Feedback please on an idea for a draft article?

I have been brainstorming about how to channel my angry energy into constructive action. It occurs to me that a lot of other people may have recently peaked and may be in the same boat. It could be useful to have a (heavily crowd-sourced) article somewhere with a comprehensive guide to taking action. The potential actions would be organised by required effort level (Low/Medium/High) and there would be advice about which actions could be most effective & the best tactics to use.

I don't have any activism experience. Part of my goals in writing this article is to work out for myself what kind of actions I can take. So I need advice, please! I have put lots of notes and specific questions in the draft article following, but would love any kind of feedback: something I wrote that's stupid, something you agree with, some of your own considerations as you think about taking action. Any feedback at all is very much appreciated! If people seem to think this is helpful I will pursue websites that might want to publish a later & more polished version.

Here it is:

SO YOU CARE ABOUT WOMENS' RIGHTS. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?

I am writing this article because I have hit Peak Trans and I want to do something constructive with the energy of furious rage that courses through my body whenever I reflect on the ways in which women are being erased, ignored, silenced, and gaslighted. I have begun reflecting on the actions I might take to support womens’ rights. I have small children and a job and I need to ruthlessly prioritise everything I do, and I suspect many newly gender critical feminists & allies feel the same. I want to make the most effective, highest impact use of my limited energy. I hope that this exercise in listing and prioritising potential actions might support others to reflect on two questions:

1. How much energy do I have available to fight for womens’ sex based rights & combat toxic transgender ideology?
2. What is the highest impact use of my available energy?

I have divided this list of actions into three categories: Low Effort, Medium Effort, and High Effort. Within each category I attempt to roughly rank actions by expected impact, provide advice on tactics, and offer a discussion of anonymity considerations. My goal is for this to become a living document, heavily crowd sourced. I don’t have experience in activism so I will need to rely on advice and guidance from the brave women and allies who have already been in the trenches.

Go forth and channel your righteous anger into action!

LOW EFFORT ACTIONS

These kinds of actions are appropriate for someone who feels that they don’t have room in their life for substantial effort - perhaps because their life is already overwhelming & they place a high priority on anonymity, perhaps because they’re unsure of the strength of their motivation since their knowledge of the issues is recent. You may end up sticking with only low effort actions - it’s better than nothing, every bit helps! Or this may be a stage you pass through as your motivation to fight for women builds and you decide that you will be happier with yourself if you do more.

Even with these low effort types of activities, it is very helpful to prioritise! My sense is that a personal email to an elected official is likely to be much more effective than the same amount of time spent scrolling Twitter and getting furious. (This may be necessary advice to myself!) You may wish to print out a list of email addresses of relevant local and national elected officials & government organisations in your country and post it on your fridge. Every time you find yourself getting sucked into pointless online outrage, write an email instead.

When talking to politicians of any sphere, local to national, you need 1.) A clear action you want them to take

2.) Research or data points, if they ask

3.) A personal anecdote of impact (previous or potential) that they can share with other pols or their constituency.

Communicating with pols does not have to be lengthy. Concerns shared in different formats mostly count as a new number in the for/against tallies, esp if you say you do not require a response. So, email, phone, AND send a letter, if you feel ambitious.

[NOTE: WOULD LOVE ANY ADVICE FROM KNOWLEDGEABLE PEOPLE ABOUT EMAIL STRATEGY - WHO TO EMAIL, WHAT TO SAY TO BE MOST EFFECTIVE].

In terms of anonymous social media engagement, my sense is that it is most effective if you have relevant personal experience to share OR relevant expertise to bring additional understanding. For example, social media testimony from detransitioners is likely to be very impactful even if anonymous. Similarly, if you have direct experience with the impact of a policy change (harassment in a unisex toilet in a public space that you use), or if you have relevant expertise, for example some professional comments on the consequences of a change in law. If you are very skilled at communication and debate and you find that you are sometimes able to change peoples’ minds, this is also valuable. Of course, you may find that your anonymous social media engagement may start to naturally progress to a medium level of effort. This is where it becomes important to be strategic. If you have very relevant personal experience or professional expertise, a medium level of effort directed towards anonymous social media engagement may indeed be the best use of your energies. If you don’t, you may wish to consider directing some of your efforts to more effective actions. [NOTE: WOULD LOVE ADVICE FROM PPL ON SOCIAL MEDIA COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES]. [NOTE: WOULD LOVE ADVICE FROM TECH SAVVY PPL ON STAYING ANONYMOUS IF DESIRED].

Reading and educating yourself to prepare for being more outspoken in the future is another worthy low effort activity. If you are doing this, you may wish to consider putting a bit of work up front to be organised with computer folders, browser bookmarks or however you like to organise yourself, so that if you come across a particularly useful or compelling article or statistic you will be able to find it again.

Please note: if you are engaging on social media, do your best to stay constructive rather than destructive! Bear in mind that we are at a huge disadvantage. There is a clear media & establishment bias against us, and the worst 1% of gender critical activities are sure to be amplified and used against all of us, even while the obscenity and violence of trans activism gets ignored. Please steer clear of using dehumanising language (“monster,” the t-slur) or statements attacking, for example, someone’s physical appearance (“fat and disgusting”). If you need to vent try to find a friend in real life, or type something up on a word processor and wait to cool down before you decide whether to post it online.

1. Anonymous social media & general internet engagement

   *Twitter

   *Reddit

   *Facebook

   *Instagram

   *Spinster

   *Comment on relevant news articles

[NOTE: WOULD LOVE ADVICE ON DIFFERENT SOCIAL MEDIA AVENUES & WHAT THE DIFFERENT ONES ARE GOOD FOR. ALSO WOULD LOVE ADVICE ON GOOD PPL TO FOLLOW, GOOD FB GROUPS TO WATCH, ETC]

2. Sign on-line petitions [NOTE: ARE THERE ANY GOOD ACTIVE ONES RIGHT NOW? HOW DO YOU FIND OUT ABOUT NEW ONES?]

3. Emails expressing support for gender critical ideas & actions

*Local elected official

*National elected official with relevant role

*Local newspaper

*National newspaper in your country

*Global newspaper (NYT, The Guardian, Washington Post)

*Other media outlet

*Feminist/left wing organisations that erase women (Planned Parenthood, ACLU, etc - especially if you have donated to them before, write and tell them why you have stopped)

*NGOs (UN, etc)

*Other? [NOTE: WOULD LOVE SUGGESTIONS FOR GOOD PLACES TO EMAIL]

4. Read articles on gender critical issues to educate yourself

Good sources of intro reading include: Fair Play for Women, Sex and Gender Intro.....

[NOTE: WOULD LOVE FEEDBACK ON GENDER CRITICAL 101 CURRICULUM]

5. Boycott brands and companies that are clearly anti-woman - don’t forget to email them to tell them so!

*Body Shop

*Menstrual cup companies that erase women

[NOTE: WHICH BUSINESSES ARE A PRIORITY TO TARGET?]

6. Make consumer choices to support businesses that celebrate/don’t erase women

[NOTE: WOULD LOVE SOME EXAMPLES HERE]

MEDIUM EFFORT ACTIONS

OK, so you’ve been starting to learn about the issues, you’ve read some articles, ‘liked’ some Twitter posts and signed a petition anonymously. But you just keep thinking about the flaming outrage of the attack on womens’ rights and childrens’ health and you know that you want to do more. There are a couple of questions to consider here: 1. How important to you is anonymity? 2. What skills and/or life experience do you have that is particularly relevant to the cause? 3. What aspect of the cause might you wish to pursue? For example, do you feel most fired up about protecting children from the toxic idea that they might be born in the wrong body & need a lifetime of medical intervention? About the homophobic erasure of same sex attraction? About preserving female only safe spaces in toilets, change rooms, shelters and prisons? About elevating the voices of detransitioners? About womens’ rights to fairly compete in sports? Of course you’re likely to feel outraged about all these things, but if you’re going to start putting more energy in it can be helpful to concentrate your efforts. This will likely be driven by your life experience and skills.

The anonymity question is an interesting one. Speaking out under your own name is certainly going to magnify your impact, and likely embolden and inspire other people who may be on the fence about anonymity. It will make it easier to connect with a community of like-minded individuals. And people who have spoken out have experienced newfound freedom and empowerment. [NOTE: WOULD LOVE SOME COMMENTS HERE FROM PPL WHO HAVE CHOSEN TO SPEAK PUBLICLY]. Of course, it is also true that there are real risks. Women have been harassed, fired and even arrested for their activism. Your decision about whether to act anonymously will likely depend on how stable & secure your job and finances are (do you have tenure? Fuck You money?), the community around you, and the value of your potential platform (do you already have a public voice? That could be an incredible asset). Note that there is also a spectrum of speaking out publicly, ranging from one on one conversations with friends you trust, to publishing an opinion piece under your own name - you don’t need to dive into the deep end all at once. Many people have anecdotally reported that they have been pleasantly surprised by the results of one on one conversations. Many or even most people who haven’t been exposed to the brainwashing intuitively agree with most of the gender critical platform. [NOTE: WOULD GREATLY APPRECIATE FURTHER FEEDBACK ON THE ANONYMITY QUESTION ALTHOUGH IT MIGHT WARRANT ITS OWN ARTICLE].

If you don’t feel that you have the kind of public platform that warrants speaking out in your own name, donation to gender critical causes is probably one of the highest impact anonymous action you can take. The TRA movement is massively funded and massively powerful. As a small example, Google recently donated 300,000 pounds to Pink News. (Pink News!!!!) Once-off donations to important active lawsuits have the potential to be incredibly powerful; so does supporting some of the advocacy organisations that have already had powerful results on shoestring budgets and vast amounts of passionate volunteer labour.

1. Social media engagement - increased effort

*this could include volunteering as a moderator at forums like SaidIt (can still be anonymous)

*can also include 'coming out' on social media under your own name - increases credibility, visibility & momentum for the movement

2. Donate to important gender critical causes:

*Active lawsuits:

*Allison Bailey

*Maya Forstater

*Rosario Sanchez

*Keira Bell

*Advocacy organisations:

*Transgender Trend

*LGB Alliance

*forwomen

*Fair Play for Women

*Other

*Vancouver Rape Relief

3. In person conversations

4. Attend feminist meetings & meet-ups

5. Physical letters to elected officials/media orgs/NGOs

6. Further self education, organise some research folders & bookmarks with useful links, facts - build an evidence base to prepare for debate, memorise some particularly compelling statistics & evidence (make sure you cite it accurately & know where it comes from and that it is a reliable source)

7. Distribute stickers, flyers & leaflets

8. Leverage existing professional activities:

*In person conversations with women in positions of influence

*Use school board positions etc to influence policies; you could even consider joining school boards or the diversity committee at your work in order to potentially have an influence

*Have personal standards when hiring new employees and contractors

*If your job involved influence over rentable meeting spaces, make sure they are available to feminist groups and single sex groups

HIGH EFFORT ACTIONS

You are a brave warrior who wants to fight for women and claim your glorious place on the right side of history. It is likely going to be hard to preserve total anonymity at this level of effort, but courage calls to courage. There is strength in numbers and they can’t cancel all of us.

This is the time to re-visit the following strategic questions: 1. What skills and/or life experience do you have that is particularly relevant to the cause? 2. What aspect of the cause might you wish to pursue?

[NOTE: WOULD GREATLY APPRECIATE FEEDBACK TO FLESH OUT THIS SECTION. I DON’T HAVE EXPERIENCE IN ACTIVISM MYSELF.]

1. Organise local feminist groups [NOTE: WOULD LOVE ADVICE OR LINKS TO ADVICE ARTICLES ON HOW TO DO THIS]

2. Volunteer time & skills to feminist actions. Particularly useful skills include:

*Legal expertise (discuss potential lawsuits, legal commentary - see for example Maya Forstater’s Twitter commentary and blog posts on questions of law)

*Tech expertise (women need to build our own platforms as Silicon Valley hates women; for example Reddit shut down the Gender Critical forum, which is now planning to set up independent hosting) [NOTE: ANY OTHER EXAMPLES HERE?]

*Journalism/writing/research expertise (mainstream media is not covering these stories so we need to fill the gaps. Also, if mainstream journalists do take an interest, we should have the research prepared to make their jobs easier. See for example opinion pieces by Julie Bindel & Debbie Hayton, the book ‘Irreversible Damage’ by Abigail Shrier, the Counting Dead Women project)

*Science expertise (biology of sex differences, athletics, “gendered brain” issue) [See for example Emma Hilton & Colin Wright’s commentary on the biology of sex differences.]

*Communication expertise (articles, videos & podcasts, public speaking) [For example, see podcasts by the illustrious Magdalen Berns, the Paradox Institute’s info videos]

*Creative skills (create memes, cartoons, songs) [For example, see the amazing cartoons by Tatsuya Ishida, Nehanda Music’s Billy Bragg song parody about the meaning of a woman] [NOTE: WOULD LOVE ADVICE & SPECIFIC EXAMPLES OF THE SKILLS ABOVE, IT IS INSPIRING TO SEE WHAT OTHERS HAVE DONE]

3. Creative direct action (example Posie Parker hiring billboard with definition of ‘Adult Human Female,’ or lesbian visibility protests at Pride parades)

4. Direct professional activities towards feminist issues such as choosing research topics, founding advocacy organisations (example Lisa Littman chose to study ROGD, founders of LGB Alliance)

5. Use your existing public platform, if you have one, to elevate gender critical voices (see of course OUR QUEEN JK Rowling and Graham Lineham)