I need some new friends - I not going mad am I?

[Sneakyfox]

So today, I lost two friends, people I respected, and I respected their opinions and I made that very clear, even if we didn’t agree.

My charges:

1. I objected to being called ‘a body with a vagina’ - apparently it’s my fault /and faults of people like me, that research hasn’t happened into ‘women’s issues’, because I’m focusing too much on language.

2. I said that rapists (no matter how they identify) shouldn’t be in women’s prisons.

I was found guilty as charged on both counts and deleted.

I was very polite, emphasising that I respected others’ opinions. But apparently these two above opinions were beyond the pale.

I’m not going mad am I?? Because it feels like it.

Better off without them.

You're not going mad, the rest of the world is

Well if you are then so am I. I got into a row over a child sex offenders right not to be dead named. It's like subliminal programming has washed away all reason.

They are the mad ones, not you.

I started speaking up about this in 2016 and I’ve lost friends over it - none of them close luckily, just a lot of FB friends who unfriended me.

My DH’s relationship with his childhood best friend - who grew up into a woke leftie misogynist - is over as he was so rude to me about my beliefs, which DH shares.

My brother and sister in law are also woke TRAs and our relationship with them is badly and likely permanently damaged.

A former work friend who was quite close has recently cut me dead coinciding with some public activism of mine that clashed with her voluntary role at a very woke ‘feminist’ organisation.

I still don’t regret speaking up, as I know I’m not wrong about this.

I’m really sorry, though. It’s so hard to see friends fall for this absolute shit storm of misogyny. It feels as though they’ve been brainwashed.

Oh gosh, I am so sorry. I feel very lucky that my friend hasn’t cut me off - you will see by my other thread that we are able to have different views and discuss this like adults.

How close were they? My friend and I are very close and we both know we are both good, kind people. That makes it easier for us to listen to each other and not leap to conclusions and suspect the other person of having some sort of hidden agenda.

She is one of only two non-family members people I dare discuss this with though.

I am sorry this happened to you and hang in there. I feel more hopeful we can discuss this issue more openly in the future, thanks to the many woman who have put their heads above the parapet in the last couple of years (at great personal cost to themselves).

You’re not going mad

If someone can’t respect your perfectly reasonable objections to not being dehumanised by being referred to as a slab of meat, then they are the ones being intolerant.

I know everything you guys are saying is true and it’s holding my head high! I didn’t even go full on GC, my objections were as above - which I will always believe are fully reasonable. My main aim is to protect my kids from this, they are 5 and 6, daughter and son and they are already vulnerable due to being adopted. If anyone comes at them with this shit - on top of what they already have to deal with, I will take their heads off (literally, of course, not actually…wouldn’t want to be accused wrongly of (literal) violence)).

I am in endless debate on this subject with friends from both ‘sides’. It’s hard to get anywhere when someone always thinks they’re right and the other wrong. It’s possible to be a little bit right and a little bit wrong. These binary absolutes and polarised opinions are destroying so many friendships and alliances and it’s very sad. I’d call you pals and ask to meet up again and accept that none of you are completely right or completely wrong in this one. It’s not worth the fall out. Or you could just stay in an echo chamber forever.

I'm sorry to hear you lost friends but you are definitely the sane one. I actually can't understand what mental gymnastics people must go through to believe any of this woke bs.

I recently watched a documentary on the children of god cult, it reminded me of the types of people involved in this woke abuse of children, erasure of women and complete detachment from facts and reality.

Madness is the inability to perceive reality. Hearing voices. Giant rabbits and all that.

You seem OK.

Sorry for your trouble. I've lost a few FB ppl. And detect a certain froideur from a few irl. But you really will go mad if you have to keep up a pretence with everyone.

If you lost them over that then they were not worth having as friends.

I have recently deleted someone I have been friends with for years, because she posted a JKR quote and then called her a Terf in the comments.

I wouldn't stand for racist comments, I'm not standing for sexist abusive ones either, no matter how old the friendship.

@Jaysmith71

Madness is the inability to perceive reality. Hearing voices. Giant rabbits and all that.

You seem OK.

🤣🤣🤣🤣💪💪

But @Billi77 how could I be wrong when all I said was that a rapist had no place in a women’s prison and that I objected to being called a ‘body with a vagina’ regardless of my other beliefs, that is truly all I said. How could what I said be ‘a little bit wrong?’.

This aggression and "othering" to people who don't share your views is disturbing and upsetting. Its not just GC issues.

A few years ago I found myself under fire for all sorts of reasons. Sympathy for Brexit - give me my due I had lived in a couple of other European countries and spoke four European languages, but no anyone who was not a solid remainer had to be racist. Sending my DC to private school - the irony being that the people so keen on the principle of state education rented for a year in other catchments, therefore depriving other children of local places, whilst I was working and earning and scrimping to afford the fees. Even having a car, despite being responsible for my mother's care, and not being sufficiently environmentally friendly. (By people who took endless holidays.) I never dared admit that I thought Jeremy Corbyn was a loon.

The one day I woke up and decided that my views were also valid. Gender issues were the final straw. There is something dangerous and sinister about the #nodebate and the dismantling of safeguarding and reasonable women's boundaries.

I lost some friends, but strengthened others. People who had felt similarly silenced but now feel free to share views, discuss and debate, without being "called out". These are your friends. The others are tedious and probably not very bright.

I've also lost a few friends for what I still think were very moderate feminist views (not unlike yours). It really shook me for a long while - I wasn't used to being perceived to hold unacceptable opinions! Oh well. I've gone a bit 'least said, soonest mended'; I have mixed feelings about that, tbh. I've learned that I'm more concerned about social approval than I'd realised.

And I had people who messaged me privately to say they agreed, but couldn't put their own head above the parapet...

I dunno. It sucks.

OP, I think you just have to regard these people as suckered into a cult. They are lost to reason, and to you as friends, unless or until they manage to leave the cult by themselves, and see through the brainwashing.
If they are so far gone as to chant reality-defying mantras, and are happy for women to be labelled as slabs of meat and incarcerated with intact rapists, then there is probably no hope for them.

@Sneakyfox you are not wrong! I came to MN via the JKR meltdown and stayed as I realised I have found my people. Welcome

Bodies with a vagina is a disgusting thing to call women, only made even more disgusting by conversely referring to bodies with a penis as men.

Rapists are a danger to women and should be locked up and locked up as far away from women as possible. I can't believe that people think it's right to lock them up with women, they may as well not bother locking them up and they don't, half the time!
Make my blood boil.

You are not going mad and you are, on these two points at least, 100% right!

Not going mad at all. I am beginning to think that there are a lot more of us on the wrong side of history who are getting stronger and more emboldened to actually speak out.

My dh mentioned a sign he saw on a railway bridge and commented that women are starting to become politicalised rather than a few “hard line feminists.” And a big thank you to those hard line feminists for not giving up but getting me and many others politicalised rather than doing as we’re told and being kind.

You're not mad OP.
You might be:
Sad.
Drained.
Angry.
Frightened for your rights.
Floored at people's keeness to declare they just love the emperor's new frock, and tell them how stunning they looks.

But not mad.

@GroggyLegs

You're not mad OP. You might be: Sad. Drained. Angry. Frightened for your rights. Floored at people's keeness to declare they just love the emperor's new frock, and tell them how stunning they looks.

But not mad.

Yes. They has a brave and stunning new frock.

The grammatical horrors alone are bad enough to keep me awake at night, let alone the threat to women's rights.

for OP.

I struggle to respect people who are so fanitical they are unable to tolerate someone who believes in biology over genderd souls.