Exclude girls for inclusion's sake

I’m in the performing arts community. Lately, there have been a lot of discussions around the lack of “trans” and “non-binary” performers in the circus space, despite a few famous performers in my field from bygone eras being female impersonators and many young students coming up through the ranks identifying as trans or non-binary.

Because of this, the pendulum has swung hard and it’s nearly impossible to get a job if you were born a woman and identify as a woman unless you are a woman of color, and even then it’s performative diversity. Everyone is scrambling to prove how progressive and accepting they are. This seems to only affect women performers, as men have it just as easy as always to get jobs.

I’m already fighting hard in a specialized field for recognition, and now my pronouns are standing in the way of work, at least in my local community. It’s frustrating. Coaches are asking children as young as 6 about their pronouns and kids are feeling pressured to use “they/them” as opposed to “she/her” (it’s never the boys, you see) and honestly, it’s a bit much. Can’t kids just be kids without worrying about gender identity?

Why does my personal gender identity matter when auditioning when it should be my physical skill set and performance quality that matters?

#femaleExclusion #femaleDiscrimination #SexNotGender #ExclusionOfWomen

language matters

This is a story about being fearful in my workplace. About terminology. I'm a health care worker. I primarily work on labor and delivery unit where the ideology is creeping in with “pregnant people” terminology and “body feeding”. In a space where women are performing their most powerful and most vulnerable act, they can't even be women. And their beautiful, functioning bodies are reduced to that which cannot be named. And yet. What is the first question any person asks of a pregnant woman? What is the first announcement after birth?…." what is the sex of the baby". Research shows that children who know and can use correct anatomical terms for their bodies are less likely to be victims of sexual abuse and violence. Yet we are removing women and their body parts from healthcare discussions?! I am just stunned and pained. Now I have to choose Politically. The side that will protect my daughters’ reproductive rights? Or the side that will protect them from dangerous gender ideology (and maybe also their reproductive freedoms from puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and sterilization).

#FemaleErasure #ExclusionOfWomen

peeping tom

As a teen I found a man watching me under a partition as I was naked, drying myself. By the time I dressed he had run away and escaped. After a while, I got over it and didn't think about it for decades. Last year, however, I was in the shower in my gym and a male face appeared under the door. I was shocked by my instinctive reaction. I couldn't breathe, my heart pounded, and my knees turned to jelly. All because it triggered the forgotten memory. It seems the body doesn't really forget. It turned out the male face was a kid of 6 or 7, but my body knew *instantly* it was male and reacted. I'm lucky really, I've never been raped. But I can't imagine the trauma of a rape victim encountering a male where they shouldn't be. Women need single-sex spaces. Every decent man knows that.

#changerooms #privacy #singlesexspaces