STOP COMPARING FEMALE SEX-BASED RIGHTS TO RACISM

There is a common argument around trans-inclusive policy supporters who assert that women who protest a transwoman in our bathroom or rape shelter is no different than white women who excluded women of colour before bathroom segregation ended in the USA in the 1960's. This argument is bogus for a few reasons, including the fact that it dismisses the seriousness of what people of colour went through under the institution of racism that oppressed them.

1). Black women never posed a safety risk to white women.

There are no statistics on black women attacking white women in their private spaces, raping them, robbing them, hitting them or otherwise. Sadly, we have lots of documented cases of male and trans violence against women in bathrooms and rape shelters. While white women had zero basis for excluding black women, all women have safety reasons for excluding transwomen and men from our private spaces.

2). Transwomen have never been truly segregated.

As people who are born male, transwomen have always had the right to use the mens room. They were always permitted to compete in mens sports. The fact that they were not permitted in female rape shelters had everything to do with their biology, and the fact that many female rape survivors report that it is impossible to feel safe or to heal in a vulnerable space where strange males are present.

3). Transwomen demand validation regardless of the cost to women.

Transwomen could lobby Pedro Pascal, Daniel Radcliff, Rupert Grint, Boy George and Stephen Fry to build shelters specifically for transwomen. Unfortunately, every time someone mentions the establishment of rights for transwomen, they vocalize a need for women to validate their experiences by allowing them into all of our sex-based rights. They don't care that we have been groped, molested, raped, beaten and traumatized by the male population. When women have triggers, we are racist bigots and terfs, but when transwomen have triggers, they are fragile women who need safety in women's spaces. They don't care that their advocacy is misogynist by design. They actually command women to call transwomen real women, and when we refuse, they compare us to the racists who excluded women of colour prior to the 1960's. There is no comparison between a black woman who faced intense racism and oppression for being part of a group that had never caused harm to white women, and a man who calls himself a woman then commands women to agree with him, to make space for him, to put her needs behind his needs, and to accommodate him even when she has been very vocal about her discomfort around her personal safety.

4). Black women never threatened white women with violence for excluding them.

Had black women uttered death threats about decapitating, burning, punching or choking white women because of bathroom exclusion, segregation policies would never have been lifted. When transwomen utter death threats against any woman who denies him access to a female space or sex-based rigth, the so-called progressives applaud them. It is shameful that my fellow left-of-centre friends cannot see this, because the misogyny runs so deep. To compare an entitled transwoman who screams about TERFS to a disenfranchised black woman who never uttered threats and did not belong to a group that was known for violence, is abominable and racist.

5). Black women never had the option of self-identifying out of their oppression

Black women could not escape their oppression by opting out of their race, as transwomen can do when they insist they are actually women. Rachel Dolezal found out just how angry one woman could make the world when she decided to identify as a minority class, despite being born, raised and socialized as a privileged white woman. She was shunned by society for claiming to be part of an oppressed class. Transwomen, on the other hand, are applauded for being stunning and brave when they step into an oppressed class such as womanhood. Rachel Dolezal and transwomen have far more in common with one another than transwomen and black women. Black women never had the privilege of self-identifying as white in order to escape what put them at risk every single day. Transwomen opt to present themselves as an oppressed group, then scream bigotry when that oppressed group expresses displeasures and a refusal to accept them. We understand why black people didn't accept a white woman adopting black identity. The same rules should apply to transwomen, when they adopt the identity of an oppressed sex class. They have zero experience with girlhood or womanhood, yet they expect female rape survivors to accommodate their male fragility as though they are more vulnerable than women. When white people can claim to be more oppressed than the black community, I might change my mind and agree that men are more oppressed than women - but so far, I haven't found evidence of this being true in any culture around the world.

5). Segregated black women and poor white women have more in common with one another, than either has with a transwoman.

The so-called progressive women who champion trans rights and invite them into female rape shelters will never actually need to access those rape shelters. Most of them are university educated and earn a high enough wage that were they to ever face violence in their home, they could escape to a hotel with a private room and private bathroom. These are the women who so eagerly denounce female rape survivors who have experienced co-ed rape shelters where they were unable to sleep and felt triggered and traumatized by the presence of male-bodied people. If you put a black woman and a poor white woman together in a rape shelter with Tyler Porter, guaranteed they will have much more in common with one another, than with the inappropriate transwoman who claims to be the biggest victim.

CONCLUSION

While transwomen face incredible violence by men, there is no comparison between transwomen and the plight of a black woman who endured segregation before 1964. To assert such a claim is dismissive to the multi-faceted oppression experienced by women of colour, which in of itself is racist and entitled. The fact that transwomen demand women to accommodate them due to male-based violence is an unjust burden on women. To TERF shame women and compare them to racists because of a problem that is generated by men, is sexist and abusive.

Transwomen need to start advocating for their safety by calling out men. When women marched in the streets during the "Take Back the Night" protests, they were taking on men. When women protested for their right to vote, they were taking on male policy makers. When black women protested segregation, they were mostly protesting against male policy makers, though it certainly isn't lost of modern feminists that white women did little to advocate for black women. This atrocious fact should not be forgotten, but nor should women's resistance to male abuses that are rampant and have affected all women around the world, for thousands of years.

Violence is a male problem that must be solved by men. Women cannot be expected to continue to carry men and their fragility any longer. To expect us to accommodate men in our identity is offensive, but to call us racists for resisting men and demanding consent is the height of manipulation and misogyny. Transwomen must establish their own rights, separate from women's rights. The disparities between privileved white women and marginalized black women are proof that women already have enough healing work to do between us without the extra burden and emotional labor of mens entitled demands.