Dystopian nightmare?

[PhilomenaRumple]

Hello

I hit peaktrans about a week ago. Since then I’ve not slept through the night.

Everywhere I look, I see women silenced (or keeping silent), cancelled and losing jobs. I see us being erased by ‘woke’ companies and employers. Not to mention the harm being done to the LGB’s and children.

I’ve lost two close friends today because I’ve seen it for what it is and didn’t keep quiet.

I keep feeling like this is some weird 1984/Gilead sh*t and this only the beginning.

Can anyone give me some perspective on how they feel about this long-term and what will ultimately happen? I’m frightened.

In sisterhood ❤️

[PhilomenaRumple]

@RunningWild12 thank you. Your opinion is really welcome and thank you for your reassurance

[PhilomenaRumple]

@Cuntysnark I’m with you. Thank you

[EmpressLangClegSpartacus]

Philomena, once all this is over I would hugely recommend going to a meeting if you can - or even to next year’s FiLiA conference in Portsmouth! The sheer boost you get from being in a room full of like-minded women is amazing, and there’s always a pub trip afterwards.

[RunningWild12]

I just want to say that we have made a difference. When I first got involved there was nothing in the press challenging self id or the twaw mantra. I couldn’t imagine it happening. I’m in Scotland and our go put is really signed up to this, but we have made them go public, and the press covers the issue.
I was involved in the Anti Apartheid movement in the 80s and never imagined Nelson Mandela would be released form prison, much less we’d see him elected in South Africa. Never thought I’d see that in my lifetime. Or the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland. None of that happened overnight, and it took a lot of heavy lifting from sincere people to make it happen. Things we never thought we had a chance of winning, we did. Not by chanting mantras, not by spewing vitriol on social media (which didn’t exist) but by working democratically, from the grassroots, marshalling our evidence and our arguments. Not sexy, not headline grabbing, but effective.

[mum2jakie]

My 12 year old son fully understands the issues. We use the "if you dressed up in a lion costume it doesn't mean you could go inside the enclosure" and lots of talk about women's sport and how unfair it is to have men competing and winning the prizes. Keep it simple - he understands. He accepts that it's right to be kind to other people and their beliefs but not at the cost of women's identity.

[PhilomenaRumple]

@EmpressLangClegSpartacus I’ve been looking into that. It would be hugely uplifting and I think I should get tickets!

[PhilomenaRumple]

@RunningWild12 thank you. Without women like you, where would we be?

[Onthebrink87]

I haven't been on Twitter long, and have only been actively using it for a week or so. The whole twaw is something I've found frightening. But what I will say, is what men will always underestimate about women is the compassion and empathy and the willingness to stand together and support each other. I had 1 follower last week and now have about 50. I know that's not a lot but it gives me faith that women are feeling brave enough to say what they wouldn't have dared to say even a few months ago, and feeling like im a tiny cog in a growing machine is amazing.

[PhilomenaRumple]

@mum2jakie are they pushing this ideology in his school?

[PhilomenaRumple]

Keep at it. You are amazing

[mum2jakie]

@PhilomenaRumple

No. He's a big Harry Potter fan and had seen some of the media coverage. Was watching Piers Morgan talking about it the other day.

[PhilomenaRumple]

All of you: thank you so much for your reassurances. I think I may well sleep tonight! You’re all awesome ❤️

[McDuffy]

Hi OP
One thing that makes me feel better, when it gets a bit overwhelming (I've rejoined twitter and I'm posting in my own name and original account which is confusing for my old followers but I'm chucking in GC stuff with my more normal style!) is to look at the comments on any recent GC article in the Times. Hundreds of sensible people, I find it reassuring.
Also I've got to at least ten women in real life that weren't aware of this before I told them. I wonder how many ripples those ten have made, in turn!

[colouringindoors]

Synpathies. Once you see it, you see everything and it can be totally overwhelming. I find channelling efforts on social media into spreading the word in a hopefully not off putting way helps me. But I still struggle.

[MujeresLibres]

I know where you're coming from OP
I find it overwhelming too and I'm a pessimist by nature which doesn't help

Things have changed so much just over the last year. The conversation is opening up.

[nickEcave]

I peaked last year after the first newsnight piece on the Tavistock clinic. I'd been reading around it all for a year or so beforehand as I have 13 yr old non-gender-conforming DD. I became a feminist at 15 after reading "the womens room" but got complacent working public sector in my 20s. Thought the battles had been won! Having kids in my 30's and trying to maintain a career post 2008 recession well and truly cured me of that belief! I work in the university sector (non academic,) and have had to be careful who I come out to as GC. But OMFG once you really see the misogyny you can't unsee it and it colours everything. The covid crisis is pushing things back to the 1950s for millions of women - we've taken on the equivalent of millions of pounds of unpaid caring and education work in the past 6 months and there needs to be a reckoning.

[rabbitwoman]

Also for me the game changer is the Newsnight report on the Tavistock Clinic. I have been very cautious of speaking up because of the threat of losing my job - I work in education, very low level, but we all have a responsibility to care for and protect children. I am doubly emboldened now, anything I say can be framed as a safeguarding concern.

(I say concern because it's more professional than terror, dread, fury and utter bewilderment that it was ever allowed to get this far....)

[nonsenceagain]

I think a lot of us have been there OP. I remember talking about the possibility of men in women's sports years ago, and being shocked that some of my very clever and analytical friends didn't see the problem. It was a real moment.

My best friend is GC and I could not do without her. We can speak freely, go to feminist events together and look after each when things get tough. We're both radical feminists so speak within contexts that we both understand and agree on. Try to find at least one close friend you can be honest and yourself with. I honestly don't think I could do it without mine.

[twoHopes]

I hear you OP. I've been involved in this debate since 2018 and the thing that keeps me going is watching more and more women I know finally wake up to what's going on. It's a slow and painful process but it does feel like we're getting somewhere, especially with big names like JKR now speaking out.

When this whole pandemic malarky is over I'd definitely recommend going to one of the GC events. I had a memorable night getting drunk with Jean Hatchet and Karen Ingala Smith and Helen Staniland (who is hilarious) and it spurred me on in so many ways.

I try to find the positives in all this and my hope is that maybe this whole gender debate will introduce more women to "real" feminism and reignite the discussions we should have been having over the last 20 years around sex-based inequality.

[Binterested]

Yes they are pushing this stuff in schools. Stonewall’s main job these days is to go into schools and tell girls that if they sometimes feel uncomfortable as a girl they must be a boy. But at least ten local authorities have recently withdrawn their trans guidance which basically tells girls to be quiet and accept boys in their changing rooms. This has happened because of our activism and crowdfunding and speaking out. We are bringing about a shift in the debate.

I totally get how you feel. It’s overwhelming. Some days I think about nothing else. I am so so angry. This is buzzing in my head all the time - when I’m at the supermarket or talking to a neighbour. My friends think I’m obsessed (I am ). But I think JKR peaked them too. It felt like a disaster at the time - all the hate she was getting. But everyone is now starting to see what’s been going on. My friends are starting to get angry.

I have to take a break now and again. It gets overwhelming and when it does I come off here and stop looking at Twitter. To be honest I’m happier when I don’t know what’s going on. But I’m always drawn back in because I can not tolerate a world where the word woman does not exist.

[Divoc2020]

I think it's really important to start talking to friends, one-to-one, not on social media, if possible. Pick an element of it that will be of most interest to them.

I have a friend with younger children who I saw yesterday, so I mentioned the ASDA materials and asked if she was aware of them. She wasn't, but was appalled, and asked me to send her the link and we talked about the creep of gender identity propaganda in schools.

The thing is, she works in a role where she comes into contact with Equality and Diversity policies a lot in business, yet she actually seems like she doesn't really know about a lot of the real issues.

If you think about this in Covid19 terms we need to get the R rate for the transmission of information to well above 1 !

[wellbehavedwomen]

Yes, it's not easy. It was far easier to sail along believing feminism had won, women were liberated, and the rainbow sparkles were all about love and letting people live their best lives.

The process of discovering what was really going on was highly upsetting and discouraging.

This. I've always been on the left. I've always supported people in living and loving as seems best to them. I had no idea - it would never have crossed my mind - that what seemed lovely and inclusive and kind was actually the single most misogynistic fightback against women's rights in my lifetime.

It's hard. But women's rights have always been under attack. It was the direction this came from that was the shock to me. The betrayal of women, in the service of men, and the sheer scale of the hatred aimed at women who dared question it. All those gleeful leftie male feminists, finally able to attack, demean and mansplain women to their heart's content, and all while claiming it was to defend the most vulnerable women - the kind with penises.

It would be funny, if it weren't so awful.

[PhilomenaRumple]

Hey everyone

I took all of your good advice and tried to sleep etc. I have been doing things for the cause the last few weeks and trying to be helpful!

However.... I’m shtting myself now.

Glinner banned from Twitter
Baroness Nichol removed from Booker prize (they’re complaining to HoL about her now)
Reddit Gender Critical closed
Allison Bailey completely fuced over on Crowd Justice
Horrop stalking
Google interfering in GRA
Facebook quietly changing their policies so if you deny existence of someone’s identity you fall foul of hate speech guidelines
Pride taken over by T’s


I mean... this feels like a rather large and planned conspiracy to me. It feels like the beginning of the Handmaid’s tale.

[JemimaShore]

Yes, it does feel like the beginning of The Handmaid's Tale. I just felt really sick to hear of another female author hounded out of her job for standing with JK Rowling.

BUT - reasons to be hopeful. We have JK Rowling on our side! And they can't cancel her

• GRA changes have been shelved now (apart from Scotland ) So no self-ID in law for now.

• Newsnight reporting on the harm cause by the Tavistock. Puberty blockers discussed on Women's Hour

• Women organising and finding each other on Twitter/ closed FB groups (they can't silence us all!

• Report published on the "Corrosive Impact of Transgender Ideology". I think this government will take notice of that.

• Two shopping centres converted toilets to gender-neutral - changes them back after complaints.

• The strength of feeling over Allison's crowd funder, the speed it met it's target!

• There are more of us out there than they think.

[PhilomenaRumple]

I sincerely hope other women wake up soon enough to outnumber these bastards.

All of it is so sinister and systematic. When this all falls down there are going to be some serious consequences