Losing friends, feeling defeated

[Youdonthavetobegood]

This is a lot of your experiences I guess, but I've been following and reading GC stuff for a few months now and have got more and more angry.

I have a couple of good friends who both work in universities, and like a fool, I mentioned my thoughts on the BBC article to them (basically how depressing it was that lesbians being raped is somehow 'propeganda' against trans, rather than called out as abuse.)

Anyway we've had a falling out. I kind of knew they were TWAW, which I respected, but they are also feminists so their reaction has really shocked me, all for signing a letter against the article because it was 'hateful', and the strong implication was that I was a transphobe. Honestly I'm feeling fairly disillusioned about it all. I need to step away for a bit I think. But my inner feminist its just so furious about it, that I can't.

Not much point to this post other than - can I be friends with you? Am I the only one in their 30s who thinks this? am i out of step? why isn't there a middle ground? fucks sake!

I heartily recommend you read both these articles.

They discuss the same concept but from totally different perspectives.

thecorrespondent.com/5696/were-heading-into-dark-times-this-is-how-to-be-your-own-light-in-the-age-of-trump/1611114266432-e23ea1a6

newdiscourses.com/2020/06/woke-breaking-point/

I'm sorry OP, I know it's really hard. As someone on here said before, you feel like you are shouting into the void. I have one friend who understands, but doesn't seem that bothered about it. She agrees that it is bullshit, but isn't as angry as I am.

I also haven't (yet) said much to some other friends who are gay, and I worry they will think I'm attacking their lifestyle or something. Which is totally ridiculous when you think about it, because the trans orthodoxy is incredibly homophobic.

I get really angry about it sometimes, and have to step away for a bit, but I keep coming back because it is too important to ignore. It always shocks me how many women just go along with this stuff, maybe they just want to be left alone and not targeted, or think it will all just work out somehow . Those of us with a little life experience know why safeguarding and boundaries need to be kept in place.

We just need to keep talking about it/ fundraising / supporting other women. That's what is going to keep us going. This will likely get worse before it gets better, unfortunately I think it will take more ridiculousness to wake up the majority of people to the reality of this nonsense. In the meantime we just keep going...

These responses are good to hear, thank you. They all ring true with my thoughts and experiences too.

I really never meant to get into fights with friends over it either (for the selfish reason that it doesn't effect me day to day so not worth fighting over). There's something about this story - maybe because it's about sexual assault - that's really enraged me. The blindness and the denial and the victim blaming and the hushing up. It's so institutional. Why shouldn't the BBC cover the issue? Like they cover a thousand other issues?

Sorry going off on a tangent. This bothered me!

You are right to be angry, however try and let their opinions wash over you. You can smile in a mysterious manner because you know the secret to life, the universe and everything. You know how babies are made, who can get prostate cancer, what a man is, what a woman is, and all kinds of other interesting stuff they don't want to learn.

Why shouldn't the BBC cover the issue? Like they cover a thousand other issues?

This is kind of key. The very fact that this whole area is not treated "normally", either by the media or politicians, indicates a deep institutional rot.

Aside from the "narrow" problem of the attack on women's rights, it provides evidence that our foundations are crumbling. My hope is that as part of fixing the women's rights thing we do some work to repairing some of those foundations.

Helen Joyce is great on this - just insisting that everyone just needs to do their job as they normally would, and not disengage their brains. Go and watch all her interviews.

@digitalvertigo

Just in my 30s and I think this too! People are frightened of not looking 'nice' and 'kind'.

And yet, they don't think the vicious hate mail JKR received is alarming? How 'nice and kind' is that?

I'm absolutely astonished (and dismayed) at how so many women are 'useful idiots' in all this TWAW stuff and collaborating in dogma that is so damaging for women. Nice that the trans lobby can get women to help do their dirty work for them.

I'm especially looking at women who others regard as being particularly intelligent - think leading journalists, academics, women in position of influence.

I think a lot of the supporters of TWAW haven't actually looked into what's happening that closely and think that we really are being cruel to poor little girly boys who just want to pee. I really don't know what we can do to raise their awareness of the real nature of some of the men who want to do more than that...
Incidentally, who do some of these men want to BE us when they so clearly despise us so much?(Rhetorical question!)

I hate the fact that you can't been seen to have an opposite opinion to it all without being verbally abused (transphobe, bigot, terf etc). So now we all have to put up and shut up and dare not have an opposing opinion.

Fistbump of solidarity, youdonthavtobehood. That sounds v tough.

It’s also extraordinary that someone who describes themself as a feminist, as your friends do, could then dismiss, diminish and disbelieve women’s stories of sexual assault, coercion and rape. Did you ask them how on earth that aligns with feminism?? Can I ask if it happened on social media? As social media is kryptonite to productive conversation on this (and many other) topics. In person is far, far better, even with close friends.

Some good ideas for your here to connect. Also, just so you know, it’s completely normal to meet people from here in real life - we all exist in the real world! Maybe there’s someone who is a similar age who lives near you…? (Usual caveats re Internet safety apply).

@ArtemesiaK

I think a lot of the supporters of TWAW haven't actually looked into what's happening that closely and think that we really are being cruel to poor little girly boys who just want to pee. I really don't know what we can do to raise their awareness of the real nature of some of the men who want to do more than that... Incidentally, who do some of these men want to BE us when they so clearly despise us so much?(Rhetorical question!)

I agree, that's why the media capture has been so successful (until very recently).

I'm in Ireland where there is no discourse about this, pretty much none. Most people have no idea what is happening, or that there are males in women's prisons, that young people are being indoctrinated into hormones and surgery, that our government are lowering the age of consent for this to 16 , that Self ID law is already in place and has been for 6 years! We weren't told about this. It's infuriating. If you asked 100 random people on the street, I doubt most of them would know what you are on about.

Our media reports on men who identify as women and commit crimes as actual women so most people are none the wiser. The media capture has been so sinister. What happened to journalists digging for the truth at all costs?

Friend, here.

@Sophoclesthefox

Fistbump of solidarity, youdonthavtobehood. That sounds v tough.

It’s also extraordinary that someone who describes themself as a feminist, as your friends do, could then dismiss, diminish and disbelieve women’s stories of sexual assault, coercion and rape. Did you ask them how on earth that aligns with feminism?? Can I ask if it happened on social media? As social media is kryptonite to productive conversation on this (and many other) topics. In person is far, far better, even with close friends.

Some good ideas for your here to connect. Also, just so you know, it’s completely normal to meet people from here in real life - we all exist in the real world! Maybe there’s someone who is a similar age who lives near you…? (Usual caveats re Internet safety apply).

It's just over WhatsApp, so not public luckily. I'm really trying to see it from her perspective, she has trans friends, they feel (rightly or wrongly) victimised. Just really struggling with this one, for the reasons I mentioned - the diminishing other women's testimony. None of us thinks that transwomen are inherently dangerous, just like not all police are, or not all Catholic priests etc. But the lack of support for the female victims is really scary, like there's a hierarchy of victimhood that only trans people can top.

Real life might be a good call! I will certainly investigate groups, I'm near a big city so hopefully there will be others there

@CreepingDeath 6 years!? I had no idea this stuff had been going on for so long! Sinister indeed! :(

OP, please also consider the current definition of transwoman by Stonewall. Any man who says he is a woman needs to be accepted without question.

We don’t even know if the people in the article had any dysphoria. We just know that they told the lesbians that they were lesbians (whilst having male genitalia).

To silence this discussion is giving a free pass to any male who wants access to women and girls to Self-ID and then fly under the radar.

We have to discuss this. And to protect “genuine” transwomen we need to be able to distinguish them from male predators.

OP I am 100% with you. I knew this was rumbling on in the background but it was only recently I spent the time investigating and joining the dots. The thing that peaked me was listening to Helen Joyce at the Conservative party conference - listening to Kier Starmer talking about Rosie Duffield being unable to attend the Labour Party Conference - and then Kathleen Stock. That’s when I started digging deeper (I knew the Kiera Bell case, JKRowling abuse and things like feminist leaving the Guardian).

I am absolutely furious. So furious it is obsessing me. Once you see it you can’t unsee it. I am desperately trying to get my intelligent female friends onside. I am bombarding them with reading material etc. Some kind of see it and say they do - but they don’t seem that angry. Others I have no idea but I have a lot of younger female friends on my social media and I am posting articles and links and POV almost daily (there is a story daily at the moment). I am at a stage where if somebody gets upset then let them. I have been cancelled by one friend with zero chat or understanding - and basically she can eff off. If she can cancel me that easily and think I am unkind then that’s her loss honestly.

I am really hoping the latest crisis is peaking more people. I am sending friends articles and the stonewall podcast. Some are listening and are shocked. Others keep saying they are ‘too busy’ yeah well whilst you are too busy - the stupid are on Twitter changing laws and telling our kids crap. Women are getting hurt. But go on - get on with your lives. Pisses me off honestly and has certainly opened my eyes up to the women who give a shit and want to invest time learning. Because many haven’t scratched the surface. They haven’t investigated it all. They are still being inclusive and kind. I am daily sending out articles that I am over being kind when women are being hurt, raped, silenced, cancelled, threatened.

Solidarity OP. We are here and we will be heard and slowly slowly the zombies may start to wake up. We need critical mass of voices for others to feel safe to express their views. I am less fearful now.

Keep going.

good post, @Blessex.

I find that because is seems just SO nutty when you spell it out (men in women's prisons, men taking female awards, men thinking they can invade women's changing rooms) that WE seem the mad women. No-one can believe it.

Good advice here. Listen to the Nolan podcasts (hurrah!) Get in contact with others in real life. Campaign

[quote ArtemesiaK]@CreepingDeath 6 years!? I had no idea this stuff had been going on for so long! Sinister indeed! :([/quote]
Yes, in Ireland Self ID law was introduced in 2015!! Which means the secret lobbying started a while before that.

I certainly had no idea until very recently. If you read the Denton's report, it was strategically planned that way, they didn't want people to know .

Oh come and be friends with me!

I’m in my 30s, I have one TWAW friend who is taken in but knows my views and has now agreed maybe we do need third spaces. This was once I showed her an article in the guardian about Karen White.

The rest of my friends know it’s bullshit but think it’s a niche issue so I can’t rant about it too much 😂

@oldwomanwhoruns

good post, *@Blessex*.

I find that because is seems just SO nutty when you spell it out (men in women's prisons, men taking female awards, men thinking they can invade women's changing rooms) that WE seem the mad women. No-one can believe it.

Good advice here. Listen to the Nolan podcasts (hurrah!) Get in contact with others in real life. Campaign

Exactly, it's almost too ridiculous that most people just back away slowly. And those of us who know more and are angry can easily be perceived as a little obsessed and crazy.

The thing is, a few years ago it would have been totally insane to even contemplate this, so of course it's weird - and saying that men wanted to be in a women's Olympic event would have gotten you laughed at.

I guess we're not laughing anymore .

I struggled to accept that my former friends couldn't see the issues with gender ideology and thought me an irrational bigot. It still makes me sad three years on. Yesterday members of a 'female only' FB group I was in rounded on some other women who were against TW being invited to join. There were the predictable knee jerk accusations and injunctions to be kind, along with 'JKR is clearly a transphobe' so that's another space gone. :-(

I think a lot of people just can't believe what's happening, the cognitive dissonance is too strong. Even my own DH - who has listened to me ranting for years now, who is GC, who has read the BBC article, who has listened to much of the Nolan podcast said to me today at lunch

"but the word "woman" is defined in law so even if activists can try and challenge things they won't get very far"

I just want to weep sometimes, if after all this even he doesn't see that the aim of the mantra "transwomen are women" is exactly to change the definition of "women" and make every reference to "women" in equalities law and policy include males. And that the media, the courts, the prisons, the civil servants have all been captured and brainwashed into thinking this too.

I was talking to someone I greatly respect yesterday, she seemed to think the issue ends with prisons and we can sort it out on a case by case basis. She's still in the 'be kind' phase, told me about a couple of trans women she knows who are 'The most womanly women I know'. Err....hello. what does that even mean? Anyway i didnt push it with her because she seemed to think I was exaggerating the issue and I hadn't even got started. I was really torn between not wanting to damage our relationship, which I'm really keen to preserve, and filling her in on the realities of where that kind of approach has taken us. So I completely understand where you're coming from. It's so difficult.

I think I'm fortunate in that I haven't fallen out with anyone yet, through I have basically agreed not to discuss it with the Woke DD (other DD is GC, though not as enraged as I am).

Most of the friends I have talked to, even the Guardian readers, think that the current situation is at best crazy and at worst deeply worrying.

@PurgatoryOfPotholes, that second article, the James Lindsay one, is an absolute belter. Thanks for sharing.

I recently had a fairly intense discussion with some women friends about trans women in sport. Their argument was, anything is ok as long as they 'pass as women' (WTAF?), and if you get lose your place in the team or get beaten by a man who is calling himself a woman, well, there is always going to be somebody stronger or faster than you, so it's just one of those things and we should just be nice and let them join in.

I could cry...