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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Are you a closet Gender Critical?

202 replies

SilentRadical · 24/01/2023 21:05

Only very close relatives know that I’m gender critical. That short list includes my husband and my mother and that’s about the end of it. I live in canada where it practically feels criminal to question transgender advocates.

Is there anyone else here feeling the pressure to stay quiet?

OP posts:
PissedOffAmericanWoman · 28/01/2023 06:43

MorvenOfMalvern · 28/01/2023 06:08

"I'm a woman who isn't hysterical about silly nonsense. I've not been negatively impacted by trans women in any way shape or form. Your mindless bigotry is annoying and tedious."

Oh do give yourself a certificate and badge. There's probably even some sexist shop that actually has awards for non hysterical women.

Are the women who have lost out on their place in a race, competition, or in the podium hysterical?

Are the women in prisons who can't sleep at night as a convicted sex offenders lies a few metres away staring at them? The women who no longer go to classes or exercise when they used to enjoy it, because they are trying to avoid any opportunities that may give that sex offender to approach and pester them?

Are the girls (some only 16) who were forced to accept "Annie" watch them rotate slowly in paper pants and nothing else for their spray tan hysterical when they felt uncomfortable? And now on learning he was rapist awaiting trail, hysterical?

Are the parents of the child victims of Katie Dolatowski hysterical? The dad of the 10yr old who was assaulted and stripped in a women's toilets before he realised his daughter was in grave danger and stepped in? Is he hysterical or is it just women who aren't allowed to raise concerns?

I am a woman. I am not hysterical. But I am angry, and scared.

I might have a gynae cancer. I have spent a lot of time in hospital and a lot of time having intrusive, invasive and embarrassing tests. My main gynaecologist is male. He's clearly a very knowledgeable, experienced man. He's kind and respectful. But every single time he exams me, sticks all sorts of instruments into my vagina and uterus, and has me raised in a chair with my legs spread and genitalia exposed, there is a biological woman or 2 present to support me. To chaperone him and protect him from unfounded allegation, and to support me. I feel better because they are there. When they tell me what the pain or sensations may be like it rings true and I feel supported. When he tells me what the pain is like I mentally roll my eyes because he cannot know. It makes a difference. It matters to me. If those people were men who felt like women, I would feel alone, unsupported, possibly degraded and humiliated by the extreme exposure in front of males. Acknowledging and expressing that doesn't make me transphobic. I'm not hysterical.

@ElonsMusky who THE HELL are you to tell me that?

And do you know what? If you want and are comfortable with men saying they're women, entering your single sex spaces, performing your smear, your mammogram, you pelvic floor urodynamics, being in the bed next to you as you bleed vaginally and have to be helped change your pad or even have clots removed from your vagina with speculum and forceps with only a curtain between you (and no guarantee they won't be able to see and hear things as you talk about your pregnancy and sexual history), being in the shared changing rooms as you try bras on, being in the toilets as you help your tween daughter cope with her first period, degrade your age/sex grading at parkrun, be your women's officer at work or in a union, take your place on the "women in management" course at work, be there with their male socialisation and entitlement on the "women's bike maintenance" course you go on etc etc, then great for you. You go right ahead and never ask for anything single sex.

But you're still not right to take the option for single sex provision from me, my daughters and other women who want that.

Agreed. I used to actually be a quite aggressive trans rights activist. I became gender critical after my pregnancy. I was quite sick and my trans women friends were quite mean. One of them even giggled when I explained that my daughter and I almost died when I gave birth. They treated me very differently when I was pregnant. I sure the excuse was that my pregnancy triggered their dysphoria. But where does one draw the line between dysphoria and just plain misogyny?

I think I really did want to think of them as women. But I couldn’t after that. Another factor was postpartum and breastfeeding. My husband and I had this ideal gender balanced vision of feeding and caring for the baby. We were naive. The fourth trimester is real. That baby did not care that the man standing next to her was her father. All she knew was he was NOT the vessel that she was familiar with and she very much wanted her mother for the first 3 months of her life. I guess even newborns are transphobic!

We tried to evenly split the feeding to help dad bond with baby. But she had very severe GERD. It didn’t matter what kind of formula we used. She would vomit the entire feed every single time. Breastfeeding was a matter of life or death for her. The stress of trying to produce enough milk and feeding her through bleeding nipples and having to wake up exhausted every night while my husband slept through because his biology did not call for breastfeeding. Knowing that he would if he could but there were no options made me proper into a mean no good terfy woman.

The fact is that the majority burden of raising the child for at least the first year rests squarely on the mother’s shoulders. My husband is a very loving helpful man. He helps with the chores, does the dishes and cooks without being asked. He works full time and is far from lazy. He is now very involved with his daughter’s upbringing. I think it was a wake up call for him as well because I had a rough pregnancy and he wanted me to relax while he took the burden off.

But reproduction is a VERY SEX BASED EXPERIENCE. One that you can’t identify your way out of.

Which is why we need sex based rights. My husband often felt beside himself and guilty because he couldn’t do the things he thought he could. He could not breastfeed for me. He could not give his child the comfort she was seeking because that child knew who it’s mother was.

Biology NOT SOCIETAL NORMS forced us to take on gendered roles. As unpleasant as they are for some of us they exist for a reason. And that does not mean I’m advocating that we get locked into these but I’m saying that we didn’t just invent these from thin air.

DialSquare · 28/01/2023 08:34

Nope, I'm very vocal about this and will talk about it whenever I get the opportunity. I
couldn't give a fuck if some dick pandering handmaiden thinks I'm transphobic.
They need to start thinking of excuses as to why they advocate for rapists in female prisons and the sterilisation and a lifelong medical path for youngsters as the sunlight is getting brighter by the day.

MorvenOfMalvern · 28/01/2023 08:42

PissedOffAmericanWoman · 28/01/2023 06:43

Agreed. I used to actually be a quite aggressive trans rights activist. I became gender critical after my pregnancy. I was quite sick and my trans women friends were quite mean. One of them even giggled when I explained that my daughter and I almost died when I gave birth. They treated me very differently when I was pregnant. I sure the excuse was that my pregnancy triggered their dysphoria. But where does one draw the line between dysphoria and just plain misogyny?

I think I really did want to think of them as women. But I couldn’t after that. Another factor was postpartum and breastfeeding. My husband and I had this ideal gender balanced vision of feeding and caring for the baby. We were naive. The fourth trimester is real. That baby did not care that the man standing next to her was her father. All she knew was he was NOT the vessel that she was familiar with and she very much wanted her mother for the first 3 months of her life. I guess even newborns are transphobic!

We tried to evenly split the feeding to help dad bond with baby. But she had very severe GERD. It didn’t matter what kind of formula we used. She would vomit the entire feed every single time. Breastfeeding was a matter of life or death for her. The stress of trying to produce enough milk and feeding her through bleeding nipples and having to wake up exhausted every night while my husband slept through because his biology did not call for breastfeeding. Knowing that he would if he could but there were no options made me proper into a mean no good terfy woman.

The fact is that the majority burden of raising the child for at least the first year rests squarely on the mother’s shoulders. My husband is a very loving helpful man. He helps with the chores, does the dishes and cooks without being asked. He works full time and is far from lazy. He is now very involved with his daughter’s upbringing. I think it was a wake up call for him as well because I had a rough pregnancy and he wanted me to relax while he took the burden off.

But reproduction is a VERY SEX BASED EXPERIENCE. One that you can’t identify your way out of.

Which is why we need sex based rights. My husband often felt beside himself and guilty because he couldn’t do the things he thought he could. He could not breastfeed for me. He could not give his child the comfort she was seeking because that child knew who it’s mother was.

Biology NOT SOCIETAL NORMS forced us to take on gendered roles. As unpleasant as they are for some of us they exist for a reason. And that does not mean I’m advocating that we get locked into these but I’m saying that we didn’t just invent these from thin air.

Yes @PissedOffAmericanWoman there's nothing like pregnancy and becoming a mother for underlining the impact biology has on our lived experience. Then when the child care discussions, trying to return to work, the endless wrangling over who will take time off when their ill etc happens and you realise all of society are placing more responsibility on the mother's shoulders, whilst simultaneously expecting her to be paid less and step off the career pathway, and applauding a (gasp) dad who does a nursery drop off or takes his own child to the park...that trying to pretend men can actually be women and have genuine insight into the challenges women face falls apart.

Then the child grows and you realise that their safety and well being is paramount 24/7 and for this reason your finely tuned parental gut reaction to certain situations cannot be overridden and shouted down.

YouJustDoYou · 28/01/2023 09:05

ElonsMusky · 27/01/2023 21:46

stop masking your transphobia behind faux concerns and just own it. I'd have more respect for you then.

A transwoman's feeling should never be placed above a woman aka adult human xx chromosomal female's right to be safe from penis. You can be a rape apologist all you want. You can throw around the "transphobic" card all you want, but thankfully it's starting to not have the same power you people love to smugly wield it for anymore. When you get old enough and mature enough to understand, well...maybe then you might feel a tiny bit of emotion for women who have been sexually assaulted, raped, attacked by men and just. want. to. feel. safe. in. public. There's hope for you yet.

Dear Government - Please return us to safe spaces from penis, please. Access to rape and domestic abuse crisis services without penis being there, please. Muslim women being able to adjust their headscarf in a public toilet without a man seeing, please. It's not much to ask, at all.

Very creepy and hypocritical how these people demand access to women's safe spaces because "men might hurt them", but they get abusive and threatening when women say the same, that they just want to be safe from men.

PSNonsense · 28/01/2023 09:11

stop masking your transphobia behind faux concerns and just own it. I'd have more respect for you then.

If a man wants to wear dresses, make up and live in a way that he thinks is like a woman, all power to him. He doesn't magically become a women with all the rights to sex based spaces women have fought for. No no no. You can't change the meaning of phobia because you aren't getting everything that you want.

Fuck your respect. I don't want it.

PSNonsense · 28/01/2023 09:12

stop masking your transphobia behind faux concerns and just own it. I'd have more respect for you then.

Stop masking your hatred for women. I wouldn't respect you but you would appear less thick.

ferretface · 28/01/2023 09:23

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

Your logical fallacy is anecdotal. Just because you personally do not consider yourself to have been negatively affected by transwomen does not mean that it is the case more generally. Evidence would be needed to demonstrate this. Do you have any? yourlogicalfallacyis.com/anecdotal

You are also making some ad hominem attacks in there. yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem

Ereshkigalangcleg · 28/01/2023 09:29

he was trying to avoid a "hate crime" charge by claiming to be nonbinary.

Anyone who says they are non binary, is non binary, at any time. It's as meaningless a label for him as anyone else. There is no gatekeeping, because gatekeeping is transphobic. You don't appear to understand the point.

Sounds like someone didn't get the "I Am Who I Say I Am" memo from Amnesty International/Stonewall/Mermaids etc.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 28/01/2023 10:23

Chocchops72

French, along with other languages with strict grammar rules, seems to be a lot clearer and more decisive when it comes to correctly accepted language.

When you can just state that something inherently socially 'genderless' like a railway station is grammatically 'feminine' but a tourist information bureau is grammatically 'masculine' - and that's just how it is if you want to speak correct French and not make others assume that you don't have a native understanding of the language - I think it may make it that much trickier for somebody to try to gaslight convince others that a male human should actually be referred to as 'she'.

TidyDancer · 28/01/2023 10:45

This reply has been deleted

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WolfFoxHare · 28/01/2023 10:54

I’m not ‘out’ at work because I work in a woke industry full of alphabet people. I am in my personal life because my friends and family are all GC.

Allblackeverythingalways · 28/01/2023 11:01

I'm opposite to most on here in that I can be openly GC at work as I'm in a small company with a no nonsense MD.
Unfortunately I have some achingly woke friends, I like them, I don't want to lose them so I keep quiet about my views in their company. I think they know I'm GC but they don't want to fall out with me either. Like the good old days when no-one asked how you voted etc 😁

AnnieSnap · 28/01/2023 11:44

HotSauceCommittee · 28/01/2023 05:52

Police here.
I stood up in the lecture theatre at a diversity day and challenged the Stonewall rep several years ago. It was embarrassing, my cheeks were hot, but I cited certain cases where women had been harmed by men posing as women and emphasised that the criminal justice system had the responsibility to acknowledge risk and protect women.
People shook their heads and sighed, but nothing bad happened to me.
Stonewall rep (man) didn't like what I said.
Oh well.

Well done 👏👏👏

SpringtimeCherries · 28/01/2023 13:47

It’s such a fallacy if you say that you haven’t been adversely affected by trans rights issues. Real head in the sand ignorance to be honest.

Now we don’t have accurate data about sexual assaults - because trans women are recorded as women. If we don’t have the facts, we can’t help victims or reduce this crime. Because funding and resources follow the data.

PicklesAndTequila · 28/01/2023 13:54

I posted on FB yesterday and was pleasantly surprised at the number of likes on it, I haven't dared before but I'm sick of this shit and I'm angry too.
I'll wear my new Adult Human Female t-shirt with pride.

MountedbyHarryWindsor · 28/01/2023 14:14

At work I stay quiet, cause I used to work as an ED&I advisor in a university and fuck me, the debate between women and transwomen rights was part of the reason I left. It became completely impossible to manage.

Geiger · 28/01/2023 17:40

This thread has been really helpful, thanks OP.

Here is some useful guidance on your rights to be GC at work: sex-matters.org/your-rights-at-work/

AnnieSnap · 28/01/2023 19:05

Excellent article @Geiger Thanks for sharing

Beeswood · 28/01/2023 20:47

I posted on Nicola Sturgeon's twitter page addressing my concerns about the double rapist being in the women's prison.

I am a Scottish taxpayer and she represents me. I said nothing about Nicola Sturgeon.

I was blocked.

So that is the easy way to deal with dissenters, cancel them.

Beeswood · 28/01/2023 20:49

I should have said, Scottish citizen, I realise being a tax payer is irrelevant.

Geiger · 28/01/2023 21:12

@beeswood that is genuinely shocking. What the actual hell.

LemonadeSunshine · 28/01/2023 22:12

I have no qualms about voicing my GC views in any arena. Generally only if asked though, or there's a need to correct some stated 'fact'.
It is after all the truth regarding biological sex.
I am not prepared for the world my DC grow up in to be more repressed than it was for me.

Beeswood · 28/01/2023 22:37

Geiger · 28/01/2023 21:12

@beeswood that is genuinely shocking. What the actual hell.

Yes. The women inmates are vulnerable people and do not need this.

www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/women-suffering-prison-system-never-24830945

Chocchops72 · 29/01/2023 07:39

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

I think as well, ‘be kind’ isn’t really a priority in French culture. French people tend to be quite direct (to the point of rudeness, from my British perspective ) compared to anglophones, making other people feel good about themselves is not a priority. I just can’t imagine the same level of ignoring the fact that the emperor has no clothes on happening here. All those girls at Ayr college falling over themselves to be nice and polite and ignore the fact they had a large, aggressive man in their hair & beauty classes? I just can’t see that happening here so much.

Plus mental health / psychiatric care here tends to be several decades behind the curve: maybe that’s a good thing in this case? In any case I don’t think automatic affirmation is the approach here at all.

my sons are 12 and 15, in local collège and lycée (middle and high school). Neither of them know of any trans students at their schools, though there might be some. It’s certainly not talked about by teachers. Also, there is a very strict policy here of involving parents in anything that is happening with students, right from the start. If a student disclosed anything of this nature, we have to tell them that the school will have to tell their parents.

at the international school where I work, which is mostly anglophones, we have several in each year group: all F to M. And like I said American teachers falling over themselves to ‘be kind’ .

ElonsMusky · 30/01/2023 21:40

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 27/01/2023 22:03

Every trans person I know has a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria. The only one I've ever really spoken to about it, my coworker, said transition saved her from crippling depression and anxiety and now she's generally pretty happy with life.

This is a genuine question: how is gender dysphoria medically diagnosed? Is there a physical test that can be run which enables the HCP to unequivocally determine the presence (or otherwise) of GD - as would be possible for most illnesses and conditions - or is it just based on what the patient reports?

Otherwise, surely, instead of being able to declare yourself as trans, it would just be a slightly more circuitous route, whereby you tell a medic that you feel you are trans - and I'm guessing that any lack of acceptance or affirmation on their part would be skating perilously close to accusations of 'conversion therapy' - and then the medic signs it off for you with their pen instead of you doing it with your own?

Could there actually be a scenario where, in spite of the patient insisting that they are trans, the doctor could overrule it with his/her professional opinion and declare that they are actually not trans - with impunity and with their professional ability and integrity fully respected?

Have I misunderstood this in some way?

how is depression diagnosed?

So you don't even believe gender dysphoria is real now? BC the entirety of the medical community disagrees with that.