WoLF Board Member Rebuts Op-Ed that Skews Radical Feminist Perspective

WoLF Board Member Liz Fedak Responds to the Independent Article "Being a radical feminist means being a trans ally at the same time"

It's always frustrating to be in a conflict where only one party is listening. Dr. Proudman, whose area of expertise seems to include ending domestic violence, is well equipped to appreciate that. In many cases of domestic abuse, one party uses manipulation tactics to justify mistreatment of the other—and because abuse victims have been taught to doubt their own judgment, making them easier to influence, teaching them how to recognize these tactics and encouraging them to think for themselves can save their lives.

Unfortunately, Dr. Proudman doesn't realize yet how similar the rhetorical strategies she uses to promote gender ideology are to the ones abusers use to control their victims.

Surviving Abuse

I'm a childhood abuse survivor myself and used to hold the same stance as Dr. Proudman. It's not clear what led us to diverge. I may have been more motivated to question gender ideology after witnessing its harmful effects firsthand, or less susceptible to social pressure. In any case, though it may cause some discomfort to have her position challenged, I trust her intelligence and believe everyone with good intentions will eventually reach agreement through honest discussion. Rather than assuming claims are correct because I hold them, I defer to the search for truth that led me to my gender-abolitionist viewpoint; and so, instead of dictating to my audience what to believe, I will let my claims stand on their own.

The purpose of this response is to expose these manipulative strategies for what they are. When I say a strategy is manipulative, I’m referring to any rhetorical strategy that tries to stop listeners from thinking for themselves, and instead accept everything the speaker is saying without question. It signals that, regardless of whether the speaker is right, they are more concerned with asserting their position rather than having an honest discussion. A classic example would be the both-sides reasoning we see in many abusive families: a child may beg a parent to stop teasing them, only to be met with “well, you made me feel like a bully when you accused me of teasing, so you hurt me too!” Recognizing manipulation is a survival tactic: you don’t have to agree with my position on gender ideology to learn something useful.

Here are some of the misleading, manipulative strategies being used in this article to defend a harmful narrative.

GLOSSING OVER VITAL INFORMATION

As a demonstration of good faith, and to make the logic of this document flow as easily as possible, I'm going to start by reiterating some of Dr. Proudman's main points in her own language. They are as follows:

• "The core tenet of radical feminism is that women and other individuals and groups are harmed under the patriarchy, and should be liberated. How can we liberate cis women and leave behind one of the most marginalised groups in our society?"

• "Both cis women and trans women are harmed under the patriarchy and their unique experiences must be included in our feminism."

• “Living your life as a trans man, woman or non-binary individual in a deeply transphobic society is likely to result in violence, prejudice and discrimination."

• "Standing with a marginalised group of people who are violated under conditions of racism, sexism and discrimination takes nothing away from the feminist movement..."

• "The issues that the feminist movement needs to focus on has the same concerns the trans movement has: bodily autonomy, healthcare, protection from domestic, street and state violence, right to unconventional gender expression, a basic standard of living and freedom from all forms of discrimination."

• "By pitting trans people against cis women, the patriarchy’s work is being done for those who uphold it."

Now, for those of you who have been in an abusive relationship, you may know that what's left out of an argument is just as important as what's being said. The way I frame it to myself is, there are four pieces of information in any interpersonal conflict: your actions, your feelings, the other party's actions, and the other party's feelings. Productive discussion happens when both parties can have tactful discussions based on all four pieces of information. But when disagreeing with a manipulative person, they only take two of these pieces into account: their feelings, and the other person's actions. This is because they do not care about the truth, only the appearance of truth, and this is the body of information that will prevent them from being challenged. Actions can be picked apart for flaws. Feelings can't. So if there is one good-faith party and one manipulative party, because the manipulative party is only interested in a subset of the real truth, discussion naturally tends towards only what the manipulator wants to focus on.

My preferred way to counter this is to expose the underlying behavior and re-supply the missing information. I invite everyone reading, as an exercise for themselves, to go through Dr. Proudman's original article and identify which of these four categories it addresses: the feelings of people who identify as trans, the actions (i.e., perceived harmful actions, or perceived mistakes) of people who identify as trans, the feelings of radical feminists, and the actions (i.e., perceived harmful actions, or perceived mistakes) of radical feminists. And I do invite everyone reading to go through this for themselves because it's a more effective exercise that way.

Here are some relevant bits:

• "The core tenet of radical feminism is that women and other individuals and groups are harmed under the patriarchy, and should be liberated. How can we liberate cis women and leave behind one of the most marginalised groups in our society?": Perceived flaws in radical feminist actions.

• “How can I really care if we win ‘the Revolution’? Either way, any way, there will be no place for me”: Trans-identified feelings with an extra helping of misdirection.

• "I don’t think I have ever received more hate from feminists than when I tweet about trans rights": The author's feelings. Seems like she doesn't like being called out on this.

The whole article boils down to "radical feminists need to change what they are doing because it makes trans people sad." In contrast, Dr. Proudman doesn't dare breathe a word about the emotional state of gender-abolitionist radical feminists or the harm caused by the gender ideology movement to marginalized groups. Without having to speak for anyone else, I, personally, can confirm that my radical feminist beliefs come from reasoning based on all available information, not from glossing over the parts that used to challenge me. 

Before going further, here are a few resources that should help interested readers fill in the missing pieces. WoLF’s Letters from the Front campaign has been collecting stories from women about why they support WoLF’s four focus groups, one of which is abolishing gender ideology. Get the L Out has been creating resources to promote lesbian visibility, including their Lesbians at Ground Zero campaign. LGB Alliance is making documentaries on the experiences of same-sex-attracted people, including their video Puberty Blockers? Gay Teens Aren’t Sick! There are hundreds of smaller campaigns dedicated to sharing the stories of those who have been harmed by gender ideology, and I invite anyone reading to share their story or to add their own resources.

If anyone else decides it's a good idea to dictate to radical feminists what they believe and feel, and what they should do, please know that glossing over our side of the story isn't effective. It's manipulative. We don't fight for what we do out of ignorance. We have heard your side of the story. We are fully aware that it's painful for some people to hear because it says some less-than-rosy things about them, and we say these things not with the intention of causing pain, but with the same motivation Dr. Proudman claims to have: getting people on the other side to listen, so we can work together to make the world safer for women, same-sex-attracted people, and other marginalized groups.

As another show of good faith: Can I acknowledge that some of the things gender-abolitionist radical feminists say hurt the feelings of people who identify as transgender? Yes, I can. I can accept their humanity, I can hear that they are hurt and repeat their feelings and perspectives back to them without a hint of strawmanning, gaslighting, lying, threats of violence, or ad hominem attacks. Can Dr. Proudman and her allies do the same for us? Without any tactics along the lines of "yes, that made you feel bad, BUT," or "yes, awful things have happened as a result of gender ideology, BUT," that ultimately direct the conversation back to their comfort zone?

I don't think that's possible.

Because, and I say this setting up for the next section of exploring the manipulative core of this article, they have no other choice. What I'm talking about relates to WoLF's Encyclopedia of Bad Gender Arguments, and specifically how to distinguish a true statement from a false one. The difference is: That a claim is true if and only if it can be stated and proved without using bad reasoning—which includes ignoring information, as I've addressed above. So if someone's making a bad claim, one with many blind spots, they are forced into using logical fallacies. And while those of you with a formal background in logic have already identified that "it is possible to defend a claim without resorting to bad reasoning only if the claim is true" and "a claim can be true even if someone uses bad reasoning to defend it" don't contradict each other in the slightest, I do want to bring this specific objection up because many people conflate calling out bad reasoning with rejecting the other person's entire argument outright. The purpose of identifying logical fallacies and blind spots is not to attack an opponent, but to refine your own worldview.

The purpose of gender ideology is to put forth a dogma that cannot be questioned—not to have honest discussions about how to best help marginalized groups—so the only rhetorical strategy truly available to them is to pretend their opponents are ignorant, evil, or misguided, toward the goal of hand-waving away all genuine criticism. The way to counter that, I believe, is to support the people who are interested in what the real best strategy is, who do have good intentions, who do have stories to tell, and make it safer for them to speak up. It's the same strategy for anyone in an abusive relationship. Not to dictate to them what to do, but to place the tools in their hands and demonstrate how to use them. And I do hope Dr. Proudman can appreciate that, if not immediately. 

MISREPRESENTING THE OTHER PARTY'S BELIEFS

Manipulators don't know the other party's arguments, just that they're wrong. Let's go back to this statement:

"Trans-exclusionary feminists argue that sex is a real immutable characteristic and gender is sex-based."

As a gender-abolitionist radical feminist—or 'trans-exclusionary feminist,' as she puts it—no I don't. We acknowledge that sex exists, and we don't think gender should exist. We think the idea of gender is harmful. We think the best way to get rid of gender dysphoria is to get rid of gender. If a little boy wants to wear dresses and nail polish, we don't think he might be a girl, we don't think he needs surgery, we don't think he needs to stop doing these things. We just think he's a normal little boy.

Dr. Proudman continues: 

"At its root, their argument echoes the biological determinist (or reductionist) arguments made by anti-feminists: that a woman’s biology – her capacity for menstruation, pregnancy and childbirth – determines her gender and social status." 

The purpose of this statement is to link the idea of biological determinism, which radical feminists do not believe in, with acknowledging that women's perceived capacity to give birth influences the way they're treated by others. Employed repeatedly, this tactic encourages its audience to ignore or downplay issues relating to women's ability to bear young—which, in the wake of the Roe vs. Wade overturning, more people should be catching on to. 

So this is a misdirection tactic—one that is almost impossible to challenge in a one-on-one discussion. The natural response to "you're conflating biological determinism with stating that sex exists," is, of course, "no, I'm not." (They may also claim "I'm not saying sex doesn't exist," while in the next breath, arguing that hormone levels, brain chemistry, and chromosomes—none of which appear in the actual definition of sex—make scientists drop their clipboards and give up on determining which people babies can come out of.) Manipulative arguers don't care whether your claim has merit, only whether it makes them look bad. Getting caught in this loop is likely to enrage them, drain your energy, or both.

Lastly, the premise of the article itself paints 'trans-exclusionary' feminists—again, as she calls them—as being the reason we can't have nice things, while Dr. Proudman is graciously reaching across the aisle for the greater good. But contrast my ability to repeat Dr. Proudman's assertions in her own words with this attempt to dictate to the assumed radical feminist audience what they themselves believe. This is an obvious strawman, and it's not fooling us. It makes more sense when you realize the purpose of this article isn't to reach out to ‘trans-exclusionary’ feminists (as she puts it) in good faith. It's to present a narrative that gender abolitionists are the ones who are acting from a place of ignorance and hate. It's to make the existing base of gender ideologists feel like they're the good guys, they're the victims, and there are no valid reasons whatsoever to disagree with their movement.

Properly representing the gender abolitionist position would make the article more convincing, but again: they have no choice. Once an alternate narrative becomes prevalent, one that promotes honest discourse, gender ideology is doomed.

MISREPRESENTING THE IMPACT OF THEIR MOVEMENT

Gender ideologists claim to support freedom of individual identity, when the real goal of the movement is controlling others. This can be seen by analyzing the issues they focus on.

Here, Dr. Proudman has identified gender abolitionists not accepting transgender identities as a major problem, and frames it as such:

"The core tenet of radical feminism is that women and other individuals and groups are harmed under the patriarchy, and should be liberated. How can we liberate cis women and leave behind one of the most marginalised groups in our society?"

I hear the claim 'one of the most marginalized groups' frequently, and want to address it. This statement is often accompanied by statistics of all the horrible things trans-identified people have to go through, including the one disproved suicide rate statistic, but I don't think I've ever seen what the metric for 'marginalization' is. 

The purpose of this strategy is not to present a well-established fact but to dictate it as one, and because an artificial hierarchy has been established, allow people who have declared themselves as having higher 'marginalized' status on the hierarchy to get higher priority than less marginalized people when their interests conflict. Of course, that would then make them less marginalized. Why it is not possible to acknowledge group struggles without promoting a hierarchy of suffering is beyond me.

"The issues that the feminist movement needs to focus on has [sic] the same concerns [sic] the trans movement has: bodily autonomy, healthcare, protection from domestic, street and state violence, right to unconventional gender expression, a basic standard of living and freedom from all forms of discrimination."

Absent are the concerns the gender abolitionists and gender ideologists diverge on: the right to set sex-based boundaries, the right for single-sex spaces, and acknowledgment that same-sex attraction is real. This falls under toxic positivity. All of the topics listed are easy to defend because they're not where the conflict is coming from. Gender abolitionists do not object to these things. Rather, the important part is again in what remains unsaid, which is that gender abolitionists are fighting for our right to say no—no, lesbians do not like penises. No, we do not have to accept that you are who you say you are—and since they can't address this directly, they talk about something else instead, and try to shut down any talk of boundaries by lecturing us about how much it hurts when women say no.

A movement that is based on honest bodily autonomy and self-expression would focus on empowering gender non-conforming people to be who they are no matter what anyone else says, not on demonizing feminist women for refusing to fall into line. In fact, for any gender non-conforming people reading this, whether or not they identify as trans: keep not conforming to gender roles! Woo! Gender roles suck! Are you confident in your self-image, and your own body? Then you absolutely are free to ignore me for disagreeing with it.

EMOTIONAL MANIPULATION

More than anything else except ignoring the harm they've caused, emotional manipulation is the bread and butter of abusive parents, abusive partners, and yes, gender ideologists. "Date me or I'll kill myself" is a sentiment many women recognize as intimidation, meant as a manipulation tactic, where the end goal is not for the speaker to end their life but to control their intended partner's behavior—and yet they're not able to recognize the same intimidation in "you can either have a dead son or a live daughter."

Statements like these, which appear factual, are the prime source of this manipulation:

"Living your life as a trans man, woman or non-binary individual in a deeply transphobic society is likely to result in violence, prejudice and discrimination. A YouGov survey commissioned by Stonewall in 2018 found that two in five trans people have been subjected to a hate crime or incident because of their gender identity, more than a quarter of trans people in a relationship in the last year have faced domestic abuse from a partner, and one in four trans people have experienced homelessness. Trans people are far more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators."

Obviously—to gender abolitionists, but perhaps not to others—we don't want people to suffer. Trans-identified or not. The way statements like these are framed, it gives the sense that if you disagree with the speaker, it is because you want trans-identified people to go through these things. That if only society would accept them for who they say they are, these problems would go away.

No such statements are made about the women who are raped and impregnated in women's prisons by men who got there by claiming to be women, nothing about coercive rape of lesbians, nothing about chemically castrating children who otherwise would have grown up to be happy same-sex-attracted or gender-nonconforming adults. If you recognized this as a symptom of ignoring the other party's emotions, good job. That's correct. It's important to consider the issues Dr. Proudman brings up, but not to the detriment of others. It would certainly be possible, if she had the same respect for gender ideology's silenced victims that she does for trans-identified people, to take all parties into account when deciding what is important to address.

The context also suggests that either the gender abolitionist movement is making hate crimes more prevalent, or our refusal to accept trans identities is preventing us from addressing the bigger problem. There's a hidden assumption here, which is that adopting gender ideology is the only possible way to address these hate crimes. This is not true: Gender abolitionists recognize that, whether the victim is trans identified or not, sexism and homophobia are behind many of the hate crimes committed against gender-nonconforming people. These are things we fight against.

Lastly, although some people can tell the difference, this framing can conflate disagreement with literal violence. Calling a man a man is not the same as beating that man to death, so why does the movement focus on our words, and not the people perpetrating the violence? To paraphrase one Margaret Atwood quote, why are they more concerned with the women laughing at them than the men killing them?

CONCLUSION

Let's revisit the statements I identified as Dr. Proudman's main points.

• "The core tenet of radical feminism is that women and other individuals and groups are harmed under the patriarchy, and should be liberated. How can we liberate cis women and leave behind one of the most marginalised groups in our society?"

• "Both cis women and trans women are harmed under the patriarchy and their unique experiences must be included in our feminism."

• "Living your life as a trans man, woman or non-binary individual in a deeply transphobic society is likely to result in violence, prejudice and discrimination."

• "Standing with a marginalised group of people who are violated under conditions of racism, sexism and discrimination takes nothing away from the feminist movement..."

• “The issues that the feminist movement needs to focus on has the same concerns the trans movement has: bodily autonomy, healthcare, protection from domestic, street and state violence, right to unconventional gender expression, a basic standard of living and freedom from all forms of discrimination."

• "By pitting trans people against cis women, the patriarchy’s work is being done for those who uphold it."

I can buy that Dr. Proudman believes she is doing the right thing. It's possible for a good person to fall for a manipulative argument.

Because it's possible to use bad reasoning to defend a true statement, using logical fallacies says more about the person using them than the claim being made. It's a stronger indicator that the person used something other than formal reasoning to arrive at the conclusion they did. That there was another level of motivation involved beyond ensuring that the claim is true, and if applicable, not unintentionally harmful. And I believe that Dr. Proudman reveals her true motivation in this passage:

"It can also be painful to speak out when feminists who stand with trans people are told they are 'not real feminists.' I don’t think I have ever received more hate from feminists than when I tweet about trans rights."

Feminists challenged her, and it made her feel bad. This statement is telling: As an expert in domestic violence herself, Dr. Proudman should be familiar with the reasoning, "you made me feel bad, so that means your intention must have been to make me feel bad." You made me feel bad, so I get to make you feel bad back. You made me feel bad, so it justifies me not listening to you.

Like it or not, this is a feeling many gender abolitionists relate to. We grew up in the same patriarchal society she did; we had the same narrative fed to us. The difference is, eventually, we chose to get past the pain of being called out, we chose not to dismiss dissent as “hate,” and rather than moving from one prescriptive ideology to another, we figured out how to distinguish between a solid argument and a misleading one, and when the time came to choose between preserving our egos or admitting we were wrong, we chose truth. There is still time for her.

So, Dr. Proudman, do you see now? Do you see how your good intentions could have been used against you? The arguments against gender ideology are stronger, and more well-intentioned than you assumed them to be. We're acting on more information, not less. We're using stricter rules, not letting ourselves be misled. We're asserting boundaries, not being violent. We're guided by compassion, not blinded by hate. 

Whether you choose to join us is up to you.

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