Gender Ideology is a Right-Wing, Reactionary Phenomenon
The response to the Port Townsend women’s rights protest makes this abundantly clear
On July 26, Julie Jaman, an eighty-year-old Port Townsend, WA feminist, was shocked to discover a man in the women’s locker room just outside where she was showering after swimming in a public pool. Clementine Adams, who recently began identifying as a woman, insisted that his right to choose his “gender” trumps any woman’s right to the privacy and safety of sex-segregated spaces. In this he was backed up by the YMCA which manages the pool, and by Port Townsend Mayor David Faber. The result was that Jaman was threatened with police action and banned from the pool for life.
A press conference and rally in support of Jaman and women’s rights more broadly was held August 15 a public park. Scores of men and women showed up in solidarity with Jaman and in support women’s sex-based rights. But a greater number of counter-protesters attacked the protest, attempted to seize the microphone and sound equipment, making every effort to shut the rally down and prevent speakers from being heard.
Below is the video and text of the speech I gave at the rally.
Everybody, take a look around! Ask yourselves which side is it that supports free speech and the right to be heard. And which side supports censorship and shutting down discussion? Ask yourself; look around!
Julie Jaman’s experience at and treatment by the YMCA on July 26 is a sexist, right-wing attack that must be resisted. Everyone has a stake in this fight.
Gender ideology, which is at the heart of the YMCA’s and the Port Townsend mayor’s position on this matter, is clearly an attack on women’s rights. The anti-scientific belief that emotionally troubled, biological men can self-identify as women is a direct threat to women’s safety, private spaces, sports teams and affirmative action programs. Only in an Alice and Wonderland, topsy-turvy world is this not a right-wing reactionary ideology.
But the harm in gender ideology goes beyond the attack on women’s rights. It directly threatens gays and lesbians, who are admonished as bigots if they don’t jettison same-sex orientation in favor of same-gender orientation. If they don’t accept as partners people of the opposite sex who say they “identify” as the same “gender”.
This philosophy also threatens children, as it steers vulnerable youth, who are just beginning to explore their personality and sexuality, toward dangerous medicalization, drastic cosmetic surgery and a life-long dependence on big pharma.
And gender ideology threatens the democratic rights of everyone by insisting that a subjective, anti-science, religious-like belief system must be worshiped and followed by all. No other religion in modern times has been able to get away with this.
So yes, the treatment of Julie Jaman and gender ideology in general represents a right-wing, reactionary assault.
Unfortunately, this picture gets muddled when so many who claim to represent the left – from socialist groups and self-described “progressives” to liberal political parties like the Democrats and the Greens – are firmly on the wrong side of this issue. By denying material reality and dismissing the harms inherent in gender ideology, these phony “leftists” shame themselves and give left cover to this right-wing assault.
Everyone has the right to live, love and express themselves however they like. But one person’s right to swing their arms, as it were, stops at the tip of the next person’s nose. People can believe in astrology, religion or gender ideology if they choose, but they don’t have the right to impose those beliefs on others.
We’ve come too far in the fight for women’s rights, gay and lesbian rights, children’s safety and democratic rights more broadly to lose sight of the goal and drop the ball now.
No men in women’s spaces!
No men in women’s sports!
No one is born in the “wrong body”!
Support Julie Jaman!
I am glad to see people showing up to point out how outrageous and misogynistic this is. I also noticed their pool has closed, claiming “staffing shortages” as the reason.
This IS a right wing backed movement that has somehow managed to brainwash the entire western world of faugressives and people who claim to be on the left, or liberal, who are the farthest thing from it.
If you are punching down at women, removing our flimsy safeguards, threatening us in launguage and often with physical violence, and you are telling us you ARE us while demeaning and re-defining us without our consent, and you are against free speech and freedom of belief and biology, and you support medical experiments on children, then you are part of the cult that is promoting fascist beliefs and an anti-woman agenda.
No one should use their pronouns or pander to this. It is insane.
Thanks for your thoughtful commentary. As a feminist, lesbian, socialist and former SWPer, it is very distressing that so much of what is left of the Left has gone this far down therabbit hole. Transgender ideology is completely corporate, pushing the newest form of profiteering - the commodification of the human body. It is the farthest thing from Marxism. Just look ar the sponsors of Pride parades and you’ll see much the lesbian and gay movement has been hijacked.
I was a victim last year from this insanity when i was fired by my “liberal” employer following my statement that abortion bans harm women as a sex. Please check out my defense campaign. Defendfeminists.org.