What brought you here?

@SinnerBoy

Yes, you were correct. If only he was as intelligent as he thinks he is. 🙄 I’ll try and link the video for anyone that’s interested in watching.

An article by Suzanne Moore in the Spectator a very long time ago. Upon reading the first few lines I thought why on earth is she worrying about Trans people - a tiny oppressed minority.

I read it to the end and the penny dropped.

I have been on Mumsnet for about 18 years and having done a lot of partying was used to gender bending for fun. Then about 10 years ago a friend announced they were now a trans woman and Caitlyn Jenner did the photo shoot and everything spiralled. Me and trans friend swapped a lot of books. Now both my teens have multiple friends who are probably same sex attracted or autistic or just struggling being told they are in the wrong body and it's possible to change sex. Some are on medication and it's already like watching a car crash in slow motion. Weirdly enough my friend who declared a trans identity has come out the other side with no permanent damage. We must stop lying to children and young people

Yes, I remember feeling confused and slightly offended at the idea that saying a woman is an adult human female but remembering that all the good leftwing people thought Kellie-Jay was a naughty lady! Took a few more years for me...

I started reading some threads on FWR around 2014/2015 and read about someone who had commented that the phrase "Female Genital Mutilation" was transphobic. I honestly couldn't understand any of this - it seemed utterly bizarre. But I kept reading and growing more concerned.

This period of time coincided with me being the LGBT representative of a major international law firm in the City. At the time I was living with my female partner. The firm starting hosting more LGBT events with more and more "queer" people, including a bloke in a satin skirt, with visible penis bulge, and bright red lipstick, who frequented the Ladies room and made me feel super uncomfortable.

I’ve no idea who he was, just another typically smug twat. I shall have a look and see if it’s on YouTube. I started watching it wondering why would anyone put that poster up and how on earth is it offensive to anyone, to actively cheering her on.

I grew up in a socially conservative culture with left of centre leanings, started questioning the expected gender roles, dipped into Spare Rib and found it a bit extreme but recognised that there was at least some truth in it, and became at least sympathetic to some second wave feminist ideas. Lifelong Grauniad reader until recently, so I was fed a very one-sided picture of trans issues.

Then all of a sudden it was very close to home, and I had a need for a much deeper understanding. I knew that I didn't approve of strict gender boxes and that I had never believed it possible to change sex. I looked around, read some trans identity ideology books which contained some incoherent scientifically nonsensical claptrap, rapidly rejected sites like Gendered Intelligence and Mermaids, and started to find other viewpoints. At some point, someone suggested Mumsnet, and I found some much more coherent views which fitted with my understanding of sex and gender, but also gave me a much wider education in the societal impact of gender identity ideology.

There were several stories that had made me think wtf but it was the assault on Maria MacLachlan that really made me sit up and take notice.

My 14 year old and 12 year old boy are both allies. 14 year old son has autism and is a huge fan of The IT crowd and one day commented 'It's a shame Graham Lineham is an anti-trans bigot'.

Well. I talked him through all of that and thanks to many threads on here about how to approach such things I asked him to read Glinner's substack and tell me what he disagreed with. Turns out, nothing. Part of how his autism manifests is he deep dives (but only into things that interest him). Now he is full on ally, but very gentle with it. There is a bio girl but now transboy in his class and he just says 'X is a bit confused and right now wishes to be know as Y. That's fine. But she goes to the girls toilets and that's fine too'.

I asked both my Dcs what the other children think of Trans. There was a bit of eye rolling and a 'whatever' but a very big sense that it's all the rage right now, but it will pass.

Ive been on MN since January 2010 when I was pg with DS1.

I discovered the FWR board during the Olympcs where Laurel Hubbard was the big news. Then I read and read and read.

Previously I would have had a BeKind leaning. Without ever thinking it through too deeply.

I thank the educated, erudite, angry women on this board. And Glinner. And JKR. I took annual leave in order to follow the Allison Bailey case in real time and on MN.

Discovering my ex in my underwear looking in a mirror and looking quite happy with himself.

Same. Shockingly this had all completely passed me by until then - despite regularly reading main stream media.

I'd just been peaked by Laurel Hubbard, started falling out with people who'd had me pigeonholed (not without justification) as Be Kind, and was looking for a place where other women who weren't TWAW congregated and talked. Someone pointed me in the direction of Mumsnet for another reason (Chalet School fanfic, if you insist on knowing) and I blundered into FWR. What a fucking revelation! HERE you all were, in plain sight! I learned so much so quickly, and was peaked again and again and again.

Ah that would have been Dr Adrian Harrop

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y8nViKYmEhU

He ended up with a GMC suspension because of his online behaviour

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10268121/Troll-GP-humiliated-determined-suspended-offensive-tweets.html

WomanOfSteel · Today 19:34

The rude, ignorant, arrogant and woefully uninformed Adrian Harrop?

A colleague took our mutual employer to tribunal and had a crowd funding campaign. I found FWR threads when googling the case 😊

The first time I realised there was something iffy going on was when my dad showed me a recording of Posey Parker arguing with a bloke on Sky News about the Adult Human Female poster in Liverpool. He’d been going on about the whole movement for ages as he’s concerned about what is happening to women. I’d say the vast majority of the people I know are GC but what I know is not reflected in the media. We were that busy mocking the trans activists that we missed the whole effect it has been having on our rights. Who knew it would be so easy to take women’s spaces away.

Me too. I could not believe some teen porn addled young lad had been given the position of Women's rep. And then Yaniv appeared. Bloody hell. It became very clear how much men hate women. And it becomes more clear every day of the ongoing horror in France. From the Olympics, Paralympics and the wonderfully brave Gisele Pelicot.

I can't remember for sure but think it was either Tara Hudson or Danielle Muscato.

I probably first thought about trans issues in the late 1990s. Mainly about how could you know that you were born in the wrong body. I couldn't understand how one would know that they had woman or man brain and feelings. Concluded that maybe you just had to be born in the wrong body to be able recognise the problem and didn't think much about it again.

I then started to hear about TERFs (around the time that Maria (?) was attacked in Hyde Park by TRAs) but didn't realise it had been a physical attack and assumed this was some kind of philosophical difference of opinion as it never occurred to me that anyone would actually think that transwomen were literally women so didn't look into it much further.
What really made me take notice were interviews and articles by parents of "trans kids" . They were citing the sex stereotypes that I had been railing against my whole life as the reason why their child was the opposite sex.
I then discovered Mumsnet by accident and stumbled access FWR and realised that I wasn't the only one going WTF about the children and also that the situation was a whole lot worse than I realised.

the Sarah Summers story was what changed my perspective, before that I hadn’t really recognised what was happening. At first I only heard the Survivors Network statement on it, then I read her story and was completely horrified, followed by Edinburgh Rape Crisis and “reframe your trauma”. Total lightbulb moment. Before that I’d definitely had some cognitive dissonance around sports etc, but had pushed those thoughts aside. I’m a survivor of CSA, so it really hit home.

Not sure quite what originally brought me to MN, long ago, i think getting advice on some household purchase.

Discovered these feminist boards quite recently and now feel much less alone.

The man Friday protest.
Before that I'd only seen the odd snippet and honestly thought it was a made up conspiracy nonsense thing, I realised when following that, that it was real and was horrified.
I've got more horrified over the years and now go to as many Women's rights events as I can, finally got the courage to actually speak at LWS last month.

Very late to the party....

Lia Thomas, 2022.

So obvious. So fucking obviously unfair to women and girls. And if it could happen there, in plain sight, what else was happening???

Thanks to Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull for her unbelievably witty "I'm not a vet but I know what a dog is!" Thanks also to JK Rowling for showing me that kind feminists can still oppose this stuff.

This is pretty much word for word my own experience, @nauticant. I'm not really an active contributor here, but I wend my own way in the circles I travel in, and a very large proportion of my friends think and feel similarly - as does my partner.

Same as Dean Elderberry and SinnerBoy. And as said, once seen, you can't unsee it. The hypocrisy and cynicism, the attempts to distort language, the hatred and fear of women, the (all too often successful) moves to get their damaging ideas into our primary schools, the capture of all but a few left-wing or liberal voices of analysis...

Fortunately, smart and perceptive voices of analysis are pretty plentiful on MN. 🙂