Good News for Women's Free Speech

[Delphinium20]

womensliberationfront.org/news/green-v-miss-united-states-of-america

The United States 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit Court of Appealss_ expanded the First Amendment’s protection against compelled speech, to include a single-sex beauty pageant being forced to say that men can be women.

Thank you for this. It's interesting to see the fight back and on such a surprising area!

Oh that's great! Well done to the beauty queens :)

That would be protection against being forced to say that men can be women, Stan ... and world peace.😁

Haha Guinness- took me a minute 🤣

If I knew how to make a gif I would 😂

😉👸

Good for them and fingers crossed (ridiculous entitlement - they hadn't even got their entry in on time!)

The absurdity of this situation is simply jaw-dropping. The Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF) is using its energy and resources to submit legal arguments in support of an organisation that places the following restrictions on women who wish to compete in beauty pageants:

“Contestants may not be married or pregnant. They must not have ever been married, not had a marriage annulled nor given birth to, or parented, a child. The titleholders are also required to remain single throughout their reign.”

Isn’t it strange that they don’t seem to care about liberating women from actual patriarchal rules and restrictions? It seems very apparent that they’re just another cloaked organisation that is now working as a front for Conservative activism.

No idea what you are trying to say landOFconfusion but its so nice to see compelled speech will be a no-no going forward. Dont you agree?

@landOFconfusion
Read the information in the link the OP provided. The issue was that a male was demanding to be included in the women-only competition. The patriarchal rules and restrictions of the competition didn't bother him, he sued for the right to be subject to them. He had also taken part in Miss Universe pageants previously, but was now too old. In suing Miss USA pageant, he was trying to force his way into a competition reserved for women. I'm saying "him" because the court ruling effectively confirms that Anita Green is of the male sex.

Beauty pageants are sexist and encourage society in general and girls in particular to overly value women for their looks. Beauty pageants are also silly.

I can state my opinions on sexist and silly beauty pageants honestly without fear of prosecution or losing my livelihood, so why shouldn't the organisers of a silly and sexist beauty pageant be able to base the eligibility criteria for the competition on their unexceptional belief that men are not women? A sincere thank you from me to WoLF for defending the principle of and the right to free speech.

Yes I am conflicted on this.

It's a win, but it is a win from something I do not support.

I'm not sure if this quote from Andrea Dworkin is relevant here, e the case is about an organisation which objectifies women, rather than women's rights to objectify themselves, but I'm still going to quote it: Feminism is a political practice of fighting male supremacy on behalf of women as a class, including all the women you don't like, including all the women you don't want to be around, including all the women who used to be your best friends whom you don't want anything to do with anymore.

TBH I don't think it is important that the organisation WoLF are supporting promotes a value at odds with feminism. The important thing here is to have the fact that men cannot be women legally established. (What a ridiculous sentence to have to even think!) It is, I hope, the thing end of the wedge.

But if the women wish to compete in beauty pageants, surely feminist organisations should be supporting their choices, whist decrying the patriarchal beauty standards they are enforcing? It would not be very feminist to deny women doing what they wish would it? if women were being coerced, I can see why a feminist organisation would be wrong to support them, but I can’t see women being trafficked, blackmailed or forced into entering Miss World.

maybe, as a feminist, which I assume you are as you are decrying beauty pageants, you should work on helping fellow feminists in smashing the gender stereotypes that the gender ideology bollocks seeks to enforce? .

It seems very apparent that they’re just another cloaked organisation that is now working as a front for Conservative activism.

Wrong, wrong, and wrong again. If you read the link you will see why.

I have see some TRAs stating this case shows that women know transwomen are more beautiful than women. Although again that just proves that they know they are not women.
No. Women just want all men to keep out of our spaces. Even those wearing frocks and lipstick.

I think it's also because WoLF has to fight on all fronts in order to keep the fundamentals. And I imagine those choosing these areas to have a go at women, know this, as well as knowing how thinly they're stretching WoLF. It's despicable.

Free speech, and not forcing people to lie is definitely good.

But... the general EA principle is sound: avoiding discrimination unless it is justified to prevent greater injustice, greater harm.

We want to protect women's single sex spaces - where they are needed. But I'm all for challenging remaining unjustified barriers.

Beauty pageants are weird. They judge people on how closely they conform to a very specific, regressive-gender-stereotype ideal.

Is that a reasonable thing to do? Certainly not in wider society /for anything that matters. Should it be allowed as an entertainment event? Probably. There's some social harm, but probably not more than MMA say.

So, should transwomen be excluded from that beauty pageant?

Well, the entrance criteria include some pretty strong 'plausible virginity' criteria. If you allow that kind of reproductive control in the criteria. it's not really a stretch to exclude males.

Personally, I find that that control distasteful, and think that both transwomen and mothers should be allowed to enter. No one is harmed if they do (so long as no one has to pretend that the transwomen are actually women). The 'winner' characteristics can certainly apply to both.
The regressive gender stereotyping which being Trans is based on is actually a pretty good fit with beauty pageants!

Of course the changing facilities should be kept single sex!

Well done to Wolf!

The 'whataboutery' in 'why are Wolf on the side of beauty pageants' is exactly the same as has been thrown at us regarding women's sports. We may not take part in either, but they are both the Canary in the coal mine - we have to be clear about what a woman is, and is not.

The two instances, sports and pageants, make the issue of 'what is a woman' so clear.

Absolutely!

Ultimately, WoLF believes that the protection of free speech and free association laws, established by the First Amendment, is of the utmost importance to the security and expansion of women’s rights. And so this feminist organization finds itself lending support to, of all causes, a beauty pageant. In practice, the litigious Green’s decision to infringe on the rights of MUSA to free association clearly burdens womens’ right to free association everywhere.