Am I going to lose friends over the trans/TERf etc debate?

[Maria53]

I am 28 and I feel the vast majority of my peers disagree with me.

I believe in equal rights for everyone. However I have become increasingly concerned about the threat of single sex spaces being taken away. The vast majority of my friends shrug their shoulders and say 'what's the big deal?' and I am incredulous.

One of my best friends of over a decade was banned from Twitter for using the word 'Terf' - we then got into a debate where we clearly disagreed. So I have never posted about it again since to avoid arguing with her and we have remained good friends.

Tonight another friend posted against JK Rowling and I disagreed with her because I am tired of staying silent. Well no sooner had I done this my close friend jumped in to disagree with me as well. Both said I am in the wrong.

I now feel sad because I know they are judging me but I stand by my convictions. Am I going to have to accept I may lose friends over our polarised opinions? Has anyone experienced this?

@falseimage

If they identify with the sex, they are transexuals, not transgender. Most are identifying with deeply ingrained societal gender norms. They are not identifying with sex.

Identity is not real thing. It's thoughts and feelings.
We cannot take thoughts and feelings into account.
Nobody cares about your identity. It has no objective reality.
Stop using identity as an argument. It is not real. Or rather, it is real only to the person claiming the identity.
It's nothing but personality.

It's a denial of the very foundations of Western Thought.

It's an inability to understand the difference between the two questions, still common in some cultures where the two are indistinguishable:

• What do you think will happen?
• What do you want to happen?

Yes I said I was leaving, but yet you and others keep tagging me?

On this forum the @ symbol is used to tag people. It sends an email to them alerting them that someone is addressing them specifically.
We can all see who is tagging.

OP, I am sorry that this thread is failing you.
That happens sometimes if you are not explicit that you are seeking support. Sometimes it even happens to support threads.

Maria53 I feel for you in this situation. Falling out with good friends or family over a fundamental belief hurts right to your core. There is no wiggle room in this particular argument because you are being slammed (online, brave!) by your friend for not going along with her 'quasi religious' beliefs on changing sex. Unless this issue becomes unimportant to either / both of you then I don't see how respect can be maintained. I don't think it follows that all friendships you have where the other person believes TWAW will end up like this, because not everyone cares about scoring points online (at your expense).

Hi everyone, I took a break from this thread as I felt it was getting derailed/a bit heated. I am grateful for all of the perspectives so far.

My friend and I have been getting on well, continuing to chat a few times a week as usual. But then the next JKR Twitter bomb dropped. She posted several angry tweets and then got blocked by the person she was debating with. A few other mutual acquaintance jumped in to side with her. Meanwhile a hobby group I am not directly part of but sometimes there is crossover between our group and they posted how disappointed they were about JK's anti trans tweets.

I feel like I am losing my mind! I realise that if I tweet in support of her it will probably spell the end of the friendship or at least it wont be the same.I know this because my friend posted that anyone who agreed with JK is a bigot...

I am still going to keep quiet for now but as I said before I likely will go to some meetings to meet other GC women when it is safe to do so again.

Maria what a difficult situation. You are always welcome here though to vent or question or to simply sanity check. Good luck.

Oh dear. The thing is, most of your friends are probably too scared to think outside the box. A lot of them will have been conditioned all their lives not to rock the boat, to be 'nice' and if they hold voluntrary views to their social group then this makes them nasty women. It's a lot to do with age group to. Younger women have no idea what they're giving up. They are so submerged by these current norms that they've never lived an adult life outside of it. Try making new friends with women in their early to mid-30s. They will remember life more before this madness took off.

Actually he might now be able to access your group, legally. I checked it out on gov.uk a while ago.

Well I 'came out' on Twitter about 1.5 hours ago, fearing the worst and it has been tumbleweed aside from one like! I usually a fair bit more interaction. I just stated single sex spaces are important to me because x, y, a and a hopeful message about finding a way forward apart from the abuse and threats.

It seems like a clear snub although I haven't lost any followers yet. My male friend came out in support of JKR last night and has received loads of death threats etc. He is the kindest most reasonable person you could meet and has a baby daughter.

I just thought, am I doing myself a favour by being silent here? Who is silencing me? I have had enough.

Well it’s done. And well done it is to be upfront. Hopefully, your friends might even be more sensitive about how they say things to you in future too.

But surely it is impossible to identify with a different sex? Gender yes, sex no. Unless a biological male spontaneously started menstruating, lactating, going through the menopause, or grew ovaries and a womb?

As for 'gender', well what is that? Given that most of the women I know live in jeans and t shirts, many have science/tech jobs, and would confirm themselves to be women? I genuinely don't understand that one.

Well done OP. for you!

FWIW I think history will judge you kindly.

I too worried about what other people would think, but then I realised they dont care what I think, so 🖕

Thanks everyone.

My friend tweeted there saying although she is still very angry at anyone who thinks JK's essay has any merit she does not condone The Sun. And yet - she joined in with namecallinh and said 'I wish people hadnt abused her because it causes harm to our argument'. I think she should simply be against the abuse because it is wrong!

My friends who arent on Twitter have actually never heard of this debate. Think I will focus on them for a while - for a break!

Op I won't talk about this with my dd or her friends. They have not through our oversight been more abused than by by men driving past and heckling them. Nice. They've never had men in their spaces or felt really vulnerable. And I'm happy about that.

I just don't really speak to her about it. If she asked me, I would, but I think she knows my opinions. She's a clever young woman, I'll let her get on with it, no need to fall out.

The abuse that JKR has got is beyond any sex based rights. She only said that woman have periods and same self attraction is a thing.

I understand Jackie. In my case I didn't want to fall out with my friend - and still don't. But I am starting to resent her and I almost snapped tonight.

She posted that although The Sun article was terrible JK should really have just posted about her experience of abuse on its own instead of using it as a 'weapon against trans people.

I feel like I barely recognise her anymore. Over the last week we have caught up on TV and our cats but that's all fairly shallow. We always had each others back with feminist issues.

The vital problem for me now is I have said that my need for sex segregated spaces comes down to a need for safety and this is partially affected by my own experiences with abuse and jumpiness that JK described. The fact she discredited JK talking about her abuse (which was exactly linked to her need for those spaces in the essay) makes me feel she discredits me as well.

I am going to cool off and get off social media for a while but it does bother me.

It’s just going to be more productive to campaign for 3rd spaces, groups, toilets etc.

I think providing a space for gender neutral would be positive - if possible using non-current toilet space or if a decision has to be made to reduce one sex’s toilets, then men’s toilets because they usually have better provision compared to the need.

I am not affected personally and have no problem using gender neutral toilets. But the wish of some women to have spaces just for natal women is pretty reasonable as is the wish of trans women not to have to use male facilities. One shouldn’t have to outweigh the other especially as this may exacerbate the existing toilet inequality where women often have to wait longer to use the toilet compared to men. In addition they are more likely to suffer from incontinence.

It's not just a wish to have single sex spaces (and I refuse to use the term natal women, I will just say women as natal is almost 'cis'). We fought for it from the 1850s.

Many people have never heard of the 'urinary leash'. We will have that all over again if self-ID gets through.

www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/History-of-Womens-Public-Toilets-in-Britain/

It enrages me that men who would like to be called women cannot fight for their own spaces. Scaring women so they don't feel othered?

I read that link you posted yesterday @midclegs after deciding to do some research. I feel like we are going backwards.

My friend posted she wont apologise for using expletives and swearing because she feels angry that people are throwing her trans friend under a bus. I've been her friend ten years and I feel she's throwing me under a bus!

Tbh I just want to unfollow her but that's not a good idea obviously. I just fear discussing this with her when she isnt dialling it down at all.

Earlier on this week someone I know posted on FB a comment applauding Daniel Radcliff for his bravery in his statement that 'transwomen are women'. I made a comment about the fact that I found it offensive that he felt the need to apologise on behalf of a woman (at this point JKR hadn't published her statement). Anyway I was told that my friend wasn't interested in considering the potential misogyny behind DR's statement it just simply 'filled her heart with joy' that DR had written this.

Anyway she defriended me for daring to have an alterantive view and one of her friends PM'd me to say that I was only saying what others felt and well done for being brave enough to speak up but they didn't feel they could.

So yes you may lose friends but freedom of speech cannot be eroded like this.

What is most sinister is that women are allowing this to happen to us without critical thought.

You probably will lose friends. I have a wonderful friend I lost because she is like a glass wall when it comes to the circular logic she had around this subject. If you aren't 100 percent all in on this subject you are the devil to these people. The slightest hesitation"How dare you not let people be who they want to be!"(er, I wasn't the one who made Sparkles seven feet tall with a beard, maybe if she shaved it might help but probably not). Men are not women like day is not night. Like here is not there. Like particles are not waves. Like oil is not water. They don't mix. You need the key and the lock to open the door, baby, but that doesn't make them klocks.

That's interesting, and as a counterpoint, I know oodles of decent #Trans folks, and not a single one stands with JKR. Nor does a single one if their Allies.