It’s ignorant and arrogant to equate the crusade to invade private spaces with the Civil Rights Movement

Guest post by Keely Emerine-Mix

Under no circumstances, ever, at any time, is it appropriate to compare the legitimate, factual, courageous, moral imperative that spurred the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s with the attempts by transwomen to access intimate female spaces. Ever.

Do not conflate Jim Crow and the segregation of public spaces by whites against Black people with attempts to open women’s bathrooms, shelters, prisons, locker rooms, and other female-only spaces to male-born people. Don’t cry that this is “the New Civil Rights frontier!” Don’t suggest that the injury to men correctly barred from women’s private spaces is anything even remotely like the humiliation, hatred, and hurt caused to people of color during the years of legal public segregation. And whatever you do, do not suggest that the preening belligerence displayed by men who demand entry into women’s spaces is really just the same bedrock courage, dignity, passion, and righteousness of those who occupied lunch counters and public toilets to win for others basic civil rights.

It’s not simply incorrect. It’s delusional; more than that, it’s ignorant in the extreme and criminally, obscenely, arrogant.

Socialization Matters: Why “Identity Libertarianism” is Failed Politics

IDENTITY VERSUS SOCIALIZATION

I want to explore what “woman” means when male-born persons can be “women” just the same as female-born persons.

Most significantly, the term “woman” must be disconnected from the socio-historic context that gives the term coherency in the first place. Without any material or experiential framework “woman’s” origin becomes irrelevant; she can be anything or nothing at all.

When male-born persons can be “women” just the same as female-born persons, the skin-deep veneer of social identity is being substituted for the complex, lifelong process of class-based socialization. This is neoliberal individualist choice-theory masquerading as the politics of liberation.

“Religious Freedom” is Code for the Sanctioned Removal of Women’s Rights

-Jan Brewer, aka Handmaiden of the Patriarchy-

US  residents may have noticed the recent War on Women being perpetrated in this country using the excuse of “religious freedom” to justify this rollback of women’s rights.

For the most recent installment of this assault on our rights, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer recently signed House Bill 2625, which authorizes employers with religious affiliations to refuse to cover contraception on their employees’ health insurance plans.

States Brewer about the bill:

In its final form, this bill is about nothing more than preserving the religious freedom to which we are all Constitutionally-entitled.  Mandating that a religious institution provide a service in direct contradiction with its faith would represent an obvious encroachment upon the 1st Amendment.

Female Lawmakers Use Satire Against Conservative War on Women

Lately, legislation across the United States has been rife with various attacks on anything that gives women even a modicum of control over their bodies. President Obama caved on his administration’s mandate for contraceptive insurance coverage (and no women were allowed on a congressional panel on the matter), Illinois saw two anti-abortion bills pass, Utah is considering imposing a 3-day waiting period before abortions, and three states (Iowa, Texas, Virginia) have proposed (or have already passed) forcing women to have ultrasounds before they can obtain an abortion. In the last week, women everywhere began to realize just how much Republican men hate them when the news Virginia’s ultrasound bill made mainstream headlines. The word “trans-vaginal” had never seen such a limelight before this week.

In response to such “small government” conservative measures, a handful of  female lawmakers have realized something recently too — how to wield satire against this crap.