Just so down today with the vote in Scotland and my female friends just not engaging or caring

[Ndd135632]

That’s it really. I am trying so hard to explain to my female friends what is going on with gender ideology. They either are too busy to care or don’t want to engage. I just don’t get how they don’t see this as a massive gaslight, women losing their rights and children being harmed. I must sound deranged to them because I am so angry about it all. What are the blockers? Why don’t women care about other women - especially those who are disadvantaged who will suffer most with self id.

I think the coverage on BBC and Guardian is non existent or terrible. The only places which consistently report are the Times and the Telegraph. They simply have no idea.

The left - both parties and media - have deserted women. It’s a tragedy. The Guardian is understandable - they are in thrall to their American audience. Shit but at least I get it. The BBC are stirring awake slowly - this morning the Today programme covered the Scottish clinic scandal - but I fear it is too late.

I think most people have no real understanding about the potential impact because the issue hasn't been taken up by the mainstream media in Scotland.

I don't know the answer. Maybe they don't have pre-pubescent teenagers? Maybe they enjoy going along to drag brunches and bingo and think we're all humourless bores who are being mean. Or they just don't keep up with the news. It's depressing.

@applesandpears33 yep they certainly got their ‘no debate’ didn’t they. As Helen Joyce says - the only way to maintain the lie is to make it impossible for anyone to talk about it.

When I think back to the days before my peakening, I really did think other women were over reacting about a handful of transsexuals (who got everything lopped off).

I thought ‘Transwomen are women’ was metaphorical and meant something like ‘transwomen are men with a rare and incurable psychological disorder and pretending you believe they are women helps them live less miserable lives’

At some point a couple of women I knew through my local Labour branch helped me to understand that no, the people who said it meant ‘Transwomen are just as woman as you are, bigot!’ and then my son came home from 6th form saying that sex is a social construct and gender is immutable and when I double checked he hadn’t accidentally got that backwards, the whole thing became impossible to ignore.

I firmly believe that todays trans supporter is tomorrow’s terf - just wish everyone would hurry up and get there before more women & girls (and increasing numbers of boys and young men) get harmed.

They don't see it.

Media coverage is part, but also ironically part of it can be that where people have a fair bit of trust in the government, they assume that they would not pass anything too crazy, that they have done their homework.

People have been indoctrinated to accept "expert" opinions, and don't seem to understand that they are rarely so clear-cut. Particularly around science, and many will think gender ideology is scientifically sound, the medical and scientific community support it.

The rise of weird fake news and polarization has also made it easy to assume other views are just crazy-conspiracy stuff. This is particularly bad on the left, in that many mainstream progressives think that you can apply that to almost anyone they think of as "right'".

And just yesterday I found out that a friend gets her news from facebook feed from amongst other things Open Democracy. Open Democacy accused For Women Scotland of being a right wing hate group.... I despair. The left are mostly misogynists as far as i can gather.

Oh thank you ladies. I need a bit of sanity today. I sometimes think I am going mad when others don’t engage and think - oooo maybe I have got it wrong. But then the whole thing hits again with another media report and I am back in anger mode. I am trying hard to peak people but some just have cloth ears and no intrigue about what is going on at all. They just park it over there.

@TheClogLady what you say makes a lot of sense. I was the same - oh be kind, who cares. Doesn’t affect you. And I agree that maybe it needs to start touching peoples lives for them to wake up. My friend wrote to me privately and said that her son has kidney pain because he doesn’t want to go to the toilets at his new secondary school. One toilet is girls. One is non binary (at least the girls are safe I guess). But he felt unease going into the non binary and because they boys toilets were right across school in the sports centre he didn’t want to use up his entire break going. So he has kidney pain. She is FURIOUS. How on earth can schools be making these changes with no debate. No critical thinking. They are not medical centres. It’s drives me insane.

As you say - maybe we need to wait for people to catch up. But I am so afraid it will be too late - look at Scotland vote today. Grrrrrr

I think, as you say OP, a lot of people won't take any notice until this affects them.

Anyone I've tried to talk to about it and who wouldn't engage or pooh-poohed the matter... Well, if I'm feeling particularly generous, I might signpost them to resources that might help them, if that's possible. With a side order of "I told you so".

If nothing can be done because whatever they object to is by now legal, they'll be told "I did try to warn you. WTF did you think would happen?".

In the meantime, I will try to protect myself as best I can, and garden each month.

@Chersfrozenface do those who pooh-poohed you now come back to you with a spidery sense that something is up?

Sending solidarity, ndd

it is demoralising and depressing, and you’re not going mad.

Not so far. But then people don't like to admit the possibility that they were wrong, do they?

Given the massive problems in UK politics, cost of living, education, NHS, Ukraine etc which directly affect all our lives, it's not surprising that it's received little attention.

Add to that the inevitable pile-on and social ostracism of anyone who states a not-fully-pro trans opinion - although I hear plenty of them in private from my guardian-reading colleagues. Even a LGBT+ friend has told me about repressive trans policing of same-sex attracted identity, but posts the opposite on SM.

I expect this bill to go the way of the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act. Problems will emerge locally and lead to later amendments once they start to cause significant inconvenience to people in positions of power, and after some human rights clashes. Don't hold your breath.

Ah thanks @Sophoclesthefox

I am waiting for the big unlock in women's brains and everytime something new comes I am like - ok here we go. Latest was Eddie Izzard. Competing against that amazing woman for the Labour candidate for Sheffield. Potentially kicking a woman out of an MP position. And then I read Lorraine write on Twitter - you go girl - to Eddie. And I am thinking how can she be so stupid. He is kicking out a woman from the job. And he can be in girl mode when he likes but am sure he wouldn’t be in girl mode if he was living in Iran at the moment.

Solidarity, NDD.
It is very frightening. It will have to take many many extreme incidents of where this is damaging women and children for it to be rolled back, as well. You're not deranged.

I hope it will ultimately be quoshed as beyond their powers....how can the Law on this be in conflict across a country as small as the UK?

I've spent today in despair. I truly believe its going to take females being killed by bad actors using the loopholes that the Scottish Govt has just green lighted today, for some of my most woke or wilfully blind friends to finally see what's right in front of them. I am outraged at their complacency and smugness.

I hear you OP. I am beyond frustrated with women too lazy, too 'busy', too apathetic and too gullible to do anything about their rights. In the worst moments I think they flipping well deserve what we see coming in the loss of their equality, access, and that of their daughters.

But those of us who have bothered to read, get informed, get off our arses and do something are making a difference. The picture has massively shifted in the past two years, and more and more stuff is going to come out like the Mermaids safeguarding disasters.

Sending solidarity.

Not in Scotland but loved in Edinburgh for 4 years and visit frequently. It makes me so sad what is happening.

If it's any consolation, a number of MPs have voted against it which has apparently put NS in a tricky position.

I'm in NE England and whilst I have friends who agree with me, I'm still not brave enough to be fully "out" about being GC on social media, at work and even with some family members. It can feel
Isolating.

I say now "I'm not anti-trans, I'm pro-women's rights" with a big, happy smile. If you want to prove me wrong, go ahead

Please don’t despair.
I was in the chamber listening to the debate , with many, many other women and we aren’t giving up on this fight. I know it’s shit, however this is only the first step, there are many legal means that can be used to stop this. We need to keep pushing back & we will.

The tide will turn once the hand maidens and the blissfully ignorant start to be sexually harassed, flashed at etc in supposedly women only spaces. The brave and sensible women who have been fighting this ideology know where to avoid to keep themselves safe ( looking at you M&S and your like).

@RhannionKPSS that gives me some hope. I know there are many many determined and clever women who are fighting this new world order. Indeed have you noticed that it is the clever women who figure this all out first (and I was late to the realisation so am not waving my flag here at all). We need to keep sewing seeds of doubt into peoples ears. Fighting legally. Am so happy to here that the women in Scotland will do that. I am in England and am doing my best to inform my friends and peak them. I am sure their spidery senses must be starting to bother them. I have a couple that have peaked. Another couple who are halfway up the mountain and a load more now thinking shit - why all this shouting from NDD? What’s up? Hopefully slowly they will read snippets and bits and gradually start realizing what is going on.

Thanks to you and all the women in Scotland fighting.

*hear