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[[ a pdf of this article as published by Green Horizon. ]]

The topic of sex and gender has never been more contentious. Who would have thought, thirty years ago, that a popular trend would take hold in our society that denies the material reality of sex and promotes instead the ideology of “gender identity”?

While declining to take a position on these questions, the Dialogue not Expulsion (DnE) Caucus has organized within the national party to demand a conversation. Our party publicly affirms Respect for Diversity, Grassroots Democracy, and Feminism as key values. Yet it nonetheless engages in “cancel culture” to shut down such discussions at every turn. Women have been sanctioned and expelled from the party’s National Women’s Caucus for discussing women’s rights. The DnE Caucus has documented multiple abuses of the party’s values on its website.

I joined the DnE caucus and then became a Green Party member in my state of Wisconsin in March of 2020. I was active with the Campus Greens when I was in school in the early ’90s. Later I would co-found Madison Action for Mining Alternatives (MAMA), organizing with the group for five years. My political values are reflected in what the Green Party promotes, but until this past year I felt disillusioned and frustrated with American party politics.

What changed was the Georgia Green Party’s February 22, 2020 endorsement of the Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights. This document was penned by Sheila Jeffreys, Heather Brunskell Evans and Maureen O’Hara and is promoted by the Women’s Human Rights Campaign (WHRC). Since its March 2019 release, the Declaration has collected over 13,000 signatures from individuals around the world and almost 300 organizational endorsements.

Grounded in existing international treaties endorsed by our party’s national platform, the Declaration reaffirms the feminist understanding of sex as the basis for women’s oppression—and counters the assertion that this oppression is grounded instead in “gender identity.”

As feminists, we understand that gender is a tool for patriarchal oppression. We believe it is gender (sex-based stereotypes), not biological reality, that we must reject in our efforts to end the oppression of women and to free men from their assigned roles as our oppressors.

Gender identity ideology is not only wrong about the objective reality of one’s sex, but its adoption as public policy is harmful to the sex-based rights and protections women have fought for to become equal citizens in society.

Two women were banned from the NWC Listserv for attempting to discuss women's sex-based rights

Kerri Bruss

30 Oct 2020 • 5 min read

Feminists in the United States are increasingly finding themselves politically homeless. Of the two major political parties, one has made clear its intent to enshrine “gender identity” into federal civil rights law via the so-called Equality Act which as written, would completely negate the existing sex-based rights of women, while the other stands in opposition to the Act, though for what many consider to be the wrong reasons.

This dichotomy has led some left-leaning women to seek refuge in alternative parties such as the Green Party (GPUS) which, in addition to its commitments to grassroots democracy, social justice, ecology, and peace, also includes “feminism” among its 10 Key Values.

Yet for those of us who assert that a woman is an adult human female, and hold that women are oppressed based on their sex and reproductive capacity (as opposed to whatever sex-based stereotypes they do or do not adhere to) the GPUS has not been particularly welcoming. I would go so far as to say that we Greens with gender critical views, and even those who take no position in this debate but call for dialogue not expulsion as a preferred means of resolving political disputes, have been met with outright hostility in most GPUS spaces.

In a series of tweets on the subject, the leadership of the LGB Alliance in the United Kingdom has expressed their solidarity with gender critical activists in the United States. 

https://twitter.com/ALLIANCELGB/status/1273254241860308995 

Originally published at:
https://freerlives.wordpress.com/2020/05/24/support-georgias-greens/ 

The Green Party in the US state of Georgia has adopted a gender-critical position, and as a result it may be expelled from the national party. The Georgia Greens deserve full support against such a threat, and let us hope they serve as a rallying point for other progressives across the USA and elsewhere. The stand they have taken is a real step forward for the gender critical left.

The immediate issues

The Georgia Greens have outlined key events: at a state convention in February delegates “without objection” adopted an amendment to the platform of the state party, endorsing the gender critical Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights. The national party’s Lavender Caucus demanded that this endorsement be rescinded with an apology, failing which “‘the Georgia Green Party must be disaccredited and disavowed by the Green Party of the United States’”. Exchanges with national party figures followed. The Georgia Greens say:

As the conversation unfolded in national party channels the hateful rhetoric and name-calling targeting the women in the Party who were speaking up to defend the position taken by the Georgia Green Party was punctuated with threats of actual violence and doxxing. Multiple women were banned from national party social media forums for comments grounded in biological reality and their defense the rights of children to be protected from conversion therapy.

The Georgia Greens have called for “a party­wide conversation on the underlying issues”.

The Lavender Green Caucus says that while the Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights is “couched in statements about protecting children and women’s rights” it is “a document intended to deny trans people their bodily autonomy and freedom of expression, against the advice of the vast majority of medical professionals and LGBT advocacy organizations.”

For example, The Declaration makes familiar villainizing arguments about puberty suppressing hormones, which allow children the option, with the consent of themselves, their parents and their doctor, to stall puberty until they are legally old enough to consent to gender confirmation. The writers of the Declaration would prefer instead to force children to undergo permanent physical changes that exacerbate their dysphoria, inflicting trauma that could last the rest of their lives…

It may seem to some with less direct experience that our language is overly hyperbolic. Some may see Georgia Green Party’s statement as innocuous or even well-intentioned. We can only assure you, as Lavender Greens, that the language used by the Georgia Green Party is both familiar and insidious. It is the same bigotry in the name of protecting children that queers have faced every step of our way toward acceptance and equality.

If the Georgia Greens are going “against the advice of the vast majority of LGBT advocacy organizations” we should note the top down, billionaire-funded nature of these bodies. Insofar as they are truly going against the advice of medical professionals we should note that medicine is not value-free and that the their opinions reflect the very broad support for gender ideology from elite institutions, the media and across the political spectrum.

There are more general points at play here and I would like to discuss two of them. One is the importance of the Georgia Greens’ action in the context of the whole, global trans debate.

Women’s Rights in the Green Party USA

May 7, 2020 · by WLRN Staff · in Podcasts. ·

This is WLRN’s fourth anniversary edition! First up, hear Danielle Whitaker introduce the topic for this month’s podcast: women’s rights in the Green Party USA and in particular, what is happening to the Georgia Green Party because they decided to sign onto the Declaration for Women’s Sex-based Rights.

https://soundcloud.com/wlrn-media/womens-rights-in-the-green-party-usa-edition-49 

Next, hear WLRN’s Dana Vitalosova deliver our world news segment right before the song “Tell it Like it Is” by Tracy Chapman. Following the news, hear an excerpt of an interview Thistle did with Georgia Green Party Co-Chair, Denice Traina and then another excerpt with former Green Party member and candidate, Elaine Mastromatteo, pictured in our cover image for this month. Both women talk about their involvement in the Green Party and comment on the status of women’s rights. Next, enjoy the song “Sleep to Dream” by Fiona Apple.

By Jeanne F. Neath

https://xxamazons.org/current-assaults-on-women/push-progressives-to-protect-womens-sex-based-rights-sign-petition/ 

In February 2020, the Georgia Green Party endorsed the very feminist “Declaration of Women’s Sex-Based Rights.” Immediately, the LGBTQIA+ caucus of the Green Party (Lavender Caucus) called for the expulsion of the Georgia Greens from the Green Party of the United States. A group of Greens are now calling for democratic discussion about the issues involved in this conflict. If you are interested in getting progressives in the Green Party talking about gender critical and radical feminist perspectives, you can sign the petition sponsored by Greens for Dialogue Not Expulsion. You do not need to be a member of the Green Party to sign.

What Did the Georgia Greens Do?

What is going on between the Georgia Greens and the Lavender Caucus? At their February meeting, the Georgia Greens modified their platform stating that policy makers should find nuanced approaches that can both protect trans-identified individuals and protect the sex-based rights of women. Among other changes, their Human Rights plank now concludes:

“The Georgia Green Party here endorses the Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights, as developed and publicized by the Women’s Human Rights Campaign, and encourage our members, our national party, policy makers and the general public to do the same. We will regulate access to gender-affirming therapies to protect Georgia children from medical experimentation, prosecuting ethical violations involved with subjecting children incapable of fully informed consent to such life-changing and irreversible procedures. We will protect women and girls from unfair competition in sports by male bodied athletes. We will protect girls and women in the enjoyment of female-only facilities, programs, or services, particularly in places where women have a need to be in a state of undress, or where their privacy may be compromised or their safety may be at risk from male-pattern violence.”

Lavender Greens Go Over the Edge

As you might expect, the Lavender Greens were a bit ticked off! On February 28th in an “Open Letter to the National Committee of the Green Party of the United States” this LGBTQIA+ caucus argued that the Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights would “force children to undergo permanent physical changes that exacerbate their dysphoria, inflicting trauma that could last the rest of their lives.” (Note that the “permanent physical changes the Lavender Greens are concerned about are those of going through a natural puberty!) The Lavender Greens go on to say they can’t “stand by while one of our state parties aligns itself with a hate group.” (And now note that the “hate group” they are speaking of is the Women’s Human Rights Campaign.) The Lavender Greens demand that the Georgia Greens:

1. Rescind its endorsement of the Declaration of Women’s Sex-Based Rights.
2. Apologize to transgender and gender nonconforming members of the Green Party and commit to “centering trans people who have the relevant experience and are directly affected by gender affirmation policy before issuing a statement.”
3. Commit to educating themselves and their membership about the necessity of gender affirmation to protect the lives of trans youth and trans adults. Any member of the Green Party of Georgia Coordinating Committee who does not undergo this training must resign.

The Lavender Caucus called on national Green Party to disaccredit and disavow the Georgia Green Party unless that party grovelled as requested and met all three demands.

April 26, 2020 · by WLRN Staff · in Staff Articles. ·

On the Death of Reality

Navigating Anti-Debate Politics in the Age of Unreason

By Danielle Whitaker

Even amid a global pandemic threatening our lives, competitive wokeness—the self-righteous face of pseudoprogressive culture—continues to rear its glitter-coated head.

Last month, the Georgia state chapter of the U.S. Green Party made the risky decision to endorse the Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights. This thought-crime was received as well as could be expected: the following week, as detailed in the Georgia Greens’ response, the national Green Party’s Lavender Caucus demanded that Georgia retract its endorsement, issue a “formal” apology, and submit to “educating” themselves about “the necessity of gender affirmation” or face dis-accreditation and expulsion from the national party. No debate or compromise. Submit to doublethink, or else.

This excerpt from Georgia’s response makes it difficult to rationalize their critics’ extreme reaction:

We welcome an opportunity to participate in dialogue on the issues raised by the Platform amendment which has been the subject of this recent controversy. But we would prefer to do so with people who have actually read the language we have adopted, and the document we have endorsed, not just the hyperbole and derogatory misinformation being spread about it. We insist on a fair and across the board application of the rules. We insist that we not be compelled to speak in a vocabulary which fails to convey our understanding of how the world works.