Do you hide your GC views under a bushel?

[lurchermummy]

I have a lot of liberal, left leaning friends. They are all about inclusivity. I know I am GC but tend to keep quiet about it because I feel I will be shouted down or seen as a right wing reactionary. It seems that Mumsnet is the only safe space to air such views. Anyone else have this experience? Am I a coward??

Nope. I'm open about my views.

Seeing a bad ideology rise up but saying nothing doesn't sit well with me, particularly as a Jew.

This is exactly me and it's really depressing, to be honest.

Particularly disturbing to discover my husband thinks it's perfectly fine for a any male rapist to suddenly discover womanhood post arrest and be taken completely seriously and treated entirely as a woman. Oh, and perfectly ok for the legal system to compel victims to affirm their rapist's new identity and be forced to use the new pronouns. He sees nothing wrong with that at all, even when it's abundantly clear from the circumstances that it's almost definitely a man taking advantage of the system. This chat was before more safeguards were put into the system, but many years after I'd disclosed to my husband that I was raped by a TW (or I guess a part-time TW...it's a whole thing...wish I could turn off being female a few days a week :/) and all the complete number it's done on me over the years. It made me lose a lot of respect for him and trust in him, if I'm honest, and that's really horrible.

And I feel I can't even talk openly about my rape and its effects on me with a therapist in case I say something 'wrong' and get corrected. And can't talk to my sisters or friends about it either. So I don't talk about it, and I let it eat away at me. And I acutely feel the pain of other women in a similar boat who too have to suffer in silence for fear (or out of experience) of being called a bigot or threatened with violence for not quite believing the horrible man who did those things to them is 'a woman just like you!'. Anyway, sorry to piggyback on your post with a trauma dump, but it just hurts, doesn't it? It's not fair. I'm not a bigot, I'm not cruel. Wish I had even one friend I could be open with about it.

I have brought it up with several people and it’s heartening to find that with a couple of exceptions everyone is GC. The ones who aren’t have been able to have a debate without falling out.

I even went to a Let Women Speak event where on the way I asked a couple of young female trans activists, why they were going to the demo and I told them my views, that you can wear what you want etc… I think they were surprised that I wasn’t homophobic and they were like I was before I came onto this board. It was a very civilised exchange of views. I wouldn’t have approached a man in those circumstances though.

Had a really good chat with a friend last week, who was singing from same hymn sheet.

Other people, more cautious, and I tend to go in softly and see how the land lies. I’ll always stick up for woman, but may not be so outspoken.

DH just doesn’t get it, and really appreciate what’s happening in the big bad world.

I’m getting braver. I’ve had a few GC friends for a while, but in the last year I’ve had so many one on one conversations with other friends that I realised the majority of people I know feel the same as I do. And every single one has said the same thing about feeling like they were a bigot and being scared to speak out.

I work for a SEND charity, and although gender doesn’t come up directly in our work, I have encountered issues related to it (we also work closely with quite a captured council). I have realised that some colleagues have the same views and concerns as I do, and because I’d hinted at my concerns (about teens and hormones - during an autism/mental health related meeting) someone in NHS we work with brought up the subject with us too.

Recently I did some training where I brought up the subject - it felt like a huge deal but it was a very small, safe group and it was from the angle of my own actual (autistic) experience too. I was still a bit nervous but it went really well and it’s good to know that people “on the ground” are skeptical.

TBH though the other reason I’m getting braver is very personal. A few months ago due to a bereavement I had to see my (early childhood) abuser for the first time in 20 years. That brought up a fuckton of past stuff, of realising I’ve spent my whole life being quiet, putting everyone else’s feelings before my own, not being honest about my needs. And I’m done with that. I don’t want to be quiet anymore.

My RL bushel is so thick and heavy not a glimmer of light escapes. I am deeply ashamed and guilty about it, but my children would find it incredibly hard to accept me as GC, and I am scared that I will lose them.

I hide. But I think it's too easy to call it cowardice. I have two friends, one very close, whose DC are fully signed up to transitioning, with operations booked while they are in their teens. And the friends support them totally. One was just so relieved the suicide attempts had stopped. The other is just brow beaten. I'm not in their shoes, so I can't understand fully how it feels to be the mother of an adamantly trans teen and so I am supportive and never voice concerns. An old friend had a trans teen decades before it was as high profile as it is now. I questioned gently and was shut down so fiercely at the time. She just said I had no idea wat I was talking about and it was true. I didn't. Her MTF child s now an adult and happy in their skin afaik.

As a feminist I loathe and despise how misogynist predators are freeloading on the back of the woke TWAW community and I really wish trans people would side with women on this. And I despair of the entitled nonsense that is trans women in sport. I also privately worry very deeply for some of the trans teens I know undertaking surgery at an age when they can change their minds about anything.

But I don't think waving a GC flag in the face of friends and their teens going through things I can't really understand is worth doing. It wouldn't change their minds. I do know one mother who has said - to the letter - everything I'd think of saying to her FTM child and it has caused a total breakdown in family dynamics. She's argued that her daughter can wear what she likes, do what she likes, live as she pleases and never conform to a single female stereotype but the child still thinks it is literal violence to suggest that being born female makes them female.

I am out about my views with family, who are mainly in agreement (including teenage kids who are fed up of the pandering at school, and wider family of all ages/ political leanings).

At work - no way. I work in a university and would be too scared of the consequences. I know it's awful but that's how it is. It may well be a protected belief but seriously, how many of us would be prepared to challenge this all the way through the court system, with all the stress and money involved? Not me. I need my salary, to put it bluntly.

My teen daughter is, it turns out, more outspoken than I am in some ways. I’m amazed and proud!

She was actually totally captured for a long time (even briefly mentioned questioning her own gender but it was during an awful episode of poor MH in lockdown etc… compounded no doubt by tiktok which she no longer uses). She’s been with her boyfriend for over a year now, but for over half that time he identified as a girl. We respected pronouns etc and I kept my GC views very quiet at home although I did say a few things like how dangerous binders are (she had FTM friends at school).

But then her boyfriend became more comfortable again and in his words “is just a guy in touch with his feminine side” and they have a great group of friends who just rolled with it and didn’t make him feel bad about backtracking.

Around this time she heard about one of the awful sports cases and was incensed about the injustice of competing against, and changing with males. Now I’m a lot more open with her although I am still careful not to overdo it. But she’s aware of the changes to pride and that a lot of the LGB community are distancing themselves from the TQ+, and why. Yesterday she and BF arrived home ranting about the progress flag.

Biggest thing though is that she was recently involved in a community project and actually spoke spontaneously about the risks of physical transition (it was relevant but wouldn’t have come up if she hadn’t said it IYSWIM). I wouldn’t have actually done that in that circumstance now let alone at 16!

She is going to a captured college in September unfortunately and I’m a bit worried she will speak out in the wrong place and get ostracised or worse. She does respect pronouns etc. But I don’t want to make her scared or ashamed of her own opinion - as per my previous post in this thread, I don’t want her ending up being silent like me.

Because women lose their jobs over it? It's not about shame. It's about the TRA side destroying women's livelihoods.

I am open about my views to family and to long-standing friends. DH feels the same as I do. The interesting thing is how many friends/family who were initially 'oh no, that can't be right' or 'be kind' in response have over the past 4-5 years woken up to the extremes of what's happening. A family member's child has gone to secondary and won't use the school loos because they're all mixed sex. That's changed her view. A friend's teenage daughter is an excellent sportswoman and he now 'gets' it when he didn't at all a few years back when his daughters were younger when I was ranting about Girl Guiding

I'm cautious at work because I work in HE. I don't have pronouns in my work email signature, and I don't wear the rainbow/trans lanyard. But I have quiet muttered conversations with colleagues when particular issues come up now and again a la Handmaid's Tale MayDay referenced on another thread. It doesn't really come up often though, as most of the time we're talking about what we did at the weekend and other social chat rather than going for anything controversial. I also don't declare my political leanings for the same reason - it's my workplace. I think there is an assumption by HE activists that everyone is TWAW in the same way that they assume everyone votes Labour/LibDem/Green, whereas I think there are more divergent views. It's just that the usual shouty UCU voices are the only ones heard publicly.

I wouldn't say I hide them under a bushel but I do hide them behind faux ignorance. The 'ooh silly me but I don't quite understand' stuff is annoying, mainly because I'm not an idiot and don't like acting daft, but I've found it doesn't get people's backs up and actually makes people think when they attempt to explain it to me.

Most recently with Stonewall training at my place of work (with vulnerable children) in order to get an inclusivity award, asking 'sorry I'm obviously misunderstanding something here but the reasons we separate children for sports/changing rooms etc still exist even when a child is trans. Could you just explain again how we address that?' Etc etc. I have to admit was satisfying when it became clear the trainer was unable to provide an answer that other people could get on board with.

My husband and children are well aware that I expect single sex spaces for woman to remain single sex, based on biology not feelings.
However my SIL has just announced that her son is trans and has been for two years. They live abroad and as far as we can see when FaceTiming still looks male. My PIL don’t know yet but DH has asked me not to mention my concern re single sex spaces or my concern that a disproportionate number of young trans people are autistic (DN is autistic ) or that DN could damage his body and sex life with hormones. DH thinks it will cause unnecessary upset to his parents if I do.

I am a woman with concerns but I have to keep my mouth shut for the sake of family harmony.

The trouble is, that keeping your trap shut isn't enough for these nut jobs. And yes, it IS nuts to construct an entirely new version of reality, which is not reality, then aggressively gaslight society institution by institution into accepting that it IS reality, and that actual reality is thus not only an illusion, but a heresy which must be suppressed at all costs.

NUTS. And dangerous nuts, at that.

No, keeping your own counsel isn't good enough when you work for a stupidly captured institution like our supposedly 'intelligent' higher education sector. Using someone's name of choice isn't sufficient. Your participation is actively demanded. You're expected to declare your belief in The One True Religion in thought, word and deed. You're expected to agree that J K Rowling is a hideous human being. You're expected to emblazon pronouns everywhere, signal your allyship in email signatures with pretty rainbow pictures - that's in addition to pronouns - sport rainbow lanyards and announce your pronouns in meetings. It isn't enough merely to 'respect' other people's preferred modes of address (much less remember them all). You're actively asked for you view, and it damned well better be the view your interrogator is expecting. (No). You're expected to signal your participation in the game and play by The Rules if you know what's good for you.

To quote George Orwell, 'nothing was your own, except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull'. It's a sentence that chimed in my ears with horror when I first read it. Now, in 2023, it seems like a luxury. The fuckers want that as well.

The complete takeover of human beings by body and mind has a word. Totalitarianism. Dictatorship is positively mild by comparison with this dangerous, insidious human autonomy-grab.

As you can tell, I'm extremely angry and pissed off about this, not to mention wearied by the tedium of it all. I don't give a flying fuck if any supposed 'friends' decide to take a hike because of it. If they're willing to throw women's rights to the sharks then we're obviously incompatible.

They can do an ODFOD.

I'm very lucky. My GF is generally GC although believes if a guy has rearranged his furniture away from the house, that the female label is at least negotiable...I'm not sure she knows about our inglorious self-castrator at Trans Pride. However, it's a subject I now rarely bring up with her because, well, I'm so animated about it. She prefers a quiet pint, pie and a football match to talking politics.

Her extended family is generally GC, but I've learnt not to go prying. We see each other so rarely there's no point. All my friends, work colleagues (therapists who meet up), and majority of clients, are mild or full on GC, and those customers who aren't, there's no reason to stir the pot. There would be no resolution to be had, and likely a complaint to my governing body.

So, I'm getting away with it. But I also won't walk away from an argument. If someone I know or even passing acquaintance (clients excluded) brings it up, and displays a TWAW attitude, I'll dive in with my Size 12s.

Certainly posting here, amongst like minded allies, is hugely therapeutic. Talking about therapy, I was also lucky that the CBT person I picked to help me negotiate my feelings and reactions on this was pretty much a GC/material reality person.

I'm just adding my name to those who are scared to be openly GC because they work in HE - it's depressing to see how many of us there are

I'm reasonably open about it with family and some friends, including a close group of friends who are all very GC. But I'm far too scared to say anything at work because I genuinely think I would lose my job (it's an area of research that is vaguely related).

I'm pretty quiet in real life becausea lot of the time it really isn't relevant or needed to go stamping in. I say the most personally specific views i have whrn it seems relevant. What's interesting is that people who believe they are TWAW mostly just haven't thought about it.

My dp for example knew before we went to a recent party that one of the kids has transitioned (i didn't inform him specially but it had come up before). Afterwards he asked if the boy had been there. I said yes, he was the one sitting on the next blanket. He simply couldn't believe that the person involved is trans because he's exactly what he's always been, an adolescent girl who looks like an adolescent girl. Name and pronouns have changed, that's it. I didn't harangue dp about it, what would be the point? Much better to just say the absolute minimum and let people make up their own minds. If I'm asked, simply listing the people I know who are trans tends to make a few GC points very clearly.

Same about HE. I’m on a gold band stonewalled one. I’m pretty sure they know I am after an EDI meeting where I said PCs are supposed to be private so all people are treated the same.

It got followed by a young woke female colleague chanting the virtues of pronouns and two of my team saying yah that’s the right thing to do. So it might have back fired but it was a team of 14. The others were poker face waiting for the agenda to move on. I have adopted the poker face. I can recognise the signs?

I've taken the school on about it. So I can't pretend I think TWAW even if I wanted to.

I have made it very clear that this is because I find the whole notion of "gender" extended sexist. And that I am not homophobic or right wing in any way. I am hoping this will embolden others.

Have met some people who agree with me but are quieter about it. And then some religious / homophobic types too. But you know, they're all entitled to their views imo 🤷🏻‍♀️

Very much hidden apart from on anon forums and discords etc. I'm afraid I'd basically be hounded out of my job if I spoke about it.

1. She was always a girl/woman. That never changed.

2. She would still be a woman if she had a girlfriend.

Nope. I'm open with my views. I refuse to be scared. It's not a constant topic of conversation in my personal life but I won't lie about how I feel if it comes up
I only work p/t and don't 'need' to work, so if I lost my job because of my views it wouldn't be the end of the world. Although I'd be pretty quick to remark on my views being worthy of respect in a democratic society. But work are pretty quiet about it all, no need for pronouns on email sigs or name badges. I'd refuse that too. TWAM.

My main sadness is that I couldn't consider teaching at my training college. I already know it's Stonewallified, although not as bad as some.

There's a character who IDs as a female therapist one day and a male one the next.

No way am I putting myself in harm's way where it would be impossible for me to keep my big gob shut.

What are my pronouns when he/she asks?

"You're/kidding?"

Busy starting quiet conversations with friends and colleagues. Family know my position and although second DD (17) doesn't agree with me, she also won't argue about it and it doesn't affect our relationship. I have peaked many people and I am proud of that. I believe patience and persistence and quiet undermining will help sense win out, eventually. Or climate change will get us first!

I have not always stood by my principles, but with age, maturity and financial stability feel that the time has come to stop making excuses for myself. No point admiring the suffragettes and modern examples like Maya et al if I can't do my tiny bit. If work suffers, so be it. But I am in the luxury position of being able to say this; I get that not everyone is.

@duvetonathunderynight I am so sorry about what happened to you and that you are still dealing with it with no support, and little validation of your pov, by the sounds of it. I hope you find a suitable therapist to help.