Do you think the term "Gender Critical" is why some people won't engage?

[Brefugee]

What i mean is, "gender critical" must put the backs up of people who are on the fence or are already some level of TRA? Because it sounds "critical" and that has negative connotations.

Do you think that if we'd adopted the term "sex realist" it might have worked a bit more in our favour? Especially with people who don't spend any time at all in this "discussion"?

I was thinking about it while perusing this article

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/media/article/bbc-trans-ideology-childrens-programmes-chq292hfz

http://archive.today/iDMMq
(archive link)

Maybe the minions at the BBC would feel more able to engage in a proper discussion about all this if they didn't hear "gender critical" but "sex realist"?

I don't like the term "Gender Critical" but I don't like the term "Trans woman" either. I personally think it would be more helpful to say women's rights rather than trans issues and I wish we could move to language that was based in facts and all start calling men men.

Oh yes, i will always correct "Trans issues" to "women's rights issues" but i have started not agreeing that i am GC and say "sex realist" instead. It has lead to a few interesting discussions.

Yes I feel in terms of womens rights I'm not interested in gender (as I understand it) I'm only interested in biological reality. In regards to trans rights I don't care about men who want to pretend they are women I just want them to stay out of womens spaces.
They can sort the rest out themselves.

GC came about because the liberal feminists (remember them?) insisted that not including men wasnt feminist. So GC basical meant feminism that was focused on abolishing gender.

Its always been a bit clumsy, because a woman can be GC and socialist,or radical or whatever. Then it became wider as men got involved.

I dont think the term puts people off, though. Anything that prioritises women above men is seen as negative, whatever language is used.

I don't think it's the term gender critical that is putting people off engaging.

I think it's mostly fear.

I don't think most people would be put off but I think it depends on the person and what you mean by GC, the two terms are not interchangeable. I'm gender critical and quite happy to describe myself as such - I'm critical of the concept of gender, and the patriarchal stereotypes it enforces. I've noticed otoh that lots of 'sex realists' are more bio-essentialist in their reasoning or are simply not that bothered about the stereotypes and think many of them apply to one extent or another.

Just flinging this on here, as it’s relevant:

In general, all the language is incredibly confusing and usually becomes that when academics get involved. So yes, I imagine a lot of people are put off and many people don't understand it and I don't blame them.

I think gender is a load of rubbish so I think the term is appropriate. It doesn't apply to people like Matt Walsh but he thinks it does. That part is unhelpful.

Should add: some people don’t like “sex realist” because conservative groups present themselves as sex realist, but also believe that gender (as in, how you present yourself) is determined by your sex. GC people tend to think that gender - how you present - should be completely de-coupled from sex.

I think sex realist is a better term for the trans fight, because it describes the coalition better.

I don’t think Kathleen Stock is straightforwardly GC, for example. Helen Joyce, Julie Bindel, Mary Harrington, James Kirkup, JKR, Douglas Murray, etc probably all have quite different views on the nuance of gender but they all reach the same conclusion on trans and speak to different audiences.

It might put off people who don’t like to say sex though.

Sex realist is a terrible brand. Sounds like race realist, and you know what that means.

French feminists Marguerite Stern and Dora Moutot coined "femellistes" as in defending females. But " femelle" In French is almost exclusively used for animals (we don't say sports femelles as you would female sports for instance) and Stern went from full leftist (she was a Femen and even did jail time for feminist protests) to extremely right wing partially because she was bullied so badly for TRAs so... Not great either.

I'm not sure if it puts people off but a lot of people don't seem to understand what it means.

There's no widespread traction for GC ideology because their concerns have no meaningful effect on the overwhelming majority of people. 0.5% of the population's loo habits aren't anything to write home about hence their protests only manage a few hundred people to attend at best.

I think its actually because it wouldn't occur to the vast majority of the population that they needed to label themselves as something simply to carry on believing what almost everybody has believed for ever. Its a bit like asking why the round earth movement doesn't have much traction.

I think maybe from the 'PR' aspect, 'sex realist' might be marginally better (frighten a few less horses), but I can't see it's a massive factor. Not compared to, say, the BBC and most of the major news outlets in the UK not covering the issue fairly or accurately. Or at all.

But the context here is why the GC movement isn't growing & what's required is real world consequences that have a meaningful impact on peoples day to day lives like climate change, BLM, Palestine, Immigration & more recently No Kings.

But the GC movement is growing.

That most people would agree 'men can't be women' or prefer single sex spaces doesn't translate to either significant protest or electoral pressure to decide elections like the economy or immigration does. The masses just aren't fired up enough about gender 'ideology' because it doesn't affect them in their day to day lives.

The Trump campaign spent millions on attack adds on trans issues that had already received media saturation in the last few years & yet it didn't even rate on exit polls.

Things that have real world consequences for women and girls are often slow to gain traction, so if you're thinking of 'the GC movement' as a campaigning force for women's rights, its not that surprising. However that doesn't mean that people don't agree with the underlying beliefs that are labelled GC. They just wouldn't feel the need to label themselves, as its the default belief, with TI being opt in, not opt out.

Yep I agree that most people would agree with GC core beliefs but I don't think you can compare the slow traction to other women's rights causes because those had a substantially bigger consequences. Reproductive rights & anti discrimination in the workplace are hardly on par with trans women in private spaces in terms of real world impacts.

Night Shift, by the Commodores. What a great song.

And the other consideration for women who are interested in women's rights is the priority that GC concerns is given over others like dom/sexual violence, mental health, rising misogyny. Media space being finite hasn't been kind to these other more consequential causes as a result of its saturation re 'trans' panic which doesn't engender respect.

Redefining the word woman to include some men has a real world impact, as many distressed women have discovered. Men can fuck off deciding what’s a big enough issue.