#IWasATransAllyUntil

The other MN poster I spoke about above by the way is a gender critical poster.
By far the meanest, nastiest, most vicious poster on that lesbian messageboard is another lesbian who got booted off here a couple of weeks ago for being a relentless troll. I’m pretty sure I know which one but I won’t say.

I was, and still am, very sympathetic to transpeople, you know, because I’m not a bigot or a transphobe. I know several transpeople who are, or were friends of mine. I thought it was a bit trendy, but I went along with it because I blythely assumed it was for them, and wouldn’t have any impact on my rights or status as a woman and a lesbian.
Somebody, another MN poster as it happens, opened up a conversation on a lesbian message board. I joined in because I was curious, and some of the topics of discussion, the cotton ceiling, and self ID seemed a bit off to me, so I went away and did a bit of research. I started posting, asking questions, presenting arguments, then the things that other people had been posting about, bullying, personal attacks, started happening there as well. I got plenty of it, and some pretty nasty shit to. Stuff that would be immediately deleted without question on here.
It can be a nasty environment for gender critical women over there, a lesbian message board, so it was a bit of a baptism of fire. MN is a tickling competition in comparison, but it certainly sharpened up my tools and got the sleep out of my eyes.

Mind you, I am still an ally of the 'traditional' transgender adults who want to go the whole hog, medicalisation and GRC, and quietly go about their business. And I am very much an ally that they shouldn't be discriminated against in the workplace etc.

Girl Guides.
Then shocked at what else I read.
Stuff I thought so obviously wasn't going to happen was already occurring.

I found the TRA/self-ID discussions on FWR, the language, acronyms, made it undecipherable to me.

Then I was on MN the night Maria Mac was assaulted and forced myself to get educated. I went slightly mad and unhinged for about a month as I came across more and more issues. Cotton ceiling, puberty blockers, men being given scarce resources and positions meant for women, the attempts to label all GNC children as trans . . .

I haven't looked back. I believe all trans people deserve equal rights and opportunities, in a way that doesn't harm women and children or remove their hard fought for legal and social protection.

Until I realised that what was meant by 'trans people' wasn't just people who recognised their biological sex but took hormones and had surgery as a way to cope with dysphoria and live their lives in the most comfortable way possible.

Those people, I am still an ally to. The Lily Madigans, Danielle Muscatos and Stephonknees of the world, though? No.

Also, transing children is abhorrent. Sexist and homophobic.

That sentence didn't go where I expected it to

Talk about a penny dropping from a great height!

I remember being shocked by seeing a man call Jordan Peterson being asked by JO Coburn on the BBC. She asked him if he believed trans women were real women and he eventually said ‘no’. His answer just seemed common sense to me but the ‘how dare you reaction’ this triggered from feminists really took me back.

@WhereDoWeBeginToCovetClarice

Until a transwoman who had contentiously joined my woman only feminist space admitted, that by being there and knowing about all the pain, humiliation, discrimination and abuse we suffer as women for being women and wish to discuss between ourselves, made them better able to act more convincingly like a woman.

That sentence didn't go where I expected it to. 😮

I read about the cotton ceiling.

Waking up to what’s going on has been really shocking actually - as a long time left wing feminist it has challenged my sense of who I am.
How did I get here?

Biological male becoming Labour Party women’s officer
Lack of regard for impact on biological women
Denial of biological facts
Blocking discussion
Assault of 60 yr old woman at HYDE Park Corner
Labour’s robotic mantra ‘ trans women are women’ - but none of the TRAns lobby able to define ‘woman’
SAN Francisco library with exhibits glorifying violence against women by trans allies
Jam jar meeting, Bristol
Girl guides - not informing parents if trans girls ( biological males) share a tent with girls
Biological males winning women’s sport
Trans women violence to women - and being counted as female not male violence
Imposition of ‘cis’
Men telling women how to do feminism
Taking us back to gender stereotypes
Trans women on all women shortlists-

Am just scratching the surface.

For me it was the reporting and Army’s press releases on the ‘first’ female infrantry army solider in 2016 - a person who completed their training as a male then underwent hormone treatment.

I was outraged that someone in that position could stake a claim to that and everyone was playing along. I spoke to some friends who thought I was incredibly transphobic for pointing out that a ‘first’ was being taken from a female and it was more unfair because at that point in time it was impossible for a female have completed infrantry training.

Contrast their press coverage with this coverage of a female who joined and didn’t make it through the training.

Random socks getting everywhere these days...

Here's a good one, since the naysayers think that we're all just being evil misandrists - Kelly Maloney on TV being inappropriate with a former boxer who Maloney had known for years, the boxer getting uncomfortable with Maloney's behavior, and the people attempting to shame the boxer for being uncomfortable with Maloney's boundary crossing behavior while said boxer was naked in the bath because, well, you wouldn't mind if it was any other woman, would you?

It's a fad

It'll pass

@AngryAttackKittens

Nope never banned or had a post removed.. sorry to disappoint you

I would never have called myself a 'trans ally', I was aware that I knew one trans person, wasn't especially interested in it at all. I treated that trans person as I thought I treated everyone else. All the political trans stuff was happening without my knowing about it.

Then I heard about Girl Guides intending to let boys join and share sleeping/showering accommodation with the girls, and also allowing men to join as helpers so long as they 'identify' as women. Oh, and not tell the girls' parents.The glaring stupidity of this took my breath away. I've read nothing since which has changed my view of trans people (clearly with some noble exceptions) as the whiniest, neediest, victimiest victims ever. Now there's the pile of total horseshit I've been reading about transwomen being 'assigned' wrongly at birth, so they were always, in fact, female and all those stupid people around at their birth just got it all wrong - it was never a penis at all, just a large clitoris. As an ex-midwife, I'm wondering when a court summons is going to come my way from a baby I wrongly 'assigned' and for who I have consequently made life hell.

I was a trans ally because I thought it meant transexual. then I found out Stonewall include everyone under the trans umbrella, including William Jaggs.

Rachel Padman and GGs battle to stop them getting a fellowship at Newnham

• finally multiple peaked when saw abusive man awarded women's accolades after surgery when in fact it was s huge f**k you to his successful ex wife

They said women must be called "uterus havers" and I thought it would blow over, but "cotton ceiling" followed hot on it's heels. I jumped ship at that point and they have only managed to get worse.

Realised years ago "born in the wrong body" was a nonsense, just a kind invention, but was prepared to go along with it as trans people seemed harmless and were clearly troubled.

Then I realised the results of this kind fiction were that people were actually BELIEVING they were the opposite sex, and, worse, demanded that WE believe it too.

I was a bit brief upthread but it really wasn't any more than...

... until I paid attention.

The only people to have changed my mind about transactivism and trans issues generally are transactivists. I don't think it takes much exposure to them to realise.

I was a trans ally until (some years ago) the attempt to get birth certificates changed, coz it wasn't the truth.

Interesting that there are lesbians and transsexuals on the Twitter thread also saying they were Trans allies until they realised agenda was to silence and control them too

Are they being heard?

Are their voices loud enough - and people ready to listen?

... I opened my eyes and realised the women's spaces I treasured so much, the freedom and trust and just relaxedness I feel in them - would vanish and I began to feel VERY threatened....

.... And if I felt threatened... someone who is not used to feeling threatened, and is a middle-aged woman.... how on earth would more vulnerable women and especially - especially - young lesbians be feeling....

The wider my eyes opened the more I could not believe what I was seeing....