Exasperated and worried.

[FloralTeacup]

I've followed a few threads on here around gender, the trans agenda, JK Rowling, etc. It's been the only place to keep me sane!

I was truly (albeit, naively), shocked at the negative, and often violent responses to JK Rowling speaking out in June. I honestly didn't realise that so many people believe that being gender critical is transphobic or hateful. It wasn't until I spoke to a good friend about it, mentioning that I disagreed with all the vitriol towards Rowling that I realised that people like me, and those of you on here, are actually in the minority.

I feel afraid to publicly speak up about the harmful agenda of many TRAs. The blatant misogyny, disregard for women's safety, dismissal of women's rights, and even safeguarding of children, are just a few things that deeply concern me.

What can we do to be heard? Are we allowed to express our views without being reported for hate speech?! (Meanwhile, TRAs spew all sorts of threats and hate speech, which is apparently deemed as ok).

@Skyliner001

There are plenty of none GC people out there. Don't be so sure you are in the majority and everyone is just 'not speaking up' or 'uneducated'

There is a lot of misinformation and bias on MN.

Also don't be so sure that every GC person has no issue with trans women, they really do. 20 years ago they world have disliked gay people. That's a fact. Argue all you like. This is an echo chamber anyway.

There are plenty of bigots hiding under the GC term.

Your post is actually a perfect example of the misinformation and bias peddled by transactivists and their allies, Skyliner.

It’s a bare-faced lie and completely absurd to say it’s a “fact” that 20 years ago GC people would have disliked gay people. Apart from the fact (real fact!) that there is no way you could possibly evidence this claim, which is based on nothing but your own fevered imaginings, can it really have escaped your attention that a great many GC people are L/G/B?

Many LGB people are sickened by the intrinsic homophobia of genderism, just as many women are sickened by its intrinsic misogyny. I detect both those odious attributes in you, and accordingly rate your bigoted opinions as perfectly worthless.

How ironic of Skyliner to mention ignorance when they have no idea who falls under the trans umbrella.

So we can assume that is a change of sex. This is what the whole trans rights campaign was about since 1971, the right to a corrected birth certificate.

It is not physically possible to change sex, Gottalife; only to modify one’s body so that it (in some cases) gives the appearance of being the opposite sex to that which it actually is, and to create a legal fiction that one is the opposite sex to that which one actually is.

The term “sex” refers to one’s reproductive capacity (hence the term “sexual reproduction”), and that - whether functional or not - cannot be changed from male to female, or vice versa.

And those birth certificates issued after a GRC are not “corrected” but falsified. A falsehood about a question of material reality, enshrined in law.

The GRA was a terrible betrayal of the people by the elected government of the day.

@Mollscroll

We are only in the minority because we know what’s going on and most don’t. That’s why they work so hard with abuse and threats to shut us up - heaven forbid people actually hear what’s going on and make up their own minds.

You only have to read the thread on AIBU about the Proud Trust - people are initially cautious, think it must be a storm in a tea cup, nobody is really using taxpayers money to encourage girls into anal sex. Initially a few comments of ‘prude’ etc and then with more sunlight comes horror and then anger.

It’s why I always post on these issues on AIBU if it comes up. People don’t know. They need to know.

Exactly.

Twenty years ago was 2000, not 1900.

In 2000 my top political concerns were the cost of the Millennium Dome and arguing for gay rights on t'internet.

@Mollscroll

I obviously object more to an intact male claiming to be a woman and coming into female spaces. But none of them are women. None. On any level. I don’t feel any need to dissemble about this fact.

And this!

How ironic of Skyliner to mention ignorance when they have no idea who falls under the trans umbrella.

I know. They're lucky they made that faux pas here.

Those Sky is allied to don't take too kindly to invalidating slip ups like that.

don't be so sure that every GC person has no issue with trans women, they really do. 20 years ago they world have disliked gay people. That's a fact.

No, it's not a fact, it's just a statement you are making, Skyliner. You don't offer any evidence for this preposterous assertion, because there isn't any evidence.

I don't know one woman who opposes gay rights, or who supports men's 'right' to access women's single-sex spaces.

@yourhairiswinterfire

How ironic of Skyliner to mention ignorance when they have no idea who falls under the trans umbrella.

I know. They're lucky they made that faux pas here.

Those Sky is allied to don't take too kindly to invalidating slip ups like that.

Too true. Skyliner also doesn't seem to be aware of the many Trans people who say they are being harmed by the TRA agenda.

That’s actually really funny (ironically, as I joined the thread to say I wasn’t laughing). I’m rabidly GC. And twenty years ago was rabidly pro-trans and spent my formative years on mn arguing with Dittany on behalf of all the poor people born in the wrong bodies. It’s only when you wake up to the fact that women’s rights ARE being eroded, and that gender ideology cements, not destroys the binary, that the scales fall from your eyes.
It’s alright @Skyliner001 there’s hope for you yet. You Too can go from pro-trans gender research to terf. (The pay is shit though. Try and get tenure first. Support staff wages are terrible.)

@Sheheshehe

I know how you feel. It might feel like you're in the minority but I really don't think you are. There are some people who haven't really properly engaged with the issue. They might see the likes of Paris Lees on a Pantene advert and think 'Good on 'em' - they look like a good looking woman on the screen and they look like they'd be a laugh. Or see Munroe Bergdorf and think 'how glamorous' what's everyone getting their knickers in a twist for.

When I first became aware of this issue (but obviously not really 'aware') I thought back to all the times I'd crowded round the mirror of the ladies in a club with gay male friends and no-one batted an eye-lid (or if they did I didn't notice because I was too wrapped up in my own world) I couldn't get exercised over the toilet issue.

But then I grew up and had experiences and had kids and needed to lean on other women for support and began to value the spaces I used for support that were entirely female. I then began to notice how all of a sudden there was a resurgence of this restrictive 'gender' nonsense that seemed to be going backwards in terms of how 'male' and 'females' were expected to behave. On the surface it seemed to say 'be who you want to be' but scratch that surface and you were confronted with painfully archaic stereotypes.

And then i became aware of the piss-takers. And then I became aware of how I couldn't talk freely about the piss-takers. And that I couldn't talk freely on a forum like Mumsnet (although I am still grateful that I can come here and vent even though they've had to tow the line to a degree and police our speech for fear of being shut down)

I have days when I could and have cried. I have days when I worry about my teenage daughter and how she might be treated for having views that don't precisely chime with some of her friends who are keen to express their gender rigidity, sorry, 'fluidity'. To declare yourself straight, lesbian or even bisexual is deemed to be prudish and exclusionary amongst some her friends (who are 12/13).

There are days when I want to give up. To give in. And I step away from MN for a few days. But there's always some outrageous, utter piss-take that drives me back and persuades me to keep on supporting the cause of supporting women. It's my daughter who will bear the brunt of any negative changes and I can't have that on my conscience.

Sorry if that hasn't exactly made you feel any less worried or exasperated

What she said!

@Skyliner001

There are plenty of none GC people out there. Don't be so sure you are in the majority and everyone is just 'not speaking up' or 'uneducated'

There is a lot of misinformation and bias on MN.

Also don't be so sure that every GC person has no issue with trans women, they really do. 20 years ago they world have disliked gay people. That's a fact. Argue all you like. This is an echo chamber anyway.

There are plenty of bigots hiding under the GC term.

20 years ago I was actively working on behalf of gay rights (still am btw). I'm not going to out myself, but I was involved in a lesbian, gay and bisexual publication that supported the community. I championed gay marriage and worked politically to help get it passed in my state. I also champion and support my local BLM group (many of us are mothers and fathers and grandparents who's children go to school together and we also are active in other community orgs in our urban area). In politics, I have always been more of a lefty than a middle of the road. I am GC because I'm a feminist, not because I'm a bigot.