Another friendship bites the dust

I will admit there's plenty of GC tribalism too. I thought about starting a thread on 'what is your least GC belief' to try and discuss that a bit more. Mine is probably knowing that we can't always tell. One of my young female acquaintances who's transitioned you would certainly see as a lad, you wouldn't think twice about it. And only because some of the campaign points on the GC 'side' require people not to be able to tell to be an issue at all. At the very least there are a lot of mixed signal/androgynous presentations out there.

Friends who start off saying how absolutely they are ‘not like those people’, when they start explaining their views are ‘those people. They just never realized what the demands from the extreme activists were.

Absolutely this.
I have been on FWR for years, always tried to engage politely with people who claim to think TWAW but there are a handful of questions that they just cannot answer. Over and again, they simply refuse to answer.

Either they don't know, or they don't want to say. Hardly questions they won't have come across, either. Things like 'what is a woman' usually end up in them (if they ever answer) having to have two definitions - but one is always reliant on knowing that women are female.

There was a fascinating and thought provoking thread on AIBU recently where a close family friend of someone had just been sentenced for child sex abuse. The poster vividly described her sense of shock at having to re-evaluate every connection she'd ever had with him, and disbelief that his wife was standing by him. There was a really interesting examination of why the wife might have done so.

I had a friend who became paralysed following a motorbike smash. His biking mates responded in one of two ways; either they sold their bikes and gave up the scene altogether, or they carried on biking and cut the friend out of their lives as he provided too much of a reminder of the risk.

There are an awful lot of people who seem to be mentally unable of facing up to shocking news that causes you to reavaluate core aspects of your life. It's easier for some people to ignore it in the hope it might just quietly go away.

That's horrendous. Insulting to women and men with erectile dysfunction both. Can't see the point of drugs and radical surgery if I'm going to be a woman anyway given the ravages of time?

And what of women who lose their sex drive ; are they now all men ? Bonkers

I'm told that the gay man who organises one of the local Prides is full-on terf if you catch him after a few drinks in the pub.

Exactly. Even loads of trans people are a ‘little bit terfy’.

Almost everyone is a bit terfy when it comes to romantic relationships!

The daft thing is that half the stuff TRA bang on about is stuff the actual trans-identifying people I know IRL disagree with - like males in Women’s sports.

It also takes a lot of the impact away from what has become a powerful pejorative, ‘of course I’m a bit terfy, no one really believes humans can change sex!’ is radically different to ‘Don’t talk to her, she’s a TERF’

I find it’s best to get it out of the way and describe myself as a ‘bit terfy’ to new acquaintances now.

it usually results in a good conversation, and means I don’t have to worry about someone finding out and assuming it means I’m actually hateful, rather than protective of children’s bodies and women’s spaces and services.

Tribalism: 100%.

The monstering of 'terf' has created a false division of us and them. The rules are vague, nebulous and constantly shifting. It's a fantastic way to control people- keep them constantly uncertain of whether they are in the 'good ' group or not. Squabble endlessly about the arcane rules. Have examples of what happens to those who transgress. Punish apostates. Forbid questions. Make flags. Make meaningless slogans.

Femm, that is so sad. I hope that someone will be able to show her how badly wrong she's got this. My sister has disowned me for being GC, but she has always been difficult to be around, very black and white and righteous in her far-left of Labour way. So in some ways the radio silence is a relief. But a mum is different.

Yes. I have come across this too.

Friends who start off saying how absolutely they are ‘not like those people’, when they start explaining their views are ‘those people. They just never realized what the demands from the extreme activists were.

Oh god this.

My "progressive" (actually very straight-laced, middle of the road type) friend to her credit agreed to read what JKR had actually said. She couldn't find anything she disagreed with but couldn't leave what she perceived to be the "in tribe". So she decided JKR was extra mean for hiding her transphobia behind such reasonable words.

Seems like you didn't look out for quicksand. Sad.

I've had people tell me that being a trf is unacceptable, who then promptly reveal through what they say that they'd be considered a trf by many. It's largely tribal, not intellectual.

People want to be nice and supportive and definitely don't want to be seen as 'phobic' about anything. Unfortunately in this debate it's impossible to be anything other than 100% supportive of gender ideology or a horrible terf. I think a lot of people get a shock when they realise that raising what seems like a perfectly reasonable question about all this catapults them out of being a good person to being 'evil'. Your friends probably have some cognitive dissonance over this already but are not quite ready to address it so have doubled down and made sure they don't have to think about it. Give them time though. I'm sure questions will begin to go around in their heads. It took me a while to look at things from every angle, explore every possible way to make everyone happy before I saw reality. I'm sure at least some of your friends get over the initial panic response and will be starting to think.

Ah Sappho, I’m sorry - & I hope it doesn’t unsettle things with your wife/partner (sorry, I can’t remember if you’re married, just that you’re not of a mind with her on this). I also hope they don’t go stirring trouble for you with any mutual friends you may have.

You are being treated as an apostate, essentially, which really doesn’t cast your former friends - nor indeed those who endorse gender ideology generally - in a good light.

On a much lighter note, this thread being full of “GCs” “pivoting” has me wondering about this newly-discovered netball position we apparently all play identify as. I feel very bad about having been distracted, but honestly, the endless barging in to here to announce an utter incomprehension of female socialisation is really quite embarrassing. Oh course we pivot & we make swift passes. And running with balls is quite beyond our ken.

I'm just curious what you imagine would be 'in' it for us; to change your mind ? about anything?
Well frankly that doesn't seem likely... I'm an atheist but I've never once rang a doorbell trying to talk someone out of their beliefs why would I mind what they believe?

When it comes to trans ideology I've heard people say things / read things that I agree with completely and have agreed with for decades.

I've also heard people say things / read things and gone "well that's rather sexist, and I don't agree." or "crikey that's actually really homophobic I can't agree with that"

so I would say this to you as food for thought. People are treated differently because of their sex and those differences fall into two categories; sexist bullshit and proportionate means of achieving legitimate aims. I'm all for people ignoring and challenging the sexist bullshit, I'm happy and perfectly prepared for society to debate and consider carefully whether a particular rule or exclusion falls into category one or category two; but I can't agree that there is never any significance whatsoever to the sex of a person. Do you think that anything ever falls into category 2 and if so what?

Thank you for demonstrating once again that TRAs have no argument and can't debate

Just wanted to post sympathy to Sapph (rather tedious to have to scroll past the openly dishonest posts to have to do so but does reinforce how dishonesty is a common factor here).

If they were honest they could've discussed it with you. I think so much of this reaction comes from fear of examining one's own views.

Just be strong in the knowledge that most sane people know that a man can never be a woman. They're just careful who they express their views to. I haven't met one person who believes the twaw bollocks ( literally 😂 )

I am sorry to hear sappho that your friend didn’t really even contact you to discuss. It is often the lack of closure that makes it harder.

Oh. It was really quite similar to Lavery, after all.

The overconfidence of someone who soon realises that they simply do not have compelling evidence that will withstand public eyes is not unusual.

All they have is emotional manipulation that usually resorts to ‘shaming’ others. They make derogatory remarks and hypocritical accusations that are too often just projection. If any person felt that confident that they would cockily offer to debate, they would do it in public. So others could see their argument and be convinced.

But that never works in reality.

Sadly, the episode will be told from ‘Junebugs’ perspective that they were ‘piled on’ and ‘bullied’ despite their derogatory and accusatory posts, amongst those that sought to shame women who disagreed.

I think the very fact they could not see the dehumanisation of the term used by ‘twitterengineer’, and the ridiculousness that was that thread where a transitioned male declared they made better women than females, made it perfectly clear that they were all too happy to shame and denigrate women who didn’t agree with them.

It really is plus ca change.

I rather believe we’ve had a real-time demonstration of how ‘no debate’ manifests this evening!

Just a bit @TheClogLady I didn’t think I was that scary…. 😀