Should we dispense with the word gender critical and just call ourselves biological realists?

I reckon Cheese has it about right.

Of course, specific campaigns need labels - there are already good ones (Fair Play for Women, SexMatters, For Women Scotland etc). This informal and somewhat diverse group here - MN FWR (feminism and women's rights) fits most of us well enough without being overly specific.

I hope it's the current use of ironic to say-

I find it ironic that the group who think the current practice esp with teens but also plenty other people, to consider, choose, create, agonise over labels that encapsulate certain aspects of their personality/ who they are...

Are having a (interesting!) pretty involved conversation about what label we should give ourselves

Imo and what I've seen-

1. Most news articles etc that are not by activists of either 'side', general use. 'some feminists', 'women's groups' etc. That's fine.

Note: Really interesting it's always women. And/or feminists. When clearly plenty men are either active in sex > gender, or are... Any/ all bog standard men across whole society. Bar a number so small at population level is irrelevant.

1. The label is irrelevant. One positive sounding will simply be ignored, altered a bit too sound evil etc. Plus it's the people who have the label that are the focus. Changing labels does not change attitudes. (Example- nasty words used for people with disabilities. If underlying issue not addressed, label changes nothing).

1. I only heard of GC when this started. Read feminist term fair old while. Doesn't properly fit though. It's about thinking enforced gender roles/ stereotypes etc are really constraining and damaging to pretty much everyone to some degree.

The fact it can easily be claimed to mean critical of trans people is why used so much... Was it feminists/women who said call us this loads of us are that? Or because v appealing to be pushed by others as easily misunderstood?

1. GC not so popular now still around s lot but others moving in. I've seen-

In end.

Those who disagree will use whatever terms they wish. Look at anti trans activists. Popular. Applied to us, and incorrect.

GC is not actually a suitable term for knowing sex > gender anyway.
Same as TE*F, all are radical feminists if they know sex matters? I mean lololol don't be so silly!

Given generally media uses reasonable terms predominantly.

And as a large scattered group who happen to share a big wtf on this issue, not an organisation in any way.

It would be really hard to get one suitable label. It will only be used on Twitter etc if can be twisted. And getting it into mainstream use, incredibly hard.

Let's focus on facts. Not labels. Imo.

Rationalists. Vs the Gender Irrationalists.

Ive gone back and reread some posts and im struggling to see the problem

(I like the fairness thing as well, as has already been said it hard to argue with)

Godsake, MissLucy, why the constant barbed comments at me? Not sure you're quite getting the hang of winning hearts and minds, tbh.

Fairness is good as a concept. How would we make it both general as in fairness for all, and at the same time tie it to the specific topic of women's rights and trans? The word Fairness on its own is too vague to convey the actual context and topic without some additional specific reference pointing to sex and trans. That's the hardest bit.

No one is forcing anyone to join anything. It's a question of giving those who want them the tools to bring about positive change

If all we are going to do is wring out hands on MN, it doesn't matter what we call ourselves. If we want to push back against the erosion of women's rights, it does. No group that is relatively disempowered has ever won power/rights without support from within the Establishment, and from the general public. We need to make it easy and relatively risk-free for the people with influence to support us. We need either a name or slogan that they can get behind: something that sounds uncontentious and that is easy to understand.

I like suggestions from PPs about fairness. It's hard to complain about anyone advocating fairness.

Fairness for Women. Women for Fair Play. Fairness Campaign. Fairness. Campaign for Fairness. Fair Play campaign.

Fair Play or Fairness would have the advantage of not being confined to women or women and girls, but carries the idea of fairness for the people, embracing women, men, children.

Femaleist. Believes feminism centres women and girls.

Get your point @KaycePollard

Reclaim kindness to include kindness to all

Pro kindness

For many years we've read about and seen a small number of individual transsexuals and read their posting online for the past fifteen years or so since we've had online discussion message boards and forums but what they wrote about wasn't about gender roles or self declaring a gender identity. It started with individuals' private awareness they said they felt acutely from a very early age, which led them eventually to a pioneering specialist medical facility, perhaps as adults, and a long involved psychological assessment and monitoring process and surgical and other treatment until they transitioned and lived as if they were the other sex, quietly getting on with their lives, working, getting married and so on.

What's been happening in the last several years is very different from that. We've had a very muddled Act in 2004 which probably passed without much public awareness, then Maria Millar's zeal for going further (self ID?) and what has developed subsequently is an ever encroaching militant rights movement that led people like Professor Stock to start saying as she did in, I think 2018, Wait a minute...what's going on here, in regard to women's and children's rights?

Pro equality

There was a saying in the 1970s: "A woman who aspires to be equal to a man lacks ambition."

I think the problem with equality on paper is that women still pay the reproduction penalty. Equality doesn't acknowledge sexual difference.

I've said before that I see it as a misnomer and an unfortunate term and have wondered how it came to be adopted.

I wrote something about that upthread. It wasn't about 'gender identity' or trans people - it was about rejecting gender stereotypes for our kids, and women not being constrained by gender roles. Wholly supportive of people being gender nonconforming.
If you go back 10 years that's what many discussions on FWR were about. And when transactivism started up, with self ID officially on the table and unofficially in place through the back door, the rise of stonewall, mermaids etc - fairly obviously many women already thinking about issues pertaining to gender from this feminist perspective could see the problems before they were more widely apparent.

I've said before that I see it as a misnomer and an unfortunate term and have wondered how it came to be adopted.

When the topic is women's rights and protections under threat from activists for men's rights, I don't see why the terms women or women's rights campaigners or defenders of women don't suffice.. They are more transparent and straightforward - and they're not negative either. And you don't have to be a particular kind of feminist to want rights and dignity for women.

I'm not keen on using something with biological in it, given that it has recently come to be used in an unfortunate way, as a qualifier of what is a woman or of the term sex. But it would be good to find some alternative.

The issue as I see it isn't gender but gender identity, a compound which takes the word gender (as used in the Act) but hitches it to the engine idea that it is something one can 'identify into', which is a way of altering the original and opening it up to an infinite number of assumed gender identities, which are then often referred to and passed off as 'gender' (with its associated authority from the Act), as proponents slide about between the two terms, using them as if they are interchangeable. There's a two-stage sleight of hand going on there.

Pro choice sounds like an abortion slogan

I think this is a good idea and have been sitting here trying to come up with something.

Wondered about something like Pro-FairPlay.

(And am posting it because I don’t want the thread to die.)

Pure of mind? I don't think so. But I'm not joining in something just because other people tell me to. Wouldn't be here if I did.

I agree with you that most people are GC. The problem is that most of them don't realise it, so they do not rally to support us, or the women and girls we are campaigning to protect. We have to wake the public up to the fact that they agree with us - just as other successful campaigns, such as the gay rights movement, have done in recent decades.

Branding, or tribes, or whatever you want to call it, is a fundamental aspect of human society. Give me one example of any movement for justice or rights that has succeeded without engaging in some form of branding (in its broadest sense).

You might want to be terribly pure of mind and stay above the fray. I would rather protect vulnerable women by any (legal and ethical) means necessary.

Same, Tanith.

Resist the (very natural) human inclination to form tribes, classify and categorise!

Labelling someone as 'gc' implies that it's only a small, involved group that believes things like - 'sex is immutable' and 'there are only two sexes'. In reality, this is the position of almost everyone, were you to ask them clearly.

We aren't necessarily 'gc'. Just people who are doing our best to make sensible decisions based on rational thought and available evidence. I suppose you could class many of us as 'bloody stubborn', but that's about as far as I'd go.

I think people do still know what sexism is.

I like 'pro-choice' because it doesn't imply any favoured outcome except for female autonomy as an end in itself.
And 'anti-choice' is a fair, realistic description for the other camp.
Same as 'sexist' is a fair, realistic description for the other camp here.

Pro equality

I like 'anti-sexist'

Didn't realise we were a brand, tbh. I have great sympathy with those who are sick and tired of the compartmentalisation and labelling.

What am I?

I'm a woman, I'm a child protector, I prioritise the rights of women and children.

That's it, really.