According to Tucker Carlson of Fox News, "Christian evangelicals and radical feminists are teaming up to fight Barrack Obama's "transgender" bathroom legislation. Last night, Carlson interviewed Kara Dansky, Board Chair for Women's Liberation Front.
Let me make a quick comment before introducing an excerpt from the interview. The video follows at bottom.
There are real feminists and there are fake feminists. By "real" versus "fake" I'm not separating feminists out as to whether they, say, agree with me, or are "right-wing" as opposed to "left-wing" or whatever. Rather, I'm separating those who fight for the rights of women as they honestly see it versus those who are simply conforming to the political zeitgeist of the moment.
I'm sure I would disagree with Dansky on many things. But I think it's clear she honestly cares about women - not women as part of or defined by some larger political cause, but just woman. Or as she puts it, "women and girls."
This has earned her death threats and the appellation, "bigot" from others on the left.
It's also clear that she and her allies are honest enough and brave enough to fight through it. She doesn't care about what other people think.
There is an obvious sense to her position that I'm surprised has not come to the fore earlier. The "transgender" movement , as it currently exists today, is an abomination. And I'm not talking here about, say, morality or even Catholic morality, but rather, biology or more to the point, basic logic. In just a few short years, the movement has gone from, charitably interpreted, a defense of mentally or sexually troubled people (or, to put it neutrally, "different" people) to an outright denial of objective facts and the very meaning of objective thought and language.
That doesn't help "transgenders," women or anyone else.
Kara Dansky: ...If we define sex under title IX to mean gender identity, what we're essentially saying is that "women" and "girl" can mean anyone who self identifies as women and girl, which renders the category, "women and girls" meaningless as a category. And it goes further than that. We see this in language all throughout society. We see, for example, women are no longer allowed to talk about body parts. We're not allowed to talk about pregnant women - we have to talk about pregnant people. We're not allowed to say that women have certain kinds of body parts. Language is degrading. We're seeing the erasure of women and girls as a meaningful category.
Tucker Carlson: Language and thought along with it. So acknowledging biological reality is now hate, in other words.
Dansky: Yes.
Carlson: So, how, I mean, as someone on the left, I think it's fair to say, what is your life looking like since you've said something like this publicly?
Dansky: Well, what most of us who say things like this publicly receive is a lot of hate online, and threats. We're called "transphobic bigots" because we ask questions about gender identity. And it goes further. We are often threatened with rape and death. We're told that we need to shut up and go die in a fire because we're asking questions and we're standing up for women and girls. And that seems to be not permitted. It's interesting to me that specifically the word "bigot" is used, because the word bigot means someone who is intolerable (sic) toward another's views. And I'm open to other views . . like, I am open. If I'm wrong about this, I will own it. If I, if someone can demonstrate to me that there is some legitimacy to gender identity ideology, then great, I'm completely . . .
Carlson: Like, for example, science.
Dansky: Sure. Sure. I'm completely open to that. But instead what we see is when women and girls stand up and say, wait a second, what to you mean by gender identity. Like, I am a woman because I am an adult human female, which is the dictionary definition of "woman," we are shut down immediately and told that we are transphobic bigots.
Carlson: I just want to . . . I never thought I would say anything nice about a radical feminist group, but you said, "we exist to protect all women and girls, regardless of political affiliation." And I just want to say, thank you for that.
Dansky: Because it's true.
Won't you be our new Orwell and pen 2084?
ReplyDeleteThat's a great idea! I wish I had the talent. But I admit to have been inspired by the Bear's upcoming novel. Your 1984 reference got me thinking. See post upstream. Thank you again for your kind words.
DeleteI love your explanation of "real" vs. fake feminists, even though we might disagree with them on many things. I would put Dr. Phyllis Chesler and Ayaan Hirsi Ali in the category of real feminists as well. Though I completely disagree with their acceptance of legal abortion, I admire them for their courage in speaking out against Islam for its misogyny. Like Dansky standing up against transgender bathrooms for the sake of women, Chesler and Ali have also been the target of death threats, and have been badly treated by the fake feminists.
ReplyDelete