What do your male partners make of GRA

[WelcomeToGilead]

My husband is the stereotypical male who is unaware/blind to women’s rights in general.

Or should I say... WAS

He’s really getting angry and I’m glad to see it. This is a man who couldn’t be bothered watching Handmaids Tale when it was on because he felt it was utterly irrelevant to his existence (as an educated, well off, privately educated white male. )

Just wondering what your partners are thinking? Has anybody managed to gain their partners support? Those of you with daughters.... are you managing to talk sense into their dads?

Similar to pp, mine thinks it's a fringe issue and probably that it'll all come to nothing (because the concept is so nuts!). We had a fight about it once when he was almost rolling his eyes at me.

I now pick carefully curated examples to illustrate my POV. He is now putting on his crampons and heading towards peak I think - some of the recent sports stuff really narked him even though he isn't really a sports fan - I think it was just the most effective example in his mind.

He thinks that lgb and feminists will be the ones most hurt by the pushback though.

He's right.

Mine thinks they are all barking and that GRA is harshly and the implications very dangerous. He peaked last week when his Twitter account was suspended after a tra pile on after he suggested they open their own LBGTWxyz cafes if they wanted them.

Yeah, my DH's concern about me poking TRA's is less "be nice" and more "be careful, these people are batshit crazy".

My OH was a bit bewildered initially as I'd always been very supportive of trans rights but kind of gets why I'm concerned. He thinks TRAs are niche though and wont impact me so why am I getting involved.
What did help to get through to him was the realisation that a young female relative's feminist Facebook posts became almost exclusively about supporting mtf trans and no longer about women's rights when she went to uni

Exactly the same op. Down to the hand maids tale, even when I tried to tempt him over the political coup bits...

I was in hysterics over the nus debacle and he wanted to know what was so funny - my first sentence regarding changing the loo signs created a face that may as well have been in reaction to me saying I'd been accepted to NASA (heavily pregnant.)

He's been a bit quizzical about why I give a damn and I'm getting so angry as he thinks things like Brexit and the general political climate are more worthy. But he's one of 3 boys, we have - boy(s) (one almost due) and works in a very male dominated industry. Also, none of it directly affects me from his POV. Though I do regularly point out the number of my highly educated friends who've all been in domestic abuse/ violence situations and had to pick up the pieces so I think some things are filtering through.

Mind you, when I mention sport etc, his reaction is that "well obviously that's really stupid" as if it's completely given that is nuts and everyone knows this.

For me though it's all about stereotypes impacting children, girls and boys.

I'm hoping he'll watch the hands maid tale so I can mention every part has happened.

Its a non-issue round here.

DH gets narky about my feminism and is very NAMALT. However with the TRA, GRC and Self ID thing he is totally on board. He thinks it's ridiculous, takes the piss, and the Sports thing utterly infuriates him.

We did get into a row about ManFriday, but he backed down when 13 yr old DD took the piss out of him for being two-faced. Whilst when it was me raging he was disinterested, but once his daughter laughed at him he listened.

I've had a couple of conversations at work with very lefty teachers that didn't get it (Male and female), but thankfully a few facts peak transed them pretty quickly (especially the Male maths teacher over the trans-suicide stats!)

DH was always a kind person, but when we were first dating in our early 20s, he had an experience that I think really impacted his view of women's lives. He was leaving my house one night when a woman ran out in front of his car. She flagged him down, and got him to take her to hospital. She had been badly beaten and was terrified. He had never seen a battered woman outside of TV/Movies' fake make-up and it really shook him. He began donating to the local woman's shelter every month and has never stopped (almost 30 years ago).

When I found out about self id and the TRA/MRA agenda in Jan (I know! I'm woefully behind), I just told him everything I was learning as I learned it, and he got it immediately. Like me, he is also furious. We have daughters and he is incredibly protective of them and anyone who is vulnerable.

Our DC also got it right away. Almost all of the friends and family I told had no idea, but were all shocked and angry. One darling friend who did know, had been afraid to talk about it, and was almost ecstatic with relief when I brought it up. We are all very supportive of LGBTQ, so she was afraid of being labelled 'phobic'. Have to admit I felt like sobbing with relief to be able to discuss it all in RL with someone who already knew.

Massive thank you to the women of FWR for all the informative posts

Men/partners I have spoken to think it’s mad.
I have circulated the petition.
There is one who is very sympathetic to trans cause but it ends at sharing of sex segregated spaces.

My daughter gets very upset at my radical feminism. She has attached gay rights to the trans cause and thinks I’m somehow phobic/anti. She puts feelings first, has cried at me ‘I don’t understand’. She also uses the term cis.

People who are sympathetic tend to think of the trans teens and non threatening types they know. A friend has said to me ‘do you actually know any trans people?’
This is not about individuals. It is about men exploiting changes in the law.
Surprised that people are happy for women to take the hit to validate/protect trans feelings.

@PunkrockerGirl59 I think we need to start having these arguments TBH.

My husband thinks it's all ridiculous but also that I'm a bit obsessed. But all his friends recently have got a bit obsessed over different issues.

Same as nightowlagain DH thinks I'm prejudiced, unkind and that I've been swayed by the MN echo chamber. We've had a couple of big rows about it.

I cannot be seen to have a public view on this (job related) and not being able to discuss it with DH as well makes me feel stifled and ignored.

Dh peaktransed months ago. He just can’t believe anyone is talking Self Id seriously. He repeatedly states, “If you have a cock, you’re a bloke”.

“The cotton ceiling” peak/peaktransed him and he's now at the very angry and ranty stage.

We’ve had to agree to limit how much we talk about this whole issue as it just makes us both fucking miserable.

He thinks that a female penis is nonsense.

He thinks men who want to retain their male bodies but access female spaces are just doing it to perv.

He thinks transsexuals are ok but transvestites are getting a sexual kick out of exhibiting themselves.

He thinks anyone that used to be male should not be allowed to compete in female sport.

He signed the petition.

My dcs think I'm obsessed but also signed because they advocate free speech.

I'm not sure mine has purposely thought about the reality for women... as in with empathy and setting aside how initial reaction of WTF?

He uses terms like "statistical freaks" and cannot see how any sane person can believe that you can change sex.

But mostly he cannot see how this has gained any traction. He cannot give it real credence, doesn't see how it can be any kind of threat as it is simply ludicrous, patently irrational.

So, until he was brought face to face with the realities of the proposed further legal changes, he was dismissive. Not disbelieving, but unable to see that a few TRAs actually mattered.

It wasn't sport that did for him, it was birth certificates. He didn't believe me, told me I must have misunderstood and then checked for himself! And there you go... he Peaked!

nightowlagain i think our DHs might be the same person...... This has become a really big issue for us. And i don't know how to go forward with it....

He thinks its ridiculous. Mind he did not see the issue as such until I personalized it a bit and said how would he feel about a bloke walking in when I am getting changed, or our daughter. He was, like many others, under the impression that only post op transsexuals can get a GRC.

Nopw I do disagree with making surgery a requirement, but it is a problem that most do see it as only post op people when its anything but, and about to be made so that literally anyone can get one.

He immediately saw the issue about prisons/refuges though.

DP has peaked. I’ve talked a bit about it after reading on here and he is usually a bit like “but surely that wouldn’t actually happen?” and I give him examples of when it already has done. He’s been talking to people at work and to a gay friend of his (who is supportive of trans people as oppressed and marginalised without necessarily seeing the bigger picture that in a previous life he may have been transed himself!)

DP finds it odd that I get so angry about it, because it doesn’t affect me personally, but when I point out that it’s our dds who will be expected to share facilities with ‘female penises’ and will have their protections at work and in society generally put at risk because there will be no such thing as sex discrimination if men can also get fired for being pregnant etc he understands that it isn’t just feminist frothing!

DH agrees with my point of view and is especially vocal. He fully agrees with my raising my children as feminists and GC

@SecretsRSecrets your story about your lovely husband continuing to donate to Local women's shelter 30 years after helping a stranger subject to DV brought a tear to my eyes. This whole need for a radical push for women's rights makes me sad, its clear a lot of us have lovely OH's that just don't quite grasp how far things have gone in shutting down women as they just don't comprehend men who are so dismissive of women's voices and experience.

It is very much not all men that are a problem but we will be/are smeared as attacking men as we push to retain hard won rights

I chat more to my son about it than my husband as my son is more interested in politics and free speech. My husband doesn't think you can change sex but transexuals don't impact on his life at all and he thinks my interest in the subject is a bit OTT.
He's completely supportive re women's sport being XX only and sees non XX women (ie men) in women's sport as cheats depriving women of medals.
Transmen don't give men anywhere near the aggro TRAs give us though, and men get to retain their toilets (and maybe get less messy gender neutral ones).
I do think this is largely a female battle though as we are the ones adversely affected. Men are only adversely affected through us being pissed off or their female relatives being disadvantaged.

My partner is totally on board with the radfem / gender critical view, as is my ex and my other male friends (gay and straight). They get it.

The thing is, the vast, vast majority of people have no idea this is going on. It’s all happening in a bubble, largely in a corner of social media. I haven’t met a single person who’s learned about this from outside the bubble who hasn’t immediately found gender ideology to be a load of cobblers.

Don't have a partner, but the men in my family think the TRA thing is bonkers and threatening. And they got it immediately, just reading the news, without any prompting from me.

@nightowlagain and others with partners with that sort of outlook might want to show them the recent letter by a group of TW to the Guardian (there's another thread with a link in it).

After replying to this just asked my husband what he thinks (currently in the garden doing the manly pursuit of tinkering with his bikes).
"I've switched off now" was his reply.
"yeah that's what I put" I replied.
He's gender critical and thinks sex = gender. He just feels he's done that now and other stuff is more interesting.