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

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?

OK, can agree with this but some of the things on here (such as names on Starbucks coffee cups!) not so much.
There's a line that tips into transphobia that I''m not comfortable with but can see concerns on self ID.

@Quaagars

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?

OK, can agree with this but some of the things on here (such as names on Starbucks coffee cups!) not so much.
There's a line that tips into transphobia that I''m not comfortable with but can see concerns on self ID.

Can you remind me what the Starbucks coffee cups comment refers to? I have done an advanced search and can't find anything (although I find advanced search to be a bit rubbish!) and the thread is so long now that I don't think I could skim through to find it.

Can you remind me what the Starbucks coffee cups comment refers to? I have done an advanced search and can't find anything (although I find advanced search to be a bit rubbish!) and the thread is so long now that I don't think I could skim through to find it

You don't need to advance search, it's literally on the first page of here.

It's transphobic, apparently, to object to a multinational peddling simplistic narratives about pediatric transition. That's the Starbucks thing.

You don't need to advance search, it's literally on the first page of here.

I have my settings set so that all 1000 posts on a thread are on one page, so I'm not sure how many posts would be one page. But I've skimmed the start of the thread and can't find anything about Starbucks. I'm not saying it's not there, I just can't find it. I was just wondering what the reference to Starbucks on the thread was because it's a long thread and I can't remember every post.

@caughtalightsneeze

You don't need to advance search, it's literally on the first page of here.

I have my settings set so that all 1000 posts on a thread are on one page, so I'm not sure how many posts would be one page. But I've skimmed the start of the thread and can't find anything about Starbucks. I'm not saying it's not there, I just can't find it. I was just wondering what the reference to Starbucks on the thread was because it's a long thread and I can't remember every post.

I meant literally the first page of this board? Not 1000 posts in one thread - look on this board, it's literally on the first page. Think it's called something like James/Gemma Starbucks advert

Just writing in quickly to say.

I don't know why some (many) posters go on about gender identity being a feeling in such a confused and astonished way. As if I must be an absolute idiot to not understand why that's what, silly? To base someone's reality on a feeling?

But again this is a natural part of being a human being and society is literally based on the feeling of the citizens within it. We do not make laws (or many of them) because they are identifying hard facts. We make them based on the fact that the current mood or culture believes, for example in the case of criminal law, on moral values, an entirely feelings based concept. Homosexuality was illegal. Now it isn't. There are no tangible factual reasons for it to be legal or illegal, the only difference is if society at large feels it to be the case.

So when I'm accused of skipping over defining gender identity as anything more than just a feeling, it's because the argument is being overcomplicated. It is a feeling. But it's a consistent, life altering sense of self that a reasonably significant amount of people hold. It being based in feeling does not make it any less valid. If anyone here struggles with the word valid I would point them to a dictionary.

In this context, it to me sticks fairly clearly to the normal definition of the word. If someone's concerns are valid, it means they have a basis for their concerns in logic or fact. I imagine it is used in the context of trans people more because people with view points such as those seen here, with those saying that transgender people can't really or shouldn't really even exist are literally invalidating their existence as a trans person - as in saying their sense of self is invalid due to it not being valid, as it is not based in what they see as logic or fact.

Just to tonally clarify, again this is not an emotive statement. I'm just explaining and think you would agree that if you assert the position that gender identity doesn't exist in any meaningful way, then therefore you are saying anyone prescribing the idea of a gender identity different to one's biological sex is making an invalid claim to you. Which I'm sure you can agree is an accurate way to describe what is being said here on MN.

@Quaagars

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?

OK, can agree with this but some of the things on here (such as names on Starbucks coffee cups!) not so much.
There's a line that tips into transphobia that I''m not comfortable with but can see concerns on self ID.

Yes I agree with the line tipping frequently into transphobia here. Not necessarily on this thread but on many others.

I meant literally the first page of this board? Not 1000 posts in one thread - look on this board, it's literally on the first page.

Ok, thank you. When you said 'here' I thought you meant this thread. And when I asked, you still didn't tell me, and you said 'here' again so I went back and looked again at the start of the thread. If you had just clarified that it was a different thread you were referring to, I would have searched for a different thread. It's hard to try to understand something when even asking what post we're talking about doesn't get a straight answer.

@CloudyVanilla

Just writing in quickly to say.

I don't know why some (many) posters go on about gender identity being a feeling in such a confused and astonished way. As if I must be an absolute idiot to not understand why that's what, silly? To base someone's reality on a feeling?

But again this is a natural part of being a human being and society is literally based on the feeling of the citizens within it. We do not make laws (or many of them) because they are identifying hard facts. We make them based on the fact that the current mood or culture believes, for example in the case of criminal law, on moral values, an entirely feelings based concept. Homosexuality was illegal. Now it isn't. There are no tangible factual reasons for it to be legal or illegal, the only difference is if society at large feels it to be the case.

So when I'm accused of skipping over defining gender identity as anything more than just a feeling, it's because the argument is being overcomplicated. It is a feeling. But it's a consistent, life altering sense of self that a reasonably significant amount of people hold. It being based in feeling does not make it any less valid. If anyone here struggles with the word valid I would point them to a dictionary.

In this context, it to me sticks fairly clearly to the normal definition of the word. If someone's concerns are valid, it means they have a basis for their concerns in logic or fact. I imagine it is used in the context of trans people more because people with view points such as those seen here, with those saying that transgender people can't really or shouldn't really even exist are literally invalidating their existence as a trans person - as in saying their sense of self is invalid due to it not being valid, as it is not based in what they see as logic or fact.

Just to tonally clarify, again this is not an emotive statement. I'm just explaining and think you would agree that if you assert the position that gender identity doesn't exist in any meaningful way, then therefore you are saying anyone prescribing the idea of a gender identity different to one's biological sex is making an invalid claim to you. Which I'm sure you can agree is an accurate way to describe what is being said here on MN.

Using the term 'valid' as you do is psycho-babble.

More accurately, the claims made for an innate trans identity are unevidenced.

It is absolutely not "pscyho-babble". How rude.

Not evidenced except by the people in the world who identify as trans?

@CloudyVanilla

It is absolutely not "pscyho-babble". How rude.

Not evidenced except by the people in the world who identify as trans?

Do you understand what evidenced-based means?

Hint: it does not mean 'people's uncritically accepted self-reported experience'.

Okay, but you've completely missed the point of my post.

My literal point is that gender identity being a feeling or based on social construct does not make it invalid. What scientific evidence would need to be demonstrated to prove a thought or feeling?

I'm not getting into a debate yet again on the validity of trans people's feelings. My post was purely to address those who struggle to understand my lack of dismissal of gender identity based on it being a feeling, as someone said they didn't understand it.

@CloudyVanilla

Okay, but you've completely missed the point of my post.

My literal point is that gender identity being a feeling or based on social construct does not make it invalid. What scientific evidence would need to be demonstrated to prove a thought or feeling?

I'm not getting into a debate yet again on the validity of trans people's feelings. My post was purely to address those who struggle to understand my lack of dismissal of gender identity based on it being a feeling, as someone said they didn't understand it.

If you mean "real" as in - the person really feels like they are a man/black/fat/Jesus, then sure. Any feeling a person has is a real feeling.

But you need to ask, what does the idea of gender identity describe? If it's the sense of oneself as male or female, it can be objectively true or false. If it's a sense of aversion or attraction to behaviours associated culturally in some way with masculinity or femininity, that's not some kind of independent faculty, any more than any other feelings about identity are. Most people have quite a mix of feelings about this and it canges over time as well.

@CloudyVanilla

Okay, but you've completely missed the point of my post.

My literal point is that gender identity being a feeling or based on social construct does not make it invalid. What scientific evidence would need to be demonstrated to prove a thought or feeling?

I'm not getting into a debate yet again on the validity of trans people's feelings. My post was purely to address those who struggle to understand my lack of dismissal of gender identity based on it being a feeling, as someone said they didn't understand it.

I feel Scottish. I'm not, but I'm also not joking. My internal sense of nationality is Scottish. I feel a strong, enduring sense of connection to a Scots identity. It has taken me many years to accept my 'exile' in another nationality. 100% real experience.

Is that 'valid'? Well no, not really, in the sense that it's objectively not true. I am not Scottish. The feeling is felt, but the premise - I'm Scottish - is not.

It's certainly an invalid premise for changing law or even social customs.

Not everything we feel is valid. To suggest it is is what I mean by psycho-babble.

@Goosefoot right and that is where I diverge from GC feminism or whatever feminism it is that is trans exclusionary. I do believe feeling trans is sufficient and they don't

[quote CloudyVanilla]@Goosefoot right and that is where I diverge from GC feminism or whatever feminism it is that is trans exclusionary. I do believe feeling trans is sufficient and they don't[/quote]
Is sufficient for what? To change law? To change the definition of woman from a sex-based descriptor such that all limited sex-based provision becomes mixed sex?

You can't see past your own moral posturing about 'niceness'.

I understand the analogy. My view without going into too much detail as it is almost 2:30am and I need to go to bed, is that transgenderism is more pervasive and socially real than the analogous equivalences given on MN. If it were a fleeting feeling then they simply wouldn't be such a presence in humanity

@BlackWaveComing there is no need to personally attack me.

I have never said I feel it is sufficient to change law. I have said explicitly and on this thread that I do not feel this is the case. What I have constantly said is I do not feel okay with dismissing the rights (as trans rights) and dignity of trans people by refuting that they even exist as they present

[quote CloudyVanilla]@BlackWaveComing there is no need to personally attack me.

I have never said I feel it is sufficient to change law. I have said explicitly and on this thread that I do not feel this is the case. What I have constantly said is I do not feel okay with dismissing the rights (as trans rights) and dignity of trans people by refuting that they even exist as they present[/quote]
Strawman.

Nobody on MN denies people with GD exist.

@CloudyVanilla

I understand the analogy. My view without going into too much detail as it is almost 2:30am and I need to go to bed, is that transgenderism is more pervasive and socially real than the analogous equivalences given on MN. If it were a fleeting feeling then they simply wouldn't be such a presence in humanity

I don't know that it is particularly large presence in humanity. Masculinity and femininity I suppose have something closer to universality, though it's more marked in societies where men and women live similar lives. But most of the time a certain amount of variation on that is accepted and it doesn't affect how people are treated in terms of being men or women.

Actually cross sex identification is fairly unusual and tends to fall within very specific cultural parameters. Almost always men, usually gay men, and a strong culture of masculinity that sees the dominant sexual role as being attached to that. It's nowhere near ubiquitous across cultures.

@CloudyVanilla

I understand the analogy. My view without going into too much detail as it is almost 2:30am and I need to go to bed, is that transgenderism is more pervasive and socially real than the analogous equivalences given on MN. If it were a fleeting feeling then they simply wouldn't be such a presence in humanity

OMG.

You've really swallowed the historical revisionism.

There is no long history of transgenderism as we know it in the 21st C.

A lot of sexism and homophobia though.

I asked upthread why people consider a belief that one is the opposite sex to be different to other kinds of demonstrably incorrect beliefs. If someone goes to their doctor saying that they believe that they are a child, when they're actually 40 years old, or they believe they are the Messiah, or they believe they are blind when they can clearly see ok, all of those things would be considered to be an indication that someone is mentally unwell and in need of help.

But if someone male goes to the doctor and says that they are certain they are actually a woman, have always been a woman, that's not a mental illness. Why is this particular false belief different to every other false belief?

Is biological sex valid?

Is gender identity more or less valid than biological sex? Why/why not?