Dating as a TERF

[TERFisTHEnewTREND]

I'm a 34 year old female. I'm currently dating via Tinder.

When the gender issue has come up and I've mentioned that I'm a TERF, a lot of men have disengaged from me. I once went on three dates with a man, we got on great, and then when I mentioned my views on gender ideology, he ghosted me after!

Do you mention your stance up front or do you wait? I don't want to date anyone who thinks humans can change sex, is it worth stating this on my profile?

Any help/ advice/ insights appreciated.

Why does a women who wants to keep some female only spaces need a label (terf)?

The majority of women I know are opposed to (biological) men using women's spaces. We don't need to be a 'terf' to feel that way.

Anyone else got a headache trying to read this?

I find the hard work of the self-identified Righteous poster on here very instructive.

This Good Person appears to have fact-based views on single-sex spaces, just like the Wrong People that they so enthusiastically scold. But it's really really important to their Good and Righteous self-image to distance themselves from the Bad People. But at the same time, to Be A Good Person, it is really really important to have some Bad People to differentiate themselves from.

And so they wriggle and writhe and obfuscate and avoid answering questions and pretend they haven't read posts and make up "this is what you really mean" narratives and throw out clearly unresearched wordclouds of "here's some Bad People like You Lot and here's some Good Ladies like Me".

All to polish their own wobbly halo, it's a sort of Good People narcissism, isn't it?

But what I don't get is why.

Who is this performance for?

Trans activists would still consider them to be an evil TERF who doesn't support trans rights, and the rest of us are just dismissing them as a virtue signalling windbag who is incapable of any kind of critical thinking and will do nothing to help either women or trans people.

Lots of people like to be seen as better than they actually are (“I donate loads to charity and help vulnerable kids! (I also slag off my neighbours because I am a judgmental dick, but I don’t bang on about that”))

it’s nice to feel we are a good person and we just mentally shove the uncomfortable bits under the rug.

Lots of people have a self projected image that’s not quite the whole truth. With some it’s dangerous, with others it’s annoying and with some it’s tragic.

I think it's because the reality is hard to accept.
It's far easier to believe that 'both sides' are bad and there are 'bad women' who did something to deserve the abuse they're getting.
The moment that you accept that they are no different to you, is the moment you understand that you're a target too: that the absolutely unhinged hatred that some TRAs display can also be turned on you.
It's terrifying being the target of such rage and a hard thing for the psyche to accept.
Far, far easier to stay in denial and cling to the illusion that those women did something to deserve it.

What Buffy said makes a lot of sense.

Virtue signalling/purity spirals. The left has morphed away from caring about class and economic fairness to effectively becoming an arena for competitive purity amongst the middle classes. I was very firmly embedded into that community before critical theory and oppression narratives arrived. Often affluent and well educated, the only bulwark against criticism and cancellation in this new cultural landscape is to either make a claim to victimhood yourself (non binary is very useful in this respect) or to signal that you are an ally/true believer in the narrative du jour - which is currently gender ideology/trans activism.

The problem for these allies/true believers is that gender ideology makes no sense whatsoever, operates as a religion (gendered souls), and actually further oppresses two of the most historically oppressed classes in all of history - women and gay people. The fact that women are supporting this idiocy demonstrates beyond all doubt that misogyny is alive and well, and that intelligent, educated people are as susceptible to irrational belief systems as the great unwashed/unwoked/boomers/deplorables they despise.

It is becoming more of a thing. Women trying to protect themselves by trying to create an imaginary middle ground, so they can say 'well YES, I see some issues, and obviously things have to be done about it, but I am definitely a nice person and not like those nasty evil witches over there who are the reason I know about the issues at all and were standing up for women before I had a clue, and my rights would already be gone if it wasn't for the likes of Wicked Posie'.

Whatever. We were all abused heavily by males and their enablers on the way to getting to this point, and we're all now going to be heavily abused by everyone who wants to acknowledge reality without being tarred with the Terf brush and feeling bad about it. Plus ca bloody change. The point is I suppose that at least women's rights and child safeguarding are going to return.

Although I do think these poor 'yes but I'm not like THEM' people are in for a shock when they realise that the lobby they are trying to be reasonable with have no truck with reasonability and are vicious to any who cease to do and say precisely what they are told. This is all a bit 'make him his favourite dinner, give him a big cuddle, and then he won't need to hit you tonight'. When the answer sadly is LTB, you cannot work out a compromise with someone incapable of seeing you as equally human, with entitlements to match theirs. And we knew all this years ago, and we did all the being nice and kind, and we tried all the reasonable stuff. Same path, same issues, we're just further on in terms of experience.

All of that. ^^ Very well put. Competitive purity in particular; its visible constantly. In exactly the manner of the highly snobbish middle class suburbians mocked in the 1970s sitcoms, who at the time would all have identified as Conservatives.

I also think the comments about the Scottish self ID bill being a step too far are just spectacularly missing the point.

The Gender Recognition Act was a step too far.

Yes, sex and gender are different. Sex is real and gender is not, which is why the effect of the Gender Recognition Act is to allow a person to change their legal sex. It has to be, because there isn't anything else. Passing a law allowing someone to change their legal gender would be like passing a law allowing them to change their favourite colour.

The fact is, we already have self ID.

Nobody is checking for gender recognition certificates on toilet doors. People without gender recognition certificates are using single sex spaces for the opposite sex and even competing in their sports and being housed in their prison wings every day.

As soon as you introduce the concept of someone being able to change their legal sex onto the statute books, any man can use any women's space whenever he feels like it and all he has to do is claim to be a woman.

All reforming the Gender Recognition Act would do is spell that out more clearly.

Sometimes I wonder whether introducing self ID now would actually be helpful in the long term so that ten or fifteen years down the line a future parliament can repeal the whole bloody lot of it including the 2004 Act.

The stories we create for ourselves can make or break us. I think it's the difference between liking ourselves enough to fight and carry on, or loathing ourselves to the point where we're paralysed or suicidal.
I do see a lot of self loathing these days but it is a bit of a luxury to have the time to turn your thoughts inward enough for that.
The majority of us are just trying to get by.

It's interesting to watch that tendency to simultaneously acknowledge certain issues while also explicitly distancing oneself from the evil bigot Terfs evolve. I hadn't seen it quite so clearly until a PP. It's an indication, again, of the importance of language. Terf is clever - create a generic, pejorative label, & it encourages people to reject anything remotely associated with it or, latterly, enables them to create an artificial distinction between themselves & the Bad People. Both routes require the unquestioning adoption of the language of the oppressor, or coloniser - the force redefining & recategorising women in both a psychological (woman-is-in-the-mind) & moral (terf-or-not-a-terf) sense.

Orwell really was a genius.

"[The English language] becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts... if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought." (Politics and the English Language")

"Even in the early decades of the twentieth century, telescoped words and phrases had been one of the characteristic features of political language; and it had been noticed that the tendency to use abbreviations of this kind was most marked in totalitarian countries and totalitarian organizations." (1984)

"Pre-revolutionary literature could only be subjected to ideological translation--that is, alteration in sense as well as language." (1984 - the "flattening" of nuanced discussion into "Exclusion in some contexts good, Trans-exclusionary bad" - "Some arguments are more equal than others"!)

So the crux of the difference between good, virtuous and moderate people and the horrible nutter bigots is:

'Are transwomen natural women? No they are not. Sex cannot he changed. Gender identity can though, but the criteria for doing so has to be rigorous and not the one the Scottish bill proposed. Women, and legitimate transwomen (who can also be called women), I think that's a moderate view.'

Just that in bold? That's it?

Of course, once you've been introduced to the reality of autogynephilia, then that pool of 'legitimate transwomen' looks an awful lot smaller.

This is close.

This is what the Labour Party have effectively tried to do.

This is the ‘both sides are bad, we need to take the heat out of the conversation’ platitude that obfuscates the fact no workable solution has ever been offered by the person speaking. As the Labour Party has done.

We have had several posters in the past who arrive on the board and declare ‘both sides are extreme’ and that they are the ‘moderate’ posters. They speak about compromises, they speak about solutions. Only, the compromises were given and have been found to not have worked at all. They just didn’t have the depth of understanding to understand the compromises had been tried. They speak also about solutions but when the solutions they mention are analysed, those solutions are really based on misinformation and are harmful to women and children and to trans people or those solutions are unworkable.

This entire ‘moderate’ position is a fantasy of a mind who needs to think they are the good guys and they can call out all those bad people. But it is a fantasy. Because it is constructed believing there is a middle ground, but that feminists are just refusing to take that middle ground because they are extreme.

Unless that poster finally details how these rigorous testing works reliably for all trans people’s reality, they are living the fantasy of ‘middle ground’. It makes them feel supreme. The Labour Party mouths similar platitude and that will come crashing down in the lead up to the election because they will have to show their details. They have nothing but have sold the dream. Either the women will be harmed, or the trans people will be angry at not getting their identities validated to the point that society’s speech is falsified to suit their demands. Those extreme trans activists will declare this is harming trans people.

We can only keep repeating that robust safeguarding considerations need to be forced. Made law where it needs to be.

It is, however, important to point out that there are trans activists who are not extreme. They do want to work for solutions and some of these will work with feminists to do so. However these are not the known lobby groups or the influencers who are included in panel discussions. These are silent and who keep their campaigning anonymous. Trans people do need to have their needs campaigned for. No one is arguing that trans people should have no right to campaign.

It is the discussion of the conflicts that remain the issue. And only those people who are in denial partially or fully wish to hide the conflicts. Those who declare there is this mythical middle ground are part of that group attempting to deny the conflicts remain with their proposed solution.

Go on then, you're so sure you've cleverly found the moderate sensible view, unlike those nasty mean TERFS - go and post your last paragraph on twitter or Reddit and see what happens. Then come back and read Buffy and Frood's excellent posts above again.

You believe what we believe, you're just too invested in your own appearance of virtue to say so to the people you know will tear you to pieces for your 'moderation'. Much easier to berate the women trying to hold the line for all women, in the face of rape threats, death threats, malicious reporting and doxxing of their children, than admit that your luxury beliefs don't hold water and in fact would get you attacked by the very people you're trying to defend. You're a TERF, you're just a cowardly one.

I think as well, the idea of “trans” has changed beyond recognition in the last couple of decades.

30 years ago we heard of, or maybe even knew, transsexuals who I guess would have had issues around their bodies and would have done as much as possible to present as the opposite sex, including surgery. Some would not have had surgery due to a number of reasons, it was difficult to access, expensive and out of reach to many. And there wouldn’t have been any unisex facilities for transsexuals who would fear using male facilities. So there were risks and real anxiety there. It’s understandable to be sympathetic and want to help find a solution.

But what is trans now? It’s anyone who says they’re not like other people (whilst ironically being just like everyone else). It’s cross dressing middle aged men who 20 years ago identified as male transvestites, it’s teens trying to find an identity and being taught their identity is more important than their sex, and is fixed rather than ever changing. It’s men making no changes to themselves but demanding apologies from high street shops because they were kept out of women’s changing rooms. It’s changeable on a daily basis based on nothing whatsoever. It’s liking or not liking gender stereotypes.

How is anyone supposed to distinguish who is genuine (genuine in what sense?) or not?

Fair enough if gender (personality/identity) is fluid- I agree. Who we are at 5 is not who we are at 15, nor 25 or maybe ever. Most humans are changeable and have different phases of life. But that doesn’t alter who you are on a fundamental biological level. It doesn’t mean you have a right to women’s services or sport because you like feminine things.

It’s not actually accepting of authenticity, it’s a mess.

Sorry - below a response to Arthurbella. Too slow!

And that can be reduced into, "Are we willing to call them women or not". Which is where I return, desperate, to my original question.

Bare bones...

You've two groups who want to use the word "woman" to protect themselves.

Both groups are oppressed. One woman is killed by a man almost every 3 days, women are 70%? more likely to be seriously injured in a car crash because cars are designed for men, women are dying due to a lack of research in medicine). Transwomen face awful abuse. Women's oppression is unfashionable to mention. Transwomen's oppression is at the forefront of political discourse.

So how do you choose which of these two group's ownership of "woman" to support? At the least, I'd hope you debate it openly & in depth, taking a rational, fact-based approach. You certainly wouldn't just leap to support the one, condemning the other as biggotted, would you? Because to do that would surely be a definitive indicator of which of the two groups is more fundamentally oppressed.

And if you would, can you explain why you would? How did you choose? What makes yo so certain? Because in the absence of any meaningful answer to this, all I can see is naivety, misogyny or fear, or a combination of all three. And I want to see something else, I really do. I hate what I can now see, and would love an alternative explanation - I really mean it when I ask!

The difference between a legitimate transwoman and a man who is faking being a transwoman is within the mind of the transwoman.

We, society, can't know if a man is lying about his feelings or not.

When there is a clash of rights we cannot base societal rules and laws on the subjective feelings of one group while dismissing those of the other group impacted.

To women, it doesn't actually make any difference if Isla Bryson is lying about his feelings or being really honest.

There's a bloke with a cock in women's prison. This is not okay, however he feels.

The difference between a legitimate transwoman and a fake one doesn't actually make any difference to women. The issue is a man in their space.

If you focus the judgement on women's feelings instead of men's the answer is clear. The 'legitimate' transwoman argument only works if you base the argument on the male point of view.

Yes Frood, but they will simply meld into the background and the comfort of never speaking about it again.

This poster has very clearly taken the superior position. It is littered throughout their continued use of ‘nutters’ and ‘extremists’. The use of hermaphrodite showed exactly how uninformed they are and they have never even acknowledged their use of this horrificly offensive word.

The group who does this, this poster is not alone, are massively hypocritical. They want to show superiority in their sneering ‘both sides’ commentary while mouthing empty platitudes.

And as usual, when challenged, responds with further doubling down on their superior middle ground while never once engaging to show how their solution works.

Then they leave. Because they know deep down they have nothing but they cling to that ‘I am the good one’ and only bad people challenge me feeling.

Women, and legitimate transwomen (who can also be called women), I think that's a moderate view

This is also a pov that many women have passed through.

Based on:

Yes, there are problems but I am a nice person with sympathy and kindness for the real ones
I hold a belief that there are real ones who should not be lost beneath the crowd of questionable ones
Therefore I believe there is a distinguishable difference between some men who identify as women and other men who identify as women
And this means I'm not rejecting the whole concept or saying no to all men
And this makes me still a nice person despite having some boundaries.

Been there.

The thing is you will gradually notice and experience - and it will be directly from activists:

There is no possible means of gatekeeping. If you permit any male under any circumstances, you permit them all. The door cannot be partially opened or male people prevented from forcing all the advantage possible. The GRA was exactly this attempt for middle ground and has ended with trapped women raped in prisons.

If you allow a male into a female only space on the grounds of that male is very sad and vulnerable and you want to be lovely and protective and kind, then you really do have to accept that you are unkindly and in a very unlovely way excluding whole groups of vulnerable women in the process, and you are doing so through a belief that a gesture towards a male is of higher importance than inclusion and equality of your own sex. And that you believe, fundamentally, that your sex is of lesser importance to the male sex, and has a birth given duty to serve them. Therefore you are ok with harming other women if it means being nice to a male whom you feel deserves it. Look at your daughter, or any little girls on the street, and reflect on that one a bit. Are those girls going to get to be the ones who can choose to harm other women in pursuit of their feeling lovely and demonstrating their niceness? Or are they going to be the ones who get harmed by other women as not important enough to be equally human?

And let's face it, you mean granting some men who you feel are nice and deserving, an honorary status. A shared kind fiction, which has limits and where those men will never push things to the point of discomfort or harm to women, and will care reciprocally about the women involved as much as they expect in turn to be cared about and will be responsible in this honorary status. This doesn't happen. Please look for this reciprocal care anywhere at all, in the voices of those with the political power, pushing this agenda. It isn't a minority: it just isn't there at all. There is no good will. Talk to activists, and you'll quickly find reasonable attempts to engage that reciprocation will elicit rage. Women are not seen as deserving or fully human within this narrative. They are not counted as having skin in the game even.

And then eventually you'll realise that every time you use the language, every time you play the game, every time you enter into this fiction that some men can be women, you are enabling the abuse and harm of your sex class. And that the only thing left to do is be clear in your language, and face the fear instilled in you and speak the plain truth. And face up to the truth that your belief that this makes you 'nasty' and beneath contempt? Was inculcated by men in order to make you serve men's interests. And then you go and read up on coervice control.

I'll put the kettle on, it's a bumpy path.

I suppose we're at the stage of needing the joke now: what's the difference between a nice terf and a nasty terf? With the answer being 'a few months of direct exposure to activists and critical thought'.

An afterthought on my last post. And many others here.

In it, I used "woman" to mean adult human female, and "transwoman" to mean, well, "transwoman" - and was duly able to articulate perfectly clearly the needs of both groups (although, once again, I hope someone will elaborate meaningfully on transwomen's oppression, which I referenced briefly relative to my own area of interest, women's)

Using "women" as "the other side" favour would surely make both sets of needs harder to name, gauge & fight for.

So, again, I ask: when our preferred use of language doesn't prevent the other group naming themselves & their needs, & their preferred use of language does...

Why? Why is not calling transwomen women the "regressive" approach, & redefining the word "woman" the progressive one? This is a failure of logic - one approach immeasurably disadvantages women, & arguably also transwomen. The other recognises both.

Any of the advocates for transwomen are women fancy a challenge? Re-write this thread, adhering to that moral standard. I genuinely think you'd struggle to communicate the ideas in it.

And that takes us back to Orwell.

"The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron – they’ll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually changed into something contradictory of what they used to be. Even the literature of the Party will change. Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like ‘freedom is slavery’ when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking – not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness” (1984).

Yes. How can we queer gender when the concept of sex has been abolished.

Do you know who these self-identified "moderate" types such as @DC1888 remind me of?

Tories like David Davis and Liam Fox during the Brexit negotiations, saying that complex issues such as the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland could be resolved using technology.

When people asked what the technology was, how it worked, whether it was ready and so on, they just waved away their hands and dismissed the people asking those questions as scaremongerers who just wanted to undermine Brexit.

But no details were ever provided. There was no "technology" to enable them to do what they wanted to do without it having negative consequences.

And there is no way to allow some men to access women's spaces without allowing all men to access women's spaces, or indeed to allow even a tiny number of men to access women's spaces without it having a negative impact on women and girls.

All they can do is pretend the negative impact does not exist and that those who claim it does are just scaremongerers and bigots.