I care about the safety, privacy and dignity of women and girls.
I’ve spoken out (anonymously) on social media and written blog articles.
I’ve stayed anonymous so have not had any negative consequences in real life.
SamGfree
Category: Others
This matters to me because othering GNC (gender non conforming) men and women as non-men and non-women feels hateful. Because I want my daughter to live in a world without such nonsense. Because I won’t lie or be lied to.
I’ve got in pointless arguments on reddit and twitter, contributed to crowdfunders, written to MPs (including support for those I think are doing well on this issue), fed back to the Labour policy / manifesto process.
I’ve been kicked off & banned from a few reddits and unofficial Labour discord server. Unfollowed on social media by a couple of IRL friends.
Dave
. The majority of our family are convinced our relative is only ‘lashing out’ because he is ‘oppressed’. (I used to be happy to use his preferred pronouns, but since his harassment of me and violent threats made to other women, I no longer extend him that courtesy.) This has been easy for him to achieve because there is so much propaganda that he can access from lobbying groups, from newspapers, from television companies.
He is over 6 foot tall, young and healthy, and I and some others of the women in my family are scared of his aggression. Currently, I feel unable to report the harassment from him to the police, as I’ve read reports of how police treat women who report these aggressive men.
I also know that his immediate family would be likely to seek revenge whether or not the police took it seriously.
I’ve had to stop speaking publicly in my real name on social media about many issues because I fear that the harassment from him will escalate into direct violence against me and my children. Even when I ‘liked’ a post about women’s rights on Facebook, that resulted in a day or two of abusive messages.
I’m branded as ‘transphobic’ because I fear this individual who happens to call himself trans. He was aggressive towards women before he started telling people he was trans, so I consider this fear to be rational. There’s nothing ‘phobic’ about it.
But I have to keep speaking up for reality because it’s the lies and propaganda about gender, trans people and ‘terfs’ that has created the atmosphere where this young man is able to get away with his abusive behaviour.
I have been able to contribute to the governments GRA consultation and have written to my MP as I don’t fear that confidentiality would be broken.
I also don’t fear that this description of my current situation will be able to be traced back to me because there are probably thousands of us in very similar circumstances.
I have a FB account in my own name that I now barely use, but I have anonymous accounts on other social media where I can share and like reasonable views without being further harassed.
The things I did to publicly speak up were so innocuous that I was surprised that the TW in my family became so abusive towards me so quickly. I shared a newspaper article from the Morning Star written by a transwoman (but apparently, not the right sort of transwoman) and I liked a Woman’s Place UK post on Facebook that wasn’t even about the gender/trans issue, but I was still told this was ‘bigotry’ because they are ‘all terfs.’ My first response was to try to reassure him that he didn’t have to agree with the other transwoman whose article I posted, but there was room was respectful discussion. That led to abusive and threatening messages not just left to me, but also to other women in my family, who were told to break all contact with me if they didn’t want to be called ‘transphobes.’
Before this happened, before he told his family that he’s a ‘woman’, he’d already been aggressive towards women and had been told not to return to his university, so I am wary that the likelihood of his harassment of me escalating is high.
The negative consequences of this are that some of my family no longer speak to me. I don’t know how much that is because they are scared of this abusive person in our family or how much they agree with him that I’m a horrible person for thinking that Women’s Place UK are not evil and for thinking that trans people are allowed diversity of thought.
Other negative consequences are that I am nervous when at home because I don’t know if he will just turn up at my doorstep or how violent he will feel justified to be. He often posts things on social media glorifying violence against the police and fascists. (He considers me to be a fascist.) This has affected my mental health to some extent. I’m sure he’d like me to be more adversely impacted than I am, but I will survive. I have to, because I need to do what I can to protect my daughter, my niece, and other women. I might keep a tactical silence in certain places, but I will not be broken.
AnonForSafety, I might be forced into anonymity for my immediate safety, but I have to keep speaking up for the safety of half of the population
This matters to me because I’m a lesbian and as a lesbian I increasingly feel that I’m being erased. Back in 2003-06 I was actively involved in Stonewall in my region. I was on the regional committee, which was headed by a lesbian. Also on the committee was a self-declared non-binary man who was studying Gender Studies at a local university and a transwoman. Although nothing had been said publicly Stonewall had already brought Transgenderism under its now-infamous umbrella. When I questioned this and pointed out that transactivism and lesbians were not a good fit, and when I asked what a straight self-declared non-binary man was doing at Stonewall meetings, it became clear that I was no longer welcome on the committee. I and another lesbian who also spoke up were treated with disapproval.
Our words were secretly recorded by the non-binary Gender Studies student and later included in a pro-trans lecture he gave in which we were quoted and cited as ‘the problem’.
I’ve been trying to warn lesbians for years that Stonewall and Pride don’t represent lesbians and until recently no one’s wanted to believe me.
I’ve been watching this assault on women and lesbians developing for years and very few people have believed me until recently.
I’ve been actively resisting by speaking about it within women’s and lesbian circles. I’ve been blocked and defriended by lots of people. People used to roll their eyes but with the help of material from Woman’s Place UKTransgender Trend and so on I’ve been able to debunk a lot of the nonsense.
I engage with my woke local council, though the fact that I’m an older lesbian means I’m talked down and over by the woke mothers of transgender children.
I continue to hold strictly female events and groups, albeit publicised carefully and not publicly, and to correct anyone who tells me it’s not legal.
I’ve spoken up in a theatre and cafes where the only loos have been unisex and asked loudly why this is so, and what are women who don’t want to find themselves in a cubicle next to a man to do, and occasionally other women have joined in. No one likes unisex loos.
I’ve attended a couple of Woman’s Place meetings, raised issues with my local council and other councils (notably Leeds), stickered with Woman: adult human female and taken part in some direct action. Was due to go to FILIA this year before Covid-19.
I’ve sent a load of people to Mumsnet’s Feminism Chat and they’ve spread the word in turn.
I’ve lost friends. People think I’m a transgender bore and have refused to believe that the very definition of woman is under threat.
I’ve become very aware of ageism and have been astonished at the way I’ve been put down particularly by younger feminists.
I’ve never thought of myself as particularly clever or rational but I’m really very frightened by the speed and stealth with which people have been duped into believing something that, once you. start to ask a few basic questions, falls apart,
I’ve felt isolated at times and wondered whether it’s me that’s mad. I look at Canada and Ireland and the state of academia and despair. I think there is good reason to be very scared, particularly if you’re a lesbian. It’s shocking how complacent everyone has been in enabling Trans ideology to go untested and unquestioned.
Perhaps the most negative thing of all is realising how easily seduced by dangerous ideas people are. I never used to understand how the nazis could have attracted so many people. Now I see how easy it is to persuade apparently clever, influential people that black is white, male is female and it’s reasonable for a judge to tell a woman to call the man in the dock opposite ‘he/ him’ on pain of imprisonment. That judge should have been disciplined.
I’ve been a Guardian reader and a Labour voter my entire life and now feel disenfranchised because I can’t vote for Labour or the Lib Dems because of their mindless adoption of TWAW politics. It’s really unsettling.
And finally, I have lost trust in those who are supposed to be brighter and more powerful and informed than me. So many MPs and councils and doctors and judges and teachers and university lecturers have just lapped this gender crap up without question. Including women and lesbians! So many people who turn out to be deeply, blindly misogynistic and homophobic. That’s the really frightening thing. That’s what gives me nightmares.
Susannah, adult human female
I used to attend lesbian conferences in Europe and in recent years (noticeable up to 2014 when I stopped) became more and more uncomfortable with lesbians taking testosterone and AGP’s (autogynaephilic) in lesbian space. A new breed of ‘queers’ had arrived, with coloured hair, anarchist views and aggressive stance.
In the end the first non trans lesbian conference was held in Amsterdam in 2013 I think, and for the first time I was in lesbian company where we’d all felt the same but had not spoken up before.
I joined Twitter and became aware of Maria Maclachlin’s assault. At that point I really started to take an interest as I had feared for a few years something similar might happen.
I am under my own name on Twitter and am vocal. Sometimes I get nasty comments but nothing serious. I am a little nervous but think I need to stand up.
II, Middle aged lesbian, I’ve seen and experienced a lot, but nothing like this
Categories
We have worked hard to get safe spaces
I care because women matter. We have worked hard to get safe spaces, to protect us from male violence, to have the right to single sex spaces. I have a daughter and I don’t want her sharing intimate settings with someone with male tendencies. Plus if a man wishes to present differently than society expects then good for him. Why should we insist on how women or men look or present. But that does not mean they change sex. They remain a man dressing as he pleases.
I share on social media. I’ve spoken to other women.
My voice has been quiet as I am afraid to speak out.
Steph, Mum of 2, mid forties
I’m autistic, I was diagnosed at 41. I spent a lot of my teens, in the 90s, thinking I was ‘born in the wrong body’ and a man, really, because I didn’t fit in, I didn’t see myself in other women, I think literally and in black and white (if I am not this one thing, I must be the other).
It hurts me to think of autistic girls now feeling the same yet being encouraged to take a path of transition without being helped to understand themselves as autistic.
Diagnosis rates for women and girls on the autistic spectrum remain very low; there may be significant numbers of undiagnosed girls heading for or in treatment. I am deeply concerned by Olsen’s concept of ‘transing away autism’. Autism is a lifelong different way of being. To say it can be cured by transition does an enormous disservice to young people, who will still operate differently in the world after transition, and plays into a cure rhetoric which is deeply damaging for autistic people globally.
I have questioned on social media, led threads on a discussion board, answered surveys and written to my MP (Lisa Nandy, awaiting response). I feel guilty I do not do more but I get a lot of support from the online autistic community and am afraid of losing that.
I have been criticised on Twitter for ‘liking’ posts.
SJD, Autistic woman
It feels like a step backwards in the fight for women’s rights. We need safe spaces. We are harassed from a young age. We are oppressed from a young age. We have to constantly work to get what men have easily. To open up access to womens rights to anyone declaring themselves as women, is to redefine the meaning of women and to dismiss and undermine our oppression, our needs, our history
I’ve spoken to women in my family ages 15 to 85 to find their thoughts. Every single one expressed concern and also fear /reluctance about speaking out.
I’ve raised the issue in local political party and with close colleagues.
I’ve posted on social media – initially to defend transexual women, then to enquire about this new definition of trans and then to speak out strongly against it.
I’ve been called a bigot, right wing, terf and added to block lists on social media.
I’ve had my photograph taken at a demo by a man I do not know who did not introduce himself or request the photo. The photo was one of several posted on social media with comments calling women in it terfs and bigots.
c, Woman from Glasgow
As a trans man I feel like I have responsibility to show what we can be and not how we are portrayed in the media and on social media where a mockery is being made by self ID even being considered as anything other than pandering to a vocal militia.
I have become more vocal on social media and find myself wanting to peruse my doctorate in order to contribute to the research that needs done.
I have been harassed and accused of unsavoury things.
Kjp, Trans man who won’t be belittled by the masses
This matters to me because I can not stand by while men lie about their intentions and their hijacking of the trans rights movement to allow male-bodied people into female-only spaces. They have no concern or regard for our safety and use gaslighting and emotional arguments to present themselves as victims and those who disagree as aggressors who threaten their lives.
I have written blog posts on the subject and engaged with TRAs on Twitter, trying to get a handle on their side of the story, which basically is “Accept us at our word you evil TERF, and stop whining about your safety and dignity.”
I have also spoken to the mother of a trans child on a Zoom call, working to build bridges between GC and TRAs. She shares my fears for women’s dignity and safety while wanting to create a world where her child won’t be shut out and rejected for not being a “real” woman. We had a great conversation and hope to repeat it. Her honesty makes it worthwhile.
I have been unfollowed, and some prominent people have tried to “correct” me. I’ve been able to stand up to them, though.
Wendy Cockcroft, Asker of awkward questions, lover of objective reality and truth
The Gender Dissidents Survey 