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Canada: TERF war or Why I didn’t go to the women's march

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People are outraged by this transphobic sign from the Women's March

20 January, 2018 marked the second annual Women’s March. Women from all over the United States, as well as from other countries including Australia, Canada, and Germany, took to the streets protesting gender inequality, LGBTI rights, and other important, intersecting issues.

However, some trans people and allies attending the March in Vancouver were made to feel incredibly uncomfortable by one transmisogynistic sign proclaiming that “TRANS WOMEN ARE MEN” went viral, shared nearly 4,000 times on facebook, shared by thousands on twitter, and picked up by many media outlets. 

Reactions

Trans people and allies from all over the world have expressed outrage at this woman’s bigoted sign, as well as support for all trans and non-binary people. Read more via Gay Star News

OP-ed response. Jaye McBride is an Albany comedian currently living in Brooklyn.  Check out her TedX talk about being trans, her stand up clips (all on YouTube) and of course, tweets at jayemcbride.com

I tend to overthink things a lot.  It’s what I do when I’m bored and the cable’s out so there isn’t the soothing voices of Law & Order’s Lenny Briscoe or Jack McCoy keeping me sane.  I think this year’s Women's march is one of those times.  I wanted to go.  I feel like I should have gone.  But I didn’t.  Here’s a sign at Vancouver’s march that can explain my hesitation more than more words could.  I cropped out her face because it bothers me too much.

This wasn’t a protester by the way, this was a pink hat wearing feminist marching along with everyone else.  There is a group of feminists (or tiny subsection really) that fully believes that transwomen and transmen are the result of a patriarchal society imposing their strict gender roles and confusing poor, helpless gay men and women.  The transwomen and trying to be a fetish, the transmen are trying to be what they’ve been convinced is the more dominant gender.  In a word, it’s utter bullcrap.  It’s what happens to bored feminists when they’ve taken one too many gender studies courses.  They’ve taken a field which is extremely new, even for one of the soft sciences and extrapolated it to an absurd degree.  Even at its purest, gender studies is theory built on theory that will never be proven or disproved any time soon so living your life on one interpretation of it is like living a life based on cryptozoology.  They’re hunting imaginary creatures and they’re looking at me like I’m wearing a giant chupacabra costume.

And what’s more is that I fully understand that I didn’t grow up a girl facing the brunt of female discrimination in my youth.  I didn’t have that.  I’m fully aware because I spent the majority of my childhood hiding my girlier quirks to keep from getting the crap kicked out me and praying that I would one day wake up female.  The day I was told I held my books like a girl is the day I learned to start getting better at imitating the boys in my class. So anyway, I didn’t go.  Not because I was afraid so much as unsure of just how many women believe this.  Was I even wanted there? Read more via Times Union