I don’t fit in anymore

[Slowwormwiggle]

Everyday I feel I have less in common with my female peers. I am in my mid 40s I have always worked in the charity sector. I care about social justice and volunteer in my community. I am no saint but a sense of duty was drummed into me at an early age due to a religious upbringing. I am no longer religious but believe in being a good neighbour and trying to help others.

I have many wonderful and kind friends. I would say we all consider ourselves feminists and care a lot about women’s rights. However I am finding their version of feminism so hard to understand. They are obsessed with supporting issues like young people identifying as non binary or trans. I have two young daughters and am horrified by the social contagion that could influence my daughters to think there was something wrong with their bodies.

At the same time they are outraged by any violence against women (rightly so) but they see no safeguarding risks with the compromises girls are expected to take to accommodate trans girls. I don’t understanding why they can’t see the link? Why is suddenly ok for a girl to see a penis in the changing room?

I have also worked for a long time with women from traditional religious backgrounds. I know they feel more and more pushed out by the way these issues are developing. The irony is my friends would be horrified if these women faced racism however they don’t see how the issues around trans women make life even harder for these women. These women will just shrink from public life even more if they are under pressure to compromise their beliefs.

I am starting to think that a lot of the activist issues are really just luxury views held my women that are not affected by them. My friends are women with secure work and homes . There is very little they have to fight for.

We are all left leaning but there is so much they see as important that I don’t. I want to stop domestic violence and poverty, not obsess about trans rights.

I am a total coward. When we talk about this stuff I say nothing or just try and change the subject. It make me feel lonely and wonder if I am the misguided bigot?? They would definitely think I am awful for questioning any of these issues.

OP I completely understand. I work in the charity sector too & like you am baffled by the cognitive dissonance between “we must stop violence against women & girls & do all we can to keep them safe/ TWAW and should be in womens spaces”

I don’t talk about it at work & so far it hasn’t come up but I’m bracing myself that one day it will. I would lose my job if I made too much fuss so I do what I can in other ways - contributing to funds, writing to my MP, picking up orgs who misrepresent tje 9 protected characteristics

You can only do what you can but I sympathise completely - I’ve lost friends o wr this and it’s horrible to feel you can’t have an honest discussion about it

I understand.
I keep trying to educate myself in an attempt to get where they’re coming from, but every time I do I end up more GC.
I didn’t expect my non-controversial views to ever be considered hateful or bigoted, yet here we are.

The irony is my friends would be horrified if these women faced racism however they don’t see how the issues around trans women make life even harder for these women.

This. And women with Autism. Women with dementia. Disabled women.

This kind of person is usually so right on in their awareness and care for protected characteristics and inclusion and equality and removing barriers. I find it absolutely heartbreaking how all of that is abandoned on the spot if finding a solution that includes those women too would involve saying no to a male person.

It makes me wonder how much these values are merely performative in society, and it makes me realise how deeply trained women are in prioritising by biology. While dutifully repeating the mantra that sex isn't binary. It's bloody well binary in deciding who gets 'included' by being given all the choices for their best fit, and who just gets excluded and had better not open their mouths about it. It's downright horrible values.

Hello sister. 👋
I’m the only one on my team without pronouns and have very obviously been sidelined. We’ve reached an uneasy truce.
Hold tight.

I also find it deeply sad that activists complain so bitterly about female people prioritising biology - and yet wholly relying on them doing so.

If female people didn't care about biology they would stop subordinating themselves to anyone born male, and demand and expect actual equality of values, treatment, entitlement, voice. And then the activist movement would really be in trouble.

Solidarity. But you won't be the only one, I promise. Many of us are necessarily stealth.

There are more of us than you realise, there could be a colleague who feels exactly the same way but the culture of fear means you stay silent and disconnected.

All I can say is you have like-minded women among you and you have found some of them here.

Me too OP. It's difficult to reconcile the reality of women's lives and the ideology of the TRA movement. And so many people have just accepted it. It's bizarre and disturbing.

Same. I've expressed similar elsewhere and had comments like 'hmm sounds a little Terfy'. A woman having an opinion about being a biological woman and private spaces, the shock and horror and temerity of me having these wrongthoughts! It's very, very disturbing the lack of awareness my more woke friends have. I definitely agree there's a lot of performance about it from people these changes don't affect and little understanding of the reality the impact will be on vulnerable and marginalised women.

I'm with you in solidarity too op.

Hoping the tide will turn.

Welcome to the pit of horrible vipers, OP. And while it can feel lonely and it's bleak noticing the widespread logic failures of many, I know that all the people I've met through this issue are the most intelligent, thoughtful, courageous, insightful, compassionate and honourable people I've ever known. And we have better snacks.

I've felt the same. I have found this article really helpful in reaching out to broach my concerns to a friend:
www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgwh.2022.818856/full?fbclid=IwAR1GmMyg9yC58i3SargXSSpsw1NgaVoD6raB8cz40YuEgx9VxFTr5A4m4OQ%E2%80%9C

I said I was finding hard not to agree with it and could she help me with my feelings about it. Friend found it hard too! Was a bit of a turning point.

Most of us here started out where you are and have learned to be subtle and brave, ask difficult questions politely and give out little signals to encourage all the other woman who are in exactly the same position and thinking the same thing to spot you.

You may have a Resisters group near you. Try googling. My Resisters group is on Twitter. If you're in Scotland contact Women Won't Wheesht. If you're in Wales, try Merched Cymru. There's also the Women's Rights Network:

www.womensrights.network

Or you can go along to an event Standing for Women, Filia, protests such as the one held for Jenny earlier this week, and meet other women who share your views. There are thousands of us.

Thank you all, you are all so kind. I desperately feel like woke middle class women are letting other women down. People seem obsessed with virtue signalling rather than real problems,

That's because they don't actually care about women from minority ethnic groups or minority religious beliefs or disabled women etc. They care about 'identities' that align with their ideological beliefs, and not fully formed human beings. It's all about performance of piety. The ideological belief says you have to make a song and dance about how horrified and upset you are about injustice. But the moment an injustice has the potential to disrupt the ideological belief, then the ideology should always be prioritised over the injustice.

I don't think I have met any kind of 'social justice warrior' that came across as genuinely ethical. It's all superficial mantra chanting and acting outraged on someone else's behalf to fit in with everyone else and avoid being a social pariah.

I work in the charity sector too, and I notice particularly some of the larger national organisations are pronoun-central, but on the ground it's quite different, I know quite a few people who think it's bullshit but are worried about their funding. I also think there are a lot of people who just acquiesce because they don't really get it and think they're being right on. There are a few women who are fighting back against this in DV / women's organisations, but very few vocally.

I see parallels too in that I've also been really disappointed that charities have been pretty quiet about the inequalities issues with Covid, lockdowns and people being reluctant to be vaccinated - whatever your own views about these they are having a massively unequal impact, particularly on ethnic minority communities but also in the working class, but the main charities seem remarkably silent, with management just fawning over each other on social media completely out of touch.

That was cathartic!

Yes, Nonny.

These issues have been a sobering awakening for me. Hard work sometimes to constantly check and assess and question, but given current political scene, I think sensible. I'm far less likely to accept orthodoxies now. I look for evidence and seek several sources and check conflicting views. I hope improved my critical thinking skills. And encouraged reflection.

Looking at it politically, OP, I would say this has revealed serious deep flaws and fractures in our systems and legislature. The left seems especially to be struggling with identity politics. (I lean left).

I don't know if complacency and a tendency to righteousness is the problem. Charitably you could say the left looks for the best and is maybe more easily blinded to the worst in people?

You’re not alone I promise. So many of us feel exactly the same.

I think what’s messing with my head as well is the contrast with my previous life. I left a restrictive controlling religion. I assumed I would find freedom and lack of judgment amongst my liberal friends. However they are so obsessed with purity and judgement. I live between 2 worlds. I have managed to maintain a good relationship with religious family and friends. The irony is despite having very different beliefs we are happy to be friends and spend time together. My liberal friends seem to have no one in their circle different to them. They have the luxury of never having to wrestle with what it means to love someone and still disagree with them.

When brexit happened I upset a friend by pointing out that some people from ethnic minorities voted to leave (we all voted remain). She couldn’t cope with this fact. I know it’s a minority but it’s stupid and racist to believe that people from ethnic minorities in the UK are a monolith and all think the same. My liberal friends can only understand people from one point of view. They can’t see the nuances and complications. They only want to be seen as good people who help others and the people they help can only be seen as worthy of that help. It’s such a immature way of seeing the world.

Sorry I think I am rambling now , there is so much I am questioning. A lot of it is realising how patronising and controlling a lot of supposed “do gooding “ is. I am sure I am guilty of colluding with this in the past as well.

Well, it's good to examine motivations. But overall wanting to 'do good ' is a good thing, if that's not a tautology! So don't beat yourself up, OP.

Yeah I went through the same thing, people want inclusion and diversity but what that actually means is that they want people to think like them.

Brexit was one of the factors that changed how I thought as well, I also voted remain, but I completely understand the reasons why people didn't. I think there is an assumption with the well-meaning liberals to assume that people are being irrational in their votes and if only they were a bit more "educated" then they wield have voted differently, but people weren't being irrational in voting for Brexit, they were just using different criteria to make their decision as to whom to vote for (stick it to the Government).

I noticed NCVO (the National Council of Voluntary Organisations) have released a new publication in terms of future strategy for the sector, and one of the things in it they mention is the culture wars and how the role of charities should be to seek consensus. I strongly disagree with this, I'm not sure it's ever possible to get consensus that just seems like a pipe dream, what charities should be doing in my opinion is looking at how they can support people to communicate different experiences and views without the expectation that we're all going to agree on the same things, because the implication of "reach consensus" is "agree with us". Expecting everyone to agree just seems like a form of immature student politics.

Yes I think brexit was a big game changer for me. It totally revealed the patronising controlling attitudes the left have towards the working class who voted to leave. I didn’t like the result but was willing to accept the democratic process. I was shocked by people’s inability to understand a different point of view.

That’s really interesting about NCVO I will have a read. The “reach consensus “ thing is chilling.

The big difference I find with the religious community i used to know and the liberal community is self obsession. It’s not healthy but the religious group I was part of was all about denying the self . So for example if you did a good deed you didn’t boast about it or share. It was between you and God. My liberal left friends are all about self promotion in the guise of activism. I’m not saying it never makes a difference but its as much as about their image as it is about the issues. I don’t want to go back to the pious self denial but there has to be some healthy in between. I find the activism stuff so cringey!

I feel you, OP.

It's here www.ncvo.org.uk/about-us/media-centre/press-releases/2846-ncvo-road-ahead-2022-helps-charities-chart-route-to-new-practicality-amid-constant-uncertainty

Maybe my reading of it is a bit uncharitable (no pun intended!) but it jumped out at me as naive and misguided. I am from a working class family, so it does affect me directly as it's my family and friends that some people are looking down on. I've particularly noticed it with Brexit first but then also Covid.

Do they use the internet?

my sister is 50 and she didn't even know about Hubbard at the last Olympics and knows nothing of the swimmer in America until I explained it to her yesterday, I caught her watching the Olympics and had to explain why she should boycott it.

she knows absolutely nothing about it all.