The Gender Dissidents SurveyI am a woman and I care about the rights of women to speak about our lived experiences, to have spaces of our own, and to be homosexual without being shamed.
I have spoken out on social media and spoken to friends and family to let them know how I feel.
I have been shamed, defriended, and removed from groups on social media for my views. Luckily in real life I have not experienced backlash yet, but I have been careful about who I share my views with.
RM, a gender critical mom, US
This matters to me because I can’t bear the thought of women’s rights being taken by men who believe they are women. I don’t care what surgery they have, what hormone pills they take, what they think or how they dress, but a biological man will always be a man to me. I couldn’t bear sharing a change room with them. I suffered domestic abuse (physical and mental abuse) and I have trust issues because of it. I have had glass smashed down my face leaving me scarred. I been punched several times and dragged from my bed by the hair while sleeping. I moved to the UK just to get away from him. He dragged me through the family court for 7 years until the court finally blocked all contact between him and my 2 sons (now adults). I’ve read the stories about trans-activists and the thought I could be attacked in a change room leaves me worried for myself and our future generation of young women.
I have expressed my views online but as a lawyer, I’d be struck off if I went public with my views. I have lost friends over the subject. I share your posts and other stories when I can.
I have lost friends and even family members have removed my from Facebook. I have quite a lot of gay and lesbian family members. They don’t all support the trans movement but those that do won’t speak to me.
TA
I am a foreign national and an official Interpreter, Translator and Private Tutor. I can say that I lived the first half of my life in a communist country and the other half in the UK. Because of that I have a really good perspective on what is going on about women’s rights being eroded by the trans agenda. I
became vocal about it when I found out about the GRA “consultation” in 2018. I could not believe that such an important consultation that would impact on half of the population is being kept secret, really. You could not find out about it from the media, BBC kept completely shtum about it. That is why I joined a private group where we aimed at advertising that consultation, I talked to anybody I could trust about it. Because of my job I have to be very careful in public, as I need to be seen neutral on the subject. I even attended a Trans Awareness Course for Interpreters just to see how they are trying to brainwash people. That was quite an experience. I was thankful to FAIR PLAY FOR WOMEN who significantly simplified answering the questions on the GRA forms so that you did not have to spend 3 hours filling it all in. I managed to invite to take part in it lots of my Facebook friends whose English was not good enough to attempt answering the survey.
I mentioned living half of my life under a communist regime. That is why I can clearly see the similarities between the two agendas in their Big Brother tactics.
I am so pleased that BBC, Woman’s Hour, The Daily Mail, The Sunday Times and countless brave individuals have started being vocal about those issues and this country seems a lot freer than of late, as a result.
As a parent, grandparent and longterm volunteer in a primary school, I fear for the impact of gender ideology on children, both psychologically and medically. I have a huge concern for safeguarding across the board – in all the areas impacted by a belief in gender identity – single-sex spaces (toilets, changing rooms, prisons) and single-sex services (female HCPs for smear tests and mammograms, for body searches in prisons and airports, for intimate personal care in social-care settings).
I am also incited to speak up because of the impact of gender-identity ideology on women’s rights – the opportunities for the female sex in sports and politics and STEM and other areas which are now offered to anyone who “identifies as a woman”.
I’ve posted on FB on the topic but not as much as I might have and other friends have. I have good friends with “trans children” who are hurt by my speaking out at all on this. I have chatted personally with members of my family, and extended family, and some friends.
At the school where I volunteer a child had a “gender non-conforming” issue: I discussed Transgender Trend + their schools pack + other resources for the family with the headteacher/Senior Leadership Team; and gave them a copy of Rachel Rooney’s book, which they appreciated.
I wrote to my MP 3 years ago and had her full support on these issues. I wrote full responses to the English and Scottish GRA consultations, and I’ve bought postcards from Fair Play and Standing For Women and left them in women’s toilets.
A couple of close friends consider I am being unfair and unreasonable but we haven’t fallen out. I am overly cautious on being very public on speaking up as it would hugely impact my husband and his career.
Aunt Gertrude, mother, grandma and teaching assistant volunteer in primary school
I care because I have been teaching my daughter to respect her boundaries and to protect herself from predatory men. If laws are passed to where any man can enter women’s spaces just by him declaring so, women’s rights and their place in public life will be difficult to navigate.
I have posted my views online, at great cost and stress. I have donated money to different organizations who are on the frontlines.
I have been threatened that I will lose my job. I’ve been called slurs and horrible names. I’ve lost friends.
Marie, A mother, a daughter, a woman, Taiwan
This issue matters to me because women’s rights matter to me – biological women’s rights. I went to woman’s college, I have always been quite liberal, but even with all of that I ended up in an abusive relationship with a very charming narcissist, and this fringe group of radical trans women seeking to take over what it means to be a woman just triggered me, especially when I saw what was happening to people like you, Maya, and JKR. The other reason is that I am a teacher and these rapid-onset transitions are deeply worrying.
What have I done to raise my voice? Not enough. I have donated to women’s charities but I was doing that before this topic came to the fore.
I’ve had some unfriending on FB, and I think some of my colleagues regard me as a bit of a kook because I bring up the issue.
Kate C, I work as a teacher in a British international school, Middle East
I have been in the struggle for women’s rights for more than 40 years. Gender ideology undoes the limited gains we have made and erases the possibilities of winning more. Gender ideology drips with misogyny and lesbophobia and homophobia. It is an authoritarian and regressive ideology.
I organise an annual International Women’s Day rally that is unashamedly feminist and of course recognises that women are adult human females. I have organised a small feminist discussion group to consider the harmful consequences of gender ideology.
I have organised one public meeting in defence of women’s sex-based rights and plan to run more once Covid restrictions permit. I organised a WL Conference in my home city a few months ago. I run several feminist FB pages and contribute to others.
I have been physically and verbally harassed, dropped from’progressive’ email lists, hounded out of my union, socially ostracised and had friends cut off all contact with me to show their left friends how woke they are.
Anna M, feminist activist, mother, grandmother, Australia
This matters to me because of the reinforcement of gender stereotypes, the legal erosion of women’s rights, the homophobia and especially through educational programmes.
I have discussed what is happening with family and friends and posted (anonymously) on twitter.
I have been careful (cowardly?) about who I have spoken to.
Anne, Left wing, feminist, lesbian, autistic
I care because I’ve experienced decades of male harassment and abuse so I understand fully the need for safe spaces for women and girls. I am also deeply concerned about children’s natural explorations of their world and themselves being medicalised to the extent of preventing puberty, having dangerous surgeries, and potentially shortening their lives.
Telling anyone, especially a child, that their body is wrong is incredibly cruel.
I care because women and girls have our lives so restricted and policed as it is without what few rights we do have being erased or curtailed.
I care because women of certain religious beliefs are finding their ability to participate in public life restricted by their right to privacy being eroded.
I care because women and girls who’ve been abused (and those who haven’t) are being bullied into sharing spaces with men no matter how vulnerable and/or terrified they might be by this. I care because women are being hounded, gaslit and silenced, deprived of their careers and incomes, bullied in real life as well as online.
I care because men’s rights activists and fetishists are running the trans rights campaigns and damaging not only women and girls but trans men and women too.
I care because young women are asking whether they should date a trans woman even though they don’t want to because if they don’t they’ll be bullied and harassed. And I care because gay people’s, especially lesbian women’s, rights to set boundaries in their sex lives are being eroded. It’s rape culture writ large.
I have responded to posts and shared information on social media. I have built a database of relevant articles to share to back up the women’s rights case and I follow gender critical accounts and people. I have challenged companies like M&S and organisations like HeForShe with regard to their TWAW rhetoric and associated abandoning of women’s rights. I have helped fund various campaigns to challenge the dismantling of women’s and girls’ rights. And I participated in the government’s GRA survey to stand up for women’s rights being retained while promoting additional safe spaces for trans people who need them.
I have been gaslit, bullied and blocked. I’ve also been stalked by TRAs and put on TERF lists. In real life I’m unable to work so have suffered no consequences there, while the very few people I have discussed the issues with have been understanding.
Maat, Human and animal rights activist
I care about this issue as it affects every single indefinable human beings existence. UNTIL humanity accepts that every individual person who has ever existed has been robbed, to some extent of complete subjective human expression and in effect self actualisation, under the guise of the dominant MANMADE Patriarchal CONstruct, of the intentionally divisive fallacy of GENDER. Inequality, prejudice discrimination abuse and violation of basic human rights will continue to persist and proliferate through the fabric of every culture. The ludicrous terms MASCULINITY and FEMININITY were intentionally constructed for the division of power and control between the sexes. The misappropriation of human traits, qualities and expressive characteristics should never have been permitted. It has always been a COMPLETE IMPOSSIBILITY for someone’s subjective sense of self concept to be externally defined as a result of the opinion of another human being. WOMAN adult human biological female, MAN adult human biological male. GENDER masculinity/femininity a fallacy which enabled power based characteristics to be cherry picked and assigned to boys/men and passive subservient characteristics to be assigned to girls/women. Generational imprinting and all social control measures thus could police conformity and Matriarchy and Patriarchy foolishly believed this ridiculous travesty. It’s time to reclaim the HUMAN RIGHT to expression of all universal human attributes traits qualities and characteristics irrespective of any other external factor, the way it should always have naturally been.
I have written an extensive blog of my views, following lengthy personal reflection on the subject, in an effort to put forward suggestions which I believe would honor the human right of subjective individualised self expression whilst upholding the protected category of sex based rights. I have sent letters to the Scottish government, Human Rights Council, politicians, women’s rights organisations. I have posted my blogs online and tagged many people and organisations to disseminate my views further.
I have received tweets from unwanted people often with inappropriate images. I have witnessed the onslaught of harassment and abuse many people face when trying to discuss the topic online.
As a Christian I know there are only men or women.
M 💙, M💙, the patriarchal CONstruct of the fallacy of MASCULINITY and FEMININITY breeds anguish misery and dysphoria in humanity
The Gender Dissidents Survey