GC Twitter/X

[Brainworm]

My Twitter feed has changed a lot over recent months, and I am finding it less and less engaging.

I follow an eclectic range of posters, linked to my job, hobbies, interests and politics.

My feed used to mostly comprise of GC posters who provided links to the GC content on other platforms and to what others were doing or saying to support or challenge single sex provision.

I rarely see any GC content on my feed now, and the same goes for a couple of other areas of interest. Some, areas haven't changed much though.

I'm guessing this is to do with posters leaving X, or using it less. I just have a niggling doubt that it could be to do with an algorithm change.

Have any of you who use X noticed anything similar?

My twitter feed is mainly GC and I think I've been shadow banned. I do get weird stuff on my feed which is of no interest to me.

Just seems to be a lot less GC stuff going on over there lately, even my 'Following' tab which is mainly GC accounts has been pretty uninspiring lately.

So it's not just me/ my feed.

I guess people are leaving/ using the platform less.

I think it’s algorithms. I’m definitely seeing a lot less Gc now

Yes the same for me. 90% of what's in my feed is weird pointless videos of people doing things like falling over in supermarket car parks (at best), and conspiracy theorist posts - it can be very confusing. I still see a few things related to my interests, but a lot have disappeared.

Re GC stuff, I used to get more interesting, intellectual discussions and meaningful thoughts and people making rational arguments. Now it's more GC people fighting with each other, and some content that actually, I think is bullying and mocking trans-IDing people and I don't like it. (And it's not even accounts I follow, it just shows up.) IMO gender ideology is bad, the legal changes are bad, the effects on women are bad, but you don't know what's going on for an individual and many, many people caught up in this have MH problems, autism etc and could be struggling. So no I'm not keen any more. I think I just keep having a look in the hope of seeing things I do like, but it's all a bit grim now and I need to stop.

I think August can always be a different month due to school holidays. I think a lot of things were quiet but it is picking up

Probably it’s not, but have you checked whether it’s flipped from “Following” to “For you”?

Periodically mine switches and I have to switch it back as it starts showing me things I’m not interested in.

Check your favourite accounts and see if you’re being served up all their content. I only follow GC / TRAs so there’s no other topic to contaminate my feed. I definitely don’t get all JKR’s content, nor all Maya Forstater, for example. I have to check separately to make sure I’ve not missed anything. Interestingly I think I see all KJK’s content. No idea what the algorithm is doing.

I created a Twitter/X list to gather GC twitter accounts in one place without all the other rubbish the algorithm farts at you. I still find a lot of interesting posts and can keep up with the big name GC accounts.

Yep, I do the same. Well actually it's two different lists, one for big names and journos, and one for smaller GC accounts that I've found interesting on a regular basis. If I'm really busy I'll get the headlines from the big name list, and if I've got more time I'll pick up on stuff I may have missed from the other accounts. I hate relying on the algorithm to decide what's important to me.

As I heard it the algorithms have changed to show people more diverse content. I know people who are Twitter users who used it to follow hobby, sport or work related content who have all been complaining about it recently. Some people are saying it is just completely broken now.

All social media seems to be getting more and more strangled by adverts and shitty algorithms, and more and more people seem to be abandoning it. Increasingly I just don't bother.

Now it's more GC people fighting with each other, and some content that actually, I think is bullying and mocking trans-IDing people and I don't like it.

I left twitter a month or so after Musk took over because it was already getting so bad, and the posts on this thread make me glad I left, as I can see that the algorithms fuckery has continued to make things worse and worse.
But I'd like to mention that on MN too I have recently begun to see a trend towards "more GC people fighting with each other, and some content that actually, I think is bullying and mocking trans-IDing people" in amongst the other thoughtful and constructive GC content.
I suspect it is simply an import of the horrible polarising, debasing effects of Twitter discourse (plus the sheer destructive baffled fury that the whole trans discourse creates for women). But I find it really distressing to see such an important sex realist viewpoint tainted and undermined by these strands of complacent hostility. I feel like calling it out more often when I see it, as I don't want to see GC discourse laying itself open to the "both sides" deflection that politicians et al use to avoid being honest about trans activism

Ah, back in the day when all feminists were only ever nice and agreeable and supported each other. 😄

Unfortunately it's not just feminists disagreeing with each other anymore, it’s primarily gender critical women and men viciously attacking each other.

ReadWithScepticism it's one reason I'm glad I'm not a "joiner", I don't comment on GC matters on twitter and I follow a wide range of people. My opposition to gender ideology is based in science and logical reasoning, not being on a team or a side so I'm relieved I haven't ever "sided" with anyone. But the twitter fights and insults are depressing. I don't care if someone is an academic or not, entertains male GC viewpoints or not, interacts with TW or not, I don't even care if they are right-wing or not, or if they support abortion or not - people are entitled to have views I don't share. Gender ideology is wrong because it's factually incorrect and morally harmful, not because it's aligned with something or other or someone I don't agree with has a view on it.

However, luckily I do believe reality doesn't need a cohesive defence. Whether the GC movement falls apart or not, reality has a way of persisting and so I do think the ideology is doomed to be a historical blip that will horrify future generations.

All of that.

“The ideology is doomed to be a historical blip that will horrify future generations.”

I’d like to share your optimism, but I fear reality has been outlawed in many countries: Canada, Australia, Spain. In the U.K. we have had the GRA for 20 years and the PC of GR in the EQA for 14 years - none of these things are going away anytime soon. The TRAs have been very organised and clever: once things are in law it’s near-on impossible to repeal; and they’ve managed to change the culture in the NHS, Civil Service, academia and in so many other areas so that the people in charge are True Believers. With Labour in charge I think things may well get worse from a legislative point of view. With TRAs leading the Women & Equalities Committee and they’ve already said they don’t want to clarify the EQA in favour of biological sex, then the various GC political influencers have a real fight on their hands.

I do think things will get worse in the short term, and the current situation is horrifying and maddeningly kafkaesque. I'm just mindblown by things like rapists in women's prisons and men in women's sports. HOW anyone can defend it - the levels of delusion are spectacular. But i also think the whole thing is a weird mirage – no one really believes people change sex. It's being held up by people who think they have to say it and enact it to be a good person, people who are scared for their jobs and safety, people who have dodgy vested interests, and people who are desperate to be special. IME public opinion and what is seen as cool and progressive can change quickly, and I expect that change to come because so many people are getting so pissed off and upset by the absolutely ridiculous and damaging ramifications of GI in so many directions. Sports, children's health, women's privacy and safety, lesbians' freedoms, workplace DEI and school curriculums being taken over by unevidenced drivel that's forced down people's throats. I think as soon as there comes a tipping point where it's seen as fully acceptable to object to it, it will collapse - but I agree it's definitely deeply embedded and not about to happen tomorrow.

It's not optimism really, more long experience of watching trends and delusions and moral panics come and go. Reality reasserts itself, extremes tend to regulate themselves back towards the centre. But I could be wrong and I worry about that. That this is the key to rolling back women's rights and progress and we're entering the dark ages again.

I'm moving off x to BlueSky and a lot of my work community (academia) are heading that way too. Not much GC on there, but it is definitely a more human and interesting place to be.

Yes. This!
The polarisation/politicisation is the veil that obstructs.

With all the 1 step forwards, 2 steps back nature of any shift back to reality, I find it hard to have faith that I'll see it in my lifetime.

When it does though, I expect it will end not with a bang, but a whimper