Thanks for the 
etc.
I wanted to explain why I have namechanged and why I think this nastiness needs to stop. Bare with me if this seems a digression, it is relevant to the thread.
I have been reading on Feminist Chat about the attacks on womens' rights in the pushing ahead of the more extreme transactivists agenda. I am very concerned about this, particularly wrt how it will effect young women and girls. Some posters have been talking about how to get involved in various ways (writing to MPs, Twitter and other sm) and I wanted to join in. Whilst reading I noticed names of a few remain posters who have been quite vociferously insulting to leave voters on MN. I didn't know how they would react to a leaver joining the discussion (sad to say) and I didn't want the Brexit discussion to spread into Feminist Chat. My initial reaction was to keep my distance from posters who have been quite unpleasant, but I told myself that this is a different issue and that we should be able to put our Brexit differences to one side. For this reason, and because some feminists on Twitter have been hounded and doxed by transactivists, a different user name seemed a sensible option.
I then ventured onto Twitter and started following some gender critical women and joining in the conversation about womens' rights. I was prepared for nasty insults from some of the more unpleasant transactivists and although I haven't receieved any personally, have seen some pretty vile stuff retweeted (which is done to show the tactics being used, not to condone).
What I did receive on Thursday morning was a couple of tweets insulting me as a leave voter calling me stupid and racist, from none other than some of the gender critical women I had been following.
The irony of using exactly the same tactics that are decried in the transactivists of throwing insults to try to shut down debate seems to have been lost on them.
In my view, the world and this country are getting increasingly complex, politically. Who is liberal, illiberal, tolerant, intolerant, left or right wing? It is just all over the place, with people who think of themselves as tolerant liberals behaving in the opposite way.
There seem to be a set of people who have a list of topics on which there is an "answer" handed down from above which is correct. No further exploration or discussion is required. No further attempts to understand why some perfectly sensible people have come to a different conclusion. No humility to think that, perhaps, if most of your Brexit related predictions so far have been wrong perhaps you really don't know the future and perhaps other people's predictions are just as likely as yours to be correct.
I know we're not all on the left, but I am. Or was. I don't know what the left is anymore since lots of people who consider themselves to be left-wing think I am some kind of antichrist. I have lost left wing friends or become distant because they can't seem to find it in themselves to respect my views on Brexit. If people can't start to accept that people have different views and that is okay and they should still be treated with civility then frankly, politics in this country is going down the pan at a great speed.
I was angry about bear's attempt to paint my namechanging as some sort of character flaw. It was done for what I though of as good reason - to be able to join in with political campaigning on MN. I have now given up on this (cue "snowflake", "victim card"). I have never misled or deceived. The worst I think I can be accused of is technical incompetence in namechange fails - shoot me.
I reject totally the suggestion that I namechanged because I do not want to stand by my views. I don't want other people's problems with my views to stand in the way of being able to campaign together on an unrelated issue. This is not the same thing. I suppose the only criticism I would accept on this is naivety - I suppose I expected that others would likewise put their Brexit difference to one side but obv this is not the case.
I just want to ask pp who resort to name-calling and nastiness to consider, in themselves, 1) what you are hoping to achieve by it? and 2) what you think the actual effect is? and 3) who do you think benefits and suffers, in the end, from the division?
Anyway I am off for a period off MN and Twitter purdah as I really need a break.
to all you lovely posters, leave, remain and otherwise and [raspberry blowing emoticon] to anyone who isn't so lovely.