Gender Critical = fundamentally right wing (according to Vox)

[TheRealMcKenna]

I know it’s Vox, I know it’s not a ‘reputable’ news source, but this is hilariously bad.

Main points:

• TERFs calling themselves ‘gender critical’ are akin to white supremacists calling themselves ‘race realists’.
• Women are oppressed based on gender identity and not biological sex.
• Most ‘decent’ feminists include trans women in their movement, but a horrid bunch of conservative-allying pro-life supporting homophobic white supremacists don’t.
• GC feminists Who rely on ‘science’ have abandoned the idea that chromosomes determine sex (this is news to me)
• GC feminism is mainly a UK phenomenon and is ‘whipped up’ by the horrid Mumsnet site. Everyone else in the world is lovely (apart from those far right pro-life conservatives).
• GC feminists cite a tiny number of high profile cases to whip up fear and hatred of trans women.
• GC advocates bully people online, especially on Twitter.
• GC academics have a terribly large amount of power and influence.

www.vox.com/identities/2019/9/5/20840101/terfs-radical-feminists-gender-critical

cloudy regarding transwomen and sex crime. Someone posted an analysis of the transwomen currently in jail for sex offenders and how that compares to male offenders. Maybe you missed it. There are statistics have been actually collated by hand from looking individually at the crime reports.

It is the only way to do it. Because the statistics are not collected officially. And the are dismissed because they are not official. This is replicated on many issues.

You could look into research for example, estimates of the proportion of transgender people in the general population and further information on breakdown proportions of trans men and women. You could then look at statistics on crime, in the perspective of both perpetrator and victim, and see if there are any trends which shows that trans women are violent in general.

I provided that on this very thread. With links.

There are estimated to be 200,000 transwomen in the UK, 33 million men, and 33 million women. In English prisons, in 2016, there were 60 transwomen sex offenders, 126 women sex offenders, and 13000 men sex offenders. At that stage only 120 odd prisoners identified as trans. Now, it's 1 in 50. In Scotland, there are now more transwomen in jail for sex offending than women.

This is evidence. You ignore it. Transwomen pose no more risk to women than anyone else male, but they pose the same risk as anyone else male. The same. So if you feel it's discriminatory to have single sex spaces at all, then that is your argument. Care to make it?

@EdgeOfACoin

Checking in on this thread on my lunch break.

I see there's still no explanation of what 'gender identity' is and why it is more important than biological sex.

There won't be. There will not be any clear explanation of what constitutes 'gender identity.' One is merely expected to believe in its innate, mystical, metaphysical nature. Its disciples assert that their belief transcends science, that it has more heft than the material reality of biological sex. They expect submission to the ideology. And if you don't submit? Expect rage, accusations of 'bigotry' and threats of violence. This is the playlist. It is predictable and tedious.

It was actually me realising when talking with a friend who turned out to be an MRA and realising that out views on trans people aligned, and then realised that yes the hard right have a similar opinion of trans men and women that made me rethink.

Funnily enough, it was the opposite to this that made me start to wake up on the topic. MRAs supporting it. It was the 'first woman on the frontine' thing, extreme-MRA douche was really really supportive on this, it was brilliant there had been so much progress, and what an achievement for said woman, should be shouted from the rooftops..'equality!!!' and such. Of course, if it had been an actual woman, the response would have been totally different, probably along the lines of 'so what, they aren't special' or some other bollocks.

From what I have read, MRAs are extremely 'pro trans'. Which is unsurprising really when you think of the tactics and arguments TRAs use. They are the same, in the majority of areas. Given TRAs main aim is to remove the rights of women (and lets not pretend its about supporting trans people, given the mass wails about trans related healthcare being improved, rather than womens rights disappearing wholesale), of course MRAs are there too.

Mind, while they are 'pro trans' they still keep all their homophobia in plain sight too. For some reason though, and I can't quite put my finger on it, MRAs are progressive on ONLY the one topic that has the potential to destroy womens rights. Funny that. What an odd coincidence

Progressive there should have been like 'progressive', as IMO gender ideology is FAR from progressive.

For some reason though, and I can't quite put my finger on it, MRAs are progressive on ONLY the one topic that has the potential to destroy womens rights. Funny that. What an odd coincidence

Someone on another thread has commented on how remarkable it is that Ireland is suddenly awash with male feminists. She'd never seen many before, yet suddenly, now 'feminism' in Ireland means 'men can bully and abuse and demean women at will, should they try to assert that the word woman means something' it's all the rage.

It would seem there's widespread misunderstanding about what feminism is and who it is for.

It's not about championing femininity or fighting for the rights of feminine people.

It's for and about female people. Female is not merely an identity category, it is a reproductive sex category.

Feminism, and female-only spaces, are for female woman-gendered people, and female man-gendered people, and female gender-non-conforming people, and female gender-resisters, and female people with dysphoria, and females who never even think about any of this because they've got better things to do, etc etc.

The common feature here is female-variant biology, not psychology.

What I find extreme and bigoted on MN is the fundamental position that this should always be the case. There is no room for the sensitive consideration of trans women because they are at the first instance dismissed as not women and therefore excluded from any woman centric idea or resource.

I honestly just do not understand this logic. It is playing games with language. As part of language, we group things. A group of women is a group of people who are female, who were born female, and who have grown into adults. Suggesting that it is bigoted to exclude other people from this group is as absurd as suggesting that it's bigoted to exclude dolphins from the category of fish, or cars from the category of trains.

If trans rights activists actually cared about women, and safety, and dignity, they'd be thinking up a new category that covers both trans women and women. There are 26 letters in the alphabet and millions of possible combinations. I'm sure they could come up with a new word. But they are intent on changing the meaning of a word so that the people to whom it applies no longer have a word that describes them. And if no word exists to describe them, then their rights can not be protected in law because they no longer exist.

May I say @caughtalightsneeze, how beautifully you closed that piece of circular logic?

@TyroBurningDownTheCloset

It would seem there's widespread misunderstanding about what feminism is and who it is for.

It's not about championing femininity or fighting for the rights of feminine people.

It's for and about female people. Female is not merely an identity category, it is a reproductive sex category.

Feminism, and female-only spaces, are for female woman-gendered people, and female man-gendered people, and female gender-non-conforming people, and female gender-resisters, and female people with dysphoria, and females who never even think about any of this because they've got better things to do, etc etc.

The common feature here is female-variant biology, not psychology.

Thanks for your contributions Tyro

Tyro cuts through the bullshit, there. Thank you.

If trans rights activists actually cared about women, and safety, and dignity, they'd be thinking up a new category that covers both trans women and women. There are 26 letters in the alphabet and millions of possible combinations. I'm sure they could come up with a new word. But they are intent on changing the meaning of a word so that the people to whom it applies no longer have a word that describes them. And if no word exists to describe them, then their rights can not be protected in law because they no longer exist.

Also beautifully observed.

It's rather ironic, that women who simply want the right to retain their own category are accused of seeking to erase someone else by doing it.

What I find extreme and bigoted on MN is the fundamental position that this should always be the case. There is no room for the sensitive consideration of trans women because they are at the first instance dismissed as not women and therefore excluded from any woman centric idea or resource.

I would be interested in knowing what you think would be a solution here. Transwomen or transmen should not be excluded from any resource that they need. Nor should women. However, they may be cases where transwomen may need to be excluded from female only spaces to protect women and this may in fact mean that they need a separate group to cater for their own specific needs.

However, the fact also that a transwoman has to be included in any 'woman centric idea' is also harmful when it dilutes the resources or needs of women. Again, if they can be catered for under that 'idea' fine, but if it needs to be separated, then it should. The fact that there is NO nuance allowed is the problem and frankly, it is not one that I often see feminist women making. It is the aggressive push from activists that do not necessarily represent what actual transpeople want or need.

For me the fundamental exclusion of trans women from all female discussion is the bigoted part.

There have been repeated posts on this thread for areas of law that DO require transwomen to be excluded. On one hand you acknowledge that not arguing that all single sex spaces should be automatically forced to include anyone that says they have a right to be there and then you talk about how bigoted it is to fundamentally exclude transwomen.

I've stated a few times for example that statistically it is well know across several countries analysis that the vast majority of violence toward females is committed by males known to the victim, often partners. This is most likely true.

When bringing that up, I was told that I can't know that is true. In the context of the discussion I can only assume that the poster was trying to say that I can't assume that this violence wasn't commuted by random trans women and not the prevalently held belief that it is in fact committed by familiar males?

Are you saying that transwomen who are going to commit violence against women will ONLY commit it against a woman that they know then?

The stats show that transwomen are committing sex based offences in the UK at rates that are higher than females and follow those of males incarcerated for sex crimes. We do not separate single sex spaces by sex just for protection against 'familiar males' do we? That is not logical since if violence is committed by a familiar male, it may be most likely to be in the home environment.

So, again, why should a person born male be treated as if they do not have the offending rate higher than a female and are more powerful thanks to being biologically male. I don't understand your logic so can you please clarify your thinking here.

So true @caughtalightsneeze.

Ignorance is a key component of true bigotry, and yet feigned ignorance of objective reality is what M/TRAs constantly demand of us.

cloudyvanilla: There is no room for the sensitive consideration of trans women because they are at the first instance dismissed as not women

Are you saying they actually are women?

In what way are they women? Please explain to a simple soul.

Groups, categories, classes - they ARE exclusionary. That's the point of them. That's what makes them useful.

All that outrage and circular logic about exclusion...as if exclusion in itself is a bad thing in all circumstances. It's just playing games with language and fallacies to obfuscate simple truths.

I do consider this cherry picking of information and given the lack of any but anecdotal evidence that trans women are actually violent predators is just bananas to me.

I understand those saying it would be difficult to collect data from researching directly reporting on "violence from trans women to women in vulnerable settings", but that is a lazy argument. You could look into research for example, estimates of the proportion of transgender people in the general population and further information on breakdown proportions of trans men and women. You could then look at statistics on crime, in the perspective of both perpetrator and victim, and see if there are any trends which shows that trans women are violent in general. Etc.

There is plenty of reported 'evidence' of violent predators out there. It is really not hard to find and every month there is more being added to websites and to threads here. Why do we do this, because the statistics are not being collected to show the prevalence of these crimes and they are being reported statistically and anecdotally as being done by females. That skews the female crime data and does not accurately reflect what is really happening.

I'm just so interested to hear the evidence behind why it is the correct conclusion to draw that trans women pose an inherent risk to other women. The same way I'm so interested to hear race realists explain scientifically why black people just commit more crime because they're naturally more violent... Who the fuck says black people are naturally more violent. That is racist crap and this is a false argument. We have shown you the stats. There is also links somewhere (probably on the 'break it down' thread) to a peer reviewed study done that actually discusses the fact that transwomen continue to commit crime at a similar rate to males. It seems to me that you will continue to discount any study or information that we post and will simply continue to berate and shame women by stating it is unfounded (yet, it is not if you look at the actual data, combined with the study).

So, instead. Have you ever read a peer reviewed study or statistics that have been independently confirmed (or could be) that show that transwomen DO NOT commit these crimes? That those sitting in prison are not really transwomen?

For me the fundamental exclusion of trans women from all female discussion is the bigoted part.

For me the fundamental exclusion of male women from all female discussion is the bigoted part.

Why on earth should male women be included in female-only anything?

What is male women? You mean male full stop.

We have the language, we should stop with this hijacking of language.

@tyro because if we don't include them there's no end to the threats of sexual violence and social isolation we'll face. Seems to be the only argument they fall back on. Same old male violence and patriarchal control. If they have a better reason I'd like to hear it.

Insane

They don’t get to run the narrative like that

Same old male violence and patriarchal control. If they have a better reason I'd like to hear it.

Apparently, the prevalence of male pattern violence magically evaporates. Maybe the stats that we quote are false because there has never been an acknowledgement that they have been posted.

@TyroBurningDownTheCloset

It would seem there's widespread misunderstanding about what feminism is and who it is for.

It's not about championing femininity or fighting for the rights of feminine people.

It's for and about female people. Female is not merely an identity category, it is a reproductive sex category.

Feminism, and female-only spaces, are for female woman-gendered people, and female man-gendered people, and female gender-non-conforming people, and female gender-resisters, and female people with dysphoria, and females who never even think about any of this because they've got better things to do, etc etc.

The common feature here is female-variant biology, not psychology.

This with enormous bloody bells on.

BolloxtoGender I know there's no such thing as a male woman, but some people are under the impression that 'woman' is a gender identity. My phrasing is aimed at helping such people to understand our point.

I am going to respond but can I just say:

Thank you for the replies. I know I have somewhat derailed the thread and as said before I know I have come across as very pro trans without focusing much on feminism in and of itself. I do appreciate the genuine good faith and completely valid responses. Even the stuff I may disagree with.

I don't understand why we're debating this. Women have said no, that's the end of it. Everyone knows what no means and it is the opposite of starting a debate. All this whining and asking us to justify why we say no and give examples so the (usually) male person asking for them can decide if our reasons are good enough, as if they have authority to grant or refuse our access to spaces we fought for and actually own, is boring. No. That is more than enough. I for one don't expect to hear any more.