The National Organization for Women emailed supporters urging them to help pass the Equality Act. They explained the legislation made “more sense than ever” given a recent Supreme Court ruling and the pressing need to ensure that LGBTQIA+ people are protected from all forms of discrimination.

Set aside, for a moment, the merits of their proposal to consider that nowhere in the body of the 500+ word email alert does the word “women” appear. Is this supposedly feminist group, once a stalwart of the “women’s rights” movement, now uncomfortable even with the word women?

The safe bet is, yes. Today, the National Organization for Women, like the many other progressive groups that operate under the women’s banner, want to move toward a society where women are no longer recognized as legally distinct from men and where female-only spaces are expressly forbidden.

This isn’t a question of ensuring that transgender women (or men) have the opportunity to participate fully in society. In Bostock v. Clayton County, a majority of the Supreme Court held that discrimination based on gender identify is a form of sex discrimination and therefore legally out of bounds. While that case centered around employment, the same precedent and logic could just as easily be applied to education, athletics, and all other aspects of anti-discimination law. According to Justice Gorsuch, anything that distinguishes between males and females could be considered discriminatory and, thus, illegal.

What does a sex-less future mean for women?

For starters, the Supreme Court’s new ruling provides a powerful precedent for a male student vying for a spot on a women’s athletic team. Recent years witnessed a growing number of transgender women entering—and dominating—formerly female-only athletic competitions—from boxing and wrestling to weightlifting, cycling, and track and field. Not surprisingly, females competing against these male-bodied athletes lost athletic events, spots on teams, and the chance for scholarships.

The number of transgendered women competing in female sports is growing, but remains relatively small. But there may soon be a large number of boys and men who attempt to make women’s sports co-ed by relying on this precedent.

Radical progressives want people to imagine that sex-differences are socially-constructed and that women won’t be affected by having to compete with men. But the rank-and-file women who attended the Women’s March with their daughters and who talk about smashing glass ceilings presumably still accept the scientific reality that, on average, men have more muscle mass and lung capacity than women. If female athletes are forced to compete against males, they will lose. And some, for their own mental health and physical safety, will be unlikely to compete at all. Is this fair?

Perhaps NOW, National Women’s Law Center, and even the Women’s Sports Foundation have decided that female athletics isn’t such a big deal after all. Maybe they are ok with reversing the recent decades-long explosion in female athletic participation.

Do they feel the same about STEM (science, technology, engineering and technology) programs and scholarships reserved exclusively for women and girls? In a sex-less society, these programs would have to go too.

And what about domestic violence shelters and prisons and jails? Do feminist groups now believe that the instinct to separate women and men in these facilities was just rank sexism and the kind of discrimination that ought to be eradicated in the name of equality and justice?

That seems to be the case. Progressive women’s groups may wear their purple ribbons to acknowledge domestic violence month, but they don’t dare question calls to defund the police, seemingly unconcerned about who will show up to protect women, who sadly are the overwhelming majority of domestic violence abuse victims?

In January 2020, the once mighty Women’s March had shriveled to a mere trickle. Perhaps the reason is that progressive leaders have come to recognize the entire concept of a Women’s March is offensive and exclusionary.

It’s time for women and those of us who truly care about women’s progress, happiness, and safety to recognize that progressive feminist groups are just not that into us anymore.