Anyone else lost friends for supporting JK Rowling?

[teabaseddiet]

I've been GC for 2-3 years now but have been selective about what I've put on Facebook.

I posted JK Rowling's explanation of her tweets & have since had a number of my friends disagreeing with me directly, posting statements about being surrounded by idiots, or unfriending me directly.

These are people I've known, in person, for years. If I'm honest, I'm disappointed that they didn't want to at least talk about it, or be prepared to accept we have different views on this.

I keep reading about lots of people whose friends are becoming GC after JKR stood up for us all, and I'm feeling a bit sorry for myself!

Yes. Am in an artsy line of work. Surrounded by frightened, silent women or ultra-woke colleagues loudly declaring their support for TWAW parroting the TRA without actually studying the issue deeply.

Saddest was when a male friend deleted a whole thread on FB where I thought we were having a reasoned and calm debate about the whole JKR issue. The thread was hijacked by a friend of his, typing and posting faster than humanly possible it seemed, all the usual TRA rhetoric. He hasn't posted anything about women's rights or Trans since.

They'd like to pretend we are in the minority. They don't like being reminded that we aren't.

I've had to be very careful about what I post publicly as I work at an all girls secondary school.

Most of my close friends are also GC, but I think I would lose friends if I were to be more outspoken on the subject.

This is why it worries me so much that there is such a vocal part of society trying to create a world where we have to totally disown and, in the case of celebrities, blacklist anyone that doesn't share our viewpoint. I understand it with more clear cut issues like racism but the situation with JKR has really put a spotlight on the fact that this mindset is crossing over to more valid disagreements where the perceived wrongdoer is somebody speaking for women's safety, not against trans people personally. This is not a case of bigotry, this is a case of somebody trying to balance the rights of everybody and highlight a danger to women, it is incredibly worrying to see so many people too blind to see this because they are so used to cancel culture telling them this is the right way to deal with anybody who falls outside of their cultural bubble or puts equal priority on other issues.

I'm seeing so many people I respect falling into this trap.

A couple of old friends have a mutual friend who I don't know who has a trans child and are being supported by mermaids. One put up the mermaids response to JKR. I pointed out the error in the mermaids interpretation of trans women's rates of criminality and said I largely agreed with JKR.
No one commented further. I'm hoping we'll be able to agree to disagree. It's very difficult. I struggle to understand how women can swallow it all.

I am sorry to everyone who has lost friends over this. It's a bit of another world to me. Most of the people I know are more preoccupied with their own lives. They'd probably have an opinion if it came up in conversation, but nothing militant like I read about on here and Twitter. The only Facebook friends I have who do post about social justice type stuff, are feminists I met online and I know none of them would unfriend me for agreeing with JKR.

Yes. I just said I think we should find ways to safeguard women who have suffered abuse and suggested that JK had a good point there. Didn't say anything that suggested TW aren't W, nor did I even dispute the basic concept of self-ID. I just said it needs to be safer so male abusers can't exploit it before it goes through.
Naturally, I was called a vile terf and told that would never happen and there isn't a single example of that happening anywhere ever...

Where I live, rural south, the vast, vast majority of people aren't on twitter and are pro-women. What can I say. Outside the big city/university bubbles, I think - from what I see directly - common sense prevails.

Most of my RL friends are GC like me.

I have online friends (shared hobby) with whom I wouldn't discuss it, because I think the split would be about 50-50 and it would blow the group apart.

@wonderstuff would you mind explaining the errors in the interpretation please? I got told to educate myself and read that document today.

I have a lovely friend who I work with (have done at different workplaces for 20+ years) and we haven’t talked about JKR but we have disagreed in the past over the issue, i’m GC, she is pro-trans. She has made me think very carefully about it but we are still friends, we’re a bit ‘don’t go there’ now. We have been through so much together, a previous work place was v dysfunctional, we’ve lost dear colleagues, she has a serious illness, I’ve been bereaved etc, we just can’t let this come between us, we just have to respect each other’s views. It’s crazy that people are able to disagree about other issues but this debate has got so toxic.

My DD also appears to think JKR is a transphobe but I don’t worry too much about her as she is 12 and has got time to see sense!!! I’m working on her!

If I mentioned this subject to my friends I doubt they would have the fainest idea what I was talking about , so no.

To be honest, this isn’t the sort of thing I’d discuss on FB. Most of my ‘real friends’ are people who hold similar views to me, and none of them would disagree with my views about JKR. I use FB to stay in touch with acquaintances and people I vaguely know and I never post anything about politics on there. My sister has a child who is trans and, after a major falling out at Christmas between her and another member of the family, we just don’t talk about it. She probably knows my opinion, but I put out very clear ‘don’t discuss this with me’ vibes to keep conversations civil. Hence, FB would be a no-no.

Ironically, this sister has a husband is a ‘progressive’ virtue signaller and is constantly posting ‘right on’ things on his FB. This then leads to massive online spats with my other sister, who doesn’t share his views and is vocal about hers. Cue a massive pile-on from is oh-so-woke-and-live-in-Brighton friends. The latest (statue-gate) has led to my two sisters not speaking to each other at all.

Social media is just a cesspit.

I don't post openly on Facebook because my niece is transitioning. Unbelievably she hasn't mentioned JKR, otherwise I'd hide her for a bit.

She knows how I feel but for the sake of family relationships it's the thing I don't discuss with them.

I've got at least a dozen vehemently pro-trans-rights friends, most of which are either family members or long term friends who would argue with me very publicly about it. It would be very upsetting to be honest. One friends post in the last week referred to a billionaire transphobe... I don't know what I can do about it but I know that it's not directly addressing the issue, full on, on social media. That will just get their backs up straight away and they won't listen.

My SIL has already cut another family member out of her life altogether over the trans issue so I wouldn't dare post anything on social media. You can pick your friends but you can't pick your family...!

< raises a weary hand >

All of them straight, woke types. One even said she really didn't know much about it, but...

Am so fucking tired of straight people lecturing me, an Actual Homosexual, about section 28.

I haven't yet, but I am careful who I discuss it with. Talked to my mother about it and we agree entirely, and another friend where we mainly agree.

My alma mater's students Union has now also released a "terf-spotters" guide, which details in great length all the things they deem unreasonable about being gender critical and how good feminists can be tricked into believing it.

Really depressing tbh.

Guide below:
m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10156504125073579&id=148494338578

@timetest

I’ve seriously offended DD2 by supporting JK Rowling. She’s a Bristol university student and horrendously woke.

We’ve got one of those in the family. We won’t fall out, I don’t hide my views but it’s so disappointing from such an intelligent young woman, a scientist ffs!

@SchrodingersUnicorn the mermaids response linked to some research on characteristics which they claim shows that trans-women are no more dangerous to women than women, but actually states that trans-women retain the same rates of criminality as men.

A close friend has decided I am a hateful horrible TERF for supporting JKR on Twitter. I’m sad and furious in equal measure. No attempt at discussion even - just binned.

God its shocking really.

Fundamentalist stuff.

I spoke to family about it (in law family) and I got the, 'you're an extremist and you're not getting it properly' treatment. I presented pretty much all the same points as in J K Rowljngs essay (although not as well as her, no doubt).

What irritated me is not that the disagreed but that they denied things that had happened as something that would ever happen but refused to look at any evidence. It's wilful ignorance and I have no time for that so we never discuss now.

The man of the couple is a dreadful mansplainer though (he once tried to tell me I was wrong about what town I lived in and tried to explain what remand is to me - I am a law graduate) so I should have realised he would never be interested in properly considering what I had to say.

I really don't want to sound rude, but why tiptoe around these people? This is presumably an important issue for people here, TRAs are awful people in this regard, so why keep them as friends but not say anything? If you cannot discuss anything with a supposed friend, how much of a friend are they?

@Nacreous just read the leaflet on your link. Very depressing. Both the argument and use of inverted commas were depressing. I've an amazing friend who was once woman's officer at CUSU, backing the days when we were fighting sexism, before all this nonsense. She'd be appalled.