Do you talk about being GC in real life?

[Waiting4baby2]

I feel like Im going mad. I am a left leaning person, only ever read bbc and the guardian news. Generally a ‘live and let live’ sort of person who cares about equality.
I was completely in the dark about policy changes which have taken/ are taking place to put gender ID above sex/ the silencing of women and frankly the child abuse that has been taking place through affirmative care.
Now I’ve started properly looking into it I’m completely in shock at how this has been allowed to happen to women’s rights. Im also gobsmacked at the way the guardian and bbc have been so biased in the matter and failing to air any gender critical views.
I feel like now I’m aware of what’s going on I want my friends and family, particularly female members to know. However, it’s such a layered story to get across and when I have gently mentioned anything I basically get ‘well it’s none of my business, it doesn’t affect me how people want to live’ or ‘I don’t know much about it’ but are clearly disapproving. Just a question is it worth bringing some ideas to light for them or will they get there themselves? I’m feeling quite powerless but know how important this is so in a way feel duty bound to air the alternative view. What can I do?!

[i namechanged]

Thanks @RaininginDarling he is. He has always been someone who reads widely and is prepared to challenge himself on his own beliefs. But at the core he has always been a person who prides integrity in himself and others and also values generosity of spirit in himself and others. He has quite a bit to say about Stonewall gaslighting I can tell you!

I posted a few things back in the beginning, probably about 5years ago now.

I got absolutely crucified online, lots of friends of friends commenting on FB posts to say that I was an evil bigot etc. I remember thinking how odd it was to speak to a friend of a friend like that. I mean, we obviously have that friend in common, I can't be a complete monster or presumably we wouldn't be friends in the first place. Meh.

Since then I try not to post online as I don't know that it achieves much and also I work in an industry where I would lose work if people knew what a horrible, transphobic bigot I am.

I do however talk about it CONSTANTLY with friends and family, and ironically in the part of my job that doesn't involve super wokeness.

A large part of my friendship circle actively run in TRA circles, we have a kind of amnesty where they know I think a lot of its bonkers and we joke about me being TERFY. I dunno, none of it's ideal, I have to walk and odd kind of line, but it's the best I can manage.

I will also add, I speak to a lot of doctors through my work.

Every single one has said gender ideology and particularly transing children is on their radar and their very concerned.

One said J K Rowling is the canary in the coal mine on this issue.

Have to say @CuntAmongstThePigeons that the (young male) doctors i know are the most brutal of TWAW absolutists. The ones I know best are gay, I don't know if that makes a difference to how they tackle this stuff. My experience is that age is the big dividing line, not occupation.

Ah that's depressing PermeantTemporary, although I guess not really surprising. Look at Harrop!

Yes tbf I've only spoken to older doctors, don't really get any younger ones through work.

It's amazing though that young or old if you're in the medical profession that you cannot see how damaging this ideology is to children and young people.

I'm joining the inclusion group at work initially as a working mother. Trying to work up to GC feminist... should I

Post fortstater we've agreed inclusion included all views expressed respectfully Inc GC. I work in HR and even our legal team said it's protected now so I feel the time is good.

Not as much as I wish I could at work, though IRL I'm pretty vocal about it, everyone knows my views and most agree with them apart from two smug hard of thinking in laws who are woefully ignorant and under informed about the issues and shut me down when presented with coherent arguments and evidence about what is being done to women in the name of this god awful ideology.

I had a good friend in my last work place who was GC but been in my current place nearly two years and haven't found anyone yet. Lots of pronouns in bios and some hyper woke people who are very loud. There are a few suspects who I imagine are quite possibly GC, mostly older women, and if I ever get the chance to test the water with them I will.

I felt so frustrated the other day, as I saw a woke colleague had 'liked' a post by some misogynist bearded he/him on LinkedIn saying that we all have mixed sex toilets at home so why do the silly hysterical bigoted women mind about mixed sex public toilets. Lots of fellow wokebros and she/her handmaidens going 'Right? It's so simple when you put it like that! I'm totally fine sharing with the men! TWAW!' I was SEETHING and so desperate to post something but I knew that within five minutes one of them would probably have been emailing my HR department as I work for a big company and I had to stay silent. I hate that it's acceptable to bully and gaslight women on a professional forum into sharing spaces with men, but totally unacceptable to stand up for women on the same forum and likely to lead to real life consequences.

I did see someone else liking a post the other day by a smug twat going on about people who have periods and I replied with faux innocence pretending to engage with his point and referring to women throughout.

I do what I can behind the scenes, and refuse to take part in any pronoun nonsense. I was heartened at a recent conference to see that virtually no one had filled in the pronouns section of their name badge.

I hate that the misogynists can shout as loudly as they want at work and get back pats and applause but the genuine feminists who care about women are silenced.

I should also add that when I first started speaking up IRL about this back in 2015 or so I lost several online friends really quickly and got a lot of pushback from a few wankers who were gleeful at discovering this new way of hating on women and absolutely loving the chance to be rude to feminists and act like they were progressive. Thankfully none of them were good friends and no loss.

I've had a similar experience, the sheer nastiness and vitriol from friends of friends when commenting on something to do with gender. You don't see those levels of vitriol on any other issue and the smugness and belief that they are standing up on the right side of history just comes off them in waves, even through a screen. They really think that they are doing something progressive by screaming at randoms on the internet that men are women and the most oppressed women of all and that men in dresses need to be allowed absolutely everything that women have fought for or else they will kill themselves and it's all the fault of the hateful women who wouldn't just shut up like good girls.

They portray GC fems as evil terf witches who want to deny trans existence. . That's the narrative for Trans and trans ally..
Er what about our existence to be defined as a sex class.
And I was told they say males can't wear dresses etc. We never said that at all. Wear what you're!

The gaslighting is extreme and sinister

It's not that simple though is it? Wearing a dress is one thing but wearing a highly sexualised feminine or porny outfit does ring alarm bells with me and there are often threads about that stuff (eg that teacher in Canada which surely wasn't real). Tbh it does when women do it at work - quite a few of the young female doctors a couple of years ago seemed to routinely wear short bodycon dresses and high heels at work. Covid and scrubs stopped that and I was relieved. The fact that women's fashion has become increasingly pornified in recent years is a feminist issue of its own and means that imagining a male person, trans or not, in an M&S dress or whatever doesn't really address the whole issue.

Are the Francophones less deranged ?

Well there's a time and place. I would wear a lace mini to work.* But at a club night I'm happy for men to dress up, makeup etc.why not. It's a nice thing for anyone to get dolled up if they liked.

I don't like the idea of perpetuating stereotypes through dress.

Met a few guys at a club wearing makeup (nort visibly trans although who knows these days) and they looked lovely.

Didn't the aristocracy dress up with fancy clothes wigs powder on their face in the 18th century? It's not new!

• unlike Phil 'wear your fetish to work' bunch. But that's dress code in a professional setting. For anyone. A jacket shirt and skirt would be fine. He wore a horrible pink going out dress and fishnets.

Wouldn't not Would

I agree about the stereotypes Such as perpetuating a stereotype of it being erotically humiliating to wear 'women's' revealing clothes in public and to be treated as a woman and therefore sexually submissive and inferior for example? This is the complication; that there are specific male misogynistic fetishes about wearing women's clothes. It isn't the same thing as men wearing make up or gorgeous fabrics or an outfit that is based around a skirt, which sure can look great.

The stereotype of women being sexuslly submissive/ inferior is the root stereotype to tackle then!

Well of course! In the meantime, I'm saying that it is not straightforward just to say 'it's great when men wear dresses'.

Do yoi think men only were female clothes as a fetish?

I aim to have 'little' conversations with people about the subject although I don't like the term 'gender critical'. My family are not that interested sadly, but I keep trying.
Some women friends are 'really? Wow I didn't know!!'.
When I mention items like tw in women's sports, prison, refuges etc, they genuinely didn't know- at least that's what they say. Not sure what they are reading.
There isn't a lot of general media coverage around these issues and what there is depends on the journalists. I haven't seen any reports on MM v LGBA or am I not looking hard enough? I'm inclined to think the general population aren't really that fussed. And there's so much confusion around the terms 'transwoman and transman'

I sincerely wish someone would define 'trans rights' though.

Ses to be the erasure of biology. Didn't kirren what's their face say bodies are just bodies when asked difference between the one kind and the other

GC is becoming the new terf.

Is sex based rights feminist better.. until that becomes the new terf,?

Do I think men only wear women's clothes as a fetish? Absolutely not. Sometimes it's just liking the clothes. Or sometimes knowing it's going to shock or interest others (eg Beckham's sarong, clubwear). Interesting radio interview i heard with the singer from the Manic Street Preachers about wearing a dress of his mother's at a show - he liked it, it made him feel connected to her, it was physically comforting to wear it. I can relate to all of that, I have something of my mum's I wear and I feel all those things.

And sometimes it makes men feel sexually aroused to wear clothes associated with women in public.

I don't care what they wear, as long as they don't think that makes them actually women. See Eddie Izzard for reference.

I do, it’s easy nowadays.

whenever anything vaguely related comes up I just say ‘I’ve known trans people since the 80s and have never had a problem with any of them… but something REALLY WEIRD is going on at the moment… especially among tweens and teens’

and whoever I’m talking to generally does a massive sigh of relief and the conversational floodgates open.