Finding out that a trans-woman who had lived as a man for the first 40+ years of her life had gotten a place on the programme hit me hard

This matters to me because I have seen real world examples of trans-women taking places in positive action programmes in my workplace. The purpose of these programmes was to address the lack of women in our industry, it had always been expressly for women only.

I was unable to gain a place because I was on maternity leave and was told it was too complicated to facilitate my attendance because I would not have enough ‘keeping in touch’ days. It was suggested that I defer to the subsequent year. By the time the opportunity came again I was so busy trying to balance full time work and being a new mum that I couldn’t take the extra burden of attending this programme in addition to everything else.

Finding out that a trans-woman who had lived as a man for the first 40+ years of her life had gotten a place on the programme hit me hard. It seemed wrong, unfair. It was at that point I started to read more into gender theory and since then I think it’s fair to say I’ve become firmly gender critical. Although I have other concerns, this was my main one.

I’m too scared of the potential consequences having seen women in the public eye treated appallingly for speaking up.

Lucy