Continuously willing to discuss in good faith: part 3

[BonfireLady]

Continuation of thread: part 3. Hope those tagged below don't mind.

@catiette and @arabellascott, you both mentioned possibly starting a continuation of the thread so please forgive my keenness! I couldn't see anything when I started writing this so I thought I'd kick it off.

I watched the video that @spookyfbi shared, then read the transcript excerpts (thank you @helleofabore) and comments.

Long post alert! But I wanted to share my thoughts in full. Although I feel very embarrassed sharing this on an FWR board (I am fully prepared to get shot! 😂), I want to do so because I think it helps illustrate how an opinion can be formed. In order to explain myself, I'm going to frame it with some excuses context:

As I said in the previous thread, my daughter had told me she thought she was transgender and asked her dad and me for puberty blockers so that she could explore everything. To support her, I unturned every single stone I could find on the subject of gender identity in autistic girls (there's not a lot of info so I had to piece it together). By now, I had read on the NHS website that the effects of puberty blockers and brain development were unknown so that was a hard no. We weren't going to let her do that to her body but we were still open minded that one day she may be our son and we knew we would love her just the same.

I immersed myself in everything I could find relating to gender identity. Science papers, news articles, Benjamin Boyce detransitioner interviews, a therapy book on gender dysphoria etc etc. I also spoke with people from the LGBT+ community so that I could get an all round view. I've said on previous posts that I still value these conversations.

I didn't come here as it was nowhere near my radar. I also didn't read the Daily Mail or Telegraph as I had been brought up on the Guardian and frankly, they were evil publications in my head. And as for Glinner...... No way. I'm not on Twitter but I'd seen some copies of his Tweets in the Guardian and Independent and I didn't want that kind of input. I couldn't imagine how anyone like him could help me find information that could help my daughter. I just thought he was a nasty rude man who enjoyed taking the piss out of marginalised people.

(Suffice to say I have since I overturned everything I've just said in the last paragraph 🤦‍♀️).

Even though I had done soooooooooooooooo much research in to autism and gender identity in children, it never occurred to me that JKR's infamous Wombund Tweet had any connection to my daughter's situation. She just sounded a bit ranty to me and I couldn't see what was so important about declaring yourself to be a woman. I was aware that people were calling her transphobic but that made me even more certain that she was just a nutjob (sorry JKR 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️) because gender identity (as I saw it from my research) had nothing to do with her status as being a woman. I thought "of course you are. And?" and moved on. I eventually read her essays, because it kept coming up in the press and I concluded that she had written nothing transphobic (in fact she said she stood by transgender people so I was pretty baffled as to why people were so angry) and so I ignored her again.

Then... along came Isla Bryson and the Nicola Sturgeon. I slowly started joining the dots and lurking on here to inform myself. By now I was already reading the Daily Mail when it had articles about gender identity and children but still no Glinner. I felt that he was a massive step too far. I balanced out my guilt at reading the Mail by also reading Pink News. I was still very targeted in what I read about. If it didn't help me to directly help my daughter, I skipped past it.

So what has this got to do with the Mica video from the end of the last thread? I'm sad to say that there is a time when I would have believed pretty much all of it if it hadn't been for my shift in focus thanks to Isla Bryson, Nicola Sturgeon and (retrospectively) JKR.

In fact, I'll go further. I would have been really hooked from the start of the video because I find the suffragettes fascinating. I know a fair bit about the story and I always make sure I vote because of what they did to secure that right. I didn't know anything about Sylvia Pankhurst though, so that bit was so interesting. By this point in the video I would have been hungry for more. I know we've come a long way in equality of the sexes but we're not there yet. I would have seen it as a really interesting immersion in to lots of facts about what I could be a part of to change the world for the good of women. I'm not stupid. I have good critical thinking skills (if I didn't, I wouldn't have been able to support my daughter as I have done) but it would have appealed to the militant side of me. I'd have probably skipped or filtered out the weird bits in the middle with the guest (?) speaker (Caelen?) as I found them difficult to follow. But I'd have tuned back in again for all the bits about why today's feminists were the equivalent of the suffragettes in (how it is described as) their exclusion of everyone who didn't meet their standards of a "real woman". I would have assumed everyone on this board and everyone at the LWS events were just bigoted women who couldn't stop talking about the word woman. I'd have conceded that JKR did have a good point that "people who menstruate" sounded wrong, I would have seen it as an odd obsession to be talking about women's rights and the "erasure of the word woman". Sorry
everyone 😬😬😬 Obviously I never did assume that because I came here first, just to be clear!! 😬😬😬😬
I'm just imagining what could have been, if I saw this video at a different stage in my exploration of gender identity. I think I'd have been as disinterested in all the things on this board as I was about JKR's Tweet: just a passing nod while I got on with my life. Worse than that, there's probably a chance that I'd have just found everyone very ranty. I'm not sure if I'd have tried to join in or just dismissed anything you were all talking about. I have no idea because I was so disinterested in the subject of women's rights (I thought we had our rights so all was good) that I'd have filtered out anything important that was being said.

I'm not influenced by online influencers. I make my own mind up. But there's a good chance that the suffragette bit combined with the modern fight for women's rights bit would have helped me form exactly the type of opinion that the video was created for.

Interestingly, as far as the video goes, the bit about the "sterilisation of kids" was such a tiny throwaway comment that it may as well not have been there. If I didn't know better (thanks to my obsessive research in this area I know lots on this subject!!) I'd have assumed it was a conspiracy theory, rather than the sad medical scandal that I believe is currently unfolding in most western countries.

In other words, I'd have been the perfect candidate for being convinced that the women on this board were bigots. Sorry again to all. Obviously I don't think that now at all!

Also, a final sorry goes to Glinner. I eventually started reading his substack when a friend (at the time the only GC person I knew, in real life or online) sent me a 3 part story that had been published by Glinner which was written by a mum who helped her gender incongruous daughter navigate everything. I still think he's blunt in his style but I also think what he's doing to help raise awareness is amazing.

Sorry for the length of post.

Surprisingly to those who have held prejudiced views about MN, many regulars probably do that already. Because we strive to find the truth of things posted.

We have had need in the past to find and post the statements from prominent trans people or their allies to keep fact integrity. I know I have.

As you say, Arabella the emotional labour to maintain the truth of any argument or situation can feel onerous. (Like ethically disposing of rubbish and unwanted things these days seems like work to wash and remove labels, and find appropriate charities for different items ).

However, I also know that I attempt to keep a balanced and accurate view. I feel less stressed knowing the truth and processing it.

NAVIGATIONAL SUMMARY
Part 3: Children who are "gender non-confirming"

I'm overlapping from the end of thread 2 here, as well as picking up what is in thread 3. No matter whether people believe in gender identity or not, there seems to be universal agreement on this point: children should be allowed to explore how they want to dress and the toys they want to play with without the constraints that come from societal "gender stereotyping". There is also seemingly universal agreement that as they become adolescents and young adults, they should be free to explore their sexual orientation, without the stereotypical idea that heterosexuality is "standard".

But from this point on, those who do believe in gender identity and those who don't split off in completely different directions. It is one of the most polarised parts of the gender identity conversation, with the strong emotions and vitriol across the board probably driven by another value that the general population shares: both those who believe in gender identity and those who don't want the best outcome for future generations.

a) As I understand it, gender affirming care is seen by those who believe in gender identity as a way to celebrate and nurture a young person's true self without the tight constraints of "biological essentialism" (where biological essentialism is "gender stereotyping" in this context). Gender affirming care is child led and is predicated on the fact that a happy child who has followed this path to explore their gender identity is better than a dead child who was kept within the constraints of gender conformity.

b) For those that don't believe in gender identity, from my own perspective and what I see elsewhere, there is a concern that children are making irreversible choices about their bodies that they don't understand and that this is now part of a standard medical practice pathway. In the past "gender non-conformity" was expressed through choice of dress and was fluid (e.g. David Bowie, Freddie Mercury). Now some children are changing their bodies and "locking in" a destination through medical transition. This is becoming increasingly prevalent as more children learn about gender identity through schools and social media.

This has become a minefield for parents to navigate. Laws, policies, health care and education all start from a viewpoint that gender identity belief needs to be accounted for in decisions. This leaves parents who don't believe in gender identity in a difficult place because there is no obvious pathway to follow to help their child.

It never once crossed my mind that the NHS would not be following a safe protocol, based on good evidence, as I thought the NHS were generally obliged only to provide good, evidence based treatment... I think it’s very possible to see why parents could find themselves going along with it in good faith and then find themselves in a defensive position. PriOn1

[The Quillette series of articles on page 1 of this thread] explores how parents react when a son announces he wants to be a girl—and [also] explains why so many of these mothers and fathers believe they can’t discuss their fears and concerns with their own children, therapists, doctors, friends, and relatives. Hepwo

[On children not understanding risk when they make decisions to change their bodies - regarding a fistula, a complication that is estimated to impact 17% of boys/men who undergo gender reassignment surgery] How many of them would hesitate if they knew they might defecate—in extraordinary pain—from their neo-vaginas during sex?... Calling parents bio essentialists gets a new perspective in this scenario. Hepwo

@NeighbourhoodWatchPotholeDivision the article that you posted (I forgot to note the page location 🤦‍♀️) is AMAZING. Hopefully it will find its way in to the hands of every parent of every adolescent, autistic girl who is questioning their gender identity 🤞🤞

Stephanie Davis Arai, who runs transgender trend, and has done for years and years, gets emails from youngsters and parents, to the tune of thousands a week. She has said that she has yet to see a reason for transitioning that isn't either due to homophobia/sexism, past sexual trauma, or autism. Datun

Starting from metaphorical words "born in the wrong body" that are the only way Person A can express their feeling of discomfort to Person B who has never experienced that feeling, and ending by treating those words as the physical fact: your body is wrong so let us put it right for you. I really hate to think of all those young people sacrificed to a metaphor. AmaryllisNightAndDay

NAVIGATIONAL SUMMARY
Part 4: What is gender identity? And what is it to be "treated as a woman?"

Although no more, or less important than all of the other themes (in so far as each is important on its own merits), this is the biggie. It's foundational and it underpins everything else.

Gender identity covers both dysphoria (which is distressing) and the cultural aspects of challenging gender stereotypes. Both are interwoven under "gender identity", which is just one of the aspects that makes it difficult to make sense of what gender identity actually is. Some people believe that everyone has a gender identity. Some people don't believe this (which presumably means it can't be true that everyone has a gender identity - by definition it must be a belief rather than a fact).

*Stopping here for a MNHQ moderater breakpoint. If any of the above is outside the MN talk guidelines, please can I request feedback on deletion so that I can adjust my words and re-post

Collection of quotes under this theme to follow in a separate post.

NAVIGATIONAL SUMMARY - QUOTES SECTION FOR PART 4
Part 4: What is gender identity? And what is it to be "treated as a woman?"

Dysphoria however it starts is not the same as sartorial choice. African robes are not worn by cross dressers or people with dysphoria, they are worn by men in culture where those robes are normal. Hepwo

Traditionally, feminists have been critical of gender rules, roles, and stereotypes, because they can easily be shown to be one of the main tools that are used to subjugate women. The unfalsifiable concept of an abstract gender identity is not exactly the same thing, but in practice the two do get combined and rigid gender boxes are supported by many online trans activists. nepeta

One of the regretters [in a Netflix documentary] says one of his motovations for transition was that he thought, as a woman, he would be treated with more kindness. He came to realise that women are treated with less respect. Nothavingit

The basis of being transgender is stereotypes. The discussion will always come back to that. Frenchnoodle (I changed "bases" to "basis" as I assumed typo. Apologies if that's an incorrect assumption)

We had conversations [for] a number of years ago here about "treating as a woman" and what that means. Equality doesn't mean treating everyone in the same way. It means recognising differences and adjusting laws and environments to ensure that people are not discriminated against.
It's a subtle difference. WarriorN

If you use the analogy [of religion to understand gender identity] I can imagine that some trans activists may say you are wilfully desecrating their reality and denying their existence Nothavingit

[On encountering information that has been presented with a working assumption of gender identity as fact, rather than belief] When someone's claiming 'lived experience' of something that is indefinable- say 'gender identity' and we personally don't have that experience, it seems rational to assume they have specialist knowledge. ArabellaScott

I’m not sure that TWAW is the core belief. I think “Live and let live” is the core belief, and twaw is plugged into it like a tick. @Nellodee My view would be that the feeling of having a gender identity is the core believe and that TWAW is a phrase that is used to express that belief.. by being plugged on like a tick. Great use of a parasitic metaphor BTW, I'm definitely borrowing that!

[A proposal of a possible way to present the case for gender and sex being separate] “men can wear dresses but are not women. Women can wear trousers but are not men. Gender is not sex. gender stereotypes can and should be challenged but biological sex is irrefutable” PurpleBugz

My 5 year old insisted on wearing feminine clothes (and I think because of other children at nursery he got confused and start saying he was a girl), long long story there. The groups I joined were very insistent, to the point of demanding I start affirming his "choice of gender".
@frenchnoodle For me this beautifully illustrates the unintended consequences of people perceiving gender identity as fact rather than belief. I have felt exactly the same pressure about my daughter, from multiple different places. I still do. I can't push back on the pressure directly unless I have the time to explain my viewpoint. If I do it without taking the time, at best I'll be dismissed as being transphobic. At worst, I'll be classed as abusing my child, with child protection action taken against me.

[Continuation of the analogy of religion and gender identity, on agreeing that people who are mature will accept that not everyone else believes in their own religious beliefs] If, on the other hand, a street preacher, or door knocker decide to harangue me and threaten me with Hellfire, uninvited, I'd feel free to walk away, or tell them to bugger off.
@NotHavingIt Indeed! And this also helps to illustrate clearly why women who want to calmy share their views on women's rights and concerns about boundaries are fed up of being nice and sometimes just need to shout back.

As Helle points out, the stereotypes explanation [of gender identity e.g. the Barbie and GI Joe spectrum] has been rescinded as it didn’t look good, but it hasn’t been replaced by anything else, not even anything that doesn’t really make sense. Just tumbleweed.....
Gender identity is like Dumbos magic feather. He could already fly, but he thought he needed a feather. People can always dress up and act however they want, but thinking they have a gender identity gives them the courage to do it.
Helleofabore for the first thought as a discussion point (apologies, I missed the quote) and Nellodee

[Context is thoughts on this subject while watching the coronation]
A load of men in dresses and skirts just put a nice dress on the king (a nonsense thing) after he was annotated by god (a nonsense thing). @Hepwo obviously some people believe the monarchy and/or God are not nonsense things but this did make me chuckle (😬 - I'm a fan of the royals and not offended BTW). As an extension to that thought, it was particularly interesting that a Hindu man (Rishi Sunak) could respect a Christian belief by reading out some very pro-God words in support of the king. We've reached a point of maturity now where we can accept it for what it is. In the same vain, we all listened to lots of "laws of God" that we know would never stand up in actual law e.g. would anyone consider Charles to have broken the law if he converts to Catholicism, despite what he promised to uphold from Henry XIII's protestant legacy?
@liwoxac I absolutely concur with your follow-on thoughts on page 5 at 11.55 regarding this. I think we'll get to the same point with regards to gender identity belief, but it's going to take time.

There are lots of religions and beliefs throughout the world and it is easy to respect others beliefs if you are not forced to believe them yourself....The thing is in workplaces we have tried to accommodate different beliefs in various ways through dress, prayer rooms, work rotas whatever. We have made separate provision for different beliefs when they matter. With GI we have not and that is where the problem lies Justme56. Italics added by me above.

In the beginning when transwomen discovers FWR, we saw [stereotypes as an explanation for gender identity] on here quite a lot. Transwoman explaining that they felt more nurturing, or more sensitive 'as a woman'. One particular person said they wanted to be like the mean girls in Hollywood movies. Datun

We accept Bowie etc for years... Effeminate men were more accepted a few years ago. Same for butch lesbians. Now that's rolled back. Certainly in schools that's the case. Girls with short hair are asked if they are trans. (I've heard several cases of this with friends who have teenage daughters) and boys can't have more delicate bone structure and wear makeup. These kids typically would have fallen into the goth type trends. That was non conforming... And then you have the likes of Beckham wearing a sarong. That was nonconforming. Even kilt wearing is nonconforming really. We've gone the opposite way in expecting greater conformity - "if you don't share my exact politics, it doesn't matter how you look or how nice you are, I'm going to cancel you." Redtoothbrush quote marks added by me

I'd like to take a step back in time and to start with the fact that for centuries 'woman' really just meant a female human being old enough not to be seen as a 'girl'... It was not about some abstract inner gender identity which is both unfalsifiable as a belief (and so like religious beliefs) and relatively recent as an idea. nepeta - it's worth a look at the entire comment on page 5 at 17.16

I think the fact that most people probably have no such thing as a 'gender identity' can actually encourage them to believe that those claiming not only that they do have one but that it's deeply meaningful to them have specialist knowledge that the person with no 'gender identity' is literally incapable of understanding... (I'm also not saying that x/gender identity 'doesn't exist' necessarily, I'm just talking about the mechanism for how we assess the qualifications of self proclaimed 'experts'.) ArabellaScott

I think learning how to accommodate the fact that some people believe in this is possible but it's going to take a lot of effort to separate church and state as it were. A recognition in law that belief about your gender identity and how you would like to define or describe it today is personal... and that sex is a different thing. Howdoesatoastermaketoast - italics added by me

In what circumstances is information on gender identity ever going to be needed?
It's needed as much as information on someone's religious belief is. Because that's what it is, a personal belief. Frenchnoodle

Comments between AlisonDonut and Howdoesatoastermaketoast on page 6 at 06.56 and 15.09 are worth a read in full. I've also added a response at 13.18.

Apologies to both posters that my "random" large thought fart at 11.46 and 11.55 got in the way of the posts. I hadn't seen the full context of your important conversation. And I've read plenty on India Willoughby to have very little respect for this person - for example, comments from India on seeking out a single-sex multiple-occupancy women's toilets in preference to using the single-occupancy gender-neutral toilet that was nearby, just to make a point that India belonged in the womens' loos.

That people are happy to outsource their thinking, be spoon fed opinions and just submissively believe what they are told is what I find most worrying.

Spooky took the time and trouble to watch the video they linked on the previous thread and, it appears, never once thought to check whether what was claimed as having been said by others was what they actually said. This was borne out when Hellofabore posted what KJK had actually said Spooky being surprised and agreeing that that threw a whole different light and perspective on it.

It's the same with the continued mantra of JK Rowling being transphobic, yet JKR has never said anything remotely transphobic and whenever evidence is asked for to prove this transphobia comes there none. People on the side of GI just accept and parrot as fact that JKR is transphobic because that is what they have been told to believe and the more they say it the more true they think it becomes.

Are people so apathetic or intellectually lazy these days that they don't use their brains to question or think? This, in my opinion, is dangerous as history has proven time and time again.

To then come onto this Board where the posters have questioned, thought, researched, debated, discussed and done the work and accuse them of not knowing what they are talking about is pretty arrogant.

"Are people so apathetic or intellectually lazy these days that they don't use their brains to question or think? This, in my opinion, is dangerous as history has proven time and time again."

Yes, I think a lot are. The paradox (or inevitable outcome!? of the internet age - all this info. everyone has a voice of sorts... and we outsource critical thinking.

Reading the summaries above is really interesting. I read the initial threads so carefully, but am still seeing things I missed - they were just moving so fast.

Totally random segue, but...

After catching up on some of the above, and all the thought that went into explaining stuff that is, to many of us, so very obvious, I was reflecting on how to explain - to justify (as if we should need to 😡) - the trauma response as an argument for single-sex spaces in a way that neatly dodges the inevitable brick wall of, "But that response would be transphobic as she's not a man!" - and thought of shell-shock. I'm sure this must been suggested before, but it took me a while to get there! and it seems like a useful way in I may use in future.

Have you heard of shellshock? > Would you condemn or ridicule sufferers jumping at backfiring cars and falling ornaments, or empathise with this physiological defence mechanism gone awry? > Would you, then, ridicule or condemn a woman "mistaking" (smoooooothing those feathers!) a transwoman for a man?

I'd be very interested to see a response to this from a more militant activist claiming to stand for kindness.

(Probably you already have, of course...)

I understand the anger @GailBlancheViola. It may not come across, but I am also very angry. Amongst other things, I'm angry that children like my daughter are finding themselves unknowingly on a pathway that has an intrinsic bias.

However, I'm not at all comfortable with what I see as an unnecessary personal pointedness within this comment. I can't scroll by without calling it out.

Perhaps it's a moot point. Perhaps the conversation has come to a natural conclusion anyway and it doesn't matter if we've maybe now lost the one voice who came in to listen and ask questions. I'm not sure how long I'd stick around for in a conversation if I'm sailing mostly against the prevailing wind whilst also going on a very open exploration. Or perhaps it's better if we keep everyone with a different viewpoint out with a hostile environment variation of "no debate"?

Seems a good analogy to me, @Catiette .

seconded,

the other thought I was hoping to work toward with spooky (although I completely sympathise with needing time to consider / digest) is that

a) even if you (general you) do believe, sincerely and completely, that the special innate and intrinsic feminine spirit/soul/essence is a thing baby boys are born with. The kind of man my mum would have called a 'gentle soul' decades before trans was mainstream. Can you not see that no-one can know automatically and instantly whether a (biological) man who says he has this kind of soul/spirit/essence is a trustworthy & sincere source of information about it. We can only judge how far we agree based on words and actions as we get to know them.

Women meeting a man in what should be single sex spaces cannot see know or judge his soul.

Similarly a woman in jail, finding out she is to share space with a transwoman (or many transwomen) even one who was herself a sincere believer would be put in an awkward position as she has little reason to trust that (all of) these particular men are honest sincere and trustworthy.

Fair enough I will back out of the thread @BonfireLady as I am not prepared to dance around on eggshells whilst being scolded for not having looked at this from the other side.

I disagree with you that the poster in question came in to listen and ask questions, they came in to tell us we were wrong because we hadn't listened to the other side, hadn't though about it enough from their point of view and dumped videos, etc., for us to educate ourselves, the irony being they were the one who had only listened to one point of view and swallowed it wholesale.

As I said it leads to very dangerous waters when you allow yourself to be spoon fed, do not question, do not look to see if what is being presented is actually what happened/is happening.

When people say people from the other side have said this/done this I always check to see if that is the case or not and if it is not I will say so. That to me is how intelligent adults find their way through contentious subjects.

There is no hostility from me but I do expect someone to have done their research and to be able to provide answers and have points that they have thought through themselves and not just repeat someone else's opinion. No, it is not easy, why would it be?

Or perhaps it's better if we keep everyone with a different viewpoint out with a hostile environment variation of "no debate"?

Why the aggro to Gail while bending over backwards to be kind to Spooky?

I just want to say a big thank you to @Nellodee for this analogy.

I have a dearly loved family member I bristle with irritation towards whenever I think of the whole situation with their gender identity.
But this helps me approach with compassion. It really has transformed my reaction to them, so, thank you again.

I have to agree that Spooky did enter the initial thread with the opinion that research had not been done on sports and with a prejudiced view that posters on this board hadn’t really understood what had been happening, maybe didn’t know trans people and seemed to only want to discuss this theoretically without having to understand the daily implications for women and children.

One thing you do learn on this board is there are some people who believe that they have answers that you have never considered and that you are simply unreasonable and not willing to compromise. When the reality is compromises have been discussed and turned inside out to check how they would and would not work for women and children. And compromise is potentially just as harmful.

And this board is a dynamic board but it is a fraction of what many posters are doing in real life towards processing the needs of women and children. Because this currently needs to be done on an individual organisation basis in the UK. It hasn’t really even started to be addressed in Australia.

And often it is because some people (general people) start posting on a board having ingested tweets, media full of misinformation (such as female athletes with naturally high testosterone around Olympics), or videos that rely on disinformation to be convincing.

Or they (again general they) come to the board with their own prejudice about posters here because they believe the misrepresentation of the board from others and don’t bother to spend any time reading a range of threads. They might only pick the ones that are in trending and they might be in trending because it was goady and people responded and the thread had not been deleted yet. Or they simply only ever read with a bias that anyone who uses direct or blunt terms is hateful, or coarse (as an MRA poster once told us) or simply unkind.

Either way, as I have said already, I find it disconcerting that people outsource their critical thinking to others, especially to self identified social media influencers that have absolutely no expertise but confident delivery.

Morning all. Late to the party here. I didn't see that there was a third "good faith discussion" thread, but I'm so glad there is!

I've just caught up and want to have my two pence worth, as usual!

There are so many really good points being made on this thread and obviously I can't respond to them all.

@BonfireLady Thank you so much for sharing your journey, your OP was a really interesting read, and has given me some insights as to how I might gently persuade some people I know in real life to examine their own views on this topic.

@Datun and @nepeta I really liked your exchange about women's rights being fragile and hard won, and totally agree that most young women seem to think women's rights are a done deal and that feminism now needs to focus on those who are still marginalised and discriminated against, which many of them think means trans women. I don't deny that in some circumstances trans people are marginalised and discriminated against, although I don't agree that being excluded from spaces intended for the opposite sex is discrimination for being trans. But trans people need - and have - their own social justice movement. If you were born male, feminism is not about you. Feminism should be focusing on those who were born female. I think younger women are often a rather dangerous combination of having been socialised to "be kind" and to care deeply about what others think of them, and not yet having enough life experience to truly understand the many ways in which women are at a disadvantage due to our sex. When they are older, have actually lived more of these experiences, and have fewer fucks left to give about what people think of them, many of them will change their minds.

I'd really like to hone in on @SpookyFBI's posts about what a gender critical feminist is.

"I do think that there are probably a lot of people out there (and this doesn’t apply to anyone I talked to in the other thread) who call themselves gender critical but are just uncomfortable with trans people because they’re uncomfortable with gender non conformity."

Now I'm more than happy to stand corrected if anyone has evidence to the contrary, but I have not seen anyone who is just uncomfortable with trans people or uncomfortable with gender non conformity refer to themselves as gender critical. Gender critical is quite a niche label which is only really used by people who are deep into this argument online. As far as I am aware, it was first used to mean feminists who do not believe trans women are women or that feminism should include them, but are uncomfortable with the label "TERF", which was coined by those on the opposite side of this debate. The terms "gender critical feminist" and "trans exclusionary radical feminist" are synonyms for the same group of people, except that most of those in the group concerned consider the latter to be a. inaccurate, and b. a slur.

My own personal view is that the only word we need is "feminist". "TERF" is incorrect because feminism does not exclude trans people, it excludes male people. It includes female people who identify as trans or non binary. There is nothing radical about the concept that feminism is for female people, therefore the T, the E and the R are superfluous, leaving only the F. "Gender critical feminist" is not inaccurate, but true feminism is inherently gender critical in the sense that gender is what we have been fighting against for all these years, so really the words "gender critical" ought to be superfluous.

The problem is, however, that there is another group of people who call themselves feminists, and no doubt genuinely believe that they are feminists, who believe that trans women are women and that feminism includes them. Where there is a conflict of interests between natal women and trans women, I will side with the natal women every time, whereas they will not. And since there isn't really a way to sit on the fence on this issue without getting an arse full of splinters, if you are not prioritising the natal women when it comes to an issue such as single sex spaces, or sports, you are by default prioritising the trans women. I do not think that is compatible with being a feminist. However, I cannot stop the people who believe that from calling themselves feminists, and so I accept that we need terms to distinguish what I would call "male exclusive feminism" from "male inclusive feminism".

The problem is, as @SpookyFBI so aptly demonstrates with her opening post, that even the term "gender critical feminist" has become corrupted. It is not people like Matt Walsh referring to themselves as gender critical feminists, or even people like Posie Parker, who has said many times that she does not consider herself a feminist of any kind. It is trans activists who insist on calling anyone who dislikes trans people for any reason "gender critical", dropping the "feminist" because their argument is that those who centre female people to the exclusion of trans women are not feminists, and presumably because anyone calling Matt Walsh a feminist is going to look pretty stupid.

Matt Walsh is demonstrably not a feminist; neither is he gender critical. He is critical of trans people, of gender ideology, of the idea that someone can have a gender identity which conflicts with their biological sex, and of the medical interventions being performed on people in the field of "trans healthcare". But he is not critical of gender. He and his wife are incredibly gender conforming and believe in upholding the gender roles typically associated with each biological sex.

People who just dislike trans people because they think it is weird and gross for a man to wear a dress and makeup and that only women should do these things are not gender critical either. They believe in upholding rigid gender norms which say that, in our culture, only women should wear dresses and makeup.

This is not gender critical and it is not feminism.

But as I said in the beginning, as far as I am aware, the only people calling these groups gender critical are trans activists.

This is deliberate. It is done to intentionally conflate feminists with religious and social conservatives, many of whom probably do believe trans people should not have the right to exist.

And yet if we suggest that trans activists are allied with anyone they do not want to believe they are allied with, such as Karen White, all hell breaks loose. And once again, we are the bad guys for using "outliers" to suggest that all trans people are perverts and rapists and paedophiles.

You cannot have it both ways.

Either you accept that feminists have valid reasons for wanting women to have their own spaces, sports and vocabulary which do not include male people, however they identify, and that this has nothing to do with hating trans people, and that we have formed these views all by ourselves using our womanly brains, without any help from the likes of Matt Walsh and the far right.

Or you must accept personal responsibility for Karen White, Katie Dolatowski, Isla Bryson, Sally-Ann Dixon, Jacob Breslow, Laurel Hubbard, Lia Thomas and ALL those who have harmed women and children in connection with "gender identity", because they are on YOUR side.

But you cannot have it both ways.

Also, I would gently point out that the word "transphobic" is now so overused that most people no longer care why anyone thinks they might be transphobic.

Just look at the comments section on any article from any news outlet about JK Rowling. It's full of people saying they agree with her and they're sick of hearing that it is transphobic to state simple and obvious facts.

*I do think that there are probably a lot of people out there (and this doesn’t apply to anyone I talked to in the other thread) who call themselves gender critical but are just uncomfortable with trans people because they’re uncomfortable with gender non conformity."

Now I'm more than happy to stand corrected if anyone has evidence to the contrary, but I have not seen anyone who is just uncomfortable with trans people or uncomfortable with gender non conformity refer to themselves as gender critical.

The irony is many of us who get called Gender Critical are ourselves...non conforming and have been all our lives. No, it isn't irony, it is the very reason we see people who are non conforming as being completely normal and object to them being told they have to remove body parts to conform to the OPPOSITE gender whatever that is, rather than just be happy in themselves.

PS - I posted that before I realised quite how long this thread already is and now I need to go and RTFT. Sorry if I'm going back over ground that has already been covered many times.

I do think that there are probably a lot of people out there (and this doesn’t apply to anyone I talked to in the other thread) who call themselves gender critical but are just uncomfortable with trans people because they’re uncomfortable with gender non conformity.

Actually I think the exact opposite is the case.

The vast, vast majority of GC people I've come across are very comfortable with gender non conformity and as has been pointed out, often fit this description themselves.

But they don't think that makes the Gender NCing person the opposite sex (or gender) in any way shape or form. They feel that the acceptable range of being male or female should be wide enough to encompass all.

Absolutely, @AlisonDonut. That's why it's so very aggravating - and frankly bizarre - seeing gender non conforming second wave feminist lesbians being dismissed as not accepting gender non conformity.

What?

Make it make sense.

Catching up with some of the latter parts of the thread, although I still haven't read the middle.

I like @Catiette's shell shock analogy.

We wouldn't tell a war veteran that they were wrong for having a trauma response to fireworks or a backfiring car, so why is a rape survivor wrong for having a trauma response to a male bodied stranger in her women only group therapy?

Where I think the analogy falls short is that in the former case, the war veteran should be offered support and counselling to help them learn to live in a world with fireworks and backfiring cars in it, without having that trauma response. Literally, we hope that they would in time learn to "reframe their trauma", as Mridul Wadhwa put it.

I do not think that female rape survivors, or female prisoners who have suffered male violence, or female athletes, or practising Muslim women, should have to reprogramme themselves to not have a problem with trans women in their spaces.

In that sense, I do not actually think it matters whether you don't want to share a changing room with a trans woman because you have been sexually assaulted by a man and find their presence traumatic, or because you are Muslim and it is against your religious beliefs, or because you are just a bit of a bigot and find trans women "icky".

The reality is that this is not like wanting to segregate people on the basis of race, or sexuality. It is not equivalent to believing Rosa Parks should sit at the back of the bus. Society has, by common consent, decided that there are some limited situations where it is appropriate to segregate men and women for reasons of safety, dignity and/or fairness. It should not be up to women to justify why trans women should be excluded. It should be up to trans people to justify why trans women should be included in these spaces when no other males are. It is up to them to explain what trans women have in common with women that makes them like women and unlike men, and why that common feature makes it appropriate for them to be in women's spaces. And that common feature needs to have some objective characteristics. It has to be something that everyone agrees actually exists, for a start. It cannot be something you believe you have in common with that group, but they do not believe they have in common with you.

If you can't do that, by all means campaign for the abolition of single sex spaces altogether. Either sex matters or it doesn't. If you believe the fact that you have a penis isn't a good reason for keeping you out of women's spaces, the fact that men have penises isn't a good reason for keeping them out of women's spaces either. Alternatively, if women aren't justified in not wanting to share spaces with you on the basis of your sex, you aren't justified in not wanting to share spaces with men on the basis of their sex. And it is on that basis, because you have no way of telling what gender identity, if any, any other person has.

Of course, the public abolition of single sex spaces will not happen, for two reasons. Firstly, the vast majority of people don't want it to happen. And secondly, many trans women do not want to be in mixed sex spaces. They want to be in women's spaces. A women's toilet without any women in it is just a toilet. And a unisex toilet is just a toilet.

And this is where we come full circle. If there is a justification for single sex spaces existing, they should be single sex, with no exceptions. By believing that only you and a few other special people like you should be able to use single sex spaces for the opposite sex undermines the case for those spaces existing in the first place.

Women's toilets have never existed to validate trans women's gender identities. So in order to justify their continued existence, they need to be used for the purpose originally intended. And that means no members of the opposite sex allowed, other than, perhaps, little boys accompanied by their mothers.

Sorry, one last point on the safety angle. Because I appreciate there is an argument that women's spaces exist to protect the more vulnerable, i.e. women and children, from men, and that by that logic trans women should benefit from that protection too.

I do have some limited sympathy with that viewpoint.

But the reality is that if trans women are allowed into women's spaces in order to protect them from men, nobody has any protection from men. Not women, not children, not even the trans women themselves.

Because there is no way of telling the difference between a trans woman and a man who has just put on some lipstick - or not, even - and there are no bouncers on the door checking people's genitals or gender recognition certificates. Even if there were, many "genuine trans women" have male genitals and no gender recognition certificate.

The unfortunate reality is that by allowing trans women into these spaces, you lose the ability to keep ANY men out, because all a man has to do to gain access to them is say he is a trans woman. If he needs to say anything at all, in this day and age when we are told that questioning someone's right to use a particular single sex space is bigoted.

So even if you believe that trans women are women, you have to accept that allowing trans women into women's spaces means that these are no longer women's spaces because men can enter them.

Yes, Margot. Either we have sex segregation or everything is mixed sex - it's one or the other. And it needs to be made very clear which.

And we need to bear in mind that if spaces are all mixed sex this will exclude various people.

Absolutely.

And this is the problem. Because if all single sex spaces are replaced by mixed sex spaces then, as you say, this will exclude a lot of women who will no longer feel able to use them. And if there is a clamp down on trans people using spaces for the opposite sex then I wouldn't put it past trans activists to campaign for the abolition of single sex spaces on the basis that "if I can't have it then you shouldn't be able to have it either".

But as long as women's spaces continue to exist, some trans women will insist on using them even if they know they are not allowed.

I cannot see what the solution is, other than additional third spaces and a law making it a criminal offence to use spaces for the opposite sex when an additional mixed sex space is available. But obviously that would go down like a bucket of cold sick with the trans activists, and the UK would no doubt be the subject of loud condemnation from the rest of the woke western world for persecuting trans people.

Never mind women, eh?

At it's heart, it's very simple.

Sex matters. You can't change sex. In certain situations, sex specific spaces and services are important and must be protected. Legalising falsehoods about sex is madness.

All this stuff about gender is irrelevant to those facts. Gender is a different discussion.

Adding another voice to those who have commented on your shellshock analogy @Catiette A very clearly articulated and thought-provoking point. It's still just as powerful with your feather-smoothing (more so in fact IMO).

@ArabeIIaScott my "aggro" was purely because I think debate is important. And we can't have debate if we're all saying the same thing. Rightly or wrongly (it's probably clear which I think), debate involves some "feather smoothing" from everyone. Otherwise it's just a shouting match, with nobody listening to anyone else's points.

@GailBlancheViola it would be a shame if you drop out, but if that's your preference that's fair enough.

@DontGetEvenGetEverything
I have a dearly loved family member I bristle with irritation towards whenever I think of the whole situation with their gender identity.
But this helps me approach with compassion. It really has transformed my reaction to them, so, thank you again.
When I saw @Nellodee 's analogy, I was struck with both how powerful and compassionate it was.

@MargotBamborough your "late entry" at 8.24 is a brilliant summation and reflection. I also enjoyed reading your thoughts on the previous thread.
Where there is a conflict of interests between natal women and trans women, I will side with the natal women every time - same here. My primary reason for being on this board is to help my daughter and others like her. But this is my close second, as it's all interlinked.

I can see a few more posts dropping in as I type this. Lots to digest in what is (as so aptly called out by Margot) a very fast moving thread. I'm off work today but have plans this afternoon, so I'll dip in when I can.