Photo by Fartein Rudjord

Christina Ellingsen's speech to the Women's Space to Speak meeting in Dublin on November 12th 2022

My name is Christina. I do not believe that men who claim to be women, girls, lesbian or mothers are what they claim to be.

I was informed by the Norwegian police in May of this year, that I was under investigation for suspected hate speech on the grounds of gender identity. The law being enacted against me was the law I went to the hearing for in 2020, where I warned that the inclusion of the concept "gendered identity" into Norwegian criminal law would enable subjective beliefs to become the basis for what is considered punishable by law. I also warned that the abuse of this law against women would be inevitable because to certain groups, having an objective understanding of biological sex is considered hateful, and women were already being reported to the police by activists for having such an objective understanding of biological sex. It now turned out that the very thing I was warning the justice committee against, was happening to me.

The man who has reported me to the police is a man employed at the leading queer organisation in Norway, Foreningen FRI. He is a man who claims to be a lesbian mother. His job is to be an advisor in gender and sexuality, which I find incredibly ironic. The lobby organisation he works for has several goals on their political agenda which is directly dependent on the sexual and reproductive exploitation of women - the legalisation of surrogacy, legalisation of procuration and brothels and the reversal of the Nordic model. They are also working to extend the discrimination law to include fetishes and BDSM.

Already, before going into the necessity of being able to differentiate between sex and gender identity - in a functioning democracy, the opposing views held by me as a women’s rights activist and this lobby organization for the queer patriarchy would have to meet. And when this man didn't block me on Twitter, our opposing views DID in fact meet. The result being that he reported every single interaction we had in the year since the hate crime law came into effect.

The statements he reported was later extended to include one hearing and a TV debate. These statements all include my assertion after assertion of the following: men cannot be women, girls, mothers or lesbians, because men are male, it is impossible to change sex, and women are adult human females. I have been interviewed by the police twice, for a total of 9 hours. The police are yet to reach a conclusion - whether or not to drop the case or to charge me with a hate crime. If charged, I face the risk of up to three years in prison.

Women and girls are not a hormone level, a feeling, an inner sense of feminity. Women are not small, castrated men. Sex is a biological mechanism for reproduction, defined by an organism’s potential to produce one of the two types of gametes; ova or sperm. Nothing more and nothing less. Ova is characterised by having the potential to pass on the two types of DNA necessary to sustain life, that is - chromosomal DNA and mitochondrial DNA. Sperm is characterised by having the potential to pass on one type of DNA, that is - chromosomal DNA. As a consequence of the nature of biological sex, the ova-producing sex of a species - the female - is the only one facing the risks of reproduction. For humans these risks include social, financial, legal and cultural risks, in addition to the physical risks of pregnancy, birth and maternity. Women are adult human females. Women's rights are developed to address and mitigate these risks in order to prevent biological sex from being a source of discrimination against women and girls.

It is as impossible to change biological sex as it is to change species. There exists no combination of thought patterns, mannerisms, hobbies, preferences or aesthetics that can disqualify a man from the male sex and qualify them into the female sex. Men who claim to be women are essentially doing womanface, and are as successful at challenging sexism as blackface is at challenging racism.

To deny the objective reality of biological sex and to replace legal protections against sex-based discrimination against women with the subjective concept "gendered identity", is to erase women’s rights.

I have the right to reject the personal convictions held by anyone if those convictions fail to convince me. Women have the right to reject the personal convictions held by men, especially when the convictions held by men are about women, and especially when these convictions replace an objective understanding of biological sex with subjective concept of gendered identities.

It does not matter why men who claim to be women are motivated to do so - if it is because they have a mental disorder, or because they do not have a mental disorder, or because they have a fetish, or because they don't have a fetish. The motivations makes no difference - there exists no fair-trade, ethically sourced, climate-friendly motivation that makes the claim that a man is a woman, girl, mother or lesbian true. Women and girls are female human beings, and any definition that includes men in this category is a definition that fundamentally undermines the humanity of women and girls, and which is dependent on reducing women and girls to stereotypes.

We have important things we need to talk about, and we need the leeway to talk freely. The investigation against me is particularly ironic, because the law that is enacted against me excludes women and the characteristic "sex". Which means that if he is right, and he really is a woman, the law would in theory not apply to him. However, if he is what I say he is, which is a man who claims to be a woman, he would have protection in the law, but then of course, I would be right - which begs the question - is this the purpose of the law? For men employed at lobby organisations for the queer patriarchy to be able to persecute women who disagree with them by claiming a level of legal protection not even afforded to the people they imitate?

We have many things to talk about regarding the safety and dignity of women and girls. We need to be able to talk about laws that accurately identify and apply to the protection of women against sexual and reproductive exploitation, especially in light of the developments within biotechnology, as well as the booming but harmful industries that enable sexual exploitation. In order to do this we need to be able to talk about what a woman is without facing the risk of persecution. Don't obey in advance and use your voices while you can.

Thank you.