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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Are there any liberal/progressive US GC feminists?

61 replies

MissLucyEyelesbarrow · 12/06/2023 09:47

I used to live the US, well before the gender madness, and admired lots of American feminists, all of whom now seem to have lost their minds.

We are seeing increasing pushback against the medicalisation of children and males in women's sports in Red (Republican) states but, because the US is so politically polarised, this seems to be making every Democrat and left-leaning woman double-down on supporting trans activists, at the expense of women.

WoLF are awesome, but explicitly non-partisan.

Are there any GC US voices on the left?

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BellaAmorosa · 12/06/2023 19:04

Kara Dansky is/was a registered Democrat.

MissLucyEyelesbarrow · 12/06/2023 18:58

Thank you for the suggestions. Good point about Kara Dansky being personally left-leaning.

Hadn't heard of Megan Daum - will check her out, thanks.

Love the Gender: A Wider Lens podcast, but Sasha Ayad describes herself as a conservative, IIRC.

It's thin pickings, though, isn't it? Maybe one of the reasons why the UK has become T**F Island, is that we had brave GC women on both the left and right, prepared to speak out?

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SideWonder · 12/06/2023 18:40

Megan Daum - journalist who has 2 podcasts: "The Unspeakable" and "A special Place in Hell," the latter with conservative ex-Muslim Sarah Haider. Both well worth a listen, and Daum has published books of her essays, in the true tradition of American commitment to long-form journalism and the essay.

nepeta · 12/06/2023 17:55

The heritage feminist organisations (NOW etc.) are not places where you would find anyone admitting to being gender critical in the US because of the consequences (being cancelled).

The Women's March is a hilarious concept (like the Clean Skies initiative of a past US Republican initiative which was certainly not about environmentalism but its opposite). Everyday Feminism is very very woke and very very little feminist.

All the women's reproductive rights organisations that I know of are firmly in the business of being for all pregnant people or menstruators or pregnancy-capable people (despite more than 99% of those having abortions being fine with the labels 'women and girls' and some sizable percentage probably not being fine with the new dehumanisation and sex-erasure).

The Ovarit-site is US-centred but it's not an activist organisation and the individuals speaking there are mostly just ordinary people. It doesn't have funding to do anything, and it's much smaller than the gender-critical Reddit site which was banned and which it tried to replace. Partly these difficulties are because of very clear attempts to destroy sites which allow gender-critical debates.

I can't think of many gender-critical feminists who have stuck their heads above the parapet, and the ones I know have mostly been already mentioned.

What feminist women in the US truly think is a a different question and difficult to answer. But I believe there are more feminists who privately disagree with the trend of things (in fact, I know this to be the case for some).

As others have pointed out, the extreme polarisation in US politics makes speaking up costly for feminists with progressive beliefs as their 'tribe' will drop them like a hot potato and they will be lumped together with Proud Boys and Trumpites and so on.

It's extremely tiresome.

NotHavingIt · 12/06/2023 16:34

BellaAmorosa · 12/06/2023 15:21

Abigail Shrier would most definitely consider herself a conservative.

Did she always, though?

It is the same with Mary Harrington: as you start to question some old certainties and articles of leftist faith your position starts to shift.

Most women who post here would have at one point identified with the Left but an increasing number of us no longer do; and that is not so much because we are identifying with the right - but that we have cast off ideological contraints in search of better answers.

Sh4rkAttack · 12/06/2023 15:28

Maybe Sasha Ayad, who hosts the Gender: A wider lens podcast with Stella O'Malley...

BellaAmorosa · 12/06/2023 15:21

Abigail Shrier would most definitely consider herself a conservative.

GrinitchSpinach · 12/06/2023 14:59

<waves from somewhere in the US Eastern time zone>

Although both WoLF and WDI USA, of which Kara Dansky is president, are nonpartisan as organizations, almost all of the women I've met while volunteering for both groups consider themselves on the left side of the aisle. None of us is famous, though. :)

Abigail Shrier is a conservative, isn't she?

As far as celebs go, look what happened when Bette Midler and Macy Gray dipped their toes in cautiously. The metaphorical hammer came down on them but swift.

RealityFan · 12/06/2023 14:30

Abigail Shrier.

BellaAmorosa · 12/06/2023 14:16

Also Nancy Hogshead-Makar. Ex-swimmer. Martina Navratilova, obviously!
If you reach out to Kara Dansky, I'm sure she will put you in touch with others.

Toseland · 12/06/2023 13:43

Kara Dansky?