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?

@BlueberryCheezecake

Yes, you are the baddies. You've made a literal hobby out of villifying an oppressed minority group, you are either complicit or actively involved in fearmongering, spreading falsehoods and misinformation (even if you don't personally recognise it as such because you've fallen down the rabbithole and into an echo chamber), and in campaigning to roll back the small gains they've made in equality and recognition. Your actions make life materially harder and more hostile for trans people. You are the bigots. You're the ones succumbing to your worst impulses and unexamined prejudices. You seek out only information that confirms your biases and come running to mumsnet for reassurance from people who do the same whenever anything makes you doubt yourself. History will look back on you in the same way it looks back on people who fearmongered about the gays and opposed LGB equality. Your friends and family likely think you're obsessed and bonkers, possibly even wondering how the person they love can possibly be so blinkered and hateful. With some of them, your relationship could be permanently destroyed. And it's not because of them, it's because of you. You are absolutely, unequivocally the baddie. Check your hat, because it's probably got a skull on it.

That's an awful lot of words for not a lot of substance.

Are you going to come back and back any of that up or are you just a plopper?

What's your view in transwomen in women's sports?

Male rapists in female prisons?

Penises in female only spaces like refuges, changing rooms and naked spas?

Giving pubescent teenagers off label drugs which will, at best, stunt their brain and bone development?

How do you define a woman in a non-circular way? How would you discuss what a female gender identity is without resorting to stereotypes?

Because if you can't back up anything you say, then I will just assume you are another misogynist with no argument, which will only serve to further make me think that the answer to the 'are we the baddies' question, is a resounding 'no'.

You seek out only information that confirms your biases and come running to mumsnet for reassurance from people who do the same whenever anything makes you doubt yourself.

Demonstrably incorrect, in my case.
I have many many questions that I have asked TRAs or trans people themselves on here and they have failed to answer. Just disappear once I question what they actually mean. This has been going on for years. There is zero desire or willingness on that side to actually try and communicate things that I explain why I don't understand.

blueberry genuinely, are you willing to answer a question or two in a way that tries to communicate truthfully and accurately what is actually meant by the response? And stick through follow-up questions?

Or is that yet more tumbleweed I see...

Your actions make life materially harder and more hostile for trans people.

yeah... Like you really have seen the thousands of death threats, rape threats, threats of violence, threats of erasure coming from women ... oh wait.... nothing like that? Yet, we see that coming from some groups all the time. I think you might want to simply look at when ever Jo Rowling tweets anything as a sense check there.

And materially harder. It is actually the intention of the people who are fighting for the rights of women and children to actually make sure that our lives are not made 'materially harder' by conflicting rights issues. Again, I encourage you to read these threads more as you will see that despite the falsehoods and misinformation you have stated we are spreading, those actually come from lobby groups who represent trans people. They stated that it is actually transphobic to state that there is potential for rights of women and children to be negatively impacted in the adoption of any rights that trans people want.

I wonder why they would spread those falsehoods and misinformation?

You are obviously well informed on the topic, maybe you could fill us in. With some statistical proof or at least modelling?

Your friends and family likely think you're obsessed and bonkers

No, they don't not a single one of them - young, old, male, female - every last one of them is horrified by the TRA agenda and the devastation it is trying to wreak on women's rights, the decimation of single sex spaces, refuges, prisons, the assault on women's freedom of speech, the doxxing and attempts to get women fired from their employment, the wholesale abuse and threats of sexual violence directed against women and the danger and inherent unfairness now being perpetrated against women's sports.

They to a woman, man, boy and girl consider the TRAs and their simpering allies to be the obsessed ones and dangerous to boot, and the same goes for those in my friendship circle and my colleagues at work. You are mistaken if you think that the majority of the public support or agree with your agenda.

Also worth noting the perception of standing up for women's rights, for vulnerable women, for women's equality - as a hobby, just a malicious and mischievous fixation on annoying trans people.

When women are so subordinated in your view that every single thing women do is always all about people born male, you can't see women having an inner life or capacity to have sincere concern for each other and you see women's issues and voices as so utterly unimportant you can't understand why anyone would spend time on them....?

You really have a bit of a problem with misogyny.

Nope.

If I am on the wrong side of the debate, so is the Hippocratic oath taken by doctors, the Geneva articles on prisoner treatment and the laws previously passed by Parliament about indecent exposure, voyeurism, death threats, freedom of expression and rape.

I am focused on female freedom, rights and safeguarding (especially of children). That, oddly enough, includes people with body dysphoria who would benefit from better medical processes and decent research rather than the shitshow demonstrated by the Tavistock whistleblowers.

I will never believe that sterilising children is right. I will never accept women's distress to be acceptable collateral damage.

You're the ones succumbing to your worst impulses and unexamined prejudices. You seek out only information that confirms your biases and come running to mumsnet for reassurance from people who do the same whenever anything makes you doubt yourself.

Interestingly, a rather esteemed scholar recently conducted a study and found that 18-29 year olds in the UK were, in fact, more intolerant of other's opinions than any other age group. Particularly those aged 65+ where only 14% were intolerant.

And I find this particularly interesting because the hypocrisy of your point. There are many voices on MN, and strangely enough, quite a lot of them disagree with each other on some aspect. But we don't call each other names or threaten each other.

In fact, I would put some of the voices on MN as being some of the most informed about aspects of women's rights. You know, many of us have even attained qualifications that relate to making women's lives better in many different disciplines.

Maybe you could engage with us rather than posting with the only intent to silence discussion and shame others. That'd be nice. Some nice new papers to read, and studies, and points of view that provide some really interesting discussion points. Wouldn't you agree?

History will look back on you in the same way it looks back on people who fearmongered about the gays and opposed LGB equality. Your friends and family likely think you're obsessed and bonkers, possibly even wondering how the person they love can possibly be so blinkered and hateful. With some of them, your relationship could be permanently destroyed. And it's not because of them, it's because of you.

You know, of course, that this is not actually like the progress of LGB rights. You are just rolling out tired old trope here Cheezecake. It is great for the bingo card though.

You are absolutely, unequivocally the baddie. Check your hat, because it's probably got a skull on it.

Oh. And more for the bingo card. Thank you!

Well the pirate thing was at least novel.

I don't think vulnerable women locked up in prison should expect to be raped or sexually assaulted by males as part of their punishment because some braindead idiots have decided locking rapists up with them is a good idea.

I don't think young girls or women should have to encounter creeps with their erect penis out when they're in single sex spaces.

I think women fleeing domestic abuse are entitled to refuge away from males.

LGB people shouldn't face homophobic abuse from the ''community'' for being same-sex attracted instead of being attracted to gender stereotypes.

I don't think female athletes should be forced to play against males who have many biological advantages over them. Nor should women have their skulls split open because they're forced to fight a male. Nor should women lose places on the team because mediocre males want in.

I don't think women deserve to be threatened with rape, death, bombs, knives etc whenever we speak up for ourselves.

I don't think men should get to dictate to us what a woman is or isn't, redefining us to suit themselves.

If that makes me the devil, then so be it 🤷

Personally, I feel that the people who are happy to see women locked up with convicted rapists, who are happy for women to have their skulls split open or to be 'folded like deckchairs', who think abused women shouldn't be allowed refuge, who defund and vandalise rape crisis centres, who think rape, death, bomb and knife threats are acceptable, are the ones with a little bit of a problem...

Check your hat, because it's probably got a skull on it.

I quite like the idea of being a bit of a pirate though.... are you SURE that was what you intended to say?

Sterilising children has never been on the right side of history.
Whether it’s been done for religious reasons, to make them more valuable as slaves, to give them lovely singing voices, or this latest iteration.
I am amazed by people who can’t see that.

You are the b!gots.

You might want to check your understanding of that word, and who is unable to cope with other views.

I always, always laugh when I see this. It is so clear that people posting that crap have just regurgitated it from some 'learned' person who they have outsourced their thinking to.

Nope. We're not the baddies.

We're not the ones making death and rape threats.

We're not the ones doxxing, deplatforming and getting people fired.

We're not the ones denying biological reality.

We are the ones discussing things and providing links to credible evidence instead of plopping or providing links to risible youtube videos.

Blueberry, we missed your take on the thread discussing women being raped in prison by transwomen prisoners - care to join the conversation? Or is that too difficult a stance to defend by screaming transphobe at everyone?

The real baddies are the people putting male sex offenders into female prisoners' cells.

And if I ever wavered, I would be able to refer to this www.terfisaslur.com

Pure, unadulterated, open hatred of women.

Check your hat, because it's probably got a skull on it.

Ah-harrr! Jim-me-non-gender-specific-sidekick, where be the right-wing gold of yore?!

@FloralBunting

My hat is a very jaunty feminist pirate hat, so yes. The rest of that post was shite, though.

To de-rail slightly I recently read about female pirates, was very interesting.

@Helleofabore

Check your hat, because it's probably got a skull on it.

I quite like the idea of being a bit of a pirate though.... are you SURE that was what you intended to say?

I wouldn’t get excited

Nazi caps have skulls on them….the poster is calling posters on this board nazis

Well they didn't specify, so pirate it is.

Yeah it's a reference to the Mitchell & Webb sketch in the first line of the OP. I assume everyone's watched it?!

@Megasausagehead

Well they didn't specify, so pirate it is.

😀