Persuading a TA to change her mind

If you really want this to blow up and become the talk of the town by all means challenge her, preferably in a crowded coffee shop or maybe the market. If you want to maintain your standing I would leave this woman be. It's ok to have different views and your chances of converting her are zero. You've more to lose.

I'd be very wary of confronting her, OP. If she is a true believer, any direct conflict will only increase the risk of her targeting your business. I completely understand why you're worried about this, but I think the safest approach for you would be to act friendly to her, as if you don't know anything about the block. Let her be the first to bring it up (if she ever does), and drastically underplay your commitment to being GC. I realise that's dishonest and very frustrating, but letting her think she is successfully starting to "educate" a terf would be one of the best ways to avoid her targeting your livelihood. Whereas direct conflict won't change her mind, no matter what you say, and deepening her dislike of you can only hurt you.

OP there are a few people on this thread with an agenda who are trying to cause an argument. I hope you can take something from the constructive advice that's been given, even if it has been blunt.

JK Rowling did what many of the best loved and most successful female authors have done throughout literary history, and chose pen names she thought would help maximise sales of her books.

It's absolutely bonkers that you are equating a female author using a male pen name with men claiming to be women and demanding the right to access women's single sex spaces. Go and read a book about feminism FFS.

And are you genuinely not embarrassed to be spouting such nonsense about it being a tribute to an obscure doctor who supported gay conversion therapy? She has been incredibly vocal about being totally against gay conversion therapy. That's one of the reasons why she opposes young gay people being encouraged to identify as straight members of the opposite sex.

I would leave her to it, if she doesn’t want to know then she doesn’t want to know.

Do you know how long ago she blocked you? I understand your anxiety about her misrepresenting your posts, but if she blocked you a while ago and nothings been said then hopefully that’s reassuring. I think having a conversation about it is more likely to escalate it and give her something more to talk about than a few shared news articles.

She’s obviously told one mutual acquaintance and it doesn’t sound like anything’s come of it.

If you have thousands of Facebook friends then it’s more likely people will unfriend or block you rather than just unfollow you if they don’t like what you post or post a lot as presumably you are not very close to thousands of people.

What are you actually on about? You're not making much sense, StMarie.

I don't want to harangue her with loads and loads of other points but maybe one or two more, just enough to make her realise that what she is supporting is anti feminist

The irony!

YOU telling her what she must and must not believe is 100% anti feminist!

Hear hear.

. Her profile declares she is a lifelong feminist, so I find her stance incomprehensible.

You don't get to tell people how to be a feminist!

I mean, your hero JK Rowling hid her gender (some feminist!) and wrote her adults books under a pen name - the name is the man who invented the vile gay conversion. Just horrific and you all lap her up.

But as I say- you don't get to tell people how to be a feminist.

I would block you too 💯 and yes, your re-posts would stop me supporting your business

Another perspective: she has blocked you because she realises that TWAW has become untenable these days, and that it is actually her who looks like a fool. She can’t confront you because she knows you are right, so she is resorting to the petty, pointless act of blocking you. Next time you meet her, just give her an extra nice smile. The facts speak for themselves.

As for her spreading rumours about you, I agree with another poster that the best you can do is throw yourself into your work and do your best. You can’t control what others think. I’d perhaps also be a bit wary of the troublemaking person who told you about the block.

This is inappropriate, she’s allowed to disagree with you and choose to not look at what you’re sharing, without being accosted and forced into a debate in the street.

Blimey I only have around a hundred FB friends 😆

I'd leave it and if you see her, be pleasant and friendly, and wait for her to mention something. She is going to look like a twit if she tries to make out that this lovely pleasant local business owner (you) is transphobic just for sharing links to publicly available news sites.

She didn't say she'd track her down and harangue her FGS. Read the post. She said she frequently sees her and has decided to confront her. Not the same thing.

Why are you obsessing over her to the point of considering tracking her down to harangue her for blocking you? Comes across as very odd and inappropriate tbh

I would recommend not raising the subject at all in person. Otherwise, behave exactly as you would if your mutual friend hadn't informed you that you'd been blocked.

This. It's not up to you to persuade anyone of anything, OP.

I didn't say it was a constant stream. Obviously though, it's coming across badly in some way if your friend blocked you.

FWIW, I'm not GC, and am probably fairly trans sympathetic. If i had blocked someone because I was finding their FB feed exhausting/negative/making me feel like our values were incompatible I don't think I'd change my mind if they tracked me down and demanded I justify myself. I think that would just make me feel a bit attacked and more likely to speak negatively about you to others.

I do have GC friends but we've mostly agreed to just nor discuss the topic if either of us aren't in the mood. Same with other friends I disagree with on various issues.

I'm sorry you're going through this,HalfArsedTerf. There's lots of good advice from other posters. I wouldn't say or do anything precipitative, I'd stay civil and see what happens; hopefully nothing as bad as you fear.

However, as you are clearly rattled by what she's capable of doing to your business, maybe you could divert the 'free floating anxiety' into looking at ways to bolster your business - expand it, strengthen its systems, look for alternative markets.. that sort of thing. If she does 'turn nasty', your business will be more resilient; if she doesn't, it will be improved anyway.

I hope everything turns out OK. It was a good move to come on here and share your worries and ask for advice, I hope it has helped a bit.

I think you're being rather daft with the way you're going about things.

1- you don't know exactly when she blocked you, or whether she plans to do something about disagreeing with you, you're just immediately jumping to the worst conclusion. Blocking anyone is everyone's right, and most people do it, then don't think about it again until they bump into that person or similar.

2- you are saying that anyone outing you as GC would have far reaching effects on your life, your reputation, your income. But you're putting it on bloody Facebook for the world to see! Either do it, own it and deal with any potential repercussions, or realise that the repercussions are too much for you and stop. It's really not very sensible to do something that could put your livelihood at risk unless you are accepting that could be a consequence.

3- a great big chunk of people in real life don't care. They may have an idea of what's happening, and maybe a feeling towards whether they agree with it or not, but for lots of people, they just don't care. She may not be blocking you because she is absolutely for trans rights, but instead because she sees you repeatedly post things, and figures you are obsessed with it, and just can't be arsed. I've done the same to some people who constantly posted an anti COVID mindset, they may be in a similar mindset to you, just resharing, but really I couldn't give a shit what their opinions are, I have mine, and I just can't be arsed to see the same/ different shit every day.

The thing is, you say that you only share this sort of content with your Facebook "friends", but you also describe this woman as an acquaintance and say that you have a couple of thousand Facebook friends.

That means that you're not just sharing this content with your friends, but with large numbers of people you barely know.

I'm all for gender critical women expressing their opinions and subtly or not so subtly trying to peak people. But we all have to do our own risk assessment in terms of what we share and who with. And if you're worried about your opinions becoming widely known and the harm that this could do to your livelihood, it honestly sounds like you're sharing this stuff to far too wide an audience.

It doesn't matter if you aren't actually posting "trans women are men, duh!" on Facebook. If you're sharing news articles about trans women in sport or in women's single sex spaces, your views will be pretty clear to everyone.

Honestly, I'd accept her desire to have nothing to do with you and be civil, nothing else, if you happen to meet.

As for your business, if you have evidence that someone is spreading defamatory information etc then you should take legal advice.

She's as entitled to her views as you are, but she can't be permitted to wage a campaign against a business. I don't understand why you think she'd go to that extreme, but if she does, you have legal options.