A gay man’s journey from TRA to GC

[noblegiraffe]

A gay friend of mine has written about how he went from TRA to GC from a gay perspective. He’s planning on writing some more essays about how the ‘gender cult’ is intrinsically homophobic.

I thought it might be useful to share as a counter to Owen Jones, who he previously believed was a reasonable person to listen to on this. He is also pretty gutted about what has happened to Stonewall, whose authority he trusted.

twitter.com/duncrail78/status/1291373475886768128?s=21

The whole phrase "report to HR" sets my teeth on edge. We aren't the dinner ladies or playground monitors. Being dragged into your fighting with co workers is the bit of the job we dread. There's only social media policies in the first place to try to keep you all from having these rows and dragging HR and managers into them. Such a waste of time.

Adults at work.

MNHQ why was my comment deleted? I was commenting on my own experience. I didn’t generalise it further. That is neither hateful or derogatory.

Did you get a strike, Chatty? Check your mail.

I haven’t had an email from HQ.

I know that some people on here have said that their posts have been deleted for using a three letter acronym. (which is not forbidden in the talk guidelines)

I used that acronym in the quickly deleted post so maybe it was that but I really don’t know. It was in context, relevant to a point I was making about why I came to FWR, before leaving a former job because of male bodied colleagues in the unadapted women’s toilets. I said that discovering those male-bodied people in the toilets next to me was an upsetting, humiliating and frightening experience for me. There is a sexualised edge to the specific scenario that the acronym refers to, which is relevant. We should be able to talk about that.

Anyway I think my main point was that, due to the power asymmetry favouring men that I mentioned upthread, that while mutual understanding is a good thing, a bedrock of very clear boundaries- like that women’s spaces must be women-only, would have to be a part of any statutory approach that successfully puts an end to this culture war.

I had said that some people won’t like that example of respecting boundaries, and suggested that if they don’t, then they should ask women how they can help in the fight against sexism and male violence.
It was my usual anodyne tone.

ChattyLion I saw your post. You were only recounting your own experience.

I suspect that people monitor these threads and report any post that illustrates how some people transition for reasons other than genuine gender dysphoria.

Almost as though they were concerned that this would become known to a wider audience.

The post was gone so quickly (within 4 minutes) I’m having trouble believing it was taken down because of a report. BB may be watching.

Hopefully the Eyes have other things to do on a hot day but who knows? Grudging respect to them for their dedication if so. I had been wondering if there’s a words algorithm or something at MNHQ. Which wouldn’t be great because I thought it is all about appropriate context. Not specific words. But I don’t know, it could have been something else.

Chatty, what I think you are saying is that because we live in a patriarchal society and men as a class hold the power and women as a class do not and that biology is the reason for the imbalance (i.e. it’s not a total coincidence that pretty much all societies are patriarchal so it’s not cultural) then women’s spaces and anything put in place to protect women or lessen the imbalance need to be policed on biological lines, no exceptions?

The whole phrase "report to HR" sets my teeth on edge. We aren't the dinner ladies or playground monitors

Especially when the non- incident didn't even involve him personally.

I wonder if he subscribes to the Silence is Violence mantra.

I don't use any social media except a LinkedIn account which is used only for professional content. However if I did I would not have posted anything in support of BLM. (the capitalised Marxist version)

Yes I think so Noble. I was trying to look for a way forward out of this, which often in a dispute involves compromise on both sides. However in this instance, we need to avoid the ‘two equal sides of the argument’ fallacy in any legislative resolution of this particular situation- because of patriarchy there aren’t two equal sides. Patriarchy is why this situation arises, partly because ‘woman’ seems to be up for debate in a way ‘man’ is not.

Women’s boundaries and our rights to single sex spaces properly protected in law, would have to be a fundamental starting point of moving beyond this culture war.

The whole thread is about a man realising that the sexualities of transgender identity varies and the one referred to here is the one he could not believe to actually make a man into a woman. The irony of Mumsnet deleting a mention of the very reason for this man's epiphany is enormous.

It simply amplifies the issue.

What would you expect HR to do that was more efficient? Waste more time getting involved in your non work related argument? That is the opposite of efficient, the efficient thing to do is just forget about it immediately.

I never expected or wanted HR to be involved in this situation at all.

But I think they could have at least acknowledged his email of 30th June if only to say "no action needed". Instead they just ignored it, and he had to chase it up on Friday. I'd say that's pretty inefficient of them!

I'm glad that he's changed his mind, and I do think that he's genuine about it.

However I will never forgive the fact that he reported me to HR, which led to a stressful telephone interview with them, after which they decided no action was necessary. I would still like all mention of it striking from my employment record though.

I simply cannot understand the mentality of anyone who thinks that disagreeing with someone on a topic which is known to be very polarising means that their job should be put at risk. Unless of course that belief has a direct impact/relevance to their job - not true here.

I read his pieces and was pleased to see that he was open to changing his mind. That takes a huge amount of courage. Very few of us routinely challenge ourselves or allow ourselves to be open to challenge as he was.

However the route he took to get to where he is now rather tells me that he didn’t actually think women were a discrete thing in and of themselves before. Perhaps as a gay man he could sort of ignore women or view them as a nice to have but not fundamental. And put them in the ‘not quite men’ bucket.

Women know they are not ‘not quite men’. Many men know that women exist as their own thing. I wonder why he didn’t ?

As for the reporting to HR - I’d be boilingly, ragingly angry if I were furiousandfrustrated

@FuriousAndFrustrated I’m really sorry that it has brought up again what was obviously an extremely stressful time for you.

Patriarchy is why this situation arises, partly because ‘woman’ seems to be up for debate in a way ‘man’ is not.

If you don’t think that women are oppressed because of their biology then there is no reason to consider women as a class based on that biology. There seem to be plenty of people, including feminists who don’t think that female biology forms the basis of our oppression, more something nebulous like ‘gender expression’ which is why they are more open to moving non-female people into that class.

Everyone seems to avoid hard lines these days too. You can’t say ‘everyone should do X’ because someone will inevitably pipe up with ‘what about my cousin who can’t do X because...’.
So if you say ‘only biological woman should be allowed to access women’s toilets, hard line’ you always get ‘but what about who would be beaten up in the gents??’. People love picking holes, and they expect concessions.

Stonewall published articles of transphobic attacks, the suffering of trans people and how even celebrities were showing their true hatred of people who were born different. This incited a righteous rage in me. The flag had called and I would answer.
One day in 2019 I noticed a thread on social media that a work colleague had started. It said only women born female can be women. An argument on Facebook ensued with my “side” and her “side” arguing over this point, as I tried to make her see that trans women are women, just as much as she was, and that they were the victims because they couldn’t help being born male. I was incensed at her bigotry. So after several days stewing over this I contacted my LGBT group, and our HR department.
I showed them the social media posts and asked “is this hate?”. I was aware of the hate that was covered up with concern — Stonewall had told me to beware of such a line of attack, and the trans group agreed. Yes this was hate and I should report her. Eventually I did, but even then something didn’t feel quite right. I had expected to feel “righteous” as she was told to take her post down or face consequences. She complied, I’d won and stopped hate. Hadn’t I?

So this is Duncan's story. Off he goes to HR in a state of righteous rage. Demands HR bully someone on his behalf.

We don't want to do this but men like Duncan won't take no for an answer whilst in their fullest enjoyment of their rage. HR are people too, and dealing with angry, irrational bullies who will escalate until they get what they want happens every day. Sooner or later someone has to do something to get him off our backs. Without the horrible stressful interview he wouldn't have let it go. Until men stop behaving like idiots and bullying women then HR will continue to be criticised for the behaviour of these men and the no win situations they put us in. It's not surprising no one answered his June email. The complaint is unlikely to be filled anywhere as it was not an employment issue that can legally be retained on file. It would be unlikely to find anything on file that related to his complaint.

I’m glad Duncan has written these articles and I look forward to reading the next chapters. Duncan will be able to speak to gay and bi men in a way that many of cannot because of what Bitinterested says above:

However the route he took to get to where he is now rather tells me that he didn’t actually think women were a discrete thing in and of themselves before. Perhaps as a gay man he could sort of ignore women or view them as a nice to have but not fundamental. And put them in the ‘not quite men’ bucket.

This is a phenomenon that I have observed too. Very easy to say TWAW when you don’t really think about (or care much about) what a woman actually IS.

Interesting to see the full loop of Furious’ original posts, Giraffe’s intervention and Duncan’s realisation. Definitely shows how one to one chats with the people we already have a connection to is the way we defeat this.

I was also minded of the Douglas Murray thing re: ‘well, you aren’t a REAL LGBT person anyway’ as it’s exactly like the ‘Kanye West isn’t black because he voted Republican’ thing.

I do hope that Duncan makes a first hand apology to Furious, and the stuff about HR probably not not giving a rats arse anyway is true

@FuriousAndFrustrated I am sorry I haven't said so before, but Duncan was completely out of order to report you to HR.

It is beyond my comprehension that women reporting harassment, abuse and violence is ignored by the 'establishment' let alone this sort of misogyny and it is never recorded as hate but yet stating that women is a biological fact is deemed hateful. I will never understand it and I am sorry that you were faced with this which will have without doubt affected your entire relationship with the company you work for as well as your feelings of who you are and how you are seen at work.

I would like to ask @noblegiraffe if she thinks that Duncan really means what he says about helping @FuriousAndFrustrated and that there is the smallest possibility that her redundancy was influenced by his actions and could he please step up and fix this!!

Thanks @ChateauMargaux but I'm actually not too upset about the redundancy, and it's not in any way related - my entire team is out the door, not just me

"As for the reporting to HR - I’d be boilingly, ragingly angry if I were furiousandfrustrated"

Perhaps BoilinglyRaginglyAngry can be my next name

I'm still annoyed that his first essay on Medium says "I had expected to feel “righteous” as she was told to take her post down or face consequences."

No-one told me to take it down. Not him (he only "asked" or "recommended"), not HR, not anyone.

I decided to take it down after the threat of reporting to HR (which happened anyway.) Even though I believed (and still believe) that there was nothing wrong with the post and its subsequent comments, I didn't want the stress of the situation hanging over me.

I wish I could correct this on his Medium post, but there are no comments allowed, or Twitter, but I don't want to engage with him on there as I use my own name.

But I just want to reiterate - I WASN'T TOLD TO TAKE THE POST DOWN!

Thank you

He’s amended his blog post, @FuriousAndFrustrated. He was led to believe by HR that they acted and you removed it but now realises their email was ambiguous.

So this is Duncan's story. Off he goes to HR in a state of righteous rage. Demands HR bully someone on his behalf

So just another wokey- cokey, bully

Yes of course the email from HR is ambiguous. We end up wasting time trying to soothe angry didactic bullies without actually doing anything, because they're in the wrong but heaven help any one telling them that straight, they rampage around higher and higher in organisations until eventually some belagured exec says to us just tell him what he wants to hear. Get rid of it.

So that's what we all actually think about people like you Duncan.

So just another wokey- cokey, bully

No. I know he’s my friend and this will obviously cloud my judgement but I have also escaped from a cult (of sorts) and know what it’s like from the inside.

I know that he has a blind spot for women. It’s literally outside his experience. A few years ago he was posting some sexist crap uncritically on Facebook and I basically gave him Feminism 101. He had no idea that women were treated differently to men, that the patriarchy was a thing, that girls were socialised differently to boys. Since then he has tried to learn and notice, and tried to incorporate it into his working practices. A PP mentioned that he was taking flak on Baroness Nicholson’s timeline for saying that gay men don’t have the right to rent women to have their babies, which honestly is thinking so far advanced from where he was.

When he started posting trans stuff uncritically, I held back from engaging, partly because of threads like Furious’s. When he started on Maya, I had to engage, because I know his values, and I couldn’t understand how what he was saying fitted with the person I know he is. He’s a physicist, fgs.

His blog posts take what was hundreds and hundreds of messages over days...weeks into a few sharp moments that he obviously finds important to his thinking. But what I really remember was that quite early on he said something like ‘oh no, this is men being shit again isn’t it?’.

@noblegiraffe

And as a gay man, did Duncan really genuinely see transmen as the exact same as other men?

Well, I am sure that he will be writing more on this from his perspective, but he did consider trans men, even without bottom surgery, as potential sexual partners. This was one of the last things to fall for him in our discussions (and it wasn’t me that tipped that one) which I found baffling as I thought ‘genital fetish’ was a clear way in. I think he found some trans men attractive and hadn’t really considered the logistics because it was theoretical.

I think this is actually a tricky one, although a lot of people tend to assume, well, would you have sex with a transmen if you are attracted to men would be an obvious no, it's by no means universally true. Nor does a yes about it, either with regard to transmen or transwomen, mean the person is actually a bisexual.

It really depends on whether the individual, at a basic level, "reads" the person as male or female, and that tends to be holistic, not purely focused on genital configuration. Even if only a minority read that way, it means that some people when asked can honestly say, sure, if I found that person attractive as a man/woman I'd date them. Especially with younger people in their teens and early 20s, you can have some cases of transmen who have an androgynous boy-band sort of look that some find quite attractive.

I just did a quick MN search on reporting to HR. It threw up a thread where a person was concerned about a colleague posting racist posts on Facebook. Some people recommended reporting the person to HR. Some people think this is the right thing to do in that scenario, especially when it is against the company social media policy. (There were also people on the thread who thought it shouldn’t be reported to HR).

I remember that thread. There were plenty of people who absolutly thought the person should be reported, and that anyone who disagreed was clearly a bigot, and would damage others in their job through their bigotry.

I think this has been a really huge narrative in certain groups, and maybe especially among millennials and younger people, who have had it in school from quite early on.

People are being a little harsh, I think, and I really hate the whole reporting culture. ButI see this again as people giving too much moral power to a group like Stonewall, who was asked for advice on whether this constituted hate speech.

If, for example, it had been a statement that some people thought might be anti-Semitic, and they asked for advice from the WJC who said that indeed, it was, and should be reported - would a heck of a lot of people not support doing so? I think they would and people who argued otherwise might get a pretty hard time on MN, even in FWR.

That's the status and moral authority, Stonewall has had, and the place many looked to for expertise.