Gender Critical | ContraPoints

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There definitely are pink brains and blue brains. Living people have pink brains and people who died of cyanide poisoning have blue brains.

After this video, whenever someone asks “is so-and-so dead?” I will respond “scholars remain divided”

Natalie's "inner terf" looks like a Sailor Moon villain. I love it.

I'm a trans guy from Russia, and holy shit, we have so much terf. There is not a single community where they would not crawl through, often they purposefully seek out trans people and write nasty things to them just for fun, threaten to leak the address, cooperate with male misogynists with pleasure (and they don’t care that they should work against misogynists. for them where it is more important to inflict as much damage as possible on the oppressed group). They are just fascists. I am very grateful to you for covering this topic.

I recently asked my cisgender brother what made him a man. He told me told me, "Because I am. That's all there is to it." And, in a spark of insight and compassion he said, "And you're non-binary because you are, you know you are. That's all that matters." Like all my relationships with cisgender men, we've had our ups and downs, our rough spots. But shout out to my brother, who can be hot headed and obstinate but always calms down to listen and process and do better next time.

Your point starting at about 9:20 regarding femininity, womanhood, gender-non-conformity, and the question about why feminists don't leave comments on Kardashian pictures regarding enforcing gendered norms by dressing fancy finally clarified a prejudice I've been struggling with for a while. As you said, I was/am one of those non-gender-conforming-cis-women who kind of side-eye the High Femme aesthetic many trans women adopt. I've struggled with this because having the "freedom" and courage to craft my own gender expression rather than conforming to feminine expectations has been a major part of my process of maturing and defining myself as a woman in our society. My girlhood, and especially my adolescence, was in many ways defined by defying those stereotypes and defending my clothing choices and (lack of) make-up and hair styles, mostly against other women and girls, while still identifying as a straight, cis woman rather than a lesbian. I was repeatedly, falsely, clocked as a lesbian in high school and college, and even accused of having a beard boyfriend, which made me very angry on my own behalf and on behalf of actual lesbians. It also made me reluctant to come out as bi for fear I'd be "confirming" everyone's "suspicions" about how I wasn't "really a woman", or not the right kind of woman, i.e. a straight woman. So I found it a bit off-putting to see my gender seemingly distilled into very shallow signifiers like fancy hair, nails, and makeup, which have been used by the patriarchal society to dismiss women as being "too frivolous" and "too superficial" while simultaneously demanding that women dress well and put heavy emphasis on how our appearance defines, or is at least heavily influences, our worth as humans. (And also, I realized an embarrassingly few years ago that identifying expertise in fashion, make-up, and hair styling as "shallow" pursuits, or indicating superficiality on the part of people who excel at these skills, is also a symptom of our cultural misogyny, dismissing these disciplines as somehow more venal or disposable than other art, because their main devotees are women and gay men.) Your explanation of why many trans women choose High Femme looks to make it crystal-clear what gender they are presenting as makes perfect sense. But the Kardashian example really clarified that I'd been staring "downstream" at people who were negatively affected by societal misogyny and transphobia, rather than looking "upstream" at the cultural messages and gatekeeping used to keep women obsessed with presenting as "proper" women, forcing all of us, cis, trans, straight, lesbian, bi, into uncomfortable roles that don't fit the people we really want to be. Thanks so much for this video.

On the topic of trans women NOT being socialized like other boys- you are very correct, and it goes even further. I’m a gay cis man with two straight brothers. I have very little in common with them as far as we were socialized. They had a much more typical little boy and teenage social experience, and I was socialized to be alone because my male peers didn’t like me for being feminine in some ways, for being gay, and eventually, after years of social rejection, being closed off and defensive. I actually was a little boy and teenager and a man, totally cis, and my socialization was not at all typical of most men, and male privilege hasn’t really impacted me until college. For gender critical people to assume that the real phenomenon of an ideal, privileged male socialization is just the default upbringing for trans women is ludicrous, because even as children, anything seen as different is attacked or ignored by most boys. I wasn’t socialized like a girl, but I wasn’t socialized like a boy either.

As a straight CIS man of baby boomer age, you pretty much single-handedly keep me current on what's happening at the cutting edge of social issues, not to mention being a primary source of modern vocabulary & terminology. Smart, snarky, informed and lovely--thanks for doing what you do, Natalie.

The stereotype of the trans woman wearing her mom's clothes when a child not only harms trans women but also cis men. I'm cis and tried in my mom's clothes as a young child. It wasn't because I was trans. It was because gender exploration is part of how we come to understand our gender identity.

"Excuse my beauty" This has been a staple in LGBTQ parlance for a while, and had no idea that it came from a trans woman in the face of oppression. I'm always shocked by how dark our history is.

Trans women are not effected by abortion rights the same way I am, but they were still there marching with us at abortion rallies despite being treated horribly by “pro-lifers” and pro choice people alike

Hearing people gatekeeping womanhood behind “having experienced catcalling” is so weird and kind of gross to me. Obviously, it’s a shared trauma for a lot of women, and should be part of a discussion about misogyny and gender. But that isn’t and shouldn’t be a defining trait of being a woman! I am a cis woman and I didn’t experience catcalling until I was around 22. Does that mean I wasn’t a woman before that? Personally, I can’t say I usually “feel” like a woman in the first place. I just feel like me. And I wish people were more okay with just allowing people to feel like themselves.

absolutely shook to the core upon finding out there are people behind the camera

I'm a cis woman, but I've always gravitated towards gender neutral presentation. In high school, because I didn't look feminine and had a bunch of traditionally masculine hobbies, a whole bunch of people would never refer to me by feminine pronouns, almost exclusively calling me "it." Not a good feeling. It's not just being misgendered, it's being dehumanized. Because I was an "it," I didn't count. The whole idea of calling someone "it" just makes my blood boil. And I'm cis, for fucks sake. I cant even imagine how much it hurts trans kids.

I’m a trans man and I almost clicked off this “women only” video until I remembered that my genitals define who I am and everyone sees me as a walking vagina. Silly me! But in all seriousness I love your videos, Contrapoints. keep up the good work!

You know, as a biological woman it sometimes hurts when other women insist that being a “woman” includes being sexually harassed or cat called. I’m not disparaging other peoples experiences, but that personally never happened to me. So when everyone goes around insisting that you need that experience in order to be a “real woman” it makes me feel like I need to be sexually harassed or assaulted in order to claim womanhood

As an AFAB person with an Adam's Apple, being exposed to TERF rhetoric and the way they talk about trans women as little more than a set of typically-masculine secondary sexual characteristics can also irrevocably damage cis women's relationships with their bodies. I grew up as a woman, was socialized as a woman, and otherwise presented 100% feminine but I'd still get "clocked" as a man by strangers on the internet. Even now as an Agender person who feels comfortable embracing things that used to make me feel shame, I still hate my neck. I can't imagine how it must feel to be a woman with prominent facial hair or less than delicate features to read the bile they spew. TERFs are poison to all women.

"Excuse my beauty" is iconic. Ugh. RIP Stephanie Yellowhair, your spirit is not forgotten. Your acknowledgement of her was so poignant and made me tear up a bit. Great video.

😢I started to shed tears near the end. Speaking of transphobia’s rootedness in “disgust” was able to show me that I too, someone early in their trans journey, felt the same disgust. I’m so glad I watched this, it is brilliant & cathartic 💕💕💅🏾EXCUSE MY BEAUTY