The KKK is feeling pretty empowered

[Princessconsuelabananahammock9]

This is what happens when a man like Donald Trump gets in power.

These are the people who feel empowered.

While MN celebrates the " only two genders ", people of colour in Kentucky are scared.

I've seen threads on here wishing the UK had Trump. Is this really what you want?

Is this really the type of people you want in power?

Those that voted for Trump over trans issues, what about shit like this? Or women dying from lack of abortion access? Or climate change? Or the casual revisiting of gay marriage rights?

According to GLAAD all resources referencing LGBTQ and HIV have been removed from the White House website. Gay, lesbian, no results come up in the search.

" Pages removed include WhiteHouse.gov’s equity report (no longer accessible), a fact sheet with information on expanding access to HIV prevention and treatment (no longer accessible), and information about LGBTQ Pride Month (no longer accessible). Agency page removals include Department of State’s LGBTQ rights (no longer accessible), and Department of Labor’s LGBTQ workers page (no longer accessible). "

glaad.org/releases/breaking-trump-administration-removes-lgbtq-and-hiv-resources-from-white-house-and-other-government-websites/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/22/kkk-immigrants-flyers-kentucky

This is scary shit. I don't get how any one envies?

women need to be very very clear who they are dealing with here.

Do you think we don't? Do you think we think the Donald is now a feminist?

Trump cares about Trump. I don't believe he's akin to the Quiverfull lot or evangelicals for the simple reason that I think he only really cares about things that obviously benefit him. I don't know if has any convictions or the ability to strategies or think long term. Do I think that means he could be manipulated by those who do have convictions and do think long term? Yes maybe, but that cuts both ways.

What we know, so far, is that the EO was clearly written by a feminist and is not anti trans, but pro women. I think that's an important distinction. The EO could have been some prejudiced bible thumping nastiness written by a fundamentalist, but it's not. Look at the way it's written. It's not about taking trans rights, but about protecting womens rights.

'Very very harmful ideologies' have been forced through under the previous government, and the EO will undo some of that harm. Have you seen the impact of some of those policies, like women deliberately locked in jail cells with males on the males request? That being undone is worth being pleased about, if you care about women.

And I totally understand why you say what you do, and what's behind it. So lets just leave it at that.

Sure, you can support it. Just know the background first. Know the history. Know who is pushing this because they sure aren't doing it to protect you.

Saying there are only two genders, male & female, has nothing to do with allowing people with male body parts into female prisons. You could legislate against that while also allowing space for other gender expressions. Heck island cultures have had a third gender for many generations, it's nothing new. They manage to make it work. It doesn't have to be one or the other.

My concern is the groups pushing male / female definitions and rolling back trans protections in the US are very much ideologically and religiously motivated. They want it to be black and white for very specific reasons, and that is to enshrine male power over women. That is a very big problem.

Again, not talking about Trump. I'm talking about those funding him and fomenting this issue at a grassroots level. I'm talking about the ones that come after him. The EO is not the end game.

The EO is very well written and framed in terms of women's safety and dignity - as the post above suggests.

And yes, clarifying there are two sexes is pretty fundamental to this.

I'm well aware of the background, but there is background on both sides. The Democrats have been incarcerating women with men, despite knowing the huge impact that has on their safety and dignity. That's pretty appalling also, no?

At any point in the last 4 years or even the last 8 the Democrats could have rowed back and taken steps to protect women themselves. They could have taken the narrative back from the Republicans and not allowed them the opportunity to position themselves as the party of reality and common sense.

Instead they doubled down. So if they care so little about what happens to women as a result of Trump presidency (when it was abundantly clear most of the country were not onboard with the extremes of gender ideology) where are ordinary voters meant to take their lead from?

Kara Dansky a US left wing feminist has written 2 books about the harm caused to women and girls by all this.

In November 2021, I published a book titled The Abolition of Sex: How the ‘Transgender’ Agenda Harms Women and Girls. In it, I said:
‘Here is the truth we cannot speak: “gender identity” does not exist in any real, material sense, and “transgender” is simply a made-up concept that is used to justify all kinds of atrocities. It is, in effect, a men’s rights movement intended to objectify women’s bodies and erase us as a class. It is left-wing misogyny on steroids. I say this is as a leftist and a Democrat.’
My aim with that book was to get the Democratic Party leadership to knock it off with the trans nonsense.
In November 2023, I published a book titled The Reckoning: How the Democrats and the Left Betrayed Women and Girls. By then, it was clear to me that the Democrats in power were not going to knock it off with trans nonsense, so I at least wanted to make the case that if they didn’t, they were going to lose in November 2024. The US chapter of the global radical feminist group Women’s Declaration International sent copies of the book to the White House, to every member of the House and Senate, and to their chiefs of staff. Clearly, the Democrats took no notice.

I'm sorry the threat of evangelical republicans gives you palpitations and I do mean that. I recognise the threat they also pose but nobody in the Democratic party, especially the leadership, were having the same palpitations as you. They don't care either. If they cared they would have read the writing on the wall and done things differently.

Yes. All those issues you have raised are very concerning. And you are right, there are extreme people and groups who think that way.

Do you think feminists and women’s rights campaigners are unaware of this?

Should feminist and women’s rights groups stop their campaigning on this issue now because these other groups are leveraging the campaigns from different motivations?

Yes it is - I have never been in favour of that. Again - you don't have to erase trans existence to legislate against these. Build a third-gender prison FFS, the US has enough of them I can't see that a specialist prison would be all that hard. Maybe no profit in it, we all know black men are the real money earners for prisons.

Anyway I've said my piece. Huge thunderstorm just scared the bejesus out of everyone at my house so I will leave it here.

If you're at all interested, the book "Jesus and John Wayne" is a good place to start.

I totally agree on your point about 'third space' prison facilities. But this is not what the Democrats have backed. They chose to support a policy of incarcerating men with vulnerable women in the women's estate.

Not a supporter of the Democrats. Or the Republicans. They both suck. Husband was a US citizen - he isn't anymore. Mostly because they treat expats like shit and he grew up largely in other places. And we just could never see ourselves doing any more than visit family occasionally due to the value differences.

This is interesting Forever. Because of course feminists have been asking for third spaces for a very long time. On one of these threads, someone even posted a snippet from a statement from Chase Strangio from ACLU who said that groups of male prisoners with transgender identities had asked for this too. They asked for a segregated space for them and people who were supposedly working in the interests of those male prisoners rejected that solution.

It is a very fucked up situation, but it is one that is not unique. I think that it reflects the general behaviour by the lobby groups who have taken the extreme stance that no third spaces should be considered when feminist groups and women's rights campaigners had started asking for that as an equitable solution. And generally they still are. We are asking that an equitable approach is at least the starting point.

That seems a very white/western centric view. Fa'afafine and Fa'afatama have existed in Samoa for centuries as third and fourth genders - well respected, too, I might add. Thailand, Cambodia and Laos have kathoey as a third gender, dating back to as early as the 14th century. I would assume there are other examples out there.

Basically we don't know it all when it comes to this topic, not even close, and it is weird to assume that sex / gender (being your brain's response to hormones etc) works 100% unequivocally the way it's "meant to" when everything else in the body and brain breaks or can go wrong.

And maybe if western society weren't quite so adamant about boy / girl stereotypes more people would be comfortable breaking the mould without having to break their body to feel ok.

But I think that is a misrepresentation of the full picture. In none of these examples are these groups seen as literally a different sex and deserving of access to the single sex spaces and services reserved for that sex.

Well ultimately if we backed the idea there is no 'right' way to be male or female, we wouldn't be in this mess.

But that idea has been fundamentally rejected by those pushing the ideology.

I think that quite a few posters on this thread are fully aware of the history of the movement to re-prioritise sex based rights in line with sex based needs of female people when sex matters.

And having some familiarity with the feminists in the US who have been instrumental with working on this re-prioritisation of sex over gender when sex matters, I know that they too are fully aware of the motivations of the other groups that are involved and just where those group's motivations differ.

The issue is how to move forward and the reality is that feminists need to be heavily involved in any discussion on changes made to laws to make sure that it is the feminist principles that shape those changes. And all around the world, that has been fucking hard and continues to be harder still with the constant tactics by activists who only seek to discredit those feminists in any way possible. Including the constant misalignment of feminist interests with 'far right'. And I don't mean that is what you have done foreverscout, I am talking generally.

Very true. I don't see that approach as being a good one - I'm far more in favour of Samoa's approach, but maybe because I'm more familiar with that and have Samoan family. However - perhaps if 'boy' & 'girl' weren't so firmly constructed in our societies to particular behaviours, interests, and presentation, those feminine boys and masculine girls (for lack of a better way to phrase it) wouldn't feel a deep psychological need to pick the closest one and insist that they are that sex.

And those with body dysphoria need all the empathy and support they can get. Protect the female-segregated spaces as required for safety, but don't gatekeep them from the ones that do not meet that threshold.

Many of those cultures created a special category that have been lumped together as 'third genders' out of their inability to accept homosexual or bisexual people. The Samoan Prime Minister stated clearly during the discussions about Hubbard the weightlifter that Samoan's do not believe that people can change sex and that male people are male people regardless of their gender identity.

There are also female people who had to adopt male 'personas' to address the sexism of their time to enable them to do what they wanted, and should have been allowed, to do but the society they lived in at the time rejected.

I think that there are quite a few people who have leveraged those culture's historic homophobia and the actions that women took to overcome their oppression to support gender identity theory.

When people call Trump far right, it is important to note that the definition of Left and Right (which is bollocks anyway) is very different in the States. People think Reps =Tories and Dems =Labour, whereas the Dems are more similar to the Tories and the Reps to Reform.
Even then it is different as there are issues specific to each country.

'but don't gatekeep them from the ones that do not meet that threshold.'

Do you mean don't exclude female people who are gender non-conforming? Because if that is what you mean, I believe you will find plenty of agreement there. But not if you mean that a male person who has had extreme body modification being excluded.

I ask for clarity because I, as others who are posting on this thread, have seen posters who have used that same language while meaning that some special male people should be included.

Yeah that's not my understanding nor the understanding of the Samoans in my life. They don't believe in a change in sex, true, but those gender categorizes are not just closeted gay people. Possibly some in the Asian cultures are, but again not all. I don't think we have as clear a picture on biology as all that - and we should know this by how gay people used to be categorized as mentally ill, or how girls with autism didn't get picked up because they presented differently... Our understanding of our bodies and brains and chemistry and ecosystem can and must be allowed to evolve.

I mean if you're sorting a class in a coed school into boys vs girls for a game of tag, don't single out the transgirl and make her be on the boy side. That's not a matter of safety, and it's not an Olympic sport. Perspective matters.

And those with body dysphoria need all the empathy and support they can get. Protect the female-segregated spaces as required for safety, but don't gatekeep them from the ones that do not meet that threshold.

It's not only about safety although that's the foremost concern. Women aren't unsafe in a running competition when men are allowed to compete but they will unjustly be cheated out of their medals, records and prize money. Every man that wins an award or scholarship meant to advance women and girls takes something away from us when we are still under represented as a sex class in most areas.

It's telling that boy loud and clear that what he wants matters more than a dozen girls. He will take that message forward as he grows into a man and makes further demands on women.

He's also put all equality jobs in government on leave.

I worry deeply about what this means for women. D&I includes women, yes?

Shocked that Meta, McDonalds et al have followed suit.

Is this a step towards even less women employed in senior positions?