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??

My experience is that its split. There are those who are full GC who tend to be careful in approaching the subject. I've seen a lot more of those recently. More and more people are very cautiously approaching the subject and seeing how people react.
Then there are those who are still a bit confused by all of it but want to 'be kind'. I've noticed a lot more backing away from them, but it's more backing away from the TRA side. I've got a couple of full on TRAs in my friend circle and I've noticed that they're being avoided. It's rarely about trans issues, but I've had more of the 'be kind' types quietly admit things like 'I do like Jane but she's hard work'.
Then there are the TRAs. They're still going strong but they tend to self-exclude. I've seen a good few post publicly about having to block friends for being 'terfs'. What they don't seek to realise is that behaviour is so toxic that other friends are starting to distance themselves too.
I'm not sure how this will keep going. It feels like more and more people are cautiously approaching the subject and wanting to discuss it, but the gender extremists have no idea because they're not only desperately staying in their bubble by cutting off anyone with a different opinion, but people are avoiding them too.

I lost one friend of 25 years simply by stating on twitter that I stood with JKR. That was a bit of a shock and after that I was more cautious and tend to only discuss it IRL if someone else brings it up first and I avoid ranting like I know it all. On the whole it seems that most people aren’t going to ditch me as a friend even if we don’t perfectly see eye to eye. I see little point in trying to convince people because I think this issue has to affect you directly before you work it out. And more and more people are working it out for themselves.

I know that - it is what she called herself when she was a teen - she refused to be referred to as a girl.

Now she knows she is very much a women - we’ve always known she is/was a girl/women - I also know and she does that she would be a women if she had a girlfriend.

I was just trying to explain how HER views have changed since she’s grown up.

Blimey.

Someone who is a friend on Facebook (id hesitate to call him a real friend now, not because I don't like him but because really we barely knew each other, met twice several years ago) has asked for ideas on how to accommodate the tiny number of respondents in his research surveys who don't believe in gender identity as separate from sex.

I'm genuinely not brave enough even to say 'offer an option for Sex, and an option of None for gender identity' as even knowing how to accommodate these views would out me on FB.

(While being such a coward, I have to say that I think it's a perfectly reasonable question, but the answers are hilariously dumb. But hey, they're happy to say them out loud, which puts them ahead of me.)

I don't think it comes up very often irl, since I rarely visit my office. I sadly could not join the work ( big corp, IT ) diversity and inclusion webinar, due to it being at school pickup time. I'm happy enough with a rainbow lanyard tbf but pronouns no. I do not have a gender, I do not need you to do extra mental work to remember how to address me, lucky you.
My social media friends include a lot of TWAW. People can think what they want, and facespook is not a place I am going to get in an argument. That would get ugly real quick, and I do not need it.

I work for a woke public sector company and the EDI policy is all about anti racism and respecting people who present differently. I am completely eye-rolling now. Most of my colleagues say to me privately that it's bollocks. But we can't say it loudly or we get sent to EDI training and face disciplinary proceedings.

Our EDI policy actually promotes pronouns in email signatures but in my area of the company no-one bothers. I have loads of LGB colleagues but most thing the trans movement are a noisy, well-funded group of gaslighters so there you have it.

Depends. With all of my close female friends I'm very open. They either share my views or enjoy the debate. I've noticed more men tend to be twaw than women and ive ended up in a serious late night spat over it with one friends husband. I suppose it doesn't really affect them and they think it's progressive.

I don’t know anyone who has the view that twaw, I don’t hide my thoughts or feelings on the matter at all. I wouldn’t just randomly bring it up but if I’m asked I’ll be honest. I honestly couldn’t give a damn if anyone has a problem with my opinion it’s my right & nobody has the right to never be offended

I live in Canada so I can't say a word.

I've also found it's been men who can't see both sides and think it's a terrible crime not to believe TWAW. The 2 people in my life who cut me off for being a 'terf' were men.
They're all up for women's rights so long as it doesn't exclude the types of 'women' born with a penis.

Which rather gives the game away.

@duvetonathunderynight sorry for your trauma. Sending hugs.

I used to wonder how countries like Afghanistan came to be such terrible places for women. I couldn't understand why everybody didn't just refuse to go along with the rules. Now we are seeing the transformation to total compliance as it happens.

I’m a lefty liberal member of the Labour Party and am very GC and increasingly terfy. I feel a bit politically homeless purely because of this issue. Open with DH (completely on same page) and a handful of friends/family of both sexes and various political persuasions who also think the trans movement is a threat to women and girls’ safe spaces and sport, at minimum. Even my very woke teens are a ‘nope’ about trans women in female sport. Very careful to not bring up my views first with people and I say nothing on social media (I’m in a high profile global role in my industry), partly because I work for a US company and the discourse there is so different - my male boss is not only captured but vocal in support and has no idea of my views. I wish I was braver. We’ve run schemes for ‘people identifying as women’ and I have said the language makes me feel uncomfortable and it’s probably at least partly why UK firms aren’t engaging with those schemes.

I feel for you. Canada has just been too nice for its own good. Sadly people of Canada are going to learn the hard way of how being too kind gets you in one fucking mess. It is truly unbelievable how women and children's protection and rights are being thrown away. I'm speaking as someone with a long standing affinity with Canada. And Ireland is not too far off either. Makes me so mad.

They were never really friends if they're willing to drop you because you're open about believing the scientific fact of two sexes in all mammals.

They were only identifying as friends.

I am completely GC - if believing that men can never change sex and are always men, even having penis and testicles removed-

XX sports infiltrated by XY is completely wrong in my opinion.

I know many GC women and men- It’s like a Freemasonry.

There are many GC men and women out there, even amongst Gay men and lesbians.

But I tend not to discuss it with strangers.

People have had jobs put at risk for saying things like “ Men can’t give birth “ or similar.

I’m so sorry this happened to you.
There have been abusive TW that I personally have had experience of- Arrogant, self obsessed XY’s.

They are not “nice safe drag queens” as so many appear to think.

Some TW are definitely a danger to women and girls.

@duvetonathunderynight , there is a whole organisation set up to oppose woke ideology in therapy, called Thoughtful Therapists. I hope you can find someone you can talk to.

I'm really disturbed to read your story, no-one with your history should go thru that. Don't want to be controversial, but I could not live with someone so insensitive and tbh so dumb as to swallow this line, hook and sinker.

There are therapists out there who will not judge and can help. The one I go to, eg.

My most heartfelt goes out to you and your difficult journey to light.

Solidarity @merrymelodies . I follow Gender Atheist Teacher on Twitter who is a Canadian educator. She posts a lot about the state of Canada right now.

I share my views with family and selected friends, but not on FB or openly on Twitter.
Have often discussed my views with my boss' wife who is GC herself.
But I also have discovered that there are many more GC women around me than I had even dared to hope.

Graffiti is your friend

I used to be a lot more open about it and got booted from a chat group and a few FB pages. This didn't really faze me - I won't lose work over it.

But....there was an attempt to cancel my adult children who work in a very captured profession. I felt duty bound to pull my wings in a bit after that episode. On the other hand I've made quite a few ' rage donations' since then.

Someone attempted to cancel your adult children? That's just outrageous, but sadly not surprising.

Yes other than with my DH, mum and DS. DS is 20 and pretty woke, but thinks male bodied people being in female sport is ridiculous and encouragingly he says that having gently mentioned this to friends of a similar age, they agree. So not all youngsters are captured or at least can see some nuance.

I wouldn't say anything at work, although I don't have my pronouns in my signature. Having said that I did tell HR that sex isn't the same as gender when filling in an internal survey last week.

I think I've been very lucky in that I've never been in a meeting where people have to declare their pronouns, nor has any comment been made about me not having them in my signature, despite my HEI having some of the more public TRAs there. So I've not had to face it head on at work in the way that other women have had to.

I ignore anything posted on the topic by a couple of TWAW friends/acquaintances on Facebook and keep my posts well away from anything political.