Could you stay married to a TRA?

[SapphosRock]

She believes TWAW, their feelings are more important than women’s rights and some lesbians have penises. Get over it. She was on here once upon a time but got permanently banned.
Everything else about the relationship is wonderful. Can we get past this? It seems like a stupid reason to get divorced. Our values used to be fairly similar but she’s got heavily involved in trans activism and I have gone the other way. Sorry for the pity party, just feel quite down about it today. Has anyone else been through similar?

Wouldn't bother me in the slightest
My wife and I have different religious views often vote differently
As long as she doesn't have a dick

@QuentinBunbury

Let's not derail a support thread into debating views on toilets.

Thanks for the timely bunbury intervention. I was off on a tangent and paused and that helped.

Sappho, your wife must be feeling terrible, terrible cognitive dissonance at the moment, but only good things can come of this ultimately. One soul at a time. The later the summit comes, the harder the reconning but all will be well eventually.

Excellent advice. I definitely haven't said 'I told you so'. Just quietly topping up poor DW's wine glass. The friend has a supportive partner so thankfully isn't alone.

That's good. Look after your wife and obviously you'll both be keeping an eye out/ in touch with the friend and/ or the partner.

Just listen and sympathise. Let your wife talk it out.

Whatever is happening, I hope everyone is okay at the end of this.

In the frenzy of the righteous denunciations and the call-outs, it gets forgotten that there are people at the centre of dramas.

There may be hope yet!

I'm so sorry for your wife and her friend. I'm sure she'll appreciate your quiet support.

I’m obviously really upset for DW’s friend

I hope it's a brief period of heat and light and doesn't become more than a storm in a teacup.

Jeez what’s going in peoples lives where horrible men are hurting people in the name of gender politics

Most of us are just trying to survive the lockdown horror affecting our kids nurseries and schools and exams

And then you get this shite

It’s all so classist

@QuentinBunbury

Let's not derail a support thread into debating views on toilets.

Quite right. Sorry Sapphos.

I think there are nice and not-nice people on both sides of the debate (and in the middle). So yes definitely agree with the no-point-scoring.

@littlbrowndog

It’s all so classist

Lots of wealthy white men with influence and power imposing their will on women (as usual)

Sapphos I'm only reading this thread for the first time now, but I've always appreciated your posts here - I know you've been around a while (longer than I, even?) and think you've done a great job in trying to be some kind of ally and accepting in your community without ceding your perfectly rational beliefs.

Just wanted to wish you good luck and keep talking here if it helps.

There’s no such thing as cis fragility - that’s appropriating the words of discrimination that other minority groups need to use, in order to manipulate and gaslight.

Let her work it out with her friend - she will eventually come to a conclusion that sits right with her conscience eve if it takes a while. I’d imagine this thread is being monitored on Twitter so I would avoid saying anything too revealing.

Just caught up and really sorry to hear your update Sappho, although it’s not exactly a surprise turn of events, sadly. Give her time and philosophical space to work out her own response to what has happened to her friend (I know this is how you are approaching it). It must be absolutely bewildering to someone deeply invested in it as a key part of their self-image as a good person, when the scales start to fall and you just cannot deny the red flags any more. I’m sure most of us went through something similar to some extent or other.

I’m also sure Sappho is very well aware of our Twitter monitors and that things posted here are not private. On that note I want to say thankyou for posting anyway Sappho, and again deepest sympathy that this is affecting you so personally.

I've been reading on and off; I'm so sorry to hear about the turn of events. I hope the woman is ok and your DW is too.

You're doing all the right things. I'd find it very hard indeed. I experienced something similar with DH (not GC related) and it changed our relationship though he's moved on now and is mostly on the same page.

I have to focus on forgiving (very hard!) and recognising he has his own opinions due to his own experiences.

So sorry to hear of your loss Prawn

Thanks all. Yes I know about the Twitter monitors (waves). I've been indirectly threatened by them before for stepping out of line.

The lack of self awareness from some of these TRAs is astounding. Bullying allies, stalking women on Mumsnet, ruining careers, attacking LGBTQ organisations that support them. Not really sure what they're trying to achieve apart from alienating people.

It’s just a power trip I think. Other times they’d be bullying other people for ‘the cause’. It’s a type.

I’ve always assumed it’s the ultimate purity spiral “if you’re not with me you’re against me” mentality, without the cognition that no one can be 100% with you when that involves them denying their own reality. Support you, accept you, respect you, maybe if you behave likewise to them - but you can’t expect people to actually believe what they know to be false, just because you do. Plus, just, control, dominance and well, actual bigotry. And as someone very wise once said to me when I was trying to explain abusive behaviour, “some people are just arseholes”.

They sound like extremists.

I had to do the government online prevent training through work and throughout all I could think about is that it sounded so very like how TRAs and gender ideologists work, especially through twitter, Reddit, tumblr, YouTube etc. (And no, those "GC" people don't develop their opinions in the same way; everyone already knows the difference between sex and gender, before twitter monitors try to reverse that. Mumsnet is one of the few places you're allowed to discuss it!)

This illustrates that this relationship issue goes beyond having different personal views, as you’re (both) actively involved in groups etc, bringing the difference to the fore and increasing the chances of events you or she will want to discuss at home, as has happened this week.

Sadly some humans are just prone to it. History is full of it and this is just our little phase. Puritanism, Red Scare, etc etc.

@SapphosRock

She believes TWAW, their feelings are more important than women’s rights and some lesbians have penises. Get over it. She was on here once upon a time but got permanently banned. Everything else about the relationship is wonderful. Can we get past this? It seems like a stupid reason to get divorced. Our values used to be fairly similar but she’s got heavily involved in trans activism and I have gone the other way. Sorry for the pity party, just feel quite down about it today. Has anyone else been through similar?

No, I couldn't. I couldn't cope with the knowledge that the rational feminist I'd married had turned out to be irrational, misogynistic and homophobic. She would no longer be the woman I thought I'd married. It would be like marrying an atheist, only to have them join the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Among the lesbian couples I'm aware of who are going through this (or have already parted) the trans allies have all had preexisting mental health conditions, been on the spectrum or had abuse/ trauma in their backgrounds.

The most active lesbian trans-ally I know is someone who has been telling the world for years that she's autistic, keeps her weight very low so that she looks like an adolescent boy and has for years struggled. with internalised homophobia. Her passion for the trans community makes sense if you see it through those filters. But understanding it doesn't mean I'd be prepared to live with it!