Fell out with oldest friend over trans issues discussion

[Babyloniaroma]

I'm so upset. Was at her place at the weekend and the subject came up in conversation. She refused to believe that traditional single-sex women only spaces are under threat from trans activists and all the rest of it. At the height of the conversation, she told me "not to believe everything you see on the internet". I explained to her that "the internet" also included on-line access to a variety of newspapers etc. At this point she walked off, saying I was insulting her intelligence. I felt she had insulted my intelligence by implying that I took information at face value from on-line sources (eg facebook?) and applied no critical thinking of my own.

I did follow her through to the kitchen and said I was not implying that she was stupid etc.

We got through the rest of the evening with our partners and had a civilised and outwardly friendly time, but inside I was so upset and currently I don't know how I feel about my friendship with my oldest mate anymore (40+ years).

I have not written out here the ins and outs of the conversation itself as it would take it too much space. But I am so sad and disappointed that a mature and otherwise very sensible and aware woman can be so dismissive about the trans debate. She is also an avid reader and writer and claimed to be unaware (or did not care) about all the abuse aimed at JK Rowling and other prominent women. She had walked off before I could get around to mentioning Kathleen Stock, Maya Forstater, etc etc.

Both our partners responded differently to the debate as it played out. My friend's husband kept disappearing into the kitchen as he clearly did not want to get involved. Mine did back me as he understands the trans issues. Afterwards I asked him what he thought about the outcome. His view was that I had a better argument as I presented several facts and references, but she lost (and could not refute points) which is why she resorted to a cheap jibe about my getting information from the internet and then walking off in a huff.

This whole trans debate can be really difficult to handle, yet I feel it is wrong to avoid airing the issues in company, for the sake of a quiet life and not risking falling out with friends. But I have come to the conclusion that there are many women who wish to deny or ignore the issues that are out there - and these women would describe themselves as modern, intelligent, self-aware and feminists. I feel at a total loss and very sad.

Babyloniaroma, (HRTFT) you have to play the long game here. My DD, when I bring up these issues, is somewhat ambiguous in her replies so I don't pursue it with her but do talk about my various campaigning/protesting activities. She lives hundreds of miles away (Bristol!) so I rarely see her as I'm in Scotland which is in the thick of it with a deluded Scottish Government determined to push through self ID at any cost. I would never, ever cut a long-standing friend out of my life if she didn't get on board with the issues like I did. Plant seeds and leave them to germinate and grow. At some point it is inevitable your friend will begin to wake up. Then you can share experiences and a new undersanding.

It’s not particularly complicated, the Mumsnet guidelines have been clear for some time that referring to a trans woman as a man, or a trans man as a woman, is not acceptable on this forum. I don’t make the rules.

Besides, it was you that said: “Either way, please do report any hate, or any misgendering, here on this thread. If the posts still stand, then it is not really 'misgendering', it is just you not liking the words people use.”

@aseriesofstillimages going back your assertion that crimes against those with a trans identity have risen hugely, that’s no wonder. As ‘non binary’ people come under the trans umbrella according to stonewall, and every human on earth is actually non binary as no one conforms 100% to gender stereotypes, technically every crime against a human is a hate crime. It just shows how progressive and forward thinking our justice system is that they have embraced this.

aseriesofstillimages
I don’t make the rules.

But clearly you'd like to, and it would be very unhealthy for everyone else if you had the power.

But, I can nearly sympathise. I really dislike it when people refer to non-human animals as "it", because they don't think it matters to remember whether the animals are male or female. I recall from previous threads that you are such a person.

Yet, if MN did have a rule against people being well, not to put too fine a point on it, like you, I doubt I'd report your posts.

and yet posts using he / him for men who are rapists and enjoy role playing as women tend not to be deleted.

I dunno if it's that even the monitors can't stomach enforcing pronouns for rapists so don't report, or MNHQ take the view that men who rape don't get pronoun privileges

either way, highlights just one of the inconsistencies, no? either all men who enjoy role playing as women get to force us to go along with them or none do, surely?

Zerogravity · 12/12/2022 16:11
It's hard. One of my oldest friends and my child's godfather is gay. He believes that TWAW and thinks I am transphobic and homophobic purely because I believe they are not. The fact that I supported him when he came out and his family didn't want to know was not enough. He just doesn't want to listen.

I think that before the concept of ‘gender’ was introduced ( really very recently), quite aside from the conflation of ‘sex’ with ‘gender’ coming from adopting the US euphemism, feminine gay men may naturally have thought of themselves as living out a more stereotypical female role in their relationships with other men.

I was told by a German friend, who is a very good linguist, that in German they don’t have two words ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ either.

There was recently a thread about an asylum seeking Qatari sheika who is a lesbian, but feels she is must be a man, and her friend came on to say they don’t have two words.

In India, I saw a programme about how families have feminine gay men live as women ( they don’t say they are women but have a third name for them).

Apropos UKraine, I was reading about Russian prisons where men doing the raping of men are not considered gay, it is the raped one, the ‘passive woman’ one who is and who is so despised that they are ‘untouchables’ whom no one will have anything to do with for fear of ‘catching’ the untouchability and bad luck, and they are put to clean the lavatories etc. The Romans thought the male penetrator of another man was very different from the ‘penetrated’ too. So that shows a concept of gay highly related to some gay men being considered more feminine.

I think that for some gay people the line is blurred between being same sex attracted, and being attracted to having a perceived, so called ‘feminine’ passivity.

This of course is all the more reason though not to harm gay people’s bodies to ‘trans away the gay’.

Yes, you’d think someone who knows you so well would at least think “Hmmm, Steph doesn’t usually talk like a bigot, I wonder if there’s more to this than I’ve heard of?”

I raise the subject at every opportunity, and luckily most of my friends think it’s batshit too. But we’re mainly old enough to remember how we had to push for women’s rights against our male leftie comrades in the 1970s, who swore they’d see to that when everything else (ie all their concerns) were sorted. Yeah, right. All ‘forgiven and forgotten’ since then. But now, off they go again and we’re meant to give up our rights without making a fuss.

A younger Canadian couple recently were appalled by my insistence that the trans stuff has nothing to do with LGB rights. Actually, thinking about it, it was the husband who insisted on forced-coupling ‘LGBT+ rights’ — the wife was quiet and seemed thoughtful.

I’ve found the best route to start people thinking is to mention things the propagandists keep quiet about.
That gender self-ID is a gift to sex predators who aren’t in the least trans, just seizing an amazing new opportunity of access to women and children.
That no amount of hormone use removes the physical advantages men have over women; not only in sports but when men attack us.
That adult men transitioning rarely have drugs or surgery to alter their body (apart from increasing their breast size), whereas girls undergo a great deal of damage, starting with breast amputation.

I dunno if it's that even the monitors can't stomach enforcing pronouns for rapists so don't report, or MNHQ take the view that men who rape don't get pronoun privileges

As I remember it, Mumsnetters in AIBU argued bitterly for the right to correctly sex rapists, after someone got deleted for using he and him to refer to Ian Huntley, who abused and murdered two ten year old girls. It has since been reported that Ian does not identify as trans, but at the time it was thought that he did. During that brief timeframe, someone (was it you, aseriesofstillimages?) reported posts that weren't sufficiently deferential to him, and someone at MNHQ kowtowed enough to the supposed wishes of a man who murdered two children to delete those posts.

This is a parenting site, and most of us are parents. Accordingly, MNHQ were asked by users to examine whether it was "in the spirit" to value Ian Huntley's feelings about being misgendered (should he even read mumsnet threads) over the feelings of anyone potentially reading who had known Holly and Jessica and known Huntley as the man who killed them.

Since then, the compromise has been that we can correctly sex convicted murderers and sex offenders, but MNers are still cautious about using this right.

Good point!

Also, every failure to call a man what he wants to be called is a crime. So, huge increases in crime.

either way, highlights just one of the inconsistencies, no? either all men who enjoy role playing as women get to force us to go along with them or none do, surely?

Ooh careful or someone will report you to Miss.

Ian Huntley is a vile, depraved man, even if he really does ask people to call him Leanne, Tabitha or Lian.

I seem to remember male and female being ok to use on mumsnet as well

I seem to remember male and female being ok to use on mumsnet as well

As long as you don't use a certain phrase trans activists don't like, it's generally fine to correctly sex people where it's relevant to the discussion, which of course on a feminist board it usually is.

I made the mistake with my friend, after she asked for 'evidence' of the abuse of self-ID, of sending her some, thinking that she maybe hadn't thought about the issue very much. She absolutely blew up at me and accused me of discounting and disrespecting the work she has done for women over the years (which she certainly has). I made the mistake of thinking we could have an actual fact-based discussion of this issue, but clearly we can't, so we have added it to a short list of Things We Don't Talk About.

I couldn’t be friends with anyone who thinks TWAW - there are only 2 reasons for this belief.
being thick as shit or hating women.
I’m not friends with anyone who thinks Barcelona is the capital of France either. It’s not a difference of opinion - it’s a fact that tw are not women.

I could possibly remain friends with people who believe that tw are tw and should be treated as women as while I don’t agree, it is an opinion.

No, we’re not saying the same things about people who identify as the opposite sex as anyone said about gays and lesbians at all. No one said they didn’t want lesbians in women’s change rooms or hospital wards, prisons or sports. No one ever suggested that gay or lesbian teens should be put on puberty blockers or have double mastectomies or bind their breasts. No one insisted that we call lesbians or women who presented in a more stereotypically masculine way men, or effeminate gay men women.

It’s not even remotely the same issues. No idea why you’d think it was.

Bonkersworknonsense thats not true. There used to be stuff said about how lesbians seduced young girls in sports changing rooms. There is no limit to the dumb homophobia that existed in the past; whatever stupid or evil thing you can think of has been said about gay people.

What has changed is people saying actual lies such as TWAW or that babies are born without a sex. That is what is different about this.

CrazyLadie · 14/12/2022 13:29
Ita not about being gender critical at all, it is the fact yer saying all the dsame things about trans people as people did about guys, it was bullshit then and its bullshit now

Then why are guys themselves writing this which I’ve linked below?

Why has the LGB alliance been formed with the aim of not being used as a vector for transgender ideology?

I read this document linked below on another thread. It is written by the Gay Men’s Network in response to the CPS about ‘Sex by deception’. It is about the difference between sex and gender and how harmful it is to conflate them and to use this to protect sex by deception rapists from prosecution.

It is also about the institutionalised capture of every kind of public body with ‘gender identity’ ideology and the effects of that.

static1.squarespace.com/static/6200252604e9795287de2ada/t/636a7c64ebf018723719f151/1667923047685/CPS_Response_Branded.pdf

I made the mistake with my friend, after she asked for 'evidence' of the abuse of self-ID, of sending her some, thinking that she maybe hadn't thought about the issue very much. She absolutely blew up at me and accused me of discounting and disrespecting the work she has done for women over the years (which she certainly has).

This comes into the "how dare you pierce my bubble of cognitive dissonance, I can't afford to question this ideology even though deep down I know it doesn't add up" bracket. That's why people get so very angry with people who make them have to defend their position, rather than glibly repeat mantras. They don't want to be like you, because that will make them persona non grata in progressive circles.

Add me to the list who's had a falling out over someone unable to listen to reason about the trans issue. Much more minor case than oldest friend, but still such a bizarre feeling.

Just, "No, I don't want to believe that." And somehow completely deaf to the fact that they're not being asked to believe anything. That's the whole point. And this is an intelligent person who'd call themselves feminist. So, so, so weird.

The idea there was also "agree to disagree." But I found I'd crossed over my limit on that. Believing bullshit is dooming our whole world. Can't mention fuel use and climate change. Prickly issue. Can't mention vaccines or mask use against covid (and, increasingly, measles and everything else!). Prickly issue. Can mention homophobia but not sex apartheid in Qatar. Prickly issue. Can't mention biological realities. Prickly issue.

Suddenly, I just can't. But I also can't figure out how to approach these problems. Poke the prickly issues and everybody and everything blows up. Don't mention them and everybody keeps running headlong into lethal fantasies.

Has anybody figured out how to mention them in a way that helps anyone to learn anything?

I am having a similar issue with a friend who thinks drag queens are harmless and really good fun.

I don't really know what to say to her about this. We have kind of agreed not to mention the topic for the moment but I know it will eventually come up again.

I was bewildered by the response. I was approaching it from the angle of "we disagree but I'll show you why I think what I think and you show me why you think what you think" and that was clearly seen as a personal attack even though I know there are issues (like transwomen in women's sports) that we agree on. We are basically going down the "agree to disagree" route now but I don't feel the same way about her as I felt before.

Britinme

so your friend doesn’t think TWs should be in woman’s sports?
that makes her a TERF!

I'd love to tell her that but honestly don't want to blow it all up again. She is a very good friend.

@Britinme I find your friend's response utterly incomprehensible. I'd call it DARVO, except you didn't attack her. You just did what she asked you to do.