Anyone else lost friends for supporting JK Rowling?

GC means gender critical, that means we think that gender is a social construct that changes depending on the location and the point in history.

For example, the colour pink was considered to be too masculine for girls in the UK until about 80 years ago. While in the US a desire to play football (which they call soccer) is very much considered to be an indication of femininity.

What does GC stand for?

I get the impression that, not only do the TRAs not care if trans rights trample on women’s rights, they actually want them to!

They don’t want compromise, they want our total capitulation and subjugation.

SomeDyke the problem is though that the trans community see them selves as the brave ones standing up against the flow, and that we are the majority who will disown them etc,

This is depsite the fatc that feminist have said over and over again that we need ot find a way to help vulnerable trans people which doesn't tread on women's rights.

Reading some of these accounts, it reminds me of what used to happen to people I knew when they came out as gay --people would lose friends, families would disown them etc etc. Many people kept it secret, fearing for their jobs/friends/what their Mum would say. Except some people were brave, and came out anyway. That was what it needed, eventually attitudes change.

Similarly here -- I'm not saying everyone can be brave, but everyone can realise what a sick and insidious state of affairs it is, when women are being made afraid to say something about who they are as a sex (and who isn't). Don't let then 'shame' us all into staying silent, they've tried threats of violence already to keep us quiet, but somehow trying to not cause trouble and be 'polite' and not upset friends and family, that kept more people in the closet than fists and threats ever did.

You know it's true, and it's nothing to be ashamed of, recognising that being female matters, and that we shouldn't be made afraid to state that. It's the same struggle, just coming at us from another direction. And oddly enough, it's lesbians getting it in the neck again! Although from our supposed allies and from the organisations we set up, that is really taking the piss...........

If you have to cut out a friend, what does that say about you?

@wonderstuff and @ShirleyPhallus

I know. I am happy to refer to people by preferred pronouns and generally be accomodating but I really dislike the idea that women must do labour on behalf of others as that leaflet requires you to do to be a feminist - that feels almost misogynistic to me. Having done a science degree I also firmly believe sex exists and isn't a societal construct. And there are very few places where genuine discussion is permitted.

Ah steppemum really sorry that has happened to you. In time perhaps they will thank you for this stance though. Everyone thinks their parents are wrong as a teenager then comes round to their way of thinking. Are you managing not to discuss it in the house for the time being?

Literally no one I know has posted anything about this on social media. My friends do not seem to have an opinion on this either way, or not that they've posted. But I have friends with children who dress as the opposite gender, although still maintaining their original name and described by their sex. So I don't want to post anything in case I upset them. I have liked jkr's terf wars tweet. But my friends are mostly on facebook, less insta, even less twitter.

Gone are the days of agreeing to disagree.

There's another friend/colleague I know I can't raise it with. She's not going there, full on belief that TWAW and anyone who disagrees is a bigot.

I've had a conversation with one friend who's sharing the mermaids riposte. It was tiptoed- there's no way she was ready for unvarnished truth. We left it with her 'glad [I'm] listening, that's enough for now'. I really hope she's listening too!

My friend I grew up with is now a trans woman and her opinion on it is its such a shame there are idiots throwing vile abuse at JK because it shows she is right. She doesn't blame women for wanting single sex spaces when she sees tweets like suck my girl dick. She classes herself as a woman but knows there are differences between myself and her. She's a trans woman and proud and doesn't want to drop the trans before woman because it erases her life story. Very grown up attitude I think

I've lost some friends over the years and now, since the JK Rowling incident, my step-daughter won't speak to me. It's all completely ridiculous. Thankfully most of my good friends feel as I do, and my closest friends are wholly gender critical, as is DP. DD is 19 and also gender critical - she came to a rad-fem meet up with me last year and loved it!

It's very hard to agree to disagree when someone is deliberately seeking to dismantle my rights as a woman.

So sorry to hear your account steppemum. It must be so hard for you.

I'm so sorry steppemum

This cult has got my niece and she's on testosterone.

for steppemum

I really don't want to sound rude, but why tiptoe around these people? This is presumably an important issue for people here, TRAs are awful people in this regard, so why keep them as friends but not say anything? If you cannot discuss anything with a supposed friend, how much of a friend are they?

I think because they are being so crazy. It's like they have been mind-captured.

I have family members on FB, and people who I have known for many years, maybe from my childhood, who are good people. And yet I know that now, somehow they are in a place where if you say the wrong things (a very broad category), about gender, about racism, whatever, they will not be able to deal with it.

Oh steppemum

Like many here, I'm very careful about what I put on social media. But all of my best and oldest friends are vocally GC amongst our social group.

I think one of the things that really entrenches me most is that anyone asking exactly what JKR said that was transphobic and why it was transphobic gets flamed and/or blocked. There is NEVER an answer which refers to the actual words she used.

I've lost one of my dearest friends, a trans man, over this issue: me speaking in support of JKR on fb was the final straw for him and he's done with me. It's really upsetting. On the plus side, several acquaintances have been drawn into the debate who weren't clued up before and I've been able to direct them to this chat board, apparently the only place on the internet where madness doesn't reign supreme.

Where I live, rural south, the vast, vast majority of people aren't on twitter and are pro-women. What can I say. Outside the big city/university bubbles, I think - from what I see directly - common sense prevails.

no, just no. This is not a tiny university bubble thing. This is everywhere, and it i sso destructive.

I am reading this thread and feel really deeply profoundly angry. I now get why women were prepared to die for the vote, I feel erased.

But the reason I am so angry is that both my beautiful daughters have been hijacked by it, and I don't mean they have an opinion, I mean they are in it hook line and sinker.

We live in the south. In a boring ordinary non university town. They both go to an all girls grammar school. A place I sent them because I thought it would help empower them as women.

My 15 year old is now gender non-binary, has changed 'their' name to a gender neutral name, and is 100% up to her neck in trans isdeology.

My 12 year old has just told me she is trans. She is also probably on the autistic spectrum, but has no diagnosis. She told school in and email that she had a new name. School wrote to me and asked if they should change all the registers etc NO JUST FUCK OFF NO SHE'S 12.

Obviously I was balanced and polite. But WHY why would an all girls school not see how damaging this is to women?

The JK Rowling tweet has broken my family in 2. My dds are both massive Harry Potter fans, they were appalled at the tweet. But my older on is more appalled that I agree, because as a gender non binary person, she is a person who menstruates and not a woman, and by supporting JK, I have basically told her (apparently) that I don't believe/support/care about her or her feelings and opinions. I have rejected her by supporting JK.

We have been talking about women and single sex spaces and the need to protect both vulnerable women and vulnerable trans people for the last 3 years. Non of it has made the slightest dent in her beliefs.
My support of Jk has destroyed something between us.

I am broken by this. It is not an academic argument.
I am sitting here, knowing that my choice to be GC has alienated my girls.

Of all the things I thought I might encouter as a parent of a teenager, this was not one of them. I have no idea how to parent any more, and the very people we shoudl be asking for help eg school is against us. Last night dh said he felt trapped between 2 walls of fire, trying to hold our girls safe and with no where to turn.

I had a very heated debate at the weekend with a male friend. Gender is always a sticking point for us both. And while we haven't 'fallen out', I think we both see each other very differently now. He thinks I am hateful and a transphobe. I think he is misogynistic and dismissive of women.

It is very sad that we cannot have a reasoned debate about it. But I am far too passionate and angry about this to roll over and submit just to keep the peace.

@Nacreous just read the link, how bloody depressing

If there are so many different types of women that it basically loses its meaning then why on earth do they want to be women so badly?

No. But then my circle is all at the bottom of society - precarious working class I think we'll be based on the definition from another thread running now. We're also highly diverse in race and sexuality and so on. We don't need to remanufacture ourselves into some silly paradigm of faux special-and-most-oppressed-in-the-whole-world or self-sacrificing ally thereof to assuage our guilt at our unmerited privilege. Reality is enough for us. In truth however, it's the people attacking women to facilitate their performative wokeness who are losing friends.