Gender Rights Maryland posted an opinion piece in Baltimore OUTloud today in response to fears expressed by radical feminists and the radical religious-right “that gender identity civil rights laws (like the ones in Baltimore City and Montgomery County) will harm or jeopardize women’s sex-segregated spaces and lead to assaults on non-trans (cisgender) women in these spaces.”
Beginning with a reminder that two core concepts in feminism are self-definition and inclusion, GRMD identifies the key weakness in the opposition’s fear-based argument:
To date, fifteen other states and over a hundred other major jurisdictions in the U.S., covering 43% of the country’s population, are covered under comprehensive laws that protect transgender individuals. Almost all of these jurisdictions utilize the language previously presented in the Maryland Gender Identity bill that we hope to pass in this next session of the legislature. These protections do not put non-trans women at risk.The gender identity laws, of which I’ve spoken above, have been in effect since 1975. There has not been a single incident of a trans woman assaulting a non-trans woman in a sex-segregated space. Nor has there been a single incident of a man assaulting a woman in such a space claiming in court he had the right to do so because he’s transgender. This has not happened in those jurisdictions covered by gender identity laws, nor has it happened in localities without such laws.
The opposition refuses to address facts like those presented above by GRMD because the facts clearly show the opposition’s reasoning to be unsound. This leaves the opposition with only one bargaining tool: irrational fear. “Irrational fears,” states GRMD, “cannot and should not define our conversation about gender identity civil rights legislation. The transgender community is not a threat to non-trans women. Quite the contrary, the transgender community stands arm-in-arm with the women’s community to make inclusivity and self-definition more acceptable.”
I would suggest that the willingness of the opposition to ignore the facts and fall back on irrational fears in order to hinder passage of gender identity civil rights legislation only demonstrates the dire need for that legislation. Transgender women need to be legally protected from the irrational fears of others.
There’s more to the piece than I can do justice to here. Click on over and read the whole thing here.
Related:
* No Matter Who Expresses The Sentiments, Antitrans Sentiments Are Antitrans Sentiments
* Cathy Brennan & Elizabeth Hungerford take their anti-trans activism to the UN
* Taking the conversation where critics aren’t allowed to follow
