How I became Gender Critical

[SapphosRock]

This is a great article and really reflects my experience. Especially the slow realisation that Stonewall and the rainbow flag no longer represented me. Can anyone else relate?

https://duncanhenry.substack.com/p/tra-to-gc

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM–5)
www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/practice/dsm

I just read that Gender Dysphoria is included in this US Manual - and if it wasn't there would be no insurance funding for transitioning in the US.

Just thought this was interesting.

I'm interested if anyone was GC right from the start?

I remember suddenly seeing the 'no debate' slogan in the media everywhere, and especially the Guardian, and wondered what it was all about. I probably just agreed 'of course, no debate' without thinking any deeper. I just thought the trans issue was very niche and wouldn't affect many people, and knew nothing about it really.

Then I noticed in my workplace that a couple of girls who identified strongly as trans were having aggressive meltdowns if misgendered, and were autistic and had trauma in their backgrounds; ie; very vulnerable.

Then I started researching it via MN and was horrified at the medicalised path these vulnerable girls were being encouraged down. This led me to hearing about GC women being cancelled, BBC propaganda, sport, prisons, lesbians being pressurised to accept men as sexual partners etc. There was going back, from learning all that, to a 'no debate, it's just a niche' point of view.

And Razzli - I've seen many a tweet saying Sex isn't real, or that it isn't binary, or that there's no such thing as male or female, or that there are "female penises", or that it's an invention of the west. India Willoughby just the other day claimed to be "female".

Who are all these trans women trying to date lesbians? Most trans women date men. Also, you realize that being pushy with people is something that PEOPLE do, right? Not something you can just make up as being a trans issue.

Here's a typical example of a trans women pushing for dates in a lesbian group I'm in. How many more examples do you need? I have many.

Who are all these trans women trying to date lesbians? Most trans women date men

More than 60% of transwomen are attracted to females.
In fact, that statistic is rather out of date since we've had the rapid rise of AGP affected males identifying as trans.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-57853385.amp

Also, you realize that being pushy with people is something that PEOPLE do, right? Not something you can just make up as being a trans issue

It's overwhelmingly something males do to women. It's an issue with MALE people, not trans people.

You are showing a staggering lack of empathy for women here. You can't have any idea how it feels to be pressured into sex you don't want by a man. There's a legal term and sentencing in fact for the outcome of that.....

Lesbians not sucking dick are so so so so so so transphobic....

If you exclude transwomen you're not a lesbian....

I was GC from the start. The notion that men can appropriate womanhood has always been deeply offensive to me. I struggle to understand how anyone could not be offended, frankly. I became actively GC (campaigning, donating, speaking up at work and with friends and family) after the 2017 Women's March was attacked for being exclusionary.

@Miorii

Is this you saying that people shouldn't be trans?

Of course not, but there are certain instances where biological sex is important and matters more than gender identity.

• womens sport
• women's rape crisis services
• women's changing rooms

Also, men have fetishized lesbians since forever. It would be nice for lesbians to be able to socialise with other lesbians without having to include the pervy men who fetishize us.

I'm not saying people shouldn't believe what they want about themselves. I'm saying I don't share their belief system.

Virtually no trans person thinks there's no such thing as sex, that's just an accusation you casually foist on people.

Where do you think I said that? I believe that in most situations, people should be treated according to their gender identity rather than their birth sex. But there should be exceptions, such as in medicine, women’s sport and women’s prisons.

By the way, I have never watched a Magdalen Berns video.

@Charley50

I'm interested if anyone was GC right from the start?

I remember suddenly seeing the 'no debate' slogan in the media everywhere, and especially the Guardian, and wondered what it was all about. I probably just agreed 'of course, no debate' without thinking any deeper. I just thought the trans issue was very niche and wouldn't affect many people, and knew nothing about it really.

Then I noticed in my workplace that a couple of girls who identified strongly as trans were having aggressive meltdowns if misgendered, and were autistic and had trauma in their backgrounds; ie; very vulnerable.

Then I started researching it via MN and was horrified at the medicalised path these vulnerable girls were being encouraged down. This led me to hearing about GC women being cancelled, BBC propaganda, sport, prisons, lesbians being pressurised to accept men as sexual partners etc. There was going back, from learning all that, to a 'no debate, it's just a niche' point of view.

Just to add; once I realised what was going on and became GC, I was actively GC. At work, with friends, on social media, contributing to Allison Bailey, Sex Matters etc, and going on the odd match or event.

@Linguini

If you exclude transwomen you're not a lesbian....

More words being appropriated...

I believe that in most situations, people should be treated according to their gender identity rather than their birth sex. But there should be exceptions, such as in medicine, women’s sport and women’s prisons.

This is exactly what the law states too - the exceptions are there in the Equality Act. But Stonewall is hell-bent on pretending these laws don't exist and has managed to convince a large proportion of businesses to believe the laws don't exist too. Either that or Stonewall has bullied these orgs into not applying the law.

And this is why we no longer have female only rape crisis centres.

I started to become aware something was up around 2017/18. I just didn’t have the language then to explain it.

I knew two teenage girls similar ages who were transitioning into boys. They had no previous signs of even gender non-conformity. Although one did have a difficult family situation with a parent with severe mental health issues.

I was talking about it with three young staff members, two of which were weekend staff and still at school. I said it was mad that I know two young girls the same age transitioning. I wondered innocently if it was some sort of trend?
The older of the three all of a sudden became really angry and shouted “one of my friends is trans! how dare you invalidate his existence by calling it a trend!!!” And she walked out declaring me bigoted. I was a bit shocked and looked at the other two who quietly disclosed that they had quite a few students with trans identities at their schools and had thought the same as me. I didn’t know about the social contagion theory at that point, but I came to my own conclusion.

I also had a friend who’s abusive ex husband had transitioned, they walked around the town in tight clothing, shouting at people. Once shouted “nice tits!” At me. Very womanly! They also threatened legal action to businesses that would not allow them in the female toilets. It almost became a pass time. Knowing his past and the way he was behaving I asked my friend if she truly believed he was trans, or was it a form of attention seeking? She unsurprisingly thought the latter. We just didn’t have a word for exactly what we thought.

Fast forward to JK speaking out, things started slotting into place in my mind. The conclusions I had come to and wondered if I was alone in were more widely shared than I could ever had thought.

There's been an interesting shift in terms of the whole 'sex is a spectrum' posters we used to get here. There were many, many posters who insisted that human beings could literally change sex, that sex is a spectrum, that we were all just too stupid to understand and should go back and read our school science textbooks. There seems to be a shift (having realised how ridiculous it sounds) to attacks of 'it's not meant literally! You're just using it to attack people!'

It's very fortunate that history can't just be rewritten.

@Waitwhat23 very unfortunate screenshots exist these days.

@Waitwhat23, that’s interesting. But recently, I’ve seen a few trans women tweet that they are female. I’ve also seen one prominent trans man (who is pregnant) tweet that he is male.

The idea of being born in the wrong body isn't literal. It's just the description given to to growing up feeling uncomfortable with your sex.

Just to be clear Razzli - you think it would be perfectly acceptable to trans people, and not transphobic, to state "transgender people grow up feeling uncomfortable with their sex" ?

[quote Cattenberg]@Waitwhat23, that’s interesting. But recently, I’ve seen a few trans women tweet that they are female. I’ve also seen one prominent trans man (who is pregnant) tweet that he is male.[/quote]
The examples I've seen of that have been transwomen insisting they have always been female. Not changed sex or 'sex is a spectrum' but were literally born female. Begs the question as to what they are transitioning from but there's no internal logic in gender ideology.

It's also an attempt to change language. Woman cannot now be used as it is not 'inclusive' enough (see those with a cervix - Scottish Government, bodies with vaginas - The Lancet) so women have started to use female in order to talk about sex specific issues. Women are seemingly not allowed to choose the words they wish to refer to themselves (see the insistence that women use the word cis) so female will be co-opted too.

It makes no sense at all. But here we are.

The emperor is nude. Completely starkers. I don’t want to hurt his feelings by saying so, but I’m disturbed that we’re now being pressured to praise his stunning robes.

And agree that the emperor can turn the sea back if he wants to. Sorry, that was someone else, but just as ego-centrically bonkers.

I'm interested if anyone was GC right from the start?

The short and smug answer to this is 'yes'. It's a bit more nuanced than that in reality, though.

I first thought about this back in the 90s/early 00s when I was learning about feminism for the first time. I remember Germaine Greer coming out with a book that I devoured that discussed this topic (amongst many others) and I was addicted to the US feminist Ms forums, which at the time was filled with debates about 2nd v 3rd wave feminism. I found myself far more inclined towards the 2nd wavers and particularly those feminists that were describing themselves as radical. The trans issue came up on there from time to time.

So they got to me first, basically. What they said made sense. However, I see now it was a pretty superficial understanding and I hadn't engaged with any differing views or known any trans people. The first time I heard about Judith Butler, for example, was later at university and it was very much in a "some academics go so far as to believe sex itself is a social construct" sense. A fringe idea.

Because it wasn't affecting my life and hadn't entered mainstream discussion, it wasn't a feminist topic I thought about very much at all.

The next time it really came to my attention was around some blue/pink-brain-type research and that made me change my mind. The prevailing view appeared to be that there were distinctions in brains and transwomen's brains were more similar to women's than men's. I didn't like the idea of sexed brains, but it seemed to be accepted, so I accepted it. Again, no deep digging and as none of this affected me in any way I didn't consider what this actually meant for women's spaces, etc.

The third act was hearing a news story on the radio about Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She was being labelled a bigot for distinguishing trans women and natal females, and I was incredulous. I couldn't see how what she was saying was illogical, non-factual or discriminatory. She didn't even say trans women aren't women, just that there are important distinctions. Even accepting as I did at the time the pink and blue brain thing, I could see that denying those distinctions was patently ridiculous. I continue to believe that even if there was some scientific revelation tomorrow that proved some commonality between tw and natal females this would be so.

It was the springboard for becoming far more clued up on this issue. I found the brains thing was no longer in favour, learnt about self-ID and the literal dogma that is twaw... And basically came back to my initial position, but based on a more thorough understanding of the issues.

My view of actual trans people has not changed throughout this whole time. I've seen some on here argue that tw don't really face discrimination and have to disagree - I've stuck up for trans colleagues being mocked by others. I think gender dysphoria is a very tough row to hoe. I applaud people who play with gender expectations. And I agree 100% that in most of our day-to-day activities we do not need to know what genitals somebody has. But recognising this, combating transphobia and making trans people's lives easier cannot be at the expense of women's needs.

It's really helpful when people share stories of the scales falling from their eyes and their growing recognition of how they have been manipulated by Stonewall. Bringing the tactics to light can only aid people in starting to properly see what is being done to them. The people who stand up to this are very brave and have my great thanks. It is good to know that there are some people who still consider women to have any value.

The idea of being born in the wrong body isn't literal. It's just the description given to to growing up feeling uncomfortable with your sex. And transitioning doesn't mean you're literally changing sex. The fact you want to throw that in people's faces is just you being insulting and petty.

No, you are wrong. The fact that we now have no women's sports and female only spaces (such as rape crisis centres) are disappearing is hinged on the idea that these things are literally true. You might be able to hold these ideas as some sort of wafty metaphor but not everyone can and then they are used to shape reality in a way which disadvantages women. If TW are not literally W, is should never be said. If transitioning does not literally mean that you have become a woman, then there is no sense in allowing men into women's sports and spaces. Language does shape reality and it is not throwing it in anyone's faces to say so.