Does anyone ever have a "are we the baddies"* moment?

[Menstrualcycledisplayteam]

• it's a Mitchell & Webb sketch, probably on Youtube.

I'm a bit disheartened this week, if I'm honest. I sometimes feel like this is a fight that we're just not going to win. Two main things recently, one personal, one geo-political I suppose.

On the geo-political level, I look across the Pond to the US, where the only people who are saying the same things as us are frigging Rand Paul and Marjorie Taylor Greene, neither of which are people that I associate my politics as being anywhere close to. There is just no bloody way that the Left, my home, will align with us now, given who our "allies" are in the States. They just can't, even those that agree with us will never position themselves as having the same concerns as Marjorie Q-Anon Parkland Taylor Bloody Greene.

The second is personal. I work for a large global organisation in a senior role. We had our Global Leadership "Away Day" a few weeks ago (on Teams, of course) and there was a presentation from some US colleagues on LGBTQ+, being able to bring your whole self to work, that kind of thing, from two gay colleagues, one lesbian one gay. So far, so good - absolutely the right thing for my organisation to be doing. Then they got onto pronouns and how everyone should start every meeting asking what pronouns attendees want to have used and encouraging everyone to put them in our email sign-offs. I'm never going to do that, but I can already see it happening around the organisation (particularly the US, but some of the easily led/want to be noticed over here will soon follow suit).

My husband won't listen to me talk about this sort of stuff anymore - he agrees with me, but says that it is basically like someone saying they "don't agree with all that Black Lives Matter stuff". My best friend works with young people and whilst I've tried to approach it with her very gently, including all of the stats about single sex spaces and how women and children's safety is negatively affected as a result, her reaction is that she gets all of that but she works with children every day who are tortured by their own bodies.

I know that our concerns are justified, I know that women's safety/opportunities are going to be negatively affected but - if I'm completely honest with myself - I just can't see how we're going to stop it. Julie Bindel has a tweet pinned to her feed which is basically that the misogyny at the moment is like a tidal wave and that's how it feels.

I'm not sure why I'm writing this really - certainly not to bring anyone down but there's no-one I can speak to about this in real life. How do you even go about discussing these things when, in my work at least, it would probably get me fired and everyone around me in my personal life has either bought into the nonsense hook line and sinker, or just doesn't want to hear it?

Because it’s all about ‘winning’, right?

Quite.

A future where everyone has all the provisions they need and everyones needs are equally met regardless of any characteristic or belief they may have is a good one.

A future that is basically about sacrificing women's sex based rights on a plate to a male led movement who have no problem at all at seeing those women without provision, without resource, unhappy, frightened, excluded, alienated, oppressed and disenfranchised?

How is that going anywhere good? Seriously. Tell me. How is this kind, or inclusive or diverse, or intersectional? How is this even basically moral?

Fgs can we ditch the liberal handwringing and the silly playground politics 'baddies' for petes sake, are you five? And think .

People who advocated for lobotomies thought they were progressive and on the right side of history.

any future where women have lost sex based rights is one with a large women's movement in it fighting every day

Yes this is such an important point. Whatever trans ideology tells us, there will still be real women and girls, they'll still be oppressed (even more so, of course, if trans dogma gets its way), and if they don't realise what's happening now, they'll sure as hell realise it then - and they will organise and fight, like they have before. You actually cannot erase female biology and all that comes with it.

I think the whole movement got off on the wrong foot. It was too militant and aggressive. I am surprised at Stonewall really as they started it all.

This is what they gave us.

Transwomen are Women
Acceptance without exception
#nodebate

Now how can anyone make those statements and expect them not to be challenged in any way? TWAW is particularly problematic because they actually aren't. They are transwomen which is different.

Attempting to prevent and shut down any discussion of these facts is what is causing the problem.

Yes, sometimes, when women I respect appear to publicly endorse the TWAW viewpoint I wonder "what have they seen or read that I haven't?"

Take Margaret Atwood for example. I love her writing , her books, her interviews, but she has always shied away from the full-blown feminist stuff and is not GC. Last year she supported her views with some article about fish, so I read it, and I read it again. But it was a load of unscientific tosh, which was not supported by any real scientific findings.

Everytime a TRA says "educate yourself" I think "I am! But the more educated I get, the more sure I become that I already have the right POV on this."

Sorry I mean the social and cultural perspective of how trans women are portrayed and the threats they are percieved to pose towards women.

The threat is not from individuals who are trans, it's that unless we do something to protect Female rights as something distinct from Women's rights, it's impossible to meet the movement's demand to define trans women as women without cancelling the right of females to exist and organise separately from males.

That matters because females are structurally underrepresented and disadvantaged in our society. The current female-specific rights, opportunities, protections and spaces that provide some level of counterbalance were fought for by women and eventually accepted as necessary by (most of) society until such a time as we get rid of the underlying sex-based inequalities. But if we open those up to male people based simply on self-defined gender identity they can't meet that purpose, and to do so is prioritising males' desire to self-identify over females' need for rights and protections.

Plenty of studies have shown that male people are just not very good at recognising when they are taking power and space from women. I'm sure most of us have lived experience of that as well! Female people would be very foolish to just accept TWAW and trust that in return those TW will be sensitive to and self-police their impact on us. Indeed we already have too many examples of that not happening. We need the right to say No, this opportunity is for females, this space is for females, this voice should be female.

Furthermore, the current knee-jerk condemnation of anyone who raises concerns about the impact of TWAW on female rights as a TERF or a bigot is being used to silence discussion about this wholesale dissolution of female rights.

If there was not a pre-existing power imbalance I would be totally fine with TWAW - in fact that's where I started out. Or if the trans movement would accept something more formal and stringent than self-id as the criteria to accept a trans woman as a woman I'm sure we could find a way forward that protected female rights. But as things stand neither is the case.

For me the obvious compromise is to separate gender rights and sex-based rights entirely, but that is not acceptable under current trans ideology which posits that gender is meaningful and sex is not.

*But it was a load of unscientific tosh, which was not supported by any real scientific findings.

Everytime a TRA says "educate yourself" I think "I am! But the more educated I get, the more sure I become that I already have the right POV on this."*

Yes exactly this.

I don't believe the pp who have said they were supporting women and then "saw a bigger picture."

Due to the "science" and evidence it's not logical.

I think some women in the public's eye have been forced to take the non boat rocking side. For fear of reprisal.

I don't know if any men who, once they've looked into it and agreed, have then moved away from that stance. Some sit on the fence, definitely.

We don't have skulls on our uniform.
Do we even have a uniform? I feel this has been neglected. I'd punt for jeans.

@MichelleofzeResistance

Because it’s all about ‘winning’, right?

Quite.

A future where everyone has all the provisions they need and everyones needs are equally met regardless of any characteristic or belief they may have is a good one.

A future that is basically about sacrificing women's sex based rights on a plate to a male led movement who have no problem at all at seeing those women without provision, without resource, unhappy, frightened, excluded, alienated, oppressed and disenfranchised?

How is that going anywhere good? Seriously. Tell me. How is this kind, or inclusive or diverse, or intersectional? How is this even basically moral?

Fgs can we ditch the liberal handwringing and the silly playground politics 'baddies' for petes sake, are you five? And think .

@MichelleofzeResistance, I am thinking, which is why I started the thread. I might have positioned it as a fight, because that is what it feels like. And actually, the person above who pointed out that it isn't, actually, that everyone's needs should be attended to, but that doesn't mean that women have to make way, is exactly right.

What is hard to deal with is the total inability (apart from on here) to speak freely about it. That it probably would affect my job were I to challenge the ideology publicly, that so many people that I admire (someone else cited Margaret Atwood above, and I agree, that one got me too).

I haven't looked at Twitter, and don't intend to - it's a cesspit, an echo chamber and a circle jerk. I'm reassured that there are other people who have and do feel the same as I do - and I do believe it is sensible/wise to check your thinking, read widely and question your beliefs, which is what I'm doing. Nothing more.

But, thank you also to the person who started the companion thread (www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4179378-US-lefts-mask-increasingly-slipping), because that video is another example of the things that we don't do. It is misogyny pure and simple.

@Menstrualcycledisplayteam my apologies, that rant was not directed at you or intended to criticise your OP at all. It was a response to the poster whose sole contribution in response to the ten pages of explained, thoughtful posts was the "you're all baddies, wrong side of history" plop and run.

I may have lost my temper slightly at that point. I am only human and this kind of childish silliness is beyond tedious, particularly when so many women have taken the time to explain.

I am sorry it seemed to criticise you, it was not meant to.

@MichelleofzeResistance, it's no problem. I must confess, when I heard that the thread had been picked up elsewhere, I winced at my glib thread title, because it trivialises something that isn't at all trivial. So I think we both touched a respective nerve.

I'm still relatively new to this - my husband likes to remind me that I was fully onboard with the ideology when there was that Louis Theroux documentary about children a few years ago. It's genuinely only been on here that I've learned the flip side, been pointed in the direction of Fair Play for Women and organisations like that and realised that the "it'll never happen" is happening every day.

Firstly, OP, I think you're right to question where you stand, and the fact that you're genuinely asking 'am I on the wrong side of this issue' means that there's probably still hope that you haven't sunk too far down the GC Conspiracy Theory rabbit hole.

Like you, I came to this movement some years ago, when I realised that I'd bought in to harmful negative stereotypes about trans people. That moment I call 'Peak transphobe', the point at which I looked who I was keeping political company with. The Christian Right, combining their anti trans activism with axing women's right to reproductive healthcare and curtailing the right to abortion. Actual NeoNazis. MRAs and Incels. And that made me ask myself 'um...what if I'm the baddie here?...oh shite I AM the baddie!'

And then I realised that the vast majority of GC talking points were one-dimensional hateful stereotyping, that the scientific consensus did not agree with my position...that I had been duped and was hurting people with my rhetoric. So I stopped. I educated myself.

When I came out as bisexual, I found the community of LGBTQIA+ there ready to support me. When I desperately needed help with my disabled kid, I was helped by those queer people including a wonderful trans woman who became my best friend and second mother to my kid. And I realised all the hurtful, shameful garbage spoken about people like my friend.

So yes, I think it's fine to ask ourselves if we're the baddies.

The world is complex, but if there's a binary split down a polarising issue?

Look where the Nazis are.

Then, for the love of the Goddess, pick the other side.

@ascottishmum what's bisexual? Could you just run that one by me because it doesn't kind of fit in with your other ideas.

The Christian Right is not a thing in the UK. It’s deeply tedious when ppl bring that out

My DH is lovely - a kinder gentler man you would never meet so I guess we can get rid of safeguarding on that basis right? I mean if we’re basing laws & good practice around “my trans friend is lovely”

Yes, because understanding the differences between men and women and wanting children to NOT be experimented on (judges words, not mine) is totally the same as being a Nazi 😴

The Christian Right, combining their anti trans activism with axing women's right to reproductive healthcare and curtailing the right to abortion. Actual NeoNazis. MRAs and Incels.

Our reproductive healthcare is solid, and there'd rightly be hell to pay if anyone tried to change that. I guarantee every single one of us on this board would be at the front of the protests.

The Christian right? This isn't America 😂 Did you manage to keep a straight face as you implied believing in reality is a conspiracy theory whilst spouting the most ridiculous conspiracy theory yourself?

The world is complex, but if there's a binary split down a polarising issue? Look where the Nazis are. Then, for the love of the Goddess, pick the other side.

Er no, because that's a logical fallacy. That just isn't how you decide the truth of things.

Do you have anything more persuasive to give than that?

Not for a single solitary second.

Who posted upthread about the difference between simply calling people Nazis and recognizing nazi tactics in action?

It was a really good post.

The world is complex, but if there's a binary split down a polarising issue

There isn’t a binary split

Theres here..........................................................................and there’s here

And a whole load of people in the middle wondering what the fuck is going on

And you can be on the wrong side of history and still be right...obviously. Its a stupid phrase

Yes, constantly because I live in NI and to be a feminist here you must co-sign all trans actions including when they went to a pro choice March and complained it was too feminine and therefore trans exclusive
If you disagree at all you aren’t a feminist you are a TERF bitch amd ejected from all boards etc

ascottishmum your post seems to be mostly promoting a false idea, that the GC stance is about hating and attacking trans people. It’s not, it never has been and a look at GC arguments would show you that.

It’s about women, the importance of being able define ourselves on the basis of sex, be protected from male people on the basis of sex, and continue to have single sex spaces including sports, prisons and hospital wards where women are already suffering from male people being allowed in.

It’s also about children and protecting children from a highly culture-driven ideology that can appeal to anyone who feels awkward in their body or that they don’t fit gender stereotypes - I.e many young people, especially girls and especially autistic girls - and result in them harming their bodies and fertility in a way that increasing numbers are coming to regret.

Many trans people agree with the GC stance and agree that humans can’t actually change sex. Many GC people chat and engage with them and are their friends.

GC people oppose trans ideology and misogyny. It is TRAs who go on the attack with violent threats, bullying and trying to destroy people’s livelihoods.

We may discuss some people such as Yaniv who behave appallingly. That;s not stereotyping, it’s examining their actual behaviour.

No!

Although, of course, that doesn't preclude one from feeling compassion for people who are genuinely suffering.

The Nazis ... seventy-five years after the Second World War. In a vastly different economic, political, social and cultural context. In connection with a movement that has only existed in its current form for about a decade ... it’s a bit glib to use this comparison, isn’t it?

It’s also deeply disrespectful to those murdered, tortured, persecuted and dispossessed by the Nazis. After they and their allies were defeated, an entire continent had been laid to waste, atomic weapons unleashed on the planet, millions killed in Europe, North Africa and Asia, the Jewish population of entire countries wiped out, unspeakable crimes committed against innocent adults and children. I wonder if anybody in 1945 could have imagined that decades later “Nazi” could be a term of abuse for women who simply said “You and I are not the same.”

The left/right polarisation whereby everyone bunkers down into their tribe, and flings rocks at the other tribe - has reached the point where something has to give. The Left in Britain is in crisis - as it apes the identity politics of the U.S, and also still clings to its old ideological shibboleths.

@Biscuitsanddoombar

The Christian Right is not a thing in the UK. It’s deeply tedious when ppl bring that out

My DH is lovely - a kinder gentler man you would never meet so I guess we can get rid of safeguarding on that basis right? I mean if we’re basing laws & good practice around “my trans friend is lovely”

NI is part of the UK. The DUP are very much the Christian Right. Giants' Causeway had to have a plaque giving the Creationist version of when it developed alongside the normal scientific one.

Now, it is not in Britain and has not much real influence (unless gov't depends on it's votes to survive), but it is a thing in the UK.