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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Are we extremist and fanatical?

598 replies

RogueFemale · 19/12/2025 20:06

We, as in gender critical/sex realist women.

I saw an old schoolfriend today, to exchange Christmas gifts over tea and biscuits. She's highly educated and intelligent, v. firmly feminist (in the sense of anti-patriarchy, and wanting women to use Ms not Miss or Mrs). Has travelled widely, knows a lot about other cultures etc.

Politics came up and I mentioned Phillipson blocking the ECHR guidance, and how I wasn't happy about it.

Turns out she thinks my gender critical views are extremist and fanatical. Actual words. I knew already she was inclined to the 'be kind' end of the spectrum, and that we disagreed, but this was new - that I'm an extremist.

That I was being unkind and TiM had a right to exist (I said of course they do, but...). That I should keep my views to myself, if I didn't want to be regarded as a nasty person, essentially.

I said, 'you don't understand'. She was having none of it, said she understands very well, and how there's been gender fluidity since time began. (And these poor TiM have nowhere to pee if they can't go in the ladies, as they'll get abused if they go in the mens).

But she really doesn't understand what is happening now.

I tried to tell her about autogynophilia, about how TiM have been attacking women who protest, the pattern these men have of abuse convictions, same as all men, etc. I said I could send her stuff to prove my points, she said, please don't.

Just a bit depressed to be told by an old friend that I'm a fanatical extremist weirdo, really.

OP posts:
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ArabellaSaurus · 19/12/2025 20:08

She's wrong.

tobee · 19/12/2025 20:11

First post nails it 👍

SwirlyGates · 19/12/2025 20:12

Oh no, I've posted him twice Shock

HildegardP · 19/12/2025 20:13

One can be very intelligent & yet vulnerable to emotional manipulation & group think.

plantcomplex · 19/12/2025 20:16

If I was trying to challenge someone at the "be kind" end of the spectrum, I probably wouldn't have started with AGP. That's just playing into what she's been fed and going to get an instant defensive reaction.

When she was talking about gender fluidity, that would have been the moment to posit that of course there have always been people who don't conform to social stereotypes for their sex - but that doesn't mean they've changed sex? (And oh, isn't it a bit reductive to say that a non-conforming woman must really be a man?)

As a curious question, not a lecture.

She sounds extremist and fanatical to me. Matter of perspective.

YourBreezyBiscuit · 19/12/2025 20:16

SwirlyGates · 19/12/2025 20:11

Send her this, and ask her who is the extremist? Would she want to be alone with this man?

https://x.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1985867337317130414

See this thread if you don't know who he is.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5439179-so-men-have-more-rights-than-women-to-access-female-changing-rooms?page=1

OPs friend has specifically asked her not to send her things to prove her point.

Ignoring her friends boundaries and send her stuff she doesn't want to see because she thinks her views are right/better than her friends is exactly the kind of behaviour that will make her seem fanatical and prove her friend right.

She needs to listen and leave it if she values the friendship and cares about what her friend thinks of her.

MyAmpleSheep · 19/12/2025 20:19

There's nothing wrong with being fanatical. Or dedicated, or thorough or diehard, or activist.

Extremism depends entirely on your point of view. Compared to her you're an extremist. Compared to you she's flabby liberal (or whatever).

Don't let other peoples' labels for you influence you. It tells you more about them than it does about you.

DworkinWasRight · 19/12/2025 20:20

YourBreezyBiscuit · 19/12/2025 20:16

OPs friend has specifically asked her not to send her things to prove her point.

Ignoring her friends boundaries and send her stuff she doesn't want to see because she thinks her views are right/better than her friends is exactly the kind of behaviour that will make her seem fanatical and prove her friend right.

She needs to listen and leave it if she values the friendship and cares about what her friend thinks of her.

Edited

So her friend has the right not to listen to counter arguments, but the OP must listen to her friend’s arguments? Why? Apart from anything else, her friend is a lunatic who thinks men can be women.

RoamingToaster · 19/12/2025 20:21

It’s frustrating when they think they understand our position but clearly don’t. GC feminists don’t have a problem with how people act and present themselves. That’s basically all gender fluidity is.

It’s amazing how if you object to this nonsense you get the most boringly predictable replies that assume you know nothing but they understand it. It couldn’t be that you understand the issues well but just have a different perspective.

deadpan · 19/12/2025 20:22

There isn't gender fluidity there's variation in how the (two) genders/sexes express themselves.
I have a good friend who's a lefty like me and she tried to give me a lecture about how trans people are being treated like gays and lesbians in the 70's and 80's. I said, eventually, that it's a psychological condition and shouldn't warrant physical adjustments through medication or surgery and likened it to anorexia. She said anorexia is a physical condition which I obviously disagreed with because it's psychological, the actions the sufferer takes mean a physical change.
The twaddle that comes out of people's gobs these days is astounding.

peakedtraybake · 19/12/2025 20:26

I think your friend's behaviour is closer to extremism than yours. She is refusing to engage in informed discussion but going straight to name-calling and supression of debate.

Theeyeballsinthesky · 19/12/2025 20:27

Extremist and fanatical for understanding sex is real and sometimes it matters? Lol no

in all seriousness I've had the same with several former friends and it sucks

SwirlyGates · 19/12/2025 20:29

YourBreezyBiscuit · 19/12/2025 20:16

OPs friend has specifically asked her not to send her things to prove her point.

Ignoring her friends boundaries and send her stuff she doesn't want to see because she thinks her views are right/better than her friends is exactly the kind of behaviour that will make her seem fanatical and prove her friend right.

She needs to listen and leave it if she values the friendship and cares about what her friend thinks of her.

Edited

The friend knows she's on shaky ground and doesn't want to have to consider her reasoning. If she even has any reasoning.

5128gap · 19/12/2025 20:32

Not extremist or fanatical. Just firmly and unshakeably of the belief that people are male or female, from birth until death. That only male people are men, and only female people are women. Was always, is now, and always will be. Everything classed as extreme or fanatical by people who disagree, is actually really simple, reasonable and obvious in that light.

MrsDoomesPattersen · 19/12/2025 20:34

DworkinWasRight · 19/12/2025 20:20

So her friend has the right not to listen to counter arguments, but the OP must listen to her friend’s arguments? Why? Apart from anything else, her friend is a lunatic who thinks men can be women.

Edited

I don’t think her friend is wanting to send OP information..rather OP is one wanting to carry it on

sounds like they exchanged arguments in person

OP agree to disagree

YourBreezyBiscuit · 19/12/2025 20:34

DworkinWasRight · 19/12/2025 20:20

So her friend has the right not to listen to counter arguments, but the OP must listen to her friend’s arguments? Why? Apart from anything else, her friend is a lunatic who thinks men can be women.

Edited

OP doesn't have to listen, she's just as entitled to say she doesn't want to hear it.

But, OP is the one who bought the topic up, then when told by her friend that they didn't want to hear it, she carried on and wanted to prove her point.

Her friend neither bought the topic up or felt the need to prove her point, so OP is not being made to listen to anything at all, other than the statement "I don't like your views so please stop espousing them at me".

Lovelyview · 19/12/2025 20:34

I have a feminist friend who after the supreme court ruling stated that sex was a spectrum on Facebook. I said it was binary. She said it wasn't always, I said do you mean people with dsds because they are either male or female. I linked to an article about sex being binary and an NHS one about dsds. We left it there. I do believe it's important to leave people to have a bit of a think about it op. It is flabbergasting how intelligent women fall for it. I think women's kindness has been weaponised against us.

Rhaidimiddim · 19/12/2025 20:36

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soupycustard · 19/12/2025 20:37

No!
In what way are the following statements extremist?:
There are 2 sexes in humans, male and female.
Males are, at population level, bigger,stronger, faster, more violent and more criminal,
Despite many advances, the world still tends to be patriarchal,
In order for females to take a full part in society, some sex-based laws are required,
Trans people have exactly the same rights as all other people
Trans people have the extra rights against discrimination under the EA on the basis of gender reassignment
Trans identified males cannot, however, expect to use females' rights as those rights would thereby be nullified.
That, at the heart of it, is all that 'GC' people are saying.
Of course some, eg incel or fundamentalist religious people who don't believe in women's rights, would disagree with the statement assuming that females should take an equal part in society. But disagreement with that view doesn't make the view extreme.
As for fanatical, well I suppose that if my DD were a rape survivor denied single sex provision, or in prison with a TiM, or leered at in the changing rooms at work by a TiM, or denied a women's prize or place on a shortlist taken by a TiM, or a boxer beaten by a male....I probably actually would feel a bit fanatical. Because I'm her mother, and I love her, and I don't want her or her rights endangered.

MrsDoomesPattersen · 19/12/2025 20:37

Lovelyview · 19/12/2025 20:34

I have a feminist friend who after the supreme court ruling stated that sex was a spectrum on Facebook. I said it was binary. She said it wasn't always, I said do you mean people with dsds because they are either male or female. I linked to an article about sex being binary and an NHS one about dsds. We left it there. I do believe it's important to leave people to have a bit of a think about it op. It is flabbergasting how intelligent women fall for it. I think women's kindness has been weaponised against us.

But even the people working in this field don’t know the answer and say it’s not as straight forward binary..and needs much more research

so how come you know?

Bobblebottle · 19/12/2025 20:38

If it makes you feel any better I was called 'radicalised' by a family member. In the conversation he actually said that his young female neighbour had 'essentially grown up as a boy' because she climbed trees as a child. But sure I am the one who is radicalised. I mean wtf. People have been brainwashed but it's not us.

Lovelyview · 19/12/2025 20:41

MrsDoomesPattersen · 19/12/2025 20:37

But even the people working in this field don’t know the answer and say it’s not as straight forward binary..and needs much more research

so how come you know?

There is no third gamete. This is not an extremist position.

MrsDoomesPattersen · 19/12/2025 20:43

Lovelyview · 19/12/2025 20:41

There is no third gamete. This is not an extremist position.

I wasn’t talking about extremism

read my thread again