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!

I'm a weightlifter. The sports ones did it for me. My (male) trainer and everyone else who's mentioned it at the gym thinks transwomen compete against natal women is cheating, end of.

Madeline Berns gave me a lot to think about. The Germaine Greer thing boiled my piss. That bookshop in Canada(?). The TopShop fiasco. And waxmyballs. I'm 52 years old and bisexual. I was a very active gay and lesbian ally in the 1980s, and a feminist to boot (still am). I thought it was a cop-out when B was added to the LG in Stonewall. I work in a university and the level of wokeness is horrific.

I echo what the first poster said: Glinner, you ledge!

I had my eyes opened a couple of years ago, before I joined MN. I was a member of a Facebook feminist group - it was a group about something else but with a feminist perspective. The other fan groups on the same topic tended to be dominated by men and had quite a nasty anti-woman feel about them so I had gone deliberately looking for a women's fan group.

There were two very aggressive, domineering mods in the group who were both transwomen. If anyone posted something that they disagreed with, they would post a very nasty response then ban the poster. Then post afterwards gloating about how they had banned the person and slagging them off.

One night one of them posted the message "Fuck Cis". Anyone who responded with anything other than complete agreement was subject to the treatment described above. The mod then boasted that they would post deliberately inflammatory things to see who responded so that they could ban them - it was their way of "flushing out" anyone who didn't agree with them.

There was constant talk about how "cis" group members should not talk over trans members, that the voices of trans members should be amplified, that posts slagging off cis women were OK as cis people were the oppressors and were not hurt by those posts.

I realised then that, having joined the group to get away from bullying men, I had ended up in a situation where my opinion, as a person with XX chromosomes, was worthless against that of a nasty, bullying XY person. And I thought "Really? Is this feminism?"

Then I found Mumsnet (some time later) and things started to slot into place.

Without MN I probably wouldn't have even noticed the TRA movement, as I read The Guardian, and watched BBC and Channel 4 news, whose silence is deafening, and am not a big Twitter use.

I first learnt about the proposed changes to the GRA on MN, couldn't believe that a law that affects women, was being so slyly 'consulted' on, filled in the consultation. Then started searching out more info, mainly starting on FWR.

Then everything else really; the lies, the lies about biology and abuse of language, the taking over over girls and women's sports and spaces, getting GC women sacked, the aggression, the nonsense that is spoken, the damage being done to children (I wanted to be a boy when I was - child); it's everything really.

I know a few trans young people through work, and they all have ASD and emotional behavioural problems or mental health problems, before being trans. Hearing them freak out if not called their preferred pronoun makes me both sad and sick.

I'm constantly shocked that such an enormous issue, which affects women and girls so terribly, is still not reported properly on most mainstream media. Shocked that when it is, chances are there are no women invited to the discussion. Martina. Just everything.

2 things:

1. as a rape survivor, I can find being around someone with a penis when I feel vulnerable such as in a changing room upsetting and scary. (I realise the vast majority of TW are not rapists, but not are most men. That’s not the point). I have seen countless talk of being “obsessed with genitals” and “bio-essentialism” etc which I find incredibly belittling.

2. 10 years as a barrister working in discrimination cases tells me that even in this country, where we don’t have to deal with the lamentable shit women internationally do eg maternal death rate giving birth etc, so much of the discrimination and oppression we suffer in this country is sex based. Seeing Stonewall’s Vision for Change document suggesting “sex” be replaced with “gender” in the Equality Act horrifies me. I’m quite clear: if you support such a step, you either don’t understand the Equality Act and how it protects women, or you’re a fucking misogynist.

Mn did it for me! I think it started with a thread by a parent that was essentially, my kid is trans smiley face! I think this was in active but led me somehow into feminist chat. It's the Hotel California of MN, once you're in...,
Lucky for me FWR with its shocking truths and amazing writers peak transed me- I had a background of facts when my autistic son told me he was trans just before Christmas. I feel that I was able to support him but let him know I didn't really believe he was a woman. ( fun fact, today he told me he's not a woman, yeah!!)
Thanks to MN support and MNHQ for support in this, if I wasn't aware, we may have ended in a different place.

A Labour friend asked my opinion about the women only shortlist thing, and I had to work out what my opinion was because I had not been paying much attention for one reason and another, then very shortly after I became aware of the Stonewall "Get over it" campaign, and seeing that and attempting to talk about it online crystallised a lot of my thinking, it and the response to anyone questioning it was so disrespectful, so entitled and so narcissistic. Then the abuse of the Get the L Out women was the final straw.

Evening Glinner. Bepenised here.

It was at work when a service user wanted us to call him Sheila. Fair enough I said we would. It's civilised and polite to do that at least. No harm.
Then he asked to use the ladies loo.
I said no. He kicked off like the abuser he was. I work in the CJS.

Also, the AgP male posting on a facebook group which started as a mn thread about make up. Few people expressed discomfort at the posting style and content, huge bigots clearly, so they left.

Then the messages from the agp male to younger female teen members came out.

And I am being disciplined by my employer for saying TWANW. That pisses one off more than a bit.

Hi Glinner
I was "lured into" the gender debate after much time spent debating with feminists on the subject of prostitution. Subjects like the Leeds red light zone, decriminalisation in New Zealand, sex trafficking, the Nordic Model etc etc would be my main focus.
(I'm an ex sex worker).

I noticed some time ago, feminist boards such as this one started to get more and more focussed on trans issues, and I saw how people in various feminist groups were being banned or kicked off if they weren't saying the right thing re gender, or using the right language.

In the sex industry, TWAW has no traction at all and I have never been able to fathom the mindset of anyone who believes TWAW so I come from that background.

If a sex worker has an online profile it'll be whatever, busty brunette, petite blonde, some artistic licence sure, but if the punter shows up and the petite blonde turns out to have an unexpected six inch appendage, all hell would break loose. The worker would be at extreme risk and they would never make any money.

TW sex workers use their own language to describe themselves. They don't pretend to be the same as female sex workers. No punter will choose eg a TW over a female if the female is unavailable. They'll choose another female. If they're looking for a TW they'll choose between various TW.

It is beyond me how anyone can be so stupid think TW and women are comparable.

Anyway, so I got drawn in because I was just so flabbergasted by things I saw happening in feminist forums, the silencing, the bullying, the ousting of anyone who thought like this.

I never really had a peak trans moment. I started off by gently questioning the 'born in the wrong body' theory to myself. Then I read a few threads on here. That must have been around 2015.
I joined a Facebook group in 2016 and it spiralled from there. I read everything and discussed it to death. I went to the first Brighton meeting that took place after speakers corner and after I met some women IRL I was properly invested.
Involved in organising the Brighton WPUK meeting.

It was when Anna Lee stood for NUS women's officer two years ago. I was very much of the "liberal live and let live" before that but Anna standing for a women's position utterly shocked me to the point of #peaktrans a few days and a few MN threads later. It was the very idea that a man can say he decides to live as a woman or has a lady brain... Utterly nonsensical. I have a gazillion woke friends though so I am not GC in real life, I have no way of starting the conversation that doesn't make me seem like I am a bitch. Even my husband has no idea what I'm talking about, it angers me so much that I've no idea how to talk about it and explain it calmly. But I sense the tide is turning so I am looking forward to speaking to friends who are peaking.

My dp told me that some people thought that calling dildos "female sex toys" was exclusionary because some women didn't have vaginas, and some men did....I laughed out loud, thinking he was joking. He wasn't.

I'd assumed all trans people had had bottom surgery.

So I started looking on the MN feminist boards at the trans threads I'd avoided before.

I realised that dp was right, But that I didn't agree that people who hadn't had bottom surgery, should be allowed to demand that, about biological sex related things.

So I continued looking into it all and it was like opening a can of worms that couldn't be closed again.

Dp also changed his mind in time too.

The response of a member of a forum did it for me. It was a tiny group who had known each other online for years : all very leftie feminist thoughtful types. I posted something really hesitantly questioning about the impossibility of talking about the GRA stuff, saying I really wanted to understand, and expressing unease at the no platforming of so many feminists, and boom, this woman had called us transphobes and deleted herself.

And I just thought, well that's fucking nuts! She knew I'm no bigot. Hell, she knew I've represented trans women trying to keep their relationships with their kids. She knew me.

So then I really started thinking.

Oh this nugget. C/o mermaids.

If you're a child or young person looking at this you only see blonde Barbie or GI Joe. Where do you fit if you're a girl who's gender non conforming? Are you therefore a boy? What if you happen to like Elsa dresses and you're a boy?

Notice too that the 'female' characters get fatter.

It's also racist. Where the hell do you feel you fit if you're young girl who is black?

James Kirkup's article in The Spectator on Feb 8 last year:

Can we have an honest debate about gender?

blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/02/can-we-have-an-honest-debate-about-gender/

which has a direct link to the MN FWR board.

Thank you, James, for opening my eyes.

Hi Glinner. I don't know if you've seen the Trans Widows threads but if so do take a look.

The debate that's happening in the country now, played out in my house, starting about 7 years ago now when my then husband decided to transition.

It was as plain to me then as it is now that my ex is not a woman, he is a man who finds performing masculinity too difficult.

I somehow came across Rebecca Reilly Cooper on Twitter a couple of years after I left him, and then she retweeted the Spartacus stuff which brought me to mumsnet.

I've been trying to do my bit to support other trans widows since then.

Oh yeah, and that NeurotrashWarrior

I'd never thought of that aspect DpWm. Very good point.

I stumbled across some teaching at my school (secondary) which shocked me. I’ve since found more - it’s bonkers and I’m challenging it. It’s not going very well for me but I’m emboldened to keep trying by what I read here.

It was 2017. I was feeling pretty inescapably female at the time attached as I was to a constantly feeding and rarely sleeping miniature human.

I worked in mental health and education and saw the crap that the margins of society have to deal with and how again and again women are shat on by austerity, the asylum and benefits systems, the underfunded health service, the labour market and the difficulty in getting away from abusive men. But I thought we - the left wing - were working on making things better. I was Labour voting, Corbyn loving, Guardian reading etc. and an automatic trans ally.

I thought that trans people were all seeing gender for the oppressive bollocks that it was and choosing to express it though their identities. I though they were my allies too. And that really mattered because as a girl and a woman I had also experienced a fair amount of crap that I blamed on the patriarchy - from serious sexual assaults to a perfectly legal form of maternity discrimination.

For me the phrase "peak trans" does not resonate. I experience this as a never ending series of losses. Like bereavement but without the small compensatory peace that comes with knowing somebody you love is no longer in pain. I say this as somebody who also lost their mum to a cancer only women can get. If nothing else convinced me that gender identity is not innate, it was watching a vulnerable adult human female die very slowly, losing absolutely everything along the way.

The specific incident which woke me up was the way the Guardian reported a story about a trans prisoner who was not allowed hair straighteners in jail, without mentioning that they were a sex offender against teenage girls. I had happened to read the full story elsewhere and was deeply troubled by the Guardian's ommittance. I started to pay attention to things that had previously been on the periphery of my awareness.

From there other losses came thick and fast ... Labour, UK democracy, NHS, Cancer Research, BBC, our education system, gay men and the trans movement as allies of women. Somewhere along the way I found mumsnet and discovered, contrary to my internalised misogynistic expectations, that it was full of critical thinkers who were noticing the same things I was.

I became a mother, and suddenly I became acutely aware of both the biological differences between men and women and the socialisation differences.

There's a reason 'mums' are heavily involved in pushing back against the modern trans rights agenda. The fact that so many males don't understand why we are all being so 'mean' just demonstrates precisely why we need to hold strong.

I read a Germaine Greer article not long after my possessive six form boyfriend stalked me to Uni, threatened to kill himself when I dumped him and then decided he would be a woman ‘with bigger tits’ than me. For me this has been present and real for 20 odd years. I’m alarmed at how things are going.

For me it was partly the horrified shushing from my teenagers and the 'You can't say that!' while looking fearfully around them, in our own living room.

(I'd said something that made it clear I wasn't convinced that our various friends' daughters were now automatically their sons because they'd said so. I hadn't said I'd serve them up with pickle on toast, exclude them from clubs, or indeed be anything but sympathetic.)