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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Some clarity in how the trans movement became so embedded, so preeminent

1000 replies

MarcTheGenderSkeptic · 22/09/2026 13:17

Despite being called a conspiracist here by a TRA, actually I work very hard to continually interrogate my thought processes, and not fall into easy generalisations etc.
So, I was reading Róisín Michaux and her fascinating conversation with someone high up in HIV funding, and the push in the last 20 years is to get everyone in the tent on retrovirals, meaning reaching out to not just gays and addicts, but sex workers (incl trans) and critically, the "third genders" who have migrated to the West in large numbers to end up as sex workers. And the decision was made to go for maximum anti stigmatization, which means zero messaging on personal behaviour, and critically deciding to accept these men as women. Don't blame them, get more onside.
Guess who has to move aside, and accept the messaging on health grounds that biological men can be women? Made even worse by the increase in HIV in European women who are the partners of men who use the services of these "third genders".
Then yesterday I read the amazing post from Hellofabore about how for 30 years plus, the sports authorities including IOC and FIFA decided to make total inclusion the policy, phasing out gender testing, primarily to allow the male DSDs from Africa mainly to be included, as they were IDd as female at birth, and the cruelty to deny they're still female is wrong.
Again, the overwhelming need is to not stigmatize these individuals. Of course a huge group (we know who) are stigmatized for objecting to losing sports opportunities.
And then back to Róisín Michaux again, her illuminating the revolution in psychiatric medicine, where men back in the day were diagnosed with transvestic disorder, a pure paraphylia, again to stop judging and be more inclusive, underwent massive de-stigmatisation and de-pathologisation, from paraphylia, to dysphoria, now to common all garden "sexual health category".
Three enormous areas where the drive to include men, to destigmatise their plight, to bring them in from the cold, couldn't happen in a vacuum. Society organised along sex-based lines couldn't be simply recategorised, no, a large population group (51% XX) was expected to move over, make their definition porous, extend the collective hand of kindness and inclusion, to this hardcore of men who were deemed most at risk, and needing most help.
At the same time, this blurring of definitions and imposed inclusivity spread from sport and medicine to law and education, the most motivated men worked hard to get the Gender Recognition Act on the statute book, and via Stonewall culture, "social training" and the "trans child" escalated as concepts and then real world consequences as noone in polite society other than a very brave few said anything.
So now we have developing nations male DSDs and "third genders", socially incorporated transvestites/transsexuals, and queer culture first world transgenders in the mix, a political culture in the West frozen into aquiescence and policy drift, and the only light of realism and sanity, an army of women fighting back, with amazing results re SC ruling, banishing self ID into the long grass, and medical and sports bodies tacking back to sanity.
But reading the almost scary analogousness of how health brought in trans and third genders at the expense of women, sport brought in male DSDs at the expense of women, psychiatry brought in transvestites from the cold at the expense of women, you can then see how the most motivated men got the Gender Recognition Act on the statute book to turbo charge the social trans/trans child revolution.
For me, I can now see the past as it travels into the future.

OP posts:
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Lacksie · 29/09/2026 14:52

FlirtsWithRhinos · 29/09/2026 14:32

i can't get my head round how you can't see it.

I guess that's where we are... :(

MrsOvertonsWindow · 29/09/2026 14:55

FlirtsWithRhinos · 29/09/2026 14:32

i can't get my head round how you can't see it.

Based on the nature of the numerous transactivists who descend on this board insisting that men can become women, there are a number of possibilities?

Some men have zero insight into women's oppression.
Many transactivists are so caught up in the coercive control behaviour aspects of transactivism that the notion that women have rights that should be respected has passed them by?
Some transactivists live essentially online and miss out on the normal socialisation opportunities the rest of us gain from living in families and communities, hence their limited empathy?
Some men and women intensely dislike feminists / feminism so acknowledging that women have the right to privacy from men in certain situations doesn't compute for them?
Some online posters are just in it for the aggro so get into arguments just for the fun of it? Especially if they've arrived from Reddit 😁
No doubt lots more....

TheKeatingFive · 29/09/2026 14:58

Lacksie · 29/09/2026 14:51

How does your son feel about that question? - that seems to me to be to be the only person whose opinion you should care about on that.

No.

Facts matter much more than people’s feelings about facts.

If women are compelled to call men, women, then that isn’t just about the man in question. It’s changing the definition of what it means to be a woman for every woman on the planet. So yes the opinion of 51% of the population matters 🙄

Lacksie · 29/09/2026 15:07

TheKeatingFive · 29/09/2026 14:58

No.

Facts matter much more than people’s feelings about facts.

If women are compelled to call men, women, then that isn’t just about the man in question. It’s changing the definition of what it means to be a woman for every woman on the planet. So yes the opinion of 51% of the population matters 🙄

What happens when people can't agree an understanding of the "facts" ?

BackToLurk · 29/09/2026 15:12

Lacksie · 29/09/2026 15:07

What happens when people can't agree an understanding of the "facts" ?

Well it doesn't help agreement if people consistently refuse to clarify what their 'facts' mean. For example, in which settings would it be a fact that it wouldn't matter if transwomen were included?

TheKeatingFive · 29/09/2026 15:12

Lacksie · 29/09/2026 15:07

What happens when people can't agree an understanding of the "facts" ?

That may be a valid question for some issues

But not this one.

Sex is binary. Sex is immutable. These are not disputed facts by any genuinely educated person.

Pingponghavoc · 29/09/2026 15:14

The 'fact' scenarios are:

Sex and gender are different

Sex and gender are the same.

If sex and gender are different why are we trying to group two different things together? A space can either be single sex or single gender. It cant be both.

If sex and gender are the same, what is trans?

Rollingpinofdoom · 29/09/2026 15:15

Lacksie · 29/09/2026 15:07

What happens when people can't agree an understanding of the "facts" ?

Depends. I mean gravity is a fact, time is a fact, humans need oxygen is a fact. Humans are mammals with two sexes that are immutable. What facts do you have trouble understanding?

MarcTheGenderSkeptic · 29/09/2026 15:16

Lacksie · 29/09/2026 15:07

What happens when people can't agree an understanding of the "facts" ?

Depends what one considers facts and one considers fantasies.
There is no agreement on anything to be had, this is a genuine zero sum game.
I'm told by a TRA here that woman is a social construct, another that GI can be fixed in a 5 year old, by another (you I think) that single sex spaces that are unisex can still be single sex.
Where exactly is the middle ground going to be, where facts are commonly understood, where there's even some language in common?
There isn't, and there won't be.
The period of No Debate from Stonewall etc as it recedes only serves to highlight a culture war that can't be reconciled. Certainly not thru language or debate.
If that time ever existed, it doesn't now.
I write this, observing nurses Peggie, Mellie and the Darlington group.
Let me know how the "how do we agree on the facts?" will work out there.

OP posts:
iwishitwouldstartraining · 29/09/2026 15:19

Lacksie · 29/09/2026 15:07

What happens when people can't agree an understanding of the "facts" ?

I don't know.

Perhaps if you could explain what you are proposing for services we could have a productive conversation.

Heggettypeg · 29/09/2026 15:30

Pingponghavoc · 29/09/2026 09:58

Activists want to convince everyone that words that have two distinct meanings can be grouped because the word is the same.

We can acknowledged that men with a GRC have female birth certificates and id. But the meaning of 'female' in that context is not the same as a new born baby girl. Their birth certificates were issued on the same day, but the meaning is different.

We know the process to get a GRA and an additional birth certificate is not the same as the process to get a birth certificate at birth. The baby's is based on observes sex, the adults based on a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. Logically, the adult cannot claim his second birth certificate is the same as his first. But thats what he wants when he is using it as proof of sex.

We know that SSE is based on observed sex at birth. Everything about their justification and design is based on different bodies. It doesn't matter if some people truly believe that sex can mean a certificate, surgery or a gender, the spaces are designed around only one meaning of sex.

The "it's in the Dictionary!" thing is really silly and tedious.

Mouse:

  1. small rodent
  2. Widget you attach to a computer.
They're both mice, right? So it will work fine if you attach 1. to your computer and feed 2. to the cat.

And I daresay if Flat Earthing became fashionable again, a significant minority of the people audible to lexicographers would redefine "globe" to mean a flat circular surface, so as to retrofit that meaning to texts from the past.
Which would duly find its way into the dictionary. And the Earth would continue to be round.

BackToLurk · 29/09/2026 15:35

iwishitwouldstartraining · 29/09/2026 15:19

I don't know.

Perhaps if you could explain what you are proposing for services we could have a productive conversation.

I think the question may need to be asked through the medium of interpretive dance

Heggettypeg · 29/09/2026 15:40

FlirtsWithRhinos · 29/09/2026 09:53

Yep. To a certain mindset, the category of "just the female half of humanity" is just boring. Pointless. Too obvious.

A category of "sort of like the old boring women one and with still those old boring women in it, but made more exciting and edgy because it also had these special extra people you need to be really visionary and open minded to accept" is much more satisfying. Really makes them feel part of something big, something that changes the world.

I think one context where this is definitely the case is academia. They've "done" Feminism, and there are no more reputations to be made with it, so they've moved on to Queer Theory. Meanwhile in the real world, women's equality still has a long way to go before it is a reality, but that's just hard slog.

RapidOnsetGenderCritic · 29/09/2026 15:50

Lacksie · 29/09/2026 14:51

How does your son feel about that question? - that seems to me to be to be the only person whose opinion you should care about on that.

So you think I shouldn't care about how DW thinks about it? Or anyone else? Just my son? Really? And I shouldn't care about the appalling negative effects of gender identity ideology on many women, several of whom I could name – women like Jenny Lindsay (author of Hounded), a poet who was cancelled by the Scottish arts establishment for mainstream views on the definition of "woman"?

But I will not lie to, and about, my son. Both DW and I, separately, came to the conclusion that there are people trying to coercively control us. Now you will no doubt think that is very extreme language to use, but how else can you describe threatening to go no contact if we don't do as we are told? This is from my own son, who was a sceptic until he succumbed to a poorly evidenced worldview that may result in him messing up his endocrine system because he doesn't conform to male gender stereotypes. He has an autism diagnosis, and is cutting himself off from the family who have loved him throughout his life because he has been taught by trans allies that disagreement in this one area is hatred and the sign of bigotry.

We have disagreed over all sorts of things, respectfully, over the years. But this one area is a no go area; we have not even been permitted to ask gentle questions to try to understand how he feels. To do so is apparently being "unaccepting". We should just agree and say, "yes, dear, of course you're a woman". Have you any idea what it does to family members, to be required, on pain of estrangement, to recite the creed of a religion you don't accept? Even the family members who are trans allies have been badly affected by this pernicious new ideology that only cares about itself.

Apologies for going off on a rant. I am not wanting sympathy, but I am so angry that swathes of society have been persuaded that only the chosen few matter, and that any mental anguish caused to any of the rest of us is because we are bigots unwilling to reflect on our bad behaviour in not swallowing illogical, damaging, sexist crap. I love my son, I believe he is on a path which is at best misguided and dangerous, and at worst could lead to a personal hell, and I see no way to get through to him with my love and my concern. Do you know that it's apparently a sign of bigotry and hatred to have concerns about hormone treatments?

TheKeatingFive · 29/09/2026 15:57

Heggettypeg · 29/09/2026 15:40

I think one context where this is definitely the case is academia. They've "done" Feminism, and there are no more reputations to be made with it, so they've moved on to Queer Theory. Meanwhile in the real world, women's equality still has a long way to go before it is a reality, but that's just hard slog.

Well this is it.

I did English in the early noughties. I did all the women’s studies modules (as they still were back then) and this kind of abstract debate is very fun. Sitting around applying Judith Butlers theories on performative gender to Shakespeare and Woolf - great undergrad fodder.

But when someone, somewhere decides that Judith Butlers theory of gender is more important to people’s reality, safeguarding, the law than sex itself.

That’s jumped the shark into utterly demented and dangerous territory.

It is very important that academia learns to stay in its lane.

FlirtsWithRhinos · 29/09/2026 16:09

Lacksie · 29/09/2026 15:07

What happens when people can't agree an understanding of the "facts" ?

Two paths

  1. One side is proved wrong, or
  2. Both sides are right, but using the same language to mean two different things

(There's a third path of course which is an authoritarian government or a powerful social group forces everyone to comply with a wrong worldview anyway, but I would hope no one is genuinely advocating for that. )

Now, since no one I hope is seriously trying to deny that female bodies do genuinely exist and that this has phyiscal and social consequences, the "facts" of Gender Critical Feminists are clearly not wrong

Which leaves either

  1. Society decides that trans activits are wrong to claim trans people's gender identity is mostly equavlent to other people's bodies (or to claim that everyone actually perceives themselves via a gender identity but most of us do not realise this so falsely assume it's our sex - that one only works for self image, it doesn't work once you think about how others react to you); or
  2. We recognise that if gender is not sex, then gender is not sex, decide that both are valid, give them different names, stop trying to munge the two together in a way that repurposes sex-based provisions over to gender identity wholesale, and start working out what of the existing sex-based provisions stays sex based, what (if any) can be purely gender-based taking account of the fact that many people do not identify as a gender at all, and indeed what brand new things might be a good idea to exist to support/celebrate gender in its own right.

Anything other than a variation of the two paths above eventually boils down to sexism.

FlirtsWithRhinos · 29/09/2026 16:11

Heggettypeg · 29/09/2026 15:40

I think one context where this is definitely the case is academia. They've "done" Feminism, and there are no more reputations to be made with it, so they've moved on to Queer Theory. Meanwhile in the real world, women's equality still has a long way to go before it is a reality, but that's just hard slog.

Yes, I have swum in those seas in my earlier life :)

FlirtsWithRhinos · 29/09/2026 16:15

Rollingpinofdoom · 29/09/2026 15:15

Depends. I mean gravity is a fact, time is a fact, humans need oxygen is a fact. Humans are mammals with two sexes that are immutable. What facts do you have trouble understanding?

Gravity is really really complicated as well. And we don't fully understand it.

Neverthless, we find ourselves able to handle this uncertainty without being all confused about whether apples fall down from trees or float up.

Datun · 29/09/2026 16:28

Lacksie · 29/09/2026 13:52

Accurately describing the findings of a court is trans activism?

Well that's the issue. You are pretending that your post is all about the accurate description of a tribunal, when it's not.

Your claim that there's nothing to see here, is drowned up by the quacking like a duck.

Datun · 29/09/2026 16:33

What happens when people can't agree an understanding of the "facts" ?

Oh for the love of God. What would actually happen is that one person understands what's going on, and the other doesn't.

But in this case everyone understands what is going on but someone's pretending not to.

This is such a shit ideology. 😁

ArabellaScott · 29/09/2026 16:40

Lacksie · 29/09/2026 15:07

What happens when people can't agree an understanding of the "facts" ?

Some people believe very sincerely they are the second coming of Christ. Is it a 'fact' because they believe it?

Lacksie · 29/09/2026 16:41

BackToLurk · 29/09/2026 15:12

Well it doesn't help agreement if people consistently refuse to clarify what their 'facts' mean. For example, in which settings would it be a fact that it wouldn't matter if transwomen were included?

That's not a factual question is an opinion about policy

Lacksie · 29/09/2026 16:42

Datun · 29/09/2026 16:33

What happens when people can't agree an understanding of the "facts" ?

Oh for the love of God. What would actually happen is that one person understands what's going on, and the other doesn't.

But in this case everyone understands what is going on but someone's pretending not to.

This is such a shit ideology. 😁

And the person who understands presumably is you? Despite the issue being about the other person's person, right? But self evidently you are right and they are wrong?

Lacksie · 29/09/2026 16:44

Datun · 29/09/2026 16:28

Well that's the issue. You are pretending that your post is all about the accurate description of a tribunal, when it's not.

Your claim that there's nothing to see here, is drowned up by the quacking like a duck.

You are suggesting that these weren't the findings of the Tribunal? I don't understand.

TheKeatingFive · 29/09/2026 16:50

Lacksie · 29/09/2026 16:42

And the person who understands presumably is you? Despite the issue being about the other person's person, right? But self evidently you are right and they are wrong?

A biological man who believes himself to be a woman is obviously not right in his understanding. Despite the issue being about him.

What are you not grasping here?

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