Anti-Trans Rhetoric is Fueling a Pandemic of Violence

(Published on Globalhumanrights.org) 

Over the past months, prominent media outlets—including the Guardian and the BBC—have repeatedly published hateful expressions of transphobia. Articles cite high-profile anti-trans figures like JK Rowling and obscure transphobic talking points as open-ended questions—a way of “problematizing” the matter, as if the implication of inquiry creates some distance from the intentional hostility.

Much of this rhetoric is pushed by self-professed feminists. But evidence shows that their exclusionary arguments are harmful to all women, including those who are trans or intersex. Cattrachas, a feminist collective in Honduras supported by the Fund for Global Human Rights, has for the past two decades been documenting details of violence against LGBTQ persons and women in that country. What they’ve found has been clear: when one goes up, so does the other.

Don’t see the connection? Hear me out.

Conservative movements have long sought to define what a “real” woman is and to shame—implicitly or explicitly—anyone who doesn’t meet their standards. This has taken many different forms. For example, some seek to regulate women’s clothing, whether they are pushing for laws that forbid women from wearing headscarves or force them to. Others want to police the testosterone levels of athletes. Even mainstream women’s groups have contributed to policies that harm women, such as Equality Now and the Fawcett Society’s past support for the punitive Swedish model of sex work criminalization.

Anti-trans rhetoric comes from the same anti-feminist well. The move to exclude trans women from all-women spaces, such as bathrooms, is another way to define, restrict, and control the gendered expression of all women. In doing so, it directly affects any woman who doesn’t gender conform—in other words, any woman who doesn’t meet a narrow definition pushed by conservative groups.

I know I am a woman—and that identity is important to me. But it’s not because I have a vagina and like to wear dresses (though I do). It’s not because being a mother has been one of my greatest joys (though it has). It’s certainly not because I meet some stereotypically feminine standard. (In fact, the things people say define me are anything but: I am loud and opinionated. I own a full set of power tools that I use often and well. I am notoriously independent, physically strong, and I work hard to keep it that way.) And nothing about my identity is challenged, threatened, or otherwise nullified by someone else knowing they are a woman too.

By letting trans-exclusionary groups define who gets to call themselves a woman and who doesn’t, we’re accepting that every woman’s appearance—including our makeup, clothing, behavior, and physical attributes—can be policed in the name of “gender purity.” And because the policing of trans and gender queer folks has always been violent, trans-exclusionary rhetoric ultimately justifies misogynist violence.

That’s why it is no coincidence that the worst pandemic of anti-trans violence on record is happening at the same time that violence against all women is on the rise. In the Unites States, 2021 has already been the deadliest year for trans and gender non-conforming people.

I know, of course, that not everyone who makes these arguments or shares these articles deliberately wants to harm women. But at some point, we all have to look at the consequences of our words and actions, regardless of what we think we meant or how we intended them. This goes for the Guardian and the BBC, it goes for self-professed feminists who are harming all women through their anti-trans rhetoric, and it goes for all of us.

Next time someone you know makes an anti-trans “joke” or statement, help them make the connection between rhetoric and real-life violence. It’s literally a matter of life or death.

We women will decide what to wear

August 1, 2018, Copenhagen, Denmark. Mads Claus Rasmussen—AFP/Getty Images

(Article riginally published in Danish in Politiken, July 19, 2021)

On 15 July, the European Court of Justice - the EU's highest court - ruled that EU-based companies are free to ban visible religious symbols and that EU countries can choose to enforce such bans as they see fit. Although the ruling is worded to apply to all religious symbols and dress, experience says it will be applied almost exclusively to Muslim women who want to cover their hair or face or both.

The ban on the wearing of religious symbols raises many red flags for those who care about human rights.

And they should be of great concern in Europe, where more and more countries are restricting the use of headscarves or face veils in public. A 2018 report commissioned by Open Society Foundations found that only six countries in the EU - Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Poland, Portugal and Romania - have not banned headscarves or face veils in some form or discussed a proposal to do so.

France was the first European country to adopt a general ban on covering one's face in public; the ban came into force in 2011. Denmark joined this dubious European trend in 2018. While both the Danish and French laws are written in a neutral way - they prohibit all persons from covering their face in public unless for specific purposes - the debate and stated motivation for the law was, at least in part, to "liberate" women from the "imposition of the veil". It should be added that although some laws 'only' prohibit face veils while allowing headscarves, the underlying motivation and trend is the same, as evidenced by Thursday's ruling. It is about gradually banning any visual expression of Islam in European countries.

The obsession with headscarves and face veils in the name of tolerance and non-discrimination is deeply misleading.

Firstly, clothing is generally a matter of freedom of expression. If a government imposes its view on how everyone should dress, it interferes with our ability to express ourselves freely, whether this is expressed as a clothing ban ('you must not wear a headscarf') or a requirement ('you must').

Secondly, it also affects our human right to freely express our beliefs when the imposed or prohibited clothing is predominantly linked to a particular religion. UN experts on freedom of religion have repeatedly made it clear that although state religions (such as the Danish one) are allowed, majority religions cannot be imposed on those who do not share that faith. Banning clothing that has a particular meaning in a particular religion is ostensibly neutral, but it is a poor veil for overt discriminatory intent. It may be that everyone in Denmark is forbidden to cover their face in public, but only those for whom covering their face is an expression of their faith suffer from this.

Third, the alleged 'liberation intention' is particularly problematic in overcoming harmful stereotypes and discrimination. When a government says or implies through its policies and actions that most Muslim women who wear headscarves do so because they are 'oppressed', far from liberating each Muslim woman, it deprives her of any autonomy in terms of freedom of expression and freedom of religion. Moreover, if a government maintains the stereotype that all Muslim women are submissive and oppressed, this is not very conducive to integration and understanding in society at large. Moreover, it only affects women and therefore actively contributes to any gender discrimination that may already exist.

From a human rights perspective, all governments have a duty to combat gender inequality across the board. Where gender inequality is reinforced by social norms and religious arguments - whether based on Islam, Christianity, Judaism or another religion - the state must ensure access to information and resources to prevent discrimination and provide redress in cases of abuse.

Indeed, the most disturbing aspect of the headscarf ban is that misplaced 'liberation' policies can make very real problems invisible. Recent studies by Amnesty International show that the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated already widespread violence against women in Europe. The victims of this violence are not all Muslims, and certainly not all of them cover their hair. These women need urgent state protection, but instead governments across Europe seem to prefer to spread myths and prejudice.

Thursday's ruling by the European Court of Justice on headscarves will make it easier for governments and businesses across Europe to continue this trend of divesting from real problems, such as gender-based and anti-Muslim violence, while claiming neutrality and tolerance.

But make no mistake, there is nothing neutral about it.

The continued obsession with headscarves and other symbols of Islam in Europe is inherently based on prejudice and will fuel further violence and abuse. The Danish government must take urgent steps to prevent and eliminate all forms of discrimination in the workplace, including discrimination based on religious stereotypes.

When Do Depictions of Sex Constitute Assault?

@RHRealityCheck

In June, a story of “girl power”-style revenge made the rounds on social media. Reportedly, a woman sent unsolicited penis pictures she had received to the sender’s mother, despite his protestations. Meanwhile, an ongoing debate in Britain about what—if any—depictions of sex should be banned has resurrected the age-old question: Does pornography cause rape?

Both stories raise interesting questions about the limits of privacy and consent.

Most of us agree that when adults voluntarily share generic photos of themselves with friends who consent to viewing them, this is no matter for censorship or state intervention. There is, however, less agreement on how much autonomy we should have when those images involve nudity or are explicitly sexual. Some jurisdictions ban “hard-core” or “extreme” pornography, while others place limits on the “obscene.”

Part of the problem is that we do not have a homogenous view of what constitutes pornography or obscenity in the first place. The difficulty in stating clearly what we believe is immoral or wrong was memorably captured by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in 1964, when he stated that constitutional protections of free speech clearly did not protect “hard-core pornography,” a concept he couldn’t define, though he was certain he would “know it when I see it.”

It was also recently highlighted by a successful grassroots campaign to push Facebook to implement better guidelines on what content the social networking site should take down. The campaigners argued Facebook wrongly identified breastfeeding mothers as “obscene,” while leaving up photos and speech they felt advocated violence against women. Facebook argued it routinely removed hate speech, while leaving up humorous, though offensive, content.

And the difficulty is at the core of the current debate in Britain about a 2008 act that prohibits the possession of “extreme pornography,” defined to include images produced for the purposes of sexual arousal of acts that, if real, would likely cause serious injury to a person’s anus, breasts, or genitals.

Last summer, this act was put to the test in a case against a London mayoral aide who was charged with possessing images of a sado-masochistic nature. The images depicted friends and acquaintances of the aide, who, the prosecution does not contest, had consented to the pictures being taken and shared. The aide was ultimately acquitted after a very public trial, but lost his job. Those who advocate for maintaining and expanding the prohibition of “extreme pornography” argue that such images, in themselves, are a form of assault, and that they cause more violence by trivializing abuse.

It is important to note that a causal link between pornography and violence has not been proven. A 1991 study of criminal data in four European countries concluded that incidences of rape had not increased more than nonsexual violent crimes as pornography had become more easily available. This was confirmed in a 2009 study, which concluded that evidence for a causal relationship between exposure to pornography and sexual aggression is slim and may have been exaggerated.

So the real question is whether pornography (or sexual imagery) in and of itself constitutes assault. And this depends on consent and affects privacy. Rape apologies aside, there is no longer confusion (at least in the law) that anyone forced to carry out a sexual act, on or off camera, is a victim of assault. In other words, pornography constitutes assault when it depicts individuals who have not consented to have sex, let alone to having it filmed.

Pornographic images also constitute a form of assault when they are thrust on people who have not consented to seeing them. This is the case with unsolicited penis pictures, and is the reason those forwarding such pictures to the sender’s family and friends (or the public in general) argue that thrusting them on others is par for the course.

To be sure, claiming privacy rights over penis pictures you have imposed on someone who did not want to see them is like suing for libel when publicized security camera footage shows you robbing a bank. Then again, there is something slightly off about forwarding photos you did not want to see on others who likewise have not consented to viewing them. In such cases, a more ethical (though much less immediately satisfying) course of action would be filing a complaint for aggravated harassment.

But not all pornographic images are wrong. Photos that have been taken and shared with the full consent of everyone involved, including the recipients, should not be banned, but rather benefit from privacy and free speech protections—because such images are not assault, but sex. And surely we would be hard-pressed to think of anything more private than that.

Argentina Considers Bills That Could Criminalize Sex Trafficking—But Also Buying Sex

@RHRealityCheck

As I arrived in Buenos Aires this week, the Argentine Congress started discussing two bills purporting to deal with human trafficking. According to reports, one bill seeks to establish prison sentences for individuals who buy sex from victims of trafficking, while the other seeks to penalize anyone who buys sex at all, regardless of whether the person providing the sex is a consenting adult. (The government is not suggesting legislation to criminalize sex workers themselves.) No one would contest that actual sex trafficking is a problem in Argentina and that something should be done about it. The question is if it is ever helpful, in policy terms, to lump together trafficking and sexual exploitation with the buying and selling of sexual services between consenting adults.

The push to eradicate trafficking for purposes of sexual exploitation is a legitimate goal for any government—in fact, it is an obligation. In Argentina, this objective has gained particular urgency in the wake of a decade-long, largely unsuccessful legal investigation into the abduction and forced prostitution of a young woman. In relation to that case, Amnesty International and other groups have criticized the lack of effective protection in Argentina against gender-based violence in general and trafficking for purposes of sexual exploitation in particular.

But the evidence suggests that Argentina’s latest approach to address the problem may not be the best one. The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) has carried out studies and generated guidance on anti-trafficking initiatives. The organization has come to the conclusion that brothel raids and “rescues” that treat all sex workers as victims of violence contribute to decreased safety for sex workers by forcing many of them to move constantly from one place to another, undermining the social networks that can help to keep sex workers safe.

UNAIDS suggests that governments should instead take a nuanced approach that on the one hand recognizes the autonomy of individual adult sex workers and clients who act on their own volition, while on the other clamps down hard on sexual exploitation. In this context, sexual exploitation should include not only trafficking into forced prostitution, but also violent acts against voluntary sex workers (such as rape) and the use, offer, or procurement of a child for commercial sex acts.

The question is, of course, if there is such a thing as voluntary sex work.

In general, people who believe governments should treat trafficking and sex work as one and the same would answer “no” to that question. To this group of advocates, sex work is inherently violent; they believe that the people who say they engage in sex work voluntarily are in reality forced to do so by circumstances or structural disadvantages they may or may not see. The goal for such advocates is to eradicate sex work, rather than trafficking, and the assumption is that the criminal law is an effective tool in advancing this goal.

It is undeniable that sex workers, like everyone else, make decisions about their lives and livelihoods that are at least in part informed by the opportunities available to them. For some sex workers, opportunities are severely limited because they belong to a disadvantaged group in terms of gender, income level, ethnicity, or sexual orientation, and many may have chosen a different path given a different context.

It is also undeniable that the notion of exchanging sexual services for money makes many people very uncomfortable. I would venture that most parents would rather not see their children having sex for a living. And it is certainly true that many people would prefer not to see sex workers at all, leading to initiatives to curb street solicitation that often do little to promote sex worker safety.

However, it is not clear why our discomfort with sex for money should lead us to disregard, wholesale, the decisions made by sex workers themselves. When I did research on access to reproductive health services in Argentina, I spoke to women who felt empowered by their sex work, because it was the only relationship in which they felt they had some measure of control. And when I did research on discrimination based on HIV-status in the Dominican Republic, I spoke to women who were mortified that sex work was the only avenue open to them after they were fired from hotel and factory jobs. Both groups of women had made decisions in an imperfect context, but neither group would benefit from brothel raids and the blanket criminalization of their clients. In fact, treating these women as if their choices do not matter is unlikely to empower them to overcome structural abuse.

In Argentina, trafficking into forced prostitution remains a problem. However, not all sex workers are trafficked or remain in commercial sex work against their will. As Argentina’s congress—and many other countries—debate how to deal with both of these issues, they would do well to remember that to be effective a policy approach must be grounded in evidence and supported by those who are meant to benefit from it.

Ending Violence Against Women Shouldn’t Be Controversial—But it Is

@RHRealityCheck

Each year around March 8 (International Women’s Day), representatives of world governments come together to draw up a statement that is supposed to communicate the notion that women and men are equal. This has been a key tenet of international relations since the signing of the United Nations Charter in 1945, so one would think it would not be terribly controversial.

One would be wrong.

The UN Commission on the Status of Women, which has met each year since 1946, tries to set aspirational priorities for women’s equality, and it largely succeeds in doing so. However, for the past several years, members of the commission have disagreed so vehemently about what “equality” means that, in 2012, the meeting ended at an impasse. One week into the 2013 commission meetings, it seems possible that this year’s negotiations are headed down the same path. 

This is all the more frustrating because the main theme of this year’s meeting is violence against women. This is not a new, obscure issue that should require more than two weeks’ discussion to reach an agreement about steps forward. Prevent, protect, prosecute, punish—it is not that complicated.

More to the point, violence against women requires urgent attention. At least 1 in 3 women has been beaten, forced to have sex, or otherwise abused at some point in her life. Most often the perpetrator is someone she knows, and frequently it is not a one-off incident. Furthermore, domestic violence contributes to a culture of violence; boys who witness their fathers beat up their mothers are, as adults, twice as likely to abuse their own partners as those who grew up in homes without violence.

Many politicians and government officials are also complicit in violence against women. In Egypt last month, parliamentarians tried to make the sexual assault of female protesters the responsibility of the women themselves, arguing that if they hadn’t been on the streets in the first place, they would never have been groped, harassed, and raped.

In Somalia, Lul Ali Asman Barake, who says she was gang-raped by police officers, was jailed for telling a journalist about her attack. Barake was released this week, but the journalist remains in jail.

And this past Monday, Kenyans were given the option of voting for a presidential candidate who is being sought by the International Criminal Court on charges that include orchestrating sexual violence against supporters of his political opponents in 2008.

In light of this, it is perhaps unsurprising that government officials have a hard time agreeing about how, and even if, to end violence against women—after all, some of them represent leaders who believe victims are at least as responsible as their perpetrators. Indeed, Russia, the Vatican, and Iran, whose representatives have reportedly derailed negotiations the most this year, all have recent records of punishing women for speaking out, demanding justice, and simply being female.

So I am not surprised that these negotiations have not gone smoothly. I am, however, appalled. And you should be too. Today, on International Women’s Day, contact your foreign ministry or head of government and tell him or her that you expect to see an agreement in New York next week. A consensus outcome at the Commission on the Status of Women may not necessarily lead to gender justice and equality. But without an agreement, it will be clear to perpetrators that individuals in charge are not planning to clamp down on abuse.