What brought you here?

My husband. He caught wind of the whole TWAW bollocks before I was even aware it was a thing and was openly challenging it. He's a good ally in all this.

I think this might be the earliest surviving Spartacus thread on here:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/site_stuff/2716595-TransAgenda-BullShit-The-I-am-Spartacus-Thread

I'm a latecomer. I was always gender critical but wasn't really paying attention to the capture of organisations and the impact of the gender recognition act. It was Isla Bryson that finally made me think what the hell's going on? I googled gender critical and ended up here. I've also joined Twitter which is an education.

Same as nauticant.

long time user of MN from way back when I had pregnancy complications, then a preemie, then a high needs baby….utter goldmine of advice.

i kept seeing (and hiding in irritation) those bloody Spartacus threads. Until I finally sat down with a packet of biscuits to read one. My flabber was truly gasted and while I thought at first it was mean old terfs spreading awful awful lies. It wasn’t and it isnt.

Here as in GC?

I had to ask April Ashley to leave my twenty first birthday party which April had gate crashed . April was flouncing around and behaving very irresponsibly and aggressively ( the party was on a boat, so fooling around with other guests was inadvisable ). At the time, April was thirty seven, and hanging out with nineteen year old students who were just coming out as gay. It was all a bit rum, to say the least.

I’ve always had my doubts since then, exacerbated by the behaviour of a friend who transitioned in his mid twenties, causing a lot of trouble and distress which I will not expand on.

Here as on this board? Not long but by God it’s good.

I'd thought a while ago "why is there suddenly so much talk about transgender people?" This was elsewhere, not here. But, serendipitously, I happened to start a thread in general chat saying that I always seem to look at the same boards on here, what else should I look at? And someone replied "come to the feminist board. People are very friendly there." So I did and found that they are.

So, after a few minutes looking here I was "ohhhhhhhhh!" with regards to my original transgender question!!

I kept on seeing the Spartacus threads but time and time again couldn't be arsed to find out what those busy and extremely long threads were on about but one day curiosity got the better of me.

At first I struggled to believe was I was reading but once it became clear that the mad world revealed was actually real, and not some bizarre hoax, I was hooked.

It's been a long 8 years.

Graham Linehan. As an old Tedhead I was surprised and disappointed he was at loggerheads with trans rights activists. I'd no idea of the history so I asked a young gay friend and fellow Tedhead ' what's the story?'
Glinner is in the right but I'd never say so on Twitter- I'd be torn to shreds , he replied. He pointed me to Magdalen Berns and on the TRA side , Riley J Dennis. No contest!
Mindful of what my friend said I kept my powder dry. But...eventually I commented on an Irish forum and was booted. I didn't mind really. But I was also blocked from a chat group I really enjoyed. That same friend recommended MN. And someone here linked to The Mess with Glinner, Arty and Helen. Which is kind of where I came in.

I never believed that TWAW, but I was sympathetic to what I imagined was their plight. Then I read of Rachel McKinnon and went down a rabbit hole of related cases and was, in MN parlance, peaked.

My 11 year old daughter is a full on ally and I discuss it gently with her, without judgement (I hope!)

JKR's essay, four years ago. When the whole thing blew up, I went and read the essay, and then googled it. Google led me to FWR and I'm still sticking around.

Here as in a gc position as opposed to here MN, The factors that moved me away from my original naive simplistic 'be kind' and imagining this was in some way like LGB issues included seeing a young woman badly damaged by transing 'treatment', the very familiar entitled male attitudes being voiced by transwomen, the deeply offensive misogyny of womanface, and the massive massive lies about historical language, particularly about the use of the word gender.

As we all know, once you smell it, you can't unsmell it.

The Kirsty Wark interview with Germaine Greer, it's fairly old now and I think I saw it a couple of years after it was made. I was a bit shocked at her response to being asked if her beliefs hurt the feelings of Transpeople "I don't care!" 😁
I really admired her total confidence in what she was saying and it piqued my interest.

Like DeanElderberry, I was on another board, or iteration of the same one from 2000. It became intolerable, the owner of the site threatened to close it down, as he said that we were vile transphobes. A number of posters suggested MN, which I'd lurked on after it had been linked on said other site - mostly AIBU.

The other site is still open, but I haven't been back since the first week I was here, it's a circle jerk of TRA rubbish, I'm led to believe.

Gosh I've been here for donkeys years under different names. I remember when this was just one board.
Kinda became aware of threads about TW and then the sinister questionable side to it all, especially when Yaniv and Challenor were knocking about. When the scales fall from your eyes and you can see, really see the negative impacts on women and the misogyny and lesbophobia of the whole thing, well it can never be unseen.

I'm late to the party I'm ashamed to say. I remember my MIL about 5 years ago telling me about her BF working with a TW as a community care nurse and how the TW admitted to being aroused during their job and my MIL and her BF were horrified that they were being allowed to provide intimate care to elderly females. So the BF started being present to every situation to monitor and protect the patients and the TW did not like that and apparently dramatically quit nursing to go back to their home country. When MIL told me this story I was a bit shocked but didn't really think about it too deeply and reassured myself at the time it must have just been that one person who was a bit of a weirdo and perverted.

Then I continued on in my Guardian and BBC bubble until I saw an article in the Guardian by Hadley Freeman saying she was leaving the paper. I was gutted as I'd loved her film articles and her articles about women's rights as well. She had a similar humour to me, her and the late Sarah Hughes (sadly) were the two female journalists I really liked in the Guardian.

Anyway, there I was commenting underneath the article wishing Hadley luck when I saw another comment saying actually, here is a link to an article showing you the real reason she left and it was an Unherd article Hadley had written about no longer being a good girl. I read it and thought WTF??? Is this really happening? Then, not long after that the BBC had an online article about young lesbians being coerced and guilted into have sex with intact males saying they had a women identity. I was horrified.

I then started to question the narrative about "being kind" "most marginalised" that I'd seen and read. I also did not believe JKR was suddenly evil so I went and read her essay. The light shone so bright in my head after reading it. Everything fell into place. I was already a member of Mumsnet and I saw the FWR section, went on it, read a lot of posts by Datun and Arabella and thought, yep, they are right. So thank you also ladies! It was my matrix pill moment I think.

Helen Steel getting attacked by an angry mob at the London Anarchist Bookfair in 2017. Before that I was “be kind”.

India Willoughby accusing Jenni Murray of transphobia on Woman's Hour.

Whatever happened to good old Lily, that fearless fighter for women's rights?

Disappeared under a cloud of allegations. However not before a number of Labour MPs fell all over Lily, including the current deputy PM who described madigan as a powerful role model.

When I realised after talking to a captured relative that 'TWAW' was meant literally and that a woman or girl who was in hospital and needed single-sex intimate care would be a horrible Nazi bigot if they weren't deleriously happy with a TW nurse bathing them, wiping their bum or changing sanitory products.

In fact, requesting single-sex care is transphobic in their opinion.

Lily madigan and the awful treatment of Anne Ruzylo by the Labour party

Lily madigan and the awful treatment of Anne Ruzylo by the Labour party

I found mumsnet when I was bored rigid feeding a hungry baby.

I found FWR when a convo came up in active about TW in female spaces. Naturally, as a be kind sort, I vehemently disagreed with that horrid poster.

I may have learned a thing or two since.

I've been on MN since 2010, but only ventured into FWR in 2017 when a friend mentioned women's rights to me. When I read what was happening to children I fell to my knees retching and crying; it's so evil. I knew it was all a lie as I'd been sexually harrassed by 4 transwomen in the ladies loos as a child (on separate occasions) and I've seen what they are all about.

I have been on Mumsnet for years, on and off. I kept seeing threads about transwomen and due to female socialisation, I thought people were not being very kind. I started to read these threads and my 'education' was complete. 'Be kind' became 'WTF!'