Thread by @hatpinwoman

I stumbled across a HIGHLY REVEALING document from 2002.

It’s a Canadian document “funded in part by the British Columbia Human Rights Commission”

And its goal was to eviscerate women’s single sex resources

Including resources for female sexual assault victims 🧵🪡

The purpose of the document was to “assist” women’s organisations to include men

The authors called women “non-trans women”

& told us that trans identified men were already working for local women’s organisations but “Some have simply not identified themselves as being trans”

They claimed that women’s organisations had a duty to “educate” their members & “make alliances with trans and queer communities” while resisting backlash from people who tried to maintain the “status quo”

Women who objected were framed as a regressive hurdle to be overcome

There is a whole section on “feminism and transphobia”

“when courageous trans-women began knocking on feminism’s door, some feminists returned to anti-feminist arguments, based in biology and appearance, to justify installing the lock”

Apparently, men wouldn’t pretend to be women in order to access women’s resources because, and this is a real quote,

“Let’s face it, women’s groups are just not that compelling”

The document puts forward a lot of familiar, and insane, arguments for why these men are women

🤡 “The last set of defining attributes is the penis and the vagina. With the advent of sex reassignment surgery, even the penis and vagina are no longer mutually exclusive. You can possess both in the same lifetime.”

The propaganda in this. And it gets worse

Policies at the time were already letting some men in, with doctor’s letters or after surgeries.

Those policies are framed as bad, here, because they exclude most of the men who want access.

After all, these men might kill themselves if you don’t give them what they want:

“To be refused admittance into a woman's shelter on the basis of one's physical appearance can reinforce the hatred that transsexuals feel for their bodies. This rejection can also lead to low self esteem, increased alcohol and drug consumption, and even attempts at suicide”

As an example of transphobia and discrimination they highlight the sad 😔 case of teacher David Rivers who was put on administrative leave for being unfit for service, after his transition to “Dana”.

Rivers is the man who later brutally murdered a lesbian couple and their son.

The authors cite cases where women have lost the right to exclude men as proof organisations should push ahead

They tell them that if they make trans inclusive policies but no men turn up to “go back to the drawing board”

They want these men to be able to volunteer/counsel, too

What about the safety issue?

No worries, men who say they’re women are safe as houses 🙄

They aren’t a risk, they’re *at risk*

“Staff will need to be vigilant to ensure that trans& intersex women, as all women,are physically&emotionally safe”

Intersex is an added red herring

Women, though, are not allowed to be safe under these policies.

The authors state it is discrimination to give these men separate rooms

Women must be compelled to share with these men,

If they won’t be compelled women’s organisations shouldn’t help them:

“If a resident would rather leave than sleep in the same room as a lesbian, a trans-woman, or an old woman, then that is her choice.”

If a female survivor is upset by the evident presence of men…it’s also her problem.

This is “reframe their trauma” territory but 22 years ago:

“Part of a survivor’s healing process is to learn to differentiate her abuser from others with a similar characteristic: whether it’s the muscular arms of a non-trans woman or the curly red hair of a trans-woman”

No one cares about a man’s hair colour, for god’s sake.

Women are not even allowed to choose female counsellors according to the document authors.

“remind her that it is against the law for your organization to discriminate and that all staff are well-qualified to provide services.”

What about women reading this, who run organisations for women, and don’t feel comfortable with their new male co-workers? It’s ok, the authors are on hand to brainwash them too:

“It might help to consider the women you already know and remind yourself that some of these women may be trans or intersex. Remember that some men have fine facial features or noticeable breasts; and some women have heavy-set jaws or imperceptible breasts.”

Women in women’s orgs must ignore sex differences and LISTEN TO MEN

“The similarities among people are far greater than the differences, in both anatomy and behaviour. Most importantly, listen closely to trans women… and learn about their lives”

There’s one more thing I need to tell you about this document.

4 years before it was written Canadian women were on record saying men there had claimed to be women to access their victims in women’s shelters

It had already happened yet this document explicitly denies this risk

https://twitter.com/garylfrancione/status/1786865920012390687

They say that a lesbian is more likely to try to gain access to a victim than a trans identified man

“It is more likely that a female abuser would try to gain entry (posing as the victim) to get access to her lesbian partner”

So, what if a man turns up claiming to be a victim of a woman using the service?

Well, women’s orgs should disregard all they know about male violence to figure out if the battered woman in their service, or the man on the doorstep, is the real abuser based on, I guess, vibes

I’m appalled by this. And I got angrier and angrier as I read it.

It’s a really important link, though, because it’s from decades ago and clearly shows us how institutional capture occurred

Source here:

static1.squarespace.com/static/566c7f0…