A couple of weeks ago a group of prominent women academics and writers published a public statement denouncing trans people in no uncertain terms. Obviously all of the usual suspects were involved, but there were less-shouty people too, including Marge Piercy which many of us found very sad.
Since then efforts have taken place to counter that message, and last night a counter-declaration went up. You can find it here. Many of the signatories are, of course, trans-identified in various ways, but many of them are not. I’m pleased to see that the statement was crafted in such a way that women of color in the US, who are wary of the term “feminism” because of how racist the movement was when it first started (and may still be for all I know), felt able to sign on. And I am particularly pleased to see how many women from the SF&F community have signed. Thank you, everyone.
If you would like to add your name to the list, there are details on the site. Please note that this may take a while, because they do need to verify who you are. Given their past behavior, I am pretty sure that certain people are busily trying to sign up under fake names so that they can then denounce the whole thing as a fraud.
I have signed and left a comment. Also passed the material on to my daughter and @spacedlaw. I hope it becomes very successful.
Thank you!
Thanks for this. Just awaiting verification that I can sign and show my support. I will blog about this asap
Thank you!
Sad that it should have to come to this. 🙁
Best of luck in your struggle to reverse the trend.
Oh, it has been like this forever. This is just the latest skirmish in a very long fight.
That statement is sickening. Thank you for the link to the counterdeclaration.
Thanks for pointing this out Cheryl. I’ve emailed them asking to put my name on the list of supporters. I’ll promote it also. I’m quite saddened by the reason this has come about, but glad there is something to counteract the negativity.
Thanks for the link. Have emailed them.
I do not understand their declaration and I do not think it can stand. On one hand, they appear to say, “Biology is not destiny” and on the other they say, “Until we want to it to be.”
I filled out the form, so I hope my name will appear as a signatory to the counter-declaration soon.
I read about this affair late last night. I think it is awful, hard to understand, divisive and unnecessary that such denunciations are produced today. One of the shouty transphobics was an acquaintence of mine in graduate school. I’m just slightly surprised.
I’ve filled out the form. Thanks for posting about it.