Oddly, sexism is giving me hope right now. Well, the recognition by folks that all this shit is based on sexist and racist idea that white women need protecting.
For example, the attack on trans women, which WILL expand to other folks in the queer alphabet. It is lumped in with the anti-woke agenda of the right. But do not overlook the decidedly sexist discourse.
A rationale for removing transwomen from sex-segregated spaces (which is a project of erasure and violence) is that (white) women need protection from people believed to be men. This was excellently articulated by Jennifer Levi, a lawyer for GLAD, Gay and Lesbian Legal who is currently fighting the ban on transgender persons in the military and the removal of transwomen from women's prisons. In a commentary on the unfolding events caused by the cruelty of this administration, Levi cites Ruth Bader Ginsburg's argument in Reed v Reed (a Supreme Court decision which marked the first time the Equal Protection Clause was applied to sex discrimination). Ginsburg wrote: "the pedestal upon which women have been placed has all too often, upon closer inspection, been revealed as a cage" and that discriminatory laws (in Reed that men are automatically given preference as executors of estates over women) "reflect an antiquarian male attitude towards women--man as provider, man as protector, man as guardian of female morality."
What Ginsberg and Levi do not account for is that the morality being protected--the virtue been endangered--is white women's. Standards of femininity in the US have always been based on white women and they are the ones in whose name these "protections" are being made. The law has not been so great on recognizing the intersectional nature of discrimination and Ginsburg at least was writing before the rise of critical race theory and Kimerble Crenshaw's theorizing of intersectional discrimination in law and policy.
But it cannot be ignored. The organizing against trans people is supported by so many white women. Look at the movement against transwomen in sports. Their discourse is littered with suggestions of frailty centered around protecting and saving. It is so interesting which sports these women represent, too. Swimmers seem to be at the forefront, but also tennis players. Very white sports. This is not a coincidence. Anti-trans movements are anti-Black as well. Esteemed colleagues of mine, Matt Hodler and Johanna Mellis, have written--separately and together--about the connection between swimming and racism, including in light of the conviction of former Olympic swimmer Klete Keller for his participation in the Capital Riot on January 6. Frankie de la Cretaz has written explicitly about the transphobia of swimming and its connection to anti-Blackness.
Recent protests against the government detainment of pro-Palestinian activists have included crowds of Jewish protesters adorned in shirts that read "Not in our name." Let's take a page from that activism:
Dear white women:
It is (past) time for us to be more visible and louder and honestly more effective in fighting transphobia that is being committed in our name and to our detriment. And to the white women who support the anti-trans bans in sports and suggest that it is just about sports and just about the safety of women and girls, you are wrong. And I suspect you know you know you are wrong. It is not possible to carve out a niche position and say but just in sports. It does not work like that. And we know this because it is not working like that. The men you relied on to pass those violent laws and issue those exclusionary orders are not your allies.
Jennifer Levi, the governor of Maine (whose state is being targeted for alleged non-compliance with Title IX), and other activists and advocates see the intersections and are pointing them out. Let's all keep doing that in our endeavors. Fight the rhetoric that women need saving from trans people and continue fighting to save trans people.