Gender Critical peoples arguments are flawed

Over the past few years we have seen a loos collective of people who call themselves gender critical, the core belief of their system is that there is no such thing as gender and people should only be treated along the lines of biological sex that is assigned to people at birth.

They have become very vocal on social media and on websites like mumsnet. The main group of people they focus a lot of their energy on is trans people, and most notably trans women. Because over the past decade or so there has been an increase in acceptance of trans people, and all-sorts of organisations have implemented policies that are transgender inclusive to allow them to participate and not feel like an outsider.

This increase of acceptance and the policies that have come along with them has caused the gender critical people to get angry over this current situation. In the beginning they were relatively small, and started off by holding small events with guest speakers who held their views to try and recruit more people to their cause. After a while their numbers started to grow, and they were starting to become very vocal on social media and essentially took over the feminism board on mumsnet.

They are angry at the greater inclusion in society that has been afforded to trans people. With policies introduced that allow trans people to be treated the same way anyone else of the same gender would be. The country has seen this happen from schools to work places, to businesses’ and in the sporting arena (though there are still some limitations in place).

But to understand why they are angry, you need to know what their core tenant of their gender critical belief is; they claim that gender is a social construct made up by academic and introduced in to society. They reject outright the idea of gender and instead take a stance that there is only two sex’s and that you can’t change sex. So they view trans people as being delusional people and should not be treated as their acquired gender but as the gender they were born; so for a trans woman they should be treated by society as a man.

They see the changes that have been happening to society and are angry with them, they consider the integration of trans people in to society as having a direct impact on the rights of women. They consider every change that has taken place puts women and girls at risk. As in their world view it is not trans women who they are socialising with or attending school with their children; but they see them as men.

This means that changes to policies around which changing rooms and bathrooms that trans people can use is wrong, and puts those people at risk of assault be it physical or even sexual. Because as they see trans people as being the same as when they were born, it’s not a trans person using this space but a man; and they then use the figures that detail the levels of violence that men perpetrate against women to try and claim that trans people are inherently dangerous to girls and women.

On top of this bit of mental gymnastics, they have taken up the idea that was raised in the USA when they were debating bathroom bills (again discrimination against trans people) that if you let trans people to access these facilities’ then sexual predators will take advantage of this and claim to be trans so they can gain access to these spaces for their nefarious acts.

Though this scaremongering hypothetical situation has been disproved in several countries all over the world, in countries that have more trans inclusive laws and policies. They have had no more stranger sexual assaults in these spaces.

As if you think about it logically, then if someone is going out with the intent to sexually assault someone. Then their mind is made up on the issue and they are highly likely to do it. They would look for an opportunity to carry out their heinous crime and do it. Even if you had a law like the gender critical people would like, that made it an offence for someone born male to access female toilets or changing rooms. A sexual predators is not really going to care about it, as they are going out with the motivation to carry out a more serious crime.

This false narrative came from the religious right in the USA, because they didn’t really have any counter to allowing trans people to use the bathrooms that they would feel suitable with. So they came up with this narrative to pull on the heart strings of people, using the age old “think of the children” line.

This has been picked up by Gender Critical people in the UK and they keep trotting it out, and use it in a way to try and imply that trans people are dangerous, the pose a risk of sexually assaulting people, or that they want to get changed in front of young children for sexual kicks. All of which is nonsense but it is an emotive narrative and pulls on the heart strings of parents.

On the bathroom and changing room situation if you talk to them, a lot of them don’t really care that if you forced trans women in to the male toilets you would be putting them at risk of either physical harm or sexual harm. When you bring this up with them, they generally respond with that it is not their issue and trans people should do something to prevent possible harm. A little bit of victim blaming if ever I have seen it.

Some other gender critical people know that this is a possibility, and must have a bit of a moral compass, and instead say that there should be a specific trans bathroom where trans men and women can use. Essentially introducing segregation in to the UK, similar to the race laws that existed in the USA in the early part of the last century.

They see it as a well “you are the same but different and we don’t want you in our space”, something that sounds very similar to how black people were treated back then. Where there were separate toilets, water fountains and so on because they didn’t want black people using the same facilities as the white population.

It is essentially the same as that but rather than going on race, they are doing it based on gender identity. Plus if you did that, there would be a huge cost to business who would now have to provide a 4th toilet. But knowing how badly some places have done with having disabled toilets, and lots using the legal exemptions so they don’t have to put one in place. An act that limits where disabled people can go; if you did the same for trans people it would end up just the same.

There would be very few places that would add in a 4th toilet because of the cost so one wouldn’t get built. This in turn would restrict where trans people could go so they know that if they did need the toilet they would be able to access one. It would in some places come very close to excluding trans people from those areas.

But what they don’t take in to consideration that things as they are in their current situation, where trans people do use the bathroom of their acquired gender has been happening for decades. With very little issues from that happening. Hell it is highly likely that some of these gender critical people have been in a bathroom with a trans person at some point in their life.

Other tactics that they have started to use, is to bring court cases against some of the policies bodies like the CPS and Local Education Authorities have in place. They are finding teenage girls, and getting them to launch judicial reviews against these policies to try and get them altered to remove protections for trans people.

They use crowdfunding pages to try and raise the money to pay for their court cases, because they think that if they do it this way then they can legally remove the rights that the transgender community has worked hard to gain. The basis for the court cases they are bringing is that they claim that the rights of the trans people are imposing on the rights of the girls bringing the case. Going back to the whole line that they consider giving trans people rights erodes the rights of women and girls. They have this idea that somehow the rights of girls should trump the rights of trans people, and are hoping that the trans inclusive policies are removed lessening the rights of trans people in those situations.

But they don’t apparently know how the law works, especially when it involves a situation where you have to balance the rights of two groups against each other. They think that the rights of woman and girls should trump trans rights. But that is not how it works, the courts will look at both arguments brought in the case. They will also look at case law from similar situations, and come to a decision where they do their best to balance the situation in a way that both sides have as many rights as possible without restricting the rights of one group unduly.

Though they will also take in to consideration the motive behind the case, and they will look at the world view of gender critical people and how such a view point fits in to modern day Britain. If they think that those views are not beneficial to a democratic society, then they will also take that in to consideration when they make their judgement in the case.

So having seen what I have online about these cases that they are bringing, I do have faith in the judiciary to find in the right way and not in favour of the gender critical people.