Tag: “TERF”

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Healthcare Media and Arts

I stopped being an activist for social issues for a while, trying to understand where I was wrong

This matters to me because I am a lesbian, and have been harrassed by trans activists before I even know what a terf was. When I was younger(around 18yo) I was a vocal feminist and lbgt activists on tumblr, and supporting trans people, but a lot of trans messaged me saying I was transphobic because I asked trans people questions to better understand and help them. After that, I faced more and more issues with harassment based on my sex and sexual orientation, so I stopped being an activist for social issues for a while, trying to understand where I was wrong.

Last year, I came to the conclusion that I wasn’t wrong, and made another blog, going back to being a feminist and lgbt activist. Without the T this time.

I also care because when I was young, I fell in love with my female best friend, and I tried being more masculine to woo her, so I know that being a lesbian can be confusing and I want to help young lesbians to not hate and change themselves.

I created a new tumblr, a twitter account, I try to donate when I can, and to speak up when it doesn’t put me in danger. I plan to volunteer at a women’s shelter at the end of the pandemic.

I have been harrassed online (death threats, pictures of dead and abused animals, threats of men saying they would hurt children if I keep speaking my mind…) and I have lost some friends over it. It’s still something I can’t talk to some of my friends because I know they would disapprove without letting me explain my experiences.

Lavande, Lesbian working in publishing, France

Categories
Parent

I don’t want to be referred to as a menstruator

I care because I have two daughters and I don’t want them growing up in a world that is less safe than the one I grew up in. I care because I see women becoming erased and our protected rights decimated. I care because we’re losing everything we fought for: the right to privacy, the right to fairness in sport, the right to have females perform intimate care on us, our right to single-sex wards, toilets, prisons, changing rooms, refuges…the list goes on. I care because I don’t want to be referred to as a menstruator, or cis, or a non-man.

I’ve written to newspapers to complain about men being referred to as women in cases of paedophilia and sex attacks. I have written to companies about being referred to as menstruators and their anti-women social media.

No consequences yet apart from nastiness on social media and being Terf-blocked.

P, I stand with JK Rowling , TerfyMcTerfyFace

Categories
Media and Arts

I do not want to be part of a society in which ideologies may not be critiqued or questioned, under threat of violence

I care because the more I learnt about this issue, the more blatantly misogynistic and terrifying for women’s rights it became. I knew nothing a couple of years ago, but started to see words like TERF appearing online and wondered what they meant. The answer led me down a dystopian rabbit-hole, as I saw what else was happening in the name of ‘trans rights’.

Far from a mere social media issue, it is now having real world consequences. I have worked in Universities which have changed previously ‘Women Only’ toilets into spaces for ‘All Genders’ (sic) . This not only makes me feel like my personal safety has been sold down the river for an adolescent gimmick, but I also got a sense that many young female students weren’t comfortable with it either, but daren’t speak up, lest they be tarnished as “bigots”. This makes my blood boil.

I have also encountered ‘gender neutral’ toilets at a major city centre theatre which has gone full ‘woke’, despite the reality that their biggest clientele are of retirement age and are likely to be baffled by it all.

( I also had an experience last year on a freelance job, when all of the toilets in the public building being used, were temporarily re-labelled ‘gender neutral’, discriminating against the needs of the large number of female staff (who stayed silent), simply to accommodate a “non-binary” 19 year old girl, whom we had to remember to address as ‘they/them’ throughout or else, like an episode of the Twilight Zone).

I also believe this movement is totalitarian and undemocratic and I do not want to be part of a society in which ideologies may not be critiqued or questioned, under threat of violence. I do not believe it is really about trans rights at all, it is a smokescreen for the oppression of women.

I’m furious and scared that women are being made explicitly less safe, yet if we speak about it it is US who get called BIGOTS!!! It must stop. Self-ID becoming law would be the worst thing to ever happen to women.

Amongst close friends and family I have spoken openly about the issue with much agreement (and disbelief). I have signed petitions, and contributed to legal cases when I can. I have also donated to women’s groups, such as Fairplay for Women, etc. I have bought tickets to events in my area (but not always attended if I thought there may be a hostile crowd nearby). I contributed my opinions to the GRA review. I have sent supportive messages to outspoken, more confident women online so they hopefully know that someone agrees with them. I have also emailed retailers with discriminatory policies, such as gender neutral changing rooms, to register a complaint.

I never use my real name for GC activities as I fear being targeted by a misogynistic hate mob, as has happened to so many outspoken women. I also fear that if I were to speak out, in even the mildest terms, it would damage my future career/earnings. I work freelance in the “arts” where the mantra is ‘trans women are women’ with no room for dissent. To question this, is to be labelled a ‘transphobe’ resulting in career-suicide under the current climate.

Deborah, Adult human female

Categories
Media and Arts

It’s a sexist theory that otherwise intelligent people are going along with!

This matters to me because I am a woman. I’ve experienced life as a woman both good and bad experiences. I have daughters. I fear for their safety if men can put a dress on and enter a space where they are vulnerable- like toilets or changing rooms. I feel we are opening the door to predators and perverts who will use and exploit this “self-identify” rule.

I also take great offence at the idea men can be women if they wear a dress/lipstick/pink – it’s a sexist theory that otherwise  intelligent people are going along with!

I have liked and retweeted JK Rowling’s tweets with comments. I have read different sides of the debate to clarify my own thoughts.

I have been called a TERF. I’ve been added to an online list of TERFs which I found really quite unnerving.

Lisa, Writer

Categories
Media and Arts

I’m tired of being frightened into silence

I care because I’m watching women’s rights get eroded away. I want to maintain sex-based protections. I’m tired of being frightened into silence.

I have posted on sites.

I’ve been called a terf and threatened.

S, Disgruntled black woman

Categories
Voluntary sector

I’m dismayed that decent people who think they’re being liberal and welcoming are unaware of the cost to women.

This matters to me for many reasons. Because women are being erased and redefined, reduced to their bodily functions, recategorised as a sub section of their own classification, having their rights removed and their ability to stand up for and protect themselves reduced. Because I worry for especially young women who are learning who they are and taking drastic actions which they live to regret. Because I’m seeing an increase in homophobia. Because there are troubling safeguarding issues for my daughters.

Because the males who are impinging on women’s protected spaces are affecting vulnerable women and certain religions and because asking why there’s a male in your safe space isn’t protecting women it could get you arrested for a hate crime. Because I’m dismayed that decent people who think they’re being liberal and welcoming are unaware of the cost to women. Because I see so much aggression and vile comments aimed at level-headed women just trying to raise awareness of the issue.

I’ve not done much. Discussed it some with family. Chat in private groups of like-minded women. I was sharing stuff on Twitter but I’ve dialled back on that because I’m freelance and I’m working currently with a third sector organisation and they are notoriously ‘woke’.

A year ago I was right there on the Trans Women are Women side of the fence, but then I started to see how simply raising legitimate concerns and questions about how we could accommodate male bodied people into women’s and girls’ safe spaces got you instantly labelled as a TERF.

And I started to see male bodied people using their self ID to access and beat women out of female specific awards and sports and scholarships that were there to redress the male focused opportunity and privilege, and then I started to see rape crisis centres have their funding cut for trying to protect traumatised women from sharing a safe space with a male bodied (ergo more physically powerful) person, and Jessica Yaniv and male bodied people who self ID abusing vulnerable women in prison. (Obv, not all Trans people.) And again when women tried to raise legitimate concerns about these things – whilst still trying to find a way to support trans people and help them to find a way to live their lives as they want to, safely and free from abuse and incorporated and welcomed – still being shouted at and labelled transphobic. And then I saw lesbians being called bigots for being same sex attracted. And then I saw people trying to pretend that actual biology ergo science was not a tested, provable thing which is a very dangerous route to take. Then I’m afraid my position shifted somewhat.

I started out just asking simple questions about safeguarding and was called transphobic and a TERF very quickly. I saw the same pattern repeated again and again with pleasant, caring women who showed concern for trans women and wanted them to live safe happy lives but not at the expense of women feeling safe and secure because of opportunistic men taking advantage of self ID, being threatened and called bigots and then I realised there was something very wrong with the TRA movement.

Shiv, Woman, mother, freelancer, feminist

Categories
Healthcare Media and Arts

Abuse in plain sight

Women’s sex based rights and what’s happening to confused children, which in my opinion is abuse in plain sight.

I’ve spoken out on social media, spoken out to friends at work. Written to my MP (who I know disagrees with me), raised it with other MPs when I’ve seen unfair things happen.

I’ve been called a terf, bigot, right winged, old out of touch woman, all the usual stuff.

Julie Evans, Feminist, a real one, who knows what a woman is.

Categories
Education

If I were just 5 years younger I would now be either a very unhappy trans man or a detransitioner

I am a woman. I am a feminist (any feminism involves a critique of “gender” or it’s not feminism). I’m also a lesbian lady who shaves her head and occasionally wear ties and I have the unsettling feeling if I were just 5 years younger I would now be either a very unhappy trans man or a detransitioner. I wouldn’t experience the joy I feel at singing really high notes (crappy amateur soprano here). And of course, I care about freedom of speech. I won’t be compelled to see others exactly as they see themselves. As Dr. Jane Clare Jones say, that’s a form of ontological totalitarianism.

I’ve spoken to friends and family and all over social media (with my name). I am currently unemployed and lockdown has been quite restrictive over here up until quite recently. But I plan on meeting with other feminists in my home town.

I lost “a friend” because she tried to shame me for being a lesbian in its archaic “terfy” definition. That was the last straw in a wider pattern in our relationship, since it’s not the first time she is emotionally manipulative.

Estela, Language teacher, studying to become a civil servant, Spain

Categories
Lesbians Students

I fear that a lot of young lesbians will be growing up confused

I have a lot of reasons but this matters to me because I feel like I am 12 again, in the closet, afraid to come out as a lesbian out of fear. This is the exact same thing, now I fear I would lose more friends and that I’ll be labeled transphobic by just saying that as a lesbian I don’t want anything to do with men and their body parts. That’s the gist of it.

The “other side” keeps telling me that penises can be female, that transwomen can be lesbians. It’s not as bad as conversion therapy but it’s pretty close. I fear that a lot of young lesbians will be growing up confused because they don’t find trans identified boys attractive as they are pressured to confirm to the new norm. Some of them might be pressured into thinking they are men, butch lesbians face this problem because they don’t confirm to society’s stereotypes of what it means to be a woman.

This matters to me because women’s voices are being snuffed, we are told to shut up and conform to the new ideology. I have always been anti organized religion, the left also holds this view apparently yet it’s puzzling to me how the cult-like similarity between these dogmas aren’t distinguished.

TWAW is a dogma, a chant repeated over and over again and anyone who disagrees is considered an undesirable.

I’ve already lived through this as a teenager, struggling with the ever so present homophobia within my society and surroundings. Living in fear of being discovered or outed as a lesbian, not speaking up whenever people proudly displayed their homophobic views.

I found my “tribe” then, my refuge was in the LGBT community. Now that same community is targeting me and other people like me who speak out.

The same community whose principals are being run-over by this new dogma.

I tried to write about it on social media and I got shut down pretty fast after that I began having panic attacks. I made anonymous accounts to voice my opinion.

I have been called transphobic, terf, bigot.

J, Studies philosophy, Montenegro

Categories
Students

This really matters to women rights

This really matters to women rights. As long as the Transgender and Gender-ism exists, there would be no women right nor the safety of women.

I have participated in seminars in Korea, having debates with people around or on the internet, spreading the critical inconsistency of it.

I have been troubled with my friends or the societies that saying I’m the phobia one.

Alex, the fatherfucking TERF, Korea