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?? ..... '

I read in national geographic that women are better space travellers than men anyway.

I took that one step further and pondered what if men just exploded if they went into outer space? How many ‘call me ma’ams’ would volunteer to go. Hmmmmm. Cos they are woman after all.

Thought "Okay, treating people kindly and compassionately is a good thing... But treating men and women differently is a sexist thing... If I treat a hypothetical male with a crippling mental condition 'as a woman' then aren't I being, well, sexist? And isn't this whole idea predicated on the idea that men and women are fundamentally different in their brains, which, again, sexist...?"

Yes, when I was younger and had read a few articles about men transitioning (it was always men back then) I really felt this discomfort. I didn't delve too deeply into my thoughts but there was always a sort of question mark in my brain over the whole thing.

McKinnon was my sherpa

When I first joined Mumsnet, there was a male who identified as trans, who was asking for opinions on how they looked in a dress. So many posters, including myself telling that biological male that they looked lovely, etc, but a few ‘horrible’ posters were slating that person and telling them to get their ‘validation’ elsewhere. I couldn’t understand the hate.

Someone mentioned AGP and I read up on it. As a victim of long term sexual abuse throughout childhood and a violent adult relationship, that included sexual abuse, I was absolutely horrified. I went back to the thread with my eyes well and truly opened. It was there! In plain sight! Yet the women were so socialised to be nice, that we were more worried about hurting this creeps feelings, than calling them out. Thanks to those brave women that spoke out.

I have never bought into it. GCSE Sociology back in the 90s taught me that gender is a social construct. So how can our gender be wrong? You are free to perform any gender role you wish but you don't need to change your body.

We try to tell girls that they don't need plastic surgery to conform to beauty ideals while pushing it desirable for those with gender dysphoria, i.e. Breast implants etc. It makes no sense.

Never thought much about it, although I know I would not have believed that TWAW. Always valued women-only spaces, despite not "feeling" very much like a woman (whatever that feels like).

Two years ago I was reading a thread in a local Labour Party Facebook group in which Caroline Flint was being castigated for wrong think for saying that a move to mixed sex changing rooms needed careful consideration. I said that her views seemed pretty sensible. I received a rapid dressing down (TWAW, #nodebate, I needed educating etc etc). So I went and educated myself, went to WPUK and WNTT meetings, eventually quit the party (I had never been very active), and am still down the rabbit hole. I have much to thank those women and woke bros for - if they hadn't been so ridiculously black and white about what is a fairly nuanced issue (and, frankly, so bloody Red Guards-ish) then I wouldn't have thought much more about it.

So, on the plus side I have met some great women, read you funny, clever women on here and feel a very small part of an important effort to fight for women's rights. On the downside, I never knew how much some men (including/especially on the left) dislike women. The misogyny and lack of critical thought by some of our important organisations and institutions genuinely worries me.

I had a lecturer who came back "as a woman" after the summer holidays back in the 70s and we were told how vulnerable they were. I accepted that and didn't think too much about it.

Then about 14 years ago a married man with DC whom I'd known since birth declared he was a woman, ditched his family and started medical transition. His wife told me their sex life had been very difficult, though she didn't provide any details. Having read the accounts by trans widows I can make an educated guess.

I knew I definitely didn't believe that men could change sex. But it seemed a rare, if bizarre, phenomenon. Then some years later I saw some troubling stuff online, followed it up, and stumbled upon the Cotton Ceiling.

That was an instant peak for me. I've been passionate about lesbian and gay rights since my early teens and TW trying to bully lesbians into het sex outraged me. I could see that there was an inevitable conflict. And off I went down the rabbit hole ..

So I became aware of the problems faced by lesbians in the USA long before I arrived on Mumsnet. I spent a lot of time keeping up and commenting on blogs like the much missed GenderTrender.

For years things gradually got worse and worse for women. And the situation with children was dire. Recently I have noticed straws in the wind and hope that women's battle against what is an effort to erase us as a sex class and the harm done to GNC children are making headway.

And I agree with every word of on the plus side I have met some great women, read you funny, clever women on here and feel a very small part of an important effort to fight for women's rights. On the downside, I never knew how much some men (including/especially on the left) dislike women. The misogyny and lack of critical thought by some of our important organisations and institutions genuinely worries me.

Lang thank you for your kind post. I look out for your posts and have learnt so much from them.
Also thanks to you and the other very long-standing posters for bearing with some very long posts! - I know long term residents in FWR will have already posted about and read a lot of this before. I’m trying to post for lurkers (I was one for ages).

Sport is the issue that peaked me & I hope that it will peak more people over time. The 2020 Olympics should be interesting. Cheating is cheating, whether the method of delivery is drugs or gender misuse, the outcome is the same, female athletes are being unfairly robbed of medals & recognition.

I don't know if I've peaked yet but Rachel Dozal started me questioning my previous wokeness.
There she was, saying how she always felt black, getting considerations for it, having enjoyed privileges of her youth, and I thought:
"What is she doing? You can't just change race. How insulting, she's painting her skin and pretending to be something she's not. She has no idea what black people have been through...

Oh."

I'm not sure I ever fully believed that TWAW but a few things helped me get to where I am now. The first was probably the feminist punched in the park being directed to call her attacker "she" in court. Witnesses swear to tell the truth. It was not the truth that this person was a woman. As a lawyer this really troubled me. Pip Bunce and Lily Madigan elbowing their way into positions/prizes reserved for women made me angry. Men in women's prisons outraged me. The sport stuff is so clearly wrong. I get really frustrated that some people apparently can't see the obvious - that women cannot compete on a level playing field with male bodied people. With the podium pictures showing the obvious physical disparity I feel like I'm in the emperor's new clothes - how can nobody else see this?!? (Not quite nobody I know - at least there are some sane people on here who can see the emperor's winkie...)

Like many other people, the Cotton Ceiling. The idea of a lesbian being told she "has to" accept a penis into her sexual life.

Before then I thought of trans people as being like Jan Morris - just wanting to get on with their lives without harrassment. And that bieng respectful of transpeople meant supporting their rights to do this - to be called by preferred pronouns, not insulted etc. Never thought about what it would become.

About 20 years ago I knew a man with gender dysphoria. He was pretty miserable (after all, he was mentally ill) and cheered up when he began his two years "living as a woman" before he planned to have surgery. I don't know if he ever had the surgery. I just thought of him as a bit of a sad case.

I had never really thought about the issues until the Feminism chat threads made their way into the Active discussions area. Pip Bunce winning and accepting the "woman of the year" award did it for me.

Many mini peaks along the way. The big red flag for me was the forcing of language with abusive language - mostly in what is supposed to be caring communities - people in pregnancy, birth and post partum roles. The earliest was when a female anthropologist contact was verbally abused for not using 'cis' around 2014. I was peaked again over 'chestfeeding'. This led to noticing wider patterns of and the erasing of language that refer to women and female, the silencing of dissent, the policing of language is done in the usual appalling fashion in these supposedly woman centred professions as seen elsewhere. Then roughly around the same time I saw the the terf exhibition in San Francisco with the blood, bats, and barb wire, I read about the physical attacks on lesbians at a dyke march also in SF, the time of the police investigations of Linda Bellos and attack on Maria McLachlan. Just over a year ago a handmaiden's (someone with a PhD and supposedly "I serve diverse communities with fertility, gestation, and lactation care.", I kid you not) launched a virulent and unprovoked attack on me in a closed Facebook group. So then the gloves came off, gave her piece of my mind and I will never stop exposing this mass deception.

2015 was my initial peak trans year and I specifically peak transed over Caitlyn Jenner winning Glamour mag’s Woman of the Year. Since then I have peak transed again and again over the past 4 years, most notably over ongoing Balldemort saga

I'm still confused. Like, when that trans woman told everyone not to wear pussy hats, I thought fuck off. Like, the arrogance. But that's just her. Then there's Laurel Hubbard, but that's the rules being wrong. The thing is, I know two trans women who I like and they are feminine and pass as women. They're not like men at all, and why shouldn't they live like that? Good for them. And society is so sexist, so in a way it's totally radical what they are doing, and that's cool. On the other hand, in my field a man who transitioned just a year or two ago in his 40s got a women in leadership position. That really pissed me off, and he's always banging on about his hair and nails because he's a woman now. But he's just a git, I suppose.

Then there's Laurel Hubbard, but that's the rules being wrong.

If self-id goes ahead will those rules be wrong?

Rachel McKinnon. Enough said.