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.

Sounds like a challenge

@PermanentTemporary Trying to claim that sex isn’t as import Anymore when girls in Afghanistan have lost the right to schooling, when girls and women are being killed in Iran because they want freedom, when women in America have lost their right to bodily autonomy which is already having an impact on their access to medication for multiple other conditions, when women are being housed in prisons with violent males… I could go on and on.

What you’ve written is horrific and you really need to reflect on the ignorance that led you to post that.

I mean, that's a valid way to frame it, that childbearing puts you at a disadvantage. It does. Pregnant and nursing women are vulnerable and need support.

But it also just takes up a lot of time and energy, which isn't necessarily a disadvantage. Historically the vast majority of people did difficult work, all day every day, in order to survive. Having children was part of that work which fell to women. Men on the other hand did different, but not easier, work.

Concepts like maternity leave are pretty meaningless in that kind of scenario. There are still marginal societies on the fringes where everyone has to have as many kids as possible, or they will have a population crash and cease to exist as a culture. Their society isn't built around the needs of men, but the need to survive.

It's not ageist, it's true. As men and women become very elderly, they typically lose many of the more obvious sex differences. They will lose a lot of their body shape because of loss of muscle tone, they shrink, their hands will become less feminine if they are women due to things like arthritis, faces often become sunken, differences in skin texture are lost because the skin becomes delicate in both sexes, tooth loss can change the shape of the jaw. And they often sound more alike as well, women's voices become lower - there are a fair number of older women who can sing tenor, whereas as a certain point men's voices begin to get higher, so they will often be in the same vocal range.

Historically the vast majority of people did difficult work, all day every day, in order to survive.

Actually, in subsistence societies the average amount of manual work per day was about 6 hours.

Childbearing only makes you vulnerable if the society around you isn't supportive (apart from serious medical issues). Imagine a matriarchal society organised around women, centring the needs of women and small children. Then compare it to what we actually have!

Officially I don't believe that there is an innate difference between the two sexes in terms of personality. I don't agree that gender stereotypes are real. So I am gender critical.

In fact, I believe that biological changes in the brain during pregnancy and childbirth make women naturally better carers for small babies than men.

I completely agree with this. Before I went through pregnancy I wouldn’t have had what it takes to be a good mother but all of these changes and hormones worked together to make me want to do the right thing. Fathers can experience a transformation too, in the moment they see that tiny vulnerable miracle, but it is no where near as significant as the transformation women go through.

Interesting thread op
Mine are that I think a social definition of woman exists and for some people that's more important as a definition than biological sex.

And that I don't think whether someone's had SRS should be a criterion for whether they are treated as the opposite sex. I think its barbaric to apply any pressure on people to have unnecessary surgery on a healthy body and hate it when people suggest treating TW with a penis differently to those without. (I can't decide if that's uber GC or really not!)

Eh?
I think most feminists actually think men are capable of controlling their undesirable behaviours, whether or not those are natural.

The idea there are innate male characteristics (e.g. programmed to spread their seed so will have affairs or visual so have to watch porn) is used to suggest women should just put up with a whole load of shit from men. That's where socialisation comes in imo. Poor men can't help it if they treat women like shit.

Because of this, I think believing there are natural, unchangeable roles for men and women is incompatible with being a feminist.

My least GC thought is I think Eddie Izzard is OK.

1. He's dysphoric, almost certainly AGP, and has been encouraged in all of this by vacuous handmaidens and the rest.
2. He's chill with what pronouns people use
3. He's stuck up for JK Rowling so the TRAs probably hate him too

Yes, I know he should never be changing in the ladies toilet, back in the day. That was inappropriate. I don't know if he made a female short list, that would be massively wrong. But all in all, I think he's OK.

I got blocked for not hating Eddie Izzard on Twatter by some GC accounts. After they'd screamed at me for a while. Bizarre.

We don't have to agree on everything SHOCK.

It is somewhat woman-blaming to assert he “has been encouraged in all of this by vacuous handmaidens and the rest.” @KatMcBundleFace

Eddie didn’t need any push from women to start making offensive comments about ‘girl mode’. He was an opportunist and jumped on the bandwagon when becoming ‘trans’ (rather than TV as he had previously called himself) was the trendy thing.

Having said that, i like his acting and I think I could get along and be friendly with him. In fact something I have noticed about myself/the situation is that I find a lot of TRAs come across as quite likeable and I find it really hard to reconcile that with how much I detest their beliefs. Apart from Billy Bragg. I think I would make a quick swerve if it looked like we’d be sat next to each other at a dinner party.

I do find it so odd that so many people hold these illogical, bizarre, dangerous and inherently misogynistic and homophobic beliefs. Perhaps it was ever thus. Perhaps it’s a glitch in the human mind.

Mine are that I think a social definition of woman exists

Does it? What is it?

Can't answer for op but some of my female friends actually believe that wearing make up and skirts is an inbuilt female trait and only women do it. Therefore anyone in makeup and a skirt must be female.

They say this to me while I am sat there in no make up and jeans

Yes please, what is the 'social definition' of woman? A person who does the housework? No, come on. A person who... likes watching Love Island?

No, seriously. I'm struggling to imagine what a social definition of woman would be. What about the social definition of a man? Or is it just women you can define that way?

I suppose it’s pretty social to give birth to people and have a lifelong relationship with them…🤔

Ah well you see it is basically stereotypes. Which I don't agree with but it does exist and some people believe that's more important.

So clothes to accentuate waist/legs/make up/long hair/hand bag/heeled shoes are all social signals of woman.

Clothes to accentuate shoulders/height, short or no hair, facial hair, flat wide shoes all signal man.

Choosing to present that way means you are accepting a social perception of man/woman.

To me, someone who chooses to present as the opposite sex is asking to be treated that way and I have no problem with that in social situations

However that doesn't mean I buy into trans women are women etc. It just means I accept other people's right to believe in their own gender identity and live as that gender in situations where sex isn't important.

As this is a thread about "non GC beliefs" I'd really appreciate not derailing it onto why I'm wrong 😊

To be gender critical you need to believe that "gender" is a concept worthy of debate, I don't think it is.

A few years ago I might have thought it was worth negotiating some concessions for the tiny number of people who feel distressed about their sex but I don't now. The idea that we should negotiate with abusive liars about which rights we're prepared to let them keep after they stole them from us is an anathema to me.

Men and women are physically different in ways which make women more vulnerable in some situations, the law should recognise that. It's impossible to know whether their are innate behaviours which correlate with sex because we live in a world where men, throughout history, have exploited women's vulnerabilities to acquire and hoard power, how would we ever know which female behaviours are adaptive to cope with that reality?

Ah well you see it is basically stereotypes. Which I don't agree with but it does exist and some people believe that's more important.

Oh, ok - not really much of a 'definition', but I see what you're getting at.

To me, someone who chooses to present as the opposite sex is asking to be treated that way and I have no problem with that in social situations

But this begs the question - what is this supposed difference in how men and women should be treated? The only ways I can think of that I'd want to be treated any differently from a man are those pertaining to my sex, not anything merely societal.

To be gender critical you need to believe that "gender" is a concept worthy of debate
Not really; you just have to be able to observe that gender stereotypes exist and reject them. I came across the term 'gender critical' on this board way back before notions around 'gender identity' came to the fore, around the period Let Toys be Toys was started.

@AdamRyan you can’t stir the pot like that on a feminist board without being challenged.

To me, someone who chooses to present as the opposite sex is asking to be treated that way and I have no problem with that in social situations.

I find this hard to get my head around. How does one treat someone as a woman or a man?

For me I 100% see a woman on an animal level even if she very butch, even if she appears to have taken hormones, etc. I feel a female affinity with her. I also see 100% man when he is carrying a handbag, wearing make up and so on. I feel absolutely 0% sex affinity. That animal level unconscious behaviour is the only way I treat men and women differently.

In practical terms it could be something like - I’m sitting in a cafe and a woman could say “can you watch my bag for me while I go to the loo”, whatever her presentation, unless she seems dodgy I will take it at face value without missing a beat and agree almost without looking. If a man said that to me, whatever his presentation, I would do a quick analysis- has he got an ulterior motive? Forced teaming? Got something pervy going on and wants to involve me? Once I had satisfied these checks I would then cautiously agree.

What other ways would men and women be treated different socially?

I don’t actively reject stereotypes, I don’t feel you need to do that, you should just do what you want to do and if that gravitates towards ‘male’ or ‘unisex’ then so be it. Feminism is pointless, to me, if all we’re trying to do is play the men at their own game. I don’t feel it’s necessary, we won’t win and it’s very much an own goal.

What we should be doing is recognising than men and women have different needs but are equal, and working to reach a place where things like quality of life, job satisfaction etc is uniform across the board even if the methods used for each sex aren’t the same.

Feminism is pointless, to me, if all we’re trying to do is play the men at their own game.

That’s straw-manning feminism.

I really don’t think feminism is about trying to play men at their own game at all. It is about trying to change the rules, the systems and practices which disadvantage and exclude women’s participation in the wielding of societal power and authority. It’s an ongoing thing. More women need to be in positions of power to change the system to make it more conducive to women’s needs and well-being - which enables more women to rise to positions of social power and authority.

The reason feminists analyse and choose to reject certain stereotypes, is because they are part of playing into a system which works against us.

Having said that, it’s a judgement call. It’s personal thing for each woman to decide whether she’ll play into or reject certain stereotypes. It easy an easier and smoother ride to conform - and you need to pick your battles.

I'm not "gender critical" because I don't think I need a special word for just being a normal person who understands that biological sex is a real thing.

I don't think you can define women on the basis of stereotypes, which is what I think you're saying Adam. A man in women's clothing is still a man. He doesn't become a woman 'socially'. If anything, I am more aware of the fact that he's a man.