How did it all start?

[CervixSampler]

This is the question my lovely, totally baffled mum asked me today. I was talking to her about the poetry book containing poems from mumsnetters here (will shamelessly post a link) and why those poems have come about.

I can't remember how it all started. Were we boiling frogs? I came onto the boards around the time Posie Parker was putting up her billboard and have been a regular ever since. I can't remember any single event that triggered my awareness but this board and Posie were a huge eye opener.

When did women's rights become up for grabs? When did things get out of hand? I know things have always been problematic but when did it all explode?
Shameless book plug;

Under the Duvet of Darkness Volume Two Lurking Merkins: Poems written by angry women for angry women because WOMEN WON'T WHEESHT: 2 amzn.eu/d/3ucEKB7

My mum is 84 btw and all this is so alien to her and I'm at a loss as to how to explain because I don't know either.

Don't know if you can beat Jane Clare Jones' The Annals of the TERF-Wars.

https://janeclarejones.com/2018/11/13/the-annals-of-the-terf-wars/

My theory is that it started with Hayley Cropper on Corrie. I'm not being facetious. I honestly think that planted a seed.

Nice unassuming very friendly transwoman played by a woman so that people wouldn't constantly being going that's a man before the plot twist. And everyone loved Hayley. I do sometimes wonder if we would be where we are now if they'd had a man play that role!

And excellent book plug @CervixSampler 😘

You can look further back or in academia etc, but the political impetus for large scale change across institutions in the U.K. came with Stonewall incorporating "trans rights" into their campaigning in 2015, after the gay marriage campaign had been successful and another focus was needed. Of course the GRA and the EA were already in place, but it wasn't a mainstream concern at the time. The government held a "Trans Equality Inquiry" headed up by the gullible, dim and craven MP Maria Miller and off the back of that guidance produced by the government in partnership with trans rights activist groups informed most "inclusive" policy in the U.K., and gave the impression that keeping males out of women's spaces wasn't possible legally if they identified as "trans".

Activist groups had been pushing before this, but yes the Cropper storyline was certainly a turning point.

Press For Change were instrumental in making the Hayley Cropper character sympathetic and unthreatening

Cropper being played by an actually female actor built up a public image of trans women being just like any other woman.

www.thepinknews.com/2020/04/27/coronation-street-hayley-cropper-trans-julie-hesmondhalgh-press-for-change-representation/

You can also add in the Coalition government & this document produced in 2011 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/transgender-action-plan

im sure the Tories threw the Lib Dems as the junior partners ‘trans right’ as a sop which would keep them happy and not have much impact

that went well…

Yes, along with their pointless AV referendum.

It started when Queer Politics infilitrated universities in 80s and pushed out Women's Studies and made them Gender Studies.

there have been quite a few threads like this and many posters have posted well researched date lines of the significant instances that propelled the entryism of this into the main stream. ie the GRA would never have happened if there weren't already those who were trying to eradicate sex as meaning a biological reality.

Many of us weren't aware just how far this infiltration had gone, and it was only when the GRA was up for reform, that we realised women had already lost many of our rights.

Would be great if someone had the time (or knowledge of AI?) that could comb through all the threads and compile that into an online resource.

The problem we have now is that some of it has been so gradual, that there are now not just one but two generation who have grown up thinking sex and gender are the same thing.

I remember way back, probably in the 90s, an article in the news about a male person in the USA fighting for the right to use women's facilities. I don't remember whether the newsreader used 'transgender' or 'transexual', but I'm pretty sure the newsreader used sex-accurate pronouns, because it was absolutely it clear that they were taking about a male, even though there were no images of this person. I remember at the time thinking that it was completely unreasonable to allow them to use the women's facilities, while completely accepting the attitude that it was unreasonable to expect them to use the men's facilities.

Until Coronation Street I thought a transwoman was female. (Because that's how language works!) The female actress confused things further. I couldn't understand why they had not cast a man to play a male role. How innocent and naive.

It has been snuck up upon us.

Until Coronation Street I thought a transwoman was female. (Because that's how language works!)

A third of people in the U.K. still think that. They don't understand that female trans people call themselves "trans men".

Errr, the 80s, maybe before then but I was a child pre 80s and wouldnt have noticed.
I do believe its been a very long played thing. I noticed in the 80s writings, like essays, scholastic papers, other similar places. But of course I had no idea what it meant as a whole. I simply noticed language changing, gender instead of sex etc. Then the very quiet lead up to the gra, then when the gra made law I knew women were in for a rough ride.

Cleverly planned btw, this whole thing, even when things didnt go as well as they might have hoped, they pivoted and made some good out of it. Some very clever people have got this far.

Thank you for the replies. I'm going to read more tomorrow and see how I can get it clear in my mind to then explain to my mum.

America tacked a T on the end of LGB, so once LGB rights were "won" (as in legally won, on paper, obviously there're still people who have problems with the LGB) so organisations set up to create those rights had nothing to do anymore so focussed entirely on letting cross dressers play against women in sports and sterilising gender confused children.

Boiledbeetle · Today 18:55

And everyone loved Hayley. I do sometimes wonder if we would be where we are now if they'd had a man play that role!

I'm not a soap watcher and I suspect that, had they not used a woman in the role, there would have been millions of eyes rolling like cherries on a fruit machine.

I also thought that a transm was MtF and a transw was a woman who wanted to be a man. As others have pointed out, it's been a deliberate obfuscation.

and see how I can get it clear in my mind to then explain to my mum.

I was thinking how (if my mum was still alive) I would try and explain it to her. She never had a good education but was very well read and had a huge vocabulary. So if it was trying to explain to her I might just start with when she was growing up did she think that men and women, boys and girls were different sexes, or would she have used the word gender.

And if she said sex would say there was a trend in universities to start using the word gender rather than sex because some people thought you should have the right to choose whether you were male or female, and to say it was biology meant you were denied that choice.

And then move onto all the unintended (or were they intended?) consequences of that.

Not saying you should use this, but can see thinking about wanting to do this myself that it would be no easy task. hmmmmmm .... Let alone having to talking about the Q & the I & the + !!

Because I mentioned about Queer theory being the starting point I have tried to find some threads on here but it is really difficult. (In my life time, and I wasn't aware of it happening until I looked back, news reports starting talking about someone's gender, and once it becomes part of day to day talk it is hard not to be influenced.)

So here are a few thread:

Queer theory resisters https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3450279-Queer-theory-resisters?page=1

Guardian article - gender critical (from 2017 so the hard line trans policy cant have started) https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3052677-Guardian-article-gender-critical?page=1

The enduring roots of queer theory - the post-modern origins of the politics of sexual transgression https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4003841-The-enduring-roots-of-queer-theory-the-post-modern-origins-of-the-politics-of-sexual-transgression

Previous posters have provided serious and learned answers but when I saw the thread title my gut response was ‘It all started in an untidy bedroom with lots of porn mags on the floor’.

That’s probably unfair as a general statement but for some movers and shakers in the movement (e.g. Julia Serano - could there be a more suggestive title for a book on this topic than ‘Whipping Girl’?!?) sexual gratification seems to be a key motivation, and our problems started when we said ‘Ok, I’ll listen’ instead of ‘Put it away already’.

John Money
The Beaumont Society
Stonewall looking for a new income stream after gay marriage achieved.
Bandwagon for men with a variety dubious intentions
Big Pharma now that the opiate scandal has been exposed and lobotomies for women are no longer acceptable.
Just my thoughts off the top of my head.

The far left always believing that because their motives are pure, that the road they walk paved with good intentions always leads to heaven not hell. Refusal to self reflect and admit they can ever be wrong about anything.
P.I.E. trying to glom onto gay rights in the 70s and 80s and almost succeeding.
Kimberlé Crenshaw's Intersectionallity. All struggles are equal, even paedophillia.
The Denton's document. Codifying how to force team any intersectional struggle onto gay rights, even paedophillia.

Classic coronation street (I know, I know) is currently running the episode with Hayley and Roy.

With fresh eyes and the benefit of hindsight I'm stunned at how utterly manipulative that storyline was. Plus it was a masterstroke to cast a female in the transwomen role.

The far left always believing that because their motives are pure, that the road they walk paved with good intentions always leads to heaven not hell.

This movement is not far left, it's centre left. The communist party, in the UK and some other countries, are not on board with transgender ideology.

I'd recommend the podcast 'the witch trials of JK Rowling'. There is a really interesting episode about the origins of gender woo nonsense on social media

This movement is not far left, it's centre left.

Just to correct myself, it's not a left wing movement at all. It's a movement based on individualism at the expense of the rest of society. Which is why it's so baffling that the left have embraced it. It's something which I would expect to be championed by more right wing parties, who often value people's individual rights above those of the masses.