In memory of Magdalen Berns - today is the day I...

[MrsFogi]

......will post on my FB page to say how amazing she was and to link to her YouTube page. And I will respond in support of any of my FB friends who do the same (hoping some of them will turn out to be GC). I know it is only a small act but one that will be in RL and hopefully there will be many others who will do a GC salute to Magdalen today.

I have just done the exact same thing. Enough of worrying that “friends” will call me a Nazi or a TERF. Buying into this idea that women have to be nice, submissive peacemakers is doing nothing. Have just posted this:

And I had to edit it after realising it should say “anymore than anyone wearing “black face” is Black.

That is brilliant AMUAAMDildo! Mine is rubbish in comparison - but I'll "borrow" some of your wording if I need to respond to anyone!

I'm also going to invite some friends over for a drink in her honour (with the proviso being that they need to have watched some of her You Tube videos - so we can discuss them in a kind of alternative book club evening).

Thank you, I was quite affected by her saying something along the lines of “I’m not your martyr”.... when I lose all my Facebook friends for being “TERF scum” I’ll have to find my fellow Magdalen fans.

Good on you OP and As

What was the line about martyrs? I don’t think I saw that one

Marzipan - I lost a whole bunch of friends when I came out as GC. I’ve gained more than I lost through connecting with GC women. Got to say they’re better quality friends. Your people are out there.

2B - it's from the tribute on the FWS thread: "In thread once, someone told Magdalen that they were afraid to share her videos and speak out but that they were grateful that she did. Magdalen, with all her usual tact, responded: “I’m not your fucking martyr.”"

AsMuchUseAs, would you mind re-posting that as text? I'm sure I'm not the only one who would like to use it - with your permission, of course.

I've done the same. I was a bit wary posting about her, and then thought - christ, if I can't publically say that I am sad at the loss of a brilliant, brave woman far too young, for fear of what others may think or say, then

1. We're in really deep shit and
2. I am ashamed of myself.

So it's just a wee facebook post, but it's a start. And I won't go back.

I'm so sad for her family and loved ones. It's just utterly shit, tragic news. RIP Magdalen.

Today is the day I beceme openly GC on Twitter.

It's apparent if you trawl my 'follows' but I've been careful not to alert the terf blockers in order to see what's being said. My interests are 'masculine' according to gender sterotypes so it will be interesting to see what happens.

jellyslice

Rest in peace Magdalen Berns. People can slur me with TERF or call me a fascist as much as they want. I care about women. If you have male genitals and want to wear a dress, change your name, grow your hair. Fine, all power to you. Challenge the culture of toxic masculinity, assert your right to be a man and wear a dress. But you are not a woman any more than someone wearing “blackface” is Black. You cannot know women’s lived experience or truly understand why every time a man enters a room of women the atmosphere immediately shifts. Gender is not a good thing - it is the oppression that tells us we’re “in the wrong body”. It stops us from challenging gender norms - if anything it fuels Right Wing ideas of misogyny. “I was assigned male but realised I loved nail varnish and pink, so I must have a female brain”. The “female brain” does not exist. The socialisation of women as kind, feminine, pink loving exists. Women have the right to sex segregated spaces. Women have the right not to be forced into waxing Jessica Yaniv’s scrotum. Women have the right to have their biologically-based oppression addressed through all-women shortlists and women’s sport. If you want to wear a dress and call yourself “she”, take it up with your fellow men. Don’t use your male sense of entitlement and demand women move aside for you. Who am I? I’m Magdalen Fucking Berns.

Heartened to see an MSP 'coming out' on Twitter today, to mourn for Magdalen and pledging to stick up for women and girls.

...signed up for Spinster, despite being a near-Luddite by inclination, in the time it took a few dozen women to post on a thread expressing their disgust at a certain cyclepath, and for that disgust to be expunged from the record.

Yeps

Never mind been showed to the world from martina Navrátilová retweet

We just need JK Rowling to tweet about this. That will really get the word out.

AsMuchUseAsAMarzipanDildo

Thanks.

You think JK Rowling would have the guts? I don’t, sadly. She bowed down once before.

R.I.P Magdalen.

Will there be a memorial? I would like to be visible now, to hold a candle in her memory and let the bastards see me instead of hiding. I want her beautiful face on a t shirt and to dare the fuckers to throw me out when I am wearing it. I know she didn't want to be anyone's martyr, but she was, is, and always will be a symbol of resistance and truth. I don't want to forget her.

I wondered about a memorial too. Or whether her funeral would be open to all, as funerals traditionally are.

Woah, another MSP. This one Labour. Wow.

I'm going to need more thank-you cards.

One more MSP. And a Counsellor, posting tributes to Magdalen on Twitter. Brave women. I don't underestimate how much courage that takes.

I suppose eventually the tipping point comes where staying silent while women's rights are stripped systematically away by people who have none of the life experience we've had just becomes too much.

Nice quote: 'The more women speak, the more women speak.'