Women's mental health is being damaged by our forced extinction.

[Womantheonlykind]

I just watched the parliamentary debate.

I am sick of the manipulative fraud, the suicide myth (lie lie lie) and TRA mental health tropes being pushed as a reason to remove women's identity and legal rights. Why is no one quoting the NHS statement on this?

What about our mental health?

I am unable to see an unconflicted peaceful future with me in it at the moment. The more I hear from this debate and the more I see incredibly valid objection to the erasure of women's identity crushed under the heel of the "be nice or be punished" boot together with the dismissal of ongoing violence by men (often in the guise of women) as irrelevant the harder I find it to cope.

The reality of being forced by my government to be complicit to some fantasy that goes against every scientific fact in my head is damaging to my mental health. The instant dismissal of all truthful data collection fries my logic chip.

The way child abuse is being legitimised and has been rushpushed into government health, social and education policy in less than a decade WITH NO ETHICAL EXAMINATION OR STUDY gives me nightmares and makes me sick to my stomach on a daily basis.

I am so angry, so distraught, so appalled that the total class erasure of women is expected to continue unnoticed and unimpeded. I know we are all doing our bit, I feel it is too late, the rug has been pulled from under us.

For me personally this has absolutely devastated me, my world view and self view is irreparably damaged.

I had one of those moments of bitter resentment earlier.

I have a disability. It’s not one you can see but when people see me they immediately know I have it. I went to the chemist to pick up a prescription. DS, who’s 11 was with me so I got him to sign the back of the prescription, because it’s difficult for me. The pharmacist said to DS, ‘why doesn’t she pay for her prescription?’ I was standing right next to DS and almost directly opposite the pharmacist who was on the other side of the counter. My obvious disability in no way suggests I can’t speak, in fact I’d just been having a conversation with the other woman working behind the counter, yet she asked that question of a 11 yo child, rather than directly addressing me.

Walking home it came into my mind that I had just been completely dehumanised, yet there are people kicking up a massive amount of stink because their preferred pronouns aren’t being used in their absence, and diversity policy nowadays seems to be all about those people, and the injury they might suffer, yet I get spoken passed, and about, right in front of my face like I’m too stupid or stigmatised to address directly. We’re progressive enough to be expected to perceive people’s feelings and address them according to their magical inner essences, just in case their lady dick feels disappointed, yet we still haven’t managed to teach people not to treat disabled people like an infectious disease.

I did challenge her btw, the pharmacist, because her conduct was completely unacceptable, but I still feel crap about it now. It’s fucking depressing because we have to change our language, and probably our whole lives the way things are going, and give up our hard won rights that protect us from actual harm, just to accommodate a small number of people’s feelings, yet disabled people continue to get shat on, discriminated against, and completely dehumanised because we don’t rank highly enough on that hierarchy of difference we keep getting told we’re creating. You know that virtue signalling point scoring system created by the ultra woke, the one with transpeople at the top and disabled people And women at the bottom.

@womantheonlykind - I have depression and anxiety, and the trans rights/erasure of women is definitely having a negative impact on my mental health. I struggle to get to sleep anyway, but find myself lying awake worrying about the whole thing.

I do sometimes try to have a reasonable and polite debate with people from the other side, but have been told I am saying TERF-type things. I feel that anything I do or say about this is like beating my head against a brick wall.

I have reached the stage of life where regardless of the outcome,I will not be complying with any of the demands made by men wanting access to single sex female spaces.
Women have economic muscle.

This. At 72 I'm beyond caring what people think of me. Having only recently woken up to the dangers of what is happening, I've no intention of stopping the fight any time soon.

I feel the same OP. Reading about the debate today gave me a real crash.

Me too. It has set off an immense amount of anxiety for me over the last year or so, its so bloody depressing. Although it is mitigated to some degree by the amazing work being done by groups such as FPFW.

Jonny Best comment:
twitter.com/JonnnyBest/status/1065387327793635329

embedded link in tweet:
'Please join us in asking Stonewall to reconsider its transgender policies and approach'
(extract)
"Stonewall’s promotion of the concept of 'gender identity’, which has it that a man or woman is anyone (of either sex) who identifies as such, is also undermining the basis of lesbian, gay and bisexual identities as orientated around same-sex attraction. Lesbians in particular are coming under pressure to accept male-bodied trans women into their spaces and as sexual partners.

At the moment, Stonewall is failing in three key ways:

By uncritically adopting a form of transgender politics which undermines the sex-based rights of women and the concept of homosexuality itself
By refusing to recognise the diversity of viewpoints on these issues, including among LGBT people.
By seeking to prevent public debate of these issues by branding as transphobic anyone who questions Stonewall’s current trans policies.
We call on Stonewall to:

Acknowledge that there are a range of valid viewpoints around sex, gender and transgender politics
Acknowledge specifically the conflict that exists between transgenderism and sex-based women’s rights
Commit to fostering an atmosphere of respectful debate, rather than demonising as transphobic those who wish to discuss or dissent from Stonewall’s current policies" (continues)
www.ipetitions.com/petition/dear-stonewall-please-reconsider-your-approach

I am so pleased with this result I wanted to share it. (Well, half-pleased because they are still using the word "gender" on another part of the site. But it's a start.)

A couple of days ago, I emailed the NHS to complain that they were using the word "gender" instead of "sex" on a form.

Today, I got this reply:

Dear [name]

We carried out a review of the content of ‘sex vs gender’ in the BMI calculator. Based on this review, and referencing:

The Government Digital Service information regarding 'gender or sex' - design-system.service.gov.uk/patterns/gender-or-sex/

The findings of the Scottish Government - blogs.gov.scot/digital/2018/07/05/sex-and-or-gender-working-together-to-get-the-question-right/

And an LGBT survey on sex and gender identity - equalities.blog.gov.uk/2017/07/28/lgbtsurvey-asking-about-your-sex-and-gender-identity/

we're changing the wording from 'Gender (at birth) - Male/ Female' to 'Sex - Male/Female' and adding some additional content:

'For children, BMI centile is gender specific. For both children and adults, we give more personalised information based on whether you are male or female.'

This should be visible early next week, along with other content tweaks amends based on our ongoing review process.

Thanks again for your help in raising this matter.

Agree op. A survey would be good. We need to publicise that this is affecting women now.

Also agree with this:
I absolutely think that MPs should be forced to use the same health services as the average commoner. No private room for extra money. (Same goes for the school they send their kids to). This type of shit can only happen because politicians are isolated from their decisions.

It helps me to look at it this way: if this nonsense does go through, this is going to force feminism to a whole new wave/step forward. As this starts to impact on the general public and they realise the realities there is going to be utter fury and a lot of very, very angry women seeing the light. We're 52% of the population, and we're the half that organise and talk to each other.

So maybe this feminist revolution will be all about boundaries, sexual autonomy, consent, privacy, dignity, No, and Look The Fuck At Male Violence You Cowards. Some initial campaigns: that every 'single gender toilet' is converted to floor to ceiling cubicles with sinks. That women who require single sex provision and cannot access 'single gender' provision have a script of what to say to management/service providers, role models who will go into those services and build confidence in other women to say, you know what, we're not comfortable and not doing this either, I'll use the single sex provision too please. A campaign on the right to safety and freedom from harassment/compliance with human rights for female prisoners. A campaign about the damage to teenaged girls afraid to use the toilet/holding on all day/missing school rather than use mixed sex facilities and the need to ring fence a proportional amount of single sex facilities alongside mixed sex ones. How about fund raising for the Freedom Programme to become a normal thing every woman knows about and has a working knowledge of the content of. Lesbian movements that are clearly, cheerfully, biological females only and make it clear that it is ok to be female, gay and to be exclusively attracted to biological females, and that anyone who wants to change your mind on your sexuality is someone with a problem that isn't yours.

This is has already angered and inspired a hell of a lot of tough women who believed that equality for women was a thing until this happened. Many more will wake up to this reality. Organisations like Fair Play for Women are only just getting started.

We are farmed domestic animals. We exist solely because men allow us to exist because it benefits them.

If they decided to have us rounded up and shot, they could. We couldn't do the same to them.

Our access to employment, healthcare and education is controlled by men.

I'm autistic. My mental health has suffered a great deal due to this attack on my group. Truth, observable facts and accuracy are what keep me sane. If I'm faced with a person in a costume I feel frightened, if I'm faced with fakery I feel frightened, if I'm asked to lie I can't. I won't lie. I spent over 40 years pretending I was neurotypical when I wasn't. I didn't know this at the time, but now I do, there's no going back.

I didn't want to start a new thread on this as this is just the one. Says better what I wanted to say.

Robert Webb said he could just disengage from politics, that's fair enough. I was ok before, but I'm trying to study now and politics and sex and gender need to be discussed in groups and the cognitive dissonance is horrible. I feel so completely paranoid and humiliated. The obsessive checking over my language, the pointless ruminating keeping me awake. I wish I could just be cool.

This is a good thread to resurface now, when posters on another thread are discussing the BBC's refusal to discuss this issue, surely exacerbating mental health issues in women who are suffering but not allowed to voice or hear support.

Going out now but hope to get back to this in the a.m.

I suffer from anxiety and depression,and the seemingly relentless assault on women and girls and their rights has made me feel worse.
I'm worried for my DD's, especially the eldest,who is hoping to go to university next year. She will be the first in her extended family to go,but my pride in her achievement is spoilt by worry. She's a farm girl and knows that there are only two sexes,so I worry that she'll either inadvertently offend someone and end up ostracized or worse,or be brow beaten into accepting stuff she doesn't really believe,so she can fit in.

The feelings of 'betrayal' bother me. I don't mean that I have been literally betrayed by the new generation of feminists, but I do feel that they are defecating on the work I have done and on the sacrifices I have maid by turning into handmaidens for the sake of getting pats on the back right now while utterly not trying to think through the longer term consequences.

Yes. I feel lost in an alien landscape where nothing makes sense any more and I daren't even express an opinion on it in many places.

It's like being gaslit by an abuser, continually.

nepeta it feels unreal to see feminists and other women who should know better joining the misogynist witch hunt against other women.

@TheChampagneGalop

nepeta it feels unreal to see feminists and other women who should know better joining the misogynist witch hunt against other women.

Exactly. And not being able to justify the underlying theory at all in their new 'inclusivity'. I have asked questions and the answers I have received are shallow and clearly show no thinking going into the consequences of essentially erasing the sex class women.

Totally feel the same. I'm so saddened primarily by other women who don't want to question this ideology and most of it is in the name of 'niceness'. I'm in Ireland and this is not been discussed in mainstream media. Women are really hated throughout the world. When really we are such a powerful force

If we are not equal why are so many men and trans women and their leeches terrified of us?

How can it be questioned?

Nobody wants to feel like this.

”I'm worried for my DD's, especially the eldest,who is hoping to go to university next year. She will be the first in her extended family to go,but my pride in her achievement is spoilt by worry. She's a farm girl and knows that there are only two sexes,so I worry that she'll either inadvertently offend someone and end up ostracized or worse,or be brow beaten into accepting stuff she doesn't really believe,so she can fit in.“

I suspect the majority of students are actually rolling their eyes at the pronoun brigade. My lesbian daughter started last year and came home more gender critical than she went.

Bit outing this, but apparently she got so sick of being asked her pronouns in the early days, after a few drinks, she indicated her body and said “I’m a woman, obviously.”

She came home safe and sane, despite it all. All that assumes she’s not doing gender studies at Goldsmiths....

*she’s not doing gender studies... I should have put that line in a new paragraph and made it obvious that was about your daughter and not mine...

It's terrorism.

That's reassuring AnyOldPrion thank you. Good for your daughter! DDs best friend has lesbian parents,so it's not like she's had a super sheltered life and not come across different lifestyles before.

I can only describe myself as being in a state of constant tension, suppressed rage and a sort of grief. I see the ‘glow ups’ on instagram, the celebration of ‘fabulousness’ and the cries of ‘you go girl’ like it’s one long party of dress up and skirt twirling. But then the ‘vulnerability’ and the delicate mental health. What about the fucking mental health of women who feel absolutely stymied, who’s kids are coming back from school and policing our own thoughts in our own houses. I can barely articulate what I want to say and I can’t speak freely even on here. My mental health is suffering but no one cares about women or does Powerpoints on our rate of suicides. Our politicians are shite - I am in Scotland and it’s a fucking shit show as far as women’s rights are concerned. You’d think it would be better with a female First Minister but she’s not listening, or ignoring, or just has her eyes on other prizes.

But I can’t look away from the magazine features and insta posts where people have spent thousands upon thousands of pounds to look ‘gorgeous’ or where another teenager is smouldering at the camera, caressing their beard with their shirt open and scars on show - some even saying ‘what a great boyfriend I make, I understand periods first hand!’ And the sex work and the fetishes and then the news where women, ordinary women, women who have to put up with sexist shit and violence, and doctors not listening to their pain, suffering from endometriosis and taking up to 18 years to be diagnosed, if they’re lucky!!

I want to crawl under a rock sometimes and surrender. In the words of Courtney, ‘Go on, take everything’

I can’t though can I. But I just wish I could look in a crystal ball, five years into the future, and see if there’s been any resolution, any genuine change or support that hasn’t come at the cost of our rights, our safety or our sanity. Sorry for the rant. I’ll live to fight another day I think.