-Jan Brewer, Handmaiden of the Patriarchy-

US  residents may have noticed the recent War on Women being perpetrated in this country using the excuse of “religious freedom” to justify this rollback of women’s rights.

For the most recent installment of this assault on our rights, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer recently signed House Bill 2625, which authorizes employers with religious affiliations to refuse to cover contraception on their employees’ health insurance plans.

States Brewer about the bill:

In its final form, this bill is about nothing more than preserving the religious freedom to which we are all Constitutionally-entitled.  Mandating that a religious institution provide a service in direct contradiction with its faith would represent an obvious encroachment upon the 1st Amendment.

Radical feminists know that “religious freedom” and women’s rights are in conflict. As Sheila Jeffreys says in her excellent book Man’s Dominion:

religious patriarchs are increasingly using rights talk to defend their subordination of women and girls. They justify the harms through the ‘right to religion’. (page 8).

This is exactly what is happening with respect to Arizona’s HB 2625. Women’s rights are not seen as important as the “right to religious freedom”—which is, in essence, the subjugation of women through, among other things, taking away our right to be free from unwanted pregnancies.

Radical feminists fight for women, and recognize that patriarchal religions are harmful to us. We know that the term “religious freedom” is code for the sanctioned removal of women’s rights. We see that religious freedom is not compatible with women’s liberation.

As Jeffreys says elsewhere in her book:

“Religion gives authority to traditional, patriarchal beliefs about the essentially subordinate nature of women and their naturally separate roles, such as the need for women to be confined to the private world of the home and family, that women should be obedient to their husbands, that women’s sexuality should be modest and under the control of their menfolk, and that women should not use contraception or abortion to limit their childbearing. The practice of such ancient beliefs interferes profoundly with women’s abilities to exercise their human rights.” (bold mine, page 5-6)

Radical feminists can see the patriarchal reversal here. “Religious freedom” is in fact female subordination. We reject the “right” of patriarchs to dominate and control women through “religious freedoms”, and we disrespect their religious traditions. As Jeffreys says:

Disrespect is crucial. Disrespect for the cultures, values, and institutions of male domination is the very foundation and sine qua non of feminism. Since religion is crucial to the construction of cultural norms in every culture, disrespect for it should be the natural amniotic fluid of feminist thought and activism. (page 5)

The group says the papers were delivered by a “confidential informant”. Right before Operation Rescue obtained the documents, a locked trash bin on the clinic’s property was broken into. (So: informant, thief, whatever.) The organization claims that they have proof of all sorts of wrong doing based on the papers, so of course the state is using the “leaked” info as a jumping off point to investigate. . . the clinic. Yes, two people were caught on security cameras stealing trash from the clinic, Operation Rescue admits to being in possession of these stolen documents, yet Kansas decides that the real fishy business here is in what the clinic may have done. And – wouldn’t you know it – the Kansas State Board of Healing Arts, which is doing the investigation, just happens to have a former lawyer for Operation Rescue serving on it (who was appointed by the Republican governor).

Portions of the semi-redacted document cache were displayed in a YouTube video by the group which also included images of non-specific bloody refuse which the informant has “gathered” over the last year, as well as video of several women exiting the clinic, presumably following abortion procedures. The man filming narrates, commenting on how the women have to be assisted to the cars. (Perhaps if they didn’t need to have coats over their heads to protect them from being videotaped by some creep they could better see where they’re walking?)

Operation Rescue trades in intimidation tactics like these, attempting to incite fear in women who would seek abortions and doctors who would dare perform them. And the word for that is terrorism. Sure, Operation Rescue won’t publicly show patient names, but they have them. They of abortion doctor hit lists, they of affiliation with doctor murderers.

Cheryl Sullenger, the group’s senior policy adviser, says in one of the articles about the investigation of the Kansas clinic, “It’s no secret we seek information about abortion clinics, [...] Americans have the right to know what goes on in these places. It’s not a pretty picture.” She is also quoted saying, “I know way too much about these women.” But no worries! The article ends, “Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue, said the papers were being held in a secure location and had been offered to authorities.”

‘In the possession of this group’ is not a “secure location”. Cheryl Sullenger herself is a convicted felon for conspiring with her husband to bomb an abortion clinic. Troy Newman moved Operation Rescue from California to Kansas expressly to hound Dr. George Tiller who was eventually assassinated by Scott Roeder. And Scott Roeder had a piece of paper in his car with “Cheryl Op Rescue” and her phone number on it. These are not the people you want having your information. And Kansas is not the state you want defending your right to a legal medical procedure (seriously).

Operation Rescue doesn’t care about any rules that the clinic may have breached, and they obviously don’t care about breaking laws themselves. They just want to scare women. They want make women afraid to get an abortion in Kansas, make them fear that some wacko group might get their hands on their name and other personal information. And Kansas is more than happy to help with their mission of intimidation.

Hey sisters!

You are all invited to attend Rad Fem Reboot: 2012 Conference happening in July from the 27th till the 29th in Portland, Oregon. Three days of women only space and rad fem utopia.

Topics include:
Activist strategies for overthrowing male supremacy
Anti-sex industry activism
Creating stronger feminist communities
Advancing woman-centred sexuality and lesbianism

Speakers include:
Kathleen Barry
Susan Hawthorne
Renate Klein
Samantha Berg
Lierre Keith
Workshop with women from Vancouver Rape Relief & Women’s Shelter

Seriously, what more could a rad fem want?

To find out more contact us at: sistersunderground@gmail.com

Or visit our blog or facebook page.

Okay. so here’s the thing. why is it that when I say “women in prostitution” people (especially ‘do-gooders’, liberals, men and trannys) hear “sex worker”? I don’t use that kinda demeaning, oppressive language. even if women in prostitution use it to refer to themselves. There is no such fuckin’ thing as a “sex worker” fer crying out loud. All women in prostitution are rape victims. And if they’re not calling themselves that it’s not because they’re not victims, it’s because they’re trying to not go fucking crazy. No one likes to say, “i was/am victimized”, but let’s face it, men have done some terrible things to women, and these women in particular, and they continue to do it, and for some of these women the only way they can manage to lurch from one moment to the next is to claim that ‘yes, this is my job and i’m gonna do the best job i can’. even though she would fight and kick and holler and lay her body down to prevent her little sister or her mom or her auntie or her friend from taking that kinda job.

but i digress.

I am taking a class, and on the first day, i said i was doing research about the harms perpetrated by harm reduction on women in prostitution in Vancouver. someone said, “sex work” and I said, I would never use that terminology, because it de-genders prostitution and offers pimping some legitimation. I just gave a real short response. But people keep using that ridiculous, damaging, misleading term–and then the other day, this one classmate sent me a link to some ‘research’ that’s being done in new york about and with GIRLS in the sex industry–aka, CHILDREN. Said classmate said in the e-mail to my advisor to send me the info, “i think she is working on sex work”. GAAAAAHHHH!

Now, i know i am easily riled. but it galls me that all these people who are bending over backwards to ‘use the most respectful terms’ can’t even HEAR when some of us say what we freakin’ mean, and explain why we use the words we use, and even go so far as to say, “I find that terminology offensive and damaging”. They claim to want to use ‘respectful’ language, and when we explain six different ways to sunday why that language is NOT respectful, they don’t have the argument, or engage with you in any respectful way, they just carry on as if they hadn’t HEARD in the first place. christonacracker…

But how do you gain access to girls in the sex industry (aka sexually exploited children) without calling them what they claim to want to be called (“young sex workers”, i guess). You do what every fucking researcher does, you give them $5 and some pizza.

then you introduce yourself and get their names and then you call them by their names.  then you get to know them, and you start telling them, “you deserve better, you know”. and you tell them, “the men who are doing this to you are wrong”. and you say to them, “here’s a place you can go”, and you say, “you’re strong and capable and look at all the things you did to stay alive and keep safe and protect your friends–let’s talk about how to get out of this life, so you can have a life that doesn’t include paid rape” .

Research. there’s enough flippin’ research already. Can we just get on with the work of freedom now?

sweet sufferin’ mother of jesus.

A version of this post was previously published on Easilyriled’s Blog.

from the “About” page:

Radfem-ological Images is a public, radical feminist group blog dedicated to dissecting and discussing media images through a radical feminist lens.  We recognize that the media, including print, digital and television commercial advertising, is a powerful tool of the patriarchy and that it is used to disseminate political pro-patriarchy, anti-woman propaganda.  The situation is, in a word,Orwellian.  We observe that to the casual or even the dedicated observer, it is often unobvious what is happening or how these images are supportive of patriarchal institutions and male power.

We notice that there are similarities between the messages in all patriarchal media — including advertising — and the mechanisms of real-life oppressions suffered by women at men’s hands.  And that the sheer volume and pervasiveness of these images and messages serve to normalize and invisiblize real things that women experience every day, namely, the realities of living under a totalitarian patriarchal rule which, by definition, harms women and supports male power.

We recognize that commercial advertising is not generally analyzed from this radical feminist perspective, and we seek to remedy that here.

click on image above to visit new site.

Submissiveness is empowering.

BDSM erotica is feminist.

The above are just a few of the lies that patriarchal culture has served up for women in the best selling BDSM novel 50 Shades of Grey.

First-time female novelist E L James began the piece as short fan fiction based off of the Twilight series whose main relationship between a 104 year old vampire and a teenage girl meets all the criteria for domestic violence.

Given its source material, it’s not surprising that 50 Shades of Grey and its sequels tells the story of a billionaire who convinces a young woman to agree to be his full time sex slave.

E L James’ story is not new.

The Story of O is a BDSM novel published in 1954. It details the “training”, sexual degradation, and final suicide of a woman named O (Woman Hating Andrea Dworkin p 55-63). The book was written by a woman and, similar to 50 Shades of Grey, documents female enjoyment of male domination.

In our male-dominated culture, women are socialized to enjoy being dominated sexually. As Womon On a Journey says, “The cultural of women-hatred f*cks with ALL of our brains, so that we really have no idea as women what our desires would be in a sex-equal society.”

Given this fact, what are we to make of the fact that some women enjoy fantasies of being dominated?

The enjoyment these women feel is described by Dee Graham in her book Loving to Survive as Societal Stockholm Syndrome. Because women as a group cannot escape from men, we have found ways of dealing with their violent and destructive behavior. We eroticize it, and internalize the desire for it. As Cherry Blossom Life says, “Perhaps when women talk about the empowerment of submissiveness, they are actually talking about the power of the double bluff: “You want to hurt me? Screw you; you’ll never hurt me more than I want to be hurt myself.””

By “choosing” to enjoy male-dominant sex, women are able to develop a sense of power, however limited.

BDSM practitioners often engage in a classic patriarchal reversal. That is, they claim that they are actually an oppressed group in society who lose social power due to their kinky sex practices. They claim that non-practitioners, that is, those whose sexual practices do not involve explicit domination and submission, have “vanilla privilege“, which means that non-BDSM practitioners oppress them.

Radical feminists see that since all our desires occur within a patriarchal context wherein women are submissive and men are dominant, the explicit enactment of this dynamic in the bedroom is in direct conformity to male-centric sexual norms. We recognize the framing of BDSM as” transgressive” as a patriarchal reversal (where the opposite of what is being claimed is actually what is true). In fact, BDSM practices actively oppress women.

Note that I am not blaming these women for attempting to carve out space for female agency in an exceptionally coercive, abusive, and traumatic patriarchal society. Nor am I blaming the women who buy and read 50 Shades of Grey, or as it has come to be known, mommy porn.  Rather, I am analyzing the context under which this glorification and erotization of male domination has become an outlet for female sexuality.

Radical feminists see  the justification of BDSM- whether in erotica, or in practice- as a form of orgasm politics, which we reject.  We do not agree with Barbara Seaman, who said, “The liberated orgasm is an orgasm you like, under any circumstances.” We do not believe that activities should be immune from criticism simply because they occur in our minds or our bedrooms.

Rather, we agree with Sheila Jeffreys when she says,

“Traditional forms of male-supremacist sexuality based on dominance and submission and the exploitation and objectification of a slave class of women are being celebrated for their arousing and “transgressive” possibilities.”

There is nothing transgressive or feminist about BDSM erotica or sexual practices. The popularity of this new novel, as well as the Twilight series, show the way in which women cope with male violence and oppression by eroticizing male dominance.

The latest slogan of the trans activists is ‘my feminism will be intersectional or it will be bull shit’. The current trans obsession with intersectionality is a major cause for concern, and a trans co-option of intersectional theory could have disastrous consequences for the political struggles of all subordinate groups.

Trans activists are co-opting political movements and the ultimate trans agenda is to remove the rights of all subordinate groups to self-determination and movements for liberation. I do not believe that most individuals who identify as trans or their allies are consciously planning the depoliticisation of class based oppressions. Trans is a structural and colonising tactic – a tool of the patriarchy, but if you buy into trans theory, that is what you are buying into.

The trans cooption of feminism and the attacks of the right of the female class to collective self-determination is the beginning of what I believe will end up being a long running movement to co-opt all struggles of subordinate groups. Trans is a growing movement and it is no longer only focused on trans sex and trans gender. New trans movements focus on trans abled and trans age, and any day now I am expecting to see the emergence of white men who claim to be trans race. As with trans genderism, these new trans movements are largely based on the sexual fetishisation of the subordinate group. So what is the scope of the trans project and what is the impact this growing movement will have on all subordinate classes?

The rise of post modernism in the 1990’s contributed thoroughly to the backlash against feminism by perpetuating ideas that structural oppression, and hence oppression of women, does not really exist. According to the pomo’s (postmodernists), power only revolves around individual interactions. Transsexualism, which had initially been based on a conservative medical model, emerged later as a tool of the post modern feminist backlash.

Transexualism was the original trans theory, but with the rise of post modernism and queer theory (a sub-theory of post modernism), the concept of ‘gender’ was developed to invisibilise women, and with the spreading of the concept of gender (or jendah, as some rad fems like to put it), the theory of ‘trans gender’ emerged. Queer theorists and the conservative medical transsexual empire initially had some major political conflict but the two seem to have blended into a mind boggling and utterly confused and contradictory political movement.

The second wave women’s liberationists have been horrified by the impact of this trans movement on a number of levels. The women’s movement was a movement organised by women against male supremacy. Like other subordinate groups, women in the second wave were able to develop a very clear understanding of who the dominant group were – men. Women’s space was vital to the movement. But women have been bullied and coerced into accepting members of the dominant group (adult males) into their organising spaces. The original intentions of feminist and the women’s liberation movement have been fought viciously by post modernists, who advocate for feminism to be a void of nothingness, having no material reality, open to everyone and anyone, with anyone being able to self identify as anything.  So now they think they have accomplished the destruction of the women’s liberation movement (of course we are not going away that easily), what’s next?

Trans -Intersectionality.

It is a very smart move for the post modern trans theorists to jump on the intersectionality band wagon – why? – because they can kill 5 birds the with one stone by coopting several political struggles all in one hit. The development of a trans intersectional movement is already peaking right now. We now have the emergence of trans ablism, a movement of males (who also happen to almost all be transsexual or transgender identifying), who are claiming that they are disabled people in abled people’s bodies,  as described in the story of National Geographic’s “Taboo” : Fake paraplegic.

How long will it be before disability rights advocates, who oppose the trans-ablest agenda,  start getting called ‘transphobes’ and bigots and bullied into accepting the delusions of these men and allowing them into activist groups for people with disabilities? From reading the blogs of many of these men, it is clear that they have little intention of actually becoming disabled. Some are demanding various kinds of surgery, but most are happy with an aid, for example a leg brace or a hearing aid. The obsession these men have with such aids is a cause for concern and likely revolves around a sexual fetish. This trend mirrors trans gender ( born males) who contrary to popular belief often have no intention of actually having any surgery and are content with the fetishisation of things they associate with women, such as wigs, dresses and make up (see http://twanzphobic.wordpress.com/tackle-status/). Despite this, women who refuse to accept these men as women are punished and shamed. Lesbians are harassed into accepting them as lesbians and called transphobes for ruling them out as potential sexual partners.

We also have the emergence of ‘adult babies’  – again almost all also transsexual or transgender identifying. See Riley’s story:
.

It may seem innocent on the surface and I do not wish to judge anyone’s personal internal identities, but this could become problematic if the trans activists start advocating for the rights of men like Riley to be able to attend Kindy or join a play group, because this would be an inappropriate and unreasonable invasion of such a space for children. It would be unreasonable for trans activist to call concerned children or parents transphobic for not being comfortable with ‘adult babies’ in children’s safe spaces. Most people would understand this, but yet not all can apply the same standards to women’s spaces.

So where does this end? Well what we do know is that when male to trans people co-opted the women’s movement, that they managed to centre their trans agenda and delude and con naïve sympathisers (which included myself for a long time) into thinking that they are the most marginalised women and that no female born person could be oppressed as much as a ‘trans woman’. In fact the subordination of the female born is presented as a privilege with the emergence of trans language, such as cis-gender.  The struggle for female liberation is lost in all the bullshit.

When are people who were born with or acquired a disability without choosing to going to start being ‘cis-disabled’, when are actual infants going to start being called ‘cis-babies’? when the white ‘trans race’ men emerge, will people of colour be called ‘cis-race’? will rich, bourgeois men be able to join the Industrial Workers of the World, if they have an internal identity as a struggling worker?

What I am interested to find out is how intesectional feminists and activists will react to the intersectional trans agendas (trans abled, trans babies, trans race). Will they support them, as they seem to have the trans gender movement, or will they call them out as bullshit?

afaucette@transequality.org

hjtobin@transequality.org

vvillano@transequality.org

dking@transequality.org

eames@transequality.org

Dear Mara,

Hope you are well. I am writing to ask the National Center for Transgender Equality to weigh in on a controversy that has pitted Lesbians, many of whom have been “good” allies to the Transgender community, and Transgender women. I am sure you have heard of it – the “Cotton Ceiling,” a term porn actress Drew DeVeaux and other Transgender women use to “challenge lesbians’ tendency to support Transgender causes generally but draw the line at sleeping with Transgender women or including Transgender lesbians in their sexual communities.”

Lesbians and Feminists object to the “Cotton Ceiling” metaphor as ahistorical and rape invoking.  The metaphor cheapens the struggles of Females to shatter the glass ceiling in the workplace by suggesting that the right to sexual access to Females is on par with the struggle for equality in the workplace.  The metaphor suggests that Females are a barrier to be broken, or that Females owe some obligation to “penetrate” the veil of Transgender Women’s underwear (God, I wish I was making this up). Lesbians and Feminists also object to the metaphor because it suggests that Lesbians (i.e., Female homosexuals) need to open themselves sexually to Transgender women in to demonstrate that we are “good” Transgender allies.  Consequently, the metaphor dictates that Lesbians are bigots for not wanting to consider sex with male-bodied persons.

Now, I am well known as a transphobic bigot, despite the fact that I supported House Bill 235 in Maryland in 2011 (even with its stereotyping definition of gender identity) and helped stage a rally to support Chrissy Polis after she was beaten at a Rosedale McDonald’s. I am not writing you to be recognized as a Transgender ally, because, quite frankly, I could care less about that. What I do care about is the blatant Lesbophobia promulgated by your organization through Avory Faucette, your Director of Operations.  Hir actions contribute to the further marginalization of Lesbians in the GLBT Community and raise serious questions as to why any Lesbian or Lesbian ally should support the work of the National Center for Transgender Equality.

On hir apparently personal blog (where zie identifies hirself as an employee of the National Center for Transgender Equality), Faucette weighs in on the “Cotton Ceiling” metaphor with numerous Lesbophobic gems. I shall quote them at length!

The narcissism in the radfem community is somewhat hilarious. Why would a trans woman WANT to sleep with you? How boring it must be to have sex with someone who reduces your body, your sexual creativity, and your capacity to a penis. How hurtful to engage sexually with someone who denies your humanity. No, thanks.

I am astonished that someone who claims to be a Feminist would really think that this discussion over the dreadful “Cotton Ceiling” metaphor turns on whether or not any Female is personally fuckable or desirable. Is Faucette a teenage boy? Perhaps that is hir gender identity, but most human adults can recognize a sexist putdown when they see it.  Please rest assured that no one in the Radical Feminist community is personally concerned or worried about whether a Transgender woman wants to fuck them.  I am embarrassed for hir that zie even wrote those words.

Radfems, you’re not just missing out on great sex. You’re confused about what it means to be a lesbian, or a woman. I don’t care what your physical preferences are or what gender identity you prefer. I do care that you confuse those two things, and thereby insult trans women. I care that you don’t bother to interrogate the origins of your phallus-based distaste for trans women, and think about whether it’s actually a dislike of the organ that’s happening here or whether transphobia and a refusal to view trans women as women is involved. I care that you assume describing yourself as a lesbian tells others that you prefer what you call a pussy, as if everyone has the same definition of lesbian, woman, or pussy.

Mara, I ask you – do you think Lesbians owe a duty to have sex with Transgender women? Do you think Lesbians are “confused”? Lesbian means “female homosexual.”  Lesbians desire sex with Females. I recognize Trans women as women, but I do not recognize them as Female – if they were Female, this entire conversation would be wholly unnecessary.  Does the National Center for Transgender Equality support the right of Lesbians to have sex with other Lesbians, exclusively?  Or, rather, do you embrace Faucette’s view that in order to be a good Transgender ally (and, apparently, a good Lesbian), Lesbians must “deconstruct” their sexuality in order to accommodate penis?  That is, Lesbians cannot solely desire sex with other Females unless they wish to face the wrath of a movement that says such desire is bigoted?  If the latter is true, what makes Faucette – and you – any different from anti-gay reparative therapy clinics such as the one run by Marcus Bachman? Faucette apparently believes – like Marcus Bachman – that Lesbians can get rid of our homosexual urges and become “re-oriented.”  It apparently worked for hir! Faucette is promulgating the same rhetoric used by P-FOX and other anti-gay organizations to deny Lesbian reality.  Is this really something the National Center for Transgender Equality believes?

Sit down, shut up, and read a book (or a blog). We will be over here, having fabulous queer sex without you.

I leave Faucette to hir “fabulous queer sex,” as zie seems a little porn sick. I will note, also, that telling Lesbians they need more “education” around Transgender issues is getting a little boring. I think most of us know exactly what Transgender means for us:  Close your eyes and think of England.

Looking forward to your reply,

Cathy Brennan

Zie wears a lot of makeup and does a lot of plucking to look this androgynous.

Without any other knowledge about the situation, or even about Fest itself, I intuitively understood there is something specific that happens to females who grow up in this society and live as women because they are female. If these women wanted to gather for a week to hash that out–great. On the other hand, I related to the trans experience in that I never felt comfortable in my own body, either. Society was always telling me to be one way, and I wanted to be another. But I didn’t, and still don’t, understand why people of one distinct experience would be fighting tooth and nail to claim that it was exactly the same as another group’s. Subsuming one’s experience under the umbrella of another’s seemed offensive to my American-style respect for everyone’s unique roots. And, after all, they’re just talking about one week in the woods, right?

Oh, I had so much to learn. Over the next five years, I came out of the closet, to many yawns and shrugs. In 2009, I found myself unemployed and idly surfing when I came across a radical feminist blog. I read the entire archive over the next two weeks. That blog led me to others. Before I knew it, my eyes were opened to the truth of the world around me. I couldn’t not see it anymore even if I tried.By 2010, I felt called to that bastion of radical feminist ethics, MWMF. I was determined to ignore the controversy (like many other Festie-goers) and experience whatever it was that beckoned me. Over the course of just two days, I underwent what I can only describe as a spiritual awakening. “Music festival” is a pathetic, half-assed term for what that space truly is. For the first time in my life, I was exposed to an enormous group of women who didn’t conform to society’s restrictive prescriptions. I sat there almost slack-jawed watching women of every stripe and persuasion be free and beautiful. I left there claiming the identity of “woman”–something I’m not sure would have ever happened if I hadn’t gone.

I returned home in a state of happy shock only to learn about the vandalism from rogue elements of Camp Trans. In fact, I had been inconvenienced by the damage done to the showers in my camping area. But I’m a city girl, and I don’t scare easily.

I joined others online who were equally outraged at the sabotage. I began reading more about the actual history of the controversy, as told by both sides. Aside from the negative feelings about “their” actions, I knew I had to experience Fest once again. 2011 was a bit of a different story.

Both sides ramped up. Women who support the intention of Festival to be for those born female, raised as girls, and living as women managed to come together in the two months prior to Fest via social media in a way that had never happened before. They began voicing their opinions and wore red to signify their support of the policy. Workshops were held. Performers on both sides of the issue spoke out from the stage. The “Trans Women Belong Here” group raised money to sponsor tickets for trans women. They also sold t-shirts and passed out writings about their perspective.

I’m not going to get into specifics about what I heard or what I personally experienced because I don’t believe it’s helpful to the conversation. I ask that you, the reader, trust me when I say that the actions of a few were truly outrageous–and I mean that in the sense of inspiring outrage. Pro-intention women came home with dead emotional batteries. Many felt extremely angry and deeply disrespected. That led to heated online arguments. It is my impression that women on both sides of the issue, and those in between, got burned out.

The good news is that our pro-intention pilot lights are flaming up again, which is why I’m even attempting to write this.

The HUB’s contributors and other bloggers have written eloquent, sharp, and sometimes funny takedowns of the trans borg’s favorite myths. We’ve all witnessed the claw-back of women’s space in our own communities. Virtually no space outside our own homes is allowed to be solely for born-females anymore. Our domestic violence shelters, health clinics, poetry nights and universities have succumbed to their delusions, not because they’re correct but because they throw tantrums and bully their way in.

Obviously, I am not a long-time “Festie.” I am not a lifelong radical feminist or even a “gold star” lesbian. What I am is someone who sees through bullshit and can suss out the impetus behind every action. And those who say that female-born women are not allowed to gather separately are feeding us a massive line of misogyny-motivated bullshit. Those who say that we are “policing” the definition of woman operate from a deeply rooted self-centeredness that is alien to me and my sisters.

I love Fest for what it is and for the experiences I have there and nowhere else on Earth. But I fight for Fest because I see it as a beachhead, forging the way until this a wave of radical feminism crashes ashore and takes down the fragile support beams of queer theory’s fairytale sandcastle. Contrary to popular Internet opinion, Festival is not lost. Twenty years of protests have left her battered but not down for the count. Our spirit has transcended all of that, and we are finally putting our actions where our hearts have been all along. I see, from my perspective as a relative newbie to Fest, that the revered values of kindness and openness and community-mindedness have been the very things that prevented women from taking direct action. 2012 will find us un-gagged and willing to say what our female socialization has been shaming us into not saying. We will be made brave by the network of allyship we have developed amongst ourselves. We are secure in our belief that Festival should remain a space for the female-born.

I know of radical women who belong at Fest who don’t go because it’s too far to travel, too much time to take off of work, or they absolutely hate camping. I know of radical women who have stopped going because they feel male-borns have already infiltrated, and their time and energy are better spent elsewhere. I know of women who, incredibly, have never heard of Fest and belong there.

Now, more than ever before, we need your support. One of the last large-scale radical feminist spaces needs your support. She needs some resuscitation in the form of helping hands, present and on the land with her. I realize many of us are strapped for cash, even downright poor (myself included), but this is a call to you: Come this year and connect in real time with sisters who hold the same values you do. If not this year, start planning for 2013. It’s certainly early enough to start socking away cash for that! If you need help with the ticket or gear, ask for it. If you really can’t swing it, I ask that you donate whatever money your budget allows so that another female-born can represent you in this struggle for the right of women to define their own boundaries.

Y/Our voice deserves to be heard.
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Amynomene is a moderately ambidextrous jill-of-all-trades who loves radical feminist take downs of patriarchy’s sacred cows and pet theories, motorcycle rides, and food.
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