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?

Yes I feel this way sometimes, mainly related to your first point. When I started getting involved in discussions around this, I feel like the GC side of things was the more moderate, sane view. I’ve watched as things have become increasingly polarised, as GC people have started promoting views and websites of far right arseholes because they happen to agree on this issue etc. Basically any website or article on the GC side of the coin is now not something I could ever share as an explanation because there’s invariably something I read in it that’s too extreme, unpleasant or insulting for no reason.

The sad part is that I feel separating sex from gender is to the benefit of all and is the more liberal position. It’s absolutely shit that it’s been lumped in with right wing ideology.

My personal feeling at this point is that both sides are digging deeper holes into unpleasantness - while it’s true that there are trans activists who make awful threats to GC women and GC women don’t retaliate, we are at the point where everyone is so angry and fed up that there is no room to consider where common ground exists and what could be achieved. I understand that this is mostly due to frustration at things worsening but it’s not constructive.

When I spend time on MN or Twitter I can see the stressful echo chamber where all trans people and allies want nothing more than total capitulation, and where GC women are kicking off about any tiny thing tangentially related to gender / sex.

Then I remember that the world is not like that at all - most people are either unaware of all this or they are moderate, certainly the people I’ve spoken to in real life anyway.

To be fair the same thing has happened with politics generally over the last five years or so - I am definitely politically left but have watched as both sides of the spectrum have become increasingly extreme in their views.

All humans are baddies.

Just differing levels.

I really think we need to stop comparing our politics to the US. We may share a common language but come on, the UK is nothing like the US. They have some serious issues around gun ownership, ultra-conservative religious views, and some very serious racial prejudice issues that are unique to their country and not ours. The US does not have universal healthcare free at the point of use and are not big supporters of green initiatives. To be right wing in the US is very different than to be right wing in the UK. Boris Johnson would be considered a left-wing politician in the US!

We should stop comparing ourselves to other nations. We have the opportunity in this country to set the narrative. The UK still has some influence through soft power. Once the tide turns internationally, and it will, because as someone has already said things will get worse before they get better.

I have quietly kept my views to myself, bending over backwards when the young people I work with change names and pronouns and get upset when I accidentally misgendered them. My male partner thinks my views are abhorrent, twaw, jk is wrong, I am wrong, the reason our young daughters find shared toilets etc uncomfortable is because of the hang ups I have passed on to them....that It’s not up to me to define woman. However...now our son is affected..underage and being groomed by god knows who and I am getting angry. I can’t keep quiet anymore.

@Ninkanink

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.

I knew when I saw this thread that there' be so many thoughtful and wise posts - and this is one of them.

And I'm pleased that this is being referenced on twitter - because these reasons are why more and more people are speaking out, funding judicial reviews and challenging lobby group captured schools and organisations. As ever - the more sunlight, the better

*littlbrowndog

Nope never. I am a young bigot

I know bigots from all age groups.

Not one not one can even believe this madness

Teens I know mock it

My age mock it*

Glad to hear it. I am very much trying to bring up my DC - school age- to join your ‘bigot’ club.

I try and in-still critical, independent thinking - which include disagreeing with me and seeking out the evidence base for themselves.

I must admit I do find it odd that mimmymum is drawing attention to this thread. She puts so much effort into portraying us as bigots (people who refuse to consider other people's points of view ) so why refer to (not link, obvs - she has to protect people from having to consider our points of views) a thread where we're pointing out how we have considered the other point of view before disagreeing with it

But hey, it gives us more chance to talk about how a self-identified c*s woman took a trans person to court for transphobia and still thinks we're the ones causing harm to trans people.

That's awful @worriedstar
I'm very sorry.

I don't see this as a Left vs Right issue, so I don't particularly worry that I'm agreeing with people who hold other views that I would not support.

The TRAs, too, are a mixed bag of political views: they seem perfectly happy to ally themselves with right wingers, racists, misogynists and homophobes.

Also, it's the bigots and puritans who monitor, censor and silence. It's the TRAs who are doing that.

This is exactly how I feel. I mean Rand Paul, oh my god. I am left wing.

Basically any website or article on the GC side of the coin is now not something I could ever share as an explanation because there’s invariably something I read in it that’s too extreme, unpleasant or insulting for no reason.

I suggest you look up fair play for women, woman's place UK, transgender trend. I'd be interested if you could point me to the extreme and unpleasant stuff on those.

And maybe another thought: the fact that many right-wingers subscribe to GC views does not mean that these views are wrong. More on the Left need to speak out - for the sake of the movement. Sadly, the opposite seems to be happening as more women become politically homeless and end up voting for the only party that hasn’t lost the plot on this.

It’s not a left vs. right issue at all.

Also adding to my comment about feeling conflicted when you see someone who is making a go of transitioning and doing it successfully and whose mental health has been helped by doing so. I have thought that it isn't kind to let people transition because the surgery is risky and never completely successful, statistics say they often end up no better off mentally. But then you see someone who is making a go of it, who has been helped by transitioning and who you would consider to pass as the opposite sex.
It makes me doubt myself. However I do have 3 transpeople in my life, one is deeply unpleasant and the other 2 are not being helped by affirmation, so it swings me back the other way.

@newyearnewname123

Basically any website or article on the GC side of the coin is now not something I could ever share as an explanation because there’s invariably something I read in it that’s too extreme, unpleasant or insulting for no reason.

I suggest you look up fair play for women, woman's place UK, transgender trend. I'd be interested if you could point me to the extreme and unpleasant stuff on those.

There is no way you could share those sites with a friend who believes TWAW is there? I’m not talking about online arguments, I’m talking about trying to discuss the issue with friends who you know to be good people but who aren’t seeing the wider issues. Even the names of the sites are enough to piss people off.

On the front page of TT it states in a large font “no child is born in the wrong body”. Plenty of people with gender dysphoria genuinely believe that they have been - saying that this doesn’t exist is bound to be affronting. It reinforces the idea that the GC position is to deny the existence of trans people. It’s not a good place from which to start.

That’s just from a quick click on the front page. I’m sure there are many more things that would make many people click away.

I have a friend who has a trans teenager - she believes that the right thing to do is to fully affirm her child’s new identity. Any material I could pass on to her would have to be gentle, not an attack.

And I agree that GC views are not inherently right wing, so why are so many GC voices sharing content of far right wingers just because their views align on this? It’s highly likely that even where are views align, it’s for very different reasons.

@Ninkanink

It’s not a left vs. right issue at all.

No, you're right @Ninkanink, but that's why it's so frustrating that so few Lefties will speak up and those that do are quietly shuffled away from (at best) or Duffielded at worst.

"no child is born in the wrong body”

How did we get to a place where this is even remotely controversial? The compassionate stance is to help any child struggling with their body to reach to a place of love, acceptance and respect for themselves, as they are, not to put them on a lifelong pathway of drugs and surgery. Even Mermaids have distanced themselves from "wrong body" theory because they see that it's a hugely negative approach - let's be honest it doesn't stand up to scrutiny. It relies on the notion that identifying with (sexist) gender stereotypes attached to the opposite sex makes you "wrong". Above all else how can anyone empirically demonstrate that the 'soul' is sexed rather than the body?

Do I consider whether I am aligned with the ‘baddies’?

Well, whenever a new study comes out I read it and adjust my thinking if the new evidence persuaded me to. I believe many on this board do this. Is that a ‘are we the baddies moment’? Maybe.

I have never wholly aligned with any political party in my life as there is always good and bad aspects to their manifestos and policies. That’s maybe why I don’t get caught up in the ‘am I agreeing with the right wingers’ issue. I have always found myself disagreeing with things from either alignment.

And I think someone using that as an excuse to silence another person or change their mind is completely lacking in critical thinking. Of course there will be cross overs on this issue, just like on others.

I try to live my life authenticly. Sometimes this means acknowledging things that are very painful that I wish were different. I also seek truthfulness and evidence on important issues.

I find the lack of evidence or the squaring of round pegs to fit from those demanding that people believe is too discordant. I find those repeating these falsehoods to be either misinformed or to be someone who benefits in some way from this falsehood. Even if it is just allowing them to optimistically believe their ideal future will happen eventually.

I find the abusive nature of those forcing others to believe in their reality which I find built on falsehoods to be abhorrent. To be clear, I mean those who threaten, those that seek to silence others, those that deny the conflicts are even there.

I am so concerned for my own child’s mental health with all this happening. Those who seek to destabilize societies knowledge of sex, not gender, but sex need to look at exactly who benefits from this. All the players. Not just their kindly friends or children. All the players.

It is always good to reassess your position. It is important and shows you are always open to taking on new information.

And the point that I'm making about Rand Paul and MTG is that makes it even less likely that a certain group of people (ie Lefties) will speak up. Sharing even some views with a US Republican will be Rubicon for them.

I do sometimes question myself, but I think that is my own insecurity as there are a lot of loud voices online telling me I am wrong, and a few US liberal commentators or writers that I rate who have really drunk the Kool - Aid.
But I realise that I can like someone’s work and disagree with them on this. They would block me in an instant though.

However, I don’t think I am wrong.

The thing that always gets me back is this;
Safeguarding is not sexy. It’s not rainbow flags, glitter, and being in the cool gang where you get lots of praise from people with pronouns or avatars in their profiles.

Safeguarding is saying no to stuff. It’s the filling out of forms, thinking about the daily grind and how children are affected in loads of mundane ways, and picking up the pieces when it all goes wrong.

I may be stretching the analogy a bit, but it’s like being the boring parent whose first job, above all else, is to keep their child safe. And that job does not make you popular.

No makes t shirts with “yay! My Mum’s concerns ensured I would have full sexual function when I was 35!” On them.

No, never - why would I? I don't believe in an ideology which is harmful to children, to women, to vulnerable people.

I have always held the opinion that people are free to dress and live how they want. Great and all but that just isn't what is happening.

People are being forced to lie. They are being forced to say things they don't believe. Language is being twisted and as a result women are being erased as a sex class which has a huge effect on our lives- all in the name of 'kindness'. However this 'kindness' only extends one way.

We're no longer women but menstruators, cervix havers, chest feeders. Even the word Mother and female is under threat.

Children are being given harmful drugs and having surgery at an age when they are not mature enough to make such a decision.
Girls and women are losing our places on sports teams and being placed in danger. Women's sport is being decimated.

Our ability to represent ourselves is being taken away by males who insist they can speak for us on issues which they will never experience.

Women are being threatened with rape, with death. People are being reported to the police if the say the 'wrong' thing. Women can not gather to discuss OUR rights without having to include males in the discussion, if we do we get a mob standing and shouting outside, bomb threats. Men and women are being hounded at home, on social media, they are losing jobs, having to have police escorts. We get called bigots, transphobes, t@rfs, get given labels to describe us that are not needed. Funding is being removed from Dv shelters.

We have to scrabble for every single bit of money just to raise funds to fight for our rights, yet this harmful ideology has the backing of world governments because people have been convinced it is the 'right' thing to do. The police, big companies and institutions have been captured.

Even International Women's Day is centred around men who identify as women. The one day of the year that we are supposed to celebrate our sex we are not allowed to have.

So no, we are not the baddies.

I am pro-woman.

Being pro-woman doesn't make you anti-trans. I support people who have dysphoria but I have to ask how are the TRA's helping these vulnerable people? When this all ends, which it will inevitably as these things do and society moves on to the next cause de jour, what will happen to those with dysphoria? What happens to the children given drugs and mutilated all in the name of progressiveness? What happens to those with a mark against them because they told the truth? What happens to those who have lost their jobs?

I guarantee that all those that chant TWAW won't be around to pick up the pieces.

Deathgrip

Are you implying that those stating no one is born in the wrong body are right wing? Or that it is a ‘the sky is blue’ point of view?

WRT the extreme right wingers, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. We might agree with them that sex is real but not about the consequences of that.

It is good to check your position and test it, particularly over a contentious issue which has a tendancy to push the two sides further apart. But like PPs I keep coming back to the red lines: e.g. prisons, sport, children. And the HOL debate this week showed that this is important and we are getting through to those who matter.

I thought @Daca’s post articulated the wider political context extremely well.

I occasionally have a sense-check on whatever the latest campaign by feminist groups is (at the moment it’s the Census), just to make sure I’m still in agreement with the general direction of travel. But no, I never worry that I’m part of the bad guys. Because:

• I think often about what would have happened to the teenage me if I was growing up in this generation and it scares the shit out of me;

• my best friend, who does politics by instinct, is reliably wrong on everything and usually - after a period of between two and ten years - shifts their position without ever really acknowledging that they were wrong, & is very TWAW. So that’s a useful barometer of what’s going to change in the next few years;

• someone else I know who is EXTREMELY TWAW and identifies as ‘genderqueer’ spent an enjoyable (for me) afternoon on social media recently discussing with their circle how best to refer in a work document to someone who is biologically female. But of course the concept of being biologically female was so alien that none of them came up with anything along those lines. It was a joy to watch them floundering around in confusion, gradually edging closer to the sense that there was something they were missing ... If only they could put their finger on it ....

anyway, that convinced me that it is just not the case that there are people out there on the opposite side of the argument who have a clear, rational explanation for their position. Because even people who have put a lot of time and energy into discussing this subject are deeply, deeply confused about it. They know deep down that there is a difference between trans women and ‘other’ women but they just can’t articulate what it is in a way which doesn’t involve ‘sounding like a TERF’ - well, yeah, there’s a reason for that ....!