political identity...
They do have the advantage of smaller numbers. It's easier to forge a united front with fewer people, there will be less dissent. The Women's Movement has always suffered from a lack of center, there are just too many of us to agree on much.
Except for the whole women-are-people thing. We have one ourselves a disservice allowing the conversation to drift from this simple point. When I was a teenager, this assertion would have been met with a "Duh!" We were lead to believe the fight was over, encouraged to find other things to devote our attention to. I really think many women support Trans Rights bc they see them as next in line, our fight being basically over.
Of course this is distraction propaganda, and our job is to demonstrate our true position in the current scene. I'm slowly working on building an easily digestible and sharable framework for feminism moving forward. Not sure if I'm the best candidate for this job, but everyone else seems to be specializing in one or two specific topics. Goodness knows we need nuanced depth these days, but there needs to be some basic pillars we all agree on. The right is great at disseminating their basics. We have got to step up our game here.