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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Some clarity in how the trans movement became so embedded, so preeminent

378 replies

MarcTheGenderSkeptic · 22/09/2026 13:17

Despite being called a conspiracist here by a TRA, actually I work very hard to continually interrogate my thought processes, and not fall into easy generalisations etc.
So, I was reading Róisín Michaux and her fascinating conversation with someone high up in HIV funding, and the push in the last 20 years is to get everyone in the tent on retrovirals, meaning reaching out to not just gays and addicts, but sex workers (incl trans) and critically, the "third genders" who have migrated to the West in large numbers to end up as sex workers. And the decision was made to go for maximum anti stigmatization, which means zero messaging on personal behaviour, and critically deciding to accept these men as women. Don't blame them, get more onside.
Guess who has to move aside, and accept the messaging on health grounds that biological men can be women? Made even worse by the increase in HIV in European women who are the partners of men who use the services of these "third genders".
Then yesterday I read the amazing post from Hellofabore about how for 30 years plus, the sports authorities including IOC and FIFA decided to make total inclusion the policy, phasing out gender testing, primarily to allow the male DSDs from Africa mainly to be included, as they were IDd as female at birth, and the cruelty to deny they're still female is wrong.
Again, the overwhelming need is to not stigmatize these individuals. Of course a huge group (we know who) are stigmatized for objecting to losing sports opportunities.
And then back to Róisín Michaux again, her illuminating the revolution in psychiatric medicine, where men back in the day were diagnosed with transvestic disorder, a pure paraphylia, again to stop judging and be more inclusive, underwent massive de-stigmatisation and de-pathologisation, from paraphylia, to dysphoria, now to common all garden "sexual health category".
Three enormous areas where the drive to include men, to destigmatise their plight, to bring them in from the cold, couldn't happen in a vacuum. Society organised along sex-based lines couldn't be simply recategorised, no, a large population group (51% XX) was expected to move over, make their definition porous, extend the collective hand of kindness and inclusion, to this hardcore of men who were deemed most at risk, and needing most help.
At the same time, this blurring of definitions and imposed inclusivity spread from sport and medicine to law and education, the most motivated men worked hard to get the Gender Recognition Act on the statute book, and via Stonewall culture, "social training" and the "trans child" escalated as concepts and then real world consequences as noone in polite society other than a very brave few said anything.
So now we have developing nations male DSDs and "third genders", socially incorporated transvestites/transsexuals, and queer culture first world transgenders in the mix, a political culture in the West frozen into aquiescence and policy drift, and the only light of realism and sanity, an army of women fighting back, with amazing results re SC ruling, banishing self ID into the long grass, and medical and sports bodies tacking back to sanity.
But reading the almost scary analogousness of how health brought in trans and third genders at the expense of women, sport brought in male DSDs at the expense of women, psychiatry brought in transvestites from the cold at the expense of women, you can then see how the most motivated men got the Gender Recognition Act on the statute book to turbo charge the social trans/trans child revolution.
For me, I can now see the past as it travels into the future.

OP posts:
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KnottyAuty · 24/09/2026 09:03

MarcTheGenderSkeptic · 22/09/2026 19:43

Great replies one and all. I'm aware of a fair amount of historical stuff even if I can't pinpoint dates.
But what might be less known by people is stuff like the HIV industry creating inclusion for third genders and trans sex workers, pushing women to accommodate, and making these new categories part of a sexual health classification rather than dysphoria etc.
When you then see how sports bodies bent over backwards to accomodate African male DSDs, you can see the policy drift to being anti racist, the religion of the left elites. Saving developing nations third genders, male DSDs, surely women would be ok making their boundaries porous to be accommodating and kind?
And then the de-stigmatising of transvestic disorder, again surely the greater good is achieved making these men feel better about themselves, what caring woman could object to sharing their identity?
Maybe this is why I'm reading more and more TRA attack lines that say transphobia and racism are intermeshed. It's an outdated model of what a female is for Western women, white Karens, to rigidly enforce boundaries that exclude the Semanyas and Khelifs and Priscas, those extreme gender non confirming third genders, those men who were bullied into old age who now can live and breathe as women and only want access to WI meets to discuss dressmaking and refuges to share their pain at being excluded women.
Yes, the non Western model of women is what the GCs are fighting like alleycats to tone police against, if we're to take the TRAs at face value, and the sooner these new women become part of the enlarged classification, the more we can all live in peace and harmony, transphobia <and> racism struck down.
So, aware of Stonewall policy drift after gay marriage legalised, and the insidious effects of the GRA, but seeing policies to incorporate the developing world into anti racism and anti transphobia, to me this is a giant piece of the puzzle that was not visible before reading about it.

Not read the whole thread yet but thanks for posting this. I’d also been listening to Roisin Michaud’s interviews recently and the HIV piece struck a chord. Really good to have a thread to discuss!

The HIV element seems like fuel in the tank of trans ideology. It’s the first idea which felt plausible to me about how policy changes have happened at such scale.

Roisin says in one interview something like - how many people would really care about the classification of transvestism as a mental health condition?

It only makes sense to me when we factor in all the money and effort being focussed on the Global goal to “solve” the HIV/AIDS crisis by 2030. The global health bodies are laser focussed on that goal and seem blind to the collateral damage being caused by their policies of destigmatisation and depathologisation.

There have been long campaigns to change attitudes to transvestites/transexuals (using old terms for clarity) but this AIDS thing and the funding it brings seems like petrol in the tank… suddenly theres profit to be made and government targets with allocated funding… which actively drives the ideas forward into policy in a way that wouldn’t typically happen for such a niche issue. Then imo social contagion and religious fervour took it to new heights outside of policy…

Obama started the war on AIDS and in the US/western liberal countries that means the target population is gay men. But in the rest of the world (where being gay is not accepted) those people are considered “trans”. Which introduces the idea of “men who have sex with men” (MSM) - those who like chicks with dicks - who don’t consider themselves to be gay. Roisin reckons that immigrant populations serving these clients as prostitutes in France & Spain had a big impact on European policy.

Those ideas and context really made me change my thinking on the origins of this movement. I hope someone writes more on this

Helleofabore · 24/09/2026 09:00

Any term that uses female language for a male person is still someone using female language to reference a male person.

Saying that a prefix somehow makes it ok to reference a male using female language doesn’t make it acceptable. No male person is a type of female person.

A ‘transwoman’ is only ever a type of male person.

Northernlightsss · 24/09/2026 08:58

MarcTheGenderSkeptic · 24/09/2026 08:48

Fascinating how equating body dysmorphia and gender dysmorphia are so dismissed.
That the motivation someone rejects their arm is very likely faulty reasoning/body hate, but the reason a troubled girl rejects her breasts isn't faulty, it's a higher reason, thus totally acceptable.
And yet again in the gender addled universe the true believers live in, no overall definitions other than the circular one exists.
Butch gender unhappy female equals something undefined male, and the need to amputate breasts is justified, extended therapy over medicalization is wrong.
Woman obsessed with some other bodily part for some mental distress is amputating for wrong reasons, needs therapy not surgery.

You seem creepily obsessed with women's breasts as if that is all that defines them so much so its an abomination for them to reject them.

Thank you for your oh so 'unexpectedly' informative male POV.

Northernlightsss · 24/09/2026 08:55

BackToLurk · 24/09/2026 08:45

“Woman in a trouser suit”? Shocking.

Try 'man facing' with a butch lesbian. I dare you.

Hypocrite.

MarcTheGenderSkeptic · 24/09/2026 08:48

Fascinating how equating body dysmorphia and gender dysmorphia are so dismissed.
That the motivation someone rejects their arm is very likely faulty reasoning/body hate, but the reason a troubled girl rejects her breasts isn't faulty, it's a higher reason, thus totally acceptable.
And yet again in the gender addled universe the true believers live in, no overall definitions other than the circular one exists.
Butch gender unhappy female equals something undefined male, and the need to amputate breasts is justified, extended therapy over medicalization is wrong.
Woman obsessed with some other bodily part for some mental distress is amputating for wrong reasons, needs therapy not surgery.

OP posts:
ArabellaScott · 24/09/2026 08:47

Just here to fling insults. You got nothing, mate.

ArabellaScott · 24/09/2026 08:46

Northernlightsss · 24/09/2026 08:28

Really? Try doing that for butch women & see how that goes down.

Hypocrite.

Rude.

BackToLurk · 24/09/2026 08:45

Northernlightsss · 24/09/2026 08:28

Really? Try doing that for butch women & see how that goes down.

Hypocrite.

“Woman in a trouser suit”? Shocking.

BlueLegume · 24/09/2026 08:39

@Northernlightsss there is no reasoning with you. We have very much said '’'hey guys, gender non conformity doesn't make you women or men thank you very much'

Unfortunately the activists carry banners and shout at us that TWAW and TMAM; decapitate a TERF; the only good TERF is a dead one and more.

Again, you seem oblivious to your tone. ‘Why not leave it at that’ ?

Why should we do as you say when you are denying the reality of something as important as sex.

Helleofabore · 24/09/2026 08:38

Readers note:

Male and female people are not ‘interchangeable’.

Female and male people do share personality traits, many personality traits. Because each person is an individual and interacts with the world according to how they personally process the stimulus from the world around them. There is no cross over though, between how a female person navigating the world as someone with a female body and reacting to how society interacts with that person because of having that body, and a male person’s experience.

This is not controversial and it is not disputed in general on this board.

There is a reason psychological and* behavioural traits are not used to categorise humans by sex class. It is meaningless as a categorisation tool because one set of "psychological and behavioural commonalities*" simply will not include the majority within one sex class while excluding people from the other sex class.

To continue to refer to this as a meaningful way to categorise humans is clearly someone trying to find the 'in' that will allow them to be included in one sex class when they are the opposite sex class. It is just another form of wheedling.

Behavioural traits are not reliable category boundary definitions for categorising sex classes in humans.

FlirtsWithRhinos · 24/09/2026 08:35

Rollingpinofdoom · 24/09/2026 06:13

Well your video links aren’t working so……

Course they aren't. It's all AI waffle he's dropping these days. Doubt he bothers even reading it let alone checking the
links.

Posts with "spectacularly missing the point", "what you fail to see" etc are him. Structured posts with lists and reference links are AI.

Northernlightsss · 24/09/2026 08:28

ArabellaScott · 24/09/2026 08:20

Those are neutral descriptors. Its you ascribing moral judgement to the phrases.

Really? Try doing that for butch women & see how that goes down.

Hypocrite.

Northernlightsss · 24/09/2026 08:27

BlueLegume · 24/09/2026 08:22

@Northernlightsss lots of us do accept gender non conformity. The line is crossed when we are told we have to believe trans women are women and trans men are men. That is simply a boundary too far.

We are allowed to set boundaries for ourselves.

Edited

Then why not just say 'hey guys, gender non conformity doesn't make you women or men thank you very much' & leave it at that? Why the need for the demeaning mocking?

You can't have it both ways.

BlueLegume · 24/09/2026 08:22

@Northernlightsss lots of us do accept gender non conformity. The line is crossed when we are told we have to believe trans women are women and trans men are men. That is simply a boundary too far.

We are allowed to set boundaries for ourselves.

ArabellaScott · 24/09/2026 08:20

Those are neutral descriptors. Its you ascribing moral judgement to the phrases.

Northernlightsss · 24/09/2026 08:18

Manyanamanyana · 24/09/2026 07:52

No, its that they claim to be us. They claim to be women. I don't care of a man wears feminine coded clothing, he's is a man and uses men's or mixed spaces. It is fair to say though that often the choice of female-coded clothing is... noticeably objectifying. David Bowie, Boys George, these guys never pretended they were actually female and challenged notions of masculinity in a way that was pretty outstanding at the time without demanding acceptance in law as female. Which makes sense, because they are not.
But you don't want to understand the glaring difference. You want us to be the bigots you need us to be, so you can just deflect all of the perfectly reasonable and rational arguments we make over and over and over again.

No, its that they claim to be us.

No it isn't. Why do gender critical 'feminists' routinely mock trans women as 'man face' 'men in dresses' 'cross dressers' & 'AGP' then if the problem is only the use of 'women' (WITH the prefix of trans to distinguish themselves mind you)? If you have no problem with the non conforming gendered expression of males why mock them for it? Because you do.

BlueLegume · 24/09/2026 08:12

Well said @Manyanamanyana

The modern activists dictionary when people
Bigots
TERFs - used as derogatory obviously without listening to us
Literal genocide
TWAW
TMAM
Lived experience

Manyanamanyana · 24/09/2026 07:52

Northernlightsss · 24/09/2026 06:42

I am tired of the men in particular dressing as women who frankly are wearing woman face.

I love it when a plan comes together.

The gender critical movement never met a stereotype they didn't like when it comes to men. 'Suddenly', 'why can't men just be effeminate men & stay in their own lane' falls apart when males attempt to do so. They are mocked as 'woman face' 'men in dresses' & 'cross dressers'.

The issue for them has never been the stereotyping of women's behaviour but that males dare to be gender non conforming. Its a misogynistic movement to its core.

No, its that they claim to be us. They claim to be women. I don't care of a man wears feminine coded clothing, he's is a man and uses men's or mixed spaces. It is fair to say though that often the choice of female-coded clothing is... noticeably objectifying. David Bowie, Boys George, these guys never pretended they were actually female and challenged notions of masculinity in a way that was pretty outstanding at the time without demanding acceptance in law as female. Which makes sense, because they are not.
But you don't want to understand the glaring difference. You want us to be the bigots you need us to be, so you can just deflect all of the perfectly reasonable and rational arguments we make over and over and over again.

Janie143 · 24/09/2026 07:34

Evoker · 23/09/2026 18:48

Oh absolutely, the Universities and the subsequent luvvies seeded enthusiastically. The media and entertainment industry have done more damage to women's rights than we realised - we nodded happily along with it. Any programme made today will get promoted relentlessly if it has queer theory in it.

Do they even get made without any queer theory in it? Less and less, I think. The BBC programme - Riot Women? - I seem to have remembered that somewhere, someone said that there was a trans character in that....but not really part of the story, just hanging around. Why was that character there, then? I mean, I know this is pure speculation, but I see patterns.

The term gender becoming ubiquitous instead of sex - so much so that we rarely use the term 'sex' even on these boards, a place I consider the vanguard for sex-based rights.

You're correct. It's not an accident.

That character ended up saving the day and in the women only band when one of the others couldn't so they wouldn't be able to enter a competition unless they did

BlueLegume · 24/09/2026 07:15

Thanks @Rollingpinofdoom you articulate my use of woman face better than me and hopefully @Northernlightsss can see it is very far removed from ‘mocking’.

It is accepting that some men and some women like to dress in a ‘costume’ so to speak which portrays them as presenting as the opposite sex. It is really that simple.

When said men or women do this the only thing they change is their appearance. Not their sex.

Disrupting threads is one thing but being wilfully ignorant is either someone with nothing else to do or someone who is realising this gender TWAW/TMAM grift is collapsing and the ‘plan’ might have come together briefly but it is now falling apart because we were ‘kind’ for a while, but now we have had enough. Unless you are in the Lib Dem’s who seem to have also been utterly captured this week. Except the excellent Zoe Hollowood-a woman who speaks for many of us.

Women fought hard for sex based rights. We will fight to retain them. See Sandie Peggie vs the Nursing Union this week in Dundee.

All this aside perhaps Northern lights can explain what happens next. Assuming we continue the path of medics removing healthy body parts because a non medic tells them they ‘feel’ they should not have breasts of male genitalia? |If this becomes the norm what will the next demands be?

I also think the anorexia analogy is the clearest in the whole gender care debate.

Rollingpinofdoom · 24/09/2026 07:13

Helleofabore · 24/09/2026 07:11

I couldn’t work that out myself. But then I expect the AI generators may prioritise quantity over quality when it comes to deciding what content to regurgitate.

depends what AI engine you use for sure. Some are convinced America is the only country to exist ….

ArabellaScott · 24/09/2026 07:13

Northernlightsss · 24/09/2026 06:30

No, neither grounded in reality. Sex is not assigned at birth, that’s your first error. There is no one going round choosing what sex a baby is when it comes out. Unless of course you are saying all sonographers are lying?

Um, that's not what was said so I don't where you get the daft assumption that doctors 'choose' a sex. All that's being said is doctors assign a sex based on their observations.

what is gender identity? How should someone “know” they are the opposite sex really? I mean, what criteria would a male use to “know” he is a woman? What woman does he compare himself to? All he can do is compare himself to his idea of what a woman feels like. So he “feels like” a man who has his idea of what a woman feels like. He does not know what it feels like to be a woman.

Gender identity is a person's internal sense of being a man, a woman, both, or neither. It is a core part of who you are and how you understand yourself based on your personal traits as applied to social categorisations.

Both gender dysphoria and body dysmorphia are deep beliefs something is wrong with the body. Why (according to you) is one based in reality and one not? Gender dysphoria is an obsessive belief on a perceived flaw in physical appearance and so is body dysmorphia.

The difference is there's an actual basis in reality for gender dysphoria & that is the existence of the person's individual gendered traits for example a butch female or effeminate male who wants to align their body with these psychological traits.

Edited

Gender identity is a person's internal sense of being a man, a woman, both, or neither.

What does this feel like? Can you describe what any of these identities feel like? How do I know what my gender identity is?

Helleofabore · 24/09/2026 07:11

BackToLurk · 24/09/2026 06:53

Why would you imagine America was global feminism?

I couldn’t work that out myself. But then I expect the AI generators may prioritise quantity over quality when it comes to deciding what content to regurgitate.

Rollingpinofdoom · 24/09/2026 07:08

Northernlightsss · 24/09/2026 06:42

I am tired of the men in particular dressing as women who frankly are wearing woman face.

I love it when a plan comes together.

The gender critical movement never met a stereotype they didn't like when it comes to men. 'Suddenly', 'why can't men just be effeminate men & stay in their own lane' falls apart when males attempt to do so. They are mocked as 'woman face' 'men in dresses' & 'cross dressers'.

The issue for them has never been the stereotyping of women's behaviour but that males dare to be gender non conforming. Its a misogynistic movement to its core.

But then, if men can wear dresses and embrace feminine stereotypes and still be men, surely that shows that gender identity is not real. So it will prove “trans women” are just GNC men and therefore belong, as they always have done, in male spaces
referring to “woman-face”, is criticising those men who claim dressing as women makes them women. Not GNC men.

DustyWindowsills · 24/09/2026 07:05

NotBadConsidering · 24/09/2026 07:00

There’s an entire thread where HowseitNorthernLights bangs on about stereotypes if you want to avoid rehashing the arguments:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5398721-womens-private-spaces?page=1

I remember it well. This twat needs a new hobby.