Does anyone else resent the gender/ TERF wars?

[TERFCat]

I met up with an old friend last night. The first two hours were magical! Everything was going great until the "what is a woman?" question popped up... Then, it all turned sour, and I don't think she and I will be catching up again for a long time.

Basically, whilst I think women's rights are paramount and should be defended whenever necessary, I'm really starting to resent the impact this had on my real life.

I have lost friends over this, and I've likely been stopped from making more too!

Does anyone else feel this way?

If friends and family have been indoctrinated into the cult then it's best to cut them out of your life.

They'll come crawling back repentant eventually when the scales fall from their eyes.

It's a waste of time and energy that could be spent more productively.

I resent that there are (objectively and obviously true) things I can't say at work (captured sector). I resent that, of all the protected characteristics, ours is the one that, ironically, dare not speak its name. I now believe the Equality Act should have a hierarchy and sex (and within that, female) should be at the top. As it's clear it's the characteristic that needs most protection.

Edit: spelling

Easy to say. I am frightened that something serious happens while I am being rejected by my children, with whom I was always close and had a deeply loving relationship.

I am chronically unwell, and though I am not expecting to die, I sometimes worry that if one of us dies, the rest will have to live their lives with that unresolved rift over something that is so utterly stupid and unnecessary. Women should not be having to fight for the word woman to continue to mean what it always has. What a stupid fight we have on our hands.

Apparently someone didn't like the TRUTH being told...

I'm not going to cut men and women who have transitioned and the people who support them out of my life, why the hell would I do that? I'm from quite a posh and academic family so it's absolutely rife among my richer cousins and friends. I also have no interest in seeing people crawling anywhere.

I resent that the debate is so divisive and doesn't seem interested in proposing solutions. It all feels really nasty. What's the way forward? Trans people exist, how can we respect their right to be in society without diminishing women's hard won rights?
I think it's the right wing stirring it up to create culture wars because they have lost all the other arguments tbh.
If we just say we need single toilet/changing room cubicles and that people born male can't compete in women's sports at a competitive level that's all too simple isn't it. People would rather prolong vicious arguments instead 🤷

We've tried! It's trans activists who refuse to compromise one millimetre.

And it is the trans movement that have indulged in violence and death threats to anyone who questions them. I have zero support for groups that indulge in this.

Do feel free to post your third space solution on any trans forum you like and see the response

there is no way to compromise with people who refuse to accept the reality that a man can never be a woman no more than an aardvark can become a rabbit or a cow can become a giraffe

I didn't read your reply try to reword it.

You cannot seriously compare Robin Williams' character who dressed up as a dowdy great grandmother to see his kids, to men who, some of them have a fetish and dress up in womens clothes and truly believe they have actually become women.

You've misunderstood my post.

The OP has probably been to see Mrs Doubtfire the musical.

IM NOT COMPARING ANYTHING TO ANYTHING.

@User3456 If we just say we need single toilet/changing room cubicles and that people born male can't compete in women's sports at a competitive level that's all too simple isn't it.

Yes

Because that ignores prisons, and rape crisis centres, and domestic violence shelters, and hospital wards, and psychiatric hospitals, and provision of personal care to the elderly and disabled, and changing rooms, and dressing rooms, and the left-over affirmative provisions for equal employment rights for women, and attempts to get representation of women in politics, and equal pay, and competitions in literature and art and performance, and freedom to have single-sex organisations, and, and, and . . . .

it's much too simple.

One spoiled evening is pretty minor compared to what trans widows, children of transitioners and ROGD parents have lost.

Exactly!

The days of #bekind are long behind us.

As someone who was one of those people who got most of their info from sources like the Guardian and BBC, I'm baffled that other readers/viewers just lap this up without apparently engaging their brains.

It was the Guardian and BBC fawning over people like Caitlyn Jenner, Jane Fae, Kellie Maloney and Paris Lees which eventually led me to mumsnet and this haven of sanity. I couldn't understand why they seemed to believe that these men had actually changed sex. In the case of Jane Fae (John Ozimek) and Kellie (Frank) Maloney, their previous history of domestic violence (Maloney) and promoting extreme porn (Ozimek) was swept under the carpet and forgotten. And the BBC was happy to broadcast Lees calling Germaine Greer a bigot.

Guardian readers have traditionally been educated people who I would have expected to think more about what they're being told. It still surprises me that supposedly intelligent and educated people aren't doing this.

Why would you say that?

Nowhere in the OP did she indicate her and her friend went out anywhere, let alone saw a play, let alone that it was Mrs Doubtfire?

Ive obviously mixed up two threads, or misread this one. Easily done. I had assumed it said she saw the two hour Mrs doubtfire musical.

Early mornings with 2 kids 🤷

I try not to talk about it unless someone raises it with me. But I have started asking "do you mean sex or gender?" If someone uses gender. Not in an agressive way but in a "but they now mean different things don't they?" type way. I think there is a rise of the use of gender and I don't think we should let it unless it is for talking about stereotypes

I am somehow maintaining a job in DEI at this point constantly navigating a path to champion what I think still needs a loud voice. But it’s a tightrope. I do it because I genuinely think I’ve been able to deliver balance at times when it really matters. But it means keeping quiet - I know I’d be in a really difficult position if I spoke out. Ditto with some of my friends. I refuse to lose friendships that are decades old with people I care about very much over this one issue - one which I know they are supporting because their view is that this is inclusion. We can disagree safely over other things. It’s just this that is toxic.

I don’t know what that adds really. I am fighting my fight as much as seems useful on a practical basis.

Oh... so it was THAT easy all along!

That's amazing. I'm sure nobody has come up with this solution before!

Silly right wingers eh, should have asked you all along.

Problem solved!

I feel strongly that while we are understandably angry at the freedom genderism has given to abusive men to expand their activities, young women and girls have also been directly damaged quite horribly by this ideology. I suggest anyone who doubts that reads this thread, started a few years ago but revived yesterday.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4565480-harrowing-first-person-account-of-transboy-culture