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!

Well in my case I did raise it but was met with a refusal to even look at evidence I had available to present to them. I don't know what point there is in pursuing it any further on those circumstances 🤷‍♀️

I have a friend who was originally in agreement with me over GC issues until her DD "educated" her. Then she started using the "why can't you just be kind...how hard would it be?" drivel that boiled my piss. So we just didn't discuss it (not ideal, as PP have said, if you have topics that are simply off limits, are you truly friends??)

Well. This friend is a massive HP fan. All the HP books. All the HP movies. All the Galbraith books...you get the picture. My friend idolises JKR. After the JKR twitter eruption she texted me. Turns out that was her peak trans event.

So in my case supporting JKR was not a problem. There are family members who are problematic, but I was cast adrift by one of them for saying transwomen do not belong in women's sports. This family member has a DD and two GDs, both in sports FFS.

I left a group because it.

It's too important to ignore. It has become as bad as it has partly because people are scared of speaking out. Although it has taken hold fast, it's astonishing.

We need to talk about it in public. Please start where you can.

'Courage calls to Courage'

Probably mildly in person is the way to do it.

My mum was always Be Kind but not taking much notice.
It was me saying like 3 sentences: JK says biology is real...you should have seen the abuse she got, "choke on my girl dick".... these are the very ones who want to be in the changing room when your DGD is trying to put on her swimsuit.

She got it.

Really though, ordinary decent transpeople will have to have a Not In My Name moment. Ordinary people won't allow Choke on my Girl Dick brigade in private spaces with their kids. Once they find out it's happening.

It will end badly for normal transpeople as well. I would imagine they are holding their head in their hands right now at the antics.

My cousin, who I love to bits. The one who gave a reading at my wedding. In the message she sent me at the weekend before she deleted me on all social media she likened me to a racist, so that was lovely.

First Brexit and now this. It’s appalling that so many people can’t have calm, considered conversations about issues without things turning ugly and personal. I think social media has a lot to do with it. I also think it’s important to speak up otherwise the other side of the debate is never heard.

No. But then my circle is all at the bottom of society - precarious working class I think we'll be based on the definition from another thread running now. We're also highly diverse in race and sexuality and so on. We don't need to remanufacture ourselves into some silly paradigm of faux special-and-most-oppressed-in-the-whole-world or self-sacrificing ally thereof to assuage our guilt at our unmerited privilege. Reality is enough for us. In truth however, it's the people attacking women to facilitate their performative wokeness who are losing friends.

@Nacreous just read the link, how bloody depressing

If there are so many different types of women that it basically loses its meaning then why on earth do they want to be women so badly?

I had a very heated debate at the weekend with a male friend. Gender is always a sticking point for us both. And while we haven't 'fallen out', I think we both see each other very differently now. He thinks I am hateful and a transphobe. I think he is misogynistic and dismissive of women.

It is very sad that we cannot have a reasoned debate about it. But I am far too passionate and angry about this to roll over and submit just to keep the peace.

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.

no, just no. This is not a tiny university bubble thing. This is everywhere, and it i sso destructive.

I am reading this thread and feel really deeply profoundly angry. I now get why women were prepared to die for the vote, I feel erased.

But the reason I am so angry is that both my beautiful daughters have been hijacked by it, and I don't mean they have an opinion, I mean they are in it hook line and sinker.

We live in the south. In a boring ordinary non university town. They both go to an all girls grammar school. A place I sent them because I thought it would help empower them as women.

My 15 year old is now gender non-binary, has changed 'their' name to a gender neutral name, and is 100% up to her neck in trans isdeology.

My 12 year old has just told me she is trans. She is also probably on the autistic spectrum, but has no diagnosis. She told school in and email that she had a new name. School wrote to me and asked if they should change all the registers etc NO JUST FUCK OFF NO SHE'S 12.

Obviously I was balanced and polite. But WHY why would an all girls school not see how damaging this is to women?

The JK Rowling tweet has broken my family in 2. My dds are both massive Harry Potter fans, they were appalled at the tweet. But my older on is more appalled that I agree, because as a gender non binary person, she is a person who menstruates and not a woman, and by supporting JK, I have basically told her (apparently) that I don't believe/support/care about her or her feelings and opinions. I have rejected her by supporting JK.

We have been talking about women and single sex spaces and the need to protect both vulnerable women and vulnerable trans people for the last 3 years. Non of it has made the slightest dent in her beliefs.
My support of Jk has destroyed something between us.

I am broken by this. It is not an academic argument.
I am sitting here, knowing that my choice to be GC has alienated my girls.

Of all the things I thought I might encouter as a parent of a teenager, this was not one of them. I have no idea how to parent any more, and the very people we shoudl be asking for help eg school is against us. Last night dh said he felt trapped between 2 walls of fire, trying to hold our girls safe and with no where to turn.

I've lost one of my dearest friends, a trans man, over this issue: me speaking in support of JKR on fb was the final straw for him and he's done with me. It's really upsetting. On the plus side, several acquaintances have been drawn into the debate who weren't clued up before and I've been able to direct them to this chat board, apparently the only place on the internet where madness doesn't reign supreme.

Like many here, I'm very careful about what I put on social media. But all of my best and oldest friends are vocally GC amongst our social group.

I think one of the things that really entrenches me most is that anyone asking exactly what JKR said that was transphobic and why it was transphobic gets flamed and/or blocked. There is NEVER an answer which refers to the actual words she used.

Oh steppemum

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?

I think because they are being so crazy. It's like they have been mind-captured.

I have family members on FB, and people who I have known for many years, maybe from my childhood, who are good people. And yet I know that now, somehow they are in a place where if you say the wrong things (a very broad category), about gender, about racism, whatever, they will not be able to deal with it.

for steppemum

I'm so sorry steppemum

This cult has got my niece and she's on testosterone.

So sorry to hear your account steppemum. It must be so hard for you.

I've lost some friends over the years and now, since the JK Rowling incident, my step-daughter won't speak to me. It's all completely ridiculous. Thankfully most of my good friends feel as I do, and my closest friends are wholly gender critical, as is DP. DD is 19 and also gender critical - she came to a rad-fem meet up with me last year and loved it!

It's very hard to agree to disagree when someone is deliberately seeking to dismantle my rights as a woman.

My friend I grew up with is now a trans woman and her opinion on it is its such a shame there are idiots throwing vile abuse at JK because it shows she is right. She doesn't blame women for wanting single sex spaces when she sees tweets like suck my girl dick. She classes herself as a woman but knows there are differences between myself and her. She's a trans woman and proud and doesn't want to drop the trans before woman because it erases her life story. Very grown up attitude I think

I've had a conversation with one friend who's sharing the mermaids riposte. It was tiptoed- there's no way she was ready for unvarnished truth. We left it with her 'glad [I'm] listening, that's enough for now'. I really hope she's listening too!

There's another friend/colleague I know I can't raise it with. She's not going there, full on belief that TWAW and anyone who disagrees is a bigot.

Gone are the days of agreeing to disagree.

Literally no one I know has posted anything about this on social media. My friends do not seem to have an opinion on this either way, or not that they've posted. But I have friends with children who dress as the opposite gender, although still maintaining their original name and described by their sex. So I don't want to post anything in case I upset them. I have liked jkr's terf wars tweet. But my friends are mostly on facebook, less insta, even less twitter.

Ah steppemum really sorry that has happened to you. In time perhaps they will thank you for this stance though. Everyone thinks their parents are wrong as a teenager then comes round to their way of thinking. Are you managing not to discuss it in the house for the time being?

@wonderstuff and @ShirleyPhallus

I know. I am happy to refer to people by preferred pronouns and generally be accomodating but I really dislike the idea that women must do labour on behalf of others as that leaflet requires you to do to be a feminist - that feels almost misogynistic to me. Having done a science degree I also firmly believe sex exists and isn't a societal construct. And there are very few places where genuine discussion is permitted.