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.

And there were only 282 female prisoners in total in the female prison estate in Scotland in 2022 - 2023. So 23 males as a percentage of that is quite astonishingly high. The number of males in the female prison estate should be 0.

Your comments about 'hermaphrodites' are so uninformed I don't even know where to start.

You're also conflating being feminine (and the stereotypes which accompany that) with being female.

DC1888 Said previously, some people are born with the wrong body parts. Hermaphrodites are born with both. I've seen very effeminate males with more curvy bodies than females...while I haven't personally come across the opposite there is the case of Caster Semenya, more manly than many males.

err, the last part is because Caster Semenya is a biological male, with a DSD that only occurs in biological males, and can sometimes cause babies to have their sex misidentified until puberty... but actually it's clear that Caster was brought up as a boy, boy's school uniform and all, until it was convenient to classify Caster as female in order to win races.

For the first part, err, not really. Hermaphrodite humans are not a thing. Ovaries and testes develop from the same foetal tissue, so you can't end up with both except in utterly weird cases of mosaicism - if you can find one case in the literature, go you, if you can find two, congratulations. Some males with curvier bodies than some females; sure, and now, what was that supposed to prove exactly?

Tbh I wouldn’t announce on a first date my GC views just as I wouldn’t discuss religion and politics.

I'm long out of the dating scene, but if I ended up back there, my bio would read "Gender critical atheist Scottish nationalist (Salmond version)" 😁

Outside of MN and twitter most men don't give much of a fuck. My views are that of a TERF as well as a socialist. I wouldn't announce that on the first few dates but sound out that out. Just as much as I wouldn't say I'm a Arsenal fan and really into chess. None of those things define me. If I went on a couple of dates and found out they were really into gender bollocks, I would gently probe them and work out if they were hardened gender twats or open to GC thoughts.

“The reason I found it astounding is the UK is the birthplace of androgyny becoming mainstream via glam rock/new romantics...the UK was far ahead of anywhere else in uprooting gender norms. When anyone thinks of the UK they think progressive/good sense... the right wing fringe (Farage) excepted.”

the UK being “the birthplace of androgyny” is one of the reasons why it is also a hotbed of terfery. We’re gender CRITICAL, not advocating for a return to 1950s housewifery. We just recognise that males buying wholesale into the idea that women are purely makeup and fluffy thoughts is a bad thing.

You are very confused if you think that the gender nonconformity of the 70s etc is at odds with the gender critical, or "terf", position.

There are just 23 of them;

That's 23 males in a female only space. The number should be 0.

You could fit them all inside a classroom and have room to spare.

So what? Fit them in a men's prison, where they belong. Women's spaces are not for men.

Said previously, some people are born with the wrong body parts. Hermaphrodites are born with both. I've seen very effeminate males with more curvy bodies than females...while I haven't personally come across the opposite there is the case of Caster Semenya, more manly than many males.

Wow. Nobody is born with wrong body parts. Think about how offensive the 'born in the wrong body ' narrative might be for people born without legs, or with malformed kidneys - were they born in the right body? Hermaphrodites do not exist, every human who has ever existed is either male or female - a very few have DSDs, but each and every one is one of the only two sexes humans come in. And Caster Semenya is male, with XY chromosomes and a DSD called 5ARD, which only occurs in males. Sorry the BBC and world athletics lied to you, but CS isn't 'a woman with naturally high testosterone' , CS is a male, with ordinary testosterone produced by CS's testes.

Its never just a simple case of XX and XY, there is an outlier of people who are physically more in tune with the sex they were not born into. I grew up with one...he was as girly a girl could have been.

You seem a bit confused. XX and XY is very simple, and I've no idea what you mean by 'physically more in tune with the sex they were not born into'. Boys who like pink flouncy dresses are still boys, girls who like trains are still girls - it's just stereotypes. Any body can have any collection of interests or any personality, it's nothing to do with biology.

Exactly. If gender ideology says that whether someone is female or male comes down to personality, presentation & some kind of inner feeling then it’s sexist crap.

In the glam rock / New Romantics days nobody ever thought that Boy George was a woman or Annie Lennox was a bloke. The idea that a male can now expect to be called ‘she’ because he’s conforming to feminine sex-role stereotypes is regressive & misogynist.

You can be against natural born males bejng in natural born women sports (theres a fair argument for that)

That makes you a 'terf'. Only total acceptance of genderism is allowed. Otherwise - 'terf'.

In the census, although 0.5 per cent of people in England and Wales submitted that their gender identity is not the same as the sex they were registered at birth, 6.5 per cent did not answer the question.

Someone with a trans friend might be uncomfortable dating someone who identifies as a ‘TERF’.

The big difference is, androgyny or playing with masculine/feminine gender presentation with clothes, hair, etc., was about breaking those very stereotypes and letting men and women pursue their talents and abilities without being boxed in with expectations based on biological sex. (And the idea of androgyny goes a long way back; many of Bloomsbury group adopted it as a philosophy, as a more recent historical example.)
No one thought you could actually change your biological sex, or indeed that bio sex didn’t matter when it came to romantic and sexual relationships.
TW remain male in every biological way even if they have surgeries, take hormones and look hyper-feminine. And you must know that most TW don’t in fact do any medical interventions in the old school way. They are fully intact males with functioning male genitalia, dna, chromosomes and bodies.
Male and female are sex classes evolved over millennia. Immutable and necessary for mammalian sexual reproduction. ‘Intersex’ is a dated and inadequate term for Differences or disorders of sex development (DSD). These are not trans ‘gotchas’. There is no third gamete. They are medical conditions which are quite specific to males with DSDs or females with DSDs.
Masculine and feminine are the behaviours, expectations and stereotypes attached to each sex class. We all internalise or reject them to varying degrees. This doesn’t mean that humans have magically changed in the last decade to have a sex-spectrum.

Androgyny is fine, it’s when men and women don’t stick to stereotypes. David Bowie for example never thought that wearing flamboyant clothing and make up turned him into a woman and gave him access to women’s spaces.
Trans women reinforce sex stereotypes.. trans women use it as a coercive weapon to access women’s sex based provisions by pretending that they have changed sex by wearing makeup and flamboyant clothing.

I'm all for androgyny!! Men in dresses, women in suits, everyone looking however they want. You still can't change sex though

I dunno about men in dresses, that never really works for me. I was listening to The Man Who Sold The World last night, and no, I'm not seeing it.

@DC1888
You are seem ill informed.
There are no human hermaphrodites i.e. a human with both male and female reproductive capability.
Caster Semenya is male and has a DSD that only males can have. Understandable you might not know this as certain (but not all) news outlets will not report on this.
Locking any male up with unconsenting women who more than likely have suffered male violence is morally wrong. Sorry you don't know that.

Imagine moaning that people won’t date you because you’re so closed minded. lol.

Maybe they’re using that as an excuse and aside from your intolerance you just have a shit personality too?

Also I find it so funny that people like you are moaning that trans people are “shoving their views down your throat” when it’s often people like YOU who have to announce to everyone that you are a proud TERF… most trans people want to be left alone and live their lives. Why are you so passionate on this hatred? Who hurt you?

It isn't a simplistic black and white issue ("they're not women so are precluded from X"

Yes it is.

Please get on with your lives unimpeded. Just stay out of women's sports, changing rooms, prisons, rape crisis shelters, hospital wards and short lists. Then we'll be golden.

I’ve found that the vast majority of people I speak to in real life are either completely unaware of the issue or have opinions that would get them called “terfs” even if they don’t describe themselves that way (not because they are trans exclusionary or even feminists, but just because they might think males shouldn’t compete against females in sports or something like that - the bar to Terfdom seems quite low!).

But I wouldn’t describe myself using a label, especially a slur, as that’s a bit intense. Just bring it up generally and state how you feel in facts rather than coming swinging in with a label that they might have heard is “bad” but not really understand.

E.g. most people wouldn’t come out and be like, “I’m really woke” or “I’m alt-right” but they might slowly divulge views that are along those lines!

Another aspect is that this topic is super sensitive so most politically conscious people with professional “cancelling” risks are wary of it. Maybe by coming out all guns blazing they’re concerned you’re not going to be able to hold your tongue around their Gen Z siblings, or at their work Xmas party, for example.

But if you demonstrate that you can carefully share controversial views then that’s a better match for them?

I highly doubt that concern about women’s spaces and safety and being critical about gender theory, is going to put the majority of men off.

DC1888

Said previously, some people are born with the wrong body parts. Hermaphrodites are born with both.

Please give one example of a hermaphroditic human. Just one, that will suffice.

@Apollo441 I really like that you assume I am a trans person when I am in fact AFAB pregnant lady who just happens to understand that sex and gender are different and that some people experience the horrendous life of being trapped in a body which does not correlate with their own gender identity. It must be a living hell for them.

How many times have you been sexually attacked by a trans person within one of these spaces? Or how many people do you know who have been harmed by a trans person in any of these spaces? You are statistically far more likely to be attacked by another AFAB woman than by a trans woman in these spaces.

All women are female.

And no, you aren't "statistically far more likely" to be attacked by a woman than a male person, so the only thing that affects that is how many males use a space.

@Ereshkigalangcleg i understand that you are trying to not acknowledge that I said trans women and be an edge lord and only refer to TW as men so you don’t have to face real statistics.

You are far more likely to be attacked by another cis woman in the toilet than you are by a trans person.

I'm not being an "edge lord" I just don't see males as women. Hope that helps.