Do you think the term "Gender Critical" is why some people won't engage?

Yes, never found the term helpful

also, as soon as it’s labelled it became a position to oppose

it didn’t need a label

Just to add to the general point of the thread that many people confuse the context of the word "critical" as in critical analysis, critical thinking - instead thinking it simply means "to find fault". Similar to the "radical" feminism confusion - meaning roots, not extremism.

This was quite mainstream, wasn't it? Just thinking about how it's not that well-known these days.

Err they weren't exactly nailing their colours to the mast from when the Equality Act came in from 2010 till the recent 'interpretation'. But businesses do see to be making a bit of noise 'suddenly'.

Won't get fooled again! 🎵

I was thinking mainly of the paedophile-rights movement of the 1970s, which tried semi-successfully to align itself with the gay rights movement and was for a while shockingly accepted by progressive groups and thinkers (PIE’s affiliation with the NCCL, for example, advocacy by major queer theorists like Foucault, and gay rights advocates like Tatchell).

I prefer "gender-critical" as you would hope in your averagely intelligent person it might prompt some contemplation on the nature, purpose and harms of "gender".

"Sex realist" sounds like more of a direct response to the notion that "people can change sex" but not much wider than that, and I'd agree it runs the risk of people thinking it's saying that 'female people are like this, male people are like that", which is basically the gender position.

The sexism is so ingrained that it doesn't matter what words you use to point it out - there will always be some people who refuse to see it.

I see once again the laughable claim that "redefining man and woman into something no-one is honest enough to delineate only affects 0.5% of the population" is being trotted out. I'm starting to wonder if people actually believe it rather than just pretend to to fill up MN pages?

It ended Nicola Sturgeon’s premiership. It’s tied up the Green Party in litigation for years. It’s at least partly behind Reform’s rise and it’s currently material in the Labour deputy election.

What earlier causes slipped in with gay rights@GenderRealistBloke?

I’m not sure GC fits me exactly but I do use it on here as it’s familiar and I’m certainly in that area. If it comes up outside here I just tend to refer to myself as a gender extremist, because I think I’m an outlier in what I believe, though not my policy prescription, and I’m trying to say to people that they don’t have to think I’m in the mainstream as I know I’m not.

Same with the Daily Mail - a recent article about JKR had overwhelmingly supportive comments. So the argument that ‘people don’t get it’ is incorrect.

Even idiots know that you can’t change sex. And that men who dress as women and want to be in women’s spaces are not doing so for wholesome reasons that are right for the common good.

The main problem is the ‘right on’ EDI wallers that go on some fucking gingerbread course and then think they’re going to be the social justice warriors for pronouns and gender neutral everything and here we are. Women having to put up with the shit in offices, businesses and institutions across the land and no one cares less. The EDI dickheads just double down and become even more insufferable.

The Supreme Court Judgement was helpful. I don’t think that would’ve made as many main headlines if the GC stance wasn’t pretty widely known by now. And to me, it doesn’t matter that people don’t realise it’s a GC stance. The fact that they hold it is enough.

An outdated take. Women, like all polled groups, are becoming significantly more opposed to the replacement of sex-based rights with gender claims.

“No debate” was a canny strategy. The more the public see and learn about the cause the less they like it.

Like earlier causes that snuck under the gay rights umbrella, I suspect TRAism will end up utterly discredited because the arguments don’t stand up and because the harms will become too glaring to ignore.

I forgot to mention this in my post, and it's the most important point: gender critical belief is now a protected belief in UK law; if you call you're own particular belief something else and are legally challenged you must either show that it's equivalence to GC or that it can stand on its own, which, as the Forstater case showed, can incur considerable time and expense.

So, there's some value in simply adopting the usage, even if you you find the semantic fit imperfect, awkward or imprecise.

Do you think the term "Gender Critical" is why some people won't engage

Yes.

It is unintelligible to the uninformed
man or woman in the street, based as it is on academic feminist ideas about being against stereotypes of gender rather than about ordinary people’s intuitive reactions to those pretending to be the opposite sex, expecting everyone to believe they really have changed to the opposite sex, and that they must be treated in every way as though they actually are the opposite sex.

A particular problem is that most people now think ‘gender’ means what sex someone is. As for ‘Gender critical’ anyone would think what on earth is that? What are you criticising?

A few more people may understand what GC means than used to because of recent increased mention of it in the media though.

It would probably be difficult to change to another phrase.

Sure, that's true, but that doesn't mean it isn't growing. It just means it hasn't grown to the level of being a major electoral concern yet.

I don't think it matters at all. Look back at how Gender Identitarians have treated anyone who offered them the tiniest but of pushback under any name on any grounds.

With the law as it stands, as confirmed by the SC, a position of neutrality from 'the masses' is a positive for the GC movement, as it means there will be no widespread challenge to the status quo. Perhaps if it had gone the other way more people may have felt compelled to nail their colours to the mast.

If you read any Times article on gender stuff, the comments are on one hand 99% supportive of the GC case or figure in the article, but so many of them weirdly bristle at the term gender critical, either just not understanding it, seeing it as an insult, or preferring "sex realist". I found that surprising coming from mainly reading twitter, where almost everyone seemed to know what GC meant.

Yes, I would agree with that. Many of those people are not gender critical in the sense of, they want to "abolish gender" or think that's even possible. They may think the TRA idea of innate gender is bollocks.

Sex realist is not bad. Maybe even biological realist?

I don't see any reason we need a word that somehow includes the goodies like Helen Joyce and excludes the baddies like Matt Walsh. One word for a common view that biology is real is fine.

I don't think gender critical really has scared people off though. Most don't know or use the term. Those that do are typically already invested in some way.

In a highly polarized debate, any term used by either side is bound to acquire a negative connotation. I personally don't think that it's worth fighting over. It's worth noting that TRAs often prefer to call GCs: TERFs, FARTs, GERMs or or the belief - gender critical ideology. So, in general they feel the term has too positive a connotation.

I like biological realist.

Sex realistic risks people changing sex to gender, because it's both a verb and noun and makes people feel icky. Which I believe is part of the reason we have got where we have.

Don’t get me started on this. A neighbour of ours is a short woman with short hair and a stocky build. Brought up on a farm, very rough and ready type. Doesn’t dress feminine at all but was born a woman and is a woman. When I was fuming and ranting about being ‘challenged’ in the toilets that time I wore some old clothes, beanie hat and walking boots in the snow she told me it happens to her regularly. She was genuinely upset and just wanted to go about her business but because she looks different from the stereotypical woman she gets basically harassed any time she uses women’s spaces.

My mum also tells a good story of when a girl asked her out when she was 14 and at a school dance or party. She was wearing an outfit my grandmother had made for her and had short hair at the time. The girl mistook her for a boy. My poor grandmother was quite upset at the unintended dig at her outfit making skills (she was FAB at making stuff but apparently on this occasion misread the room re fashion!)

Do the masses really care either way which is the point of this thread? No.

Women don't care about TW in the ladies, yet care so much that women with short hair or a woolley hat are being challenged in there on the regular? Can both be true..?

They don't want to engage. Period. Doesn't matter how much you pretty up the language and make it sound 'kinder'. All they want is submission.

And given the aggression hurled at women, I don't give a shit if 'Gender Critical' irritates or causes 'hurty feels'.