According to today’s so-called feminists, women should accept men as our allies and compatriots in arms… if they’re transgender, anyway. If they paint on some makeup, grow their hair long, pump themselves full of hormones, and wear pretty dresses, then they’re pretty much the same thing, right? We don’t need science mansplaining stuff to us. They’re just as much women as we actual women are. Therefore, they’re part of the feminist movement. Make sense?

Not everyone is in line with today’s feminist radicals. Most people don’t think that a dude in drag is the same thing as a real woman. Not even all feminists agree with that craziness. Some of them take offense to the idea that transgender women are just as good as the real thing. And Pia di Solemni just slammed the inherent patriarchy present in the transgender movement in a column for Crux.

Despite these advances, today’s “trans movement” (particularly the transwoman sector) inadvertently takes us back to a time when women were valued based on their appearance, and whether they fit someone else’s preconceived notion of femininity. In essence, all it takes to be a woman today are [fake] breasts and good hair.

As a culture, we are telling women that the feelings and sentiments of a particular group of men – in this case, men who regard themselves as women – matter more than they do. That’s patriarchy by definition, even if women happen to agree to it.

Yes, some individuals suffer from gender dysphoria, but I am very hesitant to say that their struggle gives them the right to identify with the sex of their choice. As a woman, I cannot concede that being female simply means that one wears makeup, sexy lingerie, and a hair-do.

… Whether we’re talking about Target, or states that have passed legislation along the same lines, the practical result now is that any man, whether he’s identifying as a woman or looking for his next victim, may use the women’s restroom because he feels like it.

So much for women’s rights.

… Rather than a civil rights issue, I would argue that the bathroom wars indicate that we’re entering an entirely new phase of patriarchy which declares victory every time it destroys a safe space for women, including bathrooms, fitting rooms, locker rooms, and so on.

This new patriarchy scored a breakthrough when Bruce Jenner, in his April 2015 interview with Diane Sawyer, casually commented that he looked forward to becoming a woman so that he could paint his nails and drink wine with his girlfriends. Jenner equated being a woman with the most trivial accidentals, while mainstream media outlets, including awards from Glamour and ESPN, celebrated his courage.

Never mind that he couldn’t even stand for his Vanity Fair debut, lest we see that his male anatomy remained.

Another defeat for women came after Jenner’s transition to a new identity as Caitlyn, when he (perhaps channeling his inner Dionne Warwick) famously stated that the hardest part about being a woman was deciding what to wear each day. Patriarchy triumphed again.

Time after time, the new patriarchy reinforces that being a woman is simply about the externals, what you look like. Cue Hugh Hefner.

Jenner may be the most celebrated transperson alive. Jenner came out as trans, and the media fell all over itself celebrating. Because somehow, this was laudatory. He won the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage from ESPN… not because he did anything, mind you, but simply because he declared himself a woman. Don’t even get started on him being named Glamour’s Woman of the Year. There’s his reality show, and of course, the aforementioned Diane Sawyer interview:

For Jenner, right from the beginning, being a woman has been all about the frivolous. It’s been about wearing pretty dresses, and lots of makeup, and gossiping with girlfriends over mimosas at Sunday brunch. It’s a shallow mockery of what femininity actually is, and it’s an insult to women everywhere. And while he’s the most notable example, he’s certainly not the only one.

The sad thing about the transgender movement is that now, it’s trickling down to children. Small children, who can’t even settle on their favorite color for longer than a week, are supposedly “transgender” and therefore, must be allowed to transition. On the mild end of the spectrum are the parents who just let their boys were princess dresses and their daughters cut their hair off. They pull them out of school for a while, and then send them back in with a new name and dressed as the opposite sex. On the extreme end, you have parents who actually start their children on hormone therapy before they’ve even had a chance to go through puberty (something pediatricians deride as child abuse).

And like Jenner, you’ll notice that for these children, it’s very shallow interpretations of gender that lead parents to push their children into “transitioning”. My son loves the colors pink and purple, and he likes to play with princess dolls more than he likes to play with trucks; he must really be a girl. My daughter loves getting dirty, hates pink, and is obsessed with sports; she must really be a boy! Funnily enough, the liberal extremists who egg on this idiocy would ordinarily scream in outrage over the idea of gender roles. Insinuate the science is more of a guy thing, and they’ll howl. Say that pink is a girl color, and they’ll call a press conference demanding that you’re burned at the stake. But as soon as you drop the word “transgender” in there, suddenly, gender roles become completely carved in stone.

So transwomen like Jenner are, of course, obsessed with things like shopping and makeup. The hardest part isn’t something like menstruation, childbirth, or menopause (which transwomen will never experience, ever), or even horrors like female genital mutilation or honor killings. Nope, it’s things like getting dressed. Because all women care about is clothes.

It was already sexist and misogynistic enough without adding in the bathroom controversy, but once you do, it’s infuriating. Women, even women who are sexual assault victims, should be willing to sit down and shut up about whether or not they feel scared or uncomfortable in a bathroom or locker room with a man. Women don’t matter; the men dressed as women do. It’s more important for the men dressed as women to feel comfortable than it is for actual women to feel safe. But, you know, don’t worry your pretty little head about the transgender movement and patriarchy. Remember, men who feel like they’re women are more important than actual women.