The Social Bases of the "Gender Critical" Movement in Britain

The largest and most successful countermobilization against the transgender movement has occurred in Britain. There is a growing literature on the ‘anti-transgender’ or ‘gender critical’ movement, but little is known about its social bases (Armitage, 2020; Hines, 2020; McLean, 2021; Rowlands, 2023). This paper analyzes the movement’s largest petition, launched by Maya Forstater, to amend the Equality Act so as to define ‘sex’ as biological sex. The 105,000 signatories are divided into the 650 Westminster parliamentary constituencies. The first task is to analyze the correlation between support for this petition and support for a petition opposing it, which has attracted a similar number of signatures (115,000). The correlation is surprisingly high, which suggests that the social bases of these two movements is similar. This point is emphasized by comparing two other pairs of opposing petitions, on illegal migration and on LGBT education. The second task is to analyze the social factors associated with support across the 573 constituencies in England and Wales, using the 2021 census. (The 2022 Scottish census is not yet available.) Independent variables include class, religion, ethnicity, university students, and sexual orientation. This ecological analysis has inevitable limitations, of course, but it reveals the social contexts from which the gender-critical movement derives its support.