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!

[RockyFlintstone]

Mine was Caitlyn Jenner winning 'Woman of the Year' and then saying that the hardest thing about being a woman was choosing what to wear.

I went from zero to GC incredibly quickly after that, as there was just a tsunami of stuff coming at me, and it still continues!

Distinctly remember being on a thread on here ages ago about Primark changing rooms and typing the words 'do you really think a man is going to dress up as a woman to get in the women's changing rooms?'

I have been well and truly radicalised!

Oh no wait, what actually happened was that I applied the tiniest bit of critical thinking to the topic and things became clear very quickly.

[Lamaha]

I'm an older woman who has been participating in online forums for a couple of decades. I've "known" a transwoman on one of these forums for at least 15 years and never thought twice about it. She's nice, polite, doesn't make a big deal of her trans-ness. I met a transman a few years ago when I was being shown around a factory. At least, I assume he was a transman. To me, he looked like a woman in men's clothing, but he was introduced to me as Mr xxx and spoken of as him/he, so I went along with that; I'm a polite person and believe everyone should be treated with respect. I come from a very leftist family and always considered myself very much on the left, though socially more conservative. Basically, I'm live and let live, formerly the quintessential Guardian reader.

That's the only real life transperson I've met, as far as I know, but I read a lot and am on Facebook and when the Caitlyn Jenner story broke and they won Woman of the Year my jaw dropped to the floor -- that's not right, I thought, but all my ultra-liberal American female friends on Facebook and forums seemed to be OK with it.

In fact, many of them became very much pro-trans over the last few years and the more they said, the more I was silent, because they're so belligerent about it. The main theme really is gender neutral toilets. I saw and see no reason why they are an advantage for anyone except a very wee minority of people. So that was my main issue up to 2018. I did not understand why young women would be in favour of mixed toilets. And in the very next breath, telling their MeToo stories...

In 2018 began to peak again and again, but I still said nothing -- I thought I was the only one among all these very progressive people. I knew they were being ridiculous with their "transwomen are women" mantra but it seemed I was the only sane person in the room. Especially confusing is the fact that these online friends always pride themselves on being scientific, atheists, etc. Yet they were spouting this utter nonsense about gender trumping sex. Suddenly, feelngs override basic biology. It's insane.

Then on one forum I finally said something. One poster seemed to assume we were all just fine with gender neutral toilets and called anyone who disagreed an idiot. So I outed myself as an idiot and gave my reasons for not wanting to share a toilet or restroom or any intimate space with male bodied persons.

They all came after me with virtual pitchforks when I said that! But one woman PM'd me and said she agreed and I should go to Mumsnet. I did, and here I am.

I talk to my family and close friends now about the injustice of it all, and they agree with me. I have not yet outed myself in those very aggressive online communities I used to participate in. In fact I have left them. I also have a small group of Facebook friends who think like me. I "meet" them on FB sites like Fair Play for Women, in the likes and comments.

I have switched from the Guardian to the Times. This has nothing to do with being a right-winger. It has to do with being pro-woman. The Guardian (and the BBC) seem to have sided with transideology. I think the backlash, when it comes, will be huge. In the end common sense will prevail. Gender does not eliminate sex. Women's rights are sex based, not gender based. This is not transphobia, it's reality. It's science.

[Anlaf]

I checked - early 2016 I was very liberal feminist who cheerlead everyone being their true selves, and I wondered "why are the mumsnet women so arguey about this"? And I lurked on Mumsnet FWR and mine eyes were opened, a little at first. I couldn't answer yes to the question "do you think male people should be in women's prisons"?

And I found the women of Mumsnet and magdalen Berns and found out that male-born people were saying they were literally lesbians and Jenni Murray! was silenced and called hateful for a very benign article.

And then later the rumblings began about self id being the future - and it was sold by politicians as being a wonderful thing with no effects on anyone except trans people, and that's when I started writing letters.

[ColeHawlins]

In about ten minutes when the International Olympic Committee changed their rules to allow Male-bodied athletes to compete as women after minimal (non-surgical)treatment.

[PenguindreamsofDraco]

Slow and steady for a while - a bit of Call me Cait, a bit of Jenni Murray, a quick glance at FWR and a bit of jaw on the ground watching LM.

Then it all just hit me in a tsunami - GRA/Jazz/Dr Haddock/Corbyn/pussy hats are transphobic/GG/Mer-fucking-maids - the whole lot. I felt like a bucket of cold water had been thrown in my face and I was just gasping at the absolute insanity of it and why no-one was bloody listening.

For me - the trans bandwagon has been my route into radical feminism and the sheer bloody unfairness so many women face on a daily basis. I am well educated and comparatively well off - I don't face anything like the discrimination other women do (real women that is, the old fashioned kind). This has been my wake up call that, by virtue of my biology, I am still at the mercy of what men want, and it makes me rage. So with all the benefits of my education and profession, I am in the trenches on this one for all women, which means excluding the ones who were born men.

[RagingWhoreBag]

ManFriday and the swimming thing first caught my attention. Once I started reading a bit more, Fallon Fox, Caitlyn Jenner, Girl Guides, each one a new peak.

My DCs are being indoctrinated taught about the issues at school and I’m worried DD will say something true ‘transphobic’ and get herself into trouble, but as a non gender conforming girl, happy have short hair, wear trousers and not buy into the girly bullshit being peddled to her, I have to arm her with the info to keep her safe.

[Lamaha]

Oh yes -- I should add that I loathed the fact that all my American female friends talked about and referred to themselves as cisgender. I simply could not stand being called a ciswoman!
And then I heard about kids being transitioned. I used to be a tomboy as a young girl and ended up so happy I'm a woman -- it just seemed wrong to be pumping kids full of hormones and then cutting bits off of them. I simply do not believe in people being in the wrong bodies.

[Anlaf]

Oh Betty to you and your sister and your lovely mum.

[Midnight21]

Hey Graham,
My daughter had gender dysphoria as a teen & for 3 years presented as a boy.The system for assessing teens who were questioning thier gender was very different from now (started 2006).
On visiting the gp we were referred to Tavi & Port but the waiting time was very long.In the meantime she was in the care of CAMHS.
To cut a very long story short she desisted after 3 years.
I have keep an eye on the developing contrversy since around 2012.
I have been aware of a problem with 'gender' identity for a long time as it conflicts directly with my radical feminist beliefs that gender is a harmful social contstruct.However,just as many women life means feminism can take a backseat to family,work etc.It does not mean the gender abolisionist beliefs are no longer.
The final straw came when I saw what was happening to lesbian women (I'm a lesbian).It was almost a lightbulb moment.How on earth can homosexuals exist if sex is a 'construct'.Started delving deeper & saw the absolutely foul homophobic abuse aimed at lesbians.No turning back.
Joan

[dragongirlx]

It was a bit of Caitlin Jenner for also when women were protesting against trump for the grab them by the pussy remark and were told off for wearing pussy hats to the march. I thought what the fuck and I just kept peaking from then on.

[ValWiggin]

I heard the Reasons to be Cheerful episode "Trans rights are human rights."

It was interesting enough, especially to hear the voices of trans people and the father of a trans child (their description). But it seemed a little (ok, a lot) one-sided, and I always like to research both sides, or multiple sides, of any debate before I decide where I stand.

I went off to educate myself and pretty soon could see the difference between the TRA side and the GC side. Only one side stood up to reason and evidence, so here I am.

[Bebstar123]

I was actively involved in local politics and LGB rights in particular, but when it became clear that my son's care needs we're higher than the norm, I took a gradual break from both real life and online activism. This was about 8 years ago and even then I was raising questions about the wording, statistics and practical application of the LGBT policies that my party was championing and I myself was involved in. These questions generally fell on deaf ears.

Fast forward to late last year and I see the kicking you're getting in the press, especially the Irish press.* I'm not Irish, but I have lived here all of my adult life, best part of two decades. I'd always seen Father Ted as an integral part of dismantling the Catholic Church in Ireland, so to see you abused as such made an impact. So I looked into everything and after feeling ike I need a going over with a wire brush, I've well and truly peaked.

*When I first moved here, my friend who had gone to a Christian Brothers school, would often talk about a tape recording his class were made to listen to. It was a very creepy priest who would lecture on all the sin and depravity across the water. Literally every recording ended with 'coz that's the kind of filth they get up to in England'. I often think of this when reading/listening to some of the sanctimonious Irish and Scottish press who's default setting now seems to be 'we're just so much more liberal than what they get up to in England'.

[MagicMix]

I've probably told this story on here before but the aha moment for me was when a man in my social circle started claiming to be a transwoman. He is involved in local politics and there was a photo posted on social media of a policy group or something that he was a member of. In the photo he was dressed in typical men's clothes, tagged with a man's name and everything and there was no visual indication that he thought he was a woman.

A woman commented sarcastically under the picture about the fact that the group was overwhelmingly male and a man reprimanded her because this man was actually a woman. And the woman apologised. (Even though the group was still overwhelmingly male even if we had counted one of the men as a woman).

I didn't really believe in the ideology before, but I was semi-successfully trying to quash all 'wrongthink' in myself because I knew my opinions were not 'OK' according to my peers (libfem wokebro central). But in a flash it was startling clear to me which way this was going and why it was absolutely essential that we retained the right to recognise and speak the truth. I had thought we could pretend for the sake of being nice and it would be all right, but then I just suddenly realised that no we could not do that.

I saw quite clearly in that little exchange that if we went along with it like good little handmaidens, we would end up in a world where sexism would still exist but we wouldn't be able to name it.

[WineGummyBear]

Hey Glinner! Thank you for all your work.

I started reading this board more and more in the run up to the consultation on Self-ID. Everything seemed so clear and obvious about the huge conflict between self-ID and protections for women and children (hospitals/prisons/schools). I then had a conversation with a family member who has spent her life working in safeguarding and has a very acute awareness of grooming/predatory male behaviour. This person told me it was all fine because the guardian said it wasn't a problem. I then started to get really interested in how the issue is reported. And scared by the lack of consideration for the impact on women and children.

I'm still blindsided by the traction TRAs have got from getting Stonewall to champion the T in the way it does. A gay friend was so reluctant to see any harm in Stonewall as this friend had firsthand experience of suffering from Section 28. Initially my friend bought into the superficial 'gender critical is conversation therapy for trans youth' line. But when she went deeper she understood how profoundly regressive it is to say playing with blue toys means a girl child is a boy.

[mogtheexcellent]

I was annoyed at the pink blue divide before my DD was even born. We refused to find out her sex in a scan to avoid this. At the later stages of pregnancy (2014) I discovered the Let Clothes be Clothes and Let Toys be Toys campaigns and spent most of my maternity leave writing letters and emails and taking photos in shops. Also started following people like ManvsPink on facebook and twitter. From then I stated taking an interest and was completely at Caitlin Jenner winning Woman of the Year so started investigating more by lurking on the MN feminist chat threads and following people like Jessica Eaton on twitter.

Then had to set up a separate twitter as work contacts were finding me on twitter and didnt want to leave my identity exposed/have any arguments with clients who appear to be a bit woke.

I do voluntary work for the Womens refuges in my area and the transactivists have even got involved in that (a memorable moment was receiving a facebook invite to join a protest at a Womans Place meeting I had already bought tickets for ).

I have a facebook friend who is quite involved with Fair Play for Women and I am getting involved in a local ReSisters group that is being set up.

The sad thing is everyone I speak to cannot see a problem with what is going on or who are wary of the truth. I fear for my daughters future so I have to do something.

[RedRosa90]

I suppose that I realised something was up when I witnessed my first instance of women being vilified for being critical or questioning of gender in 2011/2012ish. At a queer feminist event. Then I became very thoughtful. Then the GRA stuff happened in 2018 and a lot clicked into place about how male trans people were acting in my friendship circles/networks and life. I run in quite young, queer feminist circles (people in their 20s).

I was living a life between deep personal knowledge of women's service such as domestic violence services, having been in such services a lot of my adult life, and recognising that the people espousing queer politics had no sense of what that was like and how those spaces needed to be safe from some of the male (bearded and misogynist) trans people I knew.

I grew in my views as I witnessed the witch hunts first hand, saying nothing, observing from the inside of these communities. I became appalled and afraid.

I then thought long and hard about everything to do with sex and gender - drew lots of diagrams about what I perceived the aims of each "side" to be and had a lot of sleepless nights and crisis line calls. I am very embedded in the queer community so this was incredibly difficult and about people I actually knew and loved.

I now recongise that I am gender critical and that this cannot be separated from the fact that I am a nonconforming female lesbian and that I am working class and a survivor. I will always centre women. I believe in same sex spaces in some instances as a matter of safety (in case of crisis services) or fairness (in case of sport) and believe that queer/trans theory, when weaponised against women, is profoundly unsafe and ignorant of the issues the majority of women in the world (including me) face.

I also became more aware of child protection issues in the way that sex stereotypes are not challenged with children and young people who say they are trans. This is a relatively new consideration since I heard that there was a 4000+% rise in female children saying they are boys (late 2018 unheard about this). I feel very protective of the next generation of nonconforming children who aren't getting a decent education about sexism and stereotypes and how to resist them.

So it was a steady, considered, and at times very painful process between 2011-2019. I guess I have been critical of gender my whole life, being non-conforming and all (and a gut feminist), but this period has been a highly important time of reflection.

[AnotherLass]

The first time I realised that something was very wrong was when I saw people I like describing a website as spreading far right transphobic hate. And I went there out of curiosity and it was perfectly normal compassionate left wing people saying things like "biological sex is real" and "testicles are not female".

And then I realised that I was actually frightened to tell people that I was worried about what was going on, which shocked me even more.

And then I started looking into it and I honestly felt like I'd woken up in a dystopian 1984 alternate reality where people are terrified to say basic truths and everyone has to say that they believe that 2+2=5. And I realised that I have to stand up to this.

[OlennasWimple]

Slow and steady for a while - a bit of Call me Cait, a bit of Jenni Murray, a quick glance at FWR and a bit of jaw on the ground watching LM.

Then it all just hit me in a tsunami - GRA/Jazz/Dr Haddock/Corbyn/pussy hats are transphobic/GG/Mer-fucking-maids - the whole lot. I felt like a bucket of cold water had been thrown in my face and I was just gasping at the absolute insanity of it and why no-one was bloody listening.

Yes, this pretty much sums up my GC awakening also

And, as pp on here frequently say: once the scales have fallen from your eyes, you can't stop seeing the issues.

[HebeMumsnet]

Afternoon, everyone. We just wanted to pop by with a reminder that we'll delete posts that breach our guidelines on these threads so perhaps have a read before posting. If we have too many deletions we may have to delete the entire thread so it would be great to keep this discussion civil and helpful. Thanks.

[Fairenuff]

I was incensed that a judge ordered Maria Mclachlan to refer to her attacker as female. Essentially, commanding her to lie under oath.

[MrsScamander]

The controversy about the Girl guides policy of allowing trans identified boys to share sleeping space and changing space with young girls was what first brought my attention to the GRA consultation and the trans ideology. I was always "live and let live" and "transwomen are women" when I was naive to the trans cult and thought that transgender only covered men and women who have had had sex reassignment surgery and was oblivious to the surgery and drugs being pushed on children.

The girl guiding policy I couldn't believe people would think it was a good idea and was aghast that Guides couldn't see the obvious safeguarding risk towards our daughters.

And when you go down the rabbit hole it only gets worse.

I wasn't peak transed by anything big or controversial, but by a TRA who told me (in what I thought was a fair and respectful conversation) that me being worried about predatory men using self ID to access young girls and women was "hysterical"

Learnt from bitter experience TRAs don't believe in respectful conversation.