Feeling really conflicted

[Tittie]

I've been lurking on the GC threads for quite some time, but don't feel articulate enough to contribute, compared to some of the brilliant posters here!

I peaked about 2 years ago. I remember confidently describing Mumsnet as transphobic to my friend not long before that I can't even remember what it was that changed my mind.

Anyway, there seems to be more and more coverage of trans/sex/gender issues in the media at the moment. It's making me incredibly uncomfortable that I find myself agreeing with newspapers, celebrities and politicians that I would ordinarily distance myself from (eg the Daily Mail). I am 100% gender critical, but I have this nagging doubt about who I am both agreeing and disagreeing with. Is anyone else feeling conflicted in this way?

It really isn't as black and white as is being implied.
The Daily Mail has printed articles from a GC stance; so has the Morning Star. Even the Guardian has printed some GC articles.

Likewise the political leanings of GC and TRA. They are not clear Left or Right, nor are they Trans and Not Trans.
Kiri Tonks, Paula Lamont, Debbie Hayton are all Labour party members; Sue Pascoe, Crispin Blunt, Maria Millar, Penny Mordaunt are Conservatives.

It's a conveniently forgotten fact that Christine Burns, one of the people behind Press for Change, was also a Conservative.

agree with pp, tribalism is shit and disagreement doesnt equal hatred. (however much tra try to pretend this with their thought-terminating slogans 'you are denying my existence blah blah, (nah mate, i can see you exist)'and as for the 'you're on the same side as putin argument, what rubbish

those people on here who are trying to suggest that are themselves being stupid - on this- fact is, we might well be in agreement on climate change, Boris handling of covid,, brexit etc etc

on climate change, i tend to trust scientists
on my health, i tend to trust doctors rather than people on fb
and on womens rights, i tend to trust thoughtful, articulate grown women rather than shouty anime's on twitter and rather than misogynistic men who cant tell the difference between jkr and trump

I don't know how far in you are OP, you sound like you've been aware or truly 'awake' for a while (and welcome), but I had a similar time where I couldn't believe I was agreeing with Piers Morgan and was grateful to the Tories for something!

So far the greatest conflict was voting in the election and since I've probably gone centre right, not because that's where I naturally sit but because the parties of our time are shifting and I cannot support a party that doesn't know what a woman is or thinks woman is a feeling.

Now I never apologise for sharing DM links or for recognising reality and biology, though there have been times I have made to feel like I was wrong, bigoted, evil and should apologise.

I also used to read The Guardian and let that and the BBC inform my thinking. Now
I read widely (local news and global news outlets) and make up my own mind on all issues, not just about gender ideology informed articles or news clips. It's quite tedious at times actually but mostly freeing.

I think it is perfectly healthy to keep questioning your own ideas, curiosity, debate, understanding of nuance and empathy all need more than surface level thinking and parroted slogans. Believing that sex is real hasn't changed my generally left of centre views.

I think the best way forward is to evaluate whether what you are reading is pro-woman or anti-trans.

I find the Daily Fail, Posie Parker, Rod Liddell type content is generally anti trans.

Hadley Freeman, Julie Bindell, Kathleen Stock etc is pro-woman.

I do think there is a bit of faux concern about, particularly directed at lesbians, and a lot of thinly veiled transphobia so entirely understand your concerns OP.

I know what you mean OP. I felt the same at first. I know that you can't change sex and that sex is binary. Apparently knowing these facts makes me a bigot. However I can't unknow them. It really seems like a religion where it doesn't matter what you believe but only what you say. (Some of the most outspoken "trans allies" have said awful things about transwomen in the past but they have recanted and so are even more zealously witch hunting).

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

I do understand your sense of conflict but agree with a PP that ultimately, I know how I came to my views on this issue and I know why. I also know that even when you take away toilets, prisons, puberty blockers and all the rest, there is still a fundamental ideological clash here. The idea that being a woman is based on an internal feeling or adherance to stereotypes completely goes against a feminism that says that women are and have been discriminated against because of our biology, that we can break free from the stereotypes forced on us, and that we need certain protections and support because of this.

I have had questions and concerns about trans ideology on and off since I was a teenager and although I think myself genuinely compassionate, I don't believe the current approach is helpful or fair for the most part.

What puzzles me is why other people don't worry about what they're agreeing with.

Zoe Williams, Guardian journalist, is currently having a row with Janice Turner on twitter. In the course of arguing for removing the word woman from health literature promoting cervical screening, she has said that any woman who speaks English as an additional language and who doesn't know the word cervix, and sees it on health literature, should just google it.

That is an incredibly right-wing, pull-themselves-up-by-their-bootstraps, learn-the-language attitude to take to immigration!

This ought to be an issue that transcends party politics. It annoys me that some parties have turned it into a matter of policy not conscience. The Telegraph has been running a series from a trans woman documenting her transition whilst also posting GC articles from other writers. This good journalism from my perspective people should be presented with both voices.

It was the Telegraph that broke the MP expenses scandal - most people agree that was a good thing. The Daily Mail campaigned hard on the Stephen Lawrence case - I agreed with that.

Some things are not about left or right and I question the motives of those activists who are so determined to link it to party politics.

I saw that potholes a genuine case of “Alexa show me tone deaf middle class privilege” and yet Zoe thinks she’s on the right side

Definitely the same, OP. Left-wing floating voter, Guardian reader all my life. I despise writers like Sarah Vine and Julia Hartley Brewer but have learned to appreciate their clarity on this issue - if nothing else, they have a gravity and understanding of the media and the world that just makes the other side (Pink News, Buzzfeed or whatever) seem foolish and immature. Personally, I had distanced myself from a friend who went to one of right-leaning major outlets to further her career and see now I was being a bit Rik from the Young Ones.

I will never vote Tory - can never forgive Brexit among other reasons- and am surprised to find myself politically homeless at this point. Every time a politician struggles or comes out with nonsense when asked what a woman is, my resolve hardens a bit more.

One thing that does make me wobble from time to time is this endless accusation of the GC viewpoint being 'hatred' - what appears to me to be a matter of fact and absolute common sense now being considered hateful. Am I really hateful, or is it another word that has been twisted out of recognition these days?

(Also, using phrases like 'these days' a lot so am clearly settling into middle age and struggling to understand the yoof - which is also part of the problem I suppose)

I’m more concerned about why outlets like the bbc, independent and the guardian aren’t covering it in an unbiased manner. Doesn’t that worry you?

This is the worry - I am very clear in my position and am constantly researching and listening to as wide a number of voices as possible but the more I find out, the clearer I am about the damage being done to women's rights and the safety of children.

I am so disappointed in the BBC - they are actively promoting a false version of the law to the detriment of women's legal rights. They constantly claim in their articles that the single sex exceptions in the EA 2010 don't apply to a certain group of people - they are lying to us. They are also promoting things to children that breach not only the government guidelines but their own guidelines.

The bit that did it for me with the BBC is when on Woman's Hour Jane Garvey was forced to point out 'for balance' that Fair Play For Women and other women's groups (us) are 'hate groups'.

That is beyond the pale for me, and like the 5050 Parliament organisation using two transwomen on a panel of four (it was originally three) to represent women's voices when talking about encouraging women into politics - they've crossed the line.

We have seen the amount of abuse that every person who speaks out about this receives so I applaud any publication/outlet that puts doing the right thing above what is easy.

Interesting question, OP.

No, I don't feel conflicted: I consider the issue, not who agrees or disagrees with me.

OP, give yourself some space to get your head around this as your views are still relatively newly formed. Don't let other women's firm fully formed views put you off. It's a journey and it does take time.

@Edenember

I really wouldn’t worry about it. Tribalism is one of the core thinking errors underpinning many of our troubles in the modern world at the moment, and to begin to accept and consider nuance, not blanket dismiss or deride, not be reflexively or reactionarily defined by things, is a sure sign of actual maturity (not the false sense of maturity you get from setting everything neatly into boxes and thinking you’ve got the world sussed). This polarisation we see happening is so damaging. Agreeing on one thing doesn’t mean you have to agree with a person on everything. Disagreement does not equal hatred. I listen to people when they talk sense on a subject, it really is as simple as that. The thing I have soul searched about within my own politics (as a formally far more fervent and vocal leftie), is how many times in the past have I dismissed something a Tory has said as hatred, without looking deeper into the issue? How many times in the past have I jumped wholeheartedly behind causes and slogans without fully understanding what it is I’m supporting?

Absolutely this.

You’ve got an illustration of it right here on this thread -someone completely unable to make the mental leap that not all right wing people are bad, and agreeing with an opinion that a right wing person holds doesn’t immediately make that person right wing too.

I’ve done soul searching on so many of my beliefs as a result of this topic, and I haven’t always enjoyed what I’ve found. I’ve also outsourced my thinking on occasion, and lazily stereotyped.

But I’m pretty sure I’m not wrong on this. One of the reasons I conclude this isn’t just that I think my take on it is right, it’s also that the position advanced by transactivism isn’t actually helpful to trans people. Telling them everyone hates them, suicide is a reasonable response to their difficulties, that everyone who doesn’t agree with them is hateful, that other people’s feelings about them should dictate their self worth, that their physical bodies are wrong, that they are engaged in an existential battle every day- none of this is helpful or kind in the way it’s purported to be.

Maybe you’re like I am and are struggling with feeling like you’re not being kind and supportive- but I bet you are. To gender non conforming young children in resisting the urge to tell them their bodies are wrong and should be medicalised, to teenage girls distressed in a sexist world they don’t understand who try to flee it by opting out of womanhood, to the trans widows and families devastated in the wake of a late transition whose stories get buried, to women and girls who need single sex spaces in sports, prisons and refuges...you’re being kind to them.

@Biscuitsanddoombar

I saw that potholes a genuine case of “Alexa show me tone deaf middle class privilege” and yet Zoe thinks she’s on the right side

I would absolutely love to have a polite conversation with Zoe in RL about that.

I occasionally pass for middle class on here (I refuse to know my place in life and keep reading books and using the polysyllabic words I learn in them) but in RL I'm sure I don't. See if she keeps insisting it's just about googling when I tell her about my real-life experiences of taking GCSEs with a girl who kept missing classes because she had to stay home to look after her husband when he was ill.

I flip flop on ZW and often enjoy her stuff but was surprised at how staggeringly (wilfully?) blind she's being over this.

Yes i find it very difficult - particularly the dailymail. It does make me stop and really think about things. But i keep coming back to safeguarding and not feminism and safeguarding is for trans as much as anyone else.

Some really good arguments and points. Expect jj back sometime soon. They will ignore everything that's been posted and make another case equivalence allegation and fuck off again without engaging with any points anyone has made or so massively misinterpreting the points you wonder if English is a language they understands Just pointing this out for any newbies.
No one is remotely fooled but you nicely make the point that one side only ever engages in bad faith arguments if they engage at all.

It's always tricky having to learn that you aren't always going to agree with people you like (or disagree with people you don't like). I don't understand people who seem so intent on making sure everyone in their "in group" totally agree on everything, it's not sustainable and doesn't lead to any advancement in thinking.

It's one of the reasons I enjoy MN, you can vigorously disagree with a poster on one thread, then be in total agreement on another. And neither invalidates the other.

Kimberly Wilson (who works with Tavistock) framed this really well in her BBC podcast with Xander Van Tulleken.

I don't have the precise quote, but she pointed out that we need to see ourselves as good people. If people who we see as 'bad' hold the same views as us on some topics, it messes with our sense of self. It's very deep-seated, but really made clear how unwise it is to completely identify with a cause to the point where you lose your sense of self within it.

It's worth listening to, as she put it much more clearly than I can.

I'm completely GC, but I work very hard to remember that there are humans with feelings on both sides of the argument.

(And I also shudder when I think about agreeing with fucking Piers Moron).

I didn't equate gender critical activists with the far right, I just pointed out they are on the same side when it comes to trans people, that's why far right figures and conspiracy theorists have worked alongside GC activists like Transgender Trend, Posie etc.

That's because some things are incontrovertible truths. Like the sky is blue and males are males. You can't dispute the obvious just for the sake of performative opposition.

One of the reasons I conclude this isn’t just that I think my take on it is right, it’s also that the position advanced by transactivism isn’t actually helpful to trans people. Telling them everyone hates them, suicide is a reasonable response to their difficulties, that everyone who doesn’t agree with them is hateful, that other people’s feelings about them should dictate their self worth, that their physical bodies are wrong, that they are engaged in an existential battle every day- none of this is helpful or kind in the way it’s purported to be.

This is what I don’t understand. Wouldn’t the best situation be for trans people to be totally accepted AS trans people with an understanding of the challenges and different needs that entails?

For me that exchange between Zoe Williams and Janice Turner summed up everything that's wrong with 'I read / write for the Guardian so I must be in the right' thinking.
From what I could see, Williams initiated the discussion in the first place, and when she couldn't defend her points she resorted to being rude to Janice and claiming she was tired.
Pitiful.

I’ve found the podcast “gender: a wider lens” with Stella O’Malley and Sasha Ayad massively helpful in understanding what good support for trans people might actually look like. They are both therapists who work with trans identified people, particularly young people and their compassionate, integrative approach seems to me like it would be actually constructive. Highly recommend a listen.