Why is Mumsnet so GC?

[ireallycantthinkofaname]

Maybe an odd question but I've never come across another space, online or otherwise, where being GC is the norm. IRL I only ever discuss GC views openly with one family member, whose stance on it is similar to my own, though, so I'm not saying it's unwelcome.... Just curious how/why it's come about. Any thoughts or theories?

Gender Critical just means somebody who is critical of gender. It’s basic feminism. That impacts in a lot

Put simply

What is 'cis privilege'? Is it not just a term to hide and destroy the concept of 'male privilege'? How is it NOT sexist?

What is 'cis privilege'? Is it not just a term to hide and destroy the concept of 'male privilege'? How is it NOT sexist?

It's DARVO.

Superb post in every respect.

And this:
The question of how do you tell the difference between a 'genuine' case and a none genuine case remains. In safeguarding one of the key rules is not to give free passes to people you know well, have a good relationship with or have a good social standing. They have to follow the rules like everyone else - it's recognised that we can be blinded by someone being nice to us and demanding loyalty.

Is a paramount point. Every time women say "We don't want men in our spaces" there is a screech "You are calling TW rapists!"

No, we aren't. Not any more than we are calling all men rapists.

Not ALL men are rapists, not all molest children, not all are violent misogynists - but for the safety, dignity and protection of women and the safety of children we have, until recently, kept ALL men out of women's spaces. Not because they are all dangerous, but because we can't tell which ones are safe.

Same applies to TW. We aren't saying they're all a threat - but we know that many of them are and we don't know which ones*. Stop weaponising women's caution.

*And frankly, the keener they are to invade spaces where women and children are vulnerable, and the more aggressive they are in demanding it, the less they are to be trusted.

The ‘movement’ has already reached this point and the public, the government, the health professionals all are aware and that awareness is growing. More evidence is being added daily and that will reach the point where it can no longer be denied. Despite wishes to the contrary.

I don't disagree about awareness. I need to see a shift in drafting, in policy, in even NHS signage and healthcare records before I can be confident that awareness will have a positive outcome.

Do you know what doesn’t seem to be growing ? A bank of evidence supporting gender identity. Strange that, eh?

In several areas, that's true. Nonetheless, even as an idea without evidence, it's still been powerful enough to achieve shifts in law, policy, education, health and social care alongside other services without it.

And, I know this is a rumour (I'm still trying to validate) but there seems to be a plan for a study of GnRH as puberty suppressors. I welcome this. I hope it's well designed and that the Principal Investigator/s and colleagues will publish their protocol. I would anticipate there will be a considerable delay until there are useful results.

I have mixed emotions that are a tangle of concern for young gay and lesbian people. I have to trust whoever is sponsoring the investigation, handling the ethics approvals, and the Principal Investigators and the governance of the study.

I can only think what will have happened to women's sex-based rights in the interim.

NB: I am a pessimist. I'm pleased to contribute to funding cases and, when they win, I'm grateful for the ripples from them. I'm still waiting for policy makers to change and for employers to loosen their relentless concentration on this one area of diversity and inclusion and look around for the welfare of all the other protected characteristics. I'm apprehensive that it will take decades to regain ground that has been lost and that harms will continue to flow and effectively be ignored. I would be utterly thrilled to be wrong. I would dance like Gurdeep Pandher of the Yukon.

A couple of years ago I hit perimenopause. Started googling for menopause advice and to my horror I found articles that referred to women as "person with a uterus/vagina". I thought it was a joke at first. Then I read more about the erasure of "woman", "girl" and "mother" (whilst men were still being called men, not "person with a penis"). That's when my eyes were opened to what is happening to women in the world at the moment, it is scary. I can't describe the rage I felt being referred to as a "person with a uterus", being reduced to a body part! And young girls being referred to as "bleeders". Never in my lifetime did I think that the word "woman" would become a banned word, the world has truly gone insane!
MN was a place where I found likeminded people who were equally enraged about the erasure of women.

I join you in hoping for greater changes in policy and guidelines and law. However, where that was, even just as covid hit, considered almost a caricature of evilness, now we can have that discussion. And there are politicians in Labour who are willing to keep fighting. So, I am more optimistic in some ways rethinking. I think that the horse has already bolted and the awareness will not be pushed back into a subversive stable. It will unfortunately take time.

Look how long it took for extreme trans activists to get the results they worked and planned for after all. Sadly, it will take longer than we want. And yes, I absolutely agree that it is devastating to think of the harm caused to women and girls before we get all the protections we need in place.

‘Movement’ implies that there is something novel about the concepts that stereotypes are harmful, that women need specific rights and services that men don’t, (and vice versa) and that medical treatments should be evidence based and objectively researched and reviewed.

‘gender criticism’ is an academic practice that relates to philosophy, law and social policies, but an elderly lady who wants the right to intimate care from somebody of the same sex isn’t part of a movement.

There are just multiple situations where the immutability and relevance of sex is important.

I need to see a shift in drafting, in policy, in even NHS signage and healthcare
records before I can be confident that awareness will have a positive outcome.

The outcome is not at all guaranteed. There certainly isn't going to be a sudden
realisation and then it's over. It's going to be step by step, battle by battle,
gains and losses.

I know this is a rumour (I'm still trying to validate) but there seems to be a
plan for a study of GnRH as puberty suppressors. I welcome this.

Me too but I am not sure if a study could even get ethical approval when after all these years there is so little evidence of benefit from puberty suppression. And in the meantime the cowboys will keep going, supported by misinformed and desperate
parents.

I do feel optimistic but I don't expect a quick or easy win. Or even a complete win on everything.

Never in my lifetime did I think that the word "woman" would become a banned word

Banned or made functionally meaningless.

I doubt it will become true if you keep saying 'no it isn't' harder.

I'm sorry that the coalition is starting to disintegrate and I can only imagine how betrayed you must feel. Many of the wave riders summoned by mainstream media tut-factories and embittered authors are letting the mask slip now and have given up pretending that they ever actually gave a damn about feminism at all.

I'd have thought this a time to rejoice - you don't have to keep pretending the people who have hijacked your cause don't exist anymore!

What's a non-extreme trans activist?

You seem to have walked yourself onto calling every person remotely interested in creating and maintaining legal protections for transgender people over the last several decades an 'extreme trans activist' and have nowhere left to go from here. There seems to be no room for granularity, nuance or de-escalation.

You really have no idea, do you?

The feminist groups I belong to are not impacted by any of this. We continue to work together.

Your hyperbolic and over romanticised portrayal of what is happening is meaningless. Because time will tell.

We have told you numerous times that your attempts at forced teaming was meaningless. And we explained why.

It seems like you are getting rather excited about this impending ‘collapse’. I wouldn’t if I were you. You will look like a bigger fool.

An extreme trans activist is one that makes demands that then negatively impacts on another groups needs and rights. Such as impacting on women’s rights. They are also those who protest using abuse and intimidation.

Trans activism in general is not something that feminists fear, as far as I know. Trans people are allowed, as is everyone, to campaign to not be illegitimately discriminated against, to receive the same rights and opportunities as all other people. Why do you think feminists would think otherwise, unless you have no real understanding of feminist principles?

Your narrow view of what I said is your own interpretation. I haven’t walked myself into anything. And I have not changed my view since you arrived on this board. But crack on with this line of discussion. I don’t think any readers will be convinced with your posts.

I'm sorry that the coalition is starting to disintegrate

🤣🤣🤣

It’s really not. It’s a debate about the final push. Advance or hold ground? I say charge!

I agree that calling the international persistence of anti-trans sentiment a 'movement' is too simplistic and often outright inaccurate. Much of it is anything but novel; some is the same brand of queer-bashing background cultural transphobia that saw films like Ace Ventura: Pet Detective greenlit back in the 90's, while some is more actively and earnestly propagated by long-term disciples of Raymond and Greer.

What is different, however, is the social dynamic that the active voices now preside over. GC talking points aren't championed by a small cadre of anti-establishment fringe crusaders anymore; they've been hijacked by mainstream conservative policy.

Indeed notbad. It really has seemed like desperate measures being grasped. And all because someone had mistaken Twitter spats between individuals as being representative of organisations.

On the other hand, what does this tell us about how weakly organised the groups who make the extreme demands might be if they believe there is this collapse happening? They must have very weak foundations.

What does 'advance' mean in this case?

It’s a metaphor. Keep on pushing for the insistence that men aren’t women and humans can’t change sex, and legislate accordingly to protect women’s rights. To not compromise that some men can be called women and some men can be treated as women if they’re nice enough.

You should know this. You’ve been arguing about it online since you were 12 years old on your dial up internet in the 1990s.

“a simple linguistic politeness” = “a lie”

Lies, when repeated often enough, have serious consequences.

You wish to remove the existing legal protections established for transgender people under the 2010 Equality Act and the 2004 Gender Recognition Act?

It sounds like simply removing these will not create the society you want.

Strange inference 🙄. You’re admitting that the insistence that men can’t be women and that humans can’t change sex is in conflict with those two acts, then?

If that’s the case then yes, I wish them to be changed. The protected category of sex should be the sex people are, and always will be, not anything that can be altered legally.

I would support the continuation of the GRA if you can explain to me how a man can “live as a woman” without using stereotypes.

Presumably this subject came up in the intense online discussions you had online between 1995 and 2004 when it was introduced.

So how do you define “live as a woman”?

Zero chance of a coherent answer. We've been asking for years.

And there is nothing ‘simple’ about being expected to lie to keep someone happy. If a person requires everyone to lie to keep them happy, it is not simple or harmless.

Only someone without a strong sense of ethics or who has no ethics would not see this.