Amy Anderson

Okay, at this point I am getting incandescent with this. This absolutely bone deep assumption that women are responsible for male people's feelings. That we should erase ourselves to cater to male people's feelings. That it is our fault that a political movement spent 30 years trying to erase us in law in order to cater to male people's feelings. That it was okay that we were terrorised for years because of male people's feelings. That it is okay we had to raise thousands and thousands of pounds to defend our given rights in law because our entire political class threw us under the bus to cater to male people's feelings. That they didn't even bother to realise we were stakeholders in our own legal existence and rights because of male people's feelings. That we should now feel terribly bad and sorry because male people are now upset and are trying to manipulate everyone into sympathising with them for what the terrible nasty women have done to them simply by getting it clarified that we do actually exist in law. That somehow its our responsibility that they have spent years performing this manipulation, and telling their own constituency that they should be very scared because their safety depends on erasing women in law, and using that fear to drive constant abuse of women that won't comply. That women asserting our own existence and political needs is an act of unforgiveable aggression that male people have every right to be very sad and very angry about, and to try and punish us for. And see, poor poor them, and it is now our job to make it all better for them, and to solve the problem that they now have, because they tried to solve the problem by bullying us into accepting our own legal erasure. And then you put a woman who is a known victim of male violence and was bullied out of her own political party for refusing to comply with our erasure, on television, and demand she shows sympathy for people advocating the position, and the entire structure of male entitlement and prioritisation, that was directly responsible for her bullying and abuse and, at that moment, the entire structure of patriarchal gender is brought down on her head and she, and everyone else, knows that if she doesn't show sympathy for the people expressing the manipulative BS that led directly to her own abuse you will all turn around and go 'see, they're all such heartless bitches.' No. No no no no no no no no no. THIS IS FUCKING PATRIARCHY ON STILTS. This is the unreflective, absolute, constant prioritisation of male people's feelings over women's humanity and existence that holds the entire structure of women's subordination in place. We do not have to erase ourselves because of men's feelings. We are not responsible for the fact that men feel sad because we will not erase ourselves. The fact that men feel sad does not mean we are bad and evil because we won't do what they want. And if you understood we were fully human you would understand that it's not okay for men to abuse and manipulate women into prirotising their needs over our own existence and humanity just because they are sad. And that we don't then have to feel sympathy for people who abuse us because we won't prioritise their feelings over our own existence and humanity. The fact that you keep sympathising with the men who tried to erase us, and subjected us to years of abuse because we wouldn't comply, rather than with the people the men tried to erase and abuse, is fucking patriarchal gender in its purest form. And the fact that many many women also believe this, and will act in unreflective ways that also constantly prioritise men's feelings, is evidence of how deep and fundamental this structure is, and how effectively many women are conditioned into colluding with their own subordination. We are feminists. That is why we saw through this clear as fucking day prioritisation of men's feelings over women's existence right at the start. That is why the first and most demonised 'enemy' of the trans rights project is the radical feminist who will not accept the erasure of women in the service of prioritising men's feelings and men's needs. That is why we have been fighting this for years and years and years, long before most people realised what the problem was. What you are doing here is repeating, in condensed form, the structure of prioritsation, the structure of patriarchal gender, that allows men to abuse, and beat, and rape, and murder, and bully, and try to control women, up and down this country, day in and day fucking out. And why, when they get to court, if they do get to court, they often get let off with a slap on the wrist, because we wouldn't want to upset their promising future now would we, just because they destroyed the life of a woman. And then you turn around and demand we perform sympathy for them. No. Fuck off. Absolutely fuck the fuck off.