Is anyone else starting to doubt their own sanity?

[TheNightingalesStarling]

For days now, every time I go online its "bigots, transphobes, there is no safeguarding issue, bullies, preying on lost vulnerable etc".

Even people i thought were intelligent.

I'm starting to doubt my sanity. Even though people would look at you if you were mad if you said something like "why do schools need separate changing rooms for PE" or "Of course id let my 15yo have a sleepover in a tent with one boy".

I'm seeing articles about how peoples brains are different. Suggesting that all women think the same way.

I'm wondering if these people would say the same if it was their teen daughter upset... or would they be saying "there's nothing to upset about".

The WHOLE gender grift
is men pushing back against women's rights gains in the 80's and 90's

the teen contagion
is against a pornified sociaety
and rich western kids with too few real things to worry about

I got into this topic in Dec 2019 when JKR posted her "sex is real" tweet, every day it seems surreal. It's all so insane, crazy, harmful and regressive.

I have come to think that part of what makes these people so fanatic about it, is because the ideology underlying it is so insane and nonsensical. They feel like sinners because they don't truly believe it, that transwomen are women, etc. So to overcome their "sins" and guilt they must be ever more fanatic about it. And then many of the young people growing up with this are just fully brainwashed by it.

And it's overused but it really is like a cult in many ways, where if you leave it you are treated like anathema. And well, there are just so many other reasons it came to this as well, social media echo chambers, some really rich people behind the scenes pushing this (I forgot the name of one of the really big ones), people who think it's the same as LGB and just a continuation of that, etc.

Loads of shrieking about girls sharing rooms with boys all day at school what's the difference sharing in an "after school club" its like they dont know they go on camps and share tents overnight 😳

If i feel the need to comment i point out that scouts dropped the "boy scouts" name and introduced safeguarding all the girl guides need to do is emulate that it usually goes down poorly and people bicker about intersex people honestly if you listen to them intersex people are most of the population

Very true. The activist hyperbole and misleading phrasing intending to whip up hysteria is beyond unhelpful, especially for the kids involved. It does make you wonder if the drama stopped there would be much left.

Nope. I’m doubting others’ sanity, especially women who explain the physical basis of women’s vulnerability, maintain that men must be kept out of women’s spaces for safeguarding, and that transwmen are women.

🤦‍♀️

This.

I've caught up on the thread now. Some great comments.

@Seethlaw I hope you don't mind the name check. It's good to see you on this thread. I remember having a really interesting discussion with you on the subject of gender identity some time ago on a different thread.

I have concerns about anyone who ends up believing themselves to be misaligned with their body in some way. As I don't believe in gender identity, I will naturally look for (other) root causes that explain how that person came to the clearly distressing point at which they found themselves. Obviously I'm not talking about the autogynophilic feigners here, but people who genuinely suffer from what is generally known as gender dysphoria, even by non-believers like me.

However, I've accepted that lots of people will have and will continue to have a belief that everyone has a gender identity. I'm not going to challenge that any more than I do someone's belief in god. If Christians start demanding biology books accommodate the idea that human conception without sperm is possible on an exceptional basis, I might speak up as a dissenter. But otherwise, all good.

From your previous posts, you strike me as someone who shares a similar live and let live approach to life as I do, albeit that we are polar opposites regarding the belief that everyone has a gender identity. Where we do appear to have perhaps the greatest overlap is we seemingly agree that nobody should ever be coerced into demonstrating that they hold a belief or that they don't.

I believe in ghosts. I don't expect everyone else to start speaking to my (late) mum just because I sometimes do. I don't regard it as disrespectful if they won't hold a conversation with her. I also accept that many people don't believe in ghosts at all and probably think I'm mad. But thankfully, noone is demanding that I stop believing in them. Live and let live. We all believe (or don't believe) in different things.

The pushiest TRAs are increasingly showing just how coercive they are here. The virtue signalling vocal allies that haven't really thought too much about it all are all starting to sound increasingly.....odd.

Edited for typo.

Whenever one side in a divisive issue wants to shut the the other up, and block them and dox them and delete their posts, whereas the other side is prepared to let them yammer away and then dissect their arguments, you know there are a lot of people stuck in an echo chamber.

The dissection of the arguments isn't for the residents of the echo chamber. It's for the vast number of people who don't really have a fully committed view either way. And you can feel mad, and outnumbered, when doing that dissecting, but if you understand that your views are rooted in reality, you'll know that you aren't.

I discovered the other day that a friend who I would have had down as one of the likeliest of my acquaintance to Beeee Kiiiind is actually GC. I think people are getting braver.

@TheNightingalesStarling I know I'm not mad.

However, I joined Mumsnet not that long ago and it's only since then that I've peaked. I was always anti woke/political correctness before then, and never ever on the 'be kind' spectrum, but really hadn't fully understood before MN. I wasn't really thinking about it much.

I think the murder by Scarlet Blake (TiM) was one of the wake up calls, - described as a 'woman' on the BBC news - WTF?! - and he was local and killed a cat and I love animals so it resonated with me and I got angry.

I've tried with a few female friend to get them as interested, but they don't all seem to see it. One understands the concept of woman-face being equivalent to black-face. Others think that's silly.

My most intelligent friend, a professor, is fully on the 'be kind' spectrum. It's really really frustrating, especially when she says she's a feminist.

@BonfireLady Thank you for the kind words!

Just to correct a little something: I don't believe that everyone has a gender identity. I know I have something that makes me "feel like I'm a man", but I also take all the people who say they don't feel any such thing at their word. I can't know them better than them, and I have no investment in everyone having a GI anyway. Just because I have one doesn't mean everyone needs to have one, and inversely, just because other people don't have one, doesn't mean I can't have one. Plus, who knows if what I call "gender identity" is even the same thing as what other trans people feel anyway??

As for the aggressive TRAs: I experienced their violence back when I was in the community. I was hoping that society would keep them in check, and am quite upset that it's not the case. Hopefully, things will turn around as more and more people dare to object.

I don't regard it as disrespectful if they won't hold a conversation with her.

That really should have said that I wouldn't hold it as disrespectful if they didn't hold a conversation with her. The subjunctive.

I have never, and nor would I ever, asked anyone to speak to my mum. I've only ever done it while I'm on my own. I wouldn't put anyone in a position where they felt potentially coerced to validate my belief.

That's the key point here. TRAs do demand active allegiance and will actively seek to shame those that won't do that.

Step away from social media.

Occasionally I pop on to FB, check out a few friends news and then I'm done. No random scrolling.

It has been very restorative.

Never underestimate the ability of societies to go (apparently) collectively bonkers. A few real fanatics in key positions, rather more people who aren't confident and will outsource their thinking to anyone who appears to know what they're talking about, some other people who've spotted ways of getting power or making money from the fanatics' cause, and a silent majority who are afraid to rock the boat even if they don't like or believe in what's going on. That's all it takes.

The narrative seems to be ‘why do we even need single sex organisations? Let’s just let the all go mixed!’.

It’s so disappointing.

Yes. The GG and WI ruling has absolutely mustered the shrieking 'lanyard classes' (brilliant phrase) who have been utterly indoctrinated into the ideas of gender identity, trans kids, born in the wrong body and TWAW. If which there are seemingly a fair few!

It's really strange to see because these voices were kind of silent when the SC decision came to pass, so why are they surprised now?

Also, have they not read Cass? The notion of social transition in minors is highly controversial. We have a well documented social contagion element going on.

I don't get it, this huge lack of critical thinking. This is why we ended up with the idea that men can come into women's changing rooms and so on.

It all comes back to consent. If GG and WI are spaces for girls and women alone then it has to be that way. Feminine boys are not girls.

I don't doubt my sanity, I do doubt the sanity of millions of people in this country though.

I know it's getting a bit cliché now but to quote Voltaire "Those who can convince you of an absurdity can convince you to commit an atrocity ", the gender woo is the absurdity and telling children they were born in the wrong body and putting them on a medical pathway to mutilation and sterilisation is the atrocity. Everything about this ideology proves Voltaire right.

So I'm glad I'm the sane one, it's all the others that are insane, and some of them are criminally insane at that.

There's a very vocal percentage of the public who are outraged that they're not getting their own way anymore so are tantruming like toddlers. They've created a situation where any dissent is seized upon so people stay quiet.

My industry, which you'd expect to be captured, has never fallen for it even if there's been very determined and vocal activists trying to infiltrate it. There's an overwhelming majority of reality realists among those working in the industry having quiet conversations and eye rolling at the insanity but being unable to talk about it openly. I think I've met one 'JKR is the devil because my pal told me so' person in the past few years. Everyone else is firmly rooted in reality.

There's going to be a period where the tantrumming toddlers need a bit of time to have an angry cry but the adults can now start to restore order.

I’m mystified by others’ naivety. Rather scared too of those who are in positions of power who don’t get it, or, more so, actively support the ideology

i think for a long time I did doubt my sanity, which is why I spent time immersed in it. To “check my thinking.”

Now though, I find the way society has been captured by the idea horrifyingly fascinating.

the analogy of ‘seeing the matrix’ was once very apt, till I knew how much the writers of that contributed to the current shit show

Really interesting thread. I'm finding the backlash astonishing and upsetting to see, and it worries me. We're "winning" now, and I think we will in the end, but I just hadn't expected it to be this tenacious.

A few other things that I think feed into that...

One paradoxical element is, I think how extreme it all is has sometimes worked in its favour. Most people are busy with their own lives / complacent / follow the crowd, so there's a default assumption that something of this kind couldn't/wouldn't happen, as our trusted institutions wouldn't have permitted it - a significant piece of the puzzle is the fallen the BBC, NHS, and schools. It means that, until very recently, you had to be pretty invested and work hard to uncover the reality behind popular propaganda. And who's going to do that?

The other thing that's feeds into this, again kind of ironically, is the sheer volume of the TRA voices and simplicity of their message. All that fiery confidence, in a society keen to right the wrongs of the homophobic past (or to be seen/appear to do so, in nice, easy ways!) Meanwhile, the GC message again requires independent thought and effort, and the readiness to face up to some upsetting realities. Being GC doesn't make you feel good as such, or not straightforwardly at any rate.

And TERFs' quieter, rational (until recently all-too niche) voices aren't always heard in the internet age. Exciting disinformation and reductive soundbite tend to be more fun or easier to swallow.

It all feels like the perfect storm.

There is a picture of a woman bending over; I spotted that!

I’m worried the GG and WI announcements this week will make it look like we are being unreasonable. I don’t think we are but the reporting has been so terrible and the reactions haven’t been what I would expect they would be if people actually understood what’s going on. In the absence of them understanding I think that there’s a risk we look unreasonable to the casual observer.

I do think if it had been made clear that the old guide policy made it possible for adult males to supervise young girls changing, or that mixed sex tents were not allowed to be complained about, some of the "what safeguarding issue?" Would have been avoided.

I also accept that in other countries, like the US currently, anti- trans legislation is going hand in hand with anti women and anti LGB legislation. So its a complex global issue.

I think we all have phases (at least) of this. For me, it’s seeing friends - who’ve previously listened to me on this subject and empathised - suddenly having their heads turned and treating my views like I’m the embarrassing racist aunt. You do think, “Is it me”? But I’ve challenged my views to myself again and again and I know gender ideology is dangerous bullshit.

I agree with a PP that the GG/WI issue is kicking things off, but that’s coming from those who realise that the jig is up. It’s the last thrashing of a dying ideology, but there’s people who have nothing to lose from a last roll or two of the die.

I am. I’ve been asking “is it me?” too. Posts on SM have shown me that some very old friendships might not survive and that any discussion about this still won’t be tolerated. These are people who a few years back were fighting against gender stereotypes.

Yes. Madness of crowds, shallow surface thinking, credulity and frankly stupidity.

Plus, the absurdity of the articles of faith attracts those who see them as a useful vehicle for manipulation and power (Nicola, I'm looking at you).

OP there is nothing mad about knowing that humans come.in two sexes and you cant change sex. It's very basic material knowledge. But it is very discombobulating to hear others come out with nonsense and absurdities. It can be quite gruelling to see institutions and respected, intelligent people come out with this startlingly mad stuff.

Take heart that most people agree, they just dont want to get involved.