If you're GC, what should trans people actually do?

[AmaListening]

I'd like to understand what someone with gender critical views thinks trans people should do.

Maybe let's make it specific with a couple of famous examples: Laverne Cox (trans woman), and Elliot Page (trans man).

Imagine you had it exactly your way. What should those human beings, who feel and identify the way they do, do about every aspect like: names, pronouns, surgery, clothing, relationships, social spaces, work, sports.

How should Laverne speak about her own identity? Should Elliot not have had top surgery?

I'd really like to understand what the world looks like for trans people if we carry GC views through to their end points.

To add, they have also done this in an era where information is now so very very easy to find.

So they willingly allow their popular influencers to filter and supposedly regurgitate the information. But the reality is that they then have only misrepresentations and emotionally driven rhetoric.

I am so fucking tired of seeing women having to defend our right to single-sex spaces by producing evidence about sexual offending or anatomical differences between male and female.

Why isn’t our “no” ever enough?

If you’re the type of person who would make women justify why we want some spaces free of ALL men, just pause to think about why that is, and why you don’t afford women’s boundaries the same respect as you do men’s wants.

Completely agree

We can just say no. Others need to respect that.

It’s also for privacy and dignity.

This. What they do in their own homes no one cares about but transwomen stop trying to force their way into female spaces or transmen into male spaces because a transwomen can wear as much make up and female clothes as they want, no one cares, but we all know they are still a man. Nothing will ever change their chromosomes.

To answer your question, OP -they should join with gender critical women in fighting against anyone who tries to impose rigid gender norms on society and against homophobia. If men want to wear dresses and lipstick fine by me - just stop pretending doing so makes you female or gives you a right to be in female spaces. And if you want to ask people to treat you as male carry on - but dont take hormones that will screw up your body and dont bind or remove your breasts, with all the damage that is going to do. Surgeons should be operating on people with breast cancer, not removing healthy breasts for cosmetic reasons. No-one changes sex, they simply change their appearance.

Relationships should be honest - sleep with anyone who will have you, dont practise deception and dont suggest someone who doesnt fancy you is a bigot. You are not irresistible, you are trying to coerce someone. Stop the bullying.

No-one should be discriminated against at work for their dress or any behaviour that doesnt affect the working environment. That doesnt include turning up to work in inappropriate clothing (like the Canadian with massive fake breasts) or trying to bully people into using false pronouns. Sport should be as fair as possible - that means be based on your sex.

Sad you don't know how a chat forum works. I don't need to take anything from your thread but what I want to. But hey ho

@PurpleGreenandWhiteAreTheNewPrimaryColours and others.
What was so good about this thread was that people were listening to each other and not being combative. Let's hope it can go back to that. Sorry, @AmaListening

@AmaListening

I am sorry if I am repeating suggestions already made. But have you read any of the work published (books and articles and debates captured on YouTube) by Julie Bindel, Dr Kathleen Stock, Holly Lawford Smith, Jo Bartosch and other lesbian feminists?

There are many lesbian feminist voices out there. And some were amongst the first to raise the alarm.

Here is a lesbian poet who is so often spot on with her points

https://twitter.com/aja02537920/status/1379854492913504259?s=46&t=HTxp6zC_d4GZ2FFv4a-YeQ

Simply put, there's no such thing as a transman/woman.

It is so important to accept this simple truth. Not denying existence, just accepting sex. I used to use the T words, without thinking. Like many here I suspect, back then I didn't properly understand what was happening and what was at stake, not even when a close relative jumped on board and had all the surgeries. This was about fifteen years ago though and since then l have educated myself (ahem).

I now say "men who say they are women" rather than "transwomen". Not "men who think they are women" because that does not cover the men who are pretending to be women to go where they like; they don't think they are women but they want others to think they do.

Using the phrase "men who SAY they are women" covers both the men in gender distress who deny their true sex, and the men who claim womanhood because they can, men wanting to take advantage, be sent to a women's prison, whatever.

Absolutely. Why should women have to explain, justify, plead or apologise for wanting single sex spaces? Why is a woman's No not deemed enough? For those who ignore it - why are you so fucking misogynistic?

I think we should just use the terms male and female, man and woman and apply them to the true sex/gender. I have become clearer about this and have not intentions of using non biological pronouns, however, I will call someone by their chosen name simply because I would apply that to nicknames/ shortened versions of their name etc

I absolutely love Aja's poems

I haven't read any of those, but all noted and the poet on Twitter followed, thank you.

It feels both exciting and scary to leave the echo chamber I've been in.

Ama

All that many of us recommend is read, read, read and listen, listen, listen. There are no shortcuts.

As you do this, keep asking afresh, what is the truth? What is the whole truth? Is there a loophole that has been left open, and who benefits. And I mean, ultimately who benefits - not just the obvious people / group, who else?

Don’t let anyone else tell you what to think. But expect to be challenged. I find being challenged is great. It usually makes me go and find evidence and that helps me to understand more and adapt my thinking. I have been on here long enough that I know that I am not alone in doing this.

Good advice @Helleofabore

I always tell my daughter (and husband) to remember the Who, what, why. Where, when and How's.

Critical thinking is important, read and listen to both sides, remember that there's always a middle and the truth generally lies somewhere in that middle.

I have taught my teen to do this as well.

I have found myself reading media I never expected to read! Part of the reason I emphatically reject any person saying ‘feminists shouldn’t share x links’ or be interviewed on ‘y’ media. And I laugh long and loud at idiots who then use the ‘it is the daily mail/fox media’ because it is only people who cannot argue with the content that refuse to read the links resulting in showing all other readers just how narrow minded they really are.

I find Kathleen Stock is very clear and comprehensible. She's excellent on YouTube.

remember that there's always a middle and the truth generally lies somewhere in that middle.

I think this is absolutely false, fallacious and actually a very dangerous thing to believe. This way of thinking among third parties is how a lot of abusers get away with their behaviours. And in some ways the trans rights movement operates from
the same playbook.

Anyway, consider the following:

1. People can change sex
2. People can’t change sex

1. Humans come in more than two sexes.
2. Humans come in two sexes.

1. Transwomen are women
2. Transwomen are men.

The truth isn’t somewhere in the middle, is it?

@DarkDayforMN

You'll note the use of the word 'generally' because while there are some hard and fast facts in the world, there is GENERALLY a chasm of grey in the middle.

• All GC people are transphobes, obviously not true, but some are.
• There is never a case where a TW should be treated as a Woman, except there is, I work in a large organisation, there are several TW, TM and NB people, on a day to day basis in normal working relationships it does no harm to anyone to refer to them by the name and pronouns they have chosen. Does that mean I think that TW belong in female prisons, changing rooms, hospital wards etc, no.

Even if you look at the Let Women Speak events, the press and personal accounts are usually very polarised, it's either a case of all TRAs were violent thugs or all GC crowd were transphobic monsters. Obviously that's not the case, basic common sense tells you that neither account is 100% accurate, there will be bad actors on both sides and a collection of more moderate people in between.

Calling people by chosen name and pronoun does not mean you are treating them as a man or woman... you're respecting their choices.

It doesn't mean anything to treat someone like a woman (and if it does it is either a medical setting, an intimate setting or you're just being sexist).

Except it leads to a place where female spaces, language and sports are being destroyed.

women have tried being kind. It doesn’t work. It means male rapists are in women’s prisons and males with penises are in our changing rooms and at lesbian dating events. No no no

So no, I don’t participate in a nonsense religion I don’t believe in. I’ll be polite but don’t expect me to believe a man is a woman. Not happening.

If you want to see how pronouns can confuse meaning, try this sentence: "She can't use the Ladies loo, it's for women."

The problem with using female pronouns for men

Their pronouns - pronouns do not belong to them, it is not a pick and choose menu ffs.

It is not as simple as that. Pronouns are a political statement, not a neutral one.