Madeleine Kearns: The [US] Equality Act is a Time Bomb

[GrinitchSpinach]

The Equality Act (H.R. 5) passed the House on Friday. The sweeping legislation would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include sexual orientation and gender identity as protected characteristics. But it goes further than that. Under the guise of anti-discrimination protections, the bill redefines sex to include gender identity, undermines religious freedom, gives males who identify as females the right to women’s spaces, and sets a dangerous political precedent for the medicalization of gender-confused youth.

www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-equality-act-is-a-time-bomb/

I can't express how weird it is to be watching as this legislation is passed by the Democratic representatives I've always supported, while Republicans with whom I disagree on just about everything else (there may be some common ground on changing Daylight Saving Time ) are the only ones talking common sense such as:

...the so-called ‘Equality’ Act would actually eliminate sex-based protections for women by forcing rape crisis centers, lady’s locker rooms, female prisons, women’s sports leagues and other sex-based organizations to admit biological males. Additionally, this bill would eviscerate constitutionally protected rights by empowering the federal government to force employers, medical professionals, parents, business owners and all Americans to act in violation of their conscience. The federal government should not be able to dictate a belief system. (Mike Johnson, R-LA)

What I am saying here is not that I support Mike Johnson in general: he is an anti-choice activist and a gun lover; vital issues on which I oppose his positions strenuously. I am saying how fundamentally heartbroken I am that even this guy can see the problems this bill poses for American women and girls, while the Democrats on whom I've relied to defend female rights all my life are merrily flushing them down the drain. Will none have the courage to stand up for us now, when our hard-won and still-limited rights under the law are under assault from both right and left?

The Equality Act is fantastic in one way only - the addition of sexual orientation as a protected class. This should have been part of the original CRA in 1964.

I am a political orphan at this point - I can sum it up best this way... I'm in no way Republican (have never voted Rep), I am a registered Democrat but I have no candidate for our next election because they have all stated TWAW.

If we allow the TWAW mantra to invade POTUS we are really fucked. The Democrat-controlled House is already happily fellating 'female penises' in support of less than 1% while ignoring safety/dignity of 51% - hopefully the Republican-controlled Senate will stop it and leave women some room to breathe.

Your (general not you OP) rights end where mine begin and vice versa. Rights are shifting plates like tectonic plates in that they rub together crashing together sometimes and the lines of division post-crash are altered. However, when one's rights become altered to the point that they are actively put in danger, stripped of dignity, and are disallowed personal boundaries the alteration is unjust and causes devastation.

Abortion won't be debatable if the Senate passes this legislation. In this Brave New World - the TRAs will likely appropriate "being a woman" to a point that we are reduced to baby factories for their gain. I mean after all, they do woman in every way better than us except childbirth (because they can't yet), right? How will abortion get debated at all with some "women" having penises/sperm and some women having vaginas/uteruses/ova? "Women" with penises have a "right" to be parents - where will this lead?

Woman is becoming a word for all people. We are being stripped of our right to define ourselves with the Equality Act. I hope the act fails it its current form. I would love it to be modified to remove all gender/gender identity references and reconsidered for LGB protection only.

Sexual orientation would have been given federal civil rights protection in 2009 under ENDA if gender identity hadn't been suddenly added to the bill at the last minute, due to T demands. When that happened, Barney Frank withdrew the bill because he knew it had no chance of passing -- and that was with a Democratically controlled Congress and WH.

Ten years later, here we are. What a difference campaign contributions make! Or donations. The National Organization of Woman supports the Equality Act. In fact, they've changed their mission statement from "fighting for women's equality" to (paraphrasing) "supporting feminist ideals and justice for everyone." Just like, with Pritzker a #2 donor, Planned Parenthood's business model now includes dispensing hormones on an informed consent basis and they tweet daily about "uterus havers," "menstruators" and "women with penises." Even the National Center for Lesbian Rights chose to support TW federal prisoners housed with women in a class-action suit filed by women prisoners for sexual harassment they were enduring from those TW prisoners in the showers and elsewhere. The NCLR spokesperson explained that the female prisoners were coming from a place of bigotry and needed more education that TWAW.

It's graft and corruption all the way down. Women in the US have been utterly and completely sold out.

We're going to have to learn from all the clever and courageous women of the UK and begin organizing in face-to-face groups, slowly. It'll take longer, because the country is bigger, and it'll be harder, because we don't have as much of a populace-engaged system I could no more have a meeting with my Congressional representative than I could with the Queen. And it'll be rougher because we'll be accused (are already being accused) of being in bed with the Christian Right and Donald Trump. And it'll take longer also because once something's enacted in law, it's hard to reverse that we don't have the agility of a parliamentary system.

But the Second Wave started small, in women's homes and apartments. The next wave can do that too -- will have to, since only in the home will women be permitted to gather without male presence.

Meanwhile, as we organize, I'm convinced genderism will begin to collapse from the weight of its own internal contradictions and from the eventual impossible-to-hide medical damage done to current children and teenagers.

It's also true that in the vast geographical majority of the country, genderism is not going to fly with the people, at all. There are men who simply will not stand for the idea of their wives and daughters being made to use mixed-sex toilets or changing rooms, and who will oppose that will whatever force they think necessary. And there are too many parents relying on athletic scholarships for their daughters to go to college. The Equality Act is going to engender enormous backlash -- and it will be indiscriminate, not differentiating between the G and the T, and not differentiating between libfems and radfems. This is why the more people know there are feminists who oppose this, the better. Really, I think the G needs to get out ahead of this too. Unfortunately, I don't think they will.

Sorry to ask what probably seems like a stupid question - if the senate and presidency turn blue in 2020, and the Act goes through, can the judiciary repeal it? I seem to remember the Supreme Court recently gutted the Voting Rights Act, but how far can they go?

Woman is becoming a word for all people. We are being stripped of our right to define ourselves with the Equality Act. I hope the act fails it its current form. I would love it to be modified to remove all gender/gender identity references and reconsidered for LGB protection only.
Well said, StopThePlanet.

BickerinBrattle, just a superb pair of posts! Packed with insight into our current situation in the US, which is quite different from the UK landscape.

Lysistrata the Supreme Court could rule all or part of the law unconstitutional, but that would take someone (or a group of people) hurt by the provisions bringing a case to challenge it. Could take years to percolate through the lower courts up to the Supremes.

I'm also not sure what the legal argument would be to invalidate it, since the Equal Rights Amendment guaranteeing women's equality in the Constitution was never ratified. Maybe an equal protection under the law argument? I will check and see whether WoLF have addressed that question.