Former TRA’s what made you change your mind?

Honestly, for me, it’s just been getting older, wiser and being a mother. I know we fetishize the opinions of youth but when I was younger, with less experience I thought ‘why wouldn’t we be kind?’ I wouldn’t have understood what feminists had really fought for, the history and how much of it is still so recent.

I swallowed the whole vulnerable, born in the wrong body bit before I fully understood what my female biology was going to mean to me. Before I had debilitating gynae issues, before childbearing slowed my career down, before I was sexually assaulted, before I knew how many of my friends had been assaulted. Before I paid attention to VAWG.

Growing up and understanding that other women are more impacted than me in having to share spaces that should be single sex - that women in prison (usually because of men in some way) need us to help them. Sexual abuse survivors, the elderly, the disabled, certain religions - when you take women’s spaces you take their ability in some cases to participate in public life, or, to excel in it.There but before the grace of (insert deity of choice) go I, basically.

Yup. All so familiar @StansRealityStruggle - welcome to Terf Town, Population: you (and everybody who bothers to educate themselves).

I was a supporter back in the day, typical Liberal London media type - then I read the BACP's definition of a woman (Guess what? It wasn't adult human female and involved a slightly insulting word salad about Northerners). The NSPCC rubber wank man really pushed me over the edge. I've been reading up and...mountaineering... ever since.

I was never a TRA, but of the general 'what's the harm?' variety not really paying attention.

What made me wake up and take notice was few years ago I read about Barbie Kardashian (obviously not the blokes real name) who sexually attacked women, in a newspaper article and nowhere did it indicate it was a man. I remember being shocked that a woman would do that that's why I remembered it.
Only later did I find out it's actually a man, who is now in a women's prison even though he is a clear danger to women.

Then I went down the rabbit hole on FWR and realised Self ID is already the law here in Ireland, brought in by stealth - I couldn't believe we had never had a public debate about it, and our government and media don't seem to care.

@StansRealityStruggle

LOVE your username!

I was supportive initially. Perhaps not a TRA but not involved in any other way.

Sport, the needs of women of faith and what was happening to lesbians changed my mind.

Then I learned more - I follow people from all sides of the spectrum and I'm not and never will be convinced by gender ideology

It was Clare Dimyon for me. Up until then, I'd been totally sympathetic. That matter made me realise the full implications of believing TWAW and that if I were to continue thinking that, I would also have to accept that rape victims who requested biological females to carry out medical procedures were indeed transphobic bigots. I was horrified by the total dismissal of the trauma of victims in favour of the validation of the feelings of transpeople.

At that point, I hopped into my shiny little car and drove through the gates into Terf Town.

I hate all the abbreviations and the need to constantly google to understand what people are talking about and I won't use them.

For a long time I was pro trans and felt that everyone on the other side were transphobic bigots. Mostly because if the levels of viciousness in discussions. And I still find it very off putting.

But I thought long and hard and overtime I've moved to the other side and now feel great concern as to how entrenched and how quickly the overwriting of women has taken hold in our society.

JKRowling was very influential to me. Because she's not vicious. She makes a sensible and coherent argument.

Sturgeon also influential in turning me because of her use of Scotland's one party state to rush through legislation without proper democratic scrutiny.

The farms is a kind of extreme freedom of speech zone. People there use that language. It need not mean they are sexist and racist etc. it's an equal opportunity offensive place.

It's brutally frank. It also documents the weirdness of other people in the public eye, with no fear of disapproval and no holds barred. I'm sure there are hateful people there, as there are everywhere. There's no softening of disapproval there.

@PissedOffAmericanWoman I’m NOT saying TRAs are racist or homophobic in general. And I don’t think many post on the farms. Several (not TRA) posters on the farms use that kind of language.

I was of the TWAW persuasion because I was generally pretty lefty and inclined to be supportive of the oppressed, but hadn't had any exposure to feminist critique about transgender ideology or, I suppose, given it much thought. I knew a transwoman personally and had seen this person suffer sideways looks and snide comments from men and felt that meant we should protect them and welcome them into womanhood.

At the time JKR made the comment in support of Maya Forstater, one of my favourite authors - Richard Morgan - was also being openly GC. I saw him be accused of bigotry and eventually banned from Twitter and it just didn't ring true with what I knew about his politics and beliefs. I looked into it some more and came slap bang up against the cotton ceiling and everything changed for me.

The farms is kiwi farms, a controversial website. They archive what people (lolcows) post online and then talk shit about them. They document quite a few trans people, but also people like Trump, Kanye, and Andrew Tate. They are know to use all kinds of racist and homophobic language. It’s not a place for the faint hearted. Read at your own risk.

There was one TRA on twitter who found themselves on the Farms...... after reading the evidence on there apparently they realised quite how many of their side are...... 👀

Like a complete fuckwit I used to think a trans woman was a female who presented as male. Of course they should be in women’s prisons and changing rooms and everything else! These boards soon put me right.

I still think that an awful lot of people have that confusion though, and I think most people think that to transition you must have all the surgery. Those that don’t lurk on mumsnet, anyway.

For me, 10-15 years ago I'd only ever heard about rare cases of actual transsexuals and I just thought it was an interesting phenomenon and hoped they were happy in their lives.

Then I started reading this board and initially thought both "sides" were making a mountain out of a molehill on the internet, and that none of it impacted real life very much.

I first became concerned when reading about children and teens being medicalised just because they didn't fit a stereotype.

I still thought women's spaces were not a major issue as I just thought of it as the occasional transsexual person using the loo. I was pretty surprised when I heard that males in women's prisons and women's sports was becoming a thing.

Even then, I still thought language wasn't a major issue. I'd have happily referred to an individual trans person by their preferred name and pronouns, and still would. I thought no-one but the occasional woke website would actually use language like "people who menstruate". Then I started to see it in places like the BBC and NHS websites. Then my workplace (university) started talking about menopause happening to 50% of "people".

I still support individuals who identify as trans in being able to get on with their lives without being harassed. I'm also all for breaking down gender stereotypes. However all the above have come to worry me a lot.

I actually thought I was going mad for a bit, reading it all on here, when no one in real life or anywhere else in the media was talking about it. Now I've spoken about it with my DP and some friends, and people seem more willing to discuss it online. I still support trans people but also have a lot of concerns about the current version of gender ideology.

I think some of my transition from my happy clappy "be kind, be inclusive" state of mind of maybe 8-10 years ago was when I finally realised the absolute depths of misogyny apparent in some ( not all!) gay men.

I was absolutely appalled after several conversations with people I had considered relatively close friends where it became apparent just how deeply rooted their distaste for female anatomy and biological reality is. The sneering and belittling and practically having an attack of the vapours when vaginas or periods were mentioned, as if it was beyond conscionable that these things existed, let alone were talked about in polite society. The idea that to be properly gay you had never sullied yourself with the touch of a woman. And so on.

The gay women I know, whilst not thrilled by the existence of penises, managed to operate alongside the abstract reality of them ( and the very real danger that they actually represent) without telling every man they met that they were carrying around smelly, disgusting appendages that made them want to retch.

I hope it goes without saying that I absolutely support equal rights for all same sex attracted people, but one of the turning points for me was just breaking down all the different ways I experienced misogyny and this was a real eye opener as I had up to that point assumed that gay men were allies to women. So the follow on realisation that TW were not necessarily allies either made me start doing a lot of reading.

And out of interest,I’ve just gone back and looked up that case again. Looks like the perpetrator is in a woman’s prison.

A report on R4 about the Lauren Jeska (sp) case.

i vividly remember listening, and idly thinking, that doesn’t sound like the kind of thing a female athlete does… how odd/interesting. I genuinely thought the perpetrator was a woman, as that is how the bbc were reporting it. When I looked it up online I got quite cross at what I assumed was sloppy journalism in not reporting the full facts.

i was already a MN User, lured in initially by the pregnancy threads when I was pregnant with my first. I kind of vaguely knew about the FWR topics, and idly clicked through a link on Active Threads one day when it was being discussed.

mind.blown.

been here ever since.

For me it was the Tara Hudson case. I had always been incredibly sympathetic to 'trans' people before, and still am to a certain extent in the case of gender dysphoria. It was when that stopped being related to being trans I got a bit confused and came here to ask what it was all about.

It was in part the wise people here, but also the glaring lack of answers from TRAs on here that cemented it. I honestly spent about a year thinking that someone would come and explain it in a way I'd understand and it wouldn't just be based on 'girls are like THIS and boys are like THAT' stuff from the Victorian era.

I've yet to receive a coherent answer.

The few I've had are from 'transsexual' people who acknowledge they want to be the opposite sex, and generally don't think that gender is this free-floating feeling unrelated to sex.

And then I saw the homophobia embedded in it (as well as the misogyny, but there's always misogyny in everything, isn't there?)

It’s really irritating how silent everyone is about that isn’t it? Lol

Really grinds my gears. Men make zero concessions and spend their activism hours making demand after demand, calling women names, berating any woman who disagrees and other women cheerfully go along with it. Don't they even notice? What kind of a woman who calls herself a feminist can witness this and never think, hang on here...