Sly Fawkes

For pregnant women in abusive marriages, leaving their is spouse already a difficult decision. Their escape is made even harder in the four states that prevent them from getting a divorce.

Arkansas, Missouri, and Texas all have laws that mandate women seeking a divorce to disclose if they are pregnant, and prohibit judges from finalizing the divorce if they are. No such law exists in Arizona, but judges in practice still will not finalize the divorce of a pregnant woman, according to the American Pregnancy Association.

In Missouri, a law from 1973 requires couples to disclose “whether the wife is pregnant" while filing, and the two must finalize "any arrangements for the custody and support of the children." Justices count the gestating fetus as a child, and have therefore interpreted the law to mean until the pregnancy is finished.

Democratic state Rep. Ashley Aune introduced House Bill 2402 earlier this year, which would remove restrictions around divorcing while pregnant. Aune recently told NPR that "I don't honestly feel very hopeful" about its chance of passing in the Republican-dominated state legislature, but she said she felt compelled to try after hearing harrowing stories from survivors of domestic violence.

"How can you look that person in the eye and say, 'No, I think you should stay with that person,'" Aune said. "That's wild to me."

Activists say that the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 left pregnant women in abusive relationships with even less control over their lives, and less access to vital resources. Marium Durrani, vice president of policy for the National Domestic Violence Hotline told the outlet that the group received a 100% call increase in the year following the ruling.

"We're seeing lots more people citing reproductive coercion, sexual coercion, reproductive abuse, or pregnancy coercion as part of their experience," she said. "I mean, we are getting calls that are very explicitly like 'I am pregnant.' 'I am trying to escape.' 'I cannot get resources where I am or in my state or my locality.'"

It looks like rape. Like mothers being seperated from daughters. It looks like being forced to cohabit with and serve an owner who will force himself on you and breed you like stock. It is the sadness of miscarriage and the realisation that your body won't hold up. It's mutilation and violence. It's watching the deaths of your friends knowing that none of them lived a truly happy life. It's watching your daughter grow up knowing that she will be sold into servitude and raped until she dies, the same fate you face. In some cases you didn't even have a name.

Women's oppression is the oldest form of oppression, and yet we are still so strongly gripped by patriarchy that there is a refusal to acknowledge what that actually means. We have barely even started earning our rights in the west, and our sisters still face the terror of what I have described above. Women are always one step away from losing everything, and yet the movement meant to fight for women's liberation is being overun by men and misogynistic women. It's easier for them to uphold the status quo than challenge it.

radical feminism is at the forefront of women’s rights movements in countries across africa, the middle east, south and east asia and south america, who are actively pushing back against the systemic abuse (fgm, child brides, no education, forced modesty, the infanticide of girls, etc.) maintained by their far-right governments.

I did learn about radical feminism in academic settings, actually. And no, this isn’t racist.

>>radical feminism is at the forefront of women’s rights movements in countries across africa, the middle east, south and east asia and south america, who are actively pushing back against the systemic abuse (fgm, child brides, no education, forced modesty, the infanticide of girls, etc.) maintained by their far-right governments.

Yes, it is. I’m not talking about radical feminism here, I’m talking about TERFs. I know that some - not all - radical feminists in developing countries are technically TERFs, and that they don’t tend to ally themselves with the far right, but most of them don’t put their energy into giving the subject much in the way of thought.

The vast majority of card-carrying TERFs are middle-class white women in Western countries, who ally themselves with (which doesn’t mean they are the same as or believe the same things as) far-right (not neo-nazi, but bigoted conservative) conservative groups in solidarity in order to give credence and power to their views which are based on excluding trans people. These views are based on the theory that trans people represent a threat to them or a conflicting access need,  which in theory encourages separation, but in practice tends to involve oppressing trans people’s rights.

TERFs do not ally themselves with Nazis, but to many people, the distinctions between the extreme ends of the bigoted far right and Neo-Nazis isn’t a big one and they treat the two as the same.

However, people contain multitudes and it’s possible to be in favour of civil rights for women in minority groups and still bash members of a specific minority group you don’t like, such as trans people. 

Also, most TERFs believe that the people they are bashing aren’t women, and it’s quite easy for a shitty woman who advocates for women’s rights to bash men from minority groups. 

But, as per my last paragraph, it’s quite possible for someone to be in favour of civil rights for women and still bash women they don’t like who are from a minority group.

If you believe that I believe that you’re a woman’s rights advocate, but a racist one, then it stands to reason that racist women’s rights advocates exist, which means that it also stands to reason that people who advocate for the rights of cis black women might hate trans women - or trans men, who TERFs might view as women under certain circumstances. 

If you don’t believe that trans women are women - whatever, I don’t care. I think trans women are women and trans men are men because that’s how they operate and look, or how they feel, and also because it helps trans people to become more like their desired gender, and also because the average person doesn’t identify with or behave as the opposite sex, and also because they’re gendered characteristics and it’s possible to change gender, and also because transsexuals alter their sex.

You don’t want to believe trans women are women? OK, but they aren’t men, though. Technically, if you want to be literal about it, most trans people are androgynous. Could you believe that they’re men? Sure, just as you can believe they’re women, but that makes them men who have a lot more in common with women than most men, and doesn’t mean you aren’t bashing a minority group.

>>not to mention, it’s disgustingly insensitive to insinuate they are comparable. nazi’s didn’t “bash a minority group”, they attempted to commit a genocide and facilitated eugenics through euthanasia and mass sterilisation. 

Nazis are a historical group that no longer exist. People in Western countries are concerned with neo-nazis, who advocate for these policies without enacting them, and other, less extreme members of the far-right. Both of these groups spend their time bashing minorities. In some parts of the world, neo-nazis are more violent, like their Nazi counterparts. But in the West, that isn’t really the issue, and most developing, poorer countries aren’t white and therefore the fascism involved tends to take other routes.

>>they built and used ghettos, and then camps, to ethnically cleanse. you are purposefully misrepresenting and diminishing an era of history that saw the orchestrated deaths of millions of people (mostly jews, romani and disabled people amongst others) in hospitals and death camps.

you said “they compare TERFs to nazis because you spend your time allying yourselves with the far right so you can bash a minority group”. what you wrote justifies the comparison for terfs to nazis and nazis to a group that ‘bash minorities’. it’s grossly insensitive and narrow-sighted.

i’m not a radical feminist, or a terf, or whatever. there is a lot of things i don’t agree with them on. but i have major issues with people flippantly and unnecessarily comparing things to nazism, or in your case, justifying why people compare something to nazism. because it always purposefully misrepresents and diminishes the collective harm of that era, and the continuation of those beliefs and attitudes in the modern day. it’s antisemetic, anti-roma, ableist and racist at it’s core.

nazism isn’t a issue of the past. maybe where you are from neo-nazis are “less violent”; i would argue that “advocating” as opposed to “enacting” doesn’t instantly mean there is less harm, but there certainly are places where nazi ideology is being perpetuated and enacted. maybe you aren’t a part of a community that’s been taught to be hyperaware of it. i don’t know, because i don’t know you. i don’t know if you consider all of europe to be “the west”, i’ve seen a lot of people do that recently.

but i can tell you it’s different where i am from. it’s different in a lot of european countries right now, especially for disabled and romani people.

I love this stupid argument.

I’m a lifelong registered Democrat. I’m pretty far to the left on most social issues. In fact, I’ve always been supportive of transsexuals. I believe they should be afforded the same rights and protections as anyone else and allowed to live their lives in peace.

Initially, when the whole modern transactivism mess started, I thought the term “cis” was odd and unnecessary, but I applied it to myself to be polite. I thought I was “being kind” to an oppressed minority group.

I learned that modern transactivism actually has much more in common with queer theory than with protecting the rights of individuals with extreme sex dysphoria. I also began to notice the way women were being erased with language such as “non-men.” I found myself asking why everyone was so hell-bent on pushing the idea that “transwomen are women” but there was no equal fervor for the idea that “transmen are men.”

Then I noticed that anyone who disagreed with even the teeniest iota of the Trans Cult Doctrine was being TERFed. I quickly learned that terfisaslur.com

I peaked.

You were told by advertisements and peers and adults and society that you're supposed to shave your lip. That's not a "gender identity." That's female socialization.

I haven’t shaved my legs in 7 years or my pits in 5 years. I use one of those epilators to pluck the peach fuzz off my top lip and the random stray old lady chin whiskers away because I dislike them, but that’s my problem. I don’t expect anyone else to do it.

A trans-identified male cheerleader was given a criminal citation and removed from a Texas cheerleading camp after allegedly ‘choking out’ a female team member following comments over his gender identity.

On July 23, a Facebook post went viral in which a trans-identified male cheerleader claimed he had been kicked out of a cheer camp at Ranger College, a community college in Texas, after experiencing an incident of transphobia and racism. Averie Chanel Medlock, born Dmontrey Duval Satchell, posted a lengthy statement accusing cheerleading teammates and the College of discrimination.

“Well guys I’m officially retired as a cheerleader as of last night at 5:30 AM. A girl on the team was being very disrespectful and told me I am a MAN with a PENIS and that [guys] should not be on the team,” Medlock wrote, “I stood up for myself and she called her mom and dad because she was scared because I [stood] up for myself. Her father said ‘she still has testosterone and a penis and I will kill anyone who comes after my daughter.'”

Medlock, 25, then goes on to claim he got an assault charge despite not having done anything wrong, and continues on to accuse the team members of being racist. Medlock’s post got over 4,000 reactions on Facebook, and caught the attention of local media.

In an interview with KTAB, Medlock stated there had been a dispute, and that Karleigh Jones, a 17-year-old cheer teammate, then called her family and claimed she had been assaulted, soon after which the police and Jones’ parents showed up.

But the father of the cheerleader Medlock accused of racism and transphobia made his own statement on Facebook, offering a very different story.

In the post, Mike Jones writes: “I ask you what you would have done when receiving a phone call at 1 o’clock in the morning from your daughter stating they had locked themselves in the room with other girls,” asserting that Medlock had strangled his daughter after goading her with a threat, resulting in the female cheerleaders barricading themselves in a dorm room for safety.

“At no time did I ever say anything about your race or your gender,” Mike Jones says in address to Medlock, noting that he is pressing for the release of Police body camera footage, and CCTV recordings from the hallway outside of the dorm to demonstrate he and his daughter are telling the truth.

Some clips of videos taken on cellphones have emerged from the night of the incident, one of which demonstrates the female cheerleaders were locked in their room and trying to quell what appeared to be an outraged Medlock following the alleged strangulation.

One begins with a cheerleader saying: “we have nothing against you, Averie,” and asking Medlock to leave but he refuses. Medlock can be heard yelling “why did you call me a man,” and “come outside and man up … watch your back … don’t fuck with me outside of cheer.”

While Medlock claims he did not attempt to strangle Karleigh Jones, after Police arrived he was given a criminal citation for physical assault, and removed from the premises. Medlock would tell KTAB that he was “only joking” in reference to the physical contact.

All photos of Medlock appear to have been significantly altered, either by the use of extreme filters or what appears to be women’s faces superimposed over his own. A circulating photo from CCTV footage reveals Medlock looks notably different than the photos he utilizes on social media.

According to Medlock’s criminal citation, he will be expected to go to court, but police investigations are reportedly still ongoing into the incident.