A thank you

Thanks OP for your lovely post. You've been through quite a journey. It shows that it's all very well sniggering at people who are outside your tribe (who you think are obviously wrong for X reasons), but actually going against your tribe is a million times harder. So respect to you.

Thank you for this post.

I'm not a lesbian but DH and I are friends with a group of older lesbians, many of which are butch. It seems so obvious that if they'd been in their teens / 20s even 30s today, there would be a lot of trans identification in their community and that seems to chime with your experience.

Helen Joyce astutely said that men and women are different which is why their motivations for 'transition' are different.

I believe that gay rights, Pride, gay representation in the media etc has sidelined butch lesbians massively. We haven't normalised / glamorised this group and this is why young lesbian women feel life is easier / better to identify as trans. That's just my take fwiw.

The reason people like me care is that I don't want healthy young women to medicalise themselves & make themselves sick and something they are not. I also think this demographic is actually stunning and brave - for being unapologetically themselves, and to just say 'I'm actually a man, or a bit of both' is a loss for womanhood & all the things we can be.

I have been called a "terf" and "white supremacist" (I'm black) for showing her (JKR) support

Sorry to ask, but this is just way beyond anything upsidedown thinking.

Supporting JKR is a sign of being a white supremacist.

I wonder how many middle aged and older people who went to university look back and think, I cant believe I said that - or maybe they just have blanked that period of their life from their minds.

But sorry OP that added to the kneejerk terf comments, you are having other inappropriate and insulting responses from people.

Controversial choice over Dalteparin there OP 😉

Medicine very much needs people who will reevaluate things when presented with new evidence; & who can act dispassionately yet compassionately (the impossible balance that’s the Platonic ideal). It sounds, from your posts, as if you fall into that category. It is hard to tread your own path rather than follow along with the herd; but it comes down to making that choice between what is right & what is easy.

As for “posh” - even now, in medicine, being well-spoken is an advantage. And we can all say it shouldn’t be, but it is 🤷‍♀️ When I was at university (almost 20 years ago now!) my Director of Studies kept me back after a class one afternoon (the first she’d taught of the course in question) & asked “who is that girl with the dreadful voice?”. The young woman in question had a very similar accent (you’d have to be an expert to spot the differences) to my local one - which my parents & grandparents were very strict about my siblings & me not adopting. My closest uni friend from a similar background to me also had a “posh” speaking voice - because coming from where we do, we don’t have the luxury of not opening our mouths & sounding like we belong. It was helpful that in both of our cultures it’s usual to call your parents “mummy & daddy” whatever your age - helped with the blend.

“Posh” speech is aps

It’s hard finding yourself out of step with your tribe. I think you’ve been very brave.

Thank you so much for this thread. Your post is really insightful @Enoxaparin and a lot of it resonates and I have been on a similar journey (although I was older than you and really should've known better).

I will always be grateful to the posters on here for their patience when I truly believed I was fighting the good fight coming on here with my scolding posts.

It's encouraging to know that are young lesbians out there who aren't completely captured.

@BigBadaBoom 100% what you said. It is only with hindsight and a bit of age sometimes that one can look at the thoughts of youth and say, ah that's what I thought then because I hadn't had this or that experience.

Many of the GC people now speaking would have stood for "be kind" in our youth, because we wouldn't have necessarily had all the information to understand that trans ideology is not kind, to anyone. And we are the type of people who do stand and support our principles.

This paragraph from BigBadaBoom's post is so spot on:

The enforced ideological requirements of the TRA agenda is exactly the kind of dangerous group-think that society should be protecting young people from. But just as with Germany and China, wold-be political leaders from outside the mainstream of politics exploit the group-think for their own benefit. In fact, they deliberately encourage it.

One of the many elephants in the room of the TRA ideology is just how very vulnerable young people are when it comes to cult-like politics. In both Germany in the 1930s and Communist China during the cultural revolution, it was the young acolytes who were the most fervent true believers.

Ideological leaders present young people as a special category of people who are free from the shackles of the old, bad way of thinking. Whilst there is a truth to this, there is a bigger, more important truth: young people generally lack critical thinking, have little objectivity, are emotion-led and are deeply conformist to the rules of their social group.

The enforced ideological requirements of the TRA agenda is exactly the kind of dangerous group-think that society should be protecting young people from. But just as with Germany and China, wold-be political leaders from outside the mainstream of politics exploit the group-think for their own benefit. In fact, they deliberately encourage it.

It's up to the centre-left to protect vulnerable young adults by calling out the bullshit. But too many do not, and rather than aiming their usually critical eye at the TRA claims, they make podcasts and write articles in support for the sake of furthering their careers and avoiding the risk of angering the political loons.

Thank you for posting @Enoxaparin It is not coincidence that the hosting of discussion on this subject is on Mumsnet. The majority of mums watch their kids go through the school/education system, often with trepidation. It is hard watching your child having to find friends, navigate the social, educational, organisational aspects of these institutions.

So (most) mums are on the look out for what is happening and how we can support, not just our own kids, but our network. Many believe "it takes a village to raise a child".

For the GC people I know (most are mothers) it has been watching children being lied to about sex that has pushed them into action. Men in women's spaces is a problem and should be called out. But it is the miseducation of children in a way that causes irreversible harm that has prompted many of us to stand up and say no - you don't do this to our nation's kids.

As others have said, never stop questioning, truth is found issue by issue, no one tribe ever has the bigger picture. But on this issue there is truth and there is untruth.

I think just being you is one of the best and most powerful things you can do. Living your life as a lesbian, wearing what you like, looking how you want. Being happy with yourself as you are. It's the best gift you can give your friends.

I hope that I can learn from this experience and use it to inform my career in medicine.

Yes, I think you have an extremely healthy attitude to it, good luck with your future plans!

Welcome to the nest of vipers @Enoxaparin. We also do hugs 🫂

OP what a heartening post! The tribalism in student societies was about thirty years ago so that in some ways hasn’t changed, although the uniform worn and the positions held may look different on the surface.

I felt alienated from my then tiny group of rainbow reps for apparently sounding too middle class (an English accent ironically adopted to protect myself from racism). It took a lot of discernment to walk away rather than beat myself up mentally to fit in. Turns out my rainbow tribe were there all along at uni in the faculty, in volunteering and other places. It takes immense courage to step out of line with your peers and hope you will find others who are in agreement or at least in disagreement but can do so peaceably while still valuing your friendship.

Even as an older lesbian I test the waters in new friendships by asking tentatively their opinion on JKR? She is my litmus test and gateway keeper on building a new friendship circle since moving (helpfully she is local so it is not a totally random question to ask). Responses have varied wildly and lots of my friends aren’t massive JKRstans but I just look for a little nuance and self-reflection.

Your periods of self pondering and questioning both sides of the debate while being empathetic to your peers is the most precious sensibility you can take into your career in medicine. Looking for the best outcomes for your patient’s health physically and mentally, learning the histories that bring them to you, while applying scientific method with rigour and gentle candour based on tested knowledge surely is the epitome of helping patients while doing no harm.

Very interesting post Enoxaparin.

The way you write is absorbing.

For lots of us it was perfectly obvious from the get go that it's an ideology beyond reality. But it's also perfectly obvious that others hold the opposite viewpoint.

So thank you for describing so well that dichotomy as it personally unfolded.

having a foot in both camps, as it were, is very useful when it comes to persuading other people. You know where they're coming from, so you can empathise.

I hope you're a frequent visitor here !

This is such a heartfelt, honest post. The important thing is that even against tremendous social pressure, you did finally recognize the truth, because you're intelligent and not a mindless lemming. Kudos to you for that. This is why I often think we should try to be patient with young folks who have been brainwashed by the omnipresence of gender ideology, rather than be combative. It's hard to do when they're throwing slurs like "bigot" and "transphobe" around though. Your post has convinced me to try harder, so thank you for that.
Your post has also confirmed something I have suspected- that gender ideologues can be extremely homophobic, the agenda being to convince people that they aren't gay, but just in the wrong body. Your description of how the T faction dominates LGBT events is as I suspected. Ugh. It's as bad as I feared it was.

I do indeed believe that trans women are women, Randy, and I don’t believe there is a change there. They were always women, but this differs from the sex that was assigned to them at birth.

So let's just make it clear. A "trans woman" is any biological male who says that they are a woman, no? Why then did they have a different sex "assigned" than you think they are? Some of these males have held male only positions, fathered multiple children. But "they were always women". How?

Please do continue to hang around on FWR @Enoxaparin, if your studies allow that is. You sound like you would have lots of interesting experience and viewpoints to bring to the discussions here. I very much enjoyed reading your OP.

Best of luck with Uni and your career 👍

what WarriorN said
Thank you for becoming a doctor OP. it makes me happy and relieved to think that thoughtful people like you will be caring for patients in future years.

Thank you so much for heartening post @Enoxaparin . I am sorry it has been such a struggle and no doubt you have lost (and gained!) friends along the way. I know I have.
I do a mystified how medical professionals can have such high levels of what can only be cognitive dissonance.
I wish you all the very best in your studies and life. I am glad you found mumsnet.

@Enoxaparin

Thanks for your OP.

Really interesting to read and brave to talk about all the twists and turns that happening when growing up. And expecially the social pressures.

Good to hear that you are now at university and strong enough from what you have learnt to continue your journey.

I am sure you will have sucess - and even if nothing else your OP was so well written ( ) you could have another career!

Good for you, @Enoxaparin!

It takes courage to move away from the herd. Well done on being open-minded and curious enough to do your own research, then reach a conclusion that you may not have originally wanted to believe.

Also, if something doesn't feel right, it's always a good idea to listen to that voice instead of indulging in penance. That voice is there to protect you.

Good luck in your medical studies! I'm sure you'll be a credit to the profession

Thank you for sharing this, OP.

It sounds like it's been a tricky journey to navigate, and presumably still is if you find your views are now at odds with those of some of your friends.

I would like to hope that we can come to a kind of Cass position as a society - Dr Cass clearly believes that everyone has a gender identity (a belief I don't hold) but the mutual ground is that even believers want medical care to be evidence-based.

Obviously that doesn't solve the societal autogynophilia issue but hopefully again, society can reach a position where those that believe we all have a gender identity can co-exist alongside those who don't, without crossing anyone else's boundaries e.g. without (transwo)men identifying in to women's sports and spaces. I appreciate this might upset the autogynophiles but I'm not sure that the desires of someone with a paraphilia should matter when it comes to legislation. Anyway, we're constantly told that autogynophilia doesn't exist, so I guess nobody would be upset? Transwomen could campaign for third spaces or for greater open-mindedness in society for (transwo)men who identify as women to be accepted in men's sports and spaces.

Anyway, more importantly, this thread shows that there are people out there questioning what's happening.
I agree with WarriorN that it really does sound like you'll be an asset to the medical profession, OP.