Believing in gender is a bit like believing in God

Not dismissing everyone who has a different opinion to me as lacking in critical thinking! Quite clearly I'm talking about a specific set of TRAs who clearly don't understand even the basics of what a "gender critical" position might be. And then I'm only talking about those who aren't deliberately taking that position as bad faith actors, or who deliberately choose not to find out more than what is being told to them from their preferred information sources.

I think TRAs would argue that GC people don't understand their position. I actually don't think either side understands the other's position and, more crucially, doesn't want to.

I can't see how this issue will ever be resolved apart from perhaps climate crisis taking over and it being put firmly into perspective by that.

I think it's quite arrogant to dismiss everyone who doesn't agree with you as being lacking in critical thinking. It's not really that different from TRAs dismissing all who disagree with them as a bigot.

I think the issue is, that they think that it is a real objective truth, and discrimination - by which they mean not treating people as their chosen gender - is the same as racial discrimination.

Which we would not class as a religious thing, we'd call it ethics I guess. Ethics is clearly something that is not purely private, or would not have a coherent. But it is very difficult to draw a line between personal worldview and ethics. A Christian thinks murder is wrong, or racism is wrong, because it is an offence against human dignity, which is rooted in the human as an image of the divine. That's not actually less logical or coherent than a secular humanists reasons for thinking those things. Both would argue for these to be written into law or otherwise be socially coded as unacceptable.

The idea that "religion" is wholly private and no beliefs can be imposed on others isn't as simple as people might like.

"I think TRAs would argue that being GC is like a religion."

I'd like to see how they might do that, given that I don't think I've ever come across a TRA that fully understands the feminist "GC" position. Either through being a bad faith debater, through deliberate ignorance or through lack of critical thinking ability.

For historical reasons, the majority of schools in rural areas of England are run by the CofE. The situation is more complicated in NI where schools are split along Catholic and Protestant lines (there are non-denominational schools but they are few in number). All these schools are permitted by law (the Equality Act in fact) to discriminate against children who are not of the correct religion by preferring children who are of the ‘correct’ religion preference in admissions, even if they do not live locally. All these schools are also permitted to teach religion as fact. In fact all non-denominational state schools in England and Wales are required to hold a daily assembly with “worship of a broadly Christian nature”. There is no such thing as a non-religious state school in England and Wales.

I think TRAs would argue that being GC is like a religion.

This is why it's so polarised. Both sides see themselves as seeing the truth as it is and the other side as being close minded and illogical. I'm not sure there can ever be a resolution unless something changes in the way both sides engage with each other.

@tryingtobeagoodhuman
"no religious beliefs trump protected characteristics etc" - except religious belief isa protected characteristic...

Well quite. In fact religious belief is the protected characteristic that trumps all others, especially sex, sexuality and…religious belief. I’m sure it would trump race too, if it were not explicitly written into the EA that there are no exceptions to race as a PC. I struggle to believe that anyone brought up in Britain could have written the sentence quoted above.

The fervour that TRAs have for their belief is identical to the fervour that religionists have for theirs - that is a very good reason to fight it at every turn.

Not only do they believe it, but they want to alter civil society in such a way that you have no choice but to to go along with their beliefs, even if you think it’s all horseshit.

There is a nuanced difference but it is an important one. For anyone who believes in God, God exists. For anyone who believes in gender identity, being transgender is real and trans people exist.

But objectively, it's ok to believe that they don't, isn't it? And objectively, when people start telling me I can't do this or that because of their god or their "gender identity" or their goat entrails interpretation, I'm within my rights to ask for some convincing evidence of the legitimacy of this view.

Yes. Nobody thinks believers don't exist as people, any more than anybody thinks trans people don't exist as people. Either of these would be silly.

People - like Helen Joyce - who say transwomen don't exist only mean no-one exists who has changed sex or who has a gender identity of the Stonewall kind.

That seems as true (to some of us) as saying people who have a guardian angel spirit looking after them don't exist. Gender is like religion in this way, specifically.

(And saying neither is equivalent to advocating genocide!)

This.

think it a bit different to faith in a god as it is a belief about yourself rather than in another being. I don't have a gender identity myself but can accept that others do and that it feels real to them.
Am I an atheist or a believer in your eyes?

Agnostic.

Yes. Nobody thinks believers don't exist as people, any more than anybody thinks trans people don't exist as people. Either of these would be silly.

People - like Helen Joyce - who say transwomen don't exist only mean no-one exists who has changed sex or who has a gender identity of the Stonewall kind.

That seems as true (to some of us) as saying people who have a guardian angel spirit looking after them don't exist. Gender is like religion in this way, specifically.

(And saying neither is equivalent to advocating genocide!)

I'm sorry. I really did think that in England everyone had a choice to send their children to a non-religious state school where religion was only taught as "Some people think there's a god ... " (etc.)

I stand corrected. How awful to have to gainsay what teachers tell your children! The thought makes me shiver, to be honest. To have to tell a child, "No, Miss Jones is right about five times seven and the capital of Denmark and so on, but is a bit silly about that god nonsense and ghosts and that." Dreadful.

What happens if you subscribe to a non-christian religion and the only school is CofE (or even worse, catholic)? Are there Islamic schools which children of atheists and agnostics are forced to attend in the same way?

My own children weren't brought up in UK, so we never had to have the ridiculous 'RE' stuff at all . And those of my grandchildren who now live in England are at ordinary non-religious state schools where 'religion is fact' is anathema.

My sympathies ... equally to those such as you having your children indoctrinated contrary to your own beliefs into religion of the old sort and those undergoing the new trans indoctrination of gender etc.

The analogy entails the notion that atheists think believers don’t exist as people. This is as absurd as suggesting that the recognition that humans can’t change sex means denying the existence of people who believe they have. This TRA existential/genocidal trope is a blatant falsehood.

For apostates OTOH, challenging the religious belief of their families, communities and authorities is absolutely fundamental to their existence and lived reality. To dismiss their challenge as ‘unhelpful’ denies their human right to disbelief, and condemns them to the permanent spiritual friction of complying with things - not petty things, but the reality of what it is to live and die - that they do not believe in.

It’s more than ‘an inconvenience’ when the school in your village is allowed to legally discriminate against your child because they happen to be Jewish (or any other non-CofE religion).

I definitely don't think gender ideology is a religion. Religions have so much complexity, depth and history. For me it's a question of how, in a liberal society, we can all coexist with different views. By and large we manage to do this with religion in the UK. We can celebrate our cultural heritage, religious traditions and history while evolving to accommodate people with different beliefs. It's all about respect, curiosity and compromise. The fact that we can do this with such a fundamental thing as different religious beliefs and atheism makes it all the more ridiculous that so many people have been totally captured by the superficial idea of gender and are pushing it in an authoritarian way without seeming to have any self awareness of what they are doing.

"no religious beliefs trump protected characteristics etc" - except religious belief is a protected characteristic...

I think it's a good analogy but for me it's more a philosophical debate than a religious one. You could say that anything, including the way we talk about biological sex, is a social construct. Because we have decided, somewhere along the line, what biological sex is and how we define it.

But the important part for me is that biological sex would exist even if we didn't have any way to describe it. We would still have males and females, because that's how reproduction works. It's the basic building block of human life. Gender wouldn't exist if we didn't talk about it or have the socially constructed norms that go with it and change across cultures.

The laws in the UK dictated by religion are an inconvenience. It's annoying that supermarkets close at 5pm on Sunday

Possibly not for people who work in supermarkets. The point of a sabbath was to allow even the lowliest workers to have a day off with their family. Not everyone has the luxury of a 9-5 office job.

The laws in the UK dictated by religion are an inconvenience. It's annoying that supermarkets close at 5pm on Sunday.

Any organisation captured by gender ideology has potential to cause real harm to women and girls.

Indeed. This is another reason why the analogy works for me.
However, I'm always careful to consider the fact that there are people who do believe in gender identity. I'm not interested in challenging their belief. I'm interested in stopping adolescent girls (primarily - those like my daughter) and boys feeling that they need to change their bodies to match their belief that they have a gender that differs from their biological sex. Second to that, I'm interested in challenging the wider impact in society on sports, sex segregated spaces etc.

I can do all of that without directly challenging someone on whether their belief is true. Biological sex is a fact; gender (identity) is a belief. The universe existing is a fact, its creation being done by God is a belief.

Thankfully we don't have any/many laws in the UK linked to religious beliefs

And yet we do have many organisations that operate as though belief in gender ideology is a given.

Oh wait, I missed this bit because I was too busy clutching my sides -

To compare that with the perfectly rational worship of God

The sheer brass neck is admirable.

Apologies, possibly ambiguous...

When I say "in the opening post", I'm referring to yesterday's thread that got shut down. Not this thread.

Interestingly (and unfortunately) this thread seems to have taken a similar turn to one that got shut down yesterday.

In the opening post it stated that trans people don't exist. Those words were written in bold.

I contributed to say that I didn't believe in gender identity but I could not see any benefit in a conversation about whether trans people exist or not. If I recall my words, I said something like that at best it was pointless and at worst, offensive. In a similar way that, while I don't believe in God, I can't see any benefit in having a discussion about whether or not God exists.

There is a nuanced difference but it is an important one. For anyone who believes in God, God exists. For anyone who believes in gender identity, being transgender is real and trans people exist.

The analogy still holds IMO. However, the above perfectly illustrates how it's not helpful to challenge someone else's belief. Far better to talk about the impact of that belief. Thankfully we don't have any/many laws in the UK linked to religious beliefs (I suspect primogeniture stems from the importance of man over woman as decreed by God etc but that's a far cry from mandated head coverings Iran) but if we did, lots of feminists would challenge them.

Berates others for arrogance, states as a fact 'God exists'.

😂

Lots of people feel that's the case.

i understand what they mean, but I don't entirely agree. You can make a metaphysical case for God, many philosophers have and do. Empirical evidence isn't the only way to know things.

I don't really think, though, that you can make that kind of argument for gender ideology. Possibly you could call it a psychological model, but even there you need to show some kind of relation to reality.