female erasure

I live in the U.S. where there is hardly any open discussion of gender-critical feminism (those who do discuss it openly are called TERFS and met with death threats and insults to their physical appearance). I attended an Abortion Rally in Portland with my partner, which was in response to the recent strict abortion laws being passed in places like Texas and Alabama.

We knew that this would be an 'inclusive' event, and while I am completely on board for anyone coming to a rally to show support for Women's bodily autonomy, we quickly noted that the speakers were made up mostly of Trans Women and Trans Men. What was even more frustrating, was that not only were signs referring to female anatomy discouraged, but the speakers themselves did not even mention the word woman once, just birthing people or pregnant people. A trans man went on to speak about their experience giving birth as a 'father' and completely derailed from the issue of access to safe abortions and began talking about Trans genocide-comparing it to the genocide of our Indigenous population.

There was a lot of talk leading up to this rally, and it seemed as if there would be more in the future, but as my partner and I were leaving in frustration we heard a few other women walking away with similar complaints and we have not heard of another rally since, despite the fact that these abortion laws will soon be brought before a fairly conservative Supreme Court. Instead, we keep hearing of Trans Genocide and the states putting restrictions on hormone therapy and puberty blockers for minors.

I truly aim to be supportive of all people, and I believe that gender stereotypes harm all folks, but it seems most trans activists only wish to enforce these stereotypes further. I was so disappointed after this rally, I had an abortion when I was a freshman in college and had little to no support. I had to deal with protestors screaming at me from the sidewalk, and people telling me I murdered my child. The person who helped organize this rally is my friend and knows of my experiences yet the people she chose to speak at the rally have never had an abortion, and most of them were unable to even get pregnant and will never understand what it is like to be in that situation.

I cannot describe how frustrating it is to have people who were born and socialized as men, dress up and act in stereotypically feminine (and frankly insulting) ways, and tell me that I have gained full equality because I am cis, and I need to sit down and shut up in women's spaces so their voices can be heard.

#USA #femaleErasure #Stereotypes #FemaleAppropriation

refused single sex student housing

I applied for student housing at a school in Manhattan. As a graduate student, I was eligible to live in one of the townhouses the school owned in Brooklyn. I would have preferred to be closer to campus but like many students, I would have about an hour morning commute so I compromised.

What I couldn't compromise on was the fact that they refused to separate students by sex. When I got my housing assignment I had been put on a floor with 2 men I didn't know and we would all be sharing a bathroom. I'm a lesbian and the idea of living with men makes me highly uncomfortable, not to mention sharing a bathroom at home with the opposite sex. I've also been exposed to male violence my entire life.

When I called the housing department to ask for single-sex housing they were offended and told me no one had ever asked for that before (which I don't believe). I ended up not going to that school due to housing issues and other concerns I had about them throwing women under the bus in favor of trans ideology.

#USA #singlesexspaces #nochoice #studenthousing #mixedsex #universitycapture #housingaccess

transwomen take over women-only childfree facebook group

I was part of an online women-only childfree group. It wasn’t a huge group but I liked that it was female - focused and included women who were childfree by choice and those who were unable to have them for various medical reasons. It mostly contained general chit chat but there were also several women in the group who had been abused and wanted a safe place to talk without male onlookers.

At the time I was in an abusive relationship and disclosed some (but not all) of what was happening in the group. I went through domestic violence and sexual assault at the hands of my live in boyfriend that got worse through Covid. I unfortunately ended up pregnant due to the sexual assaults and scheduled a termination.

I documented the termination process in the group, it was a chemical abortion which happened at 5 weeks. I documented what happened in the appointment, what advice the doctors gave, how the medication made me feel etc, I made several posts and spoke to several women privately who had gone through their terminations completely alone and appreciated having someone else’s account to prepare them.

I decided to write a final post about it after I had left the relationship and talk about how I was feeling. I ended up with an odd comment from someone with a woman’s name but the picture of a bald headed white man wearing glasses. The comment said something to the effect of “if you didn’t want to get pregnant you shouldn’t have been having sex or be on birth control” completely ignoring that I had documented that the termination was a result of rape.

I reported it to the moderators to receive no response and this man clearly continuing to participate in the group. A few other women noticed and took issue with it, I started noticing that there were quite a few women in the group. When the complaints from the other women were loud enough the moderators finally addressed that this was a women's group and that they were accepting of transwomen because transwomen are women and that if you disagreed you would be removed from the group (I later heard this decision might have come at the website host removing the page if they were seen to be intolerant and that’s why they only quietly let them in at first, but I can’t vouch for that). I think it’s important to note that until the moderators addressed that transwomen were accepted in the group every woman I spoke to or saw posting opposed men being in our space. Women's attitudes only changed when the term men was switched to transwomen.

Well que absolute pandemonium, the page became flooded with men posting pictures of themselves in various stages of undress, wigs and poorly applied makeup everywhere you look. The women's posts were pushed down to almost no engagement. Many women silently left, I stuck around for a bit to see what was happening. Women fell to the men's feet, falling over themselves to praise and validate them, women I had once respected a lot desperate to get the most male approval in a space where they had sought to be free from them.

I removed my post as I know there are men who will scour the internet looking for private spaces where women discuss their rape and/or abortion to masturbate to. I then quietly left the group.

I always considered myself someone who was very open-minded, I’d met trans women in the past who were polite and non-threatening and assumed they were all like that (though this experience has put me off them completely). I used to play a lot of sport but all my local sports teams accept transwomen and I’m afraid that even if they aren't there now they’ll be there at some point and I’ll feel uncomfortable and need to leave.

I have (like many women) been assaulted by more than one man in my life, both men I do and don’t know and I despise being considered a bigot because I don’t wish to share some of the very few spaces I can be free from them, with them whilst they impose their sexual fetishes on me and appropriate their performative ideas of womanhood. I don’t want to smile and praise these people I want to be free to live a life away from them.

#unitedkingdom #virtualspaces #facebook #facebookgroups #childfree #infiltration #SelfID

#SingleSexSpaces #WomanFace