Transphobic and Transcritical - what is the difference?

If anyone can point me in the right direction of some scientific discussion/research of 'born in the wrong body' I would be very grateful. I keep reading lots of personal (often very passionate) viewpoints on both sides, but I haven't come across anything very academic. I'm not an academic, but I'm just going round in circles in my head with the whole argument and I want some real hard facts to deal with.

To me, The Silence of the Lambs was a good example of actual transphobia. Man a bit fucked up and not happy in own body - of course he's going to make a suit out of skin and prance about it in! 'Ware the trannies!

Being concerned about the erosion of women's rights, safe spaces, and statistics on crime etc isn't trans phobic. Being concerned that a narrative is taking over which is opposed to everything feminism stands for - that 'gender' is a 'feeling' and being kind/liking dolls etc means you must be a woman is not transphobic - it's transcritical.

I think where the two things do get a bit complicated is the toilets debate. Because our genuine concerns about who can and can't come in are really about the problem that we might no longer be able to challenge any men - but they get reframed and made to look absurd on the deliberate misunderstanding that we think all trans people are abusers and rapists, which was never the issue.

DJ BaggySmalls says: To me, transphobic would be denying trans people exist. I am having trouble with exactly this. At the moment I am struggling to get to grips with the validity of the concept 'born in the wrong body'. It doesn't seems possible to scientifically prove or disprove it, so if I decide that I don't believe in it then I am essentially denying trans people exist. On the other hand, I am not hateful to anyone, I don't want anyone to be discriminated against for their life choices etc etc - I don't think I'm transphobic but according to BaggySmalls I might be.

The problem with deciding whether or not you are transphobic towards transgendered people is you first to define 'transgender'.

Is it an autogynephile? Is it a 19-year-old student who wants to feel special and has six different genders on a daily basis? Is it a person with crippling gender dysphoria? Is it a person who profoundly believes in individualism? Is it a confused gay teenager?

All those come under the term transgender. Someone will have a completely different opinion of a fetishist cross dresser who likes forced feminisation, to 17 year old confused lesbian.

In otherwords, I do not think there is an objective standard here. You are being transphobic to some just by denying that transmen and women are men and women, or by saying they shouldn't be allowed to do this that or the other that some of them want to. Because tthose using the term agree with those aims/wishes.
This sounds to me a touch post-modernist (the word means what the person using it says it means). I don't agree with: words need to have widely-accepted meanings, otherwise we can't discuss anything.

I am definitely another one who agrees that
I am gender critical because it is offensive to me as a woman to have my sex reduced down to a steriotype which is then performed

Transphobic people are the men who rape and kill MtT because they are MtT. Transphobia will always exist, but I've yet to see any feminist express it.

I'm not sure transcritical is a useful word. To me it implies that whatwe are doing in criticising trans people, which is only the case in the somewhat elaborate imaginations of those who scream bigot when you point out that a 3 yr old boy having a liking for pink doesn't mean you should be considering medicating them for life.

I am critical of gender as it is enforced in Patriarchy. The rigidity of gender is such that noticing your 3 yr old boy likes pink is enough for some people to think that medicatinghim is the best way to cure him of gender nonconformity.

Transphobia is a dislike or prejudice against transgender people, which is your definition of "transcritical"

Then stop wantonly slinging around the term "transphobic" about people who do not dislike transpeople in general nor are prejudiced against them.

I would use transcritical or transkeptic. Neither of those is about transphobia. Both relate to a need to ask questions, to debate these issues and to find ways to ensure the rights of all.

Gender critical here. Which in some circles means I'm a TERF and should die.

*son, not soname

Bluntness we don't have a dislike of transgender people. My own soname is transgender. We simply disagree with some of the ideologies which are vocalise by a minority of the trans community (ie transactivists). We are critical of those ideologies which are harmful to children, women and homosexual people - hence we are 'transcritical'.

Transphobia is a dislike or prejudice against transgender people, which is your definition of "transcritical"

Transphobia is basically a spectrum of negative attitudes towards trans gender people.

"Trans critical" I'm not sure is even a thing, and by your own description would fall into the transphobia definition spectrum.

I am gender critical because it is offensive to me as a woman to have my sex reduced down to a steriotype which is then performed

I also agree with this. I am a woman. A biological female. I work In the IT industry and have no interest whatsoever in clothes, make up, shoes and handbags and what my tits look like. I perform femininity to the degree that is cultural accepted. Leg shaving, makeup when required and when it would be against my interests not to.

I'm gender critical, and critical of certain trans activism. Plenty of trans men and women are too.

I believe there are people with dysphoria whose lives are made easier by living in the body they see themselves as and I believe they should have the right to do this without threat, harassment and fear. I believe they should be able to do this without relinquishing any rights

I don't believe that "woman" is a feeling you can identify in and out of, it's a reality. I don't believe children who play with dolls and like dresses must be girls and must be transitioned to save them from a life of misery. Sex, and the oppression of females is in my opinion based on several biological realities which may not be present in all females but doesn't void the biological reality. I don't believe that after nearly 30 years living as a male, my DP can say he's a woman and be instantly more oppressd than me. Believing in many of these things would have me seen as a transphobe by many trans activists. In fact the single most dangerous, fatal thing for trans women is... lesbians who won't fuck them and feminists who don't accept woman is nothing more than a feeling. Much more dangerous than the actual men doing the harm. And because they don't conform to gender, not because men are oppressing them in the same way (but worse) than women.

That behaviour is transphobic. Finding trans people disgusting, harming them, not wanting to be near them, wishing them harm, shaming or outing trans people for being trans... ill treatment on the basis they are different from you, other than the norm, is transphobia. I don't even treat trans people's whose interpretation of gender is questionable. I simply don't agree with their arguments.

I am gender critical.

I understand Trans to be an umbrella term to describe a variety of psychological and separate biological states, rather than a noun to describe a thing.

I don't understand gender to be the same as biological sex, it is a term to describe the socialised form of the sex, and is subject to fashions and change.

I am gender critical because I don't believe that the socially defined version of the "sex" is fair and correct. Men can like what they want, wear what they want, love who they want, and so can women.

I am gender critical because it is offensive to me as a woman to have my sex reduced down to a steriotype which is then performed.

I have been called transphobic for these views, which I don't think is fair.

I agree with you JAPAB that objectively the word transphobia has largely meaningless because it can mean anything a person thinks it should. I'm sure that's what you were saying

IME "phobic" doesn't have to mean fearing or hating people. It can also be used to refer to attempts to deny their wanted rights or their wishes or aims, if the person using the term agrees with those aims/rights.

Few people will accuse you of being Islamaphobic for opposing FGM say, but somne of them might if you were to oppose Muslims having the right to pray perhaps.

To those who think same-sex couples should be allowed to adopt and have equal billing with opposite-sex couples in the agency, it might be homophobic to hold anyother view.

In otherwords, I do not think there is an objective standard here. You are being transphobic to some just by denying that transmen and women are men and women, or by saying they shouldn't be allowed to do this that or the other that some of them want to. Because tthose using the term agree with those aims/wishes.

Thanks for this thread. Maybe now we can have an adult discussion without accusations of transphobia thrown around.

Allow me my naivety: maybe we can start making a more open, less entrenched debate!

This would be great!

We need to be able to critique our world without being labelled as some sort of bigot.

Can we carry this concept over to Brexit debates too, please.