The Gender Dissidents SurveyI care because I don’t want to be forced to share my space with men. As a general rule I avoid them everywhere, I don’t have male friends anymore and I’m so much happier.
I don’t like my language being policed. I don’t like watching women being earased. Our culture matters. Our lives matter.
I also feel like this is a bigger issue than just trans people, this is just another tentacle of patriarchy, this is a white men’s movement who’s trying to swallow us whole and replace us.
Student
I care about women’s boundaries in prisons, changing rooms, etc. I also am against children being taught that gender stereotypes are more important that sex.
I have got rape and death threats in social media.
Ana J, Spain
This matters to me because it’s important to recognise women as a social/political/legal class. Without it, you can’t have an effective political movement. To erase the definition of a woman and replace it with a feeling serves to entrench sexism even further into our collective thinking which makes it harder to fight with sexist stereotypes (since they’re considered ‘identity’). Further, it serves to get rid of legal protections given to women based on their sex.
It matters to me because I can’t speak out my mind without being considered a bigot while I dedicate all my time to a fight for equality.
I have spoken to friends and family, engaged in online debates and spoken about it on my social media.
I have lost friends and felt excluded from mainstream feminist/ LGBT communities.
AK, bisexual woman, feminist, Poland
I have a lot of reasons but this matters to me because I feel like I am 12 again, in the closet, afraid to come out as a lesbian out of fear. This is the exact same thing, now I fear I would lose more friends and that I’ll be labeled transphobic by just saying that as a lesbian I don’t want anything to do with men and their body parts. That’s the gist of it.
The “other side” keeps telling me that penises can be female, that transwomen can be lesbians. It’s not as bad as conversion therapy but it’s pretty close. I fear that a lot of young lesbians will be growing up confused because they don’t find trans identified boys attractive as they are pressured to confirm to the new norm. Some of them might be pressured into thinking they are men, butch lesbians face this problem because they don’t confirm to society’s stereotypes of what it means to be a woman.
This matters to me because women’s voices are being snuffed, we are told to shut up and conform to the new ideology. I have always been anti organized religion, the left also holds this view apparently yet it’s puzzling to me how the cult-like similarity between these dogmas aren’t distinguished.
TWAW is a dogma, a chant repeated over and over again and anyone who disagrees is considered an undesirable.
I’ve already lived through this as a teenager, struggling with the ever so present homophobia within my society and surroundings. Living in fear of being discovered or outed as a lesbian, not speaking up whenever people proudly displayed their homophobic views.
I found my “tribe” then, my refuge was in the LGBT community. Now that same community is targeting me and other people like me who speak out.
The same community whose principals are being run-over by this new dogma.
I tried to write about it on social media and I got shut down pretty fast after that I began having panic attacks. I made anonymous accounts to voice my opinion.
I have been called transphobic, terf, bigot.
J, Studies philosophy, Montenegro
This really matters to women rights. As long as the Transgender and Gender-ism exists, there would be no women right nor the safety of women.
I have participated in seminars in Korea, having debates with people around or on the internet, spreading the critical inconsistency of it.
I have been troubled with my friends or the societies that saying I’m the phobia one.
Alex, the fatherfucking TERF, Korea
I care because I believe that the LGBT community is following gender theory in a very dogmatic manner, without even stopping to consider alternatives or thinking critically about it.
As a lesbian, who is becoming aware of how this potentially damage young people and women, I’d like my community to have a more rational and open debate about this issue.
A.L, Italy
I care about this issue because it scares me how blind so many people are to a very high risk situation – which is that women and girls are being denied their right to demand privacy.
I have made blog posts, discussed on social media, and spoke to family & friends.
I’ve lost a few friends and been called horrible names.
CC, Snowflakes & liberals hate me, Ireland
I care because I’m worried for the safety for woman. Especially as a lesbian I’ve seen the negative effects all around me. When I was a teenager I was involved in queer trans activist discussions online and those spaces pushed me into wanting to transition.
I’m lucky that I found gender critical thoughts before I voiced that wish and instead learned to deal with my internalised homophobia and accept that my reasoning was not genuine body dysphoria but rather my internalised homophobia and issues with the sexist society we live in and how that affected me growing up.
I have talked extensively about it on social media and will talk about these issues with any friend or family member willing to listen. I’ve also met some radical feminists in my town and have become more active there.
I have been very lucky that there haven’t been many negative consequences and I don’t have to worry about them either. I’m a university student still living with my parents. Even if I where to lose my job, it wouldn’t have much bearing on my life. Despite being a lesbian I do avoid Lgbt spaces, since those tend to be extremely pro trans.
Vanessa, Germany
As a woman, I am afraid of my hardly won rights being taken away from me. I also think vulnerable women will seriously be harmed by this ideology which will ultimately do nothing but to enforce gender stereotypes.
I have written on social media about this subject and started supporting feminist organisations trying to protect women and girl’s sex based rights.
I lost friends. I am scared of future job opportunities being denied to me.
N, I am a 24 year old feminist and socialist woman doing a master’s degree in international law
I care for two reasons, one is emotional and the other factual. I care because women’s rights are constantly challenged. And I care because they lie. No, it is not true that transwomen are female. It has nothing to do with being kind or understanding or I don’t know what else. It’s not true. And I won’t lie just to make them happy while they eat away at my rights as a woman and a febfem.
I have become more and more vocal about these issues, trying to care less and less about any backlash I may receive
Tension with my transgender friend. Depending when we talk, she agrees with me or buries her head in the sand. I don’t wan’t to hurt her so I don’t push as hard as I would online, but it’s so frustrating to see her get so close to being gender critical and then go back to being buried deep in gender theory.
Alicia, International law and Human rights postgraduate student
The Gender Dissidents Survey