Is this going to end? If so, when? What will be the catalyst?

[SybillTrelawney]

Sorry if these are pointless questions — I realise no one really knows the answers. But I need some hope, because I'm feeling so fed up. The attitude many of my colleagues have to gender and sex scares me, and the way that all diversity initiatives at work now revolve around gender ideology (while ignoring women) leaves me in a constant state of low-level anger. I just can't see an end to it, and I'm wondering what it will take for there to be a big shift in attitude amongst the sort of people who are sustaining the current climate of fear.

I’m not sure but I share your concerns and also hate the low level anger that I’m carrying around.

I did have a supportive response from my MP recently and I am hopeful that FPFW will be successful in the legal challenge. It’s making the National press.

So in the meantime I guess we need to just keep going.

Ultimately women are 51% of the population, so there should be enough of us on the cause.

I was thinking that very same thought this morning. It is hard to see how and what will be the catalyst but I keep hoping that some of the more high profile politicians will start to see the light.

The difficulty is that many of the cheerleaders are so convinced they are in the right that they are likely to protest any strengthening of safeguarding. It will be interesting to see if those protests will go too far. Some are bordering on it now with their ‘ceremonial hanging’ of effigies representing you and I.

It has happened in the uk a while ago (at a trans pride event) and very recently in Portugal (I think, maybe Spain).

I might start reading up on how other groups with a very strong ideology used to coerce behaviour end up.

[I’ve just read that and realised that I have suggested that hanging effigies of us is only bordering on being too bad and realised how awful that sounds but when you look at the reaction it generated (ie zero) - it is clearly not bad enough]

Ultimately women are 51% of the population, so there should be enough of us on the cause.

Unfortunately there are too many women like Lisa Nandy and Jo Swinson who fail to recognise any of the issues.

Nandy is even on record saying that she thinks rapists should be put in women's prisons as long as they 'identify' as women. It hardly benefits women.

I don't know what the catalyst will be. I think it will be court cases. And unfortunately, I think there need to be women being harmed by this ideology before the general public will sit up and take notice.

For instance - women losing in sports to people registered male at birth.*
People registered male at birth becoming women's officers and taking places on all-women shortlists.
More Keira Bells coming forward.

Until then, I don't think things will change.

*Following the extraordinary level of deletions on the 50:50 thread, I am trying to be especially careful with my language to avoid censorship.

Ultimately women are 51% of the population, so there should be enough of us on the cause.

I think part of the issue - and it is used against us, is that not all of the 51% understand it are interested in the problem. Particularly women who have reached a situation of comfort in life that insulates them from the day to day issues the rest of us face.

They are they ones that merrily hand out our rights like Lady Bountiful because they like to feel good about themselves.

I think part of the issue - and it is used against us, is that not all of the 51% understand it are interested in the problem. Particularly women who have reached a situation of comfort in life that insulates them from the day to day issues the rest of us face

They are they ones that merrily hand out our rights like Lady
Bountiful because they like to feel good about themselves

Yup, this. I've been banging on about this issue for a decade at least. One woman has recently figured out that I may have a point, but still baulks at the bathrooms and gives no shits about sports cos she ain't interested in sports. I feel that something in the media has made her sit up and take notice (if so good, at least all the emails I write are helping get the issue out there) but she cant see further than her own nose.

And as it doesn't effect her or her family directly, then meh who cares.
She states she never uses public toilets, so I guess until she needs one in a hurry and finds a man in there! she never goes swimming ditto!
One day it will affect her really badly and then she will see what I mean and what I fight for.

First it's going to require the heat around this topic to cool down. Not entirely sure how that will happen but part of the movement is very youth driven and future generations will move onto other issues and other ways of expressing themselves.

I've no doubt that within a couple of generations identifying as non binary or the other 100s of 'genders' won't be a craze amongst teens and young adults. Although let's hope they don't come up with something more nonsensical!

The systemic issues that are being driven from an ideological, top down basis by well funded lobby groups is a much more difficult issue to tackle because it leaves so much terrible legislation in it's wake and currently all large corporations and organisations are in thrall to it.

I think it will be when a critical mass of the population becomes GC.
The Labour Party have lost -is it 4%? of female voters and I think it might become apparent to them that chucking out all the GC female politicians from your party leads to GC women voters not voting for you.

It won't end whilst both sides are so staunchly adament they're right and, so the views, thoughts, feelings and concerns of the other side are invalid.

It will go on. And on. And on. And .. Well you get the picture.

but it did make me wonder if this current woke nonsense will quickly become unfashionable and burn itself out.

I think there is truth in that. However, in the meantime we need to guard our laws and language so that they are intact at the end of it all.

I think there is truth in that. However, in the meantime we need to guard our laws and language so that they are intact at the end of it all.

Agreed

Give it another decade. I did not give sexism a second thought until my 30s and got to experience it first-hand through pregnancy discrimination.

The world is fine and dandy as long as we are accomodating and act like men (not get pregnant*). The minute we diverge, the mask slips.

*Which is one of the reasons why women are opting out of childbirth in South Korea and Japan. In fact, the reduction in babies worldwide over the next twenty years is really going focus the mind on this area.

Don't forget men. I know we're FWR but there are an awful lot of men who think all of this is rubbish but many just don't bother to speak out. They will if their loos are inundated with women.

I think having downers about this is quite common. One piece of good news and I'm over the moon and then the next minute something comes along to deflate.

I think the media becoming more honest and if they'd done it sooner, it would have helped. J K Rowling was one of the biggest catalysts and really started a different conversation and then we had Keira Bell, which opened so many eyes. The free speech appeal being taken by Harry the Owl (no idea what is real name is) will also have an impact because he made a comment that was classified as a non-hate crime - trans related. Free speech has links, lots who support free speech support women's sex based rights.

Ramble ramble. You will go through these dips, just accept that they'll come along and hopefully proper discussion will eventually break through. The more under threat Stonewall becomes, the more they are likely to want to talk. At the moment they just want self-id and the end to women protected in the EA

I think the Olympics will be the turning point. When the whole world sees huge blokes beating women things will change. That will make it real to people who think it's only theoretical. People like Laurel Hubbard will be seen for the cheats they are.

@gardenbird48 ceremonial hangings?! Dare I ask what that was all about?

I think something horrific will have to happen before a massive turning point is reached. Eg a child murdered by a sex offender in a position of trust because they were able to sidestep safeguarding checks by not being obliged to disclose their 'deadname'

I think the mobilisation of women will worry politicians. Bluntly, a lot of politics relies on women running around in the background organising stuff. If women are running around organising to protect women’s rights instead politicians will suffer. The court cases are a good example. How many cases have been funded quickly at grass roots level. Political parties will see that, they won’t want that sort of organisational effort directed against them. The court cases will help because it gives the establishment something to hide behind.

I think the reputation of Stonewall is key. If their behaviour is exposed for what it is and it is frozen out of government and public institutions, firms will follow. The early adopters like Amnesty etc will quietly refocus, many of their members want this anyway.

Its going to take damage, deaths and lawsuits, and a critical mass of them too before enough people have an outcry about this. Its still seen as a tiny niche problem only affecting a few hysterical women at the moment.

Meanwhile as others have said, there will eventually be a new phase with young people. A new thing to project on to and use to differentiate and/or harm oneself with.

Who knows, it might even be the cool rebellious thing in 10 years to say that things like entrenched gender rules and online porn are bad. Probably not but one can daydream

The UN is asking governments to provide details of their protections for LGBTQ communities. Our government has good protections but I suspect many around the world don't and wonder how the UN will tackle that? Or will the UN re-define what constitutes protection and then target the west as the easy option?

I'm starting to think that hatred of women is so ingrained and deep rooted in so many societies that there will always be something like this popping up.

As soon as the current gender ideology fades away, the fact that so many people consider women to be some sort of semi-human service droid will manifest itself in some other way. There's a cheery thought for a Sunday morning.

wellthatsunusual

I think something horrific will have to happen before a massive turning point is reached. Eg a child murdered by a sex offender in a position of trust because they were able to sidestep safeguarding checks by not being obliged to disclose their 'deadname'

This point was raised by myself and some others on a previous thread a couple of months ago - we had our posts deleted.

People who should know better seem to forget the origins of why we have DBS checks - which many of us have to now undergo willingly, even though we are no threat - and no - it is not to be kind. The whole point of safeguarding and closing the loopholes is that we don’t reach such a horrendous, but highly predictable situation.

Kindness is proper safeguarding.

We never seem to learn...

@gardenbird48

Ultimately women are 51% of the population, so there should be enough of us on the cause.

I think part of the issue - and it is used against us, is that not all of the 51% understand it are interested in the problem. Particularly women who have reached a situation of comfort in life that insulates them from the day to day issues the rest of us face.

They are they ones that merrily hand out our rights like Lady Bountiful because they like to feel good about themselves.

This spoke so loudly to me, thank you for articulating it. A former friend is just like this. A smug middle class academic working in a woke field in a woke university, who insists the science proves there are more than two sexes and who has absolutely no problem sharing her uni loos with her truly lovely trans colleague. Who was a man last term. I want to punch her.

There is so much money to be made for big pharma and the surgery industry from this, in the way that there wasn't from previous teenage body image issues, that I don't think it'll be any time soon - the estimates are billions of dollars to be made here, with all that political lobbying muscle.

Will lawsuits counteract that? In the USA I guess they'd say it was your personal choice, as it is with huge breast enlargements or whatever, and by downplaying/denying the mental health aspect they may well be making the safeguarding failure argument for lawsuits difficult too. The UK position with the NHS is different - unlike the WHO, we still classify Gender Dysphoria as a mental health issue - and I think it'll stop more here.

Britain's young people do seen to act like we're the 51st State, taking their political cues from America. If Trump supports it, they're against it, whatever it may be. Maybe with Biden that will lessen, things will become less polarised and binary, and grey areas of discussion may be allowed. My Twitter feed doesn't make me hopeful though - lots of middle aged people in the arts interpreting the university free speech issue as about Katie Hopkins, rather than bothering (or wilfully ignoring) what it's really about.

I know it's bad, but the re-emergence of a sort of rave scene in the form of those covid-rulebreaking secret raves does give me a bit of hope: today's generation don't have much of a music scene with all its associated tribes, but this could be green shoots. And teenagers might want to spend less time indoors, disappearing down wormholes online after all this.

This point was raised by myself and some others on a previous thread a couple of months ago - we had our posts deleted.

UppityPuppity I know exactly what you mean. Even as I typed my post earlier I was thinking 'I wonder will this be allowed to be discussed'