Scared I will lose my best friend of many years ...

[Bobkitten]

I have for the first time stated I’m in agreement with J K Rowling and my best friend was, I think, quite shocked and responded with ‘trans women are women.’

We had a long calm discussion (not argument) in which I put forward my viewpoint and we agreed that I would send her a few links, so she can see for herself what I’ve been reading.

I’ve done this, but I got the sense she’s horrified and I feel really worried she will write me off as a ‘transphobe.’

Not much point in posting really, but feeling on the verge of tears right now (god knows how J K Rowling is feeling).

You are not alone. I haven't seen any criticisms of JK yet that make any sense to me . I think we are on the right side

That is sad to think that she would 'write you off' so to speak just for having a different opinion. I say this, yet none of my friends have really thought about it and haven't kept up with it. So, it makes MN even more necessary for allowing these conversations to happen.

I hope that she can see that your point of view is as valid as hers and that she accepts that being pro-women is not anti-trans.

My best and oldest friend (who was obsessed with Harry Potter and JKR) was slagging off JKR on Twitter for not being a scientist or doctor, therefore she shouldn't be speaking out. This was just based of the sex being real tweet

It felt like a gut punch, tbh. My friend is so, so clever, was in the top set of every subject, including science, had answers to everything. She's got a brain like an encyclopedia. And yet she's been sucked in to this bullshit. Listening to her now, it's like she's been brainwashed, saying things that make no sense at all. It's sad and weird to see.

I'm dreading her bringing it up in RL, because I can't agree with her. I can't even pretend to just for the sake of it. Being as I agree with biology, I'm a transphobe in her eyes, and that will be the end of a 16 year friendship :(

I've lost friends over the issue and my step-daughter thinks I'm the devil incarnate for believing that biological sex is real. I cannot understand women who seek to throw their own sex (and the lives of the old-school transsexuals) under the bus, for 'woke' brownie points.

Thank God my closest friends and family are gender critical. I just pray in 50 years, people will look back on these times and wonder how society lost its way so badly. It's like living through the Cultural Revolution.

I’ve never understood people who do this. Does it really matter if someone has a different opinion?

Can she explain what exactly she means by those 4 little words?

I was just reading Jenn Smith this morning on facebook and he says that only 1.5% of transwomen go the full hog with surgery.

I wonder if your friends know that? Most people think that transwomen are people who are so upset with being men that they have become eunuchs, and eunuchs were even allowed in the Sultan's harem.

I’ve done this, but I got the sense she’s horrified and I feel really worried she will write me off as a ‘transphobe

I've just done this at work. All I can see is people checking what the masses think before they state what they think and not engaging in independent thought at all.

Coyacoan is quite right. When they realise this, and for that to happen they often have to hear or read about it multiple times, they are shocked.

My mum listened to me ranting on about TRAs for a year and a half, saying that I shouldn't worry about it so much, but finally the penny dropped and she informed me in some shock that most MTF trans people don't have the surgery, as if I didn't know!

This is what we see now (from ActionAid charity apparently):

There is "no such thing as a biologically female body" apparently.

Make of that as you will. I am now going to sit and contemplate this statement...

I think this is more of an issue about maintaining women’s rights, than a trans debate.
Women's spaces, rights and even nouns are being annexed by these people, who don’t seem to want their rights so much as take over ours...

...and even if they have surgery to create a “neo vagina”, they are still socialised and genetically male.

I think the people (like OP's best friend) who disagree with JK Rowling, really should be pressed on what exactly JKR said that they find so reprehensible.

OP, you were kind enough to send links etc to your friend. Perhaps you could now ask that question? Hear the other side of the argument? I'm saying all of this with a straight face. Honestly.

I had similar with a very leftie right on friend (who I agree with on pretty much everything else). He would be quite passionate about Palestinian rights, so I likened the knee-jerk labelling as "transphobe" of anyone criticising the political agenda to replace "sex" with "gender identity" in society and in law, to the knee-jerk labelling as antisemite (particularly in the part of the World he's in), of anyone criticising Israel's treatment of Palestine.

It definitely hit a nerve and reminded him how frustrating and hurtful it is to have a well informed viewpoint grounded in justice and compassion, yet be dismissed by less well informed people as hateful and bigoted when he couldn't be further from that. It brought him up short and he apologised for dismissing my point without understanding it.

He doesn't yet see the conflict of rights as I do (but has promised to read up), but his tone toward me has changed from "I always thought you were decent, how can you be so hateful?" to "I know you're not a hateful person, so how is it that we see this issue so differently?"

I think the "criticising gender ideology and its impact on women is no more transphobic than criticising Israel's abuses of Palestine is Anti Semitic" approach may make some lefties stop and think.

@DappledOliveGroves I know someone personally from mainland China who lived through the cultural revolution and she said his was just like this.

RaveOn that's a really interesting parallel, thank you.

I lost one too one. Weirdly someone obsessed with Rowling and the Harry Potter universe. Very intelligent.

She had no coherent arguments to counter mine. Gave me all the bullshit fake stats about transwomen being murdered every day, everywhere! I asked for proof. She refused to even do basic fact checks.

For adults to stop being friends with you because of a difference in opinion is pathetic.

As in the case of the Israel/Palestine debate, I find it’s easier to stand for a principle rather than a side. So that means I’d be inclined to condemn Palestinian terrorist as well as Israeli territorial aggression FOR THE SAME REASON.

People have this childlike view of often quite complex issues, so they try and figure out which “side” is right pick it and demonise the opposition. It’s precisely this kind of thinking that is so tribal and dangerous when left unchecked.

I was just reading Jenn Smith this morning on facebook and he says that only 1.5% of transwomen go the full hog with surgery.

That's the kind of number I was expecting. Whenever I see someone post that 80% of transwoman don't have the surgery I smile and shake my head at how conservative that figure is. There are supposedly over 100,000 transwoman in the UK and in the past 10 years there have been a few thousand gender reassignment surgeries carried out in the UK or for UK people abroad.

Thank you for all your replies. My friend is a good and highly intelligent person. It is a bit like being brainwashed - three years ago I think I would have argued the same without really thinking about it. She agreed with Daniel Radcliffe.

As you say, I highlighted that being pro-women doesn’t mean anti-trans.

The thing that really struck a nerve with my friend was asking her whether she thought lesbians who didn’t want to date a person with physically male body were transphobic. Likewise gay men not wanting to date female-bodied people. While she initially began talking about tolerance, when I pointed out the homophobia, it suddenly dawned on her that this was plain wrong.

I’m trying not to chuck everything at her all at once, tempting as it is.

We are talking again tonight I don’t think I would ever lose her - sorry if I was being melodramatic in my title - but I would be gutted if she thought less of me (and I also desperately want her to see the light herself!)

On the plus side, it took me quite a while, but my husband now gets it. His work environments is very much rainbows and #bekind, so it has been a bit of a slog these past few months. It took J K Rowling to properly get him to see the light though. So grateful to her for speaking out.

Is there a link to the study showing that only 1.5% of transwomen going the full hog with surgery?

It's just part of the polarising shift in public discourse that has arisen in the past 20 years. There's no room for nuance, or complexity. Everything is "either ... or". Black/white. Up/down. In/out. Left/Right. Good/Bad. If you are one thing then you are not the other.

It's an absolute godsend for the right wing authoritarian (generally real male) minority, as it basically has ensured that everyone that should be hating them and holding them to account is now engaged in an internecine war unto death. In fact, it's serving them so well, it's hard not to believe it was deliberately engineered.

I remember there was an article about people in space travel and it said that women make better astronauts (more collaborative, get along better, and won’t end up trying to shove each other out of the air lock).

At the time I did wonder - if it was actually a biology thing (ie of males were more likely to explode once their left the earth’s atmosphere) would many of these ‘TWAW’ people take that risk?

If you add 'why do you think that it is fair and safe for transwomen to participate in women's sport' you might also get a lightbulb moment. If you read up on the research beforehand. Here are a few links to help get you started if you have not come across them before. The link from Dr Hilton has been submitted for publication in a journal and awaiting publication. However, the research behind that report is 11 already peer reviewed studies.

www.preprints.org/manuscript/202005.0226/v1
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-51434749
news.ki.se/increased-performance-in-female-athletes-after-testosterone-supplementation

It is very hard to argue with the safety issue when you bring up people like Fallon Fox and the transwoman rugby player who talked about playing against women like 'folding a deck chair'.

I take it she's actually read JKRs essay then?

You have checked?

Tonight I would stick to the safeguarding of young trans kids and of women and girls. That's what is important.