> AFAIU one group think gender should be a social construct, rather than a biological one.
No, gender critical people very much don’t want gender to be a biological construct - they find the idea of innate biological masculinity or femininity appallingly regressive. They prefer to think of men and women as primarily unique individuals, ones who are incidentally sexed purely for reproductive purposes ie not for social ones.
If gender is a social construct (an idea which I'm sympathetic to), shouldn't it just go away entirely? I'm happy to move towards a society where we abandon stereotypes of masculine and feminine behaviour, I just don't understand how that's compatible with saying 'I wish to identify as a different gender because my behaviours match the stereotype of that gender.'. Doesn't that just reinforce those stereotypes?
I agree. I wish to go away from traditionalist views “Alice should stop playing with trucks and play with dolls because she is a girl” to “Alice can with trucks if she wants”. But I was shocked to find that instead, some people now believe “Alice is really a boy if she likes playing with trucks”
Then why the fuss about transgender people? It's all about treating them as a different gender, no-one seems to care about adults getting bottom surgery on their own dime.
Mostly because some places - prisons, for example - need to be segregated by sex, and the transactivists want to abolish that.
And because they're also pushing a large-scale redefinition of the terms "woman" and "man", and trying to make it law, which most people don't agree with.
No, gender critical people very much don’t want gender to be a biological construct - they find the idea of innate biological masculinity or femininity appallingly regressive. They prefer to think of men and women as primarily unique individuals, ones who are incidentally sexed purely for reproductive purposes ie not for social ones.