"TERF Island" - Pondering why we're so "TERFy"

Mumsnet and British press - for all their other faults.

Otherwise DC school behavior, DH workplace - academia- issues, DP hospital issues - would all be individual events.

I'd also thanks to a lack of press coverage be unaware of what Welsh government was actually doing without MN.

For all MN is a bubble responses - I read site family doesn't but I can talk about what I read point to press stories and ask questions of others. The 2017 government survey I read about on here told DH about he told colleges - it rippled out we all saw different problem but knew about it to reply due to MN.

Plus having people high profile people like JKR willing to speak out.

I find it more concerning how far they got without scrutiny by back door even in UK.

I do think US has a media problem though - not sure about other English speaking countries.

But i do not allow it to happen . I don't give in to it . I think the likes of Boots do it on purpose and should just be told to fuck off . I have never had any of this nonsense of changing women's terminology when dealing with the NHS my local surgery doesn't do it and neither does my local Hospital . In my work place this CRAP was tried by one member of staff asking what my and others pronouns were and I told them to get stuffed I'm not doing it . I made it quite clear to my employer that I will not tolerate this bullying in my work place and they are more than happy with my and others stance on it . I have asked many people I know most of them have said they don't work with any trans people or even know any. For some people it really doesn't impact our life because we don't let it .

Because although we are like the US in having a largely 2 party system (or at least Conservative and Not-Conservative), there was a Tory government in post when our big watershed (GRA reform and the consultation about it) came in. We've avoided the total party identification that has happened in the US whereby I don't think any Democrat woman could speak up from the perspective of maintaining the legal concept of woman=female, she'd be torn apart as a secret Republican and thereby enabling Trump. I have to say in a political context where the orange seditionist is genuinely a front runner to be President again, I'd be focused on that too.

Also my extremely basic perspective on feminism in the USA (eg Shulamith Firestone, Betty Friedan) has tended to be more about freedom to eliminate any sex-specific issue in your life, and freedom to express gender without being punished for it (Gloria Steinem) rather than class analysis of what female people might need and what stops them getting it.

Did a Google image search for ‘Isla
Bryson Mumsnet’ and it’s the top hit 🥳

I went to a work shop with JCJ and I think she put it down to a history of organizing and a history of strong class analysis.

Brave Beets will keep Leggings 2023 alive in the public consciousness.

You are a shero, Beets!

I know but i feel the urge to post the photo whenever his name is mentioned! 😁

I don’t know if I pleased or dismayed that MN has a pink leggings gif?

True, but that was back in January…

But he looks so cute in those leggings!

On people not caring it depends how the issue is framed

If someone says ‘trans issues’ or similar it’s not language I relate to

If someone asks me to rate women’s rights it gets a lot higher

Anything to do with compelled speech, men forcing themselves into sports and spaces and the public has more to say

An image like the Isla Bryson one and you can get a fair go at a politician with media and public backlash

It’s relatively difficult to find the legging picture of Isla Bryson now.

Most photos seem to be cropped and just show Isla from the waist up.

That was my first thought, but it occurred to me that it can't be just that, or all the women missing podium places would be smiling and saying, "Jolly good show, Harold! Erm, Helen!"

Naw, because it’s blatant cheating, innit?

Being a good sport means not entering the infant school sack race when you are 15 and in the United training school at weekends.

One of the biggest sports events I remember as a kid was Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’.

England did not like that very much (whereas simply losing a match was second nature and not really worth remarking on).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_hand_of_God

Ah! Someone invoked my photo posting finger

I take it you don't live in Scotland?

Life of Brian came out in 1979, funded by another iconoclast George Harrison because he 'wanted to watch it'.

At the time Cleese and Palin had a televised debate with a Catholic journalist and the Bishop of Southwark over blasphemy laws and artistic freedom. Despite strong feelings, the debate remained civil. It used to be possible to disagree politely without claims of "literal violence", mob outrage and suicide/death threats.

I wish Dennis Pennis was still around to doorstop the likes of Izzard and some of the useful celebrity idiots.

Good point. Because the UK has been ahead of the pack wrt gay rights, having introduced CP and then equal marriage when we did, it was all well-established and very broadly accepted by the population by the time the TRA movement really kicked in. The opportunity for tie in wasn't there because we'd been there and done that.

There's also more structural analysis in UK politics than in eg the US, perhaps because of our attitudes to class and history of class politics. An inclination towards structural analysis means people are less fertile ground for a more identitarian approach.

Yes exactly.

MN and in particular this board cares more than the average about gender issues. It doesn't follow that the relatively unbothered mass of the population think TWAW.

I think 90% of the people I know it really isn't at the top of their list of things to worry about me included and they aren't allowing it to affect their lives . I also think that there are a few on MN who although they are against trans ideology , they are absolutely obsessed with the subject .

I think that we owe a lot to 2nd wave, gender critical, Socialist feminism.

Also around 2015/16 was when I twigged that people were saying TW were literally women- that the definition of woman/man must change, and divorce from biology to.... well they haven't quite worked that out yet, being a woman is being womanish and don't you even know what that is? Wow so ignorant, but I'm not telling you because it will look bad if I state even one criterion of being a woman... but yeah society needs to organise itself based on that, yeah?

It was far easier to understand one another when trans meant "wanting to be the opposite sex" rather than "having a special feeling which is the thing that determines if you're a man, woman or neither"

Mumsnet is a massive bubble for this issue. I very much doubt gender ideaology would be on the list of top 10 concerns for 90% of the population.

This may be true, but it ain't because 90% of the country believe humans can change sex!

Rather, this astroturfed movement has largely operated behind closed board room doors. Sure some people now notice the shouty trustafarians on the street trying to stop women talking about their trauma, but most of the country weren't party to major decisions such as that made by the NHS years ago to recognise gender ID over sex.