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 think it is essential that there are multiple ways /places to talk about this. The problem is that there are few people IRL most people can talk to.

We need some places where we all can communicate and find common ground. The polarisation and suspicion between GC women and trans women is (I believe) to a large extent unnecessary. I do believe that many trans women agree on the need to protect single sex spaces, sports etc. Likewise I believe many GC women would sign petitions for third spaces and help trans women lobby for those. In these discussions, I believe that we all have to be very careful and specific in how we phrase things to avoid painful misunderstandings.

However, I believe that there also is a need for places to went. A GC woman will need to be able to have a rant (within reason) without worrying about upsetting someone sensitive.
Same goes for trans women.

I wonder if the problem is again an expectation on women to be kind. A trans woman seem to be able to tweet explicit suggestions about rape and their genitalia to women (like JK Rowling) whereas women need to watch their speech also in places like GC where they expect to be able to talk more freely.

Extra funny in that GC was literally attacked, which is why it's gone now.

It's the trademark reversal.

Sometimes there isn't any common ground. I know that's upsetting for women who're relatively new to this debate to think about , but most of those of us being a lot less conciliatory started from a "let's talk this out" position, and there's a reason why we don't try any more.

A line that sticks in my head was a comment that said something like "we won't do x, because that would mean legitimising trans".

What's x, in this context?

I think we might be talking at cross purposes WRT to the concept of existence.

Hands up, I am very new to this debate.

I guess that I am just hoping to find that a lot of people haven’t thought this through properly. That if the debate is very open and all potential implications are discussed rationally that some common sense will prevail in the majority of people.

Sometimes I have a sense that this is exactly why some extremists are trying to shut the open conversation down.

I guess that I am just hoping to find that a lot of people haven’t thought this through properly.

For the majority of the general public I think that is the case, and I don't think that arguments on the pro gender side can stand up to that level of public scrutiny. For people who're delighted that Reddit GC got banned, not so much.

I work in commercial construction, so I can offer something on the subject of 'third spaces' from a purely pragmatic perspective.

Toilets and changing rooms in offices, gyms, museums, etc. are provided to serve a calculated level of occupancy. 'Accessible' toilets are an exception, but are often not outside of the 'ladies' and 'gents' and are simply a larger cubicle at one end of a row of 'standard' cubicles.
Given the 'trans' population is so small, and office space is expensive, architects are unlikely to bring in a third space, even if all existing buildings were bulldozed tomorrow.
Whatever else it might or might not be "TWAW" is society's cost-effective solution. You might win an argument, but you'll never beat the bean-counters.

Money talks, I can hear it saying ''make the mens toilet mixed sex''

We need some places where we all can communicate and find common ground

The problem is that - with no aspersions intended on trans people who are out there just living their lives- when it comes to the trans activists who drive the debate and unfortunately drive policy we are not dealing with people who are reasonable.

It's only when you grasp exactly how unreasonable many of the people driving this conversation are, and how entirely impossible it is to compromise with them, that you really start to understand what's going on. I recommend reading this bit of history, it's a surprisingly fun read and even though it describes events from 2003 it gives very useful insights into how trans activism became what it is today. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3170124/

GenderCynical was actually my first introduction after reading that paper, to how unreasonable TRAs are. I read some of GC, was astonished at how sensible it all was and alarmed at the repeating patterns of abusive encounters with transwomen that were evident in women's personal stories.

Then I read GenderCynical hoping for some counterbalance and to see "the other side" and after thirty minutes I was fully onboard the T*rf train.

I'm not sure if the extreme unreasonableness of GenderCynical is self-evident any more, as they specialised in twisting stuff out of context, and now the context doesn't exist to show them up. But don't expect reason from anyone who posted there regularly.

I completely see your point Prodigal.

However, I do believe that some (who like me never visited the site) could have a misconception on what it was about. A misconception founded by extreme activists, fuelled by skim reading of particular posts and later purported to be the truth. Anyone would be delighted to hear that a “misogynistic hate site” was closed.

I just wonder how much of the forum they actually read. I have now read several of the archived posts, I have joined the new forum on saidit and I have not so far seen a single post which I thought was hateful. I will also state this to anyone I discuss this with. I haven’t had the stomach to look at any of the other still-standing delightful reddit forums with rape in the board name,h but I will try after a glass of wine in order to get a fuller picture.

Kantastic, that looks like a great read, thank you! I will read it in more detail later.

I should probably have said “almost all can communicate and find common ground”. There will always be the fanatics and the lunatics. I just believe that in this case, the extremists cannot afford to have an open, rational debate around this.

It is scary to enter into a debate around these issues. I am reasonably thick skinned and confident in my ability to debate issues once I know some facts. But I found it quite frightening to start posting on this board.

I hope that the more open debate we have, the more lurkers on both sides will see that there is indeed common ground. And how extreme some of the fanatics are.

Whatever else it might or might not be "TWAW" is society's cost-effective solution.

Or alternatively, it would be simpler to just stick to the original reason for having two sets of loos, with somewhat different equipment in them - one for males and one for females. There's absolutely no reason 'gender' should be a consideration.

Yes, separate sex toilets and the onus should be on men to change their behaviour so that trans women don't feel unsafe in the toilet that corresponds to their birth sex.

Third spaces are the obvious solution to take into account everyone's needs. I don't fully understand why they're more expensive space wise than designing and building two different sets of toilets. There's no reason at all that their use should be limited to just trans people. Trans allies and people who don't mind which sex they share a toilet area with would obviously be free to use them as well.

So three sets of toilets or changing areas, which is what swimming pools tend to have with a women's area/men's area and mixed sex family area.

And in all cases, the onus should be on providing toilet/changing facilities in the most hygienic, efficient way that ensures everyone's safety and dignity as much as possible.

Public facilities aren't there to validate someone's gender identity.

Money talks, I can hear it saying ''make the mens toilet mixed sex''
Yes this. Previous employer had floor to ceiling cubicles, a ladies and a gender neutral.

Makes sense as women actually need more toilets because they take longer than men for various reasons.

Don't know why more firms aren't doing this, it seems like the ideal solution. No third spaces required and women who need absolute privacy from males e.g. for religious reasons, can have that.

Ie all the toilets were either ladies or gender neutral. I wasnt very clear

I don’t think GC, objectively, was hateful. Maybe a thicker skin is the answer, OP. I don’t think shutting down speech one doesn’t like is the answer.

Because of their social conditioning it is very difficult for most men to grasp that they are not the main character in every woman's life story.
That understanding requires more change than simply a thicker skin.

@ErrolTheDragon

Whatever else it might or might not be "TWAW" is society's cost-effective solution.

Or alternatively, it would be simpler to just stick to the original reason for having two sets of loos, with somewhat different equipment in them - one for males and one for females. There's absolutely no reason 'gender' should be a consideration.

I think that once we understand the purpose of TWAW is to drive women and girls out of the public sphere and return us to a condition of dependency on males it becomes obvious that the cost-effective solution, as usual, means women pay the cost.

contactusdeletus
Wow. Just found the 'other' Reddit thread again. If you don't namecheck me I won't get a notification, not that it matters b/c really you were talking about me, not to me. I understand a little better what it means to be objectified.

I came here to express an opinion on r/GC for those MNers that had no knowledge of Reddit and sought to limit myself to that. I wasn't here for gotchas or screengrabs. I'm sorry I wasn't 100% successful at staying on-topic but I was only responding to questions. I wasn't trying to win hearts and minds but I did observe some constructive discussion which made me very happy to see and I've also learnt a thing or two and yes, some nice things were said.. If I didn't express gratitude It's not that I wasn't grateful but I didn't want to jinx things and be accused of buddying up.

I stopped posting in the other thread because this original thread got reinstated. I thought if I was going to wade in to a piranha tank then I would start a new topic and if you didn't like it you could let it rot or else turn it into Delia Smiths Cookery Book (which I'm still open to, I could do with some new recipes).
I wasn't going to post this response but it's hard not to take it personally when someone performs an intellectual autopsy like you did. (BTW you skipped over the "poor confused lesbians" bit how interesting lol) You've called me out on so much and berated me for not having opinions on every aspect of Trans Vs GC that I can't even begin to respond. I don't think you were entirely fair but whatever, I've said what I came here to say and I'm content to leave it at that. I won't respond to anything further unless it directly addresses me. x

Sometimes there isn't any common ground. I know that's upsetting for women who're relatively new to this debate to think about , but most of those of us being a lot less conciliatory started from a "let's talk this out" position, and there's a reason why we don't try any more.

This

Whatever else it might or might not be "TWAW" is society's cost-effective solution. You might win an argument, but you'll never beat the bean-counters.

No. What would be a reasonable compromise where there is no room for an additional gender neutral space is to make the the male room gender neutral/mixed sex and leave the female space sex segregated.

This is rarely what happens though. It's almost always the women that lose the space and the men's remains untouched. This is despite overwhelming evidence showing why women are need of more private cubicle space not less.

MrGHardy
you feel hard done by because some woman on the internet does not want to legitimize your ideology and validate you as a woman? No, because it attacks what I am, not what I believe.

How do you think women feel with the constant abuse, threats and violence hurled at them? Outraged, but that's not an excuse

You make me nauseous, both from an intellectual point of view as well as from your narcissistic behavior. Peppermint tea?

@MadBadDaddy, am addressing you directly as I'd still really like an answer to my question from yesterday.

You said:

'You're right, no-ones ever asked me suck anything online. I have mixed feelings on that.'

I asked if that was a joke. And if so, whether you could see how utterly inappropriate it was. Can you explain what you meant?

A few of us have asked you now, eg -

'Yes, I would like an answer too.

Trivialising and fetishising the sexual abuse women face in real life is abhorrent.'

Any chance of a reply before you go?

Speaking to friends today I see this thread has successfully peaked quite a few. Thank you OP.

postingintotheabyss
You're right, in hindsight it was probably not the best time or place for levity. Twitter trolls don't seem to come to Reddit though, which was the point which lead to my comment. If it makes you feel any better, I was called an incestuous child molester several times in several different ways by some GC Twitter troll after I'd mentioned I had a daughter. Would you like a screenshot? Feel free to trivialise that.