Is anyone else furious/deflated at the amount of energy this is taking up?

[Dhalmeup]

There is just so much more that needed doing already.

The abysmal rape/murder rates in most countries, baby girls being murdered after birth because of their sex, FGM, so many issues around the world we could be banding together and putting our energy towards.

And instead, we have found ourselves having to turn around and defend what we already bloody had! Constantly fighting fires and trying cling on to rights and spaces that we took for granted as already permanently ours.

I know we can concentrate on more than one thing at once and great work is still being done.

It’s just so frustrating that the TRAs are taking up so much of our time and I resent it because we shouldn’t have to! We shouldn’t have to be fighting these fires at all.

Sorry, just feeling defeated this evening. SM has been manic the last few days and what has happened to Allison’s fundraiser has just tipped me over the edge.

I do feel that we will win. I’m just angry that we need to fight at all.

Yeah it# the craziness when it seems like perfectly san3 people come out with the biggest lies I ever heard.

It’s like my toddlers saying. Nope we never drew on the wall.

Well why have you got felt tip on your fingers

Yes. I got back involved having become overwhelmed a while ago and I'm already getting there again. It's depressing.

@SomeDyke I so agree. It’s hard to take on board because it’s horrible, but there we are.

My DH is totally on board a s supportive to me on this issue and I know for a fact that he speaks out and challenges opinions he doesn’t agree with but at the end of the day it’s not his rights being taken away ... he can’t understand how I feel.

I just keep telling people, politely, what I really think. If necessary I just push on ‘but what is feeling you are a woman’ ‘what actually is a woman’, people don’t always agree but you can see the cogs turning. And IME most people IRL do agree! (Partly what makes the whole thing so incredibly frustrating)

Please don’t feel disheartened. A few years ago I was fairly ambivalent, live and let live, stop being so nasty to trans people.

From these threads I have been educated on what trans activists are trying to achieve and how they are doing it. These threads have been highly informative whilst showing sympathy to trans people who it’s been acknowledged that for the majority want to live their lives in peace and quiet.

Please do keep up the excellent work, the message is getting through!

Yes.

Male friends I respected telling me that I should listen more to trans women about what a woman actually is. Do they want to hear from me what my experience of being a woman is? Obviously not.
How fucking dare they?

I dunno if I'm being a tinhatter or what.
But I think I see the trace of Russian troll farms in all this.

Rights for transpeople. Free from discrimination and harm, a very noble and worthy cause. We can all agree on that.

But - this? It smacks of, If we can get them to believe men are women, we can get them to believe anything!

Yes. In particular, exhausted and truly sickened by the relentless, spiteful nastiness of everything that comes at females from this agenda.

I try to remind myself that for many busy attacking female rights and female attempts to protect themselves on a daily basis, it's the obsessive wreaking of control, derision, the chase, the unleashing of spite that is in itself meeting their needs, and I get it. I left someone like this, who was not very well at all and who was every bit as spiteful and lifesucking and without boundaries in what they'd stoop to and how they lash out (although demanded the world on a plate for themselves) whose evenings on a bad day were spent finding a random forum and unleashing themselves all over it under an anonymous persona. Poking, jeering, fighting, they found it cathartic to unleash all that nasty emotion on someone without there being (to them) any cost. The agenda or topic is just the framework the behaviour hangs on to get what it needs.

The threat to female rights however is too important to do what I long to do which is just walk the fuck away and not have to spend every day giving up mind space and energy to it all. Or feel like the world is truly this horrible, vicious and woman-hating place.

7Days there may well be something in that. They are doing anything they can to disrupt and coherence or harmony the West aspires to.

It does take up time and energy.

When I realised a few years back that all the progress I thought we'd made wrt women's rights would always have to be defended in a the price of freedom is eternal vigilance way I wanted to just give in. But I didn't.

I've wanted to give in lots of times since, and I probably will feel that way again in the future. But I won't give up.

It's okay to feel hopeless. It's okay to step away if you need to. Others have got your back.

The truth is the truth even if no one believes it.

Yeah I think there are a lot of bots involved in this

But but. The capture of organisations is whacky. Where was this pushed from ?

The fatigue and hopelessness are intentional. Why has such a fringe issue as trans rights gained so much momentum in such a short time and become the center of every debate on feminist issues? Why does everyone ‘right-thinking’ person have to pay homage to the trans agenda at every opportunity?

Because it’s a wonderful way to drain energy from the continued fight for basic women’s rights around the world. I’m generally skeptical of conspiracy theories but the TRA agenda plays right into the hands of conservatives who want to silence feminists. It’s a dream come true for them. Just sit back and watch as the women’s movement tears itself apart over what the word ‘woman’ means and whether the entire basis of women’s oppression - biological sex - is even real. It’s exhausting and demoralizing. And any woman who speaks out is a ‘T**F’ as with JKR. What a handy-dandy way to silence women!

I do think this is very important, and threads like this do crop up, and if I can apply some feminist analysis to it, as well as the encouragement?

The fight we're in is a permanent state. We are never going to be able to say 'women are now liberated, let's have a cuppa'. I wish I could say different, but women have had rights for barely ten seconds in the stream of history, and we are still trying to hold back the pushback against these modest gains.

But part of a feminist critique of gender is that women are not naturally subservient or sacrificial. We are not inherently disposed to roll over and let ourselves be smothered 'for the greater good'. If that's true when we are being coerced into supporting the patriarchy against our better instincts, it's also true when we feel our mental wellbeing is threatened by facing the relentless misogyny of anti-women actions, and we need to step back from being frontline feminists. There is nothing in feminist thinking that justifies women sacrificing themselves. This is not a religion seeking martyrs, this is a political movement seeking our liberation from oppression.

So, if I may share the philosophy that has kept me on an even keel - put your spade in the dirt and work hard, but remember liberation never came by putting extra chains on yourself. To reiterate, as a woman, you matter. That is the whole point.

FloralBunting thank you for that post.

Yes. Agree
Don't have anything helpful to say, sorry

Yes. Seeing people on Twitter treating Katie Hopkins and Graham Linehan as being equally deserving of being banned has been a massive downer today.

I was nearly drowning in despair a few weeks ago, when the backlash against Rowling took off. Particularly as it was happening at the same time as most people earnestly declaring that Black Lives Matter.

In essence, Rowling was raising the question to society, whether there can conceivably be situations where women and girls matter enough to deserve a women only space or a female care provider.

And the answer was ‘no’. NO. There can be no conceivable situation where a person, e.g. a black girl, deserves a woman caring for her.

We can all think of circumstances where that matters. It has been a shock to learn just how many people truly don’t give a fuck about girls and women.

But on a bright side, this whole shit show has invigorated a proper women’s liberation movement again, partly by making misogyny so visible, and partly by pushing people to think about whether women’s lives are shaped by our personal identification, or by societal constructions of womanhood. Many women are now seeing gendered oppression more clearly than we did just 10 years ago.

Although it is both infuriating, depressing and exhausting, we are also keeping each other sane.

I'm so angry about all this. I'm pleased to say I've finally peak transed my husband who has begun to follow some GC people on Twitter. I no longer have to tell him why I'm pissed off.

Floral heart giving post. Courage

We are still here. Think what it was like a year ago

We were being deleted right leftband centre

Now I see so many more women joking us here

Keep going take rests. We can do this

Gawd my auto is a shite

Hate you iPad

I was going to quote all the things you’ve all said that I agree with - but it’s the whole thread :-(

Tbh I think this is the first time in my life I’ve ever really thought about being a feminist - as a woman in science/it I just got on with showing I was equal or better than the men...it’s really hit home how we are still such second class citizens that the minute a man says “give it here it’s mine” we all have to agree and roll over . I worry about the opportunities that will be taken away from dd and how she will never have safe spaces to be a woman without some idiot saying he does it better.

Well I live with 2 men, my husband & my son, they are seeing 1st hand the harm that trans ideology does to women & girls. We can peak trans all the men in our lives along the way

”I am exhausted by how cross it makes me.“

Me too, @HumphreyCobblers. And I am tired of lying awake night after night hashing over it all in my head.

I sometimes repost GC things on FB, and one of my close friends - a nurse and a former science teacher - made a comment that makes it clear she is pro-trans and has bought into the whole thing. Even examples like Yanniv, and trans prisoners assaulting women were dismissed as a few extreme examples that shouldn’t colour our views.

It has changed my view of someone who I liked and admired, and I hate that.

You've articulated my own thoughts and feelings. I don't really get how we're in the position of having to defend ourselves against TRAs when really we should all be working together to make the world a more respectful place for everyone. I dont hate anyone amd i want everyone to have a voice but if i say i want safe spaces for women and girls i can be accused of hate speech. Its like the thought police have taken over.

I’ve lost a close friend who is an active TRA & I dread it coming up with several other friends who I know are TWAW

They’re ppl I like a lot but it’s like they’re under a spell & I just can’t discuss this with them