1/ I want to address the myth that gender critical feminist thought is aligned philosophically with the conservative right.

This is either a misunderstanding or misrepresentation of the GC position.

I've made this chart to distinguish between the main viewpoints.

2/ There are three main clusters of thought here - and we can discriminate them in their attitudes to what sex and what gender are.

The first dimension is how sex is viewed - is it an objective biological fact based on reproductive role and development?

3/ Or is sex some sort of arbitrary assignment we make on babies without any real objective meaning? Is sex more of a 'spectrum' where people may lie on many intermediate points and may indeed even move around that spectrum?

4/ The other dimension is how gender is viewed. Is one's gender (or gender identity) an intrinsic and immutable part of our being? Is gender subject to a crude attempt at classifying at birth based merely on external genital appearances?

5/ Does the 'true gender' of an individual only emerge later as a child grows and as they are able to express themselves?

I will confess I have not tried to pin down too hard exactly what a gender is, or a gender identity, as this is usually only vaguely defined anyway.

6/ But the common theme is that gender is a sort of description of how someone should/or wants to express themselves with respect to various roles, appearances, names and behaviours associated with the sexes/genders. (Yes, there is inherent circularity here, don't blame me).

8/ We can see the conservative right position is that there is a direct and natural link between a person's sex and their gender expression. Men are masculine and women, feminine. This is natural and right and deviations morally questionable.

9/ If women are subjected to lower statuses economically, socially and politically then this is just the natural order. There is nothing you can do about it. The conservative position is often associated with religious beliefs about women's roles under god.

10/ The trans or gender ideological view is that whilst gender is a material aspect of existence, sex is not. People do not naturally fit into sexes but need to find their true gender position. Masculine and feminine expression is a core feature of the true self.

11/ In addition, your sex is of no importance. And indeed can be changed through self-expression - and, if needs be, through changing sex characteristics through drugs and surgery. Society should organise around gender expression and not sex, including sport, spaces, rights.

12/ The gender critical position is that sex is a material reality that we cannot escape and it is important to acknowledge for life choices. However, such choices are often made impossible through society's imposition of gendered expectations on women.

13/ Indeed, women form an oppressed class through gender mechanism to create a patriarchy. As an oppressed class, feminists seek to restore justice though the awareness of such gender oppression, creating women-only spaces where they may be safe, seek privacy, dignity & comfort,

14/ ... be self-determining and find refuge from patriarchy, and create fairness in a male-dominated world.

This would not be necessary if gender was broken down and discarded as a way society was structured and thought.

15/ So, are gender critical thinkers aligned with social conservatives?

Well, they do share common beliefs - the reality and immutability of sex; the way gender dictates positions in society, but we can easily see the GC position is a reaction against conservatism.

16/ Indeed, it seeks to expose the regressive and sexist nature of gendered thought, it seeks to expose the mechanisms of male domination - it seeks to create justice for women. GC thought is direct and deliberate attempt to expose and dismantle the injustice of conservatism.

17/ What about the gender ideological (GI) position? Does that oppose the strict gender associations of the right?

Well at first blush, GI appears to disagree completely with the conservative view of sex. It wants to erase the prominence of sex as a meaningful attribute.

18/ But it does not tackle the very method of oppression that the right employs: the use of gendered boxes to keep people in. In fact, gender ideology celebrates this. The right may well often be happy about this. It also allows the right to further oppress women.

19/ In gender ideology, the very concept of being a woman is unanchored from being female. A 'women' is just someone who wishes to express themselves as a woman (yes, it is circular). Women can no longer define themselves as an oppressed class. They lose the language to fight.

20/ They lose the ability to create political organisation, safe spaces, mechanisms for fairness, as there is no longer a way of even acknowledging women even exist as an objective, material class in society.

21/ It is a fallacy to think the gender critical position is in alignment with the conservative right. They stand at opposites of belief about gender. What is worse, the gender ideological position will be acting as enablers of the right's regressive views.

22/ Activists for 'trans rights' and gender ideology may well be acting as useful fools for the patriarchal structures of society - preserving male dominance rather than dismantling it. Rights and protections for trans identified people can only be protected...

23/ ... by anchoring in material reality. By aligning with pseudoscience and myths, protections will be undone and much collateral damage will be occur.

Such has always been the way - for the powerful to spread myths among the disempowered in order to maintain that power. /ends