#Gender Liberation Movement

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

Capitol police quickly issued a warning to the protesters — which included U.S. army whistleblower Chelsea Manning alongside author and activist Raquel Willis — to disperse or face arrest, including sexual misconduct charges. Following those warnings, they were arrested and escorted from the building by Capitol police. 

The protest follows Johnson’s announcement in November that transgender women are not allowed to access women’s restrooms and facilities in the Capitol and House buildings — an announcement that was not accompanied with any information about enforcement, or how such a policy would be carried out. The group called for elected officials to block Rep. Nancy Mace’s proposed bill that would ban trans people from bathrooms in museums, national parks and other federal property and for Democratic members of Congress to filibuster and block the bill if or when it comes to a vote. 

“This bathroom sit-in sets an example of the righteous defiance and solidarity needed under a second Trump administration,” Gender Liberation Movement said in a press release, citing support from transgender and cisgender participants. The group said survivors of sexual violence also joined the protest to demand that proponents of bathroom bills stop falsely accusing trans women of endangering cis women when they use women’s facilities.  

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Sarah Szilagy at Mother Jones:

Protesters took to the US Capitol bathrooms across from House Speaker Mike Johnson’s office on Thursday to protest the recently enacted policy banning trans people from accessing bathrooms that align with their gender identity. Just a day after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that may upend gender-affirming care for children and adults across the United States, dozens of trans people and their allies raised banners demanding Congress “stop pissing on our rights” and urging supporters to “flush bathroom bigotry.” “It was important to show up in a radically defiant way and let the world know, and let our electeds know, that we are not going to allow this disrespect and this disregard for our lives,” Raquel Willis, co-founder of Gender Liberation Movement and one of the organizers of the demonstration, told Mother Jones. “Trans folks deserve access to the restroom like anyone else.”

The demonstration, which Willis said was inspired by civil rights sit-ins of the past, was in response to the efforts spearheaded by Rep. Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican who, weeks after the election, vowed to propose a trans bathroom ban to target the first openly trans person elected to Congress, Democrat Sarah McBride from Delaware. After Speaker Johnson announced that bathroom access would be restricted—which he did on the Trans Day of Remembrance—Mace went still further, announcing that the ban she proposed would be extended to include all federal property, including museums and national parks. “Oh you thought threatening me would silence me?” Mace wrote in a post on X. “No. I just doubled down and filed a new bill to protect women and girls across the entire country on all federal property everywhere.”

After the protest, Mace called protesters an anti-trans slur in an X post.

[...] Proponents of the bans, including Mace, argue that they’re necessary to protect the safety of women and girls from would-be assaulters. Researchers, however, have found no link between trans-inclusive bathroom policies and safety risks. In fact, research shows that trans people face greater risk of sexual harassment and assault when restrictive bathroom policies are in place. Even without such bans, trans people already face a disproportionate risk of violence, particularly sexual violence.

Yesterday, pro-trans activists went to the US Capitol bathrooms across from Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA)’s office to protest the US House’s recently enacted anti-trans policy banning trans people from bathrooms aligned with their gender identity. About 15, including Chelsea Manning, were arrested for “crowding and obstructing”.

See Also:

The Advocate: Chelsea Manning and Raquel Willis among 15 arrested at U.S. Capitol during bathroom sit-in

HuffPost: Trans Rights Activists Stage Protest In Bathroom Next To Mike Johnson’s Office

[uncle-fruity]

Y'all know that "trans men don't suffer from significant oppression" is just the logical end point of the TERF belief that trans men transition to escape misogyny & sexism, right? Like, y'all realize how bullshit that is, right? That when you downplay and ignore and make assumptions about the experiences of trans men that you're just doing the work of transphobes who want to prove that we're "escaping" oppression to become oppressors. And surely that is not the hill you want to die on? Surely you care about trans people and have enough understanding of transphobia to know that you shouldn't take TERF talking points at face value and uncritically adopt them into your worldview, RIGHT? Surely you understand that oppression relies heavily on misrepresenting the group it's targeting and that the best way to combat that is to actually listen directly to the members of that group and get to know them as individuals, RIGHT? Surely you wouldn't shout down the throats of the trans men while they’re trying to speak on their pain and the effects of systemic oppression on their livelihood, RIGHT? RIGHT???

[blonkk]

to women being inspired by bursts of emotion rather than genuine curiosity and hunger for knowledge: read. put down your phone. get off tiktok, twitter, ig, youtube. go to the library, get on an archive and read. read feminist theory that isn’t from an influencer or a self-proclaimed “video essayist” or even your university’s “gender studies” prof. read feminist history. read articles that challenge your confirmation bias. read kate millet, catherine mckinnon, dworkin, valerie solanas, betty friedan, angela davis, nawal el sadaawi, judith butler….read shit that makes you uncomfortable. work through why you’re opposed to reading certain feminist thinkers and then read their stuff.

just read the material and then make your own decisions about what you believe. enough of this dime-store feminism. feminism isn’t an identity, it’s not a passive way to state that you care about women’s rights. it’s something that requires real action to be a true part of. most women who think they are aren’t actually feminists. they barely even understand it’s core tenets. if you want to be one that does, and maybe even take some legitimate feminist action, then commit to learning the hard way.

you can’t be an effective activist without action. you can’t understand a movement or theory without undertaking the necessary research and analysis and challenging your preconceptions.

it’s gonna make you question things. it’s gonna turn your stomach, and put you on the defensive, and force you to admit that some of your actions and beliefs are actually not at all feminist, and many may even be anti-feminist/woman. no one’s saying you have to observe and change everything about yourself, but for fuck’s sakes stop calling yourself something you’re not. it’s an obstruction of truth and insulting to women in the movement doing the real work.

[redditreceipts]

When your movement has no arguments so you have to cling onto other movements to give your movement some type of credibility

[trolltitan]

If you’re fighting the patriarchy but live in a country with free speech, property rights, and zero forced marriages… congrats, you’re not oppressed, you’re bored.

[m00n-and-m3]

♡♡♡ ATTENTION RADBLR COMMUNITY ♡♡♡

ok so listen up there's this very berry lovely discord server called radical arc and it's a gender critical radical feminist swrver and it's both minor and adult friendly📣📣📣

the previous owner left and we're kinda dead right now so any radfem who is labelled as a TERF should add my discord (m00n_haunter) so i can send u the inv link♡♡

we partake in discussions about general feminism, gender criticism, 🌽orn criticism, and even dumb things TRA's say LOLZZZ :p

and and and we also have lots of channels dedicated to other things like art, dolls, fandom, shipping, and radfem headcanons !! ^_^ very friendly to strange people over here (sorry that was a joke) BUT ANYWAY REBLOG THIS AND ADD AND DM ME IF U WANT IN‼️‼️‼️ (PLEASE WE'RE DYING OVER HERE)

[paintsinthewaterofcreation]

psa: people are allowed to experiment with their gender expression without making definitive statements about their gender identity :)

let people tell you what/who they want to be perceived as rather than prescribing it for them. this includes if people want to identify as cishet despite not strictly adhering to conventions and norms.

[cozymushroom13]

I just finished ‘stone butch blues’ (Leslie Feinberg) and it’s amazing. I read the German translation bc that’s what we had in our local queer association (they have a small library with books of many different genres and out of different times) and now I want to read it again in the original version.

I love how big of a timeframe with the societal norms and topics was shown (I think between 30 and 40 years)

Even though I live in a very different time with different challenges (which I’m happy about since I luckily haven’t been beat up, thrown in jail and/or experienced police brutality because of my gender presentation) I could see myself in the main character a lot. Towards the end of the book she even has a struggle I’m dealing with right now. It feels nice being able to read a book about someone like me in a different time period.

It also showed once again the importance and value of unions.

I also love how well the translation was (I assume, as stated I haven’t read the English original yet), I learned a term I’ve never heard before. Apparently the German equivalent to the word butch was “Kesser Vater”, which was shortened to KV. (I finally looked it up when I had reached about the middle of the book, stuff made a lot more sense afterwards) the terms KV and Butch were both used consistently throughout the book, a really nice solution for the language differences, I think. (I’ll probably put a post it with an explanation of KV in the book when I give it back, I don’t think people that are around my age or younger know about it and it took me a while to finally find a fitting explanation online as only the shortened version was used in the book)

If you are interested in queer topics and history it’s most definitely worth a read.

[faildaughtered]

getting tired of GCs on twitter endorsing trump i really think being a single issue voter on trans issues is stupid if it means voting for the party that sees women as baby factories

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

Trans rights activists hold sit-in at Capitol to protest Johnson’s bathroom ban

The act of civil disobedience on Thursday was organized by the Gender Liberation Movement (GLM) and took place in a restroom near Johnson’s office. Protesters, including transgender advocate Chelsea Manning, directed their action not only at Republicans, but also Democrats, condemning the party for not doing enough to defend trans rights.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Lil Kalish at HuffPost (09.13.2024):

Daniel Trujillo’s first month of junior year has been a “cakewalk.” He’s in two different jazz bands and is a member of his school’s chapter of March for Our Lives chapter, a student-led organization promoting gun control. He dreams of studying music in college. But getting there has not been easy for Daniel and his family ― especially in Arizona, where a barrage of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and rhetoric has threatened their sense of safety. In 2022, state Republicans banned gender-affirming surgeries for minors in Arizona, though those procedures were already rare, and barred trans girls from playing on girls sports teams in schools. (A federal appeals court decision this week stopped the latter law from going into effect.)

Lizette Trujillo, Daniel’s mom, has traveled from their home in Tucson to Phoenix each legislative session over the last six years, taking time off work to testify in opposition to such anti-LGBTQ+ bills. Daniel has joined her on those trips since 2020. “My husband and I are small business owners, and it’s given me the flexibility to devote my life in this really distinct way to fighting the trans legislation in our state. If I clocked the hours of free volunteer time, it’s significant,” Lizette Trujillo told HuffPost. And when they aren’t traveling to the state Capitol, the Trujillo family is focused on cultivating a safe, accepting community in their city. [...] Organizers across the country are sounding the alarm about the high stakes of the November presidential election and the looming threat of Project 2025, the conservative playbook for a second Trump presidency spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation. Project 2025 equates being transgender with pornography, calls for federal government to enforce sex discrimination protections based on the “binary biological meaning of ‘sex,’” and argues that educators and librarians who share materials about trans identity should have to register as sex offenders. In addition, Trump has vowed to roll back Title IX protections for transgender students and criminalize doctors who provide gender-affirming care if he’s reelected. The former president has spent the last few weeks repeating false claims that children are undergoing gender transition surgery at school and without parental consent. This week, he also refused to answer whether he’d veto a national abortion ban. By contrast, Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris has campaigned on the promise of restoring access to abortion and the “woman’s right to make decisions about her own body.” Her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, has been a champion of trans rights in his home state.

A forthcoming Supreme Court case, L.W. v. Skrmetti, will decide the legality of Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for youth. Justices will begin hearing oral arguments next month, and their decision, which is expected next summer, could have sweeping ramifications for the state of gender-affirming health care for trans youth nationwide. Activists argue that the outcome of the election and the court’s decision on gender-affirming care, like its decision overturning the right to an abortion, will affect all kinds of people who are made vulnerable in society. That’s why organizers are working so hard to bring those fights together, under the umbrella of the broader struggle for bodily autonomy — and to do so while also celebrating the beauty of self-determination. Daniel’s story is one of nine about trans and gender-nonconforming young people featured in the American Civil Liberties Union’s new “Freedom To Be” campaign, which launched this week and aims to spotlight two things that advocates say are largely missing from mainstream stories and coverage of transgender youth: joy and intersectional identities. And on Saturday, the Gender Liberation Movement — a new group to help bridge the gap between the trans rights and reproductive rights movements — will hold its first march and festival at Columbus Circle in Washington D.C., one block away from the Heritage Foundation’s headquarters. Daniel and Lizette Trujillo are slated to take the stage at the event, along with trans rights advocate Miss Major and actors Elliot Page and Julio Torres.

“At the heart of this effort is looking at the connections between all of the attacks, particularly from the right, on communities on the margins,” said Raquel Willis, a Black trans activist and writer who co-founded the Gender Liberation Movement with Eliel Cruz, an organizer and communications worker, and others. “We know that restrictions around access to abortion and reproductive justice have been a galvanizing fight for a lot of people on the left, and in queer and trans circles a lot of us have been fighting against restrictions around access to gender-affirming care.” Conservatives often use the same political playbook to target both abortion and trans rights, Willis said.

“The strongest connective tissue between our struggles is bodily autonomy,” she added. Restrictions on reproductive rights go hand in hand with the rollback of LGBTQ+ rights, harsher immigration policy and restrictions on what parts of U.S. history can be taught in schools — and what should be censored, Willis said. Everyone is harmed by anti-trans laws and rhetoric, she added, but especially cisgender women of color and gender-nonconforming women. For example, she pointed to Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, whose recent Olympic win in women’s boxing was heavily criticized by Trump, author J.K. Rowling and billionaire Elon Musk. They falsely claimed Khelif is trans and helped drum up a barrage of online abuse against her.

This past weekend featured a new protest movement called the Gender Liberation Movement that tackles abortion, gender-affirming care, and bodily autonomy.

[feral-radfem]

Hey if you're a non-radfem and you want to make a complaint that radical feminist critique keeps getting applied to you because you hang around radical feminist spaces here is my advice: leave.

Honestly, I'm so tired of seeing this shit. Go find some other places to hang out. I don't care that you came here because everyone else kicked you out for being a "transphobe". That does not make it our responsibility to soften our movement and our criticisms so that you feel comfortable in a movement you have no intention of of committing to. You are welcome here on the basis of being a woman, however, if you can't handle the feminist action that goes on in these spaces, then you need to leave. That is a you problem, not ours. I'm tired of hearing y'all whine that we don't coddle you enough and then adding anecdotal evidence of feminist harm or strawmen arguments for why you're justified in doing patriarchal actions were other women are not. There is not a single identifier or life experience you can tell me that is going to make me think that you deserve to be exempt from the same criticisms I would level at any other woman. If you're an adult, you should be mature enough to hear them. If you are not mature enough to hear feminist critique, you need to leave feminist spaces.

if you want to be self-serving, it is completely your right to do so. I've heard a number of you in passing claim that you "don't want to be feminist, you want to be people". Which, while that's an insulting sentiment as a feminist, just demonstrates that the only person y'all care about is yourself. You see being a person as inherently being self-serving and self-centered. First and foremost, it's all about you. That level of selfishness is pathetic and frowned upon in collective spaces. Feminism being one of them.

Just save us all the headache and go away. Y'all are one of the only groups of people on the internet who are able to piss me off in seconds, istg.

[burningtheroots]

I‘m really worried and disappointed that people who hate radfems/terfs also attack children for being interested in radical feminism.

Radical feminism, when not taken to an extreme (which usually doesn’t happen btw), is neither hateful nor dangerous. It protects women and girls, and prioritizes our well-being.

It‘s better to learn about the truth than to get lured in by creepy people who label being subservient to men and commodificating yourself as "empowerment".

When you have a problem with the radfem community, take it up with the adults, but don’t go around insulting and mocking children/teenagers who simply want to LEARN.

I oppose liberal feminism, and I oppose trans rights activism, but I‘d never ever send hate messages to children who are interested in it. I wouldn’t even send hate messages to children who are interested in men‘s rights activism.

GET. A. GRIP.

[minlex]

Wish we could talk about the complex relations between womanhood and trans experiences in a feminist way without everyone going fucking rabid insane

[nerdygaymormon]

The LGBTQ community has seen controversy regarding acceptance of different groups (bisexual and transgender individuals have sometimes been marginalized by the larger community), but the term LGBT has been a positive symbol of inclusion and reflects the embrace of different identities and that we’re stronger together and need each other. While there are differences, we all face many of the same challenges from broader society.

In the 1960′s, in wider society the meaning of the word gay transitioned from ‘happy’ or ‘carefree’ to predominantly mean ‘homosexual’ as they adopted the word as was used by homosexual men, except that society also used it as an umbrella term that meant anyone who wasn’t cisgender or heterosexual. The wider queer community embraced the word ‘gay’ as a mark of pride.

The modern fight for queer rights is considered to have begun with The Stonewall Riots in 1969 and was called the Gay Liberation Movement and the Gay Rights Movement.

The acronym GLB surfaced around this time to also include Lesbian and Bisexual people who felt “gay” wasn’t inclusive of their identities. 

Early in the gay rights movement, gay men were largely the ones running the show and there was a focus on men’s issues. Lesbians were unhappy that gay men dominated the leadership and ignored their needs and the feminist fight. As a result, lesbians tended to focus their attention on the Women’s Rights Movement which was happening at the same time. This dominance by gay men was seen as yet one more example of patriarchy and sexism. 

In the 1970′s, sexism and homophobia existed in more virulent forms and those biases against lesbians also made it hard for them to find their voices within women’s liberation movements. Betty Friedan, the founder of the National Organization for Women (NOW), commented that lesbians were a “lavender menace” that threatened the political efficacy of the organization and of feminism and many women felt including lesbians was a detriment.

In the 80s and 90s, a huge portion of gay men were suffering from AIDS while the lesbian community was largely unaffected. Lesbians helped gay men with medical care and were a massive part of the activism surrounding the gay community and AIDS. This willingness to support gay men in their time of need sparked a closer, more supportive relationship between both groups, and the gay community became more receptive to feminist ideals and goals. 

Approaching the 1990′s it was clear that GLB referred to sexual identity and wasn’t inclusive of gender identity and T should be added, especially since trans activist have long been at the forefront of the community’s fight for rights and acceptance, from Stonewall onward. Some argued that T should not be added, but many gay, lesbian and bisexual people pointed out that they also transgress established gender norms and therefore the GLB acronym should include gender identities and they pushed to include T in the acronym. 

GLBT became LGBT as a way to honor the tremendous work the lesbian community did during the AIDS crisis. 

Towards the end of the 1990s and into the 2000s, movements took place to add additional letters to the acronym to recognize Intersex, Asexual, Aromantic, Agender, and others. As the acronym grew to LGBTIQ, LGBTQIA, LGBTQIAA, many complained this was becoming unwieldy and started using a ‘+’ to show LGBT aren’t the only identities in the community and this became more common, whether as LGBT+ or LGBTQ+. 

In the 2010′s, the process of reclaiming the word “queer” that began in the 1980′s was largely accomplished. In the 2020′s the LGBTQ+ acronym is used less often as Queer is becoming the more common term to represent the community.