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?

I was 10!

You said it was the same. Can you not remember?

Yes, I did say it was the same.
The bit you quoted had me saying it's the same.
So what are you actually on about?

@Helleofabore

I was 10!

Im not sure thats an excuse 😳

*cos the lick won't stick!"
Ah, was just wondering what the last bit meant got the SWALK bit though (didn't Jason Donovan do a song called that, that's what I remember it from - that and my teen mags )

charlieparley - good post. Absolutely nails it on why the argument about gay rights is not the same argument as it is for the T. And I certainly dont remember any gays demanding that women give up their spaces and the language that describes them and their experiences, to make gay people feel happier.

SWAKCTLWS

Okay I'm stumped... Googling just brings up hits about Skittles!

Sealed With A Kiss
Cos the lick won't stick

Of course, Jane Clare Jones doesn't just analyse in detail why and how both movements are very different indeed, complete with extensive footnotes, she also wrote an Appendix where she again explains in detail exactly how and why trans ideology and the movement to enshrine its demands in law harms women not only in theory but also in practice. She also explores the negative implications for gender-non-conforming people and for children, in particular for homosexual children.

I would recommend reading the whole thing, essay, footnotes and appendix, to fully appreciate why our resistance to the doctrine of gender identity being enshrined in law has nothing to do with the opposition to the gay rights movement.

This thread is moving too fast! Learned something there though.

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.

Not the case. Even my student daughter, at a very woke university and with a number of trans friends, says that although she keeps quiet about it, she can see that what I say about the erosion of women’s rights is 100% accurate. She can also see for herself the negative effects of the current trend on her personal demographic as a young lesbian.

In addition, she says her friends would probably agree with JK Rowling’s points if they actually read what she said and thought about it , even for a second. She says her friends completely saw the point when there was discussion over whether raped women should be able to ask for a same-sex doctor. But still JK Rowling and women like us are the enemy. Sounds to me as if the opposite position from mine is based on retaining cognitive dissonance at all costs.

Anyway, if anyone has a reason to disagree with me, she does. It’s part of her culture and she would love to go back to accepting it without question, but can’t unsee the problems now.

Going back to the OP.

This is a really complex issue. I've never seen myself as a 'baddie' on this. But, there do seem to be some people who have severe gender dysphoria from an early age and never grow out of it. I have sympathy for them, even if I don't accept that they can actually change sex. Their voices are lost among the crowds who've got involved in this for other reasons.

@CharlieParley

Of course, Jane Clare Jones doesn't just analyse in detail why and how both movements are very different indeed, complete with extensive footnotes, she also wrote an Appendix where she again explains in detail exactly how and why trans ideology and the movement to enshrine its demands in law harms women not only in theory but also in practice. She also explores the negative implications for gender-non-conforming people and for children, in particular for homosexual children.

I would recommend reading the whole thing, essay, footnotes and appendix, to fully appreciate why our resistance to the doctrine of gender identity being enshrined in law has nothing to do with the opposition to the gay rights movement.

Quite.

But if the PP read that and educated themselves, who could they then bully?

I mean the OP asks the poster whether they feel as a poster like they are a baddie. Not for an assessment of the entire GC community, whatever that is.

No chance of them actually reading.

@NotTerfNorCis

SWAKCTLWS

Okay I'm stumped... Googling just brings up hits about Skittles!

Hella explained her 10 year old self's reasoning just a couple of posts up 😁

RufustheBadgeringReindeer

It was very ‘in’ at the time in my part of the world…

NotTerfNorCis

And I can still not understand the attraction for skittles.

I think i was still at the ‘stamp’ collecting level to be honest helleofabore 😀

And I can still not understand the attraction for skittles.

Nasty gooey things. M&Ms are much nicer.

But if the PP read that and educated themselves, who could they then bully?

Are you referring to me again seeing as I'm a previous poster you seem to be randomly saying stuff at I haven't even said?
If so, I haven't bullied anyone.
Anywhere.
Just put my thoughts on here.
Plus pretty arrogant and presumptious to presume I haven't read up articles, and if I disagree with you it must mean I'm uneducated or whatever the heck it is you're implying now.

Pretty arrogant and presumptuous to question whether something refers to you then decide that it did, before the poster can affirm or not, in order to go on to insult them and put words in their mouths.
But hey.
That's just my thoughts.
I see which questions don't get answered, just lazily deflected. (In general, on this board).

Going back on topic, I think @QuimReaper and @Siblingquandary had some good points.
I doubt most people on here fully agree on each and every thing. But most agree that sex is the basis of women's oppression and that that matters. Where that leads you is down to you.

Pretty arrogant and presumptuous to question whether something refers to you then decide that it did, before the poster can affirm or not

Seeing as the poster was referring to me before, and putting words in my mouth, and nobody has had any "other" opinion since, it's pretty clear who they meant.
Happy to be corrected though if wasn't to me.

No. Have never felt like a baddie.

Critics like to equate current gender critical views and past widespread homophobia. The resistance against gay rights was rooted in the moral repugnance that homosexuality was 'unnatural' that prevailed at the time (and that continue to prevail in some places). Resistance was not based on reason or fact.

I have seen no moral arguments against gender identity theory that are based on disgust put forward by the leading voices in gender critical thinking. I have not had any conversation around this topic where disgust has been a factor in someone's objections to gender identity politics. Religious people who are anti gender identity politics may have a moral objection, but despite attempts to align all gender critical people with the American right, I see the movement here in the UK being driven by liberal centrists, leftwing feminists and rightwing feminists.

The starting point for gender critical thinking is the recognition of the established scientific fact that biological sex is immutable. All humans are either XX or XY. People with disorders of sex development are still either XY or XX. That is not a moral position. To state that someone is a biological male or female is not a moral judgement. It is a statement of fact.

The resistance against gay rights was rooted in the moral repugnance that homosexuality was 'unnatural' that prevailed at the time (and that continue to prevail in some places). Resistance was not based on reason or fact.

OK, can get on board with this
but how is it that being trans is automatically a threat?
Unless you're coming at it from an all trans women are men and therefore BEWARE danger viewpoint.
And if so, maybe an element of check your prejudices comes into play?

Mockolate, why do you think single sex provision exists? Because, it seems that unless you understand that it exists to give women safety and opportunity because men as a class are a danger to women, and have significant biological advantages in our society set up, then you're gojng to be forever missing the point.

Women need to be able to exclude males from some things, however those males feel.about their own identity. That's the basis for all of this. 'Trans' is simply a distraction side show. I don't really care about gender identity, but sex matters.