Trying to understand everyday views on sex and gender discussions

[Schallern]

Hi,

I hope this is the right place for this post.

I am a bisexual female and have been friends for years with a very liberal, LGBT crowd. Past “trans women are women”, I never questioned anything.

I’m in my mid to late 20s now and I’ve recently expanded my social circle. As a result of this and moving away from purely LGBT spaces, I’ve had a lot more exposure to a wider range of political and social opinions.

A big one of these is the realisation that my previously, narrower social circle was very much an echo chamber. We just accepted everyone. That is lovely in some senses, but I also understand the world isn’t that simple.

Thing is, I’m struggling to even work out my feelings.

I’ve been taught that anything less than fully accepting trans people as the gender they want to present as is transphobic.

I suppose in my mind the two sides are a) complete acceptance and b) complete denial and erasure of trans-people and outright transphobia.

I’m interested in what exists in the middle. What do normal, everyday, people believe? What is the most “common” view on trans issues? Outside of my own echo chamber, where does the line lie?

I understand this forum leans very heavily in one direction. However, that’s why I’m asking here. Do you discuss trans issues with your friends and own social circles? Does it even come up? What kind of conversations do you have?

I suppose I’m trying to get a gist for what “acceptable” opinions are outside of my own social scene. Like I said, it’s just “trans women are women.” Anything less is considered erasure and denial and would have an individual cast out!

Happy to answer any questions. I’m trying to think more critically and actually work out what my own opinions are. And please note that whilst I have obviously described myself as coming from a very liberal background, I’m very open to hearing views as I no longer know what mine are. It’s amazing how quickly things change once you’re in the “real world.”

I am part of a GC network at work where we discuss it regularly. Outside of that I don’t talk about it much but if asked for my opinion I would do so. Previously the idea of GC being a protected belief came up and some people didn’t realise that until I had outlined it.

outside of work I talk about it quite a bit with friends and family: share news articles etc. we are largely all GC though.

@yoursweetpotatoesarebland

It’s coming up recently for me with some friends regarding changing rooms, etc., very basic issues. I suppose I find it confusing as it’s new to me that the opportunity for debate is even brought up!

I once dated a woman who was very gender critical and we had fantastic discussions but this was a long time ago now.

There is a range of views here.
Maybe start by being clear on what sex actually is. Don’t be surprised that something that’s primarily a parenting forum tends to have people who aren’t confused by this! Sex is binary, and can’t be changed. That’s simply not a thing any mammal can do.

But many of us are also in the original meaning of the term ‘gender critical’ - e.g it was members of this board who initiated the Let Toys be Toys campaign. Everyone should be free to express their own individual self - within the bounds of physical reality and not harming other people’s rights.

I don’t discuss this with other people if I can possibly help it. Most people haven’t thought about it in any great depth and often they have accepted the thought terminating cliche “trans women are women” (and “trans men are men” although strangely trans men aren’t centred often in the conversation….) if they move in left wing liberal circles as most of my friends do. I am also liberal and tolerant, people who are critical of gender are not usually right wing and conservative.

I have two starting points on this, sex is immutable and gender is the tool that the patriarchy uses to oppress women and girls. Everything else I think flows logically from those two points.

If you want to see the polls for the general public, this is a great thread.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5445880-statistics-poll-evidence-archive-thread?page=1

If you are after evidence for sports, here is plenty of reading;

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5142027-save-female-sports-evidence-thread

for back ground here are two :

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5445899-break-it-down-for-me-2-general-break-it-down-archive-thread?page=1

and there is a link to the previous one at the top of that thread above.

I think a lot of people are “shy GC” if they are in liberal, middle class circles. Or they just avoid it from all perspectives where possible.

I feel I fall into the "reasonable" camp. Trans people are of course free to believe what they want about themselves. Much like people are free to hold religious beliefs of their choosing. However ridiculous I think any of these are. However if they were to ask I do not share the same beliefs and do not want to have thoughts and beliefs imposed on me.
Dresses and long hair are not what make me a woman, biology is. There are certain, albeit quite limited circumstances, where this biology matters and it is in these situations where the separation by sex, not gender, must remain. Prisons, women's shelters, sport etc.
I think this was the widespread view 20 years ago and, despite all the push from Stonewall etc, remains the widespread view of the majority of people in the UK.

I think the average man or woman on the street would not ever identify themselves as “gender critical” and they may not share some of the feminist beliefs of “terfs” but they don’t believe men are women and vice versa and think people who do so are absurd.

I suppose in my mind the two sides are a) complete acceptance and b) complete denial and erasure of trans-people and outright transphobia.

This is a biased statement. If you wanted to compare the two it should be

a) complete acceptance and erasure of women's rights and women as a sex class and b) complete denial and erasure of trans-people and outright transphobia.

It comes up more than you'd think, especially when discussing the news with friends. There are some lightly coded conversations when someone is trying to feel out which side of the issue we fall

I'd say I've a 70/30 split between GC friends and TWAW friends. Those on the TWAW side almost all have a trans identifying young family member.

Have a browse of the threads Helle has linked to; they are an excellent primer on the issue.

Does this help?

I would say most of the frequent posters on this board would fit in the green bubble, whether or not they called themselves 2nd wave feminists.

I think Mumsnet (just from reading of 'feminism' posts) is not really a balanced view and that board has become something of an echo chamber in itself.

Having friends from different countries, I would definitely say that the 'gender-critical' debate is far more a problem in this country, in terms of polarisation and division. Most of them are somewhat bemused by what they see as an alarming preoccupation with public toilets when women's rights are under attack in so many ways.

I put this on another thread: I once saw a trans-rights video which inadvertently hit the nail on the head. They included that meme (which I imagine no longer does the rounds) aimed at GC feminists of a certain age - mine. It shows 1970s/80s Annie Lennox and Grace Jones (at the time she punched a chat show host in the face on TV) in cropped hair and sharp suits, and Boy George and Prince in flowing skirts, long hair and makeup. It said 'how can you be so rigid about gender when you grew up with this?' But none of those people, or others like them, questioned their sex. In fact we thought it heralded a long-awaited change in attitudes. At last boys could wear skirts to school, the military could have long hair tied back, and children could play with any toys they wanted. But society wouldn't bend, and we were forced back into our boxes. I believe the current dysmorphia industry is the result. It's repressed gender freedom coming out the wrong way.

“Most of them are somewhat bemused by what they see as an alarming preoccupation with public toilets when women's rights are under attack in so many ways.”

Which is a really good indication that they perhaps don’t have a deep understanding of the issues, or maybe they are prejudiced themselves and choose not to believe that the issue covers a great many aspects of life for female people and like to use such dismissive excuses to not try to understand.

I only discuss it with people I know are "safe" because being out as a gender critical person could have implications for me professionally - "acceptance without exception" and "bring your whole self to work" has its limits in my organisation...

Having said that, I have had some good conversations out of the workplace with people who are less GC than me where we've been able to find common ground, specifically sport, but it's a bit exhausting hearing the same talking points dragged out which basically boil down to be-kind, most-vulnerable, cis-comes-last, and of course TWAW which, lets face it, they are not.

I don't personally feel any kind of sense of gender really. I was brought up in the 1970s and spent my childhood with short hair, dungarees in maroon, bottle green and navy, blue kickers, and brought up by a mother who taught me and my brother that there were no such things as things just for girls or just for boys so we could do and be whatever we wanted. I've brought up my sons the same way.

I am female because I was born that way. It affects me physically because I grew boobs, got my period, and stopped being able to win wrestling matches with my brother when he was about 8 or 9. I'm not female because of the length of my hair, the clothes I wear, the things I like to do, or (FFS!!!) "a tendency towards submissiveness" (I'm absolutely not submissive).

I genuinely do not care what people wear or what they like to do but I don't believe that people can change sex, I don't think mimicking the opposite sex makes you so, I think nonbinary is bog standard normal personality traits pathologised and weaponised.

I think that spaces should generally only be single sex if there's a good reason for them to be so, and that changing rooms, toilets, medical care, facilities for survivors of sexual assault, prisons are all examples of good reasons. Since no-one can change sex, there is no reason to admit males who say they have woman-gender into these spaces.

I don't spend a great deal of time thinking about transmen because I see them as female so they are not a threat to women. Men have every right to not want them in their spaces though - but that's for them to say.

I do however hold Stephen Whittle and James Morton personally responsible for the shit situation we find ourselves in. They should, but never will, feel very, very ashamed. Obviously I blame the likes of Roz Kaveney and his ilk as well, but there's something particularly dark about women who make the world worse for other women.

Anyway, those are my everyday views.

Thank you for the replies so far! I do have to head out soon, but I will read any and all replies in full. I appreciate the replies so far, and the resources people have posted!

@BrickBiscuit I often wonder whether the mistaken idea that gender critical feminists are “rigid about gender” is a deliberate ploy to misrepresent the viewpoint, or whether it’s a genuine misapprehension because that’s what they’ve been told. Or that’s what they conclude, incorrectly, when women state that transwomen are not women, and no one can change sex.

I am critical of gender. It’s a framework that oppresses and controls. I want it dismantled and gone. That would mean everyone is able to express themselves as they choose. It’s the absolute antithesis of wanting gender to exist and be rigidly applied.

@TwoLoonsAndASprout
Yes, I agree. That's me.

If I discuss it with people (which is not often) I ask them what they think about the idea of leading or allowing a boy to believe they are 'born in the wrong body' because they have interests more commonly associated with girls or like to wear, feminine clothes, or have stereotypically 'feminine traits' or are attracted to other boys. Do they think this is a 'progressive way of thinking?

Most people don't agree with this.

I also ask people the last time they heard the term 'transvestite' (it's not been used for about 10 years in speech or print) and do they realise how few trans-identifying men have any form of surgery, let alone, genital surgery, or even hormones? That's one to think about - to make that link between adult heterosexual crossdressing men who are now referred to as vulnerable transwomen.

Edited to add: I attended the reading of the Supreme Court Judgment last year and I was really pleased that several people I'd had passing conversations with texted me to tell me about it, asked me if I was there etc. I think because that was reported quite fairly by the BBC and even the Guardian, it 'got through' to the kind of people I associate with in Wokesville, London.

I have a good friend on the South Coast (not Brighton!!!) who tells me I should move there because no-one she speaks to there (again, middle class) has a bar of 'transwomen are women'

Hi OP!

A big one of these is the realisation that my previously, narrower social circle was very much an echo chamber. We just accepted everyone.

Well, no, you certainly didn't accept everyone, but only those who had the "right" opinions. You say it yourself later:

I suppose I’m trying to get a gist for what “acceptable” opinions are outside of my own social scene. Like I said, it’s just “trans women are women.” Anything less is considered erasure and denial and would have an individual cast out!

Which means that a GC and trans person like me would be cast out from your scene - and indeed, I had to separate myself from the T scene, several years ago, because I didn't agree with their hard line.

I’ve been taught that anything less than fully accepting trans people as the gender they want to present as is transphobic.

I suppose in my mind the two sides are a) complete acceptance and b) complete denial and erasure of trans-people and outright transphobia.

What about: trans people exist and are real, and they must not have any less rights than anybody else, but their privileges must end where others' rights begin?

I’d have said I was very much in the middle until fairly recently - like you I had a phase of believing unquestioning acceptance was ‘the right’ stance and anything else was regressive and not ‘being kind’.

I landed in the middle - trans women are trans women, it’s not possible to change sex, when it comes to toilets and changing rooms and sports then people should use the spaces that align with their biological sex, or a third space if desired/ feasibly but apart from that I’d happily use preferred language and pronouns etc.

I’m closer to what @SilenceInside describes now - this part -

I am critical of gender. It’s a framework that oppresses and controls. I want it dismantled and gone. That would mean everyone is able to express themselves as they choose. It’s the absolute antithesis of wanting gender to exist and be rigidly applied.

I remember clearly the first time I referred to a friend who had 'transitioned' - by that I mean he had taken cross sex hormones, grown boobs, changed his name and was presenting as a woman - as 'he'. This was amongst other mutual friends, and he was living in another country. Sort of a small gasp and a 'can you say that?' expression.

They were all men, I'm a woman and yes I bloody well can distinguish a trans-identifying man from a real woman like me by using the correct pronouns for him.

Funny they were all being so kind to him in his absence by pretending, and to me that felt like a slap in my face - who was sitting there in front of them. I know they didn't mean it🙄 but that's just what casual sexism looks like. They did a 'micro-aggression' on me 😂

But I felt safe enough to do that because they were very old friends.

I suppose in my mind the two sides are a) complete acceptance and b) complete denial and erasure of trans-people and outright transphobia.

really??? I find that rather hard to believe if you have had as you say good GC conversations in the past.

why on earth would you think that?

"denial and erasure"

denial of what?

erasure of what?

This is just lingo

Maybe this video can help

https://adulthumanfemale.info/wp/

Of course, it is also important to remember that this is the video where the screening of it at Edinburgh uni had to be cancelled three times due to fears for the safety of the women coming to watch it.

When someone describes this board or feminists who don’t agree that male people can be female as being in an ‘echo chamber’, I think that they are pretty ignorant because they obviously ignore what happens to women who do speak their opinion, or who want to hear the opinion of women as to why they disagree that male people can ever be female people.

It is projection really. I don’t know of any meeting or protest by people with transgender identities being cancelled due to feminists threatening or blockading them. Or even writing on their forum boards.

OP do you know about any of these events? Women like me don't ever try to stop trans-identifying people from talking or meeting - we don't drown out speeches with load-hailers, kick in windows, throw smoke bombs into confined spaces; nor are we aggressive or violent.

OP wouldn't blame you if you didn't. None of my fairly disinterested friends know about them because they aren't reported in the places that they go to to get news.

https://sex-matters.org/about-us/what-we-are-up-against/intimidation-threats-and-violence-by-trans-rights-activists/