An unofficial group of trans and queer community members in Worcester, MA is raising the alarm about a radical feminist organization hosting a conference at Worcester State University, calling the organization and its leadership anti-trans.
The organization, Total Woman Victory, which describes itself as “a quarterly radical feminist newsletter working to amplify the voices of women,” has put together a radical feminist conference called TORCH, that will be meeting for the first time from October 9th to the 11th. The conference will feature an array of speakers and workshops focusing on “theory-building, getting organized, consciousness-raising, and historicizing contradictions.”
Among the small group of women who run TWV is Sathi Patel, who has been the primary organizer of TORCH. Patel, who co-runs a New Afrikan feminist bookstore in Worcester, is an inflammatory figure in leftist spaces in the area, regularly posting anti-trans opinions on Twitter, calling trans women in women’s bathrooms men, worrying about trans mass-shooters, and posting “Trans fad is overrrrrrrrrrr” just days after the murder of Juniper Blessing in Seattle.
“This type of rhetoric is right out of Fox News, it’s pretty startling,” said Rita Mookerjee, an assistant professor at WSU who co-runs the university’s Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department.
In addition to her views expressed on Twitter, Patel was also featured as a speaker at a conference put on by the prominent UK TERF group, FiLiA, which was one of the organizations named in Amnesty International’s now recanted A Growing Threat: the Anti-rights Movement in the UK. Past FiLiA speakers have included Maya Forstater, Stephanie Davies-Arai, and J. K. Rowling.
TORCH itself is not without its own anti-trans speakers. An event program obtained by Assigned Media lists the various workshops, panels, and speakers that will be in attendance. Largely the list consists of local feminist organizers in anti-trafficking, anti-porn, and anti sex-work spaces, as well as several members of the radical feminist group, the Redstockings.
However, also on the list are several notable anti-trans writers and activists: Nevaline Nnaji, editor for the anti-trans anthology She Holds the Line; Kathy Scarbrough, editor for the blog Meeting Ground; and activist, Sasha Graham.
After the conference was announced a month ago, students and staff at WSU expressed their concerns about hosting the event. However, their concerns were seemingly waved off by the university’s administration. “Its institutional cowardice,” said Rita, “it’s so frustrating to work and come into a school that flies the pride flag in the center of our campus and simultaneously permits anti-trans rhetoric, misinformation, disinformation, and foolishness.”
Total Woman Victory did not respond to Assigned Media’s request for comment before publication. We will update our story to include any comment we may receive subsequently.
Valorie Van-Dieman (they/she) is the Associate Editor of Assigned Media. @valorievandieman.bsky.social
Can we please not refer to “TERFS” as in ANY way “feminist”?
The better term for them is FARTs: “Feminism-Appropriating Reactionary Transphobes”.
“Feminism-appropriating”: they STEAL the (other) “F” word from actual feminists. They have NO authentic feminism of their own, other than loathing trans women/infantilizing trans men.
“FARTs”: use it!
Let’s not call “activists” who don’t know anything or care anything about feminism “feminists” either. This sounds like total hate speech against women.
This sounds quite identical to the “very secretive conference” at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, back in June 2024. 3 anti-trans extremists (Hilary Cass, Mikael Landén and Riittakerttu Kaltiala) were invited to come and explain how to destroy the lives of trans children and why that was necessary. When the conference was found out about students objected as well, but nothing happened. The Progressive Pride flag was waving in front of the building while inside the removal of rights of trans children was openly advocated for.
Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant disgustingly had a journalist choose the side of the organizers of the conference and portrayed the demonstrators in cront of the VU campus building entrance as people “out to stifle and kill scientific debate”. That the conference was literally anti-scientific apparently didn’t matter to her. In the piece, basically just 1 word was given to the demonstrators after this journalist actually interviewed the main spokesperson for far longer. The only word that ended up in the article at the end even, portrayed the demonstrators as extreme, dangerous and insane…