Making it all about You

Dec 11th, 2015 12:47 pm | By

Here’s a shining example of the kind of thing that is sundering so many friendships and alliances: Aaron Kappel on why women and feminists are so horrible.

The piece starts with an unpleasant fantasy about peeling off a strip of skin, unpleasant enough that I skipped over most of it.

The fluidity of gender is complicated; it is messy and it is beautiful. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that I cannot say with any real sense of authenticity or certainty that I know who or what I am–not fully. I lived as a cis heterosexual man for the first 22 years of my life. I then lived as a cis homosexual man for another decade. Today I am something much closer to myself.

I identify as non-binary because at this point in my life–as I deconstruct obstructions that have confined my existence thus far–I understand that there is a deeper truth found within that I have yet to unearth.

The important thing is, Kappel is a special snowflake.

Now that I have a deeper understanding of who I am, now that I know I am not male, the rejection of my humanity is visible all around me. Just as my mother did, there are those who insist that because of my body, I cannot be who I am.

And sometimes, those doing the insisting, the hurting, are self-described feminists.

Of course. It’s always the feminists. It’s never the big looming drunk guys in bars, it’s always the feminists. Let’s all sit down and get cozy and have yet another session of Bash the Feminists.

One Friday night earlier this fall, my partner and I were having drinks at a dark, dank dive bar in center city Philadelphia with his brother’s fiancée (let’s call her Kelly) and her best friend. I was ambivalent going into the planned happy hour–something we do together every few months–in part because it would be the first time I’ve seen them since I’ve been living as non-binary. Happy hour quickly turned into many hours.

Several pitchers in, I returned from the restroom to find that pronouns were being discussed. My partner had just finished telling Kelly that because I am non-binary, I use gender-neutral pronouns, they/them.

Notice something missing? There’s nothing about Kelly’s feminism. There’s nothing to suggest that she is a feminist, apart from the fact that this story follows Kappel’s mention of feminists.

As I sat down, Kelly decided to bombard me with questions about, and alternatives to, how I identify. At one point she, in all seriousness, suggested using “it” as a pronoun instead.

“No,” I stated sternly.

“I’m only asking to understand,” she replied.

“I am not an it!”

Maybe that is why my body shook and my breath lost its rhythm; my eyes flooded, then evaporated, and my skin lost all its moisture.

It’s sad about Kappel’s eyes evaporating. The part about the skin though – couldn’t that be from the many hours in the dark dank dive bar and the several pitchers of beer? Alcohol is dehydrating.

Maybe that is why I had to use one hand to help lift the other hand, and why I fumbled erratically, wrapping my ankles around the legs of the chair so as not to fall off and into the void below–for the entire room fell away. The floor disappeared and there was nothing but an eternal darkness.

All because of feminism! Or, you know, because of being drunk.

Where does feminism fit into my experience? Specifically, where do I fit into feminism? I know that for feminism to be successful and beneficial, it must be intersectional–yet even in alleged intersectional feminism, there is exclusion, erasure, or outright dismissal of people like myself.

Bullshit. Feminism is about women’s rights, so no, it should not “center” people who lived as men for 32 years. Feminism should not be so “intersectional” that it stops being about women’s rights.

I told Kelly that I was not her encyclopedia, that her using me to gain understanding was a problem. She continued to question my humanity, even after I became visibly and audibly upset, while her friend said nothing and permitted the abuse to continue.

I muttered, “This isn’t about you,” and Kelly began crying. In a matter of seconds, she centered herself as the victim.

As I sat between the two women, I clung to my chair, grasping for the support an inanimate object is incapable of providing. Then I rose and walked out into the night, sobbing, panting, shaking my way home.

In other words Kappel had a massive tantrum, and now uses the tantrum as evidence of the harm that Kelly did. That too is bullshit. Kelly may have been very obnoxious or may not have, but Kappel’s panting and shaking – not to mention the evaporated eyes – does not count as evidence that she was.

This is merely one example of what happens when feminists reject intersectionality. That rejection is violence, and people like myself are the recipients of that violence.

When feminists speak about feminism and address their audience by saying he or she as a means to be inclusive, I am excluded. When they speak to or about other feminists and use only female-specific pronouns and descriptors, I am excluded. When women call for equity and inclusion but exclude those who reject the gender binary, we feel the same oppression these women are purportedly contesting. If intersectional feminism does not include trans people of all stripes, then it is not intersectional.

Blah blah blah blah – feminism has to be about me me me me or it is not intersectional. Feminists have to stop talking about women, dammit!

The narcissism and self-absorption and spite are obvious and disgusting. Kappel goes on for many more paragraphs explaining why feminism should be all about Kappel and how very special Kappel is. It’s as painful to read as tearing off a strip of skin would be.



Two women took the stand wearing handcuffs and orange scrubs

Dec 11th, 2015 11:00 am | By

In Oklahoma City:

A former Oklahoma City police officer was convicted Thursday of 18 of the 36 counts he faced, including four counts of first-degree rape, related to accusations that he victimized 13 women on his police beat in a minority, low-income neighborhood.

Daniel Holtzclaw, 29, sobbed as the verdict was read aloud. He could spend the rest of his life in prison based on the jury’s recommendations, which include a 30-year sentence on each of the first-degree rape counts. Among the other charges he was convicted of were forcible oral sodomy, sexual battery and second-degree rape.

The allegations against Holtzclaw brought new attention to the problem of sexual misconduct committed by law enforcement officers, something police chiefs have studied for years.

During a monthlong trial, jurors heard from 13 women who said Holtzclaw sexually victimized them. Most of them said Holtzclaw stopped them while out on patrol, searched them for outstanding warrants or checked to see if they were carrying drug paraphernalia, then forced himself on them.

It’s one of those jobs, like being a priest, that give you access to victims and a veneer of authority.

Surprisingly, for once, the jury believed the victims.

[D]espite the number of victims, the case presented prosecutors with several challenges.

Many of the women had arrest records or histories of drug abuse. Most hailed from the same neighborhoods in the shadow of the state Capitol. Two women took the stand wearing handcuffs and orange scrubs because they had recently been jailed on drug charges. Another woman admitted on the stand to slipping out of her motel room the night before and procuring marijuana and the hallucinogen PCP.

Holtzclaw’s attorney, Scott Adams, made those issues a cornerstone of his defense strategy. Adams questioned several women at length about whether they were high when they allegedly encountered Holtzclaw. He also pointed out that most did not come forward until police identified them as possible victims after launching their investigation.

Ultimately, that approach did not sway the jury to dismiss the women’s stories.

All of the women are black. Holtzclaw is half-white, half-Japanese. The jury appeared to all be white, though Oklahoma court officials said they did not have race information for jurors. Some supporters of the women questioned whether the jury would fairly judge their allegations.

And yet he was convicted.

 



Acceptance of diversity

Dec 11th, 2015 10:37 am | By

Hooray for tolerance and acceptance and general friendliness, right? Including for parents who don’t vaccinate their children, including when you are a parent with children in the same school, right?

It’s right according to the principal of Brunswick North West Primary in Melbourne, Trevor Bowen. Slate quotes from his message to parents:

We expect all community members to act respectfully and with tolerance when interacting with other parents and carers who may have a differing opinion to their own. This includes an opposing understanding about child immunisation.

People from both sides of the discussion have expressed their thoughts in terms of the wellbeing and ongoing health of the children they care so much for. This is most admirable. I ask all community members to interact respectfully at all times and with a sense of tolerance and acceptance of diversity.

That’s a mindless thing to say. It’s a little like saying that all “community members” should “interact respectfully at all times and with a sense of tolerance and acceptance of diversity” with parents who let their children bring large sharp heavy knives to school and carry them around all day.

That school is dealing with an outbreak of chicken pox. The Age reports:

One in four of the children who attend a Brunswick school that calls for tolerance for vaccine dodgers has contracted chickenpox.

At least 80 of the 320 pupils at Brunswick North West Primary in Melbourne’s north have become ill with the disease in the past fortnight.

The school has a lower immunisation rate than the state and national averages.

In the May newsletter, the school’s principal Trevor Bowen said 73.2 per cent of students were immunised, compared with 92 per cent within the local postcode.

But they’re a friendly tolerant community, so it’s totally worth it.



She’s now living with an adoptive family

Dec 11th, 2015 8:41 am | By

The Independent has a heartwarming story about a little girl in Toronto.

A Canadian transgender father left behind a wife and seven children to begin a new life as a six-year-old girl.

Stefonknee (pronounced ‘Stephanie’) Wolschtt, 46, had been married for 23 years when she realised she was transgender.

She’s now living with an adoptive family, and says she does not “want to be an adult right now”.

She realized she was transgender and six years old? How? How does an adult age 46 realize she is six years old? What’s that like? What does it mean? How does it work? Six year old girls, for instance, don’t have seven children, so doesn’t having seven children interfere with realizing one is six years old?

“I can’t deny I was married. I can’t deny I have children. But I’ve moved forward now and I’ve gone back to being a child,” she said in a video series by The Transgender Project, published by Daily Xtra.

She’s moved forward. So where have her children moved to?

Feeling rejected by her family, Ms Wolschtt left and now lives with her adoptive family, who she says are “totally comfortable with me being a little girl”.

She explains how her new parents’ youngest granddaughter wanted a little sister and decided Ms Wolschtt should be younger than her.

“We have a great time. We colour, we do kid’s stuff,” she says.

“It’s called play therapy. No medication, no suicide thoughts. And I just get to play.”

Maybe the granddaughter will realize she’s a 46-year-old man.

In an earlier part of the series, Ms Wolschtt spoke of how she became suicidal and was hospitalised a month after taking part in the first Toronto transgender march in 2009.

After she was discharged, her wife accused her of harassment and assault, and pressed charges against her to achieve a restraining order.

But she’s not at all a danger to that granddaughter she plays with because…reasons.

The Independent left some stuff out of this story.



Delivering the letter

Dec 10th, 2015 5:39 pm | By

Via IKWRO on Twitter, those dedicated campaigners:

Embedded image permalink



Parallel legal systems must not be allowed to exist

Dec 10th, 2015 5:31 pm | By

The press release on the One Law For All event today:

On Thursday 10 December 2015, Southall Black Sisters (SBS), One Law for All, Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation (IKWRO), Centre for Secular Space and British Muslims for Secular Democracy will attend 10 Downing Street to hand deliver a letter signed by nearly 400 individuals and organisations urging David Cameron to hold an inquiry into the discriminatory nature of Sharia ‘courts’ and other religious arbitration forums.

These women’s and human rights organisations also led successful campaigns preventing public authorities such as the governing body of UK Universities (UUK) and the Law Society from incorporating aspects of Sharia laws into their public policies. With regards the question of parallel legal systems, they argue that in these times of draconian austerity measures and cuts to legal aid, these unaccountable, arbitrary and religious ‘courts’ presided over by fundamentalist religious forces are increasingly filling the vacuum that is created. They dispense a second rate system of justice that denies vulnerable women and children access to equality and human rights.

Campaigners are calling on the government to exclude Sharia and all other religious forums, including the Jewish Beth Din from presiding over divorce and family matters; to reinstate legal aid; to stop the repeal of the Human Rights Act and to re-affirm the principle of the separation of religion and the law. The law is a key component of securing justice for citizens and one law for all.

Pragna Patel of SBS says:

“Discriminatory religious codes are very much a part and parcel of the continuum of domestic and gender based violence and other abuses that BME women face in their daily lives since they reinforce discrimination, deny exit and prevent women from accessing justice or from asserting their right to equality…For these reasons and more, parallel legal systems must not be allowed to exist.”

Maryam Namazie of One Law for All says:

“Dismantling religious courts isn’t a denial of people’s right to religion, it’s a defence of human rights, and particularly women’s rights vis-a-vis the religious-Rightwing and their attempts at restricting women’s rights in the family. By allowing religious courts to operate, we are saying that Muslim or Jewish women do not have the same rights as others in this country. This is unacceptable.”

Gita Sahgal of Centre for Secular Space says:

“Sharia Councils drag women into living out a fundamentalist vision of Islam. They do this by promoting ‘Islamic law’ as higher than the law of the land and by marketing divorce as a solution for a problem they have created. It is a disgrace that they are tolerated by the authorities and allowed to become charities. All parallel legal systems are discriminatory and undermine women’s rights under the law. It is time that they are dealt with.”

Diana Nammi of IKRWO says:

“The whole premise of religious ‘courts’ is discrimination to women, they represent a major barrier to women’s rights and not only do they deny women justice, they also distance women from the mainstream court system and safety measures, such as civil protection orders, which can have dire consequences. Given that religious ‘courts’ are community based and often mediate, there are dangerous implications including locking women within violent marriages and “honour” based violence. The government must prioritise women’s safety by ensuring access to mainstream justice and preventing the proliferation and deepening entrenchment of these parallel legal systems.”

Nasreen Rehman of British Muslims for Secular Democracy says:

“Government, Parliament and the courts have a duty to protect the rights and prevent the exploitation of the most vulnerable members of society. But all too often we find they abrogate this responsibility by condoning parallel systems of justice that promote cruel and discriminatory practices perpetuated by obscurantists and fanatics in many faith communities – often, falsely pleading divine sanction as a smokescreen for cruelty. The only way to ensure equality and justice is to stand together for clarity and ‘one law for all.’ This does not mean that we do not accept religious, cultural and ethnic diversity; rather we raise our voices against injustices perpetuated in the guise of faith and culture.”

For more information, contact:

Pragna Patel
Southall Black Sisters
pragna@southallblacksisters.co.uk
020 8571 9595
@SBSisters

Maryam Namazie
One Law for All
maryamnamazie@gmail.com
077 1916 6731
@MaryamNamazie



He only ever imagines doing awful, authoritarian things

Dec 10th, 2015 1:22 pm | By

I guess Donald Trump is to the Right what George Galloway is to the Left. Galloway considers himself on the Left in some sense, but I (along with of course many others), despite being on the Left, consider him a terrible person. So it apparently is with Peter Suderman, a senior editor at Reason magazine, when it comes to Trump. His article is elegantly titled Donald Trump Is a Bad Person.

His declaration yesterday that he would close the United States to all Muslim immigrants, including tourists and Muslim American citizens abroad trying to return home, confirmed both his fascistic tendencies and his undisguised bigotry, and made something else clear in the process: that he is simply a bad person.

As much as anything, this is the undercurrent that runs throughout the stories that have defined Trump since the beginning of his campaign: He mocked Vietnam POW John McCain for being captured during the war; he lobbed sexist jibes at Fox News host Megyn Kelly for daring to confront him about his history of misogyny; he mocked a disabled reporter, then falsely claimed he’d never met the man; he smeared immigrants as rapists; he’s Tweeted snide remarks about the wife of one of his competitors; when the crowd attacked a Black Lives Matter protestor at Trump campaign event last month, Trump sided with the crowd, saying he “should have been roughed up”; he insisted, contrary to all evidence, that thousands of Muslims celebrated the terror attack of 9/11 on camera; he lies constantly, flagrantly, and without shame.

And that all adds up to a bad person – someone who is mean and belligerent and a bully, as well as a liar. I agree that that adds up to a bad person.

And yet he’s very popular. What does that say about the US? Nothing good. Nothing at all good.

That gleeful, unapolagetic incivility is at the root of what makes him a bad person, and also at the root his approach to politics and policy. Most of his proposals, to the limited extent that they can be understood as remotely serious, are insults in policy form.

In addition to last night’s ban on Muslim travel to the U.S., he has called for the forcible government closure of mosques. When asked recently, he said Muslims should be tracked via government database. He promised that as president he would simply deport 11 million immigrants in short order after taking office, an impossible maneuver intended mostly to demonstrate his disdain for immigrants. He does not merely want to deport people who came to United States illegally; he also wants to deport millions of their children. He has repeatedly voiced enthusiastic support for federal seizure of private property through eminent domain, and, as a real estate investor, taken advantage of it himself.

And yet he’s widely liked and admired.

Trump’s penchant for authoritarianism frequently blends with his total lack of interest in the operational details of his policies, as well as the fact that he simply appears to be wildly uninformed about the world.

In a campaign speech last night, for example, Trump not only repeated his declaration that Muslims should not be allowed into the country, he said that the United States might have close to down the Internet in some places in order to stop terrorism.

“We have to see Bill Gates and a lot of different people that really understand what’s happening. We have to talk to them about, maybe in certain areas, closing that internet up in some ways. Somebody will say, ‘Oh freedom of speech, freedom of speech.’ These are foolish people.”

Every bit of this is dumb. It starts dumb, and then gets dumber. It is like a mad lib designed to show how dumb Donald Trump is about tech companies, the Internet, federal power, freedom of speech, and the Constitution, all at once.

And it is dumb in a particular way that helps demonstrate what a bad person he is. It is not just that he says stupid things that demonstrate his ignorance. It is that, in his stupidity and ignorance, he only ever imagines doing awful, authoritarian things, the way a bad person would.

And that, Suderman concludes, is why he’s so popular.

 



Fake blood and bullhorns

Dec 10th, 2015 1:07 pm | By

Mother Jones reports on a brilliant plan for next weekend:

Gun rights activists in Texas are planning to stage a mock mass shooting at the University of Texas this weekend in protest of both gun-free zones and President Barack Obama’s continued calls for tougher gun control legislation.

According to the website Statesman, gun rights supporters will begin the day by marching through Austin with loaded weapons and conclude their walk with a “theatrical performance.”

A spokesman for the two participating gun rights groups, Come and Take It Texas and DontComply.com, told the site the event will involve using fake blood and bullhorns to mimic gunshot noises.

By way of persuading the people of Austin and perhaps the Texas legislature that we desperately need more guns.

“In the wake of yet another gun free zone shooting, Obama is using it to aggressively push his gun confiscation agenda,” a Facebook page for the event read. “Now is the time to stand up, take a walk, speak out against the lies and put an end to the gun free killing zones.”

Because if only there were guns everywhere, there would be no more mass shootings.



The Kat Muscat Fellowship

Dec 10th, 2015 12:43 pm | By

There’s a new Fellowship for young writers in Australia.

The Kat Muscat Fellowship

Express Media is honoured to announce the inaugural Kat Muscat Fellowship to support and develop female-identifying young writers and editors from around Australia.

The annual Kat Muscat Fellowship offers professional development up to the value of $3,000 for an editorial project or work of writing by a young person. The Fellowship aims to continue Kat’s legacy and further develop the future of defiant and empathic young Australian women.

Kat Muscat was a brilliant young mind of the Australian writing community, whose formidable talent was demonstrated through her incisive writing and perceptive editing. Kat was an integral part of Express Media for many years, before becoming Editor of Voiceworks from 2012 to 2014. Throughout her 10 years with Express Media, Kat helped to shape the career of young writers and editors from all around Australia.

Kat’s writing embodied her personal mantra of feminism, empathy and defiance, and the recipient of the Fellowship will take up her notion of challenge: exploring bold subjects, thinking deeply and critically about the world and the culture we consume, and reflecting and building on the craft of writing or editing.

The Kat Muscat Fellowship offers professional development up to the value of $3,000 for an editorial project or work of writing by a young person. The work must respond to the above values and provocation, continuing Kat’s legacy and further developing the future of defiant and empathic young Australian women.

Eligibility Requirements

To be eligible, applicants must:

    • Be female identifying: including trans women, genderqueer women, and non-binary people
    • Be aged 16 to 30 at the commencement of the fellowship
    • Be an Australian citizen or permanent resident of Australia

Good luck, all you female identifying applicants.



There are no unicorns, and women don’t talk more than men

Dec 10th, 2015 12:05 pm | By

The linguist Deborah Cameron dissects the damaging allure of neuroscience for non-scientists who write books about female and male brains.

For every scientist doing her best to communicate the complexity of contemporary brain research, there are a hundred non-scientists—self-help gurus, life-coaches, marketing consultants—churning out what has been labelled ‘neurobollocks’, a species of discourse that purports to be scientific, but is actually, in the words of one article on the subject, ‘self-help books dressed up in a lab coat’.

You can picture them on the shelves at Barnes & Noble or Waterstones, in the Men Are From Mars section.

The language connection explains why over the years I have felt obliged to read such classics of neurosexism as Why Men Don’t Iron, which proclaimed on its cover in 1999 that ‘men’s brains are built for action and women’s for talking: men do, women communicate’; and The Female Brain, a bestseller in 2006, whose author was so convinced that women’s brains are built for talking, she reproduced the invented statistic that men on average utter 7000 words a day whereas women on average utter 20,000.  (As I explained in an earlier post, real research shows that women don’t talk more than men: where there’s a difference, it usually goes in the other direction.)

Anecdotally, I’ve never noticed men being shy about dominating conversations.

At the end of last month, the mainstream media were full of headlines like ‘Scans prove there’s no such thing as a “male” or “female” brain’ and ‘Men are from Mars, women are from Venus? New brain study says not’.

What occasioned these headlines was a research study which looked at a large number of structural features on MRI scans of over 1400 people’s brains, and found that only a small minority of those brains displayed consistently ‘male’ or ‘female’ characteristics. The majority were a mixture: they showed some of the characteristics previous research has associated more with male than female subjects, and some of the characteristics that previous research has associated more with female than male subjects. The conclusion the researchers drew was that if you examine the brain as a whole, there aren’t two distinct types that could sensibly be described as ‘male’ and ‘female’.

So will the people who write the “women gossip and men do math” books stop writing those books? Cameron doubts they will.

Maybe they should, but I very much doubt they will, because this is not the kind of popular science that’s written for laypeople with an interest in science. As the article quoted earlier observes, it’s more like self-help in a lab coat. Rather than starting from current debates in neuroscience, writers begin with familiar gender stereotypes (things like ‘men don’t listen’ and ‘women talk all the time’), and then cherry-pick a few studies whose results appear to support the argument they want to make (that these behaviours are ‘hard-wired’ in the brain).

Readers who buy books with titles like Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps are not looking for a nuanced, scientific discussion of sex and gender. They’re looking for a story that confirms their beliefs about how men and women are different, and reassures them that men and women will always be different no matter how much feminists shout and scream. It’s not about the science, it’s about the politics.

Men and women will always always be different. Some women will have male bodies, and some men will have female bodies, but that’s just a surface phenomenon that doesn’t mean anything. The real Woman and Man is inside the head, in the brain, choosing either the pink frilly skirt or the black tailored trousers. That’s that sorted.

Every generation of scientific sexists disclaims the errors and biases of its predecessors and assures us that today’s science is different. Yet in one fundamental respect it isn’t different at all: contemporary scientists may be offering a new explanation for sex-differences, but the differences they’re trying to explain are the same old collection of stereotypes and myths. Occasionally one of these does fade into obsolescence (no one today suggests that education shrivels the ovaries); but many are in the category of ‘zombie facts’ which have been around forever (sometimes they’re older than science itself), have never been supported by good evidence, and still refuse to die.

The belief that women are the ‘more verbal’ sex is a case in point. Every time I encounter yet another discussion of what neuroscience might have to tell us about this (and such discussions appear in the scholarly literature as well as the popular bollocks), I feel as if I’m reading an account of how unicorns evolved. How compelling I find the explanation is beside the point: there are no unicorns, and women don’t talk more than men.

Well ok maybe women don’t talk more than men…but women certainly are way more irritating than men when they talk, which if you think about it is kind of the same thing. That’s science.

That’s why I’m cautious about hailing the ‘no such thing as a male/female brain’ study as a great leap forward, politically as well as scientifically. I do think the findings of the study are interesting, and I’m glad to see research evidence casting doubt on the idea of brain-sex. But I don’t think that gets to the root of the problem. The beliefs that are most damaging to women are not beliefs about the brain as such, they’re beliefs about sex-specific abilities and behaviour (like ‘women are no good at maths’ or ‘men can’t express their feelings’) which at the moment are often justified by appealing to supposed facts about the brain. Those beliefs may be reinforced by ‘the seductive allure of neuroscience explanations’, but they existed long before those explanations became available, and they could survive if those explanations were discredited.

No matter how much feminists shout and scream.



1642

Dec 10th, 2015 11:03 am | By

And now for something completely different from Saudi Arabia – the Independent reporting that they did indeed lie about the numbers of people who were killed in the crush at Mina during the hajj. Only a little – only by a factor of 3.

A stampede during the hajj in Saudi Arabia killed three times the number of people acknowledged by the Kingdom, according to the Associated Press.

A new count reveals at least 2,411 people died during the crush at Mina on 24 September, despite the official Saudi toll of 769 deaths not changing since 26 September.

That’s only 1642 people not reported. That’s only Saudi officialdom treating the pointless deaths of ONE THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED FORTY TWO people as not worth mentioning. That’s only the Saudi state trying to hide the fact that its combination of religious fanaticism and indifference to safety caused 1642 people to be crushed to death by a press of human bodies.

Iran was the most affected by the disaster, with 464 Iranian pilgrims killed. Mali lost 35 people, Nigeria lost 274 and 109 Egyptians were killed, according to the AP count.

Bangladesh, Indonesia, India, Cameroon and Pakistan all lost over 100 pilgrims, while many other countries across the globe where affected.

Well, you know. They’re foreign. They’re Shi’a. They’re African. They don’t matter the way Saudi people matter.

Tell me about the ummah again?

Saudi Arabia has spent billions on crowd control and safety measures for those attending the annual five-day pilgrimage, which is required of all able-bodied Muslims once in their lifetime, however the vast number of people taking part in the pilgrimage makes ensuring safety difficult.

What does the Indy mean “required”? Required by what or whom? It’s a “requirement” internal to Islam, and one that is clearly both onerous and dangerous. Secular news outlets shouldn’t refer to it as “required” in that casual way.

Saudi Arabia is all about what is “required” by Islam, and Saudi Arabia is a terrible place. The two facts are not unconnected.



At 10 Downing Street

Dec 10th, 2015 8:56 am | By

A note from Maryam:

Delivered letter today to 10 Downing Street calling for end to parallel legal systems with one law for all, southall black sisters, Iranian Kurdish women’s rights organisation, centre for secular space and British Muslims for secular democracy.

 



A deserted and isolated area

Dec 10th, 2015 8:54 am | By

A very worrying alert from Ensaf Haidar:

TOP URGENT: Saudi Prison administration transferred Raif Badawi to a new isolated prison and Raif started a hunger strike since Tuesday

The prison administration transferred today my husband Raif Badawi to a new isolated prison called Prison Shabbat Central, located in a deserted and isolated area – around 87 KM from Jeddah City.

This prison is designed for prisoners whose verdict has been confirmed with a final Adjudication. The Saudi government has repeatedly declared that Raif’s case is under review and is yet to be decided by the Supreme Court.

We express our surprise at this decision especially after the Swiss Secretary of Foreign Affairs Yves Rossier announcement on 28 November that a royal pardon is in the works. And we are very alarmed at the prison administration decision to transfer my husband to the Shabbat Central and fear it may lead to the resumption of his flogging.

As a result of this decision, Raif started in Tuesday a hunger trike and we hold the prison administration responsible for any harm that Raif may suffer.

We take this opportunity to call on his Majesty King Salman to act on his promises and pardon my husband, end his and his family’s ordeal and unite him with his wife and children.



A searing conflict

Dec 9th, 2015 5:07 pm | By

More on the Michelle Goldberg article.

Cohn estimates that there are about 20 gender-critical trans bloggers, though their Internet presences tend to wax and wane; some who were active just a few months ago have pulled back, while others have just begun. Among the most prominent are Snowflake Especial and Gender Minefield, as well as Gender Apostates, a group blog run by both trans and cisgender women. Like many other trans people, the trans writers behind these blogs have experienced a searing conflict between their physiognomy and their self-conceptions. Like the broader trans rights movement, they believe in fighting violence and discrimination against trans people. But they reject the idea that biological sex is mutable, though sex organs obviously are. They see a difference between living as a woman and being one. Perhaps most of all, they object to the strain of online trans activism that seeks to erase sex distinctions through language alone—for example, by designating the penis a female organ, or by removing the word “woman” from reproductive rights activism.

There are good reasons for objecting to that. Women are still an oppressed class, as women, so removing the word that names them from discussions of rights they are denied is a very bad idea.

Highwater, for one, struggles to reconcile her convictions about gender with her desire not to hurt other trans women. “What I think a lot of trans people hear, if you suggest that trans women aren’t women, is, ‘Stop kidding yourself, you’re just a man, go back to living as a man,’ ” Highwater says. “That’s not what this means. The fact that I hold these views doesn’t mean that I think that trans women aren’t valid. It doesn’t mean that I don’t think they don’t have a right to live their lives the way they live their lives.”

So what does it mean? “I lived 40 years trying to live as a bloke,” Highwater says. “I’ve not experienced the things women have experienced. I’ve not been brought up that way. So why on earth would I want to claim that I’m a woman as much as any other woman? To me, it no longer makes any sense. What seems to be a much more honest approach is: ‘I am an adult human male who has suffered with a level of sex dysphoria for whatever reason for decades, and have now got to the point where I’ve had to make a social transition.’ ”

And they’re different things. The experience of trying to live as a bloke when you don’t feel like one is different from the experience of being brought up as a woman. Both have their issues; why mash them together?

Given the salvation she found in transitioning and the discrimination she faced afterward, Hart’s impatience with the mainstream trans rights movement might seem strange. To understand it, it’s necessary to understand how the meaning of the word transgender has expanded in recent years. There was a time when transitioning necessarily implied hormones and surgery, with doctors deciding who would be allowed access to them. The Harry Benjamin Standards of Care, the first official protocols for the treatment of what were then called transsexuals, were published in 1979; they required people who wanted surgery to first live in their new gender for at least a year and to produce two letters from medical professionals. Those wishing to transition also couldn’t be heterosexual according to their birth sex; anatomical males who were attracted to women—and who therefore would become lesbians—were ineligible.

The new generation of trans activists utterly rejects this model. To them, being trans is fully a matter of self-definition. Surgery is far from required; according to theHuman Rights Campaign, only 33 percent of trans people have it.

To a degree, Hart thinks the broadened definition is a good thing. “I don’t support Harry Benjamin saying you must be a heterosexual feminine-presenting woman in order to be truly trans,” she says. But as she and other gender-critical trans women see it, the reaction has gone too far, turning the words man and woman into floating signifiers that designate nothing but states of mind, and erecting a new set of taboos to enforce their ideology. As Hart puts it: “You can’t identify your way out of your body. Genderism is a myth that suggests that’s possible.”

If man and woman are just floating signifiers that designate nothing but states of mind then why wouldn’t all women simply identify as men, thus ending the hierarchy that subordinates women once and for all?

[G]ender-critical trans women clearly feel like they’re struggling against an ideological tide. A 28-year-old trans woman in Ohio with a gender-critical Tumblr—she asked me not to name it, lest it draw unwelcome attention to her—says she sees parallels between contemporary trans activism and her Christian fundamentalist upbringing. “It’s just this sense that there are certain things that are unquestionable, and you can’t even talk about them,” she says. “I guess a lot of belief systems have things that operate in that way, but there are just so many for trans activism and for fundamentalist Christians.”

There definitely are things that are unquestionable and that you’re not permitted to talk about them. If you do talk about them, sirens go off and everyone for miles around rushes to publish a statement disavowing what you said and hoping you burn in hell.

Like Highwater, Cohn thinks that premise sets trans people up for failure. “I think it’s very damaging,” she says. “The women we see in our lives—that’s the standard we’re trying to match. And that’s not possible. There’s always going to be dissonance, because we’re not women.”

The mainstream trans rights movement’s answer to this feeling of dissonance is to expand the boundaries of what woman means. “You can be whatever kind of woman you want to be,” Boylan says. “But what I don’t want is to take anything away from someone else, and I don’t want anyone else to take anything away from me. If your thing is saying that a transgender woman who has been through transition is not a real woman but some other kind of woman with an asterisk, then you are taking my womanhood away from me.”

I still wonder, though, why that reasoning doesn’t apply to other kinds of identity. People don’t get to identify their way to being Japanese or Colombian, black or white, tall or short, deaf or hearing, a runner or a swimmer. Some you can’t become, some you have to put in a lot of work to become; in no case is just identifying enough. Why is gender alone being treated as so easily reversed?



Making more sense

Dec 9th, 2015 11:53 am | By

Michelle Goldberg has written an article about heretical trans women – you know, the ones who don’t buy the ever-shifting but always-binding Current Dogma of how one is allowed to understand and talk about gender.

Last month, a 42-year-old English accountant who goes by the pseudonym Helen Highwater wrote a blog post disputing the idea that trans women are women. Helen is trans herself; in the last few years, she says, she has taken all the steps the U.K.’s National Health Service requires before it authorizes gender reassignment surgery, which she plans to have in 2016. Yet she has come to reject the idea that she is truly female or that she ever will be. Though “trans women are women” has become a trans rights rallying cry, Highwater writes, it primes trans women for failure, disappointment, and cognitive dissonance. She calls it a “vicious lie.”

“It’s a lie that sets us up to be triggered every time we are called he, or ‘guys’ or somebody dares to suggest that we have male biology,” she writes. “Even a cursory glance from a stranger can cut to our very core. The very foundations of our self-worth are fragile.”

From the perspective of the contemporary trans rights movement, this is close to blasphemy. Most progressives now take it for granted that gender is a matter of identity, not biology, and that refusing to recognize a person’s gender identity is an outrageous offense.

Hm. That’s not the best wording. The dichotomy isn’t identity / biology, but identity / socially mandated hierarchy (which is mandated according to sex).

At any rate – Highwater bought that version for a long time, and found it a lifeline out of self-loathing.

This year, however, Highwater joined Twitter, where she began to follow the furious battles between trans rights activists and those feminists derisively known as TERFs, or trans exclusionary radical feminists. The radical feminists—who, to be clear, don’t represent all feminists who think of themselves as radical—fundamentally disagree with trans activists on what being a woman means. To the mainstream trans rights movement, womanhood (or manhood) is a matter of self-perception; to radical feminists, it’s a material condition. Radical feminists believe women are a subordinate social class, oppressed due to their biology, and that there’s nothing innate about femininity.

Can we think it’s both? I don’t think I would claim that self-perception has nothing to do with it at all. I think the self-perception is largely created by the way the rest of the world treats the self, which means I’m bad at imagining what it’s like to have a self-perception that’s the opposite of what the world thinks it sees…but I don’t think the self-perception is non-existent.

At first, Highwater felt incensed by these radical feminists. But she also wanted to understand them, and so she began to engage with them online. She discovered “people who had a pretty good grasp of gender as an artificial social construct—the expectations of what females are supposed to be, the expectations of what males are supposed to be, and how much of that is socialized,” she says. “What I started to find is that the women I was talking to actually made so much more sense than the trans people I was talking to.”

Yes, I had that same problem. I would say I had the same experience, but having the experience turned out to be a problem. It’s not a problem for me; I find the explorations very interesting. But it made me a Problematic Person in the eyes of some very hypervigilant thought-cops.

To be gender-critical is to doubt the belief, which its critics call “genderism,” that gender is some sort of irreducible essence, wholly distinct from biological sex or socialization. Gender-critical trans women have different theories about why they were driven to transition, but in general, they don’t think they were actually women all along. (There appear to be few if any gender critical trans men, though there are gender-critical lesbians who once identified as male before reassuming a female identity.)

Gender-critical trans women are a uniquely despised group: They experience the discrimination all trans people are subject to as well as the loathing of the trans rights movement and its allies.

They have a lot of high-quality friends too though. See above – “What I started to find is that the women I was talking to actually made so much more sense than the trans people I was talking to.” Being loathed by people who don’t think very well is less painful than being loathed by people who think better.

More later.



Pause the execution

Dec 9th, 2015 11:02 am | By

The case of the Sri Lankan woman who was scheduled to be stoned to death in Saudi Arabia for “adultery” is going to be reviewed. That’s good news. Let’s hope they “review” the case so thoroughly that they decide to send her home instead of torturing her to death.

Harsha de Silva, the deputy foreign minister [of Sri Lanka], told parliament on Tuesday that an appeals court in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital, has decided to hear the case again following pleas by Sri Lanka’s foreign ministry.

The 45-year-old woman, who is married with two children, was working as a maid in Saudi Arabia. She was sentenced to death in August. The unmarried Sri Lankan man convicted alongside her was sentenced to 100 lashes. The foreign ministry has not revealed their identities.

Sri Lanka’s foreign minister, Mangala Samaraweera, met an official from the Saudi embassy in Colombo last week and expressed Sri Lanka’s concerns about the case. Samaraweera has also requested to speak to Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister to seek clemency for the woman.

While they’re at it, they might consider adopting a more humane and reasonable and rights-respecting system of laws.

 



Reform

Dec 8th, 2015 5:25 pm | By

The NSS reports:

A coalition of Muslim writers, activists and politicians has launched a “Muslim Reform Movement” rejecting violence and calling for a defence of secularism, democracy and liberty.

The reformers have issued a Declaration defending gender equality, freedom of speech and freedom of religion, stating that they are for “secular governance” and “against political movements in the name of religion.”

They have called for the separation of “mosque and state” and emphatically reject the “idea of the Islamic state”.

Activists from the group stuck their Declaration of Reform on to the front door of the Islamic Centre of Washington, a mosque the movement described as “heavily influenced by the government of Saudi Arabia”.

The preamble to the Declaration states: “We are Muslims who live in the 21st century. We stand for a respectful, merciful and inclusive interpretation of Islam. We are in a battle for the soul of Islam, and an Islamic renewal must defeat the ideology of Islamism, or politicized Islam, which seeks to create Islamic states, as well as an Islamic caliphate.

The signatories add that they “support the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by United Nations member states in 1948.”

That’s key. Islamists don’t support the UDHR. The Cairo Declaration is an alternative DHR that makes all the rights subject to compliance with Sharia. If a stated right doesn’t comply with Sharia, out it goes.

Rejecting violence, the preamble goes on: “Facing the threat of terrorism, intolerance, and social injustice in the name of Islam, we have reflected on how we can transform our communities based on three principles: peace, human rights and secular governance. We are announcing today the formation of an international initiative: the Muslim Reform Movement.”

The founders of the group include Muslims and public figures from Canada, the UK and the United States, including Usama Hasan of the UK-based Quilliam Foundation.

The organisers are now calling for support from “fellow Muslims and neighbours”.

The Declaration says the movement stands for “universal peace, love and compassion” and rejects “violent jihad”.

“We stand for the protection of all people of all faiths and non-faith who seek freedom from dictatorships, theocracies and Islamist extremists.”

They reject blasphemy laws and sexism.

“Every individual has the right to publicly express criticism of Islam. Ideas do not have rights. Human beings have rights. We reject blasphemy laws. They are a cover for the restriction of freedom of speech and religion. We affirm every individual’s right to participate equally in ijtihad, or critical thinking, and we seek a revival of ijtihad.”

Farahnaz Ispahani, a former Pakistani politician and signatory of the Declaration, said: “If Muslim minorities in non-Muslim countries are to be protected, we must demand the protection of non-Muslims within Muslim-majority countries.”

The Declaration also singles out gender equality and the protection of women’s rights, stating: “We support equal rights for women, including equal rights to inheritance, witness, work, mobility, personal law, education, and employment. Men and women have equal rights in mosques, boards, leadership and all spheres of society. We reject sexism and misogyny.”

Good luck to them!



In light of recent allegations

Dec 8th, 2015 5:06 pm | By

The president of the Goldsmiths ISOC has resigned, because too many people had saved his homophobic tweets and were giving him grief about them.

Goldsmiths Islamic Society (ISOC) President Muhammed Patel has resigned from his position after a motion of no confidence.

The society released a statement via its Facebook page today and although the group did not say what allegations were attributed to Patel that led to his resignation, it is believed that the President published a series of homophobic messages via his Twitter account, which has recently been deleted.

The committee have elected an interim leader who has yet to be named. Patel declined to comment when approached by The Leopard but an ISOC member assured The Leopard that Patel would be publishing an apology this evening.

Oh yes? Where is it then? It’s one in the morning there now, so evening is long gone.

Let’s look at that Facebook statement:

Goldsmiths Islamic Society Statement:

In light of recent allegations attributed to, Muhammed Patel, a meeting was called to discuss a motion of no confidence. Soon after Muhammad tendered his resignation and it was accepted by the committee.

In the interim, the committee will appoint an acting president to serve for the remainder of the academic year.

The committee would like to extend gratitude to all societies on campus specifically the FemSoc and LGBTQ societies’ for their continued support in the face of inaccurate assertions, threats and Islamophobic messages. Hate speech of any kind has no place in our society.

Goldsmiths Islamic Society

But of course Maryam didn’t engage in any hate speech. It’s kind of hate speech-like to say she did.

And notice that they don’t say what the allegations were. Brave heroes.



When is it appropriation and when is it identity?

Dec 8th, 2015 4:10 pm | By

Another resolution from the NUS Women Conference:

Motion 512: Dear White Gay Men: Stop Appropriating Black Women

Conference Believes:

1. The appropriation of Black women by white gay men is prevalent within the LGBT scene and community.
2. This may be manifested in the emulation of the mannerisms, language (particularly AAVE- African American Vernacular English) and phrases that can be attributed to Black women. White gay men may often assert that they are “strong black women” or have an “inner black woman”.
3. White gay men are the dominant demographic within the LGBT community, and they benefit from both white privilege and male privilege.
4. The appropriation of Black women by white gay men has been written about extensively. This quote is taken from Sierra Mannie’s TIME piece entitled: “Dear white gays, stop stealing Black Female culture”:

“You are not a black woman, and you do not get to claim either blackness or womanhood. There is a clear line between appreciation and appropriation. I need some of you to cut it the hell out. Maybe, for some of you, it’s a presumed mutual appreciation for Beyoncé and weaves that has you thinking that I’m going to be amused by you approaching me in your best “Shanequa from around the way” voice. I don’t know. What I do know is that I don’t care how well you can quote Madea, who told you that your booty was getting bigger than hers, how cute you think it is to call yourself a strong black woman, who taught you to twerk, how funny you think it is to call yourself Quita or Keisha or for which black male you’ve been bottoming — you are not a black woman, and you do not get to claim either blackness or womanhood. It is not yours. It is not for you.”

I’m sure you see the problem before I point it out. Isn’t that…trans-exclusionary? To tell men they’re not women, and that they don’t get to claim womanhood? Isn’t it trans-exclusionary to tell anyone that, because if people identify as women then they are women? Isn’t Sierra Mannie doing a very wrong thing by saying that? Aren’t women absolutely forbidden to say that anyone is not a woman? That’s certainly the impression I’ve been getting.

Conference Further Believes:

1. This type of appropriation is unacceptable and must be addressed.
2. Low numbers of Black LGBT women delegates attend NUS LGBT conference. This can be attributed to many factors, one of which may be the prevalent appropriation by white gay men, which may mean that delegates do not feel comfortable or safe attending conference.

But there again – isn’t it trans-exclusionary to call it “appropriation” when men pretend to be identify as women?

Conference Resolves:

1. To work to eradicate the appropriation of black women by white gay men.
2. To work in conjunction with NUS LGBT campaign to raise awareness of the issue, to call it out as unacceptable behaviour and, where appropriate, to educate those who perpetuate this behaviour.

How do they know the white gay men aren’t women? How do they know?



Shrinking the secular space

Dec 8th, 2015 12:53 pm | By

The filmmaker Jennifer Hall Lee asks why British women are being called “Islamophobes.”

“We are in the ISIS era.”

Houzan [Mahmoud], a Kurdish woman who is a representative of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq, made that proclamation at the recent Feminism in London conference. She was on a panel of four feminists called, “Unlikely Allies: Religious Fundamentalism and the British State,” that focused on the connection between Islamic fundamentalism and British law.

I attended this panel to hear Maryam Namazie, an Iranian Muslim-born woman who lives in London and is a spokesperson for One Law for All, a group that opposes Sharia law in Britain. I was unprepared for the bluntness of the talk about ISIS and the extreme pressure progressive feminists are putting on these women to be silent and to curb their critique of what they see as an untenable situation for Muslim women there.

When Mahmoud said that “We need to reclaim the left and feminism,” and that it is a “historical task and necessity,” the audience erupted into applause. Clearly this is an important topic of discussion in the UK.

But why would these women on this panel feel the need to reclaim feminism? Because they are branded as Islamaphobes by progressives and feminists in the UK for their criticisms of Sharia councils and Islam.

“Progressives” like the LGBTQ+ Society at Goldsmiths; “feminists” like the Feminist Society at Goldsmiths.

I’m fascinated with the new dynamic that’s being creating between what were once opposing groups – feminists and fundamentalists. But now some feminists are aligning with fundamentalism? I believe the use of the word “Islamophobe” is being used as a tool to shut down critical thought about male-dominated religions and the negative impact they have on women. As Namazie said, “Progressives no longer believe in self-expression, they believe in self censorship.”

So what does this all mean for me? I am Catholic and have long been a critic of the Catholic Church. Catholicism is rife with sexism. I consider it a male-dominated religion that preserves the top power spots for men. Moreover, the gown-wearing priests, who boldly opine on women’s roles in society and private lives, are just a religious variation on ‘mansplaining.’

To deny women the opportunity to be priests is discrimination. My right to say so does not make me a Catholic-phobe.

And “Islamophobe” isn’t parallel to “Catholic-phobe” anyway; it would have to be “Muslim-phobe” to be that.

Mahmoud says of the word Islamaphobia, “I think this in itself is racist.” She compared the well-worn history of progressives and feminists who have criticized religion as part of their feminist analysis of patriarchy. As a woman with a Muslim background she claims the same right. Yet these same leftists do not support her right to reject religion, as they would probably support mine.

She refers to these progressives as “white people [who] can ridicule, criticize and break away from Christianity.” She saw discrimination in the way liberals use Islamaphobia to shut down protestors because they are “people from a Muslim origin [who] reject their religion and all forms of religiosity.”

[Gita Sahgal] said, “Multi-culturalism and multi-faithism shrinks secular space.” In other words, by seeing society as just a collection of homogenous groups of people identified by religion we deny their individuality as citizens.

We also give short shrift to all the other ways people can “identify,” in other words all the other things that matter to people.

We are living in a strange time of shifting allegiances, demands for censorship and pleas for safe space. And feminists, when they align with the male religions who attempt to shut down the anti-religion feminists, shrink the secular space.

In fact, a dramatic moment at the panel discussion crystalized the debate when towards the end of the presentation, as audience members were asking questions of these brave feminists, a white woman stood up and criticized them. She labeled them Islamaphobes and then abruptly left the room, clearly not willing to engage in further discussion.

Mahmoud says in general of her critics, “Their criticism will not silence us, because we have a just cause, we own it, we know more about it and we continue to expose all religions for their hypocrisy and women hating.”

When feminist allies turn their backs on secular feminists in favor of allegiances with male-dominated religious groups, we are indeed living in the ISIS Era.

 

But we are also resisting.