Left Behind: When Women’s Rights Became Negotiable

A reflection on Women’s History Month 2025—and what it revealed about the Democratic Party’s priorities.

Women’s History Month just ended, and I wish I felt inspired. Instead, I’m left with disappointment—and a fire in my chest.

It started early on, when I joined what was billed as a celebration of International Women’s Day. It was hosted by a women-centered affiliate of my liberal religious association. For more context on my personal struggle with the direction of my faith tradition see The Gift of Truth: Anchoring Traditions in Enduring Principles. I joined the webinar cautiously hopeful—maybe this would center actual women.

Instead, I got the same tired script: Women+. The plus sign didn’t mean more women. It meant not women. The organization’s website spelled it out loud and clear:

“Trans women are women, without exception.”

So the center of this “women’s” event wasn’t women at all. It was ideology. It was our history, hollowed out. Women’s material reality was pushed aside—again—for the feelings of those who aren’t even women.

This pattern repeated itself all month. Advocacy groups wielded civil rights language as empathy traps—designed to shame and silence. And it wasn’t just isolated to feel-good panels or religious circles. The erasure echoed all the way to the State Capitol.

I watched Georgia’s elected officials echo the same performative empathy—with none of the follow-through. Senator Jon Ossoff kicked off his reelection campaign by invoking John Lewis and repeatedly referencing his daughter—after voting against advancing a bill that would’ve protected his daughter’s right to female-only sports earlier in the month.

Georgia State Senator Elena Parent recently supported ending taxpayer-funded “sex change” procedures for inmates…male prisoners’ grotesque mockery of womanhood, paid for by the public and performed under the guise of healthcare. Parent’s vote was a moment of political courage, but in today’s Democratic Party, pragmatism is punished. Progressive activists swarmed, branding her a sellout and vowing to primary her. Her crime? Representing the majority view of her constituents.

As former DeKalb Democratic Chair John Jackson put it:

“Democrats don’t have a strong agenda for the working class… It’s like they care more about (trans rights) than poverty.”

His words highlight what Parent’s ordeal makes plain: there’s a widening disconnect between elite priorities and everyday Democratic voters in Georgia.

At the end of that International Women’s Day webinar, a Reverend led the closing song: “No one is getting left behind this time… We get there together or never get there at all.” It landed like a warning: Affirm the ideology—or risk your own rights. In this new orthodoxy, women’s liberation must include non-women—or it won’t progress at all.

But we won’t be cast out quietly. Recently, I co-hosted a Twitter Space titled “Gender Ideology is NOT a Civil Rights Movement.” That wasn’t just a catchy title. That was the point. Because we are women. We know what that means. We remember the struggle. We honor our foremothers. And we’re not clapping for our own erasure.

Women’s History Month may be over, but the questions it raised still hang in the air. Yesterday, the very same day Rep. Nikema Williams stepped down as Georgia Democratic Party chair, the Georgia House passed Senate Bill 1—the Riley Gaines Act—by a vote of 100–64, with at least three Democrats breaking ranks to support it. The bill defines “female” in law and protects single-sex spaces like locker rooms, restrooms, and school sports. Notably, Rep. Williams had previously voted against passing the federal Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act back in January.

Hopefully this upcoming change in leadership will signal that Georgia Democrats are beginning to face reality. Supporting child gender medicalization, letting boys dominate girls’ sports, and funding prison sex changes on the taxpayer dime is not a winning strategy. Even in today’s hyper-partisan climate, it’s important that more lawmakers recognize that sex still matters—and that defending women’s rights isn’t bigotry. It’s common sense.

There’s still a path back to relevance. But first, they need to decide: Are they still fighting for women?