Gender Critical 'Lurkers'

[BadasIwannaB]

I’ve been reading the Gender Critical threads on Mumsnet for a few months now and I’m ‘delurking’ to say THANK YOU! To all the intelligent, articulate gender critical feminists here - you are my absolute heroes, and you’re really giving me hope!

I’ve thought for a long time that many aspects of the supposedly right-on rhetoric about gender is deeply misogynist, and I was unsettled and annoyed at how much pressure there is on women not to challenge it, and how much supposed ‘feminists’ enforce that pressure. But for a long time I felt like I must be the only person who thought this, because I wasn’t seeing anyone speaking out, and on the v few occasions where I mentioned any of this to friends, it didn’t go down well. So it’s been hugely inspiring and reassuring to see that there’s this growing community here standing up for women against the bullshit. I’ve literally been reading the discussions here every day for the last few months, and it cheers me up so much! I’ve become such a fan of so many of you: LangCleg, Datun, Bowlofbabelfish, Ereshkigal, Angry Attack Kittens, I could go on and on…

So I started wondering, how many people like me are there reading these threads and cheering silently from the sidelines? I’m hoping there are lots of us. I think it’s easy to think we’re a tiny minority because of all the fear surrounding joining the discussion, but maybe if we all delurked we’d see that that’s not the case.

So any other lurkers wanna delurk?

I’m a newish lurker. Long time feminist, recently GC. I don’t discuss much in real life as would be perceived as transphobic by most of my social group. In my profession there’s a strong push to be non-GC and go along with the party line which is ‘inclusivity’ and pro-transitioning. But I’m starting to refine my argument for when the time comes. Thanks to you all.

Welcome all lurkers! Reading your posts honestly makes me so happy because sometimes I worry we're in a vacuum so to know there is a group of people out there who are listening and evaluating everything for themselves is so heartening.

I'm here too, have come back to MN after a while as it was taking up too much time.

I have read lots of the posts on this and like Datun says I have been surprised at my strong response to lots of it. I do sometimes feel like it's all a bit Emperor's New Clothes - everyone knows that men cannot literally become women, even with surgery and hormones but somehow it has become taboo to say anything other than 'yes of course they can and they don't even need that either'. Sex is a fixed biological fact, gender is a social and therefore malleable social construct. Why is this even under debate in 2018?!

I don't know all the nuances of the debate and I am not very articulate but that's why I lurk and learn.

Discussing this with my husband today I was able to articulate what makes the whole thing so ridiculous: sex is binary and fixed, gender is fluid and easily malleable (as you say Duggees). Yet what we are seeing currently is TRAs and politicians and policy makers arguing that gender is binary and fixed and sex is fluid and therefore malleable!!! The literal opposite of the scientific truth. And, whereas it is easy and simple and positive to let everyone dress and act how they like (thus playing with ‘gender’, such as it is), it is difficult and problematic and massively life altering to let everyone ‘be’ a different sex (with reassignment surgery, facial surgery etc). It is so unlike humans to choose the harder, more awkward path, when normally we incline towards the easy. Yet here the path being followed is a) diametrically opposed to what science teaches us and b) incredibly difficult. It is so bizarre.

ScipioAfricanus nicely put.

I have been lurking for ages reading the GC threads, but have decided to de-lurk after reading @TinselAngels "I am a Trans Widow AMA", swiftly followed by the "Trans Widow Escape Committee" thread. I have cried my bloody lamps out.

I have talked and talked to any female who will listen (friends, work colleagues, sisters and my mother) about what is happening to our rights, and how we need to ensure our daughters have safe spaces. I always thought of myself as fairly liberal, but the older I get, the more GC I become. I only wish it had happened sooner.

So to all you amazing women out there, standing up for us and fighting the good fight - I salute you (with cake, obvs). I am not eloquent or well read enough to pitch in on t'internet, but by God I will keep doing it in real life to any bugger who will listen!

Thank you

Hello. Another lurker coming out to introduce myself.
I really value this forum and the threads, I have come to really appreciate posts from many of you intelligent posters. I have a Twitter account too and retweet stuff from gender critical feminists, although Twitter can get so vile and horrid that sometimes I need to take a break from it.
Thank you to everyone who posts regularly on this forum, I really believe the GRA such an important issue and we all need to speak out. It's frightening how women's rights are being potentially eroded, and the lies that are being told about GC feminists are disgusting.

My position is that I am 100% for trans rights. I'm not afraid of trans people, I think many are just trying to quietly live their lives and don't want any trouble. No, I am afraid of men. Men abusing self ID to prey on girls and women. This is absolutely an issue and cannot be brushed under the carpet. Men have always been a threat to women throughout history.
There are not many places where these issues can be discussed. Thank you Mumsnet for allowing us to have this conversation.

I have posted, but mostly lurk. Although I find it stressful I also love it. I love the articulate and humorous way poster express themselves. I find it so refreshing being in a space full of intelligent, thoughtful, funny women. I am a radical feminist at heart.

I say what I think (politely but firmly) about trans issues in general conversation and I think I have surprised some right-on friends and acquaintances by expressing my views ... I think at least some of it gets taken on board. My DH does the same. I had an excellent conversation with my mum about it - we disagree on many women's issues and I could tell she was worried I would start saying TWAW etc but although we come to the issue from different perspectives we were very much in agreement which was nice.

Thanks to all the posters who are braver and wittier than I am. Your posting is valued and appreciated.

Another lurker here. Thanks for all the enlightenment!

I'm most definitely gender critical. I can't express that opinion at work for various reasons.
I was really heartened when meeting up with old school friends to discover they shared GC views but felt they couldn't say so. There are so many of us out here.
Thanks all posters who have educated and enlightened me!

You've drawn me out of the woodwork too. I've been following a lot of this on Twitter, which is diffficult given that I work with kids and primarily use it for networking in education - you feel you can't be contentious unless it's about work. It hasn't appeared much on Facebook but I got properly fed up at having my head taken off over a perfectly reasonable comment by someone I know full well has always been a misogynistic donkey that has hidden behind trans ideology for twenty-odd years. That, along with a pep talk from at GC friend (and finding out I had several GC friends!), drove me to seek out radfem books and these boards, where I've been lurking for a few weeks. And also to donate to Fair Play and volunteer to do some background work for Women's Place. So that little MRA outburst has had a spectacularly opposite effect on me!

I have two daughters, one in high school. I'm desperately worried about how the "trans meme" is playing out for teenagers - years ago I worked peripherally in mental health and the units were fully 50% anorexic, with cutting rising rapidly. I'm afraid girls have found yet another way to hurt themselves. That's on a personal level, but there's so much to be horrified about (trans widows, I salute you), I barely know where to start.

I announced my lurker status above, but recent threads have meant that I now follow WPUK on Twitter and FB. I'm now a slightly more active and slightly more visible lurker than before. Thanks again for the threads FWR, your patient persistence is effective and valued

Thank you lurkers - as someone who has been discussing this for a long time, in real life before on MN, and who spent alot of my initial time setting out the basics to people - it really helps when we remind ourselves when faced with sheet fuckwitterage and derailing - that you are out there.

Thank you so much for existing.
My entire adult life I've been told to shut up about my experiences, life, and understanding by being in social circles with some of the scariest TRAs.
I didn't realise there was anything else until a few weeks ago, when I found this place.
The hell that happened to me was because of my body. My being born a baby girl, and all the assumptions and patriarchal bullsh*t flowing from that. Not some internal sense of 'gender' that I could 'identify' my way out of. If I'd even heard of being trans as a teenager then I would have told people that I didn't want to be a young woman, because it hurt so bloody much.
All my adult life I've been surrounded by people who talk as though being born female, being seen as a girl or woman was something that could be switched on and off. That made all of it my fault, the violence, the rapes, the constant, constant patriarchal violence and bullshit and pressure.
For years I attacked my body with starving and burning and knives because I hated it for being broken and vulnerable and a woman's body. Then I learned to disguise it with baggy clothes. Then I learned to fit in with the expectations, to carefully disguise myself with a costume that fitted in.
The TRAs told me again and again that the costume was all I was. That of course I'm a 'cis woman' because I've carefully camouflaged myself to fit in with society's expectations of what a woman should be so I can get a little bit of freedom, so the patriarchy will attack someone else instead of me.
I've been told by TRAs so many times to shut up about my experiences that are a result of my body. To shut up about my shitty childhood, my family who explicitly valued my brother more than me, who told me in words and deeds that my only goal should be marriage. Over and over again I've been told by TRAs to shut up about this, that somehow it would have made no difference to how my family treated me and my brother if I'd been the one with the penis.
Thank you so much. I've spent the last few weeks reading these boards and intermittently crying because there are people who GET IT and don't think it's my fault.

I am terrified of what happens next. If I'm open about being GC I will lose everything, and I am very likely to face physical violence. My partner will lose everything just for staying with me, and might leave.

I am so damn scared. But I can't keep lying, and I can't take being made to believe that a lifetime of patriarchal abuse is my fault because being a woman is something I somehow could have chosen to avoid.

Hello, I'm a mental health social worker and have had a rough time this week trying to work out a particular service users history. Female name, but the case notes said 'he'. Think services after probation. Phone call after phone call, I eventually get told this person is non binary, I don't even know what that means? (apart from a two day google spree). If this is a thing as a social worker, where is the bloody training? Long story short I'm watching this thread with interest.

allycatt It might be worth doing an advance search 'non-binary' on FWR. There's been discussion on quite a few threads, especially in the last few weeks.

Lisa Muggeridge is a SW and writes here

Recent thread discussing a guide for SW & LAC:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3324578-Vunerabilities-of-Looked-After-Children-Social-Work-CP-restricted-by-affirmation-requirement-Trans-Youth-in-Care-Toolkit

relevent discussion (2016):
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/2745747-Trans-in-childrens-and-young-peoples-services

Also a wide ranging thread about failings / failures of Safeguading frameworks:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/a3301266-Safeguarding-girls-and-protecting-women-post-Jimmy-Saville-metoo

I need somewhere to start learning, because all my adult life I've been surrounded by the wrong side of this.
Please can people recommend something like an 'introduction to feminism' textbook?
Not just websites on the problem with trans self-ID, I think I need to catch up on wider issues too.

Avid lurker, and everything about your post OP - 100 times yep! Like other people have said, generally I just lurk because by the time I read the thread it's 18 pages in and so many other people have already said, way more eloquently, what I was thinking.

Getting increasingly horrified by the BS...thinking 'is it me?' 'AM I actually on the wrong side of history?' 'but I'm pretty sure I'm NOT bigoted / hateful etc, but this is all utter BS, and it is pissing me off the way women's rights are SILENTLY being swept under the carpet....' etc. etc. It's like gaslighting on a massive scale. So I breath a little sigh of relief every time I see one of these threads on MN, so many intelligent articulate voices calmly and clearly and often wittily debunking all the TRA rubbish.

UndercoverGC
THere have been some threads with book recommendations in the last couple of months. Worth a search.

I'm reading Germaine Greer's 'The Whole Woman' at the moment which I'd recommend.

THere's a video of her lecture about it here:
www.youtube.com/watch?sns=fb&v=sVzYi4bRNwQ&app=desktop

UndercoverGC

If it's any consolation, and your awful experiences notwithstanding, you sound utterly switched on, already.

I can't help you with an introduction to feminism book, I'm sorry. I'm not an academic feminist.

Reading what other women here have said, following the links, is a great place to start.

Also, they will absolutely be able to recommend books to you.

What you have been through is not your fault. Your perception and interpretation of what has happened, is entirely accurate.

Stick around. If nothing else, the recipes are normally spot on!

Please can people recommend something like an 'introduction to feminism' textbook?

No idea about an overall introduction, but I'm a newbie to feminist theory too and The War on Women and The Gender Delusion are both on my list to read.

sorry its late but thanks for the links @ROwantrees, I seriously can't believe what I'm reading here?

sorry, but, I cant believe this shit is even being considered? 100 years after the first females got the vote? its regression. To be honest, I never considered how important my rights as a woman are, I'm now thinking I have seriously taken them for granted? This self ID stuff cant be real, right? sex segregation is about women being physically weaker therefore more able to be raped? was that not the point? if we get rid of the definition of man and woman, woman will be dominated again physically, I'm seriously shocked by this crap. A feminine man still has more strength than a female. I'm still trying to process this..I see you are all fully informed. This is the first I've heard of this. I assumed transwomen went to male prisons, unless they had their privates removed? Is it true 90% keep their male genitalia? surely not, what makes them a woman if they have physically female bodies, I don't get it?

I have grave concerns and I do tend to lurk. I don't want anyone hurt but honestly I feel no one is even allowed to talk/ask questions/debate it. Same as the women only lists. TBH I would like to support Corbyn but this whole issue and the way he shuts it down makes me feel NO.NO. NO. Who will stick up for women and I hate this 'cis' term. I am a woman and no one has the right to demean it by putting on a prefix.

I assumed transwomen went to male prisons, unless they had their privates removed?

current thread discussing the prisons' policies:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3334473-BBC-reality-check-on-trans-prisoners