Cancel Culture and The Chilling Effect - a thread to share your experiences

[ArabeIIaScott]

Does the 'chilling effect' or 'cancel culture' affect you?

This is an anonymous forum, so we can speak relatively openly. But how do we speak in real life?

Are you comfortable to talk about gender/sex openly?
Would you raise it at work?
Would you/do you raise it with your child's school?
At home?
On social media?

Are women able to speak about these issues?
Have you done so and experienced consequences?

I think the effects of these issues have far reaching consequences that we really have hardly seen reported or looked at so far. How's it affecting society, women in society, relations between groups?

Thanks.

Looks good.

I do think it would be useful to have specifically a place for UK women to gather stories of 'chilling'. Of how they've been silenced. But it may be a little while til we work out how to do that.

Are you comfortable to talk about gender/sex openly?

>> With friends yes. I'm card-carrying member of disadvantaged groups, so seems like I've got more leeway before I can be accused of privileged ignorance. They know me as curious straight-talker who won't be hypnotised by things I have no understanding of and asks a lot of questions. "What do you mean, gender identity and biology sex are completely separate? Like some cartesian duality? What is gender identity that isn't identifying with social stereotypes? What is wrong with bio-essentialism? Help me out here..."

Would you raise it at work?

>> Well, I don't work in university or any form of public service so the issue hasn't really come up, most of my colleagues are male. The close female colleague friend I have is vocal Muslim. No non-stealth trans at work.

Would you/do you raise it with your child's school?

>> hasn't come up

At home?

>> my DH is as sceptical as me. I don't talk about it in negative sense with kids, I don't want to make them feel like they need to hide from me. One of them had trans friend (FtM) in Y6 who had a lot of issues, complaining on Discord during lockdown with select friends incl him about her parents and her father being r*. Then family suddenly moved away and I myself found out about everything after the fact. Sigh. DS at 11 said thought he was non-binary and tried on my skirts and now he is 14 and said he can't believe he was even thinking this. Nothing has come up since then but I part of me is....well, I know how teenagers parents can be deluded thinking they know everything about their teenagers.

On social media?

>>> Hell no. I don't have social media accounts though, just IG to follow others.

Are women able to speak about these issues?

>> In public without serious consequences? Not to me and that's depressingy dystopian. I had a nightmare when I went to an organised event and there was a trans person on stage looking visibly upset, saying they had powers to access internet data record and had a list of attendees who were secret TERFs. My name was on their list. Blood curdled and I woke up.

Have you done so and experienced consequences?

>> No. I do need to muster social courage but only if I have strong charismatic English.

He's just being naive. And it's basically an argument not to even have sex segregated changing rooms.

I'd avoid it at work and in schools but speak freely with friends and family (they think the same). I truly believe most people see it for what it is, but because the consequences can be life damaging (losing jobs, income etc...) they will either say nothing (like me) or they'll say the sky is pink when inside they know it's blue.

I heard Piers Morgan call is a moral cowardliness not to speak up, but I think he speaks from a position of great privilege. He is wealthy enough that if he lost his income, he'd survive just fine. Plus he's a man and they seem to be less likely to be cancelled over this topic. So I don't see it as moral cowardliness, I see it as self preservation.

I've recently found out I have a stalker on here.
She's been following my posts.
I've said Dd thinks I'm a TERF.
This is true, however she's not outwardly said that, and she certainly has not called me transphobic bigot, or anything similar.
My stalker has been repeating this in other groups, other places to discredit me where I'd not mentioned my views at all, as they weren't relevant.
I won't be scared off, but I will name change as it's weird, creepy, unhinged behaviour.
#BeKind though.

That sounds sinister, Strawberries. Will you try and find out who is doing this?

I know exactly who it is, no idea of their MN name though and why they'd want to spend time on FWR is beyond me, unless just to be an unhinged weirdo...
I can't see them getting any answers they like here with the realists!

That sounds very unpleasant. Will you say anything?

They know I know.
Anyway, weird as it is, it's small fry compared to what some women have had to put up with, and it won't stop me from speaking up against the gender bullshit.
We'll get there eventually.

Oh, that is fucking off, Tastes. Name change is a good idea. Hope the creep fucks off and finds a better hobby than stalking women.

That must be extremely unnerving for you, Tastes, and what a loss of your privacy. I so hope you can ‘disappear’.

I have nothing much to lose by being GC so am ok to speak up and attend meetings discussing these views. At home it is difficult around one adult child but the rest of the family are all GC. My friends are also fine with it but I don't have a vast social circle. I argue against any anti Trans sentiments wherever I hear them, I just don't think you have to be TWAW to be kind.
A small win today: At my husband's work a super woke current Trans Policy came up for discussion at a Senior Management meeting. I coached him all weekend and he's just texted saying the policy will be reviewed. Nobody argued strongly for the current version and several spoke up for single sex spaces. I was a bit worried but we agreed that his job probably wasn't in danger and if it was we can weather him losing it at his late stage of career. And he has the male advantage refered to earlier in the thread. I was anxious for him though and am now super relieved and proud of him.

Really very unnerving. Shocking how some people don’t like women speaking out.

It's a woman doing it.
Let's hope her "kindness", never comes back to bite her...

That's great to hear, Feduperika!

This is a very interesting topic of discussion @ArabeIIaScott

I freely espouse my GC views IRL. I make sure to keep my sentiments measured and simple (focussing on women's sports, medicalisation of children, women's prisons and refuges, rather than the more esoteric aspects of the issue). I've experienced no negative IRL effects.

It helps that I work in an industry which prizes empirical evidence and facts, and is fairly socially conservative. I think it also helps that I come from a WC immigrant background - we are less susceptible to upper middle class ultralib guilt-driven psychosis (I use the word 'psychosis' advisedly, because believing that one can change one's DNA to the opposite sex, merely by willing it, and getting other people to affirm the fiction, is nothing less than a disconnect from reality, and is therefore psychotic, in the clinical sense).

My partner, adult children (one of them gay), friends gay and straight, tend to agree with the broad brushes of my GC views and, if they don't, we keep it light and agree to disagree, or respectfully discuss it.

Online is a different story and I've been abused, suspended and permabanned from various allegedly feminist forums, as well as mainstream social media platforms and lighthearted gossip forums, for my GC views. I don't worry about that so much though because parasocial relationships are not real relationships.

The only area where I experience cognitive dissonance is voting. I think Starmer's Labour should get in next time as the Tories are exhausted and out of ideas (though I quite like Sunak). However I won't vote for a party which can't define my existence. It's an absolute binary issue for me. It comes before all other policies. Why would I vote for a party that doesn't think I exist in a material reality. No thanks. But that's the only bit I find difficult.

Ask Kathleen Stock.... supposedly cancelled and seems to be on every media outlet.

So no, don't see there being any chilling effect.

This is such a classic Cluster B personality disordered type of thing to think.

This is because people with Cluser B personality disorders and/or tenuous grips on social function, tend to assume that all attention is good attention, and that everyone desires attention.

I appreciate it might be difficult for you to understand this @MishyJDI so please take my word for it when I say that non-Cluster B folks don't view all attention as good attention. If Kathleen Stock is getting loads of attention, but 70% of that is men in dresses screaming at her and sending death threats, and her colleagues and bosses force her to leave her job, then that IS cancellation. Even though she's still getting lots of attention.

My workplace is vomiting rainbows from every orifice, and I think it's safe to say the Humanities are in serious trouble for various reasons aside this issue. If you don't announce pronouns everywhere and display a rainbow lanyard it can be enough to get you noticed as an insurgent. I've been challenged directly to state my pronouns and been put in the position of having to refuse. I'll call anyone by their chosen name, avoid 'pronouns' entirely for the most part, but my hill to die on is having this nonsense imposed on me.

Thankfully it isn't a lecturer's job to share our political views with students. I'd need my bumps felt if I did, or taught whole modules on 'gender' (no effin' WAY!) but on occasion it naturally comes up. Our role is to develop them as autonomous learners, explain what the different sides of the argument involve, tell them to do their reading, and to make their own minds up. A good many are not as in thrall to GI as you might expect, and some are able to have nuanced, intelligent discussions whatever their own view, as I would expect of UKHE. The key is to manage things beforehand by letting them know what you expect, and if things do step one tiny bit over that line, to nix the discussion and move on.

You'll be asked for your own opinion of course, but it's quite admissible to respond that it doesn't matter what you personally think. It's their education: by which definition it's what they think that counts. Same rules apply as ever - if you want to make an argument stand up, substantiate it. (ho, ho ho ...)

Sometimes a student will tell you 'I hate JK Rowling, she's a revolting person' whilst looking at you expectantly in the hope that you'll agree. That phrase is quite often the starting point for a censorious discussion on the need for female capitulation or the evils of dissent. My response to this is always an over-the-top-of-the-spectacles death stare. No one can discipline me for what I don't say, but it makes the point alright.

Aside from anything else, I'm suffering from serious GI fatigue. This shit's got old. The conversation is important - I'm in no doubt whatsoever as to how important - but I'm beyond weary of the incessant whining about Gender, and 'My Identity', and the self-absorption, boundary-stamping and downright tedium of the relentless identity politics currently blotting our landscape.

And breathe.

Also, one woman speaks up on behalf of how many thousands who are unable to?

The 'chilling effect' I'm talking about here is not just about Stock losing her job for speaking up; it's about the thousands of women who can't speak up for fear of the same thing happening to them.

For me cancel culture is in part the things you don't say, you write out an e-mail or post or tweet and then just cancel without saying it.

Like this - this is the thing I didn't say today

yeah I always want to ask at what age do you think kids are mature enough to:-

get tattoos
get drunk
have sex
get married
decide that they will never be happy in their body and know for sure that sex, orgasms and reproduction aren't important to them now or in the future.

This interesting article on 'gender Ketman' seems very relevant:

'The practice of Ketman contributes to the ongoing spiral of silence. Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, who developed the <a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.com/url?q=www.britannica.com/topic/spiral-of-silence&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1686273454346363&usg=AOvVaw0sEFGQ9tIMD92X1Ako3UWB" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">spiral of silence theory, suggested that people’s willingness to express their true opinions about controversial moral issues is linked to perceptions about the popularity or otherwise of the opinions. If an idea is perceived as unpopular, the person will often keep it silent to protect themselves from the risk of social isolation. Sometimes, ideas that appear to be hugely popular are secretly opposed by most of the population.'

https://thecritic.co.uk/gender-ketman/

Ask Kathleen Stock.... supposedly cancelled and seems to be on every media outlet.
**
So no, don't see there being any chilling effect.

Apart from how Prof Stock was forced to resign and have people screaming whenever invited to speak, I think you missed the point about how @ArabeIIaScott was using this thread to ask us, you know, regular women leading regular lives working in all kinds of industries, about our experiences of a chilling effect. You seem very determined to ignore our comments.

Are you comfortable to talk about gender/sex openly?
Very much so

Would you raise it at work?
Have done, nhs I'm an their nemesis

Would you/do you raise it with your child's school?
Thankfully kids have left school but I keep an eye on what my grandkids are being taught .

At home? All the time and my partner and wider family and friends agree with me.

On social media? All the time on Twitter.

The nhs has fallen. I'm brave for saying im GC
I will protect my dementia patients.
New guidance off nhs confederation to my last count is at odds with 17 points of the nmc code.
It's against nhs values
It's against the 6cs

I've told my trust that , completely taken over and infiltrated by the rainbow mafia

I'm reading an interesting book at the moment by Frank Furedi - " Borders: Why Humanity Needs To Re-Learn The Art of Drawing Boundaries'

In it he discusses the modern cultural embrace of openness and non judgmentalism as inherent virtues, and the denigration of boundaries, discrimination and differentiation.

But as old boundaries are being wilfully eroded, newer boundaries are being erected around what is permissible or not permissable to say, or even to think.
He argues that a culture of surveillance necessarily follows such shifts - as the boundaries of acceptability have to be policed in order to maintain them.

It occurs to me that the more traditional boundaries have evolved to differentiate between one society and another, between male and female, and between children and adults, as just a few examples; whereas the new boundaries are being very tightly erected around individual identity and the identity of the new groupings ( which are now race and gender ( rather than sex).

The new crimes are thought crimes and crimes of speech. Scary territory.