3 questions for GC women

[ChirpyFinch]

As the title says, three questions for the women in this chat.

1. Do you think the majority of people are gender critical, and why/why not?

2. Globally, the right wing is more vocally gender critical than the left. They are also far more likely to be regressive on a range of women’s issues like abortion and anti-gay. Why do you think they agree with GCs on this one issue but disagree on so much else (if you think they do?)

3. How many trans people do you estimate there are globally?

There's a difference between banter and deliberate derailment - we can tell the difference.

Then you're a better man than I am, Gunga Din.

I can't tell who anyone is, or what their motives are. I try to reply in a way that covers all bases and that wont embarrass me regardless.

Posting recipes is not derailment. Recipes are the FWR reminder that we do not know who is reading so we should not over-egg the pudding, and we should handle delicate matters lightly. Like good pastry.

This assumes that e.g. in ancient Greece homosexuality was acceptable. Outside Sparta (which accepted female homosexuality) and aristocratic circles in e.g. Athens, it was not, but seen as a niche sexual kink with a particular interest in young boys.
In ancient Persia homosexual relations with young boys was acceptable. Female homosexuality seems to have gone under the radar there.
So not entirely a Judaeo-Christian trope.

No you wouldn’t, given that those old women grew up in an environment where being trans was either something they wouldn’t have known about at all, or something that wouldn’t have been seen as ‘acceptable’.

Yes please.

Including some men in the group of ‘women’ renders the group meaningless.

It’s not ‘inclusive’ to destroy the facilities that make it possible for women to fully participate in public life (single sex changing rooms and sporting categories, as an example).

If all the women on the female sports team are displaced by men-who-identify-as-women, how can the exclusion of females in favour of men still be meaningfully described as ‘inclusion’?

So why aren't they coming out now? The middle-aged men are doing it.

"Old women" can use the Internet, you know. They can read and watch the same stuff as old men, yet middle aged plus transitioners are almost exclusively male.

Such ageism....

Thinking about the whole Gen Z/Gen Alpha thing, I suspect that Gen Alpha are rejecting GI for the same reason every other fad is rejected. If you're doing something to feel unique and special and everyone else starts to do it too, the gloss is taken off the whole unique and special appeal and then it starts to be rejected as passe.

Gen Alpha have likely seen their umpteenth example of this in Gen Z and are tired of it. They'll have their own fad soon, same as every generation before them. I'm sure everyone can think of the fad that was kicking about when they were a teenager.

How ‘old’ are you talking about? I went to primary school in the early 80s with a girl who grew up to be a transman (transitioned in the 90s). It wasn’t unknown then and even if Gen X women hadn’t heard of transition as teens and young adults, why wouldn’t they have transitioned in the 30 years since?

Why aren’t all the closeted Gen X transmen transitioning now, in their 50s, now that it’s all over the place?

One thing I often wonder, do trans activists not believe animals have souls?

For example, mammals are clearly binary in their biological sex presentation, but I never see other species swapping gender roles within their pack/herd/etc, suggesting that societal structures are necessarily organised around the sexual function and relative physical differences between the sexes (male lions are stronger, males of the species may be faster etc so make better hunters). If soul gender can be dissonant from the sexed body, does this not occur because they don’t have souls, therefore dissonance cannot occur?

Because, as an atheist who doesn’t believe in the concept of a human soul and therefore feels she does not have one, I find it hard to fathom that whereas homosexuality (or same sex sexual behaviours) occurs naturally within many animal species, but you don’t tend to see lions taking charge of the brood of cubs and sending mum out to defend the pride?

or perhaps gendered souls is the privilege of higher beings…

No one is saying that none are coming out, as you put it. Just that the numbers are smaller than those in younger generations.

Anecdotally, I imagine the same is true in respect of those assigned male at birth.

80s kid here, so it was "gender benders" like Boy George, Marilyn, David Sylvian (swoon) and Nick Rhodes. Every single one of these beautiful blokes wore more make up than I've ever done. Still blokes. Still gorgeous.

Including some men in the group of ‘women’ renders the group meaningless.

Please could those who hold such beliefs please explain this? I honestly would love to understand how anything other than biological facts could possibly explain this?!

Anecdotally, I imagine the same is true in respect of those assigned male at birth.

Assigned?

What’s the issue with that @MerryMarys ? It’s pretty standard terminology.

I'd say people can 'identify with' a gender, or starsigns, or religion, or whatever they choose.

Personally I would find the relentless insistence on trying to find a 'true self' or some kind of invisible, arbitrarily labelled, soul-like 'identity' a frustrating and ultimately fruitless task, but that's because of my personal beliefs and I fully understand that not everyone shares those.

I just don't accept that personal beliefs are more meaningful than material reality - biological sex, nationality, blood type, etc.

We all have different beliefs about 'identity' because identity is very individual and partly internally generated.

We can't rely on different perceptions about material reality, because that is how we interact with the world and each other.

Yes that stacks up logically. But is that what you have actually observed yourself? Because it's not what I am seeing. I'm seeing "more inclusive" being defined against a cartoon idea of what previous generations thought and did, which having actually lived through them I know to be wrong. Like all those TikTokkers finding pictures of Annie Lennox and wondering how we can be gender critical when we had pop stars like that.

Well, I am of the view that sex is an objective biological reality determined at conception and observed at birth, rather than assigned!

Oof. Changing "older" to "old" is not a good look. I just thought you'd want to know it communicates disdain for women of a certain age, since you say you value inclusivity so highly.
But to your point, people continue to learn things throughout their lives. They may not have heard of it as children, but certainly have as adults.
People also change what they consider acceptable as time marches on. Otherwise us oldies would still be wearing bustles.

Often observed in utero.

Really? You've been reading FWR for a while and you don't realised "assigned" is a very specific term that only makes sense within the genderist belief system? Hmmmmm.

I understand it to mean woman focused groups such as lesbian, feminist, business networking or crisis events which are specifically for women would become meaningless if they were mixed. I'm happy to stand corrected should this not be the case.

Chaz Bono (born 1969, transitioned 2008) was on DWTS back in 2011 - surely no Gen Xer could’ve got to 2024 without knowing that women-who-had-medical-intervention-to-look-like-men existed?

As for men-who-had-medical-intervention-to-look-like-women, they’ve been interviewed in Sunday tabloids as long as can remember!

The April Ashley story long predates my birth!

It’s pretty standard terminology.

No, 'assigned at birth' is not at all standard terminology.

That assumes that a person's sex is at best a matter of educated guesswork.

It is not. It is determined at conception!!

It is. But that doesn't suit the ideology which cannot be defined, explained nor does it have any defining criteria and yet all Laws and social mores are to be upended by this indefinable concept.