anyone else been ditched by friends for having Gender critical views?

Not yet but I've been keeping my views off Facebook (I don't dare post anything gender critical there as I have a transwoman friend on there who has been through a lot of shit and I wouldn't want to upset them though I desperately want to talk to them about this issue) and only raising my head above the parapet on Twitter where I only have a couple of real life friends on. I did have a bit of an argument with one of those friends on Twitter when I retweeted a gender critical article, he's very pro-trans with lots of trans friends so thought it was very terfy but we ended the argument on ok terms I think - he's not the kind of person to ditch a friend for having different views, he's just ignoring my tweets on the matter instead which I guess is the best to hope for right now.

It's a really odd time isn't it?

I have a large and growing group of women friends (and a few men) that all feel the same way and we know we have each other for support but I am very aware that other former friends are bad mouthing me without having spoken to me about the issue.

Gameoflife

RidiculousDiversion, my husband is exactly the same. A very right-on, left wing activist who is always protesting about something or other. He sees transgender people as 'the new gays' (his words), ie anything not fully accepting of the entire trans agenda is EXACTLY the same as thinking that homosexuality should still be illegal.

To be honest, it seems to me that he is worried about having the 'wrong' opinion, and it doesn't help that one of his protestor friends (who I have never met) is a transwoman.

He is therefore totally baffled as to how I (very left wing) am in agreement with his mother (very right wing) on this matter.

Yep, I regularly name change because of this. I have been shunned by friends and family for having a problem with accepting my husband’s AGP, he’s cool, I’m a bigot. And of course I must be exaggerating.

I have told people who I though had my back about how angry and aggressive he has been, how he has been sexually abusive, and then minutes later they treat him like a hero.

I feel trapped and bitter, I can’t divorce as I have zero support system or money. I shouldn’t make a fuss, be more accommodating and just keep quiet. Honestly, MN is often the only place where I see other women saying what I know to be true, that for some (usual caveats) this is just an escalation of porn addled, misogynist and abusive behaviour, wrapped up in a fetish where they fancy themselves dressed and behaving as their fantasy.

Boo hiss to people.

Ridiculous, how I loathe the 'right side of history' argument when it comes to gender critical thinking. The people who have mentioned this to me have invariably been more concerned with being seen to be right on than actually thinking things through.
Having happened upon trans ideology when my FTT nephew came out as trans, I had many conversations both socially and with colleagues with whom I am friendly (as it's relevant in my professional field, education) from a strongly affirmative perspective, wanting to educate myself and to be a good ally. These friends and colleagues have followed my journey from enthusiastic, unquestioning supporter to what some of them would describe as TERF, as it has popped up in conversation over the last few years. Female friends have mainly been in agreement, focusing on biology and the rights of women and girls. A couple of senior male colleagues called me out as transphobic last year for raising the GID, but have since been more sympathetic, asking for clarification and signposting to further reading.
Two male friends, with whom I have spoken separately, almost as a dare to myself, a psychotherapist and a director of young people's mental health services in their local trust, both instantly brought up the plight of MTT in male prisons as a "See!" and eyed me with pity and disbelief until we wound up the conversation, agreeing to disagree.
My nephew is vulnerable with a range of MH issues, and I have been very careful around them, as it would devastate them. For this reason I am keeping my social media free of gender critical content. I am also a (largely lurking) member of a lefty FB feminist group with strong intersectional, SJW, third wave leanings, mainly for educational purposes , and they would totally crucify me if I revealed myself as the TERF I have become, quite possibly causing the kinds of problems associated with TRA scare tactics.

Not at all. I only recently started being open with my views.

I had a conversation at work about it and everybody was baffled by the whole thing. They hadn't really heard about it and were more amused than anything by some of the more laughable stuff that had happened.

It actually made me feel like I was over reacting a bit and that this "fight" only exists on the internet. Then I remembered the possible changes in law and policy.

Oh coming back to say, I guess I dropped THEM.

I removed myself from my (mostly online) community when it became 24/7 SJW brigading with no nuance or dissent permitted. I miss its old self sometimes but it became a creatively and socially new-puritan sort of place, fanatically committed to silencing women and punishing thoughtcrime under the banner of social justice. And I do mean fanatically. Doxx campaigns, relentless sifting of 'evidence' including bonkers, Stasi-like judgments about what characters in what tv shows people like or fail to like and what this reveals about them, what plotlines or situations they enjoy in fiction, whether they were seen associating online with banned persons, callouts and blocklists, all that malarkey.

This is ALL focused, hyper-focused, on ordinary individual women and girls, not political groups, and it reaches into every aspect of life, speech and thought, culture, preferences, PARTICULARLY sexual preferences, but everything; no dissent or difference is permitted (I suspect this how stuff like trigger warning rules-lawyering and the million ace identities happened - it's the only way you can morally opt out without being called out).

Somehow this commitment to totalitarian domination of the individual as a moral duty crept in over years. It really wasn't always like this. Trans is just one tenet of that ideology imo - not the driver of it. My community was largely female so I can't (and don't) lay any of that at the feet of transwomen. But dissenting from any aspect of transactivism is a high crime there so in that sense we lost each other over it.

JetCityWoman
Phew! I thought I'd badly phrased something then.

JetCityWoman
Oh no! I didn't mean to suggest people on here weren't
I meant that because I talk openly about trans issues so maybe so far that has given me a bit of immunity when i say something gender critical.

Furry

That’s really sad about your brother. Especially as there seems to be no room for lesbians and gay men in the brave new world of transactivism.

Weirdly, it's my DH who thinks I'm transphobic. He's the most right-on and liberal of blokes, and I'm really frustrated that I can't seem to explain why it's a problem. His view (after a long row, which ended unresolved and occasionally flares up again) is in 20 years time I'll see that my position is like that of the racists in S Africa who said apartheid was OK because it was separate but equal. It's not going to end my marriage, but it is our first real disagreement in years.

I haven't been open at work about my views as it would be career limiting, nor on Facebook as I save that purely for family stuff. I know I would lose many friends over it if I did, from what they've posted.

Sophocles

I wish my DD could use the same logic. I’ve brought her up to be a feminist, and to be a political and compassionate person, just like her brother (who, interestingly, is absolutely on board with gender-critical views) and she hasn’t yet questioned whether I might have a point with my concerns about where this is all leading.

She just thinks I’m a TERF who’s going to say something offensive to her trans friends.

^ Thats what made me start to think.

When reading on here, especially in feminism I'm always impressed at people who articulate so much better than me but share views. Seeing so many intelligent people express concerns made me start to think.

I've only lost a couple of facebook friends over it, no great loss at all, really, as they were both prone to dramatics and vaguebooking and my feed is calmer without their presence. In real life, no issues. Though I have friends who disagree with me, it's all been pretty civil. It's helps that I'm historically completely right-on in all the Guardian-approved ways of the metropolitan left, and it is confusing the hell out of some of them that I have suddenly seemingly turned into a raving "bigot" on just this one topic...it's making them think - "Sophocles is normally such an ally, and I agree with her politics, why is she being like this?" - which is good.

Well my sibling is a TRA so obviously they have gone NC with me. Tbh it's a bit of a relief because they have long standing MH and alcohol problems, and I'm tired of all the drama, endless dramas, neverending crises.

I haven't, no. Everyone I know who I've talked to about it (good friends only) has either agreed with me or disagreed in part but accepted where I'm coming from. A few have got sick of the endless bloody conversation, heee! Fair enough!

This might be because I have been visibly, haplessly GNC since I was a tiny child and so in some ways I have (within the weird liberal hierarchy that's developed for whatever reason) the right to an opinion. Since realising that, I have tried to talk about this in a way to make them understand they have a right to an opinion too.

I'm also not 100% on board with the radfem position and talking about that and how that shakes out in practice has also been helpful in that it demonstrates that you can broadly support something without joining its religion and marching lockstep. The strong cultlike aspects of transactivism, with the purity and demand for vows, is the most offputting to most people because it gives the lie to its claims of liberality.

No issues here but many friends are scientists which might help

I’ve had rows with one friend over it, and it’s clear that it’s a topic we can’t discuss.

I also have a trans relative, with name and hormone changes. I know that I can never let them know how I feel or what I think about it without ending the relationship forever and creating a rift in the family.

I haven't I think it's because all my mates are not really in that type of world. They have no idea what non binary is. All this stuff goes right over there heads. We live in quite a rough area and while there has quite a few transsexuals over the years it's been accepted that they are male.
They were treated fine but pushing into women's spaces just would not have been tolerated. Not that they would have. The transsexuals that I have known have always been pretty clear that they are men who like to dress a different way. They would have loved to have been born female but they are what they are.
That's why when I first came across gender critical feminists on here I was shocked. I admit I did think bigot. Then I read about fallon fox and the cotton ceiling. Turned my view upside down.

My friends have started to dip there toe into this stuff online. I was being basically threatened by a tra on fb a while ago and they got involved and were shocked by what they read.
They also associated trans women with the transsexuals we had grown up around.

I’m in the same situation with my brother Suburban. We’re very close and agree about almost everything from politics to our taste in books and films. It’s a real sticking point. He’s gay and has quite a few trans friends. He’s usually extraordinarily critical and perceptive in his thinking but the mental knots he ties himself in to accept the trans line are extraordinary.

Hearteningly though, my 84 year old great uncle raised the trans issue with me today and revealed himself to be thoroughly gender critical. He said himself he’d previously viewed the whole thing as progressive but now sees how truly regressive it is.

Not a friend, but my DD can’t accept my gender critical views.

We’ve kind of tacitly agreed not to talk about it but it saddens me because we’re very close and can normally talk about anything.