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.

I live on the same street as MtF and FtM couple. The male transitioner is an actual full time activist who does it as a job.

They’ve (accidentally) made all my neighbours GC.
I do my gardening in a ‘Hands Off My Rights’ T shirt that I got when flyering for Fair Play For Women during the GRA reform consultation. My activist neighbour won’t even make eye contact with me.

Plenty. Not sure you get representative views from this board, it's a bit of an echo chamber

Yes. Both are men aged 30-60 from backgrounds of financial privilege. One has a massive chip on their shoulder and is quite clearly neurodivergent (I suspect ASD and ADHD) but undiagnosed. Sometimes I consider telling 'her' that an ASD diagnosis will be much more useful than a trans identity. Classic case of failure to launch, clutching at straws, trying to find a way to live and work in a neurotypical world.

The other has been living as a woman for decades, surgery, the lot. A very vocal online campaigner who was reasonable and moderate but seems to have been emboldened by the online vitriol and is showing an unpleasant streak of misogyny which was better concealed before.

Plenty. Not sure you get representative views from this board, it's a bit of an echo chamber

Yet, here you are.

Plenty. Not sure you get representative views from this board, it's a bit of an echo chamber

Do you think your particular filter bubble is likely to be "representative"?

Echo chamber or the silent majority?

Most thinking people know that humans can’t actually change sex.

Yes. She is a 31 yr old beautiful woman

oooh. This is like the game show, Jeopardy.

’Who is Jameela Jamil?’

Wouldn’t this thread be moved here if it was originally posted on aibufor example? @Genegenieee
’AIBU to think that TW are not actually women’. No chance.

Yep. I met the individual when we were doing the new mums baby group thing and they were still going by female pronouns and heavily into extended breastfeeding etc. They had three sons and then split from the father of all the kids - went through a period of being asexual and then non-binary and posting more and more extreme TRA type content on social media... then came out as male, started hormones and had a hysterectomy and are now in a relationship with another individual who I think defines as non-binary or male (my brain got sick of the mental gymnastics by this point).

Poor kids who were previously the centre of their world no longer get a mention unless it's to praise them for never once misgendering - gender identity and trans rights is all that seems to matter.

I think they're autistic - they fixated heavily on topics (mainly fandoms and fan fics) in the past before getting sucked into the TRA vortex. Unfortunately for them their most previous fixation was Harry Potter which has caused quite a big dilemma for them in terms of how they've had to pivot toward Potter being the source of all evil now.

I have one friend in particular who surprised me in the twaw views. She's a lesbian so you'd think she would understand same sex attraction more than anyone (never dated a man, however he identifies, so I actually think she perhaps does get it on some level).

She's very into the whole woke silliness so I suppose I should've seen it coming. She posted some daft comments about men in women's sports around the whole UPenn swimming debacle.

Lost a lot of respect for my friend that day.

I work with a trans person who themselves acknowledge the problems with self ID and prisons/sports etc.

Yeah I sadly know more than a handful of proper TRAs who blithely post about punching people for not 100% agreeing with their stuff, sharing it etc. Which is why I keep getting called something that rhymes with turf, despite having never actually aired my views on this subject to anyone. I would just delete/block but I remember them from their pre-TRA days and keep holding out for the scales to fall. I'd say of the people I know, it's about 50% blokes who are too left to be incels (but just as misogynistic) and 50% transwomen.

Quite a few, some former friends are now they-thems. I miss them but can’t really see a way back, as I can’t risk socialising with them any more in case the issue comes up.

This. I don't know anyone who doesn't agree with me on this.

I know a few. One is a former colleague, straight, partnered to a woman. The others are female and all writers. They are scary people.

Yup. A full on “TWAW and anyone who says otherwise is an evil monster terf”. I tried to reason with him once and I thought he was going to blow a fuse - the arrogance of a man believing that he has the right to tell women that they’ve got their feminism and views on matters which affect women “wrong” is mind boggling. He also seems to feel completely OK with calling people fascists and Nazis for having any opinion different from his. We are no longer friends.

(I also suspect he might be one of our monitors <waves two fingers> )

Yes. At work. A 60 year old transwoman. I am scared of them, not because they are trans, but they are prone to aggressive outbursts but seem immune to usual policies due to their trans 'status' (no GRC).

A couple of women in my bookclub who are not fully TRA but definitely agree with wearing rainbow lanyards, pronouns in emails, and TW should be able to play in women's sports. Didn't get as far as 'discussing' toilets, single sex health provisions, prisons or trans children. They are NHS/University employees.
Another friend who is just a 'be kind' person, and doesn't really think beyond this to the practicalities.
A couple of of other friends are GC but not vocal about it.

My daughter. She is gay and autistic. She thinks JK is evil, worse than Putin. My husband has rows about it. I avoid the subject where possible. Yesterday she told me after a long rant to educate myself. I told her cold as ice that I had educated myself and I had formed a different opinion to the one she holds. I told her she needed to learn to tolerate other peoples opinions and stay open minded.

We actually have a great relationship and she is kind and funny. On this she is militant and narrow minded. I ask gentle questions and go my own way, sneaking off to feminist meet ups.

I want our very good relationship to survive but I can't lie. I've been a feminist and this feels like our darkest days in some ways. I also see a lot of women organising that probably wouldn't have been, that gives me hope.

Onwards sisters!

Only younger people. The oldest one is a couple of years out of university but seems very ‘young’ and vulnerable.

Probably. Watching a Facebook contact getting eviscerated having expressed sympathy for Kathleen Stock, I didn't stop to work out which of the people commenting were friends of mine, but some will have been.

The circles I move in, the trans and nonbinary people are either neurodiverse male Oxbridge graduates or neurodiverse female children of Oxbridge graduates. It's made me decide i need to expand my social circle.

Incidentally, I think you and I have the same MP @Allthegoodnamesarechosen. I have written to her about 'assigned at birth' in government documents, and to do them justice, they did say in one of the committee debates that they'd had constituents write to them, and really did do their best to represent our views, despite clearly disagreeing.

My daughter, they is in a relationship with a lovely person. Their partner wears a skirt and a beard, my child wears a crop top and jeans. In conversation my child refers to the partner as she and the partner refers to my child as he. Apart from that, they both work hard and have lovely manners, so I don't point out they are in a bog standard heterosexual relationship. I think they might be a bit embarrassed in a few years.

One of my oldest friends, a gay man, has completely disowned me over this issue. We were really close friends, for over 20 years. But he moved to London and all his friends are really heavily into the 'queer' scene.

Started off as a civil conversation with him saying 'all I know is that it's like the homophobia of the 80s and 90s', and ended with all his pals piling onto me on Facebook one night and calling me all sorts of horrible names. Just like the misogyny of the last couple of millennia.....

Friends husband who is a socialist worker. He told me it isn't enough that I call a male by his chosen female name, I actually have to believe he is a woman
We argued. He called me a bigot and I called him a misogynist. We had to leave it there so I could preserve my friendship with his wife who tries to sit on the fence but is horrified by child transition

Three friends are full-on mermaid mums with trans-identifying autistic girls. I know two are on puberty blockers.

Another friend has a non-binary lesbian daughter.

All four women are very, very militant in the support of their children, fear for their mental health and lives, and feel the best way to keep them alive is through affirmation and getting them blockers. As a result are full on TWAW and terfs can get in the sea - no debate.

At work a lot of people have pronouns in their email sigs, but I think it’s mainly because they had training (before I started there) and were told it was a nice, kind, inclusive thing to do. So they are doing it. Without much further thought I suspect.