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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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spannasaurus · 19/12/2025 20:48

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?

What sexes are there other than female and male?

Theeyeballsinthesky · 19/12/2025 20:51

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.

whaat?? I mean I climbed trees as a child. I also loved astronomy, rolled around in dirt, only wore trousers and had really short hair. Was I actually a boy?? Would that explain why I can't have children??

oh no wait! I was a girl, am a woman but my female biology has malfunctioned which is why I can't have them

Climbing fucking trees! For fucks sake

Shedmistress · 19/12/2025 20:59

She doesn't want you to send stuff because she knows deep down that you are right.

Boiledbeetle · 19/12/2025 21:01

I hope you took the Christmas present you bought her back home with you.

NextRinny · 19/12/2025 21:01

The ability for women to accept eroded boundaries is amazing.
I am also amazed by women's ability to enforce the erosion of other women's boundaries.

FGM is enforced not just by other women but by the nearest and dearest of the victims based on the female perpetrators beliefs. I thought this was only consigned to deeply held sexual beliefs but no.

To me this is just the same. Give a woman a belief and she will enforce it. Irrespective of who it takes down.

Sorry I think your friend is too far gone. Keep the peace and only the actual victims, in this case, detransitioners, can possibly bring her back.

onlytherain · 19/12/2025 21:04

The courts disagree that your views being extremist and fanatical - they are even considered worthy of respect in a democratic society. How does she explain that?

As stated in the Forestater judgement, there is a conflict of interest trans' rights and women's rights. Why is she prioritising trans' rights over women's rights?There are women and girls out there who cannot use eg. public toilets if they are mixed sex. Those women and girls exist. What is her solution to this problem?

Who said that trans people don't exist? There clearly is disagreement over what a transperson is, but nobody disagrees that they exist. However, just because they exist, doesn't mean they can use any facilities they like.

Tpu · 19/12/2025 21:08

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.

I find this line of questioning productive. Also why is it unkind to tell a man that he is a man?

But also, and most tellingly, why if someone says to me “look at the state of you, you look like a man,” that’s unpleasant but ultimately I have to suck it up. However if they say it to a TW (who is a man) that’s a hate crime. But they are also the most oppressed and most vulnerable?

Does the friend think that biological sex doesn’t exist; or that it is mutable; or that it doesn’t matter?

HildegardP · 19/12/2025 21:14

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

What kind of friendship requires one to accept being called an extremist & a fanatic by someone who has chosen to know naff-all about the OP's views?
I can see why weighing in with AGP is tactically suboptimal but her "friend" has no respect for other people's boundaries, at least not those of others who don't share her addlepated fantasies. I'm at a loss to understand why anyone should tippytoe around the boundary of her diligently-preserved ignorance.

HildegardP · 19/12/2025 21:16

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?

Citations needed.

Seethlaw · 19/12/2025 21:17

I've been in the trans community, and here on MN - that ~wretched hive of terf scum and villainy~ - and I know where I met the fanatics and the extremists, who shout at you for daring to say a wrong word, and who yell slogans until you shut down all your critical thinking centres. On MN, on the contrary, I was challenged to think, and to introspect, and encouraged to learn and study, and even gasp allowed to have my own opinion and be my own self! Such fanatism, much extremism indeed.

hihelenhi · 19/12/2025 21:30

Yeah, she's been taken in by a cult. And also clearly believes that being on the right side of her current 'tribe' and their views is more important than exercising her supposed critical thinking skills or not treating an old friend like shit, when she's in fact being a total idiot. I have old friends similar.

If I do get pressed on the topic, I'm careful what I say these days and don't try to engage them with it so directly usually, or if I do, I tend to go with the milder line of questioning, but I have expressed my views that there are lots of women of my acquaintance who have been demonised, smeared and lied about in ways that go against every principle I have, and it's very weird and uncomfortable to see people you know being lied about.

I also reiterate our shared views when appropriate that sex stereotypes are conservative crap, so I'm not going to support any ideas that suggest things like "real women or girls" have to behave in "feminine" ways to count as women, for example. But it is like living in a parallel universe with this issue, tbh. Her calling your views 'extremist' is laughably stupid, but then, you know that, and she's just falling in with the tribal shit she's being told. But trying to force it by sending her stuff isn't going to work - she's entrenched and self righteous (and also wrong.)

It's very hard to get past with those friends on the political left right now, that much I will say. They really do risk being denounced if they dare to put a toe outside the currently proscribed narratives.

MrsDoomesPattersen · 19/12/2025 21:30

HildegardP · 19/12/2025 21:16

Citations needed.

Just look it up…

search “sex isn’t binary” and medical field

ArabellaSaurus · 19/12/2025 21:30

HildegardP · 19/12/2025 20:13

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

And intelligent people can be rxtra good at talking themswlves into irrational beliefs.

See 'the intelligence trap'.

ArabellaSaurus · 19/12/2025 21:31

MrsDoomesPattersen · 19/12/2025 21:30

Just look it up…

search “sex isn’t binary” and medical field

How many human sexes are there?

hihelenhi · 19/12/2025 21:36

MrsDoomesPattersen · 19/12/2025 21:30

Just look it up…

search “sex isn’t binary” and medical field

Lol.

Yes, we know DSDs exist. How does that make sex "not binary?" or a spectrum exactly? Does the existence of babies born with more or fewer than ten fingers or toes or missing legs mean that "humans having ten fingers and toes' is an invalid statement, or "humans are a bipedal species" is factually incorrect and it's actually a spectrum?

And what does the scientific literature show that DSDs have to do with ideas of "gender identity" in postmodernist theories involving so-called femininity and masculinity (which as we know, are old fashioned sex stereotypes).Is there a study which maps these two entirely different concepts and shows a correlation of some kind?

MrsDoomesPattersen · 19/12/2025 21:38

hihelenhi · 19/12/2025 21:36

Lol.

Yes, we know DSDs exist. How does that make sex "not binary?" or a spectrum exactly? Does the existence of babies born with more or fewer than ten fingers or toes or missing legs mean that "humans having ten fingers and toes' is an invalid statement, or "humans are a bipedal species" is factually incorrect and it's actually a spectrum?

And what does the scientific literature show that DSDs have to do with ideas of "gender identity" in postmodernist theories involving so-called femininity and masculinity (which as we know, are old fashioned sex stereotypes).Is there a study which maps these two entirely different concepts and shows a correlation of some kind?

Even if you search for “sex is binary” the stuff that comes up says no..it’s more complex and can’t be reduced to just gametes

ArabellaSaurus · 19/12/2025 21:38

And what do VSCs or DSDs have to do with 'gender', anyway?

RedToothBrush · 19/12/2025 21:39

If its extremism to mate and reproduce then what percentage of humans are extremists?

HildegardP · 19/12/2025 21:42

MrsDoomesPattersen · 19/12/2025 21:30

Just look it up…

search “sex isn’t binary” and medical field

I assure you, I'm very familiar with the literature, I want to know your grouds of belief.
I can see how you got so badly misled if that's your idea of how to search for accurate info though.

HildegardP · 19/12/2025 21:50

MrsDoomesPattersen · 19/12/2025 21:38

Even if you search for “sex is binary” the stuff that comes up says no..it’s more complex and can’t be reduced to just gametes

Who writes this "stuff" you find so convincing? How did we miss them being awarded a Nobel prize for finding a 3rd reproductive category in a species of gonochoristic, anisogamous mammals who have somehow managed to reproduce for millenia without ever observing the nature or role of this 3rd category?

I begin to wonder if you know what sex is.

Edited because MN does odd things with asterisks

Seethlaw · 19/12/2025 21:53

Edit: huh, I thought I'd quoted @ArabellaSaurus 's post: "And what do VSCs or DSDs have to do with 'gender', anyway?"

This.

Trans is a completely different thing from DSDs.

And the immense majority of trans people don't have DSDs and fall squarely within the male or female sex category.

It's really that simple.

soupycustard · 19/12/2025 21:54

Sex is binary. Because there are only 2 sexes in humans, male and female. Of course there are anatomical variations between individuals of the same sex, including variations in secondary characteristics. This means for eg that some individual females will be very big or flat-chested, and some individual males will be small or have tiny penises. They remain female and male respectively.
There are also disorders of sexual development - each disorder being specific to one of the 2 sexes. People with DSDs do not show that there is a 3rd sex. Any more than people born with only one leg show that the human species is not bipedal.
There is no 3rd sex. Sex is binary.
Gender of course isn't, because it's a social construct. So there are anywhere between no genders and as many billion genders as there are individuals. And gender can therefore be a spectrum.

FallenSloppyDead2 · 19/12/2025 21:55

@RogueFemale That I should keep my views to myself, if I didn't want to be regarded as a nasty person, essentially.

I suspect she is talking to herself there. She has seen the witch trials and doesn't want to be denounced.

Pollqueen · 19/12/2025 21:59

She's a fruit loop and a really crappy feminist

RapidOnsetGenderCritic · 19/12/2025 22:04

MrsDoomesPattersen · 19/12/2025 21:38

Even if you search for “sex is binary” the stuff that comes up says no..it’s more complex and can’t be reduced to just gametes

Reproduction is the reason sex exists – this is the evolutionary path we have developed on (and even those who deny evolution also accept that reproduction is the reason for sex). The two sex categories that are essential for reproduction are male and female. That there are a small percentage of people whose reproductive systems are not functional at any stage of their life is because something has gone wrong with the developmental process. So the two types of gamete, which are essential to the two sex roles, are the basis of the sex classification, female or male, and exceptions are male developmental disorders or female developmental disorders.