Thread by @AidanCTweets

Here is defacto "gender critical" leader, Posie Parker, saying she never agreed with @jk_rowling's "dress however you please" tweet:

"I thought, you dress, and we all receive the message, whatever it is you want to send...and if you deny that to be true, you're just a liar." 1/

We ironically refer to this as "the holy tweet." A "gender critical" conspiracy theory is that it would actually be the most liked tweet ever only that Twitter deleted their likes on it, so they regularly go back and re-like it. But is it really representative of GC thought? 2/

"Gender critical" people are generally highly judgemental of people's clothes and looks. They love to post people's pictures for mockery. There is a huge amount of fatshaming and endorsement of fatshaming in their movement. They think calling people "fat" is hilarious. 3/

"Call yourself whatever you like."

No "gender critical" person actually believes this.

E.g. A lesbian went on a blind date with a trans woman as part of a regular Guardian dating article and GC people said she was no longer *allowed* to call herself a lesbian. 4/

They have strenuous objections to queer people calling themselves queer.

I have had many GC people in my mentions asking me not to call myself a cis man, (i.e. not a trans man) because *they* find me calling myself that to be offensive to them. 5/

And, of course, they do not think a trans woman should be allowed to call herself a woman, or a trans man a man, and they think that non-binary is nonsense.

They simply don't believe people should call themselves whatever they please; not without hearing from them about it. 6/

"Sleep with any consenting adult who will have you." If someone said "sleep with anyone who will have you" it implies you are lucky to be had, right? But just like "dress how you please," for most GC people, it leaves out the "...but we will criticise/mock you for it" part. 7/

GC people regularly ask trans advocates if they've ever slept with a trans person, and say that you can't *really* support trans rights unless you have. If you're a straight person who has slept with a trans person, very often you'll hear "bisexual" used as a slur. 8/

GC people generally tend to be very, very judgmental about people's sexual choices, and there is a lot of biphobia, where a bisexual woman who is in a monogamous relationship with a man is often recategorised as a "spicy straight." 9/

"Live your best life in peace and security."

Ha!

In the gender critical movement, trans women are regularly said to be "mostly AGP males." This is a transphobic conspiracy theory that most trans women transition for sexual gratification, to demonise them as perverts. 10/

Endangering words like "groomers" "misogynists" "homophobes" "pedophile enablers" etc. are regularly, and gratuitously, attached to trans people for simply existing as trans people, or trans advocates for speaking up for trans rights, in even the most mild ways. 11/

For example, all Graham Norton said in an interview is that we should listen to trans people, and I saw plenty of replies from GC people saying his "hard drive should be checked." It is very common for trans-supportive gay men to be slurred in this way in the GC movement. 12/

(Indeed, Posie's video is in response to a "gender critical" gay man. That man has been critical of his own movement before, and even though he apologised for this criticism, they still held a Twitter space to decide if he should be investigated for pedophila or not.) 13/

What most GC people want is for there to be fewer trans people being trans people. A GC leader has said so, explicitly; that they are "damaged" and a "huge problem for a sane world." GC people also regularly downplay or deny suicide stats in the trans community. 14/

I wait to see GC pushback: "Why are you fatshaming Sam Smith, we said people could dress as they please?" "Why are you saying there should be fewer trans people, we said we wanted them to live their best life in peace and security?" Etc. but there is little to no dissent. 15/

Finally:

"But force women out of their jobs for saying that sex is real."

No-one is forced out of their jobs for merely saying that sex is real. I believe sex is real. What is also real is that GC people want to force people out of their jobs. There are countless examples. 16/

Rowling is supporting Maya Forstater in that tweet. Maya , once spent a week tweeting about a trans police officer because she wore nail varnish that broke the dress code in a police promo pic, saying that it was a *safeguarding* concern, and demanding to speak to her boss. 17/

They speak of institutions that support trans rights as being "captured" by the "cult."

It is part of their MO to hound any org or business that is trans-supportive on Twitter.

They don't just want trans supporters to lose their jobs, they want them imprisoned. 18/

For example, it's not enough for Graham Linehan that Ruth Hunt is no longer head of Stonewall, after leaving many years ago, he has stated that as part of some "truth and reconciliation" process, he imagines will happen any day now, that she should be imprisoned for a month. 19/

Rowling may personally believe everything she says in her tweet (although I doubt she would hold to these principles if pushed). However, the larger GC movement barely agrees with any of it, in practice, despite them literally selling merch of the tweet at their conferences. 20/

I imagine a "gender critical" person with a fridge magnet of the Holy Tweet - "dress however you please..." - sitting at the kitchen table, on their laptop, laughing along to Graham Linehan fatshaming Sam Smith, calling them a "walrus" because they are posing in swimwear. 21/

Posie Parker is far more reflective of what "gender criticism" actually is than @jk_rowling. I.e. JK Rowling once said she would march with trans people if they were discriminated against. Laughable: no GC person actually believes that, and Posie Parker would never say it. 22/

They'll say that it is a healthy movement because such disagreements are tolerated, but if you go watch that full video, Parker is not tolerating any dissent. "I never lose" she reminds people, while mocking the very few "be kind" "gender critical" people who might disagree. 23/

P.s. Posie says at the end that these "boundaries" she has have "kept me safe."

When she was doing her tour Down Under, her "boundaries" didn't stop her doing an interview on the YouTube channel of this convicted domestic abuser, did they? 24/24

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