Episode 149: Kara Dansky on The Abolition of Sex

Feminists have a saying—we can’t fight sexism if we can’t say what sex is. And that is precisely where we are as a society today—we can’t say what sex is.Kara Dansky is the author of The Abolition of Sex: How the ‘Transgender’ Agenda Harms Women and Girls and The Reckoning: How the Democrats and the Left Betrayed Women and Girls, and she writes The TERF Report on Substack.She is the former President of the U.S. chapter of Women’s Declaration International, which seeks to promote the Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights, and she also served on the board of the Women’s Liberation Front from 2016 to 2020. A lifelong Democrat and former ACLU lawyer, Kara writes in The Abolition of Sex that the discourse around gender identity presents “a unique challenge for feminists because while we support nonconformity with traditional sex-based stereotypes, we strongly object to the complete obliteration of biological sex.”Her view, as argued in her book, is that “sex is being abolished as a legal, social and physical category of human beings”, that “the ‘gender identity industry’…is a key component of that effort”, and that this is “detrimental to everyone, but especially to women and girls (i.e., human females).”In this episode, Kara talks through some examples of what she considers to be the movement to abolish biological sex, details the sources of funding for the gender identity industry, and shares her experiences at the ACLU and on the political left as they changed tack in a way that she felt abandoned her principles.She sets out her reasoning with patience, good humour, and passion. Regardless of your feelings about gender identity, Kara is worth listening to, whether you agree with her or not.You can follow Kara on X, read her on Substack, or visit her website.1984today.substack.com1984.todayFollow us on X and Instagram This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1984today.substack.com