Male and Gender Critical

As ever, the idea women should have sex but not enjoy it is a feminist issue and only serves the interests of men.

I'm happy to be on the record as saying asexuality is a problem.

I find it both chilling and rapey, that it's being pushed at a time when many young people are being medicated/ operated on into having no sexual function.

Asexuality seems no longer to mean that you don't want to have sex ever, but that you are willing to have sex but not particularly enjoy it.

I’ve never understood it at all, I’ve asked why that is - no answer.

That is because you're misunderstanding at a more basic level than you realise. It's okay not to be interested in sex, I doubt you'll be able to find a single comment on here suggesting otherwise. But expecting your lack of interest in sex to be significant in some way to other people, let alone to the government, is self-obsessed and silly.

Who are you asking? There's no hive mind or group responses here. You need to engage with specific posters who you think are doing those things and challenge them specifically.

It's not asexuality that's the problem.

Yes it is. And it’s been on going thing around here.
People been rude, condescending about it, denying they exist for quite some time now.

I’ve never understood it at all, I’ve asked why that is - no answer.

I was going to add that what really got people fired up, was the fact that she’s asexual.
This place really can’t stand asexuality, for whatever reason.

It's not asexuality that's the problem. It's asking for it to be included in the EA. What rights don't asexuals have? Please enlighten me.

It’s like if she was wearing football kit - I would think she played football.

I love this analogy. And I would just like to point out that someone marching around in protests complaining about how society discriminates against football haters, yada yada Equality Act, would deserve to be laughed at whether or not they’re wearing football kit. But wearing football kit would add an extra edge of self-important absurdity to the proceedings.

(Society does discriminate against football haters! Sports small talk is a lot more universal than sex small talk. Yet no one’s out there with placards and posturing about asportuality.)

I was going to add that what really got people fired up, was the fact that she’s asexual.
This place really can’t stand asexuality, for whatever reason.

Sad to read on that you think small group of people being who they are is ’silly’, not a whole lot they can do about it and they are allowed to speak about it.

Perfectly put. Many thanks.

Wow this thread is a real lesson in framing. Pretty sure if OP had come on and said ‘should young women be able to wear what they want without being told they are asking for/up for sex’? - most women on this board would agree. Because it’s been seen as an attack against the GC group then instead there’s all sorts of weird arguments being made

It's a lesson in not falling into the traps set by gender identity ideologues, as that's what's happened here.

OP didn't start the thread to debate whether James Esses is right or wrong about what women wear - she had already concluded that she didn't agree with him and was troubled by what that meant for gender critical women in terms of Esses' promotion of gender critical views.

The accusation of guilt-by-association (or association fallacy) is a well-worn silencing tactic and has been used against women for a long time to counter arguments for women's rights. In my opinion, it works especially well on women because we tend to be more empathetic and take these accusations very seriously (even though we shouldn't, logically).

Gender identity ideologues pull this one all the time, pointing to Nazis attending rallies, etc as meaning something that it does not mean - this serves two main purposes - (1) to prompt infighting within a group to achieve a 'divide and conquer' effect and (2) to distract women from the actual argument and to redirect their attention to other issues they care about that aren't actually the issue being addressed.

As villou says, just look at the energy that women have spent on this thread trying to reconcile their perceived guilt-by-association with their gender critical beliefs unnecessarily. The answer to gender identity ideologists when they say "oh, but this person also believes x" should be something along the lines of "well, they also believe the sun is hot - are you saying it's not because this person thinks it too?".

It's easier to spot this kind of accusation when it's about outright Nazis, as people don't go on to defend the Nazi position. But when it's something that seems like it's a controversial opinion but debatable, it's very easy to get drawn into defending that person's random views on another topic without noticing the logical fallacy involved. Which is exactly what gender ideologues want, because the more time and energy women spend debating whether some gender critical person is also a misogynist is time and energy that isn't spent monitoring what's happening, writing letters, challenging policy, researching and sharing information and lobbying the government and other organisations to recognise that biological sex matters.

Seriously?

I don’t buy that shallow of an analysis for one second.

Wear what you want but shouldn’t we be questioning why some teen girls want to look like, as pp said up thread, sex dolls? Do we really think that women/girls have chosen this aesthetic for themselves? How is running round in a pair of knickers empowering?

I argue with my teen about it all the time but these are the images she has grown up with on insta/TikTok/music videos - she’s not ready to have to rebuff the attention that comes with her clothes but the mantra is not to shame them about their clothes choices. Some of the stuff her friends post on TikTok etc are shockingly sexualised - I don’t see any agency in their choices. They want to be liked and desired before they even really know what it means cos that is the message society is giving them. I despair.

I wonder if she would have made a stronger case if she had been naked. Then it’s not about the clothes (and what or what they don’t symbolise) but the person. A naked body is not inherently sexual but adding clothes associated with sexual submissive behaviour subverts her message. Most women wouldn’t wear what she is wearing. It’s unusual for non asexual women. If that’s the point - I like to parade in sexually submissive clothing but don’t have sexual feelings - it’s so nuanced it looks farfetched. Which is what the tweet was about.

It’s like if she was wearing football kit - I would think she played football. It’s nothing about being up for playing football without consent and I wouldn’t assume she wanted to play football with me.

Many women have appeared naked as a protest before this woman paraded. So maybe it was too passé. Or maybe, as pp suggested, she hasn’t realised she’s not some sort of pioneer.

On the plus side, OJ really doesn’t look comfortable either in that photo.

Wow this thread is a real lesson in framing. Pretty sure if OP had come on and said ‘should young women be able to wear what they want without being told they are asking for/up for sex’? - most women on this board would agree. Because it’s been seen as an attack against the GC group then instead there’s all sorts of weird arguments being made that wearing shorts and a crop top (even leather ones!) means you are up for sex and can’t define yourself as not wanting any. I think asexuality is basically silly, but it definitely is misogynistic of James to be going round commenting on what women are wearing and using phrases like ‘scantily clad’ to ‘prove’ a woman’s sexual desires.

I also think it’s true that being a GC man isn’t the same as being a feminist ally, and some display very male behaviour incl. misogyny. But there are also men who’ve done a lot to push back on this stuff and who aren’t attention seeking or trying to make it all about them.

I don't think we'll ever reach a state in which the differences between males and females are not an issue with which we struggle. Transgenderism, in its way, is an attempt to escape that struggle - by denying that those differnces even exist in the firts place - and by acting as if all differences are socially constructed.

When I read 'Villette' by Charlott Bronte, for example - it is totally relatable' very contemporary.

Each new generation inherits the technology and the environment that has been created by their predecessors - but the individual life cycle and its various stages still have to be gone through anew. Even with technological change life's lessons are still the same.

When you go back and reading Victorian literature, for example, you realise how people are still essentially the same; facing the same sorts of human issue; the same questions, struggles and so on.

That's an interesting observation.

Surely it doesn't have to be the natural state of affairs though. Other things eg technological advances, are learned and expanded on with each generation. I think there's always a vested interest in stopping feminist wisdom from being passed down. It's just they don't currently favour burning at the stake so use other ways to alienate younger women from older women.

I don't have to agree with everything James Esses says to be hugely grateful to him for what he does.

I think kids who are reacting to the homophobia, sexism, misogyny and stereotypes in the world around them ought to be able to access therapy without the risk of their therapist evangelising them onto a medical pathway.

I think a charity that holds statutory child protection powers, nspcc, ought to be condemning and investigating any parent who feeds their infant on bodily fluid that isn't breast milk.

I'm also grateful to Graham Linehan for his plain speaking. We need more, not less, of this.

"Watch your tone". "Watch who you consort with".
They're such common accusations here. I'm afraid I always imagine the poster (and their inevitable cheerleader who pops up a few posts in) to be a drag act of a wealthy old lady running a finishing school.

This generation is living in the reality created by the last round of civil rights struggles - but the older generations who have been through it, or created that, have now moved on and view things differently.

Young people ( I'm assuming youth in the OP) always act like, and think, they are the only people ever to have questioned convention. It is the nature of youth to assume you are a pioneer. Yet none of this stuff is at all new. History keeps recycling the same issues just in slighlt differnt contexts and settings.

What I have become aware of inthe last 10 years or so is how each new generation really doesn't learn from their predesessors at all; or in any way imbibe what has already been learned as if by osmosis. They have t go through the same cycle themselves.

It is frustrating!

I don't see males or anyone else whose interests aren't aligned with mine as speaking for me - they're speaking up for the biological facts. And it's natural that they'd approach it from their own perspectives, just as I do.

Excellent post LonginesPrime and above quote sums up my views.

You said it much better than I could.

Same here. So many are now speaking out against this crap.

The slow seepage of different genders and all have to treated as special and considered (no matter how stupid some of the titles they give themselves and the flags they wave) which has captured many organisations so that they don't speak out. This means paedophiles (MAPS's) are using the gender crap to hide amongst the victim status, together with sexual predators hiding in women's clothes to abuse women, fetishes being played out in public (men with bollocks hanging out telling stories to kids), we are told it's normal and if we say anything we get the Nazi/Terf labels.

It feels there is a rush to feel a victim. A need to create a special label for whatever sexual preference they have. The next: I'm a Tsex-no-sex (that's when you only fancy sex on a Tuesday and the rest of the week you completely go off sex) - then find a flag - pink one end and black and white stripes for the other days, then claim I need protection because my human rights are being violated because no-one makes allowances for people who only have sex on Tuesday whah, whah whah.

Anyone else find being associated with some of the male Gender Critical activists a bit…well embarrassing? ... Typical gross male attitude.

No, I think it's to be expected, and that's a good thing.

Gender critical views are based on science and common sense. It's not some niche movement where you can only come in if you do and say x, y and z, like gender identity ideology is.

The whole point is that biological sex matters, and it matters for racists and religious extremists and ultra-conservatives and sexist men just as much as it does for you.

If a racist says the sky is blue, it doesn't mean it's any less likely that the sky is blue because they're racist. Scientific facts are still scientific facts, regardless of who else thinks them.

To be honest, if I agreed with everyone who's gender critical on everything else at this point in the gender identity discussion, I would be questioning whether it is some sort of cult because we'd all have been programmed to hold an identical set of beliefs. That would be extremely worrying.

This isn't directed at Esses, but more generally, the fact that all sorts of people, including respected scientists and academics, prominent public figures and politicians, as well as some mad and awful people, also accept scientific facts as facts doesn't make me worry that the science is wrong - it just makes me think some of them might have odd views.

And it doesn't make me wish they would stop talking, because it's the gender identity ideologues who push the notion of guilt-by-association onto liberal women as another way to guilt them into submission as a silencing tactic. They're the ones describing gender critical views as a "movement" (like we just invented biological sex out of nowhere) and pointing to awful people who also happen to believe in biology and saying "ooh, look, that's you, that is" - because they don't have logic on their side, only emotional manipulation. They've made huge strides by shaming women in to "being nice" already, so it's a proven tactic.

I don't see males or anyone else whose interests aren't aligned with mine as speaking for me - they're speaking up for the biological facts. And it's natural that they'd approach it from their own perspectives, just as I do.