Thread by @yazzarf

To people seeing #LetWomenSwim - trans women have always been allowed at the ladies pond, and the ladies pond has always been safe. this is moral panic and a distraction; the liberation of trans + cis women will always be bound together.

Violence against women has devastated so many of us and defined our lives. Emotionally, it would be neater to have a bogeyman, like trans people. But - in terms of facts not feelings, the evidence shows that trans women are not a threat to the safety or rights of cis women.

I was on the board of trustees of a small women’s refuge for 6 years, and the chair of trustees for 2 years. The biggest threats to women safety were the hostile environment and austerity, both made it harder for women to leave and harder for the refuge to operate.

Things that increase a woman’s risk of violence are material - does she have a place to live? Does she have a uk passport? Will she be criminalised? Does she have access healthcare and childcare? - not abstract. #LetUsSwim wants you to focus instead on

whats under the swimming costume of the person next to you at the ponds, a place where no women are in danger. #LetUsSwim asks u not to focus on material conditions of women - on class, race, migration status or disability - but on an abstracted, single issue w no evidence base.

Worse than this - the transphobic movement has aligned itself with the very right wing actors driving austerity, the hostile environment and the reversal of reproductive justice (see the arguments made in the Keira Bell case re Gillick Competency).

We must respond w evidence-based analysis of the material conditions that put women at increased risk of violence - poverty, insecure migration status, criminalisation of sex work, etc. And reject (where possible engage, w caring & firmness) this fabricated moral panic.

Imo it’s the duty of all of us who can to discuss this, constructively and w care, with people in our lives. In person convos based on pre-existing relationships of trust and respect are the best way to debunk the media misinformation & online radicalisation.

Remember - we do not become free by targeting other oppressed groups, we become free (and improve our material conditions) through solidarity and compassion. Their campaign will not work on it’s own terms - because they are not fighting any real cause of violence against women.

Instead they distract us from the real causes of violence, vastly increase violence against trans women (and cis women who might be perceived as trans, eg when using a loo), and enable the far right’s dismantling of the legal principles protecting bodily autonomy.