Tag: Abuse

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Lesbians Students

I’m tired of being told to sleep with men and accept “girldick”

I care because I’ve watched my mentally ill friends be neutered and abused by a system that does not care for them. I care because as a lesbian, I’m tired of being told to sleep with men and accept “girldick” and being called a bigot for refusing. I care because the sex responsible for 98% of sexual assaults and violent crimes does not belong in private spaces with women and because the imperative should not be on women to figure out if they’re even allowed to be worried for their safety for fear of being harassed or silenced.

I’ve written emails to larger companies who use terms such as “uterus haver” and “people with periods”. I’ve also raised awareness in my personal life and drawn other women’s attention to how close we are to losing our sex based protections.

I’ve lost friends.

Liz, College-aged lesbian and radical feminist, USA

Categories
Students survivor

My life so far has been defined by abuse

I am twenty years old, and my life so far has been defined by abuse. I endured childhood rapes, intimate partner violence, and PTSD in addition to all the abuse that typically comes from being a woman. Nonetheless, I was strong and made it to where I am today. When I was raped in my first year of college, my friend group turned its back on me.

My anger was “an overreaction,” my best friend started dating my rapist, and male friends would tell me I was “slut-shaming” her by being upset.

Already, men were using woke language to silence me. Later, the same man who accused me of slut-shaming and over-reacting came out as non-binary, and suddenly I was the privileged one, and the poor little rich boy was oppressed.

My school is incredibly liberal. Most students support “sex work”, BDSM, and gender self-ID. Those of us who’ve been affected by these institutions keep our mouths shut.

Young men are always stepping up to tell me who I should feel comfortable changing in front of, what my period means, what defines my womanhood, and how I should feel about sexual violence. I say no.

I am a woman because I have XX chromosomes and uterus. The world has treated me a certain way because of it, and that matters to me.

I am afraid. I do not have a lot of money or power in the world. I have spoken with my friends and family. But I am not open or public about my views.

The same people (former friends) who trivialized and mansplained my rape accussed me of “transphobia” and “hating non binary people” and attacked me on facebook. I was forced to come out with all the details of what happened to me to clear my name.

Mick, Woman born a woman

Categories
Students survivor trans familiy

Now I’m going to try and be as strong again

My ex had autogynophilic tendencies and used this as part of decades of domestic abuse including sexual.   After being told that he was most likely a malignant narcissist with psychopathic tendencies i started to see parallels with  TRA attacks that I’d started to see happen.

He had enforced language changed etc from very early on in the relationship. and I was loving and accommodating and realised how easy it would have been for me.to be a trans widow.

Additionally I saw 2 young women transition after   bullying/sexual assault and they seemed like classic ROGD  and the thought of them probaby desisting after being blithely transed and irreparably altered  horrified me.

I have  spoken to.people irl (in real life) ,  started speaking up online,  gone to a demo, started being more active in feminist circles.

I’ve been considered hateful.  I’ve feared being too visible as I am still.a cptsd sufferer dealing with years of traumatic sexual and other abuse but I’ve  been more  brave since jk Rowling’s first tweets.  I’ve started liking things. and today I have been retweeting and liking loads of things.  Before the abuse I was a whistle blower and stood up for others and now I’m going to try and be as strong again.

Marina, I stand with JK Rowling

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Healthcare Others

I am a lesbian and object to being told that same-sex attraction is no longer “valid” and is transphobic.

I care because children and young people are being lied to by being told they can change sex. I care that female victims of abuse in refuges and prisons are being further abused by men claiming they are women.  I care because I am a lesbian and object to being told that same-sex attraction is no longer “valid” and is transphobic. I care because young lesbians are being told they are really boys. I care because of the tragic stories of young detransitioners.

I use my real name on Twitter to publicise the issue and history of transgender politics. I have attended meetings and demonstrations. I have supported crowdfunders. I have demonstrated with other lesbians at Prides. I have, with others, organised the 2019 Lesbian Strength march in Leeds. I have talked to friends who knew nothing about the issue. I responded to both the Westminster and Scottish governments’ GRA consultations.

I was suspended from Twitter for asking a question about DNA at a crime scene.

I have lost friends.

I have been asked not to discuss the issue at family gatherings.

I avoid talking about the issue on my Facebook which is mainly family and old friends and restrict my discussion of this to private groups.

Dr Lesley “Ancient Dyke” Semmens , Radical Feminist, Retired Academic

Categories
Academics and researchers

I hate being told what to think

Firstly, because I hate being told what to think. I was similarly upset about Dawkins’s campaign against religious belief- at a time when I was struggling with the loss of my own; his authoritarian and judgmental attitude, I thought, was terrifying and insulting.

Secondly- and paradoxically with reference to the first point – because what we are asked to believe can’t possibly be true, unless there is a disembodied soul. Otherwise, the mind is an emanation of the body; therefore, the idea of a quasi-spiritual essence of femininity which is separable from the body makes no sense.

I have argued with people on social media.

I have had insults and abuse; people saying that, for example, they’re glad I’m not my child and that I might kill him with my “intolerance ” (he’s 2); one threat of violence; lost friends.

Smithsinarazz , 44, urbanist, mum

Categories
Academics and researchers

We are overlooking the legislating away of women and girls’ rights

I worry that in racing to be kind and accommodating to trans people (which I’m all for on a personal level), we are overlooking the legislating away of women and girls’ rights.

I am also disgusted at the volume and violence of the misogynistic abuse levelled at women who want to have a public discussion on this issue (given that it is an issue which will affect most of the public).

I have done very little so far (following people on twitter and the occasional like) because I am worried about the backlash from acquaintances and colleagues.

L, Scientist

Categories
Academics and researchers

An unethical, dangerous absurdity

Widening the legal definition of ‘woman’ to include men, particularly intact males, is an unethical, dangerous absurdity.

Voluntary social inclusion of transwomen by women is fine and good; coerced imposition by male people, regardless of presentation, on female people in situations where they are or expect to be able to be vulnerable (prisons, shelters, health care, changing rooms) is totalitarian and abhorrent.

Destroying fairness in women’s sport and wider representation makes a mockery out of women and our achievements.

I campaign on social media (Twitter) anonymously, I discuss the matter one-to-one with friends and colleagues.

I have not received any negative reactions in my private life, or from individual colleagues I have spoken with. I am careful, of course, but there is broad agreement among the people I have spoken with. I have received abuse on Twitter (like anyone does who speaks up) and I went to one WPUK (Woman’s Place UK) meeting that was mobbed by an angry, kicking, shouting crowd of trans activists.

‘Blob’, Academic anonymous

Categories
Academics and researchers

As a young child, I was told that I could not participate in the sports that I loved because they were ‘not for girls’

I can’t begin to do justice to the importance of feminism and womanhood in my life. As a young child, I was told that I could not participate in the sports that I loved because they were ‘not for girls’. I have been overjoyed to see the strides made by women’s sport in the past 25 years, and that – on the whole – there are far more opportunities for girls to participate in sport than when I was growing up.

It breaks my heart to see these strides undermined simply to appease a small group of biological males who seek to ‘affirm their self-appointed gender’ by taking the hard-earned place of women in sport. I am devastated that women’s sporting history is being rewritten by people like Lauren Hubbard and Rachel McKinnon.

Girls and women are subject to all manner of abuse – mostly at the hands of men – and they fully deserve (and need) single-sex spaces in which to thrive and feel safe. Every woman knows what it is to feel unsafe and vulnerable, and no-one has the right to dismiss our concerns.

The idea that biological males can simply announce themselves female and enter women’s safe spaces is obscene. I have never felt more strongly about anything in my life.

It is a topic that I discuss with my partner and trusted friends on a daily basis. While I have engaged with some of the public debates on Twitter, I don’t feel that what I do is enough. I am in the difficult position of knowing that if I speak up, I will most likely lose my job – a prospect that I cannot afford to risk at the minute.

My work colleagues have extremely strong views on the ‘transgender’ issue, and regularly use offensive terms such as ‘TERF’ to publicly bully those with genuine concerns into silence. While I have never directly received such abuse, I know that if I were to be more vocal, I would be their next target.

K

Categories
Academics and researchers

A post-hysterectomy woman who doesn’t feel excluded by the word ‘woman’…so stop using me in your facile arguments

I’m a woman of the adult human female kind, a survivor of male sexual abuse from a line of survivors of male sexual abuse with friends who’ve experienced male sexual abuse and colleagues who’ve experienced male sexual abuse.

Single sex spaces and sex based rights and protections make our lives outside of our homes possible. And because gender is absolute nonsense – regressive, patriarchal nonsense. They think I’m a TERF? I think they’re a narrow-minded bigot from the 1950s.

I have started a huge row with a colleague (male) who shouted at me that I was a disgusting person for suggesting trans women are not women.

We are both criminologists. Criminologists. I cannot stress that enough.

Yeah, see the above. I yelled back twice as loud but frankly it scared the shit out of me that an intelligent colleague with a professional interest in, y’know, intelligent, nuanced analysis and good science, could behave toward me in that way and seem to think it justified. It has kept me (professionally) quiet.

The Mo, A post-hysterectomy woman who doesn’t feel excluded by the word ‘woman’, or discussions of menstruation; so stop using me in your facile arguments, you TRA morons – I’m a woman, an adult human female!

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Others

Women are united by their female biology

I care because I can’t stand to see scientific reality be dismissed like this for the feelings of a minority. Sexism still exists, and to imply that women are only women because of their identification or “women’s brains” totally erases it. A woman can have any brain, any personality, but women are united by their female biology.

So far I have only discussed this with tolerant friends and on social media (not under my own name).

I have faced a lot of online abuse.

S