Lived experience trumps yours ... discussion with a friend

[LePetitLarousse]

I'm quite new to these discussions, but from everything I've read here, I've come to agree with the gender critical position (or rather the GC position basically reflects what I've intuitively thought for a long time).

I have a friend who posts a lot about trans issues and I decided to ask privately why that was. I explained that I had come to take a GC position, and her argument was that one side was the oppressed - those who know what they`re talking about because of their lived experience, and that one side was trying to deny their existence. I replied that isn't that what many GC feminists are arguing. That the lived experiences of women matter too, and it women's spaces that are being lost. She retorted that it was nonsense, and anyway, didn't have the time to "tutor" me. I needed to read more about arguments against TERFs, and shared a terrible cartoon (Life of Bria).

What struck me was the absolute arrogance and certainty and unquestioning that her side of the debate was right, and anyone else needed to be tutored. Is this a common attitude experienced in discussing these issues?

"Lived experience" seems to be a sure flag for "I'm about to spout bullshit". The rest of us just call it experience. Unfortunately for those telling me to go and read it, the more "lived experience" I read, the more convinced I become that gender is all about the stereotypes. Every single story, without exception, starts with a child who did/didn't wear dresses, have short hair, like climbing trees etc. Have the ROGD kids not got to the stage of writing lived experiences yet?

'lived experience' is code for 'someone who has more power has now enter into the room, respect their authority you uncouth irrelevant pleb'.

It was ‘educating myself’ that brought me here 😍