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?

Was it a gloaty, ha ha this terfs lost her pals through being terf kind of tweet.
That would not surprise me at all

You cannae be friends with a terf
For they are the scum of the earth

Seems to be the thinking of the TRA/ antifa types

@BluebellBlueballs yes it was and more along the lines of when are they going to realise they're the bad guys. But of course they don't know that we are already sufficiently self aware to have asked ourselves that and come to the conclusion that we're not. So, just more of the same nonsense really.

When are they going to realise its not about good guys and bad guys but allowing differences of opinion and respectful debate.

Glad I didn't see it but good to realise they stalk these boards looking for propaganda.

So because some TRAs see this on twitter, mumsnet send the love and peace message?

I thought the love and peace message was directed at Merlin our resident TRA but maybe it was for us terven. mod didn't really say why, or what, or any details so I'm guessing mumsnet are doing this as a conciliatory gesture to some TRAs complaining. There was nothing much to complain about as far as I could see, quite a tame thread.

Really mumsnet, you shouldn't give in like this.

Imagine what it must do to your mental health to look at "that" picture of Isla Bryson and convince yourself that of course that's a woman.

The misogynistic monitors? Yes, they've been doing it for ages. We're not allowed to point out the fact that posts are screenshotted from here (never links to the thread) and put on Twitter. Happens all the time though, by people obviously not secure enough in their own argument to defend it.

Monitors... or censors?

Today's love, rainbows and sparklings of fairy dust post by the mod was a new one....

Ignore me, I thought you were referring to the moderators who deleted every second post and told us all to spread the peace and love, man.

You meant the TRA twitter trolls didn't u.

Although the Mods on here are becoming more censor like by the day.

Watch this post go in 3 2 1....

Wow @ImaniMumsnet we’re discussing how this is afffecting our mental health and you pop up to tell us to ‘BE KIND!’ which is basically what your peace and love comment translates as.

I’d like the trans rights activists to show some peace love and kindness to women and try and understand us. I generally see a lot of compassion on here for trans people but we’re keeping our own boundaries in the face of a complete lack of respect or understanding and it’s mentally very draining.

Popping up to reiterate the be kind rhetoric is not helpful

I'm actually offended the management felt any need to say anything. Big Sister is watching?

@ImaniMumsnet I think you should come back and tell us exactly what you meant by the peace and love post and what prompted you to say it.

Don't say it if you don't mean it, or can't explain it.

You've actually caused the opposite of peace and love, and hacked off a lot of mners on this thread.

Please do come back in the spirit of 'peace and love' to explain

Yes, I would really like to understand what you meant too @ImaniMumsnet

It sounded like completely unnecessary tone policing.

Someone earlier on the thread insinuated we should be grateful that mumsnet 'allows' us to discuss the impact of gender identity ideology on women when so many other fora don't.

I take umbrage with that. Places like Reddit that have banned any even vaguely gender critics posts are authoritarian, misogyny-infested hellholes. This is a forum for women. Of course we should be allowed to discuss any issue that affects us so profoundly.

The cat seems to have got @ImaniMumsnet 's tongue.

I am grateful to MN for letting women speak about these issues at a time when it was the only site on the internet that would allow it. No national press would report anything that women were concerned about because they were all silenced. Some journos even eventually left their paper so that they would be able to report on what was happening.

I think people forget what it was like. This particular section - Feminism, sex and gender - was set up by MN because we weren't even able to post on regular FWR at the time about sex and gender. TRAs were targetting MN advertisers to try and get the site taken down. MN users were doxxed and Justine Roberts was swatted.

Now and again MN intervene on threads but it is nothing like it used to be. Discussion like this would never have even got off the ground if MN hadn't allowed it in the first place. They were one of the first to stand up to the bullies and so, yes, I will always be grateful for that.

@YellowBrickWall I haven't forgotten what it was like. I respect and hear what you're saying. To an extent I am grateful - I just resent that I feel that way! I am glad that mumsnet didn't give in to some of the appalling bullying tactics employed by some TRAs, like so many others have. But if we can't talk about these issues on a forum for women, we are completely lost.

I would still like to understand what the mumsnet HQ post on this thread meant. I suspect they haven't returned to explain because they don't have a satisfactory answer.

It has however propelled me to think about complaining to the NHS service that I feel let me down, and which didn’t show ME much peace and love.

It doesn't affect my mental health but I am concerned about the mental health of people who think you can change sex. And I'm very concerned about children who are being fed this lie.

Well, quite, @WandaWomblesaurus. It’s delusional. IMHO.

It's just such extreme insanity. I watched one young person who declared they were non-binary (born a male), arguing with a professor "but I'm neither sex! So what you're saying doesn't apply to me!" when the professor was making a point that you can't just identify your way out of certain cancers, for example. Or DNA. The non-binary seemed utterly stumped and couldn't believe why he would be at risk of prostate cancer, because....he honestly thought you could change sex and just be neither sex....the professor was baffled that someone could be so ignorant and brainwashed.

I recall mn HQ would delete any teeny, tiny hint of "misgendering", and had a very strict "3 strikes" rule. You absolutely couldn't misgender anyone - a transwoman rapist MUST be called ber "her" chosen pronouns of she/her.

Now they actually allow users to call a rapist "he" without deleting the post. It's certainly freer here now than it used to be.

I feel very angry a lot of the time, and sometimes fearful too - trans activists have shown that they can be aggressive and violent, and there is always a risk that they will physically assault those of us who speak publicly about our views.

It has also been very distressing to find that people I used to like and admire have bought into an ideology that is misogynistic, homophobic and racist, and that they endorse the abuse of children. It does make you re-evaluate your friendships and think differently about human beings in general. Clearly if you have studied history you know that it's not uncommon for apparently decent people to go along with harmful and dangerous ideas (see eg the early modern witch trials, Nazism, McCarthyism, Stalinism, Maoism and so on) but it's one thing to know that in theory and another to see it play out in your own time with people you know.

Very powerful RoyalCorgi. Thank you.
I also struggle with adults who celebrate putting children on a path to sterilisatio, lifelong surgery and medical impairment. Fortunately none of them are in my social circle and we all share a commitment to safeguarding children.

Clearly if you have studied history you know that it's not uncommon for apparently decent people to go along with harmful and dangerous ideas (see eg the early modern witch trials, Nazism, McCarthyism, Stalinism, Maoism and so on) but it's one thing to know that in theory and another to see it play out in your own time with people you know.

Yes, I think this is the most terrifying aspect. You can see it happening, you can see where it's going but you feel powerless to stop it.

Thank goodness for those incredibly brave women who were able to speak out in those early days (JKR, Sharron, Martina etc.) and just look at how they were treated. It's appalling and so, so wrong.

I've just been at a training day in my therapy profession. Luckily I'm governed by a light touch regulator that is only partially woke and not really Stonewalled.

We were discussing the oncoming rush of class actions on head injuries in rugby, the concussions leading to permanent personality changes, early dementia etc.

It seems how this will be judged will be what was known at the time re brain physiology and the mechanics of repetitive impact and blunt force trauma.

Right now scores of doctors are sweating looking at their patient notes from treatment, and non treatment, and the liberal attitudes towards, head injuries in the sport from the 70s onwards.

I brought up with the head of the training day my reservations on medical interventions with trans IDd teens, and how "balance of evidence" compares.

Remember, doctors have to provide quality care, but also what's "reasonable", not just on strict terms, but what's reasonable in overall scope.

So, doctors may get away claiming that evidence was ambiguous in 70s - 90s re long term irreparable brain damage from ongoing impact in rugby.

But trans medicalisation is happening in the 21st century, indeed right now. We know everything about osteoporosis, about anorgasmia, about the enormous risks on fertility, bladder function.

And of course, the big what we don't know, the psychological and continued decrepitude of such violent intervention on youth.

I walked away from my day, my head spinning. Doctors will lose many class actions of head trauma in rugby and how they didn't lock down more conservative treatment and enforced player retirements protocols.

Based on science from decades ago.

Yet doctors and surgeons and pharma firms are blindly and willfully carrying out way greater harms, against way greater vulnerable cohort of population, with 2023 levels of highly refined knowledge and data on poor health outcomes.

And yet pushing on and on, a seeming addiction to casting aside "first, do no harm".

My mind cannot compute such brazen risk taking. Because when the class actions mushroom towards decades end, there'll be no hiding place for these individuals, the medical/legal complex, the media that refused to interrogate this unique societal contagion moment.

You are utterly wrong. I know several people estranged from their children for being exactly that reason (i.e. being honest). All those parents love their trans children, indeed they love them enough not to lie to them.