What made you change your mind?

[JellySaurus]

There have been many discussions on MN with supporters of trans ideology. For thoughtful, engaged posters, the main sticking points appear to be TWAW and Tw are at greater danger/risk of suicide. Posters appear to be deeply committed to these beliefs regardless of the lack of supporting evidence.

It seems to me that there is a parallel here with people deeply committed to religious beliefs, such as life after death. Beliefs that inform their conduct and without which they cannot consider themselves to be ‘good people’.

We used to describe the process of becoming gender critical in mountaineering terms (now banned) but for some people is this perhaps more of a conversion? From believer to atheist.

Is this meaningful to you? In terms of a change in your beliefs, what made you change your mind?

I never believed TWAW but I think I was more of the 'be kind' and make the TWs welcome. I remember when the whole Jenner situation happened and I was very much 'oh they look lovely, welcome to the woman club' but did I actually think they were a woman? Of course not (for obvious reasons).

I think I was a bit of a slow burner realisation around the Karen White horror and Challenor and then Lily Madigan. After all that, I stopped feeling like I needed to be kind about it anymore. The wider prison issue and woman's sports cemented how I feel.

Then later, a TW joined my office and I saw how frightened senior management became to deal with their considerable subsequent fuck ups and I realised how far in the wrong direction things had gone.

Mnetters were all terribly MC and obsessed with making sure Tabitha and Oscar ate nothing but an organic diet, right?
Having no kids, not middle-class and being a bit of a wannabe hipster, I thought Mumsnet would be silly middle-class women losing their shit over their little darlings not getting into the right school etc. This was my own internalised misogyny, helped along by those such as Stewart Lee who use Mumsnet as a punchline - simply because mums aren't supposed to have anything at all of value to say, I suppose:
I think I first had a look at Mumsnet for a bit of a laugh, I'm ashamed to say, but reading through the FWR threads was a revelation as they put into words all the niggling doubts I had about the TWAW movement.

I doubt very many people at all actually believe TWAW, but they go along with it because that's the current fashionable doctrine of their tribe. I've always been part of the lefty, alternative, arty crowd and so accepted gender identity ideology in a vague way without knowing much about it. I seriously considered calling myself non-binary at one point, because I don't 'identify' with either masculine or feminine stereotypes, and thought it would be such a relief if others didn't project their prejudices and expectations onto me. It didn't take me long to dismiss it, however, as I thought about all the people I knew from different walks of life and imagined declaring that I was non-binary to them and demanding they use they/them pronouns. It just felt incredibly entitled. Social contracts are about mutual respect and exchange. There are definitely far too many inaccurate gendered projections put on me and sexist expectations I experience from others, but you can't simply demand that other people see you as this special category of human unlike all the other basic bitches. That's not how social interaction works, and it's not how you combat sexism.

If the word pk is banned it really isn't the words or the way we are expressing ourselves that are the problem it's the fact that we are expressing ourselves at all.
Pk => TMWIKIHHE (The moment when I knew I had had enough)??????????
or => IKIWSTDOIW (I knew I was sick to death of it when)??????????????
or => TSTBTCB (The straw that broke the camel's back)?????????

I am a firm believer in the desiderata "As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all people.

But there are limits...

Penpalgal
"There are definitely far too many inaccurate gendered projections put on me and sexist expectations I experience from others, but you can't simply demand that other people see you as this special category of human unlike all the other basic bitches. That's not how social interaction works, and it's not how you combat sexism."

I completely agree and think you have phrased it very well here.

Thank-you, toastfairy, but I think I also should have added that it's not reality. There is no other special category of human inbetween the sexes. I am female. I may not be 'typical' in some ways, possibly on the spectrum, but I am nevertheless female and we need to broaden our ideas about how females can behave and experience the world, rather than entrench sexist ideas of what women are, and to claim that performing these stereotypes is enough to actually be a woman.

I never believed TWAW but I was happy to “be kind” and go along with it.
I had a semi-peak moment when Caitlin Jenner won woman of the year. The same year Jenner killed a woman by driving recklessly. I realised CJ had only won the woman of the year award (over female scientists, female entrepreneurs, females who had survived war torn countries to go on to do something incredible etc) was simply because CJ has a penis. That’s it. The realisation that CJ had won woman of the year simply for having a penis.
I was then tipped over into full peak when I read an article in the Guardian about a transwoman who had just been released from a woman’s prison. I had no idea that was happening.
I’ve never been able to play along and “be kind” since.
The Guardian convinced me of the complete misogyny and risk of it.

I never believed TWAW, I just try to be respectful and kind to others generally in life.

However, I have a big problem with bullies. The TRAs have become increasingly authoritarian in their approach, and have overstepped in a big way, it’s not a culture I want to live in. Biological sex has to be recognised too, even for trans people. Women should not be at risk of assault in prison, on hospital wards, and they shouldn’t have to compete in sports with people who have a significant biological advantage over them. It’s gone too far.

I've spent the majority of my working life either in the public sector or in front line services and have met people from almost every walk of life, including men who were Adam on Tuesdays and Amanda on Thursdays, transitioners, detransitioners and retransitioners. If I'm honest I felt a bit sorry for them, thinking they were deluded but harmless. I wouldn't have worried too much if I'd met them in the toilets.

I was probably influenced by high profile Trans people like Caitlyn Jenner, Lynette Nusbacher or Chas Bono and thought nobody would go to all that trouble just to get a look in the women's loos. Like most people I though "Living as a woman" was still a thing and a precursor to surgery. I had no idea that self ID was even being mooted.

I think it was the no-platforming of GG that started me on my upward ramble. At the time I didn't get what her problem with TW was but the backlash against her made me deeply uneasy. I don't think any topic should be off limits for debate, especially in Universities. I know not everyone will agree but I'd argue that even Holocaust deniers shouldn't be banned but allow their arguments to be debated and refuted with evidence. As we often say on here sunlight is the best disinfectant.

I stumbled on Mumsnet sometime later and at first took no notice of FWR (I would never have described myself as a feminist then) but some post title must have piqued my interest and it was as though the curtain had been drawn back to reveal the whole shitshow. Men in women's prisons, men in charge of rape crisis centres, women sacked, arrested and silence for simply stating biological fact. I totally understand and agree with GG on this now.

I can't stand Harry Potter and disagree with JKR on Indy so didn't really pay her much attention before the stooshie over THAT tweet. Now I think she is an absolute Queen among women and if anyone deserves to be called stunning and brave it's her.

So thank you to Germaine, Joanne, Maya, Allison and so many other brave women and thanks to all you amazing vipers who have helped me climb that mountain and reach the summit...

I don't think i ever believed TWAW, but i guess i was unaware that trans no longer related only to those few who had struggled for a long time and made the decision to transition, with surgical interventions. I knew a trans woman for a while, assumed she'd surgically transitioned ( no idea if that was true or not), she was perfectly nice and i thought it was the right thing to do to support people who were in that position where they felt they had no alternative. I changed my view gradually over time, so there wasn't one thing... the things that i think were most influential for my view were a bbc article about lesbians being shamed into dating transwomen, a constant stream of MN posts about trans adolescents among posters children, children's friends, school pupils etc. And then the realisation that trans now includes a lot of people who basically want to "cross dress" for want of a better term and expect all the things that go with being a member of the opposite sex as a matter of course. The more i learn, the more difficult it is to believe how little i knew, how pervasive the ideology is and how much impact it has on other groups, particularly women and children. Total ignorance until the slow drip of information started me questioning.

Lily Madigan, Aimee Challenor, Jess Bradley. In a nutshell.

I never genuinely believed TWAW in a biological sense (although I went on to graduate in something entirely different, I originally intended to study human biology, so I've always been a bit of a nerd in that respect). I used to be very much on the "be kind" train, though.

The individuals mentioned made me pivot because: I went to uni in the 2000s. Jihadism was all the rage at higher education institutions back then (among some demographics, that is). In fact, I went to the same university - a couple of years later - as the man who went on to become "Jihadi John - Head Executioner of the IS". We overlapped by a year. I shall forever have the questionable honour of being able to say "I went to uni with that guy!".

LM, AC, JB, reminded me of these days! I remember vividly attending a seminar at uni and being told in no uncertain terms that the likes of me were please going to go one floor up to use the bathroom - because the one next to where my lab was taking place was also opposite the Muslim* prayer room - which had been taken over entirely by the Jihadi crew. I was, literally, too afraid not to comply. And yet, I recognised then how authoritarian it was. It's not a good look if this is what you remind me of!!!

• for the record: I was married to a Palestinian Muslim at the time - this is not about religion/race. He was studying at the same uni, and he was as horrified as I was! We were both targeted: him for being "of the faith" but not into the whole Jihad thing; myself for being married to a "brother" and for failing to comply. It was terrifying. For all that went wrong between my ex and myself later: I wouldn't have coped without him being there!

(Damnit ... the bullet was meant to be an asterisk!)

I supported a TW friend through transition, and hadn't really thought deeply about it. There were a lot of awful comments directed their way.

And then I saw something about the IOC's decision to allow TWs to compete at the Olympics if testosterone levels were below 10nmols (or whatever it was), and thought that was bad. I asked a VERY feminist friend for her opinion and she was all for it (still is, so we've drifted apart), saying that inclusion was wonderful.

But it didn't sit right with me, and I saw threads about it on here, read them, then read further, saw the utter nonsense (and horror) spouted on Twitter, and then realised how easily they were compromising women's hard-fought rights.

DH got really irritated by how much I talked about it, but gradually he realised how awful it all is too, so he's fully GC now as well.

I think for most people, being confronted with an unfair situation - whether it be sport, or TWs in women's prisons, or men winning women's awards - that makes you look deeper into it is the point where you can no longer just #BeKind.

Never believed the TWAW doctrine. In my early twenties I knew one local cross dresser who was a tormented gay guy and very gentle, so instinctively I assumed the BeKind position.

Then I had a moment in a quiet country pub with my family watching a sobbing, humiliated wife sit with her 'dressed' husband as he simpered, preened & posed. He followed me into the ladies and did the whole lipstick / smirk / headtilt in the mirror at me. That was about 20 years ago, and I felt so much pity for her and horror of him, that was that. TWAM just like any other.

Then Challenor, Bradley etc appeared, and that horrendous Tyler someone in the Canadian refuge, and I became much more vocal.

Finding out how few transwomen had medical transitions.

My first real experience was seeeing someone in a cabaret group that I like who is a transwoman - wears women's clothes/style/name, but deep voice, so fits nicely in the group. And I just always thought of her as 'she', despite knowing that - old-school style trans I guess.

And occasionally reading a bit more about people like that, difficult back stories, having to come-out, bullying, difficult childhoods, etc, make me feel sympathetic, and that these were people who were victims and needed sympathy. And in some ways I do still feel that.

Equally, for quite a long time, having a relatively sheltered and non-diverse upbringing, not knowing that many women who couldn't (for religious reasons, for example) be in a place with men that they were expecting to be single sex. Not knowing personally people who'd experienced domestic violence, or serious sexual assault etc. So I wasn't all that aware of how many women these things affected, and as a result, I thought that being kind to a small number of people who had very difficult backgrounds would be OK. This was hugely strengthened by a feeling of guilt(?) about how people who were homosexual had been treated for years, misunderstood, not accepted etc, and an eagerness not to want to do that again to another marginalised group.

Finding out more about women who were victims was part of changing my mind. Finding out how many transwomen didn't have surgery, or who did it for reasons other than gender dysphoria also helped. Realising that many of them did not have the sort of troubled backgrounds that I had imagined added to it. Then all the stuff about sports, changing rooms, awards, short-lists, etc and realising that women were losing out - it made me realise that being sympathetic was also harming women, just not in perhaps such an obvious way. It is sometimes easier to feel sympathy for a specific transperson who is there in front of you (or, well, in the media) with a difficult and sympathetic back story, than it is to think about a more hypothetical, nameless group of women who didn't get into the race/didn't go to the changing room/don't go to the public loos etc.

I was a ‘be kind’ progressive liberal sort all my life. Then my daughter decided she was a transboy out of nowhere 3.5 years ago. I knew in my heart of hearts she wasn’t and that it was the consequence of a number of factors including late asd diagnosis, social isolation, anxiety, depression and too much time on her own on the internet. I found transgender trend and Bayswater group and did some reading. We are still unfortunately dealing with the transgender nightmare, but my understanding of the difficulties with transgender ideology has grown significantly over the last 3 years. I’m now completely GC although I have to hide much of my feelings about it at home.

It's difficult to track back and remember how I thought. I was married to a desister for a while. You could even say a detransitioner, because he got as far as taking hormones for a short period. By the time he met me, he'd long stopped the hormones and had had some facial plastic surgery to look more masculine. I think I found all this quite exciting but had zero idea exactly how troubled he was. It would have been crazy to think he was actually a woman but basically I never thought about it much, we were too busy living our lives and he was the most gender conforming man you could meet. I don't think he's ever retransitioned but who knows, it was years ago.

Jump forward 2 decades and I had to do a specific type of work with trans people and it broke me. I realise now I was afraid of the men I met because I had to remember to treat them as women without ever slipping up and I am always slightly wary of men. It was just them and me in a small room and if I got it wrong I was afraid both of hurting them and of them becoming angry. My late husband was severely mentally unwell, my elderly father was a challenge and my son was still young and I spent my entire life working round fragile male personas. I was close to a breakdown at that time. I had a counsellor just to be able to keep going at work. My wonderful boss eventually said 'you don't have to do this any more' and she put me onto different work. She said it wasn't unusual to find that work hard. I'm so glad she was older, we never had a TWAW conversation, there wasn't any need.

It was around then that the GRA consultation came out. I was already thinking about it, I must have been or I wouldn't have read it, but if there was a single moment for me it was reading the definition of 'sex' in that document ('assigned at birth by a health care professional'). There were so many layers to that moment. I knew why they'd used 'health care professional' (because Americans say by a doctor but not many of our births are attended by a doctor, ie it was a US import), I knew they were piggybacking on the long long women's movement to demedicalise childbirth (whatever you think about that, it was an important part of the women's movement here since the 1940s and it was being used to gain women's sympathy) and I also knew if this was a movement that could get such nonsense into official documents it was dangerous.

I would like to be a gender anarchist. I'm not, I'm very conventional, but I woukdlike to be that way. But I'm not being told by Christine Burns how to be a woman. I will not.

For me it was the Girl Guides declaring that TWAW and would be allowed to be Guide or Brownie leaders, including going on residential camps, without telling the parents. I thought the Girl Guides had lost their minds. What could possibly go wrong?

I always felt uncomfortable about men pretending to be women - not in an honest way like a pantomime dame, where everyone knows it's a man, but in a way where I was meant to see them as a woman. As a tomboy and quite non-girly woman I was always pissed off that I was supposed to think a man was a woman if he wore super-feminine things and high heels and make-up, when I didn't and I'm a woman. I remember seeing Ru-Paul in drag in a lipstick ad saying something like "Us girls" or similar and it made me cross, I thought you're not a girl and you have no idea so fuck off. (Although I get that he isn't a TW, it still annoyed me.)

But like others I felt sorry for TW and wanted to be polite and I very rarely encountered them. I did entertain whether I was supposed to "be a man" in a transsexual sense but I was just realistic - I'm not a man so tough shit, I need to be the kind of woman I am and own it.

Then when gender ideology blew up I just couldn't compute the idea that we were supposed to accept that a man can really, like really really, magically, be a woman just by saying so and vice versa. I've spent my life dealing with facts, science and evidence and I'm very rational. It just makes no sense. How can you know you're a woman or what that feels like if you're male - you can't - it's just a circular argument. No male knows what being a woman is like and I just got fed up of trying to make my brain make sense of gender identity - I can't because it's inconsistent and makes no sense.

Being able to discuss it on MN was a great relief but I was already a feminist, GNC and clear that woman is a sex.

Some wonderful posts - thank you all.
For me it was children and safeguarding. The relentless targeting of children and schools by adults with no qualifications yet an overwhelming insistence on reconfiguring schools, pastoral systems, the curriculum and even peer relationships in order to impose their versions of regressive sex stereotypes on children. Along with openly dismantling key principles of safeguarding and pushing drugs and surgery at those too young to appreciate the dangers.

The damage this has done to so many vulnerable children and young people ......

The cotton ceiling. Then prisons

That, the Cotton ceiling and some Tra saying that lesbians need to learn “to cope “ with penis.

About 10 years ago I wrote an article for a campaign that was challenging gendered stereotypes in the toy industry.

I wrote a line which, when published, the TRAs complained about so we had to change it. That’s when I realised that the new kid on the block was a bully.

I also realised how their logic didn’t square with the aims of feminism, which has always been to tear down stereotypes. Their ideology seemed regressive masquerading as progressive.

I do believe that gender dysphoria exists, but that in today’s climate it’s been seriously overstated.

Another turning point was when someone pointed out (Debbie Hayton or Douglas Murray can’t remember) that if all trans-identifying people were genuinely and biologically trans then why is there not “an army of older women wanting to transition” whilst 70% of youngsters wanting to transition are girls. It made logical sense.

Oh yeah and the cotton ceiling!

Munroe Bergdorf ranting about pussy hats. And one of the US women's colleges cancelling a performance of the Vagina Monologues. Up until that point I'd been sympathetic up to a point - waited with Gavin Grimm on toilets but even then would not have been dead set against extending this to communal showers etc.

I had a female neighbour who transitioned to become a man. Looking back, there was severe dysphoria/unhappiness and the journey towards living/presenting as a man has clearly been long. He now lives alone and is so isolated, so I suppose that jarred with the way transness is now sold/presented - as something cool, easy, wonderful. It didn't look like that for my neighbour at all.

It was seeing how trans men are so much less celebrated than trans women. I started to see how very patriarchal it was.

Seeing how quick men, particularly otherwise very right-on ones, are to abuse women on this point - it's as if they have been itching for something, anything, and now use it whenever they can on twitter etc.

And the demands, the rudeness, the jumping on people for using the wrong word.

Also the devaluing of women's bodies, motherhood, what all women go through - suddenly talking of shared biology or girlhood is a 'terf dog whistle' and kind of subtly not really allowed anymore. That was the point that did it for me, actually.

It's pure Emperor's New Clothes - once you see he's naked there's no going back.