Am I GC?

[GCornotGCthatisthequestion]

I have been looking into the trans issue for a few months now, looking at sources from both "sides" to try and understand the issues properly and form a view. I think I have come to a position that would get me called a terf in some spaces but also falls short of the view that most on on this forum hold. I would be interested to hear if you would consider me gender critical.

I don't believe that people can change sex, however, I do think that for some people, taking hormones and having surgery to resemble the opposite sex is the right thing for them.

I don't think that women should be forced to compete against transwomen in sports, particularly when prize money is involved or in sports like boxing where the risk of injury is high. I don't think it is reasonable to expect volunteer-run events like Park Run to be able to police whether or not someone who registers as a woman is a transwomen or not. While I understand the frustrations around women being beaten by transwomen in this race I can't see how they could stop this.

I have a close friend from childhood who identifies as non-binary, takes testosterone and has had their breasts removed. While I don't understand their decision I can see with my own eyes how much happier their life is now and I believe that this was the right decision for them. I care about them deeply and I am happy that they were able to make these changes and live a happier life.

I think children who have distress about their sex should receive exploratory therapy to try and understand what they are feeling and why. I don't think they should be given puberty blockers or any kind of hormone therapy until they are adults. I do, however, think most older teens have the capacity to decide how they dress and what name they want to be referred to as.

I will generally use the pronouns that someone asks me to about them. I don't look down on or sneer at people who add pronouns to email signatures. I don't agree with companies mandating that people have it add them.

I think people should be able to ask for a female doctor for intimate medical care and it mean biologically female rather than a transwoman.

I have felt uncomfortable with some of the content on this forum. The "tranvestigation" threads that seem to target black female athletes because they don't fit European standards of what a woman is meant to be. The overlooking of terrible behaviour from people because "at least they know what a woman is".

Would you say I was GC?

I can think of one thread (the woman was white, so "threads that seem to target black female athletes because they don't fit European standards of what a woman is meant to be" doesn't fit) who was female out of countless that were actually biological males.

It's been over two years now and they say it's the best thing they ever did and are clearly much happier.

I don't want this thread to be about them though it feels a bit disrespectful.

I've found many so called gender critical feminists to be the worst for gender stereotyping, particularly around men
Believing all men are violent, sexually inappropriate etc. And if you dare say not all men you get shouted down with 'you said NAMALT!'

It's what put me off it all to be honest

That sounds incredibly frustrating.

Well I think your views would certainly get you labelled as anti trans in some quarters. The opinion that “trans children” should be forced to endure conversion therapy ( any therapy that does not immediately affirm) rather than be given the “lifesaving” drugs and surgery they need would do it. Literal suicide.
Have you read the Cass report? It is quite clear that social transitioning is not a neutral act.
I still worry about children and young people caught up in this stuff. I do really worry that people like your friend will look back on the mastectomy as a a consequence of a period of mental Ill health which was indulged rather than treated, like giving mounjaro to people with anorexia. I do hope I’m wrong. I don’t know how long it is since your friend had surgery, maybe it will prove successful in the long term. I hope so.
I'm glad that you are reading and thinking about these issues. It’s difficult to remember but I think I used to believe there were good points made by both sides. Now I think that gender critical feminism is a fairly broad church, but trans rights advocacy is an orthodoxy, although there is some back tracking going on.Can you freely discuss these issues with your NB friend? Try saying that children should not be given puberty blockers, wrong sex hormones and surgery, go further and try saying that maybe people who have colluded in those processes should face criminal proceedings. Would it be possible to discuss that?

Here we go https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5021135-another-athletics-one

This thread was started about Devynne Charlton who is a 5 foot 3 woman.

I just posted a link

Have you read the Cass report? It is quite clear that social transitioning is not a neutral act.

I have read it. I guess my feeling on it is that if a 15 year old girl feels more comfortable in boys clothes then she should be allowed to wear them rather than being forced into frilly dresses. And loads of people are known by something other than their legal name.

saying that children should not be given puberty blockers, wrong sex hormones and surgery,

My friend doesn't advocate medical transition for children. They had years and years of therapy and were well into their 30s before they did anything like this. I think you are making assumptions on what they views are based on prejudice.

maybe people who have colluded in those processes should face criminal proceedings

I don't agree with this. I think most people are trying to do the right thing. They just have a different opinion on what the right thing is.

are you quite sure it wasn't about the male boxers competing against women in the Olympics? All about their being male, their race/colour was irrelevant.

I don't remember anyone complaining about, for instance, the athletic and wonderful and definitely black Simone Biles.

I've posted a link to the thread.

In loose terms you’re definitely on the GC side of the trans debate. I think that’s a pretty broad church, and should be. I doubt Helen Joyce and Julie Bindel agree on much in terms of general ideology. I think Kathleen Stock has quite nuanced views on gender that aren’t strictly ‘GC’. But they are very clearly allies, and see themselves as allies, in an important battle. I think lots of the views you have shared as ‘non-GC’ are common even on this board.

In strict terms, I don’t think you’ve said enough for us to know whether you are GC or not. That, to me, is about your beliefs about what gender is, how it forms, the role it plays in society, in a debate much wider than trans.

Your views pretty much align with mine OP. I probably am broadly gender critical but I don't use the term for myself as I don't think labels are very helpful.

One thing I'd query in what you said. I think there's a major difference between trans and gender non-conforming, though of course there's overlap.

When Cass says social transition isn't a neutral act, I think she's referring to the process of agreeing with a young person that they "are really" the opposite sex/gender, along with change of name, pronouns and presentation.

Whereas letting a boy wear a dress because he likes wearing dresses, whilst acknowledging he is still a boy, is not social transitioning (it's just breaking down gender stereotypes).

Fair enough, that was a fairly weird thread, through the vast majority of posters were pointing out that the woman athlete involved looked like a woman in every respect, and no-one mentioned western standards of beauty.

I guess my feeling on it is that if a 15 year old girl feels more comfortable in boys clothes then she should be allowed to wear them rather than being forced into frilly dresses.
I think this is being a bit ingenuous. I dont know any teenage girls who wear frilly dresses. My dd and all her friends wear sweatshirts and jeans 90% of the time. They are not transitioning, just wearing what they fancy.

I have read [Cass]. I guess my feeling on it is that if a 15 year old girl feels more comfortable in boys clothes then she should be allowed to wear them rather than being forced into frilly dresses.

This is a classic GC view, almost the paradigmatic one. It’s an interesting one, in that the debate about social transition leads some people (including me) to think that there’s a bigger danger here. Dress however you want as a general principle, but if that is part of a package of trans identity then that ideology carries a whole host of harms with it, and social transition in schools is a step we shouldn’t take lightly.

In some aspects (eg dress), opposing social transition of children is a deviation from GC principles that is justified by much more urgent and important considerations. The dress is not the main part though. It’s the pathway to surgery, and the expectations the children are given, and the impact on the rights of others that matters most.

I don't think it is reasonable to expect volunteer-run events like Park Run to be able to police whether or not someone who registers as a woman is a transwomen or not. While I understand the frustrations around women being beaten by transwomen in this race I can't see how they could stop this.

As far as grassroots events go they could very easily deal with the issue of men competing in female categories by making it clear that the events are segregated by sex. I imagine most men (including TW) would respect the rules (unless you are suggesting that TW are particularly prone to rule breaking).

As far as speculation over female athletes being male goes this is sadly a result of the trust going due to organisers allowing men to compete and then lying that they are “women with high testosterone”. It is frustrating that women are now suspicious of other women with masculine appearance and this doesn’t only happen to black women. Sharon Davies and Martina Navratilova have both been accused by trans activists of looking like men. The simple solution is to bring back sex testing and return to sex based categories across all of women’s sporting events. Once they do this the speculation will stop.

In my mind this GC label is not very helpful. It places mainstream, reality based views into a kind of silo - which can then be marginalised.

I sense you are trying to balance conflicting stances and in doing so trying to maintain some sort of equilibrium - but ultimately you cannot have it both ways.

Trans ideology is a totalising belief system. You have to be all in, or all out. You have to believe and accept that TWAW - without question. It is a kind of 'no questions asked', faith based system of belief, which requires you to suppress your natural instincts and recognitions.

There have always been ' transsexuals ' ( mainly men) who for one reason or other like/prefer/desire to present as women - but it is only in more recent times that there has been such an over-reach - that now everyone is expected to validate trans identified people's inner feelings about themselves - even at cost to themselves and to naming reality as it is.

I see transgender ideology as a contemporary fad - but one with a lot of big money support and lots of institutional capture. There will always be people who will feel ill at ease with themselves, for whatever reason, and trans ideology is just the latest in a list of solutions as to what to do about that. It presents a ready made framing device with which to understand personal distress - and it provides a clear pathway and a whole ideological belief system to accompany it.

Ultimately, trying to claim to be something you are not is not a healthy long term strategy ( especially for children) - and certainly not when you expect everyone else to conform and validate your desires and feelings - under pain of censure.

You have empathy and are rational so you won’t get anything positive out of the people on here!

No one on this forum has trans investigated black athletes on this board.

We are all very clear that caster et al are biologically male with a DSD called 46 XY 5-ard.

Yes I would say you are gender critical. You're probably just a few years behind some of us on this board but most of us started off with a be kind position like yours. Now your eyes are open your position is likely to harden as you become more and more aware of the toxicity of trans ideology.

That thread points out the absolute absurdity of where we're at now.
That a 5'3" woman with short hair can't win a race without people speculating whether or not she's "really" a woman.
The thread pretty much resolves on that exact point. People wouldn't need to speculate without being forced into it.

For you OP to turn this into a "women who ask questions are all big meanies" rather than look at the entire situation, that massive blokes are literally winning women's sports gold medals, and none of us can frankly believe it, so now we're suffering from huge insecurities and suspicion, is a huge failure of understanding on your part.

These problems/suspicions did not exist before huge hulking great big blokes started competing against women in our own sports.

Now that the likelihood of blokes entering women's sport is greatly reduced, we will see a greatly reduced number of speculative threads like this one.

I don’t think that’s quite fair.

It’s perfectly possible to believe that:

i) some people may benefit from medical transition, and there should be a pathway to that,
ii) there is also huge social contagion and misdiagnosis risk that is leading to widespread irreversible harms, and thus we should be much more cautious than we are now (at least pre Cass).

My guess is a pretty large number of people on here would agree with both of the above.

I posted a link to a thread that someone started accusing a 5 foot 3 black woman of being a man.

You're probably GC though yes because what you've put in your OP is completely normal thinking. GC people think like everyone else on the planet apart from extremists who believe it's possible to change sex.

Would you say I was GC?

Why does it matter? It's not a club. It's not a political party. It's not a hivemind. No-one is policing purity or consistency of thought and you don't have to tick it on a census form. Just carry being, thinking, asking questions and reading as you are doing.

Out of curiosity why didn't your NB friend just have one breast removed?