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!

@HopeMumsnet - did it not occur to you to email Betty and ask if she'd mind you editing her post? Belated do not alter what seems to most of us here to have been a [insert word that won't get me deleted for being mean to the mod team here] decision about a heartfelt post. This decision was not in the spirit, surely?

I feel really conflicted about the deletion.

I am profoundly grateful to MN for allowing these chats - I remember when deletions were rampant. I think the talk guidelines are exasperating, but, MN is a business and has to protect it's interests, and so I accept them.

But, jeezo. Sometimes it's hard to to rail against it and shout all the things we know to be true.

Glinner - you seen that monster of a man who killed his beautiful family wore her knickers? There's a thing that's of no surprise at all. If Hawes hadn't killed himself he could have demanded to be housed in the female estate.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6746345/Killer-husbands-cross-dressing-dark-secret-exposed.html?fbclid=IwAR1tVgtOt_Ik3Seqx9nr5LshuDZKLbpExh0evMJBEXNJvnA4osSmYEdLvkk

It was MN that got me alert. I didn't have a clue! I didn't take it a face value though. I followed the links and started looking at YouTube vids Riley Dennis, Magdelen Berns and the lovely Miranda Yardley.

It was the attack at Speakers Corner that got my attention though. Nice one TRAs I would have supported you probably in complete naivete. Own goal or what? (Sadly at the expense of someone else)

Getting called a bigot in a Facebook group for saying that I couldn't see the difference between trans black and trans gender. It was 2015 and the Rachel Dolezal story was in the news. The worst thing was it was a science Facebook group set up for debates but apparently we couldn't discuss transgender issues because that was social justice.
I got told to educate myself so I did. And guess what? It turned me full T*

When I first heard about a man getting pregnant.

Jesus, that article about Clodagh Hawes is brutal. RIP Clodagh. And ffs, talk about the ego of the husband. His family would rather die that knowing he was a porn addict who wanked in his wife's knickers. No they wouldn't. They would rather be alive and happy. I could cry for that family.

My first time thinking about this was when, some years ago, there was a legal attempt by some trans people trying to get their birth certificate changed, to reflect their new sex. And I thought "wtf? That's surely trying to re-write history?" Then I beat myself up about it thinking I was being I was being illiberal.

Then, a couple of years ago I asked on mumsnet to recommend me some other boards I might not have looked at. Someone recommended the feminism boards. Until then I had no idea about self id. And thought trans people were all post operative.

Betty. Love your posts.

We did need to delete your post as there were definitely guideline-breaking elements but have no objection to you re-posting the link to the article you wrote about your mum. In fact we'd be pleased if you did, it was a lovely tribute

Betty's article was about the dangers that transactivism posed to women's health. It came about when CRUK were lobbied by transactivists who clearly have no experience or comprehension of gyny cancer. CRUK were lobbied to refer to 'people with cervixes'

Betty had experienced Ovarian Cancer first hand, its a devastating disease. Her powerful article is a tribute and also a powerful warning of the implications of transactivism for women's health.
I have also experienced gyny cancer both through my own diagnosis and subsequently becoming acutely aware of the need to raise awareness and how difficult this is. As so many of the friends I made were similarly diagnosed and the nature of these diseases Ive been to a lot of funerals.

As this is the site 'with the swear words' I would add that its fucking frustrating when serious issues affecting women are reduced and censored.

For me it was the CBB series which focused on it being 100 years since women got the vote. Great thing to celebrate. Let's remember what women went through to get the vote and the struggles they've had since. Who could think that was a bad idea.

But then, in with the women came someone who would have had the vote 100 years ago. Started me thinking about male privilege.

A few episodes in and India Wiloughby was rubbing body lotion into her breasts in the bathroom and talking about them with Rachael Johnson. India's description of her breasts were that "They were just another part of her body; like and arm or a leg" The cogs in my brain started to turn a little bit more. They symbolism so much of womanhood, and to me are the reason my children are strong and healthy. Added to that, losing your breasts through illness is such an emotive thing for a woman to go through No woman I know would ever refer to her breasts as just another part of her body.

I started to think that this is where TW are different, they haven't got the lived experiences of women. They don't know the struggles with discrimination women have faced or the physical trials. But that's OK, I thought they are trans women, they are different and we all know that.

Then she said "I'm a real woman" and I realised she meant it. She was the same as me.

She who had never been told by their best friend's father that -it was more important that her brother get a good education than her; after all their brother would be supporting a family, where as I'd be at home looking after one (and this was in the late '80s)

She who's never had to face the same prejudiced (but this time unspoken) as she has -fought- risen to the top of her career.

She who had never found Caitlin Jenner's real struggle of the most difficult thing about being a woman was deciding what to wear each day to be meaningless , because today I was thanking God I decided to put a long black maxi dress on to deliver training today as Mother nature was playing the sick joke of making periods heavier as you get to the end of your fertility- and blood was gushing down my leg.

She, who because of her physical strength, doesn't worry about the fact that whilst the vast, vast majority of trans women are no threat to woman, some men are such a threat they will exploit self-id to gain access to spaces/services where women are vulnerable

She who tells Karen-Ingala-Smith that she feels sorry for the men Karen demonises, not the 2 women a week murdered by a partner.

She is a real woman, the same as me!!!

I've two things to say-Peak trans achieved and No you're not love!

Holy fucking shit, that article about the Hawes family. What the fuck?

I've always been involved in converations about how gender is imposed on us, and how restrictive it is.

Even before I discovered feminism, back when I was still arguing that we didn't have a need for feminism specifically and we should fight for equality for all. (I was an idiot, and yes I came into FWR to argue my point - so embarrassed looking back on it) Even then I knew gender was restrictive and not innate - by that point I'd had many experiences being told what I could and couldn't do due to my sex, and also had spent much of my school time being picked on for not confirming to a "feminine" appearance. But I had many an argument with people I thought were mean feminists who were bigoted against trans people.

But over time I started to notice that while I was defending trans people against the mean feminists - thinking that no one who went through all the dysphoria and hormone therapy and surgery deserved to have their pain minimised - there were posts and declarations about how actually TW were born women and there was no difference in biology or experience. I even tried to engage and point out that actually there were differences, and that it didn't mean we couldn't share some common ground and didn't mean they were worth less because of it. This wasn't enough though.

The final straws for me were two things - one was finding out about the "cotton ceiling" and being enraged both at the idea that lesbian women were somehow bigoted for not entertaining PIV sex and at the horrifically rapey imagery of the phrase.

Secondly was seeing a fairly prominent trans activist saying that the term FGM was "cissexist". That one made me angry enough I had to write it out to get it out of my system.

That was a no going back point.

Oh, just did find the Oregon man from Hawaii story. It's 2008. A lot earlier than I thought it was.

Oh - I forgot. Also reading an absolute shitshow of a page about a vulvas cupcake event at Auckland University (sadly removed now, but very instructive). Transphobic because not all women have vulvas. Apparently cupcakes are LITERALLY killing trans women.

The unbelievable misogyny of deciding that the definition of a woman is a feeling in a man's head.

The earth cracking moment of illumination when someone said women are oppressed on the basis of their biology, and gender is the means by which it's done.

And every single thing since proving both those things, beyond doubt.

AGP
Sport
Transing gender nonconforming kids
ROGD
Censorship, no platforming and threats
Safeguarding dismantlement to serve men

Glinner*
Much of what others have said, especially children and teens being taught this bollocks. Have been a rad fem for 40+ years and always believed gender is a constraining social concept. Plus about 15 years ago a dear friends aspy dd transed to ds. I tried to get my head around it but since her dd was in a psyc ward prior to this after suicide attempts I figured something wasnt quite right but didnt know enough about the issue. Friends DD has now detransitioned but left with a very deep voice and no breasts. In addition when I was teaching about 10 years ago a girl in my class whom I knew to have been sexually abused transed and so again I thought this cant be right,theres something else going on here. Discovered threads on here and have been doing as much as I can evere since to try and stem the tide. Oh and another thing the complacency of those in power makes me rage.[angry

I followed a radical feminist blog some years ago. Really robust and insightful societal and cultural critique. Then the blogger announced that TWAW and it just didn't make sense to me at all - how you could recognise 'gender' as a harmful set of social stereotypes and yet simultaneously think that it mattered more than biological sex and could somehow be identified into.

At that point I still thought that trans people were a very tiny minority who suffered from dysphoria and had surgery to alleviate it. My stance was that trans people weren't the sex they wanted to be, but it was kind to pretend that they were.

Then on MN back in 2017 or so I learned that most TW keep their male anatomy. I read so many nonsensical claims: pink and blue brains, sex somehow being 'colonialist', 'literal' violence, 'born in the wrong body' taken literally, the 'cotton ceiling'. I read about people like Muscato and Madigan. I read about AGP.

I started getting into Twitter arguments. I was called 'cis' and people who know nothing about me told me that my gender identity matched my sex. As a woman who has always experienced gender norms as oppressive, I found this incredibly offensive. I was told that I 'wasn't allowed' to not have a gender identity and that these people knew better than me. I got abuse and threats.

Since then it's been one peak after another.

Glinner, hello. I do hope you are using all these brilliant stories to counter the inhuman bigot accusation you are being treated to.
We are all on the receiving end of extreme bigotry every time we are told our reasonable and common understanding of human life is old fashioned, unscientific and fascist.
I say ditto to all of the above, the outrage came to me reading about the aggressive physical surrounding and jostling of a woman at a book fair. A book fair. I can't remember the details, someone here probably will.

My current peak is employment law being used against women. The intimidation of women at work by transpeople using grievances and harassment claims against them at work. This ought not to be happening and it's a travesty that it is.

The Diversity and Inclusion teams in organisations are very separate to the operational HR. Many of us in HR haven't drunk the kool aid but we not getting to know about this intimidating behaviour in the way we should. I am really peaked at the assumption that this form of bullying is acceptable. A classic example is the you tube video posted about the TRA bullying the Pride directors into denouncing women. And Philip Bunce reverse mentoring the board of directors into protecting his autogyneaphiliac behaviour at work.

Not acceptable.

Oddly enough, a transsexual family member brought this up first to me. But I dismissed them outright. they continued to keep trying to point out the issues and I willfully, like a goods little leftie, ignored their concerns and wrote it off as 'internalised transphobia' and even (this embarasses me) started talking quite badly about them and how they seem to have gone so offtrack recently and such. The stuff they said 'TRAs' were fighting for..it just seemed so fucking unbelievbable that I really did think they had gone a bit mad and become a conspiracy theorist at times. The way they categorized many TRAs behaving..I didn't believe as why would people so marginalized behave in a way detrimental to those they were trying to help?!

Then I saw TRA behaviour for myself.

Suddenly I would listen to this person who was trying to tell me this all along. They told me about the cotton ceiling. I didn't believe that either even when they had already proven they know what they were talking about. I figured still..it was just transphobic people posing as TRAs and saying these horrible homophobic things. Why would the L attack the L like that? So I asked a few lesbians I know well. Having pretty much always been involved in the LGB scene due to being bisexual and a seemingly huge disproportionate amount of my mates being gay and asking me out on large nights out to gay clubs..this was a fairly substantial amount of women I asked. It turned out that every damn one of them had had a negative experience within the past few years with a 'male lesbian'. Differing in severity (ranging from attempts to ostracize them from others because they said they only liked female people, to actual assaults for turning down males), but every one of them had a story of this happening, at least once, recently. The older ones said it was extremely reminiscent of a while back, when men (and especially MRA types) seemed to attack lesbianism with alarming frequency. Apparently, and this is obviously anecdotal, but the men who used to 'joke' about lesbians should just do dick as they use dildos and stuff...or say they just need a 'real man' have all but disappeared. Yeah they still encounter the odd homophobic 'straight man' thinking he is being original telling lesbians they are wrong for their sexuality, but now its usually 'male lesbians' with the same old trope, just as 'progressives' rather than fucking neanderthals. Basically, my lesbian friends admitted that they did not broach the topic with me ever before because 1) I didn't ask specifically and 2) when others had raised any concerns on the topic (not about the cotton ceiling, about women only spaces and such) I seemed dismissive and sometimes outright disparaging. It still makes me feel awful, to this day that none of my friends felt capable of letting me know the shit they were going through, the serious incidents some had suffered, because I was a 'good little leftie' and yelled bigot myself on a fair few occasions. I like to think that before my eyes were opened, I would not have gone down that route with the cotton ceiling, but honestly, I cannot say that for sure. I dismissed everything, including a lot of experience of an actual transsexual family member as transphobia for fucks sake.

This was my major turning point. Have been pretty disgusted with a lot of things that have come about since then, but the cotton ceiling and the behaviour of transactivists was my 'awakening'. I still have little wobbles every now and again where I do deeply question if I am indeed the one who suddenly turned bigoted out of the blue, but cotton ceiling and outright homophobia of the ideology, nevermind many of those in the 'movement', survivors, medicating healthy children, the treatment transsexual people get, the way its clearly MRAs riding on the coattails of what could have been (and might have been once) a legitimate movement to destroy womens rights, AGP, and just so many other things...nah.

A male punching a woman in the face so hard that he fractured her skull in the name of sport.

Also that transwoman who had that petition to get into a female prison after committing that most feminine of crimes, headbutting a barman. If you can't do the time (In the right prison) don't do the crime.

I love you, Glinner, for all you do speaking up for women. When I first saw you were getting involved with this I bloody well jumped for joy! I can't post too much about my views on twitter because of my job situation, but I do follow and try to join in where I can.

In real life, I first got involved in these kinds of discussions (and arguments online) about 12 (? ish) years ago, when I was volunteering for the samaritans. A TW called in and spoke about transitioning, and the way they described female bodies and experiences really made me stop and think. It was all about shopping and make up and clothes -- and then they said something really weird and unpleasant about female genitalia. I won't go into detail but I remember saying to the person on the phone, you know it's not actually like that? I couldn't get it out of my head. As much as I felt compassion and wanted to support them (and still do want to support trans people generally) it seemed pretty misogynist.

I've always been a feminist and involved in women's rights but at that time no one was really talking about this except some corners of the feminist internet - back then it was a haven of radicalism! I wonder if anyone here remembers websites like AROOO and Femonade/FCM, the radfem hub and so on. I remember a number of discussions about the word "cis" and the idea of "cis privilege". It's strange to see the critique that we developed and fought out then becoming mainstream GC feminism now. It just became increasingly clear that this was all very wrong, but at the time, it really did seem to be mostly on the internet - there was no legislation or public discussion. Just a bunch of women talking it out, and fighting online with men and TRAs who honestly seemed pretty unhinged. Gradually I started hearing more and more stories about what was happening to women's groups, lesbian groups, refuges etc. Then they shut down Michfest, and that was probably the moment when I realised TRAs were having a huge effect in the real world and these feminist conversations we'd been having were going to be seen as transphobia!!1!!!111!!!

Fast forward a few years and the entitlement of TRAs seems to have escalated beyond most of our imaginations, and a lot of feminists seem to have joined in the misogyny. That is the worst thing in all this, for me. Well, apart from losing our hard-won rights. But seeing women celebrating and pushing for the removal of our rights and freedoms is sickening. Now I take part in whatever activism I can, go to meetings, and talk to women constantly about what's going on.

Thanks for all you do, Glinner, and thank you for amplifying the voices of brave, wonderful women

Many years ago I read a quote from the travel writer Jan Morris. It was about how, when Ms Morris couldn’t get airport staff to attend to her as a woman, she’d revert to her male voice, which got their attention.

Nothing like having your cake and eating it too.

Evening @Glinner and you lovely lot

Just had to tell you what my 6 year old DS1 said when I asked him what the difference was between boys and girls:

'They aren't different, except that boys have willies and girls have vaginas. That is how a doctor can tell the difference.'

He's so wise

Almost exactly a year ago I googled something about Brendan Cox just as his, err, misdemeanours were hitting the media. Google took me to a thread about Mr Cox here.

Wow, I thought, I didn't realise there was a feminist section in Mumsnet. I had only ever looked at threads about schooling and special needs.

I've always been a feminist but had got a bit distracted (kids, work etc) and hadn't picked up on the trans thing until reading the threads on here.

Then I was officially radicalised...

I'm a lawyer and was (am) infuriated by the misrepresentation of the law by trans activists.

I listened to Ann Ruxlyo talk about the troubles she had with a certain ‘woman’s’ officer and the abuse she got. I went away and looked into what she said and was completely horrified by what I found out.

I watched as women were doxxed and threatened. I left the Labour Party because of that and the abuse those who don’t subscribe to the ideology.

I used to use pronouns but refuse to now. I find Twitter completely insidious, bullying, nasty place. Have lost respect for a huge amount of virtual signalling numpties. Have had huge rows with my husband who doesn’t get it.

I also find it disturbing that Mumsnet won’t allow women to state the truth. That we are forced to
lie. That I can’t say what I really think because I might get the sack.

I support trans people - but I think the trans ideology being pushed is a massive exercise is enforcing stereotypes. You cannot think you are women just to become one.

There is hope on the horizon. I overheard a convo today and everyone was openly against the narrative being pushed. People on the street don’t believe it for one second.