Hello and thank you

[Pudmyboy]

Hi all, I am new to MN, did not think of it in the past as I am single and never wanted children. Then came JKR's blog and the vicious backlash. I read her blog/essay, could see nothing wrong with it, agreed with her, but was puzzled by the media reaction, everywhere I looked seemed to be saying she was so wrong, and so by extension I was. This was a horrible shock, yet that did not sit right with me, my 'fair play spidey sense' was sounding alarm bells....I looked on Twitter (I do not have an account) and was horrified by the vile and vicious things there. I felt lost and alone. I work in the health service and started to fear for my job if anyone should find out my true feelings: the media seemed to be saying everyone disagreed with JKR. After a very difficult few days, searching for 'support JKR' and finding nothing but 'everyone supports trans after JKR article'-type responses.....I found Mumsnet feminist chat. This community has really saved my sanity. I really did feel (and still do to an extent) frightened by what I saw and the realisation that a lot of the things I took for granted (UK is a safe place for women, rights are enshrined in law and thus secure) are no longer certain. But having found this place, I feel safer, bolder and have regained some equilibrium. I am no longer so fearful. I just wanted to say thank you.

Hi! This is a great place to read around and find things out. A lot of it is scary, but this board is a fabulous board that has helped loads of women and helped organise and spread the word on defending women's rights - hope you stick around.

Yes, realising how much misogyny there is in our society, even among people who think they're progressive, is shocking, and always a rough ride. Welcome OP

Welcome, OP.

A lot of women I know feel that way. It's horrible, after a lifetime believing all the 'right' things, and just assuming trans rights were the same, suddenly reading up and feeling vertigo, almost. You know it's not okay, not right, and not acceptable, to erase women as a group identifiable by sex, when we are oppressed because of that sex. You know misogyny when you see it, and it's glaringly obvious, on this issue. And you also know that you respect the need for trans people to have protection from harm and abuse, and don't hate or wish ill for anyone - just not on board a different group being catered to solely by carving away women's provisions, chunk by chunk, and leaving us without legal identity or protection or provision of our own.

In terms of JK Rowling - if people really think that a woman who has dedicated a lot of her time and money to helping others, and has refused to become a tax exile like just about everyone else at her earnings level, and has written a series all about the importance of kindness, and honesty, and standing up for what is right, is suddenly a bigot because she speaks for women as human females, with the right to identify as such, and organise in our own interests without centring people born male... then we, as women in this society, are in trouble. None of us are safe from being demonised for daring to say that women, as a group, can be identified by sex, and absolutely do matter. Completely agree.

Welcome. You are not alone, we are not going to go down quietly, and this misogynist attack on our fundamental human rights will not succeed. Women's rights are human rights, and we're fighting for them.

Hi OP

To look on the bright side - Twitter is insane and doesn't reflect real life. The ideology has captured a large number of authorities but it hasn't captured people in general. The voting public either don't know what is happening or totally disagree. Those that don't know totally disagree as soon as they do find out.

Almost no one in real life thinks that men can become women. Or talks about menstruators and cervix havers. Or thinks it's great for male people to participate in women's sports or to work in refuges. Most people simply do not think this.

The more sunlight there is on this, the better for all of us. I've shone a light on this for lots of people and once people understand it they are all horrified.

We can do this

@Ereshkigalangcleg

Yes, realising how much misogyny there is in our society, even among people who think they're progressive, is shocking, and always a rough ride. Welcome OP

The most fervent online trans activism seems pretty misogynist to me in that its goal is to erase any way of talking about the female body (which is necessary if we are to talk about sex-based oppression) while leaving the male body, as well as the definition of "man," pretty much alone. That's how we get men and non-men!

Welcome OP!
It can be a frightening realisation at first, take some time to just compute if you need.

There's a lot of last threads that will help you. The Break It Down for Me thread is a good place to start if you feel you need some 'light' reading!

You're not mad and you're not alone - just in case you thought you were.

Thanks! Through this site I have realised that twitter is a small place with a big gob and that has helped. And that the MSM is lazy and seems to use twitter instead of doing proper work. And, via the women here, and the links provided, that yes, the majority do have the sane view (saying you are because you feel like it and thereby being able to intrude in all aspects of women's lives/spaces is plain daft), and accurate stats to support this: it has all helped me enormously. Plus the knowledge that there is work to do, and we can support each other in this.

Hi, OP

I was you a week ago. I thought I was going mental until I remembered this board.

Oops, should have typed '(saying you are a woman because you feel like it...

Hi OP. I'm in a similar position to you. Although I've been a member of Mumsnet a couple of years, it wasn't till the JKR women's rights tweets that I started looking at feminist chat on here.
I have gained a lot of information here and it's been an eye opener. It's always at the back of your mind that we live in a patriarchy and misogyny is real but the trans vs women's rights row has put things in the spotlight.
As well as lots of posts on here, on Twitter there are an army of accounts with #IstandwithJKRowling attached to them.
This I have found comforting and I started my own second Twitter account to be able to tweet and retweet women's rights issues without tracing back to my own name account.
It is reassuring to note that the army supporting JKR is growing daily.

Hi OP, it is weird to suddenly find yourself on "the wrong side" (when the right side are sending rape and death threats and shutting down debate and getting people sacked...). As others have said, the majority of the public are against self id. Even Guardian-readers, when they're permitted to comment, are not for this. Twitter is an awful place!

Welcome to sanity new posters. You say all MSM is criticising or misrepresenting what JKR said but only some bits are (Guardian, BBC, disgracefully). The Times and the Spectator especially are voices of reason in this area.

Many of us on this board are left-leaning politically, with quite a number having been active in left wing politics, and most feel betrayed by the left wing press over this (looking at you with a very hard stare, Guardian),

That's one of the things I'm trying to get my head around: the fact that I am reading Times and Spectator.

Welcome! It’s hard, you can’t unsee it all once you do, but there’s hopeful things happening too. Stick around, keep talking

Here’s a useful resource thread, as mentioned above.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me

I was you until about 3 months ago, and went all in after JKR’s tweets and essay. It’s odd going from being a hardcore Guardian reader “I love everyone time” to suddenly going “hold on a minute”.... I’m annoyed at myself because one of my very dear friends had been telling me about this board for years, but I just stuck my fingers in my refused to believe it could be true. Down to earth with quite a bump!

@SheWhoMustNotBeHeard

That's one of the things I'm trying to get my head around: the fact that I am reading Times and Spectator.

Me too!!! And that the Guardian is backstabbing s*it!!

“I love everyone all the time” I meant.

Welcome, OP at al. It is disorientating and scary to realise what's been happening. However, I also felt a wave of relief - as if the slight jangling cognitive dissonance fell away and simple, very evident daily truths came back into focus (It's not possible to change sex. Males can't be women. Women's lives are greatly affected by their embodied, lived reality).

Actually that has been one of the saddest and scariest thing for me to realise: things I thought I could trust and would be my ally, (eg Guardian, BBC: how naive was I?!) turned out to be the opposite. It almost feels like civil war, in that way.
And even organisations like Extinction Rebellion jumping on the misogyny bandwagon: WTF?
Feels hard to realise how shallow the support is with 'media types', and how quickly women have been abandoned by people I would have hoped would know better, (Jonathan Ross for example)

Glad you found Mumsnet feminist chat, Pudmyboy. You are so right about the things we may previously have taken for granted: that the rights we have in law will be upheld, that we are allowed opinions, that we can meet with other women without being threatened or the venue being threatened, that our dignity safety and privacy is more important than a natal man's right to our spaces...I could go on. Instead, let's have this or maybe this

I too now subscribe to the Spectator, and am thinking about Times, and want to cancel BBC because they do not represent me or anyone I love, and I think OMG my five-years-ago self would not recognise me!

The Guardian has been on this anti-women thing for a long time. Eight or so years ago (maybe more, I am rubbish with time) I got banned from guardian comments (as did many, many, many other women) for asking the same questions about women's rights as we are still asking today! They had an army of trans mods who would delete comments that were GC and eventually ban people.

Now twitter doesn't allow women to speak about our rights.

And GC reddit is taken down.

But in the real world almost everyone knows the truth.

twitter is a small place with a big gob

Brilliantly put!

ET AL, bloody autoocorrect

And GC reddit is taken down.

It has risen again, like a phoenix soaring free from the ashes and filth of reddit to build a new nest in saidit.net/s/GenderCritical/

So far only 2,395 of the previous 65,000 subscribers have found their way to the new incarnation, so lets all do what we can to spread the word.

Mumsnet's feminist board is a treasure trove, but some people felt that reddit was more international. Also there are important topics we are not able to discuss, and the rules for what we are allowed to say and how we are allowed to express ourselves often feel baffling and unfair.

So it's good to have other places were we can discuss the banned topics and vent without being banished into outer darkness. Or where we can meet up after we've been banished to continue the fight to protect women's rights and children's safety.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if all women and homosexuals shook the dirt of reddit and twitter off their sandals and moved to other forums? Let the porn addled incels have their echo chambers, while we divert our energies into more productive channels.

By the time LGBDroptheT was banned from reddit they had already prepared a bolt hole at saidit.net/s/LGBDropTheT and are busy settling in.

Thanks for the said it link, squirrel.