Why is it that the trans issue is the only one where people are cancelled if they disagree with it?

[TFImBackIn]

I was thinking today how there are people who vote differently to me, who are carnivores or vegan, who believe in capital punishment, who believe in unregulated drugs, who do or don't believe in climate change, who follow different religions, who think nobody has ever landed on the moon and so on, but it's possible to have a discussion about it - even if that ends pretty briefly in "We'll have to agree to disagree on that" - and it doesn't end in someone being cancelled.

The trans debate is the only one - as far as I can see - that's not allowed to be debated. I've not heard of people disowning their families over any of the above topics. If someone disagrees with someone else on those topics - and a million others - nobody says they're being violent and they're afraid of them and need to get away from them and be safe.

What Rachel Dolezal told everyone she was black and people discovered she wasn't - and worse when she wanted to represent black women and their struggle - then black women everywhere were allowed to say she was wrong and that their struggle and lived experience wasn't hers. There was no argument at all - maybe Rachel muttered a bit about it but everyone felt free to ridicule her for taking that on.

How come, then, when a fifty-year old Philip Bunce - "Call me Pippa or Pips" - was ranked number 32 in Top 100 Women in Business, women weren't allowed to say that was unfair and that our struggle and lived experience wasn't his?

What is it about this particular issue that makes people want to silence us, when other topics can be freely discussed?

And safety from whom exactly? Other men? What are the stats on that from the UK and toilets, say?

Or did you mean safety from women being allowed to say no to them, not validating their sexist identities at all times, refusing to be subservient to them and having boundaries?

There are lots of posts on MN, explaining how they need to go NC because a family member voted for Brexit/Reform.

As a GC feminist, I am very reluctant to align myself with either of these positions - but to ignore the outpouring of liberal disgust for Brexiteers/Reform voters is disingenuous, to say the least.

Better tell that to the two I saw this weekend and the one who’s guaranteed to be at a regular event I attend tomorrow, he’s always there.
If there’s any truth in what you say, why is it never taken as a moment of reflection on how a political and social movement, one that cannot be accurately compared to equal rights movements of the past because those in it already had equality under law in the UK and seemed to never consider that ‘special rights for me, those like me, and fuck everybody else’ was maybe not the winning formula it seemed at the time and has resulted in a certain amount of pushback because they refused to either listen or empathise, and instead loudly vilified, those who could be negatively impacted? Add to that happily platforming the likes of convicted violent offender Sarah Jane Baker or the ex boxing promoter with a history of misogynistic domestic violence.
Basically that the trans movement itself has made trans people look bad and it’s pretty much self inflicted?

Actually, Jews and people who support Israel are very commonly cancelled.

https://aish.com/cancelling-jews-in-the-arts/

https://www.npr.org/2025/09/09/nx-s1-5535578/hollywood-stars-boycott-israeli-film-companies-in-response-to-gaza-crisis

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/when-cancel-culture-comes-for-jews-opinion-675654

There are lots more examples.

I often think that sociologists of the future will have a fascinating time working out how, in the 21st century, a tiny group of people, with very little evidence or logic on their side, managed to wield such disproportionate influence in so many areas of some societies.

👆I think this too @MarieDeGournay

My personal opinion is that it is because trans activism is a 'top down' movement. Activists have focused on getting major influential institutions to sign up to gender ideology. This makes it difficult to voice dissent.

I feel like I have some understanding of how episodes such as witch hunts operated in the past. I would guess a lot of ordinary people didn't really believe those women were witches but kept quiet out of self-preservation

I don't think it is simply some kind of aggressive slur to say gender dysphoria is a type of mental illness, or for it to be a psychiatric diagnosis, it's a way of categorising a type of self-fear / abhorrence which is very damaging to the subject, who is unable to live with themselves unless a series of social accommodations are made which become unreasonable for others to make. And even this doesn't, ultimately, allow people with gender dysphoria to be what they imagine themselves to be.

It's also long documented that some men gain sexual satisfaction from seeing themselves made up as women - autogynaephilia - and for others to see them like that. The term 'fetish' was and is used to describe a narrow sexual fixation.

Transgender politics rejects these definitions because they see themselves as 'naturally' transgendered and rights groups have themselves embraced transvestism / AGP under a 'trans umbrella' so want that legitimised as 'transgender'. But that doesn't mean these terms are used as insults or to dehumanise.

It's not "disingenuous" at all, given these might not be the same people. Mumsnet is a large forum with lots of people on it - it's not a hive mind.

That said, I think the kind of absolutist divisiveness in UK society in recent years did coincide with Brexit, yes, along with it all being ramped up on social media, algorithms working on echo chambers, disinformation and so on. Brexit may have been seen as a kind of testing ground.

But I still think that "trans" and, later, "Gaza" post 7/10 are the two issues that people right now are getting most unhinged and cultlike about.

"Trans" is an exceptionally weird one though, because it's a recent development, a relatively recent academia-led ideology and has very few facts, logic, empiricism or reason backing its framework up at all. The unhinged, kneejerk reaction so many people seem to have when promoting it, quite unlike almost anything else, and the level of top-down capture given its historical, scientific and factual illiteracy is total insanity, and has far too much common with the playbooks of abusive men and propagandists to be accidental. Rewriting of history, the deliberate entryism into women's, gay and human rights orgs specifically to turn them into the opposite of what they started out as, into trans-ideology producing machines, making false claims,the constant projection and DARVO; it's like a mass gaslighting event and I firmly believe there's nothing organic about it at all; it has been deliberately imposed and the tactics are deliberate also. It's more akin to starting a religion and imposing it.

And while it relies on ancient woman-hate in a similar way to how the "Gaza" issue relies on ancient Jew-hate, there's something very modern and twisted about how deliberate it is, how powerful, and how quickly it has taken hold. I fully believe the "Gaza" narrative feeds off Jew-hate and the same propagandist tactis are being used as often were in the past, but it's still not operating in quite the same deliberately subservive and "stealth" way as the imposition of "trans" or gender identity ideology frameworks are.

I think some people do disown their family members for different political views.I.saw a thread on here where someone was considering not going to their therapist because the husband of therapist voted reform.So although I get where your coming from to some extent, it's not just trans is it?But then I do believe trans is a bit like a religion for some people, so maybe like a religious sect? So you may not disagree with them, otherwise your not part of the sect.

Here is a great example of an ad hom attack cloaked in supposedly reasonable language.

The poster is making accusations against women with gc views, calling them 'noxious', akin to racism and homophobia. This is a great example of 'monstering' in action, particularly as it is vague insinuation.

No examples are given, just the suggestion that women working for women's rights are Bad People.

Yes, indeed.

That's easy to answer its about male entitlement and males not accepting that they can't make the decisions

We are so so rarely discussing transmen and I have yet to hear of transmen making men feel uncomfortable or claiming they now have prostrates

People with trans identities are a mix just like all other people.

You do understand that 'transvestic fetishism' is a paraphilia, and one that NHS practitioners are supposed to check for before making a diagnosis of gender incongruence?

I can find the ICD reference if its helpful.

There is debate over whether people with trans identities are suffering from a mental issue or delusion - the definitions of gender incongruence have changed over the past twenty years and there is no doubt that people with trans identities often suffer from co morbidities and vulnerabilities. They should be supported and helped with these as much as possible.

Other than that, what discrimination do you see advocated for?

With regards to trans men I have a situation where my DD notified me she is now in a relationship with a FtM person who identifies as he/they.

When I asked if she considers herself to be in a straight relationship or a gay relationship she couldn't answer. She is an intelligent adult but is utterly incapable of doing any critical thinking around the relationship and thinks I in particular need to educate myself about this.

The difficult bit for me is I don’t feel comfortable going along with the lie that this person is a man. My sons are men as is my husband. It seems unfathomable to me that we are expected to go along with someone’s delusions. If she was dating an anorexic I would not be going along with agreeing they think they are fat.

The whole debate is so cult like in its brainwashing. I had a thread about my situation and honestly the responses telling me I should affirm the situation were frankly bonkers.

If we fail to engage critical thinking what will the next boundary we are meant to suck up be? Trans disabled? As in people identifying as disabled?

Agree.

Completely ridiculous and revealing reversal of what the flat earth position accurately is.

Because it's the only one where men's sense of entitlement is in direct conflict with women's rights. Victory against women here means rolling back their rights everywhere. How can a demographic have rights when one can't even legally define who belongs to that demographic and who doesn't? When it's a demographic anyone can become part of simply by claiming they are?

Perfectly put.

This is such egregious bollocks I don't even know where to start.

Crowds of them turn up yelling abuse at every women's rights rally
They hold piss protests, topless protests etc. Such shy retiring little flowers though, they do feel the need to hide their dainty wee faces.

Scared to even walk down the street my arse!

They brought it on themselves by trying to push in everywhere. The British are a famously tolerant people (by comparison to the rest of the world; if you don't believe me, go and see) and if transgender people are now 'in hiding' because they're so discriminated against, they should ask their self-appointed leaders and spokespersons to be try being little less aggressive and obnoxious.

But I don't believe it. I see them out and about shopping and having tea and going to work and pursuing their hobbies, every day.

There has been an example of two GC women murdered by a TRA on this very thread. So what you are personally aware of isn't really relevant, is it?

ElenOfTheWays
Such shy retiring little flowers though, they do feel the need to hide their dainty wee faces.

I can't help a sort of knee-jerk mistrust any group of people who habitually hide their faces for any except genuine religious or medical reasons. There is too much in this society that rises against mask-wearing: it is associated in my mind with hooded Mediaeval torturers, and bank-robbery, and the KKK, and other shameful and objectionable behaviour. So when I see someone on his way to court with a mask on, I don't think "poor little fellow, he's frightened", I think "why is he ashamed to show his face?" (Yes, I am thinking about Dr Upton: what need had he to hide his face with that silly scarf? www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/fife/5178397/nhs-fife-tribunal-trans-doctor-changing-room/ It felt like street theatre, to me, and put my hackles up.)

I fully acknowledge that this is not reasonable of me – after all, it isn't reasoned! It just is.

There were two people involved in the post you replied to there, me and Emptybath to whom I was replying. So I am a little confused: which of us did you mean there?

Ah. Emptybath. I think I quoted thr wrong post sorry

Phew! I wasn't sure what I had got wrong.... Thanks.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstractid=6182901

Paper looking at data relating to trans people's safety.

'... analyzes all homicides involving transgender people in Britain from 2000 to 2025. Victims were outnumbered by perpetrators, even excluding those who declared a transgender identity after imprisonment. Almost all cases involved natal males identifying as transwomen.'