What Am I Missing?

I can't help but feel if time is short, it would be better be spent watching the transwidows film than reading this article.

And I don't think it's that difficult to codify what is acceptable in various situations in terms of clothing - men wearing fake breasts in the workplace is more likely than not to be a sexual fetish and involving non consenting others (and to be experienced as sexual harassment). Man wearing a skirt of the same length and type acceptable for women in the workplace = fine.

I have a friend who says that the transwomen in his workplace wear fetish gear no woman hoping to be taken seriously and not fired would ever wear. Somehow different rules apply because they're men.

yes, the problem isn't the clothes.

the problem is the man saying he's a woman

now I'm picking my words carefully here, but my belief is that this behaviour in men is always rooted in some extremely strange ideas about women. how could it not be?

men with extremely strange ideas about women give me the creeps, regardless of how they're dressed

men with extremely strange ideas about women who exhibit those ideas by claiming to be women often dress in a way that gives me the creeps. but it's the man in the clothes and his strange ideas giving me the creeps, not the clothes themselves as such

Thanks, yes I was aware he was focusing on a specific group of GC people, however I think - from my experience - the argument is largely the same regardless of which GC 'camp' you fall into. The fact that these men think 'performing femininity) is the same as 'being a woman'.
There may well be a minority who base their arguments on their own belief in gender stereotypes but I'd suggest they are few and far between. In fact I'd probably suggest they aren't, in fact, GC (by it's very definition).

The problem isn't that a man putting on a dress automatically appropriates womanhood¹; it's that some men put on a dress in order to appropriate womanhood

<bing>

The problem isn't that a man putting on a dress automatically appropriates womanhood¹; it's that some men put on a dress in order to appropriate womanhood (and think external appearance is all there is to it).

Totally different things.

Sometimes people have stones in their shoes because they've walked through a gravelly area; sometimes they have stones in their shoes because they are smuggling diamonds.

Totally different things.

Motivations and details matter.

¹ I've spent a fair bit of time around men wearing things that are dresses or skirts in all but name - no material difference in construction, but tradition dictates they are called 'kilts', 'robes' or 'tunics'. They are wearing them in order to pretend to be a Viking or a Roman, or to attend a Scottish wedding, or because it's perfectly normal for a man to wear a sarong. Not to pretend to be a woman. It is possible to tell the difference, although it might be hard to codify it.

You're not missing anything. I felt the same way about the article. (Although it also started me thinking about the ways in which belief challenges liberalism and where the boundaries really are. All the examples that he gave for religion were "easy" / uncontroversial ones.)

So, I was enjoying it nearly til the end. Until we got to "An Illiberal Version of the Gender-Critical Position". Dismissed as "illiberal" for not wanting to be put on the receiving end of someone else's contempt or fetishism? Just because we can't prove that every single individual is being contemptuous or a fetishist? Easy enough for me to not care, no skin off my nose, but these "illiberals" are often the women who've been most harmed by these men and I'm not going to dismiss them just so I can think of myself as "liberal". It's not illiberal to need a solution that works for women.

I wondered why what went wrong and then I flipped back and realised - ta-da! - Gary is a bloke. Maaaaate.

Not every bloke who puts on a frock to be contemptuous or indulge a fetish (I'm fond of Mr Menno myself) but when there is doubt I'd trust Tinsel's judgment over Gary's.

Still, it'll do. Can't expect perfection. Might even work on some people I know.

My Woman's essence tells me😉

I've seen a wide variety of "female" presentations of trans women.
Some have short hair, no make up, trousers etc. Some have long, wavy hair, make up and heels. Just as women do. Wide variety of presentations, clothing choices etc.

I've not really seen "exaggerated" "feminine" looks except on drag queens.

I think Francion speaks to male entitlement.
And ... I was working on editing a big long post here but honestly I just can't with the bringing Twitter spats into what started as an interesting, disinterested philosophy essay.
Twitter is a cesspit. It's where inchoate arguments go to beocome petty spats, and emerging great thinkers go to become prematurely bitter and twisted.

I tried reading this article and thought the first section contained a helpful but unoriginal analogy so wasn't inspired to persevere.
I thought Hayton had publically owned up to being motivated to transition by autogynophilia? Why is Francione being so coy about it?

I consider men being able to perform a fetish in public but more specifically female spaces to be an undermining of hard fought women's rights, women's dignity and women's equality.

Some people, and when it comes to sex crimes definitely some men, are incapable of behaving in a civilised and respectful manner unless there is civic disapproval and punishment for aberrant behaviour.

Live and let live attitudes get you only so far when someone else is happy to take malicious advantage of your tolerance or naiveté.

It's interesting.
A good 75% of the essay is setting out why the TRA position conflate equality and belief, and why they are wrong to do so because of the negative impact on women's equality. I think most people who understand the debate and are GC will find that uncontroversial as you say.

The last bit is (I think) him trying to explore the more extreme end of the GC spectrum in the same way, by pointing out that much of the debate at that far "ultra" (as defined by him, not me) is like the TRA position because its prioritising belief over equality.

I think he's saying if one genuinely applies the same standards of equality to all people, and the same freedom of belief, then humans need to tolerate trans peoples rights to present and identify however they want, whilst recognising others have the right to disagree. Exactly as PPs excellent post upthread about dress codes outlines.

He really isn't saying that people "should" think anything. He's saying "if you believe x and y, then logically Z" and trying to give examples of where some in the GC community (the "illiberals") aren't following that logic and what that means. It's conceptual really, a very theoretical, philosophical piece.

I like it because it helps me make sense of my own position regarding gender but it really is a long load of academic posturing in another sense. I can't help thinking that if it was written by a woman there would be a lot less tolerance for the length and complexity of the position.

Yes! They're conflating "femininity" with "female." Funny how extremely common that is!

It's like what I've seen said, if women started calling themselves something else (bleebs, blorbs, whatever) instead of "women" if TIMs successfully started calling themselves "women," the TIMs would then want to be called by that word too.

It's the appropriation of womanhood that I object to, not the appropriation of 'femininity'. They can have femininity if they want it - the point is that they are using femininity as a tool to try to claim 'woman'.

It's fetishising femininity. Which effectively fetishises women, because the signifier and the signified are so often confused.

A man says that 'being a woman' consists of wearing lipstick/frocks/tits - that is reducing women to those superficial signifiers.

No man knows what it is to be a woman. It's fucking offensive to suggest that he does.

Right exactly. The specific clothes are almost a red herring.

What I find interesting was that he was prepared to let Maya Forstater, Kathleen Stock or anyone write their own views with his input. So normal in his misogyny.

I also think his sneaky inclusion of the conclusion at the start of this paragraph. Notice how he tells us that seeing AGP is illiberal, (code to his audience for bad) but doesn’t actually deny that it’s a fetish that women get forced to participate in.

Those who promote the illiberal view also maintain that males who present as women are engaged in a public display of autogynephilia (AGP), a fetish involving a male being sexually aroused by the thought of himself as a female, and, in effect, force the participation of women in this fetish.

There are multiple examples of this through the article.

Mown reading is that he's describing the position as he sees it and where it goes wrong in his opnion.

I would also say that if his understanding was correct his critique wouldn't be that far out. He's not being particularly illogical.

What he misses is that it's not about a particular set of norms being inherently and eternally womanish. It's about the fact that the attempt is not really about the particular clothing, it's about adopting whatever the conventional sexed form of femininity is and claiming that is what it is to be a woman.

I think it's a common gap a lot of people don't understand. It seems to me it related to a somewhat flat or unsophisticated understanding of the way our physical sexed bodies have a cultural expression. These guys aren't wearing dresses because they like dresses, but because they want to "be" women. If women and men dressed alike they would still be wearing falsies under their sweatshirts or whatever.

The mistake from people like this comes out of the assumption that clothing differences themselves represent some kind of externalized patriarchal oppression that could be done away with if only we understood that.

Yes. It very much comes across as this.

‘prosthetics’? Yeah. Fuck that. A padded bra is nothing like a male strapping on fake breasts. Or a rubber woman suit complete with already painted on make up and rubber thighs.

While I have time for his analysis on Twitter. This essay is very much telling women that they should not object to ‘some’ male people who are obviously deemed special by him.

I haven’t read it. I don’t usually read anything on this topic tbh. I just have four questions that need to have a definitive, clearly evidenced, legal answer, and then, we’re all good.

1. Can humans change sex?
2. Does the Equality Act 2010 allow for single sex provisions?
3. Should point 2. be extended to all areas of life?
4. If your answer to point 3. is No, Why? Detailed and evidenced answers only.

Both can be true.

This author isn't talking about all GC people; he's talking specifically about those GC people who claim men are "appropriating womanhood" by complying with stereotypes of femininity. It's an interesting point.