Former TRA’s what made you change your mind?

This is a great thread! Thankyou PissedoffAmericanwoman and to everyone who’s contributed

I vividly remember the exact moment I went 'hang on a second'....... My goto website for reading long funny threads was EtiquetteHell, lots and lots of stories of people acting appallingly at weddings and in shops and on trains, I could read through the threads for hours and contributed to a few. I started one but it was immediately deleted for I really couldn't understand what, but I think because I wasn't polite enough?

Then one day I was doing some research about Zoe Harcombe, who writes on weight loss and nutrition, and found mumsnet. I don't have kids, but I really liked the way people spoke on these boards - openly, honestly, not tiptoeing about, a bit of swearing, and the topics were vast. I again spent hours and hours reading about Zoe, then the films threads, the supernatural threads, the diet and excercise threads - still to this day, if there is absolutely anything at all I want info on the first thing I do is see if there is a mumsnet thread first.

Anyway, that's how I stumbled across the feminism board I can remember starting to read an opening sentence and actually thinking 'yeah, i don't have a problem with trans women using the ladies loo, I don't care......' and by the time I had finished reading that first sentence I was full on GC.

the first case I read about was Karen Jones, another trans woman prisoner in a female jail. And I raised it with one of my best friends, a gay man, on twitter thinking well, surely he will agree with me, and was amazed by how he utterly dismissed, with such disrespect and disdain, what I was saying. He had been one of my best friends for 20 years, he had never spoken to me like that before!!!! Anyway, I no longer speak to him.

And as for Zoe Harcombe? Not only did her eloquent and insiteful writing inspire me to start eating meat again after 23 years a vegetarian, but she is also full on GC on twitter.

I've been ticked off by a few lesbians online in spats about JKR and Glinner. But I have noticed they are invariably older, in longstanding relationships , kids in one case.

So maybe they just can't see the problem? I remember Arty Morty saying there hasn't been a real gay community since the 90s. Online dating sites probably haven't helped in that respect.

I thought you were all crazy until I actually started to read what you wrote and then I fell into the rabbit hole and saw the light.

I wasn't a tra but was very much in the be kind/ not hurting anyone school of thought. As a student nurse in the early 2000s I worked with a mtf (post op) district nurse 'Sue' who was ostracised by colleagues and had been bullied out of their theatre nurse role due to arguments over where they got changed. As a naive teenager at the time I thought the female colleagues were awful and just needed to be kind as 'Sue' wasn't bothering anyone. I thought that people could be born in the 'wrong bodies' and that they should be supported. Don't get me wrong, 'Sue' shouldn't have been bullied. The name calling and treatment received was awful- but in hindsight I think it was the only way that Sue's female colleagues could get management to pay attention to their concerns. Had it happened now they'd have been fired ...

It wasn't until I had my daughters in my 30s that I finally started paying attention and actually looking at what the issues were. Men taking women's places in sports, boardrooms, refuges, changing rooms. Demanding that we be kind and shut up. A malign stonewall influencing business and public sector. Changing the very meaning of words and using no debate to bring in massive changes in work policies that have undermined women in my place of work. Expecting hcp's and scientists to deny the reality of sex and place stereotypes and gender above that in terms of importance. Transing children and using hormone blockers/ hormone therapy and surgical options far too early before exploring any mental health issues or possible links with other ND conditions. The fact that it's ONLY women being told to be accommodating/ be kind/ stop being transphobic etc. The absolutely regressive nature of gender ideology. As a tomboy if this had have happened earlier in my youth with the access to the internet the same as now I have no idea how I would have responded- maybe I'd have thought I was trans rather than being a girl interested in science, building, sports and being around males rather than females.

No. It's awful. I can't bear it and I honestly fear for my daughter's with this madness. I'm politically homeless (typical northern lefty) and I can't see how this will ever be undone.

Apparently Julie Bindel was interviewed by Paris Lees in 2012 and JB apologised for her previous comments about transwomen and agreed that they can be lesbians.

So it just goes to show that even staunch feminists can get caught up in this shit.

I was part of the feminist blogosphere 15 or so years ago and we already knew it was all shite.

Agree with OP, that's sad to hear. But it might also mean that when the tide turns (and I believe that's inevitable because the alternative is untenable), it will likely happen quite swiftly.

That is heartbreaking to hear.

@RaininginDarling I’d like to say yes, but honestly? Not really.

I do think what’s going on is a lot of bitten tongues and private thoughts, until finally they can’t take it anymore. There’s a lot of self policing involved, and frankly, lesbians were raised as much as straight women to prioritize men’s thoughts and feelings in a patriarchy.

That's interesting @CoastalHeart - one of the things I've found really strange is how many lesbians are caught up in this ideology and can't see the issues and yet its lesbians who seem most often been targeted. Do you see any shifts happening?

I’m a reidentified/desisted lesbian—saw the start of the cotton ceiling when it started up on tumblr, was in full support of lesbians and trans women dating, all that homophobic garbage. I identified as genderqueer, which was sort of the precursor to non-binary that we see today. To me, it was all, let people ID the way they want, buck gender norms, this is just a natural extension of gay rights, trans people have always existed, blah blah blah.

But because of the cotton ceiling nonsense, I started hate-reading radfem blogs (back then, TRAs would call them radscum) and it was increasingly harder to ignore the truth of what was being said by radical feminists. Pair that with the sheer amount of trans women being outed as sexual predators in the spaces I was in, the labor they were demanding of women in promoting their causes and ideas, eventually you just hit that peak. Just a sudden wake up call of this being a homophobic men’s rights movement.

It really sickens me how much this movement preys on young gay and lesbian kids. I was barely a teenager when I starting IDing as genderqueer, my dysphoria was encouraged and echoed by those around me…when I was just a gnc lesbian teen who needed to know that it was okay to be what I am, and that it is so incredibly common for lesbians to feel like outsiders amongst other girls when they’re growing up.

You are absolutely right about the 90s. I’m a similar age I think, my childhood was in the 70s and 80s. Pictures of me as a child show me in jeans and jumpers. I only recall having one dress. I remember quite liking pretty dresses but then not being sure how I’d climb a tree with one on. Most of my female friends were the same. I had toy cars, a toy farm but also a Sindy house etc. I think it was harder for boys at that time. A boy with a baby doll and pushchair would have got looks and comments.
As you say then, at some point in the 90s, the extreme gendering of toys happened. Toy shops got a pink aisle. There was a huge amount of inequality in the 80s but somehow childhood was much less gendered than it is now.

3 years ago I would have said that TWAW, just be kind, it costs nothing etc.

I met a few transwomen through friends and work and felt sorry for them and their struggle to fit in. I then gradually realised that the friendships didn’t seem to work both ways, I was just there to listen, listen listen and only have opinions that matched theirs and actually- could I just (shut up! &) listen… I stopped bothering.

I later read what JKR wrote and couldn’t figure out what was so awful about it… I was rapidly shut down by another woman when I brought this up…

Finally - it was Guides that peaked me. Guides were allowing someone in fetishist gear and holding a GUN to run a Guides unit. Blew.my.mind! This was not how I remembered Guides!!

About the same time I read about the Brighton rape crisis centres excluding women - by including men - that really upset me. Then all the other stuff just added to the pot -

Lia Thomas parading his penis around the changing room, and pushing a female swimmer out of the team…

The frightening presence of Stonewall in schools and the BBC - and not allowing debate (!) & their links with paedophile groups is just bloody horrifying.

@EnglishBloodIrishHeart what you describe is my observation from having very close friends having transitioned 25/30 years ago and now as older adults they just want to live in peace. They too (mostly) pass so don’t need the protection of the wider trans community and so can live in peace with only a very few people knowing. They feel the way current activism from grass roots to politicians is going that it puts them in more danger now should they be outed. They don’t want associated with the activists who they feel have brought shame on their once safe and accepted community.

thank you for your articulation- I didn’t feel it was my place to write what you did in relation to my friends but I went and asked if they’d mind me adding their thoughts after I told them what you, a younger person had said.

I have the opposite experience! The mums of girls go on about the social aspects of it all, whereas the mums of boys are GC. Tiny sample size, anecdotal, obviously...

And thanks @EnglishBloodIrishHeart for braving the nest of vipers to come and give your views- from my limited experience I also think there has been a huge change in what was the LGB community. There has been a mass importing of views from Online America which don't always gel with British culture, history etc.

Let's avoid the derailment. (And I'm including myself in that exhortation to keep to the point of the thread.)

No idea what kink has to do with my question.
But anyway, asexuality and aromanticism are about sexual / romantic attraction and it doesn’t fall under ’normal’ (don’t take that word the wrong way) so they belong in the LGBTQIA.
And you know, the A is literally there.

They literally hurt no one.

I only joined this board last year, after the thread I was reading on Lia Thomas was moved into this section.

Without outing myself, I am watching my teenage sons start to tower over me, while I have had several interviews but no jobs and dread the approaching menopause. I am questioning who I am and where I now fit in the world as an older mum.

To read about someone who changed from boy swimming to girl swimming and then became National Champion was jaw-dropping. Why was this being allowed to happen??? Why was no one complaining??? Why could people not see the obvious physical differences between men and women? Why was one man able to dominate over all these women?

I think I'm a second wave feminist and did Feminist Literature in my final year at Uni (week 1 - The Handmaid's Tale) I believe that women's oppression starts from sex and is reinforced by gender. So to believe TWAW is fundamentally against my thinking. Don't discriminate and harass, just be kind and it'll be OK.

The issues raised on these boards have made me realise it's not all OK.

Fascinating thread - thanks!

@Calmblue Your experience of your so-called feminist society at university neatly illustrates one of the main objections that many women have towards the notion that TWAW: men moving into female spaces and lecturing women on how to behave.

Yes perfectly put @LadyOfTheCanyon

I'm also Gen X and have many of the same experiences as @RaininginDarling regarding the eras I grew up in.

Something odd happened in the 90s and early 00s. The nineties completely did a number on women with its Lad/ Loaded culture ( look ultra feminine, behave like a man and we will slut shame you should you manage both).

Lesbian Rights: the right to not be discriminated against for being same-sex attracted.

Gay Rights: the right to not be discriminated against for being same-sex attracted.

Bisexual Rights: the right to not be discriminated against for being same sex attracted.

Trans Rights: the right to not be discriminated against for having an ill-defined identity where one’s inner self feels different in ways that can’t be well described but means one wants the rest of the world to perceive them as the opposite sex, and for some, the right to be treated exactly like that opposite sex.

Intersex Rights: the right for a rare group of medical conditions to be treated in certain ways depending on the group you ask.

Asexual/Aromantic Rights: ? As far as I can tell it’s the right not to be asked if they’re seeing anyone at the moment.

So how are the first three grouped together with the latter three?

Thanks for your reply @EnglishBloodIrishHeart - it chimes a lot with the points raised in the Chloe Cole interview with Jordan Peterson I've just been listening to.

Something very regressive happened within the culture in the nineties. I'm Gen X, so I was in my 20s then. As a child in the 70s, I played with Action Men as well as dolls, my matchbox car carrier came with me everywhere, clothes were pretty androgynous. In the 80s, I was in my teens, and my first great loves were Adam Ant and Boy George. By late teens, I was into hair metal (!) where the boys generally had long flowing hair and makeup. Then the 90s saw the rise of the Spice Girls, 'girl power' and the ironic/not ironic embrace of uber femininity, lad culture and, as you point out, pink and blue gendered toys and clothes. I was out of step, if you saw pictures of me in my early 20s, I was very GNC, for good reason (csa). Members of my family assumed I was a lesbian. There's no doubt in my mind, I would've been tempted to transition back then. And yet, I became comfortable in my body and happy with being a woman by the time I'd hit my 30s (talking therapy, helped immensely). I'm glad I grew up when I did.

It sounds like you're happy enough with your life choices (that's all any of us can hope for, really) but it also sounds like you have a realistic view on what those choices are - and I wish you the best.