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.

"Cis" means you act, behave, think or have a general personality that "matches" having a female body.
The whole idea of this is hugely sexist (ditto for men).

A woman is a female with any personality, not a type of personality in either-sex body.

Yes, this.

If I'm reading this post right - I'm not 100% sure I am - it is honest, brave and moving.
Not many people are prepared to say they deserved what they got, especially as they were seeking support not their arse handed to them. And to listen and change and come back...

If I'm reading you right, StephanieSuperpowers, here are 💐 from me.

Thanks, Marie, that's exactly what I meant! I'm grateful for it though and it's one of the reasons I reject the idea that we should all be nice and gentle in our critique of this stuff. Sometimes you need to say it straight and sometimes you need to hear it straight.

Glad I got it right. I was really moved by your lack of self-justification and defensiveness, two things that I dislike in other people......and recognize in myself. As for admitting I got things wrong as bravely as you did? Hmmm. I'm working on it, a bit behind you there😏
💐

I think you're doing pretty good! And thanks for pointing out @StephanieSuperpowers incredible attitude! I'm much more of a hunker down and sulk girl myself! So it's great to be shown a better way.
Flowers 💐💐 for you both.

A woman is a female with any personality, not a type of personality in either-sex body

YES!

I have a question although I’m sure I already know the answer…☹️

Will FWR still exist after 1st April ?

I was a little bit in Kindland, but when I saw a bloke with a beard trolling a US anti trans activist by taking her name, attacking Julie Bindel and all the reporting was that they were a woman I thought fuck that

no idea if an alarm goes off if I mention names ……..

I'm a sleeper in Kindland, because I have trans friends of many years standing (pre- and post-transition). I relate to them as an atheist relates to religionists and they tolerate me as someone who doesn't quite get it ('illtempered is so literal-minded🙄').

Because I got my news from the BBC and not social media, I didn't notice anything was up until my TF started complaining about the transphobia. I couldn't believe people would even bother to be mean to trans people just for the sake of it, and eg I can remember reading the 'cotton ceiling' as being about a misguided individual trying to help TW find love. (When I later watched the AHF film and heard a lesbian talk about how lesbian-only spaces have been affected, it was a real duck/rabbit moment.)

I felt I should find out what the enemy was saying, as the quickest route to understanding, so I read Helen Joyce's book.

😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱

I don't believe my principles have changed, only my knowledge. On here, I can be robust, because it's not trans people per se I'm annoyed with, but the politicians, lobbyists, bullies and grifters. With my TF I'm honest but circumspect. Because our worldviews are so different, I don't think I have the power to persuade them of the changes needed, although I do try (their rebuttals are wild!). Change will have to come from above, and then they will find out that the world didn't end after all.

Unfortunately for me that’s not the case. I’m also expected to play the gender games, and when I don’t I’m told (by women!) I’m transphobic and morally bankrupt. I accept that women have it harder than men, but men (perhaps particularly fathers, who are the most likely to push against genderism) are also told they are wrong and bigoted for objecting to compelled, or coerced, speech. We’re just as much “On The Wrong Side Of History” for daring to be sceptical. I’m not a cis man, I’m just a man.

Because I'm not on social media I didn't become aware of this issue until the Mayor of Liverpool threatened to have women arrested for a 'hate crime' - for the abominable act of putting tiny little stickers on some of Anthony Gormley's Iron Men ( naked casts of the artist's body) on Crosby beach ( 2018). The stickers proclaimed 'Women don't have penises'.

The resulting manufactured outrage in the local press took me by complete surprise. I looked into the issue and immediately thought " No way, fuck that" or something quite simlilar....

I'd been teaching in secondary schools until 2010 and 'trans' just wasn't a thing at all....and in the intervening years I'd been spending lots of time getting into photography and was totally absorbed photograping everything that moved, and didn't move, in the city, and elsewhere. Admittedly I, also, used to be a regular photographer at Pride events - but somehow didn't notice the creep towards 'trans'.

I immediately reached out to see if anyone else was feeling the same anger as me. I genuinely didn't know If I was pretty much alone in being outraged.... and not very 'kind' at all...and fortunately discovered the Resisters.

The rest is history.

I'm quite a direct and outspoken person, so have always found it near to impossible to disguise any profound disagreement that I have with anything.

Aisla Bryson and her rather wonderful pink leggings woke me up

I was still in a senior corporate role about 6 or 7 years ago and involved in DEI when the gay man in charge of the LGBTetcetc stream started lobbying for solidarity on trans issues, aided and abetted by Stonewall. It was all about pronouns and access to spaces in the workplace and the “most vulnerable, most oppressed” narrative. I have been a feminist all my life and am well aware of domestic violence (been a statistic once) and rape culture and unequal pay and crap prospects after maternity and so on, and immediately smelled a rat. It also irked me beyond words to hear “cis” - it’s such a made up piece of fakery. I remained non committal, steered clear and occasionally raised the direct clash of rights.

After I left that workplace and rejoined MN after a long hiatus I realised how lucky I was to leave all that bullshit behind.

Then JKR, Lea Thomas and Isla Bryson happened. The cat was out of the bag.

Just this week whilst travelling, I sat in a restaurant and saw a couple at another table. They caught my eye because they were wearing exactly the same patterned fleece (90s Howard and Hilda style but they can’t have been more than 26). The young man had a goatee and a wispy moustache and glasses. I double taked his partner, who also had goatee stubble and a fine moustache and glasses, but whose build, hands and jawline showed to be incontrovertibly a woman. I just felt sad looking at someone who had so utterly lost herself, and wondered what she would be like had she allowed herself to assert her own adult identity.

Working as a junior Dr in hospital, I saw a teenage girl who had 'overdosed' (not a serious attempt) after being misgendered by a teacher. I then accidentally 'misgendered' her to her dad who was sitting silently in the corner. I felt very terrible and started thinking and talking about it with others - I disliked the sneaking feeling that I was colluding in what seemed to be a delusion - I wouldn't collude with a psychotic or demented person, so why this poor girl?

This was probably 2020 - I had managed to be utterly unaware of the debate until then despite having two daughters who were by then teens. It simply didn't affect me.

So I read Irreversible Damage and Material Girls. I somehow found this board. I read the medical guidelines and started gathering medical literature about transition. I peaked my colleagues and my eldest DD and my DH just by asking questions that they couldn't answer. I am working my way round friends and wider family.

It has been a gateway to me out of my lefty kind bubble and I look at conservative attitudes much more generously than previous. Kindland is behind me.

Thank you for the bravery and humility in this post. I hope your housing is more stable now!

I disliked the sneaking feeling that I was colluding in what seemed to be a delusion - I wouldn't collude with a psychotic or demented person, so why this poor girl?

This is such an important point - we are not expected to do this for any other form of distress or mental illness. Even other types of body dymorphia like anorexia is not treated in the same way. Can you imagine a clinician telling a young patient with anorexia 'yes, yes, you're too fat, keep starving yourself'. It would be a violation of first do no harm.
This shows that gender dysphoria is expected to be treated so differently, even to the detriment of the patient themselves. Encouraging self harm (in the form of surgery and hormones) as a form of treatment.

I disliked the sneaking feeling that I was colluding in what seemed to be a delusion.

Very similar starting place for me (through work) @FinallyASunnyDay

My first thoughts were to question myself. Why, after a whole life thus far, standing with those who were vulnerable and misunderstood (I was deeply in Kindland)- would my instinctive responses in this instance be considered to be on the "side of bigotry". What was I missing?
So discombobulating!

I read everything I could find- from all perspectives.

Found my way from that to the Gender a Wider Lens podcast- and was relieved to find something that explored and voiced all the initial confusions and concerns I had- when all the world around me seemed to have taken as read a belief that I couldn't make sense of.

I was so grateful to read JKR's essay too, and then found FWR. It's been a journey indeed.

It has all made me more deeply consider what my values are. My take on kindness and compassion as values have become much more nuanced, and I have realised how much truth and honesty are core values of mine- where perhaps that hadn't been so obvious to me before.

It has also sent me on a wonderful discovery of feminism. I don't think, before all this, I had ever encountered so many powerful women. Incredibly valuable on a personal level. Its really been a kind of awakening.

In the dark and scary swamps just outside of Kindland- there is gold and lotus flowers.

It has all made me more deeply consider what my values are. My take on kindness and compassion as values have become much more nuanced, and I have realised how much truth and honesty are core values of mine- where perhaps that hadn't been so obvious to me before.

It has also sent me on a wonderful discovery of feminism. I don't think, before all this, I had ever encountered so many powerful women. Incredibly valuable on a personal level. Its really been a kind of awakening.

Beautifully put.

I'm very kind. Always have been. Always will be. Doesn't mean passive acquiescence, or quietism, or lying for the sake of a quiet life, or martyrdom, or pandering. Kindness can be fierce and stoic and thoughtful.

Anyone who's brought up toddlers knows kindness doesn't mean 'going along with everything'.

Yes!

I'm very kind. Always have been. Always will be. Doesn't mean passive acquiescence, or quietism, or lying for the sake of a quiet life, or martyrdom, or pandering. Kindness can be fierce and stoic and thoughtful.

This. Sometimes the kindest thing you can do is to support people to come to terms accepting that certain things can't happen.

I think most (all?) of us who have posted on this thread are still kind. Perhaps we're living in a breakaway province, the Democratic Republic of Kindness 😁. As previously posted being kind, truly kind, sometimes means saying 'no', sometimes 'fuck, no!'.

The whole "kind" thing reminds me very much of men claiming "I'm nice."

Performative kindness is not kindness. Thoughtless kindness with little care for negative consequences for others, is not true kindness. Just as performative niceness is not niceness, and being nice in the hope of positive consequences for yourself, is not true niceness.

Both of these states of being revolve around heavily gendered socialisation (being a pushover / being arrogant and entitled) and both involve, to varying levels, a hope of positive social consequence from the performance. Both are superficial interpretations of positive traits. And both are highly toxic and end up with women wheedled into accepting male erosion of their boundaries.

The main difference I can see is that men are only really pressured into "niceness" by their own libido (and the majority of decent men consciously reject it), whereas women are pressured into it by the whole of society, where it's just the water around the fish.