Susanna Rustin in the Guardian

I'm not entirely sure it's meant to make sense, the 'alignment' is just meant to seem so dreadful and immoral that anyone taking a superficial look into it would scurry away from these awful 'right wing' women. Plus the situation in the UK is so different from the US they're comparing apples and pears, it's absurd.

Modern argument:

You don’t agree with us...

you are transphobic, funded by the American ChrIstian right, racist, or what other insult comes to mind.

I don’t know what

GC does not equal American religious right.

It’s only possible to conflate the two of you completely ignore and misunderstand what each group is saying.

It would be a bit like arguing that Chris Packham = Countryside Alliance because they both opposed a local housing development.

Excellent article by Susanna Rustin!! So grateful to her for this. Speaking as someone who has had 6 children and suffered breast cancer twice, I know that biology and identity are bound up together. By the way, let me know if anyone finds a way of disconnecting from the female body ... might be useful sometimes.

I don't find US style progressivism left-wing at all. It's a form of secular evangelicalism, imo.

And frighteningly authoritarian

Trans people accessing single-sex spaces and activities (e.g. bathrooms)

This bit is also stupid as I am quite sure that nobody is opposed to this - some people including most on this board just think that everyone should access the spaces and activities reserved for people of their sex (as otherwise they wouldn't be single-sex spaces now, would they?).

I don't find US style progressivism left-wing at all. It's a form of secular evangelicalism, imo.

Yes, the gender critical = conservative trope comes from try two-party Red/Blue US system where there is no room for grey areas or nuance. To me, gc feminism is an offshoot of Marxism and it makes sense to me only as a left wing analysis. This heteronormative world view from the US is nowhere close to how I see things.

The same applies to 'biological sex' in this context when we compare gender critical feminists' views to those of very anti-feminist conservatives' views.

It is interesting though, the political bedfellows this issue creates.
I’ve never agreed with my (Tory, Brexit-voting) in laws on anything except how amazing my children are and the appeal of a three-course dinner with plenty of wine. But we’re on the same page on this, for completely different reasons and from completely different angles. Which is disconcerting. My sister was appalled by an old family friend the other day who was “anti BLM, anti MeToo, anti trans rights.” And I had this awful realisation that I’d probably agree with him on trans stuff, and she’d write me off as a bigot too.

Like I said, Deliciously, it was always going to be "When did you stop beating your wife?" So predictable.

From the same school of academia as spawned the recent whitewash job on the "managed zone" (aka legalized rape zone) in Holbeck.

I lost interest, once I saw this. Homosexuality/lesbianism is completely different from trans, so why lump them in together? It means we can’t give a ‘correct’ answer. This should be in two separate questions or are you hoping to accuse GC women of being homophobic by conflating the two?

One might equally (and equally oddly) argue that being gender critical absolutely means the person is a Marxist

Oh yes, I agree. I think 'GC feminists are right wing' is a deliberate slur that's been used in the US for some time and has caught on here. In the context of the research discussed on this thread I think it's a lazy assumption. The thread is interesting which is why I mentioned it.

Yes - I mean I find it equally odd at the moment that many people on the moderate right, or more traditional liberals, are claiming that the adherents of id politics are marxists, despite the fact that they aren't in line with some fairly fundamental marxist positions. And then totally identifying them to various things like Maoism or Leninism. Even neo-marxist would be fine by me as there is clearly some influence there. but you can't be a Marxist if you don't start with material reality.

There is really a lot of loosey-goosey use of terms and I find it to be very obscuring.

But more depressing if this is why researchers think people, or particularly women, would be gender critical and want to preserve sex based

See the 'Gender Critical = fundamentally right wing' thread. I think it stems from the states but it's taken hold here. It's an easy way to demonise GC feminism and avoid difficult questions all at the same time. Just shout bigot and you're done.

How strange to think that on a feminist forum a questionnaire, aimed at people whose religious beliefs are why they oppose gay marriage and abortion, would be a good recruiting ground for participants.

But more depressing if this is why researchers think people, or particularly women, would be gender critical and want to preserve sex based rights.

Another of those funded exercises to confirm one's existing biases.

Another one to chalk up to the ERC. I wonder if they would ever fund a project that allowed gender critical feminists to survey other gender critical feminist to confirm a belief in sex based rights. I think not!

If anyone's researching this from a women's sex-based rights angle, I'd be happy to contribute

Same here.

..Although setting up this kind of project would depend on academics and funders and sponsor HEIs and ethics committees allowing the possibility of gender critical thought.

Unfortunately so far from the outside it looks like 99% of UK academia has already embraced misogynIstic, sexist and homophobic genderist values in an unquestioning way instead.

I think it’s much more likely that a think tank (probably a politically right-leaning one) would do this work before an academic department does. Which is a grim thought because then, even if robustly done, the results will be dismissed because of who has gathered them.

Not to mention the depressing and self defeating truth of academia failing to question this dogmatic politics, and the chilling effect that having on important social research and on academic freedom in general.

I wonder if ANYONE is interested in finding out why left wing women are going GC? Why not?

Yeah, I'm not keen on being lumped in with anti-abortionists, opposers of same sex marriage, people who believe the heterosexual nuclear family is the only valid choice, and those who oppose compulsory sex education.

And I'm raising an eyebrow at queer geography too.

If anyone's researching this from a women's sex-based rights angle, I'd be happy to contribute, but I really don't feel like I'm part of the target audience for this one.

I've looked at the website. Basically if you are anti gay marriage, abortion rights and against gender equality legislation they want you to answer to better understand you. I'll pass thanks.

[quote BeyondOpposition]I'm a researcher on a project looking at sex/gender and sexualities issues, including how gender and sex based rights and women’s rights impact people differently in their daily lives. There are some really interesting perspectives shared in these comments. I am wondering if anyone wants to share their experiences further? Would be really interested to hear your thoughts about how changes to women’s spaces affects you. Our confidential questionnaire is here: beyondopposition.org/questionnaire/[/quote]
You might want to approach MNHQ and get them to repost this in the right section (there is a questionnaires section somewhere) - they're not keen on random requests for this sort of thing popping up on the main boards (annoying, I know, but your post will just get deleted otherwise, so it would be better to move it to where you want it to go).

Though I must say, having had a quick look at the potted biographies of the four lead researchers, I fear this may be a bit of an exercise in "When did you stop beating your wife?"

For example Profs Browne and Nash have written recently on "heteroactivism": many of the women on here are in fact lesbian and worried by trans ideology specifically because of the cotton ceiling, the redefinition of lesbianism as "same gender attracted" and the pressure on young butch lesbians to "trans away the gay."