The 50-year-old nonprofit organization National Women’s Law Center claims to work “across the issues that are central to the lives of women and girls.” Apparently today that means attacking a highly-qualified woman who has been nominated to serve as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights and fighting to open women’s sports and spaces to any man who claims a female identity.
Yes, this supposed champion of women and girls (which boasts more than $100 million in assets) rejects the idea that biological differences between men and women mean that, when safety and fairness are implicated, equality for women can demand single-sex spaces. They expect the public to ignore everything we all know about how men are generally physically stronger, faster, and more powerful than women. Although aware that women and girls are still vulnerable to physical and sexual assault at the hands of men, the National Women’s Law Center seems to believe that no man would ever falsely claim a female identity to humiliate, take advantage of, or harm women.
Naturally, National Women’s Law Center decried President Trump’s popular, commonsense Executive Orders specifying that men are not allowed in women’s sports and restoring definitions for “male” and “female” as rooted in biological sex. In doing so, they opposed the overwhelming majority of the public who has seen firsthand what the progressive Left’s assault on the concept of sex has meant for women and girls: Women routinely losing spots on teams and being robbed of awards and records by men who claim a female identity; demoralized young girls dropping out of sports programs when facing male competitors impossible to beat; and young female athletes permanently injured by male players they never should have had to face.
Even worse, the public has seen what the erasure of single-sex spaces means for women’s safety and privacy. Men have been allowed into women’s changing and shower rooms, exposing themselves in front of women and even young girls. Female prisoners have been among the biggest victims of this assault on the concept of women as a separate sex: Men, including those convicted of violent sex crimes, have been allowed to transfer into women’s facilities merely by claiming that they identify as women—true cruel and unusual punishment for incarcerated women.
National Women’s Law Center has nothing to say in defense of sexual assault survivors who are now forced to share spaces with male predators using the trans-identifying loophole to access women’s bodies. They haven’t spoken out in defense of women who are robbed of their free speech rights by authorities in universities and prison systems who threaten women that if they complain about men in their spaces, they will face discipline.
But Harmeet Dhillon has stood up for these women. Dhillon recognizes that erasing the concept of women as a separate sex is fundamentally wrong and deprives women of equal rights and equal opportunities. Dhillon has also been a champion of parents’ rights and free speech. She defended a Google employee who was fired for hypothesizing that biology might play a role in the relative lack of women in the tech sector. She recognizes that such viewpoint discrimination is a part of the growing diversity, equity and inclusion movements within companies that often ended up encouraging blatant discrimination.
Additionally, Dhillon has called out doctors and other institutions that have failed vulnerable young people (including children who have autism, mental health issues, or suffered abuse) by encouraging them down a path of irreversible medical treatments that leave them with lasting physical damage. She has called out schools that are infringing on parents’ rights by hiding information about their children.
In short, Harmeet Dhillon—an India-born American woman who has been a successful lawyer, businesswoman and outspoken advocate—is exactly the kind of person that Americans meant to elevate when they voted for a Trump presidency in November. Americans, including millions of former Democrats, are disgusted by how identity politics has been weaponized and allowed women’s interests to be sacrificed to accommodate the self-interest of men who claim to identify as women.
Rather than calling Dhillon’s qualifications into question, National Women’s Law Center’s attacks on her nomination are evidence that she is desperately needed at the Department of Justice so that we can restore the rule of law and ensure that there are real protections for women and girls.
Carrie Lukas is president of Independent Women’s Forum.
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