Leaving Kindland

[IcakethereforeIam]

I read this article in the Critic and enjoyed it. Perhaps it doesn't deserve its own thread but....well here we are.

https://thecritic.co.uk/leaving-kindland-entering-reality/

If anyone else might want to write why they left Kindland, if they never visited or, even, why they're still there, I think it'll be interesting. I think some insight into why people have taken different paths could be useful. Or a bloodbath. If you don't want to, I will apologise in advance, if you feel that is necessary, and kindly suggest just scroll on by and get on with your day😊.

As for me. I have a clear memory of talking to my oldest, then quite young, about transpeople. All the reasons why someone might go down that path. I probably didn't have all the current buzzwords but we probably covered dsds, born in the wrong body, etc. I don't recall who instigated the conversation (why the fuck was I talking about such stuff to a primary aged child!!?) but i do remember feeling quite smug about how 'kind' I was being. I had no idea, how could I, of what lay in store.

My next memory is of a similar conversation perhaps a year or so later. This time I remember voicing concern about bad people taking advantage. How to stop that while still being kind to 'genuine' tp.

The next memory is crashing into MN. How I got here, I can't remember but I'm glad I found FWR.

I wish I could go back and get ahead of it, educate my kids before they were indoctrinated by kindness. And I'm lucky, so far, neither have adopted a trans identity requiring drugs, hormones or surgery.

[SinnerBoy]

That's a very good read. I understand the feeling that we must be tolerant and then, faced with the bullshit reality, say, "Just hang on a minute!" I think many of us had similar views, before having an epiphany.

[Zebracat]

That is fantastic. The paragraph about the existence of trans children put so elegantly my concern, that there may be a tiny percentage of children worldwide experiencing profound and persistent gender dysphoria, but all the children presenting as trans in the last 10 years cannot be in that category. I’ve left Kindland this week too. I told one adult child that they are welcome to bring their trans friends to our house, and I will welcome them, and that I hope to find them well and happy, although , I fear they may have ruined their health and future in pursuit of a dream. I told the other that I was very pleased they’d fallen out with their polyamorous/ kink identified friends, and I hope they choose better friends in future, because kinks coexist with other kinks like paedophilia, bestiality and sado masochism , and nice people steer clear. My Dh says I upset them. So be it.

[nauticant]

there may be a tiny percentage of children worldwide experiencing profound and persistent gender dysphoria, but all the children presenting as trans in the last 10 years cannot be in that category

Before gender identity ideology swept the board, it was generally accepted by medical professionals that the percentage of people with profound and persistent gender dysphoria was something like 0.01%. Now, the number of trans people is supposed to be around 0.5%. In other words, an increase by 50 times.

[ZeldaFighter]

Lia Thomas.

Before that, I was keen to continue sweeping away racism, sexism, homophobia and reactionary, judgemental hate in all its forms. I heard the term TERF and I remember telling my friend, I wasnt going to be one, i was inclusive.

Then 6ft4 Lia Thomas won in a women's race.Taking accolades and prizes from women, despite it being obviously unfair. And no one doing anything about it.

Found a discussion on Mumsnet AIBU, jumped down this little rabbit hole and here we are!

[ForsythiaPlease]

My son (21) remarked the other day that he had been thinking about a conversation we had when he was a teenager, where i had insisted that if he ever noticed attempts to redefine language he had to look at how the worst dictatorships used these tactics to smuggle in genocide and totalitarianism.
At the time he remarked I was "going off on one" and was being "ridiculous".
Now, as an adult, he has thanked me for insisting he asks hard questions and be prepared to go against the crowd.
Who would have thought we would have arrived here in such a vanishingly short time?

[theDudesmummy]

Definitely worth a thread, an excellent article.

[theDudesmummy]

My leaving of Kindland was a few years ago now. I am a psychiatrist, and there was a bed management discussion in our inpatient unit about which ward a new patient should be admitted to. I couldn't believe that some were advocating for a severely psychotic male offender (not a sex offender) to be accommodated in a secure female ward full of psychotic and very damaged women. It wasn't down to me in the end, but he went to the male ward. I realised then what a slippery slope this could be.

[Allthegoodnamesarechosen]

Never been an inmate ( not a typo) or even much of a visitor, ever since a well known trans sexual (as they called themselves, HQ) tried to gatecrash my twenty first birthday party. That was a deeply troubling and disturbed person with a malign influence on the social circle.

Also, ten years later, observed the transition of a friend , another disturbed person, and witnessed their transformation from a needy but basically benevolent person into a raging egoist and then misogynist. ( They are quite a well known TRA ).

I expect this post to be deleted, although it is a true relation of my experience in 1970’s and ‘80’s.

[Imicola]

My husband and I both independently read this article when it was published and spoke about it in disbelief and disgust. Peaked by the BBC...who'd of thunk it?! The lesbians who feel pressured to have sex and relationships with trans women - BBC News

[Outwiththenorm]

I came to mumsnet to read about tongue tie and somehow ended up rapidly ascending thanks to FWR.

[DarkForces]

I was in Kindland until I read about the 'cotton ceiling' and was so appalled I quickly taught dd that she must never sacrifice herself to be kind.

[SidewaysOtter]

I was in KindLand but made occasional forays into the real world. Gradually I found I spent less and less time in KindLand but being demonised as a terrible person, a monster and someone who was entirely undeserving of even basic courtesy for having the temerity to say that gender ideology was not good was the thing that made me chuck my KindLand passport into the bin as I left for good.

[CocoapuffPuff]

I was hovering on the edge of kindland thinking "wtf" for ages then the Challoners (or is it Challenors?) steamed into view.
Yeah, that shattered any illusions.

[KindlandExile]

I was in Kindland, but never a true believer. I had quite a few trans friends / acquaintances and would sometimes accompany to the ladies' toilets etc. if we were out together.

(In case anyone queries the likelihood of me knowing all these trans people: I lived somewhere with a higher than average population of LGBT people in general and people tend to form social circles around commonalities)

There was a lot that nudged me out.

• Noticing the entitlement in the expectation that I'll be the toilet bodyguard, be the one that has to try and explain pronouns to non-believers and end up looking foolish, including in a professional context. Realising how one-sided being an ally is, and how much discomfort you're expected to suck up for the cause.
• When travelling abroad, a TW acquaintance was put in a women's dormitory. Some of the women were hijabi and I have no idea if the other women would have consented. The acquaintance told everyone they were a biological woman but had a masculinising genetic condition. I was expected to go along with that lie.
• Seeing the online fantasies of violence against TERFs and JKR especially. Seeing the offline vitriol directed towards them and realising my friendships were very conditional on me banging the drum.
• Being propositioned by a TW I'd already turned down, and realising the she/her pronouns had clouded my risk assessment of being alone together in a bedroom.
• Despite reluctantly chanting the TWAW mantra, a very close friend of several years stopped speaking to me overnight because I wasn't convincing enough.
• Having no actual defence to my arguments if someone countered them. I wish I could say this was higher up on my list.

[MrsOvertonsWindow]

Great article - and some fantastic comments on this thread

[ladygindiva]

Ive never been in Kindland or anywhere near it because I'm obsessive about truth, honesty, and hard facts. Delighted and proud I have a 25 yo DD who has never wavered in her belief in truth either, despite being surrounded by peers who are fully subscribed twaw etc.

[JoyousAsOtters]

When I realised Kindland was totally unaccepting of detransitioners like Keira Bell, that’s what did it for me.

[LaLoba]

@ladygindiva

Ive never been in Kindland or anywhere near it because I'm obsessive about truth, honesty, and hard facts. Delighted and proud I have a 25 yo DD who has never wavered in her belief in truth either, despite being surrounded by peers who are fully subscribed twaw etc.

Same here. I was one of those left wing women who were accepting of the very rare trans identifying men back in the day, while never accepting that humans could change sex - for me the very notion was rooted in misogynistic stereotypes and homophobia.
I think I peaked my sister in law, shortly before I fell out with her husband, my brother, on this subject and some family issues. The falling out over trans really opened my eyes to his contempt for women, and me. I miss my sister in law much more than my brother.

I never accepted the lie that humans could change sex, but I was pretty fucking shocked to realise how easily women were thrown under the bus for the sake of at best, delusional, and at worst, perverted men.

[viques]

Cyclist Emily was my ticket to ride. Comparing the photos of Emily sitting down demurely gazing wistfully into the far distance with Emily the 6 foot 4 cyclist with legs like tree trunks made me realise that something was very rotten in the kingdom of Kind.

[TempestTost]

I don't think I was even in Kindland, not just with gender stuff, but in general. I guess it's always seemed clear to me that being kind isn't always best, or on many cases even the best way to be helpful to someone.

I'm not sure why, but I remember as a teenager having an argument with my mother about something (don't remember what), and she asked me if I would say the same about my own kids, and I said I thought it was more important to know what was true than be happy. These days I might put some caveats around that, but in general I don't think you can be kind by being false.

There was a time I thought that maybe transition was an effective way of dealing with what seemed to be a real medical issue for some, but I no longer think that is true.

[GenderlessVoid]

Sorry this is so long. It's hard to write so I haven't edited.

I've been dysphoric about my sex most of my life due to persistent sexual abuse when I was very young. That was my normal and, like many kids, I assumed it was most ppls' normal. I dreamed of changing my body but not just my sex: if I could I would not have been human and definitely not a girl or boy. I was young enough to think I could be a dragon or a fairy or starlight. I was a tomboy growing up but also very spacey (i.e., dissociative, tho not labelled as that at the time).

I gave up on a different body as I got older: even if I could have transferred my brain to an unsexed alien, I would have all my memories. They are what made me "me". I can't separate a pure, blank slate mind from my sexed body and still be myself. I didn't think of it as gender dysphoria. It seemed like anger and fear about the misogyny that led to not only my abuse but society not believing me or caring about it or worrying about how acknowledging it would affect my abusers (not me) bc I was a girl. I guess it is gender dysphoria, tho, bc I've never been comfortable in my sexed body.

In college, my landlady was a trans woman. I liked her. We often had tea in her apartment. She had her struggles but seemed happy to be more like her mum, who she identified with. She looked like a trucker but so did her mum. (She had her mum's picture on the wall.) I didn't think about trans issues much, except her struggles made me sad.

The first time I left Kindland was when feminists insisted that transwomen must be allowed in women's rape shelters. As someone w CPTSD, I knew that would mean that some cis women wouldn't be able to use the services. I was told that those ppl were bigots and they should get over their PTSD, as if that is easy or even possible for many ppl. They insisted that the only possible reason that someone might be triggered (in the PTSD sense) was bc they thought transwomen were dangerous and, if they just educated themselves, all would be well. I tried to explain that I have had to stop seeing close friends, who I thought were very good ppl, bc they triggered me. I cognitively know they're not dangerous to me but part of my brain does not know that and I have intrusive PTSD symtoms even though I 100% know that these are good ppl and who I love and trust on an intellectual level but my emotions react differently. They would have none of it and I was a bigot for not immediately stopping any PTSD reaction I might possibly have. (Which made no sense at all; anyone would stop their PTSD reaction if they could, regardless of what triggered it.)

Then I learned about the cotton ceiling and male prisoners, including sexual predators, IDing as women so they could be transferred to women's prisons. I felt horrible for those women. It's not a search for kindness or fairness: it's rape culture. I will not support rape culture.

[Crankywiddershins]

@GenderlessVoid thank you so much for sharing your story. It is one of the most powerful things I've read about surviving abuse, and I say that as another survivor.

[BettyFilous]

@Crankywiddershins

@GenderlessVoid thank you so much for sharing your story. It is one of the most powerful things I've read about surviving abuse, and I say that as another survivor.

Seconded, wholeheartedly. 💐GenderlessVoid.

Germaine Greer’s drubbbing on Newsnight make me prick my ears up, but learning that rapists were being placed in women’s prisons did it for me. The ‘ask’ is not acceptable in a civilised society. Someone described this as the greatest unmasking of patriarchy in history. It’s been depressing realising how little value our society places on treating women and girls as equal citizens, how eager it is to dehumanise us and our experiences.

[Swamphag]

I was always in Kindland, I have a friend who I've known for a lot of years who has a trans sibling (old school dysphoria, who went through much therapy). This clouded my judgement and made me assume that all trans people were the same (I'd never actually heard of the notion of transmen)
I was a lefty SAHM and all my friends were of the same political persuasion. Then about 10 years ago started working in an industry where my colleagues tended to be more centrist politically (which I thought of as being rightwing🙄) I'd never really spent time outside of my echo chamber. At one point I ended up sharing an office with someone who had a biology degree and we got to talking about TW in sport and he asked me if I thought it was fair. I'd never given it any consideration (I am more on the slob end of the sports scale and don't participate in or watch any sports. It's never been on my radar) I found I couldn't justify it but was still of the opinion that TW should have the chance to compete. Fast forward a couple of months and the whole JKR thing kicked off, I discovered FWR and the rest is TERF history.

[Zeugma]

Good article. I was never a dweller in Kindland. A colleague transitioned and our mostly-female team had to carry on silently getting on with things while said colleague dressed in the most stereotypical/inappropriate clothes (which no other female employee would ever wear) and proceeded to make everything all about them. To an exhausting degree. It was very instructive, but at the time the whole current debate hadn’t really got going, not even on MN, so I didn’t have anywhere to discuss it. I just knew I couldn’t 'believe'.

What really crystallised it all for me was when the transwoman fell-runner Lauren Jeska was convicted of the attempted murder of an athletics official, Ralph Knibbs, a knife attack that left him with life-changing injuries. Jeska had been told to provide blood samples to test hormone levels but took objection to that.

Oh, and Jeska is not only in a women's prison - Jeska still holds a women's Parkrun record. You couldn’t make it up. So no, I won’t be visiting Kindland anytime soon.