The Rise of Gender Critical Homophobia
TRA and GC are two sides of the same coin
The backlash against homosexuals in response to radical trans activism has already begun and it can be seen in the growing homophobia within the gender critical movement.
The fact that the right understands that humans cannot change sex, and this is something I agree with, is easy to reconcile with and remain confident in my separation from. I don’t align with Hitler just because he and I both understood that the sky is blue, after all. The right challenges gender ideology for different reasons and with different end goals. What is more difficult to reconcile is that after calling myself ‘gender critical’ for over a year, I have now come to recognize a growing issue with homophobia within the movement that is coming from those that also do not associate with the right. This is difficult to reconcile with because it’s clear that both sides have a lot wrong about them: TRA’s and TERF’s alike. I’ve actually been discussing this for a while now and wrote about the attack on gender nonconformity by gender critics previously.
The fact is, despite the gender critical movement insisting that we ignore the proximity to the right (just like the TRA movement insists we ignore their proximity to the right, too) and being presented to newcomers (such as detransitioners or desisters, or even freshly peaked ex-trans allies) as a pro-homosexual, pro-gender nonconforming movement, there is an underlying issue with bigotry (and GNCphobia and even genuine transphobia) directed mostly at gay men (but other groups as well) that stems from the movements reaction to trans activism — and it’s not coming from just the far right.
There’s a lot of bigotry from GC people to examine. We’ve seen; Vanessa Vokey call transmen mutilated mentally ill predators, Karen Davis accuse gay men of being pedophiles, Hayden Hewitt refer to a HSTS transwoman as a ‘failed man’, Julie Bindel state that gay men ‘have no skin in the game’, Lorelei (@hatpinwoman) suggest that AGP men should be fixed with hormones during puberty…
I could go on and on. It takes many forms but other examples I have seen include; quick accusations of autogynephilia directed at feminine men who are gender nonconforming in ways that GC’s do not approve of, a conflation of AGP and HSTS (or heterosexual trans identified males and homosexual trans identified males), a level of empathy shown for transmen that simply isn’t shown for transwomen, vicious homophobic slurs uttered frequently by large groups of anonymous radfem Twitter accounts interwoven deeply into the movement, homophobic notions about drag that are disguised as valid feminist criticism, and a common but refuted narrative that men are lesser impacted by gender ideology:
Glad you at least think we’re impacted enough to use as political pawns so much in your endeavor to advocate for yourself, catsies. Too bad you don’t see the homophobia in speaking for a demographic you don’t belong to and asserting you know better than gay men in which ways and how much they’re impacted by transism. Thank goodness we have homophobes like you to put us in our place and tell us our position in these conversations.
I’m ecstatic that the resource that gay men built is useful for you in proving your point while waging Twitter wars with TRA’s but let’s be clear: the attack on biological sex is one that impacts both gay men and lesbians in the same ways…
…but if the only way you can discuss the issues your own group is facing is by first stating how much better other groups have it, then we certainly can’t have expected you to have also looked into the facts of the situation or actually listened to the group you’re speaking for.
It’s a mixed bag and while I definitely see bigotry directed at all groups, it’s mostly targeting gay men as a demographic, to include homosexual transsexual males. And it mostly comes from straight women, although some lesbians take part, and a fair share of straight men… and there’s also the gay men who bow down at the altar of GC because like being a TRA, it’s the easy thing to do.
Some homophobic notions about gay men even extend to lesbians laughing at the idea the AIDs crisis influenced our position within the transism discussions:
Why is it everyone praising this homophobic take are the same ones criticizing Dennis Kavanagh for his AIDs tweet?
Thanks for your meaningful and very much asked for thoughts about gay men’s take on something that impacts them personally, anonymous straight woman.
It’s interesting to join this side of the conversation and find that lesbians and straight women can make disparaging comments about how gay men were impacted by AIDs but when gay men speak for themselves, even gay men who lived through that era, they are punched down. It’s as if lesbians and straight women have the same “priestess” status within gender critical and radical feminist ideology that transwomen have within gender ideology — and gay men are both groups punching bags.
Straight women criticizing a gay rights activist invoking a tragedy that mostly impacted the very demographic he advocates for in a way they don’t like has the same energy as when GC’s and radfems only criticizing surrogacy when it involves gay men (just take a look at a tweet search on Julie Bindel’s account for “surrogacy” and “gay men”); entirely ignoring that it’s mostly straight people that propagate the industry — just like it’s mostly straight people that propagate gender ideology…yet straight women like Jennifer Bilek use their platform to blame gay men, and treat us like shit even on this side of the fence, where they pretend to advocate for us as homosexuals…but in reality only use us to highlight their own plight, and disparaging our demographic at every opportunity:
Sure, Julie, it’s definitely easier for gay men to come out in countries where only male homosexuality is illegal and the governments don’t even acknowledge the existence of female homosexuality, let alone outlaw it.
Just like how they reveal their homophobia by focusing on gay men’s contributions to surrogacy rather than the majority of heterosexual people who contribute to the industry, the same homophobia is revealed in their blame of gay men but willful ignorance to straight peoples role in gender ideology. Yes, Jennifer, obviously this is gay men’s fault…thanks for fixing gender ideology, or whatever.
The very thing homosexual men and women feared is coming true: we’re being blamed for transism, despite the straight people who uphold the ideology and despite the straight people that drive us into the ideology. These straight women even have no problem attacking lesbians who don’t agree with absolutely everything they say:
Slatzism, who writes for The Post Millenial, has a similar approach to surrogacy. Despite her assertions, it seems that most of her tweets regarding surrogacy are directed at gay men.
Her more blatant homophobia is just a search away, too:
Straight gender critical women feels so confident being homophobic in this manner because they see so many take this type of abuse from TRA’s:
It’s like, in order to be apart of these conversations and not stir the pot, I’m expected to ignore the homophobic undertones of their constant, thinly veiled homophobia — and just accept casually homophobic comments. Just like how I was expected to ignore the homophobia from TRA’s while I identified as trans.
This, from the straight woman that kept sending me now deleted tweets about how men with beards have poop in their facial hair. Once more we’re expected to ignore the homophobic undertones of such an act, and they get to play innocent as if they don’t understand what could possibly be homophobic about something like that (even though it’s clear she did recognize the homophobic implications, given she deleted those tweets). Then the usual DARVO cycle begins and anything said back is somehow worse.
I’m really unsure how anyone on this side of these discussions could possibly question if homophobia is prevalent in the gender critical movement — yet they do, and even upon providing endless examples, it is so often dismissed. It feels like I’m making some sort of Boxer Ceiling document of gender critical homophobia. I remember no one believing me that it was a dogpile of radfems calling me a faggot for a week until I kept updating my Substack article until it had over a dozen examples. And even then, it was written off.
It doesn’t matter how much evidence is provided, reality denialism is as common on this side of the fence as it is the other side. It’s like trying to convince TRA’s there’s an issue with homophobia from their group. I’ve been told I’m just telling random people they’re homophobic for no reason, just like when TRA’s say it about GC people. Actually, it is homophobic to say homophobic slurs, to suggest gay men are lesser impacted, to laugh at gay men’s actually quite logical take on the AID’s crisis, to accuse GNC men and gay men of being AGP, and to speak over gay men about their own position within the fight against the harms of gender ideology.
The truth is that the gender critical and radfem movement is as ideologically captured and homophobic as that of radical trans activists. And like it or not, this rhetoric contributes to the trans pipeline in its own way. It isn’t a matter of walking children into a gender clinic and giving them hormones, it’s a matter of contributing to the culture that makes people hate their sex class and even want to be trans to begin with.
What we’re looking at here isn’t even classic homophobia repackaged in woke language…it’s literally just classic homophobia, no repackaging. Imagine being a detrans gay man and joining these conversations to learn that others think you don’t have skin in the game, are lesser impacted — and how you speak for yourself will be policed by those very same people.
Of course, just like there are reasonable TRA’s, there are absolutely reasonable GC’s and radfems and even those that call this behavior out. However, just like the TRA movement, the efforts to address these issues aren’t on a wide enough scale to have a meaningful impact. It’s why, again, just like the TRA movement, it won’t make any progress for long. The bigotry, the homophobia, the ideological capture, means it simply isn’t a sustainable movement. It’s for this reason that while I will continue my homosexual advocacy, I will no longer associate with the gender critical label.
“Gender critical” as a movement was introduced to me as “anybody who believes that biological sex is real and that humans can’t change sex”. Now it’s morphed into “let’s police gender nonconformity and promote extremist segments of radical feminism” and “let’s blame gay men for gender ideology and disparage their demographic in a homophobic manner”. It really has turned into TRA 2.0. As far as I am concerned, homosexual advocacy must be separate from radical trans advocacy and it must be separate from gender critical advocacy because both are harmful to homosexuals by hosting groups that work against gay liberation.