The Gender Dissidents SurveyI care because I witnessed first hand the destruction of Women’s only space that had been so essential to my own healing.
I’ve posted on Social media, spoken in front of city council, attended a protest against the teaching of gender ideology to children, conducted meetups and events with other women to raise consciousness.
I have been harassed and threatened by a small mob and kicked out of communities that were important to me.
Ana H, Canada
I work with women who have suffered abuse in a women’s only service. Most of the women we support feel safe knowing we only support women. I worry they will feel less safe or be put at risk if people are simply able to self ID. Predators will take advantage of anything and this seems like a way for them to access vulnerable women and limit the ability of organisations to protect women.
I have followed feminists on Twitter, conducted research and shared information- admittedly not too much as worried about fall out at work.
Lauren, Domestic abuse support worker
I care because I have spent more than 20 years providing advocacy and support for victims of male violence and for the last few years have watched too many abused women and their children walk out of services other women fought tooth and nail to have provided for them, safe spaces away from men and the risk of abuse
They are walking out because they are no longer being treated as single sex spaces and the main services providers for some reason want to pretend this is OK women are being made to feel unsafe and uncomfortable by the services meant to help them.
I have where ever possible challenged the TWAW rhetoric and the women shouldn’t be scared of other women nonsence.
I’ve been threatened with violence both online and in real life.
T
This matters to me personally because of the way some TRAs treat survivors of abuse/rape who are unwilling to share female spaces with those who are physically male. More broadly I’m also concerned about safety in prisons and hospital wards and the effects on women’s sports.
I have spoken out anonymously online and there have been some rather heated debates in my workplace.
IC, Cat person, feminist, abuse survivor
I care because I feel my identity and lived experience as a woman is being challenged, judged and altered without my consent and any attempt to raise this as a concern is attacked. This matters because important legal rights that protect me are being eroded – making space for everyone should not mean removing protection and disadvantaging others.
I have spoken to friends and interacted with people on social media.
I have been told to shut up because I don’t know or understand what I’m talking about. I have been told I am a TERF so therefore nothing I say is valid.
C M
I’m a feminist and understand the political risks and impact on women of removing the word – woman – we use to refer to female people. Working in publishing, I see words and their meanings as intensely political.
I objected to a ‘feminist publishing style guide’ at my workplace which used gender identities thinking suggesting using terms including ‘people who menstruate’ and ‘womxn’ – in an organisation that has used the international feminist understanding of biological sex and gender as a social construct to advance women’s rights, funding progressive work over decades including my project.
I am currently watching a situation unfold with the result that my project will be closed down. I suspect my views on gender are part of the factors in that proposed closure, but have no evidence as yet that this is the case.
M, feminist working in publishing
As a woman this directly affects me and all women
I post on social media daily and bring up the subject in real life whenever I can!!
I have had direct threats via DMs on twitter.
E.U, Lifelong feminist supporting women’s issues around the world
This matter was brought to my attention when my mum died suddenly in Nov 2019. She was banned from plaid cymru for stating the biological facts
I spoke about things when my mum first died, but I was afraid of the impact on my non profit.
I feel that Facebook has picked up that I sometimes write on the likes of Standing for Women, Fair Play to women, Resisters, and UK woman Facebook groups. not hundred percent sure, but I notice when I’ve not posted on these groups our posts tend to get seen more, who knows, but as I’ve seen how the activists attack the likes of JK Rowling on her children posts, it worries me they do the same to our small not for profit.
Speako, this is for you mum
After I did the Freedom Programme I noticed that I had a sort of bodily trauma response if I couldn’t control my boundaries around unfamiliar men. Even at the door of my own house.
Actually that experience had always been there, but I hadn’t recognised it before. I have trans people in my life and I read them as trans people – there’s a mix of male and female characteristics there – so I get that response less but it’s still there.
When I started to understand what Stonewall are doing I was horrified. Firstly, there absolutely must still be single sex services for domestic abuse victims. I honestly start to cry when I realise that Stonewall are callous enough to want to take that away. That is nothing to how I felt when I read the Stronger Together guidance endorsed by Scottish Women’s Aid that advises actively gaslighting women who are victims of domestic abuse.
I needed a safe space full of women to discuss and process what happened to me, and I’m so grateful to my local Women’s Aid for doing that.
My mother in particular kept pressuring me to center the needs of my abusive husband, and it was really hard to hold my own reality. I clung to anyone who would let me have my own reality. Here are Scottish Women’s Aid, signing up to taking women’s reality away. They could have said, no we won’t use our position of power to deny women’s reality or diminish the importance of their feelings about that.
Secondly, I saw that Stonewall want to remove any safeguards from obtaining a GRC, and that this would mean male presenting male people in women’s spaces. I can probably work with male people who have actually transitioned in public toilets. I can possibly work with male people who have actually transitioned and are very very careful in public changing rooms. I am willing to do that for people diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Self ID proposes that any male presenting as male can use any women’s space without being careful, and I can’t work with that.
I have completed consultations in long rambling ways, trying to put in as much as possible. I have spoken to people who I believe to be open to different points of view. I have a Conservative MP, and there is the one advantage to having a Conservative MP that she actually might be receptive to this. I am afraid I am a bit late to the party, as it’s only in the last couple of years that I’ve really been aware of this stuff and capable of actually doing anything, because I was very overwhelmed by the domestic abuse.
I’ve experienced the general of being called a TERF. The term TERF means “woman against whom it is acceptable to perpetrate misogynistic abuse and violence”. It’s distressing for any woman to be called that. It does trigger something particular for me. Especially when women use it and give validity to the idea that it can be legitimate to perpetrate misogynistic abuse. Especially when women argue that we must accept or ignore the misogynistic abuse because of the terrible suffering of trans people.
My mother said to me, “you might have to put up with a bit of abuse”. That is essentially what liberal feminists are saying when they use the term TERF. It just makes me feel trapped again with no refuge.
As an only parent, I don’t get to participate in public life very much. I can only really go places where my son can come as well. The only other place I could speak up is work, and I work for a local branch of a national charity that is fairly woke. In any event the issue doesn’t really come up very often in the rural part of the country where I live.
Kimberly
I care as a woman who has been raped about maintaining safe spaces for women. I care as the mother of a girl that she will be able to fully participate in sports without being edged out by a man who was subpar against other men. I care because my sister is transitioning into a transman and I feel that she, as someone who has struggled with mental health since early teens was taken advantage of by online pressure groups and a medical system hell bent on capitalising on her pain.
I have released videos on twitter, spoken out on twitter and in person and most of all I helped found a new political party that is for Scottish independence and also pro women’s rights (Independence for Scotland Party) @IndyScotParty
I have been called a terf by my own sibling. It has caused immense pain and difficulty in my family. I have had death threats. I am contemplating moving out of the country for the safety of my children so I can continue my advocating but keep them safe from those who may do me or us harm.
V, Mum of 4, adult human female
The Gender Dissidents Survey