Just as people in Seattle are upset by the news a young man calmly entered the women’s locker room at a public swimming pool and calmly undressed before the aghast females, including a girls’ swimming team, Sen. Bernie Sanders came out to accept his designation as an “honorary woman” bestowed by Gloria Steinem:
“I consider myself a strong feminist,” Sanders told a young woman from the audience in a Nevada town hall. “And in fact, Gloria Steinem — everybody knows Gloria is one of the leading feminists in America — made me an honorary woman many, many years ago.”
“I don’t know exactly what that meant, but I accepted it when she came to campaign for me,” Sanders added.
The moms in the locker room in Seattle didn’t know exactly what it meant, either, to be an honorary woman. When they alerted the staff and the staff challenged what appeared to be a man undressing in their midst, he said simply that he had a right to use the locker room of his choice, according to the new gender-identity neutral ordinances. Police were not called. After he swam and changed again he left.
No word on whether Sanders intends to exercise his privileged gender status in Washington state’s taxpayer financed swimming pools. But gender is certainly getting fluider and fluider, isn’t it?
Maggie Gallagher is a senior fellow at the American Principles Project.
