Help a brother out

[Glinner]

Hello, you coven of squints far right Nazi witches!

I'd like to collect some anecdotes about when and why you first became involved in the debate about gender ideology and activism. I've also asked on Twitter but thought this might be good for longer answers.

Please tell me your stories!

Me too. And I think this is an under-explored area in this debate.

Ooh yes, me three. Would also contribute to an astroturfing discussion.

Being told (as a lesbian) that I had to accept that trans women were real women and that i was transphobic and a TERF for not considering them as sexual partners.
Apparently all I had to do was to view the penis as a "birth defect" similar to a cleft palate.
I'm part of a wider lesbian social group where we've been told that it we don't accept transwoman as women then we can be banned. Biological women have been relegated to "cis".

The more research I do the more infuriated I become and the more activist tbh.

I support the adult human female movement 100% and utterly reject and resent the invasion of womanhood.

For me it was hearing a trans person interviewed on Word of Mouth. It's usually quite an academic and careful programme but this interviewee got free reign. Circular definitions, the utter illogic of saying that stereotypes are a bad thing yet people who fit the wrong stereotypes should be accepted as the opposite sex or none, the pretentiousness. Insisting on actual women being labelled as cis, but their TW friend should just be referred to as a woman. And all of this not getting challenged by the presenters.

I was vaguely aware of FWR on MN discussing the issue before that from Active Threads but had had my fingers burned in FWR before and generally steered clear. That was when I started reading all the FWR threads again and found that this time I agreed.

The other thing that cemented my concern was posting the petition about consulting women about self ID and immediately being pounced on and called transphobic, particularly by gay and lesbian friends. Maybe because they belong to LBGT groups so have trans friends, yet have been coupled up for long enough not to get on the wrong side of the cotton ceiling crap.

Free rein! Or reign too probably.

I've just stumbled across the twitter of a detransitioned woman who has only recently joined twitter to talk about it.

I'm both breaking for her and also been peaked a little more. I think she's in the US.

Safeguarding, safeguarding, safeguarding.

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1097931883533488128.html

It was reading about Lily Madigan that opened my eyes.
Reading the wise words of Datun and langcleg helped shape my thinking.
Also have a very GNC teenager who I worry constantly is very vulnerable to the transcult.

I peak trans as such. I just had slow creeping horror as I uncovered more. My god it has shaken me out of thinking the UK couldn't ever become a theocracy.

I followed a MN active thread to FWR as I sometimes do. There was something about trans issues. I thought "Eh? You what? Nah. No way. They've got that wrong. I know transexual people and they do not think they are women. They all know they are men really." Then Jenni Murray. Then sports. Then prisons. Then girl guides.

The Jenni Murray thing made me feel physically sick to my stomach. I have always trusted the BBC. Yet here was a perfectly reasonable sensible woman writing a perfectly reasonable sensible article and being fucking destroyed. I waited for the BBC to stand up for her. But no. They silenced her. I was shook (as my teenagers would say).

As I learned more I was in shock that any policy or interaction around transwomen could be based on them being actual women. Just no. That is not reality.

I talked to my lovely leftie husband, telling him about the GRA (learned about it from MN) and he reacted like I'd just told him I genuinely believed in the Illuminati Lizard People. He pointed out that if men were going to women's prisons and men were winning women's sports (he's a keen cyclist) then (a) well don't be daft that would never happen and (b) he reads the Guardian faithfully every day, he gets his news from the BBC almost exclusively and neither of them are reporting it. Therefore it obviously is not happening. He was incredulous that someone so possessed of critical thinking skills as me, who is bisexual, who knows old school transexuals, who escaped religion and a childhood surrounded by abuse would believe such nonsense. And it must be untrue that men are in prisons and refuges and womens' sports because BBC because Guardian.

It was Posie's poster being taken down that woke him up. I cancelled Ocado and told him why. He decided to look it up to sort me out and then get me some treatment for being on glue! He soon peak transed.

I discouraged my youngest from Brownies. Not because I feared her being in a tent with a boy and me not knowing (I'd be fully aware if there were a transgirl in the pack and I'd quietly deal with it). I discouraged her because it showed me that the Guides had ignored obvious well established safeguarding principles because abusive men told them it was OK and if they didn't they would be attacked. So, how else might they expose my daughter to harm if they can be so easily swayed? The Scouts seem to be different with their sad knowledge of how predators operate.

The medicalisation of children makes my blood run cold. If this nonsense were around when I was a girl I would have definitely chosen to transition to being a man. I was a bisexual science-minded tomboy in a deeply sexist religious environment. I was horrified at how my world changed when my 13yo body started turning into that of Marilyn Monroe (huge tits, blonde, blue eyes, hourglass, etc). I got the predatory men starting to try to get at me (especially those who spotted my vulnerability due to my family). The boys laughing at my unfunny jokes instead of being "normal". Being discouraged or patronisingly praised for my science and maths and later STEM degree. I would have cut my tits off and taken testosterone in a heartbeat. I wanted to live as a man. Thank god that wasn't a lie I was peddled. I am happy with my body now. I know that sterotypes, the patriarchy and female physical biology of the type that is not changeable (inferior height, muscle mass, bone density, lung capacity etc) is the problem with the world.

We are lying to and sterilising young girls who want to escape the horrors of being a young woman in a pornified sexist world. It is wrong.

In the transwomen I see classic abusive male behaviour patterns that I know well from my childhood. No. Just no. No.

Omg Glinner!

That’s about the sum of my contribution. Totally star struck!

In reality though;

Men being allowed to compete against women fucked me right off. I just thought; no, sorry. Women are getting the short end of the stick AGAIN. And I remembered all the times the Williams sisters et all were slagged off for looking “mannish” and being too big and masculine to compete against other women, yet MEN are ok to do it.

I feel like I’m just waiting for someone to go “hang on, this is getting ridiculous” but it’s not happening.

Thread with important voices of some of those who stopped identifying as transgender, ceased their medical interventions and hope to share their experiences to help other people.

The words of young women especially are so crucial to hear, understand and amplify.

There was a young woman who spoke incredibly movingly and powerfully at the end of the recent 'We Need To Talk' event in Washington.

It was clear how profound the effects she had on the women on the panel and I'm sure all who heard her.

Thanks to the PencilsInSpace her important words are also recorded here to read:

"My name is [Cas?], I'm 19 and I just wanted to - so I just wanted to talk, it's not really a question. Ever since I came out, in eighth grade I've been completely involved in radical queer and trans circles and I just wanted to talk about my experience.

So when you first come out nowadays in - every LGBT group is very ... inclusive, let's just say. It's just - you must respect everyone. When you're young, you're like, OK, I mean I want to be accepted by people, it feels bad when people are mean to me, of course I don't want to be mean to someone, right? And so if you don't really - and everything is accepted uncritically.

I know this transman, a trans identified female, and they got a double mastectomy at 15 and had been on testosterone since they were 13 or 14, and you're not allowed to raise questions about that because then you're evil and sort of being in this circle where any woman who's gender non-conforming is obviously not a woman. It's very easy to gain that idea. I think that even older people theorising about it can understand conceptually, but being in that space it's a very difficult mindset to get out of. And I've been really lucky, I have some radical feminist friends who've been really nice but since I discovered and understood radical feminism - I'm skipping around this story but it's fine.

I recently lost my entire friend group. So I go to college but I lost all of my friends because they were like, actually, you having three separate opinions from me means that you're unsafe and are equivalent to a nazi. Because obviously, saying that lesbians can have sexual boundaries is the same thing as kill all Jewish people. You know, it's obviously the same statement. I don't know how anyone can see it differently.

But - OK, going front to back - being part of that environment and being a lesbian and having it be not a socially acceptable thing in these spaces that are intended for same sex attracted people - it's just extremely damaging and you start to think, well, maybe I'm not a woman. I don't feel like a woman, I don't look like the women around me, you know. And being a woman is deeply traumatising.

I think almost every trans female that I know, especially detransitioned women like myself - I got a double mastectomy - we are all - a lot of us are autistic and don't fit into gender roles and don't really understand it and we're absolutely preyed upon in that sort of way. And almost all of us have experienced sexual trauma and just being a woman and experiencing things like that makes you disgusted with your body and not want men to think about you, not want to be - it's just so profoundly traumatising.

And when you're given this option of, you can escape misogyny, you can escape experiencing things like this again, even though that's not true - women who pass as men, as soon as men find out - I mean I'm friends with a lot of other detransitioned women and a reasonable number of them pass as men in their daily lives - and as soon as someone finds out they're going to be treated with violent misogyny, right? And so it's a complete lie, but it's a very enticing lie.

And even speaking about the potential side effects, even if you're like, I support the decision that you're making but I want you to take into account the ways that this will cause damage in a genuinely informed consent way. I mean I'm against - you know what I mean. That's just not something that happens.

Additionally - so when I was going to get my double mastectomy after identifying as trans for four years, I just had to go to a doctor, say 'I'm trans and I want top surgery' and then they're like, OK, you know, then they'll ask me some questions about my life, but there's no like, maybe you're a lesbian who doesn't want to be seen as a lesbian because you live in a homophobic area, maybe you're dealing with - you need to deal with some sexual trauma. Maybe there's other things, other than this sort of idea. There's none of that, it's just like, OK! And so then the next time they were just like, OK I'll write a letter to your insurance saying they should pay for it.

You know, it's just - women are really being let down, especially lesbians.

And I don't know, it's just very - going on what you were saying? I just feel so bad about my peers because it's very hard to get out of. It's such a cult-like mindset because if you talk to anyone different you are going to be excommunicated, right? You're just not going to be allowed to interact with people. I mean it's like my friends who just dropped me, you know, it's really difficult - I don't know if I'm over my time limit - I just, I don't know, when people were saying about how it's really hard as a young person to not be accepted by your peers - it is terrifying, it is so ... scary, but it's really an important thing because so many women I know, every lesbian I know in my day to day life who's not a complete normie who's never been online, has identified as trans, even if they haven't transitioned, has previously identified as trans.

Because it's just - being a lesbian sucks, guys.

I mean it's wonderful once you're able to accept it and interact with other women, but this is a terrifying societal position to occupy and I'm completely proud and out now but it's just a really scary thing because these people who are supposed to be supporting you would rather you be anything but a lesbian."

[1:30:40]
www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=_twaEEStWUw

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3507109-Pique-Resilience-Project-young-detransitioned-women-sharing-their-personal-stories

I think that maybe young people think that mnetters don't get gender bending, or are scared their kids will be "queer". They envisage us as easily shocked matrons.
That's so not it.
We just want our children to be whole, happy, healthy and self accepting, and to be able to tell what is real and what is being fed to them by people who almost certainly do not have their best interests at heart.
I used to think this whole trans trend was a youth cult got out of hand. The more I read, the more sinister it seems.
I am naturally suspicious of ANYTHING that is sold to us by the establishment as a done deal.
Real social change-trade unions, gay rights welfare, votes for women-has come from grassroots activism. This shit is being imposed on us.
I am willing to bet that many years from now there will be an uncovering if corruption, coercion and intimidation of Savile-esque proportions.
Now I'll probably get deleted. The rules make no sense to me.

"I think that maybe young people think that mnetters don't get gender bending, or are scared their kids will be "queer". They envisage us as easily shocked matrons."

Absolutely.

They can't acknowledge that any of us are, or have been, gender non confirming.

They can't acknowledge that we encourage our children to ignore the limitations of gender.

It's no surprise that Let Toys Be Toys was formed here on MN, there are so many of us who despise the idea that interests, skills or personality traits are intrincsically tied to being men or women.

It's easier to pretend we are deeply conservative, to tell the truth would show just how conservative they are.

I wrote a long post above but you know what there is one thing, one exact thing, that alerted me to this being an abusive religion and us being in the fucking Spanish Inquistion: #nodebate

For anyone new to FWR chat, this is an important thread which has been running for over a year. It has links to significant resources, discission and evidence:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me

see also collation of examples of Safeguarding failings/failures:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/a3301266-Safeguarding-girls-and-protecting-women-post-Jimmy-Saville-metoo

Mumsnet members' unanswered and unheard concerns and comments for Penny Mordant MP Minister for Women & Equalities
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3297184-Your-comments-for-Penny-Mordaunt

The thread evolved from the original one posted by Justine Roberts at the beginning of the Govt. Consultation on GRA self id July 2018.

The thread which Justine is referring to in her comment & links to:
July 3rd 2018, OP Pratchet wrote:
"A woman is an adult female human
Of the sex whose reproductive role is to gestate and bear young.

Let's just say this while we still can. Because it's true, and however many people try to make us lie about it, or remain silent, it will always be true.

In times of universal deceit, speaking the truth is a revolutionary act.

It hurts MY feelings to see 'transwomen are women'. It damages MY mental health to see that, it makes ME feel erased and MY identity feel destroyed. I have a voice and I deserve that voice. WE deserve it.

I am Spartacus. A woman is an adult female human. Sex is binary, immutable and defined by reproductive role.

If you report me, or get me banned you shoot the messenger. Because this is true and will always be true. And this day, this day of a lie, I WILL say it.

#Spartacus"

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3295603-A-woman-is-an-adult-female-human

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/site_stuff/3297067-Mumsnet-moderation-response-to-yesterdays-feedback]

I’m a fairly recent convert after thinking “why can’t everyone live and let live?” for a long time. I’ve always been GC and try to teach my children to ignore the constant barrage of gendered marketing of toys, clothes, books, etc. and want them to know they can do or be anything they want and there’s no such thing as boys’ things and girls’ things. I’m on FB pages like Let Toys be Toys and every so often, someone would write a comment to do with being transgender that just didn’t seem to make sense in the context as the essence of believing you were transgender seemed to be an acceptance of stereotypes as innate. I started to question things a bit but it didn’t really seem to affect me. I thought the Caitlyn Jenner woman of the year thing was stupid but just Hollywood nonsense and didn’t worry about it. Then I heard the phrase “dead naming” for the first time when Ricky Gervais was pilloried for making a joke and using the name Bruce. I couldn’t understand why that was the bit people were focusing on rather than the fact that this person was responsible for the death of another human being. People seemed to have their priorities all wrong.
Over the last 12 months, news stories have made less and less sense. I spent most of last year pregnant so was very aware of my “female-ness” but then I saw the word “woman” being taken away, then “female”, and discussions to do with the physical experience of living in a female body were being sidelined or silenced altogether. It felt like a hateful misogynistic campaign. Then I heard about all the people who receive abuse for just saying common sense things like Jenni Murray, Germaine Greer, and your good self, but the clincher for me was agreeing with a tweet by Piers Morgan - a man I generally think of as very sexist - and that made me think I really needed to look into this in detail and “educate myself”. Cue learning with increasing horror about self-ID and the end to gatekeeping, Karen White, Lily Madigan and the Labour Party, Aimee Challenor and the Green Party, Rachel McKinnon, the Mermaids crap that’s being peddled in schools, the insistence that we all had a gender identity and if you denied it you were a T*RF, the cotton ceiling, trans-widows, breast-binding and puberty blockers, removal of safeguarding measures for children, Desmond is Amazing, gender reassignment surgery as a “cure” for homosexuality in Iran and so on - it seems every day I have a new “wtf?” moment. I’m a socialist and am annoyed when people say trans ideology is a consequence of left wing politics. It has nothing to do with it. There are many people; female, male, left wing, right wing, gay, straight, bisexual, religious, atheist and trans people who have the same opinion on this issue and just want rational conversation - not to be shouted down and threatened before 50% of the population have their rights removed.

As a fairly new member I don't get some abbreviations. What does AwS stand for? FWR? TiM?

All Women Shortlists, Feminism-Women’s Rights, Trans Identifying Male (the last one isn’t compliant with Mumsnet rules, but it’s the acronym that is problematic, rather than the phrase itself).

Tumblr is a cesspit, I would advise all parents of teens to watch out for that one.

Tumblr is a cesspit, I would advise all parents of teens to watch out for that one.

YouTube similarly.
A child or young person typing in 'Am I Transgender?' will get a a host of videos, the top-rated ones mostly from females who identify as transgender, some private clinics (including Dr Webberley Gender GP). Most of the commentators say, 'if you are asking the question then you probably are' with the suggestion to try changing your pronouns and how your 'new' identity should be affirmed and respected.

Comments under the line with support, advice and signposting are not moderated or monitored.

So, how else might they expose my daughter to harm if they can be so easily swayed?

This is such an important point. It's not about "trans" per se - it's about safeguarding frameworks. These protect all children using all available experience and knowledge of previous failures, including those children who are questioning their "gender identity". In fact, a lot of the safeguarding loopholes we talk about here are placing those very children outside the protections afforded to all other children. And it's their own lobby groups doing it. I lose sleep over this.

Text from my link upthread from @MMcshy who has detransitioned:

*once you start thinking of your experiences through the lens of understanding yourself as transgender, it becomes really hard to think of other solutions to your problems. the specter of detransition is both terrifying and shameful, and feels like an unacceptable state

it's only when the crushing reality of how much transition has taken from you and how little it has given back really sinks in, weeks or months or years later, that you might start to realize that it's not worth it

at least that was my experience! call me a transtrender if you must but unfortunately there are zero safeguards to prevent someone having a mental health crisis, someone with deep internalized homophobia, someone who struggles with an eating disorder from transitioning.

a lot of people are making choices in pain and those people deserve to have better resources to navigate their options. conventional wisdom in the trans community (a la "transition or you will die") blinds you to the many paths forward when you are dealing with gender dysphoria*

all I wanted to do on Tumblr was gawp at photos of Mads Mikklesen and Richard Armitage (feminist fail points - I'm not a teenager either!) but trans stuff would pop up all the time in the blogs I was following, in a way that completely normalized it. I wasn't especially paying attention back then but it was all affirming stuff. There was also a lot of stuff about depression and suicide - not explicit but certainly discussion and again normalization. I can see if you're feeling at all vulnerable or not fitting in, you can find your 'tribe' on there and before you know it you're all swapping stories of self-harming.

this Guardian article

As a lifelong Guardian reader it had my total trust. Then I read this weird, fawning article about a biological man who attempted to murder another man - caused him to have a stroke and almost lose his sight. And it was all the fault of UK Athletics... The victim barely featured in the article. Normally an unprovoked attack by an armed white man on a black man would have the Guardian interviewing the victim, victim's groups, campaigners, all sorts. But here, the only voice is the perpetrator and their family. Why? Why is this person so special that they must be excused their attempt at murder? Why are they not just a common or garden violent criminal?

Suddenly the penny clicked. This is a person who is behaving in exactly the way that men who have narcissistic rages behave. Women do not barge into offices and violently assault men with knives. Most men don't do it either but women really don't. Ever. Because they don't have the physicality required to damage another man like that. And when violent assaults like this do happen, we say that it's the fault of the perpetrator. They are just a common or garden murderer. We certainly don't print fawning articles about them. We certainly don't blame UK Athletics.

The double speak and the use of national media to quietly and subtly misinform and delude the reader were what first got me onto this. The Guardian! Subtly and carefully grooming its readership. Quietly dripping an ideology into my ear. I still feel sick at the thought that they had my trust.

The final sentence: "she has deep concerns that UKA might deal in a similarly insensitive way with younger runners, not so secure in their identity.”

So - She - attempted to murder someone but that was because UKA were insensitive so really it was understandable.

And scaremongering about "younger runners not so secure in their identity"? How on earth can we suggest that this person is secure in their identity when their elaborate role play had them so muddled and enraged that they tried to murder an innocent man?

It's all a fiction and a delusion - bolstered by lies from a media source I truly trusted.

Oh and Jeska's parents wanted a girl. And are committed Christians. ....

One final thing: Thank you Glinner

the penny dropped not clicked!