Twitter/@pussy_church
This TERF Church Has Officially Been Declared a Place of Worship by the IRS
According to the Internal Revenue Service, the Pussy Church of Modern Witchcraft is officially a church, and has tax-exempt status.
Under the Trump administration, religious liberty isn't just for evangelical Christians who want to justify anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination. It is also for trans-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs) who want to justify discrimination against trans people — particularly trans women.
According to the Internal Revenue Service, the Pussy Church of Modern Witchcraft is officially a church, and doesn't have to pay taxes as a result. As stated on websites that list nonprofits like Charity Navigator and Guidestar, Pussy Church has been granted the IRS' coveted Church 170(b)(1)(A)(i) status. The same tax-exempt categorization has been bestowed upon other religious groups, ranging from Southern Baptist churches to the Church of Satan.
But what sets Pussy Church apart isn't just the blatant reference to genitals in its name. It might just be the first official church of lesbian TERFdom in United States history.
The Pussy Church of Modern Witchcraft is exclusively for women who were assigned female at birth — cisgender women, though they reject the term "cisgender" entirely, as many TERFs do. A small subset of the lesbian community, Pussy Church included, ascribes to the belief that trans women and transfeminine people should be excluded from traditional lesbian and feminist spaces.
The website for Pussy Church makes it clear that membership in the church is limited to what second-wave feminists used to call "womyn-born womyn." To be elected as a church trustee, the Pussy Church articles of incorporation say one must have been "female at birth," and present "evidence of a consistent lesbian life."
"The Pussy Church serves Women and Girls only," reads the "about" page on the church's website. "Males are not permitted to participate, regardless of how they identify. We expressly reject the concepts of gender identity, transgenderism, and gender as being meaningful to defining what a Woman or Girl is."
It's unlikely that any amount of activism would result in the Pussy Church losing its tax-exempt IRS status. In 2013, the White House responded publicly to five separate petitions, with signatures totaling nearly 675,000, demanding that the IRS church status be revoked from the controversial anti-LGBTQ+ Westboro Baptist Church. Although the White House said at the time that Westboro's 'God Hates Fags' logo and habit of protesting funerals was "reprehensible," it declined to officially recognize the church as a hate group.
Tagsnewsterfslesbiansfeminismreligion
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