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

Because you were acting rude and ignorant. You think you can act certain ways to people because they are reasonable and participating in a discussion, and that they won't bite when you provoke them. I won't put up with that just because I'm in the minority. Not even the minority, the only one in my corner. Why should I put effort and heart and thought into my posts just for you to come along, add nothing, and take the piss out of me? Why should I take that lying down?

Peace

This post is timely given last week several posters said if they were American they’d vote Trump because of the trans issue. It was the day after news leaked that he’d be replacing feminist legal scholar Ruth Bader Ginsburg with right wing religious zealot judge Amy Coney Barrett who will do all in her power to trample on women’s access to abortion and contraception when appointed to the Supreme Court.

Trump by the way is a man who thinks it’s ok to “grab ‘em by the pussy,” has been accused of multiple sexual assaults, and attacked a female journalist for “bleeding out of her wherever.”

So the Vox article doesn’t seem so off base.

@turnitonagain well said.

I don't think it can be denied that in general there is a negative correlation between conservative politics and feminism.

Not everyone who posts here is a feminist or a democrat. I’ll bet you anything you like that those would be the people planning to vote for Trump.

I posted on that thread and said obviously I would not vote for the rapist in chief so he could further curtail women’s rights in every other arena. Meanwhile I am frustrated by parts of Biden’s platform. In the US there are only 2 sides acknowledged on this issue as all major feminist groups have been captured. This unfortunately leaves feminists who would otherwise support the democrats wholeheartedly having to grit our teeth a b it.

Nevertheless In my opinion the right route is to vote Dem and work behind the scenes to fix this issue, just like that TRAs did. voting republican - or even collaborating with them on this issue is in my opinion a dead end. Groups like WoLF unfortunately are being used by the right.

Previous thread on this article:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3684388-Vox-article-on-rise-of-TERFS

@CloudyVanilla

Because you were acting rude and ignorant. You think you can act certain ways to people because they are reasonable and participating in a discussion, and that they won't bite when you provoke them. I won't put up with that just because I'm in the minority. Not even the minority, the only one in my corner. Why should I put effort and heart and thought into my posts just for you to come along, add nothing, and take the piss out of me? Why should I take that lying down?

You're not adding much, tbh.

In what way is the claim that your female sex should not define your opportunities in life (feminism 101) align with the socially conservative position that your sex largely and rightly should determine your life outcomes?

Or, to make it even simpler, in what way is the statement 'females don't need to conform to gender stereotypes' aligned with the statement 'gender stereotypes for females reflect an essential truth of what females should be?'

They don't, of course, align. Because feminism and conservatism are very different projects.

Feminism says 'the only precondition for being a girl/woman is that you be a born female. Girls/women don't have to perform stereotypes of femininity - many if which are culturally imposed and not at all innate to femaleness'.

Conservatives say 'women/girls are naturally feminine, and to reject that is to go against the natural order'.

Your claim that feminism is aligned with conservatism when it comes to gender is bunk.

Feminism says 'the only precondition for being a girl/woman is that you be a born female. Girls/women don't have to perform stereotypes of femininity - many if which are culturally imposed and not at all innate to femaleness'.

It's so simple

@MilleniumHallsWalledGarden

the left-wing, pro-choice, woman-centring truth is so much worse than anything they can possibly imagine

This

@HecatesHat

Feminism says 'the only precondition for being a girl/woman is that you be a born female. Girls/women don't have to perform stereotypes of femininity - many if which are culturally imposed and not at all innate to femaleness'.

It's so simple

It is.

Which is why I think arguments otherwise are ignorant/malicious.

Damn I got excited for moment there, I thought we were going to get an explanation of "valid." Should have known better, they never explain or define anything. I'd love to know what goes on in TRA brains, I imagine it's something like a ball of wool after a cat has played with it.

I might have missed it in the thread but did anyone manage to extract an explanation of why, just because something's a social construct , that implies identifying as it is "valid"? "Brain surgeon" is a social construct.

@BlackWaveComing personal insults aside, where did I ever say conservative views align with feminism?? If I gave that impression anywhere I did not intend to.

My point and my perspective is always that gender identity is a nuanced issue. While I agree that it shouldn't matter what gender someone is, because I am a feminist and naturally believe that conformity to gender stereotypes should not exist for the sake of both men and women, it doesn't mean that I think it doesn't matter.

Therefore when a man says he is a trans woman I do not say "but feeling feminine doesn't make you a woman", I accept that our society is sadly very gendered in some aspects and I do not doubt or question their lack of confortability with identifying with their natal sex.

@FWRLurker for a group of people deeply concerned about men pretending to be trans to commit sexual assault, to be cavalier about victims of this crime not being able to get an abortion or proper health care strikes me as deeply contradictory.

In any case most women are raped or impregnated by garden variety men like Trump so forgive me for being shocked anyone would give him or his politics the time of say while claiming to care about women’s rights and safety.

If your bedfellows are rapists and religious bigots I do think you ought to think carefully about your position.

@BlackWaveComing please if you can show me where I have aligned feminism and conservativism. Because I must not have explained myself properly as I fundamentally believe the opposite

Thanks for your thoughts here, Cloudy. It’s interesting to read of a viewpoint changing in an unusual direction.

Mine went the more usual way, from “I must be kind” to “No - this is not kind to women”. There was never a moment when I thought men could be women, in any sense. It was my tolerance that changed, when I realised this was not just a tiny number of deeply unhappy but harmless men.

[quote CloudyVanilla]@BlackWaveComing personal insults aside, where did I ever say conservative views align with feminism?? If I gave that impression anywhere I did not intend to.

My point and my perspective is always that gender identity is a nuanced issue. While I agree that it shouldn't matter what gender someone is, because I am a feminist and naturally believe that conformity to gender stereotypes should not exist for the sake of both men and women, it doesn't mean that I think it doesn't matter.

Therefore when a man says he is a trans woman I do not say "but feeling feminine doesn't make you a woman", I accept that our society is sadly very gendered in some aspects and I do not doubt or question their lack of confortability with identifying with their natal sex.[/quote]
Being uncomfortable with the stereotypes imposed on you by virtue of your sex is understandable.

Men who chose to perform femininity as an escape or expression of resistance - no problem. It doesn't make him female, and he ought not to insert himself into our movement/needs, but gender non conforming behaviour is fine. I fully support men pushing back against imposed masculinity.

The idea that woman, however, is an essence, or subjective gender identity, and not a material and immutable fact of birth unaligned with gender - the TRA claim - is far more alike to conservatives claims of natural gender.

Feminist approaches to gender stand apart from both TRAs and MRAs.

Therefore, to conflate a basic tenet of feminism - a critique of gender - with men's rights proponents - who do not critique gender but reinforce it - is mistaken.