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?!

Only with close friends. Not at work…work in a field that fully embraces the TRA agenda. . My employer is on the trans bandwagon. I’ve resisted as much as I can without outing myself as GC. Colleagues know I am against identity politics though.

Refuse to use pronouns in my e mail signature.

I doubt I know it makes people uncomfortable. I have a lot of livery liberal, human rights orientated friends who I love dearly but this is quite a divisive issue. It's hard to explain why I feel the way I do without coming across as a dinosaur or a bigot.

I have been knowingly GC for six years now and I've still had hardly any conversations with friends or family. Many share very protrans stuff on social media so I know where they stand and I still don't know how not to come over as bigoted. The hardest group I find are my liberal Christian friends. My theory is that they are so sorry about how the church has treated/is treating gay people that this is the next issue that they must be overly publicly supportive of. They haven't even considered how homophobic the trans rights movement is, annoyingly. Many I know are becoming part of the very trans supportive Oasis church movement (it's pretty shocking stuff that will implode at some point.)

I was a muttering gc even at work before Maya got sacked. I remember about 5 years ago ranting in the office because a transwoman was in the final two candidates foe a senior role that hr had mandated had to be female because there were literally no female bosses out of dozens. That they might give the job to a male made me furious, then Maya got sacked and I went full militant GC. I write to MP, comment on social media. I like Mayas posts on LinkedIn but don't comment too much. Helps that i work in a very unwoke industry, no pronoun nonsense. I will keep shouting until women get their sports, spaces, refuges and toilets back.

I talk about it all the time and have done for years. I've yet to meet anyone who disagrees with me.

Tentatively responded to a GC comment from a left leaning work colleague - no "pronouns in email signature " colleagues were there. Another left leaning colleague went "yes! Finally!" and the two proceeded on what actually felt like a rant. Both are men. Neither were talking about women. Both were talking about trans identified men taking liberties and policing our language.
There had been a "this is why pronouns in email signatures are brilliant " message on our office intranet.
I suspect our head of legal (mhad a word after the Forstater case because it was followed by a "it's entirely up to you about pronouns in your emails" message on our office intranet.
This is public sector.
Tide is turning.

I have been talking about being GC for years with my close friends and sister, we all agree and we are all left leaning women. We are middle aged, probably more difficult for younger women. My partner (male) agrees with us too.

At work (public sector) we were asked to update our email signature because of a change of organisation name. There was a request to also add pronouns but it was made clear that this was not mandatory. I used this opportunity to ask a couple of female colleagues if they would be adding theirs in the hope of a conversation about the whole issue. It was like the floodgates had been let open, thankfully we all agreed and much ranting was done. I think about half of my team of around 20 have added pronouns. I do wonder what they think of those that haven't.

I bloody hope the tide is turning.

my niece now identifies as a boy. She’s 15. I’ve always felt she might be a gay and she’s always been a tomboy. Now she’s a boy. I am very conflicted about this.

I identified (secretly) as a boy when I was a child, because I didn’t want to grow up female. Women’s lives looked like boring drudgery to me. Luckily Women’s Liberation came along and shining possibilities opened up.

In the misogynistic, porn-soaked present day, girls must be even more appalled about growing up female than I was. And now they’re offered drugs and surgery to support their fantasy. Not what I call progress.

At least I can be openly realistic about sex and gender because I no longer have a job to lose. I bring it up at every opportunity. Few people my age disagree. But it’s the young people we need to help.

I hope your niece gets through this phase safely, Annigolden.

To me, that's what GC is. What else do you think it is? Not that I am badgering you to label yourself - just thinking about how I label myself.

The problem for me with GC is that it's promoting the less important bit. I don't even consider myself to be gender 'critical' really. I couldn't care less.

My position is that sex should be prioritised

Yes I do, regularly and at great length, at home and work. I have my copies of Trans and Annals of the terf war on my work bookshelf. I use my Sex Matters mug in every meeting. I removed 'identitfies as" from all our EDI policies and changed all the genders to sex.

But I'm senior enough that there's no risk to my role so I figure it's up to me to step up on this since the juniors can't.

Just do what you can. You'll get bolder with every step you take.

About labels-I read a good piece about replacing it with sex-stereotypes critical or some such and that felt better to me. Replacing gender with sex stereotypes works well. I'll go with GC because most interested parties know what it means most of the time.
I do find TERF a bit hmm as I've never considered myself that radical.

Yes i discuss it in real life, but theres quite a few i cant discuss it with or we would fall out. Most of my friends and family know im terfy. Ive lost some over it, but most are in agreement or we agree to disagree.

I realised that I was closing my eyes and ears to people who before I was made to think they shouldn't be listened to and instead have listened to what they have to say instead of writing them off like I used to. It's so strange like an epiphany.
I feel like I have had my eyes truly opened.

Yes, I had exactly the same journey, @Sunflower987

The 'radical' in 'radical feminism' doesn't mean wild or extreme - it means 'root', as in, to change from the root - it means to transform the fundamental principles of a society or system.

"Radical feminists locate the root cause of women's oppression in patriarchal gender relations, as opposed to legal systems (as in liberal feminism) or class conflict (as in Marxist feminism)."

A very common misconception (I thought the same).

This. It's misogyny all the way down, with a large serving of narcissism sauce.

Thank you LaughingPriest, although I'm not sure I'm quite up to fully understanding that explanation.

The nugget was a Year 10 boy, very into porn, who was dressing up like he was in drag race lying on the floor with his mouth open for social media likes. He was getting likes from the right-on girls in the year and a group of older men. A horrific Venn diagram that never should have happened. At school, unbeknown to staff, he would take videos of himself giggling in the girls changing rooms. There’s other worse stuff but that was enough for me and hopefully a lot of other teachers.

In this house we are definitely gender critical. DH admits he'll play devil's advocate in any and every debate, and to be honest it does help me hone my debating skills (even if it's immensely frustrating sometimes!)

At work, my boss knows the basics of my position but I'm very measured in what I say. A few colleagues have their pronouns in emails and wear rainbow lanyards. I haven't been asked to do either which is good as I know a refusal may offend.

I'm pretty quiet on FB as I don't wish to offend my friends, though I did find an ally in a private group where we were on the same side of the discussion and so we often pop up to support each other.

Compare and contrast with Twitter where I'm very out, womens rights, JKR is my hero, and I've gained a bit of a following recently. It's bolstered my confidence a bit.

I agree with whoever said that questioning the "TWAW" is a great way to go. When they can't justify their claims they will either double down and be aggressive in which case you're the calm, reasonable one, or they will realise they don't have a leg to stand on and start to consider the issue with more nuance.

The 'nugget' is an interesting question.

I'm not sure exactly what shifted my views (a few years ago I would have been chiming in with the MN is SO transphobic crew).

My position had already started to shift but a pivotal moment was hearing Mridul Wadhwa (a TW who's head of the Edinburgh rape crisis centre) talk about how women had to reframe their trauma and accept TW as counsellors. That made me realise how little vulnerable woman's rights and needs mattered here. It still makes me angry thinking about it.

I also remember reading JKR's piece on this and then watching in disbelief as this empathetic, compassionate position resulted in her being labelled as the transphobe of the century. That's still hard to process.

Well, I can see that gender roles are imposed on males and females even if I think they’re a load of shit.

I can empathise with a male who doesn’t identify with masculine stereotypes and feels out of place, and I can see how a female who doesn’t fit stereotypes will feel pressure to conform - eg shaving, plucking, wearing dresses, none of which I have ever wanted to do but have done in the past to conform. Gender roles are powerful.

So given that I acknowledge the pressures gender roles place on to males and females I can also see how some will be extremely uncomfortable with them and perhaps see the only way out is identifying with the opposite.

This is of course an immature and unimaginative response to a problem but I understand why.

I don’t think performing femininity makes you female or performing masculinity makes you male. I think a man can express himself as a feminine man and a woman can express herself as a masculine woman or anywhere in between without declaring they are the opposite sex.

But I guess what makes me shy away from the GC label is that I can see how the societal binary affects individuals, how much pressure there is to conform and how much strength it takes to resist. Yes some may find it easy but from my personal experience it hasn’t been easy and it’s only now that I’m menopausal that I truly don’t give a flying fuck about how others perceive me.

I am so glad I have retired as I could not have kept my cool if this had invaded my public sector workplace. I have been speaking out wherever I can for years. I have lost friends, but family surprisingly are on the same side. Lots of former lesbian / liberal feminist friends do not support me , and when I post on FB I have no idea if anyone bar two or three read the articles, let alone agree. I just hope that sooner or later the penny drops. Luckily I have many radical feminist contacts and they keep me sane, plus coming here of course. I try to do small actions locally, and speak to people pushing the nonsense offering alternative views on womens situation. And contribute to the crowdfunders , write to politicians, the BBC etc. but it does depress me that either some women agree with the ideology or they are too frightened to publicly comment. Mostly the issue is never discussed by anyone in real life, which is astonishing given how much women are damaged by it .

I don’t think performing femininity makes you female or performing masculinity makes you male. I think a man can express himself as a feminine man and a woman can express herself as a masculine woman or anywhere in between without declaring they are the opposite sex.

This whole thing has opened my eyes about how strongly, unquestioningly and indelibly SO MANY people have 'feminine' and 'female' conflated. Like, it doesn't even occur to them that culturally feminine is not just an interchangeable term for biologically female.

I'm gobsmacked over and over again by intelligent, politically aware, thoughtful people coming out with things like 'my sibling is beginning to think they are a girl, which is a surprise as they have never seemed to like feminine things'.

Just look at the words you're saying! Why would 'being a girl' require anything to do with femininity?! How has this not immediately prompted you to think 'hang on, what is it I think a 'girl' actually is'? And if I can't pin that down, why not? Isn't that something I should consider?

And when you bring this up, it's so ingrained that it's really hard for people to examine their own beliefs and how deeply it goes. "but I mean 'boy things' and 'girl things' - you KNOW what I mean". That sort of stuff. You often find you reveal all sorts of sexist beliefs that ultimately just come down to boring old 'girls' brains are like THIS and boys' brains are like THIS'.