Long time friend seems to have cut me off

[Mattez]

NC for this. This has been preying on my mind a bit for the last few days and I’m a bit sad about it so please don’t pile on.

A very long time friend of mine appears to have cut me off, I suspect because she thinks my GC views are transphobic. This isn’t a discussion about gender which is why I’ve put it in here rather than the gender discussion board.

I never post anything on social media about my views for obvious reasons, but a couple of years ago, I commented on an article in The Pool which was about gender. I was very circumspect in what I posted (mainly that I was disappointed in the lack of balance in the article) but my friend saw it and messaged me telling me I should delete the post because ‘only transphobes hold those views and it’s not good’. I did delete it because I was quite taken aback and I have a lot of respect for her, but subsequently thought it was a bit overstepping of her.

Since then, it’s become clear that she has removed me from her social media and blocked me in group chats. It feels like I’ve been deleted just because she suspects I’m a transphobe (I am 100% not) but she hasn’t even tried to talk to me about it.

I don’t know what I want from this post really. I just wanted to tell someone about it because I’m quite sad about it. Is it worth approaching her about it or should I just leave it?

I think if someone gets that upset about your opinion on the issue, there must be a personal reason for it. They have a family member who wants to transition, they want to transition...or something.

OR they've gotten extremely brainwashed, which could easily happen, too. Some people are acting like gender critical views are as bad as racism, and a lot of us would diss a racist friend.

Some people are acting like gender critical views are as bad as racism, and a lot of us would diss a racist friend.

Really good point too.

Gederism is a cult and requires cult-like thinking. It isn't easy to deny the evidence of your own eyes and ears, it is even harder to do so if people around you are open and vocal about their own doubts. They cannot let any light in, or it falls to pieces.

Sorry, OP.

@Whataday198

It's so fucking stupid. I mean, I'm very, very strongly pro-choice. But I have some friends who lean towards "pro-life" because of circumstances in their personal life that make it a highly emotive issue for them. I really, really disagree with their reasoning but I don't need to agree with someone of absolutely everything to count them as a friend. As long as someone doesn't hold absolutely hateful beliefs that genuinely hurt others, I can agree to disagree.

I think it's so personal though. Everyone has different boundaries and I do think sometimes for the sake of your sanity you can't be friends with someone who's political views clash with yours in a very personal way. I recently ended a friendship with someone who was very pro-life, because some of the things she were saying regularly on social media about abortion were destroying me - I had a late term abortion under very traumatic circumstances and I just couldn't handle her posting about how late term abortions were murder and she was standing up for the most vulnerable in our society. I couldn't cope at all.

I presume she's off somewhere slagging me off for doing that. What I'm trying to say is that you don't know what is happening in someone's life and how your political views may seem theoretical to you but may feel like a massive attack to someone else. "Genuinely hurtful" is such a subjective term.

I guess that to me is an example of someone acting to hurt others and of her not being a friend rather than you choosing to end the friendship because of political differences. I don't think that is the same as two people holding different opinions, often for deeply personal reasons, and tacitly choosing to accept that of each other.

What others have said. She's being more than unreasonable. She's being downright crappy. She may have changed with time, but at this point she doesn't sound like much of a friend.

1. You're starting from the plain facts. Humans have two sexes. Gender is a construct.

2. You're willing to let her believe whatever she wants, but she's going to ostracize you if you don't follow her in agreeing there are elves at the end of her garden (or whatever she's into).

That's rather hopeless.

As brilliant Juliet Soosty said, the idea that "refusing to share a belief which you fundamentally can’t get behind- because of overwhelming amounts of robust evidence- is hatred. It’s unlike any other topic."

It's not something that happens in gay rights, antiracism, antisemitism, in anything where bigotry is really involved. It only happens when women are the ones insisting on rights.

I empathise, lost my sister to this shit. She spouted various shite about fish and then shouted me down (as per usual for any disagreement, the Dawkins freeze out lasted months). It was extremely hurtful at the time, is she a twitter fiend by any chance?

I'm over it now, if someone can discard you so easily over a disagreement they are a muppet. It was made more moronic by the fact I actually have a trans child, so therefore much more skin in the game.

I lost uni friends years ago because I objected publicly to being called 'cis'. I've lost a friend of my late partner for not parroting TWAW.

The worst one is my niece, a transman. She no longer speaks to me because I agreed with Maya Forstater's judgement.