What brought you here?

[CyclingSam]

I have Rachel McKinnon to thank, with a strong assist by Magdalen Berns.

I came through being shocked and dismayed around freedom of speech issues in universities and other public institutions, and the weird bigoted stuff going on around the political left.

Exactly the same

I'm as yet undecided on my views about some aspects of this, I have very dear friends who are trans (and are not anywhere near as militant as some of the TRAs that are often quoted here or in the press)
However, i don't think its healthy to exist in a bubble so I find this forum challenges me and makes me appreciate the issues in a much deeper way and has changed my view on some things.

2017, when PM Teresa May told Prick News that she would push for self ID and leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn said he would support her in this. It felt like we were on the brink of something fearfully bad. James Kirkup bigged-up MN in a Spectator article, and since then, FWR has been a refuge and also, at times, a call to arms. 💪

Material Girls was where I first find out about this board.
I never used to waste brain space on the trans issue until TWAW but...
Growing up in a latin country, I was first a property of my father and then passed on to my husband. I was raised to be nothing, to be dependent on a man while the boys were raised like princes, raised to have agency, to be something. How can a man, (no matter how hard a life he had), raised on the privilege of being a man can ever think that he knows what is to be a woman?!?!

I used to use mumsnet a bit when my kids were young, but discovered FWR after the Kellie Jay Keen trip to NZ (where I live). I already thought it was a lot of ridiculous nonsense after Laurel Hubbard, but so, it appeared, did everyone else I spoke to. So I really didn't take it too seriously - LH must have been a mistake, a loophole, obviously they'll sort that for the next olympics.

Then there was a media uproar about this nazi woman invading our country with her hate speech, and I thought WTF? We'd never heard of her. So I started googling, and first got lots of anti-KJK propaganda and eventually ended up here. And what a lot of things I've learned!! It has been quite a journey.

Awakened by the Macachlan case. Fully peaked by the Madigan outrage.

Ha ha. I remember that mod over there. Name began with a p if I recall. I left before I was pushed, but their alarmingly jackboot approach was one of the first times I really saw the shitfest for what it was. I remember getting posts removed for stating facts & stats they didn't like. Not to mention the "feminists" over there and the kneejerk outrage and centering of trans (aka men) in bloody everything but not being able to see it when it was glaring to me. I was genuinely quite innocent before that, just thought it needed explaining & couldn't believe what I was seeing.

The level of indoctrination and unhinged hatred of dissenters is genuinely scary. The ideology destroys everything it touches, usually from inside, given deliberate entryism is such a big feature. Just look at the state of the Greens, booting out anyone dissenting (notably usually the less upper middle class people too) while championing wildly un Green policies like giving kids puberty blockers & opposite sex hormones for playing with the "wrong" toys. Not to mention Challenor and his (disposable) nappy fetish and their failings re Challenor senior.

What is the climate there now? I remember watching some of the Kiwi news channels at the time after the KJK trip where they were claiming she was making secret far right nazi hand signals during TV interviews and basically did a hatchet job on her at every opportunity. I'm not a fan of hers but she was treated appallingly.

Exactly the same for me. Opened my eyes.

Herawouldntstandforthis · Yesterday 20:58

No, it wasn't D Spy, I've not heard of it.

I think it was 2015 when a woman started a thread on FWR saying something like why the bloody hell aren't you lot all reading and commenting on this other thread about the IOC rulings coming into effect?

It looked like a bunfight was about to ensue because the women here clearly didn't like being told what to do.

But then they read it. And I read it.

And there was a collective wtf?

That started the ascent. Quite shortly after that there were two websites called something like 'what transactivists say.'

They were so eye-opening and so revolting that I went scrabbling up the mountain just by glancing sideways at them with one eye closed.

Then they were deleted.

That did it. I reached the first of many peaks.

Operation let them speak means you hear what TRAs say whilst they're simultaneously denying they're saying it.

In terms of being counter-productive, it couldn't be more effective.

Never been a feminist, then one day I needed advice on jeans, landed in FWR by mistake instead of S&B and couldn't believe what I read. Ended up attending feminist meetings and supporting various fund raiser appeals for court cases.

Also, all my life I had been very much a trans ally until Lang, Magdelene (RIP), Datun educated me.

It was also around the time the Labour Party gave the womans officer position to a teenage boy.

I have a friend like that. In her case, it wasn't social media, but the son of a friend of hers claiming a special identity. It was extraordinary. The boy's feelings were suddenly the only thing that mattered to her! Women prisoners, sports, none of it mattered any more. Resolutely refuses to talk about it.

Me too - JKR led me here, via Twitter posts. I'd previously noticed odd bits and claims of transphobia, but thought TWAW was so obviously ridiculous that it would go away. Little did I know.

Never had a Be Kind phase.

Found FWR somehow - probably Twitter again - and joined MN to read and comment.

2016. Wondered what Germaine Greer could possibly have done and an attack on a feminist bookshop in Canada caused me to look into what was happening and discovered the shitshow. It was quite unbelievable at first.

A former tutor of mine posted a friendly query to his page asking people to explain the transgender wave? Movement? om Facebook. The batshit replies he got made me look into it all a bit more. I replied and was told that due to my interests I was probably non binary and not a girl at all!
Then working in education and seeing girls with clear mental health issues sliding into wanting to be boys. And their parent also with clear mental illness (unable to leave house etc) being very proactive in encouraging them. And it compounding both of their problems instead of helping at all.
Was on MN anyway and started reading these boards more often.

Where I llive, I have yet to encounter someone who actually believes TWAW and I'm sure the majority of people have no idea what our laws actually say. There's more #BeKind and 'I don't care who uses the cubicle next to me', but when I have queried these views, everyone has seemed to understand my point of view, they just haven't really thought very hard about it.
My 17yo daughter reckons that most of her peers are very GC. My son is at uni and that's quite rainbow-captured, but again, amongst his peers, no one believes it. My worry is that for their generation, the boundaries are blurred between gay and trans, they seem to struggle see a difference. That concerns me.
The media is shit - no mention of the Cass report in mainstream media, no mention of the Tickle/Giggle case. And I saw a Freedom of Information report the other day (on a feminist website) saying that 14% of transwomen prisoners are in women's prisons.

I've been here since before the trans issue was the main talking point. It was the only place I could find in depth analysis of feminist positions and different types of feminism. Plus the regular MRA incursions showed the talking points in action.

This was where I learnt what my brand of feminism is and to be comfortable with it and I'll always be thankful for that. I learnt a lot here from some amazing posters. Always wondered what happened to VestalVirgin - she took no shit at all, was totally uncompromising but also flipping hilarious.

Some posters on here were quite unpleasant to Miranda and partner when they posted.
I found it sad as I was interested in what both of them had to say.
AFAIK Miranda and partner are both happy with he/him pronouns.

Thanks OP for starting this thread. It's so interesting to read about all the different routes that led so many brilliant, clear-thinking feminists to converge right here. I haven't been here that long, although I've been vaguely gc for several years... I just felt a bit aimless and isolated because I didn't know how to stay across what was actually happening. Hadley Freeman's disappearance from the Guardian, along with so many other brilliant feminist commentators - Julie Bindel and Suzanne Moore - left me distraught. One day I started reading and re-reading Hadley's old gc columns and found one that said "Who would have thought Mumsnet would become such a hotbed of feminism?" It was like a breadcrumb trail... I came on the site, searched around and found this - and it's been life-changing. I hope many more women and girls manage to find their way here - this thread seems to prove the route here is definitely not an obvious one. I am constantly in awe of the ability of certain people here to express so precisely and knowledgeably what it means to be a woman and what defines and differentiates us - I feel like Mumsnet should be taught to girls at school.

Mainly Twitter, as a TWAW type beforehand. Initially following Glinner for the comedy, but also becoming intrigued by what posters on there would decree 'hateful'. Mumsnet, JKR, KJK. What was that all about? So, came to see.

The local ReSisters group were told by the leader of the council, in the chamber, that saying women can't have penises was 'hateful'. I realised morally I could not stand for accepting that and could no longer take seriously anyone who did.

Long-time MNetter, generally aware and reading FWR for many years, but what properly grabbed my attention and then kept me here for good was the fell-runner Lauren Jeska being convicted of attempted murder after attacking three athletics officials with knives. One, Ralph Knibbs, was extremely lucky to survive his stabbing. His life has been severely affected.

Jeska had been competing as a woman and, predictably, winning, but didn’t want to provide blood samples for a hormone-level check to see if they remained in the male range.

Aimee Challenor was a slightly later, genuine blood-running-cold moment. Actually I do think that’s one of the things (among so many) I still need brain-bleach for even now.

Accidentally arrived here; came for the ante-natal/ maternity stuff and stayed for the feminism. It’s opened my eyes I can tell you!
I don’t want to fan-girl (!) but I honestly have learned a lot 😁

I followed a link to the Break It Down For Me mega-thread from the Martin Lewis chat forum about 4 years ago. It was a huge amount to take in, but it explained why an otherwise decent lefty bloke I knew was posting puzzling "jokes" about JK Rowling on Facebook, and why a female colleague had wanted to talk to me privately about HR's usage of "sex" and "gender" on forms.

I then started lurking here, although it took me ages to work out that the word "peak" was banned. I was unfamiliar with MN so was staggered that I could freely type Fuck and Cunt, but Peak was now a deeply offensive swear word. I did a module on the Political History of English at university so this particularly interested me.