Advice and encouragement: saving my TRA friend

[WokeNotBloke]

I keep reading stuff that says: I lost a lot of friends, but I have new friends now.

This won’t do. I’m ancient. My mates were there 20 years ago when I had babies. It feels like my mates have been sucked into a cult. I love my friends even when they scare me 😳

Grateful for advice and encouragement- any positive stories?

I found leading into it by asking puzzled questions about obvious problems helps. Eg about hulking trans-women in contact sports.
Also I was part of the dyke community in the 80s, where we all gender bent to the hilt. I say i wonder how many of those dykes would be swayed by today's ideology to identify as male today. Also I bring up concerns about eating disorders, cutting, anxiety etc in alot of the young girls identifying at tranmale today.
Frankly, it hasn't worked. I try to keep it innocent and puzzled, at risk of terfism.
It's depressing.
These are the 3rd wavers I know, others have no doubt of where I stand and I think it's only a matter of time before I lose my woke friends when they find out.

I posted GC stuff on a FB page of older lesbians in my country, the silence was deafening.

If you, OP, had babies 20 years ago you are not yet ancient.

Maybe she doesn't want your 'help'. Either agree to disagree or drop her.

I posted GC stuff on a FB page of older lesbians in my country, the silence was deafening.

There may be quite a lot of lurkers though so please keep posting!
I would love to post my support of GC sentiment on twitter and facebook but dare not to. I work in a field which is strongly aligned with the L & G of LGBT and I do not want to inadvertently give anyone the impression that I am a bigot because that is not correct. I am not anti-trans people but I am anti-trans ideology and TRAs. I am pro-woman and a feminist and I believe in preserving women's space and the right of women to self-determine their own destiny without being dictated to by those who do not share our biology or experience.

I have this too, I have an old school friend with a teams child who's turned TRA. I only interact with him on FB at the moment, I'd love to see him again but just know it's a bad idea. I don't want to lose him as I had quite a traumatic childhood and that link to the past is important, but every connection I have with trans-people (young family member and ex-girlfriend) is silencing me to keep the peace.

everardDigby totally feel your pain. Am in a similar position with a very old, important friend whose child has transitioned, which makes me very guarded on public forums. I worry about seeing her, - she lives some distance away - as I have been supportive in the past, but have now said a few mild things online which led to her being enraged. 🤨

I’ve started talking to other female friends individually- and most are supportive, interested and shocked 😮

My pressing problem is the handful of woke, tra activists friends who I’ve tried to speak to. One literally cried, called me a terf etc. Her friendship is important to me. She isn’t transgender herself, but passion about it.

It almost like she’s been sucked into a cult. My initial strategy was to step back and press a feminist agenda, so will try and make feminist comments about the difficult things in her life that stem from her womanhood... and she whole heartedly agrees.... so for example, we could happily discuss women’s safety at night or the enhanced risk of females to sexual assault.... but it’s almost like any drift into trans issues and all logic flows away, and she’ll fall back to ‘twas, and starts shouting at me.

In all honesty, I have to admit I really want to rescue her, like she’s joined the moonies... but I realise that’s really arrogant of me too 😞.

It's difficult, everyone I've spoken to in my immediate circle of friends thinks TWANW, though few are prepared to be openly vocal about it. I think I am past the age though of being bothered to try to convert people. I might give my views but in a fairly understated way as if I didn't care either way what they thought. Arguing can just make people more entrenched. It's really awkward though because it does feel like a deal-breaker for me.