Feeling really low after being honest

[Notfeelingitwasworthit]

Training today. Gender identity. I was dreading it. Just keep your head down, I thought, don't say anything.
Then the subject of safe spaces came up and the presenter (they/them) said well it's actually not a problem at all, there are no statistics which show that sexual offences occur on hospital wards or in domestic abuse shelters and the other women are also really cool with it so it's not a problem at all!
I just said that this wasn't really accurate, we know women don't report sexual assaults or inappropriate behaviour, especially not if they think they're going to be labelled as transphobic, and women are constantly told to put up and shut up, so that labelled with the fear of being labelled a bigot OF COURSE won't mean they answer truthfully.
Obviously I was set upon. I tried to stand my ground but people kept going. Not just to my face but with snide comments throughout the rest of the day. I would join a room, everyone would stop talking. Even my closest contacts said 'well maybe you just shouldn't say it' and 'they do have a point'.

It just feels so lonely. It feels like you have a choice between being true to what you believe and having friends. Two of my closet friends would disown me if they knew.
Do I have to lie forever?

I am never, on any pretext, attending any 'training' course whose purpose it is to inform me what I think. On any issue. It's insulting people's intelligence and it's patronising and dictatorial, no matter which belief system it happens to be today that allows no room for debate or questioning.

I'm not about to sit in a lecture on monotheistic faiths and be told that I'm going to hell because I'm a non-believer, or even because I've dared raise tentative doubts as to whether a virgin birth is biologically possible.

Exactly the same applies to this recent preoccupation with gender. I will not pretend silent conformity, or waste my breath arguing with fanatics who will put their fingers in their ears and shout 'La, la, la' and then make my workplace a hostile environment for me. I'm simply not engaging. If I had to feign alternative commitments I'd do so without a conscience, but I've now reached the point that I'm quite happy to tell my employers why I'm not engaging.

No, thank you.

No.

They are good. It's very hard to respond to this level of bullshit gaslighting so having a list of questions is a constructive way of raising issues without being accused of anything.

Can you define gender identity ? ties everyone in knots as there is no coherent answer and exposes all the sexist stereotyping involved.

Well said. You’ve done something good, OP, and although you may feel low for a little while (your colleagues are bullies, btw) you can feel lighter in your heart for speaking out and there will certainly be others in your workplace who are keeping quiet for various reasons but who are silently grateful to you.

These one-sided workplace training events on “gender identity” sound like torture.

What gets me is this idea of ‘privilege’ of simply being the other 50% of the human race.

Why is it okay to ignore the needs of religious minorities, sexually assaulted women, disabled people who need personal care, and neurodiverse people might be another question but also better to speak of those groups individually.

@dwanma my recent workplace training on human rights said exactly that gender reassignment was commonly accepted to mean gender identity now so the latter was a protected characteristic and a legally recognised term.

Thing is that training was an online video that thousands of staff have watched. There’s no name attached to the training video and I wouldn’t even know which department commissioned it. And of course, like the OP if I were to raise a concern, I’d be labelled.

You are in the right OP.
Thank you for being honest.
People are twats.

I don't see why we have to defend our position, when our position is the law.

It's not a belief (I know that's how it's being won legally speaking when people are dismissed) it's material reality, evidenced by convictions and history.

So we need to be pitching the questions back at them.

Y y to single sex sports.

I personally think in situations like this, at the moment, I'd avoid the whole PB conversation as they truly believe the science is tested and evidenced. This will change eventually.

They can't provide evidence for the other questions.

Also, hasn't there recently been statutory guidance issued to public institutions that gender identity is not a protected characteristic?

Agree with Boiledbeetle to write everything you remember down asap.

And sending the virtual hugs too. It's a horrible position to be in.,

Yes that’s a very good one

Anything that shifts the onus on language mangling to the other side without setting yourself up as a punch bag

And even if no one was brave enough to agree with you, maybe you did make some people think. Quietly. It wasn't a wasted effort. Solidarity to you ✊🏽

Whilst the law should apply for all women, no matter their religion or culture, it's always worth mentioning that some religions have extremely strict rules about interacting with males in some spaces.

And yes what was touted at that training was very discriminatory in this situation.

Also worth pointing out that statistically the group most vulnerable to sexual assault are those women and girls who are physically / cognitively disabled and need intimate care.

So yes, sex matters

I agree with @MrsOvertonsWindow that asking people who run these events to take a few steps backwards and define what they mean by the language they’re using quickly makes it clear that the language itself is problematic as it assumes a common, shared understanding of and belief in “gender identity”. It’s impossible to define it without resorting to using regressive, negative stereotypes.

When the penny drops (sometimes it doesn’t), people start backtracking or deflecting or becoming defensive or angry and perhaps even calling you names. If you can hold your nerve through being called a transphobe or worse, then you’re doing really well and can hold your head high.

@WarriorN can you point me to the recent statutory guidance that gender identity is not a protected characteristic? If I do say something about the training video it would be helpful to have such guidance.

Gosh OP some of your updates reveal quite worrying opinions. Men compete with men for jobs (really) 'nobody wanted to be us when we had no power in the past' - are you really claiming that not a single person was trans in the past? Claiming most women don't understand complex sexual trauma when statistics tell us that the majority of women have been sexually assaulted/raped. I think you should re-evaluate some of the foundations of your thinking.

It's a hazy memory! In sure something was published at the same time as the school's guidance? I'm trying to find it

Whilst trying to do so I've found this which I never knew existed ?!

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/mixed-sex-accommodation-breaches-for-december-2023

Bear in mind that hospitals are recording patients by gender, not sex, so these stats are in reality a record of people identifying as male, placed on female wards, and vice versa.

@Perfect28 I do believe there are some genuine cases of gender dysphoria, yes. I think anyone would be hard pushed to say that there aren't. But the huge numbers of men transitioning now is to do with power, in my opinion.
World majority and women started to have a slight upper hand in some situations. What did white men do? Become a marginalised group. Take over out spaces.

What situations? In what way are men marginalised??

Quite.

And yet, the moment one professes an incongruent gender identity...

Ugh even more chilling @MissLucyEyelesbarrow

@DrBlackbird this is what I remember seeing. I don't know enough to understand the impact and implications in the context of this thread:

x.com/transgendertrd/status/1736718190976135467?s=46&t=A2fpFNgDRyXF2d6ye97wEA

www.gov.uk/government/publications/public-sector-equality-duty-guidance-for-public-authorities/public-sector-equality-duty-guidance-for-public-authorities

I have been genuinely wondering for a while whether it's better to tackle this head on, by joining your lgbtq networks at work (I don't believe I have a gender identity that matches either sex, I would guess I am agender in Stonewall terms), pulling them up every time sex and gender is conflated advocating for others with no gender identity, making sure no-one is ever using e.g. "man" and 'male" to be the same thing (sounds backwards but will force people to be clear on whether they mean sex or feelings), be clear about whether they are using gay/lesbian to mean same-sex attracted or something else.

Once people stop the linguistic sleight of hand that is 'woman does/ doesn't mean female' it might bring some sunlight.

You are perfectly entitled to believe what you want to believe and I am entitled to believe that is what you believe but your belief itself does not make what you believe true. Where issues arise is where people try to force others to believe that their belief is true, especially if that belief results in harm to yourself, other people or society as a whole.

Well done OP. I am a bit uppity so there’s no way I could keep quiet in that situation but I also really hate it if people I respect or like don’t like me. It’s an annoying internal contradiction.

I try and remember Chris Whitty repeating the old saying (I paraphrase): “Never worry about criticism from someone you wouldn’t take advice from.” But I’d go further and add ‘if they’re trying to shame you into their way of thinking then create merry hell.”

As an aside I’d be concerned the question about why we have single sex spaces would get the answer “because of transphobia.”

Sorry, on re-reading my earlier post, it's not very clear. Because hospitals record by gender, not sex, these stats reflect all male gender patients housed on female wards and vice versa. The great majority of those male gender patients will be biologically male.

So these stats are infuriating in that they show that the 'no mixed sex' (in reality mixed gender) rules are regularly broken, but they probably miss out trans patients, who will - because gender is being used, not sex - be recorded as being on the correct ward.

Well done for speaking out. Did you give them some concrete examples? Isla Bryson, Adam Miller, Katie Dolatowski, Karen White...There are plenty, and if you tell them this I can't see how they can justify saying, "It never happens, and if it does we don't care."

Absolutely. Why don't we just let all men in?