Far right!

We’ve had a busy couple of weeks on social media, following ‘badgegate’ and the subsequent decision by the Scottish Parliament to ‘minimise the risk of perceived bias’ by stopping staff wearing rainbow lanyards (amongst other things). Once again, and as seems inevitable whenever women talk about issues which concern them, there have been accusations that we are ‘far right’. Apparently, any group which expresses concerns about women’s rights is ‘far right’ and, more than that, funded by the ‘far right’, or right-wing American Christian fundamentalists, or even shadowy Russians (presumably also ‘far right’).

‘Far right funding’ has become a bit of a running joke among gender critical groups; not because we’d like some, but because the lie that we receive it serves to obscure reality so very effectively.

We, like so many of the women we know, are running our organisation from our living room, in our own time, with our own money, which we have saved from the full time jobs we do to pay the bills. We have to pay for our own website, campaign materials, meetings, badges. The grant system that funds these things, and so much more, for other organisations (LGBTQI+ groups including Scottish Trans and Equality Network shared nearly £3.5 million in funding from the Scottish Government, via the Equality and Human Rights Fund, in 2021-24) would be extremely unlikely to look favourably on single-sex groups like ours. The fact that we have to fund everything from our own pockets is effectively a tax on women defending our ability to define ourselves as women and, in our case, to meet and organise as lesbians.

So, there is no far-right funding. Of course there isn’t. There is no funding at all for any women who want to defend women’s rights. Not a penny. So why do so many people persist in claiming there are untold millions pouring into our bank accounts?

Well, it’s a lot easier to imagine a shadowy financial puppet master pulling the strings of women in Scotland than it is to see what’s actually happening: women are doing astonishingly well at fighting gender ideology despite having nothing more than our own resources, and frequently while facing active hostility from the Scottish Government. Why accept that women are capable of organising so effectively, when you can instead attribute their achievements to the ‘far right’?

The ‘far right’ label also demonises and dehumanises women. If we’ve joined the ‘far right’ and are receiving money from them we can safely be regarded as beyond the pale. We can be ignored, insulted, assaulted, and have our reputations trashed; indeed, we can’t have much of a reputation to start with, if we’re taking money from nazis. We can be described in dehumanising terms, as TERFs, trash, or bigots. 

Calling women ‘far right’ allows our opponents to attribute other ‘far right’ beliefs to us. A belief in the reality of sex means we must also be racist, homophobic, and misogynist, and fighting for women’s rights is nothing more than a ‘cloak’ for these prejudices. No-one needs to listen to us, or engage with our arguments, because we’re nazis and everyone knows they’re bad. Indeed, we must be prevented from speaking at all, and the ‘far right’ label appears to justify any amount of male aggression to achieve that end. Our meetings and gatherings become fair game for protesters trying to drown us out, intimidate us, or make graphic threats of sexual violence, all while claiming the moral high ground.

So of course people who oppose us want to shout ‘far right’. The alternative is to face up to reality: hard working women fighting to maintain the protections gained by our foremothers, and doing so from our own pockets and in our own time. As any feminist who has ever started anything for the benefit of women knows, sooner or later a stark choice needs to be made: dilute your message and abandon your original purpose in exchange for mainstream financial support, or prepare to dig deep and find your own resources to keep going. We’re doing it ourselves, and we’re proud of that.