Persuading a TA to change her mind

[HalfArsedTerf]

I am passionate about women's fightback against the aggressive gender activists but at the same time I am dependent on my income from running a small business in a small town, so cannot be "out" for fear of TA doing something to harm me. So I do what I can, anonymously on here and on X.

On my FB feed I repost GC news to "friends only". I share screenshots showing the latest madness (e.g. men in women's sports, toilets, prisons etc.) By doing this I have successfully peaked a number of friends. Coward that I am, I never make any comment of my own, so nobody can ever quote me saying something "twansfobic" and then using it to punish me financially.

I found out that a local acquaintance who has for 15 years been on my FB friends list blocked me. When a mutual acquaintance asked why she cited my so-called transphobia. She can only be basing this on my sharing screenshots of news reports on FB.

I don't really understand why a disagreement on this issue means she has to block me. I have a few thousand FB friends and bet we have different views on religion, political allegiance, sexuality, etc. This seems to be the ONE issue which leads to being sent to Coventry.

She is past middle age and (like me) a wheelchair user who is a disability rights campaigner. Her profile declares she is a lifelong feminist, so I find her stance incomprehensible.

I worry that she may poison half the town against me by spreading news of what a hateful bigot she imagines I am and urging other local people to ostracise me.

When I go out I frequently encounter her and although I am nervous I have decided that if I see her, I will confront her, woman to woman, face to face, on this issue. I will try my best to be calm, rational and friendly.

I keep rehearsing things to say in the hope of making her see that agreeing with genderists' demands is not compatible with either feminism or the rights of the disabled to same-sex care. I have seen her advertise for female carers so it's puzzling that she had taken the genderists' side.

Any ideas on what I can say to her that will induce a "light-bulb" moment and make her realise that she is supporting an ideology that harms women, especially the disabled?

I don't bang on, it's about 1% of what I post.

Thanks. This could well be the case. How can she advertise for female only carers (she needs bathing etc) and at the same time believe TWAW?

I am shocked at the number of TRA's on this so called women's rights board calling me names and questioning my sanity, when I am the one who believes in science, ffs.

Right. Or you could stop getting yourself so worked up when some people don't have the same opinion as you, for something that you asked on an open forum for opinions on.

Maybe a conversation with her will go down great, you definitely seem like the type of person who will 100% keep your calm and come across rational and change her mind 👍🏻
Good luck!

And again: also GC here.
Just because I don't agree your way is the right way does not make me a TRA. That sounds just like the arguments that they employ, and don't appear to be doing them any good.

But by the sounds of it she already knows about it as she’s seen the articles you’ve shared on Facebook. You’re unlikely to peak her by starting an argument, especially if it’s in public.

I think other posters suggestions to bring it up at relevant points of conversation (E.g about female only carers) are good. But it’s possible she’ll simply never agree with you and it’s up to you how much time and energy you want to potentially waste on it.

Sometimes it’s okay to take a step back for the sake of your own sanity and happiness.

Hi OP, I do understand where you are coming from. When I think about the many horrific injustices that have happened as a result of gender identity ideology, it does upset me, deeply. And I also know that for too long, supporters of this ideology have gotten away with say ‘oh, it’s just a few isolated cases … anyway, live and let live, right?!’

And yet … I also have to ask myself, what is more important, winning the argument and stopping the injustices, or finally making my political opponents see the light, grovel and apologise? This would give me great personal satisfaction, for sure.

At the end of the day, though, winning is more important. If that means having to hold my tongue when people, who I know for a fact were condemning any slight deviation from TWAW four years ago, now suggest ‘oh, of course we have to look at prisons and sports’ (Stella Creasy) or remove their pronouns (politicians and quite a few people of my personal acquaintance), then I will have to hold my tongue. It also means, I have to keep my job, so I can fight another day. But I’ll never forget, ever. There will be a reckoning at some point but our victories are too fragile at the moment.

There's a big difference between believing in science and unhinged rants about child abuse and for ed mastectomies love.

I'm a scientist by profession. Biologist in fact. Your deleted comments ranting about transgender people sounded fanatical, a lot of people have a problem with fanatics.

Firstly, you are accusing her of being a "TA" (trans activist?), but from your post she doesn't seem to have done anything other than block you presumably in response to you posting frequently relating to trans people.

Just out of interest, how frequently are you posting these articles? Even if what you are posting is reasonable if it's too much or non-stop it can IMO come across as strange or uncomfortable to people who don't follow this topic.

You said you've never commented on them so that means you can't be accused of any wrongdoing, but you also say you are trying to "convert" people's views by posting them and there is an implication are you posting a lot.

Lastly, generally if someone blocks you on social media (not just unfriend, a complete block) then perhaps you should let them go instead of "confronting" them when it's clear they don't want anything to do with you anymore. You aren't going to "convert" them and any attempt to won't be received well.

IMHO.

Just face it - the real reason for all your concern is that you're worried she's going to say something about you to people that might impact your business. It's not your need to convert her to your way of thinking and get her to see the light.
In which case stop posting stuff that you won't wholeheartedly stand up and be proud of.

Oh, another thing. I never get derailed by personal attacks, even if they upset me.

It’s not fanatical to object strongly to what has been happening in the last ten years, including a huge medical sandal, abuse of power and rank misogyny. I feel disgust when I think of those who cheered this on. But there comes a time when some of those people will be rightly seen as fanatics, ranting on about a mythical ‘trans genocide’. The opportunists will have to make a choice whether to join the fanatics or quietly row back and abandon certain absurd notions. So sorry true believers, it hurts when someone sells you down the river …

For once, I agree with @Christinapple.

It sounds like you're thinking about yourself too much

Oh come on, who reported that post?

I wasn't saying that I think people who support this stuff are [redacted]. The point is that they aren't going to suddenly see the light and realise that what they have been supporting is very bad and evil if the OP brings out the big guns and starts talking about the reality of "gender affirming care".

The road from where they are now to where the OP wants them to be (i.e. gender critical, I assume) is long and can't be walked in a day.

Because maybe she does think of trans women as women? It is possible. There are people who genuinely do feel that way, including disabled people who may need intimate care.

It is always worth remembering that sometimes people can have all the same information as you and just disagree.

How about this - maybe she has someone close to her, friend or family, who is trans. No matter what her own personal views on the whole subject are, she may not want to get involved in anything that could cause upset or maybe she doesn't feel comfortable with your views. There could be all sorts of reasons really and you just need to accept it.

Helen Joyce talks about this in one of her interviews.

She reckons that the people with a "trans child" occupying senior positions in politics/the civil service/the BBC may be the real reason behind the ideological capture of those organisations. Because people who have affirmed their child's transgender identity will never, ever admit that they have harmed their child, even to themselves.

They will still be talking about transphobia and life saving care even when the rest of the world has seen the light and moved on, because their child can never move on and neither will they. So they will go down with the trans ship.

And while those people are occupying senior positions in politically influential organisations, no sensible discussion can be allowed to take place because everyone is afraid of upsetting them.

I have experienced first hand that you cannot have a discussion about this with anyone who is close to a trans person. When I disagreed that JK Rowling is an evil bigot in front of a group of women, it turned out one of them had a trans sibling and another performs facial feminisation surgery on trans women. Another may be transing her own three year old. (He is a boy but wants to dress like a girl and it's not clear whether she is the one driving it.) So I just accepted that I'd burned my bridges with that group because you cannot have a sensible discussion with anyone who has skin in the game.

This is why it's so difficult when trans activist groups complain about decisions being made without the involvement of trans people. Yes, in theory, the people affected should be involved. But the people affected are incapable of being impartial.

Actually, on that note, an acquaintance of mine posted something like, "To be clear, if you support my friends losing their rights, or are even OK with it, we are not friends" on her Facebook profile recently. She didn't mention trans people or reply to the person who commented, "Who is losing their rights?" But I'm fairly sure that's what she was talking about.

So if I posted anything overtly gender critical on Facebook (which I don't), I would not be at all surprised to see her disappear from my friends list. There's just no point discussing this with some people.

you don't get to tell people how to be a feminist.

Feminists prioritise women’s rights. If you prioritise men’s ‘rights’ to remove women’s rights, eg by using women’s single-sex services, you are like a ‘vegan’ who eats meat.

OP is afraid this person will denounce her and cause harm to her livelihood.

Goodness, I find that such a strange take. By that logic women shouldn't be involved in any conversations about issues like abortion rights because they can't be impartial. Or any group involved in decision making about issues that affect them, in fact.

But she doesn’t seem to have any evidence that this woman is likely to do so. It’s all a bit paranoid.

If it were at a university, in publishing or the arts I think there’s ample evidence to support the worry of losing her livelihood, but much less so in the wider world.

OP’s approach of “show her how she’s wrong” is only going to make it more likely, not less, that the woman talks about OP’s GC views to others.

I'm not saying they shouldn't be involved.

The difficulty is that on this particular issue, this particular group seems unable to comprehend or accept the fact that the "rights" they are demanding are in direct conflict with the rights of others (which is quite unusual in itself) which makes it nigh on impossible to have a constructive discussion with them.

Most women who advocate for access to safe and legal abortions accept that there should be some limits on our right to an abortion (e.g. most pro choice women don't support on demand abortion of a healthy pregnancy right up to full term, for example). Whereas "pro life" campaigners often take the view that the unborn baby's right to life trumps any and all autonomy that women might wish to have over her own body. (And "pro life" campaigners are the ones engaging in often violent protest, not pro choice campaigners.)

The problem with trans activism is the position they tend to take, which is that anything any trans person wants should automatically trump the rights and needs of all and any other groups which may have conflicting interests, for whatever reason. You can't have a constructive discussion with people like that.