U.S. Democrats, please do not give up on fighting from within. As we have seen with recent developments in the U.K., fighting from within the party is worth our time and energy. Rosie Duffield, who continues to fight for women and girls from within the Labour Party, in the face of a relentless (and quite silly) effort to erase women as a class, is an inspiration to us all.
If you are unfamiliar with Rosie Duffield and the recent dust-ups within the U.K. Labour Party about which category of human beings has a cervix, you can read up on the matter here and here and here. Watching her speak with the crew at The Mess We’re In is especially fun.
The reason not to give up now is not because we think the Democrats will come around, though it would be great if they did. The reason not to give up now is that if they don’t come around, we have to make sure that not a single one of them can say they weren’t warned.
On September 29, 2021, a delegation of the U.S. chapter of the Women’s Human Rights Campaign (WHRC USA) met with the staff of a state senator in New York State to oppose the redefinition of sex to include “gender identity and expression” in the state constitution. The delegation consisted of me and two New York residents, all of us signatories to the Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights.
WHRC USA Vice President Lauren Levey, who lives in New York, initially reached out to request the meeting. The senator was quite receptive and scheduled the meeting promptly. We met with two young staff members, one woman and one man. Our aim was to explain why the redefinition of sex to include “gender identity and expression” harms everyone, but women and girls in particular, and to request a state-wide conversation about the impact that the new definition would have on women and girls. The other member of our delegation was Julie DeLisle, also a New York resident and WHRC NY state contact.
The senator in question is a Democrat in a mixed-party jurisdiction. She was elected in 2020, barely inching out a win over the Republican candidate, who won approximately 49% of the vote.
The bill we were discussing was the 2019 proposed amendments to the state constitution. The existing constitution provides for equal protection on the bases of race, color, creed, or religion. The amendments would add “ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, or “sex including pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression” (emphasis added) to the list of protected categories. The Senate passed these amendments in 2019, but the bill has stalled since then.
The concern of WHRC USA is solely with the proposed definition of sex to include “gender identity or expression.” Sex is grounded in material fact. “Gender identity” (whatever it means) has nothing to do with whether a human being is female or male.
This is what I said to open the meeting (read as much as you’d like, but you might want to pay particular attention to the final paragraph, which is really the point of this post):
First, thank you so much for meeting with us today. I would like to start the meeting by providing a general overview of our concerns with the redefinition of sex to include so-called “gender identity” in law and policy.
I sincerely do not think that our nation has seriously grappled with the consequences of redefining sex to include so-called “gender identity,” as this bill would do, as it is currently written.
Sex is grounded in material reality. It is a scientific fact that women are female and men are male. This is true regardless of anyone’s individual identity. It is also true that women have been discriminated against in the law and throughout society for thousands of years globally and for hundreds of years in this country precisely because we are women, not because we claim to “identify as” women.
What so many Americans do not understand is that the recent push to redefine sex to include “gender identity” is a men’s rights movement. What it means, as a practical matter, is that men are being permitted to be housed in women’s prisons in New York and across the country. It means that men are being permitted to reside in domestic violence shelters that are intended for women. Redefining sex to include “gender identity” is nothing other than a complete obliteration of spaces designed for women.
Democrats in positions of leadership either don’t know or don’t care that this is an extremely regressive and anti-woman movement. I say this as a life-long Democrat.
Now, I would like to talk about some ways in which redefining sex to include gender identity will affect society that most people haven’t even thought about yet.
For example, the FBI currently maintains crime statistics through the Uniform Crime Reporting program, or UCR. Table 42 of the UCR breaks down crime statistics by sex. It shows that in 2019, 88 percent of murders, 97 percent of rapes, 84 percent of robberies, 77 percent of aggravated assaults, and 79 percent of burglaries were committed by males. If our society is going to redefine sex to include gender identity, what will happen to our ability to track crime statistics by sex?
Second, according to the Cleveland Clinic, women and men experience different symptoms when they suffer a heart attack; and women do not recover at the same rate as men. This is important information. But it is only possible to collect information like this if health-related data collection is made on the basis of sex. What will happen to our country’s ability to track this kind of information if we redefine sex to include gender identity – again, this is the redefinition that is included in this bill.
I would like to bring your attention to something that has been referred to as The Staniland Question. Helen Staniland is a UK-based feminist who posed the following question on Twitter: “Do you believe that male-sexed people should have the right to undress and shower in a communal changing room with teenage girls?” Subsequently, any time anyone on social media expressed support for redefining sex to include gender identity, she would pose that question. This question makes supporters of gender identity quiver. If the person says yes, it shows that the person really does not care at all about the rights, privacy, and safety of women and girls. If the person says no, the person is forced to confront his or her own support of gender identity ideology entirely. But, as punishment for asking this question, Helen was banned from Twitter, though her account has since been reinstated.
We are also grappling with the very serious problem of what it means to medically “transition” a child. There are over 300 so-called “gender clinics” in the U.S., many of which provide services to minors who are grappling with questions regarding their biological sex. Minor children are literally being referred to these clinics to receive hormones and surgeries that will permanently alter their bodies and minds before they have the ability to consent to these changes. This is a brewing scandal in the U.S. We want to make Senator Hinchey aware of it.
What this all boils down to is that our society has a lot to consider before enacting legislation that would redefine sex to include gender identity in the law, which this bill would do. All Americans deserve answers to these questions about the impact that redefining sex to include gender identity will have on their civil rights, religious freedoms, children’s health and safety, and on a broad array of social issues such as crime statistics and public health.
Before concluding, I would like to say one more thing on a slightly different topic. WHRC USA is a nonpartisan organization. We are Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and Greens. Having said that, the three women meeting with you today are all lifelong Democrats. I can tell you that there are countless rank and file Democrats in this country who are furious with party leadership because of what the party is doing on the topic of so-called “gender identity.” They are leaving in droves. I personally know one woman who lives in Rochester, New York, a life-long Democrat, who changed her party membership to Independent last year. I know a gay man in Vermont and a feminist in Maryland who did the same thing. I know a woman in Colorado, another life-long liberal and staunch defender of abortion rights, who is so angry that she left the Democratic party, registered as a Republican, and got active in her local Republican Women’s group. I know two women who are so angry that in November 2020, they did the unthinkable and voted for Donald Trump for President. These are DEMOCRATS. Democrats are angry because redefining the word sex to include “gender identity,” which this bill would do, is anti-woman, anti-gay, and anti-lesbian. In the U.K., women are also leaving the Labour party in droves. It has been documented that hundreds have left in the past three years. This is for all the same reasons that we are meeting with you today. They are disgusted by Labour’s embrace of “gender identity” ideology, which is sexist, homophobic, and anti-science. Our party leadership ignores us at their peril. I hope you will help us spread our message.
Thank you.
After I spoke, Lauren and Julie both added testimony. Julie included in her remarks the fact that the 300 “gender affirmation” clinics that I referred to have popped up within the past ten years or fewer. Lauren emphasized that the erasure of women, which results inevitably from the redefinition of sex to include “gender identity,” has resulted in the nearly complete destruction of the lesbian community, globally, which had previously thrived. She noted that virtually all public lesbian meeting places, including the last two remaining lesbian bars in Greenwich Village, now welcome males; and that young lesbians, instead of being encouraged to embrace their sexuality, are being told that they are actually men.
The young male staffer was nodding with us all along and taking notes. He didn’t speak, but he seemed to know exactly what we were talking about and appeared to be in complete agreement. The young female staffer seemed to be in the lead. She was a bit less enthusiastic, but open to listening to our concerns. She asked if there was any evidence that any state had done something similar and if there had been any consequences. This left the field wide open for us to talk about California law, the Wi Spa incident, convicted rapists and murderers being housed in women’s prisons across the country, men being given access to domestic violence shelters, the recent federal administrative orders, and a whole host of things that she had never heard of.
It is difficult for those of us fighting the gender wars to understand that there are still countless people out there who have no idea what is happening, but it’s true. I blame the media, but that’s a different story. The lead staffer seemed intrigued and encouraged us to send additional resources. She assured us that the senator would receive everything we sent.
Anyone can do this. If you haven’t, please look at what your state is doing on the topic of “gender identity.” You can easily search for this online. All you have to do is Google “[state] bill gender identity.” This will likely take you down several rabbit holes, but don’t give up. You’ll find it. Find your representatives in the state legislature. Reach out to them and request a meeting. You don’t have to be a lawyer or any kind of professional. You just have to be a concerned resident.
Anyone is welcome to take any portion of my remarks above and use them in your own state, to the extent that you think they are pertinent. Please share the link to the Declaration with all of your elected officials.
We may never get Democratic party leadership to come around. We may never persuade them that the rights, privacy, and safety of women and girls are more important than whoever is paying them to peddle the lie that sex isn’t real. We need to be prepared for that. And, in the meantime, there is plenty of work to do to educate them. If they choose not to come around, that’s on them.
Let’s make sure we can truthfully say that they were warned about what’s coming.
*Please note that the Women’s Human Rights Campaign USA (WHRC-USA) is now officially known as Women’s Declaration International USA (WDI-USA)
Thanks for the talking points. Our state teams need to get back at this again.