FIST Joins Protests to Keep Prisons Single Sex

On February 26th feminists in the UK kicked off a week of global events to bring attention to the threat to women and girls from male criminals placed in female prisons around the world. Photos from these events will be uploaded to the Internet and sent to the media worldwide.

The goal of this global effort is to raise awareness of the harmful policies that place incarcerated women and girls in living conditions with dangerous male criminals. In the UK, 49% of the male criminals who identify as women are rapists, sex abusers, and pedophiles. Why are such men allowed access to this most vulnerable population of women and girls ?

Women and girls in prison, jails, and juvenile detention centers are among the most vulnerable in the world, and often have a history of having been sexually victimized. Allowing male criminals who identity as women into female prisons puts women and girls at risk of serious assault, rape, and even death. The policies allowing men in women’s prisons are based on unscientific ideas that humans can change their biological sex.

In January 2021 SB 132, the so-called “Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act“, took effect in California, which allows male prisoners who self-identify as “trans” to be housed in women’s prisons, putting women prisoners at serious risk of harm without regard to their safety. The San Francisco BayView National Black Newspaper published a letter by Ayanna Green to Scott Weiner, the author of the bill, and cc’d to Governor Newsom, among other officials, pointing out the blatant unfairness to women prisoners currently being practiced due to SB 132. 

On February 27, women gathered in Redwood City, CA to initiate the US effort to shed light on the reckless policies that place incarcerated women and girls at risk from male criminals who identify as women. Rallies are planned by Keep Prisons Single Sex USA throughout the country.

FIST members participated in the protest at the San Mateo County building in Redwood City, and also participated in a similar protest in Chicago on March 6th. We must stand together and stop these abusive policies worldwide.

FIST MEMBERS JOIN MARCHES FOR ABORTION RIGHTS

On October 2nd, FIST members participated in the abortion rights marches in San Diego, Chicago, New York, and other places. Here are some brief reports:

New York:
A group of gender critical feminists (FIST members and others) met beforehand and held signs with the word Woman on them. There were seven of us. We noticed other people with signs with the word Woman or with wire hangers. This was despite the fact that the Women’s march organizers In NY had instructed participants not to use the word “women” or the wire hanger symbol. I brought a wire hanger which I wore as a prop. We gave out a few flyers. The rally was well attended but a lot smaller than the prior Women’s Marches in January over the past few years..

Chicago:

The marchers’ signs carried the original words of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, “The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman’s life, to her well-being and dignity. It is a decision she must make for herself. When government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices.” They were clear, saying we’re not going back. Not in Texas, not anywhere else. Over 2000 turned out for the rally and march Saturday, for abortion justice. The action, sponsored by Women’s March Chicago, Planned Parenthood, and Chicago Abortion Fund, mobilized women young and old, whose signs and chants reflected their anger and resistance: “Pro-choice+ pro-women”; “I am a woman, not a womb”; “Abortion is Health Care”; “Safe abortion for All”; “Down with the patriarchy”; “My Body, My Rights”; “Her Body, “Her Rights”; “Reproductive Freedom is the beginning of Women’s Liberation” were among the slogans on handmade banners.

Whatever limits were imposed in other cities (like NY) This crowd wasn’t having it. Most speakers talked about defending women’s right to abortion.  FIST supporters in Chicago marched with friends and circulated our statement on abortion rights.


San Diego:


We carried our beautiful FIST banner (“Our bodies, our spaces, our sex-based rights”) in the spirited march of several thousand along the waterfront, and distributed over 100 fliers containing FIST’s abortion statement and some FIST brochures. One woman came up to us and offered to take photos of our banner. The word “woman” was not buried at this event.

Women, their rights and nothing less. Men, their rights and nothing more!