Tag: Ann Menasche

SAN DIEGO FIST MEMBERS PARTICIPATE IN INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY EVENT IN SAN DIEGO

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Dozens of women and their male supporters including FIST members helped organize a candlelight vigil and rally on March 8th 2023 for International Women’s Day in downtown San Diego. The demonstration highlighted women’s demands for restoration of women’s right to abortion nationally, the registration of the ERA into the Constitution that has already been ratified by 38 states and is being held up by the Biden administration, and an end to male violence against women and girls.

Ann Menasche. a co-coordinator of FIST, spoke at the rally urging that women should utilize their own voices and mobilize in the streets, rather than rely on politicians or judges.  Menasche said, “We have the power to change the world, sisters, and there is no better time than now”, and led the crowd in a chant made popular by Iranian feminists, “Woman, life, freedom.”

Andrea Gabay a grassroots feminist activist and organizer for Femme Fight Club, also spoke and was interviewed by a local TV station.

The coalition of local feminist groups plan to organize other protests in defense of women’s rights in San Diego.

FIST to host Zoom Forum March 25th on Strategies for Winning Back Abortion Rights

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Feminists In Struggle continues its series with a forum on abortion rights: “After Dobbs and the continuing threat to women’s reproductive rights, how do we develop a strategy to regain and secure the right to abortion nationally?”  Tickets on sale now!

FEMINIST FORUM: STRATEGIES FOR WINNING BACK WOMEN’S ABORTION RIGHTS Tickets, Sat, Mar 25, 2023 at 1:00 PM | Eventbrite

Here is our exciting panel of speakers:

Andrea Gabay is a grassroots activist who first volunteered in 2020 while living in New York City. She was an active volunteer doing food drives and composting at GrowNYC environmental program to empower New Yorkers to secure a healthy environment. She also supported many marches throughout NYC, including many BLM movements and was involved with Women’s March in Manhattan. Andrea brought her activist work back with her to San Diego, where she organized a march/rally in January 2023 as part of the national Women’s March.

Wendy Murphy , J.D. is an impact litigator specializing in women’s and children’s civil and constitutional rights. She won landmark Title IX cases against Harvard, Harvard Law, and Princeton between 1992 and 2010 that led to the revolutionary 2011 Dear Colleague letter; and sued the Trump and Biden Administrations in federal court to advance women’s rights. She also won landmark cases to improve privacy rights for women crime victims and testimonial rights for disabled crime victims. She is adjunct professor of sexual violence law and law reform at New England Law Boston where she directs the Women’s and Children’s Advocacy Project under the Center for Law and Social Responsibility. She is well known for her legal advocacy in support of the Equal Rights Amendment.  See our ERA-FIST brochure, “Why We Need the ERA” on which Wendy collaborated, and her book, From Suffrage to Inequality.

Ann Menasche is a San Diego civil rights attorney, grassroots activist, lesbian, and long-time feminist who is a founding member and co-coordinator of the national radical feminist organization, Feminists in Struggle. She is also co-chair of the Green Alliance for Sex-Based RIghts. She has fought for access to safe legal abortion in the years before Roe and in the decades that followed. In the 1980’s she led a landmark case against an anti-abortion center or “fake clinic” for consumer fraud and won. She also helped organize Marches for Women’s Lives in San Francisco that drew tens of thousands of people. Ann was recently fired from her civil rights job for asserting that abortion bans harm women as a sex and has filed a wrongful termination law suit against her previous employer as a result.

JOIN US FOR THIS IMPORTANT DISCUSSION!

FIST’S Ann Menasche Files Suit Against Former Employer for Wrongful Discharge, Discrimination, and Retaliation

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On January 26, 2023, Ann Menasche filed suit in San Diego Superior Court against her former employer, Disability Rights California, for wrongful termination, sex and sexual orientation discrimination, and retaliation.  She claims she was fired for declaring that “safe legal abortion is a life-and-death issue for women as a sex”  and for supporting the maintenance of sex and sexual orientation as protected characteristics under law.  For this she was labelled a “TERF” and a bigot and a few days later and without warning, fired.

Feminists in Struggle and allies have initiated a Justice for Ann Committee that is working with others on getting media and garnering support for Ann’s case.   The case is the first in the U.S. to challenge in court the silencing and no-platforming of feminists through targeting their livelihoods.  In the U.K. there have been several cases including that of Maya Forstater and Allison Bailey that led to successful outcomes for the women and helped lessen the fear women have of their gender critical views becoming known.

To get more details about Ann’s case, go to defendfeminists.net where you can view the summary of the Complaint, or sign on as an endorser of the Statement of Solidarity.

FIST Speaks at Abortion Rights March in San Diego

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On January 22, 2023, the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Ann Menasche, member of the Coordinating Committee of FIST, spoke at a San Diego rally for abortion rights.  Ann framed the abortion issue as one of women’s rights, called for the restoration of abortion rights in all 50 states and that women rely on ourselves and not the politicians to win back our rights.   She was well received by the crowd. The spirited demonstration of a few hundred was organized quickly by grassroots feminist activists when the Women’s March failed to organize anything locally. FIST also distributed 60 half page flyers with our statement on abortion rights on one side and our thirteen principles on the other.  The rally was followed by a march through downtown San Diego.   San Diego FIST members and supporters look forward to future local feminist work.

JUSTICE FOR ANN MENASCHE – SIGN THE SOLIDARITY STATEMENT!

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Ann Menasche was fired from her job of 20 years for asserting that abortion bans harm women as a sex.  Find out more about her story here: Justice for Ann Menasche – Defend Feminists!

We urge everyone to sign a Statement of Solidarity in support of Ann and share it with everyone who supports maintaining sex as a protected category under law, and the rights of employees to their own political opinions and activities independent of their employer.

 

Ann Menasche comments on sex-denialism

Forum on the New McCarthyism Targeting Feminists’ Jobs and Livelihoods, Saturday Dec. 10th

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THE NEW McCARTHYISM: THE ATTACK ON FEMINISTS' JOBS AND LIVELIHOODS

THE NEW McCARTHYISM: THE ATTACK ON FEMINISTS’ JOBS AND LIVELIHOODS is the title of our next Feminist Forum, which will be held on Saturday, December 10th at 1:00 p.m. Pacific Time, 4:00 Eastern on Zoom.

In the 1950’s it was “the Red Scare.” In the second decade of the 21st century, the methods are the same but the target is different: feminists and others who do not agree with gender identity orthodoxy that conflates sex and gender and denies the existence of biological sex.

JOIN US FOR THIS IMPORTANT DISCUSSION ON HOW WE CAN PUT AN END TO THIS WITCH HUNT SO THAT WOMEN CAN STATE OUR OPINIONS AND FIGHT FOR OUR SEX-BASED RIGHTS WITHOUT FEAR!

SPEAKERS:

Christy Hammer is a sociologist with a 35-year university teaching career, and currently an associate professor of education at the University of Southern Maine. After telling her graduate students that there were only two biological sexes (with variations), students walked out of her classroom, demanded she recant, and sought to get her fired all in the name of “restorative justice”. One trans-identified student who felt personally attacked, filed a Title IX sexual harassment/discrimination complaint against her, which was summarily dismissed by the University counsel. Christy has a long history working in LGBTQ youth advocacy, and in promoting anti-racism in schools. What happened to Christy was described by others as an example of the “woke attacking the woke.”

Ann Menasche is a radical feminist, Leftist, lesbian, and founding member of Feminists in Struggle (FIST).  She was fired without warning last May from her job of 20 years as a Civil Rights attorney at Disability Rights California for asserting that abortion bans harm women as a sex, and for her FIST activity outside of work. The executive director had issued a statement opposing the threatened overturning of Roe and asked for staff feedback. DRC’s statement had mentioned every group that could be harmed by illegal abortion except women. After stating an obvious truth, Ann faced an onslaught of name-calling and slurs, and was condemned in absentia as having opinions “inconsistent with the values of the agency”.  For more on this story, see Defend Feminists

Everyone, women and men, are welcome to attend this forum!

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FIST FORUM: SAVING THE TOMBOYS FROM THE MEDICAL ATROCITIES OF CHILD “TRANSITION”

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The medical “transition” of gender non-conforming, mostly lesbian, girls has increased exponentially.  How do we fight it?

JOIN US on AUGUST 13TH at 11:00 a.m.Pacific time, 1:00 p.m. Central, and 2:00 p.m. Eastern for this timely discussion of the harmful practice of medicalization of a growing number of gender non-conforming girls, a majority of whom are lesbian, through use of puberty blockers, wrong sex hormones, double mastectomies, and genital mutilating surgeries. Reserve your tickets now.

Girls are being taught that their non-conformity and same sex attraction mean they have been born in the “wrong” body, with the result that they pursue dangerous treatments before they even reach adulthood, causing permanent harm to their healthy developing bodies and turning them into life-long medical patients. Many of these girls will in a few years join the growing ranks of detransitioners and regretters. Is this the face of the new homophobia? How can we fight back and save new generations of tomboys, lesbians, and future feminists?

TICKETS ONLY $5 – SAVING THE TOMBOYS FROM THE MEDICAL ATROCITIES OF CHILD “TRANSITION” Tickets, Sat, Aug 13, 2022 at 11:00 AM | Eventbrite

SPEAKERS:

CAROL is an advisor for de-transitioned people, having gone through transition and de-transition herself. She is a co-founder of Detrans Voices: Detransition Stories, Resources, and Community and a member of LGB Alliance USA | Leading the Fight for Same-Sex Rights She currently co-facilitates a gender dysphoria support group for lesbian and bisexual women through LGB Alliance USA and continues to work on outreach and awareness around de-transition.

ERIN FRIDAY is a licensed attorney in California and the mom of a desister. She is co-leader of Our Duty, U.S. branch, a parent support group for parents of Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoric kids.

T is the founder and national organizer of Lesbians United, a grassroots lesbian-only organization in the U.S. Lesbians United is creating public information campaigns both online and on the street to fight back against the anti-lesbian transgenderist movement.

ANN MENASCHE is a radical feminist, lesbian, socialist, political activist, and co-founder of Feminists in Struggle and Green Alliance for Sex-Based Rights. Growing up in the 1950’s and 60’s, she seriously thought about “transitioning” when she read about Christine Jorgensen, because she yearned for the career opportunities and authority only available to men. The advent of feminism helped her to accept herself for the first time as she dedicated herself to women’s liberation and radical social change.

FIST’s Feminist Forums series are interactive and organizing events. At our forums, women have an opportunity not only to hear interesting speakers on a variety of feminist topics but to meet each other, make comments, ask questions of the presenters and discuss feminist politics together. We also usually tape the events so they may be viewed later. Women in attendance are free to shut off their cameras and mute themselves, should they prefer to do so. If you prefer to remain anonymous within the group, or plan to sign in under a different name from the name you have used for registration and purchase of your ticket, please contact the organizer prior to the event. Thanks.

While some of our events are open to both men and women, THIS IS A FEMALE ONLY EVENT. We ask that our male allies respect our right to meet together as women.

Women’s Rights Under Attack: Fighting Back–The ERA and the Women’s Bill of Rights

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Please join Feminists in Struggle and the Green Alliance for Sex-Based Rights in a joint presentation, Women’s Rights Under Attack: Fighting Back on June 18th at 10 a.m. PDT to explore how to effectively fight back against the multiple incursions on the rights of women, focused on the Equal Rights Amendment and the Women’s Bill of Rights.  Equal Means Equal‘s Wendy Murphy and FIST’s Ann Menasche will be presenting.  Register here.

Radical Feminist Book Announcement

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In the 2020s, there is a rebirth of radical feminist theory and activism. It’s time to publish a new collection that brings together the best in contemporary radical feminist thought.
Announcing: Spinning and Weaving: Radical Feminism for the 21st Century. Tidal Time Press, the publisher of Female Erasure, will publish this collection, edited by U.S. radical feminist theorist and activist Elizabeth Miller, in March 2021.
 
Spinning and Weaving seeks to raise up the voices of women around the world writing or creating from a radical feminist perspective, including scholars, journalists, activists, organizers, bloggers, writers, poets, artists, and independent thinkers. The collection especially seeks to amplify the voices of Women of Color, as they are the most likely to be silenced, marginalized, or ignored, and their experience denied or minimized.
The collection include chapters on many areas of contemporary radical feminism, including foundational radical feminist theory; the intersection of sex, race, and other axes of oppression; lesbian feminism; the environment; women’s sexuality; political activism; feminist organizing; women-only spaces; pornography; prostitution; gender ideology; and many other topics of interest and import to radical feminist theory and practice.
FIST’s co-founder Ann Menasche has two chapters in the book. Check out the book website, https://spinningandweaving.org/, to see the full Table of Contents for the book.
 
Spinning and Weaving’s Contributing Editor, Elizabeth Miller, is a radical feminist activist who runs the Chicago Feminist Salon and co-organized the Women in Media Conference, a radical feminist conference held in Chicago in 2018. Among other projects, she is currently working on organizing two other radical feminist conferences in the U.S., and runs the Radical Feminism Resources community on Facebook.
You can read more about Spinning and Weaving, and sign up for updates on the book, at https://spinningandweaving.org