Jayne Egerton responds to the discussion of right wing militias in Dansky’s latest blog, and to WDI USA’s response to her 2021 essay about feminists and the religious right.
No one needs to work with oligarchic theocrats to keep men out of women's prisons. Edgerton is right that some compromises or limited aliances can be fatal to women's liberation. Rights assume the existence of a liberal (small-L) state to support & defend them. The GOP would dismantle that state. A national abortion ban would be 5 min away. Most amendments to the constitution would be shredded. What do we think "one vote per household" really means? No issue, and no activism, exists in isolation from the wider political context. Pretending so is at the least, least!, a act of diqualifying naïvety.
This is a very well written writeup. This comment is related more so to a couple of particular sentences of the article - despite knowing that Trump is dangerous, I was completely unaware of the 2025 plans.
I would also like to add that the whole thing with Three Percenters acting as security (or needing security in general) would just go away if TRAs would stop attacking women. But of course, they keep assaulting us at our events, leading to the hosts hiring sometimes dubious security, which only goes to strengthen their accusations of “TERFs are fash!”. And then they assault us again, rinse and repeat.
That being said, transactivists and the radical right are two sides of the same coin. Both hate women, and it is absolutely pointless to side with them on even one issue because they will inevitably try to sneak their own ideologies in there. We agree with TRAs that trans people should have the same civil rights afforded to anyone else, but we also clash with them in that we criticize gender and don’t actually agree that transmen are men, or that transwomen are women, or what have you. Likewise, we agree with conservatives that “gender affirming” treatments are dangerous and shouldn’t be pushed onto minors, who can’t make medical decisions for themselves - but we criticize transgenderism for extremely different reasons and ultimately, right wing groups have ulterior motives such as bringing an end to abortion which directly contradicts what we believe as feminists.
It can be daunting, trying to run a grassroots organization with no big names as allies, but what Kara Dansky, Kellie-Jay Keen, and many of the other women kowtowing to the right need to learn is that these people hate you just as much as the TRAs - they just hide it because they’re using you to strengthen themselves and push an agenda on the side which opposes your beliefs. They are not your friends. They only see you as useful idiots, and they will turn on you once you are no longer of value to them. If you choose to continue eating at the same table as them instead of building your own, don’t be surprised when they take your food away.
No one needs to work with oligarchic theocrats to keep men out of women's prisons. Edgerton is right that some compromises or limited aliances can be fatal to women's liberation. Rights assume the existence of a liberal (small-L) state to support & defend them. The GOP would dismantle that state. A national abortion ban would be 5 min away. Most amendments to the constitution would be shredded. What do we think "one vote per household" really means? No issue, and no activism, exists in isolation from the wider political context. Pretending so is at the least, least!, a act of diqualifying naïvety.
This is a very well written writeup. This comment is related more so to a couple of particular sentences of the article - despite knowing that Trump is dangerous, I was completely unaware of the 2025 plans.
I would also like to add that the whole thing with Three Percenters acting as security (or needing security in general) would just go away if TRAs would stop attacking women. But of course, they keep assaulting us at our events, leading to the hosts hiring sometimes dubious security, which only goes to strengthen their accusations of “TERFs are fash!”. And then they assault us again, rinse and repeat.
That being said, transactivists and the radical right are two sides of the same coin. Both hate women, and it is absolutely pointless to side with them on even one issue because they will inevitably try to sneak their own ideologies in there. We agree with TRAs that trans people should have the same civil rights afforded to anyone else, but we also clash with them in that we criticize gender and don’t actually agree that transmen are men, or that transwomen are women, or what have you. Likewise, we agree with conservatives that “gender affirming” treatments are dangerous and shouldn’t be pushed onto minors, who can’t make medical decisions for themselves - but we criticize transgenderism for extremely different reasons and ultimately, right wing groups have ulterior motives such as bringing an end to abortion which directly contradicts what we believe as feminists.
It can be daunting, trying to run a grassroots organization with no big names as allies, but what Kara Dansky, Kellie-Jay Keen, and many of the other women kowtowing to the right need to learn is that these people hate you just as much as the TRAs - they just hide it because they’re using you to strengthen themselves and push an agenda on the side which opposes your beliefs. They are not your friends. They only see you as useful idiots, and they will turn on you once you are no longer of value to them. If you choose to continue eating at the same table as them instead of building your own, don’t be surprised when they take your food away.
and yet: https://womensliberationfront.org/news/dana-rivers?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=c51b2a6a-d941-42cb-b55d-d86a879e5b4f&fbclid=IwAR0usPqM27bZqmssXYKj-vKWx-s6_q69w7ANW8tbhTZfb0REPCZ-gaV4Ot0