Long(ish) time lurker, occasional blurter.
I first only came on here because my psychotherapist asked me to stop going on Twitter earlier this year, and so I cheated by lurking on here instead.
It's been one hell of an awful year for me, on a personal level and weirdly, much of it corresponds with stuff I see being discussed here on this board (& Twitter). Am a little awkward/bad at social interaction, including online, so get very nervous posting anything. I've learnt so much from reading this forum, it's emotional, because I can relate, so painfully to so much that I read. Seeing so many other women speak out is helping me to as well, because it's very scary. Or rather, I've found it scary.
I wrote an email (which is less waffly than this) to WPUK, so much of what I wrote was informed by what I've read here (in horror, eg. about the Tavistock, medicalisation of kids etc). I'll C&P here because am waffly today:
"I’d like to share some thoughts with you, so you understand how deeply I appreciate what you’re doing and also just because I previously felt so abandoned by the feminism I’d encountered.
I live on a boat. I never learnt to swim. Tried to as an adult so I don’t drown when I fall off my boat, but I was unteachable by then.
My younger sister can swim. This is because some 30 years ago, a group of mums hired out a sports centre so that mothers and daughters/nieces/girls could learn and go swimming safely and without any BS from their blokes. I was, and still am, jealous of not learning how to swim then.
I missed out on that because, as what-would-now-be-called a ‘gender non-conforming girl’, in a conservative religious community here, with general non-conforming behaviour (what my parents would call ‘trouble’, what I now realise is Asperger’s) I was instead married off as a teenager.
If I was born later, and to different parents, I’d have long ago been packed off to the Tavistock Clinic. I’m grateful I wasn’t because I am happy to be me and a woman. There are so many parallels even across time and dogmas. I’m not surprised I didn’t want to become a woman then; am not surprised so many young girls don’t want to become women now.
Never, ever did I think I would be grateful for what happened, but it’s true. It seems a better fate than some of what I see here now.
I did escape the marriage, and abandoned religion, but not religious women.
I learnt that the word for what I’ve instinctively always known was feminism. That liberal, happy-clappy feminism supposedly I was told, but that feminism wouldn’t listen to me because my existence contradicts their dogma.
I’m inconvenient. I make their intersectional-hierarchical nonsense implode, so they’d rather attack, just like they attack what you are doing.
I understand that you are putting yourselves in danger, and I am grateful. I am grateful because you are doing it for all women and I had lost hope that was a thing.
My sister now lives in a country that does not permit women to swim. She knows how to swim, but can’t, because she’s a woman. I don’t want that for my nieces. I wish I could teach them how to swim when they visit, but I can’t. Because I was a girl once and there was no safe space then.
It isn’t only about girls being able to compete in, say, swimming, but also sometimes, just being able to learn.
Thank you for fighting for all girls and women. Some of us who are usually quiet and who prefer to be invisible sometimes are also very grateful."
Those sentiments I extend to many posters here on the boards, as seeing so many women revolting all over the place is pushing away the despair & nihilism I'd started to feel, because womens' rights are regressing, and I still can't quite believe what I am seeing.
The attacks on women speaking out right now are so familiar to me. The TRA tactics are EXACTLY the same tactics I've witnessed before, when speaking out as an ex-Muslim. Especially as an ex-Muslim woman. I have previously spoken out, and been part of groups who were under huge threats of violence at the time. I always chose to stay anonymous, and for very good reasons, so I have such admiration for seeing women, much braver than me speak out publicly. I really wish I could show my face, sometimes, but also very fearful of ever doing so.
It was the parallels between TRA & 'activists' targeting ex-Muslims that really opened my eyes to what is happening. The weaponisation of 'transphobia' in the same way that 'Islamophobia' was used to try and shut up those voices - the misogynistic and sexually violent undertones of much of this when directed at women - the accusations of 'blasphemy', 'heresy', 'uncle toms' etc. at those who dare speak out from 'within' the 'community' against the extremist, shoutiest, self-appointed masters of narrative, all under the banner of 'intersectionality' and 'inclusivity'. The worst sodding thing about this, and another parallel, which if am honest I find heartbreaking in a very visceral, bodily way, the abandonment by what I now call The Woke Left. I was upset about this before I knew of the whole trans thing, from what I'd seen as an ex-Muslim.
Ignoring and shutting down the dialogue, by the so-called liberal left leaves a huge gap, and in both cases, that leaves it open to the far right to discuss, appropriate, and champion those issues. How galling I used to find it when the EDL were appropriating the sexual abuse of girls in Rotherham, etc etc. Look at what is happening now with the Jessica/Jonathan Yaniv coverage and so on.
A woman I've been lucky to meet in the past who was similarly treated is Gita Sahgal, who was fired from Amnesty as their head of gender because she opposed their alliance with CAGE (remember those guys who defended Jihadi John when he was exposed?).
www.theguardian.com/world/2010/apr/25/gita-sahgal-amnesty-international
I've watched so many women abandoned and betrayed by the woke, by those groups pretending to uphold human rights. It's just appropriation and is so counter-logical, I still don't get it. Anyway, I've been angry about that for a long time, in the same way that am angry that women are targeted, being fired etc. for speaking out about womens' rights.
I am the woman in the top picture in this article:
www.skeptical-science.com/religion/bbc-attacks-ex-muslims-and-defends-islamists/
After seeing some of the responses to that, I promised myself for my mental health that I would take a break from social media. Days later, Maryam Namazie (a super ex-Muslim activist) went to Goldsmiths, the same tactics that TRAs use were used to shut her down, you can see and read about that here:
medium.com/@Layo_91/goldsmiths-feminist-society-show-solidarity-with-islamists-who-attempt-to-silence-and-intimidate-a-2ff011b461ed
Goldsmiths Femsoc & LGBTQIAWevs came out in solidarity with the abusive men who use the same 'safe space', 'no-platform', XXXXphobia tactics that we are all so familiar with now. Not to mention the physical menacing and intimidation of a woman speaking out by big, shouty entitled, stupid men with beards, and their bearded cheerleaders too. I thought I hated beards before, but oh my days have I learnt a new level of that.
This is what I thought of that: www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2015/she-knows-betrayal-when-she-sees-it/
And it's what I think of much of the TRA activism now. Am heartbroken for all the voices and opinions that are being drowned out and shouted over, and for the real-life consequences of that for people caught up in the middle of this, trying to find their way through life.
Anyway, this has ended up being an unintentional rant. I've run out of steam, and can't remember what the original thing I wanted to say was, I wasn't going to bring up the ex-Muslim stuff as it is often misunderstood. Hope I explained those parallels ok, and that those make sense. I think I was going to say something about autism and women, but I'll have to save that for another 'blurt'.
Also, if there happen to be any GC swimmers in London here, who can teach a slightly awkward, self-conscious and uncoordinated me to swim on a 1:1 basis, or know someone like that, please let me know. All the swimming instructors I've met so far have terrified me with their enthusiasm.
So, yeah, hi. Mostly quiet one here. Thanks to the noisier women out there from me.