The Gender Dissidents SurveyI care because I believe in biological sex and I believe women have the right to sex-segregated spaces.
I’ve created a twitter account with a pseudonym and engage in GC platforms on Reddit. I haven’t spoken up for fear of retribution. Everything I write is under a pseudonym.
al, Adult human female and lesbian
I care because I read that 90% of sexual assaults in toilets are taking place in gender neutral rather than same sex loos – there needs to be a choice. I have experienced gender neutral toilets done badly – having to squeeze past men at urinals and walk through their urine to get to the cubicle and it is not nice for them or for me.
At my partner’s university a man was caught with a hidden camera in gender neutral toilet, no one had suspected he was a pervert. Too many young women de/transing, lesbian erasure. Gone too far now – I refuse to be scared to call myself a woman.
I attended a March 9th 2020 Labour Womens Declaration/ Womans Place UK/ LGB Alliance event. Tweeted and shared on Twitter. I’ve spoken to a couple of friends about my concerns.
I lost a trans friend who has become a trans radicalised extremist.
TG, When rights clash, we need to talk
Apart from the obvious risks to women inherent in allowing any man to declare himself a woman, I am really concerned about the state and other powerful organisations expecting us plebs to affirm what we know to be untrue out of fear. This goes way beyond anything about trans rights and sets a terrifying precedent. Where will it end?
I wrote a long letter of complaint to my HR Director following (optional) training on LGBTQ+ full of the usual unscientific sex (and lesbian) denying crap. When one of the trainers declared a propos of nothing in particular ‘we love puberty blockers’ I was absolutely disgusted. The other trainer was a transman who lamented the arduous and pernicious process he had to go through to get his GRC. I did think that was a devious way of getting people onside. I did raise my hand to ask what process should be in its place but we ran out of time. I felt cowardly and I wish I had had the time and courage to speak up more during the session.
I did ask that my message be treated in confidence and I was careful to state that I wrote it (it was long and took me a great effort) in my own time. I feel a bit cowardly that I did that. I stand by what I said and I don’t really care who knows.
Susan, Northampton mum
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
I care about all rights and equal rights, but I am a woman, a lesbian. I have been called a terf, verbally abused on line and during marches, having to be in a group for fear of reprisal… for saying a sex and gender are not the same, being called transphobic for saying a trans woman is not a biological woman and certainly not a lesbian.
I have to be careful about my views at work for fear of repercussions especially when trying to raise safeguarding concerns for young children and people who say they are trans…without any proper evaluation or analysis of their living situation.
I’ve joined marches, online groups, twitters, help crowd funding to name a few.
I have been called terf, bitch, cunt.
DK, Womansworld65
This matters to me as I feel I would have been put down the trans route if I were growing up today. Typical gender non conforming child who grew into a same sex attracted woman.
I became single after a long relationship and after a long illness I recovered emotionally and physically to go back on the dating scene. I was horrified at men approaching me on lesbian dating sites. Most of them didn’t declare this and I worked it out.
I felt humiliated and a bit scared that I might have met someone in person without knowing they were biological men. It chilled me to the bone. I can now spot them and block them, but it was unpleasant and degrading for me at the time.
One person had been stalking me on line and in my social life – I had that experience from men in my 20’s and 30’s. I found it impossible to understand why they were there in the first place and it led me to question what the hell is going on.
I created a twitter account. I discuss it with friends and family. I also challenge the new norm at work by calling out the ridiculousness of language and mixed sex toilets.
Some friends especially the ‘woke’ younger women are unkind or think I’m old fashioned.
EJ, Proud vintage lesbian who feels like an outsider all over again but this time it’s the heterosexuals who are my allies, magdelen berns appreciation society
Women and children’s safety and well-being is being rolled back. In plain sight. The civil service is not impartial while it unquestioningly adopts Stonewall’s ideologies. Women – and lesbians in particular – are afraid of speaking up. I have questioned us using Stonewall for gathering adult experiences on child sex abuse and been accused of being homophobic as a result.
I responded to GRA consultation. I’ve written to and met my MP. I’ve said no at work to the expansion of harmful practices as regards children (giving them unlicensed drugs), and blindly following Stonewall and Mermaids.
I have been accused of being homophobic and of not caring about trans people.
I care because I want to use spaces such as changing rooms, toilets, etc without being harassed and/or intimidated.
I have responded to my child’s school’s consultation on PHSE. I have reminded local organisations about the Equalities Act 2010.
A, terrified public policy woman
This matters as I want to find a wife, raise a family and I work in STEM. This matters because the same arguments that were used against me as a child (that female brains are not suited to certain activities) are now being used to ‘prove’ certain men are trans women because they like ‘girly’ things.
I have discussed it with a close friend and my brother and touched on it at work.
I have been harassed on social media and one girl refused to go on a second date with me again because I was same-sex attracted and outspoken about it.
Elizabeth, Lesbian, Switzerland
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
My family consists of my sister, my mother and my grandmother. I have no living male relatives. I am a lesbian who has been sexually assaulted, my mother has been harrassed, my sister and grandmother have been raped, my girlfriend has been raped. My sister has mental and physical disabilities and needs professional support, so does my grandmother.
I want to stand up for their right and my right to places that are free of male people, I want to stand up for their right and my right to refuse being treated or cared for by a male-bodied person, without fear of being accused of unjustified discrimination or gaslit into “embracing their discomfort” and accept a male person as female.
My sister also has a schizophrenia, she relies on strong medication to maintain a grasp of reality and live a mostly independent life. Messing with her knowledge and perception of reality, particularly with regard to the demographic that deeply traumatized her body and mind, may threaten her mental health and independence.
I do not fight for or against trans people, I fight for acknowledgement of reality on which legislation can be based that includes safeguards and exceptions to protect the weak and those who cannot fight for themselves or have trouble articulating and defending their needs.
I am following the debate and arguments in social and mainstream media. I do not live in an anglophone country, but the issue is arriving here, too, and I’m getting ready to engage those parties involved in the legislative process. I monitor guidelines at the institutions that provide care for my loved ones and I keep telling them that they are allowed to refuse care that makes them discomfortable.
Some friends from an LGBTQ friendly hobby group have cut themselves off.
Anna V, middle aged woman working in IT, Germany
The Gender Dissidents Survey