The Fake Feminists Fighting the Equality Act

Everyone pretends to care about women when it’s convenient. Take Senator Josh Hawley, who has a point to prove and along with it, a newfound respect for the ladies. Hawley, like the rest of his party, opposes the Equality Act, which would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. That would protect queer and trans women, but they are women Hawley hates, and so the Equality Act must fall. But even in today’s GOP, that truth is a little gauche. Hawley needs a different justification. Fortunately, journalist Abigail Shrier has given him one.

When Shrier testified in the Senate against the Equality Act on Wednesday, she did so on the basis that its protections for trans people would harm women and girls. Imagine your daughter or granddaughter was a top high school athlete, she said, and then “five biological boys suddenly decided at the age of 17 to identify as female.” Should the girl lose rank, Shrier asked? Hawley fawned: “Tell us, why it is that women’s sports, the opportunities of young girls to compete on a fair and equal basis, will be so severely impacted by this law?” Boys are just bigger, Shrier said, and faster. “We would never know the names Venus and Serena Williams,” she warned.