Jeremy Stangroom

The very first claim in the piece - "As feminists we reject the TERF notion of a woman. That our gender and therefore our roles in society are determined by biology is a sexist idea that we have spent our lives rejecting" - shows they just don't understand basic feminist theory. https://twitter.com/glosswitch/status/999718178484834305 …

The proper claim is that gender is a hierarchical structure/system that ascribes certain roles, etc., to men and women, where these groups are defined by their distinctive biology as that is interpreted through the lens of a patriarchal system.

Biology counts because in a patriarchal society it's the ordering criterion - the basis upon which the gender division is constructed (to the disadvantage of female people - i.e., women). You can't escape the effects of that ordering. It permeates our lives from the world go.

But the theory isn't essentialist. It's the opposite. There's nothing intrinsic about female biology that prescribes certain kinds of gender roles or relations. The whole point is to bring the edifice of gender, and the hierarchies it entails, crashing down. It's gender critical.

Now there's a lot complexity and complication in the detail. There are elements of biological essentialism in certain variants of feminism. Nevertheless, if you claim gender critical feminists think biology *determines* gender roles, etc., you have no clue what you're on about.

Yes, this is absolutely true. Although, they're probably being disingenuous about that because they know it will annoy the radfems more than anything to link their biological class with gender essentialism.