It’s International Women’s Day again and it arrives at the same time as the US Conservative PAC is organizing to remove rights for transgender people.

Although there are those today who refuse to recognize these rights, they are no less valid and necessary and they need more than ever to be supported.

The conservative lawmakers and politicians warn us that trans women are dangerous – they’re “men in dresses whose intention is to assault cisgender women.”

It’s the same argument they’ve used against LGBTQ+ people in general. In this case, they tell us that “gays can’t be school teachers because they will molest our children.”

But this is a tired old argument that has never been true. The conservative politicians trot it out whenever they want to deprive a group of people of their rights and freedoms.

The lawmakers don’t even believe what they’re saying. And they don’t actually care about women or children being assaulted.

Otherwise, they would be doing something about the rampant sexual abuse of women in workplaces and on college campuses. They would be doing something about all the thousands of children who are still being abused by Catholic priests.

But nobody is talking about disenfranchising cisgender men – the main perpetrators of sexual violence in our workplaces and educational institutions.

And only a tiny handful of Catholic priests have ever faced consequences for their actions.

I’m disappointed but not surprised at the direction of the US conservatives. But we need to understand that their argument is a distraction.

They want to take away the rights of other communities because they want all the power and privileges for themselves.

As a feminist and an ally I am compelled to speak out for the LGBTQ+ community and encourage everyone to do so as well.

Recently, I’ve been reading a lot of fiction and I just finished two excellent books that helped me to better understand and appreciate a bit more about the journey of trans people. The books are: This Is How it Always Is, by Laurie Frankel and Mad Honey, by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan.

One thing I love about novels is that they enable us to gain knowledge and empathy about different types of people.

Reading these two novels has certainly helped to deepen my empathy and understanding toward the trans community and it has emphasized two points for me.

One, is that sexual identity has nothing to do with what’s in our pants; and two, is that trans people pose no threat to anyone. In fact, they are far more likely to be victimized than almost anyone else in our society.

What haters fail to realize is that trans women identify as women. They are not so-called “wolves in sheep’s clothing,” waiting to prey upon unsuspecting females in our public toilets or other female spaces. That argument is old, tired, and absurd.

Whenever we hate a group this much, it always comes down to feeling threatened. Either the people in power are resistant to sharing their rights and privileges with others or they’re afraid that maybe these “others” aren’t so different from themselves.

After all, everyone is, within themselves, a little bit male and a little bit female. And that really scares some of us.

The psychiatrist Carl Jung wrote about the anima and the animus – the female and male aspects of each human being. No-one is one hundred percent male or one hundred percent female. Not in how they feel and not in how they go through life.

In fact, our binary view of gender is less a matter of science than a social construct.

There are many different expressions of gender in biology, both animal and human. There are naturally trans animals. There have been trans people for centuries. This is simply fact.

There are women with male (XY) chromosomes who have a condition in which their cells can only use female hormones. They look, feel, and identify as women even though their chromosomes are biologically male.

There are children born with ambiguous genitalia – in which it’s unclear at birth what gender to assign them. Most of them are butchered shortly after birth by doctors who make arbitrary decisions of assignment rather than waiting and allowing them to decide for themselves as adults.

There are true hermaphrodites. There are people born with only one X chromosome and those who have XXY chromosomes. And there are people assigned one gender at birth who identify with a different gender.

Trying to eliminate trans-ness doesn’t make it any less real or less valid. It doesn’t negate the lived experience of all the trans people throughout history.

Rather than trying to hoard all the power and privileges, why not try and share? Everyone will benefit.

Rather than being afraid of what we don’t understand, why not try to understand each other better?

We can build more empathy and everybody can peacefully coexist.

As the singer, Lizzo says, “If you feel like a girl, then you’re real like a girl.” That’s as clear and simple as it gets.

If someone identifies as a woman, they’re a woman. Trans women are women. It doesn’t matter what gender they were assigned at birth. It doesn’t matter what chromosomes they have or what’s in their pants. They’re women.

This International Women’s Day, let’s stand up, especially for trans women, and give them the love and support they deserve, now and moving forward.

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