Fig & Olive

For so long women have begged to be in men’s spaces —we demanded more women at work, more women CEOs, more women in college.

Day after day we pounded on the “boys-only” clubs demanding they let us in. Screaming foul and hurling accusations of injustice when there was any space left with only men. By and large, we won. But at what cost? The cost of women in men’s spaces is innumerable —the consequence of what we took from them cannot be overstated (1). 

Recently men have begun to fight back. Not in a way that mirrors our own invasion but it achieves the goal nonetheless. Men who claim to be women (whether or not they ever get “transition surgery” or bother to mimic the dress of women at all) are entering women’s spaces. From bathrooms to sports competitions these men are entering women’s arenas —dominating, intimidating, and simply decreasing the comfort women could once find in these spaces. 

Is this retribution? When women entered men’s spaces and now when men enter women’s spaces both parties make the same claims; I belong here, it’s unjust for you to discriminate against me if you complain you’re a bigot. Women have never been open to hearing the ways in which our presence in men’s spaces can harm them, we always dismiss their claims as illegitimate or misogynistic. 

Now men are doing the same. 

To reject this aspect of trans activism/trans ideology we have to reckon with the reality that both men and women find comfort and solace in having their own spaces. If we as women now feel discomfort, disadvantaged, or harmed in any way by the increasing invasion of our spaces those same sentiments may be legitimate when we invade men’s spaces. 

Both men and women need spaces to be themselves, by themselves. Spaces that actively exclude the opposite sex and affirm their own gendered experience. Can we demand men stay out of our spaces if we don’t reckon with the harms of our own infiltration?

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Related:

1. On the Transgender Movement https://bythefigandtheolive.com/transgendermovement/
2. The Oppression of Transgender Ideology https://bythefigandtheolive.com/transoppression/

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Note 1: The increase of women in men’s spaces –where we compete and sometimes excel over them, has led to a crisis of manhood. What role in society distinctly belongs to men? What “safe spaces” can men turn to affirm their masculinity? If women no longer serve as a motivation for men’s success what is the point of striving? Etc. This crisis has been discussed in several books including Boys Adrift by Leonard Sax. I’m not saying that women entering men’s spaces is the sole cause for the current crisis facing boys and men but it is a part of it. I also don’t believe the solution can be as simple as women returning to traditional gendered roles but it’s a starting point to realize that our presence in the world of men has had good and negative consequences.

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