What is your least GC belief and why?

[PermanentTemporary]

Just thought I'd start this thread for no particular reason. The range of views interests me.

I have a few that may or may not be typical. I suppose they are summed up by believing that transition is always going to exist, that it's part of the human condition, and also that what sex we are is much less important than it used to be in daily life (I think this is a good thing).

'We can always tell' - this as a blanket statement is obviously not true, and worse, it's unprovable - if I can't tell, then I'm not going to know. Voice training can be remarkably successful for some male people (I'm a speech therapist). There are also quite a lot of stories by posters on here referring to people they know where they didn't realise they were trans for some years.

Public toilets are self policed and will be used based on someone's self perception. Making them a battleground doesn't help anyone, least of all women. Conversely, I do think awareness that abusing unaware women in public toilets by use of cameras is a specific perversion/porn category needs to be much greater.

Use of neutral pronouns (they/them) and using Mx as an honorific are perfectly reasonable things to do and fit in happily with my feminism. I think this will end up spreading, in fact they already are.

If I think of some more I'll add them.

Public toilets are self policed and will be used based on someone's self perception. Making them a battleground doesn't help anyone, least of all women. Conversely, I do think awareness that abusing unaware women in public toilets by use of cameras is a specific perversion/porn category needs to be much greater

It's all a fiction. Very very few trans people pass as their chosen sex. It's cruel to let them believe they do - but we do, to 'be kind'. No one is 'kind' when it comes to butch lesbians, oddly.

I don't care if a trans person I cannot detect as trans uses the same loos as me. But like I say, most are deluded into believing they look as female as they think.

I cannot get on board with they/them. It makes no sense. In the written word, it is confusing. And is used for people who are unknown - this part is always glossed over when it's said Shakespeare used it. Language does evolve, but it needs to make sense!

I mean that society should be indifferent to how someone dresses but it should be agreed that humans can not change sex. So a man wearing stereotypical female clothing is just that. I know what you are saying regarding fetishes but in my opinion indifference would be the worst thing for someone with a fetish.

My least GC belief is that ballet should still be segregated and male dancers should not be allowed to take female dancers places.

My (male) DP and I (female) are late 40s and met in our early 20s. I didn't 'start dressing to impress or attract' him or change myself; he has never been 'masculine' in that he's not into football or lad culture or whatever, and he always felt free to express that. I think many people of our generation have similar experiences.

As for bypassing gender stereotypes, most NB women I see seem to dress and present like what in the old days one would call a butch lesbian: plaid shirts, short buzz-cut or otherwise 'masculine' hair, no make-up etc. That's not changing or bypassing or being fluid about anything, any more than a trans-identifying man wearing heels and a long wig is.

I totally agree with you @Whatsnewpussyhat

I think I'd agree. I'm GC and honestly I have MN to thank for that! It was reading these forums back in the day (10 odd years ago) which opened my eyes. To my mind though they are now a very different place.

I suppose my "non-GC" beliefs would be that I don't believe there is a conspiracy to "erase" women (in the same way I don't believe the Stonewall-side when they say the GC side want to "eradicate / exterminate" trans people).

I also think humanity is messy and lines can be blurry when it comes to perception of sex and who uses what spaces. Yep, the vast majority of men, including transwomen, should not be using the women's bathrooms willy-nilly (if you'll pardon the pun). But male cleaners, plumbers, children, security, medics, carers etc can have legitimate reasons for being in those spaces, or sometimes one set of toilets is out of order and you all have to use the other set, or sometimes someone has an absolute crisis, or is just not paying attention (I once accidentally crashed the men's loos because I assumed the layout on every single other floor of a building was the same as on the fifth) so I think going about your day with the expectation that there are certain hallowed thresholds men can never cross under any circumstances is setting yourself up for failure. Life is not that straightforward.

I'm also as a rule happy to use what pronouns people ask me to use when I am addressing them directly or they are in the room / conversation. I don't believe that compromises the unshakeable fact that their sex might not align with those pronouns.

I will not compromise when it comes to who I choose to ally myself with in this particular arena. There has been - to me - a concerning trend of certain far-right elements which are anything but pro-women to get involved in this fight. While I might agree with some of their points on that one particular issue, I choose not to support them in any way.

I also think JKR is just fine. She's a good writer and I agree with pretty much everything she says. But as a fairly powerful billionaire I don't consider her particularly brave. She's all good with me, I just don't join in with the hero-worshipping.

I think it's evidently less important, or we wouldn't have this conversation.

If there was no access to reliable birth control, or most people still worked in labouring type positions, it would be almost impossible for people to believe there are no significant differences between men and women. In fact we would be in a position, as women were in the past, where having certain kinds of careers would almost always require a commitment to celibacy.

Even the fact that there are actually quite a lot of people who believe that men and women are competing on an equal field in sports is another example - that's only possible because so many people don't actually use their bodies in their work on a day to day basis.

Public toilets are self policed and will be used based on someone's self perception. Making them a battleground doesn't help anyone, least of all women

My perception of this issue has changed. A few months ago I would probably have agreed with the above statement, but this is one of the most visible way that our boundaries are being ignored. If you say, it doesn't matter for toilets, then what about changing rooms, prisons, hospital wards etc. It needs to be one rule for all situations. When you make exceptions the rules get exploited.

The only thing women have in common is their biology, and the ways in which it is exploited or disrespected.

Beyond that, I see no sisterhood or obvious connection, except those made temporarily for political purposes.

I tend to agree with this. You can see it sometimes in news stories about people who want to use the neutral pronouns, it can be extremely awkward and confusing. The former might become less weird sounding with use but the latter won't improve.

I don't believe there is a conspiracy to "erase" women. I don't believe so either, but I do think nonetheless that women are in danger of being erased.

male cleaners, plumbers, children, security, medics, carers etc can have legitimate reasons for being in those spaces, or sometimes one set of toilets is out of order and you all have to use the other set, or sometimes someone has an absolute crisis, or is just not paying attention… I think going about your day with the expectation that there are certain hallowed thresholds men can never cross under any circumstances is setting yourself up for failure. Life is not that straightforward.
This is disingenuous. I don't think you really believe that women who have a problem with men in women's loos have a problem with these specific examples. Nor do women think men can never go in a women's loo under any circumstances. We've all seen a sign outside one saying 'male cleaners are working in here'.

I disagree - I don't think women are in danger of being erased at all. The material reality of our existence does not change, unless we're talking about sex-selective abortions, which we are not.

And it's not disingenuous at all. So many times I see on MN that men should not be allowed in e.g. female toilets, wards - no exceptions, a blanket ban, single sex only. These are not my words. The argument being that any men being in women's spaces is a threat and could e.g. install spy cameras. Which is true, sadly. But pure infallible single sex spaces are to my mind an impossibility.

I suppose my least GC view might be almost the opposite of the OPs, I think that the idea that increasing the number of gender neutral things, be it titles, clothes, pronouns, will make a difference, is completely false. At best, I think these things make no difference to the desire of some to appear as the other sex, and no substantive difference to the status of women. I suspect that they may in fact actually somewhat work against these things.

I'm inclined to think this is congruent with being gender critical. In most situations in life sex shouldn't be relevant, so there's no need to announce it. I'm happy to have a neutral title.

In the 70s and 80s this was a feminist demand and we were ridiculed for it. A couple of feminist science fiction novels use GN pronouns - for example, Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time uses 'per' for both sexes.

I don't see that as not being GC. Ballet is surely to a large extent like sport - something requiring the physicality of male and female sexed bodies. Unless it's some piece specifically choreographed not to make use of those differences, male and female ballet dancers simply aren't interchangeable.

Pronouns is a difficult one. Using preferred pronouns seems easy and polite at first glance, but the difficulty as I see it arises when there is a cognitive dissonance between what you're seeing and what you're saying. I also can't see it working particularly well in situations where there are a large number of people - a classroom or a large board meeting, for instance - where you may not be able to see people's name badges and, even if they've introduced themselves earlier with preferred pronouns, having the mental capacity to remember them all. Personally, I think it slows down thought, conversation and, very often, meaningful discourse, They/them is particularly onerous: having to consistently think of ways to reword a sentence to make it meaningful cannot help but slow things down.

I don't think woman a
Will be erased, but I do think the meaning of the word woman is changing so that it no longer has any meaning.

'Only woman can be pregnant' will get large cries of transphobia (which is ridiculous but never mind).

It seems that the only criteria to be a woman is to identify as one.

I don't identify as a woman and if its something that includes men, then the word is meaningless to me.

Personally i am prepared to concede the word woman as its only a word. But we need a new word to replace it and it's what needs to be used to describe me.

There is one thing that ties me in with 51% of the planet and that is sex.

Perhaps it's the specific language that's the issue. No, materially/physically, female bodies won't be erased. I mean (and I think people who talk about women's erasure generally) mean erasure of our experiences/the importance of our experiences/our rights and safety/dignity etc.
So, the erasure of women/girls from sport, for example, if men and boys continue to be allowed to take part; women winning/succeeding may well disappear, and women/girls may become more and more discouraged from taking part in the first place.
And erasure from history: an example being the recent Globe play positioning Joan of Arc as NB.

As for female wards, toilets etc, yes, I also see discussions on e.g. male partners in maternity wards where the consensus is that there should be a blanket ban. But I remain unconvinced that women in these discussions actually mean that a male cleaner or plumber should be banned. Common sense applies here.

Yup, I'm a middle class professional. Which is why I know so many trans people, it seems to be a very middle class phenomenon in the UK

Luxury beliefs. People who can go along with gender bollocks because it won't really affect them.

I am intrigued by seeing the relationships of the gender fluid youth up close and it challenges internalised sexism I didn't know I was still carrying. Like, how when non binary girl meets gender fluid boy she doesn't start dressing to impress or attract or changing herself, how he is free to be into the things he's into and not cultural norms of what he should be. Like they are using gender identity ideas to bypass gender stereotypes more successfully than I ever have. And they are not trying to be the opposite gender or in between, they are rejecting the stereotypes

So a straight couple being completely normal and not special in any way?
They aren't rejecting stereotypes, they are inforcing them with their ridiculous labels. Making 'girl' mean hyper feminine and over sexualised.

If they were rejecting them, the girl wouldn't need to call herself 'non binary' would she, just be happy being a girl with her own style and personality. But that's too boring and 'heteronormative' for the teens under peer pressure to conform to the latest religious doctrine.

I suppose my "non-GC" beliefs would be that I don't believe there is a conspiracy to "erase" women (in the same way I don't believe the Stonewall-side when they say the GC side want to "eradicate / exterminate" trans people

TRA's claiming we want to 'eradicate trans people' is complete emotive nonsense, whilst the push to remove female legal protections is very real. The push to remove women's right to name themselves as a distinct sex class and be able to advocate solely for their unique needs separate to men is very real, and frightening.
If we can't name ourselves as a sex class, we can't have sex based rights. We can't name our oppressors by sex whilst they still oppress us for ours.

The only people who benefit from gender ideology and the removal of all boundaries from women and children are men.

This is exactly what I wanted to say, but SO much more well-articulated!

I am GC but I am at odds with some of the ways that that is inflected on this board, for instance:

I don't believe that transition is necessarily a disaster. I know some people whose health and lives have been improved by transition.

I don't care about the "passing" issue. When people talk about how transwomen never pass I think: 1. how do you know? and 2. I don't care. The whole thing for me is that looking like a woman doesn't make you one, so I simply don't care whether it is possible or usual for transwomen to pass or not.

I strongly disagree with the "ew" response that you get from some GC women towards gender non conforming people. I think the most acceptable way of positioning it is that some people are roping unconsenting 3rd parties into their fetish, ie, presenting a certain way as a form of exhibitionism and forcing others to witness it is part of them getting off sexually. I agree that this is unacceptable; but the awareness of the potential of this seems to have sort of bled, in some people, into a generalised "ew" response which is dangerously close to everything that we are being accused of: hateful, prejudiced, narrow minded, gender essentialist, etc.

I think that some young people are better than people my age (51) at rejecting sex stereotypes, not worse, and I think that although on paper the TRA movement entrenches sex stereotypes rather than challenges them, young people themselves have somehow managed to employ some of that thinking to become a little freer of them. Some. It's illogical, I admit, but it also seems to be happening, a bit.

I don't mind using female pronouns for trans women, usually. this connects with my first point - some people do kind of need to transition, they just do.

I think overall many of the differences of opinion between me and others on this board are about:

• with the people who think all think people have the right to self determination, but they can't impose their structures on me - I agree but perhaps differ as to where it's their thing and where it's my thing (eg the pronouns - I let them have that as I think it's about them, not me, but I can see why others see it differently)

• I actually think some people on this board (a tiny minority) don't think that people have the right to self determination. They aren't just differing about where to draw the line; they think that everyone else should just "behave", because "sexual misbehaviour" is gross and unacceptable

On the toilets question, I have only in the last couple of years noticed men going into women's loos without batting an eyelid. Most recently at a local train station, where the cleaner/caretaker was in and out of the loo bringing luggage in for a women passenger. What I noticed was that he stayed chatting once his job was finished. Until quite recently, I remember male cleaners knocking to announce their intention to come in. The call of "are you decent?" or "can I come in?" was regular and a direct acknowledgement that a male was entering into a female only space. It was respectful of that. This respect has vanished completely in a couple of years. I note that there are enough men who seem to be really enjoying this new freedom. I find this sort of thing really entrenches my views. Female spaces are for women (and small children).

And of course what sex we are is less important than it used to be. Now at least most of us assume it is wrong for pregnant women to be sacked, there are at least laws against it, even if they get broken. Doesn't mean it's not still unchangeable; that sex is used as a weapon against women far too often; and of course it remains important in some areas - that's why I'm GC at all, it's why I'm a feminist

Who are "most of us"? Because the idea that its ok not to employ women of fertile age or keep women who are pregnant is very widespread indeed, particularly for women who are not in graduate professional career ladders with big corporates (where the attitude still exists, but its not mentioned). The law provides little or no recourse due to the difficulties in accessing the law.

This is an issue which is 100% related to women as a sex class. PP upthread is correct - the only thing we all have in common is our sex. The protections in place refer to our sex. Stonewall want to remove sex as a protected characteristic in favour of gender (although I note that part of their website has disappeared) as has already happened in places where lobbying was successful.

Have you read Invisible Women? Every aspect of our health care, education and progress in life is impacted by our sex. Little girls and boys are treated differently from the moment of birth, whatever the intent of parents - because of their sex.

There are a few small bubbles of existence where some women feel insulated from this - most women live outside those bubbles and to pretend that sex is no longer a big issue flies in the face of reality. Its not just "some areas" it touches of every aspect of life.

Personally i am prepared to concede the word woman as its only a word. But we need a new word to replace it and it's what needs to be used to describe me

I'm not prepared to hand over the word woman so men can pretend they are one.
You're completely naive if you think the TRA's will allow us a word for our sex class that excludes men. They don't want any distinctions.
As predicted, they have already started taking 'female' too.

The material reality of our existence does not change

This is precisely the bloody point!!! We will still be vagina havers who will be treated the same way as ever by the penis people.
Same old sex based oppression but it will be impossible to fight it because our oppressors stole the words that describe our reality and made them meaningless.

I actually think some people on this board (a tiny minority) don't think that people have the right to self determination. They aren't just differing about where to draw the line; they think that everyone else should just "behave", because "sexual misbehaviour" is gross and unacceptable

Could you explain this a bit more - what do you mean by the right to self determination? And what "sexual misbehaviour" are you alluding to here?