About Gender Critical Disputes

Women Rising Above Differences

Demonstrators take part in the Let Women Speak rally organised by Standing for Women in George Square, Glasgow on 5 February. Photo credit: Jane Barlow

I would like to highlight some obvious errors in reasoning that leap off the page in yet another misrepresentation of a much appreciated women's rights campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen, that was delivered in a free 60-page pamphlet by The Radical Notion magazine, titled “Gender Critical Disputes.”

Kellie-Jay is well-known for her Standing for Women campaign, #LetWomenSpeak public rallies and “Woman = adult human female” merchandising.

Sadly, we have come to a point where it's hard to imagine good faith will be received with anything other than more doubling down, snubbing, and escalation. Still, it is important not to stay silent. So, in that spirit I would like to say the following:

1. The assertion that Kellie-Jay has no concrete goals which benefit women is evidently false. Perhaps cynical or in bad faith. Perhaps just committed to a misperception. The whole point of what she does is to secure single-sex spaces for women and for that to happen, female-specific language cannot be applied to males. Linguistic clarity is essential.

2. The phrase “male people” will never be appropriate in all situations because "men" have to be separate from "boys" (and "women" from "girls") in order to avoid adultification of children and to ensure we can adequately safeguard them.

3. The claim that insisting on accurate language and saying "men" means that Kellie-Jay is "protecting the sanctity of womanhood", which then makes "man" and "woman" into gender identities, is very similar to the arguments transactivists use to justify the inclusion of men who claim to be women, in women's spaces. This claim bears no resemblance to the work of Standing for Women and Let Women Speak. I wonder, therefore, if it is simply wishful thinking, a straw-man, or even a projection by those who are themselves edging perilously close to treating women as identities men can possess, by refusing to support the repeal of the very laws legitimising such egregious systemic misogyny.

4. Kellie-Jay started using “femalism” after some feminists attempted to discredit her and any other woman who deviated from their personal and collective political position, which at the time involved using preferred pronouns and calling men "women". We can and should discuss why, thanks to their efforts, the position that sex-specific language is critical to us and critical to restoring and securing women's interests is now considered to be a "femalist" rather than a "feminist" position.

5. To label calls for accurate language, single-sex spaces for women and safeguarding of children an inherently "right-wing position", simply because Kellie-Jay appeared in right-wing media and had a few people with right-wing views attend her rallies, is a bit rich considering that quite a few women who criticise her have appeared on GB news, Benjamin Boyce podcasts, have written for The Telegraph, The Spectator, Daily Mail, and other right-wing outlets.

6. Smearing a prominent woman's rights campaigner as far-right/fascist/fascist-adjacent, in the current climate where men in balaclavas use the same accusations to repeatedly attack women, is not just irresponsible, it is dangerous. The ethical compass of such determined and relentless mischaracterisations is so far bent, it has guided otherwise reasonable women far from any reasonable ground.

For the avoidance of doubt, my position is:

Whether we see ourselves as feminists or not, what most women want is for people to get real, get a grip, and be reasonable. We want laws that reflect reality. Policies that restore and preserve single-sex spaces for women and girls. We want clinical practice to return to "first do no harm" principles. And we want to be free to not comply with the absurd linguistic demands strangling reason, sense, and decency in life and in law.

Anyone who wants to paddle, snorkel or deep dive into the Seas of Sophistry can do so while we focus on building a bigger boat, rather than chucking women overboard for unapologetically pointing to the poison in the water.

Yes, we have many differences of opinion on long term goals but we all agree that the water is poisonous. Women and children are being pushed over and under by absurd and unacceptable laws and policies. I would like to see us all pulling together to ensure sex-specific language, child safeguarding, medical ethics, and #RepealTheGRA