San Francisco

Shabe Yalda, or why I paid $12 for Nancy Pelosi to read about women’s rights

– San Francisco, Shabe Yalda, Dec. 2023

It’s that time of the year again. Shabe Yalda is the Persian celebration for winter solstice, when families gather and stay up through the longest night of the year eating fruit and reading poetry. In its Zoroastrian roots, Shabe Yalda is about celebrating the return of the light, the victory of light over darkness. Like many Iranians, I only grew up celebrating the spring equinox (Norooz or Persian New Year), but Shabe Yalda has been somewhat rediscovered recently. I, too, have been putting together small celebrations or rituals to mark the return of the light for some years now.

A couple years ago, I was given the opportunity for a perfect ritual and real-world action. In November 2021, I received an email from Women’s Declaration International USA (WDI USA) titled Deck the Halls of Congress with Feminism. They aimed to raise enough money to mail a copy of the book, The Abolition of Sex: How the “Transgender” Agenda Harms Women and Girls, to each US Senator and Representative. They asked that people sponsor their respective representatives with a twelve-dollar gift that covered the purchase, packing and postage of one book. From their email:

‘Dear U.S. Signatories, As the winter solstice approaches, many cultures celebrate the return of the light after the darkest season. For feminists, the last several years have felt bleak indeed, as most of the media has pursued a blackout policy on covering our objections to “gender identity” in law and society. As a result, many legislators remain entirely unaware of the depth, breadth, and strength of our commitment to the rights of women and girls as a sex class. WHRC USA thinks it’s time to shed some light!

This winter, we will deck the halls of Congress with a feminist critique of “gender identity.” Our volunteers will send one copy of Board President Kara Dansky’s important new book, The Abolition of Sex: How the “Transgender” Agenda Harms Women and Girls, to each United States Senator and Representative, along with a personalized cover letter quoting their constituents and other supporters who understand that recognition and protection of biological sex in law is crucial.’

I liked that they linked their campaign to the winter solstice and to the idea of bringing light into darkness, because the majority of Americans have been completely in the dark as to what’s going on. Even those who are staunch supporters of “trans rights” – maybe especially those who are staunch supporters – very often have no idea of what they’re supporting. So I donated, and I threw in an extra $24 to get copies to Dianne Feinstein and Alex Padilla as well. To Pelosi, Feinstein and Padilla, I wrote:

“By replacing sex with gender identity in law and policy, California is stripping away the human rights of its most vulnerable women, like those who are homeless or in prison. In San Francisco, our public library hosted an exposition calling for violence against feminists and lesbians, the tech companies we host are censuring feminists worldwide, and I can no longer enjoy an evening out and expect that my local restaurants will have a female-only bathroom I can use. As a woman, California native and San Francisco resident, it greatly saddens me to see the erosion of women’s rights and the increased normalization of misogyny and lesbophobia in a city that was once a global leader in progressive causes. It is time for California political leaders to put women’s rights above woke points.”

WDI USA reached their funding goal, and most of the donations came from first-time donors. Women are sick of the erosion of our rights, the sidelining and censorship of our voices, the vilification of anyone who states basic facts and wants to protect the rights that were won these past decades. People in power have made it clear that they don’t care about women, but it helps to show that some of the public does care and is watching.

We certainly haven’t won yet. Notably of course, in the past two years Roe v. Wade was overturned (which, in my opinion, was not the sole doing of the right). But feminists have been pushing forward. Our concerns and our arguments are making their way into public consciousness. We don’t have a fraction of the funding of the astroturfed gender identity movement, but we are showing that grassroots activism is still possible, that in the face of heavy propaganda, censorship and deeply ingrained bias, speaking the truth can still make a difference.

While I am not personally very active, my inbox is full of calls to action, meet-ups, and local and global news of campaigns, lawsuits and even some wins (I did participate in an action for incarcerated women – and against Scott Wiener’s SB 132 – that I wrote about here). Since my little ritual in 2021, Kara Dansky has written a new book, and WDI USA has held two annual conventions: Reigniting the Women’s Liberation Movement and Accelerating the Women’s Liberation Movement, the latter in San Francisco.

San Francisco has been coasting on its gay-friendly reputation, but the only gays to which it is friendly now are of the male variety. A few years ago, a group of actual lesbians (i.e., of the female and exclusively same-sex attracted variety) was gay-bashed at the San Francisco Dyke March by other marchers. At some point in the 2010s, SF stopped being the city it is reputed to be.

But activism is still in our DNA, and to bring a convention aimed at reviving the women’s liberation movement to a city once progressive and now so captured, is powerful. I couldn’t attend, but it seems to have gone… very well? As expected, the convention drew protests from the anti-feminist pink and blue crew (one delightful protester calling for mass femicide). But unlike other venues reserved by feminists in the past, the hotel did not bow to pressure to cancel the event, and it seems that more than anything, the protesters helped bring visibility to the true nature of our conflict with them (watch Kara Dansky’s account). The women concluded the weekend in front of San Francisco City Hall with a non-violent action for lesbian rights. The same crew arrived to hurl insults at them. We keep ending up back at square 1, having to fight the same fights, but women will simply show up as long as necessary.

It’s going to take a while for the liberals and leftists who are self-righteously entrenched in gender ideology to recognize that theirs is a regressive position, and many will never take personal responsibility. But most of the public – even those who go along with pronouns and mixed-sex bathrooms without a complaint – is not entrenched at all. If we continue to speak up on the harms of gender ideology, and continue to show that there is a resistance, including one that is not rooted in conservatism, and we continue to provide opportunities to transactivists to bring public awareness to their politics and misogyny, we will get through.

Feminists are fighting back in SF: Our protest against SB 132, the bill that allows male inmates to “self identify” into women’s prisons

I am one of the women who protested against SB 132 at the Golden Gate Bridge in early February.

My time got monopolized by two idiotic and antagonistic men.

I’m not going to make a list of every non-sequitur, strawman and ignorant take, but I’ll note a few things:

– These guys wanted to talk AT us. They had no interest in listening to our responses, even when they asked us questions.

– One of them has a TIF (trans-identified female, or “transman”) daughter, yet he thinks that there is no problem with men in women’s spaces, and that TIFs should be in men’s spaces. It is scary how little men acknowledge male violence against women. (Of course, if the notion of male violence is ridiculous pearl-clutching, why are they clutching their pearls about violence against TIMs, or transwomen? From what are TIMs escaping by using female prisons, bathrooms and other spaces?)

– To that point, the other dude said that he owns a homeless shelter in SF(!!!). And yet he compared us – women defending what tiny amount of protection and dignity female inmates have – to people 50 years ago “fighting against people dancing” and said that the world “would advance regardless”. I feel terrible for the homeless women who end up in his shelter. Homeless women are horribly vulnerable and have a dire need for their own spaces.

Of course, the world doesn’t just “advance”, all linear and effortless. I wish it did. The reason that women stood out in the cold that day, some of them risking their incomes, to re-demand the sex-based rights and protections that were fought for by feminists before us, is because progress and liberation, especially women’s, are usually met with a conservative backlash. Scott Wiener, California senator and author of SB 132, is that backlash.

These men at Golden Gate Bridge, ranting and sneering at women speaking up for the women being assaulted and raped in prison, shouting at an elderly woman that she has no compassion, telling me that I am the reason trans youth are killing themselves…. are no different than the men who intimidated, mocked and called manhaters the previous generations of protesting feminists. Because while those women made incredible strides, not enough awareness was raised and maintained in broader society about the extent of the sexism we face every day. Likewise, little has changed in the attitudes of men towards women. And so, as I’ve said before, we are back at square 1, having to argue for our rights all over again. It’s sad, it’s scary, it’s depressing.

– In discussing the hypothetical situation of a transwoman being housed in a female prison, the father of the TIF twice used the pronoun “he”. I had to remind him that he should be using the pronoun “she” if he believes that this person is a woman. One of them also commented that it “wasn’t fair” to punish all transwomen for the doings of a few, in the sense that if a few of them raped female inmates after being transferred, the others should not be “punished” by being excluded from female prisons. The assumption is that, by default, men have a right to women’s spaces. That only the proven rapist can, perhaps, justifiably be excluded. In other words, the assumption is that women do not have an inherent right to our own spaces. A space in which we don’t have to shower, sleep, or use the toilet in front of any man. If I am forced to shower in front of a man, nothing more needs to happen for it to be a violation.

My exchanges with these white knights highlighted what has been made obvious these past years: This was always about men’s rights–or rather, men’s privileges. They can say “transwomen are women” until they’re blue, but there is not a single category of woman for whom they agitate this much and in this way.

In the past three years, every time that I have read about a woman in prison being raped, assaulted or harassed by a male inmate, and every time that I have read about a convicted rapist or other violent male being housed in a woman’s prison, I have thought about Hope, the editor who dropped me from her book at the request of her publisher because of my gender critical writing. Hope didn’t care about female inmates and others harmed by gender ideology; she only cared about doing what was convenient for her.

When Hope questioned me about my views, she scoffed and laughed, acted incredulous and as though I were ridiculously uninformed. This was in 2020. I had been following the “gender wars” for about 4 years, but Hope was convinced that she knew more than I did, and she would not give me even the benefit of doubt. Hope is a California resident who did not believe that Self ID (which is the basis of SB 132, introduced a year earlier, and a number of local policies) is real. She was “sure” that there were “protocols” to determine who is trans. Feminists have spent years writing and talking about Self ID, yet most people still believe that “transwomen” are all men who have had surgery and take hormones. Our claims can be verified with minimal research, but instead we get dismissed as crackpots.

Hope and I were both active in the animal rights movement, and long before our conversation on gender identity, I had mused that she had the sort of overconfidence and entitlement that, in the US, is associated with white men. And now, attending my very first feminist protest, I ended up the captive audience of two such men.

To be a woman in the world is to suffer fools, to be a female activist is to suffer them doubly.

White guy #1, father of the TIF, kept snickering, walking away, and coming back when he thought he had a good “gotcha”. He said he was an “expert” in “sexual orientation”. I asked him what sexual orientation had to do with it, since trans identity is about gender identity, and trans people can be of any orientation. He didn’t answer. He asked us with a smirk ‘so you think that a transman in a men’s prison would be in “mortal danger?”’ Silly women, thinking men are dangerous! But somehow it’s not silly to pass a bill based on that very premise (Scott Wiener has repeatedly framed it as protecting transwomen from rape) if the bill is about protecting males from male violence. (Of course, the same hypothetical male inmate who would rape transwomen can now also identify his way into a female prison…)

The vast majority of the public does not want this. If women were not systematically ignored, silenced and dismissed, we would not be where we are today.

Women’s concerns about male violence have long been dismissed as hysteria, bigotry, or prudishness, and proponents of Self ID laws and policies followed the playbook from day 1. SB 132 grants inmates the right to be recognized as the “gender” that they identify as at that point in time (indeed, they can identify differently later), which entails being referred to with the pronouns of their choice and being searched by a prison guard of their “same gender” (the rights of female prison guards are of course completely overlooked, and they can now be forced to perform these procedures on male inmates). In regards to where they are to be housed, trans-identified inmates can choose men’s or women’s facilities based on where they feel “safest”.

After SB 132 was passed in the California Senate in May 2019, the co-sponsors “converted it to a two-year bill so that the co-sponsors and Senator Wiener could meaningfully integrate feedback collected from a survey of the ~1,200 trans, gender-nonconforming and intersex people currently in CDCR custody.”

Not only did Wiener not consult with incarcerated women, WOLF reported that during a virtual town hall, “in his four-and-half minute response on SB 132, Wiener did not once address the concerns of these women. Instead, the state senator resorted to smearing the women bravely speaking up on this issue.” He handwaved women’s concerns with vague and lazy misrepresentations: “Unfortunately there’s been a right-wing backlash against this law and we have right-wing publications that are publishing a lot of just inaccurate information, frankly fake news, about this law and trying to demonize and scapegoat trans people including, unfortunately, there’s a term called ‘TERF,’ trans-exclusive radical feminist people who believe that trans women are not actually women and advocate in that way.” “These are the same arguments we heard in North Carolina restroom law, that trans women are just trying to scam their way into a women’s restroom to victimize cisgender women.”

In other words, and I am going to use words to which we can all agree, when a person who was born with a penis says that they are in danger, they are to be believed, no questions asked, and they are to decide which facilities they will live in, no questions asked. But when a person who was born with a vagina says that they are in danger, they are to be dismissed as bigots, liars and connivers.

Amie Ichikawa, ED of Woman II Woman, said “The terror, abuse, and cruelty incarcerated women are experiencing because of Scott Wiener’s bill is not ‘fake news.’ I speak to these women every single day. They are devastated. They don’t understand how their elected officials, especially those who claim to care about justice reform and protecting women of color, could turn a blind eye to what is happening here.” Amie and others also point out, in this discussion about a trans-identified female inmate who was retaliated against for speaking out against sexual harrassment committed by a male inmate, that those behind SB 132 have zero concern for trans-identified females; their efforts are solely for the benefit of trans-identified males.

This is basic, age-old sexism. And it’s infuriating.

But– Amie sent photos of our protest to incarcerated women who were “shocked” and “very moved that anyone would do this for them”. They asked, “Who are these women? Why would they stand up for us?” And Amie replied, “They are women who give a shit and are doing something about it.”

So, the action was very much worth it, but we need to find ways to reach larger audiences with more effective messaging. We should try to ask questions of those who think they are on the other side: Let the Socratic method reveal to them how little they know and how illogical and sexist their thought process is. In our communications overall, it’s important to undo the notion that removing women’s spaces is in any way a progressive development. Women’s human rights are being violated. It is not more complicated than that. We, as women and as advocates, have been harmed by the narrative pushed by both transactivists and the traditional conservatives (I explained here how these are simply two flavors of conservative) that the only people opposing this are conservatives. They both benefit from this framing and from distorting or making invisible the work and arguments of feminists.

It is noteworthy that most of the people who expressed support for us that day were women, but they didn’t engage much, and the very first people to approach us were an enthusiastic family visiting from the UK – or “Terf Island” as they said. These actions build community and give people comfort and strength in knowing they are not alone. There need to be more.

It’s ironic that white guy #2 compared us to the stuffy adults in Footloose, because I am partly from a country that imprisons people for dancing–now, in 2023. It is precisely this fact, and the killing of women who refuse to cover their hair, and the killing of youth who protest the tyranny, that strengthens my resolve to face my minor discomforts and put myself out there. Defending the human rights of female prisoners in California is part of the struggle for women everywhere. Here like in Iran, women are oppressed on the basis of being born in a female body. The woke love to masquerade as allies to “women of color”, but by denying the reality of sex-based oppression, and by systematically opposing women’s efforts to have a social movement focused on the dismantlement of that oppression, they support societal and institutional sexism everywhere.

For women who aren’t incarcerated, who aren’t homeless, who aren’t lesbian, who aren’t hedging our careers on a female-only scholarship, it’s easy to ignore the whole thing (while secretly trusting that other women will – as always – do the thankless work of defending the rights you enjoy) so that you can keep your good standing. If solidarity is too much to ask for, at least know that at some point, it will cost you too.

It’s time for more courage, and a lot more protests.

Learn more about the impacts of SB 132 on women:

Support San Franciso Lesbians

Please support these women who were attacked at the Dyke March by the ever-woke gender ideologues.

Three weeks ago a small group of lesbians was attacked at the San Francisco Dyke March for asserting that they were, well, lesbians. This is where gender ideology has gotten us. Homophobia is cool again and self-professed progressives are too afraid of being chastised for wrongthink to activate their brain cells and think about what they’re condoning. Enough with the ID politics, time for critical analysis.

My analysis (and that of many others) is that gender ideology harms all women and girls and especially lesbians, and San Francisco has been proving me right. After the library exhibit celebrating violence against women, we get lesbians attacked at a march that was supposed to be for them, in a city that used to be known for being gay-friendly.

It’s truly scary to see how quickly a movement can be co-opted and colonized, and this is something that warrants reflection from anyone who is involved in a social movement. I admire the courage of San Francisco and London lesbians who are reclaiming their movement and their marches in the face of hostility, slander, and even “actual” violence.

After the women were attacked at the SF Dyke March, the march, the National Center for Lesbian Rights and the Bay Area Reporter posted defamatory statements about them. Please support them by signing their petition for a retraction of these statements and by supporting their fundraiser for legal expenses.

Read the statement of the women who protested the London Pride:
Get The L Out

Degenderettes Exhibit at SFPL

I took pictures of the Degenderettes exhibit at the San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) for those who can’t make it there themselves. The Degenderettes are “a humble and practical club, fighting for gender rights within human reach rather than with legislation and slogans”, or a trans advocacy group that goes around intimidating and threatening women, especially lesbians. One of the pieces originally displayed was a bloodied t-shirt with the words “I PUNCH TERFS”.

A Degenderette wears a “I PUNCH TERFS” t-shirt at the 2017 San Francisco Pride parade.

Following outrage from women around the world, SFPL removed the t-shirt with this disingenuous comment: “This exhibit contains strong language, blood and mentions of transmisogyny and police violence. The Library has altered the exhibit, removing artwork that could be interpreted to promote violence which is incompatible with our policies.” Transmisogyny is defined as “misogyny” towards transwomen, but you would be excused for assuming it refers to the misogyny displayed by trans people.

SFPL should have either removed the entire exhibit (and there is a petition to that effect that I encourage you to sign) or kept the t-shirt, so that the public understands what this TERF rhetoric is about.

Who is a TERF? A TERF is a woman who doesn’t believe in gender essentialism, or the idea that there are certain personality traits (or an essence, soul, mind, etc) that define all women. A TERF is a woman who thinks that her experience of oppression is rooted in being born in a female body. A TERF is a woman who believes that people born with penises, regardless of how they identify, have had different life experiences than those born with vaginas. A TERF is a woman who defends female-only spaces and resources (such as scholarships) set aside for women. A TERF is a woman who questions the medicalization of children who don’t conform to gender norms. A TERF is a lesbian who excludes males from her dating pool. Above all, a TERF is a woman who doesn’t know her place.

According to these guys, she should be punched, beaten, even killed, and SFPL found it appropriate to give them a platform. This is because they are white American males, who always have a license to spread terror to anyone they deem in their way.

An “inaccessible” women’s restroom door. Because all female spaces should be accessible and all women’s boundaries should be smashed.

We are living a global pandemic of violence against women and this exhibit was put up mere days after a massacre in Toronto that was motivated by misogyny and male entitlement. It is an ode to more of the same and allowing it at a public library is unbelievably irresponsible and insensitive. Regardless of how you choose to define “woman” and “man”, it is a fact that people with vaginas are born into an oppressed class that experiences systematic violence from people with penises, who make up the oppressor class. However, by positing that there is another axis of oppression – cis and trans – in which “cis women” (in this case lesbians) are suddenly the oppressors of “trans women” (in this case heterosexual males), they’ve reframed the violence and intimidation of the Degenderettes as a case of a marginalized group “punching up”. That’s all it takes for a stamp of approval from the enlightened folks at SFPL.

Men go into a space for lesbians and claim they “might not feel safe in a crowd of cis women”. This is the classic reversal of abusers who claim to be the abused.

Even if SFPL does believe that trans-identified males are oppressed by women and that that the violence of those punching up is justified, would they allow similar exhibits from other oppressed groups? I can imagine that they might host exhibits about other movements that include violent tactics in their struggle for liberation, but would they zoom in on their bloody weapons and violent slogans? Can you imagine Palestinians or Kurdish women or Black liberationists being allowed to exhibit weapons and slogans like “I punch Jews”, “I kill men” or “die white scum”? Somehow I doubt it. This is a privilege only afforded to those who are white American males.

As someone of Muslim descent, I see both something very different and very familiar in how the marginalized groups of Muslims and women are treated. If SFPL had exhibited a t-shirt that said “I punch Muslims”, I know that Bay Area community organizations and activists would have raised hell and had it shut down. But women? That nagging underclass of humanity? Nobody cares about us, be it on the left or the right.

There is also a chilling similarity. Violence is often justified by presenting the aggressor as the victim. When I see the lies and histrionics about radical feminists who “want all trans people to die” it reminds me of claims like “Muslims want to destroy the West/kill all Christians”. I have never seen any radical feminist advocate for violence against or wish death upon transpeople. Radical feminists simply do not believe that gender is natural or innate, and therefore do not agree with the current dogma that a woman is “anybody who identifies as a woman”. And in the ultra-privileged bubble and navel-gazing culture of American identitarians, disagreeing with someone’s beliefs about themselves is construed as the ultimate violence.

The Degenderettes exhibit is nothing more than misogyny and male entitlement and violence repackaged with the help of some eyeliner. As to the “liberals” who condone this, they have so wrapped their self-worth and social capital around being “woke” and supporting progressive causes, and they are so skittish about being reprimanded for wrongthink, that they allow themselves no room for critical thought.

IYIs [Intellectuals Yet Idiots] fail to distinguish between the letter and the spirit of things. They are so blinded by verbalistic notions such as science, education, democracy, racism, equality, evidence, rationality and similar buzzwords that they can be easily taken for a ride.
– Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Celebrating the Cycle of Life with Death

Alemany Farm, San Francisco’s largest urban farm, is celebrating Earth Day this year by roasting a pig, as they do every year. When vegans have questioned this in the past, their response has been “circle of life”. So while spring is in bloom and the air is full of the scent and colors of life bursting forth, Americans celebrate the circle of life with death.

Meanwhile, Iranians are currently celebrating our new year. Norooz falls on Spring Equinox and revolves around the sacredness of the circle of life. Before Norooz, we grow sprouts (sabzeh) for the haftseen, a table with symbolic items which will be laid until the end of the celebration.

The cyclical renewal of life is celebrated with the vibrancy of life growing from seeds and creating a lush tapestry of green. On our haftseens we also place hyacinths, apples, and other symbols of abundance, health, life and nature. Norooz is celebrated for thirteen days, during which time the haftseens are a joyful backdrop, and people take pride in the beauty they’ve created. Then comes Sizdah Beh Dar (“thirteen to the door”); on the thirteenth day of the new year, friends and families spend the day in nature. The sabzeh is brought along for a final ritual. People tie little tufts of sprouts into knots as they make a wish for the new year and then throw them into a river, looking forward to the gifts that the river will bring back to them.

All the while in my city, young Americans are choosing to honor the Earth and the circle of life by gathering around the body of an animal who will have wanted nothing more than to stay alive. This pig’s life will be violently ended by people who have absolute power over him or her and who have no need to kill to sustain themselves, but who choose to do so anyway because their entitlement trumps their empathy. Domination and death are the values upheld as Alemany gathers around another broken body.

These daily choices and rituals call upon us to question our culture and the connections between the local and the global, the individual and the collective.

Consider that the United States military is a bloated killing machine that receives more than a third of total global military spending. With bases around the globe and the wanton slaughter of civilians in criminal wars, it is the main source of terror in the world. Consider that last year American police killed a thousand of their own citizens and this year we’re already close to 300. This is summary execution at home as abroad, condoned by the legal system and the masses. Consider that in a country of extreme wealth, many die from lack of access to housing, healthcare and basic healthy foods.

As parks became parking lots, as processed and packaged foods replaced fruits plucked from a backyard tree, humans are not the only ones to have suffered. Insects are dying off, the fish are dying off, mammals are dying off. Every corner of the Earth is poisoned as we pursue domination and profit.

Tomorrow for Sizdah Beh Dar, I will bring a plant-based picnic to Golden Gate Park and will spend the day enjoying the sun, the grass, the trees, the flowers, the birds. I will take my sabzeh to Mission Creek and make a wish of liberation for the hundreds of thousands of pigs who are killed every day in the US, most of whom never see sunlight or touch the earth. I will reflect on how we can foster a culture in which we meet life with awe and tenderness, not destruction. If we are serious about Earth Day, nothing else will do. Those who attend pig roasts dressed in feel-good language think that the artisanal butchery of an individual pig raised outdoors can not be compared to the grotesque excess of industrial animal farming. They are wrong.

This equation of destruction and killing with the cycle of life, the logicking out of one’s own compassion, the rituals of domination that make up the fabric of American social life: these are the very basis of the culture of violence that has spawned horrors at home and abroad. The entitlement over the life of another is the same entitlement that drives the trashing of the planet, as we commodify every last part of nature. Kindness is the basis of sustainability–any true celebration of Earth Day will require genuine soul-searching as we begin to change our culture at its very core.