You don’t need to be a woman, but you can’t be a man
An email to the public from the King County Parks Department promotes four “Community Walk and Talk” events where males specifically are not welcome. According to the October 11 email and the website of Eastrail Partners, the “Women’s Walks” events are “open to all who identify as Women, Trans, Femme, and non-binary.” The events are held in Kirkland, Redmond, and Renton between September 29 and November 12.
The messaging is unambiguous: boys and men should not attend these community events, which are hosted on public property. (The language indicates people who identify as girls are also not welcome.)
Eastrail Partners’ tagline “Making the Eastrail for everyone, every day” rings hollow, as does their assertion that “we are committed to an inclusive Eastrail that is welcoming to all”.
How is this okay?
No rationale is provided for hosting sessions where everyone is welcome except males. What rationale could there be that is not sexist? What rationale could there be that does not rely on bigotry and stereotypes? How can this be anything other than illegal discrimination based on gender identity?
The Women’s Walks events are not essentially for women or people who present as women. They are essentially for anyone who is not a man. How do we know this? Because people who identify as non-binary are invited. This is an important distinction, because the justification for creating these events actually rests not on something that all women are assumed to have in common (otherwise why would non-binary people be invited), but on something all men are assumed to have in common (something that justifies excluding them). What is that thing that all men are assumed to have in common that justifies creating separate community events on public property where one can attend and be free from the presence of a man?
The simultaneous inclusion of non-binary people and exclusion of men suggests that what underpins the creation of these events is something about men. The message that this is sending to our boys and young men about the human beings they will soon become — men…it is very sad. This is not progressive. This is not accepting. This is not inclusive.
Here is the King County Parks email
The next part of the email shows four sessions where apparently everyone is welcome and four sessions that are “open to all who identify as Women, Trans, Femme, and non-binary.”
See related: Chairperson of King County Council rejects idea of a Men’s Commission: ‘Men don’t face systemic discrimination, Women do’ and When Schools Teach Boys They Are Oppressors
The events are hosted by Eastrail Partners, with support from Symetra, a financial services company headquartered in Bellevue.
It is unclear to what extent the King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks is also playing a role in organizing and hosting these events, which are described as “a great chance to get outside, explore different sections of the trail, meet other trail users in your community, and learn more about future trail development.” At minimum, they are promoting the discriminatory events through their official email newsletter. Their email’s statement “Come join us” gives the impression they are involved in putting on the events.
Washington Initiative for Boys and Men believes that one day we will look back and feel regret that the struggle toward gender equity and removing gender-based barriers for all people included things such as these well-intentioned but prejudiced Women’s Walks events — with no provision for Men’s Walks events — and King County’s promotion of them. We will one day recognize these kinds of events as having unnecessarily validated anti-male prejudice and negative stereotypes about males.