My university womyns centre collective has recently found out that the coordinator that was hired to oversee the centre is a TERF. Our elected womyns rep also appears to be a TERF. They want to exclude ALL males (including trans folk and non binary folk) from the centre. We told them we are intersectional and in order to be feminists you need to support trans and non binary folk. I don’t think the rep or coordinator understand. Any suggestions on how to handle this?
Honestly, this sounds really shitty & I don’t even know where to start, nor do I really have a lot of useful info for you, which is why I’m going to publish this ask. Hopefully others with more experience can fill in some of the blanks?
So, from my perspective;
When I see “womyn” with a y i feel instantly uncomfortable and alienated. All I can think of is 2nd wave feminism, radfems, terfs, swerfs, etc. So I unfortunately don’t find it surprising that it’s being taken over by radfems, who probably feel more at home and comfortable under such a label. That doesn’t mean it’s ok, what I’m saying is that I find that language alienating and very much out of date and I hope that they can address that. If they perhaps change that, they may find.... more critical & acceptable people willing to lead it?
Also, does your uni have a GSA in addition to this or is this like “in place of”??? For example, I see Carleton has both a “Womyn’s Centre” AND a GSRCentre sorta thing so apparently some schools do have both? I only ask because that will determine to some degree how you would fight this. Because, I would think that if you wanna be most effective, you have to kinda figure out what the actual purpose of the space is. As in; who it’s supposed to serve, issues it’s meant to address, etc and contrast that with its new leadership’s stated goals.
Apologies but this is all I can think of at this point. Does anyone else have any trips or suggestions?
Good luck to you @jaydmeda!!!! <3
