USA gender critical resources forums etc?

[GrinitchSpinach]

I am an American poster who lurked Mumsnet for years while I lived (and used my pesky irrelevant female body to gestate and bear children) in the UK. I've moved back to the US recently.

You wonderwomen have been so welcoming, and I will stay here to post where I feel I have something to contribute, but I sometimes feel... rude? intrusive? posting about nitty-gritty details of American law on a British forum. I mean, to some extent it's relevant because the AWA movement is international and affects us all. Nevertheless, I wondered whether anyone can point me to a similar forum or space for American gender critical women?

My sense is that the Obama regulations slipped in almost entirely under the radar (I'm not really sure because I was overseas, gravely ill, and then pregnant in that time frame), and that consequently most American women have no earthly clue about all the implications of the AWA movement. The Democratic political sites I've followed for years are still very much in the "ladies, move over and be kind to the most oppressed minority EVER" mode, and the little glimmers of dissent I've seen there have been stomped down quickly with shouts of "T*RF!"

I have two young daughters and feel I owe them not only online pushback against extremist misogynists, but maybe also...gulp...real-life activism of the sort the brilliant UK women have organized, but I don't know where to begin. I can't believe that we are now having to re-fight battles we thought had been won when my mother was a girl.

The Reddit Gender Critical forum is much more North America focused, I think.

Ha! Thanks very much, both. I will resolve to investigate these leads and encourage my daughters to identify as litigators. (The older one is well on her way already...'Mommy, you only said not to climb on the chair; you didn't say we couldn't dangle upside down from it!' while I grumble about the letter and the spirit of the law).

Please keep posting here as well, this is a worldwide movement on the AWA side so we have to do the same on the pro women side.

I lurk GC reddit most days and it’s good to see issues being cross posted - I think there are quite a few AUS/NZ posters over there too (we have a few but the time zones thing makes it less viable to interact in a conversational way).

Yes, please keep posting!

Awww, thanks for the encouragement, BettyDuMonde and LangCleg. I've been reading your posts so long I am slightly starstruck to have a personal welcome from you.

MagicMix thank you for pointing me to Reddit. I kind of hate the format over there and find it hard to read, but I will persist because there is certainly a lot of information.

Materialist thank you for all the fascinating leads. I actually watched an hour-long video from the Hands Across the Aisle site, of the panel they did at the (gasp) Heritage Foundation last year. I found it incredibly interesting and worthwhile. It gives me some measure of hope to see radfem lesbians and conservative Christians able to find common ground on this issue while agreeing respectfully to disagree on most other things. It actually gave me the notion that if only Republicans would elect their women more often, there could actually be some real bipartisan progress in Washington on some issues...

Of course this is the group that AWAs point to when howling false accusations that British groups are receiving funding from American fundamentalists (actually Hands Across the Aisle is all-volunteer and unfunded). But the volume of the howling directed at this grassroots handful of women volunteers makes me think AWAs recognize how powerful women's voices can be when we join together...

Link to video: handsacrosstheaislewomen.com/2017/02/17/biology-isnt-bigotry-why-sex-matters-in-the-age-of-gender-identity/

I think I will also post this on the "Shit...Trump" thread.

There are two Reddit groups, GenderCritical and Gender_Critical. The first is a lot busier than the second.

Both are predominantly American and I'd guess the average age is a lot younger than MN.

If you want to post on other Reddit groups you might be wise to have two identities as a lot of the groups have both GC ones marked as hate subs so if you try to comment elsewhere using an identity you've used on a GC sub you may be deleted and even banned which, considering what's acceptable in loads of subs, is insane.

I'm extremely cautious of walking with the devil to the end of the bridge. Heritage is still the tank where the KKK and John Birch Society came to rest. Not feminist, not pro women's rights.

OTOH, Obama's DOJ is the admin that pushed the idea that anti-sex discrimination was essentially the same as anti-gender discrimination, and Title 9 protections for women, including sports, had to be extended to the male-bodied.

Outside of Reddit and a few lesbian blogs, I don't find much out there. Everybody is kinda busy trying to save the country frankly, plus it hasn't come to a head like it has in the UK. Every gay organization is pushing trans because it's the only way to raise money now that gay marriage is settled (more or less. watch the court).

Some background on the current state of play from the founder of MichFest if you like:

www.afterellen.com/general-news/565301-setting-the-record-straight-about-michfest?fbclid=IwAR3rABCJiFmuSpfeLzG1CQBCYtfmwpg-dQYMyWMUQGNx51syxnUxISTp-BU#AVdmUlmR3ErwEVZy.01

Peach Yogurt has her own forum Genderhammer which is based in Europe but the posters are from all over the world. It’s quiet compared to MN but protects us in case of the event that these boards were closed down, we could regroup over there.

I'd definitely welcome reading posts about how everything is panning out in the U.S. We really need to unite because we have so much work ahead of us to quash this awful movement. I'm sure it's only going to benefit us all to share ideas and stay updated on what's happening around the world. So a warm welcome from me too. And your daughters sound great, even if they do sound alarmingly male. Have you tried steering them away from the climbing and the swinging and towards dolls and make up? They'll be getting ideas that girls can strong and physically active, otherwise

The american reddit is not nearly as sensible as MN. The rules are long and complex, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who can't access the private message area. Moderation is highly inconsistent, sometimes they give timeouts but most often just ban you with no warning at all.

Some young woman posted a thread, describing how much sexual abuse she'd suffered, and was asking if it was okay to be afraid of men and to not want to be around them. Several of the respondents were libfems, and made many comments to the effect that no matter how many times a young girl had been raped, she would be a "manhater" if she preferred to avoid men.

At first I tried being reasonable but as they continued I finally just told them to fuck off. I was banned from EVERY gender critical subreddit instantaneously. For defending the right of raped women to avoid men.

Can't say I recommend that sub!

Cheers ohello

I left reddit after a sealion told me it was only a matter of time before TW gave birth.

Some of those "libfems" there are concern trolls from the stalker sub doing performative feminism.

A lot of US women I know personally, and famous ones that I don’t, are posting ‘support our transgender friends’ stuff right now, because of the changes Trump is trying to make.

While I don’t want to not support transgender people, and of course think that they should live life free of fear and discrimination, I don’t think that there’s as much awareness of the current TRA agenda (agender? ) in the US so it’s very difficult to have a debate without looking prejudiced.

As I understand it, it's r/GenderCritical that you want, as the other has been infiltrated. That's where i lurk, anyhow.

And yes, I would welcome international posters here too - this madness particularly grips the English-speaking world (mainly because of the internet and our ridiculously ambiguous language) and our countries are where the money is flowing from to influence and pressure governments around the world. US posters in particular can be helpful on the "follow the money" front, I think.

Overall, we need to reach out and network...I've been watching the situation unfold in Aus and NZ with horror, but no means of connecting our knowledge and support to theirs. Peach's board draws people from all over, which is a good start.

Most of the "follow the money" sites I know are crowd sourced, and focussed on the climate change lobby (yes, I do things besides feminism and I usually even have a sense of humor which doesn't come out on a day we've had a bomber trying to assassinate people or slaughter worshippers in a synagogue -- so maybe I'll get it back after Trump.)

I promise to share what I find though. Most info currently is listed on conservative sites (which I wouldn't trust without a triple check).

waves to Lily sorry that happened to you!

Silentcrow afaik all the gc subreddits over there have the same mods, they just use different names. How else to explain my ban from ALL of them, instantaneously? I could still post everywhere else, just not in any of the gc subs. Whatever, their sub, their goofy rules, hope they enjoy their little dominion.

It's just sad tho because there's no place that I know about which would facilitate a large enough group of women to converge, develop political strategies, and most importantly, grow new members. America doesn't have a Posie Parker or Julie Bindel, there is no one to speak for us. America is getting walked on over there and there's no good base from which to organize.

Hands across the aisle does not have a forum. Reddit is a fratzone, it will never attract enough of the kind of women needed to get much done politically. FB is out because it's only a matter of time before Zuckerburg admits he's trans -- and please do notice how much personal info he has accumulated on anyone who posts over there. He will decimate you with even more money and influence than Pritzker.

What I think is needed, imo is a very large forum like mumsnet, which attracts people of all kinds, with all sorts of interests, and yet has a subforum where being gc is acceptable. We could grow genuinely new gc people from such a place. At Peachy's, you have to be already interested to arrive, so they're not really growing the total number of gc. And unless the website is monetized and can afford professional moderators like MN, you're always going to have the same old situation at reddit repeat itself which continually hemorrhages new gc people.

waves back to ohello.

I'm a big girl, but thx for the .

(I apologize if I seemed like I was acting out. I just seem bitter cuz I'm angry all the time these days.

The US has devious politics, and motives don't always show right away. Example, methinks Trump is aware women are unfriendly to his politics, so he intro'd his trans policy (selectively leaked) as a wedge issue. He's hoping to peel off some for the coming midterms. He takes an extreme stand; the other side takes an extreme stand. The people impacted get lost.

A Posie or Bindel? It comes down to timing. Right now, not a single US feminist who is perceived as standing with Trump or his policies will regarded seriously.

I'm in AU but I do 90% of my gender crit discussion in an American homeschooling group :) So probably not quite what you are looking for!

Previous posters are right - it's actually impossible to say even the mildest of things in that context without getting called a TERF or being told how nasty and selfish you are by women who are mostly Dems. I kinda roll with it, because it's important to share the gender critical perspective. Luckily there are some anti Trump conservative homeschoolers there who back up the pro woman perspective. You need a very thick skin to talk about this with most Dems, because you will get slammed.

I just read on Gender Critical reddit. It's a different crew, though there must be some Mumsnetters over there, because there's decent coverage of the situation in the UK.

Ohello Have you considered MeWe?

There's a few who have been banned from twitter and hating Facebook convening over there. It's slow to grow as groups are secret so you have to be invited and can't just find them but it feels safe so I am glad to have somewhere else lined up even though the numbers are small and activity is low so far.

www.androidpit.com/mewe-interview

Thanks, all!

ohello I think you are absolutely right on this:
What I think is needed, imo is a very large forum like mumsnet, which attracts people of all kinds, with all sorts of interests, and yet has a subforum where being gc is acceptable.

I had a peek at Babycenter, thinking that such a large site for mothers might be a natural parallel to Mumsnet, but the feminism forum there is not very active and any posts in the other areas that mention trans issues are not really addressing the political implications but more "how to support a trans child" stuff.

Lilly, Everybody is kinda busy trying to save the country frankly
Believe me, I am devoting every spare cent and minute to get out the vote in this election. (Even writing letters to infrequent voters while mumsnetting ). I truly believe that if Democrats don't win at least the House, American democracy may be finished. Add to that the heartbreaking violence this week and it is an absolutely terrifying time to live in our country.

I agree that we need to be cautious about our allies and am very worried that Trump and his ilk see pushback against the T as the thin end of the wedge against the LGB. But I don't think they'll be successful. Outside of Republicans' evangelical base, cultural attitudes have changed a lot over the past few decades. Polls of younger Americans, even in conservative states, show a much broader and ever-increasing acceptance of homosexuality.