Category: Media and Arts

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Media and Arts survivor

He uses women’s facilities. He’s a danger to all young women and girls

I’m a woman and I care about women’s rights to privacy, safety, and definition as a class of people; female. When I was 16 I was groomed online to provide sexual favours for a 21 year old man who lives in the UK. He probably still has illegal photos of me.

For nearly eight years he made me believe that he loved me and we would live together. He lied to me to get close to me and use me, then throw me away when I stopped being useful to him, When I started asking hard questions. He gaslighted many women in the same way. He told me he treats all of his female friends the same way. I didn’t see him for the predator he is until he was out of my life.

He’s an invisible predator and right now he is still abusing young women and girls and there’s nothing I can do to stop him. He uses women’s facilities. He’s a danger to all young women and girls. There’s no justice for me, or my lost sanity. His collective lies drove me mad and nearly killed me for a time. I’m better now, but nothing can make up for what he put me through. I want predators like him barred from impersonating women. I want all of the women he meets to be warned of his guilt everywhere he goes. He is not a woman.

I mostly talk with my family, I comment and share things on social media. I sign petitions and write to government and some organizations to oppose gender identity.

I literally have no friends left, but one of them was my abuser, so good riddance.

Hanna, artist, writer

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Media and Arts

I got myself in a lot of trouble in my ‘queer’ community

I care because it’s dogmatic and dishonest movement that misrepresents the views of gender critical feminists as bigots rather than people that fight for female rights.

I got myself in a lot of trouble in my ‘queer’ community.

Male drag queens I know hate me and are threatening.

Rachel C – 25 year old television writer and politics graduate

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Media and Arts trans familiy

Seeing her young daughter being compelled to call her dad is one of the worst abuses of power I’ve witnessed

I feel that my niece’s interests weren’t served by becoming absorbed by the gender movement. It hasn’t helped her development as a person and she has made no progress in dealing with her problems and becoming a self sufficient person. Seeing her young daughter being compelled to call her dad is one of the worst abuses of power I’ve witnessed.

I find the dogma around the ideology threatening. I don’t think we have much to hold onto in life except facts and the truth. I want to be able to speak and hear the truth.

I also do not appreciate being asked to pretend that male violence doesn’t exist, just to make men feel relieved at not having to deal with their problems.

I also liked the Liberation part of Women’s liberation, I liked feeling free. Everything now indicates that women ought not to expect that anymore, almost as if there was a mistake and we all got a wrong message, and our desires, thoughts and creations must be suppressed once more.

In professional settings I have spoken about my anger at political parties’ anti-women stances. I have spoken about the betrayal I felt at seeing accomplished and prominent women saying things to the detriment of other women, for their own personal political gain. I’ve brought up the homophobic and misogynistic message promoted by the movement and have been shunned even by my best friends who are gay.

I’ve identified myself as a female centred feminist and tried to spread that notion.

My livelihood has been threatened. I have been informed that my international agents will not be able to be associated with me if I share my views any further.

I have had two important commissions withdrawn because my views could apparently make young people feel unsafe.

I’ve been informed multiple times that I should be learning from these young people, but not because they are gifted and intelligent. It’s as if I need instruction by some red guard and I find this frightening.

I am aware that my contemporaries will not now promote or include me in ongoing or new projects. It has left me cut off and isolated and wondering how I can move forward in such an oppressive and fanciful intellectual environment.

Another negative consequence is that I feel hardened and wary, and this mindset is not conducive to creative life.

C, creative industries

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Media and Arts

I objected to a ‘feminist publishing style guide’ at my workplace

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

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Media and Arts

I am a female political cartoonist ‘cancelled’ by UK left wing paper the Morning Star

I care because I am a female  political cartoonist ‘cancelled’ by UK left wing paper the Morning Star in Feb 2020, after they published a cartoon by me about the GRA, then caved in to TRA and union pressure and apologised.  Since then my reputation has been trashed around the world and many people probably now think of me as ‘ that transphobic’ cartoonist’.

They did not communicate with me about their actions, just dropped me after 5 years of being a regular correspondent,  someone who they described in 2015 as their ‘star cartoonist’.

I have joined the Free Speech Union, joined spinster.xyz, and made contact with feminist journalists. I have written to MPs. I have publicised feminist websites and organisations to my friends.

I was threatened with expulsion from my union, and jumped before I was pushed so as not to embroiled my fellow union reps in an investigation which could easily become public and cause them damage. My friend and her 17 year old daughter were so abused on twitter, merely for being professionally linked to me, that they have had to come off twitter for good.

Stella, Cartoonist and book illustrator from Bristol, UK

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Healthcare Media and Arts

I write for a well known website

I first and foremost came to this as a matter of conscience.  I cannot go along with the lie that it is possible to change sex. This was the starting point for a much deeper understanding of the issues that followed.  Now I understand the question of transgenderism as much more complex.

There are many reasons for gender dysphoria and many treatments but I am mostly concerned with the effect it has on women and girls.  Issues of consent privacy safety and boundaries.  The other issue for me is the teaching of gender identity in schools.  This is my main area of work.

I want to stop children being told that they could have been born in the wrong body and stop them being taught a version of queer theory.

I write for a well known website.

Shelley Charlesworth , Former BBC journalist who believes in evidence and open debate about transgender issues

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Media and Arts

Policy decisions should be based on facts

I believe that policy decisions should be based on facts in all situations. I strongly feel that people who need protection or special provision of any kind, and have it for fact-based reasons, should not lose those rights without vigorously examination of the fact-based reasons.

I am outraged that a group with societal power (males) is enforcing a change to the meaning of words that describe women, because they want to, and that no part of the establishment seems interested in stopping them.

I have retweeted relevant information. I have taken the opportunity to talk to people, particularly women, wherever possible; especially in a medical setting. I have leafleted for Fairplay for Women and spoken to the public while doing so.

Some people who have previously regarded me as a reliable source of information now doubt me – they can’t believe that what I tell them about the threat to women’s rights can be true. Some now regard me as boring or obsessive on this subject. Men tend to say they feel attacked by what I say. I have recently changed career, and now doubt I will find employment in my new area of work as I am not ‘right-thinking.’

Anne James., Would-be playwright from a working-class background

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Media and Arts

Not one moment of my life has ever been “cis”

As a rape victim and domestic abuse survivor, I know too well the visceral reality of existing in a female body. Erasing womanhood as the unique experience, both painful and joyful, that it is only deepens misogyny and endangers our rights and safety. In the US, women still don’t have constitutional equality! Sex-based rights are specific, distinct and sacrosanct.

Men who grow up with male privilege will never know what it is to be a woman. They have their own struggles. We have ours. If you don’t think abusive men will take advantage of trans self ID laws, then you truly erase women’s lived experiences and oppression.

Even without the opportunists, women shouldn’t have to justify why we deserve our OWN rights and spaces. You would never demand a PoC justify their need for race based rights or race based organizations.

I have been vocal on social media and with friends. In public conversations I object to being called cis or being forced to declare my pronouns. Cis implies a privilege women cannot experience. Cis erases the struggle women face to rebel against and defy gender stereotypes, roles, and behavior. Not one moment of my life has ever been “cis.”

I have been harassed online, usually by liberal men. Most recently, a progressive male spent the night berating me online, mansplaining womanhood to me, calling me a bad feminist, and telling me that female oppression didn’t matter compared to trans males’ feelings.

More frighteningly though, I have had professional contacts in the political world sever ties and support for me over my objection to trans athletes in women’s sports. This not only bullied and silenced me amongst work colleagues, but it also means I lost out on work recommendations from them when I was looking for a job.

María, Indigenous American, asylum immigrant, mixed race female, rape victim, US

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Media and Arts

I just didn’t want to participate in the charade

Privacy while undressing/getting healthcare is important to me. I don’t want to participate in someone’s fetish. Men don’t belong in women’s sports. Women’s rights in general matter to me.

I donate. I offer my services to GC orgs for free. I raise awareness of people around me. I’m active on social media.

I get suspended on social media on a regular basis.

This is not a really a consequence, but a decision: I didn’t join women’s groups in my industry, even though I’d LOVE the support and the connections that are being made there, because they’ve apologized for using the word “female”, they accept both TW and TM and they center gender ideology in their definition of women’s groups. I just didn’t want to participate in the charade.

Sarah

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Healthcare Media and Arts

It is not the number of biological sexes that are too few, but the gender roles that are too narrow

I am a free speech fundamentalist: Only threats, direct incitements to violence and speech that directly threatens national security should be forbidden. I also think it should be a human right for children to be helped to find peace with their own bodies without having to alter them hormonally or surgically. My view is that it is not the number of biological sexes that are too few, but the gender roles that are too narrow. It should be possible to be however and whatever you want/feel yourself to be inside the biological body you inhabit.

I have participated on Facebook (but not from my own page, only on other trans lobby-critical-people’s pages), discussed it at home and written to Members of Parliament.

Those who know me, do not know that I am trans lobby-critical. None of my colleagues do, I don’t think. If they did know, they would be very worried and I would lose funding and thus be rendered with no chance to continue being an artist.

Anne, Artist, Norway