First time poster - question about GC beliefs

[lovelycosyslippers]

This is my first time posting on this board. I am trying to work out what my position is in the trans/gender debate.

If you hold gender critical beliefs, do you accept that some people firmly believe they are born in the 'wrong' body, and have a right to live as the other sex (up to but not including the point where it would impinge on the rights of that other sex), possibly taking hormones and undergoing surgery? Is this a coherent position to hold?

Or do you believe these people should not ever be supported to live as the opposite sex? That doing so is always wrong?

Hope this question makes sense!

Queer Theory - from which the contemporary transgenderism movement arises is predicated on transgressing boundaries.

The "queering of society" is a radical project to over-rule and re-shape boundaries particularly when they relate to sex and sexuality. The problem is that the old power structures are still in place, and as a consequence it is women's and children's boundaries that are being violated in the name of individual freedom..

Hm. Perhaps very longterm. The ghastly tropes those sorts seem stuck on are running around late seventies lingerie ads right now. I assume it's something to do with Tennents Lager cans at the age these men hit puberty. So I think it will take a good forty years for them to catch up to lumberjack/wispy as any sort of a trope.

I believe that I am not being too unfair on queer theory to say that your second paragraph is missing a few words.

The "queering of society" is a radical project to over-rule and re-shape boundaries particularly when they relate to sex and sexuality, and age, and in particular when they involve sex, sexuality AND age. It is a project that few know about or understand, but if presented factually and outside of the context of "TWAW, be kind" would be rejected by at least 95% of the population, and maybe much much more. Most people, including the childless, don't have much sympathy with adults who wish to break down sexual boundaries between adults and children.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer_theory

I would say that Queer theory started off as a probably fairly laudable academic enterprise; questioning and examining norms and assumptions.

Unfortunately if you create a project that incorporates the undermining of social norms in its foundational intent, then it will probably inevitably attract people who have their own agendas for subverting/dismantling/undermining some norms which most people actually think are very desirable.

I think some academics have also acknowledged that queer theory is a sort of meta-theory that kind of contains the seeds of its own destruction within it. If you are going to 'dismantle' everything, eventually you have to dismantle 'queer theory' itself.

tl;dr: Academics high on their own brainfarts sometimes don't consider practical and logical consequences.

Good summary, and I would also add that queer theory is an outgrowth of postmodernism. Postmodernism basically posits that all ideas of objectivity and empiricism are repressive - that categories and boundaries are bad, and the tools of the patriarchal oppressor.

Not only is this bullcrap (I'm an empiricist) but it also poses especial danger to the most vulnerable in human society, because vulnerable people tend to need boundaries and categories the most.

eg we need to be able to define disabled people in order to help disabled people as a class. We need to be able to define the working class before we can help them as a class. We need to be able to define vulnerable women as a class before we can help them as a class. etc etc etc.

Per Plato and, er, pretty much everyone with a brain since then, in order to define what something is, one needs also to be able to define what it is not ie throw a boundary around it. Otherwise one cannot define it.

This is why GC women like myself protest against the trans movement, because it seeks to destroy the definition of woman which will and is damaging and threatening the safety of the most vulnerable of women the world over.

I would say that Queer theory started off as a probably fairly laudable academic enterprise; questioning and examining norms and assumptions.

Questioning norms and assumptions is good.

However, that in no way means it's necessarily a good thing to 'queer' those norms! Some of them exist for good reasons and many assumptions are valid.

Compare and contrast with how science works. You're questioning assumptions all the time, testing, throwing out theories which have been disproved, building new ones based on evidence.

Funnily enough, I put the living as a woman point to a 'be kind' family member a year or two back and the reply was along the lines of clothes and name etc which I pointed out were just stereotypes and it was actually regressive to push the idea that women and men have to look and behave in a certain ways.

Anyway, when I saw this relative over Christmas, their position had changed somewhat - they now think it is a social contagion type fad and that while people should be free to wear and behave how they'd like a TW is not and will never be a woman and should not call himself one. And no to using wrong sex pronouns.

I have yet to introduce this relative to the delights of the erotic crossdressing aspect being another reason why I am a hard 'no' now, having started at 'be kind, poor dysphoric individuals' like so many of us.

And I still like KJKs answer to a young woman at LWS in Nottingham along the lines of you can identify however you like, but what you can't do is force everyone else to see you that way.

I haven't read every page yet, but there's also an element here, where I'm not comfortable participating in someone else's public fetish.

If Brian across the road comes over for a cup of tea and a normal, neighbourly chat with a full face of makeup, or in a dress, I don't mind, he can wear what he likes. If he's doing it because it excites him to knock on my door and he's nursing a stiffy from the party dress and fake eyelashes and hoping to draw my attention to it, then I very much mind.

Much like there's men who call me 'love' and I couldn't care less, it's just being familiar and they mean nothing by it, and there's men who call me 'love' and it makes my skin crawl because the way they pitch it is misogynistic and patronising.

Aligned to this, of course is the contemporary obsession with open borders and no boundaries. The idea that openness is a supreme virtue. Discrimination and definition are seen as prejudicial and confining and necessarily aligned to dominant power structures.

Though of course, without discrimination it is impossible to make moral judgments about worth or value; and without boundaries there can be no integrity or individual autonomy. All healthy organism require boundaries for defence and for protection from invasion and hostile forces.

Equality does not mean a big, open free for all - it implies that autonomous individuals are able to make conscious and free choices about what to permit and what not to permit; what to include and what to exclude.

Inclusion is a vacuous term - necessitating no discrimination and no autonomous moral judgement

"If you hold gender critical beliefs, do you accept that some people firmly believe they are born in the 'wrong' body, and have a right to live as the other sex (up to but not including the point where it would impinge on the rights of that other sex), possibly taking hormones and undergoing surgery? Is this a coherent position to hold?"

I agree with this, as someone in my 50s I have met a fair amount of men who lived as women.
The complicating factor is that some of those men would now claim/ are encouraged to claim to be women (rather than men who live as women). That is an ideological/ political position based on interesting social theory but, as someone said - postmodernism is an interesting view of the world but is not a set of rules to live by

IMHO "Brian across the road" must, by definition, fall into one of the following categories and potentially more than one) -

(1) He might be a "doing it because it excites him" person.

(2) He might be nothing more than a dishonest predator who believes presenting as a woman will help him gain access to your house.

(3) He may have "gender dysphoria" (if indeed that is a real thing distinct from sex specific body dysmorphia), or be suffering from some sort of trauma response... whatever the specifics he may have some sort of mental illness / mental health issue and is choosing to ask you to play along with his illness / issue instead of getting mental health support and treatment.

I believe that no woman should be forced to tolerate Brian if he is a (1). If Brian is a (2) then that is much worse, and if he is a (3) then I would argue that perhaps the kindest thing you can do is refuse to speak to Brian until you can be confident he is seeking and receiving the sort of mental health support he needs.

Isn't "the complicating factor" the fact that where we are now (sexualizing kids, transing kids, completely destroying all women's rights, language, spaces etc) was always the end goal, and those "fair amount of men who lived as women" were a combination of innocent victims of the ideology, and willing participants who understood the end goal?

There is someone near me who for as long as I remember has had hair a few inches below the shoulder in a style that is somewhat old fashioned in a gender neutral way. I have no idea how he defines himself, but I swear that over the last few years I see him out and about as often, but he presents male most of the time now, whereas I think it used to be cross-dressing much more than 50% of the time... is he distancing himself from the movement? Has he realized that his own behaviour, whilst relatively harmless in itself, is dangerous as it is all part of pushing the wider movement?

I absolutely winced when a friends tiny 17 year old Dd who has short hair and wears jeans but could never be taken for male strode into the busy men’s loos when we went to see a band in a nightclub. Sorry but it just seemed so unsafe. None of us said anything hadn’t realised she thought she actually was a boy because she had a short hair cut.

Maybe he's just a David Bowie type who enjoys dressing in a gender non conforming way but now doesn't want to be tainted by association with this movement and all it stands for.

IMHO "Brian across the road" must, by definition, fall into one of the following categories and potentially more than one)

I have also met the occasional man who just likes fashion and makeup - so there is a 4th category - you can tell them because they look 'put together' rather than 'thrown together'

Yes, please read that and the bullying is rife thread for perspective.

One can like fashion and make-up without choosing to dress like a woman.

Are you saying that you believe that there are men for whom their is no erotic element, are not at all predatory, have no mental illness or mental health issues, but simply dress up in a way that is a stereotype of the opposite sex due to a love of women's fashion? I have to say that I am not sure that I buy this, not least because women's fashion is fashioned designed for women's bodies, and one cannot appreciate women's fashion by exhibiting it on men.

The complicating factor is that some of those men would now claim/ are encouraged to claim to be women (rather than men who live as women).

See Eddie Izzard's move from 'these aren't women's clothes, these are my clothes' to 'I am a woman'

are not at all predatory, have no mental illness or mental health issues, but simply dress up in a way that is a stereotype of the opposite sex. I have to say that I am not sure that I buy this, not least because women's fashion is fashioned designed for women's bodies, and one cannot appreciate women's fashion by exhibiting it on men.

Well, no, they wouldn't/don't wear clothes made for women (unless they get them tailored I suppose), because they wouldn't fit, and fit is part of being fashionable and put together, but plenty of men wear skirts of some sort, or long robes that may as well be dresses (OK, this one's not fashionable), some men wear clothes that are sparkly or frilly or fluffy because they like them, they look good in them, even though most people would look at them and think that it was a feminine look. Just look at the more out-there fashion shows - plenty of feminine-coded menswear.

There are 100s of male youtubers who wear makeup, because they like it and they look good, they've put in the effort - not to pretend to be a woman, but definitely to wear makeup in a way that is traditionally associated with women/femininity.

Very well worth reading some of the transwidows' insights and explanations here. You can find both their threads here and the website with many women's personal testimonies of their experience well worth reading and digesting. The patterns are hard to miss. And also worth considering the wry joke from the TQ+ community in the days when it still had a sense of humour, about 'what's the difference between a transvestite and a TW?' with the answer being 'about two years'.

I think we are talking at cross purposes.

I was talking about what I believe to be the three types of men who claim to be, and present as, "transwomen". I think that it would be fair to include all cross-dressing men who do not claim to be transwomen in category (1). Whether we call these people who would once have been call transvestites "trans" or not is somewhat beside the point.

You seem to be talking about a fourth category of people - men who know they are men but like wearing clothes which are feminine on somewhat feminine, but do not dress up as if they were the opposite sex. This category of people have nothing whatsoever to do with any sort of trans debate other than to help show up "gender expression reflects some sort of underlying cross se reality" as the nonsense it is.

You seem to be talking about a fourth category of people - men who know they are men but like wearing clothes which are feminine on somewhat feminine, but do not dress up as if they were the opposite sex.

I guess because I really struggle with 'dress up as if they were the opposite sex'

I wear jeans and t-shirt pretty much all the time. To a person from the 20s, I would be 'dressing up as the opposite sex' - despite that being ridiculous given my body type (no-one's mistaking me for a male). If it wasn't for trailblazers in the 40s and 50s, I wouldn't be able to wear those trousers without ridicule and abuse.

There is a group of men, a small group admittedly, who are like this in reverse (and for fun reasons rather than practical ones). They are caught up in this, because there is significant overlap with the way they present themselves, and the way transvestites(who I class as type 1)/non-binaries(type 2ish - bullies or bullied rather than predator)/confused or lied to (type 3).

I would suggest that their flamboyant and fashionable dress would read as much more feminine than my jeans and t-shirt - that if you were to, in isolation, describe the outfits or put them on a hanger, you would say that my jeans and t-shirt were the 'men's clothes' and their outfits were the 'women's clothes'

Whilst I hesitate to centre men in this, I also think that part of the way out of this current strictly enforced gender stereotyped period is to point out that it's fine for non-type 1,2,3s to dress as they please. This is a little self-serving, I have a boy who's always loved pink and glitter, but had it subtly culturally suppressed by his peers since he got older, and it's sad to see.

I hadn't realised that Grayson Perry had done this....I'm disappointed. He's always been open about the fetishistic impulses behind his cross dressing, but this totally over-steps the boundaries :

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/01/03/grayson-perry-when-crossdressing-crosses-the-line/

Grim.

You see, this is the sort of thing is the reason why I don't yet have a fully developed view on the cross dressing issue.

In theory I would like to say wear whatever you like. We should be more accepting of gender non conformity. If that means men want to wear dresses then more power to them.

But in practice we don't seem to see many men wearing women's clothes without there being a sexual aspect to it, which gives me the ick.

There is clearly a class of men who get turned on by wearing dresses and lingerie, whereas I am not aware of an equivalent class of women who get turned on by wearing trousers and cutting their hair short. So the two things don't seem equivalent somehow.

It would be wonderful if men could just stop being gross and keep their sexual predilections to themselves, tbh.

This is why it's important to have an understanding of the patterns that might flag problematic issues to distinguish those from someone who has a debilitating feeling of gender dysphoria. There could be a crossover (where the person is confused and/or fighting their feelings to give in to a feeling of sexual excitement, particularly so in young, autistic boys who may not realise what's happening and who would benefit from psychological intervention to unpick it all) but the patterns always involve some kind of escalating need to transgress social boundaries if left unchecked i.e. it starts with one thing and then moves on to more. And by definition, they present an escalating danger to those around them as their behaviours escalate.

Some obvious main pattern markers off the top of my head:

1. Sexualised or incongruous clothing i.e. something that is deliberately out of place in a way that is likely to draw attention in relation to the occasion for which it is being worn
2. Sexualised and/or performative behaviour or conversation that is incongruous with the occasion
3. Taking on a female name and/or appearance of someone that they know/knew well ("skin walking")
4. Wearing prosthetic breasts
5. Talking about the feel of the fabric of their clothes and/or talking about how their breasts feel
6. Working in a capacity where they have gained sufficient trust to have access to vulnerable women and/or children. It's best if it's a) voluntary, because that way you get kudos points which help secure further access and or b) linked to policy making, because then you can influence the removal of the boundaries that are in your way
7. History of stealing/borrowing underwear from family members
8. Gains trust and empathy by sharing stories of how they have always felt this way (applies to those who transition in middle age)
9. Heavy use of porn/anime/female gaming avatars
10. Plays a double bluff by announcing that they have the fetish so that they can gain trust by saying that they are behaving transparently

I'm sure there are more but those are enough for a go at Malaga Airport bingo. The game has simple rules really: think of a transwoman and see how many you tick off.

One of the most recent public conversations that I've found surprising on this is the one that is still going with Sarah Phillimore. She still lands back on legislation over disgust. She's right that nobody can sensibly legislate to stop men wearing dresses. I'm also still very much on the side of the "wear what you like" angle that she supports too. However, if there are enough ticks on the bingo card, disgust and shame are the first line of defence in stopping escalating behaviour. There are different ways of displaying disgust in someone, both in real life and online, ranging from making a point of ignoring them to calling them out with insults.