By Eleanor Dashwood
How do you know so-called transgender women aren’t real women? Because they act just like predatory men who, rather than having sympathy for women concerned when physically intact men invade their territory, revel in the ability to impose their will on these women.
I once had a conversation with a strapping, athletic, and tall young man I was dating about how I, and women in general, feel vulnerable walking or traveling alone in many situations he took for granted. He had never thought about that wary anxiety women feel walking through a dimly lit parking lot at night, or turning around at footsteps, assessing the environment, noticing men eying them and, in response, feeling vulnerable and unprepared and instantly calculating how to respond if things go south.
The man wasn’t naïve or insensitive, but the emotions I described were unfamiliar to him. He had never pondered how different women’s day-to-day experiences were from his own. He enjoyed unthinking confidence due to his strength, size, and sex.
Of course, men can be vulnerable, but it should go without saying that their reality is different than women’s. Women are generally smaller and physically weaker than most men, so savvy women learn to be careful.
Women also rely on the traditional social contract ensuring single-sex privacy in places in which they may be naked or exposed, such as dressing rooms, bathrooms, or locker rooms. She expects that, in these spaces, she’ll be in the company of women and free from voyeurs or exhibitionists.
Sadly, this social contract has been broken because mixed-up or opportunistic men claiming to be women are allowed to invade these private spaces. These men’s insensitivity to women’s fear and discomfort is additional proof that they are not women.
They don’t understand women’s fear, vulnerability, and discomfort because they come from the same perspective as my male friend. It has never been a part of their experience because their point of view is male.
Ironically, my male friend would never have tried to invade a female space and would have respected women’s feelings, unlike many trans activists. Rather than respecting women’s feelings of vulnerability, many of these men in dresses enjoy the power of being in those settings, where they can view exposed women and show their male genitalia with impunity (something other cannot do legally), all because they claim to be women. They behave exactly like predatory men, overtly pressuring women with their power and dominance, and leaving the women unable to fight back. Examples abound.
Julie Jaman, an 80-year-old liberal feminist in Port Townsend, Washington, became uncomfortable while naked in a locker room at her local YMCA when she heard a male voice. She observed a man in a woman’s swimsuit assisting little girls who were changing into their bathing suits. When she complained that this was inappropriate, she was punished.
Instead of the Y addressing and respecting her reasonable feelings, Jaman was labeled a “transphobe,” booted from the pool, and permanently barred from the Y where she had swum without incident for 30 years. When she protested publicly, trans activists stormed the stage, physically intimidating her to disrupt her speech.
The mayor and city council rewarded the activists and announced the city’s “allyship” with the trans community. The message to Jaman and other women was that trans rights supersede women’s rights and that women must take it and shut up about their discomfort.
A guy who has been wearing a dress for about a year has more rights in a women’s locker room than an 80-year-old lifelong female. The alliance between the government and a trans guy with no compassion for women, despite claiming to be one, will create a chilling denial of privacy for women.
Riley Gaines a swimmer from the University of Kentucky, described the shock and discomfort she and other women swimmers felt when having to change clothes in a locker room in front of a male swimmer, Will Thomas, who claims to be female. Women coming in from a pool have no choice but to become naked as they change clothes. The only privacy they can seek is toilet stalls.
Will Thomas, who identifies as “Lia Thomas,” has male genitalia, is tall and broad-shouldered, and is built like a male swimmer. Oh, and he’s sexually attracted to women. By calling himself female, he was empowered to stroll around a female locker room despite the women made uncomfortable as he looked at them and strolled about naked, his “female” penis in full view.
When women complained, they were told to accept the situation or not swim at all—and they were offered counseling. As with Port Townsend, Thomas behaved like a classic predatory male, insensitive to women’s feelings and discomfort, while the universities helped enforce their humiliation and abuse.
At Wi Spa in Los Angeles, a man claiming to be a woman entered the female-only areas where women are completely nude. A mother with her young daughter was horrified to see a man sitting with his legs spread in front of all the women. He seemed to be enjoying their discomfort. (Turns out he’s a serial sexual offender.) The helpless spa had to comply with California law requiring facilities to accommodate people’s “gender identity. Antifa responded to women’s complaints with rioting.
In New Jersey, a so-called transwoman in prison for manslaughter was sent to a women’s prison and, despite being “female,” magically impregnated two other inmates with his external vagina, which looked and functioned just like a penis. In prison, predatory men who claim to be female are allowed unfettered access to completely helpless women.
There are many travesties in the trans movement, from the deranged parents eager to be the parent of a trans child to the corrupt doctors and mental health professionals now claiming that children can know they are trans in utero (even though, simultaneously, they’re just a clump of cells), to the teachers lying to parents and manipulating confused children, to Big Pharma creating a lifetime of misery for huge profits. This is a hideous war on reality, but it is also a hideous attack on the safety and sanctity of women’s spaces, and politicians, universities, and activists, spurred by ideology and profit, are telling women to shut up and take it.
When my daughter was in high school, she participated in a wonderful program that took teenage girls on a wilderness backpacking trip. It was a life-changing experience for her. It gave her personal confidence and was the first step in many more possibilities for her.
Recently, I thought about this same program for a lovely young woman I know who could benefit from an empowering experience. Sadly, when I went online to find the link for her, I discovered (unsurprisingly) that this all-girls program now emphasizes nonbinary and trans girls.
Gone is the safe space my daughter enjoyed. It has been highjacked by boys who call themselves girls and girls who have no idea what they are. It is no longer a female-only space. I couldn’t recommend it to this young woman as I felt it would harm her. One by one, women are being bullied out of their own spaces by dudes in dresses and their misguided enablers. We must fight back.