Is anyone else finding being gender critical has affected their mental health?

What's 'radical' about understanding that humans are all either male or female and that they can't change sex?

That's not new. It's pretty essential to survival of the human race.

It hasn’t affected my mental health, but it makes me angry. I recently saw an article about ovarian cancer and the first sentence was: Ovarian cancer is the sixth most common cancer in people assigned female at birth.

I have not read a single article where men were referred to as ‘assigned male at birth’. In fact, I read an article on webmd re. prostate issues which states: All men are at risk for prostate problems. That's because all men have a prostate.

So men remain men, and women are now ‘people assigned female at birth’, ‘people with a uterus’, ‘people who menstruate’, ‘people who get pregnant’, etc. Just NO!!

@MerlinsLostMarbles

I say a woman is an adult human female. It has nothing to do with a feeling in my head, or how many gender roles associated with my sex I take on. It simply means that I was born female and have reached adulthood.

Am I radicalised?

What's your definition of woman? I genuinely want to know your answer.

Oh my goodness, what a sad, unhappy post.

That's so silly. It's not radicalisation to know that children shouldn't be gaslit into believing their bodies are wrong and need fixing with untested drugs that render them sterile. it's not radicalisation to know that women don't have penises and men are not mothers. It's not radicalisation to expose male bullying and intimidation, not just of women but of anyone in society challenging a dubious ideology.

That's fundamental knowledge about human beings and society which the vast majority of the population agree with - no matter how many tantrums are thrown demanding otherwise.

"The good news is I am making new friends through the networks."

So what's happening here is you are losing connections with your family members and old friends to become "gender critical", and replacing them with gender critical friends.

IMO This is how radicalisation begins. Your "gender critical" beliefs will become even more set as your new gender critical friends will be in agreement. Then you will lose even more people from the past and the cycle repeats.

You are being criticised by 2 men for defending women's rights.

It is pretty clear who is in the wrong here!

totally get you OP

about 5 years ago I was totally “be kind/it’s not hurting anyone”. I can’t believe I didn’t see how the definition of women being changed to include ‘men with lady feels’ would mean in practice the complete erasure of single sex services/opportunity nor did I realise just how much men regard women as support humans not actual fully human

The sheer gall of men waving their dicks around lesbian spaces insisting they’re women - and the lesbians who object being the ones told to leave. Through the fucking looking glass

Yes, agreed, Norway are doing a fantastic job for women and always feature near the very top of the global gender gap index (Number 2 in the world, below Iceland)

https://www.weforum.org/reports/global-gender-gap-report-2023/

They have also done this:

The Gender Recognition Act (Norwegian: Lov om endring av juridisk kjønn) was adopted by the Norwegian parliament, the Storting, on 6 June 2016, was promulgated by the King-in-Council on 17 June and took effect on 1 July 2016.[1][2] Under the act citizens may change their legal gender by notification to the National Population Register. The act was proposed by the Conservative-led government of Erna Solberg and received multi-partisan support from over 85% of all voting MPs representing parties ranging from the conservatives to the left-socialists. It was welcomed by the LGBTIQ+ organizations, the feminist movement and human rights experts as a milestone for LGBTIQ+ rights, bringing Norway in line with international best practice in this area under international human rights law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_Recognition_Act_(Norway)

Why are women's rights always touted as 'trans hostile'?

The rights of women are being taken away. We have a right to defend them for ourselves.

This interests me, because in Scandinavia women did not do the tea/coffee. They formed comittees (spelling?) and wrote radical, feminist, cross-party-political policies including subsidised childcare for all children over 1 years old, extended maternity leave, equal pay, even more subsidised childcare for students, family friendly policies enabling a good work-life balanced and much more.

Afaik France and Germany did too.

This is missing in the UK and USA. It is vital for women’s ability to participate fully in working life (if they so wish).
In Norway, in the 2000, they also launched cash-support for those who wanted to stat at home with their under 2’s and 3’s. Often frowned on by the «left» but Fantastic for those of us who want to/have to stay home with the babies a bit longer. I can’t recall the sum exactly. Equivalent of ca £400 a month I think.
Which gives freedom of choice and honours the fact that bringing up small humans is quite a job!

Which brings us back to topic of thread. Absolutely most people KNOW that there are 2 sexes and you are one or the other.
That is NOT a New or radical viewpoint. And doubly offensive (to me) to try to tie Gender Ideology to feminism, because feminism has fought for equal rights between the sexes. Rights women did not have because of our biology, and rights we do need because of our biology.

@nepeta 👏🏼🔥🎯

Believe what you want! You've associated yourself with a movement whose figureheads regularly call for the eradication of a particular minority group from public life; who actively push to remove legal protections from some of the most vulnerable people in society; who have known links to and funding from shadowy far-right organisations with a well known hate-filled agenda.

The problem is that what the gender identity ideology demands is the erasure of a vast demographic group (female people) from all language and, ultimately, from laws.

This will remove protections from some of the most vulnerable, such as raped/abused women and girls in shelters, make addressing sexism and misogyny almost impossibly complicated and less effective, harm women's sports, feminist history (due to posthumous transitioning of famous women in history), and, in general, will benefit what some call patriarchy.

In that sense it is the gender identity ideology which is closer to far-right organisations.

Both also see gender norms, rules, roles and sexist stereotypes as innate, though the former de-link the rigid boxes from sex and the latter do not.

But neither view is going to help women who are oppressed on the basis of sex where that oppression is maintained via the imposition of strict gender norms and roles (say, in Afghanistan).

Yes - it’s made me very angry. Biological male sought out by an ITV news team to represent struggling mothers. WTF. And he’s on £52k plus. Yeah really representative of struggling women.

Not me, but I'm fortunate to have a circle of friends who are equally GC. DH is even more GC than me so that helps.

I am self employed so no issues at work. One organisation I work with knows my views but won't say anything because they know I would abandon them and nobody else knows how to do the work. I have firmly declined all rainbow trinkets.

I'm sorry to those who are struggling with this. Being of a post-menopause "don't give a shit" age helps enormously.

Tbh she is odd, we fell out because once I didn't think Richard Dawkins was the be all and all of truth.

Oh dear, I wonder what she thinks about Dawkins now.

Hi @BluebellBlueballs I'm very lucky in that all my family and the friends I've spoken to are GC in that they agree there are 2 sexes. I was a bit surprised at my mil who is 86 and seems to be a bit in the 'just be kind' camp, but she doesn't know the half of what's going on, most people don't.

I don't get to talk much to any one IRL though because I don't want to go on about it on the rare occasions I meet up with friends; they all signed the Equality Act petition when I shared it though. So even though I've not fallen out with anyone over it it does still affect my MH because I just can't believe what's happening. I was really hoping the Equality Act debate would be the thing that blew it all open, but it still hasn't and we're still having to push back.

Thank heavens for mumsnet, sex matters, WRN, Fair Play for Women etc. It really helps to hear all the intelligent GC women and men speaking out. I think sometimes that people might think I've been indoctrinated with all the podcasts I listen to and the substacks I read, but it's all what everyone believed (ie in 2 sexes!) until about 5 minutes ago.

Why can't the politicians just stand up for reality?!

Thank you for posting this OP. One of the problems is that many trans activists lack empathy and insight into women. They also care little about safeguarding children. This, plus trying to shore up an incoherent ideology that's anti facts and science means that many of them can only engage in discourse that's quite hostile? We see it quite often on here.
This is also mirrored by people trying to be kind but also with no resources to explain why some women have a penis or why children should access drugs that sterilise them before they're of an age to fully consent. Hence shutting others down rather than being able to engage in nuanced discussion.

@BluebellBlueballs I get that. Trans activists, as you've experienced, are very good at shutting down debate and isolating anti-cultists. You say you've been going to GC groups which is great. I hope that helps you feel less alone with it all.

I work for a very trans activisty organisation and that's really really hard. I've put my head above the parapet a few times on certain issues but I haven't explicitly said I don't think men can turn into women. When I write that down it just seems incredible to me that this is where we are!

It certainly would!

Hi @ButterflyHatched

Can you explain:

1. How trans people are some of the most vulnerable in society
2. What legal protections GC women are calling for them to lose

Be specific.

GC people are a broad church because people from all walks of life are able to acknowledge reality and see the homophobia and misogyny inherent to trans activism. But actually all the GC people I know are left wingers. Did we all become hateful far right bigots overnight, do you think?

“call for the eradication of a particular minority group from public life”
”the most vulnerable people in society” “links to and funding from shadowy far-right organisations”
”hate-filled agenda”

Oh lord. I need to lie down.