On January 20 2021, President Biden signed the “Executive Order on Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation.” Biden’s order chooses to interpret sex broadly as “sexual orientation and gender identity” but does not make any provisions for the physical category of sex, meaning that women and girls may no longer be a legally protected class once the order is implemented.
In response, American feminists are organizing. Courtney Piper — a former child protective service specialist, doula, mother, grassroots journalist, and spiritual activist — has planned Women Picket DC, set to take place on March 8 (International Women’s Day), to protest Biden’s executive order and to demand rights as women and girls to single sex spaces and sports.
From the Women Picket DC website:
“We believe and fight for the rights of women and girls to:
- Exist based on our whole humanity as female humans, ie. women and girls, and reject being reduced to a “gender identity.”
- Single sex spaces including bathrooms, changing rooms, locker rooms, military barracks, shelters, prisons, and rape crisis centers.
- Insist on bodily integrity, privacy, and safety. Anything less is a violation of our boundaries and an enforcement of rape culture.
- Single sex sports. Women and girls deserve the rights conferred under Title IX with fair opportunities for participation and scholarships. Men and boys have many physiological advantages over women & girls.
- The right to choose a health care provider of their own sex, which is simply a matter of consent. Anything less is a violation of our boundaries and an enforcement of rape culture.
- The right of free speech. Women and girls deserve the right to name material reality as it exists. We deserve to use accurate language when speaking about human sex and name adult human males as men.”
I spoke with Courtney over the phone from her home in Portland. Follow her work at witchnbitch.org.
Some relevent links: MANA is referenced during this interview, as well as Elephant Circle, Jennifer Pritzker, and the Palm Centre.
