What does it actually mean to be gender critical??

[LajesticVantrashell]

(Reposting with an amended thread !!)

I’ll admit, I’m still hanging around in the margins regards feminism and everything that entails. I consider myself a feminist, and have been trying to educate myself on key areas more recently.

I took an interest in the Maya case last year, and have often ducked into the FWR threads when they appeared on the active list. Lockdown and JKR, and now the slow emergence of others who are questioning the slavish adherence to TWAW have led me to this place. I’ve signed up. You can’t identify out of your biology.

But what I can’t get my head around is what it actually means to be gender critical. Because to me, it’s simple, but any kind of Googling takes me down a rabbit hole that leaves me scratching my head. So am I right in thinking…

1. Gender critical means we are literally critical of gender, because for women, the social construct of gender is what oppresses us, keeps us a secondary sex, ensures we’re not as well paid and that we don’t have the same level of opportunities as men (amongst many other things, obviously)

1. Trans/Non-binary don’t agree with this because they rely on gender as a means of an identity if they choose not to align themselves with their biological sex. So while we’d rather see the world as the ‘binary’ of male and female sex (but with no assertion of how you should act if you’re either of those sexes) they see their themselves on a spectrum of gender identities which are fluid and interchangeable. They see ‘sex’ as a rigid box of oppression that dictates they must act a certain way, whereas we’re saying it’s actually gender that creates this oppression by asserting (through societal norms) that if you’re a woman you must wear heels and make-up and if you’re a man you must drink beer and not cry.

Now I know they are the extreme examples, but I just don’t understand why trans/non binary people are critical of the gender critical movement? Because if gender didn’t exist, there would be no societal construct to rail against, therefore negating the need for all 51 of the current list of gender identities to exist? Meaning men could wear dresses if they chose and women could shave their heads if they chose without needing to label it as something ‘different’?

Am I missing something?

(like I said, I’m still on a journey of discovery here so go easy on me!)

I always bring this up on threads like this but so much of the media we consume depicts women as having physical parity with men.

There's a ton of films/series that have tiny women beating up some bad guy who looks like he walked straight out of WWE and other unrealistic feats of strength or speed.

I know fiction and entertainment are just that but with the amount of people that seem to struggle with the line between reality and fiction now I think it plays into it.

In addition to that lots of people now have sedentary office jobs and lifestyles and probably never think very hard about the indisputable biological differences.

So much great stuff on this thread.

I think the physical hit on women of childbearing and breastfeeding is not acknowledged enough either.

Great thread. Really liked the posts by invisibledragon and SenselessUbiquity

The reason that trans folx are afraid of gender critical people is because the only basis for believing that they are who they say they are is stereotypes of what a man or a woman is, and that's exactly what gender critical people don't believe in.

Agree with InvisibleDragon.

I'd even go one further and say I'm prepared to entertain the idea that - independent of socialisation - a majority of women (female sex class, for the avoidance of doubt) might be more nurturing, show a different brain image in reaction to a crying infant, not have the same sense of spatial awareness etc. etc. in comparison to a majority of men.

I seriously doubt many of those things, but I'm prepared to entertain it as a scientific enquiry. Because for the purposes of how society should be allowed to treat you, it doesn't matter whether that is true or not. Because it does not follow either that:

A) one is entitled to assume that because a given person is a woman, those things that are true for the majority of women are true for that person (e.g. we're not hiring you as a driver because the average woman has worse spatial awareness than the average man - you must hire on the merits of the individual); or

B) if you do not conform to the 'norm' for your sex class, you must not belong to that sex class. We have other, separate, empirical criteria for determining sex which does not involve anything as woolly or subjective as behaviour or ability. If I diverge from a behavioural 'usual' of my sex, it should not provoke anything more mild interest.

On a related note to the last, I think it's also worth adding to Invisible Dragon's post that another area people seem to have been squeamish about is acknowledging that sex categories are (or should be) based entirely on reproductive role. Because feminists have been busy arguing that women shouldn't be reduced to their reproductive role in the way they are treated by society, and because we acknowledge that there are female people who cannot or choose not to actually carry out that potential reproductive role, there seems to have been a move away from acknowledging that, once all societal bollocks is removed (no pun intended but I'm leaving it because it's made me laugh) reproductive role is literally the only thing that women necessarily have in common.

That of course includes young female people who are not yet capable of reproducing, older women who are past childbearing age and women who are clearly set up for the large-gamete-gestator role but where something has gone awry with that system.

The fact that we also currently have in common being treated like crap because of it is unfortunate but not determinative of our belonging to our sex class.

It is not reducing women to their reproductive capabilities to point out the common 'axis of oppression' (our ability to gestate and birth) as the root of centuries of mistreatment while saying that women can differ in literally every other way. I would say that is feminism 101!

Finally, while women and girls still are treated badly in our society, it is also not a contradiction to require that extra safeguards are put in place to protect them. While generally speaking point A) above (you must judge each individual in their merits, not by their sex class) absolutely applies to men too, when it comes to safety in an imperfectly operating society, there is a good case for taking a broad-brush approach to separation by sex class in certain circumstances where women and girls are vulnerable and it is not possible to assess each individual man separately. An individual man shouldn't be turned down for a job as a nursery worker, for example, because of sexist assumptions about his skills or because we have tarred him with the same brush as child-offending members of his sex class; it is possible and proper that we address him on his own merits. Where entry to a vulnerable space (communal public changing rooms as one example) is not and cannot based on individual assessment, blunt segregation by sex category is justified where this is shown to reduce actual harm in practice.

I hope this reads vaguely coherently. It's 5am so please cut me some slack if not!

Because feminists have been busy arguing that women shouldn't be reduced to their reproductive role

The reason we aren't reduced to our reproductive role isn't girl power, its legislation that ensures the availability of contraception and abortions.

However, maintaining access to contraception and abortion isn't simply a question of enacting one bit of legislation in 1974. You need continuing focus on women's healthcare, funding and other changes to circumstances - e.g. Covid initially impacted on availability of the MAP.

merrymouse I agree. To be clear, it wasn't a criticism and I include myself when I refer to 'feminists'!

I was agreeing too!

"To view gender - the accepted term for these sex stereotypes - as largely imposed by culture, rather than innate"

So this is where I'm struggling a bit with gender and/or gender identity. Because historically, gender has been ascribed due to the stereotypical characteristics linked to your sex. There are a common set of identifiers "woman - kind, nurture, caring" etc...

But gender identity is now an innate sense of who you feel you are ("I'm a man who likes to care and nurture, which means I feel like a woman") But this isn't linked to anything that I would traditionally think of as a characteristic of gender. It's purely this nebulous concept based on an unwillingness to conform to sex stereotypes.

Isn't this (in part) what feminism has been fighting for for years? If we really stripped back the layers, would we not find that in danger of violently agreeing with each other?

It's the numpties who say things like boys should not wear pink that are the cause of all this nonsense.

And the trouble is there are loads of them. Still. In twenty fucking twenty.

Thanks OP for starting the thread and everyone else for their input. You articulate your thoughts all so weIl. I will admit I am still getting my head around it.

Baron, I do believe the gender stereotypes have got much more ingrained in the last 10-15 years, although that could be my imagination.

.... I do believe the gender stereotypes have got much more ingrained in the last 10-15 years, although that could be my imagination...

I have that feeling too; I believe it is driven by homophobia.

I think that you are correct that many proponents of 'Gender identity' would indeed ultimately characterise it as a purely "nebulous concept based on an unwillingness to conform to sex stereotypes". I have heard a lot of people talk about it as essentially smashing 'gender norms'.

My problems with that are as follows:

1. I'd rather ditch the little boxes into which people must define their personality entirely. I don't want more numerous boxes to pick from, I want to not have to flipping introspect and naval gaze for the sole benefit of giving other people a handy shortcut word by which they can define my personality. If we interact on a personal level, you'll find out; if not, not only is it none of your business, but it's irrelevant.
2. I particularly object to little personally boxes by reference to sex classes (man, masculine, non-binary, feminine, woman), even if it's allegedly only an historical reference to old sexist stereotypes, and even if now we say that either sex can identify with them. It just reinforces the nonsense.
3. It's being used to blur the boundaries between actual sex categories, argue that sex is less important than gender identity or actually totally irrelevant. I disagree with that for the reasons in my longer post. Sex is an important difference with real-life consequences. It should never be a reason for or means of treating someone poorly with no other justification, but it is important that we keep sex categories clearly defined so that we can use it as a blunt tool for safety where necessary in the flawed society we live in.

But not the labels "man" and "woman", because they refer to material physiological realities, are the basis of laws which protect us

///// Yes, This. I get so irritated when people talk about facts as labels.

I think some of the reason being gender critical is linked with feminism is that yes, women have skin in the game and feminists are women but also once you've said, out loud or just in your head, that you're a feminist (I'm making this point because these days I'm sensing resistance and a little animosity/aggression towards feminism. I've not felt this before. So much like saying I'm GC, sometimes I keep my feminism to myself) you're aware that any damage trans ideology and self ID will do to women and girls, it's feminists who are the ones who will have to push back on this.

So to many, we're the enemy

@LajesticVantrashell

Thanks for starting this thread -- it's really good to find a space where all this stuff is being talked about so respectfully!

^But gender identity is now an innate sense of who you feel you are ("I'm a man who likes to care and nurture, which means I feel like a woman") But this isn't linked to anything that I would traditionally think of as a characteristic of gender. It's purely this nebulous concept based on an unwillingness to conform to sex stereotypes.

Isn't this (in part) what feminism has been fighting for for years? If we really stripped back the layers, would we not find that in danger of violently agreeing with each other?^

For me, gender as a nebulous concept is fine, so long as we keep both the categories 'sex' and 'gender' separate. Your gender identity can be whatever you want it to be, but you still have a biologically sexed body.

However, I have two main conflicts with the full "gender is just a social construct".

Firstly, the campaigns for full self-ID. Self-ID allows anyone to define their gender however they like - "I feel like a woman, therefore I am a woman". That might be OK, except that there is also a push to replace sex-based rights/protections for women with gender-based rights.

When you combine those two changes, you remove the right for women (as the sex-based category) to protected "spaces". That has really big legal implications. For example, it would enable trans-women to compete in women's sport, potentially based on self-id alone, without suppressing testosterone levels. This isn't just hypothetical: it's been a big issue in America, where trans athletes were winning state high-school running championships, meaning that girls missed out on sports scholarships.

(Without the vocabulary to differentiate sex and gender, it also gets really hard to talk about what the problem is here -- if both cis-girls and trans-girls are in exactly the same 'girls' category, then nothing bad happened. If we acknowledge that gender identity and biological sex are separate categorisations, it's clear that there's a rights conflict between trans-women who want to be accepted as their preferred gender; and cis-women (plus trans-men) who need specific protections based on their natal sex.)

Full self-ID in the context of gender-based rights is also open to abuse - like the male police officer on another thread saying "how do you know I don't identify as female?" to justify searching a woman. Without specific, clear, sex-based rights it's very hard to prevent obvious abuses (by men) or to make a legal argument that appropriately describes the abuse that occurred. If anyone can self-define into a legal protected category, it ceases to have any meaning.

My second conflict is based on the back-conflation of sex and gender, which is now serving to reinforce harmful gender stereotypes. We see that in Susie Green's TED talk. She states that she realised her child must really be a girl, because (aged 4?) they like to play with Barbie dolls and other toys 'for girls'. Similarly, in Louis Theroux's documentary on Transgender Kids, parents and psychologists talk about how a child (aged 6?) must be a girl because they enjoy wearing sparkly outfits and making dance routines.

That feels really regressive and homophobic. Like you said, we shouldn't have to conform to gendered stereotypes. But that's not at all the same as saying that if you don't conform to male gendered stereotypes you must actually be a girl (or vice versa). Especially if "be a girl" doesn't just mean "feel like you have a feminine gender identity" but becomes "actually is a girl" (and should have corrective surgery to make the body match the gender identity), because we've removed sex-based categorisations and only talk about gender.

Similarly, there's been a huge rise in referrals to the UK's gender identity service of teenage girls who want to become boys. Any huge numbers of staff are extremely concerned that they are not receiving appropriate care: because of the push to always affirm trans children in their chosen gender, there is a risk that children are given puberty-blocking drugs (with bad long term side-effects), cross-sex hormones (with permanent effects) and genital / breast surgeries that they later hugely regret. And these procedures are not well-evidenced at all. The best research showing reassignment surgery reduced dysphoria was recently corrected after a more thorough analysis of the data showed no significant effect of surgery on mental health; and the only research on puberty blockers found an increase in suicidal/self-harm thoughts in the teens who received the drugs.

At the moment, even talking about these issues can get you shouted out of town as a transphobic bigot. And yet, they have huge implications both for the legal, sex-based rights of women; and the safety of potentially extremely vulnerable children. These are nuanced, complex issues - they should be worked out carefully with appropriate regard for complexity; not by who can organise the biggest Twitter pile-on.

@LajesticVantrashell

"To view gender - the accepted term for these sex stereotypes - as largely imposed by culture, rather than innate"

So this is where I'm struggling a bit with gender and/or gender identity. Because historically, gender has been ascribed due to the stereotypical characteristics linked to your sex. There are a common set of identifiers "woman - kind, nurture, caring" etc...

But gender identity is now an innate sense of who you feel you are ("I'm a man who likes to care and nurture, which means I feel like a woman") But this isn't linked to anything that I would traditionally think of as a characteristic of gender. It's purely this nebulous concept based on an unwillingness to conform to sex stereotypes.

Isn't this (in part) what feminism has been fighting for for years? If we really stripped back the layers, would we not find that in danger of violently agreeing with each other?

Gender identity is a meaningless sort of phrase.

If we really stripped back the layers, would we not find that in danger of violently agreeing with each other?

Yes and no.

We need to separate out transgender and transsexual to answer this, because they are very much not the same thing. At heart, we do not agree with transsexuals that they are not men, though we can recognise why they feel that way and we do share a common cause - the dismantling of sex stereotypes (including comphet) would dramatically reduce if not entirely eliminate the incidence of transsexualism. For further info I recommend the recent articles (I think by Dr Em?) detailing the origins of the concept and practice.

Transgender is different because it means many things to many people. The modern transgender movement accepts that forcing people into a set of stereotypes based on their sex is wring; on this we agree. But we disagree on how (and why) adherence to a particular set of real-life stereotypes actually determines one's position within the sex hierarchy.

In their analysis, the masculine is prized, the feminine is degraded, and this is wrong; masculinity and femininity should be open to all; top of the hierarchy is masculine men, then feminine women, then masculine women, then feminine men.

We say it goes: masculine men, feminine men, women.

We focus on our position as an oppressed sex class, and see that men come above us in the hierarchy regardless of their presentation; they deny the reality of sex-based oppression, and focus on conformity to sex stereotypes as the primary axis of oppression.

They have a valid point: both sexes are punished for deviating from the social norms.

We have a valid point: we're oppressed whether we conform or not. And centuries of feminist analysis have been pretty damned clear on one thing: the stereotypes of gender are not innate, preterdetermined, inborn, destiny; they are imposed, and this is the mechanism of our opression.

It's purely this nebulous concept based on an unwillingness to conform to sex stereotypes.

People who believe in gender just want to swap one set of sex stereotypes for another.

Compare to women who fought to be allowed to be graduate from university. They didn't claim to be men. They just said that they should be allowed to graduate from university.

You've got me thinking, OP, so I'm going to waffle on a bit, sorry.

The fundamental, foundational difference between our position and the genderist position is: the acknowledgement of sex as an axis of oppression. They ignore this entirely, which means their analysis starts with an assumption that we are all, male or female, of the same class.

The problems with the notion of 'cis privilege' demonstrate this nicely. Humans who do not conform to sex stereotypes are punished for it, we'd all agree on that. The genderist hierarchy here has conforming above non-conforming.

What we do, and they refuse to do, is put the sex back in. We subdivide class human into male and female and then we analyse. We see that amongst class male, non conformity is punished violently by other males. We see that amongst class female, non conformity is punished violently by males, and psychologically by other females.

We note that the non conforming female is punished for her perceived transgression by both males and females, whereas the non conforming male may be punished by other males yet is coddled and accepted by females. We see that the gnc male is privileged by the female socialisation of others despite the abuse he receives from males. We identify the continued existence of the sex hierarchy - male privileged over female - regardless of his gnc status.

They, meanwhile, are focused on the gnc male's status in relation to females who do outwardly conform. They are right that the gnc individual is disasvantaged, but they cannot acknowledge the appropriate comparator class - other males - because they lack that one fundamental point of understanding: the sex hierarchy, rooted in our sexual dimorphism, that underlies the entirety of the social, human world.

So then we're left wondering: why do they deny the reality of sex-based oppression? What sort of person would do such a thing?

Not a thinker.

(One last waffle then I'll shut up, honestly.)

The other foundational disagreement at play is: equality versus liberation.

Class male extracts labour from class female: emotional, domestic, sexual, and most importantly reproductive labour. Everything class male has achieved is built upon this foundation. Feminism seeks to liberate us from this oppression.

But the mainstream, popfem, patriarchy-approved version of feminism that everyone's vaguely aware of is not about liberation. It's about "equality".

We've largely achieved equality of trouserage in the West; blokes are running screaming and crying genocide at the suggestion they do their part to equalise skirts.

But our ability to now wear trousers without facing social ostracism doesn't stop them from raping us (as the tm in the taxi discovered), from exploiting us, from building their lives on our backbreaking labour. Trousers have not liberated us from sex-based oppression; they never could, because they do not make us somehow not-female.

Tweaking and transgressing gender norms can never liberate us, because even in a genderfree world, sexual dimorphism would still exist - this is the key point queer theory is blind to.

But, as a recent thread demonstrated, unquestioning adherence to the lie that 'feminism is about equality' is rife on both sides of the debate.

For me, being gender critical means I am critical of the idea that gender is innate, rather than a social construct. I am critical of the idea that "being a woman" means performing femininity, rather than being female. I am critical of the idea that gender is something to celebrate, rather than seeing it as a set of expectations and stereotypes which are both useful and a tool of oppression for people of both sexes.

I share your pain and confusion Op. For most of my life, being female/woman meant that some people expected me to conform to a certain stereotype and accept that males/men were superior. I rebelled against this and stood proud to be a woman.

I'd always assumed 'female' meant 'woman'. Then the trans movement came along. Now I just can't see a female when I see a male person in a dress. He has a male body, he grew up without the restrictions I did as a woman and is not interested in female problems. But I have to call him a woman, just because he says so. This means that I no longer understand exactly what being a 'woman' is because it no longer means what I thought it did. TBH, I feel diminished again because of this.

So I now focus on my femaleness, as it is all I have left. Does this make me gender-critical? Apparently it does.

Senselessubiquity your position - as set out in your first post - is pretty much mine too.

It's confusing because the word gender is often used for this idea of gender identity - a property of the individual - and also for the other meaning where it's a property of society.

The only thing I would add is that not all tra versions of gender identity make it innate (as in inborn) - maybe you didn't really mean that. Some see it as largely or totally socially constructed too, developing from an early age. My question then is why this aspect of identity should be given so much more importance than other aspects of our identities & self perceptions that develop.

Good question op, and lots of interesting replies.

Hi, I’m still finding my way in this but one thing specifically puzzles me, and I see a lot, is where people who are against being gender critical, saying that the understanding of biology has changed and they say they now know sex is a spectrum and not binary, therefore someone with a penis can say they have ‘a female body’ (although regardless there would surely still need to be a collective word for people with penises and another for those with vaginas).
Incidentally, I’ve been reading through (possibly) one of the first threads on this subject (I got all the way to the end and discovered there was a second one!) and it’s scarily prophetic!