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 came on to say the same thing about the Louis Theroux documentary. I hadn't really thought much about the issues before and was genuinely interested to find out what made a child 'trans'. I thought it might relate to the brain or hormones. As I watched it dawned on me that it was all based on gender stereotypes and the parents' ideas, nothing more. It made me feel really ill and horrified that this was going on under our noses. And once I'd realised that, the whole thing came tumbling down!

Not one thing, but a lot of stuff.I never really fully believed TWAW but was very much of the "be kind" and "what harm can it do" school of thought. Reading this board started me questioning that. Lots of things began to change my mind but the final thing was when, emboldened by reading posts by women here, I brought the subject up at a social event and much to my surprise found a great deal of agreement. One of the people who joined in the conversation was a doctor who told us about being forced to accept men into her ward and her anger was palpable. Any remaining scales on my eyes dropped right off then. I won't give details as it might be identifying for her and get her into trouble, but it really hit me how men are being prioritised over the most vulnerable women in a service supposedly meant to protect them and I decided to stuff being kind from then on.

It is interesting to realise how very misogynistic much of this is and how it allows men who otherwise want to be seen as progressive to openly air their hatred because they are fighting the good fight. Gender critical women are torn apart, gender critical men are asked to consider issues more carefully etc.

To all the other posts, I would add

1. the apparent brainwashing of teens — not sure how it is happening but somehow an entire generation now seems to think they can be any gender: how did this shift in views happen? Is it all paid for by pharmaceutical companies who profit from sale of hormones?
2. the misleading photos of high profile TWs, starting with Jenner, who make it seem men can look like women, without revealing the costs of the plastic surgery (out of financial reach of ordinary people)
3. the recent Jeopardy winner (US game show) who was celebrated as the “first female winner” despite having lived most of her life as a man. Her win is impressive, regardless of gender, but she should not be celebrated as the “first female winner” as her entire education was as a man so her win does not show that a woman has been able to overcome whatever barrier there might be for women to succeed in that particular type of contest
4. the fact that other forms of discomfort with one’s body (or anorexia) are considered mental illnesses while gender dysmorphia is considered a physical condition to which one should yield (through hormones and surgery) rather than through therapy
5. the correlation between autism, adhd, etc and gender dysphoria which, again, suggests some sort of therapy rather than gender change might be a better long term treatment

fwiw I had a trans neighbour for many years with whom I had a very friendly relationship and I have a family member who is trans — so I am definitely in the “be kind” category and sympathetic to the needs of people who identify as trans, but I do not think TW or TM are, in fact, women or men.

Recently, I’ve seen several trans women claim that they are female and two trans men claim that they are male. Some have used the existence of rare DSDs as evidence for these claims. But surely this argument would make more sense if any of these people had been diagnosed with a DSD?

I have a degree in genetics so I never believed that human beings can change their sex. I think it was all the nonsense that started cropping up a few years back about sex 'assigned at birth' and 'sex is a spectrum' and 'woman trapped in a man's body' that solidified my GC views, as its so clearly bollocks.

Yeah that confused me too! Is something wrong with "peaked"?

1970s. Worried about male pretending to be female in womens changing room. Tried to think tolerant but unable to do so . 1980s told I had to call a beards male by a female name while he shouldered his burly way to the bar. 1990s. Womens groups and lesbian groups disrupted by males wanting validation, beginning of the end for such groups. 2010 And then they came for the children, especially the girls.

to my earlier post, I should add that of course I never believed there was any literal change from man to woman, just a metaphorical one and that we should treat them as women in other ways etc. I don't think anyone with half decent biology teaching could possibly believe otherwise, even the most ardent of TRAs. They might say they are literally women, but I can't really see anyone actually believing that. So I assumed that this question was about when did you decide that even polite-fiction that someone was a woman was actually sometimes harmful, rather than helpful, and my earlier response is in regards to that.

I don't think anyone with half decent biology teaching could possibly believe otherwise, even the most ardent of TRAs. They might say they are literally women, but I can't really see anyone actually believing that.

I don't know. In plenty of arguments I've seen, anyone appealing to fundamental biology gets told they only understand simplistic school-level biology and in fact sex is made up of multiple factors most of which you can change by transitioning, so people can literally change sex. And that this is what proper biologists think.

But the same TRA types will also say that a male literally is a woman (and vice versa) just by saying so because they know best and they are a woman irrespective of their body, so they are a woman even if they have a beard and get their willy out and wank in a women's changing room.

Both these arguments maintain that the male has literally 100% become a woman, in some cases they will also say female.

I also don't think they actually believe that, in that they know who is biologically female and male and still understand that at a deep level, but deny it to themselves. So they do think they believe it. Either that or it's purely cynical virtue signalling and purity spiralling.

But a lot of people have genuine religious beliefs, which we understand as faith because they are not about evidence. So it wouldn't surprise me if people do believe in this magical transformation. It's just that we should see it as a faith and a personal matter, not something that should compel others or form the basis of policy.

I've never really believed in it. I have always been queasy about the idea of trans women taking jobs intended for women (such as the one at Newnham College that led to Germaine Greer resigning) or being sent to women's prisons. I didn't think it was a huge problem until about five or six years ago, though, when I started reading this board and realised what was going on, particularly the widespread adoption of self-ID policies in contravention of the law.

Yes, you could be right - there are a lot of levels of belief in there for sure, and it's really hard to separate.

The arguments about biology that I've heard tend not to be that men literally change into women, but are a bit more nebulous than that - they are certainly using the 'you only know basic school-level biology' argument, and that 'sex is much more complicated because you can't define it based on any of these things', but at the same time, they are leaving out any evidence that trans people suffer from any of those conditions, because I think they are aware that they aren't. Rather, the argument seems to be 'because we can't define sex in this simple way, you can't prove that these people aren't female because that isn't a thing' - at best, leaving it as 'there might be something we don't know about determining sex yet, some indefinable brain characteristic that means people really truly are female in their brains and therefore body stuff doesn't matter', or at worst, just using it as stupid logic trickery, a kind of 'gotcha' in the sense of 'if you can't define female with one single, 100% consistent method, then I don't have to believe it exists and therefore you can't call anyone female or male'. I can't really think that they believe they are actually transitioning and changing into females, even if they take hormones or have surgery or whatever. But then, some people might be more deluded than I can imagine!!

For me, who hadn't really been aware of all this stuff until then (now I'm aware of how many years this has been brewing away, I'm a bit embarrassed that I hadn't picked up on it), it was the reaction to JRK's essay.

Then the realisation that convicted male sex offenders were being placed in

female prisons.

Then the realisation that TWAW wasn't a polite fiction with preferred pronouns a courtesy but that we were to believe TWAW literally (or be subjected to threats) and that preferred pronouns were compelled speech.

Then realising that my own country had fallen under the grips of gender ideology hook, line and sinker and that our own FM believed that women's views aren't valid.

And now I look at the people desperately clinging to their mantras and the spiraling of the 'genocide' hyperbole and worry that there is going to be a horrendous event in the near future. There was a thread ages ago which had a title like 'how do you think this will all end?' and another poster said that someone is going to end up getting hurt or killed by TRA extremists and I think they were correct.

And in terms of the 'top of a mountain' deletions, I've had 2 post deletions on this site (to my knowledge). One was for using that word. The other was for suggesting that a particular poster was gathering screenshots for Twitter (they were).

A pp made an interesting point about women having to deny differences between men and women in the name of 'equality'.

I was a teenager during the 'girl power' laddette period where the feeling seemed to be that women had already won all their rights and all we had to do was to prove that we can do anything men can. Not in a sort of 'there's no reason why women can't do jobs which are traditionally done by men' kind of way but in a sort of 'deny that there are any differences between men and women at all and if women can't keep up, they're just not trying hard enough' type of way.

You see it often in online conversations- 'well, you wanted equality!'. It's a backlash that there are differences which require some concessions - the whole thing with equality/equity.

I think people have misunderstood equality. When I think about equality between the sexes, I mean "fair". I don't mean "identical". It can never be identical. Fairness is what I believe in. Fairness is my equality.
Its not particularly revolutionary, but somehow the concept of Fairness has been lost. I wonder if its somewhat to do with a generation being given medals just for entering, rather than for achievements. My mid 20s niece certainly believes she ought to be rich and famous, just for being herself.

Alright, I'll use the euphemism "bottom surgery". Most transwomen who get a GRC don't get "bottom surgery". That changed my mind.

I've never believed 'transwomen are women'. Pre-genderism, if I ever thought about it at all, I thought transwomen were acting out a male fantasy about what a woman should be, while transmen were women who wanted the freedom and privilege of the male social role. Then in 2016, genderism suddenly hit mainstream culture and I saw a few programmes about 'trans kids'. I did start asking myself, is it a genuine innate condition that some people are born with? But the sheer militancy of the TRAs put paid to any chance of me going any further down that route. Instead I read about the cotton ceiling and about feminists apologising for wearing 'pussy hats', and I've been on the gender critical side ever since.

I never held “the belief”, was always sceptical, was always aware that the ideology only reinforced negative, narrow stereotypes. Plus grew up in the very non pink/blue 1970s so the last ten years have seemed like a very regressive step especially for children - I was horrified at the very definite pink / blue aisles in a well-known toy shop a few years ago. I never went back.

I was of the 'be kind' mindset until they started insisting TWAW and that just didn't make any sense to me. Then I saw Glinner posting about 'Jessica Simpson' and was led here. But it was TWAW that changed my mind.

There's something interesting about the direction of travel.
The whole 'right side of history' thing, and the accusations of bigotry....

Do people generally become less tolerant when they think more carefully about persecuted minorities? My instinctive response is that people can be uncaring and ignorant about minorities, but once they know more about it they become concerned for the persecuted. The travel seems to be in the other direction which points I think to this situation not actually being about a persecuted minority. The more I know, the less sympathetic I feel.

If I were to pinpoint a moment, it would probably be Pippa Bunce.

I always thought TWAW was a polite fiction, but in my not-very-well-thought through brain I thought trans was the same as gay, hence the LGBT acronym, and that there were exact parallels with the legislated homophobia (Section 28 and so on) prior to the 1990s. It was MN plus a gay friend who opened my eyes to the reality of self-id and puberty blockers.

I still have a friend who holds this view, although last time she raised the issue I could tell she was putting on her hiking boots.

I suspect Emily Bridges appearing on ITV as a lead story last night saying :

I just want the same opportunities as my fellow female athletes

will be making quite a few previously sympathetic people think ‘WTAF’ ! Now these males are saying they are females?

And there we have it.

The requirement that all actual females indulge Emily in this belief by sacrificing themselves and their reality rather than Emily having to face a fact that Emily does not like.

What makes Emily so very special that Emily gets to demand this service from other females? And other females must do what Emily wants and put Emily first and abandon their careers, ambitions, desires, time and money and decades of work to serve Emily's interests instead of their own?

It's sex. It's obviously, blatantly, sex. Emily is Emilyself using sex based thinking to enforce this.

Exactly. Emily doesn't want 'the same opportunities', in actual fact Emily wants special treatment.