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?

I mean this kindly, but maybe you should trust the people who care about you irl rather than a bunch of randos on the internet

For some of us the irl people are the problem so it can be pretty difficult.

I don't think I know what you're talking about.

I've come on mumsnet to ask a question not make lifelong buds with anonymous ( though mainly friendly) posters

Like many other posters, I have had the 'are we the baddies' moment. Those times when you think it's just you and you think you're going mad because no-one else can see what you see.

So this is what I do. I ask myself, what if there had never been any resistance.

What if we had just accepted the ideology. Lets agree that men become women if they say they are. Lets give them everything they want.

Males in female sports
Males in female prisons
Males in female refugees
Males on all women shortlists
Males counted as females for equality and representation
Males in female changing rooms
Males in female single sex spaces
Male crime recorded as female crime
Males can be lesbians
Males can be mothers

How does that world look?

Children can those their own sex
Children can be prescribed puberty blockers
Adolescents can be prescribed cross sex hormones
Young adults can have sex reassignment procedures

How does that world look?

No-one allowed to voice a different opinion or view
No-one allowed to think differently
Anyone under the umbrella is valid including MAPs

How does that world look?

When I think this, I know I'm not wrong. It grounds me. It reassures me that resistance is necessary.

I find it very difficult because it does feel like gaslighting. There’s an attempt to force me into saying things that I know are not true, and then horrible abuse and being told I’m a bigot or stupid if I don’t capitulate. And having been properly gaslighted when young, that’s something I want very much to avoid.

I also find myself (even on here sometimes) trying to post in ways that don’t make me sound like a conspiracy theorist. The levels of regulatory capture in government, the civil service, the NHS and even various previously trusted international bodies is astonishing, but there is evidence, in the form of the Denton’s document that indicate that is partly as a result of a deliberate policy.

There are still times though, when I catch myself wondering whether I might have got it wrong, but any time I try to challenge my own thought processes, it’s impossible to see things in any other way, so I’m stuck with it and can’t pretend otherwise, however much I might want to.

It does worry me that I might have to face it at work sometime, and then I know there will be difficult choices to make. I keep hoping the tide is turning, but then another layer of that capture is revealed and then I feel unsure that it’s ever going to end.

But the worst of it is that I have two family members with whom I can’t even discuss it as they would 100% regard me as an evil bigot. And they’re intelligent women that surely should know I’m not evil. Then again, I think they’re brainwashed and illogical, which is something I would never have expected of either of them. It’s impossible to discuss it though as it stimulates immediate anger. This whole thing is a horrible mess.

And if you’ve survived to the end of all that, I wish you well, OP. In short, yes, this situation messes with my mind too.

This is absolutely my view and I don't understand how anyone can see differently.

@Colinfromaccounts And yet despite your kind intentions, yours is the most caustic post of recent pages. Going back post by post:

pretty difficult
take a step back
💐to everyone
v strange
maybe I'm overly cynical
I'm learning
please
seems potentially
you all keep me sane
I've had to think very hard
hope they help a little
I'm far more aware of how little I know about the world

versus...

bunch of randos on the internet

Thanks for giving me another chance (there are many from which to choose) to post something I've been wanting to for a long time... Posts that are dismissive or reductive or derogatory are precisely what reassure many of us that these randos may have something worthwhile to say.

As @nepeta said upthread:

We might be losing our ability to see such complicated people without judging them hastily...

You're right that IRL is the best way forward. But this is a thread that is about aggressive silencing IRL, & shows, contrastingly, empathy & thought online.

It shouldn't be like that, you're right! And do beware of total strangers posting from heaven knows where for whatever reason, yes - be careful of sharing information / avoidance 7 doom-scrolling / hunting a clicky dopamine fix, totally!

But a dismissive "bunch of randos on the internet" without further meaningful engagement? I think that's one of the few posts (only post?) in the thread that comes meaningfully close to justifying that warning!

”me and daughter disagreed on blokes pretending to be little girls. She thinks it's an innocent expression of God knows what, I think they are fully perverted gross men.”

Just saw this and thought, “I know, right!”

Maybe part of the problem is that so many of those who seem to be particularly active and conspicuous seem to end up getting arrested or kicked out of positions of trust when someone finds out they have some perversion in addition to dressing in women’s clothes and entering women’s spaces. After a while, the pattern becomes impossible to deny. Maybe your daughter, like mine, can’t see past her nice trans friends who wouldn’t hurt a fly. And to admit that her friends are now part of the same group as a load of fully perverted gross men is something she can’t bear to face.

Thanks NegevNights!

We could start Salons (not hair studios, I mean a la Bloomsbury Group!). Where you open your sitting room up for conversation with like-minded women. No-one can dictate who we have in our own homes.

We rebuild from the ground up again.

I actually really love this idea!

Although MrsOvertonsWindow that's mad they turned up at a woman's home - I can't imagine how far removed from reality you would need to be to believe that the police would be on your side in breaking down someone's door to enable you to get in to sit down and join their private book group.

I try not to bring it up irl - I did once with a friend I knew would be hostile but she had a go at JK Rowling and I lost it a bit - but yeah it’s very hard watching the world contort itself to please fetishistic men while right wing ghouls get to call water wet and be applauded for it. Very hard indeed

If you find out a friend or relative is secretly harbouring harmful or distasteful views that are hostile toward a particular demographic, it can really shake the foundations of your relationship - especially if it's a struggle you've faced yourself and overcome in the past, which is generally the case when it comes to trans-hostile views which used to be shared by a majority of the population. I'm not surprised that these people have decided to cut ties - but I'm pretty sure they'll be ready (if initially wary) to reconnect once you're ready.

The next part is up to you.

But I don't have hateful views, just a difference of opinion.

I don't believe TWAW, how is that hate as opposed to just another view.

Or is it packaged as hate speech to serve another groups agenda?

Isn’t the gloating comment coming a bit late or did I miss three other iterations of it?

I find it helps to read comments like the above. If the Borg seemed nice, kind and well-balanced, it might be tempting to join it. As it is, it’s an easy no thank you, I’d rather not opt in to spite and misery on top of the strain of constant self-deception.

👆I find it helps to read comments like the above.

didn’t want to name names or directly engage with it. But obviously i don’t mean the comment immediately above mine!

Just want to send you some support OP. I've been 'excommunicated' by a very close female friendship group because I don't believe men can turn into women and it's extremely painful. Having said that, I don't regret it. I feel a sense of freedom now that I didn't before. I used to sit in silence when they talked about evil terfs, screaming internally. Now if the subject comes up with just about anyone, I say what I think! It's been very liberating.

I find it really quite incredible that women are destroying their relationships with other women because some of us don't think men in dresses are more oppressed than women. Trans ideology really has done a number on so many of us.

I've made new connections too, but I totally relate when you say meeting people in the movement is not the same as relationships with old friends and family. I like to think that in time, the scales will fall from most people's eyes. Might be kidding myself though!

Believe what you want! You've associated yourself with a movement whose figureheads regularly call for the eradication of a particular minority group from public life; who actively push to remove legal protections from some of the most vulnerable people in society; who have known links to and funding from shadowy far-right organisations with a well known hate-filled agenda.

This is nothing to do with your personal difference of opinion; you've told people in your life that you support this movement, and this has clearly upset them enough to sever ties.

You do understand what propaganda is, yes?

Sorry for your pain.

I am the opposite, I used to say what I think but I'm too scared to now. And that's how it works unfortunately until only a few brave outspoken souls are left.

“call for the eradication of a particular minority group from public life”
”the most vulnerable people in society” “links to and funding from shadowy far-right organisations”
”hate-filled agenda”

Oh lord. I need to lie down.

Would a bingo card help @CorruptedCauldron

Hi @ButterflyHatched

Can you explain:

1. How trans people are some of the most vulnerable in society
2. What legal protections GC women are calling for them to lose

Be specific.

GC people are a broad church because people from all walks of life are able to acknowledge reality and see the homophobia and misogyny inherent to trans activism. But actually all the GC people I know are left wingers. Did we all become hateful far right bigots overnight, do you think?

It certainly would!

@BluebellBlueballs I get that. Trans activists, as you've experienced, are very good at shutting down debate and isolating anti-cultists. You say you've been going to GC groups which is great. I hope that helps you feel less alone with it all.

I work for a very trans activisty organisation and that's really really hard. I've put my head above the parapet a few times on certain issues but I haven't explicitly said I don't think men can turn into women. When I write that down it just seems incredible to me that this is where we are!

Thank you for posting this OP. One of the problems is that many trans activists lack empathy and insight into women. They also care little about safeguarding children. This, plus trying to shore up an incoherent ideology that's anti facts and science means that many of them can only engage in discourse that's quite hostile? We see it quite often on here.
This is also mirrored by people trying to be kind but also with no resources to explain why some women have a penis or why children should access drugs that sterilise them before they're of an age to fully consent. Hence shutting others down rather than being able to engage in nuanced discussion.

Hi @BluebellBlueballs I'm very lucky in that all my family and the friends I've spoken to are GC in that they agree there are 2 sexes. I was a bit surprised at my mil who is 86 and seems to be a bit in the 'just be kind' camp, but she doesn't know the half of what's going on, most people don't.

I don't get to talk much to any one IRL though because I don't want to go on about it on the rare occasions I meet up with friends; they all signed the Equality Act petition when I shared it though. So even though I've not fallen out with anyone over it it does still affect my MH because I just can't believe what's happening. I was really hoping the Equality Act debate would be the thing that blew it all open, but it still hasn't and we're still having to push back.

Thank heavens for mumsnet, sex matters, WRN, Fair Play for Women etc. It really helps to hear all the intelligent GC women and men speaking out. I think sometimes that people might think I've been indoctrinated with all the podcasts I listen to and the substacks I read, but it's all what everyone believed (ie in 2 sexes!) until about 5 minutes ago.

Why can't the politicians just stand up for reality?!