We're Thankful For...
Fairer Disputations Authors and Editors Reflect
In honor of the Thanksgiving holiday in the US, we will be taking the week off from publishing an original essay.
While our UK friends today mourn their parliament’s dereliction of duty to protect the vulnerable, we nevertheless wanted to share with you reflections on what we’re thankful for, from Fairer Disputations editors and authors. We hope those who celebrated had a very happy Thanksgiving, and know that we are very thankful to you for your readership!
I’m thankful for the prospect that the torrent of American gender ideology may soon be dammed, with numerous promises already made by the incoming Republican administration to reverse the legal conflation of sex and gender. Proverbially, when America sneezes the rest of the world catches a cold, so if these are delivered it will shift “gender” politics across the West. I’m sure there will be policies to regret in a Trump government; but whatever else happens, I’m hopeful that we have passed “peak trans”.
I'm grateful this year that we don't live in a zero-sum world. It seems to me like the thinkers who have come together against gender radicalism understand this in a uniquely refreshing way. Sex drives everyone crazy pretty much all the time, but modern debate on the subject seems designed to stage a pitched battle between men and women so that when one side wins, the other side has to lose. Instead of that, I find in the TERFs and normies of the world a firmly grounded conviction that we can be better off for our differences, and better together than alone. This budding rapprochement between the sexes is like a spring thaw after a long winter--something to be truly thankful for.
Especially following the birth of my son, I'm grateful for the expansions and experiments with paid family leave at the state level. DC's policies and my employer's flexibility have allowed me to keep working from home until about seven months post-partum, which meant the world for nursing, PT, and baby bonding.
Perhaps what I'm most thankful for is something that is remarkably difficult to come by right now in conversations about gender and feminism: intellectual honesty. I am thankful for Fairer Disputations for publishing and promoting work that is consistently intellectually honest and true--and good and, ultimately, beautiful too.
I am thankful that Fairer Disputations offers a forum to discuss the incredible value of the work of the home and those who do it. Too often “the home front” is neglected or belittled by writers and media. FD offers a bright spot for authors and readers that take homemakers and home seriously.
I'm grateful that last month, my home country of Italy banned its citizens from seeking surrogacy abroad. The surrogacy industry harms not only children, who are removed from the only person they know, i.e. the surrogate mother, but also women, who often agree to be surrogates because of financial difficulties and are unfortunately easily exploited. This is a step in the right direction!
I've been thinking lately how grateful I am to live in an age when women's fitness is widely recognized as something important and worth promoting. Many societies (historically and today) would have been confused or scandalized by middle-aged moms who run, lift, or play sports, but we're not remotely fazed by that, and I've been delighted over the last year to see how many people are willing to stand up for the integrity of women's sports. A healthy life is a happier life, and I'm honestly not sure how I could manage with the pressures of raising five sons without the benefit of fitness support. Truly grateful.
This year I am thankful for the persistence of many for fighting for
the truth of sexual difference, whether from a Christian perspective
or a scientific one (or indeed, purely from common sense and the
historical, cultural and mythic record). I'm glad that in the UK—where
free speech is currently otherwise in short supply, as we are daily
confronted with absurdities such as "non-crime hate incidents", we
have nevertheless seen victories this year for sex-realists in public
life (often after many years and at great cost, both physical and
mental). For example, the apology given to James Esses from Metanoia,
a therapeutic training college who had expelled him for his opposition
for a ban on conversion therapy (which would have likely prevented
non-medical therapeutic options being used for unhappy children and
teenagers diagnosed with "gender dysphoria"). I'm glad the High Court
upheld the ruling that banned puberty blockers for children. I'm glad
for the increasing reality of alliances and discussions between groups
with otherwise disparate political and religious beliefs who are
nevertheless united in the knowledge of the harm of this dangerous and
baseless ideology.
I'm thankful that people are getting serious about sex-realist feminism. By 'serious,' I mean the enthusiasm over books recently published (Nadya Williams' Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic) and forthcoming (Leah Libresco Sargeant's The Dignity of Dependence and Serena Sigillito's Saving the Second Sex.) A breath of fresh air in a world of hot takes, the sex-realist corpus answers the question: What are we actually going to do about living in a culture that denies the importance of our sexed bodies?
I’m thankful to see the artificial barrier between “social” and “economic” issues continue to break down, as so many insightful thinkers reexamine the relationship between work and family. Siloing these two vital features of human life, and mapping the gender divide onto that division, has done so much harm to men and women alike; as the conversation reopens, integral human flourishing becomes easier to imagine.
I am thankful that I followed a small, shining, ontological question mark floating above the term ‘nonbinary’, which was being presented to me as a fact. This questioning opened into labyrinthine avenues of inquiry and—inspired by some wonderful women in the feminist and sex-realist space—led me to challenge many previously held assumptions about gender, sex, individualism, choice, reality, and what it means to be a woman. As a result, I am almost certainly less popular, quite likely less successful, but I am wiser, fuller, and in a strange way more hopeful.
I’m thankful for sex-realist feminism because, despite the fact that it originates in the need to defend the self-evident reality of what a woman is, it has helped both myself and a larger community think more deeply about the meaning and necessity of the sexual difference.
In 2024, I’m thankful that the sporting world seemed to turn a corner in affirmatively celebrating sex differences in competition. It wasn’t just the controversies, covered extensively at Fairer Disputations, that sparked a growing number of observers and institutions across the West to recover some sanity about the importance of maintaining female-only athletic competitions. It was the players of the WNBA, riding a surge of Caitlin Clark-infused popularity, opting to use their leverage to seek expanded financial support for maternity leave. It was the Paris Olympics, the first to offer a nursery for breastfeeding moms and athletes with young kids, where two athletes competed while pregnant. The sporting world—where the differences of sex are indelible and unavoidable—recognized how those differences play out in different, asymmetric ways, providing reason for gratitude, and for hope.
I'm grateful for the sanity of Fairer Disputations. In a world of extreme opinions on sexuality and women, we need the sane moderation of FD.
I am enormously grateful to the Abigail Adams Institute for serving as the start-up home for Fairer Disputations, to Serena and Melody for being such patient and able editors, and to all of FD's writers and readers, who have made sex-realist feminism a new school of feminist thought, contending for the hearts and minds of women (and men) today.
I’m thankful that I was raised by a mother who taught me that female empowerment, intelligence, and education are not at odds with the decision to have children and prioritize spending time with them over building a lucrative career. I’m thankful to be raising three beautiful daughters at a time when I can pursue my passions by working from home. And I’m especially thankful to be part of a movement that is helping to turn the tide on questions of sex and gender, never compromising on the twin truths of sexual equality and sexual difference. I’m hopeful that the women of my generation are raising daughters who see their female bodies—including their fertility—as fundamentally good, an integral part of their unique identities as people who are deeply, unconditionally loved.
Melody Grubaugh:
I’m grateful not only for the online community that Fairer Disputations has cultivated among our readers, but also for the in-person community that has emerged from it. I was introduced to FD by my dear friend Associate Editor Rose Elvidge, with whom I led the FD Oxford reading group last academic year. Beautiful friendships blossomed out of that group, and we’ve featured some of the members as FD writers (and have more in the docket!). I’m also grateful for our volunteers—Meredith, Shelby, and Izzi—and all of their work to help us keep FD running smoothly.
Want to write for us?
Fairer Disputations accepts submissions! All submissions should align with our core mission: to advance a sex-realist feminism. We are looking for content that—whether implicitly or explicitly—defends a vision of female and male as embodied expressions of human personhood, affirming that men and women are equal in their dignity and their capacity for human excellence, yet distinct in many significant ways, particularly when it comes to sex, pregnancy, childbirth, and care for children. Each submission should express an original argument about how society ought to accommodate these realities.