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"?

Going to get hated on here but I have no problem with trans people existing. Feels like we’re going back in time with so much hate towards trans people because a lot of the media drums up the hate towards trans people by solely publishing negative stories about them. Society used to largely hate on the gay community until they realised they were nothing to be afraid of.

I get the toilet debate, I’m happy to share toilets with trans women but fully get that other people aren’t so where it’s an issue we should look at something like having ‘men’s’, ‘women’s’, ‘disabled’ and ‘free for all’ toilets, like Primark who has the men’s, women’s and any fitting rooms. No drama needed. Also agree that trans women should be referred to as “trans women” if they have transitioned, doesn’t take anything away from me personally being a woman because ‘trans’ shows they were born male and have transitioned to female.

I just think it’s being blown out of proportion by a select few people in the trans community who are aggressive or forceful about certain issues. A trans woman I know goes out of her way to not use any public toilets because she doesn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable. She openly laughed with me and some peers when the NHS sent her a cervical screening letter because it was ridiculous and she is well aware that she was born a male. She doesn’t refer to herself as a woman, if ever explained her history she explains she was born male and transitioned. She’s literally just existing and minding her own business.

Also used to teach in school and we had a young girl who from about year 1 expressed that she’d like to be a boy. She insisted she was known by a nickname instead of her real name and would never wear skirts/feminine style clothes and had her hair cut short. She’s now much older and starting to transition but apparently is still happy to be referred to as ‘she’ as she is aware that she still looks female and that it will take people time to get used to. Another example of someone who is literally minding their own bloody business and who felt like something was different from them being young.

It’s all tiring because I’m so for women’s rights but the right wing press have riled everyone up to the point where women think all of their rights are being stolen. There are some ridiculous examples, don’t get me wrong, and I don’t think anyone should just be allowed to identify as a woman and therefore go in women’s spaces, but I’m not sure how we are supposed to police these things, other than single cubicles / changing spaces etc. Last year when it snowed badly whilst I was out I chucked some emergency clothes on that I keep in my car (jogging bottoms, old coat, beanie hat) and carried on my day. Nipped in to Tesco to the toilet and a woman stopped me and said do I know that this is the ladies! I said yes, I am a lady, I was born a lady, I’m just dressed for the bloody weather in some old clothes! Was I meant to drop my pants or show her my health records to prove it? Was bloody awkward but she seemed to sense by how shocked I was that I wasn’t lying

Don’t @ me for this, I literally have come across 2 trans people in my entire life, described above, and neither have impacted me either positively or negatively, they were just existing

"Men can fuck off deciding what’s a big enough issue."

And yet it's women more broadly who decide whether advocacy is worth their while which clearly it isn't in this case. Millions of women have been spear heading Climate change, reproductive rights, Palestine protests & nary a whisper for women's spaces. Face facts, its women who don't care.

I think IRL the majority of people have no idea what's going on and I envy them that, because I've butted heads with it at work.

If you think about what this was like in the past, it was fine though

Someone IRL said to me that her trans friends would support Darlington nurses but the whole thing has become so toxic they don't feel able to speak up about that either

I had a work colleague who spoke very vocally about supporting trans rights

Anyway, the first meeting she chaired that I was in, she misgendered someone (completely by accident). The person was absolutely fine about it as I knew they would be, but others in the meeting were bristling. It was only after that that she said to me that she was very confused.

I don't know for sure

But the impression I'm under is that most people don't know much about it.

Then I've run into situations where people simply would not believe that stuff like Darlington nurses was happening. I also had a friend say to me ages ago, that any confusion would be sorted out before the Olympics. Ha.

I talked about it initially, when the GRA became legislation - but I genuinely think people either had no idea what I was talking about or didn't understand the difference between different groups and the whole thing is just loaded with problematic language.

Once in the US, a coworker told me that I must put "cis" in front of any male or female descriptors.

I remember a guest on Triggernometry saying it was a very city centric thing as well.

if you hear the term "gender critical" with no context and no knowledge of the GRA or any other issues, you're understandably going to be baffled.

Then there's the forced teaming problem. A gay friend said to me that he was absolutely raging because he feels people see trans as a subset of gay.

So, plop the term "gender critical" into that and of course people are going to be confused, especially if they're not online much. And tbh that is a wise choice - being off-line.

They don't want to engage. Period. Doesn't matter how much you pretty up the language and make it sound 'kinder'. All they want is submission.

And given the aggression hurled at women, I don't give a shit if 'Gender Critical' irritates or causes 'hurty feels'.

Women don't care about TW in the ladies, yet care so much that women with short hair or a woolley hat are being challenged in there on the regular? Can both be true..?

Do the masses really care either way which is the point of this thread? No.

Don’t get me started on this. A neighbour of ours is a short woman with short hair and a stocky build. Brought up on a farm, very rough and ready type. Doesn’t dress feminine at all but was born a woman and is a woman. When I was fuming and ranting about being ‘challenged’ in the toilets that time I wore some old clothes, beanie hat and walking boots in the snow she told me it happens to her regularly. She was genuinely upset and just wanted to go about her business but because she looks different from the stereotypical woman she gets basically harassed any time she uses women’s spaces.

My mum also tells a good story of when a girl asked her out when she was 14 and at a school dance or party. She was wearing an outfit my grandmother had made for her and had short hair at the time. The girl mistook her for a boy. My poor grandmother was quite upset at the unintended dig at her outfit making skills (she was FAB at making stuff but apparently on this occasion misread the room re fashion!)

I like biological realist.

Sex realistic risks people changing sex to gender, because it's both a verb and noun and makes people feel icky. Which I believe is part of the reason we have got where we have.

In a highly polarized debate, any term used by either side is bound to acquire a negative connotation. I personally don't think that it's worth fighting over. It's worth noting that TRAs often prefer to call GCs: TERFs, FARTs, GERMs or or the belief - gender critical ideology. So, in general they feel the term has too positive a connotation.

Yes, I would agree with that. Many of those people are not gender critical in the sense of, they want to "abolish gender" or think that's even possible. They may think the TRA idea of innate gender is bollocks.

Sex realist is not bad. Maybe even biological realist?

I don't see any reason we need a word that somehow includes the goodies like Helen Joyce and excludes the baddies like Matt Walsh. One word for a common view that biology is real is fine.

I don't think gender critical really has scared people off though. Most don't know or use the term. Those that do are typically already invested in some way.

If you read any Times article on gender stuff, the comments are on one hand 99% supportive of the GC case or figure in the article, but so many of them weirdly bristle at the term gender critical, either just not understanding it, seeing it as an insult, or preferring "sex realist". I found that surprising coming from mainly reading twitter, where almost everyone seemed to know what GC meant.

With the law as it stands, as confirmed by the SC, a position of neutrality from 'the masses' is a positive for the GC movement, as it means there will be no widespread challenge to the status quo. Perhaps if it had gone the other way more people may have felt compelled to nail their colours to the mast.

I don't think it matters at all. Look back at how Gender Identitarians have treated anyone who offered them the tiniest but of pushback under any name on any grounds.

Sure, that's true, but that doesn't mean it isn't growing. It just means it hasn't grown to the level of being a major electoral concern yet.

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

Yes.

It is unintelligible to the uninformed
man or woman in the street, based as it is on academic feminist ideas about being against stereotypes of gender rather than about ordinary people’s intuitive reactions to those pretending to be the opposite sex, expecting everyone to believe they really have changed to the opposite sex, and that they must be treated in every way as though they actually are the opposite sex.

A particular problem is that most people now think ‘gender’ means what sex someone is. As for ‘Gender critical’ anyone would think what on earth is that? What are you criticising?

A few more people may understand what GC means than used to because of recent increased mention of it in the media though.

It would probably be difficult to change to another phrase.

I forgot to mention this in my post, and it's the most important point: gender critical belief is now a protected belief in UK law; if you call you're own particular belief something else and are legally challenged you must either show that it's equivalence to GC or that it can stand on its own, which, as the Forstater case showed, can incur considerable time and expense.

So, there's some value in simply adopting the usage, even if you you find the semantic fit imperfect, awkward or imprecise.

An outdated take. Women, like all polled groups, are becoming significantly more opposed to the replacement of sex-based rights with gender claims.

“No debate” was a canny strategy. The more the public see and learn about the cause the less they like it.

Like earlier causes that snuck under the gay rights umbrella, I suspect TRAism will end up utterly discredited because the arguments don’t stand up and because the harms will become too glaring to ignore.

Same with the Daily Mail - a recent article about JKR had overwhelmingly supportive comments. So the argument that ‘people don’t get it’ is incorrect.

Even idiots know that you can’t change sex. And that men who dress as women and want to be in women’s spaces are not doing so for wholesome reasons that are right for the common good.

The main problem is the ‘right on’ EDI wallers that go on some fucking gingerbread course and then think they’re going to be the social justice warriors for pronouns and gender neutral everything and here we are. Women having to put up with the shit in offices, businesses and institutions across the land and no one cares less. The EDI dickheads just double down and become even more insufferable.

The Supreme Court Judgement was helpful. I don’t think that would’ve made as many main headlines if the GC stance wasn’t pretty widely known by now. And to me, it doesn’t matter that people don’t realise it’s a GC stance. The fact that they hold it is enough.

What earlier causes slipped in with gay rights@GenderRealistBloke?

I’m not sure GC fits me exactly but I do use it on here as it’s familiar and I’m certainly in that area. If it comes up outside here I just tend to refer to myself as a gender extremist, because I think I’m an outlier in what I believe, though not my policy prescription, and I’m trying to say to people that they don’t have to think I’m in the mainstream as I know I’m not.

It ended Nicola Sturgeon’s premiership. It’s tied up the Green Party in litigation for years. It’s at least partly behind Reform’s rise and it’s currently material in the Labour deputy election.

The sexism is so ingrained that it doesn't matter what words you use to point it out - there will always be some people who refuse to see it.

I see once again the laughable claim that "redefining man and woman into something no-one is honest enough to delineate only affects 0.5% of the population" is being trotted out. I'm starting to wonder if people actually believe it rather than just pretend to to fill up MN pages?

I prefer "gender-critical" as you would hope in your averagely intelligent person it might prompt some contemplation on the nature, purpose and harms of "gender".

"Sex realist" sounds like more of a direct response to the notion that "people can change sex" but not much wider than that, and I'd agree it runs the risk of people thinking it's saying that 'female people are like this, male people are like that", which is basically the gender position.

I was thinking mainly of the paedophile-rights movement of the 1970s, which tried semi-successfully to align itself with the gay rights movement and was for a while shockingly accepted by progressive groups and thinkers (PIE’s affiliation with the NCCL, for example, advocacy by major queer theorists like Foucault, and gay rights advocates like Tatchell).

Won't get fooled again! 🎵

Err they weren't exactly nailing their colours to the mast from when the Equality Act came in from 2010 till the recent 'interpretation'. But businesses do see to be making a bit of noise 'suddenly'.