Why do some feminists oppose misogyny but support gender ideology?

[Doodwhatareyou]

I recently ended up in the man hating side of tiktok, which is a place I tend to be in agreement with. I’ve seen several women bravely battle stupid men in the comments who manage to reinforce everything being said.

I’ve seen a pattern though that these women, who seem to be very up on rules of misogyny, and aware of how problematic too many men are, usually have pronouns in their bio, and occasionally will complain about being bullied by terfs.

I’m baffled.

How can they be so up on patriarchal nonsense yet miss the fundamental misogyny in gender ideology. How can they deny the evidence that trans identified men are just as much of a problem for women if not more as they want women’s rights and spaces.

They can make endless videos about how hateful men are because of the way women are treated, and how women have to budge up and make room, yet trans identified men are women, and anyone who says otherwise is a massive bigot. I don’t understand.

I think they're probably not throughly convinced of anything but are repeating acceptable ideas.

When I was a girl it wasn't cool to be a feminist, you had to be not like other girls, popular with the boys. Now it's cool to be feminist and point out gender pay gaps and Me Too etc (I'm not criticising that). But also it's necessary to agree with TWAW, "diversity and inclusion" but also "do not tolerate intolerance", tax the rich, net zero, etc. So many people just go along with the whole package, and don't interrogate any contradiction.

Lack of critical or independent thought, plus buying into trendy group think ideas that are circulating in their tribe.

How can they deny the evidence that trans identified men are just as much of a problem for women if not more as they want women’s rights and spaces

i am a feminist but have no problem with trans people

i am unaware of the evidence you mention
can you link this evidence please

If you have no problem with males appropriating women's stuff, then you are not a feminist.
If you think that some males are actually women, then you have allowed men to manipulate you into supporting their desires above women's needs so, again, not a feminist.

Some men identify as women.
Some handmaidens identify as feminists.

There’s a lot of pressure - in left wing circles particularly, and amongst the young - to show how virtuous a person you are by enthusiastically espousing all the fashionable causes du jour that show you are a ‘Good Person’. They come as a package, and there’s social pressure to take on the full set.

It’s an easy win, as it means you can take the whole bag of bien-pensent views off the shelf and swallow it whole, without troubling yourself to think any of it through with any degree of rigour or critical thinking.

It gets you instant approval from your peers, and protection from being cancelled, and helps you feel warmly satisfied and reassured that you are a Good Person. Job done, no need to keep monitoring yourself and checking you actually are.

If you have friends who are trans or non-binary it means you avoid any troubling differences of opinion with them. It seems that lots of people these days can’t cope with, and don’t tolerate, differences of opinion. They’ve been taught that if anyone has a different opinion to them, they are a Bad Person, who should be shunned and punished, by eg having their livelihood taken away from
them.

In the face of all the above, coupled with more people getting their news via social media, it seems these women are able to hold both views and not even notice the dissonance. I feel quite embarrassed for them, but they’d no doubt be annoyed about that.

“The most recent data from His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS, 2025) further supports the view that males who identify as transwomen retain a male pattern of offending. Only around 4% of the prison population in England and Wales is female. The transgender prison population in 2025 (0.4% of prisoners) included over four times as many biological males (276) as females (63). If transwomen were counted as women, they would constitute 7.3% of women prisoners.”

Exerpt from a letter by Prof Alice Sullivan to the Judicial office, see eg here:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5445880-statistics-poll-evidence-archive-thread?reply=149221203&utm_campaign=reply&utm_medium=share

I can only think its because they have a friend or friend of a friend or a family member who is trans. This friend or family member is in their eyes sweet, misunderstood, genuine, harmless, just trying to live their life and no harm to women. The feminist started off being supportive and an ally and and now feels they cannot side with gender critical feminists as this would betray their friend or family member. Deep down they must realise how completely Batshit the TRA's demands became.

No, it's not possible to be a feminist and go along with gender politics and "trans".. Anyone who believes men can become women cannot be called a feminist since trans harms women and girls.

Gender critical ideologues have perverted the meaning of gender so it makes it impossible for them to interpret it any other way than misogynistic.

Yep.

There is no conflict between feminism and trans rights, it's a manufactured culture war and moral panic. It's also very notable and obvious that many of the loudest "gender critical" voices are absolutely not feminist and in fact promote policies that are actively harmful to women and girls.

There is no conflict between feminism and trans rights,

Non sequitur. It does not follow that a conflict of rights equals misogyny particularly since not all women agree with the very particular view of gender critical ideology that there is harm to women & girls. In fact many women would argue regressing to an era of biological essentialism & increased scrutiny of women's bodies is harmful to women & girls

They don't see the situation as we do, its as simple as that. They believe trans people are one of the most marginalized and at risk groups in society and therefore we should help them. They also believe transwomen are fundamentally different to other men so it is possible to include them (or at least some of them) in women's spaces without additional risk. I don't think they are misogynistic, they just have misguided beliefs about who is more marginalized in society (transwomen vs women)

I want to make this clear: I do not agree with any of this, I am simply stating what they believe. Don't attack me for saying this.

they are too afraid to join the dots because hey know they’ll be branded bigots if they do.

The modern feminist movement is divided into several key ideological branches that differ on the root causes of gender inequality and the best strategies to achieve equality. While all branches oppose patriarchy, they focus on different aspects of society, such as the law, the economy, culture, or identity. [1, 2]

Core Branches of Feminism

• Liberal Feminism: Focuses on achieving gender equality through political and legal reform. Adherents work within existing societal structures to secure equal rights, voting access, reproductive freedom, and fair pay. Notable foundational figures include Mary Wollstonecraft and John Stuart Mill. [3, 4, 5, 6]
• Radical Feminism: Views patriarchy as a fundamental system of power that roots itself deeply within all social and cultural institutions. Rather than simple legal reform, it advocates for a complete reordering of society to eliminate male supremacy and traditional gender roles. [2, 5, 7, 8]
• Marxist and Socialist Feminism: Links women's oppression directly to capitalism and economic structures. Marxist feminists argue that capitalism relies on the unpaid domestic labour of women. Socialist feminists expand on this by looking at how both class and gender dynamics work together to oppress women. [9, 10]
• Intersectional Feminism: Formulated by scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, this framework examines how gender intersects with other identities. It analyzes how race, class, sexuality, and ability combine to create unique experiences of discrimination, challenging older models that focused primarily on white, middle-class women. [3, 11, 12, 13, 14]

Identity and Focus-Based Strands

• Black Feminism / Womanism: Centred on the specific experiences of Black women. It addresses the overlapping systems of racism, sexism, and classism that mainstream, white-dominated movements historically ignored. [3, 15, 16, 17, 18]
• Cultural Feminism: Emphasizes the essential differences between men and women. It argues that unique female virtues and traits—such as cooperation and nurturing—should be celebrated and valued equally to or above male-dominated traits like competition. [10, 19]
• Ecofeminism: Connects the exploitation of nature with the oppression of women. It argues that patriarchal societies use the same systems of domination to control both planetary resources and women. [3]
• Postcolonial and Transnational Feminism: Critiques Western-centric feminism for imposing its ideals globally. It focuses on how globalization, colonialism, and capitalism affect women across different nations, cultures, and geopolitical regions. [4, 10, 20, 21, 22]
• Transfeminism: An approach that applies feminist principles to the liberation of trans individuals. It views the liberation of trans women as intrinsically linked to the liberation of all women. [4, 15, 23]

At the heart of this is youthful naivety, for women.

For example, the phrase "biological essentialism" is just such immature twaddle, I can't even.

I could have died giving birth to my first child. I got sepsis and lost a large amount of blood. I was ill for a long time afterwards while bravely breastfeeding. Separately, I'm still getting over pelvic problems from that first pregnancy, nearly 6y later. Years from now, I will go through the menopause and I don't know yet what that'll be like but it'll be something, I'm sure.

Men will never go through any of that. You can't legislate it away. You can't fix it with DEI. It just is. And pretending it isn't, is not feminism. Pretending I went through all that as a choice, is not feminism. Worse, paying another woman to do all that so you can buy a baby, is not feminism.

So yeah, being "biologically essentialist" is a necessary and insufficient condition of feminism. Pretending men and women have the same needs in every way, and one can turn into the other, is not.

Edit to add - you know one more thing? Your mother went through all of that too, to birth you. Just think about that a second.

I could have died giving birth to my first child. I got sepsis and lost a large amount of blood. I was ill for a long time afterwards while bravely breastfeeding. Separately, I'm still getting over pelvic problems from that first pregnancy, nearly 6y later. Years from now, I will go through the menopause and I don't know yet what that'll be like but it'll be something, I'm sure.

Well thank gawd the loos have been sorted!

Couldn't help making it about you, could you?

On the contrary, it's about the impotence of the gender critical movement.

No you're not a feminist and you are either lying about having not read any evidence or are refuses to read it

I'll go even more basic. The 'femin' part of feminist is from 'femina' meaning 'female'. Not 'feminine', not 'woman', but biologically female.

So you can't possibly be a feminist if you include males in your principle.

You wish it were impotent. Wouldn't have got you kicked back out of those female loos, where you always belonged (edit: by which I mean: out of the female loos, to be clear), if it were impotent.

More to the point: I fail to see the logical connection between "women sometimes still nearly die in childbirth" and the GC movement.

The impotence in terms of real world feminist problems that wowser loo etiquette doesn't qualify as.

The connection is this - women and our bodies have specific and unique needs and experiences at various points in our lives. Those needs and experiences can't be wished away or pretend they don't exist. Biology isn't a retro historical problem that only affects us fuddy duddy older women who can't get with the times. It's an inescapable force for women. Men are not affected nearly as much by it.

And so-called liberal feminists do all women a disservice when they pretend biology isn't important.

Childbirth is just one example - though mind you, even with the falling birthrate, 80% of women still have at least one child - but periods, menopause, and many other female bodily experiences can't be avoided or wished away, like being weaker than one's attacker for example.

Anyone who dismisses all that as "biological essentialism" is either a) a very young woman who hasn't gone through most of it yet or b) a man.