Would you get back in touch in this situation ? (friend cut me off)

[BluebellBlueballs]

Long story short - close friend of 25 years, or so I thought, knows i am in to feminism (gender critical) although I have never tried to push any of my beliefs down this throat or be derogatory to trans people, I just don't think you can change sex etc.

Not really interested in people's view on pro trans/ pro GC so let's keep it away from the politics, but friend found out I'd gone to a gender critial womens' event in London (let women speak, organised by Kellie Jay Keen if people are aware of her). All I did was post on facebook that i'd been to the event and had a good time and met Kellie in the pub afterwards. Didn't say anything political, no statements about feminisim/ transgender, nothing at all about the issues. Just that I'd had a lovely day out at this event.

I feel very naive now as the next thing, he sent me a text saying he could no longer be friends with me as Kellie Jay Keen is a hater, and cut me off. I replied to explain that I'm not transphobic, i just believe in women's sex based rights and could we talk . Eventually after blocking me for 24 hours he replied saying he 'wasn't comfortable with the company I keep' and let's leave things as he feels very strongly about this issue and doesn't want a conversation about it. (he never has shown this before, we've discussed transgender issues in the past amicably/peacefully and he never showed disapproval of my view that woman = xx chromosomes etc) .

Anyway he's cut me off without a second glance and it hurts like hell. I'm really shocked that he would end a friendship of 25 years purely on the basis that I attended a women's event and met the organiser. He is acting as though I've joined the hitler youth or something.

Is there any point trying to resurrect this friendship either now or in the future. I feel like if he's not going to accept that I have my views and if he acts like there is something very wrong with me for being involved in gender critical feminism, without even the chance to have a conversation, then the friendship is in a bad place and I don't know how it could recover.

It's also crossed my mind that he was just not bothered about the friendship and was using this as a bit of an excuse to move on, but that doesn't feel like it's the case, the friendship felt solid before this. We have watched each others children grow up, knew each others parents etc. Met at uni at age 20 and been friends for 25 years and now he cuts me off without a backwards glance for one facebook post.

Gutted isn't the word, but do I just cut my losses? What would you do?

Haha. None of my Jewish friends have binned me off for liking Jeremy Corbyn. Even those who - like myself - think he is not leadership material and a bit of a dreamer.

I completely disagree with him on the EU and the trans issue for example. We'll soon have nobody to talk to though if we are not allowed to agree to disagree about anything?

This. He has made a choice.

A friend of mine literally every post was about breastfeeding and how it was natural and the right thing and ban formula. I told her a number of times it was upsetting me - I had a c sections and intensive care and mine had to be bottle fed - she kept going. I made a choice and deleted her -

And there was me thinking the GC movement was about recognising and respecting the differences in women's sexed bodies to those of males.

There's a lot of propaganda out there. Which kind of proves my point, he has chosen to believe in these associations with islamophobia or whatever, and that's not something I ever chose to believe in.

Thanks for that piece by Helen Joyce. I like her and would certainly have a drink with her in a pub. As she is / was editor of the Economist I suppose she is a Tory. Whereas I'm an unrecontructed socialist.
Who cares ? The sainted Jess Phillips is besties with Tory MPs.

Believe it or not Mhairi Black was pally with Jacob Rees-Mogg, and you can't get much more politically polarised than that.

Op please grow a backbone. You went to an event because you believed in the cause and you know your points are valid but are too scared to stand by them because of the negative consequences. If your friend can’t understand simple biology then that is his problem.

No doubt your friend will be soon sharing pictures of him wearing 💃💅👄saying how he's always " felt like a woman "

Kellie Jay Keen is bloody brave to continue her talks especially after the abuse she received New Zealand.

There's a lot of lies and jealousy aimed at her. No-one can change sex and a Woman is NOT a feeling!

Well he didn't feel like a woman when he shagged me in our student days! ( never in a relationship just friends with, for a time bavk then, benefits) . Or maybe I was getting a very early experience of lady dick?

He's got morals, he stuck by them and made a decision. Good for him.

There's a lot of lies and jealousy aimed at her.
You do wonder if they have realised that JKR is uncancellable and have decided to pick on someone else instead, especially if that person is thinking of standing as an MP. It doesn't help that KJK tends not to use moderate language and therefore makes herself an easy target.

I seem to have touched a nerve. What happened to “can’t we all just agree to disagree?”

The OP and her supporters want to insist that they are part of a morally significant, ethical movement of innocent, largely apolitical, women led by vocal women whose only goal is to protect real women from dangerous, encroaching, trans people. Ok! I get that. But the flip side is also true—people on the other side of the argument may choose not to be excoriated as immoral, unethical, uncaring about the safety of women and children.

Take me for example! I’m a natural born woman with two grown daughters! The GC movement does not speak for me and does not protect any rights or spaces that I think need protecting. I would object to being insulted and told that my beliefs are unethical, immoral, or harmful. So I wouldn’t maintain a friendship with someone with strong GC views and I would assume they wouldn’t want to be friends with me because of my obvious wrong think! And that would be OP’s prerogative.

I want to add something else on whst is clearly a sore point—or as someone said upthread “a load of twaddle” which is my observation that GC views are associated with white supremacy and neo nazi views and policies. That is really something that is unarguably the case even if it does not seem true of any innocent babe who gets frightened by the daily mail or fox news hysterics and takes to the barricades to protect the children from drag queens .

If you look seriously at the history of this movement and the various fellow travellers who boost it in newspapers and on social media—snd in the US we look at who comes armed to the protests they organize, the manifestos of shooters of gay people, the bomb threats and who pays for the lawsuits that support this viewpoint and these policies—and we see a linkage that I think innocent GC mumsnetters simply refuse to look at. Its not that its not there, out in the open.

GC beliefs in the US and internationally are openly associated with and pushed by resurgent fascist and neo nazi groups because it is an excellent vote getter (where votes are wanted) and an excellent driver of stochastic terroristic violence. The enormous, to me absurd, fear that trans people are coming for our children (rather than being our children, friends, relatives, neighbors) is a driver of anti gay/anti trans and anti liberal policies in theUS and has been the acknowledged goal of right wing media. This really isn’t a secret.
If OP really respected her old friend and wants him back she might ask him why he responded so harshly to her new found interest in gender essentialism and all that goes with it.
But at any rate I think the point has been made to OP—her friend does not owe her the friendship.

Some toxic right wingers with bad intent hold GC views is not equal to GC views are wrong.

@AtrociousCircumstance I was the one who wanted to discuss why he has taken this drastic step but he said he didn't want a conversation.

Also, I never told him his beliefs were unethical immoral etc as he was a fence sitter until v recently.

I take your points but please don't inject fiction into my story .

@BluebellBlueballs No I’m on your side OP!

My last post was to @pikkumyy77

Just wanted to deflate her point that because some toxic right wingers hold GC views women shouldn’t fight for protecting rights and spaces.

Ah sorry, my bad

Thought you were implying I'd been forcing my views down peoples/ former friends throats!

Ha no! I’m with you. (Celebratory dance for Maya F being awarded 100K 😊 We need to embrace the wins)!

A point of clarification: generally speaking, right-wingers don’t hold “GC views” as the term originated or is understood by genuine feminists.

Gender critical feminism means more than merely “believes sex is immutable”. It is a basic tenet of feminism that is critical of gender roles and stereotypes, as they are used as a mechanism to oppress women and girls (and are not particularly helpful to men and boys, either). So “girls are bad at maths, women can’t park, mothers should do all childcare because women are all natural nurturers / boys like football, real men don’t cry, nursing is no career for men” are all gender stereotypes.

Feminists historically have taken the view that while there are differences in biology which mean women need certain rights and protections, such as single sex spaces and sports, maternity legislation etc, these gender stereotypes are regressive and reductive. There is, as we can increasingly see, no reason why a woman cannot become a footballer or a man a nurse; no reason why boys can’t wear pink or girls take maths to A level.

The reason GC feminists struggle with much of gender ideology (aside from the fetishistic and unnecessary medicalisation of children aspects) is because it reinforces gender stereotypes, by suggesting that if you are a boy who prefers pink to blue and dolls to football, you must actually be a girl and so need to be placed on puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and be operated on in order to resemble a woman, or that womanhood can be reduced to the stereotypes of wearing a dress and make up.

Conservatives on the right dislike transgenderism, not because they wish to dismantle gender stereotypes the way feminists do, but precisely because they believe in those stereotypes - but only when the person aligns with the stereotypes attached to their sex. They do believe women should be the caregivers, the weaker sex emotionally not just physically, and that men should be rough and tough and macho and manly.

Transpeople believe gender identity is important and sex can be changed.
Right-wingers believe gender identity is important and sex can’t be changed.
GC feminists believe gender identity is meaningless and sex can’t be changed.

(Incidentally, Kellie Jay Keen does not call herself a feminist, although by giving ordinary women a voice at her rallies she undoubtedly acts in some feminist ways.)

Beautifully expressed @HarpyValley - nice and clear for the fist-shakers who try to force the GC views = right wing bullshit.

… and what could possibly motivate those who hear “Let Women Speak” and reflexively answer “No, absolutely not”

Yes, because supporting women being shouted at in the face, is really moralistic isn't it?

Very well said @HarpyValley. Of course many right wingers support gender roles - women in the kitchen , gays in the closet.

It's a shame that the genuine gender critical position ( no stereotypes ) is being linked to the far right and it kind of spoils it. Plus gives easy propaganda to the trans activist side who can now call everyone who doesn't think TWAW a fascist.

I'm wondering if, given the impact on my fragile mental health this sudden friend dumping has had, I'm better taking a step back. But I've made other friends now through local women's groups and do still believe in the cause. I don't know if I'll go to LWS again. If I do, it would be in secret and I'm not comfortable with doing anything I have to keep a secret.

True. And Dianne Abbot has a Tory MP friend iirc? I was much more tribal myself when I was younger. Back then I was on Troops Out , Rock Against Racism and gay rights demos - it wasn't yet called Pride.

So I wouldn't be inclined to take lectures from some anyone quite frankly.

Ruth Badar Ginsberg was good friends with Antonin Scalia (although in fairness it could be said she did as much to create the current conservative supreme court as anyone )