3 ms·

For what it’s worth, I came across Gender Critical a couple of months back, as a confused neutral trying to understand what everybody was talking about. My impr

by jl6 6y ago

For what it’s worth, I came across Gender Critical a couple of months back, as a confused neutral trying to understand what everybody was talking about. My impression was of a community uniting around a common anger at new trans-rights encroaching on hard-fought womens’ rights. I didn’t see much hate, and indeed many posters took pains to call out their support for trans-rights in principle. I think the anger was real though, and maybe was mistaken for hate by whoever decided to ban them.

Spivak 6y ago
Yep, that's pretty much what their community says on the tin. If that was what they actually were in practice I don't think it would have even been an issue. Sure, the trans community would have probably still disliked them, but like it's not like trans people are some big cultural powerhouse. There have been old-school well-respected academics that held similar opinions since the dawn of second-wave feminism. And don't get me wrong, there has always been plenty of infighting among feminists along this line -- many impassioned conferences, books, articles written about it. And it's from these people that GC takes their heritage and has used it for years to "legitimize" their hate. It's what allowed them to survive online as long as they did because they knew how to fly just under the radar. Then, like a lot of subreddits, GC got bigger and the new influx of people weren't uhh... so subtle and more and more of the content became insulting, shaming, and "cringe" directed at specific trans people.
fivre 6y ago
> anger at new trans-rights encroaching on hard-fought womens’ rights How is this a thing though? I won't deny that confusion and fear are very real feelings people have when confronted with something that challenges their existing beliefs, regardless of what those are. We have a right to express those feelings; doing so is an important part of grappling with them and growing our understanding of the world. However, there's a segment of those that seemingly become consumed and blinded by those feelings, then join communities whose express purpose is to stoke them further ("no, we ARE right, those who espouse the challenging ideas are WRONG and they are OUT TO GET US"), and often aren't entirely sincere with their statements that they're really not against the challenging ideas, that they just have ~* concerns *~ Giving them the furthest benefit of the doubt, they're at least confining themselves to communities that largely share their viewpoint, consist of people that don't aren't those bringing the issue to light (how many trans people do you see welcomed and able to express their side in "gender critical" communities? not many? could it be because those communities exist expressly to exclude (from all society, not simply the community itself) and deride them? gee, idunno, hard to say), and are at least populated with some people that are wholly insincere with their "just raising concerns here!" rhetoric and are aiming more to further radicalize whatever subsection of the community is more on the fence. We would be remiss to also ignore that there's fairly clear historical, if recent evidence that allowing these sorts of communities to persist mostly serves as a means to drive people away from any acceptance of the challenging ideas and further cements them in their existing beliefs. /pol/ isn't exactly as a poster child for such communities about-facing and saying "ah, we were wrong, turns out racism IS bad". There may be outliers, but on the whole, these places are poison, and I commend the services in question for finally taking a "you know, perhaps we /should/ have some level of moderation say and tell these communities 'sorry, but you're not really a fit for the broader community we want to have here'" stance. Are there problems with the specifics of the implementation, and is the process imperfect? Sure, most things are, and it cuts both ways--but strangely, I find fewer people coming out of the woodwork in these sorts of discussions to complain about, say, deplatforming of LGBTQ content on Twitter or Youtube because advertisers are leery about their brands sitting in front of content about gender issues that differs from the norm. That happens too, but doesn't seem to trigger the same "ah! the death of free speech has arrived!" outcry that seems to pop up from the other side--those communities do still complain, but marginalization and bigotry are things they're more accustomed to and live with daily; some are sadly resigned to it.

by jl6 6y ago

Spivak 6y ago

Yep, that's pretty much what their community says on the tin. If that was what they actually were in practice I don't think it would have even been an issue. Sure, the trans community would have probably still disliked them, but like it's not like trans people are some big cultural powerhouse. There have been old-school well-respected academics that held similar opinions since the dawn of second-wave feminism. And don't get me wrong, there has always been plenty of infighting among feminists along this line -- many impassioned conferences, books, articles written about it. And it's from these people that GC takes their heritage and has used it for years to "legitimize" their hate. It's what allowed them to survive online as long as they did because they knew how to fly just under the radar. Then, like a lot of subreddits, GC got bigger and the new influx of people weren't uhh... so subtle and more and more of the content became insulting, shaming, and "cringe" directed at specific trans people.

fivre 6y ago

> anger at new trans-rights encroaching on hard-fought womens’ rights How is this a thing though? I won't deny that confusion and fear are very real feelings people have when confronted with something that challenges their existing beliefs, regardless of what those are. We have a right to express those feelings; doing so is an important part of grappling with them and growing our understanding of the world. However, there's a segment of those that seemingly become consumed and blinded by those feelings, then join communities whose express purpose is to stoke them further ("no, we ARE right, those who espouse the challenging ideas are WRONG and they are OUT TO GET US"), and often aren't entirely sincere with their statements that they're really not against the challenging ideas, that they just have ~* concerns *~ Giving them the furthest benefit of the doubt, they're at least confining themselves to communities that largely share their viewpoint, consist of people that don't aren't those bringing the issue to light (how many trans people do you see welcomed and able to express their side in "gender critical" communities? not many? could it be because those communities exist expressly to exclude (from all society, not simply the community itself) and deride them? gee, idunno, hard to say), and are at least populated with some people that are wholly insincere with their "just raising concerns here!" rhetoric and are aiming more to further radicalize whatever subsection of the community is more on the fence. We would be remiss to also ignore that there's fairly clear historical, if recent evidence that allowing these sorts of communities to persist mostly serves as a means to drive people away from any acceptance of the challenging ideas and further cements them in their existing beliefs. /pol/ isn't exactly as a poster child for such communities about-facing and saying "ah, we were wrong, turns out racism IS bad". There may be outliers, but on the whole, these places are poison, and I commend the services in question for finally taking a "you know, perhaps we /should/ have some level of moderation say and tell these communities 'sorry, but you're not really a fit for the broader community we want to have here'" stance. Are there problems with the specifics of the implementation, and is the process imperfect? Sure, most things are, and it cuts both ways--but strangely, I find fewer people coming out of the woodwork in these sorts of discussions to complain about, say, deplatforming of LGBTQ content on Twitter or Youtube because advertisers are leery about their brands sitting in front of content about gender issues that differs from the norm. That happens too, but doesn't seem to trigger the same "ah! the death of free speech has arrived!" outcry that seems to pop up from the other side--those communities do still complain, but marginalization and bigotry are things they're more accustomed to and live with daily; some are sadly resigned to it.