A gay man’s journey from TRA to GC

That's great @FuriousAndFrustrated I'm glad it's being cleared up (pending HR sorting it obvs)

It's great that he has the empathy and courage to acknowledge what has happened. It doesn't bear thinking about what might have happened to FuriousAndFrustrated had the employer / HR acted differently. It also highlights the immense power of Stonewall and LGBT groups . Stonewall can persuade companies like M & S & countless others to remove safe single sex facilities from women and girls at will and in businesses LGBT groups can have complaints recorded against colleagues for talking about women's rights.

This tells me and others that some of those people who are still where he was-- they are reachable.

It's why we need to keep talking about the issues and our concerns, we know our arguments stand up to being debated.

Thanks, peeps.
Isn’t it just a crying bloody shame, though? ☹️

I can confirm that I've today received a copy of the email sent to our corporate HR department on 30th June, withdrawing the report:

" I have now reflected and would like to remove my complaint and ensure it is not recorded on the employees record as raised by me. I no longer believe what she posted was hateful, and I was incorrect in my assumptions."

Seems pretty genuine to me. (And I'm not surprised nothing has happened so far.... our HR are notoriously inefficient!)

Thanks @noblegiraffe

Absolutely, miri1985 about the importance of JKR in how attitudes and opinions are changing.

And I really appreciate this man describing how he slowly realised he had been wrong, and being so honest about it. He could have seen the truth and just gone quiet, not admitted any culpability. This tells me and others that some of those people who are still where he was-- they are reachable.

Another great example of how important it was for JKR to speak out, what she did had such an impact. Shes such a beloved figure and presented her points so well that if people took the time to actually read what she had written the wool was pulled from their eyes.

So many brave women in his story from the woman at work who tried to speak out, to the woman on facebook who politely asked questions that should have been easily answerable if it held up to any scrutiny to Maya.

This is a textbook example of why TRA's insisted on no debate and even discussion is hateful.

Good article and I'm glad he's reflected on the science/reality.
He should however take responsibility for some of his own decisions - reporting his colleague for example.

He definitely should apologise properly. I am disgusted that people try to get others sacked over this. It's spiteful and pathetic.
Saying he wanted to feel righteous for trying to destroy someones income is nasty. What a nasty man.

Vermeil
Yes, I agree, full of incels. As for the “oldskool transsexuals”, they have been labelled TRUSCUM by the TRA’s.

Vermeil, you certainly have a way with words. Very well summed up!

Oh I follow him on Twitter too! He's great.

‘Their desire for the right to a quiet, happy life has been hijacked by gobby incels with winged eyeliner and pink and blue baseball bats who think their dicks are great.’

I think this one sentence is the best summation of the problem with trans-activism I’ve seen to date. 👍

Well, that journey is mine. I'm not a gay man, clearly, but I have supported trans rights for 15 odd years. Saw it as akin to supporting gay rights. I knew a transman at college and so to me, it was all about ensuring, as Stonewall put it, 'acceptance without exception'.

My conversion was equally rapid. Lots of ignored cognitively dissonent moments, then researching to prove all of you wrong, which included Pink News (and if that doesn't get any sane women scaling mountains in short order, nothing will).

The thing is, as he says, what used to be about ensuring freedom from and freedom to for a small group of badly marginalised people has managed to slide into full blown Men's Rights Activism.

I still support legitimate trans rights. I just don't accept that women have none, and nor do I accept that what the penis-possessor wants, the penis-possessor must have. Which, when you cut through the bullshit, is pretty much what modern TRAs demand.

I also hope that the friend has made it clear to HR that he withdraws his complaint, and accepts the PP's right, as a woman, to hold views on issues affecting women's rights.

I hear echos of what many of us on these boards have described as we moved along the continuum from a liberal "of course we should embrace trans rights" to "no, actually only adult females can be women".

It's powerful when the layers are removed one by one and only the truth remains.

Fascinating piece.
Similar to my own journey. I used to be a big supporter of trans rights, but the increasingly nonsensical rhetoric, the ‘it’s backed up by science!!’ stance that always seemed to be followed by a repost of THAT Scientific American article which cobbled together various small, disparate studies from mainly the mid ‘90s (it became increasingly obvious that the ‘science’ behind transgernderism is scant, often based on incredibly small study groups, and too often suffered from an obvious bias. Add to that that the current trans rights movement has an obvious dislike, bordering on fear, of any serious, neutral, research), and the fact that one look at enthusiastic TRAs on social media showed a shocking amount of glaring misogyny, homophobia and threats of violence, made me realise that actually these are some of the LAST people I would want to share my protected spaces with.
I actually feel sorry for people who genuinely suffer from dysphoria. Their desire for the right to a quiet, happy life has been hijacked by gobby incels with winged eyeliner and pink and blue baseball bats who think their dicks are great. A lot of this is because the net has been cast so wide that it’s become impossible to separate them out, and therefore call them out for the toxicity they’ve brought to the movement and the long-term damage they’re actually doing to the cause of people who suffer from actual dysphoria. There must be many ‘oldskool’ transsexuals out there who are deeply saddened by what’s happened to the trans rights movement, as it’s basically been hijacked by obnoxious weirdos and people on the make.
It’s pitiful to watch, and I think there’ll be a lot of casualties. A backlash is building up, and many more underserving people will get badly hurt.

As to non-binary people, I was at art college for five years so I know preening pretentious self-absorption when I see it. They can do one, to be quite frank.

Do you think he's genuine @FuriousAndFrustrated?

Maybe I'm overly suspicious but it's quite the Damascene conversion. He makes some good points but I'm going to hesitate a bit on the accolades.

I hope you get a proper apology.

He has apologised indirectly via a mutual friend, but hasn't (or hadn't when I last checked) withdrawn his report to HR.

If he's not attempted to undo the damage he's done, which might be embarrassing for him, then his big public mea culpa is worth jack shit.

The damage that Stonewall and the TRAs are doing to trans people is genuinely heartbreaking.