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

Why do we never get actual answers to any questions or points raised, but just vague platitudes and mantras? Let's take the validity thing. Aside from its use in formal logic, validity is a concept in psychotherapy. Imagine I begin to laugh when talking about my dead mother, and I feel guilty or upset about it. I think my feelings are wrong. My therapist will tell me my feelings are 'valid' in the sense that they are real and shouldn't be suppressed - there's no wrong way to feel. But this was never meant to apply to things that literally clash with reality. If I 'feel' like I'm super fat and ugly when I'm really skinny and normal looking my therapist won't validate those feelings because they don't line up with reality. Feelings and beliefs can sometimes clash with reality. People can easily believe they are something they are not. I just don't get this idea that people are 100% correct about themselves and are the best sources of knowledge about their identity. It's obvious to me that people can be mistaken about themselves and their feelings, so I have no idea why I"m supposed to take it as gospel what people say about themselves.

But insisting on being classed as a member of the opposite sex does affect others, very much so.

It amazes me that this still has to be re-stated.

Just finished reading the entire thread.

I just wanted to thank the 'gender-affirming' posters for engaging and outlining their thoughts and the arguments which have brought them to their position on trans rights.

However, as always I am blown away by the clarity of thought and the reasoned (and evidenced) counter-arguments of gender-critical posters on mumsnet. I knew instinctively that believing in female-centered feminism didn't make me a bigot but after reading this thread I now feel better able to defend the accusations! Thank you!

@Jamclag

Just finished reading the entire thread.

I just wanted to thank the 'gender-affirming' posters for engaging and outlining their thoughts and the arguments which have brought them to their position on trans rights.

However, as always I am blown away by the clarity of thought and the reasoned (and evidenced) counter-arguments of gender-critical posters on mumsnet. I knew instinctively that believing in female-centered feminism didn't make me a bigot but after reading this thread I now feel better able to defend the accusations! Thank you!

I’d like to echo this.

After starting this post I realised the article I’d linked to was so old and so I thought there would be little engagement. It’s been really interesting to read all the evidence and clearly stated arguments.

Some sore losers on this thread!

Sore losers?!
It's not a game.

No, we are painfully aware it's not a game.

Male bodied rapists in women's prisons in obvious violation of women prisoners' human rights.
15 stone, 6'2" male forwards in women's rugby, in violation of all considerations of fairness and safety in women's sports.
Gender non-conforming girls with issues around body dysmorphia and struggling against sexist (and over sexualised) norms of behaviour in a deeply sexist and increasingly pornified society being encouraged to undertake irreversible medical treatment the side effects of which are not fully known (but which preliminary experience suggests may be fucking horrendous - for instance women taking such drugs as treatment for other conditions ending up with crippling osteoporosis).

Believe me, we know this is not a game.

I would really like to hear from those who believe that perceived gender identity should be used to define ‘woman’ whether you believe there should be any ‘gatekeeping’ at all on self-id when it comes to accessing resources and facilities set aside as women only on the basis of sex? I’m referring particularly to sports, hospital wards, communal changing rooms, shared sleeping facilities and prisons but that is not exhaustive.

If you don’t believe in any ‘gatekeeping’ for sex (ie self definition is all that’s necessary) do you believe that the same is true for other ‘protected’ characteristics such as race, LGBTQ and disability?

I’m not asking for any justification. I would just like to know what people view as a stable category/classification and what isn’t.

I'm also intrigued to hear from people who started out gender critical then saw the error of their ways, because I imagine they'll be ideally placed to articulate to me what a woman is, if it's not biology, and you're not allowed to mention sex stereotypes.

I mean, if you started out gender critical, you presumably started out thinking "woman" was a word for a biological category to do with reproductive capacity, and "gender" was a system of beliefs about appropriate behaviours, roles, dress-codes, moral standards etc. applied in a culturally specific way to members of one sex or the other, almost universally to the detriment of women.

You then shifted to a belief that "woman" was a social and culturally constructed category, and "gender" applied to some sort of internal essence which all "women" had regardless of biological sex.

So you must be able to tell me what gender identity is.

And because you started from the same place I did, namely GC feminism, you must be able to do this in such a way as not to appeal to sex stereotypes.

Thank you, CaraDuneRedux, I have been trying to think of a way to ask that question.

Beautifully expressed.

@TheRealMcKenna I've sadly not got much time to spend on these discussions and haven't been able to keep up with the thread but I'd like to answer your most recent question from my perspective.

Despite how much I have and will defend transgender as a concept and feel okay with allowing the conflation of sex and gender identity in order for trans people to have a comfortable place in society, I do still hold reservations over the potential fall out of allowing self identification of gender. I do believe as I've said on other places and here that I do question the proportionality of the threat in some regards, but I do feel uncomfortable with the idea of no barrier to protect women, and particularly vulnerable women.

As it stands, I just have to accept the dissonance between my conflicting beliefs and hope that the current system of needing to work for gender identity as legal status keeps it a sufficiently difficult route to try and abuse for predatory men. As far as I'm aware self ID is not a popular policy proposal in the UK and GRA changes have been backpedalled.

This does though leave me in a difficult and lonely position as a feminist. I do not fit in with the gender critical feminists, at least not the ones on mumsnet, because I still support and believe that trans women can and should be welcomed under the, as an article I read put it, the "category of woman".

But I also don't feel I'm far enough down the path, so to speak, to be on the same page as more typically progressive/leftist feminists or even people who see no issue at all. I'm sure as pro trans as you all see me, they would still probably consider me transphobic to even have the reservations I have. Communities online tend to centre around those two schools of thought and I've literally only found one community that even resembles my values and even then a) if I explained fully my perspective then I doubt I would be welcome and b) it's reddit so it's mostly cute memes and pictures and stuff.

Well put @CaraDuneRedux. I wonder if you will get an answer.

@CaraDuneRedux maybe I was never a gender critical feminist then. I have misrepresented myself.

However I was definitely a feminist who through mainly this site developed a similar attitude and perspective on the issues surrounding transgender rights and feminism, and firmly agreed with a lot of what was posted here.

I now feel very differently because through a combination of factors coming together. I now feel more strongly that gender identity and expression and social construct is not possible to simultaneously limit too nor entangle from biological sex. I realise now I never believed that, but I did agree with a lot that was said negatively about trans people.

This did not sit well with me. I felt intolerant of people whose experience I could never experience or understand. I considered them a patriarchal threat upon biological women, and now I simply don't feel that way, I feel compassionate again to there lack of firm place and I understand the hurt and subjugation they must feel.

That being said, I have no problem accepting that solidifying and validating their identities has issues.

Sorry that last sentence should say legislative issues

Thank you for clarifying CloudyVanilla. I respect that is your opinion which you are entitled to hold.

If I am reading it correctly, you are indeed in favour of some form of ‘gatekeeping’ of the identity of ‘woman’ with regards to access to women only spaces and would not favour a wholly self-id approach. As you confirm yourself, this would lead to you being labelled as transphobic by the louder and more aggressive ‘trans rights’ mob. I don’t think JK Rowling has said anything more trans-exclusionary, and we all know how that has worked out for her.

I now feel more strongly that gender identity and expression and social construct is not possible to simultaneously limit too nor entangle from biological sex.

What does any of this even mean? I am getting the impression that being a TRA cheerleader is based on yet another ineffable feeling, even more opaque and vague and inaccessible to mere plebs like myself than the feeling of having a gender identity.

Certainly it doesn't seem to be easily translatable into language, let alone logic.

If one were to take this poster at face value (like others I'm sceptical), it appears the source of their change of heart is more akin to a religious conversion than a process of being convinced by facts and evidence.

Thank you for clarifying CloudyVanilla

Clarifying! I started feeling like I got drunkdialled by Judith Butler after reading a few sentences. But maybe it's just me, maybe my gender is a bit arsey today.

Kantastic to be fair, I asked for ‘clarification’ on whether she believed that self-id based on perceived gender identity of an individual was sufficient for a TW to gain access to female spaces and the the answer I received was (in my opinion) no.

Oh okay, TheRealMcKenna. I missed your request. I too get the impression that the answer to your question is "no" fwiw.

It was the rest of it that gave me a weird vertigo feeling, like I was attempting to read entrails instead of sentences.

All this pretentious convoluted word salads are just Emperor’s New Clothes IMO.

I think I am unusual on this board in that I don't have any trouble with definitions of gender identity.

Possibly because I've not thought it through well enough. Don't be shy in saying where you think I am missing something as if you would

Here's how I think about it.

For those of us who are gender non-conforming we know what it means to be gender non-conforming. No issues there. Other people can often see it in us too, to some extent or another, generally dependent on their own sexism or awareness of sexism.

To me, people who say their gender identity is not "cis" are saying the same as saying they consider themselves to be gender non-conforming. It's just that the next generation likes to think up new words for the same thing.

I do believe it is "valid" to live ones life in a gender non-conforming way. I am fine with "valid" too. Whenever I read "valid" I hear "not immoral".

So they say non-binary people are valid, I hear it is not immoral to be gender non-conforming which is fine by me.

I do NOT believe it then follows that anyone "non-cis", i.e. gender non-conforming, is actually the same as a gender conforming member of the opposite sex. I do not believe it makes them indistinguishable from the opposite sex. I do not believe the categories woman and man should be redefined to mean people who are gender conforming for that category plus people who would normally be in the other category but who are officially deemed to be gender non-conforming enough to get a GRC (leaving aside self id).

I don't believe in the redefinition of the categories because (a) why do that? Just why? It will obviously create confusion and for what purpose? (b) it is subjective not objectively measurable and so it is a downgrade (c) it is not a binary like man/woman making it highly impractical to redefine man/woman using gender identity: obviously there will be more than two gender identities, because there are many ways to be gender non-conforming.

Gender Critical = fundamentally right wing
Gender non conforming = fundamentally right wing? If not then why not, whats the difference?

Whenever I see ‘valid’ , I hear it in tones of declaration and anger, normally as a push back at some perceived hate speech saying that e.g. non binary as a concept (or people) doesn’t exist or is nonsense.

So , no I don’t see it the same as you, this being an example.

The question of colliding rights or colliding demands for extra rights with the existing rights of others is pretty important in this context.

Currently most of the online debate (not here) consists of denying that there is any conflict at all.

We need to first get to a stage where it is possible to debate the clash of demands and/or rights, and then we get to see how much natal women are expected to give up so that another group gains more rights. I want that list of things we are expected to relinquish (single sex spaces, the concept of female biological sex etc.) to be clearly written and discussed.

A similar list should be drawn for all the things natal men are expected to relinquish though of course it appears to contain nothing.

Also TorkTork, it’s not that I (and I believe many of us) don’t understand gender identity, I just don’t buy it.

Trans people existing doesn't affect those who aren't.

I doubt you would find disagreement on this tbh..

Its not 'existing' though thats the issue, its the clash of rights. When it is demanded that womens rights simply become 'peoples rights' thats removing rights from women, obviously. Why should women agree to this, when they very much need their sex based rights?