Thread by @LaraAdamsMille1

I still think people are missing a key piece of what’s wrong with how trans activism and allyship is operating right now: The normalization and celebration of male abuser mentality. Let’s thread. 🔻🔻🔻

Here’s a scenario gender critical people encounter, over and over: A male person identified as a woman and commits a crime. Something terrible. See Dana Rivers, Karen White, Yaniv... There are hundreds of examples. But the crime isn’t the point here. It’s the response. (2/ )

In discussion, other trans people as well as male allies condemn the crime, but steadfastly hold to the offender’s pronouns. They express concern that he will be housed “correctly.” When challenged, they respond, “What she did was wrong, but she’s still a woman.” (3/ )

Here’s what they’re actually saying — “This person’s actions are wrong, but they’re still a human being and we must continue to respect that.” Because they believe the pronouns and women’s prisons are basic human rights, they defend the male trans person’s right to them. (4/ )

And, hey, if I thought that men who identify as women become women, I’d agree with this bunch, because there IS a core of a person’s humanity that is inviolable. We can hate each other and still respect that core. That’s what the defenders are trying to do. (5/ )

They’re not saying “she’s still a woman” so much as “she’s still a person.” And it’s ironic because this recognition of inviolable humanity is something they wouldn’t give if they truly saw the person in question as female. (6/ )

When I watch the videos from Leeds, what stands out to me is the faces of the men (many of them not trans) involved. As they chant, curse, scream... They look jubilant. Blissful. Utterly satisfied. I don’t see grief or heartache or worry. I see triumph. (7/ )

A lot of people disagree with me. Hate me. But this isn’t a sport for most of them. It’s not fun. But that’s because they’re not male abusers. The abusers? They’re ecstatic to have finally been deputized and praised for doing what they love most -correcting misbehaving women. (8/

Abuse of women isn't random or scattered. Abusers don’t abuse all women, or abuse all the time. What they do is goal-directed. Premeditated. Abuse happens when a man wants to modify the behavior of a woman he sees as beholden to him. (9/ )

What makes a woman beholden to a man? Under his authority? She might be his wife, his daughter, his employee, the person he’s paying for sex. But these men will extend their expectation of control to any woman who isn’t already under the control of another man. (10/ )

Why do these men feel entitled to control women this way? Because, unlike the trans criminal I mentioned earlier, women aren’t seen as inherently entitled to their humanity. That inviolable line, the very least of what we must give to every human, is not applicable to women. (11/

A man can rape and torture and kill, and he is still discussed with decorum and restraint. A woman says that she is not willing to share intimate sex-segregated spaces with men, and she’s told to shut up, choke on his dick, die, disappear. (12/ )

Of course, they wouldn’t get away with this for long if they talked this way to just any women. Women who are significantly attached to a man receive a measure of protection, a share of his inviolable humanity. To abuse HER would be to violate another man’s rights, you see (13/ )

Lesbians live without that safety by association, and that alone is deserving of punishment. We haven't been "good women,” taking our places either as personal or communal male property. That makes us everyone's property, up for grabs. Our agency is an empty parking spot. (14/ )

For abusive, controlling men, humanity isn’t something a woman has by right. It’s a privilege that’s extended to us by men as a reward for good behavior. When we misbehave, they don’t just withdraw their approval; they withdraw our right to be treated like a person. (15/ )

Every year at pride, there’s a group of evangelicals holding signs that say “FAGS IN HELL” and “AIDS FROM GOD.” There are men in the group. People make jokes and comments, take kissing selfies by them, but they don’t threaten or harass them. They don’t drive them out. (16/ )

Women carry signs saying “LESBIAN= FEMALE HOMOSEXUAL” and “TRANSGENDERISM ERASES LESBIANS,” & they’re surrounded and screamed at. In Leeds, men yelled, “I’d rather be a pervert than a terf!” They intentionally physically intimidated women, and were called heroes for it. (17/ )

The ideology of transgenderism, the concept that I am a woman because I “feel like” one, is offensive to me. But me being offended doesn’t make me not a person. When I voice my objections, I infuriate people. Being infuriating doesn’t make me not a person. (18/ )

Men can rape and kill and not forfeit their humanity in our community. Women refuse men a controlling interest in their lives, and the community takes a step back while batterers are let loose on them. And these men get to take their work from the shadows to the stage. (19/ )

This issue is about more than whether or not sex is in the genes or the mind. It’s about what the LGBTQ and progressive community will do when women they dislike, women who frustrate their mission, are under attack. It’s about authority, whether our women will be ruled. (20/ )

Lesbians aren’t seceding as a statement of hate. We’re drawing a safe boundary. We’re refusing the rule of men. This community is supposed to be a place where we’re allowed to do that. But instead of holding that space with us, our people have turned us out, disowned us. (21/ )

Our community has turned us over to the abusers who are always hiding in our midst so that we may be either corrected or driven off. And, my god. Watch the videos. The joy in their faces. Those men are so, so happy to serve. (22/ )

What good is a space for alternative sexuality if it’s also a breeding ground for male batterers? This isn’t just about the unruly dykes. You’re making an example of us for ALL women. You’re sending a message to a generation: Women will obey, or they’ll pay. (23/ )

The LGBTQ movement is grooming a generation of women to fear dissent, to devalue their own realities and desires. This community is affirming the mentality of the male abuser. They’re cooperating with him to frighten and isolate Bad Women. They’re leaving the women behind. (24/ )

I spent more than a decade in the confines of domestic abuse. I got away, and I did it by telling him the truest thing I knew - That I was a lesbian. I knew what came next wouldn’t be easy, but, my god. I didn’t expect my community to reject me in favor of men like him. (25/ )

Members of this community can disagree without dehumanizing and discarding vulnerable members. We can disagree without dissolving. We’ve always known disagreement in our ranks; it’s never come to this before. To be bullied into sacrificing both lesbians and lesbianism itself?(26/

We can disagree about the role of transgender people in the lesbian community without forgetting that we AGREE about a woman’s right to live her life and even piss people off without being punished. DO we all agree about that? Or has male dominance already become law for us? (27/

I don’t know. I’m waiting to find out about that, to see if there’s enough integrity among us for someone to stand up and say, “Okay, this is not how we do things. I don’t like what those women are about, but they have a right to be here and a right to be safe and heard.” (28/ )

And, however it plays out, I’ll choose women over community any day, no question. Spaces for women MUST exist. A society that doesn’t allow women a sovereign existence is a society that doesn’t see all that a woman is — knowing, complete, and always inviolably human. (29/29)