I’ve, surprisingly, made a few friends from the gender critical side of Twitter. Some of which maintain their gender critical stances, some of which who have put those behind them, some whose beliefs I challenge with my ideas and some whose ideas challenge my own beliefs. But I don’t think I would call any of them bad people, and I’d like to defend that position a little here to hopefully build some bridges and I’ll explain why I think that’s a good idea too.

First though, I do want to say there are obviously some truly terrible people within the GC movement, shout out to you, Julia, Venice and Kellie ❤. I don’t think any amount of nuanced discussion about these specific people can really forgive the horrific lengths they will go to to drum up outrage, cause a scene, and all around create hostility where previously there was none. Such as the time Venice Allan showed up at a protest to stir some shit and started filming trans people’s crotches. Or like… literally anything Kellie says or does.

It can be extremely easy to define the GC movement by its worst eggs, as the worst eggs float to the surface of our minds. I’m in part responsible for that, I share and showcase the worst of the worst that I find so that I can make fun of it. Its very low hanging fruit and its exactly the same thing as what happens to trans people by transphobes. They find some dumb kid saying something dumb or violent sounding and suddenly that’s all trans people, we’re all violent and dumb. So this is my attempt to fix my part in that a little I guess.

Gender Critical people are not necessarily bad people and I think accepting this fact and trying to understand where they’re coming from and why is the most important step in stopping this perpetual pointless war online. Of course, many in the GC movement are actually just transphobes, but many others aren’t, and if we can find which ones are which and learn from each other? Maybe we can get to the end of this crap a lot quicker, and then get back on with our lives with even more support behind us than ever before.

I’m not saying we have to compromise on trans rights or self determination at all. Not a chance! I just, from my experience, think many on the GC side have been convinced by transphobes that trans rights are completely at odds with women’s rights. Perhaps at first they just questioned trans rights vs women’s rights, then they got called a transphobe, then they fell in with actual transphobes and those beliefs and ideas got cemented with all the prejudice and propaganda in those circles. Or maybe it was just that they didn’t understand, or still don’t understand — but they want to. They just need someone to take the time to help them with that. Or even maybe they’ve had some traumatic experiences with men and so the idea of sharing intimate spaces with someone who popular culture says “used to be a man” is a little daunting to them.

There’s a whole bunch of reasons one might find themselves on the Gender Critical or anti-trans side of the discussion. And with some, it genuinely has nothing to do with hating or disliking trans people at all, its just an attempt to protect themselves from what they’ve been told and informed is potentially dangerous to them.

So yeah, my conclusion to the title question; Are Gender Critical people bad? is no. They’re human, and like the rest of us humans we’re flawed and fallible and we make stupid mistakes and judge people before we get to know them. We say things in the heat of the moment we don’t mean or would never have said had we been operating on the full information. And yeah, there might be some of us who are just genuinely bad people, but I couldn’t live in a world where I didn’t truly honestly believe that most people are good and want the best for each other.

The single most important thing you can do to stopping the proliferation of transphobia is making friends with people who are opposed to you in some way. Showing them you’re not the caricature or strawman you’ve been made out to be by anti-trans propaganda and misinformation. Be human, be vulnerable, be honest, be real, be you. (And of course, be safe.)