Author: bomp123

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Parent

I have never felt more passionate on any other issue than this

I care because I have a daughter and the thought that she may grow up in a world where she will enjoy less protections than I have, terrifies me.

I feel I would be letting her down if I don’t do something to stop this erosion of women’s rights.

I have never felt more passionate on any other issue than this.

I have spoken up on social media, both under my own name and a pseudonym. I have attended several women’s events and pledged money where needed/where I can. I have spoken to most of my real life friends and family to bring them up to speed on the situation. I have written to my MP several times and I think the next step will be seeing him in person.

One long standing friend called me a transphobe a few years ago and we haven’t spoken since. I’ll never forgive her I don’t think!

We have a non binary person in my team at work and I’m terrified of there being consequences at work if I’m too outspoken about this.

Marisa C, Concerned parent

Categories
Private sector

I wrote thoughtful, detailed letters and received responses from very few

This matters to me because the words ‘woman’ and ‘female’ need to mean something if we intend to use them as a practical and meaningful way to categorise and protect a class of people. If female also means male, it effectively means nothing at all. We need female to mean something specific because we need to be able to speak about, discuss, monitor, evaluate and address the very specific life experiences, oppressions, health issues and prejudices experienced exclusively by females.

Sex is just what we are, it’s not an identity, it’s not a feeling, we become female at conception and we die female. If they dig us up in 200 years they’ll be able to tell we were female, they won’t know (or care) how we chose to identify. Life as female human beings means a different path to navigate than life experienced by males. That’s true no matter how you identify. I won’t swap that basic material fact, rightly defined in for something as flimsy, fluid, subjective and restrictive as gender. I am female, but I reject gender stereotypes forced on females.

Gender stereotypes don’t help females, and they don’t help males either. Live as you choose, be ‘who’ you want to be, but protect in law those who are disproportionately advantaged for their sex – for ‘what’ they are.

I have written letters to politicians, elected representatives and councillors. I wrote thoughtful, detailed letters and received responses from very few. The responses I received were often cagey, tentative, and most avoided the questions I asked, or declined to comment on practicalities of GRA legislation. Often I received basic responses  from staffers that basically just ignored everything I asked and instead pointed me to inadequate sources that they insisted would “educate” me, even when I sent letters containing credible references, evidence and stats of my own. It was very clear that several were anxious about the subject, and others didn’t understand the complexity and felt unable to address questions competently. 

I can count the number of politicians who actively engaged on one hand,  most  of them openly agreed with my points and were able to offer informed commentary, and only one didn’t agree but was still willing to discuss. I can’t reveal who that is because they’d probably be kicked out of their party. Politicians seem either poorly informed or frightened to discuss.

I have attended multiple meetings of women’s groups. Only one has passed without threats, protest, disruption or violence against the attendees. All of these meetings welcomed trans attendees, often had trans speakers and opposition campaigners in attendance were always given time to speak.  I have worried for my own safety too many times. We never go alone, we organise ourselves to arrive in groups.

I have attended peaceful protests at Parliament. The only disruption or aggression came from  those who attended to disrupt speakers. Babies to 90s, male and female, plenty trans people too, but coverage always characterises you as “angry middle aged women” 

I have delivered leaflets across my city. I financially support my local grassroots group. I sign and share petitions. I created a GRA reform PowerPoint for elderly women’s group who felt too frightened to ask for info.

I have to be very careful because I know that being vocal about this may lead to activists trying to pressure my employer to sack me.

I work in a role/industry that doesn’t welcome public political opinions. I would love to say more about what I do and why it demonstrates my active, personal and professional commitment to meaningful diversity and inclusion but I can’t. 

I am a member of a political party and attended a local party social group for women for some months. A prominent male GRA campaigner started to attend these women’s group meetings and was hostile from the start. He took photos of our group, shared them online, connected my image and name with my social media, labelled me as “anti-trans” which I’m not at all, and effectively doxxed me. I had to stop attending the women’s group. I’m angry about it but couldn’t fight back,  I need to protect my family and my livelihood. I can speak my mind freely when it affects only me, but I can’t risk those around me, and that risk is real.

I can truthfully say that I have always been careful in expressing my views, never abusive, but I have still received death threats, abusive comments, sexually violent threats. I have been doxxed. Many women I know have experienced so much worse. That’s the reality of it.

GeorgieM

Categories
Parent

I am worried about implications for my son and daughter

I am worried about implications for my son and daughter – how my son will treat and view women, and the possibility of my daughter getting attacked if single-sex spaces are no longer protected

I have posted on Mumsnet and had discussions with my family (including my sibling who is a transwoman).

PS, educated woman, concerned mother

Categories
Others

I will march if I have to

I care because between the age of 9 to around 11 years old I was sexually abused by a male ‘family friend’. It matters to me to have a safe place away from men to get undressed at the swimming pool and to go to the toilet in peace without men in this space. I didn’t know or even have on my radar any issues with the trans movement and have no ill will to trans people and completely agree they should have safe spaces, unisex spaces but can never agree to give up safe spaces for women and I will march if I have to.

Well only tonight have I had the courage to post on my Facebook JK Rowling post, I’m ashamed to say I’ve not done it sooner through fear of being called transphobic or a bigot but I’ve decided I must speak out.

Only time will tell but so far 3 of my Facebook friends have liked it and no one has unfriended me, if they do they do but I hope this means real life people actually are nothing like the hate on Twitter.

Karen T, private sector (employed)

Categories
Healthcare Parent

I have two very young daughters and I want to be able to look them in the eye when they’re old enough to understand

I care about safeguarding, I care about children being taken down irreversible pathways medically, I care about women’s sports, I care about freedom of speech and I care about us not being seen as non-men or as second-class citizens.

I have two very young daughters and I want to be able to look them in the eye when they’re old enough to understand and we look back on this lunacy and laugh.

I am using my expertise in the sports and charities sectors to help both a grassroots women’s organisation and an LGB organisation with their campaigns and administration, respectively.

I have raised the issue at work, helping to influence policy, and I’ve discussed with friends and family, who know I can be trusted as a sounding board on the issue.

I have retweeted relevant articles on twitter in my real name (I have about ten blue tick followers, mainly sports celebrities, out of about 850 so hopefully some will take note).

I donate to crowdfunders and to the grassroots movement by standing order and I made a substantial donation to lumos to say thank you to JKR.

One of my best friends and I had a row about men using loopholes to access women’s spaces. We’ve been friends for more than ten years and I was frightened at how angry he got with me. Our friendship is only (just) surviving because I’m friends with his wife, too, otherwise I’m sure it’d be over.

Claire G, I’d rather this went away so I can concentrate on more fun stuff

Categories
Parent Private sector survivor

I am supposed to disregard the fact that he is in fact in possession of full male sexual organs

This matters to me because I am a 40 year old mother of a 4 year old daughter. I have been sexually assaulted (police involved) at my place at work as a steward at a premier league football club. I took it in my stride but my wonderful male supervisor witnessed it and had to remind me that it was unacceptable and called the police for me (I was conditioned to accept groping/casual sexual assault).

Beaten by a boyfriend between the ages of 16 and 19. Been called frigid/loose as a school girl by school boys. Flashed 3 times as a teenager, the third time the male adult masturbated in front of me. Received comments about my body/appearance constantly since teenage years. Sexually assaulted on a train at night, reported to police the next day, nothing they could do.

Most of this took place in PUBLIC! Fuck inviting this to a private (previously) safe space where nudity is involved.

I am an HR Manager and have supported a male colleague through transition. He subsequently gaslighted me and started using the female toilet 24 hours after becoming a trans woman, in the flick of a switch.

I am supposed to disregard the fact that he is in fact in possession of full male sexual organs. I ended up triggered and in counselling and uncomfortable to now use the shared toilets.  I don’t want this shit for my daughter. I DON’T WANT THIS SHIT FOR ANYONE!

I’ve followed feminists and dipped my toe in the water by asking Jon Ronson exactly what he felt that Graham Linehan had done wrong. Got threatened, terfed and gaslit. I am now prepared to level up!

I have also been berated and hated on by my woke sister, who in fact in her youth, witnessed me being beaten by my then boyfriend on more than one occasion. 😦

Owning womanhood for the first time in my life, anakindrytalker

Categories
Healthcare

As an eighteen-year-old student nurse, I didn’t speak up about Jimmy Saville

This matters to me because I am a woman and a mother of daughters, I care about our rights and opportunities and I care about the dignity and choices of all women. As a Nurse, I also care that people with gender dysphoria are able to access psychological therapies and the treatment that they need.

It matters to me that women and girls can participate fully in society, whether that is with our career choices, via sport, or through social activities, and I want women and girls to have the privacy and dignity they need when dealing with intimate body functions. I care passionately that my daughters can be the women they wish to be, expressing their personality and identity their way and I want them to enjoy safe sex with partners of their choice.

I care that regulatory capture has already eroded safeguarding boundaries and is seeking to reduce them further.  I care that vulnerable people can be persuaded that being Trans / Non-binary will solve their complex issues. Professionally, I have encountered people having more surgery “because if I just had my breasts enlarged/face sculpted/other procedure I would be happy” These people must not be sold a lie.

This especially matters to me, because of something I didn’t speak up about. Thirty plus years ago, as an eighteen-year-old student nurse, I didn’t speak up about Jimmy Saville.

At the time it was a trivial issue and I had no idea of the breadth of the man’s depravity, I just thought he was a creep. But I have asked myself many times since, what if? What if I had said something? what if others had said something? could he have been stopped sooner if the incidents had been stitched together and the picture was clear? We need sunlight.

I bore my friends and family endlessly. I tweet – though under a pseudonym – about issues that affect women and girls, have contributed to crowdfunders and have tried to raise awareness on online platforms, endeavouring to patiently, factually challenge incorrect posts and to repost and celebrate the views of feminists I respect.

I have written to my MP, responded to consultations and am part of online feminist groups. I have written and emailed organisations whose policies undermine the rights of women and girls. I have a long list of organisations whose products I boycott as a result.

Unfortunately, my nursing code of conduct and healthcare employers social media guidelines limit what I can write in my own name – so no I haven’t experience negative consequences, because I work within the rules. I would like to go beyond them.

Helen, Woman, Mother, Nurse,

Categories
survivor

My mother & sister were sexually assaulted

I care because my mother & sister were sexually assaulted. I have sympathy with those with dysphoria who’ve had sex reassignment but I do not trust men. They will abuse self-ID. The numbers of women who’ve been sexually assaulted by men is a warning that’s being ignored.

I have expressed myself online, despite fear of violence against me for doing so.

I believe I would be sacked from my job if my views were known.

Pear Trio, Lifelong LGBT member & supporter till all this abuse of women., Three Pears

Categories
Men

I’ve seen the damage first hand…it tore the family apart

I’ve seen the damage first hand when the daughter of a good friend, a lovely person went to Bristol Uni. Very quickly stopped responding to parents & siblings, wouldn’t come home for Christmas etc. And when she did finally return home 12 months later raged at everyone for bringing her up like a girl, she’s non binary now. It tore the family apart, just so sad.

I’ve written to & emailed my Labour MP, no reply. I’ve written to M&S, Sainsbury’s, Debenhams & got the standard equality but thanks for your concerns responses.

No consequences, but I’m a man.

Paul, Concerned Dad

Categories
Others

I am angry about the drift towards rejecting the term “same-sex attraction”

I care about the conflation of sex and “gender identity” because it risks undermining the legal and political rights of women and lesbians. How can the pay gap be tracked when people who have achieved a top job as a male then identify as a woman, changing their employers statistics overnight and erasing any trace of the real picture? No longer being able to reliably record, collate and analyse statistics of the social, political and economic impact of our biological sex will make it impossible to have an evidence-based discussion about sexism and misogyny.

I am angry about the drift towards rejecting the term “same-sex attraction” and that organisations such as Stonewall are not supporting lesbians, and are actively silencing discussion on this issue.

I am very worried about the numbers of young lesbians that report that they resorted to defining themselves as non-binary, asexual or “queer”, often being coerced into having relationships with males, and taking several years to realise that they were lesbians.

I am very proud of those young women now detransitioning/desisting from a trans identity, but am very upset about their experiences of a conveyor-belt approach to hastily validating and medicalising their trans identity, with no consideration of the other factors that had led them to start on this path, and no exploration/promotion of the possibility that they were lesbians.

Given that such a high proportion of those in prison who identify as “transwomen” are convicted of serious and sexual offences, then either there is a high proportion of transwomen who are perpetrators, or a high proportion of perpetrators who falsely claim to be transwomen – either way, including biological males in women-only spaces clearly adds a new and statistically very significant risk, and the silencing around discussing this is nothing new in the context of sexual and physical abuse.

I have initiated many discussions in real-life with people and have shared articles on social media. I have taken part in discussions on social media and tried to focus my thoughts on those who are new to this discussion and need to see something other than name-calling and antagonism.

I have had a huge amount of my time taken up by having to keep responding to antagonistic and accusatory comments, rather than leave them stand – it is difficult to get the balance between not allowing people to maliciously take up my time, and ensuring that they do not get to dictate the tone and context of the discussion. I have been very fearful of reprisals and targetting of organisations that I’m publicly associated with, so have always had to double-check everything I write/say.

Jill H, Lesbian feminist