Are we extremist and fanatical?

[RogueFemale]

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.

That’s not what I read when I search as said even for “sex is binary” - what you read about modern medical view is that sex shouldn’t be seen as two distinct points but is complex and layered and should be seen as a spectrum and that this is recognised to improve research and therefore patient care - yes there is an percentage of population is M and F distinct but evolution allows for other variations to exist that don’t match genitals = sex

especially that it can’t be reduced to gametes = sex (that’s the bit with more layers)

all of you - have a read

Again: the immense majority of trans people fall squarely within male and female sex categories. There's no need for "a read" on DSDs, because DSDs have nothing to do with trans.

There is no complexity about the fact that sex is binary. That does not mean that 'genitals = sex'. No one would deny that a very few individuals with DSDs will have genitals, especially at birth/before puberty, that are not easily sexed.
This is not relevant to the fundamental point that sex is binary. All bodies are created around the production of either one of the two types of gamete. Whether that body then 'works' or whether there are problems or disorders or disabilities is not relevant. This is literally fundamental to how our species exists. Because males and females reproduce.

Highly educated does not mean she is able to think for herself. Think of the bullying and cancelling by women at Cambridge University of women who just even read books such as Helen Joyce’s. Your friend has this pack mentality.
(There has been a thread about Cambridge and a new brave group if you haven’t seen it.)

I'm really useless at arguing with those who don't get it and can't see (what we all can see very plainly).

@MrsDoomesPattersen I'll play.

I searched

sex is binary

And got...

sex IS binary

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/bies.202200173?msockid=1fba1989f61b606c3a120cc1f78c6177

Biological sex is binary, even though there is a rainbow of sex roles
Denying biological sex is anthropocentric and promotes species chauvinism

Biomedical and social scientists are increasingly calling the biological sex into question, arguing that sex is a graded spectrum rather than a binary trait. Leading science journals have been adopting this relativist view, thereby opposing fundamental biological facts. While we fully endorse efforts to create a more inclusive environment for gender-diverse people, this does not require denying biological sex. On the contrary, the rejection of biological sex seems to be based on a lack of knowledge about evolution and it champions species chauvinism, inasmuch as it imposes human identity notions on millions of other species. We argue that the biological definition of the sexes remains central to recognising the diversity of life. Humans with their unique combination of biological sex and gender are different from non-human animals and plants in this respect. Denying the concept of biological sex, for whatever cause, ultimately erodes scientific progress and may open the flood gates to “alternative truths.”

Yes I know about the girls at Cambridge, and how they are fighting the woo. It is wonderful that they're getting support from JKR and I saw an MP mentioned them in parliament the other day. My friend, though, really is an independent thinker and that's why it's so lowering that she's decided I'm a Nazi.

I think your friend has sufficiently demonstrated that she's not an independent thinker one at least one topic. She's either sparing herself having to think or she's ruminating on twaddle.

@RogueFemale My friend, though, really is an independent thinker

Why do you think this, OP? Has she deviated from her group's orthodoxies on other topics?

She is maybe very privileged. Her nice male friend ( in her mind, or perhaps in reality) decides he is a woman wears a dress and is no problem.

She will not herself come second in sports to a mediocre man; envisage being in a rape crisis centre with a big male in a dress in charge telling her she enjoyed it; be the baby getting chemical breast milk from a fetishist with male body reactions while a midwife coos and refers to him in feminine terms ; be in a prison for woman with a male sex abuser who is not a danger, apparently, compared to more violent women in there so the women can lump it etc.

And even if you tell her of these things she will say you are whistle blowing - they happen infinitesimally rarely.

I believe educated civil service women are some of the worst.

I can recommend 2 books of Mumsnetter's sweary poetry on the subject that Father Christmas may wish to anonymously send her via Amazon!

Maybe rhyming couplets could persuade her?

Honestly though don't let what she thinks upset you. You know you aren't extremist and fanatical. Hopefully in time she'll understand where you are coming from.

She's an academic, and in her field is willing to be a bit controversial, - her field is zero connection to trans ideology.

I've read quite enough nonsense that takes sex characteristics which may be on a spectrum and claims that they mean that sex itself is on a spectrum. Take breast size – men can have very flat chests, or anything up to small breasts ("moobs"); women can have flat chests, or anything up to large breasts. Plot breast size on a graph, and there is clear dimorphism, because there are two sexes. The same applies to many other physical characteristics which have different typical ranges for men and for women.

How would one plot sexes on a graph? What measure would you use along the X-axis? For a spectrum, you must have a measurable dimension, such as frequency (or wavelength), or height, or volume, or speed. You cannot have a spectrum of car makes, or of sexes. So anyone who claims that sex itself is a spectrum has no understanding of what spectrum means. But you can have a spectrum of measurable characteristics; everyone, whether female or male, will be somewhere on that spectrum for any characteristic which we all have in common, and it is likely that the shape of a graph of that spectrum will display sex dimorphism. The "di" of dimorphism is because of the two sexes.

Now gender may be a spectrum, depending on how it is defined. If you can come up with a measurement of gender, then we can plot gender. It will, almost certainly, display dimorphism, again because of the two sexes. Whether that dimorphism is directly because of innate sex difference, or because of societal stereotyping, I don't know, but some women will be more at the masculine end than some men, and some men will be more at the feminine end than some women. But so what? I actually think that gender is much more complex than a simple spectrum, because it's normal to be more feminine in one respect and at the same time more masculine in another, and there are many different stereotypes (and they vary across different cultures and over time).

To develop that last point a little, in an Amish culture, what is considered feminine will be very different from what is considered feminine in an Inuit culture, assuming that the words feminine and masculine have any meaning in those cultures. And in an Australian culture, the difference overall between pre-colonisation and post-colonisation times will be huge. In the UK, Regency culture is different from contemporary culture and what was then considered masculine would look effeminate now. Even within my own family, there is a wide range of understanding of what is feminine and what is masculine! Good luck with coming up with a single measure of gender. Better to consider gender as a [not very important?] component of personality.

Ask her about Karan White. Could she justify White staying in a woman's prison?

The person who started Queer Theory is an academic. It is all an exercise in sophistry. Now the universities are riddled with trans think. It has an instant off the peg

look of caring, liberal, left wing, right side of history think.

Thank you @Boiledbeetle I did come away from tea today feeling really crap, that my friend said I was an extremist and should basically shut up.

Yes, some of it is that, most likely. But I had before thought she was more independent in her thinking.

@MrsDoomesPattersen

Humans are mammals. Mammals are an advanced class of animals that have backbones, hair/fur, breathe air and the females suckle their young. Mammals cannot change their sex.

So like whales, lions and dogs, humans cannot change sex. If you are born human and male, you will die human and male.

Every human is the result of a sperm produced by a male, fertilising an egg released by a female. All of us.

Yes, there are a very small number of humans born with a difference of sexual development condition (DSD). These people are still either male OR female, and cannot change their sex.

There is no spectrum. A man who has his testicles removed because of cancer is still 100% a man. It is cruel, silly, and very wrong, to suggest that this has moved him on an imaginary sex spectrum away from the 100% male end and he's now a small % female. Do you really believe this?

Women are not men minus their penis or testicles. There is no sex spectrum, transition is impossible. We are all either male or female, human biological sex IS a binary.

No wishing, nor hoping, no medication, nor surgery can change a human's sex.

Believing in the sex 'spectrum' or that it is possible for men to become women, is as absurd as thinking that the Earth is flat or 9-11 was an inside job. It's an embarrassing viewpoint without any credible evidence to support it.

It's a fantasy typically peddled by those with a vested interest. Either financial (such as a surgeon or activist lawyer), or because they really want to believe that they have now transitioned to become the opposite sex.

They are only lying to themselves and others.

What does your friend think of the puberty blocking, cross-sex hormone treatment, and surgical mutilation pathway for gender questioning gender-groomed children who have experienced loss or trauma, are autistic or gay, and sought solutions in a peddled illusion.

So many people realise how vulnerable they themselves would once have been, and how vulnerable they know certain of their own children or grandchildren are.

For me the harm happening to children is an absolute horror story; and so is the wide spread infiltration of non -speak in the 1984 sense.

@HildegardP I don't know why she is being like this and not thinking. She is so serious in every other area. But it was astonishing today, to be accused of being an extremist and to be told to shut up [if I know what's good for me sort of way].

Rogue, I have to say I think she was not much of a friend to tell you that.

She may think you are a Nazi but she also thinks that a man can become a woman purely because he says so. And she hasn’t thought at all about any of the implications that could come with that way of thinking.
So to summarise , I would take whatever she thinks with a very large pinch of salt.

As friends you listen to each other's POV, may disagree. Unfortunately some people are so ingrained in their own beliefs they become hostile. This is a friend i would wait to calm down, agree to disagree, or just not bother any more. Xx

I know a fair few academics whose intellectual curiosity & fearlessness evaporates on contact with Gender Identitarianism. The fear of losing their jobs is still real & others accept it for exactly the same inadequate reason that so many of their students accept it - it's fashionable among their peers.

Not one word of that makes sense. Come on. You're not even trying.