How many terfs are out there?

[Runor]

I spent years in the wilderness, not talking about my terfiness irl, because friends had been politely distancing themselves from my views. Things are changing. I now know about a dozen people who have previously quietly asked me to ‘be kind to men who think they are women’ (I paraphrase), who are now strongly espousing TWANW.

What can we do? Recommend books and podcasts. Ask what people think about men in women’s sport, men in women’s changing rooms and hospital wards. Ask them if the like JKR 😉 Anything else?

We need to find each other irl. We all need to see that we are a huge majority that has been silenced for too long. Not everybody can, not everywhere is safe, but maybe now is the time to test the water?

The TWAW brigade haven't really looked into things properly.

Example... When I first started ranting speaking to DH about the subject, he was very keen to defend the Trans community. The thing is, he had got it completely wrong. He thought Trans men was the term used for Men that were trans, and said to me that there must be some truth in it because they are born with a cervix (he'd obviously seen something about trans men needing smear tests) Now this is a very intelligent man, but because he was soooo #bekind, he hadn't put any thought into it. I schooled him, but he was still sceptical about the things I told him, so he went away and did his own reading. He came back to me and absolutely agreed with what I said about female spaces/sports belonging to females. He would be just as ignorant today if I hadn't have pushed the subject. How many other people are completely ignorant? There's so much misinformation out there pushing the trans agenda.

I just did some googling to check exactly when it was that my views started changing. I knew a couple of fairly harmless transwomen in the early 2010s (I never really saw them as women, but was happy to play along as they were clearly people who had been a bit messed up by life), so was generally of the view that we should live and let live, they are not bothering anyone and so on. In 2015 I think I even signed this petition to get a transwoman out of a male prison: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/dec/03/transgender-woman-who-was-sent-to-male-prison-is-freed

But then a little while later I read that contrary to what all the publicity at the time seemed to suggest, Tara Hudson was still anatomically male, and advertised himself as an escort with a '7-inch surprise'.

Then came the election of Trump, and the Women's March, and some prominent trans activists described the pink 'pussy hats' as transphobic, because they centred cis-female anatomy. I think that was my WTF moment.

And also around then I think Mermaids were told in no uncertain terms by the judge to butt out of a court case where they were egging on a mother who was insisting her primary aged son was trans, contrary to what he said to his dad, teachers and everyone else.

And not that long after, one of my DD's best friends (autistic, lesbian, geeky etc) started identifying as a boy, which prompted me to take even more of an interest.

I'm a TERF and finding it really fucking difficult to find spaces for TERFy lesbian/bi women as a late bloomer. I suspect all the women have underground? I'm not even necessarily looking for a relationship, just somewhere where I don't have to keep quiet about agreeing with JKR.

I think this is an important point and one I probably went along with. TRA's are like 'trans women have been using your bathrooms for years'. Yes they have but probably subtly and we probably had sympathy, empathy and kindness for those with a genuine dysphoria.

If I remember right it, in the olden days when TW did need a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, going into women’s spaces like toilets was seen as part of the process, a way of proving commitment

no one asked us though did they? No one asked women if we minded. It didn’t occur to anyone in the medical profession to consider womens views or needs. It was all about the men and sod the support humans (women not being real pl!)

A scarf in suffragette colours with a small dinosaur badge is all you need
and
DO join WRN - local branches cover most of the country

and attend a LWS event - the ones without KJK are more peaceful and get less video

Yes, very true. Nothing has changed at all.

I’m a terf. Proud of it. In my circles we all are which is a relief. My daughter and her friends were emphatically not terfs. Then she had an incident with a TW at work who wrote an email to female colleagues with the salutation “hey bleeders” and went on to ask intrusive questions about menstruation. So my daughter has quietly stopped being emphatic and can see my point.

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Hi 👋

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Me, my DH, my DC, mum, dad, siblings and their partners, friends, hairdresser, several colleagues … Lots of us.

Most of my family , all pretty left / liberal are Terfs. Though some might recoil at the term itself. My sons say ' we had Emo , now it's non binary ' . Indeed. But Emo hasn't caused so much damage in this world.

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I'm similar to this, feel like a dormant Terf for the moment

JKR is a very good name to bring up as a litmus test.

One (middle-class) friend scrunched up her face and made a vomiting gesture at her name. I couldn't believe it -- not just her stance but the immaturity of it. She tried to justify it, saying she was transphobic, but saw I was having none of it, and all things related to feminism is a topic neither of us broach. I desperately wish she'd see sense because she's not an idiot, but she is a #bekind Guardian reader who's had the wool pulled thoroughly over her eyes. I imagine in a few years time, when things fall apart, she'll be brought to earth with a big bump and reach the jadedness of those of us who have speed-run our media hatred over the last decade. Naturally, I don't expect her to ever bring up her TRA past due to the absolute middle-class mortification of it all. Sometimes I do fantasise about turning up wearing a Suffragette scarf, though. I wonder how that'd go down?

In contrast, one of my other (working-class) friends laughs heartily when I crack jokes about self-ID and adores JKR's books, so I think she's safely on the side of sanity, phew.

My working-class family know perfectly well what a woman is, too.

This is a middle-class disease, because the middle-classes are too comfortable in their bubbles and need something vacuous to rage about and feel oppressed over, especially when their offspring start adopting new pronouns, and they can finally feel important and hard done by about something in their charmed lives.

Me and at least 4 of my mum friends, and my mum and partner.

So I have plenty of people to sound off to.

Recently there was a discussion on MN somewhere, after several elections, about how the people have not left their Left-y stance and become conservative, but instead the left and progressive have moved so far to the extreme end.

Along with reading MN and the FWR board, I notice a lot more weird stuff going on, from people switching from liberal to libertarian, extreme capitalism still going on, just in other forms than in the 19th century, free spirited relationships where the woman has no security even with kids and being a SAHP, the Green parties tanking everywhere because environmental topics make up 1% of their program, Amnesty's previous good work record undermined by erasing what a woman is, and the condescension that drips from some people congratulating themselves about the right way to think, even if they have mothers, sisters, female friends who are affected by this; they do not care or they think it's only for others to make room, they have their private spaces.

Now that I see it all I cannot unsee it anymore, and many of these topics are connected.

Loving the "everybody knows" theme. Yes, everybody does. We should do more with that.

Also love Leonard Cohen so have bastardised one of his. (And have just got in after a night out so a little squiffy.) Apologies.

Everybody knows:

Everybody knows the lies are over
Everybody sees behind your tricks
Everybody knows you’re not like women
Everybody knows you still have dicks
Everybody knows you hang in shame
And think a woman hangs the same
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows.

Everybody knows the emperor’s naked
Everybody clocks a costumed walk
Everybody knows the game is over
Everybody hears your shallow talk
Everybody knows that ‘y’ ain’t ‘x’
That lipstick can’t colour in a sex
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows your secret pleasure
Everybody knows, they really do
Everybody knows you’re quite the bottom
Yet seek to dominate down there too
Everybody sees your scars concealed
With your kittens that are ill-heeled
That’s how it goes
And everybody knows.

Everybody knows
Everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows
Everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

And everybody knows your time is over
Everybody knows it’s us or you
Everybody knows you bang our doors down
When you’ve lost a game of sport or two
Everybody knows your “truth” is rotten
Those with wombs still being forgotten
By your ribbons and your bows
And everybody knows.

And everybody knows your end is coming
Everybody knows your pants will fall
Everybody sees your Adam’s apple
In the crease of your silken shawl
Everybody knows that fish aren’t birds
And hears the man spread in your words
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows

And everybody knows you’re now in trouble
Everybody knows what we’ve been through
From the prisons and the hospitals
To the schools and the office loo
Everybody knows it’s coming apart
Take one last look at your mirrored part
Before it blows
‘Cos everybody knows

Everybody knows
Everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows
Everybody knows
That's how it goes
Oh, everybody knows
Everybody knows
Everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows
Everybody knows

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@tanglewangle your final paragraph is spot on and thanks for articulating it so well.

Fabulous @Swashbuckled

"Everybody sees your Adam’s apple
In the crease of your silken shawl" - inspired!

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Me.

I'm a TERF, out and proud. I run my own business so no need to tiptoe around corporate bekindness.

DH and friends are all very terfy.

Me🙋