I’ve just done a soft launch at work and need a wee handhold.

@Misfiteverywhere that's despicable.

I work in a NHS Trust where speaking out against trans eg TW in female changing room is a disciplinary offence so I won’t/ can’t speak up publicly. But in convos with trusted colleagues, they all agree with me. Common sense over a changed virtual reality. I’d like to be more open but I’m scared as I can’t lose my job.

Gosh yes. Am really confident talking about this stuff yet if I am talking to someone in the 'be kind' camp, I find myself apologising if anything I am saying seems bigoted and/or transphobic because it speaking about proven scientific fact really is not. It really is incredibly powerful just how the TRAs have monopolised these words and made them weapons to pretty much shut down the conversation.

What I really struggle with is explaining why we can't be kind on an individual basis due to the simple reason it's a tiny minority of TiMs who are spoiling for a fight, wanting access to women's single sex spaces and are shouting over everyone else. Indeed, I guess I have the TiMs to thank for making me realise I was a terf in the first place because had they kept quiet, I probably wouldn't have done all my reading and learnt all the facts before raising my head above the parapet. (Unlike many who were supposedly radicalised by MN, I didn't believe the whole TWAW in the first instance or that humans could change sex. Why? Because they are not, and they cannot. I only kept quiet initially because I didn't think it was something that was going to become such a huge issue. I honestly thought everyone would realise the whole idea was idiotic, particularly with regards to Philip/pa Bunce, Eddie 'call me Suzie' Izzard and of course, India Willoughby, all claiming to be women, and in some instances, on a part-time basis. I mean WTF. I wish I could have opted out of my female biology at various points of my life. Or if I put on a pair of trousers, cut my hair and strapped down my breasts, I earned as much as a man doing my job. Actually, given I've had a double mastectomy due to cancer, I clearly should give this a try 🙄)

Apologies for slight thread hijack!

It's one of the tools used by those exerting coercive control isn't it? Creating fear by accusation. Showcased all day long on the Relationship and FWR boards.

Gender activists have really done a number on people with the words "transphobe", "transphobic" and "bigot". Somehow they have got these terms to have such a wide range that almost everyone can be deemed guilty; and somehow they have got them to be very effective in silencing people.

Sadly, I know a remarkable number of both clinical and non-clinical staff who are all in on the most vulnerable vs transphobic bigot narrative.

Worryingly, a fair number are Chairs or members of relevant committees or groups where they stifle any perspective that disagrees with their advocacy.

Yep

I don't think she's really thinking at all......simply following fashionable viewpoints. She'd have to engage in some measure of critical thinking in order to connect what you are saying with what she thinks JK Rowling has said....and then she'd have to start differentiatng and discriminating between different types of thought process and different people...and it would all be like too much hard work........so she'll most likley respond with pure emotion.....and taint you with the same brush, or else she'll have to tolerate the cognitive disssonance that comes when reality, and the people in reality, clash with the demands of contemporary ideology.

I can’t offer you my hand. They are both fully engaged in in applauding your courage and good sense

Sending a metaphorical handhold, OP. I work in local government and found myself in a similar situation when raising concerns about colleagues being labelled TERFs in a (ahem) women’s network meeting. Came away shaking and profoundly worried as no-one openly supported me in the meeting. I was messaged privately after by colleagues, however.

Nothing will change unless people chip away with small acts of challenge.

With respect that's a very boring old trope about salaries - police aren't exempt from paying council tax or PAYE any more than a civil service employee, NHS worker or similar is.

I agree with the politics element, but the public sector has been massively politicised and Politicised for many years... The problem is the level of gender-identity-captured people within them.

Big thank you from me, a patient who's had some horrible experiences with trans activist staff in the NHS.

Well done at @BriceNobeslovesMurielHeslop sometimes it really does feel scarey to speak out even a little in the NHS. It does get easier the more you do it I find. I take my 21st century suffragette mug to work on occassion explain it was a fundraiser if asked.

I also have my XX female symbol pin badge on my NHS blue lanyard. A TWAW colleague asked about it and I did reply with it was a fundraiser for “Keep prisons single sex” because it took a campaign for the scottish government to eventually realised it was dangerous to keep convicted rapists with a males strength and genitalia in the female estate” I was of course bending the truth because pretty sure it was a For Women Scotland fundraiser but this was long before the SC ruling.
I work in Wales and when discussing the forthcoming SC case clearly recognised what female meant used an argument relating to a Plaid Cymru politician. Adam Price the previous Plaid leader is full on TWAW as is the party position. Adam is also in a committed same sex relationship and has a child via a surrogate. So I asked a few colleagues in a coffee room conversation how many trans women they thought he had considered when searching for a surrogate. I then pointed that if it was none then he knew what a woman was when it might impact him as a gay man, strange then that it was different when it came to women’s right to single sex services/spaces.

Hey OP, you've had some really lovely responses here and I hope you're feeling better.

I realised a while ago that if someone thinks something of me that makes them not like me, then they're honestly doing me a favour. I probably wouldn't get along with them. It's harder when you work with someone, I know, but always be true to yourself and stick to what you know. Years from now you'll probably use this as a story to support someone else feeling the same way.

It's not transphobic to believe in sex and not gender. It's not transphobic to support JKR, and I don't believe she's transphobic either.
You said nothing wrong and your beliefs don't make you a bad person.
And I can say that as a trans man (biologically female) who thinks that nobody should end up upset anywhere, let alone at their place of work, just because of their views.

Unless you're about to drip feed that you set traps to capture trans people and lock them up in a secret room in your house for evil doings.

Take care 💐

PS. My friend is a civil servant. I think CS have been similarly captured as the NHS. It's a long road ahead before the kool aid has properly evaporated, but I strongly feel that we are very much getting there, if only on a person by person basis. The good news is that once someone peaks, they in turn peak others.

Yes, there’s a SEEN in Health - https://seeninhealth.org

Handhold here from another NHS worker - chin up, I reckon there are loads of us.

Every single NHS employee that I know is a secretly raging terf, seething with fury at the ridiculousness of NHS' embracing genderpish. Every last one.

It's unsurprising really, considering what doctors, midwives and nurses do day in day out, that they are perfectly aware of what men and women are.

Well done, OP. You've been brave.

Take heart OP, only a few days ago, I found myself in a similar position with a dear friend who is in the TWAW camp. I just couldn't get my head around how someone as intelligent as my friend, someone who is a researcher at that, knows so little about something other than to 'be kind' and to think solely on an individual basis. I did my best to explain why that approach does not work and that unfortunately, in this instance, it comes down to scientific fact that in humans, sex is not mutable and that being trans is an idea, a feeling, something that cannot be defined in a way male and female is, and that being born in the wrong body really is not a thing.

I have horrific chemo/menopause brain which just made the whole thing worse, as did the look on her face and pursed lips which made me feel like a huge bigot with everything I said. However, and on a plus note, she did admit that I had clearly done a lot of reading on the subject (this was when I was discussing DSDs are sexed), and that she had not. She also admitted to not knowing anything about APG, the fact over 92% of TiM retain their genitals, the contagion amongst autistic teenage girls, that puberty blockers aren't reversible and that male and female bodies, particularly once through puberty are very different things and male bodies, even on female hormones, will always retain a phyiscal advantage due to skeleton, muscles and the size of both the heart and lungs.

Although not convinced I'm not simply a raging transphobes, and at the very least, I think I have given her food for thought and she has promised to do some reading that isn't from people like Juliet Jacques. I have suggested Helen Joyce, Sonia Sodha and Kathleen Stock. She also conceded that TRAs are making things worse for transpeople. She also understand the different between sex and gender, and did agree that many conflating/confusing the two has gone a way to contribute to the belief that one can change their sex.

So don't give up hope. I doubt your colleague will say anything and if she does, your beliefs are protected by law. Not only that, you have scientific fact on your side. No debate is no longer a thing!

Remember that gender critical beliefs are WORIADS.

Handhold available here. You are being very brave, esp given where you work.
.
I am out as GC to family and starting to be out to friends and work colleagues. DH is fully supportive "it's just the bloody patriarchy, but in a different format". Everyone in family that I have talked to is GC.

Some friends I speak to are already very GC, others were broadly aware and in support of womens' rights but not did not feel informed enough to speak out. Given more details, like the capture of the NHS and the elimination of single sex wards, definitely hardened their attitude. We need to keep talking and pushing back the disinformation and making others more comfortable asking questions, debating and speaking out. Not everyone will agree with us but we should at least ensure they have enough facts to consider both sides of the debate.

Handhold OP, be brave, your opinions are backed by logic and science, and they are protected by law. It’s horrific that we often feel so unable to voice them.

Supporting women’s rights (and a woman who speaks up for them) is not transphobic

Handhold from me. Women are so used to being agreeable that it's hard and nerve-wracking not to be.
As most here have said when you ask what JKR said that's so terrible they have no clue. Getting them to read her tweet firsthand is best.
I belong to a couple of HP fanfiction groups and when someone posts JKR is a Terf, I immediately talk about what a wonderful charitable woman she is with Beira's place and Lumos foundation and that she cares about women. This prompts others to agree with me and the poster disappears . There are plenty of us, but few women like to argue. I do, so I make sure to speak up.

If it’s any consolation I am def not a terf but I do have friends who are and I respect their different opinion - I recently made a new friend at work who I think is but it doesn’t make me think she’s a bad person at all. I think in real life people accept the grey areas between each other’s opinions more than they seem to online.