Do you know any TRAs in real life?

[TimeAtTheBar]

That aren’t kids or students?

I was out last night with a group of gay men, in a pub (one is the manager) that is festooned with pride flags.

We got on to the subject, as you do, and every single one of my friends said the same; men have cocks, women have vaginas and they wouldn’t go within ten feet of a naked vagina even if the owner said they were a man.

I have to say I was a bit surprised as I assumed they were all fully paid up wokesters based on the flag flying and Pride attendance. Nope. Turns out they all think the trans thing is a fringe belief and they enjoy Pride while ignoring it.

I’m surrounded by woke teenagers at home and some at work that tell me I’m out of touch and the entire gay movement is in step with ‘trans rights’ ie twaw. But my not very scientific sample of gay men aged 24-55 would say otherwise. All my lesbian friends are terfy anyway but this did give me pause/hope.

Several years ago before I had ever clicked on a single FWR post on MN, or read anything specific about Trans rights, something came on the TV in the mess room at work, and I casually commented that it was ridicolous Men can't be women, or know what it "feels" like to be a women, one male colleague swiftly told me I wasn't allowed to think that.

I started clicking on FWR threads after that, so you could say that he was responsible for radicalising me!!!

One autistic daughter of a neighbour
Goes out with a "TW" who is over 6' tall, dresses in black jeans and black top, wears a fake rainbow coloured ponytail
Obviously male by looks, voice, gait etc
My neighbour's daughter insisted to me that her boyfriend partner is female and that hormones have turned the penis into a clitoris and that she herself is lesbian for being with this person
I had to make my apologies and leave after a discussion about it

Yep, my brother who is in his 40s

full on anarchist SJW cretin

likes to mansplain womanhood

very tiresome

Yep. A full on self ID TWAW Alison Bailey is a bigot TRA with unfortunately a fair bit of power in their world to enforce it on other ppl. We are no longer friends. I cannot recognise the person she has become over this

Yes, quite a few. The women I know are all in their mid-late 30s and love Drag Race and politics (Momentum).
In real life they appear very introverted, but on social media their views are very extreme on all topics, very authoritarian.

Yes, she's a very good friend of mine and it is the only thing we disagree on.
We bonded as students over radical feminist literature, if you can believe it!!

I know a pleasant gay man in his thirties who includes his pronouns in his email signature. I don’t know any one else IRL who has even hinted that they believe in gender ideology. But I don’t think most people know much about this subject TBH.

Yes, I do.

A few women I know through a social connection, one is a doctor involved in gender medicine with kids and has a trans child, and a few others just regular people but very much of the view TWAW. One's daughter later transitioned at about 13. But hugely believers.

Oh, I thought of another one, piano teacher of 60, she even believes that transwomen should normally go to women's prisons, does not see any issues at all.

Yep - one who started harassing me in messages after seeing a friend posting about breastfeeding on one of my posts.
She was demanding to know if I was transphobic because my friend had said "men don't breastfeed."

Her child is non binary. Autistic of course.

I wonder who she will blame when the cards fall.

Oh and a couple of young professionals I know who are expressionless, humourless, but think they are Green Party feminists. They spend a lot of time berating older women and the bloke goes on about "Tory boys." So he can score points.
The woman is virtually silent.

One woman is horribly TRA, her son is a transwoman. It's not helped by the son having really predatory vibes, he stares whilst in the changing rooms, we share a sport and he plays aggressively towards the women. I also compete with a transman, who is lovely, she yoyos between non binary and trans, but is strangely quite terfy.

Should add, everyone else I know just thinks it's over indulged teenagers who need to give their heads a shake. All the teens I know are full on anti JK.

two mothers whose identity is heavily bound up in being Mermaids parents.

Nutshell.

Worrying numbers of these women.

I saw a new tiktok craze where teens are taking the mick out of "my voice after 2 months on T."

"My voice after 1 year on Nicki Minaj" and "my voice after two months in Alabama/ Russia / Spanish class."

It was both funny and heartwarming that perhaps many youngsters see through it.

Its upsetting as it is a divisive topic. Our extended family get on extraordinarily well rarely a cross word and politically all the agree. Except this. One sister and dd2 fervently TWAW everyone else is not. We just don’t go there after I was painted a bigot for refusing to concede that people could actually change sex. Much as I want to keep the peace I just know this is not true and I can’t say it.

So many people whose identity is bound up in … having a special identity. Or bestowing one on others.

Sometimes both simultaneously. Maybe it’s an acquisition of social power thing.

None of my circle are properly TRA and they don't really have a clue what they are talking about, but a couple believe it's progressive to support gender identity ideology without understanding it. We've had a few clashes but none are friendship-threatening.

My workplace is soft TRA. My whole sector really, libraries and so very progressive female dominated. Most people have pronouns in signatures, and the standard seems to be set by a few women who have some links to the whole thing, a non-binary female at my last job, at this one a Queer, by which she means lesbian, women who is very involved in local lbgtq+ activism. Most others don't really know details, like issues with prisons, they just follow the lead of these others who they see as knowing the score.

There are only one or two women there who I think have more of a sense of what's really involved in it all.

My teenage children are not TWAW. The youngest thinks it is becoming less popular/fashionable in her age group 13-15. Some who were calling her transphobic for not believing it possible to change sex in the immediate post covid return to school now reject the ideology. It was a child who declared the emperor naked after all, I think they see through the attempt to acquire special status.

It seems to be popular with middle class, high achieving girls age 17–19 who tend to look down on their “basic” peers. They identify as queer or non binary. Some describe themselves as non-binary and attracted to non-men. I’m told that in this age group the females who identify as men, are exclusively SEND and often wear ear defenders.

It doesn’t seem to be a particularly popular ideology with many of the boys.

I know one, a former colleague, middle aged man, not the brightest but seemed a nice guy. Began transitioning to TW and still seemed OK but seems to have become increasingly radicalised, now full on TRA, posting nasty stuff about Terfs on Twitter. I give him a wide berth now. I know his partner who has been really supportive but it's all about him and she seems quite trapped, mental health not good. I find it all really sad.

Both my sisters are adamantly TWAW. But neither of them will actually discuss things like women's sports or women's prisons ( ever mind loos/changing rooms). They just flounce out the room with a "ugh, I can't even TALK to you about this" 🙄

Not many, most seem to dwell on social media. Most people think its nonsense.

I did know someone who was a transman and was a hard-core TRA.
They lived in a fantasy world where gay men would arrive and sweep them off their feet. (Which of cause never happened, gay men being gay).
They also believed they could be possessed by ghosts.

What is incredible was anyone ever took them seriously.

No. I know some people who pay lip service to the TWAW argument but they have admitted privately it is because the 'debate' is so toxic it might be harmful to their career if they say anything else.

I have a paid up 'be kind' cousin who used to be a committed feminist and probably would still describe herself as one- but she recently admitted she thinks the TRAs are self sabotaging and slightly disturbing and that women's prisons should be for biological women only so i assume this means the penny is starting to drop.

aaah yes. I personally do not know of one, but a close friend is the grandmother to a child (an adopted biological girl who suffered extreme abuse in her early years from her birth family) who has decided she/he is trans. The adoptive mother (my friend's daughter) is totally on board with it and they are discussing mastectomies. My friend's belief (and tbh honest mine) is that this child who is not yet 12 ought to receive extensive therapy and support for her significant trauma rather than heading first for the puberty blockers and the surgery. Because a girl child on the cusp of puberty who has been subjected to rape and incest is probably deeply fearful of everything her body represents and this might be the root of her desire to be a boy.

That's just my gut feeling though.