Gender Critical Science

[Terfulike]

We are hoping to ascertain interest in gender critical science discussions and activities. Please let us know here or via pm if you are scientifically or medically trained and wish to join our discussions and /or activities.

Well said flowers

Yes good post flowers.

If the women here can explain why the millions like me feel like we do from a very young age,

Because society conditioning into gender stereotypes starts at birth. Leading to many perfectly normal people thinking they’re not a real girl/boy because they don’t ‘fit’ at a young age.

Poula, I just - six posts above the one of mine you picked up on - commented on the interest in comorbidity of gender dysphoria, autism and BDD/ED. What is that if not looking into potential reasons you feel like you do?

And re "If the women here can explain why the millions like me feel like we do from a very young age, when no one before them has really managed to do so, then it will be a great day" - why would you assume the women here would be less capable of producing any sort of lit review?

I have nothing to add really but offer my support as an ex secondary science teacher. I have had various EDs, suspected autism, and a diagnosed autistic trans sibling so can offer personal anecdotes from that aspect.
I really think that if any progress into the "reasons" behind dysphoria exist (Poula) it is in the ED/autism link.

From an advocacy point of view (which would be a key use of your outputs from this)- a plain ‘science’ type of label for your outputs probably works best.
Some people will be put off a gender critical tagline. Or some people will assume that this is a partial view (because it’s ‘gender critical’) and they therefore need to look further to find balancing, or objective alternative scientific views to get a full picture.

This labelling issue isn’t to take away from science (like nature) being inherently antithetical to the whole idea of gender. Given that gender is just made-up shit used by some people in order to squash other people down...

Yes. If the voluntary researchers / literary reviewers manage to avoid bias as much as I think they can, then it won't be from a gender critical feminist viewpoint, but an impartial scientific one, and so should not bias readers against the review by labelling it as " gender critical"

How about "the science of gender and sex"?

We're not going to cover sociology

I just meant so that it comes across as an impartial review of gender identity science.

Seriously this could go far too wide in terms of subject content. I don't want to get into areas of research involving feelings or attitudes for obvious reasons.

If we did write a review it would have a suitable title (no GC in title).

All our methods will be available.
We will be clear about which search terms were used to assemble our bibliography as is normal practice.

To me it's important that someone looking for gender critical science would find us on google

What it comes down to for me is that things are occurring in this society based on the belief/faith that gender is innate.

How are we ever going to counter this argument if we don't start from a different premise and say actually no, we cannot make assumptions like that before we examine the data. That's what being a gender critical scientist means to me.

Haven’t rtft, but PhD in statistics here (albeit in a completely different area of application). Happy to translate / interpret stats.

I'm a scientist, PhD in comp sci and AI. Have done a fair bit of psychology along the way.

Happy to be involved in these discussions.

Many thanks spindle and Diane.
WI'll add you to the group.
Please be patient during startup of site.

If the women here can explain why the millions like me feel like we do from a very young age,

Without being able to know how you as an individual feel, that's difficult to answer. But for a general case, it might be worth questioning whether gender dysphoria is simply a general dysphoria that "picks" gender as its outlet. You have anorexia as a similar example of people who feel that their body is wrong. (And similarly commonly manifests with the onset of puberty). In both cases people feel their body is 'wrong'. In both cases there's a societal aspect to it (thinness, gender). In both cases there is a correlation with autism. Is it possible that there is a non-specific condition and the manifestation of HOW one feels one's body is wrong is largely influenced by social factors?

For example, someone with Gender Dysphoria feels they have the wrong body. That they should have the opposite sex's body. But how do they know what feeling like a boy or feeling like a girl actually feels like? They can't. Indeed, I'd argue based on how often it seems to attach to superficial gender stereotypes, that not only do they not know whether they truly feel like the opposite sex, but that they don't actually feel like the opposite sex. What does it mean to "feel like a male" or "feel like a female"? I don't believe there even are specific feelings for the sexes. You can experience having a vagina. You can be influenced in your personality by testosterone and so on. But none of this is some intrinsic "I've got the right feeling for my sex".

No, the only thing that's established is that someone feels their sex is wrong. Not that someone feels the opposite sex. That's an ideation the comes about in the imagination of the sufferer, not something they know to be real and to match how the opposite sex actually feels.

So I don't know what the answer to your question is, but I believe it's worth stepping back from the starting assumption it's about having the wrong sex.

No, the only thing that's established is that someone feels their sex is wrong. Not that someone feels the opposite sex. That's an ideation the comes about in the imagination of the sufferer, not something they know to be real and to match how the opposite sex actually feels.

This.

As a teenager I felt that I was a boy, after a while I realised it was society that was wrong not me. Perhaps this distinction is harder to understand if you never had disconnect between who you are and what society expects you to be?

I don't think I ca add anything meaningful to this, but thank you for doing it

There may be some useful overlap with the work done by Kathleen Stock and her efforts to gather academic philosophical input in the article:

"Anonymised responses from other academics to my articles on sex, gender, and philosophy
Here are some responses I’ve received, unsolicited, from fellow academics, since I published this and this. Each is from a different individual, with the discipline area named at the end. They are reproduced here with permission"
medium.com/@kathleenstock/anonymised-responses-from-other-academics-to-my-articles-on-sex-gender-and-philosophy-f1cc0db04554

thread discussing this and other articles of hers:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3254291-Philosophical-perspectives

Thanks @Terfulike

I’m also active on twitter under this name so can be contacted there.