Tag: school

Categories
Healthcare Media and Arts

I write for a well known website

I first and foremost came to this as a matter of conscience.  I cannot go along with the lie that it is possible to change sex. This was the starting point for a much deeper understanding of the issues that followed.  Now I understand the question of transgenderism as much more complex.

There are many reasons for gender dysphoria and many treatments but I am mostly concerned with the effect it has on women and girls.  Issues of consent privacy safety and boundaries.  The other issue for me is the teaching of gender identity in schools.  This is my main area of work.

I want to stop children being told that they could have been born in the wrong body and stop them being taught a version of queer theory.

I write for a well known website.

Shelley Charlesworth , Former BBC journalist who believes in evidence and open debate about transgender issues

Categories
Media and Arts

I nearly died from severe early onset pre-eclampsia

This matters to me for a number if reasons:

1) Because I am a sexual abuse survivor and do not want to be forced into private spaces with males. 

2) I do not think it’s fair that males are taking spaces reserved for females in leadership, training, scholarships etc.

3) My experience as a woman is totally different to that of a transwoman – I nearly died from severe early onset pre-eclampsia and then my work tried to make me redundant shortly afterwards! We are women because of our female bodies and that matters a lot.

4) The reinforcement of the stereotypes of what constitutes femininity and masculity is harmful to women. Women are not defined by clothing, grooming, mannerisms and behaviours – we all have different personalities and presentations.

5) I am utterly sick of the misinformation and inappropriate content being taught in schools and workplaces in relation to this issue.

6) I am concerned that publicly funded bodies are not recording sex, so can longer measure sex inequality.

I’ve challenged policies at work with incorrect protected characteristics.  I’ve challenged monitoring categories for a research project I am working on – sex has been replaced with gender. I’ve spoken to women and men I trust to discuss the issues. I’ve shared information on social media and written to my MP.

I have been denounced as a ‘transphobe’ on social media for stating my belief in the reality of sex and the need to record it.

M, Floating voter swayed by women’s rights issues

Categories
Healthcare Media and Arts

My colleague reported me; she is worried I would not allow a man to follow a girl into the female toilets

I care because I know from experience, & research, that males – no matter how they identify – expect women to give way to them.  They are taught that women are inferior in all respects. 

The trans agenda is based on mantras designed to silence debate in order to remove female rights to privacy, safety & dignity.  

My main concern is over the safeguarding of girls & women:  I have even been told women who have been sexually assaulted need to be re-educated to accept males as women.

I do not believe sex can be changed.  I spent years teaching Equal Opportunities; children learned their sex (female) & race/colour (black) did not make them inferior, it was society’s gender & race stereotypes which did this. 

I care because LGBT+ training, Stonewall & Mermaids, is based on lies.  Our children & women deserve better from society.  They are putting the fetishes of males above the lived lives of women & girls.  Males need to become responsible for themselves, especially their violence, & allow women to become their authentic selves.

I have raised the issue at my place of work.  A place which I am told it is well known children (generally girls) are brought as part of the grooming process.

I have discussed aspects of the trans ideology with colleagues.  This has to be done quietly and in corners as my place of work is a Stonewall Champion.

The company lays on (voluntary) LGBTQ+ training sessions each year; we are encouraged to support the Pride march throughout town, add our pronouns to the end of emails & wear Pride & personal pronoun badges.

I have written to my line manager & head of the company.  I listed the trans mantras which a colleague quoted to me as fact.  I showed by provable research that the mantras were deliberately confusing & based on lies; e.g Trans women are women; children know they are born in the wrong body at 3 years old; trans people are the most vulnerable in the world, thousands of trans people are killed each year for being trans etc. etc.

I have also contacted my MP, who is sympathetic & understanding but not prepared to do anything.  I have contacted my local Council pointing out the errors regarding use of confusing & ambiguous language in their Equality & Diversity Policy.

My colleague reported me; she is worried I would not allow a man to follow a girl into the female toilets.  Her view and that of my line manager is that were I to question him I might upset him as he may be a trans woman.

I have been told I am to be given an official reprimand.  It has not taken place as the company closed down due to COVID-19 the day it was to be administered.

I have been told I am not to allow anyone to think my views are those of the company I work for.

Outside work: due to my views I have left the Labour party, I have left the Women’s Equality Party, my friends laugh at me – as they think climate change is more important, they tell me I have a one track mind, they tell me it is too late (that was from someone high up in the GMB union). On the positive side; I have raised the issue with the local primary school headteacher.  He had no clue what I was going on about but we agreed I had opened the conversation and we could continue if need be at a later date.

AnonymousJ, Sex is real.  Males cannot become women/female

Categories
Media and Arts

Everyone I’ve spoken to, without exception, has been fully in support

Women need to be able to name ourselves. We need the ability to describe ourselves, differentiated from men. I’ve been a feminist all of my adult life, I’ve campaigned on many causes from reproductive rights to fighting sex stereotypes.

I’ve never seen feminism so threatened; the very word ‘woman’ has been rendered meaningless by the take-over of language by gender ideology.

If a man can be a woman then we cannot organise, we cannot fight for our sex based rights, and we cannot protect ourselves from the threat of male violence and oppression.

I’ve talked to friends and family, I’ve discussed the issue in depth on social media. I’ve written to politicians, MPs, and organised with other feminists. I’ve responded to the consultation on sex ed in schools and govt consultations on the GRA and other relevant issues. I’ve signed petitions. I’ve contributed to crowdfunders.

Everyone I’ve spoken to, without exception, has been fully in support. But everyone has also been too scared to say so in public or on social media.

A.M., Writer, author

Categories
Media and Arts

We can’t let our rights be trampled on

This is so important to me because women’s oppression is because of our sex – not something we identify into – and generations of women before us have fought so hard for the sex-based rights that we now theoretically have.

We can’t let our rights be trampled on, for the sake of not offending a tiny percentage of people. Sex matters, for so many reasons – and we can’t pretend it doesn’t. This also affects trans people –

if we can’t accurately describe biology and gender ID for fear of causing offence, then we also can’t accurately record statistics (e.g. we can’t properly know how trans people are affected by crime).

I bring up the issue with friends and family if I see an appropriate opening to do so, because so many people have absolutely no idea how this affects them now (and potentially in the future, e.g. when their girl toddler is at secondary school in a decade’s time and might be forced to use ‘gender neutral’ toilets or changing rooms). I like and share posts/articles on social media. I attend meetings (e.g. WPUK) and support others who are experiencing properly negative reactions from their decision to speak up publicly.

I’ve been told my statement that humans can’t change sex is ‘disgusting’ by one of my stepdaughters. When discussing protecting women’s sex-based rights with either of my two stepdaughters, all they hear is me apparently being ‘anti trans’, despite my continually reminding them I am NOT anti trans. Both will listen to me, and engage up to a point – but then refuse to go any further and simply say ‘but I can’t ignore their struggle’ (i.e. the trans community’s struggle for acceptance, which ironically I also am very sympathetic to), and dismiss all concerns about the impact on women’s sex-based rights. Their attitude is that they apparently would be happy to share a public toilet or changing room with a trans woman (at any stage of being ‘trans’) and therefore it’s transphobic to suggest that other girls or women might not be happy to do so.

A friend was cross at me for raising the issue – until she admitted that the reason was that she couldn’t deal with the issue and was happier sticking her head in the sand – but she’s now started to think more critically about this and has realised she’s gender critical too.

Charlotte M, A woman trying to make the world fairer, without women’s rights being trampled

Categories
Healthcare Media and Arts

I’m also very concerned about children being seduced into the trans cult

This matters to me because I care about women’s rights. I’m also very concerned about children being seduced into the trans cult. I am opposed to the notion of ‘gender identity’, in particular that it is being taught in schools. It’s unscientific and I believe it’s child abuse to teach children that there is such a thing and to confuse them with these ideas.

I am quite vocal on Twitter. I talk a lot to my family and friends. I have three step-children. I have made them all aware that their children may be taught about ‘gender identity’ in school along with inappropriate sex education. I emailed Keir Starmer, my MP, before the last election asking him where he stood on this (no reply). I’ve recently had an email conversation with Baroness Nicholson.

I am anonymous on Twitter and I am very careful about other social media. I would never discuss this on Facebook, for example, because I work in publishing and many of my Facebook friends I know through work. It would negatively impact my work if my views were known, I think.

MC, I’m a woman – an adult human female

Categories
Students survivor

My life so far has been defined by abuse

I am twenty years old, and my life so far has been defined by abuse. I endured childhood rapes, intimate partner violence, and PTSD in addition to all the abuse that typically comes from being a woman. Nonetheless, I was strong and made it to where I am today. When I was raped in my first year of college, my friend group turned its back on me.

My anger was “an overreaction,” my best friend started dating my rapist, and male friends would tell me I was “slut-shaming” her by being upset.

Already, men were using woke language to silence me. Later, the same man who accused me of slut-shaming and over-reacting came out as non-binary, and suddenly I was the privileged one, and the poor little rich boy was oppressed.

My school is incredibly liberal. Most students support “sex work”, BDSM, and gender self-ID. Those of us who’ve been affected by these institutions keep our mouths shut.

Young men are always stepping up to tell me who I should feel comfortable changing in front of, what my period means, what defines my womanhood, and how I should feel about sexual violence. I say no.

I am a woman because I have XX chromosomes and uterus. The world has treated me a certain way because of it, and that matters to me.

I am afraid. I do not have a lot of money or power in the world. I have spoken with my friends and family. But I am not open or public about my views.

The same people (former friends) who trivialized and mansplained my rape accussed me of “transphobia” and “hating non binary people” and attacked me on facebook. I was forced to come out with all the details of what happened to me to clear my name.

Mick, Woman born a woman

Categories
Students

I lost a few of my teenage years to identifying as a man

I lost a few of my teenage years to identifying as a man because I did not want to be seen as or be treated like a woman. It’s more common in UK schools than you would think; I can count several other girls who also secretly identified or socially transitioned to a boy in secondary school before going back to living as a woman.

I still feel the urge to go back now- in a way, it would be easier for me to live my life as a man (after passing) than struggle as a gender nonconforming woman.

The appeal is there and it doesn’t help that I hate my body. I hope this is an adequate answer. I am currently 18 and remember first wanting to be a boy when I was about 12-13 until I was 16.

I have tried discussing it with friends and it’s actually quite common for lots of girls to recognise that nonbinary identities are deeply rooted in misogyny and that we are losing a whole generation of tomboys. I haven’t really spoken up about it much as I’ve only recently started looking into gender critical spaces but hope to possibly do more in the future.

I got thrown out of a group chat for discussing my anti-porn stance (I know this isn’t related to gender identity but the opinions are prevalent in gender critical spaces). I am on a discord server where everyone is biologically female but more than half of them do not identify as women. If any of them even knew a sliver of my views I would be metaphorically burned alive. It’s a shame since they are all decent enough people.

Grace, 18 year old West London

Categories
Students

I do not want to see the voices of young women being drowned out

It matters to me because I do not want to see the voices of young women being drowned out. Having seen school girls protesting after boys were allowed access to their spaces, I realised how uncomfortable that would have made me. Furthermore, I believe everyone has a right to voice their view on this matter without fear or repercussions of job loss or harassment.

I have begun following gender critical discourse online, I have discussed my views with my mother, and several of my friends, and have discovered that we all share similar views. I have slowly been posting more and more on my private social media, and I have been routinely discussing the reality of biological sex from my position of being educated in anatomy and cell biology.

I have fallen out with my brother who is the complete opposite of me, and thinks self ID and other gender ideological ideas are good. I have lost not-so-close friends after they discovered that I was following and taking part in gender critical discourse.

Cat, BSc anatomical sciences and pharmacy advisor

Categories
Students

The university has let women down and let down the nature of university as a place for free speech and discussion

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