Pride shmide

Oct 19th, 2019 | By
Category: Notes and Comment Blog

Pride Toronto is furious at Toronto Public Library for refusing to banish Meghan Murphy. Pride Toronto has A Statement.

Pride Toronto strongly opposes the Toronto Public Library’s decision to host and support an event with guest speaker Meghan Murphy to take place in a publicly funded space.

For many years, Pride Toronto has worked in partnership and allyship with the Toronto Public Library (TPL), including hosting a sold-out signature event in 2019 featuring headliner Abby Jacobson. It was our understanding that our relationship was entering a new phase of mutual cooperation, support and reciprocity. It was our belief that the TPL was committed to creating library spaces that are inclusive, safe and welcoming. The recent decision to allow the event with Meghan Murphy is a betrayal to our LGBT2SQ+ communities.

It is well known Meghan Murphy asserts publicly and repeatedly that Trans women cannot be women and will always be men. This is a denial of the lives, experiences and identities of Trans people. It is a crude, hateful and hurtful assertion. It says that the existence of Trans people is invalid and that therefore their human rights are up for public debate.

“It is well known that” Meghan Murphy doesn’t agree that men magically become women just by saying they are women. Neither do I; neither do lots of women. The claim is stupid and supernatural and not credible. It’s not the same kind of claim as “women should not be treated as inferiors” and “people of color should not be treated as inferiors.” Treating people as equals is not the same kind of thing as agreeing that people are what they manifestly are not. What if the next move is for people to declare they are trees, and run around threatening and punishing and exiling people who don’t accept that claim? It’s not part of any left worth its salt to try to force people to believe, or pretend to believe, magical nonsensical claims people make about themselves.

I would love to see an end to self-pitying burble about “denial of the lives, experiences and identities of” trans people or tree people or furries or anime characters any other damn fantasies people have about themselves. Have all the fantasies you want, knock yourself out, but don’t try to impose them on everyone else. No. We’re not buying it any more, so threaten all you like but no. No.

Also, claims about “saying the existence of Trans people is invalid” are meaningless garble. Existence isn’t a library card or a bus pass, so “validity” is not a relevant category. Nobody says “the existence of Trans people is invalid”; saying men are not women is not saying the existence of men who claim to be women is “invalid,” whatever that would mean, it’s just saying their claims about themselves are not true. There is no duty to accept all claims people make about themselves. There just isn’t. We couldn’t function if there were. I could claim to be the true owner of any big house with an ocean view I fancied, and then what? No. We don’t have to treat obviously false claims people make about themselves as true. Yelling that they find that hurtful is becoming just so much noise, and very boring noise at that.

Meghan Murphy also spreads the propaganda that as trans rights increase, the rights of women decrease. Feminists with an intersectional lens know that feminism and the rights of women are stronger when feminism includes all women. Trans women are women.

Yes, the rights of women are stronger when feminism includes all women, but not when it includes men. Trans women are men.

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