Why do you care so much about gender issues?

[GCScot]

Longtime lurker, first time poster.

I'm fully GC, mainly due to this board. So first of all, thank you for all the excellent thoughtful discussion!

DH and most of my family are also GC. But they don't care about it anywhere near as much as me. This got me wondering - why do some of us care so much about gender ideology?

My reasons are:

1. I'm a lifelong feminist. Gender ideology causes so many issues for women. But the attempted redefinition of the very word woman feels like an actual existential threat

1. I'm a lifelong lefty. Finding myself on 'the other side' to left-wing political parties, friends, and institutions I have trusted all my life (The Guardian, BBC, NHS, universities) has completely thrown me. Am I wrong? If I'm not wrong, how have they gone so spectacularly wrong?

1. I have a science background. The (wilful?) ignorance of the basic science of biological sex and the prioritisation of feelings over facts enrages me

1. I have personally had a double mastectomy and hormone therapy for breast cancer. These were extreme medical treatments to save my life and have long-term health repercussions - I am at high risk of heart disease and osteoporosis. The fact that physically healthy children and vulnerable young people are being encouraged to undergo these treatments makes me sad and angry

1. The 'No debate' aspect of this issue is totally against my values. I work for a fully captured institution (Scottish university) and being unable to freely speak about this issue means that it is frequently running through my mind

Do any of the above resonate with others? Do you have any additional reasons why you care so much about this issue?

All of that, very much so. No Debate allowed the time for GI to get really embedded into TRSOH.

That's interesting, I think those rewards you list are relevant to the people I know who see themselves as trans allies. Food for thought

Look at the relationships board to see how many adult women fail to realise they're in abusive / coercively controlling relationships. And how long it takes some of them to finally see the reality of their lives.

Expecting the young to accurately identify intimidation / bullying /coercive control when it's dressed up in a rainbow swirl of the trans glitter family is unrealistic. That's why the shift with the BBC and other media finally accurately reporting this is critical.

People who read the Times, Telegraph, Mail etc have been exposed to the grim reality of the assault on safeguarding children and women's rights for some time now so readers are generally infuriated that this is taking so long to unravel.

The lanyard classes relying on the BBC / Grauniad have been fed a diet of biased transactivist ideology for a decade with nothing to challenge their complacency or engage their critical thinking.

But as the facts start to be reported more accurately and the power of the trans extremists in institutions lessens, there will be a slow shift in finally understanding what's really happening.

I have to credit JK Rowling for opening my eyes as to what was happening when I read her 3000 words and then finding FWR threads sealed it. It matters to me because I have seen so many young vulnerable, largely autistic, young people fall down this damaging rabbit hole with disastrous consequences and because my workplace is entirely captured and everywhere I look now I see intimidating entitled men who think being a women is no more than long hair, a dress and wearing makeup. Including men who are 6’4" 100+kg. Incredible that everyone goes along with it.

OP, your reasoning is exactly my reasoning, apart from the fact I've never had breast cancer/mastectomy.

I'd also like to add the invasion of women-only toilets, changing rooms, sports, prisons - anything that is women-only, they want to force their way in. This is of huge detriment to women and is only of benefit to men.

1. I'm a lifelong lefty. Finding myself on 'the other side' to left-wing political parties, friends, and institutions I have trusted all my life (The Guardian, BBC, NHS, universities) has completely thrown me. Am I wrong? If I'm not wrong, how have they gone so spectacularly wrong?

Lefties traditionally support self determination which underpinned the civil rights movements & feminism so it wouldn’t be consistent for them not to support trans people. Feminism was also legitimised by what men & women had in common not their differences so interchangeability was built into it that's why patriarchal anti feminists blame feminism for transgenderism because they believe the premise of interchangeability promoted by feminism caused it.

Utter tosh.

Rampant individualism, and an unrelenting quest for self-determination, regardless of the detriment to others, is usually a feature of right-wing politics.

Trans is the ultimate right-wing ideology, as it encourages the individual to pursue their own selfish desires no matter how this impacts on others. When a biological male declares himself to be a woman and barges his way into female spaces and prizes, he takes away safety, privacy, dignity, opportunity and self-determination from women. Yet do they care? It doesn’t appear that many of them give a monkey’s, does it? They know they make women vulnerable when they appropriate our stuff, yet still they push to do so. Any such person is unutterably self-centred and lacking in decency and morals.

And where exactly do trans men factor into all this 'barging' in the interests of consistency to this 'thesis'?

I didn’t know I was a TERF or cared about ‘gender issues’ but I have always been of the view that addressing any mental health issue (where genuinely experienced, and not a fetish) with medicalisation or surgery was abusive and harmful.

For me it’s a matter of truth and facts.

I had a discussion with someone over 15 years ago maybe longer talking about - body integrity disorder. If you feel your leg doesn’t belong to you Doctors will not amputate. They say you have a mental health issue and leave your leg attached. And when you force your own leg amputation you end up jailed www.cps.gov.uk/south-west/news/surgeon-jailed-fraud-after-lying-about-self-inflicted-injuries-led-his-leg

But in gender dysphoria you feel your breasts don’t belong to you Doctors ‘amputate’ freely and give you a cocktail of drugs to boot. And affirm your mental disorder. I shared this idea a lot and was judged and jeered for it in many settings.

Hearing Naomi Cunningham say pretty much the same thing (much more elegantly) a few weeks ago was full circle.

It is illogical, harmful, misogynistic, fundamentalist bullshit.

I am very grateful to Mumsnet for widening my experience on other sides of this and also having a space to share these experiences.

I was never ‘be kind’.

Not sure I agree with that.

The right have long been calling bullshit on this.

And it’s not quite individualistic. Many are doing it for the approval of their ‘supporters’ and egged on. If all the brainwashing died down it would fall away.

I wonder how the social media ban in Australia will undermine a lot of this nonsense.

Where would they fit in? Silly question. So called “trans men” aren’t causing the problems for women that their male counterparts are.

I would say it’s narcissistic levels of individualism rather than right wing. I don’t see that it’s particularly following leftist principles in any sense. So I can see both points. The pp who said leftist politics is about “self determination” is talking nonsense.

I really hope you're right. I'm concerned that the left-wing/right-wing media divide is so entrenched now that left-wing media outlets are never going to properly backtrack on this issue.

One of my relatives really struggles to believe that the Guardian/BBC can possibly have been so biased to the extent of lying in its coverage of eg the Olympic boxing scandal. I struggle myself with it. I have accepted that the right-wing media is reporting the facts on this issue better but I feel that they are more motivated by stoking a cultural divide than by any concern for women and children

I don't think the motives of the right-wing press are that important, they're reporting the truth that's what's important, once people learn the truth then it's up to them how they react to it. There's no reason to assume learning the truth is going to turn people into right wingers just because they got their info from the right wing, although it could change the way they feel about the left if they come to the conclusion that the left have been shining them on for years.

If a trans man access men’s spaces or prizes it doesn’t make the men any more vulnerable and it doesn’t result in an already more privileged person taking the opportunities of a less privileged group. Not so when trans women (ie men) muscle in to women’s things.

Males are the oppressor sex and females are the oppressed sex.

Men telling women how to think

I have daughters

They are transing children, and taking away women's rights. And pretending to do it in my name only makes it worse, if that's even possible.

I agree that it’s a bit of an odd one. Ordinarily, the left is more about collectivism, whereas the right is more about individualism. Trans is all about how an individual feels and getting to act in the world in accordance with that, regardless of the harms that causes others.

Yet here we have the right wing press and the Conservatives calling out the issues with genderism, while the left have largely been interested in taking away women’s rights and giving them to men. It’s why many of us who would ordinarily vote for the left are now politically homeless.

Yes, that was the bit that made me respond, as it’s utter rubbish and betrays a lack of knowledge of the history of left-wing politics.

Straight women pretending to be gay men are putting themselves in great danger, particularly when you consider that alot of gay male behaviour is really not 'out in the open', for example I saw two 'trans men' being used to promote 'cruising' the other day, by the 'cruising' community. And straight men have been using gay apps to specifically target 'trans men' advertising on there to con women into thinking they are gay men wanting to have sex with them.

It's a totally fucked up world for 'trans men'.

"An unrelenting quest for self-determination, regardless of the detriment to others" fits trans identifying women who claim to be men pretty well, thanks for asking.

They may not be "barging in" to men-only spaces as visibily, not least because there are far fewer men-only provisions, men not suffering the same disavantages from women as women do from men, but every person, male or female, who claims they can't be a "man" or a "woman" despite their sex because their mind is wrong for it, is taking it upon themself to impose a new definition, one that is at best reductive, and in my opinion frankly sexist, on every single other human being on the planet simply to avoid confronting their own internal sexism.

"An unrelenting quest for self-determination, regardless of the detriment to others" ? Yep, that fits the thesis.

Have a read of this re trans identifying women joining gay Grindr culture.

https://open.substack.com/pub/lgbcouragecoalition/p/how-a-private-conversation-about?r=718qgv&utm_medium=ios&shareImageVariant=overlay

Soon after, a former colleague (another gay man) told me that Ayden had been stalking him for months. Using an anonymous account, she would send him sexually explicit text messages or just threaten to get him fired. I later learned that Ayden was a heavy drinker and cocaine user, and that she’d get on Grindr for hook-ups while intoxicated or high. After she sobered up, she would regret what she had done, and claim she had been assaulted. While my colleague had never hooked up with her, she harassed him constantly. HR wouldn’t do anything about it for a long time, essentially because Ayden self-identified as trans. Eventually she was fired. I still saw her occasionally in the gym locker room. She continued to get completely naked in front of the men. She pretended not to know me. But on occasion, she would take the time to create an anonymous profile on Grindr, just to call me a TERF and then block me.

Rather than being 'right wing' as such, I see trans ideology as stemming from, in fact being the apotheosis of, the american culture of individualism and consumer ism. And I guess that anything coded as being about 'individualism' get assigned to the right; whilst the Left is assigned 'collectivism'.

But yes, it is a strange breed, and an american one.

If you read the quote above they’re causing a fair amount of trouble.

Also the non binary Haech therapist who sued the NHS for not charging her deed poll name - she terrorized her colleagues for her made up notions.

I think because I’m much older and have been divorced, I’m sick to death of the patriarchy.

I remember as a child knowing about cross dressers, transvestites etc. as I’ve grown older I’ve been aware of the prevalence of male causes of murder, domestic abuse, rape, sexual assault, perversion, fetishes, paedophilia, incel behaviour, sexism and just inbuilt misogyny.

I don’t TRUST men.

Yes I believe there is a small cohort of people who genuinely believe they are in the wrong body, and I believe they are usually young and it’s likely they present differently. Although even for them this may not be an enduring belief (and that’s a whole different problem).

But the Be Kind mantra is an open invitation to all the perverts and predators to get into women’s and children’s spaces. They do not have good intentions. I believe this subset of men is far larger than the subset of genuine trans women.

Germaine Greer said women don’t realise how much men hate women.

A police friend told me most people don’t realise how much time, money and patience predators will take just to get access to children.

And yes I know it’s Not All Men, but it is always a man.

As I say, I’m divorced. “Men, they’re not sending us their best”