I think we're losing... It's gone too far

[Patty78]

It seems that everyone I talk to knows someone who is transitioning or is non-binary. I sometimes try to find out how terfy or not someone might be. And they're not because they have a niece or friend or friend's child who's trans. I feel quite alone in my thoughts.

Pronouns at the end of emails are everywhere. I've not been asked to do it yet, but I know it's coming.

I'm a freelancer. I'm on a trial period with a new client. I'm writing a script for a webnovel. The main character is non-binary but looks like a woman. I've been told that I have to write in a gender-neutral way. But it's vampire erotica. And nobody is allowed to be anything - no genitals/breasts. A lot of the other writers on this project are non-binary or FtoM. A lot of cosplay stuff. It's really hard to write. I'm upset because they clearly don't like me. I was hoping for lots of work from this client. Ties are REALLY hard. They loved the test I did for them. But they don't like my story. I just can't do this GenZ/Queer thing. I'm lost. I've always been a loony lefty, always been woke... but I'm all washed out now. I can't keep up. I'm really upset. I have to feed my kid and keep a roof over our heads, but I feel a bit pushed out. I could fake it, pretend I'm non-binary or something. I'm just very down. Very.

I feel like they're going to find out I'm in my 40s, have two tits, single mother, 6 cats... and it just won't wash. It's not cool. I don't have a TikTok where I cosplay. I don't really have much of an online presence at all. I don't pose in fetish gear on Instagram.

I live abroad. Very, very rurally. In the local arts centre I met a MtoF who just looked like a giant trucker in a dress. I know that sounds rude. And I can't believe I'm saying it because I never would have said anything like that in the past. He was complaining about going to a lesbian event and having to drive two hours to get there and that when he arrived, none of them were very nice to him. All the women I was with were comforting him and saying how terrible it was. He said there was a "very masculine energy from the butch lesbians" at the event and that they made him feel very ill at ease. I piped up and suggested that maybe that was because they were lesbians and that lesbians are attracted to women, and it did not go down well. So, I backed off. And now, I smile at him whenever I see him, and we have a pleasant chat. I don't have the courage of my convictions.

Today, I was on a phone call with an old client who might have a little bit of work for me. I told her that I was just finishing up a non-binary vamp story. To be honest, I was hoping for some "terf" company. She was delighted. Her daughter is non-binary, and her daughter's girlfriend is on testosterone. So again, I backed off.

I think this is how it will be. I can't make a living unless I play along. I feel so fed up. I really believe in women's rights, but I can't risk speaking out.

This isn't a very well-ordered post. Sorry. I needed a bit of a ramble. I'm really quite down.

That does sound tough.

It's not much consolation for you, but YA fiction is pretty much the most far gone part of society there is. In lots of other areas - health, education, law - sanity is slowly returning.

I think our main hope is that this will eventually become uncool - perhaps quicker than we think. There's anecdata that most of the current crop of teenagers are having none of it, and are exasperated with the attention-seekers.

I forgotten sport! Things are improving there too.

It's too late for a career change now. I've done a lot of video game scripts in the past. And a lot of literary translation. Translation is more or less finished. The first two months of the year were terrible. I hardly earned a penny. I'm in full-on panic mode. So, when I find work, I have to take it. I'm so pissed off and anxious. Thank you for listening. 😊I've got to spend all evening sorting out this sodding story. The client's cross with me. I'm cross with the world. They probably won't ask me to do another. So, it's back to the drawing board of looking for work. As I'm writing this fuck-awful story, I keep thinking, "I hope DD never reads total shit like this". It's absolute fucking bollocks. Right, I feel a bit better now. I've just written a scene with nipples in it... but nipples aren't in these days, are they?

Don't despair: I think a lot of adolescents have their heads screwed on straight. A friend of mine has a 14-year-old son who was apparently eye-rolling away about all the crap the other day.

It may not feel like it but this is actually good news.
It is following the cycle of a fad and fads always end.

A few people do it, it becomes edgy, then it's an important issue you can fight the good fight about and then it becomes trendy then it becomes boring then it becomes cringy because your parents are getting into it and then it's yesterday's news and everyone's now marching about the liberation of pansexual badgers.

Tbh, OP, this sounds like an awesome literary challenge. Can you exploit the different eyes with which people read what you write? Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to write something that your client will be pleased with, and yet, will somehow stick in the memories of readers, niggling at them, so that over time...

Maybe?

I hear you. I work in a captured creative industry. The other day someone (early 30s) brought up JK Rowling and the awful, terrible things she’s done. I would have LOVED to challenge her, and ask what these awful things actually are, and point out that maybe supporting women and girls isn’t a bad thing, but I couldn’t. I have to make a living and my industry is precarious. It sucks.

I have a 14 year old and 11 year old whose eyes are rolling so hard they are about to fall out.

It’s literally going the other way. Ppl are laughing at this shit now. Give it a couple of years and the whole trans thing will be assigned to fashion and personality.

I know you're feeling down but the way you write is really entertaining. I'd love to read about your life as a 40+ woman attempting to write vampire erotica for gen z. I have only recently started following the Mumsnet Feminism. Gender board and have found a group of intelligent women taking apart gender woo. I recommend you stick around for a bit of a boost and feel free to complain at any time.

I have teens and work with young people in a voluntary mode. The tide is definitely turning but it will take time to turn the tanker. As Helen Joyce says some people are too invested ti give up without a serious fight

There are adults who are too invested in it to turn around quickly, as HJ has said particularly parents.

However, things that benefit a tiny minority and harm the majority - as gender ideology does in schools - are never going to last.

There are a lot of pissed off young people that don't feel they can speak up against their teachers but they see how regressive, totalitarian and unfair it all is. Why should they have to jump through the difficult mental hoops of special pronouns when they're getting no respect in return? No single sex spaces, no recognition they have feelings too. They see this, they hate it, all we need is a bit of time for them to all grow up. And generally speaking they're more resilient and capable than the poor kids gaslit into thinking someone using normal English pronouns 'hates' them, they've had to be to survive in a captured school system.

OP there is a wonderful novel waiting, for someone with your writing talents, about a 40-something single mum with children and cats, living in a rural area, and forced to make a living by writing non-binary vampire erotica. All you need is a handsome hero or heroine to move into the village...

I also like the way you write OP! Have you got a blog ?

You are in a captured sector. But things are definitely changing. The No result in the Irish Referendum was a push back against the erasure of the word Mother from the Constitution. There's no doubt the endless march of trans ideology through the media , politics and academe played into that result.

I don't know or understand the world of vampire fiction, but am I being dim in failing to understand how one writes an erotic story with no genitals or breasts involved?

Sounds tough but you said it yourself, the lesbian group were having none of it, so it’s ver far from everyone that’s been captured. The tides turned, people are waking up.

I think I'll stick around on here. You've all already perked me up a bit. I think another issue is that when I look at this stuff up online, it's being talked about on Talk TV, GB News, and SkyNews Australia. Piers Morgan is suddenly all about women's rights... and I keep thinking... shit, maybe I've got this wrong. Piers Morgan is a bellend. These news channels are full of anti-left, Daily Mail-type numpties. They're not pro-women. They never were. Matt Walsh, although he's right on this issue, is clearly an awful man, and I think he's coming at it from a different angle. I think that's what needs to be explored more. Lefty Terfism. I read Kathleen Stock and watch Glinner. I think this is where the fight needs to be based. I worry that if I do voice my thoughts, I'll come across as a nasty bigot. Transexuals never crossed my mind 5 years ago. I was very much a live-and-let-live, bleeding-heart liberal. I don't want to be put in the same camp as Piers Morgan. What would you recommend I read? I want real feminism.

It sounds like driving 2 hours to hang out with the lesbians who are having none of it would cheer you up no end. You’re in a captured sector. I was in a captured sector pre-Forstater and it was grim. I am now in a slightly less captured sector and it feels far less suffocating. Although pronouns in emails are preferred I notice that many people haven’t added them. If you can’t pivot your career away from the crazy, find safe outlets where you can speak freely. It will help with the cognitive dissonance in your work life.

OP can you not play them at their own game? The whole ideology is so nonsensical it's ripe for clever satire. So when the character is non-binary you enthusiastically jump in with - let's make them trans-age and catgender too!! At some point it just becomes ludicrous and funny.

Though thinking about it, possibly not when your living depends on it though. Sorry you're going through this. It sounds very hard.

And the only reason it's the right wing men on mainstream media is that only the fringe right wing media are covering this.

Look at Dr Cass, look at Dr Bell, look at JKR - all incredibly amazing, decent people but who have been actively denied a platform (until recently). Helen Joyce, Maya F, Jo Phoenix, Allison Bailey all women of integrity and the last two are lesbians too so unlikely to be 'conservative religious right wing' types. I've yet to hear Helen Joyce on the BBC - she is a former editor at the Economist, PhD in Maths. All round impressive, clear and concise speaker otherwise perfect for radio and TV, denied a voice. Sonia Appleby, safeguarding lead at the Tavistock.

It's just that these people are being silenced. (well, not given a platform to speak equivalent to the other side)

Can you start an anonymous Substack?

No genitals. No breasts. I can get away with groins, nipples, spines, lips, tongues, eyes, skin, panting, and feeling breathless. I've also used the word penetration without saying what's being penetrated or by what. Things that cannot be described can be wet. Other things - that also cannot be mentioned - can slip and slide and rub. There's also lots of blood from various arteries and veins sloshing about the place and making a mess. And they can all orgasm. Insane. Honestly, the fucking life I lead.

This is very heartening.

There are lots of academic radical feminists in the vein of Kathleen Stock if that's the kind of thing you are after.