An open letter to Kamala Harris from a Democratic woman

Originally published by The Washington Examiner

August 8, 2024

The opinion piece below was originally published yesterday by The Washington Examiner. I am sharing it here with permission.

I was thrilled to see the great Martina Navratilova post it on X (Twitter).

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Dear Vice President Kamala Harris,

I am a lifelong progressive, a radical feminist, and a Democrat who has followed your career closely. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting you on three occasions: at an event sponsored by the Stanford University Black Students’ Association when you were the district attorney of San Francisco and I was the executive director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center at Stanford Law School, in an elevator at an event about the plight of incarcerated women that was taking place at a journalism museum in Washington, D.C., when you were a senator from California, and at a fundraiser for your 2020 presidential campaign. 

All three encounters were very brief, and you would have no reason to remember meeting me at any of them. But as someone who has been familiar with your positions for years, I know that you know that women are female. There are no male women. 

I cheered when you questioned Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his 2018 confirmation hearing about the way the law treats male and female citizens when it comes to healthcare. You knew then that only women will ever need abortion access.

I heard you speak in 2017 about the Dignity for Incarcerated Women Act, which would mandate free menstrual products for female inmates, outlaw shackling and solitary confinement for pregnant women, and factor the location of a mother’s children into her placement in the federal prison system.

I also attended the 2012 Women in the World conference, where you appeared on a panel with your sister, Maya. You and Maya discussed the importance of access to menstrual products for women in the San Francisco jail. For a moment, you appeared to be uncomfortable. Then you settled in and said something like, “Oh, it’s OK, we’re all women here, right?” Indeed.

Just like the vast majority of America, you know that the word “women” means adult humans who are female — and you know that the difference between women and men matters.

So why is it that (apart from your advocacy for abortion rights, which I support enthusiastically) you and other Democrats are leaving it to the GOP to stand up for women’s hard-won and extremely popular sex-based rights? Why allow Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) to be the voice of reason questioning a federal judge who sent a convicted rapist to a women’s prison? Why let former President Donald Trump reap applause at the Republican National Convention by guaranteeing an end to men in women’s sports?

The Democratic Party, yourself included, handed them these talking points. 

This is why I wrote the book The Reckoning: How the Democrats and the Left Betrayed Women and Girls. I am also active in the U.S. chapter of Women’s Declaration International, which advances the Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights throughout U.S. law and policy.

As you continue on your path to the Democratic presidential nomination, I implore you to consider the leftist, radical feminist critique of “gender identity” (or “trans” or “transgender” ideology).

Democrats such as me have been trying to explain this to party leadership for years. Every day, I hear from rank-and-file Democrats (and, importantly, former Democrats) about how disgusted they are with the party’s complete abandonment of women and girls (including lesbians) at the sexist, regressive, authoritarian, homophobic altar of “gender identity.” We have been begging you to change course. We want to vote for Democrats in November. 

To date, our concerns have mostly been ignored. 

I worked with your sister Maya during Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential run, helping to craft the campaign’s positions on criminal justice. In May 2019, I wrote Maya an email laying out the progressive case against enshrining “gender identity” in the law. I highlighted the argument that tying “trans” to the sexual orientations “lesbian, gay, and bisexual” is homophobic. I explained that “gender identity” erases women and girls. I sent her the testimony that lesbian and radical feminist Democrat Julia Beck had given before the House Judiciary Committee. I asked her to share my message with you. 

She did not respond. I was disappointed but not surprised. The “gender identity” lobby is very powerful. But it is not impossible to defy.

Recently, a handful of Democrats, especially at the state level, have broken ranks to protect the sex-based rights of women and girls (and to protect children from harmful hormones and surgeries). I commend them. 

But so far, their numbers are too few. If Democratic leadership does not reverse course, I fear it will give Republicans a huge opportunity to peel off support from women voters, parents, and gay and lesbian people, among others.

In late 2019, as the 2020 presidential election was heating up, comedian Bill Maher did a segment mocking the Democratic presidential candidates. “Stop being weird,” he admonished. He called you the “Rosa Parks of pronouns.” He derided Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA) support for taxpayer-funded “sex changes” for “transgender prisoners.” He made fun of former Rep. Julian Castro’s (D-TX) claim that “trans females” need the right to abortion. “They can’t get pregnant!” Maher laughed. “They don’t have a uterus (unless they’re in prison and Elizabeth Warren buys them one)!” 

Maher ridiculed some of the demands of the “gender identity” movement, but in 2020, the consequences of these demands were not yet obvious to most people. I’m not at all sure the same is true this time. 

Instead of listening to Maher and those like him, Democrats have doubled down on “being weird” about sex and “gender identity.” I cannot tell you the number of people who have told me that they plan to vote for Donald Trump this year because of this issue. 

It’s not too late. You can still prove Democrats are reality-based, not ridiculous. Stand up at the Democratic National Convention and say that a woman is an adult human female and a lesbian is a female homosexual. Say that sex is real and that it matters. Say right out loud that sex is immutable and no man is ever a woman — even if he claims to be one, even if he adopts the traditional stereotypes of femininity, and even if he has his penis surgically removed. Apologize to women and girls for that utterly embarrassing letter you sent to “transgender” activist Dylan Mulvaney celebrating his “365 days of girlhood.” 

You profess to care about American women and girls. It’s time to walk the talk. Many of us will be watching and hoping you do the right thing.

Sincerely,

Kara Dansky