Tag: gay rights

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Others

I have no reputation or livelihood to lose

I care about this issue for a whole lot of rather different reasons. The first may be defending lesbians from male encroachment on their lives and sexuality. The second may be that I object to any ideology that wants to write the soul (in this case a gendered soul, the one that can be “born in the wrong body”), to reify the soul into legislation.

I’ve mostly tweeted about this. Discussed it with friends and family.

I’ve been called terf a lot and lost Twitter followers. I have no reputation or livelihood to lose as I am an isolated handicapped person living on disability payments.

Elizabeth Hamilton D, Translator, writer, former adjunct in cognitive psychology, dovesandletters, France

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Others

I organise an annual International Women’s Day rally that is unashamedly feminist

I have been in the struggle for women’s rights for more than 40 years.  Gender ideology undoes the limited gains we have made and erases the possibilities of winning more.  Gender ideology drips with misogyny and lesbophobia and homophobia.  It is an authoritarian and regressive ideology.

I organise an annual International Women’s Day rally that is unashamedly feminist and of course recognises that women are adult human females.  I have organised a small feminist discussion group to consider the harmful consequences of gender ideology. 

I have organised one public meeting in defence of women’s sex-based rights and plan to run more once Covid restrictions permit.  I organised a WL Conference in my home city a few months ago.  I run several feminist FB pages and contribute to others.

I have been physically and verbally harassed, dropped from’progressive’ email lists, hounded out of my union, socially ostracised and had friends cut off all contact with me to show their left friends how woke they are.

Anna M, feminist activist, mother, grandmother, Australia

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Lesbians survivor

I’ve gone from fully supporting gender id politics to questioning some things to questioning everything

As a Black lesbian, I’ve gone from fully supporting gender id politics to questioning some things to questioning everything. I realized how homophobic and sexist their rhetoric is, how riddled it is with contradictions and inconsistencies that I’m told I don’t have a right to question or challenge or have basic concerns about. This is not progress, it’s fascism.

After residing at a women’s refuge where men are accommodated as residents, I decided to post on social media about my general thoughts on the trans movement and more specifically about how men commit acts of violence against the women at the shelter.

I have been unfriended, disinvited from events, called terf, transphobic trash, etc. The most hurtful consequence, though,  has been the complete and utter silence of close friends.

BB, Proud Black lesbian, USA

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Healthcare Others

I’m frightened to see these principles being eroded by magical thinking

I care because women as a sex class are being erased, with the intended consequence that we cannot fight for sex based rights we cannot name. I care about children transitioning and ruining their bodies before they know what they are doing. I would have been one of these children if I had been born later. I care about lesbians being coerced into sex with males. I care about the appalling misogyny of the trans movement.

I care about truth, reality and science and I’m frightened to see these principles being eroded by magical thinking. I care about women losing jobs and platforms because they won’t go along with it. I care about freedom of speech.

How can we progress as a society if certain topics are not debated and tested?

I have attended meetings, written to my MP and visited. Stickered the local area. Posted FPFW leaflets to houses in my town. Used social media, twitter, Facebook and mumsnet to pass around information and contest misleading information. I’ve helped to collate information about organisations that are promoting misleading info about puberty blockers. I’ve donated to many GC causes and to Vancouver Rape Relief.

I have been shouted at and harassed at a public meeting. I have had my Twitter account suspended several times. I’ve lost a friend of over 40 years.

Louise W, Happy to be a TERF

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Others

A non genuinely transitioned man accessing my safe space would totally close down so many things for me

I care because I know what is is to be afraid of men. I was raped when I was 20 . When married my husband was abusive to me and later to my oldest daughter . I left him and shortly after that I was attacked outside my flat when I took my dog out for a last pee . It was attempted rape. The man got 5 years for assault with intent to ravish .

Each time the effect on me is that I cannot bear to see a man naked from the waist down. I still get a terrible fright if someone approaches me from behind and I’m very cautious in lifts , car parks , the street etc.

A non genuinely transitioned man accessing my safe space would totally close down so many things for me . Sports Changing rooms  , toilets in bars and restaurants and shops – especially if the are along long corridors / down in basements etc . The whole thing is terrifying.

My eldest daughter is a lesbian and she and her wife are very concerned about this too especially the “your a bigot / terf if you don’t want a girly dick” threats.

I have posted on Twitter and FB . Spoken up at my SNP branch meeting and posted info to the branch Whatsapp . Joined- founder member of a local women’s group for Independence . Shared info with friends. I’ve had a few insults on social media, not to my face.

M, Senior adult Post menopausal woman

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Healthcare Parent

I have a gay son who would definitely have been fast tracked in gender changing

It feels like I have gone back to the gender stereotyping of the 1950s. Also because I have a gay son (in his thirties now) who would definitely have been fast tracked in gender changing – he played with girls, hated football and loved dressing up. I am really concerned about what they are doing with children.

I’ve tried to talk to people

I’ve experienced refusing to discuss and/or dismissal of my concerns.

P

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Healthcare Lesbians

The conversion and confusion of vulnerable children

This matters to me because of the reinforcement of gender stereotypes, the legal erosion of women’s rights, the homophobia and especially through educational programmes.

I have discussed what is happening with family and friends and posted (anonymously) on twitter.

I have been careful (cowardly?) about who I have spoken to.

Anne, Left wing, feminist, lesbian, autistic

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Lesbians

I have tried to bring it up but they won’t listen – even the ones who should know better

I am a lesbian and a radical feminist. And a biological woman. Obviously!  

(I’ve come back from the last page on the form to note that there isn’t a box under Politics to tick “radical feminist”!)

I have mainly talked about it, written about it and shared ideas and written work with other women who agree with me. I am aware that many people in my friendship groups (especially the ones local to my area) are very liberal (or think of themselves as such) and pro-what-they-think-of-as-“trans-rights”. With some of them, I have tried to bring it up but they won’t listen – even the ones who should know better.

Not experienced negative consequences yet, but I have been a bit of a coward to be honest.

Sam A, armchair activist

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Healthcare Public Sector

As an HR professional I feel for colleagues trying to navigate through this

I guess I would have called myself a liberal feminist, a live and let live type.  I thought trans people had GD and medically/ surgically transitioned.  I once worked with a very nice transwoman  who presented as a woman, was called she, but used the men’s changing room and toilets.  When JK Rowling tweeted in support of Maya Forstater, I wanted to know why someone has lost their job over what seemed a non-contentious issue.

The ideology revealed was frightening.  The aggression of TRAs (trans rights activists), and their determination to open every area of female lives to male people, was worrying.  There are deliberate attempts to erode safeguarding and stifle any discussion of how conflict over rights and safety can be addressed.  

The disproportionate influence of lobbying groups like Stonewall on public sector organisations and politics is unacceptable.  Looking further, the concept of the cotton ceiling was abhorrent. 

Although I am not lesbian, I believe that LGB people have an absolute right to their sexual preferences without being labelled transphobic.

I am concerned about the teaching of gender theory to children.  I don’t really understand the science, but see no consensus that would justify teaching that sex is a spectrum.   How the huge growth in the number of “trans” children being referred for treatment is not ringing alarm bells is beyond me.  I am fortunate, I had to retire from work for health reasons, but as an HR professional, I fear that if I was still working, I would not be able to express my concerns freely in this repressive climate.

I am not a great social media user, but I have supported GC voices, mostly with likes and retweets and some not very articulate comments.  I have completed the Scottish Govt GRA consultation survey, have donated to a couple of crowdfunding requests, and have written to my MP.

I am fortunate, Having taken Ill-health retirement, I am immune from threats to my livelihood.  As an HR professional, I feel for colleagues trying to navigate through this, and am sure that if I was still working, I would not feel free to express my concerns, particularly if working in the public sector.  This is a repressive, toxic culture.  I’m sure many people are being prevented from expressing valid, non-hateful opinions and that should concern everyone.

Alison G, Into my 6th decade, married, no kids, TERF, apparently

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Healthcare survivor

It’s rape culture writ large

I care because I’ve experienced decades of male harassment and abuse so I understand fully the need for safe spaces for women and girls. I am also deeply concerned about children’s natural explorations of their world and themselves being medicalised to the extent of preventing puberty, having dangerous surgeries, and potentially shortening their lives.

Telling anyone, especially a child, that their body is wrong is incredibly cruel.

I care because women and girls have our lives so restricted and policed as it is without what few rights we do have being erased or curtailed.

I care because women of certain religious beliefs are finding their ability to participate in public life restricted by their right to privacy being eroded.

I care because women and girls who’ve been abused (and those who haven’t) are being bullied into sharing spaces with men no matter how vulnerable and/or terrified they might be by this. I care because women are being hounded, gaslit and silenced, deprived of their careers and incomes, bullied in real life as well as online.

I care because men’s rights activists and fetishists are running the trans rights campaigns and damaging not only women and girls but trans men and women too.

I care because young women are asking whether they should date a trans woman even though they don’t want to because if they don’t they’ll be bullied and harassed. And I care because gay people’s, especially lesbian women’s, rights to set boundaries in their sex lives are being eroded. It’s rape culture writ large.

I have responded to posts and shared information on social media. I have built a database of relevant articles to share to back up the women’s rights case and I follow gender critical accounts and people. I have challenged companies like M&S and organisations like HeForShe with regard to their TWAW rhetoric and associated abandoning of women’s rights. I have helped fund various campaigns to challenge the dismantling of women’s and girls’ rights. And I participated in the government’s GRA survey to stand up for women’s rights being retained while promoting additional safe spaces for trans people who need them.

I have been gaslit, bullied and blocked. I’ve also been stalked by TRAs and put on TERF lists. In real life I’m unable to work so have suffered no consequences there, while the very few people I have discussed the issues with have been understanding.

Maat, Human and animal rights activist