Quick Take: Negative Intersectionality
Postmodern progressivism confronts its internal contradictions
With Roe v. Wade teetering on the precipice of overturn, this is probably the wrong time for the pro-choice movement to rebrand itself—but that’s just what congressional Democrats have cornered themselves into doing.
A tip of the hat to Nelly Bowles over at Common Sense with Bari Weiss for drawing my attention to a most interesting piece of news. In her regular TGIF feature Ms. Bowles noted that the House Pro-Choice Caucus recently issued new language guidelines governing words and terms to be used when discussing abortion. Among other things, the guidelines denounce the word choice as “harmful language” and recommend that pro-choice be abolished in favor of pro-abortion.
Let you conclude that the House Pro-Abortion Caucus has opted for brutal honesty, I must hasten to explain the reasoning behind this decision—which is, so to speak, choice. "Systemic racism," it seems, renders the word choice unacceptable because in a country dominated by "White Supremacy" it simply is not possible that BIPOC women have a choice. Therefore the term pro-choice must be replaced by pro-abortion—which is what the other side has been suggesting all along on the grounds that choice is a deceptive euphemism. Additionally, that familiar slogan, a woman’s right to choose, is out. Decision and decide are to be substituted for choice and choose.
Meanwhile, despite being deprived of choice, millions of BIPOC women have in fact aborted their babies since 1973.
Here we have a prize example of what I call negative intersectionality: the angst that afflicts progressives when they realize what they’re doing over here contradicts what they’re doing over there. In the progressive world-view nothing happens by accident; everything’s connected. And inevitably, connectivity leads to contradiction and conflict.
Intersectionality was embraced by progressivism because it maximizes opportunities to achieve victim status, the source and foundation of postmodern identity. For instance, if you happen to be a trans woman of color that’s a hat trick: You’re victimized by transphobia, misogyny and racism. But wait a minute, comrades: Does the woman part of trans woman intersect with abortion rights?
To that question, just shut up, progressives explain. Yet it remains a conundrum; thus the introduction of birthing person and chest feeder, terms that dodge around all those awkward questions. Alas, though, a birthing person’s right to decide does not dance trippingly on the tongue. An uncharitable person might even say that it sounds ridiculous and stupid. On the plus side, however, it does cover the claim that men can too become pregnant, so there’s that.
I suppose it was inevitable that abortion, being an issue grounded in biology and genetics, would screw with the minds of progressives. The fact that pregnancy and abortion are not choices—excuse me, decisions—available to all human beings must inevitably be judged as a great injustice by people who spend so much time inventing genders and pronouns and insisting that Chelsea Manning and Lia Thomas are actual women.
Let me sum it up for you. Thomas hates women. He’s a misogynist. He’s on Substack to convince you that women are the real evil that need to be eliminated with forced birth and no exception for rape, incest or the life of the mother. Why? Because white males of the GOP commit and applaud rape and murder. That’s why they present the greatest domestic terrorist threat tracked by DHS, DOJ and the FBI. He will never write about the white male Oath Keeper sentenced to 18 years this week. It doesn’t fit his narrative that women are responsible for all the ills of the world. Women are blamed for the misdeeds of males who commit the vast majority of violence in the world. Inconvenient truths for Thomas.