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?

"Transvestigations" is a silly TRA term. As pp said, the only reason people are questioning is because we're being told actual men are women.

That thread was misconceived because a) Devynne doesn't look masculine and b) transinvestigation of sportswomen is pointless. When males with DSDs are allowed to compete as women, their medical information is kept confidential and rightly so.

If the information is revealed (Semenya, whose testicles 'don't make me any less of a woman': Khelif's trainer telling a magazine that Khelif had failed a chromosome test and produces, and is sensitive to, very high levels of T) then they are fair game.

Their race is irrelevant. They look male because they are male, not because they are POC. TRAs accusing us of being racist are being opportunistic (because it just so happens that many of the affected competitors are Black) and also racist. Because it's the TRAs who are implying that Black women look like men, not us!

@GCornotGCthatisthequestion I think this aspect of your OP touched a nerve because we felt attacked. The rest was about your views about gender ideology, but that paragraph was about what you believe about GC people: you believe we are racists who think that Black women are ugly and look like men. I hope we've persuaded you that's not true.

To answer your original question yes you are GC. There is no full list of what it is to be one as it's not set in stone.

As regards your friend, clearly there is a mental health issue there and if they are now happy that's great. But I'd have to question how long the drugs are going to keep them in a state of euphoria. It's a pretty drastic step to cut off your breasts and she may regret it if she wishes to breast feed.

On the non binary, what does that actually mean to you? And I'm unsure why one has to cut off one's breasts to become non binary?

I am finding the OP's question a bit odd TBH. "Am I GC?" reads like those old personality quizzes in Jackie like "Am I a good friend?" or "What buttterfly would you be?"

If you have thought through what you think and why you think it, poked at it from different perspectives, tried to find flaws in your thinking, thought through what it might mean for others good and bad, and still feel your conclusions are the only ones that make sense, you don't need to label them.

You might find that what you believe and think is important has a label and that is useful as a handy shorthand, but it's more like something you recognise as a match not something you ask others whether you qualify.

"Is this a GC position?" maybe makes sense to ask, but "Am I GC?" like it's something about the OP herself rather than something she thinks - I dunno, it's just an unusual way to think about it. It seems more like how some of the trans activists who post here think of it when they talk about "the GCs" - that GC is something people are rather than something people think.

I hope the OP comes back and addresses some of the posts.

I personally find the term GC a bit unhelpful. I'd say I'm more a sex realist.

In that I'm not 'critical' about gender, I just don't think it's of any relevance to anyone but the person in question.

Express your gender how you want, give it whatever name you want, knock yourself out. But when it comes to how other people interact with you, it'll have very little relevance, whereas sex will be the important factor.

The idea of 'gender' usurping sex when it comes to things like prisons and rape crisis counselling is just so nonsensical, stupid and harmful - even now I don't have the words to express my frustration.

Lots and lots of replies here. I'm up against it et work today but will respond properly this evening.

Thank you to those who engaged with my initial question.

Yes, I think a lot of people prefer either sex realist or biological realist, especially as TERF and GC are used very, very negatively by some people.

I look forward to reading your thoughts later CGornot. 🙂

@TheKeatingFive I'm very critical of gender. I see gender as a foundation of the sexist framework of patriarchy. I think it's bad for everyone and I'm critical of it whether it pops up as transgender or tradgender.

Trans identities, trad wives, Andrew Tate, domestic abuse of women by men (financial, physical, coercive, sexual) - to me these are all leaves on the same tree.

I also think many people who identify as trans are trying to express a genuine feeling of disconnect with who they believe society says they should be but have got themselves trapped by thinking the thing they need to do to escape it is be the opposite gender or a mix of bits from each gender instead of stepping outside the fake gender framework entirely.

(Not the fetishists and predators who find it arousing or convenient, but people, especially young people who necessarily have to base their understanding of the world on very little real life experience of people and what people are really like. )

Entirely fair enough, I totally see that.

I guess my position is slightly different in that I feel that gender stereotypes will always be with us, but the key is to downplay how seriously we take them.

There are behaviours that tend to be more prevalent among females/among males - I see that personally from my own experience of the world and that in itself is not an issue (in my eyes).

The problematic bit is when we start to say that these behaviours make you male / female. Or, because of these behaviours, that gives society permission to treat you in a specific way. That's the line.

Being male/female comes down to sex. There is no right or wrong way to be male or female, though some behaviours are more prevalent than others. I feel like this is where we had landed in the 2000s and it all went downhill from there.

I agree.

Hi @GCornotGCthatisthequestion thanks for your question, I'm glad some people have responded in good faith and answered sensibly. I don't often post on this board but do try to check in on what is being discussed a few times a week (and then get annoyed by the old timers insisting on calling it 'FWR', which feels exclusionary for those who weren't around when it was called that).

I think the responses you had, that were insisting on challenging you, tells me why I don't often post on this board - why can't we all be helpful and supportive, and open to welcoming new posters, and happy to explain things? I'm sorry you had responses like that.

Re your question, I'd say you are GC. I'm probably with you on most of what you said. It also sounds like you have been really thinking and reading about it. I think saying 'GC' means not believing in gender stereotypes is true, but it's now mostly used to describe those who care about single sex spaces, protecting biological women's rights, that sex matters, and that gender and gender identity are most definitely not the same as sex. For some GC people (and I include men I know in that, not just women), they'd argue that 'gender identity' does not exist. I do care about parkrun though!

SO I am back. There seems to have been a bit of strawmanniing here
Oh! So suddenly a concern for defining women as adult human female (other orders of nouns are available) becomes a racist trope?

Now you're saying that you being uncomfortable is the main issue.

I didn't say either of these things

the OP feels the need to point to something that makes us the 'baddies', that she can distance herself from to maintain the moral high ground.

I was talking about my own experience and what I felt. Believe it or not, people of colour don't tend to bring up racism because they want white people to be baddies. It actually isn't about you at all.

But you can't even give us an example of a thread about a black woman that fits what you're talking about 🫠🫠🫠

Which ones? You need to say who or give a link to the thread so we know who or what you mean.
(I mean 'must' but was overcome by the gender stereotype that women should not demand anything! Lol)

I did post it so not sure where these comments come from. The use of LOL and emojis tells me all I need to know about these posters ...

Going back to racism, the biggest example of racism that I have seen in this debate is from the TRA side. IW is an example of someone who has used the horrific argument that "if black women are women, then trans women are women." It has been discussed and condemned on this forum with various screenshots if the OP wants to read further.

This is definitely racism but I am not sure what that has to do with what I said.

Now to respond to posts that are engaging with what I actually said!

Thanks for this :-)

I think my view is that some people feel happier and better altering their body so it looks like the opposite sex. I don't think anyone is a "boy trapped in a girls body" but I think there exists boys who have a strong need to change their body that of a girls in order to live a functional happy life (and vice versa).

I think you are overthinking this a bit. I accept that "Is this a GC position?" would have been a better way of wording it but this is post on a forum not formal writing.

People use the phrase "I am staunchly GC" on here quite a bit - should they be saying "my position is stauchly GC" or "I align with the GC ideology", maybe, but we all know what they mean.

what you believe about GC people: you believe we are racists who think that Black women are ugly and look like men.

Another poster claiming I have said things that I haven't ....

The idea of 'gender' usurping sex when it comes to things like prisons and rape crisis counselling is just so nonsensical, stupid and harmful

I totally agree with this.

Did your friend have counselling to get to the root of why she wanted to go through the risks of surgery in order to fulfil an idea in her head about what being “non-binary” is?

Years and years of of therapy.

I wonder where the idea came from that non-binary = no breasts.
I don't think my friend thinks that. I think they made a decision to alter their own body.

What you said was 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.

I had hoped to convince you that those athletes become the focus of attention because they are male, and not because they are black, but clearly did not succeed. Probably nothing much rests on it, except you need to know that the origin of this particular sleight of hand is the TRAs.

(Actually, my transwoman friend seems to genuinely believe I've got it in for Khelif because she looks unwomanly and not because she's karyotypically and gonadally male. So they've really convinced themselves that having ovaries is just some kind of culturally contingent gender norm 🙄)

The thread I linked wasn't talking about Khelif. It was about a "cis" woman.

Yes, we all agreed that thread was misconceived. But it's an interesting read even so, because it covers a lot of this ground.

Ok, that makes sense. I guess for me there's a difference between "I am X..." - "I've recognised that the way I think aligns with the GC position" and "Am I X?" which to me reads more like "I would like the offical GC gatekeepers to approve my application", or possibly "I want the GC gatekeepers to tell me I'm not GC because that will highlight that a reaonable position like mine is not GC".

Point being of course that there aren't any GC gatekeepers. Despite TRAs efforts to portray GC feminism as some sort of "movement" with leaders and funding, in reality it's just a bunch of mostly women but now more and more men as well going "hang on, what?" But it suits TRAs to pretend otherwise so they often come on here demanding to know "what the GCs think about X" or "why do GCs say Y".

I do over think things, but there is a good reason for that.

On this topic especially, women have lost a lot because lawmakers and policy makers nodded through things that had a veneer of reasonableness without thinking deeply about what was actually being said/asked/implied and in particular whether any reasonable limits were ever actually said out loud, or something they just assumed.

And women have lost a lot because of slippery language that changes what words mean, sometimes in the same sentence. (Canonical example "Trans women are Women [if we define "woman" to mean something that it never did before] and therefore have a right to be in Women's spaces [now we'll go back to the old meaning and hope you don't notice that if we've changed the meaning of Woman, it's not got any legitimate connection to the sense under which is was used for "Women's spaces"].

And women have lost a lot because of tricks like equating trans identities with sexuality or race for no other reason than one can use the word "trans" in the same linguistic structure as "gay" or "black" to put someone in the position of having to defend something that "sounds like" racism or homophobia even though one has never explictly made any case why a person being the opposite sex to the one a person wants to be (or want people to treat you as) somehow means that person actually is a marginalised member of that sex.

I was talking about my own experience and what I felt. Believe it or not, people of colour don't tend to bring up racism because they want white people to be baddies. It actually isn't about you at all.

You haven't understood the point of that comment at all. You felt the need to distance yourself from the views on this board before you presented your opinions, and women on FWR (apologies to those offended) have seen it happen many times. The poster wasn't bringing anyone's race into it. They were saying how you personally came across based on other experiences they'd had. They were generalising and applying it to you, but no more than you were about GC women in your OP.

Just so everyone can see what is being referred to:

"It feels like a familiar tactic to me.
Despite actually agreeing with the principle points made here, the OP feels the need to point to something that makes us the 'baddies', that she can distance herself from to maintain the moral high ground.
It's a way of dealing with the intense cognitive dissonance that people feel as the scales fall from their eyes on this issue. I've seen it played out numerous times (often it's about criticising our tone)."

This is the comment. It's about the OP. It's very perceptive about the general dynamics often seen here. It's not about anyone's race. It's being applied to you on a personal level because that's how the person perceived it. They may well be mistaken in thinking it applies to you. Just like we all are from time to time. It's just an observation, like your ones about this board.