Our Streets Now Interview with NION Women
For approximately the past ten years, a narrative has been pushed in the mainstream media - the idea that trans rights and cis women’s rights are fundamentally in opposition. Anti-trans ‘women’s rights groups’ have sprung up across the UK; all small, all featuring the same names and faces over and over again, all unable to muster more than single figures for the majority of their demonstrations and protests - and yet these groups are constantly quoted in newspapers or featured on TV to speak as experts on ‘the transgender issue’. According to these groups, allowing trans people to change their gender without going through a long, dehumanising, medicalised review would allow any cis male predator to walk into any women’s space and attack those inside without recourse - this despite the fact that gender recognition certificates have never had any relation to who is allowed to use gendered spaces. There is also ample evidence to show that including trans women in women’s spaces does not lead to any increase in attacks on cis women by predators pretending to be trans women.
This anti-trans campaign ultimately led to the recent Supreme Court decision that, for the purposes of the Equality Act, ‘woman’ should be defined as ‘biological sex’ (despite the Court itself not being able to define what this might mean). Anti-trans groups and organisations immediately leapt on this result to argue that trans people should not be able to use gendered spaces at all, a tactic that would ultimately result in trans people being pushed out of public life altogether. Far from ‘protecting’ cis women and girls, anti-trans, bioessentialist policies have resulted in many cis women and girls being targeted, harassed and attacked because they were perceived to be trans. The groups that claim to speak for cis women and girls, and be devoted to their safety and protection, have been silent on these consequences of the spread of anti-trans ideology.
While anti-trans groups have had unprecedented access to media platforms, trans people are rarely afforded the same opportunity - and neither are the many feminist individuals and groups who have always been, and continued to be, trans-inclusive. Polling repeatedly shows that cis women, particularly cis lesbians, support trans inclusion. Organisations from the WI and Refuge to Sisters Uncut and The Feminist Library are explicitly trans-inclusive, rejecting divisive narratives that claim that trans rights compromise the rights of cis women and girls.
One of the most recent groups challenging the anti-trans, ‘protect cis women by exclusion’ narrative is NION Women. In the wake of the Supreme Court decision, NION Women set up a petition for trans-inclusive cis women to sign - at the time of writing, the petition has over 37,000 signatures. I spoke to members of NION about their campaign, and what they want to achieve next.
Did the Supreme Court decision inspire you to set up the petition, or was this something you were already planning to launch?
As individuals, we'd been watching the situation get steadily worse for trans people, and frankly we were fed up with staying quiet. The Supreme Court decision was really the final straw - it made us realise we couldn't just sit back and do nothing, we had to make it clear that while there are some women with very strong views against the inclusion of trans people, and trans women in particular, there are many of us who simply do not feel that way and our voice was missing from the conversation. Some of us were talking amongst ourselves about how awful things were getting, and then came the ruling. When we saw people’s rights being directly impacted we had to speak up. We're just a compassionate group of women who got to the point where we couldn't bear watching this happen in our name anymore.
The petition is currently at about 35k names - were you expecting this level of response so quickly?
Honestly, no - we hoped people would sign, but we had no idea it would take off like this. It's been incredible to see so many women coming forward to say "this isn't what we want." I think it shows there are loads of us out there who've been feeling the same way but maybe didn't know how to say it. The numbers tell us we're not alone in thinking that excluding trans women goes against everything that feminism represents, for us at least.
How has the response been since launching the petition? Has there been pushback? How have you dealt with this?
The response has been mostly amazing - so many women reaching out to say thank you, that they finally feel they have somewhere to show their support. So far the pushback has been minimal but we are only just getting started and we know all too well that as our numbers continue to rise, there is a strong chance that those who feel threatened by what we represent will make their feelings known. If it comes to that our aim is to keep focused on why we started this in the first place - because we believe in love over hate, and we refuse to let a small group of very loud voices speak for all women. We have received so many supportive messages, which we share regularly via our new Instagram, Facebook Page, and BlueSky accounts, to remind our trans siblings that they are not alone.
Can you share any plans for next steps?
We're still figuring it out, to be honest! Right now we're focused on getting the petition to as many women as possible. We want politicians to see that there are thousands of us who don't agree with the anti-trans agenda being pushed. Beyond that, we're looking at ways to keep this conversation going and maybe connect with other groups who feel the same way we do - there is so much incredible work going on such as the LGBT Foundation’s ‘This is What a Woman Looks Like’, the ‘Safe Space’ initiatives happening locally, as well as the record-breaking Mass Trans Lobby run by Trans Solidarity Alliance - we’d love to bring all of this together to create a groundswell of support that can’t be ignored.
You're speaking out against the co-opting of feminism by anti-trans activism using a facade of 'protecting [cis] women's rights'. Is there anything else you want to say on this?
What really gets to us is how they're using our voices without asking us. They claim to speak for women, but they never asked us what we actually think.
This narrative of ‘protecting women’s rights’ has been used throughout the centuries by those in power, or with political or ideological agendas, to justify exclusion and violence - and it always ends up with minority groups being demonised and women's bodies being controlled.
Real feminism has always been about lifting each other up, not tearing people down. When we see groups targeting some of the most vulnerable people in our society and calling it feminism, that's not the feminism we recognise. We believe there's room for all of us to be safe and respected - human rights are not a pie to be shared - there are enough rights to go around.
What do you think are the most important things that feminist individuals and organisations can push for to counter the co-opting by anti-trans activism?
We need to speak up more. I think a lot of us have been quiet. Sometimes this is because we don't want confrontation, other times it is because we are not directly impacted, or don’t feel we know enough about it, and as such, we feel we don’t have the platform to comment. However, our silence is being interpreted as agreement. Feminist organisations need to make it clear that supporting trans people is part of supporting all women - not separate from it. We need to challenge this idea that women's rights are a zero-sum game where someone has to lose for others to win - that is just not the way we see it.
What would you like to see from the government, from other political parties, and from public-facing organisations going forwards?
We want them to stop using trans people as political footballs. Instead of spending time and energy making life harder for trans people, we want to see more active support for their rights and meaningful actions to address their specific needs.
At the same time there needs to be renewed focus on the real issues that affect women's safety - like domestic violence, workplace harassment, and the justice system that fails us.
How about properly funding women's refuges and rape crisis centers? How about tackling the reasons why women don't feel safe walking home at night? How about providing comprehensive education for boys and young men - who are also impacted by patriarchal expectations? These are things that would actually make a difference to our lives.
Ostracising trans women, defining womanhood purely by reproductive capacity, and taking a ‘papers please’ approach to access to spaces has proven to be harmful for all women, cis or trans. Trans-inclusive groups like NION Women are pushing back against the anti-trans narrative, and while the anti-trans groups currently have greater media access, it’s clear that trans-inclusive feminism has the numbers. Hopefully, by countering anti-trans, bioessentialist narratives, we can make society a safer, freer place for all women.
