Washington D.C., Dec 30, 2020 / 11:25 am (CNA).- This article is the first part of a two-part series on the Church, gender-critical feminists, and transgender ideology. Part two can be found here.
Mary Kate Fain doesn’t agree with the Catholic Church about anything. Or, nearly anything, at least. But she does agree with the Catholic take on gender and identity. And that’s cost her. A lot.
In July 2019, Fain wrote a piece critiquing non-binary gender identities. She questioned why so many of her female friends felt the need to shed their identities as women and to instead identify as “non-binary” – neither male nor female.
Fain published the piece on Medium, an online social publishing platform.
Not long after the article published, Fain was fired from her job as a software engineer. She claims her viewpoints are the reason she was let go.
“I guess one of my coworkers complained about the article and I was fired. And since then it just started the slew of cancellation,” Fain told CNA.
“I was canceled from conferences, and canceled for multiple groups that I was a volunteer in, et cetera. And it just really highlighted to me that they all wanted to shut me up, but what it proved was that there really is a need for a place for women to be able to say this.”
Since her firing, Fain, a millennial and freelance writer living just outside of Houston, founded 4W, an online publication that publishes articles analyzing radical feminist issues such as gender, male violence, sex positivity, and the portrayal of women in media. She is also co-founder of the feminist social media platform Spinster.xyz, and a volunteer with the Women’s Human Rights Campaign.
And she is just one of many “canceled” women.
Why women are being “canceled”
Fain, along with several other women writers, intellectuals, and activists, have been “canceled” for their conviction that women are adult human females, whose sex-based rights, such as the right to female-only spaces like bathrooms or sports teams or therapy groups, deserve protection.
This view is no longer seen as politically correct by some tastemakers and gatekeepers, because it is “trans-exclusionary” – to hold this view means to hold that a man cannot “become” a woman because he identifies as one, and vice versa.
“…this is not something that you’re supposed to say,” Fain said. “We’re supposed to just blindly accept what anyone says about their own identity, without any critical analysis, without any feminist analysis even. We’re supposed to ignore that sex-based oppression exists and just admit, ‘Oh yes, we are what we say we are and that defines our reality.’”
“But I think for any feminist, any real feminist, we know that that just simply isn’t true,” she added.
“Our sex does define certain aspects of our reality, and people are not allowed to say that in today’s day and age.”
Many women who hold this view refer to themselves as radical feminists, trans-exclusionary radical feminists or gender critical feminists, or even “canceled women.”
“Cancel culture” is a relatively new term, used to describe the phenomenon that happens when someone, usually a famous person or one with some kind of platform, experiences a kind of shunning, harassment, or social banishment for doing or saying something with which a lot of people disagree.
Being “canceled” can take many forms: being trolled or doxxed on social media, being banned from Twitter or other platforms, or finding that events featuring the canceled person are quickly, well, canceled.
In January, an event entitled “Evening with Canceled Women” was canceled by the New York Public Library, where the event was to be hosted.
The canceled event was organized by Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF), a group that advocates for the “rights, privacy and safety of women and girls, by which we mean human females,” Kara Dansky, a board member with WoLF, told CNA.
“We were being told over the course of a week that the contract was being processed (for the event), and then the day before the deposit was due, we were told that we could not proceed with the event and we were not given a reason,” Dansky said.
The event would have included the voices of women “who have, in one way or another, been silenced or canceled as a result of their outspoken views on behalf of women and girls,” she added.
For example, the event would have featured Canadian feminist Megan Murphy, an advocate against pornography and prostitution whose insistence that women are female got her banned from Twitter, Dansky said.
It would also have included Posie Parker, a UK feminist known “for her insistence that the word woman means adult human female, which is simply the dictionary definition of the word,” Dansky said. Parker has also been banned from Twitter for her views.
The event also would have featured Linda Bellows, a Briton “who speaks on behalf of lesbian rights. And she has been told that it is transphobic to insist that lesbians are women who are attracted to women,” Dansky said.
These canceled women join a slew of others, with particularly high numbers in the UK, where the 2004 Gender Recognition Act lets adults register their gender as something other than the biological sex with which they were born.
Common ground with the Catholic Church
While trans-exclusionary radical feminist women typically hold many views with which the Catholic Church disagrees, such as approval of abortion and gay marriage, they share common ground in the belief that women are female and men are male – and they are born that way.
“It has been a tremendous plus to have radical feminists speaking out so strongly about the reality of sexual difference and against the new tyranny of gender,” Mary Rice Hasson, the Kate O’Beirne Fellow in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. and director of the Catholic Women’s Forum, told CNA.
“Although we disagree about many things – most significantly about abortion-– we agree on some important truths about women,” she said, such as opposing violence and exploitation against women, as well as “the importance of acknowledging the reality of sexual difference and the dangers of the transgender agenda.”
“Specifically, we agree that sexual difference is real, that males and females are different in significant ways, and that a person’s sex cannot change,” Hasson said.
“The Church’s vision of the human person differs radically from gender ideology,” Hasson noted. “Christian anthropology teaches that the person is a unity of body and soul, that we are created male or female, forever.”
“Gender ideology, in contrast, imagines the person as a bundle of assorted dimensions,” she said, such as gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, and biological sex, none of which “needs to align – the person is self-determining. God is really not in the driver’s seat.”
Fain said she agrees that gender identity, “this idea that we have an internal sense of being male, female or neither, and that this has any effect on our material reality, is nonsense.”
Dansky, whose group’s primary goals are to fight violence against and exploitation of women in rape, sexual and domestic assault, and pornography and prostitution, said that her work is made nearly impossible in the context of broad social disagreement about what makes someone a woman in the first place.
“It’s very difficult to solve all of those problems when we’re not permitted to name the category of women,” she said.
“It’s very interesting to me that when our society talks about domestic violence and rape and sexual assault, and we talk about the rampant rates of these crimes being perpetrated against women and girls, everybody knows what the words ‘women’ and ‘girls’ mean.”
In light of increasing acceptance of transgender ideology, the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education’s issued a document entitled “Male and Female He Created Them” in June 2019, explaining the Church’s teaching on transgender issues and encouraging dialogue with those experiencing gender dysphoria.
The document cited the need to reaffirm “the metaphysical roots of sexual difference” to help refute “attempts to negate the male-female duality of human nature, from which the family is generated.”
Such a negation “erases the vision of human beings as the fruit of an act of creation” and “creates the idea of the human person as a sort of abstraction who ‘chooses for himself what his nature is to be.’”
Theories of gender, whether moderate or radical, agree that “one’s gender ends up being viewed as more important than being of male or female sex,” according to the document, which also reflects on the role of gender theory in education and speaks of a “crisis” in any alliance between the school and the family.
“Although ideologically-driven approaches to the delicate questions around gender proclaim their respect for diversity, they actually run the risk of viewing such differences as static realities and end up leaving them isolated and disconnected from each other,” it said.
The document called for dialogue, and the protection of human and family rights. It also decried unjust discrimination and noted points of unity among people with different perspectives on gender ideology.
“Key allies“
Looking for concrete examples of common ground, Fain told CNA that she thinks that protecting the freedom of speech of those who oppose transgenderism will be one of the most important things that radical feminists and Christians can work together for.
“(W)e need to deal with this freedom of speech issue that’s happening and cancel culture, which is making most people terrified to speak out on the issue,” she said.
Fain noted that when she wrote the controversial article that got her fired, she had anticipated the backlash and had been saving for months to protect herself from the blow. She recognized that most people cannot afford to lose their jobs for speaking up on this issue.
“Most people can’t, and especially women who are already at a financial disadvantage are more likely to be caring for kids,” she said.
“And people are terrified to speak out on this issue because of the serious economic consequences that are happening.”
“And although I have many issues with the right in general, I will say that I think religious freedom and freedom of speech do go hand in hand,” Faid added.
“And so the Church’s work on that is probably relevant here.”
Hasson identified women like Fain as “key allies” in the fight against transgenderism going forward, and said she looks forward to working with them despite differences on other issues.
“Radical feminists have been fearless in speaking the truth about sexual difference – over social media, at universities, and in public hearings. They have refused to be silenced – even after being ridiculed, ‘de-platformed’ at public universities, or having their Twitter accounts shut down,” Hasson said.
“We differ greatly about abortion and our views of men, but I am hopeful that our work together and personal regard for each other will open up some opportunities in the future for discussions about those areas where we disagree. But for now, I’m grateful for their commitment to speak the truth, even at great personal cost.”
This article was originally published on CNA Feb. 10, 2020.
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I have been keeping him in my prayers. I have attended Holy Mass at a chapel that he blessed many years ago. There are many of his sermons and appearances online and I highly recommend them. We need his presence more than ever.
Cardinal Burke is the only Vatican Cardinal to reply back to a letter I wrote. I am wearing out my beads for him.
The Cardinal is a prominent vaccine sceptic. I pray not only for the Cardinal for his quick recovery from COVID but also and above all for the rightist conservative media propagandists that they turn away from and repent of their death dealing (ironically promoting “my body, my choice” pro-choice and anti-life ideology) work in the disinformation and misinformation about the vaccine they have infected upon people like the Cardinal and a lot of Catholics as well.
Can’t we just pray for his healing and leave the divisions aside?
We don’t have all the answers about this epidemic and probably won’t for many years. At this point in time I’m not sure we even have all the questions.
May God bless Cardinal Burke and restore him to good health and send this affliction away. Amen.
That cells derived from aborted babies were used in the designing/testing phase of all three vaccines available in the US and in the production phase of one of them is neither disinformation nor misinformation.
Leila,
You wrote: “Rightist conservative media propagandists”
Do you think this phrase may have been overdone? 🙂
Let’s pray that when he recovers, if he recovers, he will stop with the anti vaccine, anti science propaganda and encourage his listeners to get vaccinated. I worry about every one he infected while contagious and they many who died because they couldn’t get a ventilator. He’s lucky he was able to get one,
Let us pray that when he recovers he will have the great joy of knowing he was not complicit in the evil of harvesting tissue from babies murdered by abortion.
Thank you Leslie
Thank you, Lynda. God bless you!
According to Charlotte Lozier Institute both Pfizer and Moderna used abortion resources in producing their vaccines. On WORLD OVER August 12 2021, Arroyo said enough explicit words that would exculpate these vaccines of abortion taint: the two did not use “abortion-derived cells in production”. It was in the very first part of the program, the segment with Sirico and Lawler. I think that this should be corrected and that Arroyo should use his upcoming program to clarify the position.
I join in prayers for Cardinal Burke and have asked others to pray as well. I also pray for anyone ill with COVID-19 or who will be ill. I think Cardinal Burke has faced many challenges conscientiously and bravely and is an inspiration. Listening to him is a joy.
Found via BIG PULPIT, Dr. Fauci told VIROLOGY JOURNAL August 22 2005, that HCQ is a wonder treatment for SARS/coronaviruses.
Now it could be that his contrary stance for COVID-19 arises from the fact that technically, COVID-19 is not a corona virus.
I am not a scientist as such but I maintain COVID-19 is not a corona virus as previously that term was applied.
It would seem that either way Dr. Fauci has some explaining to do!
http://apriestlife.blogspot.com/2021/08/fraud-dr-fauci-said-hydroxychloroquin.html
It could be that over the past 16+ years much more has been learned about the treatment of many types of virus and that the efficacy of certain treatments that initially looked very promising have been shown to be ineffective.
On the other hand doctors of repute use the HCQ in the present and have made a positive record by far in results; yet it is not being upheld – not even “officially” pursued. Dr. Flavia Grosan of Romania insists that the ventilator is meant to be used intermittently after treatment with medicines and with the treatments continuing. One of the things she has boasted about is that she has kept almost all her patients out of hospital, who also had recovered.
Where I live the emphasis in the private practice of a handful of doctors is on regular style oxygen; also I heard of a doctor who uses oxygen tent in order to be as gentle as possible.
I am not a doctor. I suspect HCQ aids osmosis so that the immune system gets at the disease. On the other hand (I think), hydrocortisone penetrates cells and would help blunt the disease within there, which gives the immune reaction an advantage.
If as I contend COVID-19 is not a corona virus, it would appear the HCQ helps treat it anyway, quite fortuitously.
Sister Wanda Boniszewska, please intercede for dear Card. Raymond Burke.
Cooperation, appropriation, and vaccines relying on fetal cell line research, by Stephan Kampowski, for The Catholic World Report
January 24, 2021
Praying for him! Also praying for all those w/those “ far right” illogical ideas!! God gave us brains to avoid all of this needless suffering & death!! Yes , Your body , your choice— well you now have caused the needless suffering & death of so many !Young & old !! I think Our lord is shaking his head, saying what is wrong w/my people???
“God gave us brains to avoid all of this needless suffering & death!!”
All? That goes contra all of human history, logic, and experience.
Hi Carl, Focusing on this interpretation of Gail’s use of the word ALL is being a bit literalist, don’t you think? In the context of Gails comment it would be reasonable to interpret the suffering she is referring to all that is caused by an adherence to illogical ideas, ie needless suffering from Covid caused by the lack of co operation with mitigating strategies for decreasing the spread of the virus, the lack of co operation being motivated my Ideology rather than common-sense, or the practical application of scientific knowledge specific to the spread of the virus.
In this light Gail’s comment is entirely reasonable.
I cannot understand the reasoning behind your comment.
While I’m at it I would like to take the opportunity to thank you for your diligence in doing the job you do here. No doubt it is a very demanding vocation and I greatly appreciate the great job you do of the many difficult tasks involved. Ditto for all the other moderators, editors and staff.
No, I think my comment was fair and on point, especially considering that even if one interpreted Gail’s comment as you do, it would still be contra all of human history, logic, and experience–even if that history only dated back to March 2020. Apparently, both you and Gail (using my reading skills, which date back to when I was three years old) think that all of the illness, suffering, and deaths from COVID has been due to people not wearing masks (which are essentially useless, as the data and evidence show) or getting a shot that leads to another shot, which leads to a booster shot, which may help, unless of course you still get sick, etc., etc. No matter how you slice it, Gail’s comment is not rational; in fact, it seems mostly ideological.
“I cannot understand the reasoning behind your comment.”
Clearly.
In your explanation you have failed to establish on what grounds Gayle’s original post is contra to all of human history, logic, and experience.
Firstly you narrowed the implications of her comment to two issues that of the wearing masks and that of vaccines. You have failed to take into account effective strategies for slowing the spread of the virus to lower the curve so a resulting overwhelming of hospital resources and staff is avoided. I do not see where Gayle nor I even mentioned in specifics masks and vaccines.
Furthermore is seems a bit ridiculous to assert that Gayle and I think that all of the illness, suffering, and deaths from COVID has been due to people not wearing masks and avoiding the vaccine. This is not my view. I do believe that, being spread by air borne particles, in confined spaces, the wearing of masks slows the spread and are of assistance in preventing contamination. Also of assistance is the regular washing of hands and other strategies known and advised by epidemiologists and virologists. Ideology is not a determining consideration with how I come to my point of view. So far in the state of Victoria where I live we have managed to prevent hospitals and other services from being overwhelmed. We have followed the advise of competent epidemiologists not because of Ideology but as a reasoned response to the nature and presence of this virus. A comprehensive understanding of the nature of this virus is an ongoing process and given how it mutates it is a shifting ground.
An expression of this type should be an acceptable contribution to this debate and by any means does not merit an accusation of being contra to all of human history, logic, and experience. Cardinal Bourke, being a leader has a duty of care in the leadership he provides and is not above accountability or critique in this regard and accountability is not nor should ever be a partisan endeavour.
With your ability to move goalposts, you really should work for the CDC or the WHO…
The origin and cause of suffering, pain, and death (and even likely stupidity) is revealed in the first chapter of Scripture. The superior endowment of intellect in Eve and Adam’s prelapsarian state part has been taught and accepted since the Early Church Fathers first contemplated it.
Let those with eyes to see and brains to reason use them as God would have us do. Sans a passive-aggressive stance, I thank you for your work with us fallen creatures, Carl.
You would Probably have been right there in the early years of the Church saying “oh, go on, pinch a little incense to the gods, God gave us brains to avoid all this suffering and death.”
Leslie, another seemingly needless spiteful comment, in this instance aimed at Gayle, showing some consistency in this regard with your responses to those who legitimately express a different perspective than yours.
My own mother found this character trait the source of much distress in her early marriage in her relationship with the female parishioners of the Portland parish in the 1950’s.
Carl, without an explanation of what you are referring to in the overall gist of my reply I am led to believe I may have actually scored a goal.
Oh! Let me get your thinking straight!
You say, “Yes , Your body , your choice— well you now have caused the needless suffering & death of so many”
So, you seem to say that those who have refused a vaccine are the reason, the cause of those who have suffered and died from coronavirus. Is that your position?? Your statements surely seem to suggest that.
What’s the name of the game are you playing?
Your mother has my deepest sympathy.
It was not needless, nor even seemingly so; and it wasn’t spiteful. It was accurately pointing out her un-Christian attitude, since her argument seems to be that physical suffering and death are the absolutely worst possible things that could happen to anybody. Don’t like the analogy I made? Here’s another. Her attitude is the same as someone who would have told the early Christian martyrs, “God gave us brains to avoid suffering and death, by clinging so stubbornly to your conscience you’re endangering your relatives and other Christians who might also be arrested and killed.”
Informed conscience:
https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P60.HTM
II. The Formation of Conscience
1783 Conscience must be informed and moral judgment enlightened. A well-formed conscience is upright and truthful. It formulates its judgments according to reason, in conformity with the true good willed by the wisdom of the Creator. the education of conscience is indispensable for human beings who are subjected to negative influences and tempted by sin to prefer their own judgment and to reject authoritative teachings.
1784 The education of the conscience is a lifelong task. From the earliest years, it awakens the child to the knowledge and practice of the interior law recognized by conscience. Prudent education teaches virtue; it prevents or cures fear, selfishness and pride, resentment arising from guilt, and feelings of complacency, born of human weakness and faults. the education of the conscience guarantees freedom and engenders peace of heart.
1785 In the formation of conscience the Word of God is the light for our path,54 we must assimilate it in faith and prayer and put it into practice. We must also examine our conscience before the Lord’s Cross. We are assisted by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, aided by the witness or advice of others and guided by the authoritative teaching of the Church.55
What I find really disturbing is how the sociopathic leftcaths are crowing over Cardinal Burke’s illness and implying that he somehow deserved to contract Covid for being a “vaccine critic”. It’s just plain disgusting.
Yes, Johann it’s deeply sad but not unexpected.
Johann, I am not sociopathic! In no way am I implying Cardinal Bourke somehow deserved to contract Covid for being a “vaccine critic”. Nor have I read any other comment implying so. I do not neatly fit into the box you seem to want to squash me ( and all others you label as ‘left’ into. This is the example of an unfortunate pattern of thinking and communicating that is frequently displayed in comments here. How is it that you think this way? You make a tiny little mean minded box made up of your mostly false assumptions, and judgements of someone you perceive as the other (us and them) and you put a whole person into it then proceed to call them disgusting etc etc! Is this behaviour in pursuit of honouring your faith? Perhaps because you fail to see the distinction between discussion from differing positions and attack of the person? There is always hope. What do we have at our disposal? All of us? Faith Truth and Reason pursued in the spirit and mindset of love. Is your action in pursuit of any of these? Leftcaths??? No wonder the Body Of Christ is wounded. Endemic toxic thinking! No though that we all in fact might need each other, our differences moderated by faith truth and reason in the spirit of love and applied reconciliation in order to be whole as the Body of Christ.
To answer your question Meiron, I’m not playing a game and i accuse no one else of playing a game. My reference to kicking a goal was in response to Carl’s comment of shifting the goal. I don’t believe i shifted the goalposts of the subject, rather my comment pursued the subject further. Last night I chose not to comment further on this thread because of the focal point of the article was Cardinal Bourke’s grave illness not the wider debate. This morning I read Johans comment and felt the need to address it’s tone and effect and to explain myself so this thread does not finish in a message of brokenness but rather in the hope of at least some common ground while acknowledging differing points of view.
The original Pelagian heresy is precisely the subjugation of the Commandments. How then are they going to resolve what they have tried to do with “neo-Pelagianism”?
Pelagian heresy primarily revolves around original sin denialism. One can do whatever then – obey (this or that) commandments, build socialism, save planet, practise cannibalism.
And precisely this heresy, among others (most notably gnosis), is being taught at contemporary universities and churches.
The Pelagians’ approach to the Commandments can be found in their various discussions with St. Jerome. Some very poignant quotations used to be in the WIKIPEDIA article on Pelagianism but I noticed the article got changed around some time before Placuit Deo and these are no longer collected in one place on the internet I can identify.
A question for consideration for those who consider the CovidVax complicity in abortion. Should persons who are required to take heart medication, which virtually all are developed in some form in conjunction with embryonic stem cells cease taking their meds? Also, there is the real prospect of developing all meds without the use of Embryonic stems cells, “Adult cells altered to have properties of embryonic stem cells [induced pluripotent stem cells]. Scientists have successfully transformed regular adult cells into stem cells using genetic reprogramming. By altering the genes in the adult cells, researchers can reprogram the cells to act similarly to embryonic stem cells” (Mayo Clinic).
And if that person suffering from a heart condition declines to cease taking his meds, is he therefore complicit in the abortions from which the embryonic stem cells were taken?
Also, if a person with a heart condition knowingly continues with meds tainted by embryonic stem cell research, is he as complicit with the abortions also guilty of serious sin? Or is there no sin? What of someone physically compromised is considered heroic by refusing the CovidVax, is that heroism due to avoiding serious sin, or any sin? But if there is no sin for remote complicity what accounts for the heroism? I ask these questions because as a priest I must counsel parishioners who are led to believe by a large segment of Catholics that somehow the CovidVax is evil, and to refuse it is virtuous. Personally I have deep respect and affection for Cardinal Burke and respect his decision, although I don’t believe it sets a standard for heroic virtue.
You have to distinguish between life threatening heart condition and covid jab taken by healthy man because of traveling, restaurants, and so on. The latter is morally defective even if no murders involved since the jab itself is always hazardous not to mention that it not properly tested yet.
I think the “yes or no known in advance” for every single situation is not the way; and I think Cardinal Burke has not professed such a thing. It depends on circumstances and ultimately personal knowledge and understanding obviously.
Some situations will require a definite no. The fact is we have to be ready. We have to be growing into the maturity of faith.
Meantime, it is not simply about drugs that are tainted with abortion; it is also about industries at work in a conjunction with abortion becoming more and more integrated with it (and with other evils). This requires various other reactions not merely identifying the products in order to refuse to use them.
In some instances alternative products and producers are available but it means we have to find out about it in order to act responsibly.
If, hypothetically, a layperson has charted a true course but the priest has started arguing with him not to do it, wouldn’t be fair to point out that that part of the Church is at risk of becoming incurvatus in se?
So in some cases the act will not be immediately the priest’s but then: is that priest ready to be heroic too?
Leila M. Lawler put her very incisive comments here.
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2021/01/24/cooperation-appropriation-and-vaccines-relying-on-fetal-stem-cell-research/