I want to meet other GC women in person

[elbowhammer]

I've joined LWS
I've joined the WRN
I'm active in GC FB groups

But I've never been to any meet ups - possibly because I'm not in a city and the small towns near me don't seem to have any GC activity that I know of.

I'm not an activist but I would just like to hang out with other sex realists. How does one do this?!!

Do any of you meet people in real life?

Me too

Where are you @Bannedontherun?

If anyone wants to PM me, I'm SW.

Honestly, you’ve got to travel! Go to your nearest, you will meet others and find women local to you who are also there. Work backwards on this problem.

Not easy for me (single mum). I just want to feel less isolated. There may be GC women in my circles but I just don't know, like they don't know about me.
Honestly, I thought we would be past this secret handshake-like business by now but it's still so hard to openly meet likeminded people.

If it's of any use I'm interested in talking, texting, emailing, posting on the subject. Couldn't promise to meet in person, but "talking" on here would be great.

Most people share what are called 'gender critical' views, OP. Most people also won't chat about them much. Same as most politics, really.

I'm East Anglia if that helps anyone!

I totally agree.

So am I!

I used to live in a city where there was a very good meet up group but I haven't found one where I live now (East Suffolk).

I did meet another GC person at work because she had a Suffragette badge on her bag. I asked her outright. It was such a a relief to know that I wasn't alone!

If you’ve joined your nearest WRN, post on the WhatsApp chat & see if there’s anyone fairly near you who might like to meet up? That’s likely to be more flexible than trying to arrange a big meet up that suits everyone.

Or just watch out. I noticed a woman in an interesting T-shirt at my local gym, asked a couple of cautious questions, we exchanged numbers & now meet sometimes for coffee.

Are there any of these networks in the very NW of England? I'm not googling the right thing, maybe.

WPUK meetings used to be a good place to meet people! FiLiA is also good, though they are probably booked up by now for their October conference. But local WRN networks, ReSisters or Let Women Speak meetings might also be a way of meeting people. I realise it is difficult when you are a single mum. Are you able to tell us what part of the country you are in? Perhaps others will be able to make more specific suggestions.

I am in the east mids, my nearest WRN is not operational for some reason.

I think the problem is that some people name change so are not recognisable, some of us do not and can be found all over this board.

One can run the risk of falling in to a TRA trap where they end up with your details and then hound you in real life. That is why people are so cautious.

Yes, exactly. We know TRAs actively monitor the boards & I bet some of them would love to get to know GC women off MN.

I've been to a couple of GC women meetups in Manchester, arranged via Tumblr by ukrfeminism. It was lovely, met some fascinating people ♥️

I did not know this existed! I don't think I knew Tumblr still existed let alone that group. I will look into it - I have a friend who is older and who feels very isolated in her semi-rural community but can travel to Manchester. She's always saying how jealous she is of the Scottish groups and how she'd love to be part of that, and she really came alive at Glasgow's Filia.

As pp said, the WPUK meetings used to be a really good way to meet other GC women. Any sort of similar meeting might be good, or the pub bit after a Let Women Speak meeting.

I think most people are GC. It's just whether you breach the subject in your conversations. It's come up with my hairdresser, neighbours, shop keepers, women standing in a queue at the toilets... all GC.

I’m in the NW, let me know if you find one.

I only know one person who isn't GC. I chat about it reasonably often, because I happily talk about politics generally with people, either in a light hearted way or more like "wow did you see the news this morning?" I have discussed it with relatives, friends, acquaintances, at church, with randoms in the local shop, at playgroup, with NHS staff during procedures, in the pub, and so on. It's no different to opening a conversation with "Have you seen what Trump's done now..."

If you're wanting to talk to friends about it, I find the safest remarks to suss people out are mild jokes involving catgender (NOBODY half sane really believes in this), or joking about not being able to tell if people are men or women these days (which is presumably not actually inherently offensive to TRAs). Either is just a stupid joke, but provides an opener for the other party to say what they think, if they would like to.

People mostly don't bring the subject up purely because they are not that interested in it. But if you ask, the vast majority are "live and let live, but of course you can't change sex".

Am intrigued by this thread. I think the desire to be around women with the open acceptance that you don’t have to walk on egg shells over this issue is understandable.

I know I have lost friends over it - followers of previous posts/other threads will know I have been protecting an ASD/ADHD YP through trans identifying as male. Friends either didn’t want to engage (all agreed with our position but just didn’t want to ask ‘how is DD?’ and receive an honest answer) or abjectly disagreed with my/our non affirmation approach. Tbh many didn’t want to engage about the ASD/ADHD either, so the whole thing was deeply lonely. And I say that as a person who was totally there for those friends - I ran beavers and took ones DS for 3 years, including camping weekends; and even I informally fostered one mum’s 2 DSs (they lived with us FT for 8-10 weeks a year and came to us 3 nights a week during term-time for 4 years) so I am fairly sure I wasn’t out of order to expect a little friendship and understanding in return, but was dropped instantly. More importantly, so was my DD. Where was the support and compassion for her?

I ache for a space where I can chat books, film, TV … and just talk crap and KNOW that I can accidentally make a flippant remark about ‘that’ issue without fear of being the topic of a whatsapp discussion that I have been excluded from or getting the cold shoulder (am ND so should really be used to that, but I am not).

It’s not that I want to march the streets and scream about this issue from the roof tops, it’s about wanting a safe space to be my authentic self. You know, that stuff that the ‘other side’ have been screaming about for the last decade.

My boss has a post op trans kid, so we can’t talk about it at work.

💔

I don’t even know if you can wear a suffragette badge these days as some people see it as anti trans, when it’s simply pro woman.

I think we should keep this thread going.

I can tell you i am in a small WhatsApp group which was set up as we had come to know each other on this board.

It is best to keep your name the same on FWR and contribute where possible as you will becomme recognised and can build trust. I can name quite a few regular posters on this board who i know to be thoroughly trustworthy, as a result of maintaining the same name some over many years.