I give up

[PullUpTheDrawbridge]

FFS I am just so tired of it all. I'm in an unrelated comedy related FB group that is usually light hearted but every now and again, the same old (trans) faces pipe up with their monthly JKR slag-off post. Tonight, for the second month in a row, I gently put my hand up to say not EVERYONE thinks she's bigoted, abusive hate-speaker. Some people think she's standing up for women and children's rights. I got a few likes, but the majority of people took it as a cue to virtue signal their 'be-kind, live-and-let-live, trans-ally' bullshit. I just can't make a dent. Some of the posts are even arguing that GC types are reducing everything to genitals and body stereotypes as if we are the anti feminist ones. I just don't know where to start. Anything you say is immediately hammered down with this sort of bullshit

"This isn't a debate and quite depressing that people are treating it as such, I would hope that fans of XXX would be more progressive as they are. Trans lives aren't a debate. They exist, always have and always will.
Just as society has gone through these moral panics before and targeted communities, it is now happening with the trans community and it is so fucking unacceptable and abhorrent, just as it has been in the past."

"For me it's just the new thing for awful people to hate on. Be who you want to be, as long as you're happy and not hurting anyone it's no one's business but your own. I genuinely don't understand the problem. It amazes me that this is a discussion in our so called 'civilised society"

I'm exhausted with it all. 21K members and I was the only GC voice. What's the point?

Be who you want to be, as long as you're happy and not hurting anyone it's no one's business

But they are hurting women and girls - those who miss out on sports places, medals and prize money, those who get trapped and abused in a women's prison, those who got molested and taped in girls toilets.. so it becomes our business to keep men out of female spaces - however they may dress.

I know. It just feels so entrenched. Saying otherwise feels akin to being racist or something.

I don't know where to start, it's such a big issue. And then you get the emotional 'I just want to exist without hatred' victim posts from trans people and it feels like you're the bad guy kicking a kitten,

How do people talk about this stuff? I feel like my homophobic gran in the corner, who embarrasses everyone.

I don't know where to start, it's such a big issue. And then you get the emotional 'I just want to exist without hatred' victim posts from trans people and it feels like you're the bad guy kicking a kitten,

That's why they do it, it's manipulative emotional blackmail and makes people turn against you. I'm sorry @PullUpTheDrawbridge, solidarity. We've all been there.

Judging by the two posts you’ve screenshotted, they’re not thinking for themselves. They’re just parroting the mindless drivel they’ve been fed on SM.

It’s like listening to a politician doing anything he or she can to avoid addressing the points being put to them.

Lots of waffle, most of it either completely untrue or irrelevant to the issue at hand, designed to elicit a conditioned response (in this case, “beeee kind”).

I feel like my homophobic gran in the corner, who embarrasses everyone.

Which is exactly the point of the forced teaming of LGB with TQ+++. And why self-ID in Ireland got snuck through on the back of abortion rights.

It's hard, OP. Personally, I would not expend social capital on defending JKR, as wonderful as she is, because I want to keep my powder dry for arguments about the medicalisation of children and protecting single sex spaces.

Because of media and social media mis-reporting, it's easy for people to write off JKR as a bigot (wrongly), and apply the same label to anyone who defends her. It is harder for them to argue for keeping rapists inf female prisons or puberty blockers, as evidence of the harms of both emerges.

We have already shifted a long, long way from 7-8 years ago, when it was taboo even to suggest that those harms existed. Don't despair. In the long run, JKR will be proven right and, in the meantime, she has the heart and courage to take the heat.

The people in that Facebook group aren't a representative cross section of society. Don't despair. Mute the group and read the Times instead

stay strong @PullUpTheDrawbridge xx

just tell them a million quid is up for grabs if they can show anything JKR said which is transphobic. Dont hold your breath.

Is this an American group? They are definitely a bit behind the UK in seeing through all this. Not all of them of course, but in general.

Although, having said that, it's generational too. The Gen X group I'm on (mostly Americans)largely seem to think it's nonsense.

Australia is very captured too.

Remember the ones who try to look like abused kittens may well be the ones that send vicious hate mail to their perceived enemies.

Yes, definitely.

Notice how nobody is ever prepared to debate (that JKR is transphobic) in good faith - just bleat and flounce if you suggest she isn’t.

The latest criticism seems to be that there are no trans characters in Harry Potter….. well, guess what, there were no trans children (or adults) in my school when I was reading the books. That can be surprising for some kids today, demonstrating how deeply some schools are embedding this stuff

Is this an American group?

I wondered this too - if not, what’s with the tediously predictable, ugly, parroted phrase ‘it's just the new thing for awful people to hate on’. Why do they always say ‘hate on’? Can’t they hear themselves? It makes no sense, it’s a nonsense mantra borrowed from the US and chanted like some sort of spell by people who won’t use their own actual brains to think for themselves.

You’re in the right on this one, @PullUpTheDrawbridge, never fear.

I think there is performative flouncing going on. You are right, this is real, this is deeply harming many including lgb children. However the tide has turned in the uk and turning in the us so those who do this will only shout louder. Keep calm and measured

Would you be happy to share screenshots of your own posts, it might help people here to see how to word things. Also, it helps to see what people are responding to.

Well, pick your battles, OP.

There's a lot of sound and fury on social media. And a lot of bad faith people making bullshit emotive arguments.

That said, polling shows the vast majority of people hold views in accordance with most feminists. Most people are broadly in agreement with JK Rowling on these issues. Just most won't post about it on social media.

Ah, this mythical time when women’s appearances weren’t being pulled apart for not meeting narrow standards of female beauty.

When was it again?

Do the majority of people in your group stay quiet, not comment, like etc. I'd look at those who keep their heads down and presume there is a silent majority.

She is being called a Holocaust denier on Twitter, because she disagreed with some TRA claiming that the Nazis persecuted trans people.

Ofc, no one cares that she is correct - that (a) there were no trans people as such in the 30s/40s (b) the Nazis took - by their standards - a pretty lenient approach to cross-dressers.

This is a particularly disgusting bit of appropriation by TRAs, of the persecution of homosexuals and it exposes the lie at the core of trans-activism, being 'born this way'. Some cross-dressers did get fined or threatened with imprisonment for cross-dressing, so they simply stopped cross-dressing. TRAs hate this because it makes it so clear that cross-dressing is a lifestyle choice, unlike being gay, Jewish, Roma etc.

At some point the fashion will move on and the virtue signalling crew will be busy out competing each other over something else equally misguided and unhelpful.

You don’t need to react to the post- most people reading agree with you, and are afraid to show that under their own name.

I can’t on FB. I have a family member I need to be careful around so can’t be out on FB.

Even on here, watchers watch and learn and quietly agree. I get loads of thanks on my posts from names who aren’t actually posting on the thread- so they are reading and they care but aren’t wanting to join the conversation.

So step back and have a break. Or keep going knowing that you’re the sane voice in the conversation. Have an internal game of Bingo about what the responses will be to keep your spirits up! Don’t let the absence of other people speaking up, fool you.

There has always been a loud group of people against women claiming their rights in 1900, in 1960 etc. They always resented those who upset the status quo who asked difficult questions. The loudest voice repressing women was often other women too - that is the awkward truth. If we were just facing male TRAs we would have won this fight long ago, because frankly the male TRAs let the truth spill out a lot.

Most women and good men were too scared to publicly back every gain they got till long after the battles were won. However, in secret they often agreed with the pro-women forces. Do we blame them? No we can't because it is SO hard to join the fight when it is easier and safer to sit back.

There were a bunch of people who agreed with you reading that too scared to say anything. Some are sitting at home, blaming themselves for being too cowardly to speak up, slowly peaking further. Others will have had the seeds of doubt planted or getting a little bit more water and sunlight on them, growing more and more.

Others are so angry at having their views questioned, that maybe they decide to go find more bad women to tell off. Next step is to come on mumsnet to see what the bad women are saying, oh wait that actually makes sense, but how these women are all bad. I must be a bad women if I agree with them, better repress my doubts and denounce the witches more. Back on mumsnet I will just read this thread oh wait what is a trans widow?

Oh no now I am a terf how did that happen?

Honestly you can't argue with stupid. Even my husband, who is generally not a complete idiot, was trying to tell me yesterday that JKR is transphobic, because of her recent Hate Crime tweets. I just asked him if he'd read what she actually wrote, which of course he hadn't. Unfortunately The Last Leg had come on when we turned on the TV so we just caught three blokes cackling about how awful she is. Nevertheless, my hubby, like most people, of course agrees that men shouldn't be in women's changing rooms, prisons, sports etc and also recognises the clear links between trauma and rogd in girls. He just thinks we should 'leave people be', which in general I don't disagree with. I think TRAs have done a very good job of spinning any questioning, discussion etc as hate, phobia and bigotry but the truth is starting to get through. As a pp said, a few years ago it was full on #nodebate but things are changing. I also think most people don't fully take TWAW seriously, it's so obvious they're not, so they just accept it as something to be kind whilst quietly thinking to themselves that be that as it may of course they're not really. So they don't realise that by going along with it they are publically agreeing with stuff that they definitely don't support eg prisons and so on.

I also think the TRAs do the job themselves, including all the examples JKR referred to in her tweets. Yes, key people have done an amazing job turning this around, JKR with her clear articulation of the issues, Ricky Gervais using comedy to show how ridiculous it is, KJK raising it politically, Graham Linehan speaking up in the darkest days of #nodebate, but ultimately ordinary people were never going to accept this nonsense. TRAs only got as far as they did with a whole load of underhanded tactics; the forced teaming of the T to the LGB, #nodebate, co-opting a load of ideas from the disabled people's movement. I've said this before but when you trick or silence people into agreement you are going to get a bloody big shock when they don't actually go along with what you expect. That is exactly what has happened, TRAs have now pushed far too far and there is no going back.

Saying all that, I'm not sure you'll ever get through to people in that kind of social media environment but that doesn't mean we're not getting anywhere. Don't lose hope!

Fantastic optimistic posts - what a good start to the day. 😊

When people start with “I just don’t understand…”, “I don’t get it…”, I want to scream.

There is plenty of other information out there written about the arguments on both side. Before you dismiss people as bigots from a place of admitted ignorance, why not take half an hour to find out a little bit about why they hold these views? Laziness? Fear they may agree? It’s like ignorance is laudable on this particular issue. Goes along with the infuriating “all the trans hate is just so horrible” comments you get on these forums. The tone is like they’re so worn down by the nasty meanness that they can’t bring themselves to say another word; I suspect they couldn’t even begin.

Someone was moaning about how opinionated some people are about this subject the other day at work. “I don’t understand all the trans stuff and I don’t have an opinion, but why can’t people wear what they want? What does it have to do with anyone else?” It wasn’t the place to get into any of it, but I inwardly marvelled at what they think this is about.