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22 Jan, 2021 16:00

Biden’s executive order that prioritises transgender people is a DISASTER for ordinary women and girls across America

Biden’s executive order that prioritises transgender people is a DISASTER for ordinary women and girls across America

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have done more damage to women’s rights in one day than Donald Trump managed in four years with their misguided Executive Order on Gender Identity Discrimination.

Back in January 2017, just one day after the inauguration of President Trump, millions of women in countries all around the world took to the streets to protest against the incoming administration. Although Trump had not yet passed a single piece of legislation, the pink pussy-hat marchers were adamant his regime would harm women’s rights.

Fast forward to this weekend. The knitted hats will remain boxed up and the feminists will stay at home. With Joe Biden in the White House and – even better – Kamala Harris as the first elected black/South Asian woman vice president, the sisters no longer feel any need to protest. They got their wish.

And yet, within hours of taking up the post, Biden has done more to set back women’s rights in the US than Trump did in his entire four years in office. One of his first acts was to sign an Executive Order on Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation.

Also on rt.com Biden team announces ‘Gender Policy Council’ to eyerolls online

The pink pussy-hat brigade purr at the order’s mention of “respect” and “dignity.” They swoon at talk of the right for all people to “be able to live without fear, no matter who they are or whom they love.” This is a far cry from Trump’s crude and offensive locker room remarks. But make no mistake. Combating discrimination on the basis of gender identity is disastrous for women and girls.

Unlike sex, gender identity is a made-up concept. It’s the bizarre notion that regardless of the biological reality of our bodies, we all have a feeling, deep down inside, about whether we are really male or female. This feeling, the gender identity champions tell us, overrides our hormones, chromosomes, and genitalia. How we feel about our gender is more important than whether or not we have a beard, breasts, penis, or ovaries, when it comes to defining us as men or women. Anyone can now be a man or a woman, and the onus is on the world to accept us for who we say we are.

The language of Biden’s executive order is warm and inclusive. It is hard to argue against statements like: “Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports.” But when gender identity overrides sex, what’s being said here is that children should be able to use changing rooms and join sports teams depending upon whether they feel like a boy or a girl. For young children this is unlikely to make any difference whatsoever. But for adolescents it matters enormously.

You don’t need to assume the worst of teenage boys to acknowledge that teenage girls might want privacy when using the toilets or getting dressed after sport. Puberty changes both male and female bodies. Boys become, on average, taller, heavier, stronger, and faster than girls. Biology never claimed to be fair. But what’s really unfair is to allow these stronger, faster boys to compete alongside and against girls on the running track and on the football pitch. Biden’s executive order might sound nice, but it signals the end of girls’ participation in sports.

When it comes to adults, outlawing discrimination on the basis of gender identity is just as dangerous. There are good reasons why prisons, domestic violence refuges, certain health services and even some beauty salons are exclusively for females. This is not to discriminate irrationally against transgender people but to protect women who, in these specific circumstances, are particularly vulnerable.

Biden’s executive order opens the door for men to access women’s private spaces. It makes it more difficult for medical professionals to direct advice about cervical smear tests, contraception and abortion provision, or breast cancer checks, at the women they are intended to help. It puts low-paid women who offer intimate beauty services at risk. And it makes it far more difficult to measure accurately whether there are sex-based differences in rates of pay or access to employment.

That the new president has moved so quickly to place the rights of transgender people above women should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone. Today it has been announced that visitors to the White House website will be allowed to specify their pronouns. Kamala Harris and other progressives within the Democratic Party have long since taken to declaring their pronouns at every available opportunity.

Also on rt.com Caitlin Johnstone: The next two years will be the Democratic Party at its most transparent

The obsession with pronouns shows that modern feminism is so caught up in virtue signalling inclusivity, it fails completely to defend women’s rights – which should surely be its primary objective. And, tragically, far too many campaigners were so single-minded in their desire to see the back of Trump, they turned a blind eye to the problems with Team Biden.

We are now being bombarded with gushing news stories swooning over the new vice president’s fashion choices and women, apparently, wearing pearls and Converse sneakers in honour of Queen Kamala. Meanwhile, stories of the girl who pulls out of the athletics team, or refuses to use the school toilets, or the woman who misses a medical appointment because she didn’t realise she was a ‘cervix-haver’, or the woman attacked while incarcerated, go untold.

I did not join in with the women’s march against Trump four years ago. But with the Biden regime there is already something to protest against. Just forgive me if I don’t wear a pink pussy hat.

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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

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