Will it ever get better?

[IAmFleshIAmBone]

I really despair of this world. I feel like as women we are being manipulated and gaslighted constantly. We have to comply with everything the trans lobby demands of us or we are called TERFs, threatened, our careers are put at risk and for what? A men's rights movement essentially. I'm starting to feel like we can't win. Anyone can claim to be a woman and get access to our safe spaces. I'm terrified for the future.

I'm so sorry, I had to get this out. If anyone has any words of encouragement I'd appreciate them as I am feeling pretty lost and hopeless, and I can't talk to anyone about this in real life.

I hope that will be the case, Tea.

You're right though. I'm 31 so I'm sure I'm supposed to be woke. Being a mother definitely made me think differently. It wasn't a thing for me, I personally wasn't affected. But she will by the TRA agendas. I didn't have any of this shit when I was a kid.

Absolutely, @Langbannedforsafeguardingkids. It's the childfree 20-30yos who were raised in the past decade on Tumblr who have helped spread this.

They have no idea what's happening in schools because it doesn't affect them.

OP - I feel your pain and send

I think what has happened is a push back on recent gains.

There are lots of things in the pipeline to be hopeful and bring more sunshine:

-Liz Truss’ expected formal statement on scrapping the GRA and protecting single sex spaces -currently I am hopeful, but will wait for the detail.
-Kiera Bell vs the Tavistock
-13yr old girl and Safe Schools Alliance taking CPS and county councils to court

• Looks like Brighton will double down and be taken to court -Allison Bailey suing Stonewall.

Not sure of current state of campaign of Maya and Harry the Owl? - can anyone update?

More sunlight there too.

@FloralBunting

Well, ask yourself what you would really prefer - the seething mass of woman-hatred bubbling just under the surface, working quietly to undermine your rights until one day you wake up and you're Offred, or have a really unpleasant time as all the poison gets exposed to the sunlight so everyone can witness the putrification and we actually knock a few heads off the hydra as a result?

I know it's wearing. God help me, so I do. I'm mixing my metaphors like nobodies business. But we have come so far. We really have.

That was just what I needed to read today. Thank you.

Nevertheless, we persist

It is getting better all the time - as others have shown, we are coming out of the #nodebate years and into full sunlight.

Every time, I post on FB, there is more and more agreement. Our points are being heard and there has been a shift.

They'll never win.

They'll never really convince themselves or others that their delusions are real.

That's why they're getting desperate.

im seeing several group of women arguing twaw- not just young women in their 20s:

1. women whose dc or close loved ones are trans or nb and they want to protect them, naturally.
2. women who've experienced discrimination, homophobia esp or racism and think this is exactly the same.
3. women who are completely woo- reject science and prefer feelings to facts. dont like msm etc.

OP, I know how you feel. It's pretty bleak right now. I was on tw*tter a lot yesterday and think I'm going to stay off social media today for my mental health. Many of us do see the gaslighting, and many of us despair of the women happy to be complicit in their own erasure. Tried to talk to DH about it and he shuts me down. He thinks TWAW but when we talk about it there are aspects of trans ideology that make him deeply uncomfortable. Our DD is 10. I want a better, safer world for her.

Yes it feels bleak, but if I look back to what my grandmother faced 50 years ago this is easy. She had no right to her own bank account, couldn't get any credit, could be fired for being married and paid less literally just for being a woman.

Just the financial changes alone give us an incredible amount of power to affect change. Yes CJ were wankers with Allison's crowd funder but almost entirely women raised £60k in a day even with the hurdles they threw in our path. They may be defunding rape crisis centres and DV refuges that maintain single sex spaces but we can fund them ourselves.

Even if they shut down all online discussion spaces, women have found each other in real life before to affect massive change and we can do so again. The Internet is a massive enabler but without it we can still attend local MP surgeries, write letters to councils and parliament and campaign for our rights to be upheld. They want us to feel alone, because they are scared of what will happen when we realise how many of us there are and what we can do.

As a 30 year old now, a few years ago I was definitely in the "be kind" area. While I maybe didn't think TWAW my only exposure to the issue was news stories of fully medically transitioned TW being attacked in men's prisons in the US. And yes I did go, "That's awful they should be in the women's prisons, they should be treated as women, crazy how backwards some places still are!"

But that feels like it was before woman was verboten, and men who had done nothing to change their appearance or physicality were regardless claiming womanhood and victim status from us oppressive women.

The more the latter behaviour gets broadcast the more reasonable people say "Hold on, this doesn't feel right" and then they are forced to confront all their assumptions, as I was, and realise that actually womanhood isn't up for debate. I'm sure that as this gets more press coverage and millenial woman start hitting the biological wall in life that is childbearing there will be more people waking up to this issue.
It takes time, but as a recent joiner I genuinely think we are moving in the right direction.

I think you are all fabulous, strong women. I know there have been a few setbacks over the past few weeks, but there has also been a huge spotlight shone on this by JKR.
I am new to this, but Im doing everything I can, I've written letters to everyone in positions of power, I've joined Twitter, I've spoken to everyone I've seen in RL about it, and I had cause to put it on my child's class whatsapp, I didn't get any responses but it's out there and maybe a couple will actually read the links I sent and take it on board, I've donated to a few grassroots organizations, and I'm boycotting any shops that are throwing us under the bus.
If anyone has any other useful ideas I can do to help I'm happy to have them.
I have my family's full support and I'm not scared to put my views out there for everyone to see.

But all of this is down to you wonderful women on here what have been fighting for our rights. So thank you to all of you

What a very uplifting thread. Thank you all. I needed to read this. It really has been a brutal few weeks. I agree that the tide seems to be turning and I feel more hopeful than I did a few months ago. I know that most people see through all the nonsense, but I'm also concerned about the tyranny of 'hashtag be kind',which seems to be a new form of 'calm down, dear'. I still cant quite get my head around the denial of biology, the revision of reality, the celebration of stupidity, and the refusal to do the most basic thinking. Its downright frightening

hashtag be kind

There are many instances throughout history where harm was done by people who thought they were being kind or righteous.

This is one.

I just spotted this article
www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/jun/30/it-takes-away-the-stigma-five-of-the-best-cartoons-with-transgender-characters

I am not CIS
I am female.
Interesting that they are not allowing comments on such a nasty piece

I’ve just clicked onto the article and the authors are Owl and Fox Fisher - the 2 authors who resigned from JK Rowling’s agency over the latter’s tweet.

They really are making the most of their moment. I never heard of either of them until they announced their resignation. And all this attention comes on the back of the far more popular JK Rowling.

Will their works be still read and cherished in 20 years?

jodi piccoult- todays disappointment.

I really reject the use of 'cis'. I am a woman. That is it.

I started to donate monthly to Lumos, JKR's charity. I'll back her any way I can. I've never signed up monthly to a charity, just donated as and when I could but I feel that hers is worthy even if it's a small amount.

From the article: "the more open conversations on the topic are to be welcomed"

What this reminds me of is some stories I can think of where one really dogged whistleblower plugs away at righting an injustice and everyone tells them they're wrong or they're stupid and then suddenly one person takes them seriously and the whole landscape changes, and then there's an inquiry and loads of press coverage and everyone says "how could this be allowed to happen?" There are multiple examples, but one is when the Guardian (ironically) started publishing stories about phone hacking and other newspapers poured scorn on them. It took years before the tide suddenly changed and then the News of the World closed down, there were criminal charges etc.

Another obvious example is the years it took to do anything about the paedophile grooming gangs. Again, people looked away and pretended it wasn't happening. There are several other cases of atrociously poor care in hospitals where it's taken one determined campaigner to achieve change, usually after several years of abuse from official bodies.

So I think this is going to be a bit like that. We have to keep plugging away. Our real problem is the degree of institutional capture - when the police, the judiciary, the NHS, the third sector, schools and universities have all been captured, you know you have a fight on your hands. The one thing we do have on our side is that the public, for the most part, agree with us - once they become aware of what's going on. Most of them aren't aware, of course. So our job is to make them aware.

I've made the most of toddler naps recently and watched:
Missrepresentation (Netflix UK)
and
She's Beautiful When She's Angry (Amazon prime) although hopefully it's available somewhere else for those boycotting Amazon!
The beginning of SBWSA touches on how you can never take your foot off the pedal, when you think you have your rights settled there will be someone trying to take them away.

"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any." Alice Walker.

We will persist!

Hello everyone. Thanks for the support. I didn't expect so many replies! I'm emotionally drained so I can't reply individually but thanks to all you wonderful women I don't feel so alone and helpless. I hope others on this thread have also found it comforting. We just have to keep fighting. At the end of the day, we are over 50% of the population, and there is strength in numbers.

OP, just one more thought: we are not easily defeated.

The TRAs are using all sorts of tactics to persuade people that TWAW are women and to let them into our spaces. But the trouble with TWAW is that it's a faith position: there is absolutely no way of rationally arguing that it is possible to change sex. Tactics of urging women to be kind and tolerant, or telling them they're on the wrong side of history, or that they're bigoted, or even threatening them with violence, will work with some women. But it won't work for everyone. There will always be a hard core of us who reject it because it is entirely irrational. All the women who are capable of thinking critically and are not easily cowed will fight against this. That gives me hope.

@Whatsnewpussyhat

The press coverage of HC views compared to a year ago is huge. Comments allowed on articles, not closed or heavily moderated. More people are waking up daily. Councils across the UK removing the trans tool kits that misrepresented the law.

NHS changed the wording on trans procedures.

People becoming aware of Stonewall's manipulation and under handedness.

JK Rowling is with us!

We just need to keep fighting.

This is what I think when I feel despondent about it - look where we are even from a year ago.

But with most organisations and institutions behaving as though self-id is legal (and to be fair, it practically is if gender reassignment is the protected characteristic without ever having to take a step to 'reassign') that is when I feel most hopeless.

I am scared of being hounded out of my job if I am too vocal. I have begun following a lot more gender critical posters on twitter and liking stuff as a form of support. But then I was told that my likes could be seen. And it has frightened me. And there must be millions like me.

This thing is like an oil tanker. Until the mainstream media including television are prepared to have a proper debate, not one that just latches on to soundbites and the words 'controversial' and 'compromise', then I don't see how we get it in to the mainstream in all its glory with all the issues covered not just the 'look over there' toilet one.

That is why I believe that the GRA needs to be repealed. There is no need for it. It creates legal falsehoods that conflict with other legislation. I wish Liz Truss would be brave enough to moot this.

And I am so fucking bored of the word gender. I am not interested in anyones fucking gender or the feelings in their head. It doesn't fucking exist and yet we are contorting ourselves out of all reality and biology to accommodate it.

But it won't work for everyone. There will always be a hard core of us who reject it because it is entirely irrational. All the women who are capable of thinking critically and are not easily cowed will fight against this. That gives me hope.

Agreed. I also think we're evolutionarily hardwired to instantly recognise males and females - not only humans either, there are lots of stories of dogs and horses that can instantly tell males from females whatever their attire. I don't think it's that easy to override hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. The shape of men is different to women, the hip to shoulder ratio, the smell. A million tiny things that no amount of plastic surgery or makeup or dresses can overcome.

I think the TRAs/ MRAs can scare people into parroting TWAW or 2+2=5 or whatever, but they can't make people really believe it.