Positive changes to the prevailing discourse

[KnitFastDieWarm]

Currently having a conversation about the issue of unquestioned and unresearched trans inclusion on sport with several fairly woke Facebook friends and the only ones who disagree are a) the wokest handmaiden that ever did live and b) a sweet but impressionable 20 year old. EVERYONE ELSE gets it. Everyone. Lots of reasoned, calm and sensible engagement with the issues.

Compare this to a year ago when I basically felt like I’d just declared my love for Adolf Hitler when posting about these issues. I’m feeling cautiously optimistic.

Anyone else got any positive developments of this sort to share? I know there’s still a lot to be done but I think we all deserve a bloody massive pat on the back for how far we’ve come in such a short time through sheer determination and refusal to be cowed.

I think the creation of a prison wing exclusively for male transpeople is a positive step, too.

If male transpeople are too dangerous to be in women's prisons and too strong to be in women's sports, who can argue that they should be anywhere exclusively for women and girls?

I think it's only a matter of time before vulnerable women are protected in healthcare settings. And girls protected in schools and other organizations.

Yes, when I started tentatively talking to quite a wide circle of friends about this two years ago they were 'Woah, we never had you down as an extremist' and now some are full-on GC and others are saying they get it and they can't believe they fell for it in the first place.

The only people I don't seem to find it easy to get it through to are gay men who don't seem to have any sense of solidarity with women. In fact over the weekend one of them wrote something along the lines of 'You feminists wanted equality and now you've got it in sport you're saying it's unfair.' That guy isn't stupid, he's a teacher and he knows what's fair and what's not fair, but he's a misogynistic youngish gay man who doesn't feel any kind of emotional connection or interest in women.

The only people I don't seem to find it easy to get it through to are gay men who don't seem to have any sense of solidarity with women. In fact over the weekend one of them wrote something along the lines of 'You feminists wanted equality and now you've got it in sport you're saying it's unfair.' That guy isn't stupid, he's a teacher and he knows what's fair and what's not fair, but he's a misogynistic youngish gay man who doesn't feel any kind of emotional connection or interest in women.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that both Owen jones and Adrian harrop fall under this description. I know plenty of lovely, thoughtful gay men who totally get it, but I think if you were a certain type of narcissist who happened to also be a gay man you could easily have a compete empathy bypass at best and an excuse to let loose misogyny in a socially sanctioned way at worst.

I think it's only a matter of time before vulnerable women are protected in healthcare settings. And girls protected in schools and other organizations

And it will be our doing. Uppity women who won’t conveniently shut up and play nice

I know plenty of lovely, thoughtful gay men who totally get it

Yes. Jonny Best and Lachlan Stuart spring immediately to mind.

Since Karen White, I think, things started to turn around.
I mean most of us here have known about LM and Labour party AWS issues, Posy's billboards, the constant shutting down of feminist talks etc, things that have been going on for a long time, but generally no one took notice until a few high profile events more recently.

Martina has, just... Blown it all out of the water. So many high profile people are coming forward now. It's amazing.
Mind you I'm still a bit worried about talking too openly about it all, just in case.

Nearly everyone I’ve talked to at work gets it (bar a blue-haired lady who used the word cis).

So pleased we’ve got a new female only room at work. It might be a prayer room but I’m happy to go there if I need somewhere quiet to just sit.

''NHS rules that allow men to share women's wards if they identify as female to be reviewed''

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/03/04/nhs-review-transgender-policies/

(no paywall)

I do hope they manage a bit more than ‘looking at’ the problem.

I work in the NHS and until recently my GC viewpoint was frowned upon by a large chunk of the staff (although thankfully I had a very gobby GC counterpart who worked opposite shifts who wouldn’t let it drop) but lately colleagues have come round and started to admit that yes they have known all along that TWANW and TMANM but they wanted to “live and let live” and didn’t want to be seen as intolerant. Thankfully they are now engaging in debate, discussing the impact on our workplace and implications for the people we work with and indeed our careers.
Martina has reached the men like nothing else though.

lately colleagues have come round and started to admit that yes they have known all along that TWANW and TMANM but they wanted to “live and let live” and didn’t want to be seen as intolerant.

I think we're going to see a lot of that as time goes on. I'm going to have to bite my tongue, a lot. I'm actually pretty sad and angry that it took famous people defending sports to get people to get them to draw a line in the sand, and not the rights of vulnerable women elsewhere.

I’m cautiously optimistic that the tide’s turning with respect to transing children or even encouraging children in the belief that transgenderism is anything other than a sexist and homophobic load of bollocks

The thing that has been a real shot is the arm for me is the calibre of sporting s/heros who have spoken out. It makes me teary thinking about it. They are fucking giants!

I think Stella O'Malley's documentary was really important too. Getting the TRAs on film showed the world what feminists are up against for simply wanting to meet and talk.

lately colleagues have come round and started to admit that yes they have known all along that TWANW and TMANM but they wanted to “live and let live” and didn’t want to be seen as intolerant.

This is the thing isn't it? Nobody believes it even those that champion it and repeat the mantra.

A lot of people have just been caught up in an Emperor's New Clothes movement.

I guess people are realising that there's a big difference between toleration, and surrendering rights that girls and women need. Even if some of us don't personally need some of the sex-based protections, other women do, and it's not my place ( let alone a male's) place to compromise those.

I’m still amazed by Joan McAlpine’s sudden revelations on Twitter and the apparently gender critical tone of the census debate. I looked at her Twitter feed this morning and she’s properly taken all the issues on board about shelters and all the nonsense “women should be re-educated” advice.

It’s always been said on here that all we needed was some properly big names to start speaking out and now they have. Like WeRise, I feel so emotional looking at all those wonderful sportswomen. Huge names from my past making their voices heard.

It really feels like the dam is breaking.

All of the above, but also I notice lately that on twitter, if someone says something perceived as transphobic (ie disagreeing with TRAs) there'll be a few cries of transphobia, then lots of people saying, effectively, 'don't talk bollocks'.

The people I follow make echo chambering a definite possibility, the use of block lists could mean that TRAs have basically taken themselves out of lots of conversations - but I'm just not seeing the awful overwhelming pile-ons I did a year ago.

Small blessings for blocked lists then

Yes Lemon - wonder if they'll realise that prioritising their hurty feelz means they've left the stage available for other voices?

The twitter absence of the person formerly identifying as a doctor has taken some of the batshit-crazy spite out of recent discourse too, and allowed more sensible voices to prevail.

So, sanity is creeping back into the NHS, prisons, sport and (hopefully, since Miranda's court appearance) the law.

Still stuck in 1984 - the labour party and the BBC.

I have some very woke friends

So far my head hasn't been blown off, on the contrary people are thanking me for speaking up. I think the tide is turning. Speak up!

I think the whole debate has been stifled and choked by fear. "Transphobic" has no meaning. They've totally under mined it (which I think is worrying, actually). It's like the over use of "fascist" in American politics. They called out moderate Republicans like McCain etc as fascist. Then when they get someone much more hardline like Trump, people didn't listen, cos they cried wolf so many times before.

I agree the tide is turning very slowly regards prisons & sports but meanwhile trans ideology has crept into our nurseries and schools, where every day young, impressionable children are being lied to. I can’t rest until T ideology is removed from schools, GGs etc.

Despite more and more women being banned from Twitter, the debate has definitely changed recently. Karen White, Rachel Mckinnon, resignations from the Tavistock centre, David Challenor being investigated and then of course, high profile, highly respected female athletes getting involved, it’s all making people take notice and think WTF?

Couldn’t find a single pro-TRA comment under the Piers Morgan piece about women’s sport (apart from irony that appeared to whoosh over heads, getting red arrowed, or obvious trolling). It was WTF left, right and centre.