Who Decides Which Women Are Allowed to Speak?

A reckoning with belief, biology, and the cost of belonging in America

I came to America carrying hope that was hard-earned.

Like many immigrants, I arrived with the belief that this country—imperfect but aspirational— made room for complexity. That it valued freedom of thought, dissent, and the dignity of individual experience. That my story, shaped by displacement, gender-based harm, fear, and cultural repression, would not only be tolerated but understood as a source of insight rather than suspicion.

For years—especially when I was still young and attractive—I was told that I mattered. That my background mattered. That my trauma mattered. That my lived experience was not something to hide, but something to honor. That I was a strong woman, a warrior, courageous. I was told that authenticity was welcome here, and that I would never again have to fear being honest about who I am or how I see the world— I was now seen in my fullness, my womanhood, my unapologetic feminism.

That promise did not come from the political right.
It came from the progressive left.

And that is what makes the disillusionment so painful.

I want to be clear: I hold deep and legitimate fears about the extreme right’s views on immigrants. I am acutely aware of the fragility of legal status, of how quickly rhetoric can turn into policy, and of how precarious belonging can feel for those of us who come from regions of the world viewed with suspicion or hostility—especially in moments of political volatility, such as the return of a Trump administration. That fear is real, and I live it everyday.

But what has surprised—and wounded—me most is not the rejection I fear from the right.
It is the rejection I have experienced from the left.

The same political and cultural movement that told me I was safe.
The same spaces that told me my story mattered.
The same institutions that assured me I would never again have to silence myself to belong.

I have been, and continue to be, an ally to marginalized communities. I share an affinity with people from other cultures who came to this country, by choice or not. I remain unshaken in fighting racism and bigotry. I celebrate spaces where access is granted for all types of abled and non-abled bodies. I ache for the economically unstable and know that I too (now unemployed) am but a skip away from living with their challenges. I believe deeply in the dignity, safety, and humanity of gay and queer people. I defend—without reservation—everyone’s right to live freely, authentically, and without fear. I accept that gender and its roles is, in many ways, socially constructed, culturally mediated, and experienced differently across time and place. I am not hostile to nuance. I am not threatened by complexity.

What I am struggling with is something far more basic: the erasure of women’s lived reality when that reality complicates or challenges ideology.

I spent the first 25 years of my life under conditions that were oppressive, patriarchal, and dehumanizing—not metaphorically, but literally, materially. I was constrained, surveilled, and harmed because I was born female. Biology, in my life, was not an abstract concept. It was destiny imposed by force, justified by religion, culture, and power. I was veiled as a child because of it, denied opportunities because of it, and risked my life for freedom—simply because I was born female.

That biological reality did not disappear when I became a mother. Pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, and caregiving are not neutral experiences—they are profound physical, emotional, and social transformations rooted entirely in female biology. Motherhood and now menopause exposed my body to risk, responsibility, and vulnerability in ways that are rarely acknowledged in abstract debates about gender. It deepened my understanding of how women’s bodies are sites of both creation and control—and how easily that reality is minimized once it becomes politically inconvenient.

That experience did not end when I crossed a border.

It lives in my nervous system.
It shapes my values.
It informs how I assess risk, policy, language, and power.

And yet, when I speak from this place—when I insist that biological sex matters in conversations about gender, law, safety, health, and rights—I am told that my experience is invalid. That it is outdated. That it is dangerous. That it must be subordinated to a newer moral framework.

This is where the contradiction becomes impossible to ignore.

In progressive spaces, Islam—despite its documented and ongoing role in the oppression of women in many parts of the world—is often granted a kind of moral immunity under the banner of cultural sensitivity. Critique is discouraged. Complexity is flattened. Women’s testimonies are softened, relativized, or dismissed as “not representative,” in fact, Islam is often glorified and celebrated in performative protests and social media posts.

Yet when women like me speak—women whose skepticism toward gender ideology is rooted not in hatred, but in survival, in lived experience—we are offered no such grace. In fact, holding this position in good faith ultimately cost me my job. Our trauma is inconvenient. Our perspective is unwelcome. Our biology is treated as an embarrassment—or a threat. If time and time again women’s rights and lived experiences are deemed inconvenient, unimportant, and even a bigoted position for the left, how can it call itself the party of justice and fairness?

That biology that is “non-existent” nearly cost me my life.

As a breast cancer survivor, I have lived through another form of gender-based vulnerability— one written directly into female bodies. My diagnosis was not a social construct. My treatment was not symbolic. My scars are not theoretical. Cancer did not care about ideology—my cancer was exclusively linked to biology, to the role my ovaries played in the manifestation of the disease. It followed biological pathways specific to women, reshaping my body, my sense of mortality, and my understanding of risk. To be told, after surviving that, that biology is incidental or negotiable is not just intellectually dishonest—it is profoundly alienating and insulting.

There is a serious lack of empathy here—especially among those in Western societies who approach these debates from positions of safety, privilege, comfort, entitlement, and abstraction. If more people truly cared about how women and girls are treated globally, they would not be so quick to dismiss the relevance of biological sex, even if they believe otherwise. They would understand that for millions of women, sex is not an identity—it is a site of control, violence, and limitation.

I have read the arguments that attempt to discredit biological science. I am not unfamiliar with them. I come to every topic with a willingness—in fact a desire—to learn everything about it from positions that affirm my belief, and those that challenge it. I am not unwilling to engage with some of their claims. I accept that gender expression is diverse, fluid, and culturally shaped.

But there is a fundamental incoherence that cannot be ignored.

For there to be non-binary identities, there must be something binary being departed from.
For there to be trans women and trans men, there must be a material reality—male and female— from which transition holds meaning.

If sex were not real, transition would be unnecessary.
If biology did not matter, no one would need to affirm or resist it.

Recognizing this does not negate anyone’s humanity. It does not justify cruelty. It does not deny anyone dignity. It simply insists on intellectual honesty. I remain unwavering in my belief that everyone deserves safety, respect, and the freedom to live as they choose. I will always defend that. But I will not abandon the lens through which I understand the world—a lens forged by science, but also by religion, patriarchy, and gender-based harm.

That lens has also been shaped by motherhood and survival—by giving life, and by nearly losing my own. These experiences are not incidental to my views; they are foundational. They are the reason I refuse to pretend that sex is a minor detail rather than a defining force, especially in women’s lives.

I cannot pretend that sex is irrelevant when it has shaped every consequence of my life.

If belonging in America now requires silence about that truth, then something has gone deeply wrong—not with immigrants like me, not with women who speak carefully and in good faith, but with two sides pulling this country apart on two extreme ends—both feeling threatened by challenges to their ideological positions; a society that has confused moral certainty with moral courage. True inclusion does not demand trans-formation or erasure. True progress does not require unquestioned obedience and allyship. And true safety cannot exist where honesty and authenticity are punished.

I did not come to America to trade one form of silence for another.
A society that polices speech forfeits its freedom.