Reasons you once believed in gender identity

[Mermoose]

Edit: damnit I should have included "Never believed TWAW" in the poll. Sorry. There doesn't seem a way of editing the poll.

I read Victoria Smith's brilliant Substack "More Heat, More Light", which is about the impossible restrictions put on GC women's expression, but also about her journey from agreeing outwardly that TWAW, to consciously recognising that she didn't believe this. Fear and guilt stopped her from realising this earlier.

When I thought I believed TWAW it was also because I was afraid to think about it. I'd internalised the propaganda that there was something cruel and prurient in asking questions. "Why are you obsessed with other people's genitals" was quite effective for a while. (Of course sex is politically salient precisely because sex affects our entire bodies).

Some people never believed TWAW, I know. But for those of us who once did - or who believed we believed it, if that fits better - was it fear and guilt stopping you from really thinking about it, or was it that you did think about it and had what seemed like well-thought-out arguments? And if you had arguments that seemed sound at one time, what were they?

For people who still believe TWAW I think there are a lot of other threads where you can put forward arguments for this, so I'd like this thread just to be about people who did believe TWAW and have since changed their minds.

Early on there was a clear distinction that male and female was understood as sex but that gender identity could be different - when I first saw the TWAW, I thought that it meant we would of course take into consideration their identity and that it was meant for those who have gender dysphoria. I never actually thought that trans women were actually female.

It wasn't long though before I noticed how much no debate was pushed and I could see the clear harms which can happen in society if you suddenly pretend that male and female aren't categories which matter in safeguarding. I saw the clear sex discrimination. It's been a long slow struggle of having to operate very covertly and underground (I had a VPN server and different social media accounts to post under just in order to speak out).

Even in newspaper comments, saying a trans woman was actually male would get deleted. Any reference to biological sex was deleted. The old biological sex is a transphobic dog whistle. It's resulted in complete loss of trust in institutions, in much of the media, in government and I'm so sad that so many tried to silence women.

I do though appreciate the justice system in this country and our judiciary wasn't able to be completely captured despite attempts to do so. It made me realise the value of the House of Lords. I was grateful for truly independent media and the few voices speaking out in the press. Our checks and balances still seem to work and just three brave women backed by so many of us were able to take on the government trying to discriminate against us and win! It makes me really emotional to think about it.

@rebmacesrevda ah yes we are both fully team TERF now!

I did a mixed sport at a high level. This meant I never agreed TWIW.

At primary level I could take on anyone. As a teenager playing against a boy the power difference was huge. Also the injuries I got were from contact with boys in a game - not the sport I did at County/Nat, but another I played recreationally.

I also have a relative with ASD. I see the grooming and exploitation.

I'm not even familiar with these cases but will go look these up after this.

Interestingly, I have an Autistic teen son. He is incredibly black and white in his view and always has been vocal in his view that the trans ideology makes no sense, is confusing and he refuses to pander to it. I was always miffed as to where this came from. ( With me being a be kind person).

My son has however been correct and logical in his view all along.

The difficulty here is the implications for him in being too vocal. He has a young relative on the other side of family who is a girl now asking to be called a boy, with a new name. Son's refusing to do this and it's causing issues.

My teen is insistent it's a mental illness yet I have to try encourage him to be careful about expressing this. I don't feel comfortable saying this is a mental illness.

I'm very cautious who I discuss the topic with and what I say. I tend to stick to my true position which is that as an ideology, I'm against it all. If a loved one's child asked me to call them he when they're actually a girl, I would try accomodate that.

Oh, I also followed Upworthy and similar guff on FB until I realised what a load of disingenuous shite it peddled. But it’s amazing how you can suppress your misgivings when constantly bombarded with messages about how good and kind it is to suppress your misgivings

This was a long time ago btw, well before we were all Spartacus.

This is a very powerful reminder of how far we’ve come WRT free speech (or clawed back some of the regression in free speech 😢). Heartbreaking really.

I never believed TWAW BUT I did believe that transwomen should be allowed to just get on with their lives, use women's spaces etc. I believed this because I had absorbed the "Hollywood" version - I thought we were talking about a tiny tiny tiny tiny number of people, all of whom were doing their upmost to "be" women, including, where they could afford it, medicine and surgery. I honestly believed that if a transwoman came into the bathroom with me, at WORST, I might wonder if they were a transwoman but I wouldn't be certain. If anything, I think I thought that transwomen probably struggled feeling constantly excluded and that as a result THEY would be even MORE stereotypically female - caring, kind, considerate etc.

I remember being challenged on this by someone and asking her what stats there were about transwomen.

And then, suddenly, I realised that stats were irrelevant because there were plenty of "transwomen" who were just playing and using it to take advantage.I still felt desperately sorry and sympathetic for the group of transwomen I saw (and stil do, in a way) as "true transwomen" but I was furious at all these other men who were fucking it up for them as much as they were for women.

when a man, who only dressed as a woman SOMETIMES, was selected by the FT as one of their "Women of the year" and then, round about the same time, women's cycling was being completely overtaken by men.... that's when I really truly lost it and realised that we couldn't keep being kind becuase the genuinely small number of transpeople who needed this kindness were no longer who we were talking about.

Surely nobody actually, truly believes TWAW. I think there’s a difference between believing and just accepting.

I didn’t question it because it didn’t seem that big a deal. Plus I did believe all the stories and difficulties about the internal, emotional struggle, the hardship of living as a woman for two years and then having to go through difficult and painful surgeries. All how they were being murdered just for being trans all the time. I also did believe it was a mental health disorder.

I couldn’t even say if there was one particular thing that changed my mind or if was a boiled frog thing with lots of little things: realising most TW don’t actually have surgery, that they no longer wanted it to be considered MH and just something anyone could do, that in fact not only were they not being murdered, they were the safest demographic in the UK. And of course, spend two minutes of Reddit and it’s very clear that for many, it’s just a fetish.

I will say it’s really hard now to look at any and consider them the ‘true trans’ now. When I started changing my mind in 2019 I still tried to be kind and do the pronoun thing even if I didn’t really agree. I don’t even care anymore though after watching their ever escalating abuse towards women. TW are just men and should be referred to as such.

This made my stomach turn! Horrific.

Remember that funny blip about 10 years ago when it was trendy to be a ‘feminist’? That moved on quickly…

Talking of films, did anyone watch Transamerica with Felicity Huffman? She (by virtue of being a tall woman with a strong jawline and deep voice) plays a TW on a roadtrip with her teenage son. I was so naive when this film came out that I was like "But how could she have fathered a son?! What are the odds of someone doing that, then having a sex change?!". The conception was explained in the film as "the most pathetically lesbian experience". I just sort of nodded along thinking "whatever, nowt so queer as folk, strange things happen in America".

Edit: I have just looked this film up, and it's far weirder than I remember, with the teenage son being a rent boy and ends up working in porn, hooray, totally normal happy ending for all.

I find women the hardest to talk to about these issues. The handmaidens. It gives me too much rage that they can be so bought into the bullshit. Not their/our fault really. We’re conditioned to not be believed and not believe ourselves. The be kind thing has been an absolute coup. My SIL and MIL make me boil!

I thought I was being kind. I remember hearing about Germaine Greer getting cancelled for saying transwomen were men and thinking, “Oh come on Germaine, can’t we just live and let live?”

And then I found the Feminism section of MN

Apologies, Germaine, you were absolutely right.

'Why did you once believe TWAW?'

I'm another who never believed it, simply because human beings cannot change sex.

I met old school transsexuals back in the day. However, they knew that they had not actually changed sex and did not expect me to pretend that they had.

I have watched in horror as this completely false idea (TWAW) has taken hold and has done so much damage, including to people with trans identities.

I used to look at horrific things that happened in the past, and I could never understand how they could have happened. Now I know, as I have seen a terrible lie grow, shut down dissenting voices and wreak havoc in so many countries, to so many people.

The biggest lesson is how we all need to be aware of how authoritarianism works and what the tactics are that keep a lie alive.

I first raised an eyebrow at the inclusion of Laurel Hubbard in the weightlifting in the World Championships.

Then I had an experience where I had to be chaperoned for my safety when treating a TG woman who had previously assaulted 2 nurses. This person was huge… and I kept thinking I could run into this person in toilet… then it just got weirder.

There was a TG woman who was in the pub quiz who was an absolute twat but no one could be arsed to deal with them. All the women would wait until they had gone to the toilet because they were so aggressive. Last Nov I was in the gym changing room and a TGwoman walked in, and I tried to get the gym to either make it female only OR write it in the policy and I was ignored.

I noticed the people talking most about it were TG women and gay men and all the women were trying to not rock the boat or were being demonised for it.

I work with a gay man who we agree on most things and really get on, but he was saying the most vile misogynistic things about JKRowling like it was rehearsed. I shit him a look last time and he hasn’t said anything since.

It’s really brought out the worst in people.

I never did think it. But I guess because I had a trans man family member, I wanted to think of them as a 'man' out of respect. So I obviously call them by male name and pronouns.

I guess I would always call people what they wished anyway. But maybe that clouded my ability to actually vocalise that TW aren't W. In case it was hurtful to my family member? Like it seemed double standards?

I never really believed TWAW. My thought was always 'no they are transwomen but that's fine '.

But I do think that initially I thought they were a certain vulnerable type and if they really felt like that then there must be something in it although it felt like the emporers new clothes and I was confused that people seemed to really believe it to be true.

Unable to discuss any of this in my work environment I started reading things here. Then I came across Tinsel Angel's posts and the trans windows and realised just how self centered this was and the extent of these views being forced on others without their consent. Not to mention that once you've been introduced to the concept of AGP you can never unsee it. So thanks Tinsel (I can't find you to tag).

It was ‘be kind’/‘live and let live’, thinking of it as part of the LGB family and assuming (foolishly) that as other people who mostly aligned with on left liberal issues were saying this, it can’t have been wrong that made me go along with TWAW for awhile.

What an eye-opener it has been to see how little women are considered and how our needs are completely invisible and not acknowledged.

@peanutbuttertoasty
I understand why you feel that way, but in most cases, I really feel for the parents. They’re put in an impossible position faced with medical ‘experts’ and an ideology that presents a terrifying choice: “Would you rather have a dead daughter or a living son?” So it’s no wonder many feel they have no option but to go along with it.

To me, this looks like a medical scandal. Many of the clinicians involved aren’t necessarily bad people, but they’ve become deeply entrenched in a belief system. One heavily shaped by organisations like WPATH, which has shifted from a medical authority to an activist-driven body. So questioning the current model would mean confronting the harm they’ve caused.

If you’re interested in exploring this perspective more deeply, I highly recommend this episode of Gender: A Wider Lens featuring the Journalist Mia Hughes:
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/gender-a-wider-lens/id1542655295?i=1000650106616

We're also conditioned to please men, and put their "needs" above ours. It's so ingrained, and it takes real conscious effort to stop doing it! I'm pretty good at not pandering to men nowadays, but I sometimes catch myself doing it without thinking. I have no idea how to teach younger generations of women to stand up for themselves. I worry that it might take something even worse than gender ideology to make them see the light. I realise this probably sounds really patronising to young people, but I see it happening all the time and I wish they could see it too.

I do agree that parents are victims in this too, to a degree. I’ve listened to those podcasts, they are excellent.
The entire ideology needs unravelling to the top, potentially with class action lawsuits etc. There’s been massive harm inflicted on society.

I've name changed for this too

I never believed that TWAW, but that TIM were in some sense allied to feminism because they were actively rejecting gender stereotypes (TIW too I suppose)- so I thought we could accommodate them and behave 'as if' they were women, meaning use female pronouns etc I never really thought too much about TW accessing women's spaces because I thought they were such a tiny number it wouln't matter. Also at that point I wasn't aware of the AGP/fetishising aspect.

I remember at that time there was discussion on here about TW in women's sport- the olympics I think- and because I have no interest in sport I never bothered to read or think about this, or I might have peaked sooner

Anyway I got involved in a local project that was researching LGBT activism in our (small northern university) town. In truth, this was 99% LGB history. My part was to look at the wider picture and LGBT rights globally. This led me to some of the more batshit claims of transactivism, and i realised that these men are actually claiming that they actually are women. And I thought, 'wait...what????'

And then I started to read (here mostly) about all the harms being done, especially to young people, and became more and more GC.

I truly believe that no one actually believes TWAW. One day this will all be over as its not sustainable.

I've never believed TWAW, and firmly assumed that everyone felt the same as me and were just keeping quiet to be nice. Then I spoke to a friend about it and she honestly believed that some people are born in the wrong bodies and can change sex. I felt like I was awake, she was asleep and I needed to find more awake people to prove I wasn't going mad.

It’s so true. I used to be a pick me girl. Then I reached middle age and saw how much damage my low self esteem had wrought on my life and grew boundaries. And I grew up before the explosion in pornification. Quite glad I have a son.

@peanutbuttertoasty

OMG I'm SO glad I grew up before social media and online porn. When I was young, the most extreme sex-act I knew about was a blow-job! When I was about 30 I had a one-night-stand with a guy who seemed normal, until he tried to strangle me during sex. He thought this was a standard thing to do in bed, but I was having none of it. I can't believe young women are going along with it, and even claiming they enjoy it. Maybe some do, but I think the majority are saying that because they know the men want to hear it.