The Gender Critical Manifesto

[venusinscorpio]

Let's put a list of salient points together about what the issues are with the trans agenda. It will be a useful resource.

But issues such as why we would have an issue with trans women in female spaces require an awareness of the problem of male violence, which even your most right on man will not acknowledge.

Excellent point. It does make a lot of women listen though. And men are more responsive to this when you relate it to their female relatives, especially daughters. I've peak transed two that way.

I agree that the issue of sport and the issue of child protection are the two things that have convinced friends about the dangerous slippery slope we are on.

This link articulates some of the points that my friends have found compelling: www.transgendertrend.com/gender-identity-rights-of-the-child/

I think it's also important to have some facts about puberty blockers i.e. what % of children actually go on to have normal puberty vs take hormones for life.

It would also be useful to have some kind of psychiatric accepted definition of the different kinds of trans. My understanding is that gender dysphoria as it presents in children is an entirely different thing to the underlying psychology of a late-transitioning transwoman?

Oh and someone mentioned on here once (I can't remember who!) that from a sociological / anthropological point of view, the rise of a third (or fourth, fifth etc) gender in a society is a relatively common response to overly restrictive gender roles. In societies that do not place gender and sexuality straightjackets on people the idea of needing another gender label simply doesn't arise. I don't know if anyone has access to any scholarly papers that discuss this?

Fairy I think it also helps if you emphasise the fact that most MTTs retain their penis, and that changes in legislation putting self-identification at the centre mean that any man at all can wander into the ladies loo. As with sports, this appeals to the "fair play" (I hate to use the word chivalry but it's something similar!) aspect -men really do not like the thought of some bloke wandering round the ladies loos and changing rooms. There was a new sign in our local pool saying that no adult males were allowed in the ladies changing and I asked the staff, apparently some blokes thought it was okay to change their daughters in there. My dh was outraged at the thought, really angry that any guy would think that was acceptable so I filed it under "arguments to use"!

And men are more responsive to this when you relate it to their female relatives, especially daughters. I've peak transed two that way.

I agree with this. This is how DH got his peak trans moment. We have daughters, and sharing a combination of the danger of pedophilia rings (ie men trying to take photos of young girls while out and about for the purpose of sharing online for sexual purposes - there are good articles written by policemen who investigate these crimes about this point, I will try to find them), combined with information about how far the attempt to allow males into female spaces like change rooms has progressed (ie this isn't a future issue, this is happening NOW). He's perfectly aware that not all men are sexual predators, being one himself, but he also doesn't want even the suggestion of potential harm for our DDs.

I haven't RTFT yet, but I think we should try to avoid the word 'gender' entirely, its overuse as a euphemism for sex renders it too ambiguous and is a source of many of the current problems. Use sex where we mean sex, and 'gender role/stereotype' or suchlike where that's what we mean. In discussions ask for clarification if someone uses the word 'gender' - or substitute what seems to be the appropriate term. I'm really 'gender critical'!

I agree, I think we should make it clear that "gender" in any sense is a sex role stereotype. That it wouldn't exist without expectations of male and female behaviour and status.

For sports, I feel we should include the Caitlyn/Bruce Jenner facts...

Bruce Jenner is 27th on the world record for the decathlon, a sport which women are not even allowed to compete in. However, as Caitlyn Jenner, they hold the world record in the female category.

(In a category that females cannot compete in at the olympics)

Ha sorry, I missed that you included that

I think there needs to be absolute clarity around why we have sex segregated toilets, it always gets shot down as 'no trans person wants to rape you we just want to pee' etc, but it belies the bodily functions that we are simply not socialised to carry out around the opposite sex.

Period flooding, changing Sanpro, washing mooncups, changing tops after breastmilk leaks, baby vomit etc, changing catheters/stoma bags. There are so many reasons we need privacy that don't even touch on the voyeurism/assault/rape issues.

Great thread. My DH got it immediately when i shared the story about the Brazilian waxing. The idea that you are liable for discrimination litigation if you say a penis is not female was gobsmacking for him (and me) and shows how far their nutty anti-science ideas have infiltrated without popular understanding or knowledge.

YY MrsTodd. The privacy/dignity argument is actually harder for them to argue with I think.

One difficulty I have found is that you might be able to explain to a libfem why sex role stereotyping is a bad thing, and they may well say they agree, but they believe (or say they do) in gender identity as a separate thing. They seem to apply no critical thought to this. You can say a child should be allowed to play with/wear/ do whatever, and that doesn't change their sex, and they will reply with a weary, condescending sigh, "That's gender presentation, not gender identity. No one is saying a boy who plays with like dolls is trans. It's a deeply held, internal sense of who you are... Etc etc". It's like hitting a brick wall.

I have wondered whether a campaign, sort of like let toys/clothes/books be, but more encompassing. Like Let Kids be Kids. Or Let People Be Themselves and Love the Skin They're In With No Need for Drastic Surgery and Hormones (I think it's punchy...). Something that doesn't mention "gender identity". Or a meme showing similarities between this deeply held sense of gender identity, and religious faith.

I don't know. Just something, anything, to push back against this.

How damaging puberty blockers are. Jazz Jennings has recently discovered that because he has been taking them, his penis has not developed sufficiently to allow surgery to take place creating a faux vagina. This poor kid is now left in a situation where they will be an adult with a small child's penis

My personal experience - for my DH I think his peak-trans moment (although there may be more than one) was a FTT person coming on an online breastfeeding group and lecturing us about chestfeeding. I said to my DH 'but it's a medical term. Breast tissue. It has a distinctive name from the rest of the chest because of the role in lactation. I feed/fed my children from my breasts. That's not social or gender language thats medicine/science. Why would someone want to erase language that specifically acknowledges lactation and feeding babies? They are babies FFS can't they be free from this shit?'

And he just suddenly...got it. Got the 'erasure' point. Understood how ridiculous it is to change and contort language such that straightforward biological and medical meaning is lost amongst woolly inoffensive terms.

I'm so sick of hearing people say, "I don't mind sharing a bathroom with men. Are you saying all men/trans are rapists? Anyway, if a someone wanted to rape/assault you, do you really think a sign on the door is going to stop them? You have a gender-neutral toilet at home."

This completely ignores the plight of women and girls across the world who do not have access to sex-segregated toilets, or sometimes any toilet, and suffer as a result. It ignores the shame around menstruation. It ignores the many women who have been raped or otherwise harmed by men and who do not feel safe in certain spaces with males present. It also begs the question, why are transwomen safer in the women's? And while the safety concerns are obviously less of an issue for men, I know some who just would not be happy with unisex facilities either. Lots of men and boys would not feel comfortable getting their willy out in a room with women and girls present.

I've long held that the best way for men to become feminists is to become a father to a daughter.

Reading through this and the gender critical reference thread there are so many excellent points and resources but it seems so difficult to organise them. We could do with a wiki or something where we could have working statement documents we could edit and update as we went along, and categories/pages for different links.

Good idea. I don't know how to set one up but anyone feel free to.

I think the erasure point takes a while for people to get but when they do it's a powerful one.

Laurie Penny's "what's a shorter non essentialist term for people with a uterus" tweet is a good one for that.

I think we should avoid the question of what is a woman. We know what a woman is, and by debating that we are asking and allowing men to define what a woman is. I also think we shouldn't refer to men as she or her.

What we need to do is ask them what is trans? Is it someone who has had surgery? Someone who likes wearing certain clothes? Someone who lives as a man but occasionally indulges his female alter ego? Someone who wears frilly knickers? We also need to remind people crossdressing is classified as a mental disorder under the dsm.

On a bigger scale I think we need to be contacting the education minister about what I feel is a mass advertising campaign in our schools. They are peddling blatant lies.

I also feel this is a violation of children's rights. Children have the right to be free from abuse. Campaigning for men to have the right to enjoy their fetish around our children is abusive. Most people are very focused on women's spaces and the women in them. Children are also in these spaces. This would give any man access to our children.

I meant to also say that a common response seems to be that they should use the disabled loos. They absolutely should not. Disabled women are extra vulnerable.