I want to meet other GC women in person

It is, I don't have any issue with the location, just surprised!

Yup. It's a brave choice, but why not? Loads of feminists in Brighton, and easy access from the rest of the country, given how London-centric most public transport is.

Commiserations.

I'm in a university department where many of the younger staff have drunk the Koolaid. I had to sit through a seminar paper which used the term "self-identifying radical feminist TERFS' as if it were an official term.

But I raised some issues in the informal discussion afterwards, and challenged the speaker over the TERF term, by saying that as far as I knew, radical feminists didn't exclude transmen, so the term "TERF" is inaccurate. THe speaker got rather heated & upset, but I just asked questions and stayed pleasant. Another colleague who kept on telling me that "Transwomen are women' and said that it wasn't up for discussion, so I said - "Are telling me there are things we can't talk about in a university?" She said we'd have to agree to disagree, and told me (I'm an historian) that there were indeed times in history where patriarchy didn't exist. I asked her for her evidence ....

I don't think I would have been brave enough to say all this before Maya Forstater won her case.

But I had to sit through a whole paper being called a terf. I'm wondering if there'll be a complaint, at which point I will point out that "TERF" is a slur and a term that is connected with the threat of violence against women.

The irony is that the speaker is a gay woman. Talk about Koolaid

Ok. I've read the thread now. It's not so much that there's no GC people in your area, just that you don't talk about it. Because if you did, unless you're in cult areas like Brighton, parts of Manchester, parts of London - you'll discover that most people are GC and if they aren't, we are now 'allowed' (unbelievable that we ever weren't) to say sex matters.

So. I wear my 'adult human female' top round town and have done for years. Only ever received positive responses. My work lanyard is the suffragette colours - this work is in a school. My boss knows I'm gender critical and that I absolutely will not be calling any male child 'she' nor female child 'he'. Rather, they egg shell round me rather than the other way round.

I had a convo the other day with the teacher of a new child in to my swim class
'They're trans and called P'
'Ok. What sex actually are they.'
'Male'
'Well, he has to change in the males then.'
'Ok'

Wow, is it in Brighton this year?

I booked my ticket for FiLIA 2025 yesterday & there are still tickets. I also bought a solidarity ticket, so if you're really broke, there's at least one of those!

See a lot of you in Brighton (although as we're all anonymous here, I won't know it's you

What?!? Every single person I know is GC. Everyone. My neighbours, my colleagues, my fronds, my children. I'm off to read the thread now to find out where you live, as it must be a very different location to mine!

I’m in east Anglia. Also with small kids but I’m a member of my local WRN and find the WhatsApp and national WRN zooms good if only to see that there are lots of us out there!

I am lucky enough I’ve never met anyone in real life who isn’t GC. I’m quite prone to making a joke of it with other women, occasionally strangers in light conversation “I’m identifying as a [insert whatever ridiculous notion]” and they laugh and say “god, don’t get me started..” or words to that effect.

I’ve had friends who have children in school now who are outraged by Andrew becoming Annabel at 6 and using the disabled loos as directed and are informed by teachers in an email “but I don’t know if anyone else minds”. THEY DO!!

That's brilliant. I had the impression Leeds (I used to live there but moved away about 20 years ago) was something of a hotbed of mad genderism. Mermaids etc.

I couldn’t attend a vigil. It would cause too many problems with my family. I think I would be worried to go to a LWS event too, for the same reason. I could get to Birmingham though. I sound timid but I’m not, usually.

I was queuing up at the till in Waitose 2 days ago and 2 women infront of me were "putting the world to right" with the female scanner/till operative. They apologised to me & I mentioned John Lewis policies. They knew "little bits" but by the end of our 5 min conversation their eyes had been opened and they walked off with 2 of my WRN leaflets that go everywhere with me :)

Good point. The best way to track vigils is to follow WRN Afghanistan on Twitter.

My WRN has a very active whatsapp and meetups.
Look for localish wrn fb and twitter, there's a vigil for Afghanistan coming up, there's one a month. You might find one close.

My eldest DD holds TWAW views and has walked out of a room rather than listen to my GC opinion and have a grown up discussion. That hurts.

Get up to LEEDS! There is an awesome women only centre, run by wonderful GC women, if you can manage FiLia they will be there. I don’t know a single person who believes in this rubbish. Literally the women in the hairdressers to my DHs oncologist. OP do you mean you would like to join an activist group or just meet people with similar views? I guarantee you know loads of people with similar views as you, if you meet people in real life spouting shite about shenis’s just laugh and walk away. I have only met one irl, a man with a tif daughter, who described himself as queer but basically just wanted to cheat on his wife… as usual he knew who had the right biology to try to cheat with.

I was a member of what I thought was a feminist GC group that met monthly but I have had to leave as a TiM was invited to a recent event (unbelievably shocking imo!) so now I’m homeless again.

I have a ticket to Filia in October so am looking forward to that if anyone else is going? All my friends and family are GC but none are able or want to come so I know what you mean!

This week one of the managers video called me and opened up about her, recently formed, GC views. She’s very down to earth and not very political. She took the details of the Repeal the GRA petition. It felt good.

Also this week, a young clinician, who had previously been helpfully active in challenging team misogyny, started adding her pronouns (she/her). Utterly baffling.

Both of them acting in ways I wouldn’t have expected, having known each of them for some years. Really affects the trust dial.

I'm in East Anglia. I have quite a few GC friends - it's good to be able to speak freely.

One friend I thought might be on the beee kiiind bandwagon turned out to be eminently sane. She's younger than me and much more trendy, but nope, thinks for herself.

Long time FWR lurker/occasional poster here. Oh I so feel you OP. I’m in west Wales, young kids so not easy to travel far for meet ups or events. I’m at the point of thinking there’s no point in me being friends with anyone who’s not GC … so just making friends at all is hard. We’ve only been here a couple of years so I’m still getting to know people. I work remotely in a totally captured industry so cannot discuss at work at all.

I’ll admit part of me loves the hobby group subterfuge idea - knitting in code for the Revolution! I’m in awe of so many on these boards and learned so much from them.

And it usually leads on to a pub, so plenty of chance to chat after.

I joined a group in SE, initially they were friendly, but they had already morphed into a clique, one was really passive aggressive, they mostly talked about their personal problems and all knew each other from earlier times, I stuck it out for a while but noticed new women joining only lasted one or two sessions. Id love to find a fun group who are really open to having new women join. Better luck to you , Im sure there are good ones out there.

Understand PMs should reopen next week so we’ll be able to start reconnecting there again.

There is quite a strong contingent in Nottingham, LWS is back on 28th March so go along to that if you are East Mids.

I was delighted to see a woman in a Save Women's Sports tshirt at the Cross country last year. I shouted "I like your tshirt" and she shouted back "thanks" but was hurrying along. I've wondered if she's local a few times because I'd love someone GC to go for a run with. That would be very cathartic indeed.