I am gender critical. This is not news to most people. The reason I am gender critical is not because I hate trans people. I am not irrationally afraid of them. I don’t think they are a work of fiction. I am gender critical because words mean things and truth matters. Separating a word from the thing it defines makes us unable to communicate effectively. Effective communication in the area of civil and human rights is vital.
I pulled this from my own archives today and want to expand on it here. I also need something to publish while I am working on four other topics right now. I wrote the original post on Facebook a year ago. It’s an important conversation, I think, because of how gender critical people are so often told to “get educated,” or “there is a difference between sex, gender identity, gender roles, and gender expression.”
I want to address the logical fallacy of this rhetoric. It’s all quite circular and inconsistent, and the goal posts get moved almost daily. I would like to lay out some definitions first, however, so that we are all on the same page. I will use the verbiage for Gender Roles (GR) Gender Identity (GI) Gender Expression (GE) as provided by trans activism. I will use the definition of sex as provided by biological science.
In asking trans activists what GR, GI, and GE are, we are told:
GR are the societal expectations of people based on their biological sex.
GI it is an individual’s innate (internal) sense of their biological sex, which is contradictory to their classified biological sex.
GE is how one manifests outwardly via clothing, hair style, facial grooming, etc. their GI.
The “Gender Unicorn” is used to describe these different components to Gender Theory. Note that in the Gender Identity (feelings) category, Female and Male, which are biological sex classifications, are listed. The “Gender Unicorn” replaced the “Genderbread Person” because of outcry that the person looked too male…. I’ll let you think about that for a moment. Do also note that the “Genderbread Person” did not claim that male and female were feelings and held in the brain. Goal posts.
Sex is the biological classification of male and female. Trans activists would have you believe this is an arbitrary “assignment,” that one may mistake a penis for male, and a vulva and vagina for female, because “oops!” As a result, you will see them label it as “assigned (m/f) at birth.” (Which really makes me wonder: How do other mammals in the animal kingdom figure out which animals are the ones to carry their offspring to breathing life? Do they arbitrarily copulate and cross their toes and hope they did it right? Or is it something else… the world may never know…)
Now that we have some definitions, let’s press further on the question of these differences.
When we ask what these mean for a trans person as an individual, how it is they know what it means to be female if they are male and vice versa, typically a list gets run off which includes societal expectations of the opposite sex with which a person identifying as trans aligns. Ie. they list off GR as the characteristics of their innate sense of GI that is aligned with their opposite biological sex.
For example, how many times have you heard a trans person (I will use a male who identifies as trans here,) say, “I know I am a woman because am more sensitive, and nurturing, I always loved to play with dolls and the more ‘girlie things’. I got along better with girls when I was a child. I love the way women wear their hair and the clothes they get to wear. I am more domestic. I love to cook and really identify with what it means to be a woman.”? Or in the case of the exploding phenomenon of “trans-kids,” it is always and without fail a run down of liking everything that is arbitrarily assigned to the member of the opposite sex. Girls who like to play with boys more, or climb trees, or be rough and tumble. Boys who like pink, and sparkles, and to play with toys that are socially associated with girls. It is never anything more than the superficial that is used as the reason they are trans.
When we ask about their GE, which most often aligns with either a hyper feminine display, or a hyper masculine display, we ask again about the GR component. If one is truly breaking apart Gender by being trans, why are they dressing in the fashion of the GR assigned with the GI you claim to feel innately which opposes their sex? The answer given is that anyone can dress any way they like. I rarely hear any gender critical person disagree with that. Wear what you want. Who cares? What you wear does not change your biology, so why is it always the most extreme representation of femininity and masculinity that they choose in their expression?
Pressing further still, if the clothes in fact do not make the man or woman, what does? The answer received is always “if you feel you are a man/woman, then you are.” But what does that mean? What is a woman? What is a man? The answers received always present a circle looping over and over and over ad infinitum, or until they call you a biological essentialist and a bigot and tell you to die in a fire or that they will rape you with their lady-penis.
(Biological essentialism is the idea that characteristics of personalities and likes and dislikes are by nature tied to being male or female and are innate, rather than influenced by society in any way, ie. boys like trucks and are leaders, girls like dolls and cooking. That’s a really simple definition, but one worth noting.)
Still with me? Confusing right? See the circles here? It is meant to keep you confused. There is never a right answer with trans activists because it is all based on unverifiable personal gnosis. The only right answer is that your biology does not change despite feelings, pills, surgery, likes and dislikes, or personality traits. A penis and testes are male, a vulva and vagina are female.
We are asking trans activists, medical professionals, and the public to examine WHY. Why do you feel innately that you were born a girl in a boy’s body despite having an objectively observable body part that distinguishes you as not a girl? Why do you think that liking certain things and dressing a certain way makes you not the person you were born as? Biological differences are measurable in more ways than just genitals, too: Heart size, bone density, height, allocation of fat, grey matter versus white matter in the brain, metabolic rates, hormone levels, and more. This is not new science and it is not bunk or disputed science.
Tell me, fair readers who are not trans, do you each have an innate sense of adherence to the societal GR for your biological sex? They say that when we aren’t trans, we are “cis” because our innate selves align with the societal expectations put on us on the basis of our sex, (which is a topic for another conversation: trans and cis.) Do you have that alignment? I am a mother of six. I have carried in my body eight pregnancies. I am a very domestically minded person. I am a handy person in the household. I fix things. I build things. I garden. I move heavy things because if I want something done, I do it. I am not overly feminine in that, I rarely wear makeup unless I am going out with my husband or am going to be on camera. I have a simple and pretty modest wardrobe. I keep my hair straight and neat and do not dye it. I don’t shave my body hair. I am aggressive and forward with my opinions. If we were attacked on the street out on a date, I am more likely the one who will be loud and aggressive at a person who is trying to harm us. Am I trans? Gender non-conforming?
I have a cousin who is female. She is also a mechanic. Typically, that’s a male oriented profession. She is also a carpenter. She is also a prolific gardener and an incredible home chef. She keeps her hair long, but often is found wearing jeans and a t-shirt. She rides 4x4s and gets muddy. She hunts. Does her GR align with her GI with her GE with her Sex? Is she trans? Gender non-conforming?
So, do you align 100% with the GR put on you by society on the basis of your biological sex? Of course you don’t. No one does. And that’s the problem with gender theory. It’s a big circle of double speak based on subjective and individual feelings. Feelings are not measurable. That which can be seen is measurable. Biological sex can be seen and observed objectively. As such, this is how human beings are categorized. Those who have male gametes and those who have female gametes. You really cannot get any more real than how nature ensures the proliferation of the species.
One cannot prove scientifically the existence of an innate sense of self that contradicts the reality of nature. One cannot prove a negative. That’s fundamental in debate and science. The expectation that the whole of society coddle this notion for less than 1% is absurd. The expectation that policy and law is instituted, which impact the whole of society, because less than 1% of our population feels things, is an abuse of law. Law is meant to reflect reality, not delusion. Live your life how you choose and stop pathologizing personalities. Enough with the insistence that because you will it, that your biological sex has changed. YOUR TRUTH does not exist. There is THE TRUTH and YOUR OPINION. No scalpel or prescription will turn XY into XX. That’s not how biology works. You cannot become physically something you are not. You’re thinking of mythological shape-shifters. Or unicorns.
OP: radicalmothering.wordpress.com
It's just your opinion, a disappointing one, but still just that, regardless of how much you beg for such.
Why are you so obsessed with a women's genitals, it's almost if your saying, women are just their cunt, doesn't sound very progressive.
here are facts, by real scientists,
https://www.nature.com/news/sex-redefined-1.16943
Have a fantastic day.
I'm not obsessed with genitals. I am obsessed with truth.
Women HAVE a vagina
Women ARE a vagina.
Notice the difference between those two statements?
Your Nature.com is super cute.
Hand me a study...ANY study... that says you can change sex with a prescription or a scalpel. Please. I'll read it and eat crow if it says that. I have access via my alma mater to basically any study there is.... and believe me I have utilized that resource for quite a number of years at this point.
What is a woman? Please. I would like to know. What does it feel like to be a woman? I have been a girl and now I am a woman. I have been a female human being for my whole life and I do not even know what it means to FEEL like a woman. I do know, however, that a woman is the adult female of the human species and a girl is a juvenile female of the human species.
So please.... tell me... what is a woman?
Like you, I am a biological female, I don't know what it FEELS like to be woman, it's not quantifiable, but I do KNOW that I am one, that my society recognises me as woman, socially, economically and institutionally.
We as women, as females have bigger issues then the ones you focus on, to deal with.
There are women in real danger of the patriarchal systems employed against us.
The fights not here, it's over there.
Namaste
You still didn't answer the question.
What is a woman?
It DOES matter. The legal implication at stake impact women in dramatic ways. There are women in the UK RIGHT NOW being hauled in to police stations and being questioned by authorities and threatened with arrest for being gender critical. Tell me that's not a problem.
What makes you a biological female? What is a woman?
What makes me a biological female? the same social constructions and institutions that bestow you with that title as well.
And to answer your question what is a woman? It's a simple answer, I am a woman.
Can you provide receipts for your allegations of arrests, they don't arrest you for being gender critical, they generally arrest you for breaking a law, like inciting violence, vilification, disturbing the peace, that sort of thing, have they been doing that?
What are those social constructions and institutions that bestow me with the title of being a biological female?
https://handsacrosstheaislewomen.com/2018/03/14/mother-interrogated-by-the-police-for-gender-critical-tweets/
Sorry, I have to drive, but I will reply once it's safe for me to do that.
I will point out, before taking the time to answer this line by line. That your straw man of the trans experience is simply your grafting words into the mouths of others. Its fine, I do it too to make a point at times but its important to understand that, as a trans women, I repair my car, wear jeans, and could without question out work any of the men I've ever met. Societies norms are not the standered used to measure the issue by anyone or GR as you reference it in your text. Also just off hand, why exactly is it inconvenient for you, with your wealth of position and privallage, to let 1% of the population enjoy that same standing. You don't understand. I get that, but your gut instinct is to violently (by use of the state) deny trans people personhood though no evediance of this being a burden to you in any way exists. In fact the laws denying us basic acsess are newly on the books, they where recently created not to solve a problem, no problem existed, but to deny public space to trans people. This you seem OK with despite our over 200 year history in the states alone proving out absolutely no problems. I love the application of logic and will here in a bit provide the data you claim not to be able to find ( Google) however a quick look tells me allot about how you approach this and I'm curious as to why.
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I will come back to this and respond tomorrow... if I am not in bed. I may be coming down with flu again. It's yet unclear. I trend toward not engaging in comment sections on the weekend but I will check out with Penny wrote as well.
Response forthcoming though... Thanks so much.