Former TRA’s what made you change your mind?

[PissedOffAmericanWoman]

I figured it would be interesting to start a thread about why, if you used to be a traditional transgender advocate, why did you stop? I say traditional because it seems the traditional way is by advocating running over women’s sex based rights to “help” trans people. Most of us know that gender critical people do support trans people but it’s just not the way that the media appreciates because we have boundaries and call out trans people who have a problem with women having boundaries. You know the age old tale.

I used to be a very zealous trans rights advocate. There was once a time I would delightfully verbally assault someone for even so much as not commenting on something.

I can’t say there was one single moment that made me realize things weren’t right though. It was more like a gradually collection of little moments that made me change my mind. If you want to here my side of it feel free to read on the next comment. There’s a lot of moments so I’ll make it a separate post.

From the very beginning there were subtle (or not so subtle) red flags. Like the fact that it felt more like TRA’s were telling women, not asking, what was acceptable and what wasn’t. It wasn’ta two way conversation. It was very much “it’s my way or the highway.” or “Do as I say or I will label you as a bigot.” Looking back they were very much holding me emotionally hostage.

The hypocrisy of how trans racial was not accepted but transgender was. The outright refusal to acknowledge sex. But the biggest factor was meeting transpeople in person I think. A lot of the trans women seemed very angry and seemingly suspicious of me even when I was very highly accepting of them and enthusiastically accepted them as women. There was even a gut feeling that they looked down on me or were even jealous of me. The fact that the conversation always seemed to revolve around their sexuality. The common language corrections that even when done in a seemingly polite way that gradually started to get tiring . You know the language seemingly changed every month so even the most knowledgeable person would have trouble keeping up with it.

There was also the feeling that I just couldn’t shake around trans women when we had “girl talk”. It didn’t feel natural even though I really really tried to shake that. One transgirl would get in a very bad mood when there was discussion of periods, cramping, PMS or sanitary products.

I once took a picture of my bathroom being redecorated to show off the wall paper and the transgirl literally just walked out of the room. We asked if she was okay and she said she felt upset that she could see a box of tampons. That never sat right with me.

There is also the obvious fact that you can’t just say women in situations where it would be convenient when discussing female issues. It’s always the tiring mouth full phrases such as people who menstruate or people who give birth or people who breastfeed. It gets old you know?

The biggest life event that shifted my perspective was experiencing pregnancy, giving birth and breastfeeding. Not to mention how my midwives and la leche league using (inclusive language) during an already stressful time. Realizing desire being very very sick and almost dying three times I was more worried about checking and scanning my language and word choices than myself and my baby’s health.

It was after my daughters birth and experiencing very painful and stressful breastfeeding that I really started to review my perspective. First was the fact that my trans friends suddenly became very scarce. One said it was because they hate children and I talked about it too much. The other became passive aggressive and started making mean comments and seemed amused even giddy that I was so ill and almost died. They weren’t this way until I got pregnant. My female friend made a comment that they said our trans girl friends confessed they found my pregnancy difficult to hear about and even commented that I was insensitive to bring it up and should keep it to myself.

These instances made me think about how this all affected my daughter. I often wondered how I would feel if she decided to be a “he”. And while I wouldn’t hate that I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. I would prefer that she didn’t. Not because I wouldn’t love her/him or that I couldn’t accept them or use the correct pronouns but because I would worry about my child’s health but mental and physical. About whether or not they felt that way for the right reasons and weather it would cut their life short or prevent them from living their life too it’s fullest.

Many of my trans friends seemed very self involved sadly. I cannot deny that everything seemed to be about them and their feelings. Yet I had my own traumas and health issues as well as everyone else yet their issues always seemed to be prioritized over everything else. They very rarely talked about anything other than their transness. It wasn’t just an experience for them or a lived reality but it was their entire being and personality it seemed, in a very all consuming unhealthy way.

I realized talking to them was exhausting even a chore. I think that’s when I realized even though I didn’t want to admit it that I was becoming gender critical. I didn’t want to be. I was scared of being gender critical. I was scared of being called a transphobe or bigot or being rejected or called out on social media. Even worse what if I was the only one who felt this way?

But slowly I started paying attention and noticing the little hints and subtle comments from friends and family. I would ask very carefully how they felt and slowly one by one others started confessing they felt the same but felt it was too risky to open up about it. It was a relief. They said they felt they couldn’t admit to disagreeing with it because many (mainly liberals) in the USA sees things in very black and white. (You are either with us or against us.) Rather than a very nuanced perspective that perhaps those that disagree with some things maybe don’t disagree with everything. For instance enmeshing gender with sex when they are very different experiences.

I got called a terf and told to educate myself after commenting on a trans friends post. It was for stumbling over how to describe 'male bodied' and born male, in a trans-friendly way. I got it wrong and was jumped on.

Obviously as soon as i started 'educating myself' it all became clear

For me it was pregnancy, birth and nursing as well. I had very similar experiences as you did with trans friends. I always find it telling when TRAs come on here telling us that we just need to meet some trans people and then we'll see the light - yes I did but not in the way they think!

Following with interest. I'm in the UK and was reading a thread earlier saying that on our last census something like 0.35% of the population identifies as transgender/ non binary. ( I'm going to re check that so apologies if I'm wrong).

So not a huge amount in real terms given the amount of publicity, airspace and fawning on social media that women are subjected to.

I don't have an answer for you OP because I've always been staunchly GC but I'm always interested in the cognitive dissonance between "trans women are women" and "please don't trigger me by talking about periods" and also " TWAW but I don't recognise any of the shit bits of the female experience" ( lower pay, DV, sexual assault, sexual health and pregnancy etc) .

But you'd think if you ARE a woman that this would be part of your experience ( or hoped for experience. That you'd be all over it like a rash. But instead TW seem to largely want to identify with the 'fun' bits of performative femininity. No one seems to dress like Barbara from accounts, for example.

Aw yes the typical “Maybe if we just aggressively stack them that will show them to get it wrong!” I was very emotionally immature to fall for them and join in. I honestly cringe at myself when I remember doing that to people. 😬 Looking back most likely they never got it wrong again but they probably just avoided the topic entirely and I probably just ensured that they became a closet gender critical. 😂😅🥹

For me it happened after having a child. Was a card carrying London lib type, desperate to be cool and please, hanging out with the awesome lgbt folk.

Moved somewhere boring, had a kid, noticed the feminism boards after I was thinking through child legal issues. Saw the GC stuff and was interested in what all the fuss was about so followed for a bit.

I think I began to peak after considering the information about GIDS, transing kids and feeling a quite primal urge to protect my tiny child from this abuse.

The PIE related stuff is also pretty yuck.

I used to be THAT kind of, living their life on the Internet, outcast geek, watches anime, 'cool girl' who is 'one of the boys and dislikes women' (internal mysoginist), thinks certain opinions are edgy, 911 was faked, everyone else is an idiot and only I know what the right opinion is, kind of young person. I see me in these TRAs. Hoping they grow out of it just as I did.

I've brought my husband along on the journey, he was at first quite concerned I'd turned into a bigot. But now he gets it. So thanks, FWR.

Oh yes. They only want the nice very exterior part of womanhood. But when we are experiencing a very physical womanly experience they suddenly want nothing to do with us because it’s suddenly undeniable that we are different in ways neither of us can change even if we wanted to.

Idk why but there was one transgirl that said she wished she could have a period and that always made me furious. Probably because my period was not something I opted into and I literally have lost jobs because my periods hurt so badly. The issue was never diagnosed and I was always gaslit by doctors that it was not that bad and I just needed to suck it up. I had been sent home vomiting by employers.

I think it was trauma related because after I got away from a very bad family situation and I was happy and safe it resolved and they became very mild. But the fact is I went through that for years and it was very painful and something I would often dread. But they made it sound like it would be fun and quirky!

Not to mention the shame I felt in elementary school. I was an early bloomer. Got my period before I got the sex or period talk at 10yo in class very publicly because my parents did not think it would happen so early. Mother got hers at 13 and just assumed it would be the same for us. So it was very scary humiliating and terrifying but the kids who knew shamed me really badly especially the boys. Girls would announce to the class that they heard me using wrappers in the bathroom and they would say they could smell my period and didn’t want to play with me. It was horrible. But you know it’s so cute and trendy bleeding in our pants and having painful cramps right? 😃

I wasn’t a TRA, but I was right down the “TWAW” rabbit hole, believed the rhetoric about “being born in the wrong body”, didn’t mind being called “cis” etc up until about 5/6 years ago maybe? Didn’t post about it on Twitter or anything, certainly didn’t abuse anyone, but I guess I just accepted the trans rhetoric.

what led me to change was a case overseas where a man tried to have his age legally changed as he felt younger than he was and I thought “och that’s ridiculous” but then thought well is it really any more ridiculous than changing sex? Decided it wasn’t, and that was it. Labour’s ridiculous self ID plans were the final nail in the coffin.

I was never a TRA, but used to firmly sit on the other side of the debate. I started reading more widely after reading an article (BBC surprisingly) about lesbians being coerced into sexual relationships with intact transwomen, in combination with seeing increasing numbers of posts on mumsnet about young girls declaring themselves trans. Then it just felt like so many things were way wrong.

That completely makes sense. Like where do we draw the line? And how is it any different? The litter box incident in a university and -MAPs- trying to downplay pedophila. I think that stuff is really killing the momentum. I don’t see how it is sustainable especially with them not drawing a clear line in the sand. The endless need to include everyone. The long LGBTQIA+ acronym is a perfect example of the lack of boundaries to their own detriment.

Never been a TRA but was vaguely in the "be kind", doesnt really matter to me group until one of my relatives transitioned. Then I thought I ought to find out more about it.

Once you really find out what is happening then it becomes impossible to support.

I also was in the "be kind, no skin off my nose, just like being gay, probably" gang. But it became very obvious just who isn't allowed to have an opinion and who must be shut down and who must be kind. And it's always, always women. Why is that, I wondered. So I found out. I eventually came here, still being all nice and kind etc and got my arse royally handed to me about eight years ago. It stung badly at the time and I really had to slink away and think about why. Then it all came together.

I had a friend point out that all the women’s health websites were updated to be “inclusive” but men’s health websites where lately left untouched. It’s really irritating how silent everyone is about that isn’t it? Lol

I'm sorry to hear you've had such painful periods OP. They can be completely debilitating.

I too started mine at 10yo in primary school, long before any chats were had with my mother ( who started hers at 14). I was the first girl ( ever, apparently!) at the school to have started her periods so early ( this was 1980) and was paraded in front of my entire CLASS the following day with a "something wonderful has happened to Lady... she's become a WOMAN!" speech.

I wasn't asked or consulted as to whether this was appropriate or wanted, and at 10 I barely knew what the fuck was going on anyway apart from the fact that my tummy hurt and I had blood coming out of me. It was really quite traumatic.

Well, you can imagine the prurient interest and jeering and general bullying that followed. Imagine if we did that when a boy's balls dropped.

It’s really irritating how silent everyone is about that isn’t it? Lol

Really grinds my gears. Men make zero concessions and spend their activism hours making demand after demand, calling women names, berating any woman who disagrees and other women cheerfully go along with it. Don't they even notice? What kind of a woman who calls herself a feminist can witness this and never think, hang on here...

Omg this generation of people. 😂🤦🏻‍♀️ Why do they think the entire planet needs to know? You’re right I’ve never heard it announced that about a guy. 😳 But my mother was certainly on the phone with the entire family and all her coworkers to inform them that her baby was a woman now. So much embarrassing, very unwanted, unsolicited advice and creepy uncomfortable comments. I JUST WANT TO BE LEFT ALONE TO EAT ICE CREAM AND CRY IN BED. 😩

For me it was the Tara Hudson case. I had always been incredibly sympathetic to 'trans' people before, and still am to a certain extent in the case of gender dysphoria. It was when that stopped being related to being trans I got a bit confused and came here to ask what it was all about.

It was in part the wise people here, but also the glaring lack of answers from TRAs on here that cemented it. I honestly spent about a year thinking that someone would come and explain it in a way I'd understand and it wouldn't just be based on 'girls are like THIS and boys are like THAT' stuff from the Victorian era.

I've yet to receive a coherent answer.

The few I've had are from 'transsexual' people who acknowledge they want to be the opposite sex, and generally don't think that gender is this free-floating feeling unrelated to sex.

And then I saw the homophobia embedded in it (as well as the misogyny, but there's always misogyny in everything, isn't there?)

A report on R4 about the Lauren Jeska (sp) case.

i vividly remember listening, and idly thinking, that doesn’t sound like the kind of thing a female athlete does… how odd/interesting. I genuinely thought the perpetrator was a woman, as that is how the bbc were reporting it. When I looked it up online I got quite cross at what I assumed was sloppy journalism in not reporting the full facts.

i was already a MN User, lured in initially by the pregnancy threads when I was pregnant with my first. I kind of vaguely knew about the FWR topics, and idly clicked through a link on Active Threads one day when it was being discussed.

mind.blown.

been here ever since.

And out of interest,I’ve just gone back and looked up that case again. Looks like the perpetrator is in a woman’s prison.

Yes I was silently very much the same in regards to it no longer being about a medical with gender dysphoria and felt like it was turning into a trend. It felt like the trans community was afraid to say no because they just felt like “The more the merrier.”

I know only a few have very publicly come out as detrans but where then very harshly attacked because they were not well known and easy to cast a shadow on. I predict it will take a very well known well loved US celebrity who is forced to publicly detransition (think someone big like Ellen/Elliot Page) or a huge scandal that can’t be denied or covered up before there is visible evolution. I think the traction is picking up but it is slow going especially for people like myself living in canada.

Can you link me to the Tara Hudson case? I’ve very curious.

I think some of my transition from my happy clappy "be kind, be inclusive" state of mind of maybe 8-10 years ago was when I finally realised the absolute depths of misogyny apparent in some ( not all!) gay men.

I was absolutely appalled after several conversations with people I had considered relatively close friends where it became apparent just how deeply rooted their distaste for female anatomy and biological reality is. The sneering and belittling and practically having an attack of the vapours when vaginas or periods were mentioned, as if it was beyond conscionable that these things existed, let alone were talked about in polite society. The idea that to be properly gay you had never sullied yourself with the touch of a woman. And so on.

The gay women I know, whilst not thrilled by the existence of penises, managed to operate alongside the abstract reality of them ( and the very real danger that they actually represent) without telling every man they met that they were carrying around smelly, disgusting appendages that made them want to retch.

I hope it goes without saying that I absolutely support equal rights for all same sex attracted people, but one of the turning points for me was just breaking down all the different ways I experienced misogyny and this was a real eye opener as I had up to that point assumed that gay men were allies to women. So the follow on realisation that TW were not necessarily allies either made me start doing a lot of reading.

For me, 10-15 years ago I'd only ever heard about rare cases of actual transsexuals and I just thought it was an interesting phenomenon and hoped they were happy in their lives.

Then I started reading this board and initially thought both "sides" were making a mountain out of a molehill on the internet, and that none of it impacted real life very much.

I first became concerned when reading about children and teens being medicalised just because they didn't fit a stereotype.

I still thought women's spaces were not a major issue as I just thought of it as the occasional transsexual person using the loo. I was pretty surprised when I heard that males in women's prisons and women's sports was becoming a thing.

Even then, I still thought language wasn't a major issue. I'd have happily referred to an individual trans person by their preferred name and pronouns, and still would. I thought no-one but the occasional woke website would actually use language like "people who menstruate". Then I started to see it in places like the BBC and NHS websites. Then my workplace (university) started talking about menopause happening to 50% of "people".

I still support individuals who identify as trans in being able to get on with their lives without being harassed. I'm also all for breaking down gender stereotypes. However all the above have come to worry me a lot.

I actually thought I was going mad for a bit, reading it all on here, when no one in real life or anywhere else in the media was talking about it. Now I've spoken about it with my DP and some friends, and people seem more willing to discuss it online. I still support trans people but also have a lot of concerns about the current version of gender ideology.

Like a complete fuckwit I used to think a trans woman was a female who presented as male. Of course they should be in women’s prisons and changing rooms and everything else! These boards soon put me right.

I still think that an awful lot of people have that confusion though, and I think most people think that to transition you must have all the surgery. Those that don’t lurk on mumsnet, anyway.

There was one TRA on twitter who found themselves on the Farms...... after reading the evidence on there apparently they realised quite how many of their side are...... 👀

Same here. I thought it was only a small minority that had a penis and that they all wished to remove it and it was only a matter of time or an lack of opportunity to have it removed. Then a i started learning a lot of them very conveniently would like to keep it! I think that’s when I started getting very very weary…

Also the fact that they seem to only grasp the very tip of the iceberg of misogyny. There’s a big big chunk they will never ever see or even have to think about.

The husband stitch, being discriminated at work for things like birth control (for very VERY different purposes that they experience), female related illnesses that require a uterus and ovaries, female fertility, forced birth, abortion, sexual shame that only a female can feel and experience, the very vulnerable place that only pregnancy birth and breastfeeding can make a person feel, religious oppression against women, menopause, the list goes on. They will never ever EVER feel that to the depths that we feel. And transmen oh they are so naive to think that they can opt out of those things somehow. They still hold the physical experience of sexual oppression it might be more subtle or less noticeable for them if they choose to get surgery but it’s still very much there especially since they are more likely to experience negative side effects with their surgeries!