Is anyone else finding being gender critical has affected their mental health?

[BluebellBlueballs]

Maybe I need to take a step back but that feels like capitulation.
I just feel I am being persecuted for my beliefs.
Two people in my life one a sibling one a friend, both men, have washed their hands of me completely after finding out I joined women's gender critical networks.

Told I'm in a hate group etc.

I used to be quite open about being GC because I didn't think I was doing anything wrong. I guess I thought of it as like joining extinction rebellion or something, OK some people don't want it forced down their throats but no need to lie or hide my activities. But it's not like that at all.

I've had a sort of mh crisis over being cut off by people close to me, and others not so close to me, for having what I see as a difference of an opinion over TWAW. But I'm being made to feel like I've joined the ku klux klan.

Sometimes I wonder if its worth it any more but that's how this movement seems to operate, by shaming the heretics into silence.

Can anyone relate?

Sending hugs and letting you know you are not alone in having GC views. I can't imagine what it feels like because everyone I am close too totally shares my views. I am very private about my views at work and have sometimes wondered if colleagues felt as you do.
We all have to move forward and start a conversation somehow.

Sorry you are struggling.

It does play hell with your social life to realise most of your friends are completely captured (I'm a millennial) but I find the longer I've been voicing my views as GC, the more people I've found who quietly think the same, and I feel like they're a better group of friends.

It sounds like you need a new circle of acquaintances. Ostracising you, telling you you're part of a hate group etc is part of their tactics to try and isolate you and make you feel like you're wrong (and to fall back in line) when it's them.

Tbh, I'm not really open about it in the sense that I don't put anything GC on SM and I don't talk about it much with anyone other than my daughter, brother and partner but I find that other people bring it up quite often.

I can honestly say that I've only met two people who aren't also GC! My son and a woman I used to he very good friends with but no longer am for.many reasons including this.

I'm open at work about it (I'm a teacher and everyone I've spoken too is also GC regardless of age or background); people I've got chatting to in the pub; in my hobbies... the Internet feels like a very strange place to me on this because I literally don't meet anyone irl who isn't GC!

In my experience pretty much everyone, apart from young people who're just going with the herd, is gender critical. People under 25 have had it drummed into them that disputing TWAW is shocking and evil.

I simply cannot believe in GI, I think trying to would send me loopy, it's insane. I've credited MN with saving my sanity, as an example that the world has not gone entirely mad and a refuge when mad shit is going down like the Scottish GRR. It helps me feel I'm doing a tiny bit to push back, so not completely helpless.

Yes, I know what you mean - it's horrible.

And then when people are so aghast when I state my views on science or women's safety, etc, their reactions are so incredibly strong that I often have to question myself to check I'm not actually being a nazi.

I think I would have just shut up and silently gone along with it all several years ago if it weren't for Mumsnet and the groups staying so vocal about this stuff.

I also feel that the broadsheets are better now at talking common sense than they were a year ago, so that is helping to keep me sane and stop questioning myself so much too.

I know obviously Maya's and similar judgements don't help much with social and family situations, but I think that as more and more legal issues are settled, organisations will naturally change the way they talk about gender critical views publicly because they'll have to, and that will hopefully instigate a bit of a cultural shift that makes it easier to be open about not subscribing to gender ideology.

The government seems to be slowly waking up to the issues and I think if they can manage provide some even slightly sensible guidance on what should and shouldn't being taught in schools for SRE, that will hopefully help to expose gender ideology as a belief as opposed to a fact, which will hopefully help us to defend ourselves against people forcing it on us.

Things are definitely better than they were a year or two ago, thanks to everyone's hard work and determination, so I think while it's still often horrible socially, it's an odd time to give up as the message is finally getting through to people.

The good news is I am making new friends through the networks. That is some consolation. But its not the same as old friends, and I have a horrible feeling I won't see my brother again until its at our dad's funeral.

I wouldn't say its affected my mental health but I can't be outright critical because I work for the NHS and don't want to get the sack.
I was asked why my pronouns aren't on my email and I said it's because they are nobody else's business, nobody knows whether I'm gay, straight or what because I'm quite different, so they dare not ask.
I am angry though. It is absolutely none of their business what I think or feel.

I haven't had inter-personal angst (other than one online friendship driven to destruction).

But my personal mental health has been absolutely affected and to some extent the health of relationship with my GF has been tested.

After nearly a decade getting more and more eaten up by this subject, I found last year I was forever delving online, forever complaining, forever exasperated. And forever distracted as my GF, who is GC but also hugely balanced and "in the moment", more and more told me I needed to find solutions, not just more antagonism.

And with our wedding closing fast, I realised that I had to find solutions, via therapy, but also really finding myself, and then sticking to what I know to be true, and losing my angst and obsessiveness.

I'm kinda there, but there's always fine tuning to do.

I do know, had I stayed at the level of negative energy and self flagellation I had twelve months ago, I'd more and more not be a good person to be around.

I'd, firtsly, check out wheter there there are any groups of like minded women in your area. This can be a great source of strength.

Secondly, you get used to biding your time, and laying low. Save your fire power and energy for actions that matter and will have some effect. Again it helps if you have a local support network.

Take a short break every now and then from looking at Mumsnet or from follwing any leads that you come across. Life still goes on, and this is an issue that is a long haul one. It is not going to evaporate over-night and is going to take persistence and time to turn back the tide.

So, get some perspective.......and realise that this is a long term commitment. Utilise any opportunities you do get to diseminate information; write letters, make enquiries, complaints. educate those who seem reasonably open.

I'd say that dealing with massive gaslighting, and with people who know that material reality exists but instead pretend to hold an opposite belief either out of fear or to maintain or advance status, and seeing all kinds of institutional enforcement of a quasi-religion, with the people involved knowing that in doing this they must disengage their critical thinking because otherwise the cognitive dissonance will be uncomfortable, is mentally draining and it's sensible to step back from time to time.

That's tough! I have a similar issue with one of my sons - though he still lives at home which makes it worse.

How old is your brother, and why is he so into it?

Reframe it as a racism argument ala the 1950s etc. A person stands up to racism - joins networks and groups that are pro-supportive of, say, humanity and all countries and peoples, and condemning hatred of people simply based on race. And people who are racist condemn that person, shun them etc. Should they stop supporting that cause just to win back the racist family/friends? I know I wouldn't.

People who are anti-women/girls rights are not the kind of people I would want to associate with. I feel for you op, but you are fighting the good fight.

No, but only because I'm not really openly GC (except to dh) and I don't have much of a social circle to fall out with. This board is pretty much my only connection with the gc world, so it's pretty much compartmentalised from my real life. I'm not really brave enough to out myself irl tbh.

I’m sure MH can be affected, yes.

I wouldn’t have said it’s got that far for me, but I certainly have spent more time than ideal worrying about how it is that so many people can go along with an idea that makes little sense and is based on ideological underpinnings I would guess most have no real grasp of just to be on the side of righteousness.

Because of the vehemence of TRAs and their supporters, I do find I’m constantly challenging myself and my views to check.

So I find I put in a certain amount of mental effort on this topic and if I weren’t careful I think that could spiral.

Re friends, I’m a coward. I have one friend who I worry would cut me out. I can’t bear the thought of it and am glad the topic has never arisen. One of the cruellest aspects of all this is how people don’t give others the benefit of the doubt or a fair hearing. I would be very hurt if someone dropped me due to this rather than disagreeing while understanding I’m not coming from a place of hatred.

I would be very hurt if someone dropped me due to this rather than disagreeing while understanding I’m not coming from a place of hatred.

That's pretty much my experience. Twice. No opportunity to discuss, and the friend one all done on text.

It does feel like gaslighting, i know im not hateful but im being told im the scum of the earth because i dont believe men can become women and vice versa.

I'm not going to stop my involvement but I'm too scared to be open anymore unless I know in advance that the person is sympathetic to the GC position or at least open to discussing it in good faith.

I haven't a clue, he runs with a very woke crowd. He's not a millennial or anything. Think gen y with a millennial lifestyle.

It's understandable that we find our mental health affected as this ideology literally challenges reality. It could have been so different with everyone working together to accept and celebrate difference. Sadly it seems to have turned into a demand that everyone accepts lies, untruths and fantasies with an unforgivable assault on women's rights and child safeguarding.

Stay strong OP but step away and protect your mental health whenever necessary.

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command". George Orwell.

We're witnessing a neo religion in the throes of formation. Does it get called out within the next decade and wither on the vine? Or does it get it's legs and evangelical energy expands?

To all those losing friendships, and family relationships, my heart goes out to you. But humans really do make the worst choices. And we on this side of the GC divide can't make exceptions for those too feeble to make the right decisions for themselves.

Hard as that is to experience.

It's certainly been a cause of confusion. Being a socialist I've always supported women's rights, minority rights gay rights and trans rights .

This last has never included believing that I can literally change sex by speaking some words or signing a form. Many socialists - and indeed liberals, conservatives - are convinced atheists.

Therefore I find it impossible to square Self ID , gendered souls etc with socialist principles. The goal of which after all is to improve the material conditions of the less well off. Not purify their souls or punish their sins in thought , word and deed.

It annoys me no end when people , often but not always Americans , claim gender ideology is some left wing campaign or movement. It is Possessive Individualism writ large.

Sometimes @BluebellBlueballs I disable FB and Twitter for a few weeks. I binned Reddit altogether. No great loss. Perhaps a break would help? 💐

The mental health aspect of this and the harm that being bullied for one's philosophical or religious beliefs causes is presumably part of the reason these kinds of beliefs are a protected characteristic under the Equality Act - because it obviously has a negative effect to be bullied by people around you for not being a Christian or Muslim or labour-supporter or gender ideologue.

I think people will be less brazen in denouncing people who don't subscribe to gender ideology once companies stop it. And the companies will stop, because it's going to cost them otherwise.

Also, I find it helps to explain to people that I don't believe in gender ideology rather than that I am gender critical- it's not like I invented a new religion and then insisted to everyone around me that it's real. By saying I'm gender critical, it frames the whole thing as if I have converted to a new set of beliefs, when I did nothing of the sort.

I really find it helps a lot to think of it in terms of a belief system as it makes it so much easier to navigate, just as I would if a family member or friend converted to Buddhism or Islam. Or as if they've joined an MLM and are constantly pestering me to sign up under them.

"A person who holds a 'gender critical' belief recognises women as adult human females and men as adult human males and that it is impossible for a person to change sex which is determined at conception. "

I don't understand how anyone can be anything other than GC. I'd have to question their intellect.

One of my biggest "OMFG!"/epiphany moments was about a year ago reading a blog from a class based analysis socialist feminist who reduced TRA not to a cherished minority to be protected, but one of the most toxic mens rights moments of all time.

That socialism had all but lost its way with the fall of Berlin Wall, capitalism and globalism had won the Cold War, and socialism had to adapt or die.

It did one way via Tony Blair Third Way...and it did another via radical leftism embracing identarian and intersectional analysis.

And guess what one of the most toxic outcomes was? We're seeing it today. Women who were pretty much sidelined in the old leftist world (making the tea and sandwiches at union and Labour Party meets in the immediate post war period all way into 80s, looking after the extended family as the men put the capitalist world to rights, tending to the broken limbs after Orgreave etc), are sidelined again, as the "new" leftist men are in the ascendant, putting the trans minority at the top of the "to do" list, the women now not just relegated again to the kitchen, but relegated full stop as their identity is redefined and redrawn.

I couldn't agree more.

I would so love to meet someone who did believe in GI and was prepared to discuss it - unfortunately so far, it’s either been abuse or a tacit agreement to not talk about it for fear of upsetting them. As far as I can see, GC is the only position which makes any sense. I would generally want to test my position with robust debate, but sadly, that’s not an option here