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?

It's an issue I wrestle with. Most of my friends know my views, many of them share them. But I have two good friends who are fully TWAW, and it's hard to know what to do other than to avoid the subject.

It's interesting to look back on the tweet which first started the "burn all her books" reaction. I can't remember it verbatim - but it was something along the lines of "Call yourself what you want, live how you want, engage in consensual loving relationships with whoever you want. Be your best self. But force a woman out of her job?"

It would be interesting to know which bit of that tweet your friends don't like. I wonder if they could articulate it without resort to some sort of guilt-by-association claim that the final question is a "dog whistle."

In answer to the poster upthread, I know several people who are trans. They aren't the ones who worry me. But I do worry about constructing (even if by sloppy drafting/bowing to daft lobby groups not representative of mainstream opinion among trans people) a legal framework which places male rapists with penises in women's prison, allows male-bodied 6 foot something rugby players to "fold [their female opponents] like deckchairs", creates a social environment where teenagers with the normal teenage angst about their developing bodies (and maybe worries about their sexuality) are fast-tracked to blockers, hormone treatment and surgery.

An adult saying "I am now Jane, not John, I'd like it if you referred to me as 'she', and please stand up for my right to come to work in a dress without being sacked for it." Fine

An adult saying "I'm now Jane, not John, even though last week as John I raped someone, but now I demand to be held in a women's prison." As far from fine as I can imagine.

I lost most of my friends (because of an abusive relationship leaving me isolated, not because of my opinions), but when I used to have friends it just wasn't like this. We could have different opinions and still listen to each other and try to understand each other and maybe even take onboard some of the alternative view. Sometimes we might argue but it would usually be in a light hearted way. It all seems so black and white now. I wonder what my old friends are like. I'm 32 and my old friends are the same age as me. I can't imagine them being like this but I don't know.

If I was your friend I'd be asking myself how likely is it that this person I've known, liked and respected for ten years is all of a sudden an evil bigot. I'd at least want to hear your side of things and if I strongly disagreed I'd explain why without resorting to abuse. It seems more and more people are becoming like that - no debate, and you're a bigot if you ask a question, read the wrong thing or like the wrong tweet. It's just sad really.

a person there who identifies as non binary said to us "I am not a woman".

But she is a woman. Whether she likes it or not. What's wrong with being a woman? What is the point of making declarations which are so obviously false?

FalseImage 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.

Do please tell that to the women and girl victims of attacks by transwomen, you can start with the 10 and 12 year old girl victims of Katie Dolatowski - go on I dare you to stand in front of them and tell them to their faces that transwomen pose zero threat.

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.

This. I have one friend and one family member who have disagreed with me on social media, and both times we didn't fully go there to avoid an argument, and I don't think they've fully thought it through. Both female.

I've known both transwomen who I felt comfortable around and transwomen who're everything GC women are worried about. Stonewall and similar orgs have ensured that there's no way to be "kind" to the former group without opening the door to the latter one, so if anyone wants someone to blame for the current situation, blame them.

Just wading in here - read the title - you won’t lose friends but you might sensibly jettison some people who aren’t rational thinkers.

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.

This. If someone wants to be a male supremacist, well ymmv, and I can't stand the whole purity crap, I'm an adult with competent emotional and social skills, I can handle other adults existing in the world having different views without needing to either police them or shun them. What kind of time I want to spend with them would depend on how much they feel the need to tell me about their male supremacist views, enact them when they're with me, scold me for any thoughts or actions that conflicted with their male supremacy belief, or try to convert me.

If they can't keep a lid on it in that respect, then why on earth would I want to be around them? Friends are supposed to be fun to be with.

*I can handle other adults existing in the world having different views without needing to either police them or shun them

Oh. Or rush around wailing about how their existence makes me feel unsafe. Somehow. Or trying to get their civil rights removed because not sharing my beliefs/personal perspective on life renders them subhuman. Forgot those two. Competent adults don't do those things either.

I don’t think we’re ever going to have true trans acceptance if there is denial of trans people’s journey. They were born a different sex to the one they wish to be. This is ok.

Insisting that trans people are actually the sex they wish to be erases a whole chunk of who they are. I don’t see how this is acceptance.

Your friends are young and believe transwomen are homosexual men who have had the op or will do so. They want to be kind to them. They absolutely do not see the AGP men and think you are making it up to scare people or at very least there are so few as to not matter. They have fingers in their ears and are saying Lalala. They are of course wrong. Eventually the scales will fall from their eyes but it might take a long time. Blame Stonewall. Wanting to turn tolerance of transsexuals into the right for any male who declares himself female to enter women only spaces and the removal of the right for women to object is a game changer. Let's not even get into preying on transing vulnerable children.

A some point In the near future females will react on mass.
It is already being discussed in groups on Facebook about having a month where any company that does not have single sex changing rooms or toilets gets outed and we all refuse to use that company.
Money talks , a hit to profits will cause chances.

Which groups are these mummmy2017 ?

The Stonewall #nodebate and the concept of "allies" has been so damaging.

No group has the right to justify impinging on the rights of others by refusing to debate societal objectives and detail implications of any policy.

And no group has the right to demand that others slavishly adhere to their lobby aims to avoid being labelled as haters.

Time for the grownups to take back control.

I haven't lost friends but I tend to avoid the subject as I get so angry so haven't even discussed it with many. I did have one big argument about it but I could tell they weren't well informed on the subject and so just decided not to discuss it with them again.

[quote FalseImage]@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. [/quote]
This is a really telling statement. No individual in any group can be said to pose zero threat. In safeguarding terms that means we consider across whole groups their relative risk. We know from the Swedish study journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0016885 that TWs continue to pose the same risk post transition as all other bio men even for violence. None of this is offensive, it is neutral.
With regard to the substantive point, really depends on how much they talk about this and how much you value their friendship. I have found a whole new and brilliant friendship circle through being true and open in my beliefs so don't regret being open one bit

I'm suprised I haven't lost friends. I don't exactly pull my punches. But then again I'm in my 40s and most of my friends are 30's and 40's. It's rare to find women our age and older who are believers. It's almost like having children and/or experiencing a good couple of decades of sexism makes one aware that having a female body does impact how you are treated and is therefore politically important.

OP your friend that was banned from twitter will have had to include some vile statements along with using the slur 'terf' to have got banned...

Anyone who demands your silence is not your friend

If they are happy with rape victims before forced to share refuge spaces with males, with Muslim and Jewish women being pushed out of public life because there’s no toilets they can use, with lesbians being shamed for not sleeping with intact males, they’re not someone I would want to be friends with

SnuggyBuggy completely agree with what you say here:

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

False on your note about negativity towards trans people, take at look at this excellent resource and then explain again that we have no need to fear transgender women in our safe spaces. twitter.com/historywoman/status/1191453438825181186?s=21

OP I have fallen out with a couple of friends over this - one hugely so (blocked as he threatened to tell my work and 3rd sector voluntary groups that I was a transphobe) and then other sort of drifted away. I was shocked and upset by the first as he had been a friend for 20 years. With some of my other more woke friends I bring things up occasionally - dropping things in from time to time and I know that they disagree with me but they humour me.

I have a family member who is (and this is self-described) an "old school tranny". They don't swan in to female toilets and they are adamant that transwomen should not compete against women in sports, nor take their woman-only awards (which was offered once to them and it was refused). There's a world of difference between this and the men in the link above, but because of the latter I want to draw a line under it and say: no
Biological males at all.

Sorry that was a bit of a ramble!

I admit I haven’t rtft, but I would (and have) been very clear about my stance: I support trans people and believe they should have all human rights like everyone else. I believe that women are structurally oppressed because of our biological sex; we have and deserve specific protections as a consequence of that. I do NOT believe in a magical, literal, biological ‘sex change‘ and so transwomen cannot access women’s spaces.
I (try to) hold my friends as OK despite our disagreement but, tbh, I find it hard to maintain my respect for them when I see them abandoning women’s hard won rights to allow a minority of men to feel comfortable in their identity. They, I’m sure, feel exactly the same about what they see as my ‘discrimination’ against transwomen.
We try not to talk about it but, if they insist on confronting the issue at some point, I will lose a friend before I lose faith with all my fellow women.

The phenomenon of women claiming to be non-binary appears to me a way of boasting about themselves or advertising their specialness among other women.

I have found this with 'queer' too.

OP if you are very attached to this friendship, and think theres a real cance of the topic ending it..simply do not discuss the topic? I know its pretty shit, and people should be able to post opinions and such but..it really comes down to which you value more, the ability to talk..or a friend who seemingly wishes you didn't on topics you disagree on.

I have been speaking out for a while now, and have not lost any friends. I have a fair few woke friends and they seem to just avoid talking to me about it, though they did at the start try the 'surely you are not a terf, you have always been liberal' etc. Though I am pretty sure the reason they avoid the topic is not so much to do with valuing our friendship as such, but that when they tried the nonsense, I had answers and they couldn't answer anything at all beyond 'everyone should be nice'..which seems about the gist of the argument from that side

"Everyone should be nice"

"To people who aren't being nice to us at all?"

"...You're not meant to say that. Nice!"

They pose zero threat, most of what you see here is fear-mongering.

Now, don't be silly....I think I may have to post a link

transcrimeuk.com/