Good Afternoon Katie,
Thanks for a succinct and fair account of the event. I read about the disruptions a few days ago in the Seattle Times.

You are not evil nor a bigot at all. In fact, I believe you show fortitude in bringing this conversation to the table. And while agree and disagree with some of what you say regarding transgenderism, it is a most a appreciated and necessary discussion.

Keep up the good work Katie.

@2 Exactly. It’s always better just to go along with the delusion rather then argue about it. I mean, as delusions go, transgenderism is pretty harmless.

Jessica Yaniv is an abusive person, but whatever she's doing, she's not faking it. Not even Andy Kauffman could carry a shtick that hard.

"Still, while little of what Murphy said struck me as particularly inflammatory...."

I suspect that, had The Stranger sent a transwoman to cover the event, the words of Meghan Murphy and the other TERFs would have seem extremely inflammatory.

"sent a transwoman to cover the event, the words of Meghan Murphy and the other TERFs would have seem extremely inflammatory."

My grandfather used two think there were Japanese snipers outside his window of his retirement home. When we told him it was 1996 and he was in New Jersey his head would explode and call us all "dangerous fools". Eventually we just gave up, kept the curtains closed and avoided standing near the window rather than get shot.

do drag kings read at kiddie library story time cause all the images i've seen are of the male clowns. drag is raunch, there's nothing, nothing redeeming about it and that's why it's ok. bringing it to a library to what end, normalizing? normalize clowns. normalize mimes. queer theory wants to be abject and be normal too, which is a perversion. keep the raunch in a raunch, bring back real clowns.

@6 WoLF and WLRN live streamed it and it's available on facebook pages and websites so you can pay someone of any sort to report it and post it as a comment here. that's called freedom of speech and what all those cops got paid for.

Gender identity is separate from sex, right?

I want my sex-based protections respected.

I didn't consent for males in my women's facilities. Now we have men in women's sports, our prisons, rape shelters, locker and change rooms.

I'm glad Katie mentions the de-transitioners. Two people in audience brought this up. The secondde-trans said she'd had kidney failure at age 23 from trans drug treatments, and she now affirms her female sex, asking, "Who can give me my body back?"

Kids can't give ethical informed consent to irreversible treatments.

I am a woman. It's disrespectful to ME to refer to a man as a woman. A man has never lived in a woman's body and therefore can have no concept of what it is like to be female. He only has his imagination, his fantasy, his subjective, projected feelings borne of his male experience. Women suffer precisely because of our bodies, the form they take, their power to create life. Living in a female body in this society is a struggle that cannot be appropriated or donned with a wig and high heals.

A young trans identified male I spoke to said he'd been experiencing misogyny since he'd transitioned. No, he isn't. He may be getting pushback for stepping outside the lines of masculinity, he may be getting resentment by attempting to lie about or disguise his sex, but this is not misogyny. Misogyny is another thing a man cannot experience, especially in this case, as he was still quite obviously male.

This is the central issue, this insistence that trans identified males are exactly the same as women. The very concept is an erasure of women's lived experience, and its implementation in law and social interactions will, as the brave speakers outlined on Saturday, drag the project of women's liberation back 100 years. Trans identified people have their own struggles, we are not the same.

Thanks for the article with details on both sides views. I had hear about the protest, but nothing about what the strife was actually about. Other outlets just seemed interested in the fact that there was conflict.
Very welcome writing from The Stranger.

Thanks for the balanced take on this difficult topic and supporting their right to have this talk (even if some of them are shitty). I strongly support trans people doing whatever they want or need to feel comfortable with themselves and society around them, but it can be hurtful to cis and trans people to suggest that they have the same experiences and struggles. We need to be critical of this movement just like we need to be critical of everything else we do (remember when it was bigoted to say that people weren’t born gay? Now we would never suggest that someone’s sexuality can’t change over time) I know trans people that have been incredibly disempowered by other people insisting that oppression is the cause of every negative feeling they’ve ever had. People who can’t even be in a room with a cis man long enough to find out if they’re supportive. And i know cis women in tech that are hurt by the fact that trans women’s achievements are celebrated as empowering women. It shows progress on trans acceptance and trans rights, but it doesn’t show progress on women’s rights. If you grew up as a boy, you were likely encouraged to do technical things just like cis boys. Cis women likely faced sexism that drove them away from that. Trans people face struggles in the workplace and so do women, but they might be different struggles. There’s enough room in our hearts to celebrate each individually. Let’s make sure our activism empowers people with strength and hope. Fear has no place in activism. It’s a bludgeon that can only destroy. And let’s remember that different people have different equally valid struggles. Trans women don’t face all the same struggles as cis women just like indian people don’t face all the same struggles as hispanic people.

This is such a juicy thread! Nothing is sweeter than diluted feminazis bitching about the bed they made (and now are forced to lay in it) and science-denying transtrenders who claim that there is no such thing as "biological sex". Who is the bigger victim! Let the Oppression Olympics begin! Tear each to shreds while I sit back with my popcorn! :) Mmmmm... Delcious leftist tears.

Wow what a dishonest article & outright fictional account of what happened. It’s all on online video if anybody actually cares for the truth

Examples of your fiction:
- the inside protesters were all male
- the Russian man went on a misogynistic anti-feminism rant that was incoherent he was asked to take a seat. He was obviously allowed at the mic in the first place b/c men were welcome. I guess they just don’t like misogynistic time wasters. How mean right? I guess Black ppl should also entertain racists at their events? BTW He then told the women to shut-up & referred to them as bitches. But they were so mean b/c women should always coddle & capitulate to abusive men!

The mob of protestors was predominantly male & a large % were masked. They were threatening & violent. Several women were assaulted including the “pink pussy hat” woman you referred to. She was assaulted on camera. But you don’t mention any of this. Another woman, around 60 years old, was kicked by several men & left with bruises on her legs& knees. Others were physically shoved & blocked & intimidated. It’s all on camera. They proved EXACTLY why women do not want them in their spaces.

In YOUR own hypocritical words, these protestors were absolutely UNKIND, COUNTERPRODUCTIVE, etc. The fact you support coerced speech of women by men is disgusting. Why don’t you care about males being “unkind” to female ppl especially older women? Says EVERYTHING about why these women AND men are mad as hell about all of this

16 TERF alert! You are a transphobia. And a xenophobe. You obviously don't like Russian immigrants.

that was no russian, that was alex tsimerman, a unique individual, doing his front & center noxious dweeb performance like he always does.
there were lots of men at the event, most accompanied by women. one left after the crowd had dwindled and crossing 5th on spring the woman just ahead of him was told by a protester, "shame on you for going, shame" but had nothing to say to the man, preferring to continue a chat with a cop instead, thus showing the "new misogyny" the event was named as apt.

wow Stranger. really? supporting terfs, racism, anti-drag, all in one shitty article? really? you pay katie herzog for this crap? i mean, even the paragraphs where she's writing letter by letter how transfriendly she really is....pinky promise too.