We need a TRA support group

[0phelia]

I have delved into the dark underbelly of Twitter and so have had the "privilege" to come across some proper trans activists.

Some gems including someone who really believes women cannot tell the difference between men who say they're women and women. That it's "gaslighting" of me to suggest anyone can tell the difference.

And another tra lecturing me how transmen have the exact same physiological structure as men (because taking hormones) so he really cannot understand how transwomen should be excluded from women's sport. "Arm/leg lengths differ between people I have short legs = therefore all men should be included with women in sport" because artificial hormones.

Other gems... I have cis privilege because I think transwomen with penises should be seen as a type of Man... (let's just say I reject cis anyway and my years living as a prostitute is it really seen as a privilege?)

I'm not sure what sort of social media conversations you are all having but it is horrible being a GC feminist out there!

I guess what I find so disappointing? Distressing? is that so many people outside the TRA bubble won't question the dogma and that the ideology has been allowed to get such a hold among our legislators. They are the people I mean - the ones being paid to represent us. They simply won't question this stuff. Everyone accepts it at face value and glosses over what these phrases really mean, but they should not be doing that when it comes to legislation that affects half the population.

David Davies is getting all this abuse just for facilitating discussion about the issues. This is chilling stuff. Truly Orwellian, as so many people have said.

Until I looked at it further, I thought I maybe didn't understand something complicated about biology that meant trans women really are women, but when you do try to get at what that could be, the TRAs won't discuss it in any detail and they betray that they are downright ignorant about science 9 times out of 10. Then they start hurling abuse if people persist with rational questions.

I don't really have a problem with them being a cult, even a misogynist one, but how come they're so mainstream all of a sudden, with the political and chattering classes anyway, and what happened to freedom of speech?

I had an individual try to convince me that the definition of sex and gender in the Ixford Collins’s and Morrison Webster dictionaries were wrong. The person in question said - I paraphrase - well, that’s your definition in your dictionary. I had no idea we all have our own personal dictionaries - language has become meaningless. It’s not often I’m lost for words, but in this case I was. It’s impossible to have a conversation with someone who utterly denies reality - reminded me very much of my abusive past relationships.

Oh FFS

Oxford Collins
Mirriam Webster

Also - it comes to something when I have yo namechange talk solely about this issue and ensure my Twitter doesn’t have anything that could out me IRL. My partner is a civil servant and I’m worried I’d cause him professional issues.

I'm having a horrible time on Twitter today. Just saying.

Oh, and I've been locked out once too. Not sure what that was about.

It's a bit of a Catch22. Right now, so many people have bought into the #transcult view of things, often without really thinking about it or knowing anything about what's going on, that it's difficult to say anything gender critical without people reacting in horror.

I've liked and retweeted too many gender critical tweets given that my twitter account is identifiable as me and links to my professional identity: I'm thinking I need to share some more kitten videos and then back away slowly, maybe creating a non-identifiable id.

Except that if that's what we all do, how do we expect all those pepole who are just assuming trans is the next thing to be liberal about to see the dark side of it? I'm really torn about where valour is the right thing and where discretion is the better part of valour.

Would you like a strong or a large , Van Goghs dog?
I've been out having a look today, making the odd comment. Makes you want to shower, afterward. Grubby.

Hope you can ignore and relax, for a while.

I agree,OK. I have two accounts, one with friends on and one anonymous one. I comment with the anonymous one. I don't use my other one much at the moment. I share sensible moderate articles on FB to reach friends. It's a gradual process, i think.

I hate the underlying anxiety that I'm going to post with the wrong account, thouGh!

Can we help, Vangogh? If you point us to a thread, we can join in.

@picklemepopcorn

Thank you.

It has calmed down. I replied to Paris Lees on something.

twitter.com/parislees/status/980091878728241152

Fecking escalators!

I have a Twitter account in an old online name I used. Don't want to cross ref here really, though can nc here of course and have done already due to this.

I don't use FB for this at all.

I saw her escalator comment. Pah.

It's horrible out there. Absolutely vile. Someone pass me some nice shower gel so I can scrub myself clean again. And some mouthwash. Please.

I don't know where to start with twitter- the delusion, the spite, the aggression. It's like Social contagion. They accuse us of hysteria, but really they seem in the grip of a mass delusion.

They are tweeting tesco etc about boycotting MN sponsored products, asking if tesco wants to be associated with such a transphobic website.

I'm going to retreat from the field and wrap myself up in warm towels and gibber for a while.

It's like this generation are so angry, really upset with their parents and are taking it out on the world by deliberately being the most obnoxious, audacious, self obsessed, gaslighty generation ever.

I mean they are the first generation to grow up with social media which causes known mental health problems, and porn on tap with obvious problem, conspiracy theories widespread, "alternative" fake news...

I wonder if they actually are quite mad at the older generations for ruining the planet and causing imminent environmental catastrophe and harsher economic inequalities, and now they have found a way to attack the older generation by confusing the hell out of them...

tweeting Tesco about boycotting MN sponsored products

MN are really in trouble... I've been offline a bit but saw the couple of threads where they had to be quite stern and said they may not be able to host GC debate anymore! But didn't see any of the background...

I think they've been attacked from all directions by TRAs since ManFriday...

They've infiltrated the chat groups here and are targeting advertisers who pay MN who I guess would withdraw if MN started looking bad...
It's awful.

I even saw ppl suspect that TRAs have come on here and themselves posted terribly transphobic things so they can "prove" how awful MN is.

Terrifying.

VanGoughsDog
There are some great replies on that thread! The original tweet is awful though. "Some people are scared of trans people like escalators...." I mean, they really think that pointing out sexual dimorphism and thinking it's important is... like, being scared.

I don't know any GC ppl who are "scared" of trans ppl but apparently we are...

I saw reference to how amazing 'trans twitter' was and I really think this is right at the heart of all that is terrifying. Twitter has been 'weaponised' to incredible effect. Society is being shaped/distorted in ways we have yet to realise the full extent of. The 'whistles' went off to go after Mumsnet a couple of weeks ago... there is the most staggering amount of manipulation, bullying and control. Propaganda is pumped out and laws designed to protect people who are transgender are being used to shut down any source of questioning be that an individual or platform. I don't think its any coincidence that Mumsnet has been targeted since James Kirkup wrote in a piece in The Spectator :
"How did we get here? How can it be that in modern, democratic and free Britain in the early 21st Century, women are frightened to meet or talk about law, politics and society? Don’t we have institutions and, more important, social norms that say this shouldn’t happen, can’t happen? Shouldn’t this stuff get the attention and interest of politicians who are supposed to listen to all the different strands of public opinion, and ensure that everyone gets a chance to speak and be heard?

Bluntly, why the hell is no one in politics shouting from the rooftops about this stuff? We’re talking about people trying to put the frighteners on Mumsnetters, for goodness sake. In any other area of public life, politicians usually fall over themselves in their rush to speak up for middle-class working mothers. Yet the politicians who were desperate to talk biscuits at Mumsnet Towers are curiously silent about the intimidation that some women now report there."

How better to stop politicians engaging than by shutting down Mumsnet or by smearing it (just as women have been vilified as 'terfs', 'bigots', 'anti-trans', 'hate-filled' 'nazis'?

Also, a concerted effort to control search results and so on. It's harder to find information which is critical towards trans ideology, and skewed news articles pop up when you search violence against women.

It's a serious serious worry. But in the real world I find most people are actually pretty sensible. What on Earth is going on, when the policy and political cart is so far ahead of the public opinion of the horse?

I've just been on twitter again... there is so much misinformation and partiality out there, it's hard to know where to start. It's like speaking a different language. I'm blocked from a couple of people, but I've always been very courteous in my speech. I just don't agree on a lot of things. I think a certain group are only there to bolster each other's opinions and self esteem, there is no critical thinking at all.

Twitter is basically a cesspit.

I think we need to boycott anyone who boycotts Mumsnet.

Yes, MN does seem to be under an organised attack - I've just checked out their Twitter feed.

I've namechanged away from terfy nickname because of this.

It's really concerning.

Is there room for a not so little one?

I attempted a weekend of retorts. I got called a monster and a disgraceful human being by a man for saying that TIMs were simply a sub category of men.

Then I got hammered by telling one Tweeter that his consistent use of CIS was offending me, and it just ended up in a cycle of him repeating the same useless fecking definition to me.

Not been called a TERF yet but I am ready to respond calmly on that one.

I gave up.

The only light in the tunnel was having a few tweets liked by Peachy and a few others. Made my day turn around, that.

I've had a few likes. You can see how it gets compulsive, and draws you to express yourself more outrageously!

But it's horrible. I saw one person complain about my comment to someone else, in a 'woe is me' kind of way, because I'd used Trans Identifying Male.