these spaces tend to be very active for two reasons: 1) many of us are progressive and cannot say these things in progressive spaces without risking our employment and/or friendships 2) when you get “peaked” you become horrified by how far gender ideology has gone and what it has allowed in.
Because it’s so controversial, people from many walks of life come here or to spaces like it, which means that you’re going to get conflicting opinions. There are radical feminist opponents to gender ideology (
), conservative opponents and people who fall somewhere in between.
I think issue 1) means many people that comment on this online have an account devoted to just this, but to an outsider, it looks like all we care and think about is this and are thus irrational. I promise you that many of us are perfectly rational
Here are many of the prevailing views on this issue from a radical feminist POV:
Sex = biological sex. It is immutable in humans
- Your sex defines you as a man or a woman
- Gender = social etiquettes taught to each human sex, varying slightly across the world but generally anything that could be defined as socially masculine or feminine
- Transsexual = someone who experiences long-term gender dysphoria and accordingly medically and surgically transitions to present as the opposite sex, but whose biological sex does not change. This is a rare mental illness.
- Some of us think it is OK for transsexuals to transition, following support for other mental issues is explored first and after a long safeguarding process, once they are adults as children are not in a position of mental development to make a permanent decision like this. Those of us who believe there are “genuine transsexuals” recognise not transitioning before adulthood makes transitioning harder for them, but that does not come above child safeguarding. Some think transitioning is not OK regardless of circumstance and there are no genuine transsexuals
- Transgender = someone who may not necessarily experience dysphoria but identifies as the opposite gender. May or may not transition beyond wearing gendered clothes. Is trans on the basis of gender rather than sex. We are critical of this because gender is a social construct
- Nonbinary falls into the same group as transgender
- Women are oppressed on the basis of their sex in a way men are not (e.g. higher levels of rape, FGM) and our comparative physical weakness is used against us by men, who are physically more powerful than us and have oppressed us for hundreds if not thousands of years
- The male sex is more violent than the female sex, sexually and otherwise, and towards women than vice versa. These statistics are reflected in how a higher proportion of transsexual women are incarcerated for sexual and violent crimes than biological women
- Through trying to insist that there is no difference between a transgender woman and a “cis” or biological woman, and refusing to distinguish on the basis of sex rather than gender, the gender ideology movement is effectively writing over this history, and is obscuring valuable data we need to measure and work against violence against and oppression of women. It also incorrectly insinuates trans women and not trans men experience sex-based oppression in the same way biological women do, which isn’t really true because they are not female.
- This obstructs feminist movements in achieving parity between the sexes. for example workplaces collecting data on women’s access to male-dominated fields will gather skewed data if they do not distinguish via sex but gender instead - eg, trans women are socialised as men growing up and this receive encouragement to go into STEM that biological women do not. If a company does not distinguish between biological women and trans women in its data collection, and many trans women work in STEM roles, it may end up believing it has improved access for biological women when it hasn’t. There are other more nefarious examples of this problem
- Men are generally physically stronger than women, which means that if sports are not separated by sex, women will win infrequently. It also is not safe for women and men to compete in many sports owing to how much stronger men are than women - especially the strongest man vs the weakest woman in a contest
- Self-ID is a portion of gender ideology that dictates that any person can declare that they are trans at any point, and be recorded and treated accordingly
- “Gender”-based spaces are problematic where they occur with self-ID, as it means that men can just declare they are trans women and not be required to prove it in any way as to ask them this would be questioning their gender identity which is transphobic. It would become significantly difficult to prove that a man is in a women’s space with bad intentions if there is no legal reason why he (“she”) should not be in that space
- Puberty blockers are not reversible and are frequently followed by hormone treatments like estrogen/testosterone supplements. We are concerned by their prescription to children and young people as CYP are exposed endlessly to the notion that these treatments *are* reversible. They are not accessing these treatments with a proper understanding of their effects, and the silencing of our concerns exacerbates this. Many pro-trans orgs take the view the treatments are reversible and are too quick to recommend children go on them, eg Mermaids and the late Tavistock gender clinic
- We take issue with the notion that sexual orientation is gender- rather than sex-based, as many lesbians, gay men, and straight people are certain their SO is sex-based and biologically, this makes sense. it is wrong to suggest they are bigoted for their sexual orientation, especially given the history of lesbian and gay men being forced to have sex with the opposite sex and discriminated against for having sex with the same sex
- We object to the notion that these views, often called “gender critical”, are unacceptable, as it means silencing the concerns we raise
- We are concerned by orgs like Stonewall pushing gender ideology - it expects compliance from all organisations it partners with and risks the jobs of people with gender critical views. In higher education, government, healthcare and policy, it enables the problems we identify to continue
), have a career of their choosing, have as many or as few children as they want, with or without a partner. It's no longer legal for their husbands to beat or rape them, they aren't regarded as "property" in law, they aren't expected to "obey" anyone as part of their marriage contract, and they don't have to stary married if they don't want to. 
