Any Irish feeling a bit isolated...

[SuperStylin]

...for being critical of the gender critical?

The referendum was such a high but the repeal groups I was part of have gone on to become equality groups (I have no issue with equality but the issues they are fighting for seem in almost every case to be to the detriment of women)
It’s gone from such a high to such a low as it’s overwhelming how quickly people will dismiss you as transphobic for airing a genuine concern.

Wondered is there anyone in a similar situation or if you can point me in the direction of likeminded groups?

Thanks for the validating opinion dinosaurkisses! I don’t claim to have been an activist; I’m a late bloomer. That’s possibly why I feel something I belatedly (but actively) signed up for is fast becoming something I did not sign up for.

I get the sense that a lot of the younger feminists have spent the last 3 years wearing a Repeal jumper and having the occasional spat on Twitter, thinking that's their bit done for feminism.

Yes! That's it exactly. Choicely-choice feminism that lets them be one of the "cool girls". Feminism-lite.

Fat fucking chance they would have called themselves feminists when that involves taking an unpopular position, like trying to advocate for abortion rights back in the 70s, 80s, or even the 90s.

Just reread what I write about young feminists and it comes off a bit sneery

I’m only 30 myself so don’t want to give the impression I’m a wizened campaigner aged by decades of activism. But I do respect those who are, and I’ll listen to them unlike many who think that TERF = Menopausal Madwoman.

I've just read this thread, which I found interesting :

www.heymammy.com/viewtopic.php?f=138&t=108230&sid=fbb31ecc5f64d6da9ebcd968c644f8c4

It amuses me coz I have 'caught' some of the lads at work pulling on their trousers in the communal locker room but they were apologetic, as they were just trying to do a quick change without having to go down the hall into the single sex shower/toilets/changing area. Slightly embarrassing but not really annoying. Lots of cyclists using the facilities. We're actually lucky to have good showers and changing facilities.

Forever that link doesn't work for me.

It did remind me to dig out this thread from Rollercoaster last year. It started out with a fluffy post about Caitlin Jenner on the Late Late, but then turned into a full-on debate about the risks of male bodies in female spaces. There are a few deleted posts but the GC view predominates, which fits with my RL experience: most people aren't giving it a lot of thought, but as soon as they do, they're GC.
www.rollercoaster.ie/Discussions/tabid/119/ForumThread/141515319/Default.aspx

That thread got very heated. The person banging the TWAW drum is actually imminently sensible on other topics but completely blinkered on this one.

I just looked there and she's deleted all her posts on that thread. It's one of the reasons I don't like RC. Threads make no sense when posters go back and delete posts.

Was Datun on alter-egoing as Marcon on RC??

Great points everyone, about how Irish feminism is the way it is. I've pondered it a lot myself too and you're right, there's an overcompensating quality about it and a shallowness that doesn't acknowledge how far we've come in a very short time.

Going full "old codger" here but you're spot on about the Repeal shirts and the young women - it was so easy to go along with it this time round.

Just for context, I remember the time when the student unions were the only places still giving out abortion info after SPUC shut down Open Line Counselling and the Well Woman with their injunctions. The spirit was defiant in Trinity, but there was a vote among students of the main universities in 89/90 as to whether they wanted abortion info published in the student union magazines. UCD voted no. Just think about that - that the majority of the now 40something alumni of UCD were voting no back then to even publishing the names and addresses of abortion clinics. That is what we were up against, in middle class educated South Dublin. As for the rest of the country, forget it.

I don't want to be disparaging about young women either, but what they are giving away isn't theirs to give. They don't remember the Kerry Babies, Ann Lovett, Eileen Flynn, the abortion referendum of 83, the X case, that time when it seemed that women's bodies were a national battleground. They have no right to hand over women's spaces, women's rights, womanhood itself, to abusive narcissistic men who are using them.

They don't remember the Kerry Babies, Ann Lovett, Eileen Flynn, the abortion referendum of 83, the X case, that time when it seemed that women's bodies were a national battleground.

That's exactly it. There was a lot of solid campaigning done around the 8th, don't get me wrong. But from surveys done after the vote, it showed that most people had made their mind up before campaigning had even started. It's people like Catherine Corless exposing Tuam, and the women from In Her Shoes that helped changed mass opinion, not a student tweeting "Get your rosaries off my ovaries".

I don't mean to undermine the grassroots activism that ultimately resulted in the referendum passing- my bug bear is that it's become a trophy of Irish Liberal Feminists without any real acknowledgement that this was a war of attrition fought over decades, not something that a few graduates campaigned for between their J1 and graduating from Arts at UCD.

Yep. I think it's interesting that while the main pro-choice orgs went full on trans kool-aid with their "pregnant people" line, they dropped it for the final Together For Yes push. Because they know most people don't buy it.

I don't want to take away from their achievement either. But it amuses me to see some of the infighting that's happened in the wake of the Yes vote, with disputes over who did what, who deserves credit etc. I saw one young woman demand of another on Twitter "Where were YOU in 2012?"

2012

@MotherForkinShirtBalls not Datun but definitely inspired by her

www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/health-family/ireland-s-trans-children-i-didn-t-know-what-trans-meant-i-just-felt-that-i-was-a-woman-1.3636882?localLinksEnabled=false

In the Irish Times today. A young trans man, only 20 now, on hormones for over a year, says about his pre-transition self:

“I feel like she was my twin sister, and we share the same memories. When I look back, I feel like I’m standing beside her in a memory. I miss her. In a funny way, I’d love to sit down and have a chat with her. She’s in me now, and we live in each other. She would have wanted it the way it is now. But I think it’s sad that no-one is going to know her.”

I've decided to "do something" and registered to go to the guides inclusion training next month. I'm going to need to do some serious research before I go and serious bravery when I get there so if anyone has any thoughts or references they can throw my way, I'd greatly appreciate it.

I saw that article SecondRow. I got as far as ‘assigned female at birth’ and was so annoyed I couldn’t read any further.

I know, Anonymous, I gritted my teeth to read it. Unquestioning adoption of the lingo by journalists is bad enough, but I think we have to listen to these young people to analyse all the messages society gave them growing up that made them feel not right as they were.

The person I quoted from above couldn't have short hair as a girl, it seems. It reminds me of my GNC sister, she went ahead and just had short hair, didn't shave her legs etc. And hell yes did they make her life a misery for it, boys, girls, it's the whole of society policing this crap. So I'm not in any way saying the person in the article should have just gone ahead, it's too painful for some people.

On a slight tangent I'm much more gender-conforming myself, but how much of that was a free choice either? As a teenager I saw what was meted out to my sister so yeah.

Of course I agree Second. After I read your quote I went back and read the full article. It just made me so sad for them (that may sound patronising, it isn't meant to). There has to be a better answer than a lifetime of medication and elective surgery to cut off healthy tissue. There just has to be.

Apparently Prime Time is going to be talking about the GRA and they are looking for gender critical women, has anyone heard about this?

I happened across a copy of the IT Saturday mag today but I haven't had a chance to read the article yet. I'll gird myeto do it later. I'm very cross though that Jennifer O'Connell has written it. She recently had a piece on raising 'gender neutral' children and someone tweeted her about the clear difference between sex and gender and she seemed to understand.

Not heard about the prime time piece. Anything on the rte website about it?

I can’t see anything on the website Mother - I don’t even remember where I read it now.

I don't see anything on twitter either. Anyone have any rte contacts??

From Posie
RTE's Prime Time current affairs programme is looking at the proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act and would like to speak to Irish women who broadly agree with me (Posie). It would be great if more women were heard in Ireland as there so far it is assumed there is no opposition.
I have an email address, so you will need to PM me

I have PMd people on this thread. Im not a journalist myself, far from it. just the messenger of the messenger!

Sounds like Prime Time have contacted Posie directly, but not put out anything public, is that it? I checked their FB and Twitter earlier today too.

Somehow I wasn't expecting things to go head-to-head in Ireland quite so soon.

Nettle's thread
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3382826-A-callout-to-Irish-Feminists