Tag: feminism

Categories
Healthcare

This matters to me because I am a woman and the word has been redefined in law to include males

This matters to me because I am a woman and the word has been redefined in law to include males. I care because of lived experience including abuse and misogyny.

I can’t raise my voice for fear of losing my career in the NHS. 

I have tweeted in support of Maya and JK Rowling and engaged in learning and reading including the excellent feminist board on Mumsnet

I have not experienced negative consequences because my personal online accounts are not connected to my work accounts.

C, Scottish 48yo female NHS physiotherapist

Categories
Healthcare Others

The silencing of women on this issue is driven by men

I care because I worry about the future for girls and women and I’m outraged about the slow creep of corporate subservience to organisations like Mermaids and Stonewall.

As a little girl I would have expected my Mum (and Dad) to stand up for my rights and although I don’t have kids I have an 8 year old niece. Why should she have to get changed into her swimming costume in front of men masquerading as women? Why should she have to compete against boys masquerading as girls if she chooses to play competitive sport.

The silencing of women on this issue is driven by men and I say this as a heterosexual woman who is in a loving marriage. But if you speak up you are dismissed as transphobic: possibly the laziest insult around these days. I’m increasingly uneasy about being a member of my company’s ERG LGBT group which is aligning itself with Stonewall and all its dubious misogynistic views. Lesbians are being erased and expected to accept male bodied partners. Children being told they are a different gender and young ones being given puberty blockers. A very frightening world.

I am regularly educating and raising awareness with my friends. Only last night two gay friends who are big Harry Potter fans were saying they were confused and didn’t understand the issues with JK Rowling. They were shocked when I told them the issues. It’s easy to assume that all LGB people know all the facts: many are blissfully unaware.

I would absolutely love if someone in the movement could create some materials which people like me in corporations could share internally to raise concerns about the likes of Stonewall who have a jack boot on the neck of big companies in the UK. Most organisations have an internal ‘speak up’ whistleblower mechanism which can be used if people are concerned about anonymity. Not really for me.

I’m a confident and articulate person. I tend to find that those who I speak to are  totally unaware of the facts and when they hear them they are horrified. I suspect many people are watching on the sidelines terrified to be labelled transphobic especially those in the public eye.

Lou, A left leaning feminist who can no longer tolerate the erosion of womankind

Categories
Healthcare

I was subject to sexual abuse because I was a girl, it’s that simple

As a victim of male domestic violence and misogyny in the workplace it is essential to me in personal and public life that sex based rights are not diminished.

I was subject to sexual abuse because I was a girl, it’s that simple.

I’ve supported others who have spoken out, shared info on social media etc.

I’ve experienced negative reaction from family members and friends

C, Feminist without a voice

Categories
Others

the rights of women and girls are being eroded

I care about this issue because I feel that the rights of women and girls are being eroded. Women are being punished for speaking up about this issue. I would like a future in which women are able to argue in favour of their sex based rights without receiving threats of violence or being labelled transphobic.

I have spoken to family members. I have supported people who speak out on social media. I have lost friends.

Susan, Feminist

Categories
Healthcare Parent

I got the head of my kids’ primary school to implement the Transgender Trend guidance

I was a teenager in the 90s and grew up with 2nd wave feminism. I am big on female anatomy and biology. I have always supported women and children.

I got the head of my kids’ primary school to implement the Transgender Trend guidance. At work I have changed forms which conflated sex and gender. I have been in meetings with the Baroness Nicholson.

I have been writing endlessly to my local MP ( has never replied). I have been to Women’s Place meetings (sometimes with friends). I have radicalised my mother in law. I have lost friends (good, close real life friends) over the GRA (Gender Recognition Act) debate and cannot speak out completely at work.

C

Categories
Healthcare

My instincts are to welcome gender non conforming ideas and folk because the world needs more kindness and less constraining gender roles

I’m a woman and a feminist. I have studied social science and social theory. I have personal experience of misogyny, sexual harassment, rape, miscarriage, abortion, childhood abuse, mental ill health, IVF and infertility. Those experiences have been embodied.

My instincts are to welcome gender non conforming ideas and folk because the world needs more kindness and less constraining gender roles.

That said, I have experienced being told that using the words woman and mother at a breastfeeding support group is transphobic and I find this ludicrous and offensive.

Non binary and trans folk are of course entitled to use words such as chestfeeding parent etc but the idea that talking about breastfeeding and mothers is transphobic when these are experiences that women (not all women of course) have had forever is ludicrous. Social constructionism in meaningful as a critique but we cannot disembody ourselves even if our dysphoria makes this an attractive option.

I’ve talked to friends. I don’t talk much on social media about this.

Kittycat

Categories
Healthcare

In my youth I went on gay rights marches every year. I marched with trans people

I  first became aware of the misogyny in trans ideology in 2015. I was doing an MA in Social Work and the subject was ‘the value of feminist theory for social work practice in domestic violence. I was 50 at the time and although I have always been a feminist I joined the NorthWest feminist and anti capitalist group to get some up to date theory.

A colleague of mine was doing her dissertation on the reform of the Gender Recognition Act. I hadn’t thought much about this until then. Her dissertation was pro reforming it to allow people to instantly self ID. I then read an article by Miranda Yardley in the Morning Star questioning the effects of any proposed reforms of the GRA on womens rights.This was the first time I had heard of Miranda Yardly.

It was a brilliant thought provoking article and I posted it on website of said feminist group and asked that we discuss it. The very next day I was piled on by three transwomen who called me a TERF, said I was transphobic, mocked me and kicked me out of the group.

I was in shock! I was so upset. In my youth I went on gay rights marches every year. I marched with trans people.

I have raised awareness on Twitter, Facebook and supported others in doing so. I have spoken to friends and family.

Apart from getting kicked out of feminist group (described above)  I am treading a fine line in friendship with a friend of mine who is a lesbian but is totally pro trans and wont hear a word against them. She unfriended me for a while on FB. She said she knows I am not transphobic but is worried other people will think that I am. I am not.

CB, The truth matters

Categories
Healthcare

As a survivor of sexual assault I cannot stand by and allow men to invade the spaces where women should feel safe.

This matters to me because female rights are slowly being diluted by a small majority of misogynistic men. As a survivor of sexual assault I cannot stand by and allow men to invade the spaces where women should feel safe.

I feel angry that these groups of men feel that they can appropriate female language and can call people who are standing up for their rights as Terfs, transphobic, or other derogatory terminology. Mansplaining at its finest, a very dangerous path we are heading down.

I have drawn the attention of friends who were not even aware of what has been happening. I have provided evidence to family and friends about the proposed changes to women’s rights and the dangers that come with allowing men to identify as female. I would like to raise my voice more and am considering an anonymous blog or twitter page so that I can contribute to this safely.

In terms of my friends and family I have found that they have been open to the information that I have provided. However, I am currently employed in a profession that certainly promotes inclusivity and an understanding of the feelings of others so I would be worried about the consequences if I was to speak of these things on a higher platform.

A, Feminist

Categories
Healthcare

It’s a small life, I can’t trust all that easily and the wounds I carry bleed from time to time, but it’s a life and I owe that to the women that looked after me as soon as I left the airport.

I care about this issue because at the age of 14 I was raped to try and correct my homosexuality. I came to the UK as soon as I could at the age of 18 to seek asylum due to the harassment I received in my home country following the very public trial.

The people that raped me knew what a woman was, if I’d have been a gay man they would have hit and physically assaulted me and not raped me. It is important that we acknowledge and deal with the issues at the heart of violence against women in the UK as well as internationally.

If women coming to this country to seek asylum for MVAW (male violence against women) cannot tell their stories and get meaningful help because their language is now hate speech or exclusionary then how much of a safe refuge is this country?

I was broken when I came here in 2001, I’d experienced an unwanted pregnancy due to the rape and tried to abort at home due to abortion being illegal in my home country. It didn’t work and I was forced to carry my trauma with me for 9 months only to give birth to a child that only survived for 76hrs due to damage caused to his brain by my attempts to terminate. I have to live with this. A lot of women have to live with these kinds of wounds.

We need a place and a language to talk about our issues and to heal. To find support that demands nothing from us, not validation, not that we change our language, nothing.

I managed to get the help I needed and have managed to carve out a life here. It’s a small life, I can’t trust all that easily and the wounds I carry bleed from time to time, but it’s a life and I owe that to the women that looked after me as soon as I left the airport. The female doctors and nurses I was able to ask for, the female therapist who was with me for 15 years and delayed her retirement to help me stand on my own. The lecturers at my university who guided me and helped me gain a degree and become financially independent of the state. The lesbian community that helped me accept myself. They became my tribe, I am thankful.

I have written to my MP, I have been to his surgery to speak to him. He seems sympathetic, he’s from a Religious minority group himself and seems sympathetic but I’m not sure he has really done much about this as his party is firmly pro trans.

I have joined online forums and signed petitions and donated where I could. All the people I speak to seem to be very sympathetic and understand the insanity of where women find ourselves but many fear speaking publicly as do I.

I’ve lost friends. I work in an NHS mental heath setting and most of the people I work with understand the insanity of the current trans movement but this is whispered in dark corners and can never be said openly.

Everyone is scared, I had a colleague say to me a while back that we, as mental heath services, are going to pay dearly for this in a few years time but we daren’t go against the Stonewall lobby that is everywhere in our Trust.

As a mother, grandmother, feminist, educationalist, woman, this matters to me for a number of reasons. As a survivor of domestic abuse, I know how vital to me were women only spaces. I would not have been able to get the support I needed if I had not been confident that specific spaces were open only to women. The fear of such spaces being available to male-bodied people, however they identify, is very real and, I believe, would prevent women from accessing safety, support and much needed resources.

Sex is real. Women are women. Women’s oppression is based on sex. Women’s hard-won rights are in real danger of being eroded. Trans people have rights and, obviously, shoukd do. These are safeguarded in law. As are sex-based rights. The two are separate. One set of rights should not, and need not, trump another. Women are women, transwomen are transwomen and both should be safeguarded.

I am deeply concerned at what is being promulgated in schools and what children and young people are being told online. Feminism has fought for years to break down gender stereotypes. Our nonconforming children should be allowed/encouraged to be just that. Dress wearing boys and tomboy girls should not be told they are in the wrong body.

It’s clear that many young people, disproportionately girls, disproportionately those with conditions like autism, are being put on a path to medicalised transition too early, too quickly and often inappropriately. There is insufficient research into the impact of puberty blockers and what evidence there is suggests not the ‘pause’ as is often cited but the first step in an increasingly inevitable pathway.

Women are being silenced. We are afraid to speak for fear of casually being labelled and abused as transphobic. We are not. Generally, we are progressive women with histories of fighting for human rights and many causes. We haven’t suddenly become bigots. We are not transphobic. We ARE supporters of women’s rights.

I’ve made social media posts, attended consultation at House of Lords and submitted evidence to the Gender Recognition Act consultation.

P, Women matter

Categories
Others

If you say sex can change you destroy feminism and our hard fought rights

I care because women are discriminated  against due to our biological sex. If you say sex can change you destroy feminism and our hard fought rights. I have tried to carefully raise awareness via twitter and close friends. I don’t want consequences so have to be cautious.

Sue , GC