Peak GC Moment?

[CantUnderstandNoThing]

I've namechanged for this because I'm a bit nervous of the vitriol I have seen directed at others with a differing opinion.

I know there's been a few threads with people sharing the moments they hit "peak trans", often citing individuals (Karen, Lily etc) or moments that led them to their GC beliefs.

I've realised I've hit peak GC, or perhaps peak t--f would be more appropriate, and I was wondering if anyone else has? For me, the peaking moment was the interview with India and Posie. I felt very uncomfortable with how offensive and discriminatory Posie's argument was. And really, it just came across as hateful. I realised I didn't want to be aligned with that.

The issues of violence towards women, safe spaces and the issues in women's sport are obviously very important and absolutely need discussion but the current angle of "women don't have penises" isn't helping that at all (imo obviously).

Anyone else feel the same? Or starting to feel the same?

I am also doubting when the people who come out in favour of the GC position are right wing people.

I am also sad because I believe we (GC fairly lefty type women) won't win this. We will help the right wing to 'win' this as they have a lot more power and clout. And then we will be thrown under the bus again... along with the LGB. And of course, it will be all our fault.

But I don't doubt my convictions. Human beings do not change sex. We can only turn an apple into an orange by dressing it up so it looks like an orange. It still won't have orange segments inside.

And the sports, prison, care, refuge, changing room scenarios are unfair for women and therefore I fight it as best as I can.

'nuanced'

Reading some responses to an issue in New Zealand that was discussed on MN yesterday has made me less admiring of some GC hardline ideology.

I was never a separatist feminist and I think some GC politics is based in separatism.

I admit to being fairly new to the TRA / GC debate, I did respond to the GRA consultation along the A Woman’s Place approach, but I am uncomfortable with the non acceptance of Trans individuals that I see.

I guess I do believe that India believes she is a woman, and doesn't feel comfortable as a man.

Part one of that sentence - how can IW genuinely believe that when IW was born male and fathered a child with IWs male reproductive system? How can that person possibly be a woman, an adult human female, of the sex that can gestate young? How can that person believe that?

Part two of the sentence - perfectly rational and possible.

Why does the fact that the second thing might be true mean that we all have to pretend that the first thing is true? And that this should be mandated in law?

On Posie specifically... I think she is incredibly brave. I watched the interview and IW was very disingenuous. Watch the Big brother footage again. Same person different persona. It was just IW with media training to garner sympathy.

I wasn't a fan of Posie on Twitter although I think she's much better on TV (didn't see the interview with India). Some of the Lily Madigan threads make me squirm. I love Sandy Draws Badly but I don't think the Christmas cards are her best work.

It doesn't matter. We don't have to agree on everything - in fact feminists have always argued. We're not a cult.

I felt uncomfortable with her saying to India that she should be able to do everything she's doing as a man, whilst wearing a top with a message that must seem offensive to India Offense simply isn’t the worst thing in the world and the idea that it could make an entire belief system crumble is odd to me.

I don’t believe in god, that’s my belief after looking at the evidence. If I saw a fellow atheist wearing a tshirt with a pro-atheist message that might upset religious people, that wouldn’t make me doubt my belief that god doesn’t exist. Even if that atheist was wearing that tshirt during a tv debate with a priest. I might think ‘a bit insensitive’ but it wouldn’t make me start to wonder if there was in fact a god.

"Praising Trump is terrifying. America, again, has a completely different culture to the UK. Young people, confused or not, could be at real risk of his actions. "

Why do you post this complete nonsense?

The previous, Obama, administration proclaimed, by executive order, that sex, as defined in bipartisan 1970s anti-sex-discrimination legislation, includes 'transgender'.

Executive order is essentially a form of royal proclamation and is undemocratic, and while it might be ok for administrative matters, it is very clearly NOT an appropriate way to pass legislation erasing the understanding of sex discrimination as a feminist issue, protecting women, with a proclamation allowing people with male bodies claiming to be female to enter women's spaces.

This was completely wrong and undemocratic.

Now.

What happened next?

The NY Times posted an article claiming that Trump was trying to define transgender out of existence.

Based on what?

"a memo, which was drafted and has been circulating since last spring"

What did the memo say?

"Sex means a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth"

Was this news?

No. It was a memo that had been circulating for months.
Was it 'defining transgender out of existence' (note the use of language, the NYT is very deliberately using language implying violence/genocide). No, it was just the reversion of a sex discrimination law to its original bi-partisan 1972 state

Is it law?
No, it's just a memo that has been circulating for months.

The divisive party in this matter was the Obama administration, which chose to overwrite legal sex-based protection for gender.

feminists have always argued. We're not a cult.
Exactly! This is what makes the discussion a discussion and not a party line.

Thank you for answering

I felt uncomfortable with her saying to India that she should be able to do everything she's doing as a man, whilst wearing a top with a message that must seem offensive to India

I think thats a very good thing to say. IW dressing in a feminine way should be ok and not mean they are a woman. Why shouldnt men wear what they like or live as they like without being called a woman?

As for the t shirt I assume it was the dictionary one?

If so ask yourself if you saw me a meat eater and a vegan being interviewed on tv and the vegan was wearing a "eating meat is murder" would you feel offended on my behalf? Would you think that the t shirt could upset me and that the vegan was wrong to wear it?

I know what you mean OP. A few things have really bothered and frustrated me. Some of the acronyms used for trans people are really dehumanizing, the praise do some horrible people and institutions that has gone entirely unchallenged (being GC seems to wipe away all misogyny) and the focus on this debate to the detriment of all other causes that are actively harming women.
None of those things have peaked me as I am still strongly gender critical but it's stopped my engagement in the debate for the most part......

that said I think GC may actually "win" this one, the tide seems to be turning and those women who have done those things listed above have brought us to this point and I will always be grateful to them for that.

Adding to my point about offence. The offence a transgender person feels at biological facts doesn’t outweigh the offence I feel at having to read sentences like “Trans woman sent to women's prison for sexually molesting "her" 3-year-old daughter” The offensiveness is these male crimes being considered female and the ludicrous situation that means we are supposed to use these pronouns means that I can never see myself reaching ‘peak GC’ I will always think gender is a socially constructed system used to oppress females and will be critical of this.

I guess I do believe that India believes she is a woman, and doesn't feel comfortable as a man. As I'm typing this I'm realising that I'm very confused on the whole thing. I want to say it's because I believe India is a woman, but I'm not quite there yet. I'm sorry, I'm not very clear because I'm obviously not sure what I think!

Sounds like you are struggling with the cognitive dissonance required to say “I believe India is a woman” (the kind thing to say, if saying something else would cause India distress) when everything you know from biology, from personal experiences growing up as a woman (I presume) and from knowing India’s history is telling you that changing sex is not possible.

I felt odd after watching Monroe Bergdorf in What Makes A Woman. Physical appearance led my brain to want to use female pronouns. There was a woman on the programme Monroe asked, who said much the same thing. Along the lines, “I react to you as a woman, but when I remember where you came from, it doesn’t quite fit.”

But I think all women’s voices need to be heard. Sex and biology are real and I feel they are under threat from a regime that isn’t at all sympathetic to the needs of women. I won’t applaud or trust Donald Trump, but I won’t shy away from the fact that I am relieved to see changes that would adversely affect school children repealed.

I think the answer is that you need to continue to look at the discussion, work out where YOU stand and fight for that, if you feel strongly enough. As I’ve stated here, I don’t agree with everything every woman says. There are women on both “sides” of this divide that I don’t agree with / can’t empathise with. But I know where I stand on biology and on male violence and how those things relate to trans-ideology. I arrived at that position from reading the science.

Also 'Trump holds this position, therefore it is evil', is a really terrible way to look at politics. Hitler was, after all, a vegetarian.

acronyms used for trans people are really dehumanizing

Which ones? Are they the ones that say this is a person of a particular sex transing into the other sex ? If so, I see it as factual not dehumanising. Both sexes are human. If it's anything else, I haven't seen it. Hopefully they will have been deleted.

I had a "peak GC" moment when someone on here and around elsewhere on the net posted that a transwoman was working in the clothing department at M&S and had been "gasp" trained to measure for bras (as is standard practice for all shop floor workers). I personally felt, seeing as men can actually fit bras, that most comments did crossover into actual transphobia. I then I had a long while contemplating
"I usually agree with these people. Am I actually a transphobic bigot?"

Anyway, I reasoned that I will never believe TWAW or that any woman can have a penis and that is the core driver of my GC conviction so I accepted that I will not agree with all GC people all of the time but I don't actually have to, either.

MtT FtT which may have been banned now? I'm on my tablet so I can't check.

I have to go to work now but will reply toanything when I get home (don't want people thinking I'm a crit and run type).

GC isn't a club that you have to sign up for. It isn't a case that you're either unconditionally for everything every GC public figure says or you have to question whether you're GC - that's a bit of an odd way to look at things. You don't have to find a group to belong to, you can just make your own decisions and act on them in your own way, that's what mature adults do.

I am getting tired of seeing the 'well yes there are SOME things we need to talk about re women obviously' appear, because it's becoming a bit of a cliched refrain. I'm seeing it increasingly used by people who have realised how pissed off the general public are, who are trying the 'well of course there's issues' slide under the resistance to go on arguing for the erasure of women's language, women's rights to privacy, women's rights to bodily autonomy, women's rights to assemble or do anything whatever without men, and the enshrining in law that the wishes and feelings of people with penises are of higher priority and value than those of people with vaginas. And all under constant threat of rape and violence for non conforming, which tells you very clearly the biological sex of the people for this. It's morally wrong.

I don't need a 'side' to belong to on this, I don't need to check around to make sure I've aligned myself with people I can 100% approve of and shifted my views around accordingly so I can join them and be part of a group, I just know right and wrong and what I'm not prepared to tolerate happening to women in a society I live in. In some ways this is playing to the anxious 'there must be a box I fit in, and if I'm not 100% happy and comfortable in that box then I must be in the wrong box' thinking that is causing so much of this mess.

I wouldn't want to be measured for a bra by a man, not that I wear a bra but still!

I think expanding the voices we listen to is a good thing. I really relate to the trans voices who are respectful, like seeing Rya's videos. I love the analogy she uses about being a migrant to womanhood. As a migrant myself, I relate to that feeling a lot.

And I will use feminine pronouns (or masculine ones) as for me those words do feel more related to gender expression than biological sex. I consider them gender pronouns. This might be another side effect of being an immigrant to a country which uses masculine and feminine within the language for all kinds of things.

Anyway, brain fart.

There is really no need to post on a feminism board that you're no longer a feminist.

I have never said that. I am a feminist.

“Perhaps you’re just feeling discomfort at women not being nice OP?”

Exactly this - and ask yourself, OP, do you expect both India and Posie to be ‘nice’ when arguing their points (both together & elsewhere), or just Posie? Both are pretty forthright, but which one has the higher expectations of socialisation placed upon them?

I think the answer is that you need to continue to look at the discussion, work out where YOU stand and fight for that, if you feel strongly enough.

I think you're right.

Good thread, and I am sorry you worry about a backlash for having a particular opinion. Nope, no peak GC for me. Being GC is, in my opinion, the natural and logical conclusion to scientific fact, the fact that humans are a sexually dimorphic species, that gender is a social construct and that sex stereotypes harm women and men, girls and boys. No surprises there.
I come from a background of being a staunch trans ally with a close trans relative of whom I feel strongly protective. I actually peak-transed initially through my involvement in intersectional feminism, and publications such as Everyday Feminism back in the day (RIP ) and the efforts of their contributors, such as Riley Dennis etc. Having experienced a growing and uncomfortable sense of cognitive dissonance for some time, I would try to fortify my ally credentials by attempting to overrule my critical faculties understand more about their extremist ideology reasoning, which led me to stumble on YouTubers such as PeachYoghurt and Magdalen Burns. I felt I was crossing some kind of line even giving their arguments my time of day, but once I womaned up and got listening, I couldn't 'unsee' the obvious. Doesn't diminish my love for my trans relative and their very lovely trans friends, or my concern for their wellbeing.
I think, in the example you give about the Posie and India interview, the problem is that Posie is set up to look a particular way as she is arguing a universal point whereas India (prompted by the presenters) is making it all personal, which of course elicits empathy and concern. This same dynamic is seen time and again, as GC feminists are made to look cold and unfeeling as they present a rational argument, and TRAs constantly reference the feelings of mainly men.
However, I have of late rolled my eyes a bit at recent posts on this board by posters I've not seen much of before, which have seemed a bit off and perhaps, as another poster suggested, posted by trolls to generate anti trans sentiment for the purpose of grabbing screen shots for social media, conspicuous by pettiness and lacking in analysis. But what do I know.

I am a feminist.

But you think Posie should be nicer and India's got a point.

Ok then.