feminism or transphobia?

[giraffezoo]

Long time lurker of this forum, first time poster.

I have read through many of the threads on here and I have to say there are lots of views that I find quite shocking.

There almost seems to be two sides of the ‘gender critical’ movement on here that I can see.

The first seems quite reasonable. They wish to have protections in place for women and their rights. Regardless of whether you agree or disagree (e.g. trans folk in toilets, transgender prisoners etc) they are stating a view based on safety and women’s rights.

The second bunch are the ones who I find myself disagreeing with, and who post things that I personally consider as transphobic. Some examples of this would be: refusing to use someone’s pronouns or citing being transgender as a mental illness which needs to be cured.

I feel that the first group are genuinely feminists who are concerned with women’s rights, and feel as though they need to speak out on their own concerns. The second group are masquerading under the pretence of feminism to say hateful or controversial things.

I am interested to hear other views on this point (and I’m sure there will be a lot here who don’t agree with me!)

I should say that, re pronouns, either they are meaningful expressions of sex or they are matters of politeness and utter fluff, so people need to be quite stark when it matters and pronouns muddy the water and that needs to be acceptable.

As an example, it becomes harder for me to say about Brenda that “she should not be allowed in the menopause group” if pronouns are meaningless and mean whatever Brenda wants. So it should be fine to say “Brenda was born a man, so the menopause group is not relevant to Brenda”.

Lots of people who say they accept single sex spaces but would adopt pronouns are often kidding themselves, because they also think it is unacceptable to refer to anyone’s birth sex, so what they really mean is that society should ignore it and pretend until something bad happens rather than negotiating a clear and open settlement.

Any argument in a nutshell would be a dream come true.

Exactly.

I agree: the concept exists, and I've spent all my life fighting it.

I think all GC women agree that gender exists otherwise what are we critical of. But is not a fixed thing, it changes (hop into a time machine drop into Georgian court circles and try telling the people there that long hair/wigs, make up, colourful embellished clothes and heeled shoes are female things), it can and should be challenged.

Saying pink can be liked by boys isn't declaring that there isn't a social construct of gender it's saying that construct is restrictive and should be consigned to history with the idea that women would somehow break if they ran more than 400m or that the female brain can't understand maths.

I also think that when we are talking about children, trans children will often desist (I have a friend who has a desister, luckily has been nowhere near a gender clinic). Most sane parents, if they were honest, would prefer their kids to desist rather than have a life of hormones and medical care, so it isn’t as straightforward as saying that trans is an inner essence and not comparable to an illness

Lots of people who say they accept single sex spaces but would adopt pronouns are often kidding themselves, because they also think it is unacceptable to refer to anyone’s birth sex, so what they really mean is that society should ignore it and pretend until something bad happens rather than negotiating a clear and open settlement.

Totally agree here, people aren't being honest with themselves.

Prefered pronouns make it much harder to police single sex spaces. If you are happy to call a man 'her', then how do you turn around and tell 'her' than 'she' can't access the women's changing rooms?

So either you have to be very blunt at the time when the person tries to access spaces that aren't theirs, which strikes me as sending mixed messages and ultimately much more cruel than being honest from the get go.

Or, you let it slide in the moment and the man uses women's spaces, empowered by your affirmation.

This is what I suspect would actually happen and it's cowardly, shitty behaviour. Selling out women because you can't bring yourself to be honest with men.

Show me your evidence, please.

You mocked me, when I disclosed my reasons for using correct sex pronouns. It’s been deleted, but you did. And I have never mocked you.

I would really like to understand where you are coming from. I’ve tried. But you’ve been aggressive to me.

sex is not sexist

gender is sexist

@TheKeatingFive

yes, that’s how you end up in the sandy Peggy situation. Because everyone spends so long in outrage “how dare she refer to this brave doctor as male”, rather than actually thinking through the issue and the law.

also,

sex is real, universal and cannot be opted out of

whereas

gender is an imaginary fantasy and many people never opt into it

I think this is a projection.

There are many posts on FWR talking about the subconscious impact of living in a gendered (sexist) society and how newsfeed algos and AI strengthen this. I know, I've posted some of them.

Which goes back to the PP's point that you really should take the time to read the board a bit before jumping in and making assertions like "you all believe X" based on literally one thread that deals with a topic that has come up so many times before we could pretty much number the arguments for and against and just post the numbers instead.

You appear to think it's a deliberate conspiracy with masters controlling it for nefarious reasons.

I think it's run of the mill misogynist tech bro arrogance. The risk to the world is not so much that we are being manipulated by shadowy powerful elites, it is that the men who would like think of themselves as shadowy powerful elites are pretty bog standard cleverish blokes who got lucky and vastly overestimate their ability to design, predict and control events.

Their conspiracies are pedestrian. They are Epstein not the Illuminati. They will burn the house down not because they have a Machivellinan plan to rebuild but because they were trying to prove they could light a bigger candle than the guy next door.

In other words, it's not that we underestimate the threat, it is that we disagree on why it is a threat.

Do you mean Gender the external social construct, Gender Identity the innate-feeling but actually externally driven gendered personality we develop through growing up with and being socialised by those constructs, or Gender Identity an innately gendered personality element which genderists believe we are all born with?

I believe the first two exist. Not the latter.

Gender -a marketting opportunity that cross-refers to capitalism. That stage ca 1993 when the advertising industry realised that if clothes for female children were dyed purple and pink and (otherwise identical) clothes for male children dyed navy or blue, they'd sell nearly twice as many anoraks.

After that, the slide to girls' toys and boys' toys. Totally capitalist, very profitable.

But adults can opt out of girlieness and machismo.

It also puts a barrier between the person who is demanding certain pronouns and the person who is filtering and adjusting their natural speech to either use them of to avoid them. That type of "standing one step back from myself monitoring mysrlf" interaction isn't good for human connection, and I'm thinking here just as much of the pronoun person as the filtering person. Neither are getting a real connection.

Never said this. I think it’s money. It’s always back to the money.

Im not attacking you. Im saying im being defensive because I feel attacked. There are over 600 posts i don’t remember them but I’ve certainly not mocked anyone for using pronouns. I’ve repeatedly said i don’t care what sex pronouns anyone uses and it doesn’t impact my life. Can you imagine someone getting pissed off saying the same thing over and over? I’m sorry if I’ve insulted you. It was never my intention and if I’ve made you feel belittled for you beliefs I apologise sinceely. This has got very heated and without faces the names are blurring into one

Evidence for what? My beliefs? Your beliefs? Can you see why I’m getting lost

Evidence for your claims. Evidence for your beliefs.

Also it’s very rude to infer that others on here don’t have a line of work that means they have to back up their claims with evidence. That is undergraduate referencing 101.

Yes, Genderism is all about money, always has been, that is what it is for. Marketing opportunities, pharma profits, jobs for mediocre academics and therapists.

and John Money.

well the things that are being said about me are my evidence

Well it only really became important when we started farming. When men needed to ‘protect the linesge’ and care about paternity. Before that we don’t really know much about how we lived or if sexism existed

Genderism only became important when Judith Butler spotted a gravy train and the advertisers copped on that they'd hit the jackpot.

Gender as a thing a human could 'have' was invented in the early 1990s.

Nothing to do with sex.

Ah.

"Orwellian" generally means a shadowy but deliberate overarching control. If that wasn't what you meant it was a bad choice of words and probably why you were being seen as a conspiracy theorist.

Pursuit of money and conspiring to tip the playing field in their favour, yes. Money used to create social conditions favourable to making more money, of course. Same as it ever was. Just the speed and power of AI gives it more potential to get out of their control more quickly.