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Original poster

I don't want to talk to any of my friends anymore

67 replies

WhatTiggersDoBest · 15/06/2020 17:23

This is my first thread in Women's Rights but I've been on MN for about a year. I'm having a bit of a mental growth period I think.
I always used to consider myself pro-trans. We have more than ten friends who are all trans, including my husband's closest friend. The only people I ever saw talking about the issues surrounding trans people were the people themselves, and their staunch allies who are practiced at shutting down every rational debate.
In the past week, never mind that the whole world has two really important problems to deal with - black lives matter is waking up society to the concept of systemic injustices, which will benefit everyone who is systemically disempowered, and obviously we've got this dirty great pandemic going on too that's causing another, more insidious pandemic - domestic violence.
But guess what all my "friends" on Facebook are talking about? Oh, yeah, trans rights. Actively misrepresenting the other side and making GC feminists out to be evil bigots.
Because people who grew up with toxic male privilege are of course far more important than anyone or anything else and we all have to get on their bandwagon or suffer the consequences.
I have been especially lonely during lockdown as I have a young baby and had just undertaken a massive career change.
I have always found the term "cis" offensive because we are not isomers, but honestly I was happy to live and let live until the past week. I'm just so upset and disappointed that people I thought were intelligent, critical thinkers are all just full of groupthink. The nastiness I've seen aimed at JKR... it's like they didn't understand the theme of the books at all.
I don't want to talk to pretty much anyone I know anymore. People I went to uni with. People I worked with. People from schools.
I lived in women's refuges for 6 months at one point, when my mum fled my stepdad, and knowing the women who go there, and the reasons they are there, and what a state they (and we) arrived in, I just can't support trans women having access to refuges. They don't even get men in to repair things, or let the postman in with a parcel. You're not even allowed to give your real address if you live in one, not even to the doctor's or schools, you give a PO box address.
No. Trans women shouldn't be in these spaces. They need a third space where they can rant and rave by themselves without making natal women suffer.
But none of them are understanding this in their quest to get access to places they can't usually go. As far as I can tell, they just want what they perceive as "privilege" of going to those places, and any argument is twisted into mud-slinging very quickly.
But I don't know where to find new friends who support natal women but who aren't phobic of the LGB community.
I'm not sure what I'm asking really, I just had to get this off my chest. I don't want my baby raised in a world where dangerous experimental medication is handed out to nine-year-olds, and where schools have the audacity to tell my son he isn't a boy because he likes to play with some girly stuff, or to tell my daughter that the feeling of loneliness and "otherness" she's feeling is because she isn't a girl, rather than because she IS a girl and is growing up, and I don't want to be friends with people who support this nonsense.
Am I really so wrong for questioning all this stuff? It's so hard to try and unstick myself from the groupthink.
Sorry if I'm rambling, I think I just need a handhold and some sound advice, because I feel like I'm waking up from a mass delusion by myself, and so alone.

OP posts:
FantaOra · 15/06/2020 18:23

Sorry, dad not step dad. My mistake.

FantaOra · 15/06/2020 18:22

I'm sure your step dad would have realised you would become more nuanced in your thinking as you got older. I know my dad did and he's gone now too, but I remember some of the interesting things we talked about and books we shared. He would have known that the things he said would resonate with you later in life because that's quite often how generational things work. I would be very proud to have a step dad who was a fan of the incredible Germaine Greer. She knows well how women struggle to shake off social conditioning.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 15/06/2020 18:18

Thanks it is really hard to lose friends over this. But it's even harder to be forced to accept something that you believe is wrong.

Shedbuilder · 15/06/2020 18:16

OP, I think the realisation that some of one's apparently wise and thoughtful friends, people who describe themselves as feminists and who you thought had integrity and were woman-centred are actually so easily duped is excruciatingly painful. I've lost several women who I'd considered my mainstay in life and there are too many others doing the 'be kind and shut up' number on me that I can never trust fully again.

Susanna85 · 15/06/2020 18:10

I hear you. And agree with you.
And care about trans women and trans men very much. But I also care for women and girls and won't sacrifice their safety and well-being for a TINY minority's belief.

Stuffofawesome · 15/06/2020 18:03

You are not alone. None of the Gc women I know are homophobic. None of them are transphobic either come to that. You don't need to take up the fight at the moment, maybe start by reading around the subject and get your thoughts together slowly. Lots of amazing articles that have been linked to in previous posts in feminist section here to wade through. Take a look at A woman's Place UK and FairPlay for Women as good places to go for info.

DancingLady · 15/06/2020 18:01

OP, I could have written your post. I think I've lost some friends over the past week for saying that sex is real, biology is part of being a woman, and trans women are trans women. Apparently controversial statements. I have no hatred of trans people. I believe they need full human rights and protections that any vulnerable group deserves. But not at the expense of another vulnerable group - women. And a lot of women I thought were smarter just can't get their heads around that. As people have said, once you see it you can't unsee it.

TheProdigalKittensReturn · 15/06/2020 17:51

That sucks. Keep posting here and in other GC spaces, there are a lot of us who've said a firm no to drinking the kool-aid.

There's someone who I've been friends with for over a decade who I had to cut contact with over this. Only one person, but that was nasty enough, I can't even imagine how hard it would be not to have support irl. When I first realized that there were some troubling things that TRAs were saying I quietly reached out to women I knew online who were strong feminists, and found that a lot of them had the same misgivings I did.

Original poster
WhatTiggersDoBest · 15/06/2020 17:47

@TheProdigalKittensReturn

I feel you, sis. It's a rotten situation to be in, and it's going to get worse as public discussion of these issues finally happens. Do you have anyone at all who you can talk to irl?
No. The only person who would understand was my dad (not the abusive stepdad), who died five years ago, and we had so many arguments about trans people because he would always insist on calling trans women men (he was also a big Germaine Greer fan) and I used to try and explain that they weren't a threat to women. I read about Karen White from something someone posted on here and I wish I could go back in time and tell him I understand now.
OP posts:
Original poster
WhatTiggersDoBest · 15/06/2020 17:42

Thank you so much for being so welcoming. My husband sees my point of view but also sees that of his best friend who he's known since 1996. He's had a really hard time from "activists" who are just posting crappy screenshots on his Facebook profile of things trans people said on Twitter or Tumblr, because his Facebook post of support for trans rights wasn't worded exactly perfectly and a bunch of people made a pile-on.

@PumbaasCucumbas yes it's definitely like Emperor's New Clothes. I'm genuinely scared of starting an argument with people though. I don't have the energy for it. I keep reading about "emotional load" when it comes to black lives matter and that basically sums it up.

OP posts:
TheProdigalKittensReturn · 15/06/2020 17:37

In addition to Mumsnet, the two Gender Critical subreddits on Reddit are both places you can talk honestly about this stuff, though they're very America centric.

TheProdigalKittensReturn · 15/06/2020 17:35

I feel you, sis. It's a rotten situation to be in, and it's going to get worse as public discussion of these issues finally happens. Do you have anyone at all who you can talk to irl?

PumbaasCucumbas · 15/06/2020 17:33

Flowers for you, it’s a bit like emperors clothes, you can’t unsee it once you do. It doesn’t stop you caring about trans people either.

FantaOra · 15/06/2020 17:33

filia.org.uk/

You are not alone, there's millions of people like you. It's a shame that the Filia conference was canceled, you could have met new people who are not so narrow minded.

Anyway you are here now, join in the fun.

Welcome.

ISaySteadyOn · 15/06/2020 17:33

Flowers It's hard.

Someone on a previous thread used the phrase 'radicalised by motherhood' and I think that, for some women, this is accurate. I was one of them and you may be too.

You don't want anybody hurt or discriminated against but being a woman is a tangible biological state of being. And the misogyny of suggesting that womanhood is a nebulous feeling in a male head has just hit you. You're not alone in reassessing your views.

Winesalot · 15/06/2020 17:31

Thank you for sharing your story. It must have been a very tough time for you and your mum. And it must be very stressful with those discussions taking place. Does your husband understand and support your choice? If not, it must feel very isolating.

Do you have any support?

CodenameVillanelle · 15/06/2020 17:31

You're not wrong.
It can feel very lonely when you're starting to feel the rift between yourself and your friends over this issue. You need to find some online community. Lots of women are waking up to these issues and feeling the same as you at the moment. Two friends have reached out to me this week telling me about falling out with friends or feeling very alienated.