I would actually like to talk a little about how gender critical ideology negatively affects and harms me, a cis woman.

I would like to first make it clear that it's fairly irrelevant. Terfism is wrong because it hurts trans people. Terfism is misogynistic because it harms women

Cis women do not need to be affected to make terfism misogynistic, because trans women are harmed, and trans women are women, so that's enough to make it reprehensible and anti-feminist.

But since they're always going they're "defending women", meaning cis women...

Allow me, a cis woman, to set the record straight. Gender criticals are not defending or helping me. They are harming me and making the world less safe for me, a cis woman.

1) Gender criticals reinforce gender stereotypes and pressure cis women to conform to those stereotypes.

Gender criticals have a list of rules about "real" women and physical features that makes them real. Not allowed to be tall or have big feet (so that's my sister out) not allowed to have big hands. Must be appropriately feminine and pretty

I have some "masculine" features. Some are in how I look. Some are in my personality. When I was a kid, I was often mistaken for being a boy. For most of my life this hasn't been much of an issue, but since GCs got popular, so did insults about a woman's physical appearance

In other words, because transphobes are so eager to bully and harass trans women about their physical appearance, they will often target anyone who doesn't fit this list of rules they have about how a "real" woman should look, including cis women.

I'm a cis woman who has started to receive insults based on my looks and how they're not "feminine" enough specifically as a result of GCs saying that's an ok tactic to use against trans women in the name of "defending women"

2) GCs reduce women to our reproductive organs and reinforce the harmful idea that the most important feature, purpose, and role a woman has is to be someone else's mother.

They make a big song and dance about periods and childbirth and act like that's our entire identity.

I have never, ever enjoyed the sort of "vagina feminism" that makes bread from your own vaginal yeast and writes epic poems painted in period blood. Like no judgement w/e you do you but my period is not my mark of womanhood. It's an inconvenience and a bloody nuisance.

I also have absolutely no interest in experiencing pain just because it's "natural". There's this romanticised idea that childbirth is a woman's great battle, men did in war and women die in childbirth, and this is supposed to be noble & admirable & romantic. And it can fuck off.

GCs say things like a trans woman will never be a woman because she'll never experience the pain of childbirth.
Ok. I'm a cis woman who had c sections because childbirth would have literally killed me and my children twice. Am I not a woman?

My friend is a cis woman who has chosen not to have children and has been sterilised to prevent it. So she physically cannot have children. Is she not a woman?

My friend cannot have children. She wants them but her body rejects pregnancy and she's only had miscarriages.

Is she not a real woman?

When GCs scream at trans women that they aren't real women because they can't experience childbirth they are also telling many cis women that they are not real women as well. And that is a *fucked* thing to do, especially considering cis women who *want* children but *can't*

Back to periods. I hate having one and thanks to the wonders of modern science I also no longer have one. Previously I used my birth control pill to skip it. Now my mirena sorts me out.

GCs love to wax eloquent about menstruation is such a beautiful and uniquely female thing, getting pissed off at phrasing like "people who menstruate", going on about the moon and seas and cycles and making a huge deal as if bleeding once a month is a mystical accomplishment

That sort of benevolent sexism harms women. No. We are not "magical goddesses who are the source of all life and pleasure" because that limits us to being someone else's experience - usually a man's. We're fucking human beings whether we bleed sometimes or not.

This idea that men go out and create and win wars and rule countries and do all that, but don't worry women you're special too because you can die in childbirth and bleed once a month.
Like. Fuck offffff with all of that.

"Saying people who menstruate erases women just say women" they screech while they cheerfully completely erase me, a cis woman who does not menstruate.

Finally 3) GCs regularly harass, attack, and try to silence me, a cis woman who inconveniently disagrees with them.

So no. In my experience GCs are not defending women. They're harming women. Trans women, yes. And also me, a cis woman.

Also in Scotland their champion is a cis man with a history of sexual assault accusations.
So fuck them in the eye, every one of those mysoginistic ghouls tbqh.

I have to mute this now because it's blowing up my mentions so I will no longer see replies, but I'm glad people like it.