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?

@Ereshkigalangcleg

I wonder are there many TRA forums having these discussions?

Just as a technical point, if you were the 'bad guys' then you wouldn't really expect trans people to be going through this same introspection.

But TRAs are not synonymous with trans people.

Have I taken a trans person to court and had it thrown out on day one? No [waves to Mimmymum 👋].

Do I tell children that they can change sex or that they have been “born in the wrong body”? No [waves to Mermaids 👋].

Do I facilitate that lie by giving children drugs that will permanently harm their bodies, leading to a lifetime of decreased bone density, decreased fertility, decreased sexual function, increased cancer risk, increased risk of stroke, complications of surgery, a lifetime of medicalisation and a potential for unknown side effects, all for the sake of now proven no improvement in their psychological functioning? No [waves to all the gender clinics around the world 👋].

Do I wilfully ignore dangerous males, rapists, sexual predators and paedophiles who claim the identity of woman and pretend “it doesn’t happen”? No [waves to more people than I can mention 👋].

Do I look at Laurel Hubbard, a 40 something year old white male millionaire standing on the podium towering above an 18 year old indigenous Samoan woman, survivor of childhood abuse and foster care Feagaiga Stowers and think it’s fair? No.

Have I ever tweeted JK Rowling, or any other woman who has expressed similar opinions and told her to “shut the fuck up cunt/suck on my transgender lady cock”? No.

So no, I don’t think I’m the baddie.

I've never doubted my opinions on this issue since I first formed them. You cite ultra right-wingers that agree with us but then we are talking about some extremely basic biology here.

To my mind the so-called left that chant TWAW are not left-wing at all. Being left wing is wanting to redistribute wealth and at least create a broad social safety net for the weakest in society. Biden is not and never has been left wing.

I worry about this, especially since I know there are a lot of people around me who would be horrified if they knew my views.

The bottom line is, it makes strange bedfellows on both sides. I find myself agreeing with Marjorie Taylor Greene, on one tiny issue, which is nevertheless disgusting. On the other hand, the people who think they are being nice, liberal and woke are lining up behind the mullahs in Iran when it comes to gender reassignment surgery.

Yeah, sometimes.

I followed Charlie Martin's journey, long before all the shit started to hit the fan and sympathised with her hugely. She's now a Stonewall ambassador and describes herself as a TRA. Up until recently I would have been happy to describe her as a woman, and maybe still would. But I don't see her in the same way as some other TW media darlings or the TRAs who abuse women online. Asfaik she also refers to herself as a transwomen, not a woman.

It's people like her who complicate things for me.
mobile.twitter.com/GoCharlieM

It's not about "goodies" and "baddies", this is just the latter part of the process of social change.

First minority opinions build momentum until they become the majority view. Then the remaining people experience social pressure to conform to this new majority view (this is where you are now). Those that are unable to change their view get a label (in this case "transphobe", but in other examples "racist", "homophobe", "sexist", "technophobe", etc).

If I ever do it's brief and I immediately work through all the stuff around children and immediately know I'm right. I also go and read SevenHex's blog or Miranda and remember there are a lot of sane transwomen agreeing with us.

I listen to the 'other side'. I was sort of the other side inasmuch as "be kind," without a deeper understanding. It's important to hone arguments correctly and be aware that language is used carefully.

There's been some good points on the Levine thread around the language, too stark and it's immediately alienating.

It's exceptionally hard at times.

For example, 1984.

I had no idea there was a whole nuttery conspiracy theory around that and the pandemic, also pre pandemic. Till someone I know of committed suicide because of it.

Stick to the facts and say it plainly.

Unfortunately I agree it will get worse before it gets better.

@NotBadConsidering

Have I taken a trans person to court and had it thrown out on day one? No [waves to Mimmymum 👋].

Do I tell children that they can change sex or that they have been “born in the wrong body”? No [waves to Mermaids 👋].

Do I facilitate that lie by giving children drugs that will permanently harm their bodies, leading to a lifetime of decreased bone density, decreased fertility, decreased sexual function, increased cancer risk, increased risk of stroke, complications of surgery, a lifetime of medicalisation and a potential for unknown side effects, all for the sake of now proven no improvement in their psychological functioning? No [waves to all the gender clinics around the world 👋].

Do I wilfully ignore dangerous males, rapists, sexual predators and paedophiles who claim the identity of woman and pretend “it doesn’t happen”? No [waves to more people than I can mention 👋].

Do I look at Laurel Hubbard, a 40 something year old white male millionaire standing on the podium towering above an 18 year old indigenous Samoan woman, survivor of childhood abuse and foster care Feagaiga Stowers and think it’s fair? No.

Have I ever tweeted JK Rowling, or any other woman who has expressed similar opinions and told her to “shut the fuck up cunt/suck on my transgender lady cock”? No.

So no, I don’t think I’m the baddie.

I wonder what it is we're supposed to have done which would make us worse than the people already doing this.

I doubt myself all the time. But it's precisely that that means I run through the arguments and evidence frequently.

And you know what? I still think I'm on the side of what is right.

Thanks to everyone who has commented, which has been helpful. It is interesting that at one time most of us have questioned our views when, you're right, the TRAs never do. But we dont make death threats or try to get people fired or physically attack people. And safeguarding is at the heart of our concerns.

And to those who've commented on my friend working with children, following anything but the affirmation model during counselling was not permitted. I suspect that will change.

Thanks to the person who pointed out that this has been picked up on Twitter. I'd posit some questions here for those people, but it's too early in the morning to be told to suck someone's....you get the picture.

I don't have a 'we are the baddies' feeling, but more and more feel I beat to a different drum than many people, to use a phrase. Not just about issues such as personal 'identity', on women's safe spaces, but in my view on the economic self-harm called Brexit, and how anyone can see Boris Johnson and this government as remotely capable.

Reposting slightly edited, just in case:

This is about truth and reality vs ideological nonsense.

I have all the compassion in the world for those who suffer with dysphoria. There have been many careful, sensitive, compassionate discussions about that here. Many of us have been fighting for years for their protections and safeguarding too, particularly in the case of young, impressionable and easily influenced people.

We also strongly fight for the rights and protections of young lesbians who need our help now more than ever.

What I don’t do is move over for anybody who thinks they should be free to appropriate my space and that of my daughters, and who wants to steal the language, in law and otherwise, that applies to our biological reality.

No. That is ours.

Great post notbad.

Tras are exceptionally good at breaking or twisting a lot of safeguarding rules.

Another reason I remember very quickly.

Hi OP, what you are describing is the external pressure to conform. You don’t have to internalise this.

Humans periodically have really bad ideas. The United States is an empire that’s projecting its own norms onto the rest of the planet (helped by tech companies that pose as ‘global’ but very much do have a nationality). And even within the US, there are many who question the ideology, it’s just that the ruling class has embraced it. A ruling class that is no longer ‘white’ but multiracial and almost exclusively recruited from a very small socio-economic pool. It’s a decadent elite and the idea that what humans think or feel can transcend material reality is one of their luxury beliefs. It’s the classic story of human hubris - the question is only, when will Icarus get too close to the sun? Good luck OP, you are in a hostile environment but it’s ultimately not about you. (PS: the fact that you have doubts speaks well about you)

Yes, I do occasionally have those moments, and as you say OP I haven't really got many people to discuss with in real life, partly I think because the TRAs have made it all so confusing with their language games that people (lefties) just give up and go "well I'm on the side of the underdog" i.e. trans people, so when you've really read about it you find yourself out on a limb with no one to discuss it at that level of depth with.
I did have one such "Am I a baddy" moment when I was telling my OH about the Julia Hartley Brewer interview regarding breast/"chestfeeding" and how good she was and my OH says "You do realise she's a right wing nut job?" or similar (I'd never come across her).And I was like Ohhhh. I will never get into bed with right wingers. I'm a feminist and a lefty til I die. So then I thought maybe the right wingers and the liberal feminists agree on this issue but for different reasons...and then my brain got scrambled
But when I think about it even briefly, I know deep in my heart that I'm not wrong.

And yes, great post @NotBadConsidering, thank you.

That more people, parents especially, aren’t up in arms is quite something for me to understand (except I know that many people haven’t yet connected the dots, or aren’t aware at all of what’s happening).

Yes it's two factors:

1. They now trust the safeguarding and medical system so much that they can't comprehend that these charities and nhs trusts could possibly be causing harm.

1. Rainbows and glitter and bekind has been sprinkled everywhere and language and "rights" and "marginalised" has been normalised, backed up with misrepresented suicide stats, so that most dare not query actual harm.

This is the only area where safeguarding comes second to individual wants.

Not really. Because i'm a boring person thats quite focused on data and processes. So i like to make sure the process around safeguarding, human rights, equalities are robust. This supports trans people and women.