The Gender Dissidents SurveyI care about this because my daughter told me aged 13 that she thought she was a boy.
I am a journalist so have explored the issue in media coverage. I do not feel able to voice a public opinion.
I have had a negative response from colleagues who think I should not question the evidence base for medical interventions on children and young people who say they are the “wrong sex”.
ConcernedMum, My daughter is not a boy
I care because I see girls being told that there is something fundamentally wrong with them, at a time when they should be being encouraged to explore themselves and come to like and love themselves. What’s worse is that they are also being put on a path to unnecessary and hugely damaging medication and surgery. I also care because I believe the truth – and freedom to talk the truth – matters. I should not have to refer to a man as “she” or vice versa, any more than I should have to refer to a white person as black.
At the moment, I have not done much; I have discussed with friends and a few colleagues at work. I have refused to fill in diversity questionnaires because they ask what gender I was assigned at birth, without giving me the option to say that I was not assigned a gender at birth. I have written to the organiser explaining why I could not fill it in and asking that the questionnaire be amended to allow me to fill it in. I have contributed funds towards people taking legal action to prevent the medicalisation of children.
I have been deliberately low key about my views so far.
Kate
I fell into this rabbit hole in Oct 2018. I knew straight off that some well meaning teacher would have had my 10 year old self in a binder, steered towards hormones, fed a load of dangerous ideas. I was in shock at single biggest attack on womens rights in my lifetime. How did I not know? The mainstreaming of pseudo science, of pink brains in blue bodies, with it’s attendant State sanctioned mutilation of children. Has everyone gone collectively barmy?
I started looking into it properly from Oct 2018. Playing catch up. I accumulated 1000s of reference links & screen shots.I’ve not stopped talking or posting about Transgenderism since. I know I’ve grown awareness in my own friendship networks and community networks, I did a lot of explaining amongst my local muslim contacts online. Kept encouraging them to start talking about it in their family groups. Transgender Trend stuff was really helpful. I challenged supporters of No Outsiders when parents were protesting. Activists MPs & TU people.
Virtue signallers were all over Brum social media. How many had read it? I’m still regularly tweeting Jess Phillips with #childsafeguarding. I found Gender Critical Green Party members, I’d have left the party if I hadn’t. We’re trying to get a GP womens rights policy agreed. Got Lab friends to raise issue in their local branch & nationally: working on getting the Lab Wom Declaration passed at branch. Culture: Chased up Barber Institute re Drag Queen Story Hour & Coronation St, long story. Written regularly to MSM. Signed petitions. Written to MPs. Donated to crowd fundraisers. Put up stickers. Bought Tshirts. Supported others. Been able to offer words of comfort & experience, especially to younger campaigners, who get caught up with vicious eejits online.
Don’t let them waste your time & energy or rent space free in your head. Age has its advantages.
Been called: bigot, shameful, told I’ll be dead soon anyway because I’m old, accused of fighting a phony war. Dropped by numerous online ‘friend’s & political group pages. All a bit hurtful, especially at first. But seeing what’s happened to others has really boiled my piss. I’ve nothing to lose. I’ve no career or reputation. My true friends are just that, true. So I’ve been fearless in speaking up & out. For all those confused misled kids who can’t and for whom this is urgent. For all the women who are more vulnerable than I. Sanity must prevail.
Susan Green , Not dead yet
This matters to me for many reasons. Because women are being erased and redefined, reduced to their bodily functions, recategorised as a sub section of their own classification, having their rights removed and their ability to stand up for and protect themselves reduced. Because I worry for especially young women who are learning who they are and taking drastic actions which they live to regret. Because I’m seeing an increase in homophobia. Because there are troubling safeguarding issues for my daughters.
Because the males who are impinging on women’s protected spaces are affecting vulnerable women and certain religions and because asking why there’s a male in your safe space isn’t protecting women it could get you arrested for a hate crime. Because I’m dismayed that decent people who think they’re being liberal and welcoming are unaware of the cost to women. Because I see so much aggression and vile comments aimed at level-headed women just trying to raise awareness of the issue.
I’ve not done much. Discussed it some with family. Chat in private groups of like-minded women. I was sharing stuff on Twitter but I’ve dialled back on that because I’m freelance and I’m working currently with a third sector organisation and they are notoriously ‘woke’.
A year ago I was right there on the Trans Women are Women side of the fence, but then I started to see how simply raising legitimate concerns and questions about how we could accommodate male bodied people into women’s and girls’ safe spaces got you instantly labelled as a TERF.
And I started to see male bodied people using their self ID to access and beat women out of female specific awards and sports and scholarships that were there to redress the male focused opportunity and privilege, and then I started to see rape crisis centres have their funding cut for trying to protect traumatised women from sharing a safe space with a male bodied (ergo more physically powerful) person, and Jessica Yaniv and male bodied people who self ID abusing vulnerable women in prison. (Obv, not all Trans people.) And again when women tried to raise legitimate concerns about these things – whilst still trying to find a way to support trans people and help them to find a way to live their lives as they want to, safely and free from abuse and incorporated and welcomed – still being shouted at and labelled transphobic. And then I saw lesbians being called bigots for being same sex attracted. And then I saw people trying to pretend that actual biology ergo science was not a tested, provable thing which is a very dangerous route to take. Then I’m afraid my position shifted somewhat.
I started out just asking simple questions about safeguarding and was called transphobic and a TERF very quickly. I saw the same pattern repeated again and again with pleasant, caring women who showed concern for trans women and wanted them to live safe happy lives but not at the expense of women feeling safe and secure because of opportunistic men taking advantage of self ID, being threatened and called bigots and then I realised there was something very wrong with the TRA movement.
Shiv, Woman, mother, freelancer, feminist
I care about protecting women’s sport, and I dislike how it’s become a mockery – odd kids donning dresses and deciding that’s enough to make them a woman. I don’t particularly mind if a fully transitioned trans woman shares a bathroom – but I also understand that plenty of people would be frightened or worried about this – but men shouldn’t be able to self ID their way into women’s spaces, awards, jobs etc.
I’ve just spoken to friends.
A university friend has been dismissive of GC people and I like and respect him, which makes me start to doubt whether I’m being fair.
V, Not very vocal supporter of women’s rights.
I am very conflicted about about this. I want to hear debates about women only spaces, woman as a category being denied or superseded but these debates are being shut down so I can’t hear the arguments being made.
And it feels like they are being shut down by women who have had all the privilege of growing up male telling me how I should behave and what I should think, just like men.
I’m also concerned that women are being written out of history as I keep hearing of women who have achieved something out of the ordinary for their era being co-opted as trans. I understand that trans people are woefully under represented in history, but so are women. Plus I’ve not heard of any incredible men in history being treated this way. It just always seems to be about controlling the female narrative. And I worry that I feel this way because I am a white, straight woman, born a woman, who identifies as a woman. But maybe I feel this way as I’ve been told to check my privilege. I just want to understand what the debate is.
I’ve spoken to friends about it, but felt wretched like I was being judged for voicing concern. I also don’t feel I know enough not to get shouted down if I say something. I even resist liking something on Twitter for fear of reprisals.
I feel diminished in my friends’ eyes.
Liffy
As a professional ( Special Ed trained) parent of asc child, late dx asc myself, , I’m speaking to safeguard vulnerable children from harmful gender indoctrination.
I wrote a GC picture book 🙂 Spoken out publicly.
I’ve had harassment from publisher, blocked and libelled by authors & librarians, ghosted publicly,
Rachel Rooney, children’s author and teacher
I care about women’s rights to privacy & safety and statistics being truthful.
I have not spoken out.
S, writer
Women’s sex based rights and what’s happening to confused children, which in my opinion is abuse in plain sight.
I’ve spoken out on social media, spoken out to friends at work. Written to my MP (who I know disagrees with me), raised it with other MPs when I’ve seen unfair things happen.
I’ve been called a terf, bigot, right winged, old out of touch woman, all the usual stuff.
Julie Evans, Feminist, a real one, who knows what a woman is.
This is so important to me because women’s oppression is because of our sex – not something we identify into – and generations of women before us have fought so hard for the sex-based rights that we now theoretically have.
We can’t let our rights be trampled on, for the sake of not offending a tiny percentage of people. Sex matters, for so many reasons – and we can’t pretend it doesn’t. This also affects trans people –
if we can’t accurately describe biology and gender ID for fear of causing offence, then we also can’t accurately record statistics (e.g. we can’t properly know how trans people are affected by crime).
I bring up the issue with friends and family if I see an appropriate opening to do so, because so many people have absolutely no idea how this affects them now (and potentially in the future, e.g. when their girl toddler is at secondary school in a decade’s time and might be forced to use ‘gender neutral’ toilets or changing rooms). I like and share posts/articles on social media. I attend meetings (e.g. WPUK) and support others who are experiencing properly negative reactions from their decision to speak up publicly.
I’ve been told my statement that humans can’t change sex is ‘disgusting’ by one of my stepdaughters. When discussing protecting women’s sex-based rights with either of my two stepdaughters, all they hear is me apparently being ‘anti trans’, despite my continually reminding them I am NOT anti trans. Both will listen to me, and engage up to a point – but then refuse to go any further and simply say ‘but I can’t ignore their struggle’ (i.e. the trans community’s struggle for acceptance, which ironically I also am very sympathetic to), and dismiss all concerns about the impact on women’s sex-based rights. Their attitude is that they apparently would be happy to share a public toilet or changing room with a trans woman (at any stage of being ‘trans’) and therefore it’s transphobic to suggest that other girls or women might not be happy to do so.
A friend was cross at me for raising the issue – until she admitted that the reason was that she couldn’t deal with the issue and was happier sticking her head in the sand – but she’s now started to think more critically about this and has realised she’s gender critical too.
Charlotte M, A woman trying to make the world fairer, without women’s rights being trampled
The Gender Dissidents Survey