(Jan 28 2025, 11:05 PM)wormwood I don’t have the receipts because, hey, I’m disorganised, but I was on the fringes of the gender critical scene in Britain from about 2014, left-leaning, organised to a great extent by grassroots Labour Party women: evidence-based collective feminist resistance to the appropriation of women’s rights.

A couple of yeas later, Posie Parker, as she called herself then, arrived on the scene with her Adult Human Female poster, and with her came a lot of publicity, and slowly at first, the white supremacists. She quarrelled with and insulted women who had started the movement, she flew across the Atlantic to meet with the Heritage Foundation, she started holding rallies with security who turned out to be racist thugs, and I’m pretty sure she also fundraised money that she never accounted for. I ran into her once at an event, she was barely on my radar and I didn’t recognise her, but she gave me the calculating look and the dazzling, “yes it’s famous me” smile of the true narcissist.

In short, my un-nuanced opinion is that she’s a smart female version of a very familiar type: Trump with two X chromosomes.

(Jan 28 2025, 12:49 PM)Clover

Quote:There’s a thread where one woman was getting downvoted because she rightfully pointed out that KJK isn’t gender critical.

I have noticed a trend where it seems like conservative/anti-trans people get big mad when radical feminists or gender critical feminists point out that being anti-trans is not being gender critical. I would have a similar thing happen when I would share the kindrad FAQ about the difference between being anti-trans/conservative and being gender critical on Ovarit—immediate instant downvotes 

I think KJK has done a decent amount of good, in terms of being a woman who was unafraid to speak up at the height of transmania. However, I don't really hold a high opinion of her after from what I have heard, accounts of her being possibly racist (?), but certainly the accounts of her praising Trump. I'm really sick of that. But that's part of my overall sickness and annoyance with people who think electing a misogynistic rapist billionaire is somehow good for women (or anyone besides wealthy white men)...

I'm also confused about people on Ovarit claiming KJK is a feminist, when she herself has stated she's not a feminist? I kind of wonder if the people claiming that are the same people who get mad when someone points out there's a difference between gender critical and anti-trans.

(Jan 28 2025, 5:46 PM)YesYourNigel I've heard people say "sex realist" to describe people who acknowledge sex. Seems like that'd be a better term for anyone who acknowledges the reality of sex, for whatever reasons they have. Though really, "anti-trans" should suffice, but I guess it's not "politically correct" to say you're anti-something nowadays?

(Jan 28 2025, 6:31 PM)sealwomyn Oh, the piece of shit local handmaiden also had a sticker on her shirt saying TERF = Trans Exclusionary Republican Female.  I already thought it was a bit annoying as a misnomer as radical feminism is just "male exclusionary" if anything, but now the acronym is more annoying knowing that some class traitors are shamelessly using it this way.

(Jan 29 2025, 9:18 AM)Possum

(Jan 28 2025, 11:05 PM)wormwood I don’t have the receipts because, hey, I’m disorganised, but I was on the fringes of the gender critical scene in Britain from about 2014, left-leaning, organised to a great extent by grassroots Labour Party women: evidence-based collective feminist resistance to the appropriation of women’s rights.

A couple of yeas later, Posie Parker, as she called herself then, arrived on the scene with her Adult Human Female poster, and with her came a lot of publicity, and slowly at first, the white supremacists. She quarrelled with and insulted women who had started the movement, she flew across the Atlantic to meet with the Heritage Foundation, she started holding rallies with security who turned out to be racist thugs, and I’m pretty sure she also fundraised money that she never accounted for. I ran into her once at an event, she was barely on my radar and I didn’t recognise her, but she gave me the calculating look and the dazzling, “yes it’s famous me” smile of the true narcissist.

In short, my un-nuanced opinion is that she’s a smart female version of a very familiar type: Trump with two X chromosomes.

This is why I'm wary of the idea that we can separate the "good things" rightwing feminists do from the "bad things.". It sounds like your group had genuine feminist motivations/energy and KJK kind of came in and redirected that energy toward her own goal, damaging your original goal in the process.

I think there's an assumption that women like KJK are a necessary evil because GC will get nowhere without them. But that's an assumption, there's also an alternate timeline where KJK never showed up and your group was still successful. Maybe it would have taken longer for your group to make change without the populist figurehead, but maybe slow+steady with actual feminists is better than quick+dirty with rightwingers. I imagine KJK has made your group's original goal harder because now it's been "tainted" by the association with KJK and that automatically drives away left-leaning centrists and liberal/trans-inclusive feminists.

It's challenging because society also has a tendency to judge women 100x harsher than men, and that's not fair and feminists shouldn't do it. Like it's not okay that a man can be an asshole and still be considered smart and have his contributions valued, but if a woman is an asshole we tear her down and burn her contributions. But there's a line between "asshole" and "alt-right grifter" and I think maybe sometimes GC feminists over-correct because we're just so happy that someone is joining our team.

(Jan 29 2025, 10:13 AM)wormwood The group I was on the edges of ended up forming Woman’s Place UK, one of the most successful grassroots organisations of our time, who defeated Gender Self-Identfication, got sex counted instead of gender in the U.K. census (the government were going to change it from sex), and supported the lawsuit that eventually tumbled the Tavistock clinic.

Quote:first, she seems to be a marketing genius; she can really capture a 'vibe' and get it out there

(Jan 29 2025, 10:47 PM)Iota Aurigae

Quote:first, she seems to be a marketing genius; she can really capture a 'vibe' and get it out there

Which is, I think, why she set up her shop, too. And to grift, of course.

(Jan 29 2025, 10:13 PM)wormwood Hey, no need to be sorry. And I agree it’s important to think about cooperation with non-feminist groups, and how it works for or against feminist goals. My observation of Keen suggests not working with non feminists at all if it can be avoided, and if it can’t, limiting the time and degree of cooperation. Frankly, right now in the U.S., where I assume most of you to be, my advice would be to not work with the Right at all, but I can see limited cooperation with the gender crowd.

I was talking about A Woman’s Place, pretty much the gender critical (I know, I know) movement in the U.K. at the time. I’ll post the site in the Library, because I really think the work was exemplary, and there are many interesting panels and talks. It’s a measure of Keen’s success that you’ve heard of her and not them, because they are the ones who did the work. It’s not “my group” except that I agreed with them, contributing to crowdfunders, signing petitions, and generally engaging and encouraging their efforts at a time when it was absolutely not done to not fawn over men who called themselves women.

Keen came at the same topic, drew publicity, became involved with the group after its work was well underway, worked with them a bit, tried to take over, left in a snit after they said no to her, spend years sneering at them as over-educated purists who didn’t listen to conservative women (sound familiar?) and has apparently erased their memory, internationally anyway.

She hindered the group and poisoned the well, but they won victories for women without her.

(edited for clarity and to expand a bit)