An inclusive way to be gender critical?

RagzReturnsRebooted

I hope you have some support to help you with your sister's decisions. Transgender Trend have just put a testimony from a recently detransitioned woman and her sister on their sitee*, and it all sounds like it has been very difficult for them both

(it's twitter's @ImWatson91)

"Someone who does not believe they conform to gender norms, as they perceive them and starts to express/present themselves according to how they feel."

OP, this is not a definition used by most trans rights activists and certainly not by lobby groups. Gender non-conformity is not the issue here; quite the opposite. Expressing or presenting yourself as your inner gender is not a requirement either.

Oh my....what do you think transgender means?

Someone who does not believe they conform to gender norms, as they perceive them and starts to express/present themselves according to how they feel.

Ummm nope. Has the whole 'Transwomen are women' thing somehow passed you by, then? It seems a bit odd to post a thread which you think somehow magically solves the problem when you patently don't actually understand what the problem even is.

@Gerla flowers appreciated, thanks. It's especially difficult watching my sister go through this and trying to 'be kind' and maintain a relationship while also being really sad for them and feeling like all their serious mental health issues are being pushed aside in favour of this magic identity that will fix everything. Our cousin is also a trans man and while apparently happier now it doesn't seem to have fixed their many other issues. Sigh...

Anyway, sorry to derail the thread there and yes I agree but many people if you asked them would if they are gender conforming would actually say either yes or 'err, what?'.
Apart from the younger generation (including my sister in that as there's a big age gap) most of my friends aren't really interested and glaze over when I start ranting about gender. Or laugh, like I'm being funny. Mumsnet is where I come for actual discussion as many people really aren't that bothered about women's rights and aren't aware of the huge rise in young women trying to identify out of womanhood. I work with Doctors and one was surprised when I pointed out the rise in trans teenage girls as being a huge recent phenomenon (when we were discussing a patient) and hadn't heard of ROGD. This is a GP. This is stuff isn't as mainstream as we think, IMO.

If everyone took this on board it would mean safe single sex spaces could be preserved, as people could present themselves however they want, wear what they want but use the single sex space appropriate for their sex without conflict.

Why? I don't understand how this helps. People can dress how they like already. The trans lobby isn't fighting for the right for transwomen to dress as women but continue to use men's facilities. That's not what they want.

We're at the point now where if you believe sex cannot be changed you're in for a fight whether you want one or not. Even some schools are changing their education now, not just thinking about it, to say it's ok to change SEX. That's why we're not seeing it as a gentle debate.

It just feels really regressive.

It IS really regressive.

Maybe not, but it certainly should be!
The thing is even if you feel that you are conforming to gender norms, you are not conforming to all gender norms in all places at all times. I was reading a magazine from the 1890s and there was a lot of discussion over whether it was acceptable for female Sunday school teachers to ride a bike to church. (It wasn't). So if I disagreed with that in 1890 I wouldn't be conforming whereas now I doubt whether anybody would have a problem with it. That's why it doesn't make a lot of sense to say that conforming to gender roles (or being cis - which I know some people would say is more complicated than that but it's never clear how) is part of your identity.

By the way, that's a lot of gender-related issues to cope with Ragz!

If we can't abolish gender altogether because people have constructed an identity around them, perhaps there should be a protected characteristic of "non conformity with stereotypes associated with biological sex"

This is how Stonewall defines transgender woman:

A term used to describe someone who is assigned male at birth but identifies and lives as a woman.

This is problematic for feminists (and not just feminists!) "Assigned male at birth" suggests that sex is not a scientific fact - it can be assigned - and thus also wrongly assigned (and so changed). "Identifies and lives as a woman" - how can you describe what it means to live as a woman without falling back onto stereotypes. Women (and men!) are incredibly diverse. What we have in common is our biology - everything else is personality.

Yes.

However, unless you conform to the restrictions of a label these days, you cease to exist

The part I struggle with, as comes up here a lot, is that all of these people I know can only define their gender using stereotypes yet will assert that there's more to it that I cannot possibly understand because I don't have a gender identity that differs from my sex. My sister was bragging about 'learning man stuff' because their landlord was teaching them to change a tyre and erect a shed. I was appalled as I can do both these things and try to raise my children to see that there are no Man jobs and Woman jobs. It just feels really regressive.

Someone who does not believe they conform to gender norms, as they perceive them and starts to express/present themselves according to how they feel.

That's....sort of everyone though, isn't it?

Oh my....what do you think transgender means?

The i word has gone from a feelgood well-meaning word to an exhausted cliché to a weasel word. Shudder. And then there are the made-up definitions of words and the celebrate the g d word. We can't go on like this.

Branded by whom though?

Well for a start charities who lobby and provide training. Stonewall provides a lot of the training for our institutions and schools and talks about sex being "assigned at birth". Mermaids also provides "diversity training". You can see what they believe about gender and sex if you look at their websites - and a lot of it is not compatible with what you suggest. If you want a more moderate tone to the debate perhaps you should start by campaigning for a more science-based approach to sex education and the upholding of sex rather than gender as a protected characteristic while celebrating differences in gender expression and personality? (Clue: this is what feminists are already doing!)

I think the bit you're missing is in here...

There would be no perceived need for single sex based rights to be eroded if society really accepted the real fluidity of gender as a social and cultural concept along with the binary nature of sex in human beings,

If I am transgender woman, then I may believe I was born in the wrong body. I believe a genetic issue occurred that caused this mismatch between Mind and body. My gender is not fluid. I want my body to look and feel female. I deserve to live and experience life as a female. And society has to help make that happen as it is a human right to live how I want to live. That means letting me into your segregated spaces.

And that means a loss of sex based rights.

Sex based rights aren't needed because of transgender folk. They're needed because of men - which includes transgender women., whether the want it to or not.

Why do you think gender critical feminists rejecting gender is aggressive?