Tag: sports

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I used to be a trans ally, 100% about TWAW

I used to be a trans ally, 100% about TWAW. However, back of my mind was always “where does this logically take us” Then I read about terfs, and how horrible they are. I discovered I agreed with everything they said. Men are not women, porn is not empowering and sex work is not like other work. Then I read all the hatred towards these woman and started getting filled with despair and depression. I just could not believe the world had gone so haywire. I started getting enraged.

I care because our rights as women are disappearing, how men have colonized women and taken our sports, and have taken over and bastardized feminism. All their pushing for sex work and kids to be in states of perpetual puberty. I could not stay silent anymore.

I started off anonymously on Twitter, then was banned after I refused to call a man who posted a pic of himself with an assault weapon and the words Kill Terfs, a woman. I was banned. His post stayed.

I then started talking at work, here and there. I started talking to my girlfriends and my sisters. I started posting GC stuff on my facebook and then I started challenging the pro trans people I met. I met up with a rad fem group where I live and attended a Megan Murphy talk at the TPL, which was protested by 1000 men and antifa screaming Shame in my face.

I post all the time about this issue so people can see what is happening to women and understand this extreme misogyny is not a vulnerable minority, it is a men’s rights group with a ton of power. It has nothing to do with the left.

I have been banned twice from twitter, once over the man with the gun and the second over the man who claimed JK Rowling was a pedophile. I refused to use pronouns. I have been called a Nazi by an old friend. A long time love called me a transphobic bigot and I continue to be told “I am obsessed”. Of course I am, we are fighting for our very rights. I have also been shunned professionally by a VP who I attended rallies with. Suddenly I was a right wing bigot.

Deanna S, left wing socialist GC\Radfem. Never backing down, Canada

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Others Parent

I’m made to feel like being a regular woman is a hateful thing in itself

I care because I am a woman, a woman with a daughter. Just like me my daughter is a “Tom boy”.

I never wanted to be a girl either it’s not fun. So I ran around with a group of mostly guy friends. However I still like boys so I would date.

When I was 15 years old I lost my virginity to my first real boyfriend. He must have thought that made him have some ownership over me. I was abused beaten and raped, threatened and very scared to move against him. He carefully separated me from my friends and family. He carefully destroyed me and any confidence I had.

As I got older I realized how dangerous some men really are to women. In a world that is made for men we are seen as lesser then. Anyone with a penis being in the same bathroom as me is scary. I don’t want to be scared in a bathroom or a dressing room. I also need a place to talk, having someone their who has or did have a penis would make me uncomfortable.

I’m not against Trans people. They 100% deserve safety and rights too! But why is it that for them to have rights women have to give away the safety we barely have. It feels like Trans women don’t understand and that might be because our experiences are not the same. That’s ok too.

But opening up women exclusive places because someone says they are a woman is very scary.

Biology is real! What about in sports? Will women have to compete with someone who has male biology? Just bc they call themselves a woman? It’s so not fair. This is not the society I wanted for my daughter. It’s also so confusing. I too spent my whole childhood wishing I was a boy. When my boobs came and I got my period I cried because I wanted to be a boy.

In today’s world, society would tell me to transition. But it would have been wrong for me. Now as a adult I know that I am who I am. I don’t have to change. I am a woman, a mother and I am a little rough around the edges. I keep my hair short. I dress how I want and my fiancé still loves me for me. If I had changed I never would have found my happiness.

I have tried my best to speak out on social media and raise other women up. Sadly there is a scary amount of opposition who don’t care about women’s rights they just want the title. They bring down a storm on your job, your family and everything they can attach to you. What a scary thing. Even if your boss agrees with you, they still have to fire you or lose their business!? That is terrifying.

This “agree with me or suffer the consequences” culture that’s happening. This “cancel culture” has moved to regular people. No longer does an angry mass demand a show be taken off the air.

Now they look at a small town mom and say, “agree with me or I will take everything from you”(it’s actually terrifying if you think about it.)

I’m also a artist so I use some of my art to send a message. It’s usually one drawing on black background and large vibrant words. I’m trying to reach out across the line and ask for thoughtful conversation instead of a angry swarm waiting to destroy on command. I’m no one’s enemy.

The consequences seem to be similar for everyone. Like I said before, even if I’m just asking for conversation or a debate to try and see the problems for what they are I am met with blind hate.

Like a swarm of angry bees waiting to sting whoever comes near their hive, we’re not allowed to touch this conversation. So I’ve had hateful slurs thrown at me. Long time friends have unfriended me and I’m made to feel like being a regular woman is a hateful thing in itself.

C. Mutt, I’m a mom and a Artist. My nature is to love and Create. I believe all people have the Right to be safe, happy and live their best life, USA

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Others

Pretending it is otherwise can set the progress women have made back

I have a daughter and a son. I tell them that they can perform their gender any way they want but there are biological facts to having a penis or a vagina (or being intersex).

This matters to me because it is a fact. It matters to me because I think pretending it is otherwise can set the progress women have made back. It matters to me because it invalidates the experience of being born a female…a physically weaker sex with less muscle mass…which translates to sports and safety.

I haven’t done much – I would be kicked out of my community! I haven’t spoken up except to a few close friends.

Brenna A, USA

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Healthcare Others

Women need single-sex spaces

I care because women need single-sex spaces and because of basic fairness, e.g. men being included in women’s sports, fiction prizes etc

I have mainly engaged on social media. Some discussion with friends and family.

My children think I am a transphobe. I’ve lost some friends.

Al, Curmudgeon

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Healthcare Parent

I have two very young daughters and I want to be able to look them in the eye when they’re old enough to understand

I care about safeguarding, I care about children being taken down irreversible pathways medically, I care about women’s sports, I care about freedom of speech and I care about us not being seen as non-men or as second-class citizens.

I have two very young daughters and I want to be able to look them in the eye when they’re old enough to understand and we look back on this lunacy and laugh.

I am using my expertise in the sports and charities sectors to help both a grassroots women’s organisation and an LGB organisation with their campaigns and administration, respectively.

I have raised the issue at work, helping to influence policy, and I’ve discussed with friends and family, who know I can be trusted as a sounding board on the issue.

I have retweeted relevant articles on twitter in my real name (I have about ten blue tick followers, mainly sports celebrities, out of about 850 so hopefully some will take note).

I donate to crowdfunders and to the grassroots movement by standing order and I made a substantial donation to lumos to say thank you to JKR.

One of my best friends and I had a row about men using loopholes to access women’s spaces. We’ve been friends for more than ten years and I was frightened at how angry he got with me. Our friendship is only (just) surviving because I’m friends with his wife, too, otherwise I’m sure it’d be over.

Claire G, I’d rather this went away so I can concentrate on more fun stuff

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Healthcare

As an eighteen-year-old student nurse, I didn’t speak up about Jimmy Saville

This matters to me because I am a woman and a mother of daughters, I care about our rights and opportunities and I care about the dignity and choices of all women. As a Nurse, I also care that people with gender dysphoria are able to access psychological therapies and the treatment that they need.

It matters to me that women and girls can participate fully in society, whether that is with our career choices, via sport, or through social activities, and I want women and girls to have the privacy and dignity they need when dealing with intimate body functions. I care passionately that my daughters can be the women they wish to be, expressing their personality and identity their way and I want them to enjoy safe sex with partners of their choice.

I care that regulatory capture has already eroded safeguarding boundaries and is seeking to reduce them further.  I care that vulnerable people can be persuaded that being Trans / Non-binary will solve their complex issues. Professionally, I have encountered people having more surgery “because if I just had my breasts enlarged/face sculpted/other procedure I would be happy” These people must not be sold a lie.

This especially matters to me, because of something I didn’t speak up about. Thirty plus years ago, as an eighteen-year-old student nurse, I didn’t speak up about Jimmy Saville.

At the time it was a trivial issue and I had no idea of the breadth of the man’s depravity, I just thought he was a creep. But I have asked myself many times since, what if? What if I had said something? what if others had said something? could he have been stopped sooner if the incidents had been stitched together and the picture was clear? We need sunlight.

I bore my friends and family endlessly. I tweet – though under a pseudonym – about issues that affect women and girls, have contributed to crowdfunders and have tried to raise awareness on online platforms, endeavouring to patiently, factually challenge incorrect posts and to repost and celebrate the views of feminists I respect.

I have written to my MP, responded to consultations and am part of online feminist groups. I have written and emailed organisations whose policies undermine the rights of women and girls. I have a long list of organisations whose products I boycott as a result.

Unfortunately, my nursing code of conduct and healthcare employers social media guidelines limit what I can write in my own name – so no I haven’t experience negative consequences, because I work within the rules. I would like to go beyond them.

Helen, Woman, Mother, Nurse,

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Private sector

I have been assaulted at work because I am a woman

I care because I am a WOMAN. This is not something I chose, I just am. As a child I was not feminine, I resisted dresses and prettiness, these days i would likely be told i was a boy. The sports I love are in danger of being invalidated because some men and boys “feel” like they are women. They are not, they can dress how they want but they are not and never will be women. I have been assaulted at work because I am a woman, I have been insulted because I am a woman. Women and girls must have single sex protections from men.

On a recent article on a work webpage, someone said anyone who didn’t agree that TWAW were TERFs. For the first time I made a comment with my real name, and said it was a term being used to silence and shame women on social media etc. I will admit I was scared to do it, interestingly the person who used the term never came back to comment. It now feels like I will have a mark against my name for speaking out, but I will have to wait and see. Don’t know yet, waiting to see if I get a call from HR to book me onto a diversity course.

Em, An adult human female

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Private sector

I’m no longer welcome in most LGBTQ circles/groups

This matters to me because I’m a lesbian who thinks males literally can’t be lesbians so I’m no longer welcome in most LGBTQ circles/groups. I care because sex being superseded by gender is harmful to women in too many ways to go into in this short paragraph! Women’s sport, vulnerable women’s safety, data collection and adequate provision of services, and women being able to speak the truth about their reality are all negatively affected by gender identity dogma and ‘trans women are women.’

I have not done as much as I should have done! So far it’s just been conversations with friends and acquaintances trying to raise awareness, online discussions, and writing to politicians. I’d hoped to attend a rally in March but didn’t go because of Covid19.

I have experienced very few negative consequences, comparatively. It has made some friendships very difficult, but as yet not ended them. My work is thankfully unaffected, as I work in a tiny forestry co-operative with a small number of sympathetic men. The main negative personally is my alienation from the LGBT community and organisations who will brook no dissent, and alienation from Labour/Green circles.

Helen

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Healthcare Others

Why did my mother have to suffer for years with her womb

As a woman who hasn’t been believed and made to feel bad for being sexually assaulted, I find it terrifying that women’s voices are still not heard. I am not traumatised by the event but other women are by theirs and pushing ideology on people only makes that worse.

Why did my mother have to suffer for years with her womb because they couldn’t be bothered to deal with it, whereas had she identified as man she may have not had to suffer as long.

I was told at 16 I was too young for a hysterectomy as I may want kids one day. I’m glad they didn’t take me seriously in some ways as now in my 30s I am considering children.

However, it is this disregard towards women and their feelings and their bodies that does not sit right with me. This is before we even get on to the topic of men identifying as women being allowed to compete as women in sport!

I am quite active on Twitter in the Gender Critical movement. I was threatened rape on twitter and the tweet was deleted and the account suspended.

KS, Biology cannot be denied

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Media and Arts

Not one moment of my life has ever been “cis”

As a rape victim and domestic abuse survivor, I know too well the visceral reality of existing in a female body. Erasing womanhood as the unique experience, both painful and joyful, that it is only deepens misogyny and endangers our rights and safety. In the US, women still don’t have constitutional equality! Sex-based rights are specific, distinct and sacrosanct.

Men who grow up with male privilege will never know what it is to be a woman. They have their own struggles. We have ours. If you don’t think abusive men will take advantage of trans self ID laws, then you truly erase women’s lived experiences and oppression.

Even without the opportunists, women shouldn’t have to justify why we deserve our OWN rights and spaces. You would never demand a PoC justify their need for race based rights or race based organizations.

I have been vocal on social media and with friends. In public conversations I object to being called cis or being forced to declare my pronouns. Cis implies a privilege women cannot experience. Cis erases the struggle women face to rebel against and defy gender stereotypes, roles, and behavior. Not one moment of my life has ever been “cis.”

I have been harassed online, usually by liberal men. Most recently, a progressive male spent the night berating me online, mansplaining womanhood to me, calling me a bad feminist, and telling me that female oppression didn’t matter compared to trans males’ feelings.

More frighteningly though, I have had professional contacts in the political world sever ties and support for me over my objection to trans athletes in women’s sports. This not only bullied and silenced me amongst work colleagues, but it also means I lost out on work recommendations from them when I was looking for a job.

María, Indigenous American, asylum immigrant, mixed race female, rape victim, US