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?

So are your friends using female spaces? Expecting people to refer to them as female?

LARP is actually an incredible creative outlet full of incredibly intelligent, imaginative people. The level of imagination it takes to write, create and participate on fantasy LARPs is on another level and the fact you think they need props because they lack imagination shows you don't understand the hobby at all.

I really don't understand why you think LARPers lack empathy?

The LARPers I've known have been genuinely live action and spend lots of time (and yes, creativity) researching costumes, accessories, artefacts, based not on fantasy but on history. Interestingly, not on other cultures - LARPers pretending to be Indigenous people would be called out on it because by pretending they can 'be' a member of another culture just by playing dress-up they show how much they, at bottom, despise the other culture. Same for people who play at having a gender identity expressed through stereotypes.

The unawareness of how offensive that is shows their lack of imagination and/or empathy. The research and creativity are expended on things. See also the enthusiasm for LARPing civil wars - that doesn't happen when people still remember those wars, or even remember the friends and family who lived through them. Playing at war is deeply questionable. As is playing at being a member of the opposite sex.

Maybe it is that women's sex based rights and protections are not a deeply foundational matter for you in the way they are for some? Along with a refusal to go along with coerced speech etc. I just know, personally, that if someone bought into all of that it would become a huge issue for me - one that would create a desire to cool things and slip away from the relationship. My relationships need to be reflective of me, and my values.

What you are describing is battle re-enactment. Battle re-enactment and LARP are generally considered separate hobbies by the people who partake in them.

Battle re-enactment is a replay of history.

LARP is about creating worlds and characters and building stories interwoven with all of your friends stories to create something epic. It's is absolutely dripping with emotions from the whole spectrum, there's laughing, there's crying, not playing crying, real crying because the emotions hit so hard when you're fully immersed.

Battle re-enactment is not particularly imaginative as you are replaying history to immerse yourself in the past. You simply cannot describe LARP as unimaginative or unempathetic. If you do, you are merely demonstrating you don't understand it and have never experienced it.

Thanks for all the responses. It's bittersweet to know that I'm not alone with this!

Why don't they become playwrights?
Battle re-enactment is carefully researched too. People like to be using the correct battle axe for the period.

How dare you use woman-face and break women's boundaries.

You’re really really not

Well, they are larping. And does living their lives in peace mean entering women's sex segregated spaces? Because if so, they will certainly get abuse because those spaces are women's and we fought hard to get them, and we will be mean about not sharing them with men - that was the point, after all.

The difference between ordinary LARP and transactivist LARP is that the immersive roleplay is only considered "real" within the LARP world, i.e. amongst consenting participants. However intense their experiences are within that world, ordinary LARPers are not expecting non-LARPers to pretend that their LARPworld character is their actual everyday identity, or demanding that actions that "happened" only within that world should have real life consequences. Not is it forbidden, out in the real world, to call a spade a spade and mention that Live Action Role Play is exactly that.
And that's all fine. If they expected the rest of us to behave as though we see the world through their alternative LARPworld reality, it would not be fine at all.TransLARP, unfortunately, does exactly that.

@Glitterknickerbockers

"I resent that people are still banging on about the TERF ears and won't just let trans people live in peace."

I don't doubt that the majority of transwomen want to live in peace and I don't doubt that some transwomen face abuse or even violence. I for one would not wish this on them, or anyone. What I resent is the completely closed book surrounding the subject and the militancy with which it's approached. I'm open to hearing constructive points on transwomen in female sports for example. Do they have an advantage or not? What's the science behind it? I've been told that to question a transwoman's status is equal to questioning gay men and basically transphobic. But the two cannot be conflated. Gay men don't seek to enter female sports or spaces whereas transwomen do. It can never be right to dismiss without thought, consideration or debate the opinions of 50% of the population, especially when they're the very people most affected by an issue. Why is there such a lack of open debate and transparency?

Well said. From an ordinary everyday non-larper.

Because sitting at home writing is boring when you can be outside literally living your fantasies and fighting a dragon with your mates while drinking ale.

Wtf are you on about!?

How can I use woman face, I am a woman!

Victim-blaming and misogyny. Hostile woman. Rage. Venting. Just save us all time and admit you have a sexist and misogynist attitude of how women should act. We can all see through your sexist and misogynist attitudes and lack of empathy for rape and trauma survivors.

You got all that just from not liking being sworn at and scolded like a child by some angry woman online? Wow.

If you can't speak to someone with basic respect and courtesy, don't expect them to be nice to you. Not liking angry people swearing at me doesn't make me a misogynist, that is normal.

To quote you, HOW FUCKING DARE YOU!

I mean seriously, I voiced an opinion relevant to the OP. You didn't like it so decided to post an abusive rant full of swearing and accusations of my character. You then continued in further post where you did in fact rage, rant and be extremely hostile with lots of swearing and HOW FUCKING DARE YOUs. And you have the cheek to call me a misogynist for not liking that behaviour? Ridiculous. Seriously. I wouldn't engage with a man behaving like that either. There's your equality for you 👍

@Glitterknickerbockers

Women don't owe you "nice".

Also, how do you know that the person you're responding to is even a woman?

Oh, I see the DARVO gaslighters/silly naive enablers have crept onto this thread as well. Telling women how we are permitted to react to the sheer levels of unhinged hatred and abuse we've been subjected to (and often) just for standing up for our OWN FUCKING LEGAL RIGHTS.

Unfortunately for them, TRAs have always been totally wrong about what women are like. I think they imagined we actually are as submissive and subservient as they like to fantasise that their idea of "women" naturally are, so fully expected us to roll over without a fight while they appropriated everything. And of course, if we don't, according to them, we're "bad women". It's classic misogynist abuser shite.

Frankly, at this point, I resent every single one of the bloody idiots who are busying themselves propping up this misogynist, homophobic, backwards nonsense that has caused untold actual, demonstrable harm to women and girls, and set about dismantling hard fought for women's rights. I find such people lacking in critical thinking skills, scientific and social awareness and factual analysis, and extremely easily led and cult like. With the usual cut n paste answers, hyperbole, weak arguments and projection we see time and time again.

Imagine being either so naive or having SO little integrity. Jeez.

What a silly post.

It wasn't an "abusive rant".

Women swear and get angry. We're allowed. Get over it.

Glitterknickerbockers I have two tran friends, both lovely people who want nothing more than to live their lives in peace but face abuse on an almost daily basis and the fact that people can't just leave them alone and let them live their lives in a way that makes them happy when they aren't harming anyone pisses me off. I resent the fact that most people here would relish in calling them men lapping as women, men in dresses, male bad actors and all sorts of other insults because it is cruel.
...
If you can't speak to someone with basic respect and courtesy, don't expect them to be nice to you.

Did you not think about basic respect/courtesy/niceness before you accused posters of being insulting, and of pissing you off by being cruel, simply because they don't believe that men can become women?
Respect is a two-way street.

Yes, it would be good to get an answer to these two questions, instead of all the faux outrage and tone policing what women (or other women) are allowed to say in response to what has been some appalling abusive and misogynist behaviour from transactivists. For many years.

Are they?

If you have a problem with a woman and a rape survivor getting 'angry' about the loss of my rights, that says more about you than it does about me, and your sexist attitude that women should never get angry.

Again you show no empathy for a rape survivor who gets justifiably angry at the loss of her rights and safeguards.

Be honest here; me being 'angry' is an easy 'out' for you. You used that as an excuse not to answer my points. Because you know you can't answer my points. Tone-policing a rape survivor was your 'out' to not offer any arguments.