The Cat’s Mother
New member
I came across this forum when I was looking into the backstory of Jack Monroe. Then I found these threads, and decided to make an account, because I need somewhere I can talk about this.
I recently lost what I’d thought was a very good and close friendship over this issue, and I’m still rather reeling from it. I often doubt myself, and wonder whether I actually am a hateful narrow-minded bigot without knowing it.
Possibly like many people, for a long time I assumed that of course I supported trans rights, because I am generally a supportive and tolerant person. I was also pretty active on Twitter from it’s beginning, and most of the few friendships I had originated there.
There were a couple of things that started making me uneasy. A few years ago a woman I followed tweeted a link to a gently gender critical article, and I saw the message passed around other people I followed: ‘She’s a TERF. BLOCK HER!’. At the time I did think I disagreed with her, but I wasn’t going to condemn and block someone whose take on life I’d always enjoyed and appreciated simply because we disagreed, and I was uncomfortable with the idea that I somehow should.
Then every so often there would be waves of people I knew on Twitter all proclaiming ‘Trans women are women!’. I could never bring myself to participate, because there was always a stubborn, awkward little voice in my head asking ‘but are they? how so?’
So I went away and did what I had so often seen people who raised questions told to do. I tried to educate myself. I started to read a lot of trans content and testimony. Unfortunately, it had the opposite to the intended effect.
I’m not sure that there was any one thing that ‘peaked’ me.
Maybe it was the endless threads where a man questions if he is really trans because he gets sexually aroused when dressing in women’s clothes, and trans women rush in to assure him that it’s definitely not a fetish, that erections are just the way a body expresses happiness, and that anyway the majority of cis woman get sexually aroused when they look at themselves in a mirror, because female sexuality isn’t based on desire, it’s based on being found desirable.
Maybe it was the also endless threads where a man claims that he truly felt like a girl today because he burst into tears when he broke a nail/squealed out loud at a picture of a kitten/spent £300 on make up and shoes/admired himself in the mirror for hours.
Or maybe it was the again endless threads of selfies in skimpy clothes and provocative poses titled ‘I feel so cute/hot/sexy today!’. Because that’s a behaviour that overweight middle aged women are notorious for, right?
And mixed up in all this many clearly unhappy people who didn’t seem to be being well served by the ratchet effect of the argument where if you even vaguely wonder whether you might be trans you almost certainly are, because cis people never ever question their identity, do they? Now that it’s no longer a requirement to know you are trans from a child, and you don’t even need dysphoria to be trans, and anyway all sorts of vague misery and insecurity and confusion can be interpreted as manifestations of repressed dysphoria, people are encouraged to ask whether the hypothesis ‘I am trans’ makes sense of their life. Very often it seems to. *That’s* why you have never quite felt you fitted in, and have often felt depressed and anxious and lacking in certainty and confidence, unlike you imagine everyone else to feel. And now you have an explanation, a purpose, a path forwards with clear goals. Now you are no longer an ordinary human, often inadequate and frequently failing, you are someone bravely expressing your true self in a hostile world, you have clear, obvious enemies to rail against, and an automatic, immediate community who will cheer you on every step of the way. I mean - I can’t say I can’t see the appeal.
I’d better stop before this post becomes even more ridiculously long. It’s been rather a painful, lonely time. So here I am. Hello.
I recently lost what I’d thought was a very good and close friendship over this issue, and I’m still rather reeling from it. I often doubt myself, and wonder whether I actually am a hateful narrow-minded bigot without knowing it.
Possibly like many people, for a long time I assumed that of course I supported trans rights, because I am generally a supportive and tolerant person. I was also pretty active on Twitter from it’s beginning, and most of the few friendships I had originated there.
There were a couple of things that started making me uneasy. A few years ago a woman I followed tweeted a link to a gently gender critical article, and I saw the message passed around other people I followed: ‘She’s a TERF. BLOCK HER!’. At the time I did think I disagreed with her, but I wasn’t going to condemn and block someone whose take on life I’d always enjoyed and appreciated simply because we disagreed, and I was uncomfortable with the idea that I somehow should.
Then every so often there would be waves of people I knew on Twitter all proclaiming ‘Trans women are women!’. I could never bring myself to participate, because there was always a stubborn, awkward little voice in my head asking ‘but are they? how so?’
So I went away and did what I had so often seen people who raised questions told to do. I tried to educate myself. I started to read a lot of trans content and testimony. Unfortunately, it had the opposite to the intended effect.
I’m not sure that there was any one thing that ‘peaked’ me.
Maybe it was the endless threads where a man questions if he is really trans because he gets sexually aroused when dressing in women’s clothes, and trans women rush in to assure him that it’s definitely not a fetish, that erections are just the way a body expresses happiness, and that anyway the majority of cis woman get sexually aroused when they look at themselves in a mirror, because female sexuality isn’t based on desire, it’s based on being found desirable.
Maybe it was the also endless threads where a man claims that he truly felt like a girl today because he burst into tears when he broke a nail/squealed out loud at a picture of a kitten/spent £300 on make up and shoes/admired himself in the mirror for hours.
Or maybe it was the again endless threads of selfies in skimpy clothes and provocative poses titled ‘I feel so cute/hot/sexy today!’. Because that’s a behaviour that overweight middle aged women are notorious for, right?
And mixed up in all this many clearly unhappy people who didn’t seem to be being well served by the ratchet effect of the argument where if you even vaguely wonder whether you might be trans you almost certainly are, because cis people never ever question their identity, do they? Now that it’s no longer a requirement to know you are trans from a child, and you don’t even need dysphoria to be trans, and anyway all sorts of vague misery and insecurity and confusion can be interpreted as manifestations of repressed dysphoria, people are encouraged to ask whether the hypothesis ‘I am trans’ makes sense of their life. Very often it seems to. *That’s* why you have never quite felt you fitted in, and have often felt depressed and anxious and lacking in certainty and confidence, unlike you imagine everyone else to feel. And now you have an explanation, a purpose, a path forwards with clear goals. Now you are no longer an ordinary human, often inadequate and frequently failing, you are someone bravely expressing your true self in a hostile world, you have clear, obvious enemies to rail against, and an automatic, immediate community who will cheer you on every step of the way. I mean - I can’t say I can’t see the appeal.
I’d better stop before this post becomes even more ridiculously long. It’s been rather a painful, lonely time. So here I am. Hello.
You’re here to learn, dear. Not to rant at staff doing their job. It’s not all about you. Sometimes you know a student is going to be a nightmare for the next 3 years. If you’re THAT worried about being deadnamed how about change name by deedpoll before registering so it’s official name on the system, rather than hoping unwitting staff will see a note buried deep in your record about your preferred name…
