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Trudeau shows why you should never trust a ‘male feminist’

The self-proclaimed defender of women eviscerated sex-based rights in Canada.

Meghan Murphy

Topics Identity Politics Politics World

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The ‘male feminist’ has long been a source of ire for me. When feminism surged in popularity during the mid-Noughties, progressive men glommed on, wearing their ‘This is what a feminist looks like’ t-shirts with pride. They were cheered on by legions of naïve women, starving for breadcrumbs. The truth about contemporary feminism is that the label has become meaningless. A ‘feminist’ is now something anyone can be, regardless of their interest in women’s rights.

I began to reject the ‘feminist’ label some years ago. I felt no desire to attach myself to a movement that had become, at best, silly and, at worst, no longer focussed on women at all. Rather, it had become obsessed with ‘intersectionality’, attaching itself to grotesque slogans like ‘sex work is work’ and advocating for men’s right to use the girls’ changing rooms. The label didn’t offer anything beyond confusion.

Besides, what I call myself has no bearing on what and who I am. I have fought for women’s rights and safety for most of my life. Tacking a label on my lapel won’t prove that – particularly a label that has been rendered a joke in so many ways. Feminists would order me to repeat after them, to ‘believe women’ at the expense of due process or rigorous truth-seeking. More broadly, I was expected to accept leftist doctrine. I wanted to be free to come to my own conclusions, and not be beholden to the claws of a cultish movement. When ‘transwomen are women’ became the dominant mantra for progressives, and the vast majority of feminists goose-stepped along with their she / her overlords in unison, I knew the label had become meaningless.

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, who announced his intention to resign last week, was one of these insufferable so-called feminists. Not long before he was elected in 2015, he announced he was a ‘proud feminist’. The following year, he attended the United Nations’ 60th session of the commission on the status of women. Here, he proclaimed: ‘I am going to keep saying loud and clear that I am a feminist until it is met with a shrug.’

The idea that, in 2016, it was brave or controversial for men to call themselves ‘feminist’ is laughable. In truth, it was all the rage. Celebrities like Matt McGorry, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ryan Gosling and Benedict Cumberbatch were being lauded as feminist heroes, featured on magazine covers as swoon-worthy warriors against sexism. I mocked this at the time. Now, as we all witness the unravelling of Trudeau’s facade, I feel vindicated in my deep dislike of and distrust towards this ‘good guy’ schtick.

Trudeau’s purported commitment to women’s rights fell apart early on in his administration. It was his Liberal Party that introduced and passed Bill C-16 in 2017, which made ‘gender identity’ a protected category in law and turned ‘deliberate’ misgendering into a crime. For the most part, Trudeau intentionally avoided public debate on the law.

I was, however, invited to testify against the bill in 2016 by a Conservative senator, as a result of an article I’d managed to publish in a Canadian news outlet. In the article, I warned that this kind of legislation ‘conflicted with already established rights and protections for women and girls’. I asked:

‘Is it now the responsibility of women and girls to leave their own spaces if they feel unsafe? Are teenage girls obligated to overcome material reality lest they be accused of bigotry? Is the onus on women to suddenly forget everything they know and have experienced with regard to sexual violence, sexual harassment and the male gaze simply because one individual wishes to have access to the female change room? Because one boy claims he “feels like a girl on the inside”? And what does that mean, anyway?’

The Liberal government did not solicit a feminist response, nor did it put the bill to a public debate. Rather, it slid the legislation in under the radar. Trudeau the feminist didn’t care that this bill was nonsensical, regressive and endangered women’s rights, protections and spaces. He didn’t care, because that label was always self-serving.

Trudeau did make various attempts to cling to his status as an advocate for women’s rights. Last March, he offered free hormonal birth control to women. But what even is a woman, according to his government? ‘A person who internally identifies and / or publicly expresses as a woman.’ In other words, anyone at all.

In December, Trudeau had the audacity to chastise Americans for failing to elect Kamala Harris (who, like him, is also incapable of defining the word ‘woman’) as president. ‘Everywhere, women’s rights and women’s progress is under attack – overtly and subtly’, Trudeau said. ‘But I want you to know that I am and always will be a proud feminist. You will always have an ally in me and in my government.’

This is rich, considering it is Trudeau’s government that has not only stripped women of their sex-based rights, but also labelled those who pushed back as hateful and violent. He and his Liberal Party have done nothing to defend or protect women like me, who have been subject to threats, censorship, libel and actual hate for over a decade now – all because we insist that women deserve the right to maintain sex-segregated spaces.

While Trudeau once sold the image of being a defender of women’s rights to the masses, the mask has now slipped. Few people are left in his corner. He is incapable of posting anything on X so much as mentioning ‘women’ without a barrage of responses demanding he explain exactly who he means when he says that word.

Trudeau the ‘good guy’ has become the enemy of the Canadian people for a myriad of reasons, but also an enemy of women specifically. As his reign nears its end, I couldn’t be more relieved to see this kind of ‘feminist’ reach extinction.

Meghan Murphy is a Canadian writer and the host of The Same Drugs podcast.

Picture by: Getty.

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