What brought you here?

I've been here in various guises for about a decade. I came for sleep and breastfeeding tips and stayed for the feminism. My GC interests started with Magdalene Burns, got peaked by Maya and JK's essay and started screaming in full amber alert mode when I realised they were putting male rapists in female prisons. Thank Gods, last year, the Isa Bryson debacle changed the policy for that.

Labour's been as dismal as I expected them to be on women's rights, and we have to keep fighting, but I hope (thanks to the Cass report and court cases) that we've passed peak batshit.

I remember Let Toys Be Toys! (and was it Let Clothes Be Clothes or similar?)

It was the 4-5 years before that campaign that I started to think "WTF is going on?"

I too had grown up "gender critical" in the old sense i.e. thinking that gender stereotypes were sexist bollocks and that men and women could do anything, apart from things related to our sexed bodies obviously. Having cruised through my 20s in a cloud of post-feminist everything-is-sorted smuggery, I was now in my 30s and the first lot of my friend group started having babies. I remember going to buy New Baby gifts and being startled by the pink/blue everything. IIRC the toy companies had produced special Pink Zebras and Pink Globes. By the time I was pregnant a couple of years later, the extremely gendered merchandise seemed all-pervasive unless you made a special effort to shop in particular (usually more expensive) places.

I've been on FWR since it was 'Feminism and Women's Rights'. I'm a female scientist, with a daughter who from an early age was interested in engineering so of course it was a natural area of interest! I can't remember when I first posted on the board (having been on MN for some years already) but iirc it was a piece of naive whataboutery which rightly got my arse handed to me.

I came across the term 'gender critical' here when it really had nothing at all to do with transgenderism but was clearly about rejecting gender stereotypes because of their harmful effects on individuals and society.
I was on the thread which spawned 'let toys be toys', which wiki tells me as 2012

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LetToyssBeToys

Issues around transgenderism didn't really start to come to the fore till a bit later - I think Caitlin Jenner in 2015 brought the issue to many people's attention, and there was a transwoman prisoner whose name escapes me who got a lot of publicity somewhere around that time.

'be kind' is shorthand for 'put up and shut up'

Someone posted a link to the article on kindness. Can’t remember which thread it was on… (anyone who does?) but ‘kindness’ is mentioned here as in the constant instruction order to ‘be kind’ as one of their triggering events. Seems that when talking about gender, the kindness only goes one way.

Not surprising in that it must feel irritating to TRAs that women are not staying in their male-ascribed role of being the kind sex as they assumed that our social conditioning was what would enable them to live out their misogynistic fetish whilst simultaneously exerting control over women by silencing them. All the under the scolding finger pointing angrily toned ‘be kind!’.

It’s been FWR that showed me just how the compassion edict (“be kind”) and the ‘sacred victim’ role are polar opposites. In fact, the victims are self aggrandising and virtue signalling whilst being very unkind and spiteful towards women.

This has been an interesting thread to read, thanks @CyclingSam . I think with the ERCC stuff there might be a few more people starting to realise how bad things have got and maybe they'll join us here in FWR. I saw one on one of the ERCC threads. I'm sad reading the real life family suffering that's got people here though. It just shows how damaging this ideology is for so many.

I've lost my sister and it is a difficult question to be asked by strangers, and even almost 16 years down the line I still find it odd and I'll have a reaction when asked. Do I tell the truth and say yes and then have to make things awkward by explaining and saying she died (as the follow up questions are always oh, what do they do or do they live nearby)? Or just say no I have none? I never like lying so I just say, yes I had a sister, she was my best friend, she died. People's reactions don't bother me as much anymore.

A general notion that feminism and transgender ideology were incompatible, followed by the discovery of the old gender critical subreddit and the realisation that other people thought the same thing.

I came here from another forum at the same time as SinnerBoy, Kuc, Binturong, Elderberry, duc and others. On that forum we were allowed just one thread to discuss FWR and had constant disruption from drive-by woke scolds, but I'd been on variations of the forum for 20 years and there were a lot of people there I liked. Eventually, the site owner had a fit of absolute rage, called the FWR posters 'shit stains on the site' and demanded we leave or be pushed out. Unsurprisingly, most of us left. I was already active on MN but re-grouping here was such a good idea, this forum is far better.

What brought me to this place in the first place was a mix of Yaniv, Challenor and the woman who was assaulted by the huge TW. I was peaked already but then the Lib Dem leader, Jo Swinson, had the idea that campaigning on TWAW would make her Prime Minister (did she honestly believe that?) and I realised that, Oh My God, these people are actually serious about this shit and a volcano went off in my head and I peaked even more.

Anyway, Swinson is now history and the tide is turning.

It is quite interesting to see how posters arrived here. I came via an AIBU thread about … da da da da… toilets! I couldn’t believe what I was reading and so I lurked for months trying to get my head around what was happening.

At the same time my friend was telling me about her daughter, so I was reading the threads about children claiming gender identities. So when inevitably my own teen started telling me about their new friends that were girls but were boys, I was thankfully already starting to get informed.

I am so thankful that I found the nest of vipers who discuss the issues indepth and provide evidenced counter points to the mantras and the baseless claims.

Abusive ex. Attending a Women's Aid recovery programme made me realise how many men treat women as 'other' and how threatened they seem to be by women. Then I was called a terf on SM, which I felt was complimentary. The more you dig, the worse it seems to be though and I find it horrifying.

In Ireland the start of my feeling there was something badly wrong about this came from listening to the reports on Lydia Foy's years-long campaign. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LydiaFoy

It had all the familiar features of a very assertive and driven central character, others wanting to be kind to them, science denial, using the language of disabled and disadvantaged people to make emotional claims, disregard of the effect on families, and ultimately a legal conclusion based on distortion and disregard of both scientific fact and the meaning of language, and sentimentality. And here we now are.

I've been lurking on FWR since 2019 (can't believe it's 5 years)
One of my staff had an ugly stand off with a TRA client about toilets (TRA ally, not gender identified himself). The TRA client claimed transphobia and homophobia.
The staff member was an older man and could be quite sexist and un-PC. I was very left of centre LGB rights, BLM solve all the world's problems at the time so I fell for everything the client said initially. The staff member did lose his temper and said some inappropriate things. So I assumed he was a bigot.
But eventually I found the way the client behaved quite disturbing. He was very confrontational and nothing we did to apologise was enough for him. Also some of the things he said seemed illogical/impossible.
I wanted to learn more, assuming (hoping) it would all make sense once I had the full picture.
I went on Google and typed in "problems issues concerns negative impacts trans rights transgender activism" and got.... NOTHING. I can still remember the shock looking at pages and pages of "how to be a good ally" "how to be inclusive" "learn about transgender". I actually felt cold all over and nauseous. It was my 1984 George Orwell moment.

Then I remembered I'd seen an article about a feminist academic who'd been branded transphobic (I think it was HL-S) So I searched the name and landed on a post on MN FWR and it was so enlightening! It actually saved me from feeling like I was going mad.

Sorry this ended up being so long...
TL;DR Google censorship peaked me and MN was a guiding light.

NoBinturongsHereMate · Yesterday 23:07

Thinking about it, Pips Bunce was also 2018

Blimey, that long ago? Bunce and Jenner were probably the first to hit my WTF?! radar.

You might enjoy this then. https://www.facebook.com/share/r/JDokDT9YqQSvYT5N/?mibextid=UalRPS
I love how accurate it is about the intersectionality madness.

Thinking about it, Pips Bunce was also 2018 - so another of the precipitating cluster of events for me.

It has never made sense to me and I lurked for years to read like minded feelings about the whole ideology. I can't remember what made me start here though. I must have read it somewhere.

RedToothBrush

I'm the only surviving sibling of 3 and like PP, I also sometimes struggle with what to say when asked. But at least my whole history hasn't been rewritten. That would make me very resentful.

I've always been keen to ensure women's rights, but things started to change when C (formerly B) Jenner was given a Woman of the Year award, which made me wonder how the hell that had happened, since biology and facts you know.

My desire to ensure women's rights are maintained and protected has become more entrenched in the last few years with the ideologies and bad behaviours that have become acceptable seem to want to destroy everything from the word that describes us to our actual presence in the world.

I've had massive rows with famiy and friends, but my position will remain unchanged. Thank goodness there is at least one place where I can see that others share the same views.

Perhaps grief isn’t the right word, but I think it’s a loss. I have a trans relative too, but not as closely related as a sibling.

I wouldn't want to call it grief as it's not like losing a sibling. But on the other hand it's interesting hearing it in this manner given transwidows. It hadn't occurred to me that people who have lost a sibling find that question difficult. It's such an innocent universal question.

@RedToothBrush
Relational identity
The sinking feeling of being asked innocently 'do you have any brothers or sisters?' and then having to decide between telling my truth and being able to relate to others, telling a lie and then feeling awkward because I couldn't relate and couldn't explain why I couldn't connect or having to explain to people I didn't know very well and just wanted a shallow polite conversation something pretty heavy.

this really struck a chord with me. My brother died, a few years ago now. At the time of his death I read advice about sibling bereavement. It pointed out that at some point, someone will ask you whether you have brothers or sisters, and that it’s helpful to anticipate that and think about what you might want to say.

It was helpful to be forewarned, but when this happens, I still never know what to say. It depends on the person and the circumstances of course, but always involves that awkward decision, exactly as you describe it. The parallel as I read your post astounded me.

So a sibling transition, has elements of a sibling bereavement. I’m sure there is also grief.

I was already on MN but ended up on the feminism board via google - I'd been thinking hold on, isn't the idea of "living as a woman/man" terribly sexist, resting entirely on stereotypes? I googled looking for clarification on this point, thinking maybe I wasn't educated enough and was missing something ... nope! That was in 2016/17.

Unfortunately in 2019 a child I knew well, who was young enough to still pretend to be a dog or a superhero, expressed a desire to be the opposite sex and was immediately socially transitioned and "affirmed" by one parent. The other parent, a close friend, was horrified when I filled them in on the details of what was happening more broadly. Incredibly, despite starting out gender critical they have somehow gone along with it all. I do not know them or the child is question so well now, but have been following developments around gender stuff avidly since then in the hope things would change in time to protect the child. I think things are coming to a head now as child will be approaching/starting puberty (and dislikes their sexed body, despite being quite comfortable with it before everyone lied to them about reality). It's devastating what these parents have done and I expect my friend will really struggle to come to terms with what they've done, at some point - because on some level they know, and knew when it all began but squashed down their doubts.

I forget, but I assume a link from AIBU. Found lots of strong articulations of ideas that had been hitherto only very partly formed in my head.

I found mn as a new mother 20 years ago. Drifted away as the kids got older.

When I noticed something odd was going on, in around 2017 I stated to look more deeply into what was happening. I remembered that mn had a v. good feminism board, so logged back in. Sure enough, you were all talking about current issues for women and, although I don't post much, I've been reading here ever since.