Q&A thread for New Posters

(Thank you! It is easier to post on a Q&A thread than to make a new thread for something that may have been discussed.)

My question is about the term "gender critical" or GC. In my native language, sex and gender (as a classification system) are the same word. For example if I say "We don't know the baby's sex yet, but we've chosen a traditionally gender-neutral name" the two highlighted parts are the same word. There is a separate word for a sexual act: for example, "nonconsensual sex is a crime".

I find the use of sex and gender in English confusing. I understand the separate status of "sex" and "gender reassignment" in UK law but the words sex and gender still seem to be used nonconsistently in most other ways. If sex is biological and gender is the culturally specific traditions (stereotypes) around it, where is the line drawn? Can it be drawn consistently?

Someone used a comparison with age earlier which I found thought provoking. Someone’s age is a biological fact, but there is cultural padding around it: both laws that vary and may not even exist in some places (age of consent, age of majority, drinking age, conscription age, retirement age) and more social or stereotypical concepts like “acting your age” or “you’re too young to wear makeup” or magazine articles (mainly for women) showing how to dress appropriately for your 20s, 30s, etc. Why linguistically separate sex from its cultural baggage, but not age?

Anyway, I wondered if the term "gender critical" is something some feminists have chosen for themselves, or is it a label imposed on them? And can one be gender critical without being a feminist, or vice versa?

Also, the term "radical feminist" seems to be used interchangeably with "gender critical feminist" but much of the feminist analysis I've seen that's labelled as "gender critical" from the UK seems based in Marxist, materialist or socialist feminism rather than radical feminism. Is there a difference between radical feminst versus Marxist feminist views on "gender" and the conflict of rights?

@Anovaneway welcome to mumsnet! Fascinating first thread but I genuinely look forward to your evidence based contribution to the feminism board.

I think only a discussion on the etymology of ‘diversion’ could beat this.

Also though, shall we not trash this thread for new people with the same arguments we've had before. I've posted to show that some of the 'fact' often claimed here are heavily disputed, but I'm happy to just leave it at that without arguing the toss about each one.

Sorry they are not heavily disputed, the numbers of transgender prisoners born male convicted of sexual offences etc. are a matter of public record and unfortunately confirm the other evidence that the subset of males which consists of transwomen present a considerable risk to the female sex and should not be allowed in places where members of the female sex are vulnerable.

Well, we are in a bind, aren’t we?

If I list all the links I found to stories regarding transgender sex offenders convicted in the Uk in the last two years, of which I found about ten with a quick google, then I will be “accusing all transwomen of being sex offenders”, when I don’t believe all transwomen are sex offenders.

But If I don’t link the stories, then the minimisation can continue.

I do not want to look at lots of reports of sex offences, I’m feeling queasy from just finding a few.

I think I’ll just leave it at that.

[quote Mrsmorton]@jj1968 you are literally advocating for men with cocks, to be incarcerated with the most vulnerable women in society.

So... why is that? Why do you think it's acceptable for women to be collateral damage to your ideology?[/quote]
No, I was arguing to start shutting the prison system down and replacing it with something better.

For the record I think trans inclusion in prison should be done with careful assessment, that sex offenders not be placed in the women's estate and that arrangements are introduced around showers/cells to ensure privacy and safety for everyone. Prisons make decisions every day whether it is safe to release people ack into society let alone a different type of prison, and trans people should only ever be transferred if the safety of everyone can be established - at least as much as possible in an institution that contains murderers who probably arent very safe either - less safe I imagine than a trans woman banged up for beneift fraud.

Also though, shall we not trash this thread for new people with the same arguments we've had before. I've posted to show that some of the 'fact' often claimed here are heavily disputed, but I'm happy to just leave it at that without arguing the toss about each one.

@jj1968 you are literally advocating for men with cocks, to be incarcerated with the most vulnerable women in society.

So... why is that? Why do you think it's acceptable for women to be collateral damage to your ideology?

@JackieBeaver no they're just feminists.
The issue is that many trans rights activists want to infringe on women's rights. For example, rights to compete in our own sports and have our own safe spaces.

Historically women (feminists) have had to battle hard for these (For example, league football for women was banned after the war; the fact that there were no women's toilets in workplaces was used to keep women out of the workforce.)

Obviously asking to dismantle these things is a conflict of interest.

As always, with the prison question, I would far rather focus on “do women have the right not to be locked up in cells with male bodied violent or sex offenders?”

I mean, I guess you could say “no” to that, or “it depends if that violent male offender really wants that to happen”, but it’s not a very ethical position, IMO.

You’ve been called out on this many, many times jj. You clearly know of the many other cases of sexual assault, paedophilic crimes and other such convictions of transwomen in the last 2 years.

Well if transcrime is correct there are no examples of a trans women being convicted of sexual assault in 2020 against either an adult or a child. There was one conviction for attempt to engage in sexual communication, one for images of child sexual abuse and three people convicted for breaching terms of sexual harm prevention orders. 2019 shows a pretty similar picture. Thousands of men are convicted of sexual offences every year. Even at the lowest possible estimates of the numbers of trans people if trans women offended at the same rate as men you'd expect to see dozens of offences, and they just aren't there.

Are gc feminists anti trans people? What is the issue?

This is one of several threads called something like 'this never happens'.

The title is is, of course, irony.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3348290-It-will-never-happen-resource-thread

I'd also like to add that sexual assaults have been historically low this year on account of Covid robbing predators of situations to select victims.

So data from the last two years will be massively screwed by that. Anyway, as @Datun says women have sex based rights based on their oppression, which is due to their sex. It is these rights that are being attacked and dismantled. Men's rights to women's spaces can't be threatened or denied because men do not have this right to begin with.
Regardless of how they dress.

What we do know is that studies has found that between 10-40% of trans women are exclusively attracted to men.

So are gay men. & some of them, I'm sure, feel unsafe in male prisons.

Sexual attraction isn't relevant wrt to the right of incarcerated women to same sex spaces.

Somewhat comical that this thread starts with a discussion of sealioning and then you turn up demanding answers to the same question you have probably asked me a dozen times or so now and to which I have always responded many times. So for the last time I'm afraid:

I wouldn't have to keep asking the question if you would give us some statistics which disprove all the evidence which shows that transwomen are just as likely to be sexual violent offenders as any other males. You are the ones demanding entry into safe places designated for the opposite sex to yours. Therefore it is up to you to prove that you are not like other males. So once again where is the evidence?

I actually can't believe you're posting this. The acceptable number of rapes is Zero. None. Nil. Nada. Not "just the one". You absolute traitor.

Just the one rape then. Well. That's fine @jj1968

IT IS ABSOLUTELY NOT FUCKING FINE

The amount of rapes considered not ok by some is n+1.

The number of rapes that are ok is actually zero.

Just in case anyone is confused about that.

What we do know is that studies has found that between 10-40% of trans women are exclusively attracted to men. The same studies have found that around 10-15% of trans people are asexual. We know that some trans women have surgery which leaves it impossible for them to carry out some types of sexual offences and many more take hormones which have much the same effect.

How do we tell apart these from those that are predatory?

Just one trans women, who was post transition at the time of the assault, has been convicted of rape in the last two years. It's only a handful for the preceding decade or so. Serious sexual assaults are equally rare.

You’ve been called out on this many, many times jj. You clearly know of the many other cases of sexual assault, paedophilic crimes and other such convictions of transwomen in the last 2 years.

So because something which could exist easily doesn't yet exist that renders thinking about it unacceptable?

No because if you want me to ask for something that doesn't exist then I am going to ask that every single women, including trans women, who have not been convicted of a violent or sexual offence be released immediately and a justice system be introduced based on rehabilitation, education, reduction of poverty and therapeutic support rather than revenge and punishment. Then we can work out how to accommodate the very small number of women left safely.

There is no published evidence in either direction. It seems possible that trans people are disproportionately represented in prison but then so are all marginalised groups, and we don't really have a clear enough set of data anyway to know for sure.

What we do know is that studies has found that between 10-40% of trans women are exclusively attracted to men. The same studies have found that around 10-15% of trans people are asexual. We know that some trans women have surgery which leaves it impossible for them to carry out some types of sexual offences and many more take hormones which have much the same effect. So for the hypothesis that trans women sexually offend at the same rate as men then you would have to assume that the non male attracted, non medical, non asexual trans women's offending rates were much higher than men's to make up these gaps. I see no reason why that should be assumed. There is no evidence of that or any reason why it might be likely, and I think it is for the person who makes that claim to provide evidence.

And finally what we also know is that when you look at reported convictions then trans people convicted of serious sexual offences are very rare. Just one trans women, who was post transition at the time of the assault, has been convicted of rape in the last two years. It's only a handful for the preceding decade or so. Serious sexual assaults are equally rare. Tens of thousands of men have been convicted of those types of offences in that time.

If transwomen are required to enter a male toilet or changing facility, how do they know the people in there pose a threat of violence? How do they know the other humans in there aren’t also transwomen? What is it about those people in that facility that marks them as a threat to transwomen?

By that argument only men who own property would be entitled to vote.

Men, however they identify, do not have the legal right to access women's spaces. 🙄 Exemptions are built into the law, specifically to protect women.

Sports and rape refuges were explicitly used as examples of those exemptions.