I care about women’s rights to privacy & safety and statistics being truthful.
I have not spoken out.
S, writer
Tag: women's rights
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
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
I care because they lie
I care for two reasons, one is emotional and the other factual. I care because women’s rights are constantly challenged. And I care because they lie. No, it is not true that transwomen are female. It has nothing to do with being kind or understanding or I don’t know what else. It’s not true. And I won’t lie just to make them happy while they eat away at my rights as a woman and a febfem.
I have become more and more vocal about these issues, trying to care less and less about any backlash I may receive
Tension with my transgender friend. Depending when we talk, she agrees with me or buries her head in the sand. I don’t wan’t to hurt her so I don’t push as hard as I would online, but it’s so frustrating to see her get so close to being gender critical and then go back to being buried deep in gender theory.
Alicia, International law and Human rights postgraduate student
I care because I am a woman. If I ever am in a compromising situation, I feel that I should be able to ask for female providers and that it shouldn’t be considered transphobic to do so. I also know that it’s important to fight for rights regarding my biology, because that’s the basis for sexism
I have shared on social media. I have also talked to friends. Thankfully my close friends are in agreement with me. However, if I speak out to a wider circle, I will lose friends.
I am very afraid, because I see “no TERFs” in advertising for women’s rights marches and know they mean people like me. I know I’m not welcome in society. And as a heterosexual white woman, the view is that I’m privileged. However, I suffer through sexism all the same.
Sydney, Female musician, Canada
This matters to me because I was pressured into transition, even though I didn’t believe it, and even though I got away from that, a lot of people I know are transitioning at an alarming rate. Women’s rights are being trampled on and I feel there is nowhere I can go if I feel vulnerable as a woman that a transgender male-to-female can’t also access.
I have spoken out with my family and posted on social media. I have also reduced contact with those who push their views onto me about the subject.
I have been threatened on social media, harassed by a transgender person (biologically male) I live with who also stole some of my ‘feminine possessions’ to tell me not to be a ‘terf’, cornered and threatened by another who was over a foot taller than me, and received more minor threats from a lot of friends warning me not to speak out. All of these (except from the last one) have been witnessed by people of authority, but all have been dismissed.
Beth
This matters to me because it is not possible to change sex, and because women and girls suffer in various ways if men are allowed in spaces where they are vulnerable, undressed or asleep. The Equality Act 2010 provides protection for women but the law is widely misquoted and misinterpreted due to the systematic policy capture by extremist transactivists.
Many trans people do not support the demands of transactivists for the legalisation of ‘self-ID’ ‘gender identity’. I’m appalled by the silencing of many academics who support the retention of existing sex-based rights for women, and by the suspension and banning from social media platforms of gender critical people – mainly women. Safeguarding of children is also threatened by trans ‘affirmation.
I have proposed two GC (gender critical) resolutions in my Labour Party CLP. I organised Defend Women’s Rights meetings locally. I attended several Womens Place UK meetings. I’m active in Labour Womens Declaration Working Group. I constantly post openly on Facebook and Twitter. I am an admin of several secret GC facebook groups.
I have emailed my MP with detail several times, as well as lobbying Labour Party NEC members and MPs. I pointed out that the Labour Party Rule Book does not refer to the Equality Act (!) and incorrectly references the protected characteristics. (Unchanged in 2020 edition)
I am writing my story “Musing on the sex and gender morass: how my life changed on 18th Nov 2017” (when I found out about transactivist demands for Self-ID
I have lost two dear friends as a consequence of my views on sex and gender. Very painful… And I think probably many other less close friends and acquaintances will have distanced themselves. Hard to know. Most people I think say nothing, knowing that it’s ‘toxic’
I have repeatedly been called ‘bigoted’ ‘hateful’ ‘transphobic’ – none of which are true. I left the Labour Party because of this in 2018 and then decided to rejoin in 2019 – but was rejected as a member because I ‘mis-gendered’ a young man who identifies as a woman, and had been elected as a women’s office in the party. (and because I’m a supporter of Palestinian rights) Currently awaiting appeal hearing 8 months later. It’s been my choice to proritise this issue, but that has come at a very significant cost.
Diane Jones, Socialist feminist, retired researcher. Art music literature for sanity retention
I care about women’s rights and am also very concerned that we’re carrying out medical experiments on vulnerable kids. The post-truth/thought control side of this is very disturbing to me as someone with a background in 20th-century totalitarian movements.
I applied to graduate school to research the issues of gender transition and kids (starting fall 2020); I am writing online and speaking to people one-on-one in my real life — colleagues, friends, strangers! — about 50-60 such people; and I carry out small acts of resistance like reshelving “gender handbooks” that tell kids that if they’re uncomfortable with gender stereotypes they might be born in the wrong body and moving them to the highest reaches of the Adult Fantasy section, where they belong.
I have lost friends who are gender activists.
Eliza, USA
It’s important to me because as a female I feel as if I’m being erased. I am being given labels which I don’t want to use (such as cis), my identity as I know it is being forced to become something else.
I now have to tell people my pronouns, I am female, you can see it. I don’t need to tell it to you. I’m not invisible. I am also an Asian person, I can’t change the way I look and neither can I change the way that I look female. (This is not to say that a person cannot change to being trans) – but being female is an innate quality of me. Don’t take it away from me by making me use other descriptors.
I’ve talked about it to colleagues. I’m too scared to do it publicly. There will be a backlash. I see how other people are treated for talking up. By talking up it suggests that you’re transphobic (I can’t say whether I am or not because I grew up in a system and a community where LGBT was not accepted. I’ve tried to be inclusive and be aware of my innate bias)
I’m cautious. If I speak up, I probably would be shunned from my networks and disciplined within my workplace.
Eggy, A person who believes in women’s rights
I’m a female athlete so I first became aware of the issue of transwomen in sport when it was brought up in news articles reporting the Caster Semenya case. It was completely obvious to me that males shouldn’t be allowed to self ID into female sports from personal experience.
For example, I frequently finish in or near the top 3 women in competition but male friends who would be nowhere near the same level in the men’s category can beat me easily, or come very close even with relatively little training.
From following a few people who spoke about that issue, I read articles about the impact self ID could have in other areas of life and found myself getting more and more frustrated with the lack of consideration for women’s rights.
I have talked to numerous friends and family about the issue. I follow many GC people on twitter and like tweets but find myself too scared to retweet or comment publicly.
I’m nearly finished a PhD and I’m worried about how publicly holding these views would affect my career prospects.
Everyone I have spoken to about it in person finds the whole thing bonkers. Often other people bring up the males in women’s sports issue with me because they find the whole thing so crazy.
HG, PhD candidate and athlete
The Gender Dissidents Survey 