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?

Three possible outcomes:

1. You agree to disagree
2. She cuts you off because of your 'unacceptable' views.
3. You eventually get tired of keeping quiet on areas of disagreement for fear of her disapproval.

The third happened to me. It took about a decade, but then I'm older than you. I stayed silent when said friend raved about Corbyn, ranted about Brexit, and lauded Occupy, plus a whole load of causes du jour. Others did as well and she was never challenged. The GC debate was a bridge too far. Why was I not allowed my opinions?. Why was it always expected that others agreed with her? What on earth happened to intelligent debate and to free speech?

[quote FalseImage]@Maria53 Single Sex Spaces are not going to disappear, it's perfectly legal to have separate Male/Female facilities. The fact that the law allows transgender people to use the facility that matches with their gender identity, i.e. trans woman use the ladies' toilets, trans men use the men's toilets, won't have any affect on anyone else using them. If you're fearful of men getting into female spaces that's a different issue completely. Transgender women and men are clunky the same thing. [/quote]
But ANY man can just SAY they are trans and walk into any women’s space - therefore this is completely about men in women’s spaces.

And women’s space isn’t just toilets. Have you thought about women’s prisons, showers, Rape crisis centres, dorms, boxing rings, rugby fields, elite sport, lesbian groups etc.

You need to look past the nice effeminate stereotype and apply this to every man on the planet.

Thinking about it I don't know if I agree with the replacement birth certificate. Surely a birth certificate should be a simple statement of facts, time, date, sex of baby, biological parents if known. Surely the only reason to issue a replacement is if a genuine error comes to light.

Single Sex Spaces are not going to disappear, it's perfectly legal to have separate Male/Female facilities.The fact that the law allows transgender people to use the facility that matches with their gender identity

You’ve destroyed your own argument. Using single sex facilities based on gender removes single sex facilities.

Single sex spaces are for single sex. Not gender. And yes the EA 2010 allows single sex exemptions, toilets, changing rooms, dormitories etc for the safety, privacy and dignity of women and girls. - which bit of safety, privacy and dignity for women and girls do you have an issue with??

OP, I’m sorry for your predicament, it must be hurtful. Most of my friends are GC.

Are your friends ‘being kind’ and ignoring the perspective of the girl/young women being forced to share toilets, communal changing rooms, refuges etc with trans identified adult males just on the say so of the adult males. It’s not right. We have always known this. Now we are are all being gaslighted in pretending it’s ok. I think some people just don’t see the practical consequences.

boxing rings, rugby fields, elite sport

Indeed. No safety, equity and fair competition for women/girls.

Open and women’s categories, not men’s and mixed sex.

[quote FalseImage]@Maria53 Single Sex Spaces are not going to disappear, it's perfectly legal to have separate Male/Female facilities. The fact that the law allows transgender people to use the facility that matches with their gender identity, i.e. trans woman use the ladies' toilets, trans men use the men's toilets, won't have any affect on anyone else using them. If you're fearful of men getting into female spaces that's a different issue completely. Transgender women and men are clunky the same thing. [/quote]
You must surely also realise if you have been reading the threads on these boards that this is NOT just about single sex spaces (and the misinterpretation of the equality act and it’s interpretation). It is also about male bodied men competing in sports and it is about the erosion of a female’s protection under the sex discrimination legislation.

But I've not met any like that yet..

Oh. You actually have to meet them?

Simply knowing that karen white exists isn't enough for you?

I left an online community I had been part of for more than a decade over this, after being told to “get into the sea”. It still rankles, it was a huge support and no one called out anyone for their behaviour. So yes, it may just happen.

Maria53 it is so hard when you have disagreements about major political issues. Have you started to question though whether you want a friendship where the other person is so intolerant of your views that they will not discuss it calmly and listen. It is ok to have diametrically opposed views.

Of course, merely questioning whether female’s rights are being eroded and supporting the movement to have these clarified and reinforced is not phobic. despite the current push to use this label to shut down debate. And the way JKR has been treated is terrible. This entire thing is society’s ‘white lie’ but seen through the lens that everyone must believe it or else they are denying other people’s existence.

I've lost friends over it OP. One was a gay man who once said "who cares about lesbians". He was joking but his humour betrayed his real feelings as I found out years later.

We actually disagreed over what you should see at Pride with kids around but I knew I wasn't going to be feel the same away about him after that.

If someone doesn't care about women or children or their protections, rights and safety, if someone doesn't think women need or deserve single sex spaces, then I'm not sure I'd want to be friends with them.

I've been called a bigot etc and it really is quite easily reversed and 'transphobe' has lost all meaning for me.

Your friendship might be coming to a natural end if you have grown and moved in different directions. It's sad of course, it can be devastating, but don't let yourself be silent on your position on something as you are entitled to you opinion too.

If you find yourself being bullied into silence then that person is probably not a very good friend.

Hi OP, yes, you may well lose friends over this but that is the nature of debates such as this. It’s not you, it’s the times we live in, where politics has become incredibly moralised.

I lost a friend over this for simply declaring I was neutral on the issue. Not confrontational, just quietly cut off. It’s upsetting but also incredibly liberating because the experience freed me from having to support several positions I had doubts about. You always meet twice in life, though, so let’s see ... You will also find that ‘there are more of us than you think’, in the words of Suzanne Moore.

PS: I am very bored with the tired clichés about transpeople in toilets. It’s a rhetorical device intended to subtly coerce women into denying their own sex, step-by-step, which is dehumanising. Not nice.

It is very uncomfortable within families, too. I have one adult daughter who is GC like me, another who is horrified by my "bigoted" views. I have to self-censor so as not to cause upset. It's not even "agreeing to disagree", in my opinion, there is a tremendous element of moral judgement involved and I am deemed to have transgressed.

NB the righteous daughter has no children....I think that makes a difference.

Have you tried talking to a Trans woman/man to see things from their point of view? The ones I know are just nice normal people living their lives.

The ones I know are nice, normal people living their lives too- which is part of why I support them by opposing self ID.

Transgender people know they can't change their sex, what they do is have surgeries, take hormones and have other minor cosmetic procedures done.

That is true of all the transsexuals I know but it is not the definition of transgender. Several organisations are pushing the idea that you must merely 'identify' as the opposite sex to become it.

They support the right of men to enter vulnerable women's spaces like prisons and refuges even if they make no attempt to present as female.

Transsexuals who believe you can't change sex are called truscum and get as much vitriol from these groups as feminists do. Vulnerable young people (mostly girls) are harmed by these messages.

This policy of self ID is already followed by many organisations. If it becomes law it will put back many of the advances women have made in the last 50 years

I don’t have children and I’m as GC as they come as are several other posters on this board. Please don’t play the “childless wouldn’t understand” card when there are a number of parents on this board happy to hand over women’s spaces

OP I’ve lost one of my oldest friends over this. She is full TRA & describes Suzie green as an inspiring woman who’s gone through hell. Even the mildest disagreement with her got me labelled a TERF. It’s sad but I can’t be friends with someone completely prepared to throw my rights and the rights of women under a bus.

Good for you Kit and a fair point. I just know a swathe of younger women who don't need to worry about school indoctrination yet. Age and experience helps us all. Wasn't making a sweeping statement I hope. Sorry.

Have to agree with Kit19 here, some of the biggest TRAs I know are women with children. And some very prominent GC feminists have no children, such as Jane Clare Jones.

But I do wonder how mothers who know full well how babies are made and that nobody arbitrarily ‘assigns’ sex at birth deal with the inevitable cognitive dissonance - I’ll never really understand this ...

That’s ok @TeaAndStrumpets
I do think motherhood is one of the things that makes women see but it’s not the only thing.

Im in a GC and all the women under 30 there would label me a TERF if they knew my views. None of them see the issue & think it’s all about being kind & letting ppl live their life. I find I’m going in there less & less as it was a space I enjoyed & now I find it stressful

Many gender critical people initially started off very supportive of trans ideology as they didn't give it much thought and simply followed the route of supporting everything related to an 'oppressed' minority. However, over time they might have realised the deep conflicts and doubts. Seeing the impact on women and children, the logical and scientific inconsistencies in trans ideology, the misogyny expressed by TRAs etc.. would have caused an ethical quandry. It's easy to 'act' good, but much harder to 'be' good, especially if doing the 'right' thing isn't popular

NonnyMouse1337 Thank you for putting my garbled thoughts into actual words.

OP, as a pp said, if a friend is willing to lose you over a difference of opinion, then that is their loss. I have had this discussion with one of my best friends who has been stonewalled and totally believes trans people are the most oppressed group in the world. Although we got a little heated, we have agreed to disagree. She did, however, find it hard to accept transwomen being allowed to compete as women in sports.

What do women have in common with transgender women that they don’t have in common with men @FalseImage?

Hard though it is, I think I would feel I had to have the conversation, if it was a close friendship that I valued. It means too much to me to pretend otherwise.

With regard to JK Rowling, and the suggestion that you listen to transactivists, I would say that I’m not looking for third party views, but that I want to know their views. Ask them to explain in detail exactly what it is that JK Rowling has said, and why they personally find it offensive. I don’t know how easy it would be, given this is such an emotive topic, but if you can ask them gentle, open questions about their beliefs, you might be able to sow a few seeds of doubt. JK Rowling has said almost nothing that’s controversial, so she’s given you an almost perfect opportunity to challenge the knee jerk bigotry.

Sadly, if they are properly invested in this, you may lose your friendship. The only consolarion being that your friend is not really the person you thought she was.

It's not impossible that your friend will change her views in time. I would leave the door open for resuming your friendship at a later stage?

I have a well-bitten tongue in my desire for family harmony, though!

She is full TRA & describes Suzie green as an inspiring woman who’s gone through hell.

Hmm... that view won’t age well.

@Maria53 As you can see from many of the posts on here, there's quite a lot of negativity directed towards trans women. I for one will continue to support them, they pose zero threat, most of what you see here is fear-mongering.

Should add, to me it's important to keep a friendship with my daughter.

If a mere friend had been so judgmental of me I would probably have told them to fuck off long ago.