I Don’t Want to Talk About Trans Any More

[ToeCleavage]

As in, I’m just so fucking bored with it.

By which I don’t mean it’s not relevant or important that we debate these issues.

Just that they have - even negatively- infiltrated our spaces in every way possible. Even what we talk about.

What the fuck? Where will it all end?

"False dogma" - exactly.

I'm sick of being told what to believe. When I was made to go to church as a child, I knew I didn't believe. Likewise, I know I don't believe that human beings can change their sex.

Me too ... it's all so tedious. It's like dealing with small children weedling and pushing boundaries. Just No.

I want to move forward with something positive not keep having the same conversation with the same answers.

I'm bored of it and I'm I'm tired of being cross about it.

Absolutely. I’m so bored and tired of it all. And I’m doing so much less than so many other women, they must be exhausted. It’s taking up way too much of the intellectual energy that would be better spent on addressing other issues.

wasn’t there an NSPCC live chat event that got stopped because they were swamped with trans related questions from women here?

Only if you count as a ‘derail’ an organisation that concerns itself with safeguarding refusing to answer relevant safeguarding questions. In which case, they derailed themselves.

I'm tired of it too. Unfortunately, we have to keep talking about it, because it we don't there is the very real possibility that all the rights we take for granted will be lost. And if that happens we will be powerless to do anything about the other issues.

It's shit, but it's where we are. The second decade of the 21st century, the time when it was thought to be right, inclusive and a very good thing to take away rights from women and hand them over to men, and all because of a religious belief.

I hate that the hysteria from TRAs has made me sceptical every time I hear about an issue affecting LGB people, where as before I would have been immediately supportive.

Penny, I'm lesbian, & the LGBTetc acronym & the rainbow both feel actively hostile to lesbians nowadays as far as I'm concerned.

I think the TRAs are trying to wear us down. Personally I am shattered. But without universal consensus on what constitutes a woman, we can’t move forward on women’s rights.

It's a relay though - any particular person who needs a rest can take one and someone else will grab the baton instead. Bluntly, there are more of us than there are of them.

I love the relay idea AngryAttackKittens - I'm in 🙌🏼.

I am so fucked off that we are having to fight so hard for the same rights our foremothers fought for. It's so enraging. I'd much rather be fighting to improve the lives of women.

Unfortunately all the pimps, punters, preverts and pedos have found a good cause to get behind and tie us up. It is obvious that this is not led by old skool transsexuals. It's obvious they are male supremacists.

Exactly AAK, but we can’t stop talking about it.

So, what does sustainable activism look like then?

I suppose it will be different for everyone. I know I felt pretty exhausted after the GRA and the Sex and relationships education consultations. So, it's important to know that you can step back sometimes, so that you're stronger when you come back next time.

the gall of TAs to say that women like Julie Bindel aren't "real feminists" because they won't centre trans ideology in feminism. The distraction from women's causes, the assault on women's freedom, privacy, dignity, women's opportunities being taken away in sport and business. God it makes me so angry.

Well said, fellow Toe.

I started this thread after a few too many flaming sambucas and thought I’d come back to a bunfight, but glad to see that isn’t the case.

I agree we need to keep fighting. I’m just so sick of being in this position yet again in my lifetime.

I’ve noticed that the majority of conversations about trans issues have been driven by articles in the news, like those written by Janice Turner etc, and as a direct result of actions of groups like WPUK and FairPlay For Women (adverts in the Metro etc)

Bollocks.

This entire thing has been a very effective way of sabotaging the progress of women's rights. Women start to make strides, and the response of men is to mount an offensive that requires us to prove, over and over again, that there's literally any such thing as women (after they've spent years making laws about men and women and seemed to have no problem distinguishing them at that time). And that women are the people who have babies. And that women are the people with periods.

Being forced to prove the most basic facts of our lives, our categorization as biological organisms, and so on is a way of wearing us down so that we can't keep fighting on other issues. I think the best way to regard the trans issue is to talk about it as a silly men's rights issue that shouldn't have needed to be taken seriously, but is because of our sick, misogynistic culture.

This seems like similar to when men's rights people tried to use convoluted explanations to say they should be able to have a "legal abortion" of a baby so they no longer have to pay maintenance, or to stop an abortion they don't want to happen. Women making progress on reproductive rights? Force them to justify over and over why pregnancy is only something that happens to one person's body in a couple, and that this makes that person have the right to decide what to do with the pregnancy.

Online, this kind of thing is called sealioning, and I think we should start using it on the exact kinds of "social justice" crusaders who interrupt, say, a discussion on girls being stigmatized about menstruation with an "ACTUALLY, not only girls menstruate." These exact kinds of people try to call it sealioning when GC women ask basic questions about what makes a trans woman a woman, and they know the term.

Those of us who were brought up religious really recognise this for what it is. My country was a virtual theocracy during my formative years within the grip of the Catholic church, and whenever I hear that borglike chant of TWAW I remember the "Credo" we used to chant at mass every Sunday. "We believe in one God, the Father the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ.... " and so on, I'm very lapsed for decades but I can still recite it in my sleep. We've exchanged one kind of magical thinking for another.

I keep trying to point out to them that being an atheist is legal in the UK...

I wish the whole issue would just go away & we could focus on women. But then I think about where we were 18 months ago & where we are now. And the only reason everyone knows what's going on now, that people are talking about it, is that we women started making a racket. And that makes me proud.

And this is why we have to keep on, @EmpressAdultHumanFemale

But it is so fucking tiring.

That’s interesting about ‘sealioning’ @WombOfOnesOwn. I’d not heard that term before.

But it is so fucking tiring.

I get it OP.
Especially as we have to reiterate what the purpose of existing safeguards are over and over, and still there's no engagement with the fact that self-id poses a risk.
Amazing that they've locked on to some big, complicated, conceptual (imaginary) ideas about gender and are accepting them as truth, and yet they can't even think in a fucking straight line about the knock on effect of moving safeguarding boundaries. It isn't string theory, it's so obvious.

I’ve noticed that the majority of conversations about trans issues have been driven by articles in the news, like those written by Janice Turner etc, and as a direct result of actions of groups like WPUK and FairPlay For Women (adverts in the Metro etc)

Who do you think groups like WPUK & FPFW are exactly? Radfem shock troops parachuted in by the US fundamentalist right-wingers I hear are meant to be funding us?

We're ordinary, grass-roots, worried & angry women, from a wide range of backgrounds, who got involved because we saw the need to do something.

I'm lesbian, & the LGBTetc acronym & the rainbow both feel actively hostile to lesbians nowadays as far as I'm concerned.

Me. Too. And Stonewall could come crawling on their hands and knees begging for forgiveness and I will never, ever trust them again.

I really feel very positive right now-the TRAs have a proven track record of behaving appallingly. Even today Megan Murphy has been banned from twitter for saying men aren’t women. This is going to blow up in their face! There are many, many more women than stupid little boys who wish to silence us.
The recent trans kids programme will have exposed a lot of truths, which some people just won’t have thought of before.
We know MPs are not sure about self ID they’re nervous of saying so publicly but the cats out the bag now & we are all doing our best to spread the word & our biggest strength as always will be Safeguarding children.

Very interesting what those of you brought up in religious environments are saying about recognising this. Makes total sense.

I wasn’t brought up that way but I was brought up in an abusive environment, one that was also deeply misogynist and hostile to me as a girl despite a great deal of lip service being paid to the concept of equality. And I recognise all that in transactivism too.

I would love to be able to move on from transactivism, the way I moved on from my abusive family, but unfortunately I don’t have that power.

I was able to go NC with my family so I don’t have to deal with them any more.

I do have to deal with the fact that transactivists are doing their level best to change the laws and culture of the country I live in, and my DC are growing up in, in a way that is utterly prejudicial to women’s and children’s rights and safety and inconsistent with rational thought and free speech. And they’re doing so with truly alarming rates of success.

You can’t just move on from abuse while you’re still being abused, living in the abusive environment. Move on where? There is nowhere for us to flee to, no refuge, no safe space where this outrage isn’t happening.

We can’t do anything but fight it, to the best of our ability. And to do that, we need to keep talking about it, sharing information and supporting each other; however much we wish - and I think we all wish - we didn’t have to do it.