The Gender Dissidents SurveyI care because the erosion of sex based rights will have serious implications for women and gay people.
I have spoken out at work (teacher). I have had to change my twitter account to be vocal and anonymous. I have discussed with friends. Most agree.
I have been accused of being unempathic at work. Shamed on social media as ‘transphobic and even racist’.
The littlest Homo, Gay, not queer
I care because I am a human being who can’t bear to see women and children lied to and harmed mentally, physically, emotionally and financially. I care because I believe language is important and I am concerned that it is being twisted. I care because I try to notice sexual inequality and sexual stereotypes and I dislike them and I dislike homophobia.
I had discussions with individuals at work until the climate at work made it unsafe to do so. I have contacted women’s rights groups and attended meetings. I have talked to close friends and my partner and my children.
I have left the Labour Party. I am less active in my union role and have resigned a union post. I have been made to feel uncomfortable at work and if I spoke my beliefs I would lose my job. I have been shouted at by a male colleague for objecting to the term Cis.
Me, Frightened
I first became engaged with trans issues when I had to teach a unit on queer theory to my A Level class. Having very little knowledge of my own, I followed some trans accounts on twitter and read some web resources to develop an understanding. It seemed to me that trans people were an oppressed minority who needed help in overcoming societal prejudice in the same way feminist groups, the civil rights and gay rights movements had done before. I read what I could and spoke up for trans students at college when other members of staff misgendered them in front of me. I was a good ally.
I don’t remember the exact moment I realised that something was wrong. In the early days I got drawn into an argument on twitter about whether men could have periods. It seemed self evident to me that they couldn’t but apparently they could and i was hateful for suggesting otherwise. I assumed at first this was just a lone crank, how wrong I was. The penny dropped for me when I listened to Rebecca Reilly Cooper’s remarkable talk “Examining the doctrine of gender identity” on Youtube. This video had a profound impact on me, I still listen to it a couple of times a year.
I am now hugely invested in this issue and my eyes are open to the harm “the doctrine of gender identity” does to women and girls. I am appalled at the misogyny suffered by women online.
I despair of the pressure young lesbians are put under to accept trans women with penises as sexual partners.
I am terrified at the thought that my beautiful gender non-conforming daughter will be sucked in by the cult. But I am heartened at the number of women (and some men too) that are refusing to go along with the lunacy.
I like plenty of tweets and reply to quite a few, often debating with trans rights activists at length but, ultimately to no real purpose. Occasionally I summon up the courage to send an original tweet myself but not often. I comment on Facebook threads now and then.
I am too nervous to go full TERF on Facebook in front of all the people I know in real life. My partner hates me speaking out publicly even though she agrees with me. She’s worried I might get sacked and she’s right to be concerned about that.
It worries me too, although not enough to make me completely silent.
I teach at a college where traces of the transcult are creeping in. Displays in the library, genderbread people on display in classrooms. I’ve only been there a few months so I feel I need to get bedded in more before I speak out. I’m hoping that one day I’ll be asked to deliver a tutorial or take my class to a talk or get some CPD that will give me the excuse I need to speak up. I truly feel that I will have the courage when the time comes.
Have you had any consequences? So far, very little. Some ex students have told me on twitter how disappointed they are with me but I can easily take that. I’ve not lost any friends or been disciplined at work. My gender critical activities are too far under the radar at the moment. I can’t help but feel that because I’m a man I get off much lighter too.
R, Gender Critical Educator
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
I got involved with lesbian and gay activism and then feminist activism in the early 1970s. We were absolutely clear about the need to dismantle sex stereotyping (aka ‘gender’). And now it is being amplified despite all the successes we thought we’d had.
I raised the issue of the Labour Party deciding that trans-identified men counted as ‘women’ for the purposes of all-women shortlists et al. I’ve talked to innumerable friends and acquaintances and a few relations. I’ve spoken at two public meetings (in Newcastle). I’m involved in the Labour Women’s Declaration Working Group and in a small group doing some research and analysis for the LGB Alliance.
I got absolutely pilloried in my constituency Labour Party…. One friend is suspicious of what I say but not totally disagreeing. But that’s all. I’ve had it easy compared to many.
Alice Bondi, retired psychotherapist and very long-term feminist (as in second wave feminism)
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
I care because I am a detransitioned FTM (female to male) and we are never heard or cared about. There are virtually little to no resources for us.
I have been published as a case study in the book “Gender Hurts” by Sheila Jeffreys. My autobiographical piece was included in the book “Dispatches from Lesbian America.” I was interviewed in the piece “What is a Woman” by Michelle Goldberg for the New Yorker magazine.
I have a now largely defunct blog where I discussed the path back to embracing my biological sex. I spoke at the Radfems Respond conference in Portland. I have spoken out on Facebook and Twitter. I have been interviewed on video by both The Evil Feminist and by a media channel named Out Here in the Redwoods.
I have been stalked by a trans woman in particular in real life, lost friend groups in both trans activist and radical feminist spaces, gotten doxxed, gotten more rape and death threats than I could count.
I’ve had my physical appearance mocked/ridiculed. Told I was a “failed man” by trans activists and a “mutilated woman” by radical feminists.
Heath Atom Birilli, Just another lesbian woman trying to survive a woman-hating and lesbophobic world, USA
I am deeply concerned about the erosion of the right of women and girls. The changes in language and our ability to describe ourselves accurately.
I am horrified that young lesbians are being gaslighted into having sexual relationships with male-sexed bodies. To have university campuses have signs up proclaiming that ‘genital preferences are transphobic’ (I’m looking at you, Liverpool!).
I do not agree with women’s sports being infiltrated by male athletes. I do not consider myself to be transphobic, and much like JK Rowling, think we should all be free to live and love as we choose. However…
…as someone who has been ridiculed and bullied for specifically not ‘liking dick’ forever, to now be expected to accept ‘dick’ as the norm is beyond ridiculous.
I work for an NHS service. I am having open conversations with GNC kids and exploring the issue, rather than jump to affirmations. We are talking about this as a service.
I have had arguments with gay male friends over the use of the word TERF.
RA, NHS worker
The Gender Dissidents Survey