FFS Friday: May Mailman

January 24, 2025

FFS (Female Free Speech) Friday honors women and girls who are speaking out about the harms that “gender identity” poses to women and girls as a sex class. FFS Friday posts are free and shareable. If you would like access to content that delves deeper into the movement to protect the sex-based rights of women and girls and to stop the abolition of sex, please consider a paid subscription.

Today’s FFS Friday honors May Mailman, who played a significant role in authoring the recent Executive Order on Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.

Until recently, May Mailman was the Legal Director of the Independent Women’s Forum and the Director of the Independent Women’s Law Center. It was in that capacity that I met her, when she was counsel for a group of women who were suing their sorority (Kappa Kappa Gamma) over its decision to admit a man who calls himself Artemis, in direct violation of the sorority’s own bylaws. The case was Westenbroek, et al. v. Kappa Kappa Gamma, et al. It was eventually (wrongfully, in my view) tossed out for lack of jurisdiction. Women’s Declaration International USA filed an amicus brief in the case in support of May’s clients, the sorority women.

May and I also worked together on two other appellate amicus briefs in cases challenging the Biden Administration’s unlawful rewrite of the Title IX regulations. That rewrite was ultimately (and rightly, in my view) vacated in its entirety because it exceeded the administration’s statutory authority, and was both unconstitutional and arbitrary and capricious. May deserves full credit for authoring those briefs; I only offered some minor edits.

Most recently, she played a significant role in authoring the Executive Order on Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.

The executive order is huge. It returns truth and sanity to how the federal government deals with matters pertaining to sex and to the absurd (and sexist) concept of “gender identity.” It is necessarily limited because of the limited nature of federal executive authority (something the Biden Administration appears not to have understood). But it’s a tremendously significant development and I’m happy to see it. You can read my analysis of the executive order here.

When I asked her what inspired her to write the order, she said, “Too many people use language uncritically and it has resulted in the erasure of women. This is what Independent Women and feminist partners have been telling state legislatures for a few years now. Also, Kara’s amicus brief explaining that ‘transgender’ as a category is so absurdly flimsy as to sweep in every human on earth, is totally persuasive and everyone should memorize it.“

After the order came down, a few people wondered whether I was responsible for writing it.

The answer is no, I was not. But I have to imagine that American TERFs have played a role in informing May’s thinking about sex and gender. As Megan Rose (a former WDI USA board member) says, lefty TERFs have been working with conservative women’s groups, including IWF, for several years, despite receiving criticism from our own side.

May, thank you for this order. Thank you for restoring truth and sanity to how the federal government addresses matters pertaining to sex and the absurd (and sexist) concept of “gender identity.” Thank you for listening to the TERFs. Today’s FFS Friday is for you.