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?

Sure - there are degrees of being comfortable with expected roles, rebelling against them, or just deciding you're too busy for this shit. But it's all relational and culture bound. Not a thing in its own right. Not innate.

If you're a woman, you're a woman - the defining genes, gamete pathway and body parts don't vary depending on whether you're in 21st century Scotland or western Australia 40,000 years ago.

If you're same-sex attracted you'd still be attracted to people of the same sex in 17th century Brasil or ancient Mesopotamia (although the social or legal consequences may differ).

How you feel about the expectations and stereotypes of 'woman' in Liberia in 2024 gives very little information about how you'd feel about the expectations and sterotypes of the same place 500 years ago, or of any other cultures now.

Yes, you are so spot on.

Imagine someone having incontinence therefore our lives have to change.
Someone with a disease therefore our lives have to change.
Someone with joint problems therefore our lives have to change.
Someone with agoraphobia therefore our lives have to change.

The list goes on.

So why is this particular illness (dysphoria) being allowed to change everyone's lives?

“So why is this particular illness (dysphoria) being allowed to change everyone's lives?”

Sometimes I think that it is because the group could be the next exercise in intellectualisation, if you know what I mean. And by that I mean that a whole category sector of society could now have special focus, an entire industry could be created around it to support that intellectual exercise. Just look how many people now have qualifications that revolve around this ‘intellectualisation’.

Are there any other groups of people who have been focused on in this way? To such a degree? And which then required groups of ‘thinkers’ who are supposed to be able to articulate who the group is descriptively, supposed to activate for their needs, clinicians to support them and so on?

Based all on a concept that remains unable to be defined beyond post modernist ‘they are who they say fhey are’.

I don’t think I am explaining this well, but there we go.

It really seems to be ironic that so many people who have these ‘qualifications’ cannot clearly and concisely describe that concept which they have spent large sums of money to study to be able to describe. Instead, it is all shrouded in mysticism. In terms like ‘they are who they are’.

Yes. What I'm trying to say is 'gender' is our tendency to think about our sex. Our relationship to our sex. It exists as an attitude or collection of impulses, I suppose a similar thing would be 'religious affiliation'.

Religious affiliation exists. It just varies depending on context, time and culture. Some belief systems will posit that there is one true faith and everyone else is damned.

I'm not explaining it well ...

I liked the comment by @XChrome at 29/08/2024 21:35 responding to an earlier post of mine on some people's need to demonstrate and proclaim and impose their beliefs on gender.

You aren't demanding that anybody else should believe in God and calling them bigots if they don't.
That signifies to me that your belief is heartfelt rather than performative. I do think that with both religious people and TRA who aggressively demand others must believe what they do, it's because their own belief is not heartfelt. Therefore they need others to validate their belief.

Heartfelt versus performative - not something I'd thought about before, but it makes a lot of sense to me. I'm having to rein in a temptation to start putting people into one or the other binary category.

What I'm trying to say is 'gender' is our tendency to think about our sex. Our relationship to our sex. It exists as an attitude or collection of impulses, I suppose a similar thing would be 'religious affiliation

Both 'gender' and 'religion' are man made concepts that many people do not believe in.

Yes. In the same way that 'atheist' is part of our relationship to 'religious affiliation', or 'no religion' comes under the same category as Sikh/Buddhist/Catholic etc.

Exactly, which is why I found the heartfelt versus performative distinction useful.

Most people with a belief system accept that it is just that, and don't insist that others must not simply share it, but also perform as though they too believed.

And we see societies that do insist on performance - the Taliban enforcing female invisibility and silence, 17th and 18th century fines for not attending the Established church, as oppressive.

But genderists are encouraged to impose their puritanical system on everyone.

"Because the right wing tend to be socially conservative. Conservatives tend to be traditional and that means traditional roles, they don't tend to believe in feminism. They are also more likely to be religious and therefore anti abortion and homophobic."

You're way off the mark here!
Socially conservative people in the U.K. do value the traditional family set-up but have no qualms or beef with LGB, other than being derisive of it being constantly waves in their faces in the name of progress flags and pushed in to schools at an entirely age-inappropriate way.
Regarding abortion rights ..? Not a single one of my Conservative friends won't respect the rights of women to choose. Are you conflating British conservatives with (actual) right-wing American politics?

I suspect some sneaky trolling happening here..

@DeanElderberry - and others obviously do not like what has been said by the women here (as further, very recent, deletions show)…

Hmmm, why was my last post deleted??

Pointing out the lack of compassion indicated by lack of engagement with a post should not be deletable @MNHQ

It certainly shouldn't. Your post got to the heart of the thing. Maybe that's what scared the objector. Maybe ask MN?

Indeed @DeanElderberry it also indicates that certain people are still lurking but choosing not to engage other than to report posts that they disagree with.

We are sharing responses, evidencing it by explaining our experiences, in good faith - inlcluding the tragic story of my friend’s daughter in response to a glib comment about it not mattering how I and my friend (the mum) feel because all that matters us ‘how does the young person feel?’ But no reaction other than to request my post is deleted.

@MNHQ Why?

I'm noticing a lot more of this.

I expect because arguing against GC viewpoints is too difficult. Reporting posts is the easy way out.

@MNHQ Can we ask that you're mindful of this. Posts should only be deleted for v good reason

I expect because arguing against GC viewpoints is too difficult. Reporting posts is the easy way out.

silencing the views you disagree with but can't argue against soothes the pain of the cognitive dissonance I expect

observation tells me that there are people who never ask themselves why they are behaving a certain way.

Agreed. See also the posters who try to deflect with 'there are much bigger issues'. There are many different approaches to silencing.

crikey, my pretty innocuous post above was deleted. it's surprising to see MNHQ colluding in what is effectively bullying of posters. they're normally a bit more sensible than that

Weekend moderation is often a little more ... um ... cautious

come and talk lurker. if your views are deeply held and well thought through you might change some minds

Exactly

I think we are forgetting the power of righteous thinking though. Of course you should be able to just get points that you don't agree with deleted. Why should anyone read filth and it certainly doesn't dignify an answer, let alone a supported one? (sarcasm by the way)

Some people seem to believe that just thinking righteous thoughts and repeating points they have been led to believe is the way of the future to be enough.

No debate wrt to MN is to have a post taken down.