To think you can’t call yourself a liberal anymore if you don’t agree with gender ideology?

[Spookygoose]

I’ve always considered myself a liberal and I agree with all aspects of liberal political viewpoints, apart from gender ideology and the idea that there are more than two sexes. I hate the idea of being viewed as conservative or a Tory, but it seems these days people who reject the gender ideology movement are labelled conservative. Can you be a liberal and not agree with this?? I understand everyone is an individual and specific viewpoints differ from person to person, no matter what political identity they call themselves, however it seems anyone with anti trans views are labelled conservative. I think it’s more of a thing in America but maybe it’s becoming a bigger thing here too?..As a gay woman, one of my biggest issues with it is I feel it’s erasing gay rights and making society more homophobic

@Spookygoose
Are you meaning Liberal in the American sense or the UK sense? They are very different things.
To Europeans the Democrats are very much NOT very far left at all, and are in fact just another flavour of right, just not as far right as the Republicans.

If you are asking whether it is possible to be gender critical and on the left politically, then yes, it absolutely is possible.
Most traditional feminists are left-wing to the core and very much against the gender ideologists attack on women's rights. Plus the whole notion of 'gender' as a real thing distinct from biological sex is just based on outdated stereotypes that are used to suppress women.

It is a complete nonsense to say if you are gender critical you must be right wing politically.

To think you can’t call yourself a liberal anymore if you don’t agree with gender ideology?

Just to add, the UK Liberal party is up to their eyeballs in gender ideology, firmly TWAW, but they are a minor party and I don't follow them closely, so I have no knowledge of whether there is any intra-party conflict on the issue or a gender critical contingent within the party.

I would try to call someone by their preferred pronouns while at the same time not actually believing they have changed sex.
If that means that people want to call me right-wing then so be it. I won't be voting for a right-wing party so I'm not really sure what they have to gain by saying that.

We are mammals. All mammals reproduce sexually by having two sexes, female and male. Male bodies are organised around producing small gametes, i.e. sperm, once the individual is sexually mature. Female bodies are organised around having large gametes, i.e. ova or eggs, and having the body parts to gestate an infant, give birth and then produce milk to feed said infant, again once we are sexually mature.

That's the biology, and it's hard fact. It's not possible for anyone to change it, nor for anyone to change their own sex. Understanding this doesn't make someone conservative, any more than it's conservative to know about gravity or that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

It's perfectly possible to understand the biology and also to think that women and girls should be able to control their own fertility. Just because we can reproduce doesn't mean we have to do it. It's also perfectly possible to grasp that gender stereotypes are socially constructed, unlike biology. We know this because they've varied over time and from one society to another. We don't have to abide by them if we don't want to.

Conservative is a label used to indicate someone wants things to stay as they are. Liberal is a label to indicate people who are more open to change and progressive ideas. These labels are all about political, social and economic attitudes and nothing to do with science. It's unfortunate that they've become tangled up with science.

It suits some people to ignore hard facts when it's inconvenient to acknowledge them, and one of those is that men and boys are responsible for almost all sexual crime and most violent crime, and so when it comes to safeguarding women, girls and other vulnerable groups, sex matters. Not all males, but far more males than females, commit these crimes.

Sex also matters in sport, given that sport is all about what the human body is capable of, and male bodies, not hampered by the need to maintain the complex female reproductive system, are usually stronger and larger.

We have constructed a world where the default human is male, and women and girls are expected to fit in and make the best of things even though our very different bodies and reproductive roles make that hard or even impossible in many cases. There is nothing conservative about saying that women are not second-rate men, nor are we weak. We have just as much right as men to want our needs and desires to be taken into account in how we structure our society.

I think they have this issue in America where people are polarised into two camps. And it put's the gender critical people in with the racists and anti abortion people.
We don't have that in the UK... yet... but people like Farage are working on it.

I am gender critical. I support women's rights and gay rights. I am not racist but I do not agree with of our immigration policies. I support SEND kids but I do not agree with a lot of the policies we have in place which gives unfair access to schools / resources. I am not anti abortion but I am anti assisted dying.

I don't know which label I get....

It’s not a question of political belief, it’s a question of understanding basic biology and knowing that we live on a world where nearly every life form, even non sentient life forms, conform to a reproductive system that is based on a binary system requiring male and female contribution. This is how our world has evolved over millions of years, and the simple truth is that while for some individuals their reproductive system is ambiguous by chance or genetics it does not change the male or female nature of their sex. And that is immutable : drugs, surgery, social pressure, dysphoria or deep felt wishes, it makes no difference.

I'm liberal, I find the pronoun and "i identify as x y z" a little bit silly but generally inoffensive and it's very little hassle to go along with.

I'd happily befriend a trans individual, I'd refer to them as he / she as requested, if a trans woman wanted to join in 'girly' activities or whatever, I'd not bat an eye lid at them joining in a hen do, bottomless brunch, spa day. Where I draw the line is the entry into women's spaces, like changing rooms, toilets, womens prisons etc.

My concern for women's safety trumps my concern for appeasing trans persons desires, but doesn't mean I completely don't care about the latter.

Right wing politics is aligned with Gender Ideology because they think in general that women and men should look and act a certain stereotypical way, which is where the notion that one 'ought' to do or wear certain things comes from in the first place. The idea that you 'are' one or the other sex based on clothing and mannerisms, and have therefore been (the opposite of your bio sex) since birth is regressive and dumb. However, transness looks a lot like all those other things that right wing fundamentalists don't like (for example gayness, goths, etc) and that's why they've been lumped together.

Left wing politics is more aligned with Gender Critical thought because feminists in general think you ought to be able to do and wear whatever you want and remain happily the sex you were at birth.

In extremely repressive cultures such as in the UAE, for example, it is legal to change sex but you could face the death penalty for being homosexual, which to me tells you everything you need to know about the right or left wingedness of gender ideology.

Yes this, i can't get on board with some mens fetishes as an open lifestyle choice,

I think gender critical is the most liberal position possible, as it's about anyone being able to dress/behave however they feel or want, rather than imposing regressive gendered rules on people, as gender ideology does.

The point is the traditional distinctions between "liberal" and "right" are largely meaningless these days.

I take it that by 'liberal' you mean left-wing, as opposed to right-wing.

Yes, the distinctions are becoming increasingly blurred, because there are (at least) two axis at play here, forming a grid, not a single linear of spectrum from left to right.

One axis is money: do you believe in high taxes, high government spending, and the re-distribution of wealth? Or do you believe in low taxes, low government spending, and wealthy people keeping their money no matter how much they have?
This axis has fallen out of favour and fallen out of the political discussion, especially in the USA, because the Democrats have largely abandoned it in favour of the second axis.

The second axis is about social and cultural values: Do you believe in women and men being equal, traditional gender roles being harmful, minority rights being protected, and the individual taking precedence over the nuclear family? Or do you believe that men and women are different and gender roles are natural and a good thing, that minorities should have no more protection than anyone else, and that the family is more important than the individual?

My view is that the left in wealthy countries has abandoned the first axis in favour of the second because we follow the US, and there are too many very wealthy people running the Democratic party who won't vote against their own naked interest, and because emphasising social issues (the whole 'woke' thing) is much easier than actually doing anything about the poor and wealth inequality. It is low-cost virtue signalling.

Stop worrying about how others might put you into a box, and stand up for what you believe in.

i think it depends on how you treat people more than your ideology.

I agree with a lot of GC stuff on the surface, i don't agree with TW being in women's sports, or women only spaces where women are vulnerable, like hospital wards, therapy, or womens shelters (just as a quick for instance) but on the flip side, i have no issue with transwomen existing in the body and life and name they wish to lead. I think everyone has the inaliable right to exist as they wish on the gender spectrum and in general life as long as it isn't directly harming anyone else.

You can call yourself what you want.

Aligning yourself with every belief of a party or group is cult behaviour.

Totally agree.

Social and economic liberalism in its classic sense (ie Mill, Voltaire) values freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, rule of law, freedom of association, free markets and individual rights. In this context being gender critical and having the freedom to express this idea without negative repercussions is very much in line with being liberal.

As liberalism evolved it came to include not just freedom FROM interference but freedom TO live safely/equally - and then this morphed into some freedoms for equality/safety (ie trans rights and feelings) outweighing others’ freedom to express their viewpoints about the topic. Restrictions on speech became “justifiable” to protect minorities.

In the 1980s and ramping up recently in the USA the term “liberal” when thrown about by right wing politicians has morphed to mean “big government” / “soft on crime” / “woke”.

So in the US, liberalism has come to be (incorrectly) understood as “supportive of progressive social causes” but this is actually a far cry from what liberalism is actually about - which is the freedom to express your ideas and be safe from government interference.

Anyway this is a long way of saying, if you’re letting the US political sphere define “liberal” for you then yes it’s hard to be gender critical under than definition. However I still call myself a liberal because I am looking at the actual definition of the movement. I see myself as more of an “The Economist” liberal - and that publication has always been very vocal about the harms of identity politics.

I’m a centrist/ centre-right liberal. It isn’t illiberal to not subscribe to gender ideology. Trying to enforce gender ideology and shut down any debate or opposition is authoritarian, which is the antithesis of liberal.

Authoritarianism is not the sole preserve of the right wing.

My DP is as liberal as they come on 99% of issues. We were looking at political compass images last night and he was much more liberal and left leaning than most liberal or labour politicians, past and present.

He doesn’t believe in gender ideology. He’s a scientist so agrees that the simplification of xx/xy may not cover all people, but also knows that this is irrelevant to the vast majority of trans cases and agrees that trans ‘rights’ are important in the same way that all human rights are important, but must be balanced with the rights of others (women and gay people) to ensure one set of rights doesn’t have an impact on anyone else’s.

I don’t see how that ceases to be a liberal view point.

I’m a bit more centrist on the left/right axis but also much more liberal than authoritarian. But when those titles/leanings cover so many different topics there is going to be some overlap of left/right/liberal/authoritarian views on some subjects.

You’ve been gaslit in to second guessing whether your views are far right or not. Of course they’re not. I would imagine most people who are GC are also left leaning. People who do believe in gender ideology are basically insane.

I’m GC and pro choice which makes me both right and left wing based on today’s media. I’m concerned it makes me politically closest to the Tories 😬

@EuclidianGeometryFan

I take it that by 'liberal' you mean left-wing, as opposed to right-wing.

I mean liberal in the sense that its understood in the US (ie closer to the Democrat position than the Republican one). I acknowledge that this has drifted from its original meaning.

My view is that the left in wealthy countries has abandoned the first axis in favour of the second because we follow the US, and there are too many very wealthy people running the Democratic party who won't vote against their own naked interest, and because emphasising social issues (the whole 'woke' thing) is much easier than actually doing anything about the poor and wealth inequality. It is low-cost virtue signalling.

I partly agree with this, but I also think that over time it's become clearer that economically speaking socialism is usually a disaster.

For many years people were able to gloss over the failure of proper socialism because the European social democratic model just about worked. Post Brexit and with continental Europe in a sclerotic mess, there's so little to back up the argument that social democracies can work. People point weakly at the Nordics, but its very clear that there's no real meaningful competition to capitalism as an economic model.

I still have the heart of a centre left person but I'm very gloomy that any centre left party can actually win the argument at the moment.

I’m left wing and I “believe” in biological sex, I.e., fact.

Im sad that trans ideology has become synonymous with The Left, rather than a mental illness in need of compassion and support.

Aligning yourself with every belief of a party or group is cult behaviour.

I agree. I heard someone observed recently that you could agree with a lefty (the less tolerant sort that seems more common in recent times) on everything apart from one thing and that one thing would lead them to call you a nazi.

I've given up trying to define if I'm left or right. I've never voted for a right wing party, (that's just a fact rather than sign of left wing credentials) was a trade unionist and hold views that would have been considered left of centre not so long ago but my refusal to believe humans can change sex apparently means I must be somewhere to the right of Hitler.

I've stopped giving a shit. The lunatics who have hijacked sane left wing politics cannot last forever.

Yes, this is me too. There’s nothing liberal or progressive about handing women’s rights over to men.

I honestly think that it's self-indulgent at this point to worry about what one can 'call oneself'.

The enemy are at the door. All who oppose the far right, have to unite to defeat the far right, from Reform to Tommy Robinson.

We can and should campaign for and against particular policies (in my case, mostly relating to disability rather than gender), but worrying too much about what specific ideological category we belong to will only benefit Farage and even worse people of the right.