I just came out as GC at work, to the big boss and I feel a bit sick

[JustcameoutGC]

I have NCed for this. I have just outed myself as GC in work to the big boss (and some others cced in).

I was asked to sign off on something that I just couldn't and I said so, and explained why.

I literally feel sick. Like I have put a big fat GC target on my back. My org is totally woke. I wonder how many times my response has been forwarded already.

@Beowulfa

Well done OP, and really glad the trending thread has highlighted the madness to others.

I've had a minor victory in getting gender replaced with sex on a workplace form with zero fuss; I think the key might be making your initial comment brief, factual and quoting the Equality Act. Save the long paragraphs and links for further down the line, if needed.

Well done, @Beowulfa. Small but not insignificant victory there. It all matters.

I think a lot of young "woke" activists who call themselves feminists, don't quite realise how fragile their rights are, because they've not lived in a world without them, nor seen the work required to fight for those rights.

I agree with you but it feels like extraordinary purblindness given what has happened to so many young women during the pandemic. Eg, young people are those who are less likely to have had secure employment contracts. There's a sex difference in who was offered furlough or continued to work. So many women who continued to work had to request furlough (and some resigned if they were refused) because of the impossibility of reconciling childcare and at home schooling with work (both single parents and those with higher-earning partners).

I don't know what the latest analyses are but the past few indicated that it's women who've disproportionately lost their employment during the pandemic.

The IFS says this is because employees aged under 25 are about two and a half times as likely to work in a sector that is now shut down as other employees and that sectors that temporarily closed due to lockdown had, on average, 30% of their work forces aged 25 or younger.

Within this age group, it seems young women have suffered more than their male counterparts. PwC found that more than 78% of those who have lost their jobs since the crisis began are women and two thirds are aged between 18 and 34.

Campaigners and charities are calling for more to be done to support young women financially through the pandemic.

www.goodhousekeeping.com/uk/consumer-advice/money/a33530742/coronavirus-financial-impact-women/

OP well done - posting about your action has had a real ripple effect of raising awareness about being gender critical!

Great job OP, and I hope you are OK. Placemarking as I'm going to need some of the fantastic links and evidence on this thread myself pretty soon, as I have challenged my HR dept on something very similar. Thanks as always to the brilliant posters here.

[quote Ereshkigalangcleg]They used to have camps in Siberia for just that very thing.

Ah yes but I think you'll find they were really quite bucolic and pleasant!

[[https://www.joe.co.uk/news/lgbt-society-gulags-199146]][/quote]
Just going totally off-topic and I don't mean to derail this thread at all.

But my DH's grandfather and great-grandfather were Russian. They were prosperous farmers and were denounced as kulaks by the authorities in the 1930s and then sent to the gulags in Siberia.

His grandfather made it back alive but not his great-grandfather and, from the stories he told my DH, the reality was very different to what that student society claimed.

the nurse said I had a 'helpful cervix' at my last smear test.

You are obviously a woman then, Wasp. I'll bet your cervix was "being kind", just like it had been taught to be all its life.

I'll bet TW's cervices aren't helpful.

His grandfather made it back alive but not his great-grandfather and, from the stories he told my DH, the reality was very different to what that student society claimed.

Indeed Nicky - a read of Solzhenitsyn or Shalamov will confirm what they told your DH.

@Sophoclesthefox

wineat5, “Gender critical” is used by some feminists to underline our opposition to the increased push in public life to replace the concept of “sex” with that of “gender”. To give you an example, many people feel it’s important to maintain single sex provisions like women only sports, rather than changing them to being single gender, which would mean including transwomen on the basis of their gender rather than their sex. The reason for this is because of the implications for safety and fairness due to the number differences (strength, size, speed etc) between male and female bodies. Hope that helps?

Thank you. I thought I would take a look in this forum for some intelligent and interesting discussion away from 'do you like these shoes' and 'do you swallow or spit' elsewhere on MN and I ended up not having a clue what everyone was on about 🤣. Very clear explanation. Giving me stuff to ponder. Thank you

I wonder when the NHS will update the men’s health pages to “men and people with a prostrate” to match the existing women’s health pages citing “women and people with a cervix”?

Or is it only women that have to budge over?

I wonder when the NHS will update the men’s health pages to “men and people with a prostrate” to match the existing women’s health pages citing “women and people with a cervix”?

Or is it only women that have to budge over?

I share your curiosity, LostToucan. There couldn't be double standards, surely?

^'do you swallow or spit'?^

I tend to spit feathers but am slowly learning to swallow my anger at the injustice of it all 😉

What is gender critical?

Welcome @Jolie12345. Read through the thread, you will find lots of info for the uninitiated, including several pretty accurate descriptions of what being gender critical means to people. I really recommend the "let me break it down for you" thread.

Some of it may make your head hurt, but I guarantee you need to be aware of this stuff, and a few minutes spent reading won't be a waste of your time

@LostToucan

I wonder when the NHS will update the men’s health pages to “men and people with a prostrate” to match the existing women’s health pages citing “women and people with a cervix”?

Or is it only women that have to budge over?

Too right.

Why do Prostate Cancer charities have no issues raising funds for Men
but
The LaLeche league feels the need to support chestfeeders

LQ that Brighton NHS document documenting inclusive language has Stonewall’s fingerprints all over it.

www.bsuh.nhs.uk/maternity/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2021/01/Gender-inclusive-language-in-perinatal-services.pdf

Toucan
WTF, I just read the author list
Ronald Lloyd-Baxter Non-binary birthing parent
Scott Lloyd-Baxter Trans masculine birthing parent
Kim Roberts Full Spectrum Queer Doula
Freddy McConnell Advocate, trans birthing dad
and
The vast majority of midwifery service users are women
NO SHIT SHERLOCK
We are especially proud of the care we provide for transgender (trans) and non-binary (including agender, bigender and genderqueer) people as birthing parents and coparents.
The heavily gendered nature of perinatal care

This is an NHS document complaining that only women give birth

Gender Critical
is NEEDED to fight back against such dangerous hogwash

This is an NHS document complaining that only women give birth

Biology is such a bitch.

I don't have particularly strong feelings either way, but I find some of the posts on here bordering on hysterical.

Did anyone actually read the NHS document? It does clearly refer to pregnant women. It's about inclusion and equality, making sure that everyone can access appropriate health care services.

Until today I've never heard the expression 'chest feeders' or 'cervix havers' the idea of it becoming common parlance is farfetched to say the least . .

The term sex and gender is often interchangeable, when a form says 'gender' I don't imagine they're trying to make some kind of woke statement there . . The equality act clearly says 'sex.'

Whether you want to admit it or not, some of the language on here is transphobic and unkind towards trans people; 'man in a dress' to name just one example. Gender re-assignment is also a protected characteristic.

Honestly, how many of you have actually even met a trans person?

A fair number of those authors are trans men (several of whom have given birth (understandable)).

I'm a little startled that Neil Hopkins Interim Project Manager, Stonewall WEI is listed both as the editor and a key internal reviewer.

I'm more sad than surprised to discover that the authors have tropes in which they draw an equivalence between the desire to retain prisons as single sex as equivalent to wanting to bar people of colour. And this:

It is equality that should prompt us to move away from…accusing people of being snowflakes because they call us out on things we hadn’t considered before.

Gender causes the oppression of half of the Earth’s population and, like race, affects us all. If we truly believe that all human beings are equal, we must continue to fight this battle against the increasing tendency to reinforce gender norms in both subtle and brutal ways. From the pink or blue nursery wares, to the rape of women and girls in war-torn countries, we are all steeped in, and deeply attached to this false divide. Modern feminists on the right side of history need to let go of their firmly held position in this binary to see the wood for the trees. Then we won’t need a debate. We are all the same.

www.gscene.com/news/opinion-sam-trans-man-thinking-beyond-gender/

Astonishingly most people who post here are related to, friends with, work with & in some cases are married to trans people.

We just don’t accept that biological women and Men who feel like women are one and the same thing and we want women’s sex based rights to be retained. given how TW are being given access to women only spaces, programmes, sports and prizes these rights are clearly under considerable threat

Isn’t it strange that women asserting that biological sex is important are called “hysterical” 🤔

In terms of it not being credible regarding phrases like 'chest feeders' becoming common parlance - this thread mentions a fair number of large organisations who are changing their language in this way - www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4162179-Cervix-havers-and-birthing-people-record-of-organisations-replacing-the-word-woman.

*Until today I've never heard the expression 'chest feeders' or 'cervix havers' the idea of it becoming common parlance is farfetched to say the least . .

The term sex and gender is often interchangeable, when a form says 'gender' I don't imagine they're trying to make some kind of woke statement there . . The equality act clearly says 'sex.'*

Oh Latte we were all this naive a few years ago. Stick around, you’ll learn something.

Until today I've never heard the expression 'chest feeders' or 'cervix havers' the idea of it becoming common parlance is farfetched to say the least . .

You missed the largest Cancer Charity referring to people with a cervix then Spicedlatte and the fact they refused to back down even when overwhelming evidence was given to them about the detrimental effect that term had regarding their target audience?

You missed the sustained and hideous abuse Rosie Duffield experienced for pointing it out?

You've missed the many reports from users of the NHS regarding their literature which uses these terms?

Give over with your supposed gotcha phrase at the end of your post, like the rest of your post it only serves to show your wilful ignorance.

Whether you want to admit it or not, some of the language on here is transphobic and unkind towards trans people; 'man in a dress' to name just one example. Gender re-assignment is also a protected characteristic.

Ralph Lucas is a Conservative back bencher in The House of Lords.
May 5th 2020 he published clarification he had received from the government of the definition used for man and woman. This is based in Equality Act 2010
twitter.com/LordLucasCD/status/1257642470692868097

Lord Lucas wrote,

"Definitions. The government has helpfully pointed out the definitions that they use

"Man": from the Equality Act 2010: 'A male of any age'

"Woman": from the Equality Act 2010: 'A female of any age'"

As "Man": from the Equality Act 2010: 'A male of any age'" therefore surely a male of any age may thus, and should for clarity, be described as a man and vice versa?