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To claim that patriarchy happens basically at random to a group of people who claim an “identity” with no discernible common characteristics, to the benefit of no one, is insane. It happens to women, with the intent of exploiting our reproductive potential, and this fact necessitates recognizing the importance of what women have in common.

There is no reason for this to be controversial, except that to name this reality makes certain men very angry. Men have always valued their own feelings and desires over the wellbeing and liberation of women, and they have always felt comfortable defining our experiences for us to their own benefit. Because being truly female is something they cannot actually attain, and the oppression of female people does not affect them, they feel comfortable demanding that femaleness now be defined by claiming it as one’s own on no basis of experience whatsoever, and that true female-specific concerns and experiences be silenced for their comfort.

This applies for women too. For all the reasons listed above, men are not capable of knowing what it is like to be a woman and it is patently offensive for them to claim that they do. I don’t understand, when men demonstrate day after day that they do not respect women and it is very obvious why this happens when you take even a quick look at our culture, why we are EVER expected to believe that they can meaningfully identify as women. Their understanding of womanhood is hollow, fragmented, and unmistakeably male.

I was watching towards the beginning of the parade route so I am not sure where you went afterwards but y’all seem really cool and if you are in an organization I’d like to join.. or even just meet up sometime idk. Seeing you guys out there was a pleasant surprise and I know this is a long shot, but get in contact if you see this? Or if anyone knows what group that was out there, can they put me in touch? Not sure who to tag. 

Priceless direct quote: " As we all know, CAMAB authors get far less exposure and I haven’t gotten the chance to read a lot of their works yet." Gender theory makes everyone stupid.

Femininity is a particularly cruel set of social rules for someone who is autistic to have to learn because there’s no logic to it and it isn’t designed to our benefit. As a result we’re generally not great at it as kids and I can see how that can combine with the way we tend to think literally and categorically to produce the result of “wow, I really really don’t fit this “girl” category and it doesn’t feel good to try, I must be a boy” especially when there’s so little representation of gnc women; part of enforcing femininity is making sure that women who don’t perform it are hidden or shamed. 

I also found femininity to be very distressing but I guess the leap that this meant I wasn’t a woman never took hold. Because I had to learn all these rules more consciously than other people instead of absorbing them naturally, I think I was more aware of them as what they were: enforced rules, not a natural part of me or any other woman. So I was very aware of the nature of femininity and how unfair and detrimental it was, and I was also very aware of what sex it was enforced upon.

This made it hard for me to understand or take seriously any of the gender identity stuff when I encountered it because of my own experiences in which gender was enforced upon me and everyone, out of my control and clearly favoring one sex over another. I saw it as a system of oppression and did not understand how anyone could see it to be a level playing field, or value-neutral, or having anything at all to do with self-conception. It seemed frivolous and missing the point, or sometimes dangerous: I saw men claiming to be women who benefited from being raised male in ways that I’m sure they’re not even aware of, who act the same way men always have and harm us in the same ways as well.

When I say I am a woman, because I am an adult female human being, nothing about that statement is limiting to me. There is nothing in that statement to suggest that I can ONLY be my reproductive system or that that is my only value. I am simply correctly noting a biological fact, and beyond that, I am acknowledging that I belong to a class of people who are oppressed based on our presumed and real reproductive capabilities, historically for the purpose of establishing lineage and upholding ownership and transfer of (male) property.