My education re terf v tra on MN

[WitchBitchHarpyTerfThatsMe]

Long term self-identified feminist for many years but struggled to get my head around the terf v tra issues for a long time, largely due to the inaccessible language/jargon of the debate. Also my essential 'live and let live' attitude.

Anyhow I finally got my shit together recently following the Hyde Park assault, gritted my teeth and forced myself to come on here, read, follow links/stats etc and had a brain melting intensive educational experience. My eyes have been opened and I'm truly grateful and in awe of the patient and informed posters on here. Thank you, all of you.

Although I did come on to the feminist boards before I didn't see as much activity as I have for the last few months. So, my questions . .

Is there a lot more traffic on these boards of late?

Is MN allowing more open debate on these issues than previously?

Another thank you from me too.

I stumbled across this board years ago and left straight away - the people on here were just plain scary, and feminism was just so seventies and after all we are all equal now.

Re trans people I felt sorry for this poor oppressed minority, then something made my critical thinking kick in.

At first I just lurked on this board too scared to post as I wasn't a proper feminist. But I read it avidly, and followed up all the references and after the last year or so all my thinking about feminism has completely changed, and this is now my most visited MN board.

So a massive thank you from me too

FWR is a brilliant resource and I'm grateful that there is this platform for reasoned debate (and supportive face palming)

Isn't it crap that I'm grateful for somewhere to speak freely?

Anyway, today's face palm moment for me was reading this comment on Reddit: "TERF's are wealthy and organized and want the erasure (read deaths) of Trans lives. We lost 2 generations to their clinic closures and hostile tactics. They are no more victims than the KKK was during Jim Crow. mp3: get out the way, bitch"

I think that the poster really believes this, and has been fed this narrative by someone. I find it quite scary, like when you dig into Britain First or the BNP, read stuff and think "They actually believe that this is what is happening, that Muslims refuse to serve people wearing a poppy and every immigrant gets given a 7 bedroom council house the minute they step off the plane".

People don't just come up with this stuff on their own, there is a concerted effort from somewhere and someone to peddle an anti-woman narrative to justify the violence and hatred that some TERFs perpetrate. It's a form of grooming or radicalisation, IMHO

I'm another former lurker who arrived here after Germaine Greer was no-platformed in 2015.

Thing is, I turned radical over the trans issue but then read so much more and became a rad fem in general.

Spectacular own goal for the misogynist TRA's! :)

Olenna there is a concerted effort from somewhere and someone to peddle an anti-woman narrative to justify the violence and hatred that some TERFs perpetrate

Typo? You mean TRAs, not TERFs?

Is your autocorrect a TRA?

Is your autocorrect a TRA?

Imherefornow

I get what you are saying - that not even the marginised group they think they are helping will benefit.

I love this thread

How many people do you reckon read these threads without commenting? Does MN have an average ratio for posts read as opposed to the numbers who comment? I'd be very interested to know how many people have been enlightened on this debate but don't want to actually post.

MissMoneyPlant

We so need an edit function!

I find the issue hard to contemplate sometimes ... a woman is a woman. How can that basic fact be up for debate. It’s like the same as debating whether an orange is orange

Whenever I hear this discussion, this is the image that comes into my head:

Very good nauticant, that made me laugh!

My DD would very much like to be a wolf and has been this way since she was 2 or 3. She's 13 now and remains the same. I introduced her to the notion of 'otherkins' and she was very interested! She gets the TRA stuff quite clearly though and is horrified.

I’m another lurker and very infrequent poster on FWR who has learned so much from being here. And who has moved from a pro-trans position to a gender critical one as a result.

I'm another lurker who has learned so much from these threads, so I want to thank you. I was fairly live and let live, knowing a couple of transwomen irl who are just getting on with their lives. But these threads brought me to peak trans when I realised it was people like them who were being thrown under the bus, too. And the whole #nodebate thing terrifies me. Where are we, communist China? It's crazy.

One thing I've really struggled with is talking to my teenage dc about it. At first they were all oh mum stop being so bigoted and transphobic. But I managed to have a longer talk to dd (now 17) about it all and showed her some of the articles. What changed her mind was telling her about the cotton ceiling - she was appalled by this and has since become peak trans herself, and convinced one of her best friends who is gay and had not yet seen through the narrative but now does. So well done mumsnet - this is getting through to youngsters too. Ds is less easy to persuade, but does agree about sex being a biological fact, so we have got somewhere with him. A way to go, though. He's very stubborn and still thinks I'm being a bit of a bigot. I'll keep trying... It's so hard when they are bombarded from all sides by TRA narratives, youtubers they come across etc, and Twitter. It's actually flipping scary because some people on a Pokemon chat room were telling my son he was really a girl because he doesn't like football or rugby. :( I think he's got past that one - tells me he never thought that was actually true, because we'd brought him up to believe he could be whatever he wanted and like whatever he wants as who he is - but it's very, very difficult to break down the walls once they are up. Any more advice appreciated!

Also done the journey in last 6 months or so - been a feminist a very long time - but always thought of myself as not really radical - it’s so good to have a space where you don’t get abused for basically saying what feels like common senses

Totally agree with you Witch. I too would like to thank Datun and others for their very informative posts.

Feminist Current booted Meghan Murphy off at one point for being gender critical. I'm glad that she is back...

Also Madhair I think you are doing a great job.

I was interviewed for that new yorker article! But I was too measured and dull so I didn't feature in the end.
Love this section and the posters here.
I wasn't around much for a while but it does seem more active again.

I was a live and live type too until Germaine Greer was no platformed. What worries me is the number of young women who seem to blindly accept the cultish mantra of ‘Transwomen are women.’ They are completely ignorant of how harmful accepting this without question is harmful to women and those who are genuinely suffering from dysphoria. It really only benefits those with a fetish or nefarious intentions.

I'm mostly a lurker who doesn't feel sufficiently intelligent or well-informed to join in very often, but MN has helped to cement my gender-critical stance. I was very much a nicey-nicey inclusive type up until a couple of years ago but a lot of what I see being posted in the name of inclusivity these days is nothing less than rank misogyny. I'm so glad to know that not everyone has swallowed the TRA kool-aid...

Thanks, Fern and Guardian, that's very kind. It's felt an uphill battle. It's almost like a form of brainwashing on the young, I think

I’d also like to thank the women on here. I used to think so many of you were overreacting and spinning horror stories about things you weren’t familiar with. Sorry.

I think for me that was largely not realising how much had changed about the movement in a short space of time. When the trans people you know just want to get on with their lives and the causes you’ve supported them in just a few years back have been about that, and then suddenly all these feminists are talking about entitled men with “lady dicks” guilt-tripping lesbians? It sounds implausible, you think “naaah, nobody’s really doing that”, it sounds like someone’s just missed the point and not been paying attention. Took me a while to realise that someone was me.

Thanks from me too. This is what resistance looks like.