Tag: work

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Healthcare Media and Arts

I was in shock at single biggest attack on womens rights in my lifetime. How did I not know?

I fell into this rabbit hole in Oct 2018. I knew straight off that some well meaning teacher would have had my 10 year old self in a binder, steered towards hormones, fed a load of dangerous ideas. I was in shock at single biggest attack on womens rights in my lifetime. How did I not know? The mainstreaming of  pseudo science, of pink brains in blue bodies, with it’s attendant State sanctioned mutilation of children. Has everyone gone collectively  barmy?

I started looking into it properly from Oct 2018. Playing catch up. I accumulated 1000s of reference links & screen shots.I’ve not stopped talking or posting about Transgenderism since. I know I’ve grown awareness in my own friendship networks and community networks, I did a lot of explaining amongst my local muslim contacts online. Kept encouraging them to start talking about it in their family groups. Transgender Trend stuff was really helpful.  I challenged supporters of No Outsiders when parents were protesting. Activists MPs & TU people.

Virtue signallers were all over Brum social media. How many had read it? I’m still regularly tweeting Jess Phillips with #childsafeguarding.  I found Gender Critical Green Party members, I’d have left the party if I hadn’t. We’re trying to get a GP womens rights policy agreed. Got Lab friends to raise issue in their local branch & nationally: working on getting the Lab Wom Declaration passed at branch.   Culture: Chased up Barber Institute re Drag Queen Story Hour & Coronation St, long story.  Written regularly to MSM. Signed petitions. Written to MPs. Donated to crowd fundraisers. Put up stickers. Bought Tshirts. Supported others. Been able to offer words of comfort & experience, especially to younger campaigners, who get caught up with vicious eejits online.

Don’t let them waste your time & energy or rent space free in your head. Age has its advantages.

Been called: bigot, shameful, told I’ll be dead soon anyway because I’m old, accused of fighting a phony war. Dropped by numerous online ‘friend’s & political group pages. All a bit hurtful, especially at first. But seeing what’s happened to others has really boiled my piss. I’ve nothing to lose. I’ve no career or reputation. My true friends are just that, true. So I’ve been fearless in speaking up & out. For all those confused misled  kids who can’t and for whom this is urgent. For all the women who are more vulnerable than I. Sanity must prevail.

Susan Green , Not dead yet

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.

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Healthcare Media and Arts

I’m also very concerned about children being seduced into the trans cult

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

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Students survivor

My life so far has been defined by abuse

I am twenty years old, and my life so far has been defined by abuse. I endured childhood rapes, intimate partner violence, and PTSD in addition to all the abuse that typically comes from being a woman. Nonetheless, I was strong and made it to where I am today. When I was raped in my first year of college, my friend group turned its back on me.

My anger was “an overreaction,” my best friend started dating my rapist, and male friends would tell me I was “slut-shaming” her by being upset.

Already, men were using woke language to silence me. Later, the same man who accused me of slut-shaming and over-reacting came out as non-binary, and suddenly I was the privileged one, and the poor little rich boy was oppressed.

My school is incredibly liberal. Most students support “sex work”, BDSM, and gender self-ID. Those of us who’ve been affected by these institutions keep our mouths shut.

Young men are always stepping up to tell me who I should feel comfortable changing in front of, what my period means, what defines my womanhood, and how I should feel about sexual violence. I say no.

I am a woman because I have XX chromosomes and uterus. The world has treated me a certain way because of it, and that matters to me.

I am afraid. I do not have a lot of money or power in the world. I have spoken with my friends and family. But I am not open or public about my views.

The same people (former friends) who trivialized and mansplained my rape accussed me of “transphobia” and “hating non binary people” and attacked me on facebook. I was forced to come out with all the details of what happened to me to clear my name.

Mick, Woman born a woman

Categories
Students

We are in a dystopian, totalitarian scenario

If we can’t defend something as basic and obvious as sex then we are in a dystopian, totalitarian scenario.

I was horrified because I knew, deep down, that I agreed with the uppity feminists, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find any evidence that they were wrong.

So eventually I accepted myself as one of the difficult women. I want women to be able to name ourselves. I want us to centre ourselves in our own movement. I want us protected in our own spaces. I want language to have meaning and for scientific concepts to stay coherent & reflect reality.

I started by working up the courage to send something to my MP. Then post on Mumsnet. I then wrote longer think-pieces. Talked to my friends & family in real life.

My friends have taken it negatively. I don’t think they see me in the same way. They don’t understand, so we don’t talk about it anymore.

S

Categories
Lesbians Students

I am seeing the existence of my sexuality be denied

I care because as a woman I am seeing all of the hard-earned rights feminists have worked tirelessly for be diminished before our eyes. I care because as a lesbian, I am seeing the existence of my sexuality be denied and the definition of it “extended” to include males by people from within the LGBT community.

I care because I have read the statistics and seen first hand the amount of young girls go through social/medical transition due to homophobia, misogyny and peer pressure.

As a student I witnessed struggling young bisexual and lesbian girls change their name and pronouns to fit in with the “queer” crowd.

I care because I’ve been called vanilla for not wanting to partake in BDSM. I’ve been called a prude for criticizing the porn and sex industries. I care because I care about the rights of lesbians and the rights of all women!

I try to speak up about the injustices I’m seeing as much as possible, online and in real life. Unfortunately I live in an area with no radical feminist groups, and a huge queer community so I only know a small close circle of radfems.

I have been shunned from the LGBT community. People I don’t even know know me and by name and it’s worrying. When I am out and about and I see someone look at me funny I wonder if it’s because they know I am  a “TERF”. Socialising in gay venues has become anxiety-inducing, but I still go because I have every right to be there as a homosexual female. I have been excluded from university groups and people are warned about me.

Rosie, 21 year old lesbian and student

Categories
Students

The university has let women down and let down the nature of university as a place for free speech and discussion

I care because I can understand and empathise with young girls who want an option out of misogyny. I was given the freedom by my parents to grow up relatively gender neutral – having short hair, playing football, wearing my brothers hand-me-downs. I was bullied then for looking like a boy – if then was now i would be scared this would have led to me questioning whether I was actually a boy.

As a woman I know what it feels like to be over-sexualised and objectified by men constantly. I know that there is no way of identifying out of this. I also know the physiological toll this has, in seeing myself through patriarchal eyes, victim blaming myself, and seeing my own body as too sexual. I care because as a life-long feminist, it enrages me and upsets me so deeply to see the feminist movement highjacked by men who are centring themselves in our movement in a way which inevitably breaks down sex class solidarity among women.

It angers me that men have the entitlement to define women and define themselves as women without any understanding of what it means to be a woman. I care so much about this because I recognise what generations of women have fought for before me, and I can see how these achievements are being retrenched every time men are allowed access into female spaces.

I think back to high school and the shame I felt surrounding my period, how even in the girls toilets I would try to open my pad so quietly so no one knew. Imagining what this would be like now, knowing that girls are increasingly forced to accept male bodies in these spaces, makes me beyond sad.

While millions of women and girls around the world experience brutal oppression directly linked to their sex and reproductive capacity, it astounds me how these experiences of male violence are being erased.

This matters to me because mainstream feminism in the UK has failed these women and is no longer serving the goal of female liberation. 

I have actively campaigned alongside other women in Scotland to bin the Gender Recognition Reform Bill and raised my voice by filling in the consultation for the bill. I have attended For Women Scot meetings and the launch of LGB Alliance. I have defended my position, sought to explain it to anyone who will listen, and talked non-stop about this issue since I became aware of it. I have spoken out online but find real life discussions more productive. I am part of XX (Nicole Jones’ young feminist network) and am hoping this will create space for young radical feminist women to feel able to talk publicly about these issues.

Although the majority of my friends have been openminded and interested in this discussion (often themselves feeling like they have been unable to question the logic of transgenderism) and I have gained more friends than I have lost, I have still lost multiple friends and acquaintances. I have faced intolerance from my university in their inability to accommodate the position that a woman is an adult human female, not someone who identifies as one.

Being told by staff at my university (the University of Glasgow) that a gender critical view is transphobic and not to be tolerated, has left me feeling like the university has let women down and also let down the nature of university as a place for free speech and discussion. I am concerned that in the future I will be unable to openly hold these opinions in the workplace.

Kirsty

Categories
Healthcare Others

I pointed out that the Labour Party Rule Book does not refer to the Equality Act

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

Categories
Academics and researchers Healthcare

I have never seen such brutal silencing of women’s voices, just for stating basic scientific facts

I care about the issue because things escalated very rapidly under my nose. I have been active in feminist spaces for years but I have never seen such brutal silencing of women’s voices, just for stating basic scientific facts.

I am not from the UK – I live in the US, but I came from another country and I’m still very active in social media in my native language (sorry about my English BTW – it’s not my first language). A few months ago a huge fight broke in my Facebook group – one of the triggers was you and your tribunal hearing but there were others. Some of us decided to finally speak up. All hell broke loose. I lost many friends and became a much hated figure but it only made me care about the issue more.

I mostly fear for the future of children who may be pushed to undergo irreversible, profound medical procedure before they’re old enough to know better because doctors and parents are afraid to speak up – transitioning children should  become illegal. I fear for girls and women whose spaces are taken away from them, and I fear about us losing the ability to have a peaceful, logical discussion about the issue. I care about the language to describe ourselves being taken away from us.

I have set up a website in my native language (the only one that I know of) where I collect materials, make facts and stories accessible and write about the issue freely.

I also continue to be active on Facebook and Twitter (although I had to start using a pseudo-name on Twitter). Some friends and I are preparing to start lobbying with politicians to make underage transition illegal and to preserve sex base rights in my home country.

My friends and I are also in touch with organizations in Canada and the UK hoping to make our voices heard.

I have lost friends, but so far that is it. I have a secure job and my employers and co-workers don’t speak my native language and are not aware of my “extracurricular activities”.

The Trash Patrol/Sayeret Zevel, Academic, immigrant, radical feminist who’s sick of crap, USA