Progressive activism needs to bring back "That's not my problem"

Things you’re not supposed to say, according to a weaponized, bastardized variant of ‘intersectionality’:

- That’s not my problem.
- I’m not working on that issue right now.
- My activism focuses on X, not Y.

Nowhere is this more clear than women’s rights activism, where even speaking about women in plain language has become impossibly ‘problematic.’

How are we supposed to make any progress on women’s rights when every time we raise our voices, someone says: “Not all women have cervixes!” or "Men get pregnant, too!" or “Center black transwomen” or “Feminism is for everyone!”

The result is hamstrung speech and hamstrung activism. No movement can address every side of every issue at the same time. We always have to set priorities, and that means setting some issues to one side -- at least for the time being.

When it comes to women’s rights, that means drawing boundaries around our activism. Men’s violence against gender-nonconforming males is a problem—but it’s not our problem. Male gender identities are not our problem. Our activism focuses on females, not males.

When it comes to issues exclusively affecting females—menstruation, pregnancy, abortion, childbirth—we have to be free to say: Our priority is clarity and accessibility, not 'gender-inclusivity.'

The demand to 'include' everyone in feminism is a demand to paralyze activism on behalf of women and girls. Progress for women and girls means saying no: everyone's not included, that's not our problem, we're working on X right now.

Here's a perfect example. Young women organized a night in where women would stay home from the clubs to protest men spiking their drinks and call on nightclubs to step up security for female patrons. Clear constituency, clear issue, clear ask.

Then trans activists intervened, criticizing organizers for 'excluding' ‘marginalised’ groups that the protest was not about, who were not targeted by men spiking their drinks. Now cities across the UK are hosting 'nights in' on behalf of everybody but especially TQ to protest ??? with the goal of ???

When young women try to organize on their own behalf, they get dogpiled, mostly for excluding the very special men but also for the mere suggestion they might be *insufficiently anti-carceral* about men drugging them in order to sexually assault them. Intersectionality denies young women the language and standing to say: "This protest wasn't about you, it was about us and men spiking our drinks and even sticking us with needles. If you've got a grievance, organize your own damn protest!"

Young activists — who know a cause when they see one, who have energy and ideas and the desire to organize — are being indoctrinated to believe that being 'exclusionary' is a more serious charge (no matter how trumped up) than being ineffective. There goes the left.