The left’s war on women continues apace, seemingly with no end in sight. Transgender rights cases keep winding their way through the U.S. court system, school boards force gender identity/pronoun ideology on students and parents alike, and men who identify as women being increasingly welcomed into women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, sports leagues, etc.
While it may seem that all hope is lost for those who oppose the movement to rewrite women’s rights as we know them to the point of eradication in the name of “inclusiveness,” they should not despair. Three recent outcries and the responses to them provide small but strategic victories to build upon.
First up is the prestigious British medical journal Lancet, which landed itself in some hot water this week after an article on “the cultural movement against menstrual shame” in their most recent edition referred to women as “bodies with vaginas”:
The silence, shame, and stigma surrounding menstruation are increasingly being challenged from various cultural domains.[…]Historically, the anatomy and physiology of bodies with vaginas have been neglected—for example, the paucity in understanding of endometriosis and the way women’s pain has been seen as more likely to have an emotional or psychological cause, a hangover from centuries of theorising about hysteria.
The term also appeared on the cover:
Two of the better responses to Lancet’s description of women included one from a body with a penis:
The backlash was so swift across the pond and here at home that Lancet editor-in-chief Richard Horton issued an apology of sorts in a statement on the controversy. Horton tripped over himself in trying to appear both woke and sensitive to the objections of women to being dehumanized:
The Lancet strives for maximum inclusivity of all people in its vision for advancing health. In this instance, we have conveyed the impression that we have dehumanised and marginalised women. Those who read The Lancet regularly will understand that this would never have been our intention. I apologise to our readers who were offended by the cover quote and the use of those same words in the review. At the same time, I want to emphasise that transgender health is an important dimension of modern health care, but one that remains neglected.
While it was more an “apology” for offending people than an apology for the use of the term itself, it’s a start.
In another case where a “woke” organization found themselves the targets of a fierce backlash, the ACLU was forced to issue their regrets but fell short of an outright apology after running a quote from the late Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the first anniversary of her death that removed all references to women:
This is the unaltered version of what Ginsburg said during her 1993 Supreme Court confirmation hearings:
“The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman’s life, to her well-being and dignity. It is a decision she must make for herself. When government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices.”
Whether or not one believes abortion should be legal, those were her words. The more significant issue was that someone removed women from her quote, which was ironic on so many levels, especially considering the subject matter was directly related to women and that for “feminists,” Ginsburg has long been regarded as a women’s rights icon.
In response to the outcry, ACLU executive director Anthony Romero told the New York Times that he regretted what happened, noting that in the future, “we won’t be altering people’s quotes. It was a mistake among the digital team. Changing quotes is not something we ever did.”
Lastly, we move back to the UK, where the Labour party committed a comedy of errors last week on the “gender identity” front. The male leader of the party, Sir Keir Starmer, scolded MP Rosie Duffield for having the nerve to defend herself after being accused of being “transphobe” for liking a tweet posted by Piers Morgan, who disputed CNN’s characterization of women as “individuals with a cervix.” Here was the tweet in question (which resurfaced last week) and Duffield’s reply. Starmer’s response follows:
When Starmer was asked during a BBC interview if it was “transphobic” to say only women had a cervix, he responded by sticking his foot into his mouth:
“Well, it is something that shouldn’t be said. It is not right. We need to have a mature, respectful debate about trans rights and we need to… bear in mind that the trans community are amongst the most marginalised and abused communities.”
That we have the powerful male leader of a major political party in the UK mansplaining to a rank and file female member of his party as to whether it’s acceptable for her to agree with the statement that only women have a cervix should not be lost on anyone.
Compounding the theater of the absurd was when fellow Labour MP and Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves was questioned on the “transphobic” row. Reeves at first attempted to dodge the discussion, calling it “unhelpful” but LBC host Nick Ferrari would not let her off the hook. Watch as Reeves stammered through the back and forth exchange, with Ferrari continuing to press her for a straight answer.
At a couple of points, she appears visibly agitated at discussing the issue, suggesting that talking about lady parts made her uncomfortable. Eventually, she came around to admitting the inconvenient fact that it was not transphobic to say only women have a cervix. It was, I must admit, one of the most unintentionally hilarious two-minute videos I’ve ever watched:
It seems strange, but these “wokesters” are doing themselves more harm than good with their self-owns, which is good news for those who oppose their movement. Remember, these groups/institutions wouldn’t be reacting like this if the criticisms directed at them were only coming from conservatives. The “progressive” side is pushing back more aggressively on these issues now, too, to a certain extent which is something even a year ago was almost unheard of.
They are accidentally doing women a favor by demonstrating the absolute absurdity of removing references to women, effectively erasing them from view. These should not be considered inconsequential victories. They are strong signals that the tide is changing ever so slowly, which is likely to give those opposed to the radical agendas of “gender identity” fanatics the inspiration to keep on fighting.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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