Call me old-fashioned, but when your "Liberation"-based organization finds itself in bed and cozily spooning with a "right-wing, anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-trans Christian" group that would gladly have you arrested and stuffed in re-education camps if they ever got the chance ---- you'd think that would cause you to question your political stance somewhat. Perhaps. You know, a little bit. I mean, just from a rationalist perspective.

Maybe, you know, ^not^ file a purely voluntary amicus brief in favor of the freedom-haters' side would be a good way to stay true to your concept of "liberation", as opposed to helping those who readily work for (your) subjugation. Just a thought.

Herzog suuuuuuuucks

Only tangentially related... but funeral homes are a massive scam

@2: No she doesn't. It's a good article with lots to think about.
@3: Well, you suggesting kitchen cremation kits or human composting in the back yard?

There’s nothing surprising about this at all, or even strange. It’s a common trope amongst some radical feminists to cast gay men as people that hate women.

I’ve caught this line of shit myself, in the discussion pages of this very newspaper. Recently, when suggesting that #metoo could provoke a backlash amongst hiring authorities who don’t want to risk digital vigilantism, the most immediate reply I drew was someone who suggested that I must be a gay man who hates women, and then went on to compare me to Mike Pence. Apparently, the respondent missed the irony of claiming to be woke while at the same time using the accusation of being a gay man as the worst thing that could be said about Pence, and at the same time felt the need to employ this old trope rather than to address the statement I had made on its own merits.

The one positive thing about these attacks is, it illustrates why the two issues-sexual orientation and gender identity- which on the surface seem so incongruous are in fact part of the greater whole.

Arthur Lovejoy wrote a book called The Great Chain of Being, which is an epistemology of the hierarchy that is assigned to living things, the idea that there are some forms of life that are higher or superior to others. Within human society, we assign roles within a smaller hierarchy, one where heterosexual men are placed above heterosexual women. It is seen as somewhat more acceptable to transgress this hierarchy only if one is moving up, rather than down, the ladder. A woman who takes on the role of a man is understandable; she aspires to power, to climb the ladder upward. Thus, we see many countries where lesbianism is legal and where male homosexuality carries a death penalty, or where trans men are invisible but trans women are hunted down and murdered. If you are a man who openly loves a man, one of you is assumed to take on the role of a woman by heterosexuals who presume their model of relationships is what everyone else copies. This is also why straight people assume every gay man is into anal sex and has only one exclusive role in that act, either top or bottom. It is why straight men are afraid of gay men, as they fear we will attempt to remove their social status by placing them in the female role, especially in terms of anal sex. The loss of status is the injury they fear, the abrogation of the role enjoyed at the top of the top of the ladder. It’s also seen as violence directed at the hierarchy itself, anarchy and disruption of the social order.

Trans women are seen as an even more pronounced expression of this. However, they (and we) are not merely targets by those at the top of the hierarchy, but also by those who occupy the lower rung of that gender hierarchy. Those whose whole lives have been defined by the hierarchical order, either as privileged enjoyers of status or those who have spent their lives critiquing that status, are threatened most by s/he who stands at the ladder’s base swinging an axe at the ladder itself. After all, once the ladder is gone, what will the brave rebel have to rebel against?

The hierarchy exists only because we collectively declare it to exist. There are no higher or lower forms of life. All species are equally successful if they avoid extinction. A bacterium in fact can be said to be, if anything, more successful than we, as the bacteria will certainly survive an apocalypse such as a nuclear war or global warming; the fragile we, however, will not. Likewise, there is no superiority or inferiority assigned on the basis of gender by Mother Nature. Most pre-agricultural societies are and were matriarchal, and more modern societies themselves have placed women in leadership at times when the need arose and doe rather well. America during the 1940’s would have died out as a society without Rosie the Riveter, and the Russian Revolution of 1917 was led in part by a brigade of armed women on the battlefield during the storming of the Winter Palace. Boudicca and Joan of Arc filled leadership roles better than their male counterparts, and Today’s most successful Chief Executives are often female.

The question I have for you is this: are you ready to let go of the ladder, to kick it away at long last and do away with a social order that exists only because we collectively believe in it?

Once we do, we can get rid of homophobia, sexism, transphobia, toxic masculinity and the subjugation of women in one fell swoop, one swing of the axe aimed at the ladder’s base.

@5 You left out the greatest woman leader of the 20th century, Margaret Thatcher.

@1, you're right, we women are too dumb to know what's good for us.

@5: As usual, tl;dr. Please find a point and make it - or just apply for the job you covet as a Stranger reporter.

8,

That’s not actually my goal at all. I’m not interested in a career in journalism or writing.

@5 - Solid points all.
Considering the American Hypochristian tenacity in holding on to that ladder, one that D. Turnip exploited so readily, I counter that it may take more than one axe swing to destroy it. But I don't really know how these things work, and things are highly unpredictable right now.

In other, my vote is with Tardigrades as the most successful organism (multicellular). They should be at the top of the ladder!

It may be interesting to note that a similar alliance between radical feminists and Talibangelicals -- in this case, regarding pornography -- helped the Talibangelicals overthrow the US government and create the country of Gilead in A Handmaid's Tale.

Gender critical people and rad fems are going after WoLF as well. Their argument is bunk. Price Waterhouse covers employment protections for gender non-conforming people. Gender identity falls under "sex stereotypes" in the Price Waterhouse case (1998). Most of those whom you calls "TERFS" DO NOT side with WoLF and wants Stephens to win.