I’m appalled by WoLF and other radical feminists walking into the co-optation trap with the Heritage Foundation and Fox News. We are in a political emergency. Now is the time to unite and fight the right, not get in line with them. If radical feminists are going to stretch outside their comfort zone to try to win protections for women, the Heritage Foundation is not where to go to achieve that end. Finding common cause with liberal feminists and trans people is difficult work, but possible and necessary. Many trans people do not recognize their own lived experiences in the rhetorical excesses of the extremist trans activists–and many do not find their real interests represented by these extremists’ current campaigns. Many, many liberal women feel ill at ease with their own interests being run over–they are simply afraid to stand up or second-guessing themselves. Many are unsure and confused, watching and making their decisions about where to stand based on who else will be standing with them.
If WoLF’s interested in coalition work, it could make bridges there. But as we’ve seen, they’ve been unwilling even to listen to other radical feminists when we’re also detransitioned women. These collusions with the Right are exactly the type of wildly off target actions we’ve tried to question and interrupt in their strategy approach, brought to a worst-case scenario conclusion. I watched the Heritage panel discussion in horror as a Fest dyke spoke about transwomen infiltrating Michfest–as though the likes of the Heritage Foundation had not also infiltrated and tried to shut down Michfest, infiltrated the Land and the message boards, tried to dig up some salacious s&m content in order to paint us all as perverts–and as a sinister threat to women and children. The right doesn’t differentiate much between those they consider perverts and deviants. When the Right says they’re concerned about who is using women’s accommodations, don’t think for a minute that lesbians, gay men, or anyone who gets mistaken as such will not be harmed by their “solution.”
WoLF are working with one of the women who passed HB2 in North Carolina. To my knowledge, she’s the only one in their so-called “coalition” who has been part of actually passing legislation on this issue, and it was HB2. Do they not understand what HB2 is?
It’s not just a bathroom bill, but even if it had been, you gotta ask the question–who will be hurt by this law in North Carolina? Safe bet Black lesbians will get hit the worst. Not white autogynephiles, primarily–they’ve got their white male privilege to insulate them. It’ll come back on Lesbians. Butch dykes. Bearded women. Flaming gay men, particularly if they’re Black. Getting everyone on high alert about “evil interlopers” in the bathroom does cause additional hardship for anyone who is perceived as ambiguously sexed, trans or not.
But it was not just a bathroom bill. HB2 eliminated rights and employment protections very broadly–removing anti-discrimination protections on the basis of RACE, SEX, NATIONALITY, RELIGION. It removed any chance of legal remedy for any such discrimination in North Carolina. It removed all protections on lesbian and gay rights to public accommodations. It banned any future ordinances which could try to win them back. It eliminated minimum wage standards and health insurance standards for public contractors. It eliminated family leave policies, child welfare protections, and requirements for workers to be allowed to take breaks. It banned future ordinances to reverse those losses.
And the blond lady on the panel with Miriam Ben Shalom and Mary Lou Singleton–Kami Mueller–you know, the one who could barely conceal her distaste for those she sees as freaks whether they be lesbian, gay, or trans–spoke proudly about how she helped pass that legislation. She told a story about being a mom against having her children, nieces and nephews forced into co-ed bathrooms and against insane gender ideology being forced on them in school. And that story was the ammunition she brought to the battle for HB2. That’s a nice story, I guess, if you ignore why she has an issue with these things. But it’s not the story of what HB2 actually is. Or who she actually is. She’s not some random mom who happened into a conflict with her kids’ school. She’s been working in PR and strategy for the Republican party, organizing against women’s reproductive rights, and generally doing Focus on the Family-esque campaigns for her entire career. In fact, both of the right wing women who participated on that panel are PR and Communications professionals. The WoLF women…do not have that background. They have so badly underestimated the right wing women. This is no equal coalition between individual women from different walks of life. This is a power move by the right, co-opting the only visible feminist resistance in order to entirely neutralize any chance of its message gaining traction or appearing reasonable.
Nobody of conscience is going to stand with WoLF when it cozies up to the elite power-holders on the right. They are allowing themselves to be co-opted and used. Being co-opted isn’t just about what you believe or what you say. It’s about what you represent, what you have been willing to compromise, and what you are being used to accomplish. It doesn’t matter what anyone says. It matters what end you’re serving. Just like HB2 wasn’t about the compelling stories some women told about protecting the legal category of “female.” The right’s only interest in that legal category is as a mechanism of control and repression.
It says a lot when WoLF can see their way clear to “common cause” with those whose stake in this particular issue is the repression of women, including lesbians; gay men; and anyone they mistake for one of the above. Please understand who we are talking about here. The Heritage Foundation is funded in part by the Koch brothers and the DeVos family, was instrumental in selecting Trump’s transition team. They did oust Jason Richwine for being too overtly white supremacist, but I think that was strategic with regard to his being too obvious about it, not a real difference in values. Now that “MAGA” is the order of the day, the game has changed on that front too. The Heritage Foundation’s current leadership is a Tea Party guy who has been taking them in an even bolder direction than their usual.
It’s not clear whether there are direct ties with The Family, but these people are of that ilk. The Family are the US-based right wing political organization that brought Uganda its “kill the gays” bill. These are people who want a theocracy here in the US, and they are closer to achieving that than they have ever been. Many of them literally think lesbians, other “bad women,” and gay men should be stoned to death.They are anti-poor, anti-worker and white supremacist as a matter of course. But they’re getting savvier about how to represent those values. They have dressed it up pretty and they are smiling politely to your face. For now.
Miriam Ben Shalom noted that she wasn’t being yelled at and was treated respectfully at Heritage Foundation, whereas radiqueers shouted her down at the last panel discussion she participated in. The Heritage crowd might not be yelling, but it’s only because they know how to cook a frog–and what they are up to is far, far more dangerous. WoLF’s strategy is to set aside “differences” to work with them.
But WoLF–despite its stated value of female solidarity and the greater salience of sex over “gender identity”–could never and would never do the work to make common cause with, say, transmen. Hell, they couldn’t even work with radical feminist detransitioned dykes. We were ready and willing to talk to them about refining their strategy into something less allergic to nuance and help equip them to bridge subcultural differences–but instead they’ve doubled down on their bludgeon tactics, metastasized their strategy into something dangerous to most women. It’s very telling that they got down with Heritage instead of ever listening to the likes of us.
It’s not a “coalition” when you’ve walked into the den of patriarchal power and handed over the collective credibility of radical feminists in an attempt to make a devil’s bargain. Do not think for a minute that a right wing think tank and social engineering force would champion your radical feminist cause if they thought it would actually help you win. Understand–at this political moment, if all you have to say to the Heritage Foundation is “look, we have this one thing in common, for opposite reasons”–you are basically asking the big mean daddy to protect you. That is never gonna work in favor of women, of female human beings, collectively. And make no mistake about which women will be hurt first and worst.
And because WoLF’s the only big public radical feminist organization, by extension they’ve allowed any women who organize or write under that banner to be co-opted as well, unless we speak up loudly enough to say no to this. Fox News is pretty loud. The Heritage Foundation is pretty loud. WoLF have made our work–those of us who actually try to organize on points of female solidarity, regardless of political difference–next to impossible. And maybe that was the point, at least from the right’s perspective.
But I’m interested in doing the opposite of what they’re doing. I actually don’t care about calling it radical feminism. You can call it whatever you want. Call it George. I care more about what it accomplishes in our lives than in the name. I have plenty of common cause with many who believe radical feminism is anathema, though they may not truly understand it. (Allying with the right will not help them understand.) Regardless, I can hold those disagreements, some of which come down to semantics, far more readily than a “disagreement” over whether female human beings ought to have bodily autonomy, or a “disagreement” over the human rights of women, including lesbians; gay men; people of color; Muslims; or Jews.
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