[Will Hunt]

Extremist propaganda exists on both poles of this divisive topic. The ADL piece being one example

It wasn't clear to me in what respect the ADL report constituted propaganda.

Could you explain that for me, please?

When people don't agree with something nowadays they call it propaganda. The people who share the propaganda are "shilling". There's lots of other code words like "strawman" that you can use too. It's tremendous fun.

[abarro81]

"Gender Critical" is used as a label by people who oppose trans rights,

This may be true, but it's also used as a descriptor by lots of normal people. E.g. I would say I'm gender critical by how the gov or BBC would use the term, but not how you use it. Your approach strikes me as being likely to create division and do your cause a disservice, because Pete's silent majority (e.g. me or spider monkey) might see statements like about how you think " gender critical" people shouldn't be listened to about trans topics, assume that you use the term like most people seem to, and think that, well, you're taking an absurd position and as such they're justified in ignoring you

[spidermonkey09]

This may be true, but it's also used as a descriptor by lots of normal people.

I think this is true. I consider myself pro trans rights rather than gender critical for what its worth, but its clearly used to cover a huge swathe of opinion and is not defined clearly. I don't consider myself aligned with JK Rowling or Kathleen Stock (who I think are unhinged) but probably not with slab_happy either. Tbh I think there's an awful lot of people in that position!

[joel182]

"Normal people" mostly haven't even heard of the term "gender critical" let alone have an opinion on what it should mean.

A YouGov poll last year found that "two thirds of Britons say they pay little attention (42%) or no attention (24%) to the debate in the media and politics about trans rights". To be posting in a thread about trans rights on some silly forum firmly opts you out of being a "normal person"!

[spidermonkey09]

I don't think that follows. If I'd been polled on that question I would probably reply that I pay little attention to it, but that doesn't mean I don't have a view. I'd imagine only a small proportion of those 2/3 have absolutely no opinion on the issue.

[Wellsy]

Either that or capitalism sucks shit, which is my own personal viewpoint

You may disagree, although I'd point out, you're in the top fraction of a percent, globally, so you probably think it is a good system

It's increasingly typical of members of your generation to think that.. go get em' you rebel 

But it's very much said like a privileged westerner without a better alternative.

Stats-wise, top 1.1%, not fraction of a % (although it doesn't break down the top 1.1% further..). According to this: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/distribution-of-global-wealth-chart/

Anyone in the UK with assets over £85k puts them, at minimum, in the top 11.1% of wealth globally. That's a huge number of people in Britain once family assets passed down from the declining boomers are accounted for, as they increasingly leave this world and your generation discovers that these things come in long cycles.

Firstly, whether other people also think it is not really relevant, but I would say that you probably do find discussions about the problems of capitalism tiresome, being as you are a very well off capitalist who's done well off it.

Secondly, 1.1% or fraction of a percent, either way there are people at the top with a vested interest in it being seen as a good idea, your linked breakdown of wealth shares tells me it very much isn't.

Thirdly there are lots of alternatives to our current system. You might say that the fact that capitalists are largely opposed to them has something to do with how they're benefiting from an unfair system.

I'm not going to pretend to have a perfect opposing model, but I'm definitely not going to pretend our existing system isn't heavily flawed and in need of great change and reform. And this ties into trans rights because capitalism is a system of exploitation which creates inequality and trans people are often victims of that (as are lots of minorities). Intersectionalism isn't just made up, it's has a strong basis; you cannot split out trans rights from other forms of systemic inequality.

[Will Hunt]

For the sake of our sanity and the thread, please can the Marx-Smith pay-per-view grudge match take place elsewhere?

[scragrock]

A Trans swimmer, a cisgendered timetravelling dwarf and a reanimated Michael Jackson with a Bob Ross fetish all go climbing at the Roaches.
They All complain about the conditions and cant really decide on the grade of the various lines they end up climbing but they have a lovely day and stay intouch because despite there obvious differences they really enjoy each others company

Sorry, just thought i would Zag while you fuckers Zig

[slab_happy]

"Gender Critical" is used as a label by people who oppose trans rights,

This may be true, but it's also used as a descriptor by lots of normal people. E.g. I would say I'm gender critical by how the gov or BBC would use the term, but not how you use it.

I'd suggest looking at the people who the gov and BBC (for example) call "gender critical" and treat as paradigmatic of that position, and who it's fair to say that gender critical feminists would consider to be leaders and key figures -- e.g. people like Kathleen Stock, Allison Bailey, Maya Forstater, Julie Bindel, and Joanna Cherry (not to mention Graham Linehan and J K Rowling).

Have a look at them and what they're actually demanding.

For example, one of their big goals at present is rewriting the Equality Act 2004 to remove some of trans people's existing legal rights.

It's pretty hard to call that anything other than "opposition to trans rights".

(Unless you want to try claiming "No, I'm not opposed to trans rights, I just think they have too many rights and should have some of them taken away"?)

If you're not down with that, then you might want to reconsider whether you really want to call yourself "gender critical", because it's going to give people very much the wrong impression of what you believe.

If you'll excuse a link to Wikipedia, they have a pretty good run-down of the history of "gender critical feminism" in the UK:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-critical_feminism

It really doesn't just mean "believing sex and gender are different things" or "believing biological sex is real" or whatever -- it refers to a pretty specific set of political beliefs and goals.

[petejh]

Apologies Will and all.

Firstly, ...

1. We're virtually all well off in the west in relative wealth terms, not just me.
2. By your reasoning we virtually all have a vested interest, not just me.
3. Please name the alternatives, with evidence of them being superior. As a 'least bad option' capitalism has so far proven itself superior to other systems at usefully directing human energies. It can always be far better I agree. The root source of inequality can't be laid at capitalism's door, inequality is present within other economic systems (animal farm ring a bell..) and inequality existed long before the last 250 years of capitalism (feudalism.. et al). If inequality exists outside of capitalism, and existed before capitalism, ergo capitalism isn't an essential ingredient for inequality among humans.
4. Finally some agreement - the world isn't fair. Will or can the world even ever be, given the base material in any system is humanity? Based on the history of humanity's relationship with itself to date that looks very improbable*. That's why capitalism is 'least bad', because it deals with humans with selfish incentives which aren't 'all good' - not even yours, your lord highness of the intersection. You're sort of relying on humans to reign in their ancient inherent incentive-following nature and obey some fuzzy universal notion of fairness to all people at all times? We can't even agree on which toilet is right to piss in.


* But not impossible (not to extrapolate into the future etc.). I'm willing to do what I think's the right thing where I feel I can make a difference. I'm also a realist

[Wellsy]

I don't want to shit up the thread, and I am not going to persuade you of anything, so I'll drop it

[Potash]

"Gender Critical" is used as a label by people who oppose trans rights,

This may be true, but it's also used as a descriptor by lots of normal people. E.g. I would say I'm gender critical by how the gov or BBC would use the term, but not how you use it.

I'd suggest looking at the people who the gov and BBC (for example) call "gender critical" and treat as paradigmatic of that position, and who it's fair to say that gender critical feminists would consider to be leaders and key figures -- e.g. people like Kathleen Stock, Allison Bailey, Maya Forstater, Julie Bindel, and Joanna Cherry (not to mention Graham Linehan and J K Rowling).

Have a look at them and what they're actually demanding.

For example, one of their big goals at present is rewriting the Equality Act 2004 to remove some of trans people's existing legal rights.

It's pretty hard to call that anything other than "opposition to trans rights".

(Unless you want to try claiming "No, I'm not opposed to trans rights, I just think they have too many rights and should have some of them taken away"?)

If you're not down with that, then you might want to reconsider whether you really want to call yourself "gender critical", because it's going to give people very much the wrong impression of what you believe.

If you'll excuse a link to Wikipedia, they have a pretty good run-down of the history of "gender critical feminism" in the UK:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-critical_feminism

You seem to think that it just means "believing sex and gender are different things" or "believing biological sex is real" or something like that, and that's really not the case -- it refers to a pretty specific set of political beliefs and goals.

I suppose it might be the aim of gender critical hardliners to sound reasonable.

I am personally very critical of gender. I think it is a highly reactionary and conservative idea, designed to keep people in tired, outdated gender roles.

I think people should be free to do whatever they want. I'm not going to stop anyone identifying as whatever they choose, but I feel the movement is tragically regressive.

I think I had hoped, that with greater personal freedom afforded to people, the distinction between genders would evaporate. Social and legal rules dictating clothes, behaviour, sport, hobbies etc would become less and less relevant. Instead we have these things being baked into society via the trans rights movement. Essentially the only thing a woman can do that I can't is give birth and lactate. Likewise there should be nothing off limits to a woman other than producing sperm. No paperwork or pronoun use can change that. (Though roll on test tube babies and we an eliminate sexual differences as well)

Does this make me gender critical? Maybe I'm just militantly non-binary.

[mrjonathanr]

@ pjh and Wellsy:
Two thoughts, reading your interesting points

1: Are you truly talking about the same thing? Capitalism as unrestrained market forces does not exist. Governments provide and control the framework, so there are various models available, not just a single form.

2: This thread was about something else. Maybe a good debate to give its own thread to?

[slab_happy]

I am personally very critical of gender.

Likewise! And you might think that logically, something called "gender critical feminism" would be all about being critical of gender, but nope!

I'm not going to stop anyone identifying as whatever they choose, but I feel the movement is tragically regressive.

By "the movement" do you mean the trans rights movement? In which case, I think you might be rather relieved by the reality.

I think a fair few people assume that trans people transition because they have have "masculine" or "feminine" traits that don't fit with their gender assigned at birth and imagine that this means they must be a "man" or a "woman", so they transition in order to fit with stereotypes.

E.g. a boy wants to wear dresses and play with dolls, and because of deep-rooted gender stereotypes he thinks this means he must "really be a woman".

And while this was very much the narrative about transness pushed by doctors in the 1950s (and still enforced by gatekeeping at clinics to some degree), it's absolutely not the lived reality, as trans feminists have been pointing out since the '70s.

Trans people don't conform to stereotypes any more than anyone else does! There are trans women who are butch! There are trans men who like wearing dresses! There have been studies showing that trans kids aren't any more gender-conforming than cis kids are!

Gender expression (how "masculine" or "feminine" you are), your interests, what you want to wear -- those are all distinct from gender identity (the little internal sense that says "I'm a man" or "I'm a woman" or "none of the above thank you").

And we don't know what the hell causes that little sense, but it does seem to be something pretty deep-rooted and unalterable, and for a few people it doesn't match up with the gender they were assigned at birth.

But it doesn't mean they're any more inclined to conform to stereotypes than anyone else is.

(Or that they expect anyone else to -- speaking as a very gender-non-conforming cis woman, I've found it's my trans and non-binary friends who get how I relate to gender without batting an eyelid.)

So yeah, I'm all for dismantling gender roles and "social and legal rules dictating clothes, behaviour, sport, hobbies etc." -- bring it the fuck on, please!

But you can support that and still understand that (many, not all) people still have have a sense of gender identity, and that being able to identify as a man/woman/other (and have that recognized in law, as long as law makes a distinction between the genders) is important to them.

And plenty of trans people will be utterly onboard for the dismantling of gender roles. Viva la revolution and all that.

[Potash]

But you can support that and still understand that (many, not all) people still have have a sense of gender identity, and that being able to identify as a man/woman/other (and have that recognized in law, as long as law makes a distinction between the genders) is important to them.

I would be interested to hear what proportion of people have a gender identity. It is personally a concept that is totally alien to me and I'm sure the majority of people do not feel their gender in any way at all.

From the outside it appears akin to religious experience. Convincing to those touched, baffling to those outside.

[Wellsy]

I think most people have a mild sense that they are A Man or A Woman or A Neither or whatever, but of course I don't know that, merely supposition

[Potash]

Do you think that most men have a sense they are male or simply that they possess the knowledge they have male sexual organs?

[Wellsy]

I don't know. Probably the former if I had to guess, for various reasons.

[abarro81]

I for one don't think I feel "male " other than that I observably am and I conform to far more of our culture's male stereotypes than female. But maybe I do feel it I just don't realise I do? 

[slab_happy]

But you can support that and still understand that (many, not all) people still have have a sense of gender identity, and that being able to identify as a man/woman/other (and have that recognized in law, as long as law makes a distinction between the genders) is important to them.

I would be interested to hear what proportion of people have a gender identity. It is personally a concept that is totally alien to me and I'm sure the majority of people do not feel their gender in any way at all.

From the outside it appears akin to religious experience. Convincing to those touched, baffling to those outside.

Yeah, I'd love to know the stats too. Because we only tend to hear about it in the cases where there's that mismatch, but it seems like people do experience it in a range of different ways, and to very different degrees.

Here's an interesting thought experiment -- and it's interesting because people's instinctive answers turn out to be very different:

Imagine that you wake up tomorrow to find out that aliens have kidnapped you in the night and transformed your body through weird alien science methods to that of the "opposite sex", whatever that is for you, before returning you to your bed.

Do you go, "eh, okay, guess I'm a woman (or man, delete as appropriate) now"? Or do you go "No, I'm still a man, I'm just currently in the body of a woman" (or vice versa)? Or some other answer?

I think I personally would feel that I, slab_happy, am still female, even if I had the body of a man. Other people feel differently.

I've heard some people use the term "cis by default" to describe feeling that they don't have any objection to being the gender they were assigned at birth, but they feel like they'd have gone along equally well if they'd been assigned the other one.

And of course some people who find the whole gender thing alien and meaningless will identify as non-binary, specifically "agender" -- that's the "no gender for me, thanks!" option.

N.B. I'm obviously not saying you have to identify as non-binary or anything! But there are certainly plenty of people who share your sense that the whole gender identity thing is totally alien to them.

I think there's a lot of diversity in how people experience gender, even within the category of people who are cis (or "close enough for government work", as the saying goes).

[abarro81]

It really doesn't just mean "believing sex and gender are different things" or "believing biological sex is real" or whatever -- it refers to a pretty specific set of political beliefs and goals.

The link to the court ruling I posted would seem to imply that at the very least in the eye of the courts that believing biological sex is real would, quite explicitly, be considered gender critical..

The cynical side of me feels like some are trying to define it in a way that advantages their side of the debate by making it sound extreme (I appreciate many people who are gender critical are extreme) and making the label toxic. Interestingly page one of Google is a fair split in usages. Maybe we need a term for people who think that trans women aren't technically women but that that doesn't matter much in most circumstances but does in a few ( a bit like spidermonkey was asking for but maybe not quite) since that's what some like me think "gender critical" should/does mean ?

[Alex B]

Why spend so much time agonising over what 'might' happen were someone to transition and then regret it, rather than focusing on all of the cases in which it's been enormously successful and improved quality of life and prevented suicide?

If you care more about hypothetical kids than real ones, there's a decent possibility that you (sorry - 'some people') don't actually care all that much, and that 'won't somebody please think of the children?' is as hysterical and empty as an expression of concern as it's ever been

I would quite like it if we didn't put vulnerable 15 year old girls with a slew of co-morbid mental health conditions and complex trauma  -- it'd be nice if we didn't put them on cross-sex hormones and a waiting list for a fucking mastectomy at their second 45 minute appointment, and then discharge them when they express a desire to detransition[1][2], violating their duty of care in the most egregious way imaginable. I would also like it if we didn't affirm children's delusions that they are literally "born in the wrong body" with wholly unscientific gender ideology dogmas such as that there are "degrees of maleness" and femaleness[3].

So yes, I would be fully in favour of giving some thought to the children, thank you for asking 

Maybe consider if you're one of the baddies?

Are you aware that the composition of referrals to gender identity clinics has shifted from ~70% male to 70% female in the same period across Europe and North America?
Are you aware that referrals to gender identity clinics have increased exponentially over the last decade in every country for which data is available?

• Are you aware that the NHS, The French National Academy of Medicine, the Swedish National Board of Health & the Finnish Health Authority have all stated that there is credible evidence that "social contagion" may be responsible for said increase?
  Are you aware that the UK, Sweden & Finland have banned puberty blockers for under 16s outside of clinical trials?
  Are you aware that all these countries have abandoned the "gender-affirming" model of care, which only the United States continues to cling to in the face of growing evidence?

1. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/20/tavistock-transgender-patient-mastectomy-regret/
3. https://www.itv.com/watch/the-clinic/10a3894    26min25s
3. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/02/12/nhs-childrens-trans-clinic-accused-peddling-unscientific-fiction/

[slab_happy]

I would quite like it if we didn't put vulnerable 15 year old girls with a slew of co-morbid mental health conditions and complex trauma  -- it'd be nice if we didn't put them on cross-sex hormones and a waiting list for a fucking mastectomy at their second 45 minute appointment, and then discharge them when they express a desire to detransition[1][2],

You didn't read the article you linked to very carefully, did you?

She was referred to the Tavistock at 15.

She was seen three times at the Tavistock's GIDS clinic for children.

She was then transferred to adult services at 17.

At her second appointment at adult services  -- so after five appointments, spread over at least two years -- she then got a referral to see someone else for hormones and to be put on the waiting list for a mastectomy.

Which she wouldn't have got until 18 at least, because the NHS doesn't do them any earlier.  So, when she was a legal adult.

You can complain about the Tavistock not providing adequate care (and you wouldn't be alone -- as mentioned earlier, they are collapsing under demand and no-one seems very happy with them), but if you want to make a case, might as well get the basic facts correct.

Because a 15-year-old didn't get a referral for a mastectomy at her second ever appointment. None of that is true.

Are you aware that the composition of referrals to gender identity clinics has shifted from ~70% male to 70% female in the same period across Europe and North America?

Do you have a point with that?

Do you think that children assigned female at birth are inherently more vulnerable and less able to know their own minds? Do we need to worry about them and protect them more, the poor confused fragile little girls?

Are you aware that referrals to gender identity clinics have increased exponentially over the last decade in every country for which data is available?

It's almost like there's been an exponential rise in awareness of trans issues or something ...

Remember all the screaming about how there's an "epidemic of autism" because the numbers of diagnoses have increased exponentially?

Are you aware that all these countries have abandoned the "gender-affirming" model of care, which only the United States continues to cling to in the face of growing evidence?

Are you copying-and-pasting from somewhere? One of those countries is the UK. I live in the UK. This is literally, factually untrue.

The only people claiming that the NHS is "ending gender-affirmative care for children" are SEGM, a bunch of conversion therapist cranks closely overlapping with Genspect.

The current plan is for the Tavistock to be replaced by a number of regional clinics to provide a better service.

There's currently some fighting about whether under-16s will still be able to get puberty blockers without consenting to be used in research (which the government are pushing for, but forcing people to consent to be used in research in order to get medical treatment is normally considered to violate a number of principles on human research). But broadly, nothing is ending.

Though it's probably going to be trundling along in the same under-funded, desperately overstretched way as before, like every other NHS service but more so.

[Alex B]

Oh wow, so you seriously maintain that the UK has not abandoned the "gender-affirming" approach?
You know that puberty blockers have been banned outright in under 16s outside of clinical trials, right?
This was after a review by NICE which concluded that the evidence for their efficacy was of "low" to "very low" quality.
The new interim specification for GIDS even cautions against *social transition*, letalone medical interventions.  https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Interim-service-specification-for-Specialist-Gender-Incongruence-Services-for-Children-and-Young-People.pdf

It's easy to verify with google. I was gonna have a board sesh but I can waste my evening digging out the citations if you really insist.

[slab_happy]

Oh wow, so you seriously maintain that the UK has not abandoned the "gender-affirming" approach?
You know that puberty blockers have been banned outright in under 16s outside of clinical trials, right?

You're welcome to reread my reply:

There's currently some fighting about whether under-16s will still be able to get puberty blockers without consenting to be used in research (which the government are pushing for, but forcing people to consent to be used in research in order to get medical treatment is normally considered to violate a number of principles on human research).

By the way, this is explicitly the "draft interim clinical commissioning policy", which is going to be opened for public consultation following "stakeholder testing and consideration by NHS England’s Patient and Public Voice Assurance Group."

There's also a note in the report, that if they do follow through on restricting prescription of puberty blockers, they'll also be modifying the policy in prescribing cross-sex hormones by "removing the requirement for a young person to have been receiving puberty supressing hormones for a defined period."

In other words, if kids can't get puberty blockers outside research, they'll have to lower the requirements for prescribing cross-sex hormones, because you can no longer say that you can only get cross-sex hormones after you've been on puberty blockers for a certain amount of time.

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Consultation-report-on-interim-service-specification-for-Specialist-Gender-Incongruence-Services-for-Children-.pdf