Scared I will lose my best friend of many years ...

RaveOn that's a really interesting parallel, thank you.

@DappledOliveGroves I know someone personally from mainland China who lived through the cultural revolution and she said his was just like this.

I had similar with a very leftie right on friend (who I agree with on pretty much everything else). He would be quite passionate about Palestinian rights, so I likened the knee-jerk labelling as "transphobe" of anyone criticising the political agenda to replace "sex" with "gender identity" in society and in law, to the knee-jerk labelling as antisemite (particularly in the part of the World he's in), of anyone criticising Israel's treatment of Palestine.

It definitely hit a nerve and reminded him how frustrating and hurtful it is to have a well informed viewpoint grounded in justice and compassion, yet be dismissed by less well informed people as hateful and bigoted when he couldn't be further from that. It brought him up short and he apologised for dismissing my point without understanding it.

He doesn't yet see the conflict of rights as I do (but has promised to read up), but his tone toward me has changed from "I always thought you were decent, how can you be so hateful?" to "I know you're not a hateful person, so how is it that we see this issue so differently?"

I think the "criticising gender ideology and its impact on women is no more transphobic than criticising Israel's abuses of Palestine is Anti Semitic" approach may make some lefties stop and think.

I think the people (like OP's best friend) who disagree with JK Rowling, really should be pressed on what exactly JKR said that they find so reprehensible.

OP, you were kind enough to send links etc to your friend. Perhaps you could now ask that question? Hear the other side of the argument? I'm saying all of this with a straight face. Honestly.

I think this is more of an issue about maintaining women’s rights, than a trans debate.
Women's spaces, rights and even nouns are being annexed by these people, who don’t seem to want their rights so much as take over ours...

...and even if they have surgery to create a “neo vagina”, they are still socialised and genetically male.

This is what we see now (from ActionAid charity apparently):

There is "no such thing as a biologically female body" apparently.

Make of that as you will. I am now going to sit and contemplate this statement...

Coyacoan is quite right. When they realise this, and for that to happen they often have to hear or read about it multiple times, they are shocked.

My mum listened to me ranting on about TRAs for a year and a half, saying that I shouldn't worry about it so much, but finally the penny dropped and she informed me in some shock that most MTF trans people don't have the surgery, as if I didn't know!

I’ve done this, but I got the sense she’s horrified and I feel really worried she will write me off as a ‘transphobe

I've just done this at work. All I can see is people checking what the masses think before they state what they think and not engaging in independent thought at all.

I was just reading Jenn Smith this morning on facebook and he says that only 1.5% of transwomen go the full hog with surgery.

I wonder if your friends know that? Most people think that transwomen are people who are so upset with being men that they have become eunuchs, and eunuchs were even allowed in the Sultan's harem.

Can she explain what exactly she means by those 4 little words?

I’ve never understood people who do this. Does it really matter if someone has a different opinion?

I've lost friends over the issue and my step-daughter thinks I'm the devil incarnate for believing that biological sex is real. I cannot understand women who seek to throw their own sex (and the lives of the old-school transsexuals) under the bus, for 'woke' brownie points.

Thank God my closest friends and family are gender critical. I just pray in 50 years, people will look back on these times and wonder how society lost its way so badly. It's like living through the Cultural Revolution.

My best and oldest friend (who was obsessed with Harry Potter and JKR) was slagging off JKR on Twitter for not being a scientist or doctor, therefore she shouldn't be speaking out. This was just based of the sex being real tweet

It felt like a gut punch, tbh. My friend is so, so clever, was in the top set of every subject, including science, had answers to everything. She's got a brain like an encyclopedia. And yet she's been sucked in to this bullshit. Listening to her now, it's like she's been brainwashed, saying things that make no sense at all. It's sad and weird to see.

I'm dreading her bringing it up in RL, because I can't agree with her. I can't even pretend to just for the sake of it. Being as I agree with biology, I'm a transphobe in her eyes, and that will be the end of a 16 year friendship :(

That is sad to think that she would 'write you off' so to speak just for having a different opinion. I say this, yet none of my friends have really thought about it and haven't kept up with it. So, it makes MN even more necessary for allowing these conversations to happen.

I hope that she can see that your point of view is as valid as hers and that she accepts that being pro-women is not anti-trans.

You are not alone. I haven't seen any criticisms of JK yet that make any sense to me . I think we are on the right side