The Final Frontier is Not Space

It's women

According to the Oxford dictionary, one of the definitions of the verb to “colonize” is: “the action of appropriating a place or domain for one's own use”. Verbs are action words; they denote someone doing something.

There are numerous examples of one population group colonising another. In the early 16th century, the Spaniard Hernán Cortés was responsible for conquering the South American Aztec empire, the results of which are still very evident today. Likewise, the European colonization of both North America and Australia have had profound effects on the original populations of those continents.

In previous centuries, countries have colonized others for numerous reasons; for resources, as a way of getting rid of excess people, for national pride and well, just because they could. As Russia’s president Putin is now discovering though, among those who consider themselves to be modern and civilized these are no longer acceptable reasons for invading a space that isn’t yours just because you think it should be.

This does not mean that the colonization of others has ended; far from it. So, who is being colonized now, who is doing the colonization and what effects is this having?

It is women who are now being forcibly colonized by men.

We are subject to a male takeover in nearly every WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic) country on the planet. This colonization is the patriarchy on steroids, alongside the involuntary assimilation of an ideology cooked up in the halls of (mainly USA based) universities and force fed to the remainder of the globe.

I don’t have a problem in general with men who have sexual paraphilias, which I know are a part of life for many. As long as I don’t have to participate, even passively, it’s not for me to judge. My other caveat is that men can’t hurt, harm or negatively influence others, especially without their permission.

My entire professional life has been working with other women in the areas of birth and breastfeeding. And yes, to a lesser extent “families” too. But I have never lost sight of the fact that birth and breastfeeding are not gendered activities, they are sexed activities. Your chosen identity is irrelevant and immaterial.

If you can get pregnant, you are a female mammal, not a male. There is no such thing as a “breastfeeding family”, unless you are commenting on this from a wider sociological perspective. Anyone can take on the role of family cook or mechanic, but breastfeeding that new baby is always going to be Mom’s job; however she identifies or whatever term she prefers to be called.

The only way you can state that “not everyone who gives birth is a woman” is by applying a gendered meaning to the word woman. But the important characteristic of pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding is sex, not gender so sticking to a sexed meaning is important for both public health messaging and appropriate care for women. Every human who gives birth is a woman because they are all female mammals and the descriptive word we have chosen for these women is mother. Calling yourself something else may be important to you, but expecting the rest of the world to remember your difference is unrealistic and widespread adoption of this alien philosophy is actually exclusionary to the over 99% of those giving birth.

Removing the reproductive power of women has a chilling effect on the sex where in some societies, this may be the only power they are allowed to claim. Women who are sufficiently privileged to claim an alternative identity are not considering the effects on those women who do not share either their ideological commitment or their ability to make independent decisions.

Colonizing the language that women use to describe themselves and their sexed abilities reeks of linguistic imperialism and ontological totalitarianism, which is a political manifestation of narcissistic entitlement. It is not just your body that shapes who you are, it is your socialization and life experience. No man can become a woman in any meaningful way because from before birth, he has been treated as a male, not a female and these differences cannot be undone.

Prioritizing gender identity over sex in research studies has the result of less research considering sex as a variable. This harms women, including in relation to pregnancy as it removes the need for female control groups. If you are researching “pregnant people” then the control group is “non-pregnant people”, which means that your control group could be entirely made up of biological males, thereby rendering your entire study useless.

The irony of this sort of attitude coming right at the point in history where women are finally being acknowledged as different to men (and not just inadequate small men) in medical care seems to have passed right over those who claim that sex is a social construction, not a reality. So many medical conditions including common things like heart attacks and depression present very differently in women and men and treatment options are being increasingly tailored to account for our differing physiologies. Gender identity is never as important as sex in a health care setting.

“Transwomen are women” is an attempt by men to colonise women. Transwomen are not women; they are men who have adopted a “synthetic sex identity”.

Putting on a “womanface” is the same as those white men who blacked up their faces to put on minstrel shows or when TV and movies used white actors to portray Asian people. The difference is that everyone (including the players) knew that they were putting on a performance and that when they took off their costumes, they reverted to their white status. Men who perform as drag queens until recently led similar lives, but now any dude in a dress can claim to be a woman at all times and in all situations.

An expanded definition of the verb ‘to colonize’ is “take up residence and become established”. Feral cats are a worldwide problem as they prey on birds and other creatures, as well as being a disease vector for domestic pets. Due to their rapid rate of reproduction, once moved into an area they quickly become established. Dandelions will colonize any grass lawns unless they are removed regularly.

And men are now colonizing all of women’s hard-won sex based safe spaces, including public toilets, prisons, refuges and sporting contests. These spaces were created in response to two main factors: that women have differing physiological needs and capabilities compared to men at every life stage and that men are overwhelmingly those who exhibit predatory behavior, which is based on extracting sexual, emotional, and financial resources from women without care or concern for women’s safety and well-being.

This is not to condemn all men, but as 99% of all incarcerated sex offenders are biological males, clearly women are the sex that need safeguarding from the behavior of men.

It’s not just finding penises in women’s changing rooms that is troubling. Or finding women booted out of legitimate wins by some mediocre male who has found the winning solution by cheating his way to the top. Or even teenage boys trying out their ‘girl mode’ by sleeping in the girls’ tent at overnight camps (although this is a shocking bit of socialisation that renders girls helpless in the face of catering to the desires of others at a high cost to themselves).

Nope, the bit that makes me feel frantic is the wholesale takeover that puts girls in the position of feeling like the only way to avoid being used as a sex object is to opt out of womanhood altogether. Breasts are a secondary sex characteristic that can be hard to disguise, so off with them. A new trend is to not only remove those pesky sacs of glandular tissue and fat, but to emphasise their absence by not even having nipples (even though even real men have nipples too).

Scrolling through the thousands of photos that are on the internet of the scarred chests of girls and young women, I feel an immense sadness for what they have lost. I feel an anticipatory grief for when they realise what they have done to themselves and how this has damaged their health and impacted the health of their babies due to an inability to breastfeed them. Worse, if they have had the combo of puberty blockers and cross sex hormones, rather than the prospect of motherhood, they will have completed menopause decades earlier than their bodies are prepared for.

Rage is my response those professions and organisations that are vested in the sexed activities of birth and breastfeeding who, under the ‘be kind’ banner of inclusiveness, are backing up the very men who would destroy them. Throwing women and babies under the bus in a misguided attempt to appease men’s feelings and desires is wrong. There is no rational excuse for the complicity of self-destruction.

Detransitioners cannot reclaim what they have lost, especially if it has been surgically removed. Like the Aztecs, the Native American tribes and the Australian Aboriginal peoples, once colonized by the male patriarchy, there is no coming back.  And if you value that sward you can see out your window, don’t let the dandelions gain any purchase because they will take over.