Taking a Stand Against the Transphobic TERF Conference in SF, Part 4: City Hall Counter-Protest

[Photo of San Francisco city hall and the TERF's pipsqueak "direct action." Civic Center Plaza has a long history of being packed with righteous protesters.]


For some odd reason, the TERFs who held the transphobic convention in San Francisco thought it'd be a good idea to announce on Indybay the supposed climactic conclusion to their weekend of hate, a "direct action" protest at San Francisco city hall. Either whomever handles their outreach mistakenly thought faux-leftist TERF propaganda would slip under the radar on Indybay's calendar or the TERFs were deliberately looking to stir up some controversy (the event listing was hidden). Whatever they were thinking, the word was out that the TERFs were coming to town, and the Bay Area wasn't going to stand for it.

Laughably, on the opening evening of the TERF conference, Lierre Keith was on a panel about "radical tactics" as some sort of expert on nonviolent direct action, something she seems to know little about. But, her groupies most likely don't know the difference, so the grift works, for her at least. She's a truly radical feminist, uh huh, even though no one can recall her ever organizing a successful protest action.

Even more preposterous, the TERF conference concluded on Sunday with a four-hour "training session on Nonviolent Direct Action," in preparation for their scheduled "direct action" the following day. But, there would be no sit-in at their protest. No lockboxes. No tripods. No flagpole scaling. No occupations. No action, really. Nothing of the sort. How much training does it take to hold a banner while standing on a sidewalk? How many TERFs does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Despite the "training," whatever that consisted of, the city hall TERF protest was every bit as pathetic as the one they staged in Oakland last December. It was just them holding hateful banners, taking turns speaking to each other. They were outnumbered by trans rights counter-protesters, and could barely even be heard.

For self-proclaimed radical leftists, these TERFs spend an awful lot of time talking about how god made them women. Several speakers hit that note in front of city hall. At this demo, and otherwise, if they're not talking about god, they're pretending to be scientific by claiming that DNA or genitalia are the sole determinants of sexual identity, as if geneticists and biologists fully understand human sexuality at this point in time.

They assert that transgenderism is not any sort of innate identity, but rather that it's an ideology, a choice. The language of "gender ideology" that TERFs have adopted originated with anti-feminist and anti-trans right-wing Christians. TERFs try to make it more lefty-sounding by advocating for nonsensical tenets such as "gender abolition."

And, yet, many of these TERFs identify as lesbian, and the fascists they partner with use the same exact arguments to denigrate homosexuals and homosexuality, in moral panic after moral panic. "God made women and men to procreate." "Homosexuality is an abomination, an unnatural offense to god and human kind." "Homosexuals are perverts and their agenda is to make everyone else gay." "Homosexuality is a predatory and deviant lifestyle choice." And so on, ad nauseam. You hear echoes of all that in TERF talk.

Essentially, they want to pull up the ladder behind themselves, to declare that the expansion of human rights is done, that it ends with them, that civil rights are a zero-sum game with only so many to go around, that they are the last ones who should be privileged to become equally empowered members of society. Their homosexuality is natural, while somehow transgenderism isn't.

In the end, should the TERFs actually succeed in helping Christian nationalists achieve their goal of creating a theocracy in so-called America, the TERFs are kidding themselves if they think they'll be accepted into the fundamentalist power structure. As "white" women of European descent, they may not be the first to go, but they are definitely on the list, especially if they are not servicing men and breeding new generations of Christian youth. In the short term, however, fascists will accept and raise the profile of these TERFs. Any perceived split on the supposed left is of value to them.

It works for the TERFs, too. They get airtime and praise from right-wing assholes for attacking some of the most marginalized folks in our society. In 2019, three members of Lierre Keith's group WoLF appeared on a Heritage Foundation panel focused on the supposed horrors of transgender equality. The Heritage Foundation, by the way, was founded during the Reagan era and is all in on the Trump era.

They also work with Republican congressional members and state legislatures to enshrine bigotry into law. Many more disgusting associations abound, if you care to look.

Most importantly, to these grifters, though, they get funded. In 2016, WoLF received a $15,000 donation from the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a conservative Christian hate group that opposes abortion and LGBTQ rights. And it's safe to presume that's just the tip of the iceberg. They truly don't care from where the money comes, as long as it comes.

Grifters gonna grift. These TERFs have found a niche for themselves playing trans-hating truth-tellers for right-wingers and women's liberationists for those who don't know any better, all the while trying to scoop up as many low-information, gullible, confused, and/or hateful supposed leftists as they can, for their own profit and to push such suckers toward outright fascism.

The well was running dry for Lierre Keith and her tough-talking "radical" comrades with the misanthropic "Deep Green Resistance" shtick. For a time, they were riding high, flying around the country peddling their books. They held conferences charging $500 a head, pretending they were just like the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) or Earth First!, or more badass than that. But it was a twisted for-profit version of radical environmentalism, with them in charge. It was all talk and no action.

Fortunately, most environmentalists, even actual radicals willing to risk imprisonment in defense of our environment, aren't into the whole "let's deliberately kill hundreds of millions of people in an eco-fascist wet dream" thing. Most folks eventually saw through their deranged and violent puffery. Perhaps it was because, just like Charles Manson, they talked a big revolutionary game, but their plan somehow seemed to include them surviving the great human catastrophe. They never threw themselves into the fire.

DGR proponents Derrick Jensen and Lierre Keith were kicked to the curb by PM Press, one of their main publishers. PM Press no longer even stocks any of their ten or so books. Their "colonial transphobic perspectives" are toxic to the environmental movement anywhere they and their coteries show up. They are a menace to anyone trying to accomplish anything real regarding social or environmental justice. They are destructive parasites ever-feeding at the periphery of actual radical movements.

So, what's a grifter to do? Move on to the next grift! Prior to DGR, Lierre Keith courted the "paleo" diet people, and gave cover to animal agri-business, with her mean-spirited and error-filled book called The Vegetarian Myth. That worked well for a while, until it didn't. Then came DGR and that paid for a while. In the process, they toyed with transphobia and ended up settling on it as their next grift, perhaps the final one, their fake-left-throw-right transphobia carrying them financially into personal retirement.

Lierre Keith has partnered with other dangerous bigots like Kara Dansky, also of DGR, and Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull from England in a mutually beneficial pact to profit from hate. The real world consequences for our trans sisters and brothers, or even society as a whole, be damned, as long as they're getting paid. If these cretins were cool with killing off half of the world's population, what do the lives of transgender folks mean to them?

But, back to the protest at hand...

After just 45 minutes in front of city hall, the TERFs decided they had enough of subjecting themselves to such a public humiliation. Two U-Hauls pulled up as their get-away vehicles and they fled, taking a page directly from the Patriot Front playbook, which must include something about packing themselves into rental trucks without seats or seatbelts as their preferred mode of transport.

Good riddance.

~

Taking a Stand Against the Transphobic TERF Conference in SF, Part 1: Picket Line and Speakers
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2023/09/22/18859084.php

Taking a Stand Against the Transphobic TERF Conference in SF, Part 1: Video of Speakers
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2023/09/25/18859167.php

Taking a Stand Against the Transphobic TERF Conference in SF, Part 2: Direct Action Street Party
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2023/09/23/18859102.php

TERF Show Vandalized: Trans Autonomy Forever, Part 3
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2023/09/17/18858974.php


More about these TERFs:

Warning: Transphobes Kara Dansky and Lierre Kieth plan to stage TERF protest in SF
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2023/08/29/18858595.php

TERFs Told to "Get Out of Oakland!"
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2022/12/07/18853317.php