17 Comments

Another great piece Helen - thank you.

I would class myself as "gender critical". There are 2 main reasons for this. I do think there's a conflicting set of 'rights' here (or privileges, or feelings, or however we might want to frame this) and that the legitimate concerns of a particular group (women) are being steamrollered and ignored by the also legitimate concerns of a much, much smaller group.

If we take the 'traditional' understanding of trans as someone with a severe 'gender' dysphoria then we have a person who, for whatever reason, is severely distressed by the body they have and want to be the opposite sex. I think for the majority here, "trans" is not an identity, it's a necessary method by which they can find some measure of peace and relief from their suffering. In fact, I suspect that, ideally, they don't want to be recognised as 'trans', but as their chosen sex.

It must be heart-breaking for these individuals who have undergone this tortuous and difficult medical process to be denied access to a space reserved for members of their chosen sex.

But, on the other hand, it's very clear that if we go down the route of self-ID, this will be abused by predatory individuals. I really don't know how to square the circle here.

I think you've hit the nail on the head when it comes to the lack of concern about transmen in men's spaces. Some single-sex spaces are important - it's great sometimes to just hang out with the guys, and it must be similarly great to just hang out with the girls. But I think women have another requirement over and above this social one - and that's entirely due to their vulnerability - a vulnerability that men (by and large) do not share.

As a not very physically imposing guy there would be certain places in a city where I would be afraid to walk at night, for example. But I can't say I've ever really been worried about the possibility of *sexual* assault. I think many women (most?) do have to worry about this extra dimension - and it must be an absolutely terrifying extra dimension.

This vulnerability and extra source of fear is the reason why we have single-sex spaces for women - particularly when it comes to things like rape crisis centres, or domestic violence shelters - and also why single-sex facilities like bathrooms and changing rooms are important.

But how we address these legitimate requirements whilst still being compassionate and decent to those who have undergone transition? I don't know. If we extend the notion of 'trans' to any who fall under the trans umbrella, then we have a serious problem that I don't think can be solved.

And this is the second reason why I'm "gender critical" - I can't make any coherent sense of it all. I don't understand 'gender', I don't understand 'gender identity' - they seem to be vague, subjective, terms that rely principally on stereotypes and stereotypical notions.

I don't know what it "feels like" to be a woman, I can only have an *idea* of what I *think* it feels like. But I also don't know what it "feels like" to be a man - I only know what it feels like to be me.

The other issue is that if we restrict our thinking to just the problem of man vs woman and the various societal stereotypes, it's bad enough trying to get your head round things. But we also have new 'genders' seemingly being discovered everyday. What are we to make of an individual who says that they used to be genderfluid but are now more gaseous or plasma gendered? It's absolutely farcical - and how do we separate what might be seen as 'legitimate' gender confusion when it comes to man vs woman and the crazy new stuff?

As far as I can tell at the moment, the only thing the concepts of 'gender' and 'gender identity' have brought is a massive amount of wholly unnecessary confusion.

Expand full comment

It seems to me that when you say you are not gender critical because you don’t agree with some gender critical women, itis a bit like the many women I know who say they are not feminists because they disagree with certain feminists. And yet, these « non feminists » believe women should have equal rights and opportunities. What I mean is, we are quibbling about a label more than about beliefs. If a person believes women sometimes have the right to single sex spaces, I think they are by definition gender critical. I consider myself gender critical because I believe sex is real. The reality of sex means that there are some situations where women require single sex spaces. And that’s all I need to believe to be gender critical. Some people who share that belief will have different ideas than I do about what motivates activists, etc. I often disagree with much of what certain gender critical writers believe, But we are fundamentally gender critical if we acknowledge the reality of sex. While I agree with all of your analysis, I don’t understand why you say that you are not gender critical and that you think women should be entitled to sigle sex spaces. I see those two things as incompatible- what am I missing? Or perhaps a better question is what should we call ourselves if we believe sex is a material reality that cannot always be ignored?

Expand full comment

I'm also a bit puzzled why Helen doesn't identify as gender critical; the position that biological sex differences cannot be always ignored makes one GC in my book. I can see why you would want to distance yourself from people like Matt Walsh, let's call him a GC-extremist.

As to definitions, I think it's important to use a definition that distinguishes one concept from others. Your definition of feminism; "women should have equal rights and opportunities" is a bit too broad. From Bryan Caplan:

"To start, what is “feminism”? Many casually define it as “the view that men and women should be treated equally” or even “the radical notion that women are people.” However, virtually all non-feminists in the United States believe exactly the same thing. In this careful 2016 survey, for example, only 33% of men said they were feminists, yet 94% of men agreed that “men and women should be social, political, and economic equals.”

https://betonit.substack.com/p/dont-be-a-feminist-highlights

Expand full comment
author

Gender critical feminists are critical or sceptical of the existence of gender as something separate to biological sex. I am not. I think it is clear that gender - masculinity or femininity - is not the same thing as sex - male or female. I think both gender & sex are biological but they do not always align so feminine men exist and masculine women do. The strongest hypothesis for why this is is the effects of prenatal hormones. The gender critical feminist position is that gender is a social construct created to oppress women and relies on believing in blank slatism and that evolution stops at the neck. I'm not a blank slatist and I think it is clear that cognitive, psychological and behavioural differences between men and women exist on average but many have considerable overlap.

Of course, if you are defining 'gender' as 'only that which is socially constructed' then gender is socially constructed, but many people who say that then include cognitive, psychological and behavioural differences that are biological and consistent across time and space. It's a motte and bailey move.

Also, I accept the gender identity of trans people, generally. I also have a gender identity so there's no point in telling me they don't exist or asking me to explain them without using stereotypes like "Women are more risk averse" and "Men are more stoical". These stereotypes exist because biological differences exist between male and female traits. I don't think the acceptance of gender identity that might not match biological sex means that trans women can be accepted as women in every situation without this jeopardising the safety of biological women or their fair access to women's sports.

Expand full comment

In terms of behavioural differences being part evolutionary, part socially constructed (and part 2nd, 3rd order, etc from the subsequent interaction/feedback of the two) I would completely agree with your take here.

But I would describe myself as not having a 'gender identity' and being 'gender critical'.

I might have (probably have) woefully misunderstood what you're saying here - but it seems like you're saying that the set of characteristics that we *typically* associate with one sex or another, irrespective of their origin (biological or social) define a particular gender? So a feminine man, in this view, would have the sex of man but the gender of woman?

But, surely, there must be feminine men who would absolutely not describe their 'gender identity' as that of woman. In this case it would be possible to have two men who pretty much share the same set of behavioural characteristics (i.e. a set of characteristics typically associated with the female sex) but who have different gender identities - one describing their gender as man and the other describing their gender as woman. So what is 'gender' and 'gender identity' telling us here? There is no objectivity at all to the terms.

Isn't it just simpler to say, in the case of a 'feminine' man, that he has behavioural characteristics typically associated with the female sex? Why do we need the concept of 'gender' here at all?

This whole gender thing is so confusing - and it just seems like a complete mish mash of category errors.

Expand full comment

Hi Helen, I’m new here. I’m a big fan. I think I follow what you’re saying here, and I think I’m probably not totally gender critical. Maybe I’m more in line with what you’re saying. The stereotypes exist for a reason, and sure some are only true of certain times and places. Some sex roles are forced by the society, and these societies do not always allow an escape route from your role.

Regarding your comment on gender identity, though: are you saying that it is the persons affinity for the stereotypes that make them “feel like” a woman or man?

I have a lot of stereotypical masculine personality traits, but I don’t feel like I’m more of a man. I don’t not feel like a woman. I just know im female and I have a personality that makes me me.

Am I describing a gender identity, or is it only a GI when I agree it is? What makes a gender identity something real? How do we know it’s not just a way of describing a belief? Kinda like when Christians describe having Jesus in their heart or having the spirit upon them? A gender identity seems more like that.

I’d love to hear more on what you mean by gender identity.

Expand full comment
author

Welcome Maz! I have just taken the opportunity to answer your question on this lengthy thread. I have linked the last tweet so you can scroll up to the beginning . If I link the first one, it branches off into a squabble!

https://twitter.com/HPluckrose/status/1658806812898914305

Expand full comment

Ah, now I see why you don't identify as gender critical. I identify as GC, because I disagree much more with the TRA position than the GC one, but I can see why you wouldn't want to identify as either.

When is it fair to call yourself GC? I think that's very subjective. Hyper-online people tend to go for extreme positions, and normal people haven't even heard of the terms GC or TRA; how critical of gender ideology do you have to be to take on the label GC? Maybe an analogy with autism makes sense. The DSM criteria were chosen in order to help those who have difficulties operating in society without psychological help. The GC label could be used to describe people who think it's important to argue against the excesses of gender ideology.

Expand full comment
author

Holly Lawford-Smith's book Gender-Critical Feminism is probably the most comprehensive overview of what constitutes being Gender Critical and it is written for the present moment. I share her view of what Gender Critical feminism is because my understanding of it, like hers, is rooted in the scholarship and activism that it has produced over the last 70 years.

She gives a good overview of it here: https://hollylawford-smith.org/what-is-gender-critical-feminism-and-why-is-everyone-so-mad-about-it/

It comes from the Radical Feminist tradition and centres on a claim that 'women' are a sex class (Lawford-Smith prefers 'caste') oppressed by the patriarchy and that gender is a fiction created to enable that oppression. As a liberal feminist, I was arguing with the Radical Feminists and Gender Critical Feminists long before intersectional feminism even emerged because I see them as also acting on a gender ideology that denies biological reality and also to unfairly demonise men.

I think it is fair to call yourself gender critical when you are critical of the concept of gender and believe it to be a social construct. However, I accept that terms evolve and now many who call themselves gender critical do not believe all cognitive, psychological and behavioural differences that exist between men and women to be socially constructed but accept that they exist biologically due to differences in brains and the effects of sex hormones. Kathleen Stock puts it like this in Material Girls:

"Alongside the radical feminists fighting trans activist demands are gender-critical feminists. These tend to be critically focused on ‘gender’ understood as a set of restrictive social stereotypes (GENDER2 from Chapter 1). They share this preoccupation with radical feminists but tend to be less focused on patriarchy as an overarching explanatory factor, and less attracted to the separatism to which some radical feminists aspire. Many gender-critical feminists are also blank-slate feminists, holding that all behavioural and psychological average differences are developmentally acquired, and that none are structured into sexed brains in the womb or at puberty. Their utopia is sometimes described as a ‘gender-free’ world. But to be gender critical doesn’t necessitate this extreme a position; it means just that you hold that many behavioural and psychological differences between men and women are developmentally acquired, damaging and could (and should) have been different."

Stock, Kathleen. Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism (p. 243). Little, Brown Book Group.

I reject both the gender ideology of the blank-slatist gender criticals and the gender ideology of the queer theorists. I believe them both to deny biological reality.

You could consider me to be gender-role-critical - I don't think that men and women have to take any gendered role in life - but not gender-critical, because I don't believe that the masculine and feminine traits that are clustered under "gender" are a social construct and I do not think the aim for a gender-free society is realistic or even positive. I think we need to accept that gender differences exist on average but don't apply to every man or woman and that nobody should be forced or pressured into any of them.

Steven Pinker sums up my view of the matter best:

There is, in fact, no incompatibility between the principles of feminism and the possibility that men and women are not psychologically identical. To repeat: equality is not the empirical claim that all groups of humans are interchangeable; it is the moral principle that individuals should not be judged or constrained by the average properties of their group. In the case of gender, the barely defeated Equal Rights Amendment put it succinctly: “Equality of Rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex.” If we recognize this principle, no one has to spin myths about the indistinguishability of the sexes to justify equality. Nor should anyone invoke sex differences to justify discriminatory policies or to hector women into doing what they don’t want to do.

In any case, what we do know about the sexes does not call for any action that would penalize or constrain one sex or the other. Many psychological traits relevant to the public sphere, such as general intelligence, are the same on average for men and women, and virtually all psychological traits may be found in varying degrees among the members of each sex. No sex difference yet discovered applies to every last man compared with every last woman, so generalizations about a sex will always be untrue of many individuals. And notions like “proper role” and “natural place” are scientifically meaningless and give no grounds for restricting freedom.

Pinker, Steven. The Blank Slate (Penguin Press Science S.) (p. 340). Penguin Books Ltd.

I have been expressing this view for many years as a liberal feminist and then as a post-feminist and the people who get most angry with me about it are gender critical feminists and trans activists. Trans activists mostly call me names, block me and no-platform me while gender criticals are more likely to call me a handmaiden of the patriarchy and tell me to choke on a dick and dogpile me for hours until I deactivate my account. Nevertheless, I have some reasonable gender critical feminist mutuals who are supportive of me as a liberal supporting their right to hold and express their views without being intimidated, no-platformed or fired, even though I don't share all their views and I like and respect them a lot.

If you think 'gender-critical' best defines your position and you define this in a way that is not blank-slatist, does not seek an end goal of a gender-free society where men & women are psychologically identical and does not demonise men as the oppressor, then we just have a semantic difference and, as I said, I accept that the meaning of words change, and I am sure you will find yourself among many other people calling themselves 'gender critical' and also sharing your views (and mine). However, be aware you will also find yourself among the original blank-slatist gender-critical feminists from the Radical Feminist tradition who do not accept the biological reality of psychological differences between the sexes and who don't like men very much. I have seen too many people think they share aims with gender critical feminists because they share the one about authoritarian trans activism, but then be turned on because they don't believe they live in a patriarchal rape culture or something similar.

Even J.K. Rowling whose gender critical position is ultimately liberal like mine, and whom I respect a lot, believes that we live in a society where misogyny dominates and I just don't think we do.

I won't change my own terminology as my understanding of Radical and Gender-Critical Feminism is too deeply embedded in my reading of their work going back to 1949 (much of it cited in the feminisms chapter of Cynical Theories) and so I cannot unknow their theoretical stance and worldview and apply their label to my liberalism.

Expand full comment

Thank you for the explanation. I have heard Helen Joyce refer to herself as a sex realist. Perhaps that term better reflects my views. I am certainly not a blank slatist, and I find that position baffling as it seems to ignore that we are mammals.

If I had read your response a week ago, I think I would have agreed with everything you said, but I had a disheartening conversation with my sister a few days ago that has left me questioning the prevalence of misogyny. My sister is the chief accountant in a successful firm in Canada. The owner of the business recently announced that he has made a very lucrative deal with a Saudi firm. A condition of the Saudis is that no women may work on the file. I asked my sister if the owner would have gone ahead with the deal if the condition had been that no black person could work on the file. She laughed and said ‘Of course not, no business in Canada would agree to that.’ So I am left wondering why sexism is more palatable than racism. Anyway, I have gotten way off topic. Thank you again for the reply, it is an excellent clarification.

Expand full comment
author

Yes, in these theories, sexism can be tolerated when justified by postcolonial and decolonial theory. This is the cultural relativism I call one of the four themes of Critical Social Justice that remain constant right back to the postmodernists that inspired Intersectional feminism and queer theory.

Expand full comment

I have observed for a while that all the groups impacted by the gender debate tend to drift towards a theory that the main point of transgenderism is to oppress *them*, specifically. Feminists see it as primarily motivated by misogyny, gay people by homophobia, parents by a cash grab from an unscrupulous medical industry, church groups as an anti-religious wedge issue

Feminists, I think, have the strongest case. Consid the various carve-outs in gender identity legislation where gender-identity is explicitly considered not to apply (the three I know of currently are: UK male-primacy primogeniture rules explicitly excluding transmen, the Biden administration rules on the draft and the recent American rowing rules that all-female competition will be gender-identity-based but the women in mixed-sex rowing must be natal females). It does seem like authorities are able to recognise the potential for conflicts between trans rights and the right of another interest group when it's a group they care about (upper class men, the government and male sportsmen respectively)

Many people in day-to-day life haven't yet been impacted one way or another by the social changes sought on behalf of the trans movement. However, out of the people who have been impacted, a very high proportion are women.

I think that this, combined with the obvious fact that authorities *are capable* of considering conflicting interests but usually don't, indicates that the feminist case is sound - authorities are showing by their behaviour on this issue that they don't care about things that impact women as a class

Expand full comment

I disagree. One of the largest groups that oppose transgenderism completely reject the victimhood mentality altogether. They do not consider people living in western liberal societies as being oppressed. Sounds like a bit of projection to be honest

I don't think feminists have a strong case at all, if anything they disprove their own case. They see everything as oppressing women even when the things they talk about are actually more evidence to the contrary than anything else, for example, Hillary Clinton claiming women are the primary victims of war because they lose their husbands and sons.

Expand full comment

I don't specifically know which group it is which is "one of the largest groups that oppose transgenderism", but I suspect it may be conservatives. If so, that doesn't gel with my observation - I often see claims from conservatives that things like gender ideology are "an attack on Western values" or "an attack on the family" - ie, as specifically geared to threaten things that conservatives value.

Your second argument seems to be something like "you shouldn't trust feminists because they always think everything is oppressing women" but in fact I didn't base my arguments on trusting feminists at all. I based them on the observed behaviour of people bringing in transgender-friendly laws and rules.

They seem capable of addressing conflicts of interest where the potentially disadvantaged groups are men or large institutions, but have not done this for some obvious cases where the potentially disadvantaged groups are women - despite the fact that women have lobbied very hard to have their interests taken into account, and men have not lobbied at all.

This is a data point in favour of the position that womens' disadvantage is not of interest to decision-makers

Expand full comment

I agree that that would be the primary reason for the difference.

It also strikes me that this is an internecine conflict between two identity groups with conflicting claims to being oppressed. Inter-group conflict within the woke domain is entirely predictable. Between trans women asserting that they really *are* women and entitled to all the rights and privileges women enjoy, and women defending the physical boundaries of their identity group, sparks are sure to fly. The two groups are asserting conflicting /frameworks/ with starkly different definitions of what a woman *is*. The sex realists have an advantage, because: reality. For the queer theorists the fight is existential, which explains the stridency. Promoting a theory that's interpretive is simply going to require more activism, more energy, more proselytizing, and more attacking of opponents. Whatever the battle du jour happens to be, a loss threatens the entire friable edifice of queer theory. Probably on a more personal level it would entail a distressing reassessment of things like sexual reassignment surgeries.

In contrast, there is no such threat in trans men's admission into male spaces for the reasons given in the article. As corollary, there is no threat to queer theory. In the inverted hierarchy of status which places oppressed/victims in the morally superior position there is not much to fight over, since wanting to be seen as a man is to seek the lower-status position. Since men aren't making the claim of being oppressed, there doesn't need to be a battle over it. Trans men can walk away with that prize unopposed, just by virtue of having previously been, or still being, women.

Expand full comment

great post. Particularly like this sentence

"The debates around trans issues centres on women’s rights, not because they are being neglected by men whose spaces and sports are just automatically protected, but because they are being recognised and prioritised by people of both sexes, but more women."

In fact, the entire feminist movement depends on the fact that both sexes prioritise women's comfort over men's. Health and safety didn't matter much when it was just men dying, but the second a woman or child dies in a coal mine, that's when legislations starts changing.

I can't help but feel a sense of schadenfreude watching the two sets of feminists fight each other but I find both deserving of ridicule. I have made the point before that if any sex should be concerned about trans toilets, it should be men not women because a woman is never expected to expose her genitalia in public, it's always private cubicles, unlike men with urinals. Lots of men hate urinals by the way. I know a lot of guys that won't go into public toilets if someone else is around or they'll use the one cubicle.

Women in general fear things more. They will perceive threats whether or not the threat is there. Men on the other hand are like psychological lepers, completely unaware of the very real threats they face. Feminists substitute men's lack of fear for a lack of threat, despite all the data to the contrary.

Just look at the recent case of four primary school aged boys who drowned in a frozen lake in Solihul. It's very unusual to hear of girls doing these things but whenever it's hot or icy, there are boys that do this because they have very little perception of danger and it's normally other boys or men going into water to try and rescue them that end up dying.

If men were as fearful as women, society would fall apart completely within minutes and if women were as fearless as men, there would be a lot more Darwin award deaths. These instincts are very natural and have been optimised for survival of the species.

I can agree with the TERFs when they talk about trans women in sports and I stand against enforced pronouns or the attempt to pretend that men and women are interchangeable blocks but I can't get behind their false threat narrative. It's absurd to say only "women" are being redefined. You can't redefine women without also redefining men. Men aren't going to care about trans-men in our sports because there is no way they can compete but I would suggest that this is another example of men lacking a sense of fear because what happens when the trans lobby start insisting on quotas? Wait until your favourite men's sports team gets told they have to have at least one woman or trans-man? Then they will complain, just not as much as women complain because that's what women do!

Expand full comment