Can Women's Rights Survive Today's "Feminists"?

The greatest challenge to women’s rights today is the modern Left’s version of the feminist movement. Today’s “progressive” feminists would have you believe that women, and men who identify as women, are the same. They believe the future of women’s rights depends on giving males access to women’s private spaces, women’s sports, awards and scholarships.

Sadly, today’s feminists are a threat to women.

The second-wave feminist warriors of my youth knew that men and women are different; they brought awareness to sexual assault and marital abuse, and they created women’s shelters. They fought aggressively for women’s rights. And they won. 

How is it we find ourselves in such an upside-down world that today’s so-called feminists are applauding the dissolution of women’s only spaces and the broadscale erasure of women? 

How is it that Tik Tok saw fit to permanently ban my brand, XX-XY Athletics, from advertising on their platform, with no explanation? For an ad that merely states in an uplifting manner, that women deserve safety, privacy and an even playing field, we received a pat “violation of our policies” memo, for “offensive content.”

Apparently, amongst “progressives” and corporate idealogues, standing up for women is a bridge too far. It is offensive, in fact.

I am a feminist and I’d argue that today’s version of feminists — and more broadly “progressives” — are putting women’s rights on the chopping block. 

One of the most significant victories won by these “OG” feminists was equal access to educational opportunities for women. Their activism and advocacy resulted in the passage of Title IX in 1972. The opening words of this landmark civil rights law read: 

“No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

On April 19, the Biden administration issued a Title IX re-write which replaces women’s sex-based rights with “gender identity” and other non-sex-based categories. The new rules prohibit discrimination based on “stereotypes, sexual orientation, gender identity and sex characteristics.”

But not sex.

The Biden administration seems to have forgotten the word woman, entirely.

In a stunning act of betrayal, many women’s organizations are cheering for these changes to Title IX, seemingly forgetting its original purpose: to ensure that women and girls have equal opportunity and every chance to thrive in our educational systems. 

In response to the re-write, Emma Grasso Levine, the senior manager of Title IX policy and programs at non-profit advocacy group Know Your IX said: 

“Student survivors of sexual violence, LGBTQ+ students, and pregnant and parenting students cannot afford to suffer any longer under policies that jeopardize their right to an education.” 

No mention of women or girls anywhere. Gender neutral “students” – check. LGBTQ+ – check. No women. No girls. 

The founder of Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk often asks, somewhat rhetorically: “Where are all the feminists?” 

We’re here. We’ve been dismissed as TERFS (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists) which means we are having our feminist cards revoked for actually standing up for women and girls by people who don’t know what a woman is. 

The truth is, we are neither radical nor exclusionary. We don’t believe women and men are the same, only that women deserve equal rights. We should be able to: vote, leave the house without our husband’s permission, not have a husband if we so choose, travel, own stuff. The basics. 

And yes, we believe women and girls deserve our own sports and spaces, as well as privacy and safety. And we don’t have that when sex-based rights are replaced with rights for males who identify as women. 

But if you, as a good old- fashioned feminist, dare stand up to defend actual women, you are smeared as a bigot and a TERF, so you’d better sit right down and be quiet. 

The misogyny is staggering. 

In 2023, Megan Rapinoe — two-time women’s soccer World Cup champion, 2012 Olympic gold medal winner and feminist fighter for equal pay in sports — opposed the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act. She spearheaded a letter from prominent female athletes which said: 

“Our deepest hope is that transgender [. . .] kids will never have to feel the isolation, exclusion and othering that H.R. 734 is seeking to enshrine into law.”

I too hope that no one should ever have to feel isolated or alone or “othered.” But that was not the purpose of Title IX. 

Rapinoe should know this. And she should also know that males are stronger and faster than females. In 2017, a team of 15-year-old high school boys from Dallas beat the women’s World Cup Soccer Champions, including Rapinoe, 5-2 in a scrimmage match. 

But in today’s anti-woman world, we are forsaking truth for gender ideology which demands we all parrot the talking point that Trans Women are Women. According to Chase Strangio, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union: 

“If you are angry or think it’s “unfair” for a trans girl to beat a cis girl in a sporting event then fundamentally you don’t think trans girls are ‘real’ girls. It’s that simple.”

It is that simple. Trans girls are males. They have significant and unfair physical advantages in competing against females, no matter what rhetoric Rapinoe, Grasso Levine or Strangio spew. 

Trans identified male athletes are free to compete in the open category. They will not be isolated or excluded. 

Truth matters. We cannot wish it away to suit “progressive” ideology. And the truth is, women and men are different. 

Feminist icon and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg must have been a TERF. She famously said: “physical differences between men and women are enduring.”

I agree. And sadly, today’s woman-erasing feminists who refuse to acknowledge this present a clear and present threat to women’s hard-won rights.