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A gay man’s journey from TRA to GC

165 replies

noblegiraffe · 07/08/2020 15:05

A gay friend of mine has written about how he went from TRA to GC from a gay perspective. He’s planning on writing some more essays about how the ‘gender cult’ is intrinsically homophobic.

I thought it might be useful to share as a counter to Owen Jones, who he previously believed was a reasonable person to listen to on this. He is also pretty gutted about what has happened to Stonewall, whose authority he trusted.

twitter.com/duncrail78/status/1291373475886768128?s=21

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NoCisAllWoman · 11/08/2020 10:20

Thanks for posting noble, it's heartening to see someone who was so fervent in their support of Stonewall etc. find common sense and have the humility to admit it. I hope more people read his articles and that he brings them round too.

BertiesLanding · 10/08/2020 22:18

I followed and interacted with Duncan on Twitter before I deactivated my account a couple of days ago. (I saw too many reasoned, reasonable people buckling under the invective and decided I didn't want to be part of it anymore.)

I think he has been curious and courageous for the most part. And measured for the most part too. I really enjoyed his Tweets.

EdgeOfACoin · 10/08/2020 20:50

Thanks, noblegiraffe, I'm finding his posts fascinating.

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noblegiraffe · 10/08/2020 18:09

He has written Part 3 if anyone is still reading. twitter.com/duncrail78/status/1292842338952372225?s=21

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Original poster
noblegiraffe · 10/08/2020 18:07

Yet he has still benefitted from male privilege, especially in his formative years.

Yes and I have also pointed out to him that he can avoid homophobia by choosing not to reveal his sexuality (he told colleagues in one job that I was his girlfriend) where women can’t avoid sexism by hiding their sex (although saying that....).

Claiming to be the most oppressed people ever therefore no one else has anything pertinent to say is a tactic of a different group.

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Mummyoflittledragon · 10/08/2020 08:40

There is blatant homophobia and as a gay man, he has had his own struggles.

Yes I do 100% agree there. Yet he has still benefitted from male privilege, especially in his formative years.

@FuriousAndFrustrated
It is awful what Duncan put you through. I hope that you are finding this thread cathartic. Nothing wrong with vocalising a few emotions...

FuriousAndFrustrated · 09/08/2020 23:23

[quote TBHno]@FuriousAndFrustrated

I am so sorry to hear what you've been through. You've been far too gracious to this man. [/quote]
My instinct is not to be remotely gracious about this, and I'll never forgive his actions.

But I'm trying to be the bigger person here, even though internally I'm screaming, "I fucking told you all this!" (and the rest Grin)

TBHno · 09/08/2020 22:10

@FuriousAndFrustrated

I am so sorry to hear what you've been through. You've been far too gracious to this man.

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noblegiraffe · 09/08/2020 22:07

Oh wow Furious, I didn’t realise it was so close, in my head your thread was much earlier, although it was definitely playing on my mind when I tentatively stuck my head above the parapet.

I’m feeling a bit weird now, like MN sent me into battle for you. I mean, aside from a few facebook interactions (and the aforementioned Feminism 101 on messenger in 2017) I’ve not spoken to him for about 15 years (I moved away), but we have messaged extensively, this year, about this. And he wrote his article, which I posted, which you saw almost immediately.

Feels like stars aligning.

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FuriousAndFrustrated · 09/08/2020 21:30

Timescale from my perspective:

24 Nov 2019 - facebook discussion.
27 Nov 2019 - facebook messenger conversation culminating in me removing the post.
Nov/Dec 2019 - report to HR.
27 Dec 2019 - my telephone discussion with HR - confirmed no further action.
28 Jun 2020 - apology via third party. I asked if he was contrite enough to withdraw his HR report, being skeptical of his intentions.
30 Jun 2020 - his mail to HR withdrawing complaint (I was not aware of this at the time).
24 Jul 2020 - I saw that he liked/followed some GC people on Twitter and thought, "hmm, interesting."
07 Aug 2020 - this thread appeared!

FuriousAndFrustrated · 09/08/2020 21:09

@noblegiraffe

No, Furious, I meant his about-turn! God I put that really badly didn’t I?

I meant the problem that you posted on Mumsnet was eventually, finally fixed for you by Mumsnet with the complaint being withdrawn.

Ah, ok Smile
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noblegiraffe · 09/08/2020 20:58

I’ve just realised that with umbrella’s post about Rowling and with previous posters talking about a Damascene conversion that some might be thinking on the wrong timescale here.

Discussions started at the end of December last year with Rowling’s tweet about Maya and really kicked off in February with the Labour pledge declaring hate groups. We’re 8 months down the line.

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noblegiraffe · 09/08/2020 20:19

No, Furious, I meant his about-turn! God I put that really badly didn’t I?

I meant the problem that you posted on Mumsnet was eventually, finally fixed for you by Mumsnet with the complaint being withdrawn.

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FuriousAndFrustrated · 09/08/2020 20:15

He was essentially radicalised by Mumsnet though.

Seriously? He suggested that? So it's our own fault?

FFS.

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noblegiraffe · 09/08/2020 19:38

Because, I sometimes feel there are a lot of gay childless men in positions of power to make decisions or to influence policy. Eg in education, Moffat of No Outsiders, Glazzard at Leeds Beckett.

Do you know, Neuro it had never occurred to me until this second that that applies to Nick Gibb, the eternal Schools Minister?

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noblegiraffe · 09/08/2020 19:33

I hope you can appreciate as a woman, I struggle to find solidarity with a man, who caused so much anguish to another woman.

Of course. I read her posts at the time and felt immense sympathy for her, I don’t think I’d have posted if I’d made the connection. He was essentially radicalised by Mumsnet though.

What I see is a man stomping his foot for 5 minutes when women have been fighting for their rights for centuries.

It is another angle to this particular fight. There is blatant homophobia and as a gay man, he has had his own struggle. That may speak to a different audience, which some here might find a useful tool.

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noblegiraffe · 09/08/2020 19:16

@1000umbrellas It wasn’t JK Rowling’s article that he was posting about online when he ‘researched her transphobia’. It was her tweet in solidarity with Maya Forstater that he was talking about. He read Rowling’s words but wasn’t sure what to make of it. He read stuff online about what Maya had done, including that she’d ‘deliberately misgendered a colleague’, which was going around at the time, but obviously wasn’t true.

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boatyardblues · 09/08/2020 19:06

so many women are horrified at the way that womanhood has been quietly retooled to mean something else (to some people) and that the new meaning has been adopted by the law (GRA). I find it absolutely hostile and chilling to see regulatory capture all over the public sector and now in the private sector at influential companies like Google or High street historical figures that have become read as a token of UK identity like M&S.

Hostile and chilling is bang on.

NeurotrashWarrior · 09/08/2020 19:04

Thank you for this @noblegiraffe and for what you age discussed with him.

I find it very interesting what you say about that as a gay man, women and women's experiences and sexism were completely off his radar till you explicitly pointed it out to him.

Because, I sometimes feel there are a lot of gay childless men in positions of power to make decisions or to influence policy. Eg in education, Moffat of No Outsiders, Glazzard at Leeds Beckett.

I'm sure this is by no means the norm but Moffat especially appears to ignore the female experience and sexism.

boatyardblues · 09/08/2020 19:04

It’s just that all those years of me being told that I ‘can’t do this’ or ‘should do that‘ because I am a girl, or because I am a woman, or because I am a mother now... and because of living in my female body this long in all its positives and all its negatives.. these things have made me very very sure I am a woman. And that biological sex is real and unchanging. And that gender is stereotypes which are a trap. And that’s partly because other people have spent a lot of time policing my womaning. Which men just don’t seem to experience or appreciate in the same way.

Thanks for this - a lightbulb went off for about the way that women’s bodies are policed so much more heavily and the differing experience of males. In fact, that could easily be a factor in gender non-conforming men wanting to transition into a role or identity where the ‘transgressive presentation’ is accepted and some of the pressure lifts, a return to their usual state of play. For women, we grow up being commented on and subjected to pressure about what’s OK and not OK, so we don’t see the issue - that’s just how it is for most of us.

Mummyoflittledragon · 09/08/2020 18:35

noble
It’s good that he’s properly furious. I hope you can appreciate as a woman, I struggle to find solidarity with a man, who caused so much anguish to another woman. What I see is a man stomping his foot for 5 minutes when women have been fighting for their rights for centuries. A couple of months ago he was stomping his foot for the opposite reason. From his writing I don’t think he has the depth of thinking to get what it is really like for some women, who fight for their very survival.

He may get how it feels now. Does he get how it has felt for centuries? How women are being attacked on every front?

1000umbrellas · 09/08/2020 18:31

I find it dispiriting but not surprising that the author 'researched' JK Rowling's transphobia by looking at Pink News and TRA social media, and posted his own opinion about it online, weeks before actually reading her article.

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noblegiraffe · 09/08/2020 17:35

Given that this thread is called ‘A gay man’s journey from TRA to GC’ it would appear that another peak has been reached.

twitter.com/duncrail78/status/1292469282643816448?s=21

Duncan is furious, and I mean properly furious, that the word ‘gay’ is being redefined to include men who sleep with people with vaginas and that he is now a subset of his own sexuality. A not very good subset of his own sexuality - one who is ‘picky’ about genitals.

He says he now truly gets how women feel about being redefined as a subset of ‘woman’.

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noblegiraffe · 09/08/2020 14:48

If Duncan can realise how he's been busy institutionalising the bullying of a captive group of people who can't escape him and his peers, despite it having absolutely nothing to do with jobs or work or the purpose of organisations, then that's great.

Tbf to Duncan (and god I know I’m being his mouthpiece and cheerleader and isn’t it just like a man to send a woman to do his work for him....but I posted his article so I should engage in discussion about it), he isn’t being quiet about this. He is posting under his real name and he is fully informing his workplace of his actions, including sending his essays to the aforementioned LGBT group with the hope of changing minds and averting any future similar incidents.

I understand the irony of his ability to do this with the consent of his workplace (so long as they are not named) given that he actively prevented a woman from doing similar on a much smaller scale. I guess that’s male privilege working in his favour but I can also work in our favour so long as we see it as him working to address his tribe using his perspective rather than ‘man takes over ailing feminist movement at last’.

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Portnlemon · 09/08/2020 14:11

and the trans group agreed. Yes this was hate and I should report her immediately to HR.^

Where in any of those sentences does it say HR agreed it was hate speech?

You are misreading my comments too.

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