Five years ago if you had told me feminists would object to the statement “women are people” I would’ve told you you were off your rocker.
I am wiser now. I understand that there’s a branch of feminists who prioritize their anti-trans animus above all else, and will gleefully enact harm on other women if it means they can bash (or direct an institution to bash) teh trans.
Last month, The Colorado Doula Project (CDP), a grassroots organization that provides “free emotional, physical, and informational support through the spectrum of reproductive experiences,” held the first formal abortion doula training in the state of Colorado. Nearly 50 women and nonbinary people gathered to learn how to accompany clients or friends through the process of terminating a pregnancy.
Sitting in on the training to write about it for Vice, I wasn’t shocked to hear murmurs of a disturbance going-on outside. Of course, I figured, an event with the word “abortion” right there in the name would attract attention from anti-choice zealots.
One of the organizers sighed. “I was expecting to have trouble with the anti-abortion people, but I didn’t think we were going to get attacked by feminists.”
I did a double take, and she filled me in.
Because the Colorado Doula Project strives for intersectionality and accessibility, they talk about their clients and potential clients in gender-neutral terms, referring to “pregnant people” and “birthing parents” so as to encompass DFAB (designated female at birth) transgender and nonbinary people who are not women, but still need pregnancy-related care.
A local self-described fourth-wave feminist attended the abortion doula training despite not agreeing with the CDP’s policy on gender-inclusive language. Early in the first day, she began posting comments on Facebook criticizing the policy, calling it “female erasure,” and saying “I can’t fucking stand third wave liberal feminism.” After being asked to leave, she exhorted a large group of her friends to post negative reviews on Colorado Doula Project’s Facebook page, many of them also accusing the group — which most of them had never had direct contact with — of “female erasure.”
Yes, if an abortion provider services trans men or AFAB enbies, it must be torn down.
Read more about this migraine-inducing blinkered nonsense here.
-Shiv
To the extent that I understand the TERF argument, the claim is something like: Patriarchy seeks to subjugate women in order to control those with birthing potential, so even though some of those who can give birth do not identify as women it is important to emphasize that services related to reproduction are about the direct target of patriarchy.
Or perhaps it is: We suffer so much, at least give us the perks of those magical words such as ‘mother’ that even misogynists respect to some degree.
@1 anat
P1:
Indisputably true.
P2:
Ah, but patriarchy sought to subjugate women, per your understanding of the TERF argument. I didn’t dispute this. In fact I suspect the misogynistic notion to punish women for sex is a common underlying motive of legislative oppression. Uterine reproductive oppression intentionally targets cis women and it is only through collateral damage that AFAB enbies/trans masc folk are affected by such legislation. But they are affected by it. The intention (“reduce women’s reproductive freedom”) and the consequences (“reduced reproductive freedom of cis women, AFAB enbies and trans masc folk”) are not one and the same.
C1:
Your conclusion is certainly valid–it doesn’t change that trans mascs and AFAB enbies need the service too. But there is nothing about a seminar that observes the needs of trans mascs and AFAB enbies that challenges the notion that reproductive services are targeted by patriarchs. If you had characterized the TERF position correctly, they would still have no reason to object to the Colorado Doula Project which argues as much, and yet they have. This is why your second argument sounds more plausible to me than your first.
The patriarchy does not have a finite list of victims, though you wouldn’t know that from TERF screeds rambling about the “theft” of womanhood.
Not surprising that I failed at making a position I perceive as totally incoherent into a coherent one.
Can’t make gold out of lead, I suppose.