Gender Critical guy - How can I help the cause?

[MyShyCat]

Hoping that the amazing women of Mumsnet can help me. I am firmly in the Gender Critical camp. I peaked many years ago after the birth of my daughter. I simply got to the point where I couldn't ignore the craziness that we were all being expected to accept. Amazing women on Youtube like Magdalen Berns, Posie Parker, Helen Joyce, Jo Bartosch, Arielle Scarcella and Kathleen Stock were able to perfectly articulate all the thoughts that were flying around my head.

Like many of us I have watched with horror as bit by bit the rights of women and girls have been systematically dismantled. There have undoubtedly been successes on our journey back to reality but Sall Grover's defeat the other day has really made me wobble.

My problem is I not sure what to do to help the cause. I feel like I should be more vocal or active - not exactly Bill Board Chris levels of "being out there" but I think I need to actually be a bit braver and make my voice heard.

If anyone has any suggestions as to how a 53 year-old father of a teenage girl can take a more active role in this fight, then I would love to hear more.

I'm not sure I can just carry on watching youtube clips and tutting anymore! All suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I WOULD RATHER BE RUDE THAN A "F**KING LIAR."

Thanks SidewaysOtter.

Really good suggestions.

Sounds like I am on the right track actually. Already ticking a few of those actions off!

I can't help but roll my eyes sometimes and wonder how we all got into this mess in the first place.

Bloody mental isn't it.

This kind of response always to me feels like someone walking into a camp of starving children and insisting the first and most important things to do is teach proper toothbrushing and road safety. Both worthy goals and important, but you kind of need the safety of the population basically stable first.

You can't really worry about anything to do with 'women' if you're good with women being a mixed sex group, diluting all women's needs in order to better fit them around the primary client of men, and just excluding and silencing the women not privileged enough to be able, for example, to go to a refuge and escape a life threatening relationship if a man is there and it says 'woman' on the door but is actually a mixed sex group. And thinking that requiring women and girls to undress for men or lose access to the resource - or requiring lesbians to be at least verbally convincingly willing to provide straight sex to men who identify as lesbians - is not rape culture in itself, is probably stretching it a bit.

If you're in earnest OP, write to everyone you can think of. Your MP and anyone else, particularly any service or place your daughter is likely to use, and chase and require to know what is the policy, how will she be affected, are they compliant with the law. Sadly men get taken more seriously on this than women do; it's the nature of the beast.

And teach your daughter that she has the unqualified right to privacy from men, to regard her dignity and comfort as equally valid to the feelings of a man who wishes to be with her while she undresses, to be brave enough to never shut up or co operate with coercion because as a girl she won't get the sympathy a boy does when he voices his inner self and feelings, and most importantly to never extend in any relationship more care, consideration, labour and respect than the other party is offering her. Particularly if the other party feels she owes it to them on the grounds of her biology, yet wishes her to pretend her biology isn't a thing.

I think it’s worth taking some time to consider why your concern about women’s rights started with the birth of a daughter.

You have or had a mother, maybe even sisters or aunts. Certainly female friends and girlfriends.

Why didn’t you care about any of their rights?

Lots of men suddenly realise women are important when they have a daughter. Really think about why that is and then start talking to other men about that.

I appreciate your question of how to help this cause OP and in my experience there are many men around who agree with us about the impact on women's rights by gender ideology, but because it doesn't often directly effect them, they don't see it as an issue they need to engage with.

If we're going to fix this, it is going to take men understanding and making clear to any trans-identifying/gender non-conforming men or boys, that they are accepted as who they are and will be welcome in men-only spaces.

The conversations need to be had around why they might feel the need to encroach on or enter female-only spaces, when they have their own SSS. How can men like you show that they will be safe and accepted? Not easy with one voice, but if you do have convos with other men then you could start there.

(I hope I'm right in imagining that you wouldn't have a problem accepting a boy or man, expressing their gender in any way they choose, using the men's loos or changing rooms alongside you?)

Other than that, the suggestions above are great e.g. raising awareness of tribunals and fundraising etc.

You could educate boys on consent, volunteer to mentor teenage boys or at a youth club, and campaign for rape justice. Write to local MPs about our crumbling court infrastructure, which is delaying many rape trials. Campaign for better street lighting and fundraise for girl's sport.

Women and girls don't need saving from trans people. Just from violent cis men and structural misogyny.

Virtually all women have been sexually assaulted - I would be very surprised if it wasn't 100%. At least one in four have been raped, often more than once. And it happened to most of us while we were still children.

Focusing on being a saviour doesn't help girls.

Campaign for girl's sport to be better funded - it's inequality, sexism, lack of access to decent coaching and abusive, opportunistic coaches which stop girls playing sport. There are very few trans girls playing sport because violent transphobia.

I get that being a saviour from The Menace Of Trans sounds considerably more fun, but being a useful ally to women and girls actually involves educating yourself about just how dangerous our lives really are - and doing something to help.

We have no safe spaces, because of how easy it is for violent cis men to get to us. We don't need saviours, just for cis men to confront their own learned sexism and stop the next generation of boys treating girls like dirt. Cheers.

Good for you and thank you

STand up, be counted, take a risk, not enough of us do.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5507367-mixed-sex-changing-rooms-in-a-brighton-secondary-school-part-3-were-really-cooking-now?page=1

"Women and girls don't need saving from trans people. Just from violent cis men and structural misogyny."

But - trans women are men - men who are seemingly statistically MORE likely to sexually offend than regular men

"it's inequality, sexism, lack of access to decent coaching and abusive, opportunistic coaches which stop girls playing sport. "

It's also males being in female sports that stops them, thousands of them in fact. how about we stop that?

So

No.

Why are using the word “ cis” ?
The word Women doesn’t need any prefix.
Oh I’ve just noticed your user name …that explains a lot

Yup... Agree 100%

"Cis" is a slur, Trans Girls are boys and I am not Jesus.

Hello me again. I did this.

two reasons why -

one - there are so many things to give a damn about, good sensible things to be really worried about, there was just so many, I cared, I wasn't sexist, I didn't care like I do now.

two - as soon as you have a daughter (or a son) your protections mode kicks in on an epic scale and you think about how you may have been when you were a teen male perhaps and think - there is no damned way I am going to let that happen to my daughter, who I would kill for without compunction.

It's not really complex, we care about our children more than we care about anything, but quite some distance. More than our parents, siblings or someone in the street.

Thankyou SingleSexSpacesInSchools.

Really important to keep the pressure up on Brighton.

I am a teacher in the UK and just can't comprehend what the hell they are doing. I really worry that there will have to be collateral damage before people wake up.

The 'gender critical' movement is founded on hollow, elitist fantasies of saviourism. That's why it appeals to you and you want more. It excuses cis men from examining their own attitudes, behaviours and violent peers in favour of blaming a minority.

It ignores several realities, notably that:

• trans people are individuals, not a hive mind
• trans people have always existed
• trans women like & respect women, because they are women
• trans men exist
• the anti-trans movement is heftily funded by anti-abortion, misogynistic, deeply homophobic orgs who want to set precedents for challenging bodily autonomu
• regret rate for transition is low
• the vast, vast majority of sexual assaults against women in so-called 'safe spaces' (we have no safe spaces) are carried out by violent cis men - who usually face no consequences - and pretending that banning trans women will fix that is patronising, sexist & wrong
• very few trans people do sport
• being trans is normal

Being anti-trans isn't activism. It's bigotry.

Again... "Cis" is a made up word that means nothing. I am also not Jehovah.

But I might be Flynn Rider. I like Flynn Rider. He's my fav.

I would also recommend you speak to your own friends and male colleagues etc.

While I'm pleased you got there, it would be nice if men could see women as having value at some point before they are personally affected by it - in this case by the birth of a daughter. Had it been a son, you'd likely have carried on not giving a shit.

singthing... You OK hun?

Oh and p.s.

Your daughter will definitely have LGBT friends in her life, and indeed may be LGBT herself. Going down this path of pointless, bigoted non-activism could lose you her trust. So maybe don't do that.

LOL... Didn't take long did it!

This is just a pile of slogans pretending to be an argument.

Nobody is saying trans people are a hive mind. Nobody is saying violent men stop being the main threat. Nobody is saying single-sex spaces magically solve male violence.

The point is simpler: sex is real, women are entitled to privacy, dignity and safety, and men do not become women because they say so.

“Trans women are women” is not an argument. It is a demand for obedience. (also they aren't)

“Regret is low” does not answer safeguarding concerns, children, medicalisation, sport, prisons, changing rooms, compelled speech or the loss of women’s boundaries. (also it's demonstrably untrue)

“Trans men exist” also proves nothing. Women rejecting womanhood does not make males female.

And the lazy “anti-abortion funding” line is just guilt by association. Women do not need permission from the right sort of people before defending their own rights. Not to mention - there is literally zero proof of it happening.

This is not saviourism. It is basic reality. Women are allowed to say no.

With reference to @TransParentlyAnnoyed 's post up thread:

"Trans people are individuals and not a hive mind"
AND
"Trans women like and respect women, because they are women."

I'll just leave that there.

We need more men to speak up. Other men listen to men more than they’re listen to women, sad but true. So tell your friends and get them to join in too.

go to a meet up. There’s one outside the Australian embassy on Saturday can make it to London. People are friendly and F2F is much better than online

• very few trans people do sport

😂PMSL at this being offered as an "argument". The figures don't matter. One is too many. NO MEN IN WOMEN'S SPORT.

Hard agree. ZERO men in womens sport.

This is just a pile of slogans pretending to be an argument.

ok, so I now need this on a Tshirt!

SSSIS, I'll borrow this, if you don't mind, as a shortcut next time someone comes out with the predictable lines of drivel.

(and the next time we both likely get deleted!)

OP, sorry for the me-rail. I hope you find your path in this ridiculous fight we've had to join in order to protect our children.

There is no such thing as a “cis man”. He’s a man, other men are men, “trans women” are all men. Hope that helps.