Motivations for gender critical feminists

[ChristinaXYZ]

Interesting article

thecritic.co.uk/gender-critical-critical/

and a very interesting thread in response

twitter.com/S_h_e_e_n_a_/status/1628700860581650432

I think his point that GC feminism needs to be supported by more women is spot on. My take is that lots of women are inclined to be kind and understanding, without the time/patience/interest to explore the full implications of what that means. This is compounded by the unwillingness of the mainstream media to engage with actual events - why was the rape of a woman in a Scottish hospital not headline news?

When the media actually do report, eg the Isla Bryson/Adam Graham case, and the public get to see a fuller picture, then we see attitudes change. This is what it takes, and why it is so important we now have some journalists, editors and media outlets who are brave enough to take this on.

For example, gender-critical feminists tend to believe that the demands of trans rights activists are reducible to male entitlement — that the phenomenon represents the patriarchy in a very different set of clothes.

I also found this slightly baffling. There was a while in the earlier days where I tried to make a point of pointing out where anyone had assumed that 'trans person' meant TW. Female trans people are the subject of tons of threads here, mainly about children/teens but also in discussing the nature of what makes someone 'trans'.

I also don't think that patriarchy is the same as 'male entitlement'. Female children may want out of their sex class because of patriarchal expectations but I wouldn't say that is a direct 'male entitlement' issue.

The article is mainly questioning (very superficially) why women more than men 'support trans rights' - it seems to ignore the fact that many women will be mothers looking out for their kids who have started down the gender ideology pathway and are trying to play the role of diplomatic protector - because that is how women are expected to be. That could well be a factor in the 'be kind, let them have what they want' attitude.

I don't have any motivation beyond not wanting to be forced to pretend I believe utter nonsense about men being women.

I’m motivated by having been a GNC girl, married to a man who was also GNC as a teenager, and with two GNC children whose preferences in clothing, hairstyles and hobbies I do not want medicalised.

I’m motivated because I have a DD who participates in martial arts and I don’t want her to compete against males, both because of safety and fairness.

I’m motivated because I have an elderly grandmother with dementia who needs personal care. And because I have a mother who needs mammograms. And because I need a smear test which is massively overdue because I can’t be assured by my NHS trust that the nurse doing it will actually be female.

I’m motivated because women’s rights to privacy, boundaries, personal safety and dignity are not subservient to the trans communities desire have their identities validated.

I’m motivated because gay men and lesbians should not be coerced into accepting members of the opposite sex as potential romantic partners and should not be treated like bigots if they refuse.

I’m motivated because I see the behaviours of extreme TRAs, both online and in person, as those of an insane, authoritarian, censorious mob.

I’m motivated because I’m not going to lie to others or myself about biological facts, thousands of years of social conditioning, and the unusual sexual predilections of certain groups of men.

Brilliant post!

What did you find 'interesting' OP?

He's a conservative and therefore doesn't understand/believe that power is both a structure and a system as it were. So he doesn't see that men claiming womanhood and women fleeing it are symptoms of the same oppression of women.

It's a so-so article, but describing it as 'motivations for GC feminists' doesn't really have anything to do with what the article is about - which is the difference between men and women in their support of various issues. The words 'motive
' or 'motivation' do not appear in it.

It is a bit annoying when people just drop links without giving their take.... but can see why sometimes it's faster. Bit baffled as to where 'motivations' came from.

I mean, motivations are that we don't know which men are going to be the harassers, the stalkers, the rapists and the murderers so we use safeguarding to make female people safer.

Replying to this and your other posts - yes link is faster bit a link than no link! Though lots of people might be interested.

I agree with the article that more men are alive to the problems but of the women that are alive to the problems more of them actually do something. He seems to think most are motived by thinking the patriarchy is behind it (hence the title of the thread) when he twitter thread highlights many more reasons for people to be motived to think about or act on these isssues. He is right to highlight that women are a bit slow on this - he does not really go into our socialisation to be kind, and our sympathy and empathy for anyone - women, gay men, transmen and transwomen - who might be frightened by angry, violent men, which leads those who have not thought it through to open their arms and our single sex spaces to lots of people who are not biolgocial women without thinking it all the way to the end. Potential loss of privacy, dignity and safety.

He also glosses over a potential motivator for men's opinions on this is than men know what other men are like in their heads. and they don't want their mothers, sisters, daughters in close contact with that.

I have not time for more but read against the twitter thread there is a lot of interesting things to pick out. And I think thinking about this helps when talking about the subject to people in real life. I think different approaches with male friends and family or female friends and family for example. They may be motivated to change thier minds by different approaches.

Not perhaps strictly on the topic, but from the very beginning I saw that the gender identity ideology is retrogressive, deeply sexist, and ultimately as hierarchical as any patriarchy. A woman wanting equal sex-based rights in that system would be forced to medically transition, given that her own sex category is turned into femininity category and femininity includes being passive and submissive. Some nonbinary female people think they have made a private contract with patriarchy to not be seen as female, but this will not be honoured.

So even though all that looks theoretical, it is about basic principles, and ultimately all the problems we discuss here flow from those principles of the ideology, including weakened safeguarding, medical malpractice etc. You make sex unmentionable and then you are going to make sexism and sex-based violence etc. almost impossible to discuss, too.