Gender critical men

[MakeWorkYourNewFavourite]

I'm still trying to get my head around things, so please go easy on me. My eyes have been opened to trans ideology and I'm getting worried about my daughter's future. I've also noticed preferred pronouns slipping in at the end of email signatures... just little things, but I fear it's so insidious that it'll be too late before the wider public takes note.

I was just wondering if the key to this whole mess would be to get men onside? Adult, male humans. Do they want to be putting he/him on the end of emails? Do they want their daughters going into toilets/on school trips/into women's health centres with men? Do they want their sons being told they could have female brains? Do they want their daughters binding their breast? Just a few example, but you know what I mean.

I understand that this issue affects women massively. But we're not alone. It seems we're the only ones trying to fight it. Or... we're fighting it on different terms. Is that it? Do gender critical men tend to be the right wing, Christian types? Are there any men out there who feel the same concerns as us.... not necessarily on behalf of women... but for themselves? Or for their daughters and sons?

I don't know if I've made myself clear. But, I suppose my point is that this has become a feminist issue whereas perhaps it should be an everyone issue? If it's all wokekind against radical feminists, we're not going to get anywhere. I'm as woke as fuck except on this issue. There have got to be more wokies (and men) who just haven't thought about it. They're just trying to be kind.

The ID politics nonsense affects everybody. Men and women, boys and girls too.

Plus don't forget the basic point that women are people.

If I see people being mistreated, or being untreated fairly, I have a fundamental reaction to that. Even if the people in question are women.

Women being mistreated is not a women's issue. It's a people's issue.

Don't use your identity as an excuse to cross to the other side rather than apply universal rights and help.

What he doesn't understand though and TBH, I don't think that as a man he can, is how offended I am by the whole issue.

If a white person were to say, 'I feel like a black person. It is innate within me. I am not white' and then proceeded to demonstrate their 'blackness' by putting their hair in corn rows, listening to reggae music, dressing in traditional national dress, adopting certain speech patterns that they perceived to be appropriate to their new-found identity, the offensiveness would be so obvious! Rachel Dolezal didn't get away with it, and nor should she have done.

And yet people cannot see that someone who identifies as a woman because they like wearing make-up and dresses is equally offensive. Interestingly, there seems to be a move away from that now - the TRAs we see on this board talk a lot about gender identity and incongruity between mind and body but shy away from giving specifics as to how one can know one's gender identity. However, look at the stories of Jazz Jennings and Jackie Green. These kids liked dolls and dresses and so they were told they weren't really boys.

As for men... I had one argument with a guy at work who kept telling me I 'identified' as a woman. I told him I didn't 'identify' as anything - it would be like 'identifying' as having brown eyes or green eyes or blue eyes. I don't think he got it.

Another male friend told me bluntly that since this matter didn't affect him, he wasn't interested. However, he did message me about Majid Nawaz's show not so long ago which explored the parallels of 'trans-racialism' with transgenderism, so maybe there is hope. He's also had a baby daughter since our discussion, which might make him take more of an interest.

My dh gets it, and lurks on Mumsnet after I introduced him to this board (he doesn't post).

We need men onside, as they can have conversations with other men in a way that women can't, but women need to be heard in their own right on this.

As an aside - I think some men genuinely believe that twaw. Do any really believe that tmam?

@NecessaryScene1, what confuses me about your points is why this one area is special. Why all of a sudden, men have a valid voice. What about male violence? The gender pay gap? Education inequality? Have you ever entered a discussion on here about any of those issues and tried to raise a point? You will be shouted down in an instant - and to be clear, I understand why. I have no issue with that.

Time and again, it's been pointed out that FWR is a space for women. I only piped up because this thread was specifically about men getting involved. And I can guarantee that some women will be reading this exchange and thinking about how men are once again dominating the discussion. I just don't see where we fit into this without breaking all the rules that have been established in the decade or so that I've been reading this board.

I guess the answer is, focus the bulk of your energy on other men, and reflect on your contributions to women's conversations with an awareness of how male and female socialization differs so that you are not unconsciously dominating while women are unconsciously acquiescing to your dominance. And if some women, for very valid reasons, have a conviction that they prefer to only work with and amplify the voices, don't take it as a personal slight. There are women who are happy to work with men, so there is room for all approaches.

It's a humility, leaving the ego at the door thing. I'm happy for men to work for women's liberation. But none of them should expect anything of women because they do so. If they do, they've missed the point.

I'm a woman doing it, and I don't expect fulsome praise for doing so. Quite the opposite, I've resigned myself to the realities of being pilloried for being non compliant and difficult.

“I am over the passivity of good men. Where the hell are you? You live with us, make love with us, father us, befriend us, brother us, get nurtured and mothered and eternally supported by us, so why aren’t you standing with us? Why aren’t you driven to the point of madness by the rape and humiliation of us?”
Eve Ensler

As a PP said, I think most men are on side. As has always been the case however, most men and women just aren't affected by it. They don't see it. Yet.

Trans ideology is insidious. We will reach a point where more people will see the changes. When that time comes it will seem sudden to them whereas those who have been following this stuff will have seen it coming for years.

Unfortunately, I think the pendulum needs to swing very far before your average Joe and Josephine say "what the fuck is happening to society?"

I did not know there were so many men that were so misogynistic. And now they're utterly shameless about it. We have to shame them.

This really is the key thing in many ways.

At one time, a male person (regardless of how they identified themselves) behaving like this, would experience other male people making it very clear they were disgusted and intolerant of that behaviour. Male people are phenomenally good at policing masculinity in each other, and they used to police other values too. There is a reason that TW never try this behaviour and approach on other males - as well as it lacking many of the incentives, a bottom line is that they don't dare to.

What are the consequences now among males for being openly vile and supremacist to females?

Looking the other way? A shrug and an 'it doesn't affect me?' Tacit appreciation of seeing females put in their place if you go by the many male comments in papers about 'well feminists started it' which means 'if you silly girls had just stayed in your box and accepted your rightful subordination'? Or open enjoyment of being able to unleash the most thoroughly nasty and vicious aspects of human nature in a way currently socially acceptable? Burn the witch.

There needs to be a major, major resurgence in taking responsibility for oneself and ones own feelings as a value, and in respecting other people.

Even the ones you don't agree with. Even the ones you want the rights of. Even the female ones. If that respect was there, if that expectation of taking responsibility was there in male people and policed as a masculine value then this would not be happening.

why this one area is special ... Have you ever entered a discussion on here ...

Are you muddling two things? I think we're talking about men speaking up in general places. Not asking for more male contribution to FWR.

"Identity" is a valid reason for not entering (or barging around in) a identity-based private space. You have to accept that as long as you accept the space has a right to exist.

Identity is not a valid reason for not participating - or being disallowed from participating - in a public space. You can't judge the value of someone's input by their identity.

Are you muddling two things? I think we're talking about men speaking up in general places. Not asking for more male contribution to FWR.

Fair point. What happens when I encounter a woman in a general space who disagrees with the general consensus of this place though? Then it becomes tricky. I've had those women telling me to 'check my privilege' and 'don't tell me what to think'.

Were you telling them what to think though?

It's one thing to have an interest and join in with a conversation as is happening here. But there have been plenty of threads on FWR where a self declared male person (who may identify as a man or not) has announced their presence and begun to tell women what's what about womenhood and how to do it better. And then has got distinctly sniffy about women not responding positively to this kind of treatment. Women are understandably at this point a bit sensitised and fed up with it.

And to be fair, if I share gender critical views with people outside this place I'm equally going to encounter 'check your privilege' but also quite possibly death and rape threats. It sadly happens.

It's about having the background knowledge to know the reasoning to stand up to the questions and respond to them: the privilege one is easy. And about at this point having the courage, which is the really hard bit, because proponents of this extremism can resort to some very grim means to control those who don't conform.

One of the ‘problems’ is that the first opposition to trans ideology in the mainstream media came from feminists, or those labelled as such.

That enabled TRAs and their supporters to get ahead of the game and claim that only those with extreme views are ‘gender critical’ while most ‘normal’ people are perfectly fine with it.

And, imho, it shouldn’t be feminists versus TRAs. It needs to be everyone versus TRAs.

"I think it's a massive mistake for men to generally get involved in feminism and feminist issues. As a man, I read this site a fair bit, but hardly ever contribute. As it should be. We aren't generally welcome, nor needed. And that isn't a complaint. We should keep our noses out. I don't see why this particular issue should be any different."

By your silence you are implying you see nothing wrong with TRA demands.

In the words of the woke, do better.

Oh and Kloppos cat - woke politics, identity politics, CRT and the rest, they very well affect anyone. Wake up.

Nor is there anything wrong with speaking up because you don't want your wife/daught/sister to have to suffer because of this. In fact, I would question why you wouldn't want to protect them.

I would imagine there are lots of men who think this way, but the majority of the people who are particularly vocal about this subject tend to be people for whom activism is already a part of life, and that's not normally straight white men.

Lots of us are GC, and I'd agree that also lots of us don't see it yet as a problem...the peaked position hasn't been found on the pendulum yet.
Am a husband, brother and father, and have been subject to work disciplinary sanction for GC views. But a lot of us allow it to sail through us without filtering this stuff out. Not sure how it can be made "more real" for many/most of us.

Feminism should centre women’s voices. This board, all the various groups started by women about this, should only ever centre women’s voices.

Men should read and learn and support and stand up for us. Using male privilege to stand up for those without it should be a bare fucking minimum. It’s entirely possible to do so without trampling over the women’s voices who should be centred by feminism. It requires fighting against male sex role stereotype socialisation, but us women have to do that daily so man the fuck up boys.

There are other areas of this wider discussion that it’s ok for men to be at the centre of- Yardley et al discussing how transsexuals (his term, so I’ll those MN can respect the usage) have their experience of transition co opted by the trans umbrella trans activists. Their experience that says that actually transwomen aren’t at risk in male toilets, that the transphobia they’ve experienced comes from the trans activists death threats. Male detransitioners discussing the cult tactics used to push them to sterility, the psychological harm left, the negligence of the doctors involved. Men talking about how trans ideology continues to push regressive sex role stereotypes onto boys (come on Nicky Wire, you spend decades saying men can wear skirts and make up and still be men and now you shut up?) and they don’t want that backwards bullshit being perpetrated. There’s tones of areas of this wider discussion that men’s voices should be heard in, but the feminist board is not the place for it. Nor is it our job to persuade men into doing the decent thing for the women they care about.

So gc men- hugely important in humanity, not in feminism.

I've always believed the patriarchy hurts men as well as women, though perhaps not as deeply or blatantly. So I think men have a vested interest in challenging the status quo as well, especially given that trans ideology is the patriarchy on steroids.

But I also agree with @NecessaryScene1 that a simple adherence to the concept of fairness and an ability to see women as fully human should galvanise men into action.

Oh and Kloppos cat - woke politics, identity politics, CRT and the rest, they very well affect anyone. Wake up. Nor is there anything wrong with speaking up because you don't want your wife/daught/sister to have to suffer because of this. In fact, I would question why you wouldn't want to protect them.

Because the implication is that if I was single with no female relatives, then I'd have no reason to call out bullshit. The one person I've discussed these issues with in real life is my adult daughter. She thinks that any gender critical views are inherently phobic, and that I am intolerant for some of the views that I hold on the subject. So again, I find myself in opposition to a highly educated, sensible woman who takes time to think these issues through for herself. It's problematic.

Tw aren’t scared of men’s spaces, they want to be in women’s because validating their identity means more than our safety.

Of course we need men on side. But feminism shouldn’t ever deter men’s voices. And it’s not our job to get them on side. That’s the bare fucking minimum the ruling class owes the oppressed one. We should inform them, but we can’t breaking ourselves in two begging them to care. Save energy for the men who get it. And for women.

@JurgenKloppsCat

Oh and Kloppos cat - woke politics, identity politics, CRT and the rest, they very well affect anyone. Wake up. Nor is there anything wrong with speaking up because you don't want your wife/daught/sister to have to suffer because of this. In fact, I would question why you wouldn't want to protect them.

Because the implication is that if I was single with no female relatives, then I'd have no reason to call out bullshit. The one person I've discussed these issues with in real life is my adult daughter. She thinks that any gender critical views are inherently phobic, and that I am intolerant for some of the views that I hold on the subject. So again, I find myself in opposition to a highly educated, sensible woman who takes time to think these issues through for herself. It's problematic.

It seems to me highly-educated-and-sensible is as highly-educated-and-sensible does.

Let me guess. Your daughter self-identifies as highly-educated-and-sensible. Huh. If she thinks men can become women, that transwomen are women and all the rest, and is apparently prepared to label her own father 'phobic' for applying a smidge of common sense to trans issues, it is clear that in this regard she is ill-educated and not in the least sensible. It is your duty as a father, I would say, to educate her so she sees sense. Trust me, if you do it carefully she will thank you in the long run.

But, yes, you are right regarding the wider point of moral imperatives being independent of personal involvement, even though such involvement often sharpens one's sensibilities.

Centre men’s voices. I meant centre not deter. Fucker.

Tw aren’t scared of men’s spaces, they want to be in women’s because validating their identity means more than our safety.

Among other reasons, evidenced and openly acknowledged, but we're not allowed to mention those for some reason. Even though they're fairly crucial to the debate on the realities of mixed sex spaces, and on what female people should be required to provide to society for the better happiness of male people.

Hiding the nasty bits doesn't vanish them. It really doesn't. Not talking about this doesn't make it go away.