The Gender Dissidents SurveyI care because I see the dismantling of women’s hard fought for rights and I care about young people’s mental health as a secondary school teacher
I have done very little online as worried about professional consequences. Have spoken with friends, family and colleagues. Have complained to Greenpeace and Amnesty International by email
Any consequences? No because haven’t dared speak up
AM
Those twelve months were a hell of lies and insults.
I was told that I should be okay with him transitioning because I “had too much testosterone to be a woman, so should be happy for him to take the female role.”
And there was a myriad of other examples of misogyny that peppered his arguments.
My children were just starting their teens and were both affected badly by this. My daughter fell out with her Dad, until she decided that she was nonbinary and then she fell out with me. We haven’t spoken in over year and she wrote to me recently to say that she is now a boy (age 18). My son had a serious mental health issues with self harm and suicide attempts.
When this first happened, I watched friends turn themselves inside out to be understanding and to not be seen as transphobic (though my good friends didn’t take long to decide he was a git – thank god!) My gender critical views do not match with my children’s viewpoints, so I have to try and hold back from voicing how I feel at home. And ultimately, I blame myself for everything. I can’t get away from the idea that I broke up our family and my gender critical viewpoints mean that I really am a transphobic bigot.
I follow people that have similar views to learn more about feminism and the issues around and share some of the articles that I find interesting. I am also a teacher and occasionally have conversations with teenagers who have expressed gender confusion – discussing how gender nonconformity doesn’t mean that they are the wrong sex.
Any consequences? Arguments with my kids, daughter leaving home.
Nicky, musician and teacher
It is hard to see doublethink happening in real time and doubting my own common sense.
I have ensured school’s policies do not conflate sex and gender
Have you faced any consequences? Not yet
L, Left wing school governor, parent to girls
As a mother to three daughters and a teacher, this really worries me. I worry about the girls’ safety when using public toilets and changing rooms. I worry about competitive sport – will they be competing in fair competitions? I worry that we cannot speak our minds without being called bigots.
Mostly I worry about my middle daughter who is a “Tom boy”. If she is gay – will she be convinced that she was “born in the wrong body”? Will she want to transition? How will I possibly handle that? Will she be taken away from me? This terrifies me.
What have you done? Very little. I’m too scared to.
The bravest thing I have done is share something on Facebook saying “Happy International Women’s Day all you adult human females” alongside a Team GB montage of amazing sports women.
I have begun to boycott products and services that I feel do not support women. Nike, Flora, Audible, Always.
I like pages and stories on Facebook. I have donated to LGB Alliance.
I rant to my husband but don’t say much to anyone else in case I am branded a bigot or get into trouble at work. I have not been brave enough to speak up.
PP, Mother of sporty girls
This matters to me as a parent, educator and former mental health professional.
I don’t want children who don’t conform to rigid stereotypes of dress or personality to feel they don’t fit in and are therefore ‘trans’. I could not be complicit in socially transitioning a very young child at my school (after a trans charity trained senior staff).
I think that much better attention should be paid to children’s social adjustment and mental health, and to tackling bullying and gender stereotypes, before taking such radical steps, based on what I consider to be a belief system. I don’t understand how Safeguarding can be so easily discarded.
I have written to newspapers and contributed to BTL comments, donated to crowdfunders, campaign groups and signed petitions, communicated with my MP and members of the House of Lords. I have attended meetings and a court case. I have become a feminist because, in middle age, I hadn’t fully understood how a concept so dismissive of women (the idea of innate gender identity; the idea that being a woman is a nebulous ‘concept’ that is up for grabs) could have gained so much traction.
The negative consequence has been that I resigned from my job – a job I had loved and been effective in. It’s had a chillling effect on my sense of security and justice to feel that something so unproven and potentially damaging to the rights and wellbeing of women and children has had so little scrutiny.
I have become aware that certain people feel themselves to have an unviolable sense of having the ‘correct’ views, based on the way they vote, and how unwilling they are to listen once they have placed a label (bigot) on others.
Gemma, Adult human female
I care about this issue because I am a feminist and have spent much of my working life supporting girls and women in empowerment.
I was a social worker latterly and also fostered girls so am fully aware of the damage that had been done to them, emotionally, physically and sexually.
I feel that the trans movement is a men’s rights movement. More importantly I believe that it is covering up for paedophilia. It is dangerous.
I have raised awareness of the harm the trans movement does to girls and women. This is to my family, friends, groups I belong to and to my MP. I have written to the safeguarding leads in every school in my local town and the surrounding villages raising safeguarding concerns. I have attended events regarding women’s sex based rights. I have completed consultations on self ID and have written to English and Scottish MP’s to either raise awareness or to thank them for their intervention. I have leafletted a local school to inform them of the threat to children. I regularly share relevant stories or information on Facebook.
Lastly I have donated to crowdfunding ( including your own) and have signed countless petitions. I am lucky as I no longer work so have not had to deal with any issues in a workplace. However I have found that some people have either not believed what I am telling them or have stated that they do not want to know. Family sometimes ask me not to talk about it at social events.
Sara S, Retired Social Worker
I care because I have a daughter- having grown up in a very women-unfriendly family and country, I view transgenderism as another robe that misogyny wears.
I watched “Panti’s noble call” and really felt sympathy for people who felt that they were “born in the wrong body”…and later reflected that at no point in his speech did he reference that the abuse he experienced is something that young women deal with ALL THE TIME.
You titled your questionnaire “speaking up for reality” and having been gaslighted almost to oblivion when married, I promised myself that I would never again collude in someone else’s bulls**t. I am very kind, considerate and empathetic- but I will not reduce my own boundaries to accommodate someone else’s needs. They have to take responsibility for themselves.
I speak to my children constantly (teens) and advise them to keep their heads down about the issue at school.
I refused to work with a school (professionally) that wanted to modify a bathroom to accommodate a (trans) child, under the guise of adapting the bathroom to meet the needs of another (different) disabled child.
I tentatively raise my voice with friends- but most are still at the point of “what’s the harm in being kind?” or “what difference does it make?” without thinking it through to it’s logical outcome, when manipulated by someone who refuses to recognise usual social boundaries, or who refuses to reciprocate respect.
Not really, but then I havent yet been brave- I really worry for my livelihood (I work with ASD children and teens).
MRP, Ireland
This issue is important to me because I see the risks to women and girls. I want to protect my lesbian daughter, and all the other girls out there.
I’ve attended public meetings of GC feminists, debated on social media and talked to a number of women IRL (in real life). I’ve donated to a few fundraisers and signed many petitions.
I have had difficult conversations with my children, who are split, two pro GC and two anti GC. I have been endlessly insulted and threatened on twitter. I’ve had temporary bans for harmless comments.
JD, Feminist, mother, worker, New Zealand
This is hugely important to me as I’m a therapist in an LGBT setting (have been for years) and I’m being requested to see younger and younger kids (as an example a 13yr old the other day) who are very confused and feeling like they’re ‘in the wrong body’ etc, 99% are gay.
The increase is not coincidental, and all of these kids (roughly 12/13 to around 17) are constantly online. They’ve been taught that if they feel it or suspect it, it just be so.
I have to be very careful not to lose my job and feel like I can do some good actually by keeping quiet and trying to develop a relationship with these younger clients and encourage them to really listen to their own voice. And if I can, to try to open them up to the idea that so much changes at this age and you just don’t know who the hell you are till you’re a bit older.
There’s no *way* this amount of young people can be trans, and the ones who I’ve either kept seeing past their 18th and 19th etc haven’t been, they’ve been gay in the majority of cases.
If they get steered to the wrong place/person in such a state of confusion and vulnerability, I dread to think if the possible long lasting consequences.
Psychotherapist, Ireland
This matters to me mostly because of the safeguarding of our children, particularly young girls. I am gay and I also see the damage done to my community.
Gender non conforming kids (like many of us LGB) are told that they are in the wrong body, based on sexist constructs, that our mothers fought to get free of. Not only that, they are doing irreparable harm to their body. A whole generation of lesbian is being erased. My sisters.
I have mostly talked individually to people and in non gender related FB groups I am part of.
I’ve presented research a psychological point of view of the gender ideology. I just can’t do it under my name yet, for fear of retribution in my work and loss of my license if I say that I won’t affirm at all costs.
I have been mostly followed and harrassed in my private message. My main profile on FB got reported and I had to start over with another profile. But the most disheartening is talking to smart people and being told that it just doesn’t affect them or they don’t see how such a minority could change laws.
DR, Gay gender critical, Canada
The Gender Dissidents Survey