Dealing with the feelings, a support thread.

[Wandawomble]

A general support thread I guess. My feelings and thoughts and I’d love to hear yours,

So today was horrible for me (background - generally with job stuff and being a token ethnic minority in a programme that’s meant to give equal opportunities but doesn’t, and my family is away so I’m on my own this week, so a bit vulnerable.)

Today’s Twitter horror aimed at JK, various friends cawing in their ignorance, the anger I feel is really difficult. Women have fought so hard for our rights and I see supposedly feminist friends who are so loud and vocal And gleeful in their giving away of our rights.

It’s exhausting.
I have not engaged so far but I’m getting to the point where I’m going to explode and of course that will have awful repercussions for my job etc.
I don’t want to explode at friends who just clearly don’t get it, but I’m getting so fed up of the ignorance.

I learned my lesson during Brexit and the last election, falling out with old school friends in a picture opposite to Pooh and Piglet staying friends.

I go between:

Do these women not care that the word woman is being erased? Do they not notice that their kids seem to be declaring their sexualities before they have even had a first kiss?
Do they not care about what’s happening to Lesbians and autistic girls? (my kid is both)
Do they not notice that it’s the trans activists who are advocating rape and death threats and not the other way round?

And then on the other side

These are friends, relatives, people I love, people I love to be with. People who I, 80 percent agree with, people I care about and people who care about me.

I’m not on Twitter as it’s way too insane.
I’m considering coming off Facebook for a while.
Honestly it gives me a stomach ache.

Today I’m going to focus on the second part, that I do care about these people. I listen to Radio 4 Extra today and there was a segment about the people you disagree with are the ones who can help you grow.
I took a breath and thought about how to approach talking about this to friends I know who disagree with me, in a respectful way so we can clear the slate and move on. I don’t know if it’s possible without them screaming BIGOT at me. But maybe that wouldnt happen. I don’t know, and I don’t have to do anything right now. Today I almost lost it with a friend but came here instead and thank goodness there was sanity.

How is everyone else managing?

Cave is becoming a very appealing option to be fair!

Yes it does seem a lot of this is coming from the young.
The end game is once again girls jumping to the tune of the men they have enabled.

You don't need to be on FB with work colleagues. You can unfollow family, close friends and even old friends! I know - I've done it.

It isn't easy.

But is it really friendship if a person is OK with the threats etc JKR has been getting? For the crime of public expression of an opinion? A thoughtful, grounded, and civil opinion?

I would not consider a friendship with someone who approves of that to be good or valuable. YMMV.

In my case I do have to be on FB with my work colleagues, also on WhatsApp groups because of the way our home working is set up, so it’s not really simple or I would have done it before. I can’t really define it more without being too identifying.
I would say in some of the cases I wonder if they aren’t bothering to look at the twitter responses and threats and instead are just reacting and sharing other friends posts without thought or investigation.

Blocking everyone still wouldn’t be an answer though as it’s still going to come up from unexpected places. It’s about building resilience and better ways to deal with people.

Friendships are based on more than one idea or opinion. Like I say in my original post, people I care about or who care about me, people who my children play with, people who I am supporting through illness or other crisis. It’s not clear cut.

But this line
“But is it really friendship if a person is OK with the threats etc JKR has been getting? For the crime of public expression of an opinion? A thoughtful, grounded, and civil opinion?“

Is actually a really good one I can ask them, “do you feel it’s ok for her or anyone else as it’s not just about her, to be threatened etc”

Or even “I don’t think it’s ok for the threats etc”
Might make them think without being hostile.

Also, if you’d asked me six months ago I would have blindly spouted TWAW.

Thanks MarriedtoDaveGrohl. The post ended a bit abruptly as I was on the verge of falling asleep and couldn't think of anything else to type!

And thanks for starting the thread, OP. We do talk a lot about what's happening out there, and not much about how it's affecting us.

I do get very sad and upset at times. I used to get extremely upset and cried a lot when I first starting learning about all of this. I think it was because I felt very alone and scared. It was such a shock to learn how bad things had gotten.

The discussions on Mumsnet helps a lot in keeping up with what's going on, plus I now know a few other women in my area and it really helps to be able to vent in private with them.

As an Indian woman, I grew up with an acute awareness that 'women are dirt'. So much misery and pain inflicted on women by men. Even if your life is relatively great by most standards, you're still constricted in various ways by all sorts of cultural expectations and idiotic religious beliefs. I was so sick of men controlling womanhood. I was desperate to get away from it all.

I'm so fortunate to be able to live in the UK now. There are social problems like anywhere else, yes, but it's still an extremely tolerant and free society (in spite of what those on the far left claim). However in recent years there's been a rapid decline in Western enlightenment values, which is extremely concerning.

And the most concerning aspect is that familiar feeling has turned up again - that reminder that 'women are dirt'. For all the progressive shite spouted by many men and women in this country, when I see the astonishing speed at which women's sports, women's single-sex spaces and our rights and feelings and fears are being thrown aside to accommodate any and all men who appropriate womanhood, I realise that, ultimately, 'women are dirt' and that this mindset hasn't really changed or improved. It makes me incredibly angry, but also very sad and upset. In the end, even when women will have managed to stop their erasure, I will never be able to forget that our rights were allowed to be thrown aside so easily in the first place.

NonnyMouse1337, that is an excellent way of framing the openly sexist aspect of the whole trans activism endeavour, the way the attacks are all about female erasure while the male biological sex is carefully left alone.

And yes, I have cried, too, when I truly realised what is happening, and in particular the double-bind we are put into where we must either just swallow everything or be viewed as bigots for trying to defend our own rights.

One of my problems is that I have to know, so I just keep on reading and I have difficulty shutting down. I am lucky to have friends and family who are GC even the younger ones.

One of my tricks, is to 'perspective' everything, like the number of TRA's on twitter vs the very positive responses when GC's do a bit of a pile on, like the positive comments after news articles. The number of people who say 'I'm GC but daren't come out' because I know there will come a time when Free Speech and GC become so closely intertwined that the numbers will swell and they'll feel safe.

Doesn't last but helps me through bad times.

I like this thread btw. Have been thinking of something similar for a while. Thanks Op

thanks for this thread - it exactly mirrors my feelings - I have been fairly consumed by this for about 6 months, ever since I saw an article in the Times about self id and started thinking through what it meant and realising that we had a major problem.

It has been hard to talk to people about it, partly because it does sound so nuts and it is hard to encapsulate into something that can be discussed in many practical situations - it is certainly not a good party conversation :¬)).
I am now working on managing my reaction to this and doing practical things like writing letters to various places like hospitals in the area (worrying sounding self-id policy) etc. are helping.

We could do with a positive update from the Government. I also take heart from the amount of exposure this is beginning to get now from some media outlets and orgs like Fair Cop etc. I'm sure we'll get there.

Nonny, I’m totally with you on trans and feminist issues, but as a Christian I take exception to your patronising view that atheists should patiently engage with our silly beliefs and persuade us out of them.
Mainstream Christians include many scientists and doctors (I am one) who have no problem with evolution etc. Only fundamentalists take the Genesis morality tales as literal history.
I speak as a former atheist who had a life changing encounter with the presence of God, as millions of Christians have over the past 2,000 years - you are trying to deny all of our lived experience and dismiss us as being equivalent to gender ideologists. I find that insulting.
By all means expose the violence, rape and death threats and misogynist values of the TRAs, but please leave Christians out of it!

Babdoc, I read Nonnys post as referring to the more extreme/ fundamentalists. As a catholic I understand her point that to have a proper conversation about something based on a belief system requires an understanding of what the belief is based on, not focusing on the superficial but more alarming parts as that just leads to entrenchment.

@Wandawomble You can close down your FB and still use messenger if that's what you need it for.

I'm off social media and it's glorious. Bonus being that I now focus on my REAL friendships and not dozens of casual acquaintances I don't really care about.

Sorry you’re having a hard time. I heard this the other day “A guide to disagreeing better”:

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000cn12

It helped me put things into perspective a bit.

Aye, OP, I'm feeling similarly down and isolated at the moment. Women always seem to be bottom of the heap, and it is depressing.

We need to rest, too. Others are there - more of us all the time. This isn't a quick thing, it's been ongoing for years. It'll take years more to undo all the damage done and I suppose we'll always have to fight to protect women's rights.

Take heart. x

Hello Babdoc, I used the phrase 'extremely religious people', which covers more than Christianity. It was not a very descriptive phrase and I was being lazy by using it as a shorthand, so I apologize for any misunderstanding.

In my view, it's not always crazy fundamentalists or people with wild / fringe ideologies who have contradictory beliefs. Some people think organ / blood donation is sinful or menstruation makes a woman unclean. Some think Muhammed flew to heaven on a winged horse or Mary got pregnant without having sex. Or that evolution is 'only a theory'. These are all fairly standard beliefs that many people hold as part of their religious faith.

Of course people are perfectly entitled to hold such views and I wasn't implying that atheists should be randomly targeting religious people in an effort to convert or proselytise someone out of their beliefs. I was referring to those religious people who seek out arguments with atheists online. They have YouTube channels 'challenging' non-believers and claiming that they can prove atheists wrong etc. And similarly there are atheists with channels that do the same. Generally both sides tend to be confrontational. Predictably, very few on either side change their mind.

However, believers who eventually turned into atheists have some interesting insights into how they 'lost' their faith. Sometimes it can involve extended one-on-one conversations with an atheist or two who made them really think about why they believe the things they do without getting defensive. There are actual techniques for getting someone to engage with difficult conversations without triggering defensiveness - this can apply to any topic or issue. It's not just atheists who can learn to use such methods to persuade someone to re-think their deeply held belief system. Religious people can use them to help persuade someone to join their group. Political ideologies and businesses can make use of them too. And even ordinary people. There's nothing sly or underhanded about it. It involves establishing a mutual starting point, using terms like 'we' and 'us' instead of 'you' to build a sense of shared perspective.

It takes a lot of patience and skill to uncover the real reason for someone's beliefs, especially if they contradict other beliefs they hold. There is a lot of info available on how this happens in interactions between atheists and religious believers (hint it's not by shouting God doesn't exist at them). Similarly, it takes a while to get to the real reasons why someone might say TWAW or doesn't see an issue with transwomen using single-sex spaces.
A lot of people are perfectly nice, not involved in any extreme trans activism and want to be kind and good to what they perceive to be a marginalised group. So there are a lot of parallels in getting them to examine why they hold such ideas in the first place and whether it is really a good thing or not.

It’s heartbreaking really. One of my closest friends is autistic and has been totally taken in by all of this. She’s always been an androgynous lesbian but has recently come out as Trans (non-binary, she has no desire to become a man). She’s now on a waiting list for a mastectomy 😢 My heart is breaking for her. I can’t believe she’s found this group of friends who instead of loving her for the amazing person she is have managed to convince her there’s something so wrong with her body she has to have huge surgery to make it right. It’s exactly what JK Rowling was talking about in her essay, but my friend is just deeply offended and can’t believe JK has said such ridiculous things about people like her. I just keep trying to support her and telling her she’s wonderful as Hope the trend passes in the 2-3 years she’s on a waiting list for the operation.

I feel you.

I'm a big fan of YouTuber Téa Smith, and her stream yesterday touched on a lot of the same sort of feelings. She's had enough after yesterday.

Check it out. She'll make you feel better. She had me tear up a little, and laugh out loud.

An excerpt (slightly edited for swearing):

The thing about JK Rowling is that she happens to have money, right. I unfortunately am just one person. Kellie-Jay Keen is just one person. Meghan Murphy is just one person. But we're a lot of one persons. And we're a lot smarter and a lot more capable and a lot more powerful than you.

You little woke green-haired, Internet-addicted...