A protest march to Washington D.C. will bring together radical feminists and activists linked to anti-abortion groups in protest of LGBTIQ rights, reports Sian Norris
On International Women’s Day 2021, an unlikely alliance of radical feminists and radical right activists will march on Washington D.C. to protest against an executive order from President Joe Biden which expands the prohibition of discrimination based on sex to include gender identity and sexual orientation.
The protestors claim that the move will “eliminate the rights of women and girls to protections and provisions based on the category of sex”.
The picket is co-organised by Kara Dansky of the Women’s Human Rights Campaign.
One organiser, Courtney Piper, urged her Facebook followers who “claim their fealty as patriots to women and the land” to join the march.
There has been a growing trend over the past five years where feminist groups have collaborated with radical right groups. In 2016, the women’s rights organisation Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF) accepted a $15,000 donation from the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) – a global “religious freedom” organisation campaigning against abortion and LGBTIQ rights. Dansky was a former board member of WoLF although they parted company last summer and WoLF is not involved in organising Women Picket D.C. The ADF claimed credit for influencing the Polish Government in further restricting women’s abortion rights earlier this year.
WoLF also claims the Family Policy Alliance (FPA) as an ally. They collaborated to produce the Gender Resource Guide which aims to “understand the transgender trend and its consequences”.
Earlier this year, the FPA ran a virtual rally opposing Biden’s proposed Equality Act which it claims will “sanction abortions and remove pro-life protections” and “deny parental rights in the name of sexualised political ideology” – i.e. allow minors to access abortion without parental consent. WoLF’s Executive Director Natasha Chart was listed on the line-up.
Alongside Chart was Penny Nance, of Concerned Women Of America (CWA) – another anti-abortion, “pro-family” group. CWA has directed its social media followers to WoLF’s resources when protesting Biden’s executive order.
Concerned Women for America was set up by Beverly LaHaye, whose husband was the co-founder of a shadowy network dedicated to pushing a radical right economic and social agenda: the Council For National Policy (CNP). This highly-secretive organisation has strong links to the Republican establishment and the Donald Trump regime, while its members are a who’s who guide to anti-abortion, anti-LGBTIQ organisations and radical right think-tanks.
They include Mat Staver from Liberty Counsel; Tony Perkins and Kenneth Blackwell of the Family Research Council; Alan Sears and Benjamin Bull from the ADF; Edwin J Feulner Jr from the Heritage Foundation; and the late anti-feminist activist Phyllis Schlafly.
Individuals close to Donald Trump are also linked to the CNP, with his former chief strategist and alt-right ideologue Steve Bannon; former advisor Kellyanne Conway; and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos all listed as members. Trump’s attorney and chief counsel for the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ) Jay Sekulow was both attorney for, and a member of, the CNP. The ECLJ lobbied Poland’s Government to tighten its abortions laws.
It is perhaps no surprise theb that, in his comeback speech last week at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Donald Trump focused his energy on attacking trans athletes. This issue has become a focal point of the US gender-critical movement, which has allied with the radical right to argue that women’s sports are under threat when trans women are allowed to compete.
It is for this reason that Save Women’s Sport – a “coalition that seeks to preserve biology-based eligibility standards for participation in female sports” – has endorsed the D.C. picket. It lists among its “allies of female sports” the ADF, FPA, Family Research Cou