Tag: school

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Healthcare Parent

To throw our rights away on fantastical lies is abhorrent

This matters to me because through studying history I have seen the struggle that women went through in order to garner our rights. To throw them away on fantastical lies is abhorrent to me.

I have also watched as the TRAs (trans rights activists) have engaged in attacks straight out of Mao’s strategy book attacking individuals whose only crime is stating the truth.

The erasure of women’s rights, the re-writing of history, the erasure of lesbianism and the erasure of safe spaces for the vulnerable is a coordinated attack and one I feel that I must stand against.

I have made Twitter posts and I have driven my husband mad with my rantings about indoctrination of children at school

I have experienced vitriol on Twitter.

A, I was part of the silent majority, now I add my voice

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Parent

The gender dysphoria is not viewed as a mental health issue and must be accepted at face value and be continually validated

My daughter is adopted from care. She has suffered neglect and abuse. As a very little girl she was powerless to stop that abuse. Now at 17 she believes she is a boy, suffers from depression and a dissociative disorder.

All three are caused by her trauma but the gender dysphoria is not viewed as a mental health issue and must be accepted at face value and be continually validated

I have raised my concerns about the affirmative approach with school – who did not inform us when our daughter started expressing discomfort about her gender to 2 male members of staff.

College view her as a boy and when I raise questions about the cause of a trans identity I am treated with incredulity that I could hold such out- dated opinions! Fortunately social services and our psychologist are more curious.

Not really experienced consequences – other than being viewed as a transphobic dinosaur by some college staff. We tread a very tricky path with our daughter but she is still with us despite knowing our deep concerns. This does put a considerable strain on family life.  

E, Adoptive parent

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Healthcare Parent

I got the head of my kids’ primary school to implement the Transgender Trend guidance

I was a teenager in the 90s and grew up with 2nd wave feminism. I am big on female anatomy and biology. I have always supported women and children.

I got the head of my kids’ primary school to implement the Transgender Trend guidance. At work I have changed forms which conflated sex and gender. I have been in meetings with the Baroness Nicholson.

I have been writing endlessly to my local MP ( has never replied). I have been to Women’s Place meetings (sometimes with friends). I have radicalised my mother in law. I have lost friends (good, close real life friends) over the GRA (Gender Recognition Act) debate and cannot speak out completely at work.

C

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Healthcare Parent survivor

It took me a long time to find my voice and now that I’m supporting my daughter to find hers, we will not be silenced.

This matters to me because I’m not about to have a lifetime of sex based oppression, violence and sexual assaults brushed aside to appease anyone. It took me a long time to find my voice and now that I’m supporting my daughter to find hers, we will not be silenced.

I have spoken out online and within friendship groups, joined activist groups, written to MSPs and spoken to social services and my children’s schools.

I have been threatened with sexual and physical violence online as have my family members, one of which is a child, due to speaking up. I’ve had milk thrown at me by a man when delivering leaflets. I’ve been kicked from online and real life LGBT groups. I have also been kicked from many other ‘support’ groups like ones for autistic people and ones for women to uplift other women and a group for women fighting female cancers.

I permanently lost my twitter account for ‘hateful conduct’ because I differentiated between sex and gender. I’ve been marked red on an chrome extension called shinigami eyes which causes people to attack me online for being ‘transphobic’ even when I’m commenting on things not related to gender like my pet rat group.

Ealasaid

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Healthcare

I’m angry that our centuries of shared experience of constant male subjugation and harassment is, apparently, forgotten.

I am a woman. I am a mother to a daughter, and I don’t want her to feel she must accept male bodies near her in toilets, changing rooms in school and elsewhere and I don’t want her to be forced to compete in unfair situations in sport.

I have an elderly mother and I fear for her dignity in healthcare provision. I fear for women for whom written language is a problem who don’t access healthcare because they don’t realise they’re people-who-menstruate, etc. I feel bad for women who will be excluded for public life due to religion or disability who can’t access gyms, loos, shop changing rooms, etc. I feel bad for women who miss out from all-women shortlists, etc, because of men taking their place.

I worry about young people being subjected to experimental treatment. I worry for the mental health of those who aren’t resilient enough to cope with words like ‘woman’ without self-harming or committing suicide. I worry about crime stats, and male crimes being recorded as female. And I’m angry that our centuries of shared experience of constant male subjugation and harassment is, apparently, forgotten.

I have only discussed this with a few close women friends or anonymously online. All I have spoken to in real life have expressed the same concerns, including an experienced clinical psychologist.

I haven’t spoken up in my own name. I frequently opt out of the conversation online because I find it distressing and frustrating. Thank you for this opportunity.

WildRedWord, Woman

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Healthcare

We have to be able to ask very difficult questions

This matters to me because if we change the definition of “woman” or “man” to mean anybody who identifies as a woman or man there will be unintended consequences. We need to think through those consequences really carefully.

It matters to me because I’m a child protection social worker. I see an increase in children who’ve experience significant harm now claiming to be trans. Sometimes they’re encouraged by their schools. Those children may develop to live as trans men or women and that is their choice, as adults. However…

we need to ensure a trans identity is not a maladaptive response to trauma, one that may leave the unmet underlying need while the young person seeks increasingly drastic physical changes to their body.

I worry about the fact that we cannot openly discuss this topic. In thinking about harm to the people with the least power and voice (young children) there can be nothing left unsaid. We have to be able to ask very difficult questions.

I worry about trans-inclusive guidance which tells girls that if they feel uncomfortable with someone in their personal space they should ignore that feeling. Children who’ve experienced trauma need encouragement to listen to their feelings, to their intuitive responses. We work with children to help them recognise the danger signals in their body and then act on those (children who’ve experienced harm may have learnt to “turn off” those survival mechanisms, to have a “flop” response to danger.) Yet trans inclusive guidance tells children the opposite. That’s not deliberate on the part of trans groups, but is the result of an atmosphere in which criticism is not allowed and lack of open consultation. 

It matters to me because -I was a girl who didn’t conform to gender stereotypes. As an adult I still don’t conform to traditional ideas about femininity. Trans identities/ non binary/ gnc etc pushes the idea that i may not be a woman, that I am Other.

I have spoken in my local Labour Party CLP meeting, spoken in my local Quaker meeting. I have campaigned through facebook and twitter, handed out FPFW (Fair Play For Women) and WPUK (Women’s Place UK) leaflets at Labour and LibDem Party conferences as well as at a Trade Union event. I have met with my MP.

I have been to meetings aggressively protested by trans supporters who see the campaign for womens rights as fascism.

I’ve been ostracised by some members of my local Labour Party.

I’ve been insulted in the street.

BV

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Healthcare

It’s a small life, I can’t trust all that easily and the wounds I carry bleed from time to time, but it’s a life and I owe that to the women that looked after me as soon as I left the airport.

I care about this issue because at the age of 14 I was raped to try and correct my homosexuality. I came to the UK as soon as I could at the age of 18 to seek asylum due to the harassment I received in my home country following the very public trial.

The people that raped me knew what a woman was, if I’d have been a gay man they would have hit and physically assaulted me and not raped me. It is important that we acknowledge and deal with the issues at the heart of violence against women in the UK as well as internationally.

If women coming to this country to seek asylum for MVAW (male violence against women) cannot tell their stories and get meaningful help because their language is now hate speech or exclusionary then how much of a safe refuge is this country?

I was broken when I came here in 2001, I’d experienced an unwanted pregnancy due to the rape and tried to abort at home due to abortion being illegal in my home country. It didn’t work and I was forced to carry my trauma with me for 9 months only to give birth to a child that only survived for 76hrs due to damage caused to his brain by my attempts to terminate. I have to live with this. A lot of women have to live with these kinds of wounds.

We need a place and a language to talk about our issues and to heal. To find support that demands nothing from us, not validation, not that we change our language, nothing.

I managed to get the help I needed and have managed to carve out a life here. It’s a small life, I can’t trust all that easily and the wounds I carry bleed from time to time, but it’s a life and I owe that to the women that looked after me as soon as I left the airport. The female doctors and nurses I was able to ask for, the female therapist who was with me for 15 years and delayed her retirement to help me stand on my own. The lecturers at my university who guided me and helped me gain a degree and become financially independent of the state. The lesbian community that helped me accept myself. They became my tribe, I am thankful.

I have written to my MP, I have been to his surgery to speak to him. He seems sympathetic, he’s from a Religious minority group himself and seems sympathetic but I’m not sure he has really done much about this as his party is firmly pro trans.

I have joined online forums and signed petitions and donated where I could. All the people I speak to seem to be very sympathetic and understand the insanity of where women find ourselves but many fear speaking publicly as do I.

I’ve lost friends. I work in an NHS mental heath setting and most of the people I work with understand the insanity of the current trans movement but this is whispered in dark corners and can never be said openly.

Everyone is scared, I had a colleague say to me a while back that we, as mental heath services, are going to pay dearly for this in a few years time but we daren’t go against the Stonewall lobby that is everywhere in our Trust.

As a mother, grandmother, feminist, educationalist, woman, this matters to me for a number of reasons. As a survivor of domestic abuse, I know how vital to me were women only spaces. I would not have been able to get the support I needed if I had not been confident that specific spaces were open only to women. The fear of such spaces being available to male-bodied people, however they identify, is very real and, I believe, would prevent women from accessing safety, support and much needed resources.

Sex is real. Women are women. Women’s oppression is based on sex. Women’s hard-won rights are in real danger of being eroded. Trans people have rights and, obviously, shoukd do. These are safeguarded in law. As are sex-based rights. The two are separate. One set of rights should not, and need not, trump another. Women are women, transwomen are transwomen and both should be safeguarded.

I am deeply concerned at what is being promulgated in schools and what children and young people are being told online. Feminism has fought for years to break down gender stereotypes. Our nonconforming children should be allowed/encouraged to be just that. Dress wearing boys and tomboy girls should not be told they are in the wrong body.

It’s clear that many young people, disproportionately girls, disproportionately those with conditions like autism, are being put on a path to medicalised transition too early, too quickly and often inappropriately. There is insufficient research into the impact of puberty blockers and what evidence there is suggests not the ‘pause’ as is often cited but the first step in an increasingly inevitable pathway.

Women are being silenced. We are afraid to speak for fear of casually being labelled and abused as transphobic. We are not. Generally, we are progressive women with histories of fighting for human rights and many causes. We haven’t suddenly become bigots. We are not transphobic. We ARE supporters of women’s rights.

I’ve made social media posts, attended consultation at House of Lords and submitted evidence to the Gender Recognition Act consultation.

P, Women matter

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Healthcare Others

I was fortunate enough to attend the WPUK conference and was inspired by so many wonderful speakers and to be in a room with 1000 women who ‘get it’

I care because it’s the absolute injustice of it. It’s just not fair. If men and women were truly equal then swapping between wouldn’t be an issue, but we’re not and there are a few meagre provisions we’re allowed for our safety and progression and now we’re told we’re bigots if we won’t give them up to narcissistic men with a fetish. The gender stereotypes I fight against for myself and my daughters are now being pushed as intrinsic and deviation from these is seen as a reason for mutilation.

I have posted on Mumsnet, Twitter and my personal Facebook. I have had countless conversations with friends. I am also involved with Safe Schools Alliance.

In December I called a radio phone in and asked Jo Swinson what a woman is, she struggled with the answer and I was allowed to ask further follow up questions.

It was widely reported on (appeared in newspapers and on GMB) and seemed to show the crux of the argument – you can’t have women’s rights if you don’t know what a woman is. In February this year I was fortunate enough to attend the WPUK conference and was inspired by so many wonderful speakers and to be in a room with 1000 women who ‘get it’ and would actually like to get out of the ‘cul-de-sac of identity politics’ and back to the fight against everything else women are facing.

I have had some difficult conversations with friends who feel like I’m being unkind, gay friends especially. I’m at the age where about half my friends have children and that seems to be the dividing line. Pre-kids it’s easier to believe that equality of the sexes exists but once you go through pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, maternity leave, reduced employment opportunities, mental load – the full force of the patriarchy hits home, and men donning some lipstick and claiming womanhood feels incredibly offensive.

Anna, from Warwickshire

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Education Healthcare

I know what a social construction is and what material reality is

There are males on lesbian dating apps who reply with aggression when they are politely told that they don’t belong there (that’s happened to me twice).

A woman I know personally was banned from a lesbian dating app for telling a male person that they did not belong there.

I am concerned about the physical and emotion safety of female prisoners who are already very vulnerable, if male violent or sexual offenders are housed in female prisons.

I need to teach the small children in my care that they are correct to be wary of men and I cannot do that if the words we use to describe them are taken away.

We (women, females) cannot organise properly to defend our rights if the words we use are taken and redefined.

The children in the primary school I taught at were taught that you can be born in the wrong body, and it is not true and it’s harmful. A teenage lesbian I know has been convinced that she is a boy and is going to start undergoing serious medical interventions which will cause potentially permanent changes to her body, because of stereotypes. The idea that your personality tracks your sex or your sex tracks your personality are fundamentally regressive positions. I know what a social construction is and what material reality is and I wont pretend not to.

I have spoken to some friends in real life and I lost a couple. I have posted occasionally on social media but not under my real name as I am scared of professional consequences.

LD

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Education Men

If this one falls I don’t think there is any hope of holding any other lines

To me the distinction between male and female is truth that is so real and profound it is embedded within us at biological level going back millions of years. If a truth that substantial can be overturned we give permission for any ideology with the appropriate power to dictate truth.

Losing the concept of Truth being rooted to a large extent in empirical observation and the valuing of the scientific method is profoundly dangerous. If this one falls I don’t think there is any hope of holding any other lines. We then risk the  dismantling of everything to then be reconstructed in accordance with whatever is the prevailing ideology with the power to do so.

I have had a brief period on Twitter engaging with the discussion (Wow that really did make a difference!!!)

I have not had consequences, because I have been very cautious. It is a combination of cowardice and the practical reality that it is not my core focus in life (maybe it should be in light of my answer earlier). I don’t want to lose that which I can do and am doing in my own field to die in a ditch over trans issues where I am such a small player that I will not meaningfully make any difference there either. Paying towards crowd fund challenges is a safe and real way I can make a difference.

AG, C of E priest. School chaplain (heading for retirement).