What the gender critical movement is trying to achieve

[NotTerfNorCis]

Someone on Twitter has asked what the 'end goal' of the gender critical movement is.

Mumsnet is a better forum for discussing it (you can write as much as you want, and abuse isn't allowed) so I'm setting up this thread.

Personally I'd say the goals were broadly:

1. Transsexuals who are cognitively mature and persistent in their belief deserve to be treated with tolerance and kindness. They shouldn't suffer discrimination in jobs or housing. They shouldn't suffer abuse because of their transsexual status. The NHS should support them. People should respect their chosen name and pronouns, unless there's a very good reason not to.

2. It should always be possible to acknowledge a person's biological sex. That is what makes someone a woman or a man. For example, in media reporting of a sexual crime, or referring to a sex offender, the person's biological sex must be acknowledged. No rape victims should be forced to call a male attacker 'she'.

3. Where necessary, biological sex will be taken into account, and women's rights will be based on sex rather than gender identity. For example, sports should be separated into male (or open) and female, not 'male-identified' and 'female-identified'. Same-sex attraction should be respected. If need be, males should be kept out of female spaces.

4. Biological sex should also be taken into account in larger studies and surveys, like the census. Otherwise the data is misleading.

5. The spread of gender ideology needs to stop. Kids shouldn't be taught that 'woman' is defined by stereotypes, and if they don't feel comfortable with the social stereotypes associated with their sex, they must be the opposite sex (or 'non-binary', 'gender fluid' etc). In other words, as a society we need to stop elevating 'gender'.

6. Transitioners shouldn't be accepted without question, especially young people. Otherwise we end up with tragic cases like Milo: The prescription of puberty blockers should be reviewed. Clinics should carry out careful checks to make sure that the person's trans status isn't a manifestation of something else, like a repressed sexual orientation, or reaction to abuse.

7. Families affected by a member transitioning should be given any support they need, rather than being dismissed. That includes if they have a negative reaction to the transition.

8. The sense of being in the wrong body is an agonising mental health condition, as transsexuals like Buck Angel acknowledge: https://twitter.com/BuckAngel/status/1676398204412387328 There should be research to find out if the condition can be alleviated from a mental health perspective, without needing surgery.

9. (Ideally) any awards given to males competing in female categories should be retrospectively reviewed.

10. It should be valid to say that transwomen are not a subset of women and transmen are not a subset of men, without being discriminated against or abused. Gender critical beliefs (which are actually pretty mainstream) should be respected.

In short: genuine transsexuals should be respected, but sex is the ultimate marker of whether someone is a man or a woman and must be taken into account. Elevating gender stereotypes is anti-feminist. Genderism is a fad that kids need protecting from.

Isn't it utterly insane that these things are even controversial?

@NotTerfNorCis Your post is trans-centric. "Trans .. deserve" "women .. where possible.." etc. You begin and end talking about trans rights.
I'm not buying this.

Who decides whether someone is a "genuine transsexual" ?

I'd say wear what you like, love who you love, call yourself whatever you like, but humans can't change sex and putting on lippy or saying words does not entitle you to access provision set up for the sex you are not.

Simple really. Present how you like but when sex matters, accept it.

Quite simply there needs to formally be two completely separate but recognised categories for sex and the belief in gender identity (similar to religious belief). Personally I don’t believe at all I’m an inbuilt gender identity.

Protections need to be given to women on the basis of sex so single sex spaces, protections for pregnancy etc, and for trans people they should not be prejudiced against on the basis of their gender identity.

In the same way that religious beliefs don’t get to override sex as a category - so religions that have inbuilt misogynistic cultural practices and limitations on women or same sex relationships with their beliefs don’t get to override the sex category or the protection for same sex attraction , gender identity beliefs don’t get to override the protections for sex either.

That is it.

I'm saying that if someone has an incurable condition where they believe they're in the wrong body, they deserve health treatment and compassion just like anyone else. BUT the fundamental thing is that female is a sex, and 'woman' is not a social role that can be meaningfully separated from sex. TWANW. The 'end goal' is that society acknowledges material reality.

Speaking for myself, top of the list would be

• Repeal of the GRA
• No males no matter how they identify, no matter how long they've identified that way, no mater how nice they are, no matter how much you like them, in women's sex segregated spaces/places/hospitals/prisons/sports etc.
• No medical interventions/affirming interventions on children and young people - there's no such thing as a "trans child"
• Gender Identity to be regarded as a belief and not as truth, and treated as such

Someone who is willing to go through sexual reassignment surgery and whose feeling of being a member of the opposite sex is so strong, they want to live their lives according to the social stereotypes around that sex (aka 'gender').

Don't get me wrong - I don't think these people actually change sex. But in a compassionate society you have to be a bit flexible. It's kind to go along with their identity to a point. The moment a transwoman wants to compete in women's sports, or to be sent a women's prison though... that's where the line is drawn.

Also, of course we shouldn't be telling kids that gender is just an identity that's assigned at birth. Feminists should be challenging gender.

I thought the same. Women’s rights are first and central for me. I’m not suggesting that those who’ve undergone medical transition should be treated badly, but their rights are theirs to fight for.

So my central push would be for recognition that sex is the defining feature when it comes to segregated spaces. Transactivism is pushing for gender identity to replace sex and it isn’t possible to have a mixture of both. As soon as any male is permitted, it is by definition no longer sex-segregated.

I would also very much support an end to any kind of transitioning of children and a return to a very conservative, do-no-harm, fully evidence-based approach to transitioning at any age, but though important, that is secondary to maintaining women’s rights.

Good one. I hadn't thought about the GRA. https://fairplayforwomen.com/campaigns/gra-reform/

Absolutely!
No experimental drugs and surgeries on minors or adults with complex mental problems.

No men in women- only spaces, sports, awards.

The legal definition of woman = adult human female

Sex recorded in official records not gender

I've met quite a number of transwomen (men) as a Lesbian; Ladies stop with the pity for a bunch of male narcissists.

Women rights come first!

Hmm I think tw shouldn't be gone along with. Men wearing what they like and make up heels whatever but not agreeing they are a w or a tw, just a man.

Yes, I agree about the GRA and would add its repeal to my list. It should not be possible to legally change sex unless an error has been made or there is a DSD that means there has to be some kind of discretionary choice based on the life experience and the wishes of that person. Even then, sports should not be based on legal sex if there is any male advantage.

What I would absolutely love to see as well as everything already mentioned is the reintroduction of women’s rights and children’s safeguarding as priority liberal and progressive values. Feel like as soon as someone found a way to give men our rights we fell right down on the rankings like a novelty Christmas hit plummeting the charts in January.

I get what you're saying, but it may be difficult to put the genie back in the bottle. From the perspective of somebody living in Germany - we had one of the earliest laws for gender recognition (1982), and back then it actually tied recognition of gender change to reassignment surgery, and given this was long before same-sex marriage, also automatic dissolution of the individual's marriage. The Constitional Court has since invalidated both these provisions on human rights grounds. Fair enough - but it does mean that really there's no longer a basis to have a GRA at all. ( Further complicated by the fact that the German language does not have a sex-gender distinction, so the SelfIS law being proposed now really would have the effect of abolishing sex as a legal category altogether.)

Yes that's another thing. This idea that 'feminism must be trans-inclusive or it isn't feminism' has to stop. Feminism is about females, not males who 'identify' as female, whatever that even means. Feminism and genderism should be seen as separate, contradictory ideologies. And in general, males (woman-identified or not) should stop speaking over feminists.

• Sex based rights reinstated in law including sex based sports/ refuges / prisons etc.
• puberty blockers banned and talk based therapies developed for gender dysphoria.
• More academic freedom for Universities to allow gender critical speech.
• Trans propaganda out of the school curriculum
• Sex based hospital wards & care services.
• More balanced media reporting on trans issues, less activist reporting.

"NotTerfNorCis
Someone who is willing to go through sexual reassignment surgery and whose feeling of being a member of the opposite sex is so strong, they want to live their lives according to the social stereotypes around that sex (aka 'gender')"
^
I think we need to get away from the idea of true trans. Plenty of detransitioners only realised what a mistake it was after surgery.

Surgery should only be done after there's good protocols set up with evidence of success. Removing healthy body parts to fix some people based on their self-reported feelings is not ethical and should be made much more difficult.^

Quite!

It now seems to mean someone who has "taken the trouble" to go through with full surgical transition; or that is the popular public perception. Most people are still thinking back to those 1970s TV documentaries about the early 'sex change' operations that were common at the time, I imagine.

The fundamental issue , though, is that people just unquestionably go along with the idea that there is a such a thing as 'being trans'. That some people just are. There is nothing they can do about it. They didn't choose it.Whereas what is really going on is psychological in nature. Either an inability to come to terms with one's homosexuality, or else with the driving force that is AGP.

There is a great documentary on Netflix called 'Regretters' about two such transsexuals who transitioned a long time ago; one of whom was amongst the first men to undergo such surgery in the early 1960s - at a time when being gay was still illegal. ( well worth a watch)Both men have since detransitioned, even going so far as having surgery to replace the lost penis. They talk through their long history and process with each other, reflecting on how they now know and understand that they are not really women at all.

Honestly, I’ll just go for ‘not forcing me to lie’.

Male people stay male. Female people stay female. Those who can recognise sex shouldn’t be penalized, criticized or deprived of facilities.

Going back to sex testing for sport, as suggested by the indomitable olympian Sharron Davies.

If you think a cheek swab is intrusive, how will you cope with official's watching you wee for your dope test?

I think a large part of the cntemporary problem is the way that feelings go bodily dysphoria and individual psychological and emotional struggle have been co-opted by post modernistic theories and conceptions of the self and society.

There’s nothing progressive about gender. It’s all about old fashioned misogynist stereotypes & a truly progressive society would be trying to get rid of it, so that woman / female and man / male just mean sex.

I completely agree. I also do not support gender based pronouns because it fudges the reality and is a gateway to other expectations which should never be fulfilled. A man is always a man. There is no way I can' accept being called 'she' if we also accept a man being called she. What's the function of the 'she' pronoun in that case? I think we need a true gender-neutral pronoun which should be adopted for all over time.

Freedom of speech - people not being hounded out of their jobs, losing their bank accounts etc just for speaking the truth - that humans can't change sex and sometimes, that matters.