Tag: free speech

Categories
Public Sector

When I can’t use the words women or woman, how can I work in a feminist way?

As a woman and long-time feminist I need the language to be able to describe the sex class I belong to and the issues we all face as females. To have this language taken from us, to be silenced in this way, is profoundly disturbing and authoritarian.

Knowing the harsh and unfair consequences that some women face for speaking out has had a chilling effect on me. I am otherwise an outspoken woman but working in local government, I know I cannot question the gender ideology that is prevalent these days.

I risk being labelled a bigot at best and facing official censure at worst. This means I cannot work as I would like to further the cause of women’s liberation. When I can’t use the words women or woman, how can I work in a feminist way?

I have done all my activism in a very different way to usual. It’s been filing in consultations and getting informed. I’ve only spoken about the issue to my male partner and had one or two tentative conversations with friends.

At work, where our ‘diversity and inclusion’ officers have removed women from campaigns against violence against women and have widened International Women’s Day awards to men (not just those who think they’re women), I have had to be very careful.

I edit with caution, use words that can’t be argued with (for example, quoting external official bodies that haven’t totally erased women). But mainly I stay away from work fighting for women’s rights that in previous years I was driving within our communications team in local government. I am so disappointed in myself for this but I also don’t want to take on the bullies in my organisation who I know will attack me if I stand up for women’s rights and against gender ideology.

I haven’t really spoken up yet. I am slowly building my confidence and being inspired by vocal women who have. Like you Maya.

Sarah, local government worker, Australia

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Others

I once was a TRA, and considered myself a trans man/non binary

This matters to me because I can’t unsee the truth, that this is a bigger threat to women, homosexuals and free speech than I had ever imagined possible. I had no idea how quickly and easily all our legal rights could be taken away, and how much hated and indifference society and men feel towards women.

I once was a TRA, and considered myself a trans man/non binary. But deep down I knew the rhetoric I was trying to convince myself was progressive and forward thinking was the most regressive sexism and entirely because of trauma.

I now consider much of the gender movement a cult, promoting an entirely nonsensical agenda which is applicable to pretty much anyone who isn’t a walking stereotype, and conveying transition as a wonderful, liberating journey, rather than a serious medical undertaking with many risks, and irreversible and unknown consequences.

The thing I find the most unbelievable, other than the most insane misogyny I’ve ever seen, is the attack on free speech. The complete complicity of the media, government, NHS, the police and many public figures who are not only parroting rhetoric they themselves cannot explain, but aggressively denounce groups like a Woman’s Place UK and LGB Alliance as hateful. That anyone could watch the videos or read the website of the former and view it as bigoted hate makes me feel like I’m living under Stasi dictatorship, where something is so obviously wrong, yet everyone is publicly paying tribute to the ideology in the face of all evidence, reason, and plain sanity.

I am active on social media ‘under an alias’ and speak about it with trusted friends and colleagues.

I’ve had aggressive responses online. But in person no, only because I keep it completely secret most of the time.

CJ, GC women’s rights activist, CJ_liberte

Categories
Others

You cannot feel what it is like to be a woman

This issue is important to my heart because I value my human right to safety as a woman. Moreover, a woman who has been assaulted by males throughout my short life, I recognise the importance of distinguishing between sex (reality) and gender (stereotypes). You cannot feel what it is like to be a woman. If you were born male, you cannot understand the attacks made against you on a daily basis by everyone in your life, and you cannot empathise genuinely with the suffering of women the world over. I won’t be silenced.

I have devoted my social media accounts to amplifying women and lesbian voices against the tsunami of false information, men deciding what women are, and bile spewed against women like JKR, who is an honourable and admirable representative for women who have suffered at the hands of men.

I’ve been banned from countless groups and communities and added to several lists of public enemies belonging to those groups admins. I have received death and rape threats, as have every other woman I know who has spoken their mind on this matter.

Vi, An unsilenced woman, womensrightspls

Categories
Lesbians

I’ve seen young lesbians trying to turn themselves into men where I work

I care about this issue because I’ve realised that women and girls are losing their rights to men. Also, because of controlled speech – everyone is losing their right to freely use correct biological pronouns when addressing others – freedom to tell the truth.

I care because I know lots of adult lesbians who wished they were a boy when their breasts started growing, grew out of it, and now are perfectly okay with turning out to be lesbians. I care because I’ve seen young lesbians trying to turn themselves into men where I work – a twenty year old has grown hair on her face and had her breasts removed. She looks like a girl with a hairy face and no breasts. Social contagion is destroying young people’s bodies.

No baby is born in the wrong body. I think it’s stemming from homophobia- it’s better to pretend to be the opposite sex than to be a lesbian.

Transgender women – men pretending to be women and demanding rights that destroy women’s rights is a different kettle of fish. A fetish. Autogynephilia. It stems from misogyny from jealousy.  They see women as subservient sex objects, so they mimic badly and play out their fetishes all day. I don’t want to share female places with them.

I have joined social media ( which is a big move for me ), tried to learn more about the issue, and started to speak out to friends and colleagues and family. I’ve spoken up in online groups and been kicked out of them. Where I live it’s a very small community so that’s made it hard to meet people. I’m fairly new to speaking up, but feel I must on this issue. It’s a start.

I’ve been made to leave online social groups because of saying, politely, that LGB should drop the rest of the alphabet as they’ve nothing in common with transgender people. Where I live, that’s difficult.

Doc, Enough is enough

Categories
Others

I have felt increasingly erased

This matters to me because I’m a woman! And over the past ten years, coming into that womanhood, I have felt increasingly erased, spoken over, and silenced.

I have started an alternate twitter account, and had conversations with friends.

I have been called a terf in a bar and been threatened with violence.

E, Young, radical, and XX, US

Categories
Private sector

I wear my Woman = Adult Human Female hoodie and people have stopped their cars to say “Well Done!”

I am outraged that women are being erased in our Rights stolen, our voices silenced and our needs disregarded. I fight for my daughters, their lives matter more than mine.

I have challenged a number of County Councils over the trans tool kit that blatantly misrepresented the EA2010 Law.

Shropshire, Doncaster, Barnsley, Leicester City, Merthyr Tydfil, Denbighshire and Essex have listened. Not stopping there and more to follow.

I have written to my MP and I have attended another MP’s open meeting and spoke to a crowd of councillors and political activists. (Most frightening thing ever!) I have been part of the ManFriday group (still in touch) and done activities to raise awareness publicly. Currently active on twitter collating links and volunteers and working with Baroness Nicholson and behind the scenes with 4 other groups via Trello and facebook. I took part in the ReSister tee shirt campaign and a trip to Manchester to support teeshirt campaign.

Apart from regular bans on Twitter (BBB to the rescue) and the insults, abuse and threats on there (no longer bother me and I mute most) not really. I wear my Woman = Adult Human Female hoodie and people have stopped their cars to say “Well Done!”

Wendy Johnson, Sister in Action

Categories
Media and Arts

I am a female political cartoonist ‘cancelled’ by UK left wing paper the Morning Star

I care because I am a female  political cartoonist ‘cancelled’ by UK left wing paper the Morning Star in Feb 2020, after they published a cartoon by me about the GRA, then caved in to TRA and union pressure and apologised.  Since then my reputation has been trashed around the world and many people probably now think of me as ‘ that transphobic’ cartoonist’.

They did not communicate with me about their actions, just dropped me after 5 years of being a regular correspondent,  someone who they described in 2015 as their ‘star cartoonist’.

I have joined the Free Speech Union, joined spinster.xyz, and made contact with feminist journalists. I have written to MPs. I have publicised feminist websites and organisations to my friends.

I was threatened with expulsion from my union, and jumped before I was pushed so as not to embroiled my fellow union reps in an investigation which could easily become public and cause them damage. My friend and her 17 year old daughter were so abused on twitter, merely for being professionally linked to me, that they have had to come off twitter for good.

Stella, Cartoonist and book illustrator from Bristol, UK

Categories
Media and Arts

Not one moment of my life has ever been “cis”

As a rape victim and domestic abuse survivor, I know too well the visceral reality of existing in a female body. Erasing womanhood as the unique experience, both painful and joyful, that it is only deepens misogyny and endangers our rights and safety. In the US, women still don’t have constitutional equality! Sex-based rights are specific, distinct and sacrosanct.

Men who grow up with male privilege will never know what it is to be a woman. They have their own struggles. We have ours. If you don’t think abusive men will take advantage of trans self ID laws, then you truly erase women’s lived experiences and oppression.

Even without the opportunists, women shouldn’t have to justify why we deserve our OWN rights and spaces. You would never demand a PoC justify their need for race based rights or race based organizations.

I have been vocal on social media and with friends. In public conversations I object to being called cis or being forced to declare my pronouns. Cis implies a privilege women cannot experience. Cis erases the struggle women face to rebel against and defy gender stereotypes, roles, and behavior. Not one moment of my life has ever been “cis.”

I have been harassed online, usually by liberal men. Most recently, a progressive male spent the night berating me online, mansplaining womanhood to me, calling me a bad feminist, and telling me that female oppression didn’t matter compared to trans males’ feelings.

More frighteningly though, I have had professional contacts in the political world sever ties and support for me over my objection to trans athletes in women’s sports. This not only bullied and silenced me amongst work colleagues, but it also means I lost out on work recommendations from them when I was looking for a job.

María, Indigenous American, asylum immigrant, mixed race female, rape victim, US

Categories
Healthcare Media and Arts

It is not the number of biological sexes that are too few, but the gender roles that are too narrow

I am a free speech fundamentalist: Only threats, direct incitements to violence and speech that directly threatens national security should be forbidden. I also think it should be a human right for children to be helped to find peace with their own bodies without having to alter them hormonally or surgically. My view is that it is not the number of biological sexes that are too few, but the gender roles that are too narrow. It should be possible to be however and whatever you want/feel yourself to be inside the biological body you inhabit.

I have participated on Facebook (but not from my own page, only on other trans lobby-critical-people’s pages), discussed it at home and written to Members of Parliament.

Those who know me, do not know that I am trans lobby-critical. None of my colleagues do, I don’t think. If they did know, they would be very worried and I would lose funding and thus be rendered with no chance to continue being an artist.

Anne, Artist, Norway

Categories
Media and Arts

I never really felt as though I was heard

I care about this issue because I feel that, as a 23 year old woman, I am being silenced. I have gone from being in a large friendship group of LGBTQ people to a close knit group of women. I felt like I had to adapt to their space, their feelings, their activism but I felt a lack of support. Despite being in that space with so-called friends, I never really felt as though I was heard. My feelings of vulnerability did not match theirs and I am tired of defending my feelings. I want to feel safe as a woman.

I have started writing about womanhood and eco-feminism as I believe in using my words as power. Although, I would love to do more. I just haven’t found the right group of women yet.

I have been accused of “changing”, implying I crossed over to the dark side…but if “changing” means finding my voice then, yes, I have changed. I hope many other women change too.

S.Yule, Young woman finally using her voice