How do you speak up without being called transphobic

And yet they are the ones who claim that they are most marginalised, most persecuted, most at risk.
Remember: "when they go low, we go high". You can hold your head high because you have stated your case without resorting to ghosting, blocking, public name-calling, etc. Your 'friend' cannot; he has, forever, lost the moral high ground.

Thank you so much for these responses. I got a real fright today. So bloody naive. I'm done with people (friends) questioning me about womens spaces and making out that I am abhorrent for protecting those rights.

It cuts me to the core!

But I don’t think the "we" here was specifically trans people. Artfully's friend is a gay man, so I read "we" as referring to LGBT people overall.

Okay, fair enough.

Thanks @ArabellaScott @IcakethereforeIam and @FlirtsWithRhinos I really appreciate the wisdom here as don't have the same IRL.

It's helpful to understand his perspective. Yes the "we" to me meant gay men but also I assume his friends and acquaintances who are Q+.

I feel for anyone who is subject to hateful speech.

It does seem like some groups get to be more "marginalised" / outraged than others though.

Please tell me if I'm saying anything out of order.

I'm going to watch The Mess now to cheer me up!

Thank you again for your wisdom.

Sorry for typos! Should turn blasted autocorrect off really.

My DD's generation really doesn't care, they just aren't self conscious in the same way

Your DD would be happy to strip off and change for swimming right opposite the boys in her class at school? Or wash period blood off her hands next to a middle aged male senior colleague? Or have a smear test done by a man? No discomfort or embarrassment with any of that whatsoever?

My DD is ten. She and her friends are extremely self-conscious about changing for PE near boys or going to mixed sex loos. A few have stated to develop breasts or even started periods. Her primary school, which did have mixed sex loos until recently, has now had to designate some as boys only and some as girls only because the girls in party were very vocal about their discomfort and anxiety about sharing changing space and loos with the boys. The girls were complaining that the boys were trying to watch them changing and liking up their skirts. Many girls were not drinking water during the day in an attempt to avoid going to the loos, or becoming very uncomfortable because they did not want to share them with boys. (The mixed sex loos also had horrible hygiene, with some boys urinating on the seats or leaving them in a dreadful mess, even a recurrent vandalism problem.) Now that they have separate sex loos, DD says she can finally go to the loo again at school.

So all fine and dandy for your DD’s “generation”. However my DD’s “generation” (preteens) are NOT happy. They quite naturally, like small girls normally are before our porn-obsessed sexist society beats it out of them, want to be private and comfortable. They don’t feel like their bodies should be public property and they want proper boundaries. They don’t want to be a public spectacle for every boy and man going past.

And to be honest, though teenage girls and university students might want to look like cool girls who are all super happy for unisex facilities, I think you’d find if you really asked that actually no, they don’t really want to take a shit in the cubicle next to Joe the mail guy from work, or get naked in front of the pervy middle aged man in the changing room. They say they’re all for unisex facilities because that’s the current fashionable student orthodoxy — ooo, single sex toilets are just like apartheid in South Africa and all that rubbish. But they don’t actually like the result that much, in all honesty.

(My work made the loos unisex for about a week, and it only took that amount of time for the women to get fed up of the shit left everywhere. Quite literally. In one week the men broke the locks and the flush, left paper and piss all over the floor, shit streaks on the wall I kid you not, and these are adult professional middle aged men. Thankfully we are mostly middle aged women who are not in thrall to gender rubbish and we said No Thanks! firmly to that and had the ladies reinstated.)

I agree that the frequency of transphobic violence and murder is hugely overstated especially for the UK.

But I don’t think the "we" here was specifically trans people. Artfully's friend is a gay man, so I read "we" as referring to LGBT people overall. There have been high profile homophobic attacks in the US, there are populist politicians in the US and some parts of Europe pushing that, and I see it myself in social media that genuinely transphobic and homophobic comments do turn up on threads in "support" of gender critical people.

To be clear, I'm not saying women should shut up, quite the opposite. I think it's the ridiculous demands of the genderist movement are leading to justified public criticism which is then wrongly seized on by the genuinely trans- and homo- phobic as support, and the way to defuse that is to stop making ridiculous demands in the name of gender.

i am saying that saying women should shut up and accept erasure because their resistence might encourage other people to do bad things is a dreadful position to take.

There's been a busy thread today about a trans only swimming session. Aside from an understandable (imo) concern about safeguarding, none of the posters have a problem with it. There's been no transphobia, despite earnest attempts to find it.

I've read on this and other threads people who have been monstered by friends and family for their beliefs. They've agreed to differ, not talk about it but it's not good enough. Only total capitulation is good enough. I'm so sorry for people who've suffered this. I don't understand it.

Below I'm posting the definition of 'bigotry' by our old friend the Cambridge dictionary. I found it striking especially the second part. Don't know why it's so big.

If you read the article it shows how untrue it is about the murders in the U.K.

We are harassed, verbally abused, beaten and murdered more thanks to the rhetoric of those you follow

The thing is, I think that is not untrue.

It's not only untrue, it's veritable bullshit hyperbole.

Trans people are (in the UK) a very safe demographic. As far as I recall no trans people have been murdered in the past three years in the UK. This is great! I'm glad the UK is so tolerant.

Yes, there is transphobia out there. It's abhorrent. But the people who are homophobic or aggressive towards non-conforming people don't have 'gender critical views', or feminist views, or any kind of considered views. They'll be the usual small minded, violent males you can sadly find on any street, in any city.

We are harassed, verbally abused, beaten and murdered more thanks to the rhetoric of those you follow

The thing is, I think that is not untrue. The actually transphobic (as in, actually hates/fears gender non-conformity, rather than simply rejecting the wholesale replacement of sex with self defined gender which is erroneously labelled as transphobia for political gain) and the homophobic do take gender critical commentary and activism as support for their prejudices, even though what gender critical feminists stand for is in fact the opposite of returning to sex-based gender roles.

But does that mean women (original, female meaning) are morally required to just suck it up in case speaking out against a movement that harms us is used by another movement to harm someone else? Only if you think women have less value and less right to political autonomy than other social groups.

It's telling that the activists who use this logic against women speaking out think the solution is for women to shut up, rather than for genderists to listen to women and accept we need a society that works for both, removing the fuel for this fire at source.

And telling, of course, that they don't acknowledge their own rhetoric is leading to harassment, verbal abuse and violence against women.

I hope he reads this or someone gets the message to him that I am here to protect womens rights and all human rights but one group should not take the rights away from other.

Sorry, those were Artfully’s words.

ArtfullyCrumpled · Today 20:38
Ok so calming myself down and having the courage of my convictions now.

This was basically the message I was given publicly on SM.

Give dignity to a marginalised group of people.

Rhetoric by GC campaigners is same as used against gays.

Same as Trump Rombinson Farage

Passing that one bit of legislation doesn’t take away others rights

Access to single sex spaces has been allowed for years.

In having beef with the Equality Act you cannot claim to believe in equal rights for all

You cannot claim to be an ally when openly supporting those who hate

We are harassed, verbally abused, beaten and murdered more thanks to the rhetoric of those you follow:,

LGB Alliance
Helen Staniland
Graham Linehan
JKR
Maya Forstater

Johann Lamont

James Dreyfus

There is also the issue that he said on SM that anyone with these beliefs is a bigot and a cnt*

I am very sorry you have been subject to this vicious public attack. This person is making sure no one else will dare say anything.

I hope he reads this or someone gets the message to him that I am here to protect womens rights and all human rights but one group should not take the rights away from other.

re the “We are harassed, verbally abused, murdered and beaten more thanks to the rhetoric you follow”……
in case you are no wondering if you are responsible for a lot of murders, I wonder if you have ever read this article in Unherd

The truth about trans murders - UnHerd

unherd.com/2022/01/the-truth-about-trans-murders/

You're absolutely right. One group should not take rights from another, or seek for a higher level of rights that they will not grant to others they see as less important and not equal to them. That's basic common sense.

And many of the accusations in that list are plainly and very obviously not true, with the rest of it easily disproved the minute you look. The dogma in all this is silly.

If it's any comfort, I came to MN years ago when the LGBT+ group I had run for years was blown apart by a young TQ+ person. They had been given huge amounts of support and care from me and from the group who had welcomed them wholeheartedly, they took huge amounts and were highly needy giving very little back. When I was forced to say 'no' to them for breaking a very standard rule of the group and impinging on other members in ways they didn't appreciate, the tantrums and aggression unleashed was quite staggering. I was told 'I was not a friend to LGBT+ people' (despite running this group for years that had been doing so much to support this person). It was plain ridiculous, but a whole lot of more gullible members of the group took sides and it wrecked the community and support for many. I came here in bewilderment, very hurt at being so turned on and not understanding all the ranting about 'microaggressions' and other jargon, and trying to work out what I'd done.

I discovered quite fast that it wasn't just me, this was not in any way an unusual thing, and many people had the same experience. But I'd been a happy little unconscious 'ally' until the lid was taken off for me personally and I realised the mess beneath the surface of a lot of very strong marketing.

It is shocking, it is hurtful, the intensity and irrationality of it all is really upsetting when it's unleashed on you. But once you see through it and you understand, and you are certain that you're not imagining it and there are some very serious issues of equality and access that cannot just be waved away, then its a case of sharing the information and waiting for others to start to realise the issues for themselves.

I spoke up this year openly for the first time (with mixed results) and kept coming back to the Maya Forstater ruling and how enormously important ruling it is and the absolutely hell Maya went though to put that in place to help protect all of us.

Thank you @ArabellaScott and @senua. Put my head about the parapet a tiny bit. Just by following and retweeting and got this.

I did explain why I followed and that I am someone who has used rape crisis. I didn't need to but I did. But that was ignored completely.

God I really appreciate what you have all done for YEARS.

Ach, ArtfullyCrumpled, I'm really sorry. That is awful.

TBH the insults flung at women when it comes to this issue (and it is largely women who get the brunt of it) are just so wide of the mark they barely make any sense.

Some people seem to need to monster and dehumanise those who disagree with them - I think that's quite telling.

I am in tears here for the loss of a long friendship of someone I absolutely respected and loved his soul with all my heart.
I'm so sorry for you Artfully. It hurts to lose friends.
In time you will come to realise that he is not who you thought he was; you are mourning somebody who either no longer exists or who never existed in the first place. I had a friend (a good friend, I thought) who fell out with me. It hurt like hell for a few years until I realised that she had a pattern of falling out with people. It was just a matter of time until it was my turn to be in the firing line.

Ok so calming myself down and having the courage of my convictions now.

This was basically the message I was given publicly on SM.

Give dignity to a marginalised group of people.

Rhetoric by GC campaigners is same as used against gays.

Same as Trump Rombinson Farage

Passing that one bit of legislation doesn’t take away others rights

Access to single sex spaces has been allowed for years.

In having beef with the Equality Act you cannot claim to believe in equal rights for all

You cannot claim to be an ally when openly supporting those who hate

We are harassed, verbally abused, beaten and murdered more thanks to the rhetoric of those you follow:,

LGB Alliance
Helen Staniland
Graham Linehan
JKR
Maya Forstater
Johann Lamont
James Dreyfus

There is also the issue that he said on SM that anyone with these beliefs is a bigot and a c*nt.

I hope he reads this or someone gets the message to him that I am here to protect womens rights and all human rights but one group should not take the rights away from other.

I'm sorry for derailing. I do think it's relevant to the OP's question though. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences. The truth is it hurts and it's painful to be cast out for your beliefs.

I am in tears here for the loss of a long friendship of someone I absolutely respected snd loved his soul with all my heart. Being told I can't be friends with him anymore.

I need to process the things he's just said to me in a message.

AmaryllisNightAndDay · Today 10:37
@ArtfullyCrumpled That's a great pity, but it still leaves me curious about him and about the other gay men who share his views. You probably can't get any answers from him now, but would he consider having sex with a transman? (Maybe he doesn't see himself as vulnerable to either physical or social pressure to have sex, so that's not an issue for him.)

And is he happy to include transmen at all events for gay men?

This from The Gay Men’s Network related to a CPS consultation about rape by deception shows that some gay men are concerned about transmen, issues related to trans ideology.

www.cps.gov.uk/consultation/consultation-deception-gender-section-rape-and-serious-sexual-offences-rasso-legal

I quickly discovered that when I (lifelong feminist, socialist, bi, marched for gay liberation in the 70s, Greenham woman, GNC) stated what appeared to me to be uncontroversial facts (sex is binary & bodily, & nobody in human history has ever changed sex, for instance) I was monstered as a transphobe, “radicalised by a hate group”, accused of being in the pay of extreme right wing American White Supremacist religious groups & of wanting women back in the kitchen, & had attacks made on my livelihood. By people who knew me, & who alternated these attacks with cries of “how could you do this to your friends?” and “why can’t you just be kind?”

A quick glimpse into how exceedingly authoritarian, dishonest & manipulative the GII movement is.

So I decided “transphobe” is much less of a descriptive term & much more of a silencing mechanism, and that I am not going to be silent about things that matter.

A great liberation right there.

That said, there are 1 or 2 groups on FB which seem mainly dedicated to posting pics of idiotic men looking stupid in fetish gear.

I’m not interested. I don’t care how badly people dress provided they’re reasonably covered, and I don’t at all care how they dress or undress in private with consenting adults. I was a teen in 1973, after all. That seems borderline “transphobic”, in a trivial kind of way, though mainly if that’s all they do.

I’m pro women, pro reality, pro safeguarding, pro decent mental health care & pro evidence-based medicine. That’s what I’m for.

Very sorry @Metabigot and @ArtfullyCrumpled that sounds very upsetting. 💐.

One of my oldest FB friends has gone 'grey rock'. We met on a language learning page in 2014. Did video study calls every weekend, confided in each other etc.

But what can you do? I just help with crowd funders in a modest way. Don't get stuck in the weeds to quote Mr Cummings ( of all ppl!) I try to avoid arguing with zealots on Twitter.

Still have to be a bit cautious too - a close relative works in media and I don't want them to pay a price.

@ArtfullyCrumpled That's a great pity, but it still leaves me curious about him and about the other gay men who share his views. You probably can't get any answers from him now, but would he consider having sex with a transman? (Maybe he doesn't see himself as vulnerable to either physical or social pressure to have sex, so that's not an issue for him.)

And is he happy to include transmen at all events for gay men?

Very hard to accept that your brother is profoundly misogynistic. My sister is the same, has even used the 'renounce your opinions' line on me. We've barely spoken for a couple of years because she prefers to stick to the Labour line that TWAW and she can't believe that I, a feminist and a lesbian, don't. She's accused me of being transphobic and a Tory bigot. It's as if the rational part of her brain has been closed down. She'd be denouncing me to the Nazis and having me shot if she could.