Why I speak out against the Rad Fem movement.
**For the record, this OP does not accuse ANYONE at DU of being transphobic. It is a general observation about a movement that identifies as the "Radical Feminist" movement and an attempt to shine a spotlight on just what that movement really is.
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First you may ask, why is this a Men's Issue? A good question and one that I have asked myself. My answer is essentially that this movement is SO toxic, so viciously anti-male that they must be understood for what they are and that their vicious hate rhetoric must be exposed as the divisive garbage that it is.
Of course they want their hate speech protected by hiding behind a reasonable and laudable movement such as Feminism in general. But in all honesty, who hare does NOT support the idea of equality for all women? Certainly no one here that I know. So what I see is a movement of extreme hate hiding beneath the mantle of Feminism in order to disseminated safely a very particular brand of poisonous rhetoric that is actually designed to create flames where there are none -much like the pyromaniacal firefighter who lights fires so that he/she can put them out and claim to be a "hero".
How anti-male are they?
Well, they are so anti-male that having a person that considers themselves to be transgender (MtF) is viewed with suspicion and distrust -essentially the implication being that they are perverted men who just want to invade women's sacred space. This position should be unacceptable to anyone that considers themselves to be a Liberal or Progressive. In all other cases, liberals would agree that this behavior is hate speech. To not accept people for who they are -whether in terms of gender, sexual preference or religion is no different than those that say that gays are not really gay, they need to be "cured", etc. In fact, on closer examination the "detransitioning" that many rad fems push at transgender people is rather uncomfortably close to the "homosexual cure".
If Feminism is the proposition that all people should be equal under the law, then surely it must be accepted that her positions re transgender people are an extreme violation of that basic tenet.
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Political attempts have been made to separate out the transphobic element that they are TERFs, not merely Radical Feminists, but Radical Feminism cannot pretend that the core of their movement is not rotten with transphobia unless they deal honestly with the issue of Cathy Brennan.
Cathy Brennan is at the very heart of the movement called radical feminism. In the video below, she herself denies the term TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist), saying that it is all actually just "radical feminism".
http://vimeo.com/78066775
Here is a petition calling for her group, Gender Identity Watch, to be considered a Hate Group.
http://www.change.org/petitions/southern-poverty-law-center-monitor-gender-identity-watch-as-a-hate-group-2
As a feminist organization, Secular Woman promotes gender equality. We stand against and combat sexism, hate, intolerance, and misogyny.
Transgender women are women.
Cisgender women are women.
We do not, in any way, view the existence of transgender women, genderqueer individuals or transgender men as a threat to the safety of women, female identity, or the goals of feminism.
As intersectional feminists we acknowledge the privilege that cisgender people experience. We aim to dismantle the axis of oppression that this represents.
Unfortunately, not all who claim the label “feminist” agree with us. They do not represent us and we reject their actions and views as unethical and devoid of reason.
We stand in opposition.
Members of our community have been targeted by trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs). Personal information such as former names, current legal names, and photographs have been compiled and displayed on the website “Name the Problem”. Several of the entries are self-attributed to “Pegasus” ("PegasusBug" is a pseudonym of Cathy Brennan, the head of Gender Identity Watch). This information was presented alongside reports describing rapists and batterers of women.
She does not consider transgender people to be the gender they themselves identify as, reserving that right only for CIS people.
She has written a letter to the UN arguing strenuously against legal protections for transgender people and just does not seem to understand the issue of gender identity.
Until her hate speech is denounced, radical feminism will always be a Hate Movement.
http://www.bustle.com/articles/7277-cathy-brennan-speaks-to-bustle-about-her-stance-on-transgender-people
Most recently, Brennan has been attracting attention for two reasons. The first is a letter she sent to the doctor of trans activist Emily Horsman in September 2013. After alleging that Horsman was harassing her and other women online, Brennan wrote that she believed the doctor had “a professional obligation to know about his patient’s mental health.”
The second has to do with a story about a transgender student in Colorado allegedly harassing other girls in the high-school locker room. A conservative group called The Pacific Justice Institute sent a letter to the school demanding something be done. Brennan posted the letter to her blog — along with the student’s name. The story was later debunked by the school’s superintendent, who said no harassment took place and the story was perpetuated by upset parents.
The question of whether transgender women — that is, individuals born biologically male who gender identify as female — should be allowed in female-only spaces has been a contentious one for years. And over these years, Brennan has been at the forefront of the discussion. In 2011, Brennan and fellow activist Elizabeth Hungerford wrote a letter to the United Nations in opposition to certain laws prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity and gender expression.
“The proliferation of legislation designed to protect ‘gender identity’ and ‘gender expression’ undermines legal protections for females vis-a-vis sex segregated spaces, such as female-only clubs, public restrooms, public showers, and other spaces designated as ‘female only.’ Females require sex-segregated facilities for number of reasons, chief among them the documented frequency of male sexual violence against females and the uniquely female consequence of unwanted impregnation resulting from this relatively common form of violence.”
= new reply since forum marked as read
Not surprising that certain minds would roll right into that gutter, seeing as how they view the species....
