Does anyone ever have a "are we the baddies"* moment?

[Menstrualcycledisplayteam]

• it's a Mitchell & Webb sketch, probably on Youtube.
  
  I'm a bit disheartened this week, if I'm honest. I sometimes feel like this is a fight that we're just not going to win. Two main things recently, one personal, one geo-political I suppose.
  
  On the geo-political level, I look across the Pond to the US, where the only people who are saying the same things as us are frigging Rand Paul and Marjorie Taylor Greene, neither of which are people that I associate my politics as being anywhere close to. There is just no bloody way that the Left, my home, will align with us now, given who our "allies" are in the States. They just can't, even those that agree with us will never position themselves as having the same concerns as Marjorie Q-Anon Parkland Taylor Bloody Greene.
  
  The second is personal. I work for a large global organisation in a senior role. We had our Global Leadership "Away Day" a few weeks ago (on Teams, of course) and there was a presentation from some US colleagues on LGBTQ+, being able to bring your whole self to work, that kind of thing, from two gay colleagues, one lesbian one gay. So far, so good - absolutely the right thing for my organisation to be doing. Then they got onto pronouns and how everyone should start every meeting asking what pronouns attendees want to have used and encouraging everyone to put them in our email sign-offs. I'm never going to do that, but I can already see it happening around the organisation (particularly the US, but some of the easily led/want to be noticed over here will soon follow suit).
  
  My husband won't listen to me talk about this sort of stuff anymore - he agrees with me, but says that it is basically like someone saying they "don't agree with all that Black Lives Matter stuff". My best friend works with young people and whilst I've tried to approach it with her very gently, including all of the stats about single sex spaces and how women and children's safety is negatively affected as a result, her reaction is that she gets all of that but she works with children every day who are tortured by their own bodies.
  
  I know that our concerns are justified, I know that women's safety/opportunities are going to be negatively affected but - if I'm completely honest with myself - I just can't see how we're going to stop it. Julie Bindel has a tweet pinned to her feed which is basically that the misogyny at the moment is like a tidal wave and that's how it feels.
  
  I'm not sure why I'm writing this really - certainly not to bring anyone down but there's no-one I can speak to about this in real life. How do you even go about discussing these things when, in my work at least, it would probably get me fired and everyone around me in my personal life has either bought into the nonsense hook line and sinker, or just doesn't want to hear it?

[DialSquare]

Nope I never do. I KNOW we are not the baddies. Particularly when it comes to safeguarding and children. In fact, I really believe the tide is turning. The HOL decision was immense. Most people agree with us and more and more sunlight is what is helping.

[Menstrualcycledisplayteam]

Thanks @DialSquare. I think I just have to keep schtum to be honest, and I hate admitting that to myself. I'm fairly vocal about most things - I've always been open about my politics, but this just feels like an opinion that cannot be shared (or at least not without significant risk).

Do you have people around you that share your views (or at least are willing to discuss them)?

[midgedude]

I will tell people what I think

I don't get many who disagree at all

And there is only one friendship that it may have affected ( they may also just be wary of my close relationship with their male partner)

, but I feel that I am best away from someone who supports children transitioning .

But that might be easier for me as I see that kind of support as a personal attack on who I am ,namely someone who lived through and out the other side of denying my sex. To think that that person would think it reasonable to sterilise me just because I don't fit the mould quite puts me off them!

[StillFemale]

Throughout history there’s been many times when the moral stance has been underground and not supported by the majority. I’d provide examples but those who monitor our posts would get this post deleted..

[HighHeelBoots]

Working with children who are tortured by their bodies must be tough but how to treat them should be guided by research and not by lobby groups.
Pretending they are the opposite sex can only lead to more problems

[nauticant]

All. Of. The. Time.

But then I remember that watchful waiting is far more likely to benefit teenage girls having an identity crisis than giving them treatments that will lead to them being sterilised and having their sexual function removed/compromised.

When I balance people being scandalised by my views against avoiding irreversible damage to children, I find I can sleep easily at night.

[MrsBrunch]

It might have to get worse before it's gets better

[Mrsmorton]

Nope.

[Wrongsideofhistorymyarse]

Once every now and then.

But then I remember who's making the death threats. And which side persuades people like my niece to take testosterone that may shorten her life.

[ArabellaScott]

Yes. I think it's healthy to question one's beliefs, to every so often check if things have shifted.

I will happily read other viewpoints/evidence/discuss in good faith, and would love to read a convincing argument to say that 'sex is a spectrum' or 'TWAW' or why women should give up our sex-based rights.

I'm not interested in 'winning' or being right. I'm interested in fairness, and protecting and helping women and children.

[DialSquare]

@Menstrualcycledisplayteam

Thanks *@DialSquare*. I think I just have to keep schtum to be honest, and I hate admitting that to myself. I'm fairly vocal about most things - I've always been open about my politics, but this just feels like an opinion that cannot be shared (or at least not without significant risk).

Do you have people around you that share your views (or at least are willing to discuss them)?

To be honest, everyone I've spoken to about it agrees with me. That does make it easier. But I'm quite old and from a working class background and most people I know never went to university. I work in a finance based role in Insurance which is not a particularly captured industry. I've only ever voted Labour so I am politically homeless over this which pisses me off.

[Hulo]

No, because we can't change sex. The whole thing is a lie

And remember what we do support; we support freedom of gendered expression and gender non-conformity, we support trans rights, we support women's sex-based rights, we support same-sex relationships, we support freedom of choice, we support a child-centred holistic non-labelling flexible approach to working with children and young people with gender issues - but we can't support a lie

[Beamur]

@ArabellaScott

Yes. I think it's healthy to question one's beliefs, to every so often check if things have shifted.

I will happily read other viewpoints/evidence/discuss in good faith, and would love to read a convincing argument to say that 'sex is a spectrum' or 'TWAW' or why women should give up our sex-based rights.

I'm not interested in 'winning' or being right. I'm interested in fairness, and protecting and helping women and children.

You've taken the words out of my mouth.
I'm always willing to listen and to change my opinion. But on this issue, the more I learn, the more sure I am of my views.

[notyourhandmaid]

Definitely uncomfortable sometimes. But there are women I admire who I know in real life who find the whole current thing very unsettling, and that helps - seeing 'good people' with similar politics who get it.

Also, the death threats, versus being careful to talk about the ideology and activism rather than individuals. I know which 'side' are wearing the caps with the skulls on them.

[Ninkanink]

No, never.

I have the courage of my convictions, and of it comes right down to it this is the hill I will die on.

[Kinder123]

I have also asked myself this question - and I think to many at first glance we seem really intolerant. There's a real spirit of 'you can't say that' abroad and it means that no one speaks their opinion. Most don't read what JK Rowling wrote and just assume she's a bigot. But like others here I do see a light being shone on some of this and opinions changing, the law intervening to do the right thing. I hope we will all snap out of it in a few years and common sense will prevail.

Unfortunately some of the lessons learnt may be at a cost - young people who transitioned because the advice of pressure groups was followed over clinical good practice, female inmates who were locked up with violent trans women, sportswomen who lost out or were injured due to physical disadvantage.

[SkeeterP]

All the time. All the bloody time.

I have driven myself to a brink wondering if I am actually really a hatful middle aged bigot and wtf happened along the way.

And then I always return to the fact that this is a movement about men who are not getting their own way and will go to the greatest lengths to fix that. Same old, same old.

And now from the bottom of my heart I know I am right. Nobody can go through the (continuing) self-interrogation that I have and not repeatedly gone to the same conclusion that I am NOT the bad guy.

The ones who go along with this shit show are intellectually lazy and get rewarded for it.

Our time will come .. this is what keeps me going.

[MadBadDaddy]

Not once, ever.

[AnotherLass]

I think that there is room for debate around some of the spaces issues. Perfectly happy to.

But on the ideology - I agree with Rob Jessel - this is the one thing I'm 100% sure I am right on. And I'm 100% sure we're going to win. C'mon, we are arguing with people who literally do not believe in biological sex. Amnesty and Action Aid have both sent emails saying "there is no such thing as a male/female body". Dawn Butler said on national television that babies are born without a sex. This isn't a matter of values or of nuance. It is insane. And it can't possibly last.

[ChevyCamaro]

No never. I am so obviously on the side of women, girls and reality. But then I don't spend my life agonising over what random people think of me. I know I'm right. Also, it kind of irritates me, the tendancy of women to try and placate and worry if people like them. Anyone on the side of medically transing children and removing the word " woman" from public life can kiss my fat arse.

[Teentitansonloop]

It's good to have doubts. For me I have some red lines: medicalising gender in young people, women's sports, refuges, prisons etc.

Pronouns are still a tricky one for me, at first glance they seem quite benign. However because it can result in rape victims having to call male perpetrators 'she', I think you should lose all right to preferred pronouns once you have committed a violent or sexual crime. Same goes for women's toilets etc.

Sports is always going to be unfair if the person has gone through male puberty.

If some has undergone a meaningful and wishes to be called she I will do so, but as a courtesy, not as compelled speech.

The word woman should never be eroded in law or policy by reducing us to body parts 'uterus havers'.

[VenusTiger]

We're the silent majority - it's an "easier" lifestyle. But we'll fight when we're cornered.

[Teentitansonloop]

*meaningful transition

[Zinco]

Yep, good one:

But anyway, these kinds of questions do quite possibly have an element of subjectivity to them, so that neither side is exactly "correct". So it could be, "What do you value more?" "Fairness for women in sports, or inclusivity and affirmation for trans-women?".

If someone just personally thinks that it's more important to affirm the gender of trans-women, and that takes higher priority...

That doesn't make the GC side the "baddies", but it would make it harder to fight back against what has pretty much become the mainstream left-wing.

For myself, I don't really question my position on this... it's more like, "You want to put biological male rapists in a female prison?", "Have you lost your fucking mind!?".