When organisations that help vulnerable women are targeted
Have a useful backgrounder on the efforts of male trans activists to dominate and subdue Vancouver Rape Relief:
In 1995 Kimberly Nixon, a transwoman, filed a human rights complaint after applying to be a counsellor and being rejected on the grounds that Nixon was not born a woman and had not experienced oppression from birth. Vancouver Rape Relief offered a formal written apology, and suggested that Nixon could support the shelter by joining a fundraising committee. The shelter also offered $500 in acknowledgement of Nixon’s hurt feelings and requested mediation in order [to] make amends. Nixon rejected this offer and escalated the complaint to the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal, which was heard in 2000. Two years later the tribunal released the decision that they found in favour of Nixon and awarded $7,500 in compensation. However Vancouver Rape Relief sought a judicial review as they argued that discrimination was not present. The British Columbia Supreme Court set aside the decision of The Human Rights Tribunal, finding that the Tribunal had made an error as the shelter has the right to freedom of association as a women-only space, irrespective of gender identity. Nixon appealed to the British Columbia Court of Appeal who unanimously upheld the Supreme Court’s decision in 2007. Nixon appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada who dismissed the request. Arguments built by the shelter in this case have since been used by Aboriginal groups in Canada to maintain their freedom of association.
It’s a tricky thing. There’s been pushing and pulling about it in the US for years over the issue of campus groups that exclude white people. How do you say “no whites invited to this particular group” without giving aid and comfort to whites who want to do the same thing with the terms flipped? It’s tricky (but the answer is not to do what Kimberly Nixon did).
Even supporting the shelter can get you ousted in some activist circles, as anti-poverty campaigner Yuly Chan found out last year when she was removed from an urban renewal panel at a Vancouver Crossroads conference after retweeting Vancouver Rape Relief and expressing support for working class women.
In May 2018 Trans Rights Activists targeted The Licorice Parlour, a sweet shop in Vancouver who had put up a poster advertising the Vancouver Rape Relief annual community fundraiser. The shop’s social media platforms were flooded with fake 1* reviews accusing the shop and the owner, Mary Jean, of transphobia. Mary Jean took to Facebook to assert her support of the shelter and disclose her own experience of sexual assault. She received many messages of support but the accusations of transphobia and fake reviews continued for some time.
And yet…are there any parallel stories about gay men? Do they get bullied the same way? If they do they seem oddly quiet about it.
It has not escaped the notice of many onlookers that the continual targets of this harassment appear to be women, often lesbians. When organisations that help vulnerable women are targeted then it is the women most in need who lose out. Male violence continues to be the biggest threat to trans people, and feminists seek to end male violence in all its forms. In the midst of these political disagreements it is women, not violent men, who are bearing the brunt of Trans Rights Activists’ animosity.
Well, you see, violent men are kind of scary.
Which suggests there aren’t the same stories, because it is usually the bullies who bring it to everyone’s attention, saying, look here, this person treated me like I’m a man even though I’m plainly a woman even though I still look like a man. Everyone should instantly know I’m a woman, it’s obvious because I say it is, and I want you all to pour hate at this person as fast and as hard as you can.
So I suspect gay male groups are not getting targeted like that, because the noise machine is not sending their hordes over to pour out hate at them as fast and as hard as possible. If they were, I’m sure we’d hear about it. (And the stories about the Catholic Church suggest that, if it were happening, the stories about men would dominate the news cycle, and everyone would believe it was only men being abused, and no women were ever harmed by the making of this movement).
It’s not just about helping out, is it. Nixon wanted to be a counsellor. I imagine there are plenty of natal women who would not be cut out for counselling positions, either. If they relly want to help, there are other ways they can do so, just as Nixon was offered a chance to do. So even had been born female, she might have been turned down for a front line position and offered a behind the scenes support role. Nixon has the added issue of being male, which is going to be a problem for some, if not most, of the clients seeking help. If Nixon is too thick to see that, can’t understand that not everyone shares the belief in the magical thining behind identifying as a woman even though one is not, that is Nixon’s problem. It’s obvious the affront to his unrequited womanhood is more important than being of assistance, which really kinda undermines the whole assistance thing altogether, doesn’t it? It’s like the trans atheletes who demand to compete on the girls’ team. Not complying with that demand would not be a “ban” on their sports activities. They would be allowed to participate in other ways, in other event, on other teams. My rights are not trampled when I don’t get to play in the NHL. I’m a shit skater, and I would never make any team. I could still go down to a public rink, tie on some skates and skate my heart out, if I really wanted to. Nixon was offered options to help; if help was the goal, there were opportunities. But it looks like help was not the intent; counselling women who had been attacked by men was the point. It was that or nothing. Nixon wants a starring role in the school play and doesn’t want a job back stage or in the box office. Tough shit.
YNNB, it brings to mind the outrage when Rachel Dolezal took a job specifically intended for a person of color, because no one else recognized her as being black just because she said she was (once her real background came to light). This is how it should be; she should not have been in a job meant for someone who had suffered types of oppression she could not understand.
Just like a man who got a job he wanted one time by getting himself listed as a Native American, after years of privilege as a white man. He had almost no Native American heritage, the bare minimum to be listed, and he had never even known he had that. He had lived with white privilege forever, and white male privilege, too, because the reason he needed to be Native American was to add enough points to his test score to elevate him over all the women who had scored better than he did on the test (women only get one point added to their scores; Native Americans get 10, at least in that particular state). The place was so determined not to hire a woman of any race that they elevated this white man by giving him a benefit intended to equalize injustices, thereby compounding the injustice to both Native Americans and women, neither of whom had lived with the privileges this man had. Now he gets to identify as Native American, while living with all the privileges of a white man.
Funny how many ways white men (and some women, like Dolezal) find to support the status quo and kick around those they’ve kicked around for so long…and in the case of trans-identified, to get the love and support of many of those they are kicking, who just say “oh, kick me harder, please”.
‘How do you say “no whites invited to this particular group” without giving aid and comfort to whites who want to do the same thing with the terms flipped?’
We probably wouldn’t say ‘no whites allowed’, but the Equalities Act in the UK does make specific provision for people with the characteristics protected under the law to meet, hold events, or staff organisations advocating for them, segregating by that particular characteristic–if anyone’s interested I can look it up and quote the relevant law later (am right now in bed trying to get up and get moving, as I have a long day ahead).
I know this because I’ve been involved in various ‘women in STEM’ things–but even here a lot of people aren’t aware that the law specifically permits this. A woman recently posted on our company’s message board that she used to organise a women’s lunch/networking group but doesn’t now because some people (presumably male people) told her it was ‘discriminatory’ and made them feel excluded. I posted asking if she’d feel unjustly excluded if a group of Asian people had a periodic lunch/networking event, and she posted back a thoughtful response that no, she realised they had unique challenges and experiences that they might like to share, and that it was worthwhile for them to experience an environment where they didn’t have to censor themselves and could talk freely about situations that all of them understood without explaining. I then tried to prod her toward realising that the same thing was true for women…but I honestly don’t think, even with a little nudging from me, that she was able to identify the analogy on her own.
Ironic that your colleague has trouble recognizing the applicability of your analogy for her attempt to have a women’s group (years of conditioning to be welcoming , supportive and nurturing of others and to not say”no?”) while the transwomen Dolezals are all too eager to force thier way into women’s spaces to which they feel entitled (years of conditioioning to be forceful, assertive, ambitious and never taking “no” for an answer?). Funny how, according to some schools of trans ideology, even though they’ve been women the whole time, the socialization they picked up was the male one. Of course if they appeared male and were presenting as male before transitioning (in whatever form or manner, if any other than self declaration), they would have been perceived and treated as males, with all the benefits and privileges pertaining thereto. That many trans activists, with there insistance upon “cis privilege” can’t even see this, or at least admit it, is frustrating.
Funny how, according to some schools of trans ideology, even though they’ve been women the whole time, the socialization they picked up was the male one.
Isn’t it though?!
We certainly don’t. We do get some shit but nothing like what women & lesbians get. There’ve been recent disagreements over transmen with vaginas in gay bathhouses and sex clubs. I’ve been insulted by transmen over my “genital hangups” but I think they’re just halfheartedly echoing the rhetoric that was created by and for transwomen. Female trans people generally don’t seem obsessed with raging at gay men. I can’t possibly imagine why.
(Mind you, my sense is that until quite recently virtually all transmen were butch lesbians who butched themselves right over the fence, and so had no interest in gay men except as allies and friends. Heterosexual women transitioning into self-identified gay men are a brand new phenomenon as far as I’ve ever heard. The ones I see on the gay dating apps are all very, very young — most likely girls who were persuaded by Tumblr in their tumultuous teens.)