Union to women: get out
So women don’t get to have unions any more.
What an absolutely disgusting way to treat workers who have the bad taste to be women.
First there’s the stupid lie that the LGB Alliance “attempts to marginalise trans and gender-diverse people.” No it doesn’t! Saying men are not women is not an attempt to marginalize men. It’s simply the truth that men are not women. If anyone is marginalizing anyone it’s men who claim to be women – they are in many ways pushing women even more to the margins.
Then there’s the stupid lie that it’s a “phobia” to know the difference between women and men.
Then there’s the grotesque anti-solidarity of saying most women are not welcome in a union movement.
Then there’s the brain-dead repetition of the big lie. Trans men are not men; trans women are not women. Unions should not be in the business of ordering workers to lie about such a basic fact, let alone barring them from membership if they refuse.
It is also, and I think primarily, an attack on the right of homosexual people of both sexes to organise separately and campaign to defend our own rights and interests – which are not the same as those claimed by trans people, nor even always compatible with them. The rights of lesbians, in particular, come under assault when heterosexual males who present with a trans identity call themselves lesbians and demand that lesbian women ‘validate’ their fantasy.
” … not welcome in a union movement that seeks to support and lift up all workers.”
“All workers”? Really? All except women, you mean. That’s a pretty big segment of workers to ignore (and actively harm) in the name of workers’ rights. “Transphobia” is another word for “misogyny.”
Most unions have an absolutely horrific history of misogyny at the day-to-day level, regardless of their high-minded platforms of equality – almost inevitable in organizations that prioritize principles like seniority and employment rights. Work in a management-side law firm, and you will come across any number of horror stories, unions fighting tooth and nail, filing grievances to prevent the dismissal of men with seniority for trivialities such as sexual harassment, or even sexual assault. Little thought given to the woman on the other side of the complaint, of course, but fortunately, very often she isn’t a member anyway. When it comes time for layoffs, it is jobs for ‘the boys’, and the young women trying to break into the field are first out the door as a matter of union principle.
So privileging the 52-year old man’s views is not new, it is only his lovely frock that is…
Note also the reification of pink=women blue=men. They don’t even realise the sexism of their own messaging.
And what does any of this have to do with “Equality?” I think it’s being used as a happy-clappy, feel-good, We’re the Good Guys word, like “Inclusion.” Who is being made equal to what or whom? Equal in what regard? “Equal” is different from “Identical.” Trans identified males aren’t interested in “equality” but in special privileges and dominance. They demand to be centered, celebrated, and elevated, to be (going full Orwell here) “more equal than others.” Similarly, their idea of “inclusion” is more like intrusion, appropriation, and colonization.
And of course, the trouble is, that any single one, or small group of women negatively affected by this policy would be shot down immediately, fired, made persona non grata. Unfortunate. If only there were some way, some form of organising, of solidarity between a group experiencing the same thing?