Why is “gender identity” such a verboten topic on the Left?
Note: This post originally appeared on the Substack of WDI USA president Kara Dansky.
Several years ago, I was visiting an old friend (who, like me, considers herself politically progressive) in her home. I lightly broached the topic of “gender identity” and the threats the “gender identity” movement poses to women and girls as a sex class. She said, “I don’t want to talk about it.” I said, “No problem, but can you tell me why you don’t want to talk about it?” She responded, “I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT.” I reiterated, “Okay, it’s really no problem, I’m just curious why.” That’s when she put her hands over her ears, shook her head, and screamed, again, “I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT!!!”
Because I was at her home, I let it go at that point, but the exchange struck me. Over the next few months, she and I tried to have casual phone calls and email messages, but our correspondence fell flat, and now she won’t return my messages. Why?
As President of the U.S. chapter of Women’s Declaration International (WDI USA), I spend a lot of time thinking and speaking about “gender identity” and its impact on the female sex. I understand that most people don’t devote as much time and energy to the topic as I do. What I would like to know, however, is why those who believe “gender identity” should supersede sex in law and society have been so successful in shutting down almost all conversation around the topic.
WDI is a group of volunteer women from across the globe. We work to advance the Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights throughout law and policy all over the world. Grounded in radical feminist principles and analysis, the Declaration reaffirms women’s and girls’ sex-based rights, and challenges the discrimination we experience when the category of sex is replaced by so-called “gender identity” in law, policy, or practice. The U.S. chapter is nonpartisan, though most of our supporters hail from the political Left, as do I.
So why do the masked men who show up to protest our public and even private events call us “Nazis,” “Fascists,” or “far-right?” Why are women on the Left so afraid to speak to us about the issue, even in their own homes?
In large part, this is because Democratic elected officials and mainstream media outlets have an unspoken agreement: The leftist feminist critique of sex denial must never be mentioned. If states pass bills to prohibit “gender-affirming” pediatric cosmetic breast and genital surgeries, the feminist testimony submitted to the legislature is not reported. If feminist meetings are protested or even attacked to the degree that news outlets cannot ignore the story, Democratic elected officials like San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin characterize the women’s meetings as “right-wing hate.”
So feminists like me are in a bind: Accept the occasional Fox News platform that reaches millions (as I did by appearing on Tucker Carlson Tonight several times before he left Fox News) and confirm the left’s smug certainty that we are not “real” feminists or leftists, or decline any platform with the slightest whiff of conservatism about it, and continue to toil in obscurity.
What happens when we try to pursue civilized discussion in a centrist forum?
In early 2023, I was contacted by the producers of the forum American Public Square (APS), a Kansas City-based community organization “working to improve the tone and quality of public discourse by convening groups and creating space for respectful dialogue on important topics; educating community members about why engaging in this way is important and how to do it well; and engaging diverse segments of our society to ensure that multiple perspectives are explored.”
They invited me to join a panel of experts on the topic of “gender and identities.” I had several very positive conversations with the producers, and I was excited to do it. The discussion was to take place in consultation with a local PBS affiliate, and I had nothing but positive interactions with the PBS representatives as well.
It was scheduled for September 26. The other panelists were to be Jamie Reed (a woman who blew the whistle on the “gender clinic” where she once worked about the harms it was causing to kids), a black lesbian named Monica Harris (the executive director of the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism who also blogs about feminism), a man named Justice Horn (the head of the local LGBTQ+ Commission), and a young woman named Alex Pearson (who uses they/them pronouns and founded a group called Kansas Missouri Queer Law).
On September 22, however, I was notified that Justice Horn and Alex Pearson had canceled, leaving APS unable to go forward with the program. Horn and Pearson simply refused to share a stage with leftist women who are critical of “gender identity.” The event was “postponed” (and has not been rescheduled). Why?
What happens when women meet privately?
Throughout 2023, WDI USA planned its annual convention in San Francisco for September. Contracts were signed with the hotel, the audio-visual people, and the caterers. Participants registered and booked flights and guest rooms. Speakers were confirmed and the agenda was finalized. Topics to be discussed included women in academia, the role of lesbians in the women’s liberation movement, the unique challenges faced by black women in a society that is both sexist and racist, and reproductive technology as a threat to women’s liberty.
A few weeks before the convention, we were notified that the hotel was being inundated with demands that they cancel our entire program. We worked closely with the hotel and security staff to make sure the event went off as planned.
On Saturday during the convention, a mob of a few hundred people gathered outside the hotel to scream and yell and call for our deaths (this is not an exaggeration). This mob didn’t think that women should be able to gather, even behind closed doors at a private event, to discuss topics that pertain exclusively to women. Why?
What happens when women take their message straight to the public?
In November 2023, a group of women affiliated with WDI USA planned a speaking event at a local library in Portland, Oregon. The theme was male violence against women and children.
The day before the event, the person responsible for library security told us that a man had threatened to bring a gun to the library if the event went forward. They told us to keep going, though, and promised to secure the building. On the morning of the event, the library had been vandalized and they closed it to the public. But they still told us to go forward with the event and assured us the building would be secure.
Just moments before the event, they told us that a mob of hundreds of people was circling the building and they could not secure our safety. So we decided to give our speeches on the sidewalk, a few blocks from the library. While we were doing so, about forty men approached us, screaming and yelling, threw full cans of liquid at us, pepper-sprayed us in our eyes, punched many of us to the ground, and kicked us repeatedly, while the police did nothing. All because our attackers, evidently supported by the police, did not think we should be able to exercise our First Amendment right to speak in public about male violence against women and children. Why?
I have published two books on the topic of “gender identity” and the threats it poses to the sex-based rights of women and girls: The Abolition of Sex: How the ‘Transgender’ Agenda Harms Women and Girls and The Reckoning: How the Democrats and the Left Betrayed Women and Girls. I am a lifelong Democrat and a left-wing feminist, and just about no large mainstream media outlet will platform me. The only large platforms I can get in the U.S. are in conservative media. The same is true for every single leftist feminist who speaks out on this topic. Almost no one on the political Left will allow women’s concerns about our sex-based rights to be heard. Why?
I have a theory, and it’s pretty straightforward: If the leftist feminist critique of “gender identity” can be heard by members of the general public, we will win. Polling consistently shows that American voters across the political spectrum understand that women are female and men are male, and they agree with us that men should not have access to women’s single-sex spaces or sports, that children should not undergo invasive and harmful medical interventions if they are unhappy with their sex, and that lesbians and gay men should have the right to date only members of their own sex.
Most left-leaning voters share these views and concerns, but they are afraid to speak out because all opposition to “gender identity” seems to be coming from the political Right. This is understandable, but it’s not true.
I hear from rank-and-file Democrats (including progressives and feminists) all the time who say they are fed up with party leadership because of what they are doing on this issue. American liberal and progressive women (and the men who care about them) have every reason and right to be concerned about this issue. If the American people could hear the leftist feminist critique of “gender identity,” the entire “trans” edifice would crumble like the house of cards that it is. That’s why.
Kara Dansky is the author of THE RECKONING: How the Democrats and the Left Betrayed Women and Girls and THE ABOLITION OF SEX: How the ‘Transgender’ Agenda Harms Women and Girls, and the president of the U.S. chapter of Women’s Declaration International.
