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"?

No, there is no hierarchy when it comes to PCs. I'm not sure who you're referring to as 'progressives' as it's another one of those terms used as a pejorative like 'woke', so has been rendered meaningless, so I'm unsure what if any hierarchies of oppression you think they have created and who is placed where.
Where the rights of two groups conflict, typically support is divided with people holding their own views on who should be prioritised. Which I suppose to an extent is what's happened in this debate.

If you're going to play the "I simply don't know what that word means" game, don't bother responding.

I think people don’t engage because the manufactured outrage about tiny things that don’t matter detract from the meat and bones of the issue. Most people really can’t get mad about one National Trust property offering tampons in male loos, or one NHS trust talking about chest feeding. They’re thinking about paying the bills and whether their kids will be able to get a good start in this economy. It al just looks like people looking for things to get cross about.

The name isn’t the problem. The general unfiltered fury is.

It's not incomprehensible from the point of view of the left wing principle of self determination. The legitimacy of feminism & other civil rights causes were underpinned by the shared human necessity for individual autonomy. Feminists can hardly demand for themselves what they deny others & be taken seriously. The principle itself relies on consistency.

GC feminists playing footsie with the far right for the trade off of a niche issue ought take note out of the fate of pro Israel Jews who did the same in terms of support of the Far Right in the US only now to be turned on as the enemy. One only look at the ascendance of Nick Fuentes/white nationalism/anti semitism/anti woman AKA 'America First' to understand the scorpion has had the frog once again.

And why would The Right protect their traditional enemies (minorities & women) if they didn't have to? It goes against the very heart of their beliefs…supremacy.

No games here. You quoted me, choosing to seize the opportunity to argue against my other political views, rather than engage with my point, which was that imo the division between the left and the right was a problem for some left wing people when it comes to joining the GC movement.
You have rather proved my point, because here we are with you trying to tell me I'm wrong about an area on which we differ, rather than focusing on the thing we (presumably) have in common.
I've engaged with you in good faith, and when I say I don't understand what YOU mean by the term 'progressives' because the meaning tends to vary with the users views, I mean it.
I know what I mean by it, but if you want my view you need to tell me what you mean. Because I suspect to you it's some stereotype of a naive, privileged, idealist protesting about Palestine with blue hair and rainbows?
While to me it's people like my grandad, a miner, who fought to 'progress' towards a new order whereby wealth and power wasn't concentrated in the hands of the few.

I think one of the reasons it doesn't come up that much is that, broadly speaking, even those that have earnestly been to the training sessions and put their pronouns in their emails, still mean "female people" when they say "women", and haven't actually totally realigned their thinking and language so that "woman" genuinely means, to them, "male or female person who is like X collection of character traits or presentation".

The GC position is a very clear one - Sex is real and unchanging and sometimes that matters - whereas the GI position is an incoherent mess that if you follow the threads ends up as horrifyingly regressive and homophobic, yet people have trouble following the threads and assume it's just about pretending in order to be nice to people. So it's totally understandable that "what's the big deal, no-one's saying anything that bad" is a knee-jerk response.

I actually don't feel that individual autonomy is the guiding principle of the left. Because the autonomy of individuals can and does clash with the greater good so can only be allowed to go so far lest it contribute to the very issues we would hope to address.
This debate being a perfect example. A tiny percentage of people wishing to dispense with sex based rights in the interests of their self determination is not good for society as a whole.
Had the debate been couched in terms of this tiny percentage of men's rights to do what they like at the expense of large numbers of women, I doubt it would have gained as much traction.
The support has come from lumping this tiny percentage of men in with women, and arguing that our and their interests align against the patriarchy.
Which I can see has a logic if you can get people to suspend their disbelief and accept some men are actually women. It's the buy in to the latter that I find incomprehensible. However if people do buy in, then the rest of what you say makes sense.

Most people aren't political, so dont put a name to their views. They dont call themselves GC but know izzard is a man in the same way they dont want the green space around them built on but dont call themselves an environmentalist.

People dont want a label because they dont want that to define them and have the discussion all of the time. They will sit quietly through the training at the same time as not supporting it. Activists assume that silence is support.

As others have said, the genderist argument is incoherent, therefore lots of people assume its never going to take hold, and are waiting for the trend to die out.

Unsurprisingly, that poster just had to bring Jews into it.

"I actually don't feel that individual autonomy is the guiding principle of the left. Because the autonomy of individuals can and does clash with the greater good so can only be allowed to go so far lest it contribute to the very issues we would hope to address."

This 'greater good' take only works if you conceptualise the left monolithically as a socialist/communist cause when in fact the majority of Westerners left of centre support mixed economies & democratic socialism IE a combination of individualist & collectivist culture rather than a purely collectivist culture which doesn't even exist in China anymore. The left's modern day collectivism is probably centred more on equality of rights for all via unions regulatory bodies, laws, access to basic resources & opportunities than a purely equitable outcome.

Feminism, civil rights, LGBTQ rights, a rejection of Imperialism & access to basic resources/opportunities being spear headed by the left all point to individual & group access to self determination.

"This debate being a perfect example. A tiny percentage of people wishing to dispense with sex based rights in the interests of their self determination is not good for society as a whole."

You could say the same for any societal allowances for minorities at the expense of the majority. Most people don't want to live in an animal kingdom as they appreciate the value of human dignity (AKA 'being kind' 😂) & if you do by extension it's not limited.

Of course competing rights & logistics are a consideration but its not as if we lack the sophistication in managing this as we do for say the disabled. Ultimately its the harm principle that's the arbiter of organisation which for trans people has been adjusted in terms of Sports, refuges, hospitals, prisons & minor's access to medicalisation. Public bathrooms is more controversial given harms go either way. Whilst some cis women's concerns centre on privacy & dignity, a culture of suspicion & increased public scrutiny particularly on the gender non conforming isn't doing women any favours not to mention how exclusion impacts trans women. Also, women, like the left aren't a monolith & as such don't all agree on exclusion or mostly don't care because there's no material impact on their daily lives given they are hardly if ever crossing paths in a loo with a trans woman.

"The support has come from lumping this tiny percentage of men in with women, and arguing that our and their interests align against the patriarchy.
Which I can see has a logic if you can get people to suspend their disbelief and accept some men are actually women. It's the buy in to the latter that I find incomprehensible. However if people do buy in, then the rest of what you say makes sense."

Literally no one denies biological differences between males & females so to assume there's a suspension of belief reflects more an inability to accept the reality of organic gendered inclinations shared between the sexes. It's weird how we will generally accept a butch lesbian as being more 'like' a man or a particularly effeminate gay man as more 'like' a woman but should 'like' be exchanged for 'is' then the sky is falling down. It's just all semantics in the end.

Exactly.

Yes, I would say collectivism is more of a guiding principle of the left. Unions, welfare etc. Not individualism.

It's weird how we will generally accept a butch lesbian as being more 'like' a man or a particularly effeminate gay man as more 'like' a woman but should 'like' be exchanged for 'is' then the sky is falling down. It's just all semantics in the end.

Seriously?
Who is the "we" here?
As you say @timesublimelysilencesthewhys the genderist argument is incoherent

I don't know anyone who would think this who isn't a raging misogynist and additionally really lacking in critical thinking skills, because an 'effeminate gay man' is a man and therefore 'like' a butch lesbian woman by their logic.

This particular man and that particular woman may have something in common - but no-one could say what that is based on this incredibly reductive view of these individuals.

Most people aren't political, so dont put a name to their views. They dont call themselves GC but know izzard is a man in the same way they dont want the green space around them built on but dont call themselves an environmentalist.

Agreed!

Most people dont engage with TRA. They dont understand that TRA really believe that izzard is a women, but have only reached that opinion by changing language.

They may have a friend with a nonbinary daughter, but thats like having a friend with a vegan daughter. People can be polite and make a few accommodations without becoming activists or even believing.

Its why politicans sound crazy when they support rapists in womens prisons or men in womens sport. Everyone can see that theyve moved from being polite to bonkers, and they have only reached that belief by changing the meaning of 'woman'.

Very well put.

Definitely this, with family. You can see they are a distressed person and particularly with relatives, you don’t want to cause a ruckus and be rude. But when you get into it, no one thinks they have changed sex, no one really thinks they are some ephemeral non-binary intermediate person. You make all sorts of allowances for family eccentrics. I don’t think everyday people you meet like to classify themselves at all, never mind as GC, people are so middle of the road in this country.

Most people are having a tough time with the daily struggles and actively avoid having arguments or fights with people, life is already hard enough. But if you mention any of the criminal cases that come up, or the employment tribunals, people are incredulous that it is going on. People trust institutions and they like the NHS and the BBC, its so sad to see their trust lost.

The problem with the element of the left that worries about this is that it's based on ideas about contamination. You said that it wasn't about feeling embarrassed or traumatized, so what is it? What will happen to a person on the "real left wing" or whatever you want to call the group that is so put off by pragmatic political alliance or overlap of views on certain areas?

It's something we see often enough, and practically it seems to come to, I'd rather see no political progress than work for concrete goals to be attained. Which I suspect is why it seems to be an identarian issue, which is more about abstractions than material realities.

There isn't anything to be done about it, anyway, purity concerns can't be alleviated by others.

I don't care about the word feminist, any more than I care about being on the right or left.

Reproductive role is a clear and real biological and material separation among human beings, one of the most objective, measurable, and binary there is. It's fairly unique really, it's been universally recognised by every human society and is a major building block of all human societies.

This is because reproductive role has very significant consequences for the lives of most human beings, and this, again, is based on material considerations. Are women disadvantaged - sometimes. Sometimes men are, as well. But it is the case that because of the material reality of being the gestating reproductive class, women have specific vulnerabilities, and more than that, there the forms of social organisation that are best for women are differernt than those that might be the best for men.

These facts lead to all kinds of differernt social consequences, problems, and trade offs.

Do I think that applies to race? Something which is not a scientific idea, which depends on humans arbitrarily dividing up humanity according to factors that do not materially cause significant differernces in their abilities, way of existing in the world, and which could, and have, been divided up in other ways, or sometimes not recognised at all, historically?

No, it isn't the same at all. It's a very differernt kind of "group," which is why it is not universal in the way sex is in human society. You could divide race in 10 differernt ways and each would be as valid as the last (ie, not at all.) So it should be no surprise that it's a very crude, and in fact ineffective, heuristic for class interests.

Race is different from sex in that the groupings and people's experience of the group they are in will vary amongst societies. However, i am looking at race through the lens of the society in which I live and by extention apply my political thinking, and which has drawn up groups based on certain characteristics.
I am white British because I meet the criteria for that group. I can't arbitrarily decide I'm British Asian, because I don't meet the criteria to belong to that group.
You may feel the criteria for the groupings is flawed, but society groups us thus nonetheless, and there are patterns whereby the group we are in will result in us having common experience with others within that group.
As a white British person I may experience discrimination. But in my society, it will not be because I am white. I share this with other members of the group classed as White British.
We can't dismiss the patterns of experience of people arising from their membership of a group because we doubt the validity of the grouping. To a POC experiencing discrimination on the basis of their skin colour, the fact you think that race is an arbitrary characteristic that shouldn't be used to group people is less than helpful.

I think the most off putting thing has been evidenced on this thread.
When right encounters left its almost impossible not to stray into our areas of difference rather than focusing on our common goal. Pretty much immediately I stated I'm left wing on this thread, I had people trying to argue that with me. I respond and off we go straying from the matter we (as fellow GC people) are here to discuss.
Secondly there is the idea that you apparantly can't be 'properly' GC while embracing identity policies which you underlined for me at the start of our conversation.
So, if I'm to join a GC movement does that mean I have to be 'all in'? Put aside my beliefs in other areas for the good of the cause? Am I not properly GC if I vote Green for example on the basis of their policies regarding class and wealth? Does joining a GC movement mean I should support any politician that is GC regardless of how abhorrent I find everything else they stand for? Am I more or less frightened of life under a right wing government than I am of encountering a man in a dress in the toilets?
This is rhetoric. They're not questions to be answered, just to illustrate the thought processes at play when it comes to aligning with a movement that is closely associated with the right.

I too think sex realist or gender realist works. I also describe people who chant TWAW, and brook no debate, as gender ideologues.

I would probably be described as a leftie, albeit a bit politically homeless. My path to gender realism has been increasing concern for the adverse impact on women and vulnerable young people of this public bullying. I come from a place of feminism and it is very noticeable that the harm is asymmetrical. So im thinking of:

1. The erosion of protections for vulnerable women. Im thinking hospitals, prisons, rape counselling, personal services such as care, trans widows etc.
2. Erosion of respect for "privacy and decency" - to use a phrase from the Equality Act. Im thinking toilets, changing rooms etc.
3. Fairness to women and girls: sports, prizes, awards, opportunities.

4 The unevidenced prescription of drugs and surgery for "gender distressed" young people.

1. The destruction of good records and stats based on actual sex.

Most of all I've been really concerned that so many organisations seem to have lost their capacity for critical thinking. I think the left and the liberal centre has been really derelict in this and the sooner e.g. the Beeb sorts itself out, the better. It will happen but meanwhile ir has left a lot of us a bit homelessness.

Most people are not political creatures; they have little interest in politics, international relations, power relationships etc They are more focused on the daily bread and butter issues of their life. This does not mean that broader political issues cease to exist or have any significance, though.

There are many issues which can have quite profound significance which can pass people by. That is until the time comes when the impact of that issue affects them personally in a way they don't like or approve of.

Take the issue of gender ideology and the way it has taken over many organisations and institutions.....The nurses in Darlington, their case currently being heard in the courts, for example, were previously most likely subsumed in the job of nursing and in taking care of their families, rather than in the subtle machinations of activist politics.

However, the consequences of that activism has come to have quite a disturbing and upsetting impact upon their life, resulting in them being disciplined at work, their livelihood threatened, and then having to go to court to defend the dignity and privacy of their sex.

There have been many girls and women who have lost out on sporting awards and medals because men have been allowed to compete in female categories. These incidents may have been the first time they really became aware of what gender ideology looks like in practice, rather than in the glossy 'be kind' brochures.

People whose children have come home from school having been taught that a boy can be a girl and that one doesn't have to go through the 'wrong' puberty unless one wants to.

It tends to be those with a political sense that first alert others to what is going on and bring it to their attention. This has certainly been the case with trans activism and gender ideology.

Yes, that's pretty much where I am too. I