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!

For me it was hearing the phrase trans women are women.
I still don't know what it means. I've asked multiple times when there's been a mtf person here but it's never been answered.

Until the first time I heard it, I thought we all knew we were pretending. What I also realised was that I was over compensating with a mtf friend and that I treated my female friends much differently as I didn't go out of my way to prove I accepted their identity.
I felt bad, initially and that I'd been a bit patronising but I couldn't do the mental keep to actually believe he was a woman.
Again, I might have misunderstood what TWAW actually means.
The cognitive dissonance caused me to row back and look into it more.

It first came to my attention maybe late 2016/early 2017 due to a thread on AIBU by the mam of a Brownie about GG letting in boys, and I read the smattering of threads about it, but it was probably a year or so later when Katie and Helen were banished from Guiding that I really became more involved and there seemed to be suddenly a lot more posts on trans generally.

I'm very grateful to Mumsnet for allowing the discussions and the women here for taking the time to post so much information.

And I joined Twitter around 2019 so I could see tweets first hand rather than having to rely on people posting screen shots here.

My memory is a bit hazy but I suspect Glinner led me to MN. I think I got concerned, thought who's pushing back against this, then💡 and Glinner probably mentioned MN.

Glinner reacts to Cass Report and fallout with a Mess We're In from Australia

with Helen, Arty and Dennis

Hi Glinner! Lovely to meet you here.

If you have the stomach for it, you’re welcome to read my essay/letter (to James O’Brien who ignored it) after the Cass Report. Genspect have asked to publish it, but very very happy to chat outside MN - just PM me and we can exchange emails… or your people can talk to my people 🤣

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5048468-long-letter-to-james-obrien-but-will-he-read-and-digest?page=2&reply=134493822

Oh No!! At 24:20ish Glinner disses dungs! But but but... I like dungs! No builder's bum when working in the garden, 'nuff said

Love the new name @AGlinnerOfHope
Please have a look at @BusyMummy001 's post, she didn't tag you so you might miss it.

I've been a feminist since I first heard of Women's Liberation as a teenager in about 1970. Very politically active during the 1970s and 80s. But less of an activist as I got older, and started feeling as if all the big stuff had pretty much been sorted out.

Reading about the assault on Maria MacLachlan in October 2017 was a wake-up call. I followed the trial with increasing disbelief, as the fit young fellow who punched 60-year-old Maria got off with a slap on the wrist, and she was ordered to call him "she" because that's what he wanted to be called. Got to show respect to the Man, Maria, you nasty little second-class human.

Well, that woke me up like a bucket of cold water in my face! Up till then I'd only encountered a couple of 'transmen' (ie trans-identifying women) one of whom seemed pleasant and rather gentle, the other very assertive, and one 'transwoman' (ie trans-identifying man) who seemed narcissistic. But nothing had rung alarm bells.

I'd read about the GRA but not given it much thought, as I presumed it would only involve a tiny number of people, mainly men who liked dressing up. It never crossed my mind they'd be allowed to take over women's spaces and sports etc. If someone had told me in 2014 what would be going on in 2024, I'd think they were writing some very implausible science-fiction!

After Maria's assault, and especially the shocking trial, I read everything I could find on this trans phenomenon. There wasn't a lot in the news, even though the government was at that time planning to extend the GRA to allow self-ID -- which would give every man and boy, whether or not he thought was a woman, the right to enter all women's spaces (because no one would be allowed to ask to see a GRC).

This affected me personally: as a result of sexual assaults when I was young, I get claustrophobic if I'm in a confined space with a man or if a man blocks my exit from a room, even accidentally.

(Incidentally, I realised how cynical Tony Blair was to push through a law enabling massive social change, unwanted by most people and harmful to many, in 2004 when people's attention was focused on the invasion of Iraq.)

News sources sometimes mentioned a 'transphobic' site called Mumsnet, so despite not being a mum I had a look and was instantly hooked on the feminism board. No phobias, just a lot of thoughtful and concerned women discussing major issues affecting women's rights, along with other feminist debates. I had found my tribe!

We're climbing up the hill backwards and this is an awkward, non gaussian/bell curve of a mountain. We can't see when we've reached the peak, and it's hard to see, looking back, where we came from - the point we said to ourselves "I have to get involved no matter what".

Was it first hearing that Lily Madigan, a ridiculously young transwoman, was a Labour Party Woman's Officer? Jaw drop. And then that TRAs were stopping feminists meeting? I couldn't understand. I thought, what's going on?

Was it learning that Maya Forstater's GC views were "not worthy of respect in a democratic society”? Actually, I think that was it for me - even though the ruling has since been reversed, we must remember how gagging and stark that moment was.

Was it seeing the Harry Potter ingrates effectively denounce the woman to whom they owed their celebrity status?

Was it the Owen Jones article that informed me that I was on the wrong side of history?

Was it realising that a man disguised as a woman was CEO of Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre?

Was it Isla Bryson? Was it realising that although I watched this much more closely than family of friends, I wasn't watching closely enough? I think Isla Bryson made me commit to closely tracking what was happening.

Was it my own son calling me a TERF when I tried to talk to him about Isla Bryson?

Was it my own daughter agreeing with me briefly, then because she works in the public sector with non-binary people, emphatically closing me down. I understand why, but it's terribly painful when the people you love most won't talk to you about something you think is important.

Was it - time seems to speed up when you get towards the present - the cat-blender murderer being described repeatedly across the media as a woman, was it reading about a man flashing "her penis" at girls - all one week?

Was it the WPATH files?

Was it realising that the Scottish Hate Crime Act was crafted by TRAs?

Was it the Cass Report? And the left's response?

I talk to very few people about this. Glinner led me to Mumsnet, which led me to really interesting and informed people to follow on Youtube and X. It's a difficult path to travel, going from wondering "am I a baddie?" No. I've thought about this for a long time. I have read and listened to others picking apart the lies, letting the sunlight in. We are on the right side of history - but it's up the hill backwards and we don't know how many more peaks are coming to challenge us.

But thank you Glinner, as the person that held my hand when I first entered the forest of gender lies.

What a great thread!

Like@OceanicBoundlessness, the final push was hearing that people believed trans women were literally women, and that began to explain a lot of the clear change in the discourse from transexuals and transvestites to "transgender". And by then I couldn't understand why so many smart people could be so utterly thick.

But it's been a long road. The first time I was scolded ignoring the 'T' was during my postgrad days at uni, probably 2003 or so. I referred to the LGB community and there were a couple of shocked faces who immediately tried to educate me.

I kind of took for granted that there were people I knew who seemed to be "born in the wrong body" and for the benefit of them I was in "be kind" mode for many years.

The peaking began with reddit, though, of all places. Seeing how hateful and mysoginistic the discourse was, how so few men made any effort to "pass", to the extent that they couldn't really suffer from dysphoria. The stories of threats and physical abuse, especially of lesbians.

The loss of free speech literally everywhere, but entire communities closing on reddit. Being unable to parse a news article to find out what sex an assailant was. The twisting of language to serve the ideology, not to increase clarity but to obscure it.

Male police searching women, male carers giving intimate care to women against their will.

Incoherent laws, due to an incoherent ideology.

Seeing how the early activists were crushed. Including @AGlinnerOfHope . A canary in the coalmine.

And once you dig you can't stop. It keeps getting worse until you get to all the poor children who have been mutilated, sterilised, confused, experimented on and brainwashed. It broke my heart.

As a veterinary nurse of over 15 years, it became impossible for me to believe that my colleagues and so called highly educated scientific professionals were actually espousing that TWAW. I could not believe that in a profession where we deal with the reality of sex and it's specific complications in disease such as unwanted pregnancies, uterine cancers and infections, testicular tumours, hormonal problems, mammary tumours, and many many other sex specific issues, that anyone could believe it was possible for a human to change sex in any meaningful way.
I then started to hear my two daughters talk about the things they were being told in school as if it were fact - the hundreds of "genders", that some boys could be girls and vice versa, their descriptions of pride flags in every room, the fact that there were now six or seven trans "girls" in their small year groups alone, that some boys who now identified as girls were playing on the girls netball team, and that one of their tutor teachers had disclosed to them that her son was now her "daughter" and has since proceeded to bombard the kids with pro-trans rhetoric.
When my 71 year old mother had a stroke two years ago, after being confined to a trolley in an NHS A&E department for 16 hours because there were no beds available, when we finally saw a doctor, the VERY FIRST question out of her mouth was "How do you identify?" to a confused elderly woman who had literally just had a stroke. I began to see that our NHS was as captured as our schools.
Since then I have followed the gender wars with interest, and as a Scottish woman living in Edinburgh I am disgusted by my country and my government for betraying women in many ways, not least with the new "hate crime" bill.
I could go on, but these were some main factors.
I hope the Cass recommendations will start to see the tide turning for my two daughters and they can have some protection, dignity and safety to look forward to.

I’m so sorry PPs, I’m just a fan who saw a fab pun and ran in with it. I’m not Glinner! 😳

I didn’t realise that comment read as though I was- someone resurrected the thread the same day I started this name.

I don’t know what to do now- get my comment on here deleted, but that will leave holes, or just leave as it is.

And ditch the name, though I was thrilled with it.

What do reckon @BoreOfWhabylon , you’re an old hand in FWR. Do I need to ditch the name completely? Or just get that comment deleted?

@picklemepopcorn
Personally, I'd do both. Any confusion over who said what and when is the last thing we need

No, it's a great name!

And while I'm here -- thank you everyone for your moving and inspiring stories on this thread. I started hitting the Thanks button (thanks Mumsnet for adding the Thanks button) but there were so many I gave up. Thank you all. I'm now old, but it lifts my heart to read so much good sense and sisterliness from younger women.

Have only just seen this thread, and haven't had time to read every post, but looking forward to later today.

Hello Glinner - we thought you had forgotten us - but no.

For the first time ever I feel (for the wrong reasons) I can agree with all those young people who blame baby boomers for everything.

I wasn't quite there in the beginning but back in the days of Women's Liberation it never occured to us that trans women would think / claim they really were women, as we were so engrossed in talking about how women were oppressed as a sex class, so thought everyone accepted that. And although a few (mainly academic) men were claiming they were now women, we just laughed and thought middle class tossers with too much time on their hands.

So within women's liberation circles it didn't have much traction and even (the first I heard of) when the much respect Matriarchal Study group was rumoured and then confirmed to have split because of the inclusion of a trans woman it still didn't really register. And as is not the pattern that ended with one inclusive group that became effectively a support group for the TW and the other group who dared to think that their shared interest was actually the point of the group.

Many of us continued to think well this is just a few instances, and I still didn't realise when a young black lesbian who had been a very effective and diligent member of an active women's group, who had given untold unpayed work to achieving our aims, at the end said goodbye and that we probably wouldn't see her again as she had decided to transition. Total shock and sadness, but absolute respect for her right to do that, and that she hadn't tried to derail the group purpose. But still thought this is just one individual.

So stranagely it was being in what became a smaller and smaller circle of women who were committed to other women that I had no idea just how far trans ideology had spread.

And it was only when some years later I saw posts on facebook about updating the GRA (which I had never heard off!!) that I thought this cant be right. Self id and so on.

But gradually it became clear I couldn't post openly on facebook about the implications, because so many were intimidated or worried about their work status. Or unfriended me for being unkind.

Somehow I found out about mumsnet FWR and started reading, and realised the narrow but happily woman focused world I had been living in meant I was out of the loop in terms of the transing of the real world.

So FWR re-introduced to me to the struggles of women living in a world controlled by men.

And introduced me to Glinner.

But my biggest sadness was finding how some of groups such as Women's Aid project and Rape Crisis support services had also been captured. I just didn't and still dont understand this, even though have had run ins with what were 3rd Wave Feminists. Who of any group were the first to talk about 2nd Wave feminists as dinasours.

I know you didn't ask for a life story, but in some way each day I have to remind myself when I wake up that the new reality is exactly the opposite of the one my younger self thought we had started to create.

Sorry so busy rambling that I forgot to add the instance that really made me think the world has gone mad was the cotton ceiling.

The part of me that couldn't quite accept what was happening meant I had to ask someone to explain it to me.

If I hadn't realised before just how much this encroachment of TRA was in fact the continuation of the MRA narrative, this bought it home.

Sorry so busy rambling that I forgot to add the instance that really made me think the world has gone mad was the cotton ceiling.

The part of me that couldn't quite accept what was happening meant I had to ask someone to explain it to me.

If I hadn't realised before just how much this encroachment of TRA was in fact the continuation of the MRA narrative, this bought it home.

Same here. Was searching mumsnet for an unrelated topic when I stumbled across Sex and Gender (this coven) and was almost instantly peaked by himself.

Was it Chloe?

I know this is an old thread but it's an interesting one. For me, it happened the very first time I heard the term 'TERF' (maybe 2017-ish?) and realised that people I previously respected were happily using 'radical feminist' as an insult. Because if the problem was just being 'trans exclusionary', wouldn't that phrasing be enough?

It indicated to me there was something else going on. So I started digging (aka 'educating myself') and lo, what a lot of little misogynist worms were uncovered.

"Pussy hats are transphobic"
Rose McGowan / Andi Dier
Lily Madigan
Aimee Challenor
Yaniv
Miranda Yardley
Reddit sub "GC Debates QT"
JKR's essay
Magdalen Berns
Maya Forstator
Kathleen Stock
Helen Joyce
FWR board

Hi Glinner, you leg-end!

I was a second wave feminist, after reading the Female Eunuch in 1971, (not to mention growing up in the times I did, you couldn't help but see how men shat on women)

I had a dear friend who was introduced to me as a transwoman in the 90s. In those days, I naively thought that the fairly well established surgery and hormones worked, and she was smashing, gentle and fun, not at all aggressive or posturing.
She died early 2000s in a nursing home, so didn't see much of all this.

Then the furore about Jenny Murray kicked off and, as someone said upthread, GREER, THE Greer, was no platformed. Wtf?
That was when I woke up and began to question it all, with a lot of help and info from the brave public figures who stood up and also from the women of Mumsnet.

I retired early from my job through health, but noticed that people were already looking at me askance and my governing organisation was totally captured, so I was glad to go.
I don't know what I would have said to my friend, if she was still here. I hope we wouldn’t have had the rows and hatred between us that I now see in others..
And I can't help thinking of her as she, even now, which cognitive dissonance makes me feel like a hypocrite.

Since then, the outrage after outrage, the sports, the loos, the wards, the refuges, the workplaces, the cancelling, the prisons, the crime stats, the stupid pronouns and coerced speech, the virtue signalling, the capture of institutions, the violence, the threats, the cotton ceiling, the CHILDREN, has made me more entrenched and much less tolerant of those who might possibly have dysphoria, rather than agp.

HELLS BELLS, I didn't notice this was such an old thread, as it came up in my current feed… oh well.

Oh no! Is this an old thread?

And there I was happy to contribute, partly because I thought Glinner had found time to engage with FWR again, and wanted to be supportive.

Now I find it isn't so.

How

For me it was Jenner and ‘the hardest thing about being a woman is deciding what to wear’ or whatever the exact words were. Before that I didn’t think about it very much. The scales just fell. It was very clear what was actually going on.