Via J.K. Rowling, we get this latest pushback against gender ideology:
Black Women’s Caucus Statement Against Gender Ideology https://t.co/073rhjpaX3
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) April 21, 2023
Who are they? They are a group within, ‘Women’s Declaration International USA,’ which describes itself this way:
WDI USA is the United States chapter of the Women’s Declaration International (WDI). We are a dedicated group of volunteer women from across the country focused on protecting women’s sex-based rights.
We are a feminist group created by women, for women. At WDI USA, women always come first. Our mission is to advance the Declaration in law and policy. …
WDI USA’s actions are guided by the Declaration on Women’s Sex Based Rights, a document created by the founders of Women’s Declaration International to maintain language protecting women and girls on the basis of sex rather than ‘gender’ or ‘gender identity’.
In any case, the statement at the link is pretty amazing. It starts with: ‘We, the members of the Black Women’s Caucus of Women’s Declaration International USA, believe that it is crucial for Black Women to denounce gender identity ideology.’
Some highlights:
Gender ideologues employ the ‘forced-teaming’ tactic against Black women in order to shame us into being work mules for their campaign of male sexual privileges that they call ‘transgender rights.’ While these efforts are masked as progressive and inclusive concepts, gender identity ideology is actually intrusive and harmful to women, and uniquely so to Black women.
Gender identity ideology … is also incompatible with the fight for women’s rights because it allows men access to spaces and activities designated for women such as bathrooms, sports teams, and housing. It has been reported that 1 in 4 Black girls are sexually assaulted before the age of 18 and 35% of Black women report experiencing physical sexual violence. Policies that allow men unfettered access to female-designated facilities put Black women and girls, a demographic disproportionately impacted by male violence, at an even higher risk.
And they brought the receipts:
There have already been deadly consequences where an employer ignored a Black woman’s whistleblowing regarding a male who demanded to be recognized as a woman. Monica Archer, a caseworker in a women’s shelter, warned her employers about a client, Harvey Marcelin living as Marceline Harvey, who’d made threats against her and other shelter employees. Archer was fired for speaking out. Marcelin had already served 50 years for murdering and dismembering two women and after Archer’s whistleblowing was ignored, Marcelin was found to have murdered and dismembered a 68-year-old ‘gal-pal’ he had met while living in the women’s shelter.
It goes on and continues to be great stuff and it is worth considering in its entirety. Naturally, this provoked reactions:
They are standing up against what is predominantly white male privilege
— #Father #SAFC Fan #3😺 #Antisemitism = Jew Hate ✡ (@GE_1970) April 21, 2023
Powerful statement.
— Janine Curran (@janinereturns) April 21, 2023
— MoreCowbell (@OysterColt) April 22, 2023
This is a major achievement politically and will go far in turning back the transgender campaign to undermine women and their families.
— Gary Goldstein (@GaryGol88424403) April 21, 2023
We’re not that optimistic, but it’s definitely an encouraging sign.
I am proud to see more women unafraid to speak up and speak out against this unbalanced and very dangerous thought process. Women’s and girl’s spaces in the present and in the future DEPEND on us being willing to take the shield and push forward boldly! #WomensRights…
— Lidia Belle (@FreedomBelle3) April 22, 2023
So impressed by them! Black women in the US are a FORCE to be reckoned with.
— Sharonevolving 🇺🇸🇬🇧🇪🇸🇺🇳🇺🇦 (@sharonevolving) April 22, 2023
Wow. This is gonna send Jonathan Willoughby and a whole lotta handmaidens into a spin 😂
Brilliantly written statement from my beautiful black sisters 🖤 pic.twitter.com/1prwvzsEkU
— PDubz_LH44 PhD ⭐️⭐️ #29347 (@pdubz_762) April 21, 2023
“We can’t teach our daughters the lie that we can be born in the wrong body and expect them to feel comfortable with their skin color, hair texture, or other bodily features.” PREACH
— snarkyswampfairy (@serengwyneud) April 21, 2023
A fantastically powerful argument – three cheers for the Black Women's Caucus. And thanks again JK for standing up for the rights of women.
— Victoria Preston (@vpreston1) April 22, 2023
Of course, there was pushback:
This is disgusting and deplorable. This Caucus does not speak for me or for all Black Feminists.
The coordinator who is listed also identifies as ADOS and a radical feminist.
ALL Black women deserve better. https://t.co/7j9MSFNAuS
— Charlene A. Carruthers (@CharleneCac) April 24, 2023
Mrs. Rowling, my 9 year old transgender daughter cries every time she sees one of your transphobic posts. She is a huge fan of Harry Potter, but seeing the author of her favorite book series being so bigoted is heartbreaking. Please, J.K, put a smile on my daughters face.
— 🏳️🌈 Reyes Armando Moronta (PARODY) (@not_onions) April 21, 2023
youre irresponsible and a liar. a 9 year old doesn't know anything and you are making sure she doesn't.
— OneOfOne (@Robert_Freeman_) April 21, 2023
when do you think is the last time this yakubite even made eye contact with a black person. gimme a fuckin break https://t.co/Y8IK3ejCyN
— owvin and the crispmunks (@omos_nudes) April 23, 2023
‘Yakubite’ appears to be a reference to the super-racist and super-crazy theory that white people were actually invented by an evil scientist named Yakub, according to the Nation of Islam. Yes, really. If you read the Autobiography of Malcolm X, he says it is the explicit doctrine of that group (which is outside of any mainstream conception of Islam). It’s as if Scientology and racism had a baby.
This is horrible, ignorant transphobic garbage. Transphobes have no place in feminisms, and esp not in Black feminisms and liberation work more broadly. https://t.co/4gZUu0F151
— Black Feminist Killjoy 🦇 (@parishatcher) April 24, 2023
What is interesting to us is that Black Women’s Caucus argument against gender ideology is an argument from the left. Except for being against trans ideology, it is basically a leftist argument in its form, focus, and modes of argumentation. It is identity politics, arrayed against people who pretend that your identity is whatever you decide it is.
And it’s not the first time we have seen this. For instance, the Montgomery, Maryland public schools have apparently gone ‘gender neutral’ with respect to their restrooms, allowing boys to go into girls’ restrooms apparently without even pretending they identify as women, and it got pushback from the Council on American–Islamic Relations (‘CAIR’):
Girls refusing to use school bathrooms because of coed (transgender) access policies is also mentioned in earlier litigation and regulatory filings by parents. It's obvious this is an even bigger problem for Muslim families.https://t.co/RKyycRRvbY via @reason
— Greg Piper (@gregpiper) February 21, 2023
From Reason:
One of CAIR’s offices is also handling a case involving the rights of a Muslim student who had removed her hijab to adjust it in the girls’ bathroom at her public school when a student who she perceived to be of the opposite sex entered and saw her with her hair exposed in violation of her sincerely held beliefs, leaving her feeling shocked and humiliated.
Other parents have informed CAIR’s Maryland office that their children no longer feel safe or comfortable using school bathrooms and wait until they return home at the end of the day to use the bathroom, raising concerns about poor health outcomes and the impact on school performance.
This was also a problem at Yale University where they decided to have gender-neutral dorms:
How very interesting…https://t.co/jeBuBNwKow
— Mike LaChance (@MikeLaChance33) April 15, 2023
From Legal Insurrection:
The current policy disproportionately affects Muslim students. Often, they succumb to being pushed to off-campus housing, at a rate higher than their non-Muslim peers. Students who remain on campus are forced to change their habits to avoid sacrificing their core beliefs. These potential habit changes are non-negligible. Without single-gender bathrooms, Muslim women are forced to be on guard and wear a hijab, even during times when they normally would not: just taking a shower or going to the bathroom becomes a stressful and inconvenient burden, taking a toll on their mental health. Living quarters become a space of anxiety, not rest.
Muslims also must pray 5 times a day. In order to do so, they perform wudu, a type of ablution or purification using water. This involves wiping the top of the head with their hand, which must be done without any fabric or impediment in the way. If Muslim women are not able to remove their hijab because of the mixed-gender bathrooms, they cannot perform wudu, and, as a result, they cannot fulfill their obligatory daily prayer. Mandatory mixed-gender bathrooms directly interfere with students’ right to their religious practices.
This is not only heartless behavior—essentially blocking a person from utterly reasonable practices of their faith—but it might also violate various civil rights laws.
All of this raises the question of whether identity politics, which conservatives have their own objections to, might end up making a common cause with conservatives to defeat gender ideology—a view that literally identity is malleable.
We shall see.
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