The power of the B- word

[Thethiniceofanewday]

I’ve been the subject of a minor pile-on in a FB group recently for the crime of suggesting that it wasn’t appropriate to slag [high profile GC person] in a group that’s about [gardening]. (Some details changed!)

It’s been really uncomfortable to be called ‘bigot’ - that female social conditioning kicking in - and even though I’ve tried to stay detached and tick off all the bingos as they came by - most oppressed ever, just want to pee in peace, how dare I question their right to exist - it’s been pretty unpleasant and I don’t want to engage with the group for a while. Which pisses me off - another nice thing we just can’t have any more.

Anyway, as well as feeling sorry for myself I just wanted to post and say a huge huge thanks to all the GC women who take this shit every day in order to try and safeguard our sex-based rights. You’re braver and stronger than me.

You’re not a b word. You’re sticking your neck out and that’s admirable.

It was textbook - two woke bros leading the charge, one TW hurling the emotive stuff and a bunch of women rowing in behind asking why I wasn’t centring my trans sisters.

I don't know whats worse, the pile on or the 10 people who message you afterwards to say they privately agree but are too scared to say anything.

How incredibly depressing. Would it help to post a thank you to "the very many people who have privately supported me, but do not want to be subject to the torrent of abuse I have received".

How sad that they had to impose their arrogance on your pleasant gardening group in the first place. That’s really sad.

Hang in there. You know you are in the right because your conscience is screaming it.

This will pass. Can you find another gardening space which isn’t filled with transactivists? I don’t have any other useful suggestions, but I’m not sure whether I would hang around in the circumstances.

Solidarity

If you can be bothered, just tell the woke bros you bet they know what a woman is when they're on pornhub.

Sorry, [gardening]

That’s a great line, Antibles

I can’t leave this one, Prion else they will think they have won! Will just not check in for a while and get my [gardening] tips elsewhere

I have recently stepped back from Twitter for a similar reason. I have been a very small, although loyal, fish in a very large pond for quite a while and presumably was either tolerated or ignored. However, circumstances arose where I was slightly controversial and all hell broke loose. I never knew I could become so unpopular in such a short space of time with so many complete strangers.

Billy. It’s surprisingly distressing. Just seen the awful news about Maya’s case. That’s put my woes into perspective

If it helps, there will be people watching who will get one step closer to where you are when they observe what a shitshow it all is.

I experienced something similar at work and out of sheer self preservation, i ducked out of the debate (which they were soundly losing with their utterly ill informed statements); lest i get bollocked by HR, etc.

We have a tw working in another office, who was adding their tuppence worth to the discussion and everybody then went all Wokey McWoke Face to 'defend' the tw. Which meant that i was on the receiving end of the (somewhat timid) pile on. 🤷🏻‍♀️

And then afterwards, a couple of people emailed me privately, to tell me they agreed with me, but were too chicken to say so publicly.

I like to think that the disproportionate rage - now aimed at JK Rowling - will help shine a light on some of the problems. I didn’t say anything at all about the issues, I just said I didn’t want to see personal abuse born out of [non-gardening] issues and apparently that denied a tw member’s human rights and meant I was murdering them.

I hope that the non-woke will look on and go WTF?

I have been called a bigot. It didn’t bother me at all but it wasn’t anyone I care about.
I would feel differently if it was my own gardening group equivalent

My sympathies, OP. I was out last night with a group of people who a year or two ago I would have called friends but whom I feel the need to tread carefully around now. One of them is a remarkable woman, someone who does great work within troubled communities and whose innate positivity and intellect I admire. She's the opposite of stupid or thoughtless.

We've talked about the transgender issue and she has said that of course I'm allowed my GC position and that yes, she can understand my concerns and shares some of them herself – but she wants to approach the issue positively and welcome transwomen into her social circle to learn more about them. I don't know whether she's done that but I know she and her partner have started talking in a language that comes perilously close to woke-talk at times, while still apparently anxious to maintain friendly contact with people like me.

Yesterday evening I heard her saying to someone else how sad it was that some people couldn't find it in themselves to be kind, but that everyone had their reasons for being how they were and I knew it was aimed at me and my partner.

I couldn't believe how crushed I felt. And so furious that my socialisation to be nice and helpful and kind is so deeply embedded. The 'b' word wasn't used but I felt it. Why is it that being a feminist, being pro-women, holding the line, saying no, is so easily characterised as being negative, grim, life-denying, mean-spirited?

Oh I thought you were gonna say Bitch! I was coming on to say, no, I own it
Yeah, I guess if people call you a bigot and you know it's bollocks that would hurt.
I like the p*rnhub line very much. Say that.

As I commented elsewhere, TRAs have the advantage that they got in first historically and so framed the debate, with themselves as victims and women but particularly GC women as the oppressors. And the language used therefore favours them and disadvantages us. So TE*F is very successful at painting the picture of GC feminists as trans exclusionary, and of course 'excluding 'people sounds obviously unkind and mean.

But I don't think that we help our side by using language that in effect strengthens that impression of us as unkind and mean - by calling ourselves Gender Critical, that also sounds inherently mean and negative - to be critical isn't seen as a good thing, and people unfamiliar with the issue won't understand that we are criticising the concept of gender, rather than individual transwomen themselves.

I think we need to reframe the narrative OP - your comments, re the celebrity you supported, were about attacking the vile misogyny the celebrity suffered. You need to go on the attack, not defence, ask those calling you a bigot why they support violence against women in the public eye, why they think sexualised threats against women are ever OK, why they think there is some kind of oppression Olympics, in which if trans transwomen are 'attacked' (and yes, I know that wasn't the case here, but even if it had been), that could in any way excuse or make acceptable violent misogyny. And that you are disgusted and horrified that if they claim to support human rights that they care so little for the human rights of natal women.

I have many years of bitter experience of seeing how vital it is to continue to fight from your own truth and continually challenge attempts to reframe the narrative, in my experience as a British Jew horrified by the anti-Semitism I've seen promoted by equally woke folks since Corbyn took over. I've lost count of the number of times I've been accused of personally supporting the murder of Palestinian children if I dare to object to death threats made against British Jews, Holocaust denial etc. It's really exhausting, depressing, demoralising and yes there are many places on the left I can no longer go to or feel safe in and old friends who have attacked me personally for not supporting Corbyn.

It's shit but you know you're right. So don't back down. Or they won't just think they've won. They will have won.

xx sorry you've been treated so appallingly.

OP, the witch hunt we are seeing with JK is a magnification of what happens to the average woman who dares to comment on this subject.

It must be so hard when you are painted out to be 'in the wrong'. I've said a few bits to colleagues and selected friends IRL, but I have a woker than woke family member and I know if she ever says anything about self ID (not been on FB for a few yrs and was sick of her obsession with Corbyn) I will have to respond.

I also have an aunt whose sister married a man, who decided to become a tw aged 40.

My mother knew this person as a man for many years. The first year after presenting as a tw my mother accidentally said "he" in the company of this tw and all hell broke loose - this person's aggression towards my mother (think India Willoughby towards Amanda Barrie on Big Brother) was off the scale.

I've never met them, but know that if I say anything my aunt will treat me like I've murdered a load of puppies.

PP was right about the framing of this. It's designed to make you look intolerant, but we must flip it back.

We are always on the defence, explaining why we don't want men in our spaces for example. Again, they should tell us how mixed spaces benefit women, why they want to come in? What is it that tw have in common with women that they don't with men? Why can't men broaden their bandwidth of women and why don't tw campaign for a 3rd space?

I also think about the Suffragettes and how they were vilified by men and women, what they endured on the street and in prison. They were hounded and depicted in such a way (look at all those cartoons of shrews, monsters, villains) that was designed to paint them as criminials.

Look no further than JK's case to see this in action.

Sorry, why can't men broaden their acceptance of transwomen/men who don't conform to traditional male stereotypes.

Oh and OP I bet if you ask those beardo wokesters in the club if they would sleep with a tw you would find out how gentle and kind they really are.

I've been in a spat on FB, not even stating anything revolutionary just not TWAW. It's a horrible experience because they paint you as the worst kind of person with such vitriol. It's frightening. I'm not a writer or academic with a gift for expressing myself eloquently and I was upset. It was difficult to argue and intimidating (all woke blokes against me by the way).

Handsoffmyrights, I agree, I've thought that for ages.