Jaw on the Floor - when did YOU peak?

[WomanBornNotWorn]

Can you pinpoint your peak start moment? When you went - Huh? What ... ?

I started my ascent to the peaks sometime last summer over on Twitter when I started noticing #stickerwoman conversations featuring a photo of a cute little flowery pink .... cock and balls ... labelled 'women don't have penises'.

Well obviousl - what??

There's ... an actual conversation going on? Huh??

And that's where it started for me.

It's starting to feel almost like being part of a fandom, the most gripping drama out there, with an astonishing cast, complicated plots and gobsmacking themes. I HAVE to keep checking in with Woman's Place meeting news, @goinglikeelsie's heroic coverage, the latest Riley Dennis aaarrrrggg-inducing offering, Glinner ... I'm addicted.

But the difference between this and Game of Thrones is it's REAL. The implications for women and children including young boys is seismic.

So when did you first go - 'Huh?? ..... '

On here in about 2010.
Very much linked in with conversations with eg Dittany readed to radical feminism.
We were reading The Whole Woman by Germaine Greer and talking about it.

I do understand gender dysphoria as a gender-non-conforming autistic lesbian.
I don't understand expecting others to endorse your coping strategies nor consider unwanted sexual partners.

Great name!

For me it was when the IOS said men could compete as women it was around 2016 before the last summer Olympics they announced it. I'm a huge Olympics fan but due to that and the banning of clean Russians I never watched a single event and won't until they stop the madness. Olympics should not be political and trans ideology is political.

*IOC predictive text grrrr

Have peaked numerous times since...
Cotton ceiling, trans kids, jelly beans...

A couple of months ago I googled to find out more about why Germaine Greer had been no platformed and that opened the door to the rest of it...

When a member of parliament, Louisa Wall, in my country, NZ, was recorded saying to a Pride crowd "My whole thing is that I don't want any f... TERFs at the Pride Parade".

Less than a year ago. I had to Google "what is a terf'" as I had no idea. Thankfully Mumsnet came up in the search.

As a lesbian from the 80s, who lost touch with the 'movement' years ago (life, etc) I was/am gobsmacked that all this was happening and I had no idea. If I had no idea, what about the general public? I have followed it all closely since, especially the media ban/bias/gaslighting.

To be brutally honest, I never fully bought in.
I was always puzzled that this one special type of dysphoria was treated very differently to any other.
I did have lots of sympathy though. Any form of body dysphoria/dysmorphia must be really tough.
Then we had the I Am Spartacus thread, which I am ashamed to admit I was too scared to post on.
Then I thought about why I was scared and I've been reading a lot more and slowly a huge chunk of my sympathy has been replaced by cynicism and anger. Cotton ceiling and everything else of its ilk.
I take my metaphorical hat off to everyone who's been braver than me.

To be brutally honest, I never fully bought in.

Me either.

I think it was a gradual process of realising that it was actually real and politicians were buying in that did it for me. Also, realising the implications for child protection and safeguarding. The CBBC documentary I Am Leo was a milestone in that respect as was Jazz Jennings. (I hope Leo is flourishing today: it's not about individuals).

Never did 'believe' the whole TWAW nonsense but also wasn't really paying much mind to it until about five years ago.

That was when a man on a forum I used to frequent, a rather sexist and homophobic man who had spent 10 years declaring how very different men and women naturally were and he should know as he had two sons and a daughter, suddenly announced one of his sons was really a daughter.

And then completely rewrote history. Suddenly the oh so different from his daughter son was obviously a daughter and always had been and the family always knew they were.

It was obvious bollocks, yet others were going along with it and I was berated for not giving it the whole 'stunning and brave'. That's when I started paying attention.

..suddenly announced one of his sons was really a daughter...

That's because the son in question is gay. You have already said that the father is homophobic.

And apparently these monsters are okay with sons transitioning.

I suppose it makes the (wedding) photos look "right"?

Wankers.

The Women Don't Have Penises stickers did a huge service, in making the news, and getting people talking about it.

I first started threads on here about 2013-ish I think, and initially ignored them. Long, heated threads, running to 1000 posts - one of which had a poster threatening to report either dittany or Mumsnet to the police (!)

When I finally read one of these threads - because initially I wasn't remotely bothered by trans people - why are feminists getting so upset I asked myself? Then I read about the cotton ceiling. That was it - peak trans. First peak of a long journey up into the stratosphere.

I was part of the first "Spartacus" thread here. I am Spartacus started when a prolific poster here was banned for calling some high profile TRA "a man" - we all came on a thread saying "well, you may as well ban me too MNHQ, because I will never say XYZ is a woman. XYZ is a man. MNHQ did relent - they did not ban the hundreds of women posting on the Spartacus threads.

This was all long before the new trans guidelines pinned to top of this board which now bans us for saying this

That's because the son in question is gay. You have already said that the father is homophobic.

Very likely, yes.

For me, it was how Rose McGowan.

For those who don't know the story, McGowan was one of the first women to speak up against Harvey Weinstein and wrote a book about her experiences of sexual assault and rape.
She was giving a talk at a bookshop about her experience of rape when a trans woman stood up and started shouting at her.
McGowan started out supportive calling the trans woman 'sister' then lost her temper, possibly when she was accused of the genocide of trans people . I can't remember exactly what she said but it was something like 'I didn't agree to be part of your cis world'
When I googled to find out what McGowan had done that was so horrifyingly transphobic, it turned out that it was off-handedly mentioning that trans women don't have the same experience of puberty as biological women in the context of a trans supportive conversation.
The trans woman was then revealed on social media as someone who had committed several sexual assaults against young girls aged around 12.

So we had a rape survivor trying to talk about her experience in public, who is then screamed at by a child sexual predator and the media and twitter's response .....pile on McGowan as 'transphobic'.
The abuse thrown at her on Twitter was utterly horrifying. Rape threats, death threats and all the mainstream media portrayed it McGowan having a meltdown and being transphobic.
Then on twitter, I kept seeing 'just because she's not a good person, don't misgender her' about the sexual predator followed by more abuse thrown at McGowan.

Until then, I'd noticed some issues but thought it was down to just a few bad eggs. That was the moment I started looking deeper and had that sinking 'oh shit' moment where I realised we have a very serious problem.

My actual peak was the whole Girl Guides thing.

Which is odd as I was only a guide for a short tone (hated it vs brownies) and have had no connection whatsoever to GGUK ever since then (30+ years).

It just seemed so bloody unfair on the girls. Real lose:lose. And the adults were behaving outrageously.

And then it was just peak after peak after peak.

I could never deny biological reality so for a while was just confused at where all this ideology was coming from.

I was very shocked that so much of the redefining of gender disproportionately affects women and children and none of it was being discussed in the MSM.

I sort of stumbled into the Feminism board of Mumsnet and never left. It’s one of the very few places in the western world willing to give women a voice and opportunity to talk about these issues that are affecting us directly.

I think the medication and surgery given to children, teens and young adults tipped the scale for me. Somehow this ideology is teaching young people to hate and reject their bodies and enabling adults to encourage them.

Why instead of society changing are we willing to mutilate teenagers? I was outraged.

I always knew trans was misogynistic - the idea that a man can become a woman by lopping off his penis, as if the only thing that makes us women is our dicklessness.

However I came across men claiming to be radical lesbian feminists on a feminist board quite a long time ago now, and that really shocked me. I never thought a man would claim to be a lesbian. They were huge trouble makers amongst women too. This was long before trans activism was a thing. It was the same time I discovered radical feminism and I've watched the two movements grow, sadly in tandem. A lot more women now are radical feminists, but trans is mainstream. It's depressing and heartening both at the same time.

Do the "I am Spartacus" threads still exist? I've tried searching for them but haven't come up with the original threads.

Hyde Park assault on Maria. I remember driving past the part on the bus and reading a thread on here and though ‘what the fuck is going on - they’ve declared war on women!’

I never needed to. I've always been very dubious about the dissonance.

Anyway, fast forward to about 8 years ago when a colleague was on leave, and had to pop into work to check over a report and appeared, at work, the place of which included a visitor centre, cafe, gardens...in full Pink Little Bo Peep outfit. With red cheeks. Mini skirt. The lot.

I just saw and though 'i wonder why he has brought his fetish to work' and then remembered it was his day off and then felt sick as to what he was doing before/after popping into work.

I don't want to be part of anyone's fetish, willingly or unwillingly.

Never needed to be peaked but that was my moment of 'sick in the mouth'.

I'm an out and proud "Never Peaked" person.

I simply never believed TWAW. Simply saw the blatant misogyny in thinking a man can become a woman by wearing lippy/wig/dress/whatever, and have always rolled my eyes at the "man gives birth/pregnant man" articles. I was never a believer.

I think MNHQ may have deleted the spartacus threads now - India Willoughby made a massive fuss about them on Talk Radio.

I don’t think many people male or female are believers and never have been. To me the “Peak Trans” is more getting outraged at how far activists were willing to push this nonsense and that others were willing to sponsor it.

Bastard.

This whole fuss being made about recent surveys showing a large majority of people would never choose a trans person as a romantic or sexual partner, when it’s a case of reality bites.