Are there any none-gender critical people on this board?

[Skyliner001]

Inspired by the appearance of a couple of none GC people in other threads I wondered how many are out there on this board?

😊

Interesting post, NellWilson.

Like many others on this board, I am very fond of the trans people in my life. I'm very scared about what the future has in store for them- I think it could be worse than what they are going through now.

I agree about the importance and prevalence of VAWG, but see the loss of sex based rights and language as undermine the safety of women to such an extent it needs to be addressed.

It's not (generally) because of trans people that women need sex based protections- It's because of violence. Undermining safeguarding and language is a side effect- bought its hugely important.

What?

You asked a question and have been asked to define your terms and that had proved something for you?

Weird!

Oh, is this actually a thread about trans people? I had no idea. I thought it was a discussion about gender.

Trans people havent been mentioned once except just then by you.

Thanks @picklemewalnuts great points!

[quote Skyliner001]@NellWilsonsWhiteHair That happens to me sometimes with the board! Great points, can see the dilemma with not just picking a side. Like you I like to look at individual issues rather than pick a side.

This thread has been derailed as expected, so I'll head to other feminist boards 😊[/quote]
It would really help, OP, if you told us what you mean by "gender critical".

We could then work out what you mean by "non-gender critical".

@Thelnebriati you are wilfully ignoring the fact that nearly every person that classifies themself as gender critical will at some point on this board blame trans-people, or the T in LGBT for many problems women face... if you have not noticed that, then you must not be around a lot.

All feminists are gender critical.

Criticising gender roles was happening long before trans ideology gained any traction.

No Skyliner, we thought we were talking about gender, and you now say this is about another topic altogether. Which you introduced. No one else.

Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

That's a first, I'm transphobic? How do you come to that conclusion?

I wouldn’t bother, OP, they’re being wilfully obtuse. It’s highly ironic that #nodebate seems to apply to both sides

I had a quick Google for 'non gender conforming', and many discussions explain what gender is, what gender roles are - but none of them say we don't need gender.
Feminism is the only movement trying to abolish gender.

@NellWilsonsWhiteHair

Hm. I am gender critical, but I am sure I am also too trans-inclusive for half of MN to think I am worthy of the term.

At the min I feel like I am too GC for many of my friends and for my workplace, and too accepting of the lived reality of many trans people for a number of other friends.

I think the devil is in the detail and id like to see issues addressed on an individual basis rather than as picking sides. And I’d like people to be able to have conversations around it all, rather than losing jobs or being subject to death threats or mocked as handmaidens of the patriarchy. At the min I feel I am simultaneously too GC for my workplace and for many friends, and too trans inclusive for many others (and for MN).

Most of all, trans people just are not the central point of my feminism. Yes there are some very big challenges in this area but for me they are still worth proportionately less energy than eg VAW, FGM, domestic abuse, workplace discrimination. Obviously the fact that the trans question is full of hatred makes it even more tempting to sidestep this in discussion and in practice...

You've made a rookie error there.

And, as many before you, chosen to ignore the many, many times this has been explained.

Trans people are trans people and deserve all the rights and protections of any human being.

But they cannot change sex and therefore cannot undermine those of men or women if those men or women say no!

It's impossible to protect women and girls from FGM, for example, if discussing it is itself deemed transphobic - and yes, that has happened very recently, discussed in a thread here.

If "woman" loses its sex based reality then none of the issues you listed can be adequately identified, measured or alleviated.

And, again at risk of waving that virtue signalling flag, I have long standing trans friends of 30+ years, have attended various clinics, held hands during post op issues, been 'best woman" at a wedding, I'm not transphobic. I just hate what TRAs are doing to us all.

I think everyone here is waiting to debate

@picklemewalnuts

Interesting post, NellWilson.

Like many others on this board, I am very fond of the trans people in my life. I'm very scared about what the future has in store for them- I think it could be worse than what they are going through now.

I agree about the importance and prevalence of VAWG, but see the loss of sex based rights and language as undermine the safety of women to such an extent it needs to be addressed.

It's not (generally) because of trans people that women need sex based protections- It's because of violence. Undermining safeguarding and language is a side effect- bought its hugely important.

Yes — I do agree. To an extent there’s def something cowardly in me mainly avoiding ‘the trans question’ (although this is also driven by everyone who has helped make it toxic and vicious - TRAs and feminists alike).

I haven’t got a ready philosophical position. I know I don’t have a ‘gender identity’ and I suspect nor do most people, hence I resist the term cis. At the same time... clearly there are people for whom this is very real, and who have been defining themselves and living accordingly for many many years, and I’m not ready to make their lives harder just because some malicious men, some AGPs, and some natal women who are too young and otherwise privileged to have yet experienced misogyny and so don’t recognise the value of women as a sex class.

Of course you can’t meaningfully reduce it to ‘real trans people who deserve rights’ vs ‘fakers or pushing it too far’, that doesn’t work either.

Ultimately we are all here and we need to work out a way to coexist fairly and safely and equally somehow.

I think people here are inviting debate, Ted, by asking the OP what she means by the terms used. We can only debate effectively when we really understand what one another mean. I understand the playground pile on feeling on FWR on occasions though OP, but I think that’s largely due to women being socialised to ‘be kind’ and not to rigorously critique others in a way that may make them uncomfortable.

I’m interested in what you mean by blaming trans people for problems that women face? Could you be more specific to help us understand?

People here aren't blaming trans people for undermining the safeguarding and sex based rights of women and girls.

They generally blame Activists, and knobs on Twitter who threaten rape and death when you disagree with them or like JKR's article.

Fear for gender questioning girls and and boys is a huge motivator for the women here. Most of us were gender questioning girls at one time. We're now gender questioning women. We just don't want mastectomies as the solution, we want to change societies prejudice.

We have so much in common- fear and anxiety for young people, dislike of homophobia, worry and anger about male violence, rejection of the stereotypes associated with sex. The difference is in how to tackle the issues. Gender critical people want to challenge the stereotypes. Trans activists want to challenge the language to allow people to conform to their preferred set of stereotypes.

The first makes everyone safer, the second makes women and children far more at risk of violence and unnecessary medical intervention.

I'm not GC, I am a feminist which means I don't subscribe to gender and all the ideas therein. I would never describe myself as GC.

Exactly @Picklemewalnuts, thank you for your eloquence.

I agree, well said pickles. I’d love to hear your response to pickles’ post OP?

@ThePankhurstConnection

I'm not GC, I am a feminist which means I don't subscribe to gender and all the ideas therein. I would never describe myself as GC.

Although I suppose being critical of gender is implicit so whatever its just a label. I don't think gender stereotypes and norms help anyone in the long run - call me what you like (and I'm sure you would!)

@Merename

I agree, well said pickles. I’d love to hear your response to pickles’ post OP?

Agree.

@lucylucky1977

Do you not think that sex matters *@Skyliner001* ? What about sex based inequality: FGM? Aborting of girls in India? Arranged marriage? The vast amount of FEMALES being murdered yearly in the UK in sex related crimes? The way women are treated in porn? The way women are harassed? The rape of women as a weapon of war? Women and girls forced into prostitution? The oppression of women in certain cultures and religions?

It’s so nice to have the luxury of thinking sex doesn’t matter.
Are you a man?

Absolutely this...

@Chersfrozenface

I think someone thinks "gender critical" means "critical of the idea of fluid / multiple / changeable genders".

When in fact it means "critical of gender stereotypes".

If that is that the OP meant that is understandable.

I'm 'gender critical' but this is only a term I have used in the past year or two

I think I've been posting 5 or 6 years. The expression "gender critical" appeared out of nowhere about 2/3 year's ago.

I think some of the posts here are slightly disingenuous that being "gender critical" has always been a thing. The concept might be but the phrase itself is new and almost always used only on trans related threads.

@CuriousaboutSamphire how do you navigate that, then? I agree woman has to have meaning. But I also think it’s gratuitously mean to insist that a trans woman is Not A Woman and therefore (for example) shouldn’t use the female toilets. Obviously when this was a tiny and largely passing population, it wasn’t really an issue. (True also for the meaningful-ness of the word ‘woman’ more generally.)

I think it’s risible that anyone says ‘oh you can’t discuss FGM because it excludes trans women’ or thinks that’s a good moment to shout ‘not all women have vaginas’ or whatever. Fucking outrageous. But I can’t conclude from that that trans people should never be included as the group they identify as and must always and everywhere be categorised as the sex they were born. I don’t want to be forced into that position by TRAs or by feminists.

People who’ve undergone male puberty playing rugby against natal women? Dangerous. Rapists accessing women’s prisons because authorities are too frightened of being deemed transphobic to keep women safe? Despicable. Sneering that someone who has lived and passed as a woman for many many years, maybe post-op, shouldn’t be allowed in the women’s changing room? Also pretty nasty.

I have been having this debate for 15 years and I still can’t reconcile myself entirely to either ‘side’.