Can we be "Sex realist" now? Not "Gender critical"?

I agree 'critical' has a negative connotation (for a lot of people, anyway; as *MyAmpleSheep *says, it really means better/less loaded things, but unfortunately that isn't how most people use or understand it).

And I agree even using the term 'gender' in this context is like somehow accepting the premise.

Gender roles and stereptypes are not an automatic negative, though. I do things which may be classed as 'gender' based, but I do them mainly because they work for me or fit my preferences, choices, tastes, lifestyle, and also of course because they work for my family.

The problem with gender ,for me, is that once 'sex' has been shorn away, all you are left with is roles and stereotypes, and anyone can mimic or assume those.....including men.

Some of the roles we assume are predicated upon our sex - especially when it comes to having children and being in a heterosexual family unit.Sometimes the roles are what work best or are what is most practical.

I think 'gender critical' has a life of its own now, whether we agree with it or not.

I like 'biological realist', I think I'm going to borrow it to explain what being 'GC' really means, thank you Hamserfan

’sex Realist’ and ‘gender critical’ are not the same thing, People on the religious right are likely to know sex is real but be very much in favour of gender roles and stereotypes.

If I have to choose, I slightly prefer sex/biological realist. I suppose it might depend on who I was talking to.

If I'm talking to a friend or relative who thinks TWAW, then saying I'm sex realist pins down the issue on which we disagree, i.e. that I think sex is real, immutable and important.

If I'm talking to somebody who is very socially conservative and I need to explain that I'm not a fan of traditional gender roles, then I could say I'm gender critical, but I could also convey that more easily just by saying I'm a feminist.

If I'm talking to a TRA who has somehow got the impression that criticising gender identity theory makes me some kind of tradwife, then I'm not sure any label is going to do the job of explaining.

I am gender critical. Being gender critical is an essential part of feminism and goes much further than any issues with people pretending to change sex.

Personally I find it very helpful to indicate that I am coming at these issues from a feminist perspective.

You can easily be sex realist and anti-feminist.

I agree OP. "Gender critical" is a very negative-sounding term, and also it's not immediately clear what it means. "Sex realist" is better, but I think it means something slightly different, and narrower. "Gender critical" includes not just thinking that sex is immutable and more important than "gender", but that "gender" is a social construct imposed either by society or from within (can we always differentiate?) and that it limits and constrains us all.

I think "critical" is a great thing to be. It suggests discernment, analysis and judgement. Happy to be associated with all of those.

I know.

Aka Feminists :)

I agree with @MrsOvertonsWindow and @WallaceinAnderland

I'm a Feminist. I focus on the challenges, risks and inequalities female people face because of our bodies. Some of these are directly down to physical differences between us and men. Many more are down to how millenia of patriarchy has shaped society's expectations, understanding and treatment of us. Between the two are the ways our unavoidable physical and reproductive differences are or are not accomodated in society's structures and norms.

The only reasons I have any issue with Genderism is that (1) in redefining woman as a mixed sex mentality it disconnects female people from our history, our shared experiences and the language and political and social understanding we need to fight this exploitation, abuse and marginalisation, and (2) the incoherent in/out hokey cokey of "my-mind-sets-my-gender-not-my-body-and-it's-not-about-sex-and-sex-is-more-than-binary-but-its-essential-that-I-adjust-my-body-to-fit-my-gender" is causing real people, many far too young to appreciate the impact, to make real, irreversible, damaging changes to their body.

I realised a while back that reacting to Genderists latest flip flop is just letting them set the reference points. Actually their reference points are irrelevant to me. My reference point is the people with female bodies, what that means for us, and how to fight and defeat the unfair burdens we bear because of it.

It doesn't matter if gender is a real thing or not. It doesn't matter if sex is binary or not. I'm not here to argue about the edge cases. I'm here for the pretty much 50% of humanity that is recognised as female the day we are born and live with the consequences of that the rest of our lives.

Understanding that that is what matters to me gives me an unshakeable foundation to base any argument on.

This OP. Honestly you can't react to what the trans extremists are saying on Reddit / Bluesky. I understand your argument but am done reacting defensively to these people

They're currently flailing and wailing as they see it all slipping away. The overreach - upending the social contract, going for woman's spaces, sport, even children has finally been exposed and the public aren't buying it any more. This was an influential movement with numerous men in high places - hence their ability to do so much damage. But they blew it.

As Wallace says, they'll try anything & say anything, no matter how delusional or false.

This. Those wankers need a name for their made up bollocks, but I don’t need a name for not believing the bollocks.

Maybe that's what we should call ourselves - WRAs

Bee is a TRA.

You’re responding to a TRA who likes to come and scold MNers a few times a week.

Call yourself anti-trans if you like but it’s a phrase without nuance and not many people here would describe themselves that way.

Bullshit.

Fuck of with the race card.

Sex Is really not hard to define, we are bloody MAMMALS. It’s really very clear. (Yes I know about DSDs before you start.)

Race is absolutely poorly defined in any biological genetic level. It’s a very loose category under and a dodgy classification system.

Sex is very clear. Don’t you know how babies are made???????

It is true that only female give birth and breastfeed, and only someone who devalues the female and can only see success in aping the male would want to deny that. Being female has its own integrity and its own kind of strength.

When discussing some of the issues/cases with colleagues I do describe myself as a biological realist. I am more of a “gender incredulist I suppose. I don’t feel female I just know that I am.
How do I know? The being noted to be female at birth, the female features developing during puberty, the first period, and all the other periods 🙄 The pregnancies and breastfeeding were definite giveaways too!

But I don’t think it helps us to pretend that there are no physical differences, or pretend that men can also give birth. Women give birth; we should also be able argue that we don’t have to choose to do this, or be defined by it, but obscuring reality helps no-one.

For me it is about not judging women by a male-calibrated yardstick. Not valuing physical strength over other kinds of strength, or wisdom, or intellectual capability. Because physical advantage is all men really have.

We are on average not as large or strong. It’s why we have the ability to insist on single sex provision at times.

Rather than say, “Don’t acknowledge that only women can give birth because it will be used against us,” I would rather say “Yes, only women give birth, which means every human was born of a woman, and we are actually amazing and you should value women for all their bloody brilliant skills, rather than devalue us because we are not able to physically defeat a man in a fight.”

It’s only something to be ashamed of if we are trying to pretend to be men in the workplace.

TBH, it doesn't matter what you call yourself, or how you label a movement. What is important is the truth and the clarity of your argument. People know bullshit when they hear it and common sense is the most realistic currency available to all.

Of course some do but this is just more anti women stuff.

You sound very confused. I think the problem is that it is you that cannot clearly articulate what it is you mean by 'gender'...without resorting to sex based stereotypes.

The whole gender movement is predicated on cofusion and conflation. Clarity is the death of it.

I’m with @FlirtsWithRhinos - I’m critical of gender, because it is regressive and oppressive and reductionist. I’m also a sex realist in much the same way as I believe in gravity. And in the Venn diagram I’m definitely in the green circle.