Category: Transgender ideology

Who are the Men Who Oppose Women’s Equality?

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Well, the list is quite long indeed. There are the unabashed women haters of the Manosphere, the Broligarchs, the corporate moguls, the tech billionaires, the pornography pushers, the pimps, the johns, the sex traffickers, the Evangelicals, the Catholic church, the Christian Nationalists, the Dominionists, the fundamentalists and male supremacists of every variety of patriarchal religion, the incels, rapists, pedophiles, and lest we forget, the trans-identified fetishists and autogynephiles, sex addicts, and sadists.

All across the political spectrum, women are commodified, vilified, debased, silenced, dehumanized, and sentenced to second-class citizenship and would be rendered handmaidens of the Right, transmaidens of the Left if these men had their way. Women’s agency, bodily sovereignty, freedom, and autonomy are restricted on the one hand, and exploited on the other, but denigrated and dismissed by both. From the bedroom to the boardroom, women are treated as nothing more than objects to be manipulated and used. The tyranny of the ruling sex class of men, however they ‘identify’, reveals itself not only in the handling of the Epstein files and case, but in the staggering statistics:

  • Over 4 women a week were murdered in California in 2020; now there are 4 women a day being murdered in the U.S.
  • Over 298.000 rapes of women were reported in the U.S. in 2020
  • Spousal abuse of women is estimated at 4.8 million every year
  • Approximately 1 million women are stalked annually in the U.S.
  • Over 78% of sexual harassment charges were filed by women between 2018-2021
  • 7 in 10 human trafficking victims are women and girls
  • Over 500,000 cases of female genital mutilation have occurred or are at risk of occurring in the U.S.
  • Abortion rights and birth control are increasingly under attack, risking women’s health and lives
  • “Women in every state report injustice in their family law cases, especially battered mothers trying to protect their children from abusive fathers who aggressively litigate against them, using family court to stalk, harass, punish, and impoverish their former partners and children” according to NOW
  • Child marriage is still prevalent in the U.S., 87% of victims of which are girls
  • Women still earn around 82 cents to every dollar men earn
  • Single women and mothers with children are the two fastest-growing groups of people experiencing homelessness in the United States
  • Sexual assault victims are overwhelmingly female and their assailants are male
  • Women and girls’ safe spaces are being invaded by trans-identified males, including prisons where female prisoners are being assaulted and raped
  • Women and girls’ achievements, opportunities, endorsements, scholarships, and trophies are being stolen by mediocre male athletes – over 600 individuals in 29 different sports have been affected
  • Girls are the fastest growing group to be medicalized, sterilized, and mutilated by sex-rejecting “gender affirming care”

See:

Women Count USA

Domestic Violence Abuse Rates

Violence Against Women Statistics

Human Trafficking in the USA

FGM Statistics

Crisis in Family Courts

Child Marriage

Gender Pay Gap

Women and Homelessness

UN Report on Effect of Trans-identified Males in Female Sports

How the Debate Over Men in Women’s Sports Both Obscured and Advanced Sport Science

The Female Category – WHAM (Women’s Hockey Assoc. of Minnesota)

California transgender convict pulled from female prison for alleged rape

DOC employee reports men are claiming to be women to transfer prisons

USA: Almost 50% of Trans Inmates in Federal Custody for Sex Offences

https://washingtonstand.com/news/pornhubs-year-in-review-sextrafficking-abuse-and-age-verification

No platforming and Silencing of Women in Academia

Special Report on Trans Youth

Irreversible Damage

If you’re wondering why the system enables this abuse and exploitation, and why there is little to no accountability, read this:

If We Win, This Changes Everything

And join us on March 24th, 2026 2:00 pm to listen to oral arguments on the Equal Means Equal vs. Donald J. Trump case scheduled to be heard before Judge William G Young in the Boston Division of the US District Court of Massachusetts.  At that time, the Court will hear arguments on the Trump Administration’s Motion to Dismiss in the matter of Equal Means Equal, et al v Trump, et al.

For those unable to attend in person, please register at this link, for that date. Registration will open two days prior to the hearing.

https://forms.mad.uscourts.gov/courtlist.html

FIST Endorses HR 1015 and SB 1147

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Feminists in Struggle has voted to endorse two bills in the U.S. Congress: HR 1015, the Prison Rape Prevention Act of 2025, and S1147, the Defining Male and Female Act of 2025. Both of these bills, though brought by Republicans, Congresswoman Nancy Mace and Senator Roger Marshall respectively, conform to FIST’s principles of working to preserve separate spaces for women, and ending the conflation of gender ‘identity’ and sex.

Female prisoners are suffering greatly in states run by Democrats, like California, Washington, and Illinois, which have allowed male inmates, many of whom are sex offenders, to self-ID their way into the women’s prisons. These men are raping, impregnating, and brutalizing the women, and it is the women who are the ones being disciplined if they lodge complaints. This outrageous injustice must end.

We ask anyone who cares about the rights of women and who acknowledges the scientific, material reality of sex to urge their representatives to support both HR 1015 and S 1147. We cannot allow the cruel and unusual punishment of women in our jails or the pernicious sex denialism of gender ideology to continue to rob women and girls of their identity as an immutable sex class. Femaleness is not a costume. It is a biological, unchangeable fact.

For more information, see Keep Prisons Single Sex and Kara Dansky’s The Abolition of Sex.

THOUGHTS ABOUT THE SKRMETTI DECISION

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By Ann Menasche

This piece is the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Feminists in Struggle as an organization.

Radical feminists, parents and many others holding a range of political views, welcomed the Supreme Court decision in U.S. v. Skrmetti issued on June 11th upholding the constitutionality of a Tennessee law banning the practice of so-called “gender affirming care” for minors under 18.  Many were anxious to put a stop to this medical experiment on a vulnerable group of children and teens, mostly girls, who are gender non-conforming, autistic, and/or survivors of trauma, a majority of whom, if provided appropriate support, would be likely to grow up lesbian or gay with their bodies and fertility intact.

The decision moved the struggle to the states against this sexist and homophobic practice (based on the idea that some people are born “wrong” and need “fixing” so their bodies “align” with sex stereotypes).  Already, 26 states have passed restrictions or bans on use by minors of puberty blockers, cross sex hormones, and cosmetic surgeries for “sex change” and more such laws are now likely.  This is good news especially for these “trans kids” whose bodies are being experimented on and permanently harmed.

But like all victories issued under this right-wing court, some of the reasoning in the decision may be a bit of a two-edged sword that could be used against women’s rights in the future.

The majority decision by Justice Roberts held that Tennessee’s law was not subject to heightened (“intermediate”) scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment because it did not classify based on sex.  Neither did the law classify based transgender status but merely regulates a medical procedure, removing one set of diagnosis – gender dysphoria or incongruence – from a range of treatable conditions.  Such classifications based on age or medical use are subject only to rational basis review.  This is easily passed here.  The Court points to medical and scientific uncertainty and the reviews and restrictions on use of these treatments on minors coming out of the UK, Sweden, Norway, and other countries.  Justice Roberts also distinguishes Bostock; and further points out that Tennessee law has nothing to do with sex stereotyping or restrictions on clothing, behavior etc. All good news.

However, the Court majority relies on and reinforces some very bad law – that discrimination based on pregnancy or pregnancy-related conditions, including bans on abortion do not constitute sex discrimination because not all women are pregnant, even though only women can get pregnant or seek abortions.  “Thus, although only transgender individuals seek treatment for gender dysphoria, gender identity disorder and gender incongruence – just as only biological women can be become pregnant – there is a ‘lack of identity’ between transgender status and the excluded medical diagnosis.”  Therefore, even were the ERA recognized as part of the Constitution and sex treated as a suspect class subject to strict scrutiny, abortion bans or other discriminatory treatment based on pregnancy could not be successfully challenged as sex discrimination with the current Supreme Court majority.

The concurring opinions are noteworthy.  Justice Thomas’ description of the horror of what “gender affirming care” actually consists of in practice is quite good; as is Justice Barrett’s review of why the transgender population does not share “the obvious, immutable or distinguishing characteristics of a discrete group” to be a suspect class, like sex or race.  Rather, the transgender population is “large, diverse, and amorphous.” and lacks a history of de jure discrimination that women and people of color have faced. The dissent points to bans on cross-dressing and sodomy laws as proof of de jure discrimination against transgender persons; however, in my view, those laws target gays and cross-dressers, and do not specifically target individuals with transgender identities or who medicalize to hide or deny their sex.

Justice Sotomayor’s dissenting opinion argues that discrimination based on transgender status is a sex-based classification, and that the Tennessee law is discriminatory.  She believes that hormones and surgeries are “a matter of life or death”; she also implies that it is possible to switch puberties.  Justice Kagan, while also calling for heightened scrutiny, to her credit, takes no view on how the Tennessee law would fare under such scrutiny.

Finally, not one Justice thinks sex discrimination claims under Equal Protection should be subjected to strict scrutiny.  Of course, there is no mention of the ERA.  Though sex is deemed immutable, because of the existence of biological sex differences that society “celebrates”, the Court unanimously rejects strict scrutiny for “sex” that is accorded race discrimination.  The entire Court is therefore committed to maintaining women’s second-class status.

SPECIAL FORUM JUNE 28th ON THE UK SUPREME COURT VICTORY UPHOLDING SEX-BASED RIGHTS

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TICKETS ARE  ON SALE NOW for the Saturday June 28th FIST forum entitled WHEN SEX MEANS SEX: THE UK SUPREME COURT DECISION ON SINGLE SEX SPACES. The forum features SALLY WAINWRIGHT, the architect of the lesbian intervention in the For Women Scotland case that resulted in a Supreme Court ruling that women-only spaces and programs are protected under the UK’s Equality Act.  Forum begins at 12:30 p.m. Pacific time/3:30 Eastern. 

GET TICKETS:

Many feminists around the globe have celebrated the victory in the UK Supreme Court in the For Women Scotland case that ruled that sex means sex, and that single sex spaces for lesbians and women as a whole are protected under the UK’s Equality Act.

We are excited about presenting a first hand account of how this struggle unfolded, and an analysis of the UK decision, and beginning a discussion of how this decision impacts women in the UK, and internationally. How can we create similar victories here in the United States?

SPEAKERS:

SALLY WAINWRIGHT was the architect of the lesbian intervention in the For Women Scotland case in the UK Supreme Court, which determined that sex is biological – at least for the purposes of the Equality Act. She is a lesbian activist, co-founder of Lesbian Persistence, and a serial creator of women’s spaces. Sally co-edited Women’s Rights, Gender Wrongs: the global impact of gender-identity ideology, and contributed a chapter to The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht, discussing the attempt by transactivists to shut down the Audacious Women Festival which she founded.

ANN MENASCHE is a co-founder and co-coordinator of Feminists in Struggle, and a lesbian feminist and socialist who has worked for decades to create and defend women only and lesbian only spaces, programs and organizations in the U.S.

THIS IS A WOMEN-ONLY EVENT.

AS ALL FIST EVENTS IT IS INTERACTIVE WITH PLENTY OF TIME FOR QUESTIONS AND DISCUSSION.ZOOM LINK WILL BE PROVIDED TO ALL REGISTRANTS BY EMAIL.

 

ON DARKNESS, BETRAYAL, AND THE POWER OF SISTERHOOD

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By Ann Menasche

This piece contains the opinions of the author and does not necessarily represent the collective views of Feminists in Struggle.

Many spiritual and religious traditions celebrate the dark, cold time of the year – winter solstice – by lighting candles, stoking a fire, and gathering close with loved ones.  We do so to help us survive this dark time and to remind us that after darkness comes the light.

The sadness for me this year is palpable.  We lost our beloved dog, Jaz, on December 9th.  And I can’t forget the state of the world that haunts me and disturbs my sleep: the relentless slaughter of the women and children in Gaza; the women in Afghanistan prisoners in their homes, denied work or study.  And closer to home, my homeless neighbors including a growing number of women – virtually all survivors of male violence -subsist crammed into government-sanctioned rat-infested camps, tents three feet apart, with no way to stay warm or dry.

And the state of our rights as women in the U.S. is abysmal.  Over 100 years after Alice Paul introduced the Equal Rights Amendment into the Constitution, we are still considered second class citizens, as first Trump, then Biden refused to register the duly ratified Amendment into the Constitution. This weakens our ability to fight to regain reproductive rights, to end violence against women, and to achieve equal pay and opportunity in the workplace for women. Meanwhile, trans activists are attempting to erase our sex class from existence in law and public policy so it will be impossible to name, measure, or remedy ongoing sexism.

Is it any wonder that so many young girls are attempting to “identify” out of their womanhood?

Then there is the bitterness of betrayal. Over the last several months, FIST joined with Equal Means Equal and became part of a broad coalition of organizations demanding that the Biden administration instruct the archivist to publish the ERA.  We recently learned that behind our backs, leaders of mainstream feminist organizations such as NOW and the Feminist Majority, supposed feminists and ERA supporters, were urging Biden not to publish the ERA.

How do we explain this treachery?  Is it their loyalty to the corporate dominated Democratic Party that while using women’s rights as a campaign slogan to win votes and donations, never had women’s best interests at heart?  Or do they really believe that the best way to fight for our rights is to be “ladylike” and polite, to not rock the boat?

I’m with Frederick Douglass who said in 1857, “Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation are people who want crops without ploughing the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning, the want the ocean without the roar of its many waters…Power concedes nothing without a demand.  It never did and it never will.”

I learned a lesson in courage and tenacity watching my sick dog with her back legs failing her, forcing herself up again and again and walking through the house, and up and down stairs.  No matter how many times she fell, she persisted, until she could no longer move at all.

Building movements takes that level of persistence, along with a recognition that when women unite, collectively we have the power to bring in the light, to change everything.  We have that power regardless of who is in the White House.

Like the women in Iran who against incredible odds, led (and will continue to lead) their people in a movement against theocracy proclaiming, “Women, Life, Freedom.”

Like our foremothers, the suffragists.  Women like Alice Paul and the Women’s Party that declared their independence from the patriarchy and its two political parties and were relentless in carrying out their struggle.

It took 100 years to win the vote, but we were not defeated.

 

 

 

 

 

Trump’s Threat to Women’s Rights & the ERA

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The Equal Rights Amendment MUST Be Published Before Trump Takes Office!

In view of recent election results and, despite denials, the clear intention of the Trump Administration to implement Project 2025, which reads as a male supremacist manifesto, it is imperative that Biden reverse his obstructionism and instruct the National Archivist, Colleen Shogun, to publish the Equal Rights Amendment as the 28th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution.  The ERA has met all the legal requirements, having been ratified by ¾ of the states, the 38th of which, Virginia, ratified on January 27, 2020.  Women have been waiting for over a century for the ERA to first be passed by Congress, and then be ratified by the required number of states.

The National Archivist is a ministerial position under the Executive Branch, and Biden is the only person who can reverse the decision by the Trump Administration to unconstitutionally interfere with its automatic publication following ratification by the requisite states, and reverse his own administration’s continuation of the Trump obstructionism.  The ERA represents our best, and only, real bulwark against the tide of male supremacism Trump promises to deliver.

We acknowledge that biological women, as a sex class, have enemies on the Left and on the Right. The embrace and promotion of gender ideology on the Left and its erasure of women has been breathtaking, despite its utter lack of scientific evidence; its having been founded on junk science; its clear misogyny and homophobia in its exaltation of sexual stereotypes; its disregard for the safeguarding of children and legitimate concerns of parents; the willful blindness to the real harms of medicalization, and the corporate pharmaceutical money behind it; the pain of detransitioners and regretters; and total disregard of the infringement on the sex-based rights and safety of women and girls.

In addition, the cancel culture, McCarthyist repression of free speech and de-platforming of anyone questioning gender ideology and so-called “gender affirming care”, has exposed the authoritarian nature of this men’s rights movement, which has captured the Left, with rare exception.

Among other issues such as Gaza, the border, the disastrous handling of the exit from Afghanistan, concerns about the price of living, etc., the Biden Administration’s elevating the rights of trans-identified males over the rights of women and girls and the promotion of gender ideology was one of the reasons that the Presidential Democratic ticket lost the election to Trump.

In following the dictates of the TQ+ gender lobby, the Biden/Harris Administration and the Harris/Walz campaign ceded rational ground to the other enemies of women’s rights, the Christian nationalists and their MAGA allies, men’s rights activists, and other garden variety misogynists, who nevertheless know what a woman is and that there are only two sexes, observable at birth. Their adherence to this ideology contributed directly to Trump’s appeal and ultimate win, as this is an issue he plans to confront, some long-time Democrats even voting for him because they hope for some relative sanity to be restored in this regard.

The men’s rights activists insist that women are inferior, should cater to men, be subservient, and allow themselves to be sexually exploited. Some young incels and “bros” have been emboldened by Trump’s win to the extent that they are now exultantly proclaiming “Your body, MY choice!” in defiance of the abortion rights battle cry and women’s right to bodily autonomy and agency and in their zeal to dominate and control women’s lives and bodies.

The Christian Right, the other enemy of women’s sex-based rights, has embraced Trump as their champion and tirelessly devoted itself to his campaign, and has been greatly empowered by Trump’s win and takeover of Congress and the Supreme Court. It would like to not only turn women into handmaidens, but outlaw and criminalize abortion and also birth control, attempt to grant fetuses “personhood”, track women’s pregnancies and penalize miscarriages, do away with no-fault divorce, treat rapists with kid gloves and accuse victims of “false reporting”, end investigation of campus rape, penalize unmarried women, and generally return women to 1950’s America. The Christian Nationalists also take a very dim view of our federal government and welcome Trump’s plan to dismantle it.  The truth is, it aims to destroy our representative democracy, do away with the separation of church and state, and transform this country into a theocratic dictatorship. If you think this is an overstatement, please view the recently released documentary, “Bad Faith”, and prior to that, “The Family“. This is the enemy that will be in ascendance with Trump in power.

We call on all women and men who oppose tyranny and the destruction of the rights of natal women and girls to help us get the ERA finally published onto the Constitution in order to protect us from the twin threats of gender ideology and the religious right.  We have allies in Congress who have signed onto the resolutions, SJR 39 in the Senate, and HJR 82 in the House, which recognize that the only remaining step for the ERA to become law is publication, and that it is up to Joe Biden to finally take this step to ensure that all the hard-won rights women have fought for, including voting rights, abortion rights, contraception, equal pay, no-fault divorce, owning property, obtaining credit in one’s own name, safe spaces, sports, etc. are not rolled back. The ERA would ensure that women cease to be treated as second-class citizens before the law, and would have prevented Roe being overturned.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, the sponsor of SJR 39, is hosting a virtual Town Hall on the ERA on this coming Tuesday, December 3rd at 4 PM PDT, 7 PM EST and we need supporters of the ERA to register now and attend! We also need you to call these Senators and U.S. Representatives and direct them to apply pressure to Biden to publish and text Biden at 302-404-0880 and Harris at 310-861-2977.

The time is NOW!  We cannot let the efforts of our First Wave Feminist forebears like Alice Paul’s efforts to be in vain.  Sign up for the Town Hall and start calling and writing these representatives and the White House, remind them on social media, and don’t stop until Biden makes the call to the National Archivist and gets the ERA in the Constitution!

LESBIAN DEVIL: A BOOK REVIEW

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By Ann Menasche

“Lesbian Devil to Straight Man Saint: a trip through trans hell and back” by Scott Newgent (2024)

Lesbian Devil is a gripping, no-holds-barred, finely crafted page turner that exposes the significant role of homophobia in “transing away the lesbian.” It chronicles Scott Nugent/Kellie King’s life including the myriad influences that conspired to convince a 42-year-old lesbian, successful career woman, and mother that she was born in the “wrong” body and needed to pursue medical transition.  After ingesting cross sex hormones and obtaining multiple drastic surgeries, Kellie emerged with a male appearance – though still a woman – and with her health severely compromised by constant pain and frequent life-threatening infections.  Tellingly, the acceptance and self-acceptance that she sought in a sexist and homophobic world through medical transition continued to elude her.

Kellie also emerged soon afterwards with a profound commitment to save gender non-conforming and lesbian/gay children and teens from a similar fate.

Kellie was a spirited and athletic child who grew into a woman who excelled in business, obtaining an executive position in sales.  Like many other women, including many lesbians, Kellie’s outspoken and competitive personality did not conform to the narrow sexist stereotypes of “femininity”, and she often felt it would have been easier being a man.  Yet, she dressed the part of a professional woman, wore make-up and heels, and did not appear “butch.”  This did not stop the first gender counselor she met with, a trans-identified male, from asking her, “how long have you been dressing as a man, Kellie?”

Though Kellie was not unloved as a child, she experienced significant trauma.  Her father was physically abusive, and her mother struggled with addiction.  As a teen, she was raped. A few years later, Kellie attempted suicide. But to the gender industry, this was irrelevant. All the counselors and doctors Kellie spoke to about transitioning “affirmed” her, led her down the conveyor belt of medical transition without ever asking any questions about her mental health history or even why she wanted to transition.

“Each medical professional I came across guaranteed a utopian paradise on the other side of the transition. I wanted finally to be accepted, loved and seen as straight in this fantasy land.”

The most compelling promise for Kellie was that once transitioned she would escape the stigma of being a lesbian. When Kellie first came out as a lesbian, her grandfather, the greatest source of emotional support in her life, her “guiding light” as she called him, disowned her for being a lesbian.   This was a major blow.

Then some years later, Kelli fell passionately in love with a co-worker, Jacqueline. Jacqueline came from a close knit religious Catholic family and was in a loveless marriage to a man.  What followed was a tumultuous on again, off again relationship where Jacqueline went back and forth with her abusive husband as she struggled to accept herself, and by extension, Kellie, as a lesbian.  Needless to say, Jacqueline’s parents did not accept Kellie and encouraged their daughter to return to her husband.

As Kellie explained, “The vitriol that Jacqueline’s family directed at her was unbearable to my ears.  Their pleas for her to be purified and cast out the so-called demons were incessant.  The yearning for acceptance and sense of belonging and an unconditional love devoid of violence was all I ever sought.  Yet (Jacqueline’s) family painted me as a pariah, undeserving of love from even God himself.”

Jacqueline was quick to embrace the idea that Kellie was really a man and encouraged her transition.

Later, in her transman “disguise,” Kellie got to know and became very close to Jacqueline’s family.  Except for their rabid homophobia, they turned out to be very fine, caring people. As a “man”, Kellie was totally accepted and welcomed into the family circle.  But this acceptance was based on a lie, and she found herself deeply troubled by this deception.  Kellie was still female, still a lesbian.

Much of the book describes Kellie’s struggles with severe medical complications from her surgery, complications that brought her close to death.  She worried about not living long enough to meet her grandchildren.

Finally, breaking it off with Jacqueline, she began to regret the path she had taken.

Yet, there was no going back for Kellie.  The physical changes carved onto her body are permanent.  Kellie graciously forgave Jacqueline and others who had hurt her.  She could forgive everyone but herself.  She writes, “…a more profound forgiveness still eludes me – self-forgiveness.  The mirror reflects a face I do not recognize, physically or spiritually and fills me with hate for myself that I fight daily; it’s my face.  Yet there might be a day when I look into my eyes and find redemption…Still after all these years, I miss Kellie horribly.”

I wish Scott/Kellie healing as she continues her essential work of saving future generations of gender non-conforming children, future generations of lesbians from the false promises and permanent harms of medicalization.

As she frequently proclaims in urging opposition to gender medicalization of children, “Scream louder.”

“Lesbian Devil to Straight Man Saint” can be purchased through Amazon or Barnes and Nobel.  Please purchase  a copy and support Kellie/Scott’s important work. https://www.scottnewgent.com/

JOIN US FOR FORUM SAT. SEPT. 14th ON CASS REVIEW: EXPOSING LIES BEHIND CHILD TRANSITION

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Feminists in Struggle presents a forum on the independent Cass Review that is blowing holes in the rationalization for the medical transitioning of gender non- conforming children and youth.

This event will take place  on Zoom on SATURDAY, SEPT. 14th at 11:00 a.m. Pacific time, 2:00 p.m. Eastern.

Tickets on sale now on Eventbrite:  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cass-review-exposing-the-lies-behind-child-transition-tickets-1001755045307?aff=oddtdtcreator

Dr. Cass conducted an independent systematic review of existing evidence on behalf of the NHS in the U.K. She documented the poor quality of the published studies, and the weak evidence supporting use of puberty suppression and cross sex hormones along with their unknown long-term effects.

Join us for the discussion of Dr. Cass’s findings and recommendations and how to get the word out to stop this harmful sterilizing experiment on children who are different, including future generations of gays and lesbians.

SPEAKERS:

Aaron Kimberly is a Canadian woman born with a rare ovotesticular intersex condition who took testosterone as an adult and lived almost 20 years as a transman. She is a mental health nurse who first blew the whistle on pediatric gender medicine in 2019. In 2001 she cofounded the Gender Dysphoria Alliance to educate about different types of gender dysphoria. In 2023 she cofounded the LGBT Courage coalition with the Missouri whistleblower Jamie Reed, to support other whistleblowers and to protect gender nonconforming children, most of whom are gay/lesbian, from medical harm.

Ann Menasche is a lesbian, radical feminist and socialist, and a life-long activist who is a co-founder and co-coordinator of Feminists in Struggle (FIST). FIST is committed to spreading the word about the Cass Review and challenging the myths used to promote so-called “gender affirming care.” This issue is also personal for Ann. As a girl who aspired to the freedom and privileges of men, she would have likely succumbed to an ideology that said her body was “wrong” and in need of medicalization, were she growing up today.

This forum is a women-only event. It will be video-taped. Men who wish to view it can watch it later for free on FIST’s YouTube channel. Our Forums are interactive events with plenty of time for questions or comments from the audience. Women should check in 10 minutes before the event. Participants are free to close their camera or change their name after they have checked in.

The Zoom link will be sent by email to registrants prior to the event.

Minority Statement on Missouri Senate bill Banning Child Transition

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Members of FIST voted to support the Missouri Senate bill banning so-called trans “affirming” care for minor children, as posted on this blog March 31.  However, that vote was quite close and those of us in the minority would like to put forward our arguments in the spirit of furthering the feminist debate on this important issue.

The Missouri bill does not “stand-alone” but is one of a tsunami of bills released recently sponsored by the Right, as part of a concerted build-up for the next presidential election—basically to get a far-right person elected president in 2024 (DeSantis or Trump).  The fact that some feminist groups joined the Right in promoting these bills has no influence on the Right’s culture war strategy.  Other rightwing bills that are part of this strategy include: the plethora of abortion bans in 13 states (including the recent attack on medication abortion); the erasure of actual US history from K-12 curricula, in the name of “protecting children” from knowing the truth about slavery (and civil rights and women’s rights); the attacks on affirmative action, Social Security and voting rights. We cannot separate all of these right wing attacks (even the one that we might agree with) from the general attack on everything progressive that is unfolding before our eyes—and we do not think FIST should play a part in what will play into that build-up by the Right despite our best efforts to separate ourselves as Leftists, lesbians, etc. .

A major argument in the fight for abortion has always been: “politicians should not be legislating healthcare—this is the province of medicine, not politics.”  “Bans off my body”  should be upheld for all adults, but minor children are often treated with additional care.  Any legislation on specific medical procedures can be used to strengthen the hand of politicians to adjudicate and police abortion care.

If state power is used to enforce “healthcare” bans at a time when there is so much sentimentalized propaganda FOR “gender affirming treatment”, it will make the parents seeking these procedures for their children into MARTYRS and will simply strengthen public sympathy FOR “gender affirming care.”

Even when the Right seems to be in agreement with us on transgender ideology, the way they see women and gender is very different  from a feminist perspective.  They want to preserve gender norms while feminists have always argued that the stereotypes associated with sex are confining and oppressive and should be eliminated.

A better strategy for us might be to put our energy into pressuring medical organizations (AMA, etc) or mounting a public service campaign to increase public understanding of the dangers of these “treatments.” Really putting on the pressure as to how their junk science is mutilating children, making them sterile, some unable to ever enjoy orgasm while simultaneously turning children into lifelong medical patients consuming the exact same powerful steroid hormones that the Women’s Health Movement of the 1970s worked so hard to warn us about. We could be spreading the word about the reasons Sweden, Finland and the UK have closed “gender clinics” and publicize the fact that even the US FDA has been forced to add the word “experimental” to its definition of sex hormones in “gender affirming treatment.”

FIST issues statement supporting Missouri Senate bill 843 banning child transition

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On March 25, 2023, FIST sent a statement to the Missouri legislature supporting a bill that would ban medicalized transition for children under 18.  The letter declared in part, “Child transition involving puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries that remove or modify healthy body parts are extremely sexist and homophobic practices.  They disproportionately harm a growing number of girls, most of whom are same sex attracted, i.e., are likely to become lesbians, and girls that don’t fit in with sex stereotypes of traditional “femininity” imposed on them by a sexist society.

Medical transition is experimental, cosmetic, and doesn’t cure anything.  Instead, it results in sterilization, prevents proper development of brains and bones, and causes other permanent physical disabilities and shortened life spans.  No child is born in the wrong body! As feminists solidly on the Left, we call for saving the tomboys and future lesbians and feminists as well as all children struggling with being different from these permanent medical harms.”

The bill passed the Missouri Senate and is now pending in the House. If it passes, it will join a number of other states that have passed similar laws. According to ABC News, “At least 11 states — Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Dakota, Tennessee and Utah — have passed laws or policies that restrict gender-affirming care for people under the age of legal majority, which is the threshold for legal adulthood.”

FIST is highly appreciative of the work of Scott/Kellie Newgent who has been traveling all over the country working on bills to protect children and who encouraged our participation in this campaign.  Please support her work at trevoices.org.