What does your partner think?

@Nightingalenight I feel exactly the same

DH is completely in agreement with me and other GC women. He doesn't read as much as me but he still reads a lot and gets really pissed off about how women are treated in our society at the moment. There were things I had to explain that he didn't get to begin with, such as how frightening it is for a woman to walk alone at night but he gets it now.

Very glad that my gay brother, who I'm very close to, also gets it. He's disgusted by what Pride has become, thinks it's all filth, and wants nothing to do with it.

I could’ve written this about my DS. If I bring it up he spouts a few lines that he’s obviously read on a trans lives matter leaflet, but refuses to engage further because he knows his arguments won’t hold water. What saddens me the most is that he’s a highly intelligent scientist 🤦‍♀️ I think he actually knows what I’m saying is true but he’s been that captured by it all at uni he would rather bury his head in the sand.

Mine had never paid any attention to trans v women’s rights before I mentioned it. Once I explained things he was aghast at what goes on and the implications of it. Totally agrees with me on it.
If yours is on the fence OP have you asked why? As in “why do you think women don’t deserve the right to single sex spaces/why do you think men’s rights trump women’s/why don’t women deserve fairness in sport” etc etc so instead of telling him things, he has to justify why he’s sitting on that fence.
None of the GC people I know want harm to come to trans identifying people, or think that they shouldn’t wear what they want. We just don’t believe in “gender souls”, or think their rights trump everyone else’s, and they should leave kids out of it.

THANK YOU. Whether or not someone fancies someone has zero to do with what makes someone male or female.

I think your reaction is perfectly valid. There are women who support the right of trans identified males to access women's rights and spaces because they don't have a problem with it, they have friends who are trans and they see trans people as vulnerable. They do not extend that empathy to the many women who are traumatised from past sexual assault or even just from living in a patriarchal world where they are subjected to a sexualised male gaze from childhood and the objectification and dehumanization that goes along with that experience. I often feel that women who uncritically support trans identifying males rights to women's single sex spaces for example are also victims of the patriarchy but in a different way more compliant and subservient to men than often older women who have already been through the wringer and are out the other side.

I just think men cannot really grasp the visceral fear that women often live with when it comes to the threat of male violence sexual or otherwise. Trans identifying males often try to claim this fear for themselves but they also do not truly understand women's experience, to them that "fear" is a desirable part of womanhood so it is something they perform in a way that women do not. I am not saying they are not at risk but they are not at risk because they are women but because the are gender non conforming men which is quite different. If they truly understood women's experience they would not make the demands they do of us, they would see why they should not and cannot enter our single sex spaces.

Please don't reduce womanhood to whether or not men perceive someone as fuckable. It's not the take you think it is.

My wife (I'm male) thinks the same as I do; that it's all quite mad, depressing and infuriating. As I was much more online than her, I started reading about this stuff first (and introduced her to FWR!); fortunately she retired just before it started getting truly crazy in the workplace. Since then she's been perved on by a TIM in a hospital setting, and berated by her #bekind sister for holding heretical views.

Mine thinks I bang on too much about it, that it doesn't matter (to him) and that it makes his life difficult because some of his friends have the opposite view and he doesn't want to feel awkward with them.

Strangely enough it hasn't shut me up.

My husband is GC, he has 2 medical based degrees and is pretty grounded in reality having spent 25 years in the armed forces.

He started from the position that trans people are mentally unwell and that some of the men in his words are “wronguns” getting a sexual thrill out of it. However because the numbers were so small and he didn’t realise they were actually transgressing women’s boundaries by going into our single sex spaces / using our services/ claiming to be literal women, so it wasn’t a big enough issue to be on his radar.

Slowly o er time I talked to him about prisons, the MOJ data, Edinburgh rape crisis centre, Supreme Court ruling, NHS Fife, LGBTYS Scotland, removal of sex based language, corruption of data etc he could scarcely believe it was happening but now fully understands.

We had a situation lest year where a TIM joined the gym and stared changing in the women’s open changing rooms (despite there being a 3rd space). It was a truly awful experience for all the women in the changing room. My husband encountered him later that week when watching my son’s swim lesson and could believe this 6ft very obvious bloke was using the women’s changing rooms (fully in tact too which the women’s tight swim suit made very clear). It happened again a couple of weeks letter when my 12 year old DD and I were mid change the TIM walked into the changing rooms, we plucked up the courage to complain and I’ve not seen him in the gym since.

Just after Christmas last year DD came home with a horrific book from the school library, from the “woke reads” section, which children get given a special badge if they read 6 books from. It was pure queer theory, social justice indoctrination (some men have vaginas, we live in a white supremacist society, a 15 year old boy performing drag who goes on to have sex with a 19 year old man in a graveyard who plies him with weed and poppers. There was also a detailed explanation in the book on how to take the poppers. The publishers age rating for this book was 12-15!!!). DH helped me compose an email to the school about it and is disgusted by the lack of safeguarding/ indoctrination in schools surrounding the TQ movement.

My husband thinks trans women are men.

I'd feel sad too if I were you. You don't need to get a grip. My boyfriend lets me go on long rants then takes me outside for a sit in the park to touch some grass when I've spent too much time on X and have headache. If it matters to you, he ought to give you room to express it. He doesn't have to say much, just let you rant. Not too much to ask for

@clearveilthat’s exactly it - he just can’t see why this is so frightening for me. And I think he’s distressed that I find it frightening, so won’t talk about it. Although, listening to myself here, do I just need to get a grip? This is the first time I’ve expressed this little bit of hidden sadness - I’m surprisingly emotional about it.

Mine agrees with me that the whole thing is totally batshit and that the trans lobby is out of hand and guilty of massive outreach. However as a man I don't think he can really fully comprehended just how disturbing and frightening the attempts by trans identifying men to wipe out women's rights and their determination to transgress our boundaries has been for many women. I think for the most part only women really get that. I think some gay men also really get it but in a different way because they see how deeply homophobic the trans ideology is.

Exactly. It's a very destabilising thought.

My DH is on the GC side but for him it’s not important - he thinks men shouldn’t be in women’s sports categories etc but he has no skin in the game and no interest in discussing it. He has a sort of anti-interest actually - won’t listen if I want to talk about it. Whereas for me it’s existential. So the whole topic is out of bounds at home, and it’s led to a few lonely and silent years - I find it hard to forgive him for not seeing that this matters to me (and to society, we do talk about politics a lot). I wish our relationship could be more like that of the posters who talk about sharing their views with their partners.

oh my god that is insane

Genuine question, if you are able to share : what transphobia has your friend encountered?

I think your last point is interesting and insightful.

Because if you see what's going on, what does that mean for your confidence in all the other lefty talking points, like climate, or covid, or, measles vaccination, many, many others.

Just what it means in terms of the scientific institution is really kind of staggering.

This is an interesting thread, thx for posting OP :-)

My husband is now very GC but it's been a journey getting there.
First he engaged on the topic philosophically but wasn't v interested and didn't think it an important issue and didn't understand why I was always going on about it.

We then discussed how it's fundamental to feminism and he took it more seriously; still with 1 foot in the Be Kind camp but agreed there shouldn't be men in women's prisons, changing rooms, sports etc, but he still felt there were times when it would Be Kind to be TWAW.

We've had many enjoyable discussions on the topic which have then derailed into politics, philosophy and lots of interesting stuff.

He is now very staunch GC, and as outraged as I am. Orgs like Lush and Amnesty who he used to support particularly piss him off.

Our DD is TWAW and we can't discuss it, it's too contentious and risks damaging relationships. I felt isolated at first when I was the only one in family going on about it so huge sympathy to those whose DH/DP isn't GC.

Men know perfectly well what a woman is when they’re looking to stick their dick into one.

Vanishingly few of them would accept one with a penis.

My husband and I have a very close trans friend so we are on the same page, understand how difficult it can be for them and the transphobia they have encountered, I don't think I could be with anyone with substantially different views on the fundamentals

My DH is very much for gender reality.
I knew he would be as it's just common sense.

We had an early awakening in the issues caused as we used to host overseas teenage foreign students. Dh didn’t love it but was my side hustle while a sahm. His rule was only girls as the room was next to our dds room. All fine. Until we were allotted a lad in eye shadow. Who was a girl apparently. Dh was absolutely furious plus worried about our liability as the eye shadow lad was sharing the room with a girl and they by were both under 16. Stopped hosting shortly after that.

Mine was initially bemused by my anger then something I said made his jaw drop. He has since done his own research and is also angry at how entrenched the lunacy is