Ageism often lurks within the ideas and rhetoric of trans activists - Victoria Smith

[IwantToRetire]

... In a recent interview to celebrate 80 years of Woman’s Hour, programme editor Karen Dalziel was quizzed on its handling of the “what is a woman?” question. When asked why the programme didn’t simply reflect the law as clarified by the Supreme Court, she offered a rather convoluted response:

One thing we have to remember here is that you’re on Radio 4. Many of our audience are over sixty. They don’t understand the terminology and part of our role in the preceding years has been to help people understand the terms and what all the different terms mean.

A generous interpretation of this could be that this is about complex legal terminology (who wasn’t an expert in case law when they were in their teens and early twenties? Funny how you forget!). Except Dalziel goes on to say that the Supreme Court judgment has “helped listeners have some clarity about what is meant, but this is moving”. For many people, she argues, it’s “a beginning”:

People said that women couldn’t vote. Other people have different ideas and continue to campaign. We follow the story. ...

Full article https://thecritic.co.uk/you-dont-have-to-be-young-to-understand-gender-identity/

Also at https://archive.is/Ye7A0

Cis, like trans is a word used by people who believe in gender ideology.

Those who do not believe know that the two words mean the same thing - are describing the same sex category. There are not two sub categories of men and women - there are just men and women, girls and boys, males and females.

Women don’t have penises, many if not most transwomen do. Perfectly clear what the difference is. You’re welcome.

It takes a few decades to realise your experiences as a young woman are a pattern that keeps repeating. It takes a few decades to realise the stories of "almost there equality, empower yourself through sex and not nagging, don't listen to bitter old bats" are told to young women in every generation, and all male society really cares about is that young women feel the freedom to have a lot of sex, ideally simply in response to being asked to without caring much which particular men it's with, and ideally at leadt at times for money or on camera. Once that's achieved, support for more tangible freedom like economic freedom, freedom from childcare and domestic work, freedom to be given the same respect and authority as men are given by default...that just never quite seems to garner as much effort.

I find it astonishing when people say we should listen to the young over the old. I mean, are they really saying they can look at themselves from 10 years back and say "nope, didn't learn a thing in the last 10 years, I knew it all then and I've seen nothing that challenges those assumptions since?" And if not... if they see they have learned in the last ten years, can they not imagine they might still have things to learn in the next ten, and the next, and the ten after that?

The belief that humans can change sex is a fringe minority view.

The belief that male people should be allowed to gain access to female spaces by identifying as female is also a fringe minority view.

The whole of queer theory is a fringe minority view spawned in University departments and taken up gleefully by those with an interest in muddying the waters about the important physical differences between male and female.

And yet, you bang on all the time as if these fringe views are incontrovertible facts.

I think it's the imposition of gender identity on other people, particularly women, that gender critical feminists dislike.

If you want to identify as a trad wife (whether you are male or female) go for it.

Just don't suggest that other women have the same identity or that your sex has changed.

Do you think infidel and heathen are useful words?

I'm not bothered about whatever gender you may think you have, I am only concerned that my sex based rights are maintained. So carry on whittering about gender now you have agreed that it is different from sex.

My mum's in her 80s and is perfectly fine with having a trans grandson. Then again, she marched at Pride events in the 70s and was never racist, unlike many of her generation. Plenty of older people are like her.

The idea that people get more bigoted as they get older is an ageist assumption, certainly in her case and many others.

It's up to the individual to decide whether they accept that younger people have different ideas to them, to listen and learn, or not.

Older people ultimately have a personal, individual responsibility not to use slurs common in their childhood and re-evaluate the prejudices a past society taught them.

And younger people shouldn't make assumptions about older people. Even if they have seen photos of terf rallies/LGBA events and noticed that well over 80% fit into a certain demographic....

@TransParentlyAnnoyed

Do you ever understand that it's not just about you and yours?

You crack on with whatever you're doing, but leave the rest of us alone. We don't want to play your games, or mouth your lies.

All this stuff - it's just like saying, "Ah, but you don't understand astrology, do you?" And it's true, I've never made the effort to understand what it means if Mercury is in retrograde or the moon is in Uranus, and the reason I don't make the effort is that it's a load of bollocks. Ditto gender ideology. Please don't insult my intelligence by insisting I greet terms like "cis", "genderqueer" and "Two Spirit" with anything other than a massive eye roll.

I'm not up to date with the ideas of Scientology either.

Even if they have seen photos of terf rallies/LGBA events and noticed that well over 80% fit into a certain demographic...

The type of framing Tommy Ten Names would be proud of. Well done.

It’s time for me to introduce by big new trans star sign campaign, isn’t it?

gender critical feminists believe in socially constructed gender categories…..they just don't like that some people identify with them as an identity because they believe it perpetuates gender stereotypes.

Ooo HowseThatBaileysInTheWhisperingChoppingTreesOfTottenham are so so close to getting it now!

What HTBIWCTOT are missing:

We don't actually mind people of either sex identifying with the stereotypes at all!

What we object to is labelling those identities as the existing names of the sexes, and leveraging that to demand the rights and resources of that sex rather than coining new names for these gender-based identies.

It's not the identity that's the issue at all!

It's the claim that this identity is the real definition of a woman or a man, and so all the challenges that women especially face because of our physical sex and how society reacts to it are - meh, not really relevant or important or a reason to need sex-specific language, support, analysis or a political voice. Certainly not compared to gender identity anyway.

Obviously, being gender critical feminists, ignoring the challenges, needs and inequities faced by the female half of humanity so our name can be recycled to label an defined bunch of fashion choices, character traits and self images isn't going to fly with us.

But it's not the fashion choices, character traits and self images themselves anyone objects to, just the sexism of labelling them "a woman".

And again, gender identity is based on a philosophical theory.

So, ‘cis’ is not a scientific term and those using it, as a group, believe it has different meanings. And the meaning is philosophical in nature meaning those who don’t believe they have a gender identity are excluded.

Therefore the term is rendered meaningless, and it is not accurate. It is a term that was acquired and repurposed in a way that misuses the original intended meaning as a prefix.

And what did your mum think about the passing of the Sex Discrimination Act in 1975? legal access to the pill for unmarried women? legalisation of abortion? introduction of maternity leave and pay? Good? Bad? These things were transformative for some of the women in my family, although too late for others. Do you not think it's a good idea to have legislation and policy that recognises sex and sex discrimination, and that sex is relevant, regardless of identity?

But how useful is it really?

If 'trans' means 'identify with the stereotypes of the opposite sex' and 'cis' means 'identify with the stereotypes of your own sex', then only a very small minority are actually either 'cis' or 'trans'. Most people are neither.

I think that's a good explanation of sex realism/GC feminism, thank you for that!

Yes GC feminists 'believe in socially constructed gender categories' -
the point you seem to be missing is that by defintion GC feminists think socially constructed gender categories are not a good thing - they are limiting to the individual and damaging to society because people do not reach their true potential where gender stereotypes rule.

Where children are subjected to pink/fluffy-rough/tumble stereotypes, society loses out on people who grow up to be the best adult human they can be, in whatever area of life they have chosen, without the constrictions of gender holding them back.

There was a bit of a lull in the 80s and 90s when children were given more freedom to just be kids, but then bang! the princess-butterfly-sparkle backlash, and gender stereotypes came back with a vengeance.

And this time, gender stereotypes were embraced by a movement that muddied the waters by mixing up 'sex' and 'gender', claimed that children could be 'born in the wrong body' or have a 'female brain in a male body', that people could transition from one sex to the other.. or one gender to the other, since no amount of hormones or surgery can change anyone's biological sex.

Which explains why .'they just don't like that some people identify with them as an identity because they believe it perpetuates gender stereotypes.'
Spot on! Who want would gender stereotypes to be perpetuated?

This thread has been, at times, been a classic demonstration of the adage ‘Better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it.’
And with such brazen confidence, too.

You made some really good points here and then ruined it all by making an ageist comment at the end that invalidated everything you said.

The use of the term ‘cis’ to describe women who are not men is great at signalling to others that the person using it has a very tenuous grip on reality. When I hear it or read it, my brain instantly goes to ‘oh, this person is ideologically captured and actually believes that humans can change sex, so they’re probably talking utter nonsense about other things too’.

Statistically?

Trans’ you don’t identify with the gender (societal expectations of how a man or woman should behave) associated with your sex

Theres a huge problem with this definition- many of us don’t identify with the societal expectations of how we should behave associated with our sex - and yet we are not ‘trans’. We just don’t believe in the notion of gender expectations.

Even if they have seen photos of terf rallies/LGBA events and noticed that well over 80% fit into a certain demographic....
Like your mother?

Maybe TPA has spotted her mother in photos of terf rallies/LGBA events.
She belongs to that 'certain' demographic ['women of a certain demographic'😁], and from TPA's description of her activism in the past, she sounds just like the kind of sensible, open-minded, principled woman who attends terf rallies/LGBA events.

I just think you have to open your mind.

According to Stonewall definitions, very few people aren't trans.

Pete Hesgeth might by cis, but probably not Donald Trump.