Why r/GenderCritical was banned by Reddit

[MadBadDaddy]

Hi! TRA here! Thought I'd take a quick breather from all the crowing, high-fiving, etc. to throw a lifeline to any actual open-minded critical thinkers wondering why Reddit banned r/gendercritical. Basically, you have 2 options when it comes to what to believe:

1. It's a true conspiracy: silicon valley, hollywood & the media are in the thrall of the well-funded TransAgenda, the need for woke points, child-groomers, women-haters, MRAs, etc. etc.

1. r/GenderCritical was hateful - if you want evidence then go to r/GenderCynical which existed to harvest said hatefulness. Read their strictly enforced rules about hate speech, misogyny, anti-feminism, pile-ons, doxxing, etc. (NB: abbreviating "trans exclusionary radical feminist" is not considered hate speech on this subreddit) and then sort their posts by "top" and "all time" and judge for yourself.

The trans men, trans women and non-binary people of Reddit do not hate women and do not tolerate abuse. Have a better day. x

I confess I am surprised this thread is still here.

OP it's perfectly fine that you don't wish to elaborate but I'd also respectfully suggest that if you choose not to do so (for whatever reason) then it's not appropriate to use those experiences in response or to deflect to another posters question/comment - specifically re: your 1.35 post.

Ffs in the name of the wee man.
@MadBadDaddy have you ever considered looking outward rather than inward? Just a thought.

DeRigueurMortis
Yeah you're right I'm all over the place and I'll prob. regret it in the morning. Breaking my vow of silence in this place has been a journey but I said my piece a few posts ago so its bedtime for bonzo

bettybeans
It's a great thought and I fully endorse it.

An aside on the slight derailment. I can understand the feeling of “being allergic to male socialisaction”, or the feeling of not belonging in whatever box that is ascribed to one by virtue of the sex one happens to be born as.

I would point out that it is entirely normal to feel this way, because most, if not all children have to be coached/coaxed/coerced into their gender roles. The roles are enforced in childhood. Many children rebel against this, and find complying difficult and upsetting. You are looking back and making your experience of kicking against the traces of gender mean more than it necessarily has to mean, with adult hindsight.

Secondly, that you feel you don’t fit into masculinity is absolutely fine, and would be fine with any feminist. Many feminists do not feel comfortable with femininity, and challenge it. The difficult part is when you leap to the assumption that because you feel not-male, you assume that you must feel female. You move from refugee to colonist. You assume a knowledge that you can’t possibly have.

I don’t find the crowing about a space for women being censored very edifying.

@MadBadDaddy I'm glad you started this thread. I think it's been interesting and I appreciate your openness.

I also think, in general, that it's very difficult when lone trans people post on here and are asked to justify/explain everything about themselves or their perceptions, and everything about trans theory and politics. (Different if they willingly open up an AMA.) I understand why some posters ask the questions but it must feel overwhelming when you're on the receiving end. It's why we need more trans voices in this board. There's a whole lot the two groups don't understand about each other. And I suspect most of us in each group don't 'hate' the other side - we just don't comprehend it because we aren't talking to each other enough.

Anyway I hope you'll stick around.

picklemewalnuts
Why aren't you campaigning and organising for the rape and violence threads to be taken down? As you are so against people saying hateful things? Don't you think they are hateful?
It's a fair comment and I suppose the only honest answer is that I only act in furtherance of my own direct self-interest and my own little world.

So do you understand that I want to act in my own self interest? I want to freedom to discuss the protection women are entitled to from predators and abusive arseholes. We have managed the risk by creating safer male free spaces. Undermining that sends up a bat signal to every abusive arsehole that this is now a soft target. It's safeguarding 101. Organisations have safeguarding hoops to jump through so abusers don't target them.

We have to be allowed to safeguard women's spaces. We have to be allowed to talk about safeguarding children. There are very few places allowing that conversation due to the actions of you and your friends whose main purpose seems to be to shut down that conversation.

What do you call someone who shuts down safeguarding conversations?

I like the OP. I hope they stick around.

One recent idea tickled me though - that I was born somehow allergic to male socialisation.

I think most women here would disagree with that.

[quote PacificState]@MadBadDaddy I'm glad you started this thread. I think it's been interesting and I appreciate your openness.

I also think, in general, that it's very difficult when lone trans people post on here and are asked to justify/explain everything about themselves or their perceptions, and everything about trans theory and politics. (Different if they willingly open up an AMA.) I understand why some posters ask the questions but it must feel overwhelming when you're on the receiving end. It's why we need more trans voices in this board. There's a whole lot the two groups don't understand about each other. And I suspect most of us in each group don't 'hate' the other side - we just don't comprehend it because we aren't talking to each other enough.

Anyway I hope you'll stick around.[/quote]
Oh we'd like to talk, but it doesn't help when Women's Place events are cancelled, when you are labelled as transphobic the moment you say you care about keeping single sex spaces, and Stonewall goes around with their 'NO DEBATE' message.

Also, I wonder who reported my earlier comment. It makes it looks like I said something terrible, that I swore, when what I said what extremely mild.

Just be careful Wonder as they’ll ban you on here with no warning and for a minor transgression. That’s why I won’t pay for the premium subscription as I know they’d happily ban me any given day.

@justanotherneighinparadise I'm just a bit confused about it. There are some posters who hold nothing back, who have said things that would be seen as offensive......but my comment was moderated???? It wasn't long, contained no swear words.....I can't type it again because that will be deleted, but I'm just baffled!

If the moderators see this I'd like to be messaged to tell me what was it I said that was so terrible, offensive and awful that it cannot now be seen by anyone.

Read the T&Cs again covering posting on here, but yes absolutely see if you can get the mods to tell you where you went wrong.

MadBadDaddy

Hope the hangover isn't too bad.

I was surprised r/GC lasted as long as it did. Not because of how 'hateful' it was, but because reddit is overwhelming tied in to trans ideologies. Anything even remotely questioning of gender on most subs was deleted and people blocked. A lot of the women's subs have TRA mods. r/GC stuck out because it didn't go along with the prevailing mindset. Yes, I'm sure there were hateful comments on there, but in general from when I occasionally read it, it didn't seem to be hateful of trans people, more questioning of the ideology. Don't kid yourself that this is some sort of purely administrative judgement - it is ideologically driven.

Do you genuinely want to win hearts and minds? Do you think that banning discussion, forcing people off to their own closed groups etc is going to help? All it's going to achieve is to make things more antagonistic and harden attitudes.

whatsthecomingoverthehill I was fine after a coffee, thanks.

it is ideologically driven

This is what I'd like to pick up on.

I won't deny that Reddit's motives are not clear, and that there are a lot of sickening subs and activity that remain that really, really should not exist. I also agree that there is a sexist double standard at play.

That said, there is a militant or even evangelical quality to some of the transphobic activity on Reddit generally (beyond the usual shitposting edgelords) and subs like r/GC were undeniably the HQ. Whoever would post their anti-trans creative writing exercises in r/unpopularopinion or r/AITA would certainly post similar stuff on r/GC or r/itsafetish for easy upvotes and karma and compliments, no? Why wouldn't they? And that's without even going into the "oh no we don't condone it" brigading that was observably going on. Finally there was the simply bad feminism - sexist, reductionist, homophobic, patriarchal, conservative, racist attitudes that got a pass 'because trans'. So I'm not going to shed a tear that r/GC is gone.

Sorry managed to clip the second part of this post. Apologies in advance for the length.

Perhaps it's merely paranoia, but trans people have this idea that homophobic alt-right and/or conservative and/or religious fundamentalist groups are involved in this at some level, from 4chan to evangelical christians. The thinking is that, having lost the fight against gay marriage, they have targeted trans people in an attempt to turn us into a wedge issue.

This would imply that trans people are weapons, not soldiers. It could also quite easily imply that GC feminists are too. We sure suck a lot of energy and time out of everyone's day, no?

I'm not trying to pretend that there aren't real problems or shitty trans people but it's interesting (as you say here) that I can turn my computer off and almost all of this feels a long way away. I go to the supermarket, I go to the pub (pre-covid, obvs.), I interact with men & women, gay & straight, cis & trans and it's just...normal? I mean, as normal as it can be if you are trans, but I don't feel like my existence is a slap in anyone's face.

In my experience Trans people aren't really organised or political or even united. We're more likely to be worried about losing our families or jobs than we are of being raped or murdered. There is no r/Transpolitics We're not even a class - there's simply not enough of us, in fact a lot of us would rather be invisible. We're like spiders - more afraid of you than you are of us. If there is an 'ideology' then we didn't write it. If there is a war it is asymetrical.

TL/DR be kind

In my experience Trans people aren't really organised or political or even united. We're more likely to be worried about losing our families or jobs than we are of being raped or murdered. There is no r/Transpolitics We're not even a class - there's simply not enough of us, in fact a lot of us would rather be invisible. We're like spiders - more afraid of you than you are of us. If there is an 'ideology' then we didn't write it. If there is a war it is asymetrical.

Sorry this is absolute nonsense. Trans politics have been highly organised and have lobbied governments and organisations with extreme precision.

Obviously this isn't all trans people but it doesn't need to be. Even a smallish number of influential trans people has been enough to drive a mile wide hole through women's rights and protections.

As for 'be kind' women are under no obligation to be kind when it's clearly not in our best interests. Civility I think is the most you should expect.

I think it's very telling that you arrive here initially to gloat then make all kinds of demands of us to listen you and be kind in our own space. I've never once been to a trans forum/space to take up their time with expectations that they listen to me.

Hmmm. I think most of us are fine with trans issues. What we don't like is

1. redefinition of our material reality by someone else - "expanding the bandwidth of woman" without any discussion with people formerly known as women. Many of us have issues specifically related to our female bodies - its upsetting to be unable to discuss these or even have them recognised as specific issues that only affect one type of human.
2. that our needs for safety are dismissed, minimised and discounted. Many many women have been traumatised by abuse from men. We are expected to now say that isnt a risk, despite our experiences, to "be nice" and reduce that risk to certain types of males.
3. that we see the gains women have made being rolled back. Women losing places in sports teams to certain types of males. Awards for women being given to "part time" women. We had to work hard to get our place in the world recognised and it feels like it's being taken away.

None of these are about trans people and their right to be recognised. It's about women. It would be lovely if trans women could show solidarity and be nice to us, by recognising these are valid perspectives.

"TL/DR be kind."
How about you stop telling women what to do?

I interact with men & women, gay & straight, cis & trans and it's just...normal? I mean, as normal as it can be if you are trans, but I don't feel like my existence is a slap in anyone's face.

This is probably because you're a man, tbh.

It used to entertain me when people with obvious, blatant socialisation started mansplaining about how they've never experienced male socialisation.

But now I find it so tiresome.

OvaHere
For better or worse, I've started this topic and now I'm offering my opinions and perspectives in response to questions. It's not my intention to demand anything, least of all that you give it your time or attention so im grateful for your reply

'be kind' was supposed to be light hearted.

If we're so organised who are our spokespersons? Our lobbyists? Paris Lees? Kaitlyn Jenner?