What does your partner think?

[Loopinlouie92]

I’m GC and my boyfriend is more on the fence about things. I think both of us are usually quite good at managing differences of opinion. But this means a lot to me and I’m finding it really hard not having his support. I feel that it is creating a gulf between us. Does your partner also have GC views or do they think differently about things?

I think your last point is interesting and insightful.

Because if you see what's going on, what does that mean for your confidence in all the other lefty talking points, like climate, or covid, or, measles vaccination, many, many others.

Just what it means in terms of the scientific institution is really kind of staggering.

Genuine question, if you are able to share : what transphobia has your friend encountered?

oh my god that is insane

My DH is on the GC side but for him it’s not important - he thinks men shouldn’t be in women’s sports categories etc but he has no skin in the game and no interest in discussing it. He has a sort of anti-interest actually - won’t listen if I want to talk about it. Whereas for me it’s existential. So the whole topic is out of bounds at home, and it’s led to a few lonely and silent years - I find it hard to forgive him for not seeing that this matters to me (and to society, we do talk about politics a lot). I wish our relationship could be more like that of the posters who talk about sharing their views with their partners.

Exactly. It's a very destabilising thought.

Mine agrees with me that the whole thing is totally batshit and that the trans lobby is out of hand and guilty of massive outreach. However as a man I don't think he can really fully comprehended just how disturbing and frightening the attempts by trans identifying men to wipe out women's rights and their determination to transgress our boundaries has been for many women. I think for the most part only women really get that. I think some gay men also really get it but in a different way because they see how deeply homophobic the trans ideology is.

@clearveilthat’s exactly it - he just can’t see why this is so frightening for me. And I think he’s distressed that I find it frightening, so won’t talk about it. Although, listening to myself here, do I just need to get a grip? This is the first time I’ve expressed this little bit of hidden sadness - I’m surprisingly emotional about it.

I'd feel sad too if I were you. You don't need to get a grip. My boyfriend lets me go on long rants then takes me outside for a sit in the park to touch some grass when I've spent too much time on X and have headache. If it matters to you, he ought to give you room to express it. He doesn't have to say much, just let you rant. Not too much to ask for

My husband thinks trans women are men.

My husband is GC, he has 2 medical based degrees and is pretty grounded in reality having spent 25 years in the armed forces.

He started from the position that trans people are mentally unwell and that some of the men in his words are “wronguns” getting a sexual thrill out of it. However because the numbers were so small and he didn’t realise they were actually transgressing women’s boundaries by going into our single sex spaces / using our services/ claiming to be literal women, so it wasn’t a big enough issue to be on his radar.

Slowly o er time I talked to him about prisons, the MOJ data, Edinburgh rape crisis centre, Supreme Court ruling, NHS Fife, LGBTYS Scotland, removal of sex based language, corruption of data etc he could scarcely believe it was happening but now fully understands.

We had a situation lest year where a TIM joined the gym and stared changing in the women’s open changing rooms (despite there being a 3rd space). It was a truly awful experience for all the women in the changing room. My husband encountered him later that week when watching my son’s swim lesson and could believe this 6ft very obvious bloke was using the women’s changing rooms (fully in tact too which the women’s tight swim suit made very clear). It happened again a couple of weeks letter when my 12 year old DD and I were mid change the TIM walked into the changing rooms, we plucked up the courage to complain and I’ve not seen him in the gym since.

Just after Christmas last year DD came home with a horrific book from the school library, from the “woke reads” section, which children get given a special badge if they read 6 books from. It was pure queer theory, social justice indoctrination (some men have vaginas, we live in a white supremacist society, a 15 year old boy performing drag who goes on to have sex with a 19 year old man in a graveyard who plies him with weed and poppers. There was also a detailed explanation in the book on how to take the poppers. The publishers age rating for this book was 12-15!!!). DH helped me compose an email to the school about it and is disgusted by the lack of safeguarding/ indoctrination in schools surrounding the TQ movement.

Mine thinks I bang on too much about it, that it doesn't matter (to him) and that it makes his life difficult because some of his friends have the opposite view and he doesn't want to feel awkward with them.

Strangely enough it hasn't shut me up.

My wife (I'm male) thinks the same as I do; that it's all quite mad, depressing and infuriating. As I was much more online than her, I started reading about this stuff first (and introduced her to FWR!); fortunately she retired just before it started getting truly crazy in the workplace. Since then she's been perved on by a TIM in a hospital setting, and berated by her #bekind sister for holding heretical views.

Please don't reduce womanhood to whether or not men perceive someone as fuckable. It's not the take you think it is.

I think your reaction is perfectly valid. There are women who support the right of trans identified males to access women's rights and spaces because they don't have a problem with it, they have friends who are trans and they see trans people as vulnerable. They do not extend that empathy to the many women who are traumatised from past sexual assault or even just from living in a patriarchal world where they are subjected to a sexualised male gaze from childhood and the objectification and dehumanization that goes along with that experience. I often feel that women who uncritically support trans identifying males rights to women's single sex spaces for example are also victims of the patriarchy but in a different way more compliant and subservient to men than often older women who have already been through the wringer and are out the other side.

I just think men cannot really grasp the visceral fear that women often live with when it comes to the threat of male violence sexual or otherwise. Trans identifying males often try to claim this fear for themselves but they also do not truly understand women's experience, to them that "fear" is a desirable part of womanhood so it is something they perform in a way that women do not. I am not saying they are not at risk but they are not at risk because they are women but because the are gender non conforming men which is quite different. If they truly understood women's experience they would not make the demands they do of us, they would see why they should not and cannot enter our single sex spaces.

THANK YOU. Whether or not someone fancies someone has zero to do with what makes someone male or female.

Mine had never paid any attention to trans v women’s rights before I mentioned it. Once I explained things he was aghast at what goes on and the implications of it. Totally agrees with me on it.
If yours is on the fence OP have you asked why? As in “why do you think women don’t deserve the right to single sex spaces/why do you think men’s rights trump women’s/why don’t women deserve fairness in sport” etc etc so instead of telling him things, he has to justify why he’s sitting on that fence.
None of the GC people I know want harm to come to trans identifying people, or think that they shouldn’t wear what they want. We just don’t believe in “gender souls”, or think their rights trump everyone else’s, and they should leave kids out of it.

I could’ve written this about my DS. If I bring it up he spouts a few lines that he’s obviously read on a trans lives matter leaflet, but refuses to engage further because he knows his arguments won’t hold water. What saddens me the most is that he’s a highly intelligent scientist 🤦‍♀️ I think he actually knows what I’m saying is true but he’s been that captured by it all at uni he would rather bury his head in the sand.

DH is completely in agreement with me and other GC women. He doesn't read as much as me but he still reads a lot and gets really pissed off about how women are treated in our society at the moment. There were things I had to explain that he didn't get to begin with, such as how frightening it is for a woman to walk alone at night but he gets it now.

Very glad that my gay brother, who I'm very close to, also gets it. He's disgusted by what Pride has become, thinks it's all filth, and wants nothing to do with it.

@Nightingalenight I feel exactly the same

While i agree let's not reduce women to 'anyone fuckable', it IS a point that seems to get the issue across top certain men in terms they can understand.

Whether or not someone fancies someone doesn't have zero to do with it though, does it. I have never fancied a woman, DH has never fancied a bloke. It's relevant. Saying sex is not relevant to attraction is straying into homophobic 'genital fetishism' territory.

My DH is totally GC and understands the issues. I would find it really hard if he didn't because it's so important to me.

We have a longstanding male friend who doesn't get it though and we've been trying to gently lead him to examine the faulty reasoning at the heart of 'but some TW are nice so why won't you let them be women?'

It's hard. He just keeps looping back around to 'but it's really hard for them'. We won't stop plugging away with facts re sports and rape centres, and the fact that if you let one man in, it's no longer a women's space, what are your rules, etc.

But it pisses me off that at the heart of it, the friend is basically saying that women don't get to consent for ourselves, we should let some mens upset override our consent. He's got a wife and daughter and is usually very reasonable / pro women 😪

My DH is totally GC and understands the issues. I would find it really hard if he didn't because it's so important to me.

We have a longstanding male friend who doesn't get it though and we've been trying to gently lead him to examine the faulty reasoning at the heart of 'but some TW are nice so why won't you let them be women?'

It's hard. He just keeps looping back around to 'but it's really hard for them'. We won't stop plugging away with facts re sports and rape centres, and the fact that if you let one man in, it's no longer a women's space, what are your rules, etc.

But it pisses me off that at the heart of it, the friend is basically saying that women don't get to consent for ourselves, we should let some mens upset override our consent. He's got a wife and daughter and is usually very reasonable / pro women 😪

When trying to persuade youngsters (particularly teenagers) of the reality of sex over gender
basic instincts are a highly effective tool

if the boys think its rubbish, the 'be kind' of the girls can be better undermined

And I'm sure your DH has also never fancied a massive portion of the female population, and that has sod all to do with whether they're a woman. If you have to appeal to men's sexist view of what a woman is, you're not doing a very good job of explaining your argument to them or they're not male opinions you should even care about on this issue.

Agree.
We have teenage dds which makes it obvious, but I think DH would feel the same regardless.