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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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

662 replies

Menstrualcycledisplayteam · 27/02/2021 21:39

  • 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?

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oxalisRed · 27/02/2021 23:37

No, we are not the baddies (I remember the M&W sketch Grin)

But. I am in an odd position where my 18yr old ASD daughter has announced she is transgender. For all that we disagree politically, some middle way will have to be found for our relationship to continue alongside her gender dysphoria.

I cannot agree that TWAW or TMAM in our case (which my teens very much agree with), so we are facing a very uncertain future. Focusing on my DD's circumstances, I would be horrified with her using a male toilet - because I've only ever known her as female, because I can imagine that some men would not be welcoming of a small, slight, "male presenting" person.

Perhaps, as a friend described it, transgender people will become more and more common and social acceptance will follow suit. But for me, that has to be a third category and not a takeover of existing single sex categories.

Until our daughter's announcement recently, DH would pretty much zone out of my rants discussions because he felt it was bleeding obvious and no sane person would buy into gender identity. But now that it's happening to us, he has shocked me with an about-face. I suppose that's not all bad, if it helps him to support our daughter.

PamDenick · 27/02/2021 23:38

Maybe lots of us have worked with teenage girls for years and years and know that adolescence is a time of questioning and uncertainty and that NO life altering medicalisation should ever be considered.

7Days · 27/02/2021 23:39

I wonder are there many TRA forums having these discussions?

gardenbird48 · 27/02/2021 23:39

But no, the people that are standing up for safeguarding children against making life changing decisions that will threaten their health and maintaining women’s rights to single sex spaces for safety and privacy are not the bad guys.

BelleHathor · 27/02/2021 23:42

Maybe 10 years ago I believed there could have been some sort of compromise, but after all the "die in a fire" threats of rape and violence, political parties throwing women under the bus and the nastiness I am like nope. I am not the baddie, the baddies are the people who ignored the rape and murder of this 12 year old black girl to advocate for a Trans inmate failing to even mention her name.

www.womenarehuman.com/vicious-child-rapist-murderer-demands-sex-change-freedom-synthia-china-blast/

Ereshkigalangcleg · 27/02/2021 23:46

I wonder are there many TRA forums having these discussions?

GrinWine

Campervan69 · 27/02/2021 23:47

No because everybody that I speak to agrees with me. Apart from my sister-in-law but she's a guardian reader who can't have an opinion of her own. The majority view seems to be that people can do what they want to themselves but as soon as it starts inflicting itself on children or affecting women's rights like in sports then we need boundaries.

AdHominemNonSequitur · 27/02/2021 23:48

No. The Mitchell and Webb sketch is relevant to one side of this debate though and not this side. Many parallels. My stance does not help me in any way, I wish I could put pronouns in my bio and pretend everything is rosy. It would make life so much easier but I think what is going on at the moment is deeply illiberal and deeply sinister. It has nothing to do with trans equality and is regressive. My conscience won't allow me to ignore this. I never considered myself a feminist or particularly political but I am a secular enlightenment liberal, we are a secular liberal society and I will defend that with everything I have.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 27/02/2021 23:48

Challenge to any lurking TRAs - link us to proof this type of introspection and consideration of other points of view goes on on trans forums.

Thingybob · 27/02/2021 23:50

@7Days

I wonder are there many TRA forums having these discussions?
Possibly not but I see from Twitter that Helen is watching this thread. Maybe she will start to question her beliefs?
Maduixa · 27/02/2021 23:57

I'm going to start this by saying - because I think it's possibly relevant to your post - that I am British and (US)American and have long lived - by choice - away from these two countries.

Yes, I know "are we the baddies?" - it's been used quite a bit as a meme among feminists challenged by popular orthodoxy. Generally, the consensus from reasonable people is: no, but if someone can demonstrate otherwise please do. No one can.

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 situation in the US is really complicated, and what people see abroad is typically the federal level and ignores all the various things going on at the state and local level, which is where the action is in a federal system.

If you are saying that the UK and Europe and the rest of the world cannot change because the US politicians who are currently ascendant are bought and sold - I strongly believe that you are wrong. Look at what happened just this week in the UK House of Lords and in L'Académie Française, for example.

If you are saying that things are contentious in the USA, you are right, but there are many people besides those you name speaking out and working against this. Also I am not sure the people you've chosen to rail against are relevant: last time I was in the US, Rand Paul was a quirky hero of centrists, and I've never heard of Marjorie before this week.

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).

Do you really work for a global corporation, or just for an international corporation? I find it really hard to believe that what you describe would be allowed in a global corporation. The pronoun thing is idiotic and absolutely cannot work in a global corporation: just the multilingual context would defeat it.

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.

Your husband sounds dim (and inappropriately appropriative unless he is black and American), but I still don't understand why YOU think that you (or we) are "the baddies"? It sounds more like you are surprised or shocked or disappointed that you encounter so many people in your daily life who don't have any critical thinking skills (or who don't evidence those skills to you). Are you challenging these people at all? If not, what is the worst that could happen if you did? If so, what is the worst thing that could happen if you did more strenuously?

thirdfiddle · 27/02/2021 23:58

We're not the baddies. Know how I know? It's because we're the ones that keep checking. I've seriously considered the opposing argument, tried hard to form it into a coherent world view and it can't be done. I don't think gender believer friends have done that in reverse.

gardenbird48 · 28/02/2021 00:18

Possibly not but I see from Twitter that Helen is watching this thread. Maybe she will start to question her beliefs?

I’ve just seen that (and they are targeting the Glinner thread on AIBU). I wonder if any of these people stop and consider the end result of what they are doing for one minute. I doubt it.

DickKerrLadies · 28/02/2021 00:23

Possibly not but I see from Twitter that Helen is watching this thread. Maybe she will start to question her beliefs?

Hmm, I think if that was going to happen it would have happened when she tried to take a trans person to court for transphobia and failed.

Thingybob · 28/02/2021 00:24

I think it's good they are reading Gardenbird, maybe they will realise we are not all monsters?

I certainly question my beliefs and as I genuinely feel sympathy for many of the adult transitioners who often describe having very unhappy, dysfunctional childhoods, I don't wish to cause them any more distress. For me it's a balancing act trying not to cause distress to others whilst speaking out to protect women and children

littlbrowndog · 28/02/2021 00:26

I don’t get how you would cause hurt to adults by standing up for women and girls thingybob?

Thingybob · 28/02/2021 00:40

@littlbrowndog

I don’t get how you would cause hurt to adults by standing up for women and girls thingybob?
Because the belief that they are really women is so entrenched in many trans women that stating biological facts causes them distress.
LastRoloIsMine · 28/02/2021 00:43

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WhatWouldBarbaraCastleDo · 28/02/2021 01:04

Yes. In the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep. But ultimately I don't think we are. We are being asked to lie and that's wrong. People aren't born in the wrong body. They might think they are, but that's different.

Also, I don't think we will ever feel like we have "won", so it will feel like a long, often demoralising, battle. I think the best we can hope for is that people and organisations that should know better stop doing stupid, harmful things. We'll never know what would have happened without this pushback.

I am very unwilling to be lectured by Americans on feminism. I think my mother's generation battled hard and we now have more rights than women there (especially around maternity rights) and are, understandably, more protective of them.

terfinginthevoid · 28/02/2021 01:12

No. Though to me this isn’t a moral issue, it’s not about “good” vs “bad”, it’s about truth and reality vs nonsense.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 28/02/2021 01:35

No. Though to me this isn’t a moral issue, it’s not about “good” vs “bad”, it’s about truth and reality vs nonsense.

Exactly.

Highfalutinlootin · 28/02/2021 01:41

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7Days · 28/02/2021 01:43

It's a good thing to reassess every now and again.
The rhetoric moves so fast, positions get so extreme, it's good for everyone to stand back and say where am I, in this discourse?
For me, it stays the same. Biology exists, and sometimes it matters. Kids cant be sent down a path that leads to infertility and loss of sexual function.
Maybe, personally I get it wrong in particulars. But the principles are correct.

CatChant · 28/02/2021 02:16

Do I examine and re-assess my opinions? Yes, and that's a good thing to do. Opinions should withstand scrutiny, not be adopted wholesale unthinkingly.

I know we're not the baddies because it's reality vs fantasy, biology vs a myth, lies vs the truth. Selling people lies is immoral and it won't work forever. However, I think an awful lot of people are going to be very badly hurt before the madness passes.

quixote9 · 28/02/2021 02:16

Responding to a side issue: your friend who sees dysphoric children all the time.

Does she know that for a fact? Or are some of those children dysphoric about being shoehorned into sexism and misogyny and desperate to escape their fate?

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