I’ve just done a soft launch at work and need a wee handhold.

[BriceNobeslovesMurielHeslop]

I’m so sorry to do this- I’m usually very quiet on these boards as there are many posters who I agree with who are much more erudite than me. I’ve just had a conversation with a really lovely woman at work and pretty much exposed myself as a great big TERF, and now I think she’s away thinking I’m a raging horrible bigot.
I work in the NHS so it’s almost universally captured (although I suspect there’s lots of people who think like me) so now I’m feeling a bit sad and shaky- I would really appreciate a wee handhold.

Please do not do a "tinkly laugh/head tilt"

Everyone’s a terf when it comes to
men’s rights activists.

Handhold and well done: you found your courage and perhaps you have helped someone else find her courage, too.

Although I think single sex toilets ARE important I try not to lead on this as a discussion point because it's easy for TRAs to dismiss it as petty and make comments about 'policing genitals'.
I find when I talk about my concerns about safeguarding in sport, or in prisons, or on school residential trips I gain more traction.

I think you have to consider what will 'hit home' best with whoever you're talking to. Men with daughters worry about different things to people with elderly parents in hospitals or care homes.

I have a few friends who treat me differently, basically they’re not as friendly as they used to be. But there’s a clear difference between them and my sex realist friends, who are far more intelligent.

We pay their bloody salaries!

If your salary is paid for by the taxpayer you need to leave your politics at home.

It’s quite shocking how we’re still scared to speak out. Some of us anyway. I’m normally a confident person, considered a subject matter expert in my field. But when I spoke out in a trust board meeting recently, my voice wobbled! I mean, what were they really going to do to me? As me to unvolunteer?

Handhold @BriceNobeslovesMurielHeslop.

Was involved in a similar situation recently (right-on social event, and unfortunately drink involved, so I was less guarded than usual). The points I was making seemed pretty middle of the road but when I got home I couldn't sleep and started trembling. They were similar to the symptoms I had after an assault years ago, so I think I was in shock.

This bloody-minded ideology has done such a number on us all, split friendship groups, families etc. Ostracism is such a powerful force - this proves people will say and think any auld nonsense to avoid it.

But what I tell myself is, if word does gets round my community, and someone calls me a terf behind my back, it's likely that there will be at least one shy terf listening who knows I am fundamentally decent, and gains some strength from hearing it. I know I inwardly punch the air when I hear someone else getting the label. There's a lot of us about, but the social cost to speaking out is still far too high for the majority, especially women.

If it’s any consolation I am def not a terf but I do have friends who are and I respect their different opinion - I recently made a new friend at work who I think is but it doesn’t make me think she’s a bad person at all. I think in real life people accept the grey areas between each other’s opinions more than they seem to online.

Handhold from me. Women are so used to being agreeable that it's hard and nerve-wracking not to be.
As most here have said when you ask what JKR said that's so terrible they have no clue. Getting them to read her tweet firsthand is best.
I belong to a couple of HP fanfiction groups and when someone posts JKR is a Terf, I immediately talk about what a wonderful charitable woman she is with Beira's place and Lumos foundation and that she cares about women. This prompts others to agree with me and the poster disappears . There are plenty of us, but few women like to argue. I do, so I make sure to speak up.

Handhold OP, be brave, your opinions are backed by logic and science, and they are protected by law. It’s horrific that we often feel so unable to voice them.

Supporting women’s rights (and a woman who speaks up for them) is not transphobic

Handhold available here. You are being very brave, esp given where you work.
.
I am out as GC to family and starting to be out to friends and work colleagues. DH is fully supportive "it's just the bloody patriarchy, but in a different format". Everyone in family that I have talked to is GC.

Some friends I speak to are already very GC, others were broadly aware and in support of womens' rights but not did not feel informed enough to speak out. Given more details, like the capture of the NHS and the elimination of single sex wards, definitely hardened their attitude. We need to keep talking and pushing back the disinformation and making others more comfortable asking questions, debating and speaking out. Not everyone will agree with us but we should at least ensure they have enough facts to consider both sides of the debate.

Remember that gender critical beliefs are WORIADS.

Take heart OP, only a few days ago, I found myself in a similar position with a dear friend who is in the TWAW camp. I just couldn't get my head around how someone as intelligent as my friend, someone who is a researcher at that, knows so little about something other than to 'be kind' and to think solely on an individual basis. I did my best to explain why that approach does not work and that unfortunately, in this instance, it comes down to scientific fact that in humans, sex is not mutable and that being trans is an idea, a feeling, something that cannot be defined in a way male and female is, and that being born in the wrong body really is not a thing.

I have horrific chemo/menopause brain which just made the whole thing worse, as did the look on her face and pursed lips which made me feel like a huge bigot with everything I said. However, and on a plus note, she did admit that I had clearly done a lot of reading on the subject (this was when I was discussing DSDs are sexed), and that she had not. She also admitted to not knowing anything about APG, the fact over 92% of TiM retain their genitals, the contagion amongst autistic teenage girls, that puberty blockers aren't reversible and that male and female bodies, particularly once through puberty are very different things and male bodies, even on female hormones, will always retain a phyiscal advantage due to skeleton, muscles and the size of both the heart and lungs.

Although not convinced I'm not simply a raging transphobes, and at the very least, I think I have given her food for thought and she has promised to do some reading that isn't from people like Juliet Jacques. I have suggested Helen Joyce, Sonia Sodha and Kathleen Stock. She also conceded that TRAs are making things worse for transpeople. She also understand the different between sex and gender, and did agree that many conflating/confusing the two has gone a way to contribute to the belief that one can change their sex.

So don't give up hope. I doubt your colleague will say anything and if she does, your beliefs are protected by law. Not only that, you have scientific fact on your side. No debate is no longer a thing!

Every single NHS employee that I know is a secretly raging terf, seething with fury at the ridiculousness of NHS' embracing genderpish. Every last one.

It's unsurprising really, considering what doctors, midwives and nurses do day in day out, that they are perfectly aware of what men and women are.

Well done, OP. You've been brave.

Yes, there’s a SEEN in Health - https://seeninhealth.org

Handhold here from another NHS worker - chin up, I reckon there are loads of us.

PS. My friend is a civil servant. I think CS have been similarly captured as the NHS. It's a long road ahead before the kool aid has properly evaporated, but I strongly feel that we are very much getting there, if only on a person by person basis. The good news is that once someone peaks, they in turn peak others.

Hey OP, you've had some really lovely responses here and I hope you're feeling better.

I realised a while ago that if someone thinks something of me that makes them not like me, then they're honestly doing me a favour. I probably wouldn't get along with them. It's harder when you work with someone, I know, but always be true to yourself and stick to what you know. Years from now you'll probably use this as a story to support someone else feeling the same way.

It's not transphobic to believe in sex and not gender. It's not transphobic to support JKR, and I don't believe she's transphobic either.
You said nothing wrong and your beliefs don't make you a bad person.
And I can say that as a trans man (biologically female) who thinks that nobody should end up upset anywhere, let alone at their place of work, just because of their views.

Unless you're about to drip feed that you set traps to capture trans people and lock them up in a secret room in your house for evil doings.

Take care 💐

Well done at @BriceNobeslovesMurielHeslop sometimes it really does feel scarey to speak out even a little in the NHS. It does get easier the more you do it I find. I take my 21st century suffragette mug to work on occassion explain it was a fundraiser if asked.

I also have my XX female symbol pin badge on my NHS blue lanyard. A TWAW colleague asked about it and I did reply with it was a fundraiser for “Keep prisons single sex” because it took a campaign for the scottish government to eventually realised it was dangerous to keep convicted rapists with a males strength and genitalia in the female estate” I was of course bending the truth because pretty sure it was a For Women Scotland fundraiser but this was long before the SC ruling.
I work in Wales and when discussing the forthcoming SC case clearly recognised what female meant used an argument relating to a Plaid Cymru politician. Adam Price the previous Plaid leader is full on TWAW as is the party position. Adam is also in a committed same sex relationship and has a child via a surrogate. So I asked a few colleagues in a coffee room conversation how many trans women they thought he had considered when searching for a surrogate. I then pointed that if it was none then he knew what a woman was when it might impact him as a gay man, strange then that it was different when it came to women’s right to single sex services/spaces.

Big thank you from me, a patient who's had some horrible experiences with trans activist staff in the NHS.

With respect that's a very boring old trope about salaries - police aren't exempt from paying council tax or PAYE any more than a civil service employee, NHS worker or similar is.

I agree with the politics element, but the public sector has been massively politicised and Politicised for many years... The problem is the level of gender-identity-captured people within them.

Thank you for all your kind and thoughtful responses today- I’m always struck by how considered and respectful the posters on these boards are!
I was a bit fudgy about what happened as I’m always paranoid about outing, but I don’t think my colleague will be on the Mumsnet FWR boards- she had been discussing the Witch Trial podcast with another colleague and I commented that I’d never spoken with anybody else at work who’d heard it. She said that she’d been reluctant to listen as JKR is a such a transphobe. I disagreed that she was and she replied “Oh no, she is!! She’s said horrible things on Twitter”. I said I know what she says, I follow her. I could feel myself getting defensive and the atmosphere souring a little. We spoke a bit about our mutual admiration of Megan Phelps Roper and how it was sad how bitter the conversation had got, but it was pretty awkward.

My colleague is lovely, I genuinely think that she is trying to “be kind”. Most of us in the NHS are there because we do care and want to be kind, I hope so anyway. Certainly before I was radicalised back in 2017 by you ‘orribile lot (🤭) I was very “yas queen”. I’ve never been accused of being any-phobic in my life, I’ve always been very lefty and right on so I found the early days very frightening and difficult. I’m sure a couple of close friends have distanced themselves from me because I’ve liked the wrong Twitter post.

I’m in NHS Scotland so obviously the Sandie Peggie case is looming in our minds as well.

Thank you for pointing to the SEEN in Healthcare network, I’ve joined them and have noticed that a very close and respected colleague also follows them so that has helped too ❤️. I wish I could thank you all individually, every post has strengthened my resolve.

Sending a metaphorical handhold, OP. I work in local government and found myself in a similar situation when raising concerns about colleagues being labelled TERFs in a (ahem) women’s network meeting. Came away shaking and profoundly worried as no-one openly supported me in the meeting. I was messaged privately after by colleagues, however.

Nothing will change unless people chip away with small acts of challenge.

I can’t offer you my hand. They are both fully engaged in in applauding your courage and good sense

I don't think she's really thinking at all......simply following fashionable viewpoints. She'd have to engage in some measure of critical thinking in order to connect what you are saying with what she thinks JK Rowling has said....and then she'd have to start differentiatng and discriminating between different types of thought process and different people...and it would all be like too much hard work........so she'll most likley respond with pure emotion.....and taint you with the same brush, or else she'll have to tolerate the cognitive disssonance that comes when reality, and the people in reality, clash with the demands of contemporary ideology.