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"?

thats not when the term came about; that’s when it became more widely known and a particular result of this belief became part of our laws.

Ive not RTFT but hopefully it’s been explained already that the term precedes and is independent of concerns about transgenderism.
It is exactly what it says - being critical of gender, of the cultural constrains of gendered roles and stereotypes imposed on both sexes. We’ve been using this term on FWR way before we got overwhelmed by having to deal with issues around the loss of women’s rights caused by transactivism. It’s the philosophy behind ‘let toys be toys’ - born on a Mumsnet thread.

Its because many feminists could clearly understand the problems gender imposes particularly on women that we could see what was happening as transactivism gained traction and affected women’s rights.

At this point unfortunately the phrase has become so misunderstood (even on FWR!) and grossly misinterpreted as being ‘anti trans people’ that it may be best avoided. I fear any convenient label is liable to be distorted though. So you’re right - best avoid these labels.

GC views - being critical of gender roles and stereotypes - are absolutely congruent with true EDI. One of the biggest needs for increased equality and diversity in many sectors is still simply sex! The American right wing is generally not gender critical at all, the likes of JD Vance aren’t in the least critical of the imposition of gender roles. The ‘right’ not embraced to GC position, it may have stolen the term or had it misapplied by those who want to discredit the real gc position.

And it is more than 50%: it is also all the children being harmed, which includes boys.

@BlossomingSlowly No one objects to trans-identifying people's right to exist, for heaven's sake. Such hyperbole. We object to male people being where only women should be.

That includes women's sport, women's competitions and awards, women only shortlists, women's changing facilities, rape crisis centres, prisons, shelters, and yes, toilets in the workplace.

It's not about individuals being nice or not nice, it's about policy and the law affecting every single woman whether she's interested in it or not.

I don't think the 26 Darlington nurses signing the letter objecting to a man getting changed in their workplace expected to be battling for women's rights when they started work there.

I probably won't express this very well but I feel that this whole issue needs to change sides. The narrative needs to stop being about the "poor trans women who just want to exist" and move to the rights, privacy, safety and dignity of women and girls. That means the right to say no to men.

I'm also getting fed up with the "why can't we just be kind, middle ground, third spaces" arguments. There is no middle ground you either let men into womens single sex spaces or you don't. It is not womens job to find solutions for men. If biological men feel that they can't use spaces designated for biological men then that is entirely their problem to solve.

You’ve expressed it very well.

I don't disagree. However that doesn't mean that people who want to explore or involve themselves further with GC ideas don't encounter other ideas they are extremely uncomfortable with, seemingly sitting alongside them. My point I suppose is to lament that the left has embraced TI under the umbrella of its traditional support of the marginalised. Leaving left wing GC people like myself in the odd position of being called both a bigot and woke at the same time.
The question was about why G criticalism may not be garnering the expected support and my point was the percieved alignment with right wing politics is potentially alienating.

I also think there can be a reluctance to meet potential supporters where they are rather than where its thought they should be. Much support from women for TI comes from 'be kind'. Rather than attempting to undo life long socialisation of women to be kind when it comes to this issue, I think it could be more effective to acknowledge that some women need to find a way to support women's rights that doesn't feel 'unkind', or right wing, or whatever the source of alienation is.

Sturgeon resigned under a cloud of fraud association, she wasn't voted out. And reform is self evidently riding purely on immigration.

This is particularly silly. The point you are spectacularly missing is the 50% rarely come into contact with the 0.5% because ….they are only 0.5%…

Yup, & that's why the 100 days protest only had a few hundred protesters…

Link please as exit polls say otherwise.

Women come into contact with men every day.

And noone is suggesting men be given access to private spaces rather a continuation of trans women: 0.5% that wasn't an issue for over a decade.

I suppose I would call myself a gender-critical feminist as a shorthand for my position, but only because ‘feminist’ has had its meaning muddied by so-called liberal feminists. I would argue that they aren’t feminists at all and I look forward to the day that feminist and feminism get their true meaning back. I would look forward to the day that the need for feminism becomes obsolete, but that’s too depressing.

The first time I saw the phrase I found it confusing and thought it mean people who thought gender, rather than sex, was critical. And so that it was supportive of gender being paramount (and the trans ideology that flows from that), rather than sex-based rights.

Which I now obviously understand is the opposite of the intended meaning!

it has been and issue for that long. The fact women’s concerns have been routinely ingnored and dismissed before becoming vilified and penalised before the legal system started to reassert women’s rights is part of the problem.
The fact women’s rights have never been an issue for you doesn’t mean they haven’t always been an issue for many women.

If there was any broad grass roots interest, there would be large scale protests. There simply isn't any noise other than from a small but loud organised group backed by a billionaire, far right interests & media clicks. You just have to watch any of their protests & compare them to others to understand this.

Predatory entitled men (frock or no frock) have always been an issue.

Clearly not given the disinterest by the broader population to take to the streets & it's not as if we haven't been under media siege over the last few years with this thing. It's all you bloody hear about. No wonder people are over it.

SHOW ME THE PROTESTS!

You're denying that predatory men haven't been abusing, raping and murdering women and children since day dot?

Most people, when they became aware of it, were horrified at the idea that isla bryson should be in a womens prison, and the inability of politicians to call him a man.

Its being made aware of it thats the issue. I'm sure that part of the reason bryson made the news was that it made the SNP leadership look bonkers - there was a political reason for the publicity. Which indicates that there is skepticism to trans ideology within politics and the media and they know public attitudes.

Its ridiculous to measure public feelings by the number of placards, its not what the majority of people do. But it is telling how the media do suppress news items about trans issues. If the public were behind TWAW why are the bbc reporting male perpetrators of crime as women? Why is the reporting TW in a puff piece, but women when they rape?

And lots of trans allies are very quiet about isla bryson, which indicates they arent totally on board.

If TW arent women all of the time, is trans ideology really supported by anyone?

I would argue that trans people are mistaking politeness, and a comfort with gender non conformity with support of their ideology.

The side with rationality and legality on its side is protesting vi the courts rather than street demos. Those, of course, are more likely to be undertaken by some demographics than others.

‘Inclusive’ services allow anyone including any man to use any facility according to their preference. There is no distinction between trans and not trans because that would involve questioning gender identity.

You can argue for or against mixed sex services, but gender is a subjective and fluid concept.

I always have to laugh at How's talk of numbers at protests. It really is a mystery why women, with full time jobs, caring responsibilities, children to take to clubs and groups of a Saturday etc etc would find it more difficult to be able to attend (often mid week) protests than the typical trans right activist.

A mystery, I tell you!

Lol, women don't mass protest? 😂
You can always rely on historical illiteracy in these parts…

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_led_uprisings#20th_century