My friendships

[ACovidofWitches]

I have a close group of friends I've know for about 10 years. These are really clever, thoughtful people in their 40's. Two have a disability. Two have experienced domestic abuse that I know of. One experienced sexual abuse as a child (again it could be more than one)

Anyway, one posted on FB today about Janice Turner's latest article - and it turns out they all think she's awful. I had an inkling they didn't share my gender critical views but it's all coming out now. They think Janice has an agenda (that she's targeting vulnerable trans women in the way black women have been targeted by racists because it's a kind of sport, I suppose). They think transwomen experience the highest degree of abuse that any women experience and it's outrageous anyone could try to bar them from refuges. They are such clever people - how can they not see how many women have been murdered in the last year just for starters? They think women supporting Janice are doing terrible harm because if we would only let a tiny minority of trans women in our refuges, we could use our time and energy more wisely and actually achieve something useful.

Not one of these women has ever used a refuge or been in prison or hospital where they have felt incredibly vulnerable (none has children, so they haven't even been in hospital to give birth, for example). I have, in fact, been in one of those (it's the internet, I'm going to choose not to disclose more details) and I can say from horrible lived experience that single-sex provisions matter very profoundly.

I can't continue with these friendships. I believe very strongly in having a wide mix of friends with different beliefs. But I'm sitting here feeling so angry and sad that women could harm their own interests like this. They think their position is a kind one. They think they are being inclusive. I'm so upset, I didn't know what else to do but post here where people understand. I envy those of you who have friends who are on the same page. I hadn't realised these people I respected so much think so differently to me.

No, you're right that there are some weird things that seem to live mostly on twitter, such as the 'likes' thing (I did go so far as to do a few experiments of my own which convinced me it wasn't true). And there is stuff about more trans visibility that unsettles society in a good way, such as showing that gender behaviour really can be entirely separate from sex.

Stonewall though - I'm not a fan of big corporate charities and it has created an award scheme which it then charges to show people how to achieve, and trains people in a highly partisan interpretation of the law. That isn't really a conspiracy theory either.

Jj I definitely agree about being pulled into conspiracy holes. But in my personal experience it's the other way around. I'm finding more and more of the people in my current social group (lefty, liberal, queer) expressing concerns, not the other way around. Just anecdotal I know.

To me its about, do we organize society by sex or gender? And I think sex does matter and we do sometimes need to use it as a category. For instance, sports should be separated by sex. Women who run refuges should be able to exclude on grounds of sex. Etc.

When I started to look into the opposing arguments, all I came across were accusations of bigotry and hatred, shouts of 'no debate'. As a result, I don't have much respect for trans rights advocates. I can think of arguments for brexit, or Christianity, or numerous other positions I don't hold. But trans rights I think is wholly toxic.

For what it's worth I don't think trans rights is originally a men's rights movement - I think it begins with trans people advocating in their own narrow interests, which they are entitled to do - but it definitely attracts misogynists, because they find it useful.