Can I vent here?

[HarryHarry]

I posted on another thread about how I’ve fallen out with my closest friend here (where I live, not the UK) after challenging her about JKR. She wrote “Fuck TERFS” in a post about JKR, I asked her what she thought JKR had said or done wrong, and that led to a huge argument which culminated in us agreeing never to discuss this topic again in order to save our friendship.

Throughout the argument, I tried to make it clear that I supported trans people (genuine ones, not your Travis Alabanza types) but that I did not agree with everything that was being done in their name. I gave her examples of things I had seen and heard during my time as a teacher in the UK. She did not respond to any of the points I made except to deliberately misinterpret them, conveniently ignoring the parts that didn’t fit her narrative of what a TERF is like. Instead she just shouted slogans like “Trans women are women!” and “Trans rights are human rights!” (the latter is not even in question). She also said she thought it was “sad” that I felt my womanhood was “threatened” by theirs. But the thing that really got me was when she said she thought a transwoman’s right to feel safe and comfortable in public spaces was more important than a woman’s (because of course they are the most vulnerable, the most oppressed group ever). I honestly could not believe that a self-proclaimed feminist could ever say that.

Anyway weeks later we have still not seen or spoken to each other so I guess our friendship is over even though we tried to pretend it wasn’t. What I need to vent about is that she is now flooding her social media with screenshots of tweets from people like Munroe Bergdorf and anti-GC memes including pictures of guns with slogans like “Arm Trans Women” and “Support Trans Rights or Die”. This, by the way, is from an otherwise liberal, anti-gun, Democrat voter from the US. I feel that these are clearly aimed at me as she had clearly never mentioned trans issues until JKR.

The war on women has really affected my mental health, which tbh was already in a bit of a precarious state, but it has been made worse by her posting things like “Support trans rights or die” because I feel like she is saying that I, personally, deserve to die simply for disagreeing with her.

I have of course deactivated all my social media accounts to avoid seeing this shit but I sometimes have to log back in to check for news about the local groups that I am part of and stumble upon her posts.

Please someone help me understand why a person who is not even trans herself and has no close trans friends can feel so strongly about this issue? I used to think she was intelligent and discerning. How a person who prides herself on being anti-fascist cannot see the irony in her own attitudes and behaviour (calling for book banning/burning, compelled speech, censorship, cancelling, violence/death for non-believers, deliberately misinterpreting people’s words in order to denounce them, etc) is just staggering.

reason.com/2020/07/07/narcissists-psychopaths-and-manipulators-are-more-likely-to-engage-in-virtuous-victim-signaling-says-study/

I can relate, having come out as GC on twitter a couple of days ago I have seriously fallen out with a long time friend, he took offence at the fact I called out for mansplaining feminism and giving away safe single sex spaces and I got upset at a whole load of crap he spouted.

He still couldn't explain to me what made Pips Bunce or Alex Drummond a woman!

I'm really upset by the whole thing, questioning a flawed ideology or wondering what safeguards will be put in place with self ID does not make you a transphobe.

It's like the emperor's new clothes.

It's narcissistic behaviour.

Using a cause (any cause) to denigrate others and thus elevate and promote themselves.

There's a very old saying about people known as "candle snuffers".

Their goal is always to dim (blow out) your light to make theirs look brighter.

We now have terms like virtue signalling/cancelling now but it's the same premise.

It's not a new phenomenon - it's simply that the tactic is more effective over social media.

I am gender critical.

As it happens my argument with gender neutral toilets is not Transwomen but men. I don’t want to share a toilet space with teen boys and men. The occasional Transwomen, GRC in place, fine, it is very rare anyway.

But, in the face of TRA vicious zealotry we need to be very careful of adopting the same time of hyperbole and shrieking blame.

genuine ones, not your Travis Alabanza types)
I know Travis, have worked with them. Whatever you think about Travis’ antics as an artist , Travis is so clearly ‘genuinely’ gender divergent. And has been the target of ‘genuine’ transphobia. So....

Well, I've gone and poked the hornet's nest now and expecting some spectacular fall out when people wake up.

I don't care any more, everything about this issue is making me enraged.

Travis is also a genuine male, so...

Non-binary is absolutely lovely as an artistic concept and deliberately provocative context. In terms of sex segregated spaces, though, Travis is male, Cassils is female. I know Travis prefers to use women’s spaces, but women prefer that Travis doesn’t. 🤷‍♀️
Anyone can use mixed sex spaces.
I wouldn’t bother stressing about your ‘friend’ op. Do yourself a favour and snooze her for 30 days so you don’t have to watch what she’s posting.

Self-righteous anger is a hell of a drug, and it gives a fantastic kick. Some people can easily get addicted to it, to the extent that they shut off / shut out any thinking that might threaten their 'supply'.

When such self-righteous anger is combined with a sense of belonging to a super-virtuous community, and the sense of warmth and belonging that that provides, this provides further incentive to limit thinking to narrowly 'acceptable' paths. And the feeling that your community shares your beliefs provides further support, much in the way that being in a religious community does.

And finally, when all this becomes an important part of your identity, then thinking critically about it can feel like a threat to your very self.

That must be upsetting, OP - the fact that she's your friend who knows you properly in real life and still chooses to ascribe your beliefs to bigotry is really unpleasant.

This issue has been highly-charged for a while but I do wonder if lockdown has made a bad situation worse. I don't know if you're in an area that did lockdown, but it seems as though not seeing actual friends and family for months, and a large number of people suddenly having a lot of time on their hands, means social media and slacktivism has become their "real life" and their purpose, not just something to stuff in when they have a few minutes spare. They're utterly overinvested, and there's no nuance because no one actually properly knows someone from a social media profile. People are goodies or baddies.q

m.youtube.com/watch?v=FtNW3I1FZ5o

I know, this is super long but I’ve listened to it twice now and holy shit it will set you free (the second time I intended to leave DH to listen to it and it’s so good I stayed in the room).

Your friends has been unknowingly indoctrinated by postmodern academic discourse, filtered through popular culture. Probably with a side order of Trump Derangement Syndrome (an affliction many left leaning US residents are suffering from).

I would either ‘mute’ her, so you can’t see her bizarre-o violent memes or gently prod to see if you can find her ‘peak woke’ moment. Right now the NY school system is taking apart their post civil rights amendments to prevent racial discrimination in order to, it seems, build a systemic racism against Asians (east, south east and south) because despite being poorly off financially, they still seem to do well academically and this is being framed as racist against other groups and thus needs to be stopped (no thoughts given to the known phenomenon that recent immigrants tend to be extremely ambitious and hardworking because they want to seize the new opportunities available).

Surely this is peak woke (if you are too sexist to have not already reached peak woke when rapists started getting transferred to the female prison estate)?

She sounds horrible OP. I would block her on social media and ignore her. I know what you mean about mental health, I'm on Twitter and sometimes being told to fuck off by randoms is incredibly hurtful.

Look after yourself.

Aside: And Travis A may be gender divergent but isn't someone I particularly like or respect. I don't want to share women's spaces with him.

I think it’s too easy to dismiss someone who has the opposite view to us as a ‘narc’. Simply dismissing other people’s ideas is not going to get us out of this mess.
You say you’re struggling with your mental health OP - I hope you can forget about this argument with your friend somehow as it won’t make you feel better to dwell on it. I’m struggling with my mental health at the moment. It’s this whole Corona situation that’s getting to me. I feel bored, isolated and a bit down - a lot down sometimes.
It sounds to me that your friend is struggling too. Posting violent memes is a strange thing to do and it sounds like it’s out of character for her. If I were you I would make myself put the social media away and pick up a good book instead.
I’m going to read this book that we’ve bought called Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell. My DH grabbed it first, so I’ve got to wait for it! I think it’s about how nowadays, when people disagree, they completely misread what the other side of the arguing is saying and maybe has suggestions about how debates can be more constructive . I think that’s what it’s about anyway - I’ll have to read it to find out.

I feel your pain. One of my best friends in the world has totally bought into the TRA ideology. Eventually we have agreed to just not discuss it but things are now a little cooler than they were and I don't know if they will ever go back. She's a very left leaning, smash the patriarchy, self described feminist type which is why it came as a shock when she started sharing Mermaids' links and telling me I should just listen to the yoing, angry people who nobody is listening to. Incidentally she knows one of my friends has a transitioning teen (girl, with ASD, whole other thing) and that my view has always been that she should do whatever makes her happiest, but apparently I'm still a terf and a bigot and nobody is forcing kids to take puberty blockers and they're fully reversible anyway and I'm just denying their right to a paceful life...

Is this person posting in a language her other friends will understand? Could this actually alert those people to the conflict of rights? (There is a phrase beginning with “p“ I am avoiding).
I have to say feminists have some good arguments, but I am fortunate to be surrounded IRL by good Nigels and it didn’t feel so necessary to fight...it’s the TRAs that convinced me that the existing legal rights, based on sex, provide a very needed protection to women and girls more widely, and I did need to step up for them.

I’m sorry about your friend. You won’t change her views, she’ll just dig in even more deeply. The best thing to do is not look - or if you need to look, do it in a very detached way after preparing yourself for the latest extreme thing.

I think some people genuinely think they’re doing right by ‘the most vulnerable group’, others like being part of the In Crowd, some like the opportunity to say nasty things under the guise of ‘being on the right side’ - and others recognise feelings in themselves that would now be described as ‘anti-trans’, most usually not feeling attracted to a trans person, so hide these ‘shameful’ feelings by going over the top and being extreme in their support for trans people.

It’s them not you. Ignore them.

Funny how those people who call themselves anti-fascist seem to be the most fascist or all.

I feel for you as I have a family member - a highly articulate (but argumentative) intelligent woman who sees herself as a feminist. In every aspect of her life I would say she is a strong woman.

She's very vocal on social media, commenting on every cause going. Many posts are inflamatory and, as pp said, she seems to get a kick out of it.

Now I know when the subject of sex and gender comes up that my feisty, independent relative will be all over the Sonic Lobster memes before you can say "you are literally killing us!". Why do I know this? Sadly, I see she views pole dancing and prostitution as empowering for women. Argues that women are actually the ones in control.

I don't tend to go on FB much, but worry that when we meet in person that I won't bite my tongue on the subject of gender ideology (I normally hold back when she swoons over Corbyn and what a lovely man he is, when I want to challenge her on Labour's stance towards women).

Even though I'm well versed on the subject of sex and gender, she will out-argue me. She's bolder, quicker, smarter, argues "for a living." She would turn up the volume to 11.
So I bite my tongue, the coward I am.

So well done OP for being braver than me. Unfortunately, like my family member, I feel your friend will be on a mission, fuelled by self virtue and an almost cult like approach. Step away. Let her figure it out (maybe she never will, but maybe the scales will fall away).

I am always so impressed when I see GC women like Julia Long or Nicola Williams or Kathleen Stock who are "pitted" against a vocal 'opponent' like India or Munro on live TV. I saw Sonia Poulton just keep her cool when confronted by ridiculousness and Judith Green on Newsnight being bloody brilliant and rational when discussing the topic.
How Kathleen kept it together on a panel with Ben Cohen and Femi is to be applauded.

And how I wish I could talk like Posie Parker.

I'm so sorry to hear what you're going through with your friend. I can just imagine how painful it is. For what it's worth, I think you're better off without her - not because she disagrees with you, but because she's clearly being vicious and vindictive about it. How people handle disagreements reveals a lot about the true personality beneath the one they project socially.

tbh I'd be telling her I can't condone violence and unfriending, I did that recently with a young relative posting violent trans support on Facebook. My Facebook feed has improved as a result. Whilst I felt a bit sad at the time not having to see their hateful content when I just want to see what people I like are up to (mostly baking right now) has improved my mental health and confirmed it was the right decision

It's crap isn't it? I don't understand some friends at all. Her actions are her loss, you really are better than that.
Sadly, one of my oldest friends has ended our 40 year friendship because I disagreed with a post she made regarding the trans issue. A couple of weeks previous, she made a huge point about being nice to each other, everyone has differing views, but if anyone of us - her friends - started name calling/being offensive, she'd unfriend them. Fair enough, totally agree.
Then she 'put it out there, because sometimes you just have to comment on an issue', a trans woman is a woman, they were no longer male. I said science would disagree. Cue her pals calling me transphobic, using phoney science and being obsessed with genitals. She 'liked' every attack. One of her 'allies' then called me a Karen and various other lovely names.
Yeah, so much for 'playing nice', but only as long as it's something she agrees with.

This makes me uncomfortable Please someone help me understand why a person who is not even trans herself and has no close trans friends can feel so strongly about this issue?

Does this comment disregard women in this debate - is this phrase the giveaway. I'd like to bet that this gets loads of posts, like all the other ones that are posted by men.

I think that some of the people who cancelling other people for not believing in gender ID ideology are overcompensating because they deep down they know that there is something wrong with it, and that really scares them, because you have to believe it or trans people will kill themselves etc

Does this comment disregard women in this debate - is this phrase the giveaway. I'd like to bet that this gets loads of posts, like all the other ones that are posted by men.

Weird that you assume this was written by a man when OP is wondering why her friend is so fiercely fighting for the trans position, rather than the feminist position?

I agree it is odd, I shouldn't have made an assumption but I did, it was something to do with the way the whole piece was written.

InTheWings, Travis Alabanza is a man in blue lipstick who cosplays as a 16 year old girl and bullied Topshop into letting men into the female changing rooms. He is also a good friend of Alok Vaid-Menon. I don't want either of them anywhere near women's or girls' spaces, thanks.