Writing from Twitter prison!

[Glinner]

I've received a twelve-hour ban from Twitter so I thought I'd take the chance to say hello lovely mumsnetters! Thank you for all the support and kind words and very proud to be on your side.

I'm not deleting the tweets because I stand by them and there's nothing offensive about them. See for thyself, fellow witches!

Hearing what I thought was a camp male voice on Woman's Hour saying that it was perfectly reasonable for women to have to have painted nails etc in hospitality jobs (this was just after a significant challenge was won so women didn't have to wear heels). The male voice then want onto to say that it was also perfectly fine that women had to shave their legs because they were 'dirty' if not!
I found out later the voice was India Willoughby's. Read Jenni Murray's reasonable and balanced article in the Sunday Times when she described her rage at this so felt reassured. I was horrified and bemused that Jenni Murray was publically rebuked and then silenced by the BBC.

I didn't fully appreciate how serious it was until reading the article about an NHS trust apologising after a transexual nurse went to carry out a smear test on a woman who had specifically requested a female nurse last December. That led me here to this amazing group of women who had realised what was happening and had been warning and discussing it for a long time.

I think I know the person who made the report that caused the demise of gender trender, saw a post on twitter earlier boasting about it

Besmirching Aw shucks, thanks. My other prize today is scoring tickets to a WPUK event on 4th Dec. They and you all here are bloody fantastic.

The cotton ceiling. The harassment and demonisation of Magdalen Berns at Edinburgh University for knowing the difference between gender and sex. The reporting of Lauren Jeska's attempted murder.

Above all the inexplicable abandonment of normal medical ethics in mainstreaming unevidenced treatment pathways for gender dysphoric children that involve major surgery and lifelong medication and have side effects that may include sterilisation, loss of IQ, osteoporosis and heightened cancer risk.

It was the Haddock for me. I caught the Posie interview and he it was so ludicrous that it got me reading. Once I started to read, I saw the safeguarding issues and was appalled. I investigate safeguarding concerns for a job. I cannot believe that so many organisations are blindly following this bullshit and subsequently endangering all children in their care. The more I've read, the angrier I've become.

I can't remember when I first became aware that there was a serious problem but it was definitely thanks to the women on here. Like so many other people I started off thinking "this can't really be true" and did some more reading - and that's the point at which you discover that not only is the thing you thought unbelievable true, but there are ten even more unbelievable things that are also true, and ten more after them. A bit like the awfulness of Donald Trump, there is no bottom of the TRA lunacy barrel that can ever be scraped.

The thing that made me more vocal on the issue was the resignation of my local councillor Ann Sinnott earlier this year over the issue of the public loos (covered briefly in the current issue of Private Eye) and the hysterical nonsense about it generated by Lib Dem trans activist/candidate for Ann's seat, Sarah Brown. Seeing people talk absolute cock (term used advisedly) about transphobic hate literature being handed out in the ward during the election, when all that was happening was Ann handing out WPUK leaflets a couple of times, really pissed me off.

Mostly though, I just wanted to say thank you so much for everything you are doing. As you can tell from my username, I'm also a bit of a fan of some of your other work, too.

I think I know the person who made the report

I hear it was the waxing guy.

Fanning myself (either a menopausal hot flush or fangirl moment)
Sadly in my case it's menopause, never heard of ye til I came on here.
Just so you think it was worth it, 1 I will now watch father Ted, 2 when I sober up I do the most divine mocha cake, it's yours. File included.

I am still stunned by the misogyny that goes on. Just recently had my backside pinched. Ffs I am old now. This shit shouldn't happen any more. So to my peak trans moment:-
I was mooching around on MN as you do and I saw something called self id. It sounded a bit bonkers, anyone can id as whatever , mouse, moose, septugenarian, woman.
Immediately I thought but bad men will use that as an excuse/reason to follow women into shelters, toilets, hospital wards. Ya know cos I can critically think like.
And then I went down a rabbit hole that included stefonknee and various.

Looking at the reason for your suspension I'm probably late to realising sex isn't one of Twitter's protected characteristics. It's all about how well you conform to sexual stereotypes aka "gender" boo hiss

Had a look at @Glinner’s Wikipedia page history:

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:History/Graham_Linehan

Edited recently by none other than “ChiveFungi” who appears on this exposé of TRA editing of feminist Wiki pages.

mobile.twitter.com/socjuswiz/status/1051090625448353792

Glinner’s wiki page still refers to “anti-trans” in reference to the Pride protesters.

Wow, welcome Glinner!

I'd never noticed before that Twitter can ban on the basis on posts regarding race, religion, etc etc and serious disease

It was being called a TERF anytime I discussed biology in a feminist space, this was between 5- 7 years ago? It wasn't happening at all on MN and I'd been a regular of the FWR space and found it most confusing when I ventured elsewhere. Funny enough mothers weren't the first to buy into the idea that vaginas were gender neutral.

Lovely to have you here.

For me there were 2 stories that turned me. I used to very supportive of trans people.
A teenage boy being appointed as a Labour Women's Officer.
Laurel/Gavin Hubbard competing against women in the weightlifting.

Then it was the behaviour of the transactivists who have made it impossible for women to even talk about women's issues without them calling it transphobic.

I'm afraid I belong to 'general public' and I'm going, 'wtf?' - literally only heard about 90% of this stuff yesterday, here on MN. And have been stuck on my computer following link after link going, literally, 'wtf, wtf, wtf ?' - like a broken record.

I feel like I got transported into a parallel universe and I'm still waiting for someone to pinch me and bring me back.

Children and safeguarding.
The fact that lobby groups are taking materials into schools that actively undermine our well evidenced safeguarding rules - telling teachers to keep the secrets of gender non conforming children, advocating not telling parents and telling schools that teenagers of the opposite sex must share changing rooms, showers and toilets if one child wants it.
AND the unethical medical experimentation on children using untested for purpose drugs.

ALL happening in plain sight.

So glad to see you here!

It started for me with Labour allowing self-ID for all women shortlists, I thought they were allowing those with a GRC and was horrified when I learnt that wasn't the case. I learnt more talking in a Labour group on Facebook, about what was happening in women's prisons and the threat to women in refuges etc...it was really concerning seeing the shut down in debate and how people were blind to obvious risks, plus the joy from some men at the thought of women losing their safe spaces and rights. I gradually found more groups and people on Twitter on follow and learnt more. The peaks keep on happening!

My climb to the Peak began when the son of a close friend came out as a trans woman 2 years ago. He had found going to Uni and making friends quite stressful. Prestigious London Uni, prestigious course.
His mental health suffered dramatically, he was quite immature and vulnerable in hindsight. But by the end of the third year he had made new friends through political activism and came out of his shell, some of these activists are named regularly on these boards.
Everything that he had set out to do with his life post graduation has been put on hold. His existence is centred purely on his activism and his journey through the NHS for laser, hormone blockers, breast implants etc. He hasn’t worked or continued his studies in the field he has trained in and has devoted his life fully to his appearance.
His parents are truly wonderful and understanding people but your patience can only stretch so far as a Mum when your son calls out your cis privilege to your face when you try to voice concerns about his future and what was to be his career.
My friends, his parents and younger siblings have been torn apart by his journey and can’t see where it is really leading beyond his desire to look as feminine as possible. His activism has led him into some really dodgy and morally questionable situations, his old friendship circle has been jettisoned entirely.
It is painful to watch. And yet he is just not happy, although he looks to all intents like a beautiful woman it is just not enough.
This all opened my eyes to the whole Trans concept and Trans rights agenda, many nights around the kitchen table with a glass of wine chatting through these issues and helping my friends in their efforts to be loving and supportive to their child.

I'm afraid I belong to 'general public' and I'm going, 'wtf?' - literally only heard about 90% of this stuff yesterday, here on MN. And have been stuck on my computer following link after link going, literally, 'wtf, wtf, wtf ?' - like a broken record.

I know it's a shocker when the scales fall from your eyes but I'm so glad you've stuck around and gone to look for yourself. Terrifying though it is, it's always better to know.

@glinner welcome to our home. I’m a bit drunk but I think you’re fucking great. Keep fighting the good fight.

Guys, would you do me a favour and use this thread to share the moments where you realised something was wrong?

I had a partner for two years who at the time said they were transvestite but now are a transwoman. I've been on good terms with this person for twenty years, their fetish (not an insult I'm open-minded, but I know this is what it is having been intimate with them) was never politicised before, and they didn't used to claim they were actually a woman either. It's only recently I started to see this, and seeing some 'kill a terf' type posts from other trans friends of theirs on their timeline wall. They would over-react to the slightest thing with aggression, which I found when I tried to make what I thought was a reasonable statement... That's when I went down a rabbit-hole reading about some of the things that had been happening lately, my eyes getting wider and wider at what I found.

PS - I've been a fan for years, even more so in light of recent events. I really feel all this is showing us which men really care about women, it means that much. It's more than that too, it's about standing up against Orwellian tactics. You're only human and I'm sure you must be sick of it, but I think we all appreciate it, big hug from me.

Welcome, Graham! My favourite Father Ted moment is Dougal looking at the huge red button on the plane.

What got me into this: Mumsnet. I think it must have been a couple of years ago. There was a long, impassioned thread when some regulars on Feminist Chat were imploring Mumsnet not to delete posts where people were saying nobody could change sex. (Full of people saying 'I am Spartacus' - have they all been deleted?) This seemed so obvious to me that I started reading through the tread trying to understand what the problem was. Down the rabbithole with a vengeance!

I set up an anonymous Twitter account so I could say what I thought. I can't say it under my own name because of work.

It's all very grim. A lot of people seem to have totally switched off their critical thinking faculty (if they have one) when it comes to this issue. Others, I suspect, have made a cynical decision that it's all rubbish but they need to ride the wave because it's fashionable and it doesn't directly affect them. Biggest group is probably people who are either ignoring it or who have a vague idea something's wrong but don't want to get involved.

Thank god for a few people like you, Graham, who are prepared to say what you think out loud.

For me, the single most pressing issue is what's happening to children and teenagers. I'm bothered by a lot of what's going on but that's the worst. Irreparable damage is being done to some. I can't understand how the medical profession is just letting it happen.

Welcome lovely boys! We've chatted on Twitter (I have a different name there) and I know Jonny has been here before but Glinner's first trip through the Radicalisation Portal is cause for celebration indeed.

Thank you for speaking up for women.

Graham - it's a long 'un, but you should read this thread:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3101834-trans-widows-escape-committee

Nobody ever gives the slightest thought to the wives and children of late transitioners.

I realised something was very, very wrong when they were alerting women to a sex offender woman who was on the loose, and sometimes disguised herself as a man.

Problem is, it was a man, who dressed as a woman, sometimes.

Lisa Hauxwell.