Re language.
Have a think about the differences in the use of factual neutral language and emotive hyperbolic language.
Now there is a certain amount of winding up going on all round but there's also differences.
"A fully intact male going into a female only changing room"
Versus
"If a transwoman goes into a male changing room she will be beaten up and its dehumanising".
Or just more generally
"Women have legal rights to privacy, dignity and safety away from males due to their bodies"
Versus
"It's literal genocide. It's a holocaust against transpeople".
Yes there are far more emotive expressions by Gender Critical people - and actually this tends to be one of the fracture points on this side of the debate with the more hyperbolic figures being the ones who have had the most drama (Graham Linehan being the obvious example) and the non emotional Gender Critical people being the ones who have driven through the factual legal cases.
The media has chased the emotive transrights activists and they have been the most vocal ones on social media and have dominated the conversation.
JKR isn't an emotional figure. She uses language which is simple and doesn't tend to be as emotive (there are exceptions to this).
On MN because we have had such restrictions on what we can say, the dynamic has been that emotive posters were the ones most likely to be banned. The ones who stuck to more neutral uses of language, were more factual and didn't rise to the bait were the ones who survived the ban hammer. That in turn essentially helped to create a very different culture and posting style than you see on other forums (though I would argue that this pre-existed on MN anyway - discussion on politics tend to be in depth and factual due to the knowledge and interests of posters with emotive posters getting bored with it quickly. And I think the same dynamic existed within feminist circles and within gay activist circles because historically they know they get success, better understanding and long term respect from this approach rather than an emotive one).
I do think emotive campaigning - which dominated the Leave movement during the Brexit campaign - does better generally on social media and in the short term because it whips up the crowd because it lends itself to click baiting but it doesn't tend to have long term success because the very nature of such emotive behaviour is that it lacks depth and understanding of the practical hurdles in the way.
The non-emotional approach and understanding of inconvenient truths and problems is the tortoise in the race because you can't just ignore these issues. They don't go away. The factual elements remain.
So it's always worth looking out for this difference in style.
This is why you also why we've had so much tone policing. It's trying to emotively attack factual assertions to try to discredit them. It's not working. The boy who cried wolf dynamic firmly sits in this space as does the smear attempts that gradually lose impact. No one here really cares if they are called a far right wing Nazi anymore. It no longer has the effect of silencing out of shame. The tone policing is about emotively trying to get people to backtrack from factual observations.
The "men pretending to be women" phrase has really hit a nerve. In some contexts it's used with intent to demean. But it's also a phrase which is neutral and accurate. And that's why it's powerful and why there hasn't been a backing away from this assertion on this thread for good reason. The attempts to shame as transphobic haven't stuck - because they no longer have power and 'transphobia' as an accusation has been thrown at absolutely everything including biological scientists and historical archaeologists observations of the human body. It no longer has any meaningful purpose because it's been so over used inappropriately.
The same also goes for 'hate'. Accusations of hate has been used as a substitute for engaging in debate and factual ideas. This means that activists effectively have not been able to develop meaningful deep arguments because they just hide behind the word hate thinking it's a sufficient shield to reality and factual problems in implementation. It's why you get silence to "what is a woman" and an inability to understand that the law is built on facts and that the Supreme Court ruling can only be built on factual descriptions not emotive definitions - and this by nature means that all legal protections for trans people are tied up within how they are identified by sex because gender has no legal definition and no way of being legally defined without being directly in conflict with understandings of sexism because it's a sexist notion built on emotive ideas not factual ones.
Once you understand this, you understand that gender identity is only enforceable by sexist notions and by emotive and abusive methods and it's difficult to roll back from that.
Also see debates about fairness in sport. They don't tend to be emotive. The focus is very much on science and logic to achieve this and you can't escape the point that sport has been in a battle to achieve a biological level playing field for many years within the battle against drugs and their impact on the human body.
This is also why we do have polarised debates on this, but this fails to recognise that polarised debates often have one side much more driven by emotive, shallow arguments and the other side is more grounded, based on understanding of challenges and problems and as a result of this depth of understanding can only communicate this in a way that is more factual and less emotive. (It is not immune to emotive arguments but it's not driven by emotive arguments).
I actually think this is something that over time things on social media will settle down. Historically at times of advances in technology in communication and economic crisis you have a period of very volatile politics as you see a surge in emotive arguments. ATM there is money to be made from click baiting because there is demand. But periods of political turmoil aren't really that good for business in the long run. Greater political stability is better for economic stability and growth.
Greater understanding of emotive v factual debate will grow. Emotive arguments tend to be ideologically driven and this has an age element inbuilt into it. And as a society we will tire of the drama too tbh. That in itself will lead to problem solving. Problem solving can not be grounded in emotive arguments - it has to reference back to these recognitions of immovable obstacles and inconvenient truths.
This is largely where most people now are with Brexit - there isn't a huge push to rejoin the EU and there's greater recognition of some of the underlying social issues which drove the Leave vote and there's an acceptance that in order to trade we have to understand practicalities and barriers. The issue over rights is the one that's not settled but the Good Friday Agreement, the Human Rights Act and membership of the ECHR are all tied together.
That means there's a link between progression on the settlement of Brexit arguments and trans rights arguments. The common point is the cornerstone of rights within our legal framework. It is the immoveable rock within our justice system. If you want to change that you undo the entire post WWII settlement and fabric on which social understanding of others within our society based on the notion of equality. You create lesser castes who by definition can be exploited. It re-establishes the ability to have a second class citizen or even a modern economic slave within the legal frameworks of our law. This is a goal for some - particularly oligarchs (of which Farage is one - hence the embarrassment of the optics and refusal to stand on stage with Binface who has hit the nail on the head and managed to control the narrative and show up Farage as the establishment).
I digress somewhat from my original point, but this depth of understanding of what we stand politically and how technology change and differences in strategy and styles of communication is fundamental and important.
I do think we will get back to a point where naturally we will all start to understand and realise this somewhat seamlessly as 'normal'. Our tolerance for debates being led by crackpots like the Aberdeen nutters, the Linehan Harassment Crew and the Jolyon Family Implosion as a society are ultimately limited as a result. We want resolutions and problems fixed as a society.
The problem always comes back to - no matter how much you try and want to, you can't change sex. This has implications. You can always identify and observe differences in sex regardless of changes in documentation and cosmetic surgery because these changes are all superficial. The whole movement of transactivism is a superficial one based on image and validation by other and a desire to be accepted. (Cults by nature are all tied up in this attempt to make this superficiality look legitimate and have the depth of infinite spirituality or factual basis / grounding).
That's why I am so utterly convinced the whole thing will eventually collapse in on itself. Transpeople will continue to exist - with legal protections - but the insanity of trying to convince us despite the ability to use our eyes, that they have changed sex will dissolve.