Is that cis white female pedestal actually a cage?

Dear woman leveraging patriarchy for personal advantage, I beg you to be careful what you ask for. I wish we could share a quiet chat about why I propose that’s a real problem for us all, but sadly the narrative is too often controlled by strident voices spreading fear and loathing.

Really, a simple quiet conversation would do so I am writing this instead. I have some questions I hope you’ll consider.

You sometimes claim trans women’s existance erases or oppresses “women”. You claim that by existing and demanding equal treatment free of bias we “devastate women”. You publish long pieces telling everyone that when we stand up to your supremacist claims that “no true woman” would be like me, or transgender, or whatever you drag out to deny the validity of whatever transgender women who do not meet your personal purity test.

By “women”, do you mean cisgender women who insist that transgender women are not women?

By devastated, do you mean facing the real-world consequences of discriminatory actions targeting people on prohibited grounds?

Like this? Or like this? Or like this?

Do you propose that all the white women claiming to be bothered by the presence of another woman or of another person not exactly like them should have the right to decide for themselves the validity of such a person?

Should protections from discrimination have subjective escape clauses?

Do you see that these words come overwhelmingly from well-off white women who face few other barriers than their role in the patriarchy they uphold to not fall from their their place?

Why do you think that is?

If not, how is it you are not right now advocating for purity test? Are you sure you would pass the purity test we set out if you were to get one implemented?

Do you really propose a purity test for qualifying as a woman enough, or middle class enough, white enough, safe enough?

In her 2018 dissenting opinion on the Hobby Lobby Supreme Court ruling, Ruth Bader Ginsburg called putting women on a pedestal a gilded cage. Read more about Ginsberg’s view on substantive equality here and here. The U.S. Supreme Court Justice was trying to explain why gender-based discrimination confines what women can do. She sees something you refuse to see: that making womanhood or any other identity a caste opens up a terrifying portal into feudal times we learned long ago was poison.

In asking the Court to declare sex a suspect criterion, we urge a position forcibly stated in 1837 by Sara Grimke, noted abolitionist and advocate of equal rights for men and women. She said, ‘I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.‘

— Ruth Bader Ginsburg, arguing before the Supreme Court (Frontiero v. Richardson, 1973)

Are you really sure you are “Woman” or “White” or “Christian” enough and “feminine” enough to satisfy everyone’s view of how a woman should behave, what she should look like, or be how far she should he “allowed” to reach? Do you really believe Gilead will be good for you?

Do you not see where you are taking us all as you let entitlement overtake wisdom?

Is “certified female” the caste you wish to put our daughters and ourselves into forever with legislation enacted “for her own good”?

Because when you’re asking to apply a purity test on who is a woman women to exclude women who are transgender, aren’t you inviting this judgement to be applied on you as well?

Maybe the way trans women don’t meet your purity test is also the way you don’t meet someone else’s.

When I read commentary like yours, I am reminded of all the times supremacist ideology like you are thoughtlessly amplifying with your words has resulted in immeasurable harm to whole communities because individuals wrap themselves around Purity and Supremacy to justify their exclusion of others on arbitrary grounds rather than on conduct or any other action.

Shame on you.

Your own personal blinkers cause harm and pain to so many you target because of who they are yet you clearly don’t care.