The Gender Dissidents SurveyThis matters to me because I feel as a woman that I am being silenced. I don’t have any issue with trans people but I do worry this is a trend and is also being used to put women in dangerous and uncomfortable positions
I can’t speak out. I would lose my job. I have been called right wing by friends .
Kitty, Writer and performer
I care about this because I am a woman & I have a daughter. I am horrified at how the rights & safety of women & girls are under threat when there is still such an issue with male violence towards women & girls.
When I see women I have admired for years, journalists, campaigners, feminists, being silenced, bullied, threatened it scares me.
I haven’t raised my voice yet, I’ve shared a few things online then immediately deleted it as I’m scared of the reaction. But I’m starting to feel ashamed of my silence. As things get more absurd I begin to realise I am quite prepared to chain myself to the railings for this cause.
I am mentally preparing myself for the fight. I am reading the science, trying to seek out people who feel the same as me. It’s extremely comforting to realise there are more of us out there then the trans lobby would have you believe. Thank god for the bravery of woman’s place UK & the Labour Women’s Declaration, they give me strength & inspire me to speak out.
Sara, Woman, Mother of girl
This matters to me as I don’t want women and girls to be silenced and I want my daughter not to be called a cis. I want my daughter to play in sport that is fair. I want the same for other girls. I don’t believe you can change sex at any point. I don’t want men to be able just to say that they are women same as me. I hate institutional capture where people seem to have lost the power to use their brains.
I emailed the BBC about their use of assigned at birth. I wrote to MSP and MP.
Claire B
I am a woman. I am a feminist (any feminism involves a critique of “gender” or it’s not feminism). I’m also a lesbian lady who shaves her head and occasionally wear ties and I have the unsettling feeling if I were just 5 years younger I would now be either a very unhappy trans man or a detransitioner. I wouldn’t experience the joy I feel at singing really high notes (crappy amateur soprano here). And of course, I care about freedom of speech. I won’t be compelled to see others exactly as they see themselves. As Dr. Jane Clare Jones say, that’s a form of ontological totalitarianism.
I’ve spoken to friends and family and all over social media (with my name). I am currently unemployed and lockdown has been quite restrictive over here up until quite recently. But I plan on meeting with other feminists in my home town.
I lost “a friend” because she tried to shame me for being a lesbian in its archaic “terfy” definition. That was the last straw in a wider pattern in our relationship, since it’s not the first time she is emotionally manipulative.
Estela, Language teacher, studying to become a civil servant, Spain
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
This matters to me because my future as a woman, and that of my female friends and family is starting to look too dark. In the past few decades of pornified culture, women have shifted from being private property to being products for men to consume. As a woman in my early 20s, I recently discovered that the world sees me as a piece of meat. But this is all hidden under the “women’s empowerment” label.
Society has fooled us into believing that we no longer serve men, and that if we do, it is by choice and is empowering. Women have been sexualised to the point of no return and are now seen as a costume to wear, again for the purpose of feeding men’s sexual fantasies.
Our rights are being quietly taken away, our privacy, our freedom of speech, our scholarships, and we are not allowed to say a word, because we become bigots, cunts and TERFs.
We are experiencing the biggest witch hunt in history, and no one is blinking an eye at it.
I have discussed and debated this with friends and anonymously posted on Twitter and reddit. However, even when hiding behind fake usernames, I still receive threats.
I have been called words. I have received threats.
TN, A woman trying to survive
I care because free speech is incredibly important, and the trans movement are causing people like me to persistently self-censor every single day – not to shift the narrative to myself when there is real oppression out there, but surely the impact on mental health more broadly as a result of this constant self-silencing can’t be positive.
I have a graduate scheme lined up, but I am afraid I will lose both my friends and my jobs if I dare voice an opinion which doesn’t conform to the majority. I am afraid, and I am silent.
Luckily, I have a few friends who share my opinions and my voice is limited only to one friendship circle in which I feel that we all have the mutual respect and maturity to listen to one another and debate civilly.
I have been berated by my friends and labelled a ‘TERF’ simply for refusing to condemn J.K Rowling.
Oscar, A
I care because I can understand and empathise with young girls who want an option out of misogyny. I was given the freedom by my parents to grow up relatively gender neutral – having short hair, playing football, wearing my brothers hand-me-downs. I was bullied then for looking like a boy – if then was now i would be scared this would have led to me questioning whether I was actually a boy.
As a woman I know what it feels like to be over-sexualised and objectified by men constantly. I know that there is no way of identifying out of this. I also know the physiological toll this has, in seeing myself through patriarchal eyes, victim blaming myself, and seeing my own body as too sexual. I care because as a life-long feminist, it enrages me and upsets me so deeply to see the feminist movement highjacked by men who are centring themselves in our movement in a way which inevitably breaks down sex class solidarity among women.
It angers me that men have the entitlement to define women and define themselves as women without any understanding of what it means to be a woman. I care so much about this because I recognise what generations of women have fought for before me, and I can see how these achievements are being retrenched every time men are allowed access into female spaces.
I think back to high school and the shame I felt surrounding my period, how even in the girls toilets I would try to open my pad so quietly so no one knew. Imagining what this would be like now, knowing that girls are increasingly forced to accept male bodies in these spaces, makes me beyond sad.
While millions of women and girls around the world experience brutal oppression directly linked to their sex and reproductive capacity, it astounds me how these experiences of male violence are being erased.
This matters to me because mainstream feminism in the UK has failed these women and is no longer serving the goal of female liberation.
I have actively campaigned alongside other women in Scotland to bin the Gender Recognition Reform Bill and raised my voice by filling in the consultation for the bill. I have attended For Women Scot meetings and the launch of LGB Alliance. I have defended my position, sought to explain it to anyone who will listen, and talked non-stop about this issue since I became aware of it. I have spoken out online but find real life discussions more productive. I am part of XX (Nicole Jones’ young feminist network) and am hoping this will create space for young radical feminist women to feel able to talk publicly about these issues.
Although the majority of my friends have been openminded and interested in this discussion (often themselves feeling like they have been unable to question the logic of transgenderism) and I have gained more friends than I have lost, I have still lost multiple friends and acquaintances. I have faced intolerance from my university in their inability to accommodate the position that a woman is an adult human female, not someone who identifies as one.
Being told by staff at my university (the University of Glasgow) that a gender critical view is transphobic and not to be tolerated, has left me feeling like the university has let women down and also let down the nature of university as a place for free speech and discussion. I am concerned that in the future I will be unable to openly hold these opinions in the workplace.
Kirsty
As a woman and lesbian sex is important.
I have engaged in online activities primarily. I have also distributed information in person (leaflets, stickers and chats)
I have been shunned and ignored. I have been silenced by simply knowing there will be negative consequences. This is due to wholescale institutional capture in my field.
Jane, A worried scientist
I care about the issue because things escalated very rapidly under my nose. I have been active in feminist spaces for years but I have never seen such brutal silencing of women’s voices, just for stating basic scientific facts.
I am not from the UK – I live in the US, but I came from another country and I’m still very active in social media in my native language (sorry about my English BTW – it’s not my first language). A few months ago a huge fight broke in my Facebook group – one of the triggers was you and your tribunal hearing but there were others. Some of us decided to finally speak up. All hell broke loose. I lost many friends and became a much hated figure but it only made me care about the issue more.
I mostly fear for the future of children who may be pushed to undergo irreversible, profound medical procedure before they’re old enough to know better because doctors and parents are afraid to speak up – transitioning children should become illegal. I fear for girls and women whose spaces are taken away from them, and I fear about us losing the ability to have a peaceful, logical discussion about the issue. I care about the language to describe ourselves being taken away from us.
I have set up a website in my native language (the only one that I know of) where I collect materials, make facts and stories accessible and write about the issue freely.
I also continue to be active on Facebook and Twitter (although I had to start using a pseudo-name on Twitter). Some friends and I are preparing to start lobbying with politicians to make underage transition illegal and to preserve sex base rights in my home country.
My friends and I are also in touch with organizations in Canada and the UK hoping to make our voices heard.
I have lost friends, but so far that is it. I have a secure job and my employers and co-workers don’t speak my native language and are not aware of my “extracurricular activities”.
The Trash Patrol/Sayeret Zevel, Academic, immigrant, radical feminist who’s sick of crap, USA
The Gender Dissidents Survey