Should we dispense with the word gender critical and just call ourselves biological realists?

[Stopsnowing]

Just that really. If sex matters and gender is mainly irrelevant shall we just stop referring to being gender critical?

Rationalists. Vs the Gender Irrationalists.

I hope it's the current use of ironic to say-

I find it ironic that the group who think the current practice esp with teens but also plenty other people, to consider, choose, create, agonise over labels that encapsulate certain aspects of their personality/ who they are...

Are having a (interesting!) pretty involved conversation about what label we should give ourselves

Imo and what I've seen-

1. Most news articles etc that are not by activists of either 'side', general use. 'some feminists', 'women's groups' etc. That's fine.

Note: Really interesting it's always women. And/or feminists. When clearly plenty men are either active in sex > gender, or are... Any/ all bog standard men across whole society. Bar a number so small at population level is irrelevant.

1. The label is irrelevant. One positive sounding will simply be ignored, altered a bit too sound evil etc. Plus it's the people who have the label that are the focus. Changing labels does not change attitudes. (Example- nasty words used for people with disabilities. If underlying issue not addressed, label changes nothing).

1. I only heard of GC when this started. Read feminist term fair old while. Doesn't properly fit though. It's about thinking enforced gender roles/ stereotypes etc are really constraining and damaging to pretty much everyone to some degree.

The fact it can easily be claimed to mean critical of trans people is why used so much... Was it feminists/women who said call us this loads of us are that? Or because v appealing to be pushed by others as easily misunderstood?

1. GC not so popular now still around s lot but others moving in. I've seen-

Biological essentialists Forgot other it was upthread!

In end.

Those who disagree will use whatever terms they wish. Look at anti trans activists. Popular. Applied to us, and incorrect.

GC is not actually a suitable term for knowing sex > gender anyway.
Same as TE*F, all are radical feminists if they know sex matters? I mean lololol don't be so silly!

Given generally media uses reasonable terms predominantly.

And as a large scattered group who happen to share a big wtf on this issue, not an organisation in any way.

It would be really hard to get one suitable label. It will only be used on Twitter etc if can be twisted. And getting it into mainstream use, incredibly hard.

Let's focus on facts. Not labels. Imo.

I reckon Cheese has it about right.

Of course, specific campaigns need labels - there are already good ones (Fair Play for Women, SexMatters, For Women Scotland etc). This informal and somewhat diverse group here - MN FWR (feminism and women's rights) fits most of us well enough without being overly specific.

Yes-
Thought to mention orgs but trying (and failing) to be less long winded!

FPFW etc all good.

In reality though-

Those who know sex > gender

Who know mixed sex things now mixed gender is really shit for women and girls, and the obvious risks.

Know that in general women and girls are physically vulnerable to men even boys once past certain point of development.
Know that males are WAY WAY more violent generally than females.

And KNOW that girls/ women are especially vulnerable to/ experience loads of godawful behaviour from creepy weirdy pervy/ aggressive/ humiliating/ unsettling scary embarrassing blokes.

They KNOW how widespread unwanted sex related dodgy behaviour by men/boys at women/girls is. Things that in general society considers not a big deal, so essentially unremarkable you can see sometimes happening in various places.
On the street/ public transport, pubs, clubs etc.

And of course, they KNOW that the behaviour can be rape, kidnap, torture, murder...

Iseveryone in the UK who is fundamentally aware of these obvious facts, about 60 million people...

A radical feminist?
A biological essentialist?
A card carrying feminist?
A woman?
....

No fucking of course they aren't.

What should we be called?

The individuals who are concerned enough to discuss, follow what's going on, write in papers, discuss on SM etc etc.

So given the entire population apart from a percentage so tiny as to be irrelevant ALL KNOW THE ABOVE.

Then ones who are more vocal are surely...

Activists representing the public view?
Representatives of wide societal view?
Speaking for the massive proportion of public concerned about the impact on women and girls?

I mean that's the truth.

You don't need to be a feminist of any type, in fact you might loathe feminism.

That's of zero relevance when it comes to knowing the basic obvious fundamental differences between female and male humans.

Any label indicating that knowing the bleeding obvious, is limited to feminists, women's rights groups etc.

Is to signal a massive error. Which is that if eg knowing sex> gender means you are a feminist activist.

Then everyone in the UK is a feminist! And also probably white, 'cis', middle class, hard right and a fundamental Christian, wants to see literal extermination (mass execution of thousands and thousands of people, homo/bi phobic, classist, has a defeatist, weak belief in their own victimhood, has prudish ideas about dicks about when women girls get kit off, enjoys kicking puppies, throws stones at ducklings, and wants to have a 4- way with Boris, trump and farage.

You don't need to be a feminist of any type, in fact you might loathe feminism.

That's of zero relevance when it comes to knowing the basic obvious fundamental differences between female and male humans.

Any label indicating that knowing the bleeding obvious, is limited to feminists, women's rights groups etc.

Is to signal a massive error. Which is that if eg knowing sex> gender means you are a feminist activist.c.

Yes, I totally agree.

I'm less interested in what we name our type of feminism and more what we call the opposing belief to gender ideology. So, a belief in reality and not in gender woo, that anyone can have, regardless of whether they're a feminist or not.

I like "pro-reality" as suggested upthread.

We're firmly grounded in reality - both common-sense reality. e.g. we know sex exists because it's bloody obvious - and also evidence based reality - we know it's a bad idea to give drugs that stop puberty to kids when there is no solid evidence it's beneficial for them, but a lot of evidence about serious risks.

I'd like a term like this that could be used to describe the argument opposing gender woo.

This point about knowing things that are bleeding obvious.

This isn't criticism, at all. V determined brave. Loads of massive shit.
I stay under parapet.
This is not a criticism. And, court ruling as it did, v important.

MF case though, with the argument being beliefs-

'established that gender critical views are protected as a belief under the Equality Act 2010.'

This makes me really wince when I see it.

It means a court has accepted, ruled,

That knowing sex matters, that the risks etc are obvious to pretty much everyone in the whole world, and have been prob since emergence of modern humans.

That mammals, loads (most, pretty much all) of birds, insects, fish etc etc. Know. Reproduction who to do what with. Innumerable variations in sex behaviour, how signal time to/ up for mating. How young reared (or left to get on with it), Etc etc.

As a belief. I suppose it was GC as a belief, rather than this obvious stuff is a belief.

I might look up how GC was defined for that case...

@CheeseMmmm

This point about knowing things that are bleeding obvious.

This isn't criticism, at all. V determined brave. Loads of massive shit.
I stay under parapet.
This is not a criticism. And, court ruling as it did, v important.

MF case though, with the argument being beliefs-

'established that gender critical views are protected as a belief under the Equality Act 2010.'

This makes me really wince when I see it.

It means a court has accepted, ruled,

That knowing sex matters, that the risks etc are obvious to pretty much everyone in the whole world, and have been prob since emergence of modern humans.

That mammals, loads (most, pretty much all) of birds, insects, fish etc etc. Know. Reproduction who to do what with. Innumerable variations in sex behaviour, how signal time to/ up for mating. How young reared (or left to get on with it), Etc etc.

As a belief. I suppose it was GC as a belief, rather than this obvious stuff is a belief.

I might look up how GC was defined for that case...

You need to look at the case and understand it better to know why this isn't an issue. Complaining that the court claimed GC ideas are a belief is a totally spurious argument.

We have to use the laws that exist to fight gender ideology. The court did NOT rule that GC ideas are a belief.

Maya's team argued that GC ideas should be recognised as a protected belief as that is the legal tool available under the Equality Act. The Equality Act protects beliefs, there is no provision for protecting facts. And there is a test (the Granger Test) to determine whether something qualifies as a protected belief under this act.

If something is a protected belief under the Equality Act, it's making no comment about whether it's true or not, that's not what's being tested here.

And you need to remember that this was an Employment Tribunal: Maya's team need to demonstrate that she was discriminated against so the Equality Act is the correct one to use.

The court case that made it to the court of appeal was only the first stage of Maya's case against her employer. The point of that case was simply to use the Grainger test to determine whether Maya's ideas could be considered a protected belief. Now they have proved that, she can continue with her case against her employer. If they could not, that would be the end of it.

You may not like the use of the word "belief" in the Equality Act, but please understand that if Maya's lawyers had tried to prove GC ideas are based on facts it would have been a total waste of time and they would have lost the case as it would be totally irrelevant to the available laws they need to use to fight this.

A belief in the world being round, or in humans being mammals or whatever would be seen as a "belief" in just the same way. No comment on reality.

And, as I remember it, GC wasn't defined as anything for that case. No need to.

That's true.

It's a bit irksome, in the same sort of way as creationists saying evolution is 'only a theory' I suppose.

There's a great Phillip K Dick quote on that 'do you believe in biology' thread.
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away

Interesting discussion about 'fairness' but it doesn't have enough specificity to these particular issues to be powerful or useful. We all think we're being fair even when we're not. It's a bit like being pro-'kindness' and we've seen where that leads. Nobody ever really thinks they are being unkind.

I also dislike the scenario of women campaigning for a generalised 'fairness'. Why's that on women to sort out? What about reserving some energy and resource just for our own issues, women's issues? Unfairness is global in every sense of global and needs global effort from everyone to tackle it.

I like 'rationalist' a lot and I like 'femaleist' too. But I think that 'femaleist' is likely to require some prior knowledge of why this position is distinct from just 'feminist' which media labels don't have time to get into. 'Rationalist' like 'pro-reality' is accurate but too widely applicable in loads of situations to be helpful enough for these specific issues here. I'm wary of any label that distracts from the focus on women (and potentially our children).

So I'm still voting for 'anti-sexist' as a useful, clearly understood, generally positively-received label for women's concerns in this space.

'Anti-sexist' also gives an accurate account of what the TRA lobby are actively working against. The TRAs are all about silencing anti-sexist women. This is because the TRA lobby is at heart all about promoting old school male-centring sexism. Gender ie 'femininity' and 'masculinity' are each all about propping up and enforcing what are objectively and fairly described as sexist values.

Posters here are right that ideally there should be one simple label proactively promoted by the pro-reality, femaleist and rational camp. Because if there isn't one that we offer proactively, then the media will simply use one that's the opposite of what the TRA lobby say they are doing. Because journalists want to characterise the polar opposite nature of the actors in an argument. That tension creates the drama in the news story.

We already see this happening with the smears on JKR and other women who speak up. They're characterised as 'transphobes' because they've stood up for women's rights. Because the TRA lobby say that's what those women are.

TRA lobby say they're for 'trans rights' or 'LGBTQI+ equality'. (..carried out in a way that negatively impacts women and children's rights but they don't want to acknowledge that part of it publicly..)

Therefore the women who talk about women's and children's rights and point out where those clearly clash with the impact of the above TRA lobby position, get labelled as being.. 'ANTI trans rights' or 'ANTI LGBTQI+ equality'. Which is total missing the point misrepresentative bollocks. But that's the way the media works.

I see the same happening all the time on social media. Humans need to categorise things and emotive political arguments are a classic arena in which we do that. It speaks to our sense of our own personal values and identity to be tribal about politics especially on specific issues of cherished principle. We create tribes of those who take a different view on those issues of principle too. It just is what it is so we may as well work with it if we want to campaign on this. Not everyone wants to campaign, which is also fine obviously.

Am I right then in thinking that we need a slogan that does two things?
1. it arouses a sense in the general public that they, of course, align with it (concepts like “fairness” or “life” are examples but maybe not the right ones).
2. It clarifies that sex cannot be changed but there is a valid continuum in terms of how people can feel/act and so there is no need for gender stereotyping.

Also, I think the trouble with “anti sexist” is that (whilst it might be accurate) people don’t believe they are sexist and don’t see their misogyny. Like the people who genuinely believe they are “not racist but”. They will feel accused and not receptive to the ideology from the start. They will feel “othered” and we want them to feel “samed”.

Isn't the term rationalist already used?

@ErrolTheDragon

'Gender critical' when I first came across it on here was easily understood and afaik unproblematic -it means 'gender stereotype critical'. It arose in discussions around supporting gender nonconforming kids, not enforcing gender stereotypes etc. It's the thinking behind campaigns such as 'Let Toys be Toys' etc.

It wasn't about criticising people for their 'gender identity' because that just wasn't really a concept familiar to or important to most people.

Yep, I agree it wasn’t difficult to understand for me. It still has its original meaning, but it’s also a response to what might be perceived as the ‘backlash’ (gender identity ideology).

I quite like gender atheist too.

Fair point Swashbuckled 'anti-sexist' definitely won't work if it's another label that people assume they are not a part of, even when they are. But I do like how it clearly points out the position the other side are pushing.
'Gender atheist' does that job too.

I might be going way off piste here (I have time on my hands today) but is there anything worth doing around the parallel with the “Little Red Riding Hood” wolf who dressed up as her grandma before eating the girl whole?

Just a tale most people would have heard of and gives the wolf bad press. But I get it’s probably a bit far out.

(OOps..Just need to say I know it’s not a new thought, but I’ve been more aware of the tale due to the stranger danger element rather then the dressing in woman’s clothing.)

I quite like Rational Feminist.

TRA lobby say they're for 'trans rights' or 'LGBTQI+ equality'.

We should be for women's rights and women's equality.

Avoid the anti prefix and the phobic accusations.

I’ve just been visiting my neighbour (in her garden) who has tested positive for Covid. She’s in her seventies and at the lovely end of Jam and Jerusalem. She was apoplectic about track and trace having asked if she still identified with the gender assigned to her at birth. She didn’t believe this had any relevance whatsoever to a Covid diagnosis and what nonsense was it in any case.

We really are in the majority.

falalalalalalalallama

Thanks for post and as per my posts earlier totally not a criticism in any way at all.

I had a squiz at the judgement last night and it did say though what her beliefs were, and certainly things like humans can't change sex were in there.

It was the only way to proceed, but I have felt really uncomfy with obvious facts being framed as beliefs.

'A belief in the world being round, or in humans being mammals or whatever would be seen as a "belief" in just the same way. No comment on reality.'

It's not a belief that the world is round.
Because it's not

We know it's a sphere which is squished a bit at each end, more or less.

Even if not in board with the various methods from at least 5th century BC, and ignoring it was established as a physical fact in 3rd century BC.

And that it's been a very long time since we were able, through observation, and/or through calculation, to describe the planetary orbits etc.

Now planes fly around the planet, hot air balloons going super high have seen a massive view of curved earth, we are used to satellite pics of earth for weather, Google maps... We've sent vessels which have sent back pics of earth, mars, Jupiter, Saturn and more...

Orrery invented 1700s... Spherical planets...

A belief? That the world is not flat?

No sorry. Unless going into philosophy mode eg solipsism.

Then the view that it's a different kind of use of the word belief. With example.
World is flat/ world is more or less spere.
Saying both are beliefs. Is not a problem in certain circs.

It is a problem.
It gives them the same weight. Some people believe this some that.

Just no. Nope.

Belief world round, humans mammals (more complex due to human categorisation etc but can address it anyone wants)..

Or whatever

I am just not ok with the scientific endeavours of humanity for 1000s of years being dismissed and casually cast aside.

I'm not a philosopher or a lawyer or things like that.
I'm a person who enjoys finding out how things work and why, and I studied science school uni etc.

At the moment globally science is under attack. Sorry if strong posting but it's really v personal for me.

@CorvusPurpureus

I quite like Rational Feminist.

Implies there are irrational feminists

Which enough people think already 😂😂😂

I'm a scientist, and while I understand what you mean, Cheese, I'm somewhat glad for clarification that irrational beliefs aren't legally privileged over having a rational worldview! (This perspective comes from DH being involved in campaigns for fair access to schools in the past ... allowed to attend an 'interfaith' group with influence on this, as a silent observer only)

@CheeseMmmm

falalalalalalalallama

Thanks for post and as per my posts earlier totally not a criticism in any way at all.

I had a squiz at the judgement last night and it did say though what her beliefs were, and certainly things like humans can't change sex were in there.

It was the only way to proceed, but I have felt really uncomfy with obvious facts being framed as beliefs.

'A belief in the world being round, or in humans being mammals or whatever would be seen as a "belief" in just the same way. No comment on reality.'

It's not a belief that the world is round.
Because it's not

We know it's a sphere which is squished a bit at each end, more or less.

Even if not in board with the various methods from at least 5th century BC, and ignoring it was established as a physical fact in 3rd century BC.

And that it's been a very long time since we were able, through observation, and/or through calculation, to describe the planetary orbits etc.

Now planes fly around the planet, hot air balloons going super high have seen a massive view of curved earth, we are used to satellite pics of earth for weather, Google maps... We've sent vessels which have sent back pics of earth, mars, Jupiter, Saturn and more...

Orrery invented 1700s... Spherical planets...

A belief? That the world is not flat?

No sorry. Unless going into philosophy mode eg solipsism.

Then the view that it's a different kind of use of the word belief. With example.
World is flat/ world is more or less spere.
Saying both are beliefs. Is not a problem in certain circs.

It is a problem.
It gives them the same weight. Some people believe this some that.

Just no. Nope.

No. You are confusing everyday language with the law. Please stop.

Yes, the employment tribunal used the word belief. That is because this is the legal instrument available. Maya was discriminated against because of what she tweeted. The Equality Act provides protection against discrimination on the basis of a person's beliefs. Belief is the language used, but it is no comment on whether the belief is true or not, this is not one of the criteria of the test.

What a belief is, for the purpose of a discrimination case, is carefully defined by the Grainger test, which looks at things such as whether it's a weighty matter, how long the belief has been held etc. Please Google Grainger Test to understand it better.

You are applying everyday language to a legal instrument. In every day language, a belief is seen as inferior to a fact. But this not implied when used under the equality act. Your everyday definition of "belief" is totally irrelevant to the law being applied here.

There is no legal instrument to protect people from discrimination for saying facts.

The assertion that Maya's ideas are a protected belief are about using the relevant law, and absolutely nothing to do with whether they are true or not. That wasn't a part of the case and it's spurious to suggest that anyone involved in the case - Maya, her lawyers or the judge, was using the word belief to suggest that GC ideas are not true. Please stop doing it, it's just nonsense.

In everyday language, you may object to the idea that the world is round being a belief, but if you wanted to be protected from discrimination for talking about this, you'd better hope your lawyers understood that it's beliefs not facts that are protected in employment law, and what "belief" means in a legal sense.