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 lost one friend in particular because she can't see past the oppressed minority crap and the poor 'trans children'. She loves an underdog.

In real life, most people I speak to are more like WTAF but they fear for their jobs if they speak up.

I recently had someone apologise to me after the Olympics because they didn't believe me about Hubbard. They now get it.

The worst is someone who worked in a men's prison who champions 'trans rights' despite knowing exactly the kind of males who would do and say anything to access female prisononers, and spaces where women and children are at their most vulnerable!

Ah thanks @oldwomanwhoruns. I have had mates who have written to me in the background and said - wow we have been speaking about this with friends and are in awe of you for doing this. A lot do agree but darent speak a word. I keep telling people to listen to Nolan. Some are working their way through and are gob smacked.

@BeautifulBirds

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.

This is a really interesting phenomenon isn't it. People feel entitled to be really rude and abusive about this.

Which because I know they are defending things they don't know about in detail, I now see as simply an outlet for their rage and bad behaviour. Sometimes I think it's the cognitive dissonance making them angry and other times I think they enjoy a chance to be angry and insulting.

Either way, it makes you think differently about people.

You're not alone. I'm feeling quite obsessed about this myself and I was trying to work out why. I think it's because, like you, I've pretty much always taken the side of the underdog. I've been very left my whole life and passionate about supporting the rights of my gay friends. But something troubled me about this whole trans thing.

I think it comes down to a complete failure of critical thinking. People simply do not understand the difference between sex and gender. And if they don't understand that, then no constructive conversation can be had.

I listened to the Stonewall BBC podcast and nearly broke my neck while I was listening to Dr David Bell from nodding so much. He managed to verbalise a lot of what I've been thinking about this whole issue.

It really upsets me because I hate to think that my friends would consider me a bigot or hateful. But I know there is now way to voice my opinions without them thinking that about me. So I just stay silent. And that's the other thing - I also feel that I've let myself down, because now I'm a coward, and I've never been shy to say what I think, ever.

It's all so sad, and so, so fucked.

@secretbookcase ah, but it's fine, it's the right side of history after all...

Many people have accepted the woman's brain in a man's body explanation for gender dysphoria and feel pity for the people with the wrong brain.

That's as far as they go!

They don't worry too much about the people taking their "wrong body" places where the brain wants to go as they don't think about it.

Personally I think the work to do on law, and sport and prisons is more important than convincing friends that they don't understand the implications.

My friends are similar. I've contacted Resisters too.

I think in five years time a lot of this will be like Recovered Memory Syndrome and my friends just won't want to talk about any of it.

The thing is OP the belief that sex matters in law, in policy, in healthcare, in sport, is the middle ground.
We’re not extremists for thinking this as it was the position everywhere until the genderists got their hooks into everything.

It is hard when friends drop you over these views but as other PPs have said, they’re not true friends. We’ve all got friends who have different viewpoints to us eg I have Tory friends, religious friends despite being a leftie atheist. It’s intolerant people that drop friends just because they disagree.

In my 20s here. Lost no friends or family over this

No one I know believes that you can change sex

Not one person

Not gay friends not lesbian friends not straight friends

@Catnuzzle

Ah, found them. My local one has had their twitter feed suspended

email them :-) [email protected]

My friend (30) posts a lot of liberal stuff all over social media. Most I agree with, some trans related stuff I have reservations about due to wanting the best for biological women. I mentioned my view to her in a public space and she literally shhushed me, put her fingers to her mouth, didn't want anyone to hear me.
Laughable.
Can't have a debate with someone who questions her, I had to be silenced.

So yes effectively lost a friend, too.

@Catnuzzle

Ah, found them. My local one has had their twitter feed suspended

Mine too. 😟

If any of my friends thinks I can be bullied or blackmailed into believing things I know from a long career in a biology-heavy occupation to be impossible it means they are no longer the person I thought they were. I just try to leave doors open.

ReSisters sounds like something I need. Thank you.

I think a lot of it comes down to your social class. I am from a working class background, I live in a working class neighbourhood, my friends outside of where I work are mainly working class. The sort of women who have been shat on by men, the ones who have ended up single mothers and live paycheck to paycheck. There is not one of them who believe the TWAW ideology. The only people who I hear talking about this are the young, childless and progressive types. The sort to leap on every band wagon going, like sheep. A dose of the real world will probably wake them up at some point.

This is so true. I was talking about Hubbard to a Sinn Féin guy when the Olympics were on. But I had to fill in the whole back story. He thought it was really unfair but sort of Shrugged? Had to show him a photo on my phone , he literally had no idea.

You can contact the main resisters email and they will contact your local area.

@Youdonthavetobegood

Thanks, I'll look up resisters, they sound up my street.

I think what I find hard is feeling very sure of my views when I'm on my own, but then face with other people (like my friends) who act like I've just thrown the N word into conversation, then I start to doubt my own non-hatefulness. If that makes sense. I've never had anything but right-on Guardianesque views on stuff, so it feels strange to suddenly start agreeing with Tory MPs. Which convinces me that I must be wrong about my opinion! And round it goes!

It's not a bad thing to realize that it's not so simple to choose political sides, and that there are some pretty big blind spots among the right-on types.

@Fucket

I think a lot of it comes down to your social class. I am from a working class background, I live in a working class neighbourhood, my friends outside of where I work are mainly working class. The sort of women who have been shat on by men, the ones who have ended up single mothers and live paycheck to paycheck. There is not one of them who believe the TWAW ideology. The only people who I hear talking about this are the young, childless and progressive types. The sort to leap on every band wagon going, like sheep. A dose of the real world will probably wake them up at some point.

This reminds me of the Deptford Women's Project, that I read about on here. They were a community group for working class women who were dealing with issues like illiteracy, single parenthood, addiction etc. Then some trans identified males joined - who were middle class and university educated, and suddenly the whole thing changed, they dominated and took over. Privileged people who had no idea of the actual problems these women faced.

Like you say, so much of this is being championed by young middle class people who are in a protective bubble, and have little experience of the harsh realities faced by poorer people. Maybe they will wake up to their ignorance some day, but in the meantime real damage is being done.

It frustrates me so much to hear the 'most marginalised' bollocks trotted out, when the government well know, or at least they should bloody well know, that one of the biggest single indicators of a range of issues in adulthood (including addiction, homelessness, incarceration etc.) is childhood poverty. Which is not something you can identify out of.

@Youdonthavetobegood

Thanks, I'll look up resisters, they sound up my street.

I think what I find hard is feeling very sure of my views when I'm on my own, but then face with other people (like my friends) who act like I've just thrown the N word into conversation, then I start to doubt my own non-hatefulness. If that makes sense. I've never had anything but right-on Guardianesque views on stuff, so it feels strange to suddenly start agreeing with Tory MPs. Which convinces me that I must be wrong about my opinion! And round it goes!

The fact that biology is real and can’t be magically changed has been the status quo forever.

So that’s the starting point and if others believe twaw it’s up to them to persuade you, not the other way around. So start by trusting your gut and asking questions to let them try and persuade you, and then use the logic flaws to expose the problems with gender ideology.

I’m in my 30s btw & have known this is horse shit for over a decade, and honestly I felt late to the party then. I think when motherhood hits, especially for those of us who have girls, it brings home how surreal the misogyny of gender ideology is.

You also need to learn to fight against female socialisation- move away from the impulse to be kind and inclusive and keep everyone happy and fix all groups problems. Women are allowed just to centre women’s issues. You don’t need to have all the answers about what should be done to help tw because they aren’t women. It’s ok to just draw firm women boundaries and centre us alone.

@Fucket

I think a lot of it comes down to your social class. I am from a working class background, I live in a working class neighbourhood, my friends outside of where I work are mainly working class. The sort of women who have been shat on by men, the ones who have ended up single mothers and live paycheck to paycheck. There is not one of them who believe the TWAW ideology. The only people who I hear talking about this are the young, childless and progressive types. The sort to leap on every band wagon going, like sheep. A dose of the real world will probably wake them up at some point.

Same here, I live in one of Labour’s red wall constituencies, absolutely nobody I know believes that TWAW.

I live in a v mc v safe Tory seat and no one I know believes twaw, except said Tory mp. Most women I know have been victims of men also.

I do find most people tend to be more outraged than I appear on the surface, yet much less likely to raise it with schools and so on. But then I don’t have a job to loose and I do have girls with autism, so different balance of risk verses benefits.

My dad tonight when I said this just rolled his eyes. We are on episode 4 now of Nolan podcasts. We are listening together (my third time of listening - am literally forcing people to engage )

BloodinGutters, I am pretty sure that your Tory MP doesn’t believe TWAW either.

A friend of mine knows a few Tory MPs. They are extremely careful with what they say externally, almost to the extent that they are paranoid. But nobody she knows thinks TWAW.

Yeah the deptford one was for me the real thing and shocked me

The students trampling all over poorer people as they knew what the poorer people needed

Let us liberate you from your transphobic ways and show you how to live the way we want you to live

Great post bleedingutters