Article 5 of the Declaration reads: “Reaffirming women’s right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.”
With the rise of “gender identity” ideology, women-only and lesbian-only spaces have increasingly been under threat. The right of women to assemble in person and online without men is consistently being eroded by new legislation that seeks to redefine sex to include “gender identity.” First, women’s right to assemble free from men as outlined in Article 5 of The Declaration is closely tied to Article 1 of the Declaration, which states that women’s rights are based upon the category of sex.
Women experience discrimination and oppression by men due to the fact that we are female. For this reason, it’s imperative that women and girls have the ability to assemble in spaces free from men and boys, in order to protect our privacy, safety, dignity, and to organize around the issues that uniquely affect us.
In short, women have the right to associate with whoever we want as a matter of basic freedom.
Preserving Single-Sex Spaces For All Women
As women, because are members of the oppressed sex class, we are entitled to spaces free from men as a matter of privacy and dignity. This includes spaces such as bathrooms, locker rooms, and changing rooms, where women are uniquely vulnerable. When Target stores implemented gender neutral changing rooms in 2016, for example, there was a significant increase in upskirt and peeping tom incidents.
Self-ID policies that allow men to enter women’s spaces if they “identify” as women also have a predictable outcome of infringing on women’s right to safety. In June 2021, a previously convicted serial sex offender entered the women’s locker room in Wi Spa in Los Angeles. The man claimed to be a woman and exposed his genitals to women and underage girls, and according to five witnesses, allegedly had an erection.
Self-ID policies also impact women’s prisons, rape shelters, domestic violence shelters, sports teams, public restrooms, and other areas where it’s important for women to associate without men. These examples demonstrate how women are exposed to an increased risk of violence and assault from predatory men who would seek to take advantage of these policies that replace sex with “gender identity.”
If women don’t have the right to assemble in spaces without men as outlined in Article 5 of The Declaration, then it becomes much harder for women to participate in daily life in a safe way. After all, how is a woman supposed to tell the difference between a man who claims to be a woman and means no harm, and a man who claims to be a woman who is a sex offender, especially when in both cases the man may still have fully intact male genitalia?
Protecting Single-Sex Communities Online
In addition, women’s right to freedom of assembly and association applies to online communities and virtual spaces. Facebook groups centered around topics such as women’s health, fertility, and pregnancy have started to allow men who self-identify as women to participate in these groups.
In one instance, a man claiming to be a woman joined a breastfeeding group on Facebook and posted about using drugs to produce “breast milk” as part of his pregnancy simulation. Women who spoke out about his presence in the group were silenced.
Many feminists have also been silenced on social media platforms and entire feminist communities have been shut down. For example, Reddit banned many feminist subreddits on their site, including the popular r/GenderCritical, which was the only place on the platform dedicated to discussing women’s sex-based rights.
Women have a right to online groups for themselves. We should not face pressure to include and center men who identify as women, or indulge their fetishes of womanhood.
It is simply not fair to force women to include men in our online communities about issues that uniquely affect us as an oppressed sex class, or to ban women for speaking out about the preservation of single-sex spaces.
Preserving Lesbian-Only Spaces
Lastly, it’s critical for lesbians to have the right to assemble based on their sexual orientation. With the erosion of single-sex spaces and rise of self-ID policies, lesbians have increasingly found their spaces infringed upon by men claiming to be women.
Not only is this unsafe for the reasons mentioned above, but it is also blatantly homophobic. Men claiming to be women attempt to pressure lesbians into relationships or sexual encounters, despite the fact that these men are not actually women and still have fully intact male genitals.
Lesbians deserve spaces where they can gather peacefully and feel comfortable with other women, without men interfering.
Fighting For Our Right to Single-Sex Spaces
Women who advocate for the right to single-sex spaces are routinely labeled as bigoted, transphobic, far-right, or misogynistic slurs. They are also met with violence, threats, denied opportunities to speak, and are removed from venues and online groups.
If women lose the ability to peacefully assemble and associate without men, then we lose the ability to have meaningful discussions about the issues that uniquely impact us as members of the oppressed sex class. When we are unable to have these discussions free from men, it makes it harder to advance our goal of liberation from the oppression we face. This is why Article 5 of The Declaration is so important for women’s rights.
Lawmakers across the U.S. must uphold women and girls’ rights to gather and associate peacefully and safely in spaces free from men as a matter of safety, dignity, and privacy. For this reason, we must work to prevent legislation that advocates for self-ID or rewrites the definition of sex to include “gender identity” becoming law.
To read the Declaration in full and become a signatory click here.
Also, check out our previous posts in our Declaration series here:
Article 1: Women’s Rights Are Based On Their Sex
Article 2: Motherhood is an Exclusively Female Status
Article 3: Physical/Reproductive Integrity
Article 4: Freedom of Opinion And Expression
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