Do you hide your GC views under a bushel?

I always have a sharpie in my bag…

My family and friends know and all are open to discussion. My DP is just has involved as I am in writing letters to MP, contributing to court cases etc. My brothers instinctively are against men competing in women's sports, but lagging behind with everything else.

I was out as GC at work when the topic was brought up, but I never initiated the conversations. Although there were quite a few kind colleagues, there was never any issues in giving my opinion. I'm starting a new job soon so I'll be keeping my head down to begin with.

I'll wager a bet that the yoof of today don't carry pens around with them these days.

I tested this out this evening, spoke to someone who I thought might be GC , turns out they have a trans friend, had a friendly exchange of views I spoke about need for single sex provision and sex and gender being different. She agrees re sport being single sex. There were points of agreement and disagreement. All amicable, the conversation then moved on to holidays and films.
so I think we’ll worth talking about it. I’m going to do it more.
I would have liked to have some facts about percentage of the population with DSDs though

I'm open if it comes up that an individual's sex is fixed and relevant from the moment of conception to the moment of death.
I'm pro-womens rights, openly. If that gets me tarred with the same brush as JKR then I'm in good company.

If it comes up I’m pretty forthright, I don’t think anyone wonders where I stand. I try not to bring it up myself as I can get genuinely angry and might end up shouting about women in prison.

it just seems a horror too hideous to believe, being locked in with a rapist with nowhere to go.

I’ve been raising the issue by joking “I’m a terf now, you know!”, but only to friends and family who know how political I’ve always been, so they can write it off as “just another bee in Mavis’s bonnet” if they want, but so far only my leftie niece (28) has been at all sniffy about it, and I reckon I can talk her round in time, she does call herself a feminist.

I suspect that if you talk about it is you might get a different reaction from people. I bet 90% of women think TWAW is a crock of shit. And talking of that , what has happened to graffiti in toilets? You just don’t see it anymore,

Early on in this debate I tried to talk to a few friends about this issue, having assumed they would definitely be GC. They were kind, intelligent feminists and very sensible. I was very taken aback when one completely dropped me (as she just wanted to be kind to vulnerable TW) and I caught the other bad mouthing me on someone else's Facebook post (she hadn't known I knew that person). I got a lot more cautious and private after that. I still very much am, it's too difficult to bring this conversation up really.

But have hope. I had another friend who was full on TWAW and I just caught up with her having not seen her for a few years. She has completely changed her mind. I'm stunned and so relieved as I'd honestly found it hard not to be disappointed in her 5 years ago and drift away from that relationship. She fully gets it now and I have been sharing all sorts of resources to get her even more up to speed. It will be lovely to have an ally to discuss things with. We haven't touched on the fact she used to be so TWAW. I don't think that's helpful. Many vulnerable to getting sucked into an ideology at the end of the day. She was genuinely just trying to be kind.

When my podiatrist of all people mentioned she stepped on a whole bunch of landmines with her in-laws, and even her DH, well, I could hardly believe it. Called a Nazi, fascist and transphobe, all in the same evening.

I thought, this must be an outlier or her exaggerating. How wrong I was, if testimony on this thread is anything to go by.

I think I've been very lucky in that I've never been in a meeting where people have to declare their pronouns, nor has any comment been made about me not having them in my signature, despite my HEI having some of the more public TRAs there. So I've not had to face it head on at work in the way that other women have had to.

I ignore anything posted on the topic by a couple of TWAW friends/acquaintances on Facebook and keep my posts well away from anything political.

Yes other than with my DH, mum and DS. DS is 20 and pretty woke, but thinks male bodied people being in female sport is ridiculous and encouragingly he says that having gently mentioned this to friends of a similar age, they agree. So not all youngsters are captured or at least can see some nuance.

I wouldn't say anything at work, although I don't have my pronouns in my signature. Having said that I did tell HR that sex isn't the same as gender when filling in an internal survey last week.

Someone attempted to cancel your adult children? That's just outrageous, but sadly not surprising.

I used to be a lot more open about it and got booted from a chat group and a few FB pages. This didn't really faze me - I won't lose work over it.

But....there was an attempt to cancel my adult children who work in a very captured profession. I felt duty bound to pull my wings in a bit after that episode. On the other hand I've made quite a few ' rage donations' since then.

Graffiti is your friend

I share my views with family and selected friends, but not on FB or openly on Twitter.
Have often discussed my views with my boss' wife who is GC herself.
But I also have discovered that there are many more GC women around me than I had even dared to hope.

Solidarity @merrymelodies . I follow Gender Atheist Teacher on Twitter who is a Canadian educator. She posts a lot about the state of Canada right now.

I'm really disturbed to read your story, no-one with your history should go thru that. Don't want to be controversial, but I could not live with someone so insensitive and tbh so dumb as to swallow this line, hook and sinker.

There are therapists out there who will not judge and can help. The one I go to, eg.

My most heartfelt goes out to you and your difficult journey to light.

@duvetonathunderynight , there is a whole organisation set up to oppose woke ideology in therapy, called Thoughtful Therapists. I hope you can find someone you can talk to.

I’m so sorry this happened to you.
There have been abusive TW that I personally have had experience of- Arrogant, self obsessed XY’s.

They are not “nice safe drag queens” as so many appear to think.

Some TW are definitely a danger to women and girls.

I am completely GC - if believing that men can never change sex and are always men, even having penis and testicles removed-

XX sports infiltrated by XY is completely wrong in my opinion.

I know many GC women and men- It’s like a Freemasonry.

There are many GC men and women out there, even amongst Gay men and lesbians.

But I tend not to discuss it with strangers.

People have had jobs put at risk for saying things like “ Men can’t give birth “ or similar.

They were never really friends if they're willing to drop you because you're open about believing the scientific fact of two sexes in all mammals.

They were only identifying as friends.

I feel for you. Canada has just been too nice for its own good. Sadly people of Canada are going to learn the hard way of how being too kind gets you in one fucking mess. It is truly unbelievable how women and children's protection and rights are being thrown away. I'm speaking as someone with a long standing affinity with Canada. And Ireland is not too far off either. Makes me so mad.

I’m a lefty liberal member of the Labour Party and am very GC and increasingly terfy. I feel a bit politically homeless purely because of this issue. Open with DH (completely on same page) and a handful of friends/family of both sexes and various political persuasions who also think the trans movement is a threat to women and girls’ safe spaces and sport, at minimum. Even my very woke teens are a ‘nope’ about trans women in female sport. Very careful to not bring up my views first with people and I say nothing on social media (I’m in a high profile global role in my industry), partly because I work for a US company and the discourse there is so different - my male boss is not only captured but vocal in support and has no idea of my views. I wish I was braver. We’ve run schemes for ‘people identifying as women’ and I have said the language makes me feel uncomfortable and it’s probably at least partly why UK firms aren’t engaging with those schemes.

@duvetonathunderynight sorry for your trauma. Sending hugs.

I used to wonder how countries like Afghanistan came to be such terrible places for women. I couldn't understand why everybody didn't just refuse to go along with the rules. Now we are seeing the transformation to total compliance as it happens.