Are there any liberal/progressive US GC feminists?

[MissLucyEyelesbarrow]

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?

Kara Dansky?

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.

Abigail Shrier.

<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.

Abigail Shrier would most definitely consider herself a conservative.

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

Kara Dansky is/was a registered Democrat.

And she is definitely the one to follow. I've just remembered someone else - Amy de Souza. I think she is/was a Democrat as well. But she organised or co-organised LWS events.

I've heard her call herself a moderate.

Some of the journalists at Reduxx are from the states and don't appear conservative. However, a good journalist won't appear too politically aligned.

Sadly, Gloria Steinem USED to be publicly GC back in the 70s. She still espouses several radical feminist views today, like being anti-surrogacy. But, she's massively disappointed us on this issue.

She is the epitome of US feminists who have disappointed me. She blew my mind when I discovered her writing in the 90s, but now...

Thank god for Germaine Greer (tho not American, obvs).

It's a massive problem that the only visibility the GC viewpoint has in mainstream media is on the right. Thank GOD for JK Rowling and other high profile left thinkers speaking out on Terf Island. In the US the polarization just seems to become more and more entrenched, with democrat states racing to become "trans sanctuaries" to stick it to their political enemies. (And mentally ill children, while they're at it.)

https://womensdeclarationusa.com/

It may be worth reading Ovarit which I think you can without joining.

You may find groups mentioned on there.

https://ovarit.com/

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?

Definitely, and I am a long-time poster here and long-time admirer of TERF Island.

Still...please don't underestimate the challenges US women face. It's not just the political polarization or the vast distances we need to travel in order to meet up here (though those are major factors).

It's the fact that if you lose your job you can expect not only to thrust your family into poverty but also lose access for you and all your dependents, including children to much medical care.

And it's the fact that when women gather in public here, we never know when the black-masked woman-haters are going to show up with guns.

Some brave women have shown up anyway, but these factors limit our numbers pretty dramatically.

I'm a US citizen and a registered Democrat though I usually live in the UK, I am temporarily in the US.
I'm hoping to meet up with some GC women while I'm here but I know many of them are going to be conservative.

I think I probably call myself "mildly and evidence-based socially conservative" though. It's always been possible in the UK to be politically left wing while being mildly socially conservative, less so in the US, though some of the traditionally democratic demographics can be socially conservative (e.g. lots of Black churchgoers are both).

KJK appeared to underestimate the dangers in the US. I was, frankly, surprised no one got shot.

Sympathies, @GrinitchSpinach . Having lived in a city with one of highest gun crime rates on the East Coast, and also having spent a fair amount of time in Texas, I absolutely understand the concerns about violence at physical meetings.

I guess what I find is surprising is that (virtually) no one is breaking ranks, given the evidence of increasing scepticism in the US public.

69% of Americans are now opposed to males in female sports, including half of Democrats and 67% of independents (whom the Dems need, to win power), with rates of those opposed rising. Only a minority support drug/surgical transition for under 18s. But - as in the UK - the great majority support human/employment rights for trans people.

So this seems to give the lie to two arguments heard constantly from the media and the Dems: firstly that all progressives support the Dem policies on trans issues, and secondly the insistence that being concerned about medical transition or males in female sports = being "anti-trans".

I guess what I find is surprising is that (virtually) no one is breaking ranks, given the evidence of increasing scepticism in the US public.

It's hard to overstate how dreadful the US media coverage of this issue has been. For a long time it was just glowing pieces about how great pediatric medical transition is and how it's every male's civil right and human right to grab any resources and invade any spaces set up for women.

Once cracks finally started to appear (because of the inevitable consequences of the policies being pushed by the sex denial movement) most of the media framed this as "homophobic and transphobic conservative religious right backlash against LGBTQ+."

They do not cover feminist, progressive objections to sex denial. If they did, the whole thing would fall apart.

I hear you. I don't see US TV anymore, but still listen to NPR & US podcasts, and read WAPO, the New Yorker etc.

It's actually impressive how sceptical the public has remained because, as you say, the propaganda is relentless. But, on the rare occasions that WAPO or the NYT allow uncensored comments on gender issues, it's obvious that women are pissed. None of that seems to get through to the Dems or media, though.

My worry is that no one is speaking for centrist/leftish women who are GC. I hesitate to call other US hot topics - abortion, gun rights, immigration - nuanced but, compared to trans issues, they are. There are some Republicans who support gun control. There are some anti-abortion Dems. There's a whole tranch (albeit an aging one) of the Reaganite Republican party that is pro immigration. But, on trans issues, you can only be "anti-trans" or totally compliant. WoLF and Ron DeSantis are supposedly of one mind!