Well, you and your sister are both welcome here if you want to participate. Not everyone is super combative. I feel like GC has got its pitbulls, but we've also got our golden retrievers. I prefer discussion to debate. I can debate about stuff, sure, and I do feel very strongly about things like child transition and BDSM, but I try to avoid making it personal. I know a lot of other GC people may just be out of patience, especially after hearing the same arguments repeatedly, but that's kind of what debate is. Two sides with opposite positions duking it out. It's like Christians vs. atheists. They don't have to hate each other, but sometimes the atheists are frustrated with the Christians because they keep getting the same excuses and what are (to them) non-answers.

The problem is, every time either of us try to talk to GC people, it feels like they genuinely want to drive us away.

We do have our QT regulars, but yeah, I get what you're saying. It was hard to attract long-term QT posters on the old sub, too. I think maybe some GC posters expect people to argue in bad faith, and so they adopt an adversarial tone right off the bat. To be honest, I don't know what it is. I don't think it's productive. But this is why I got in trouble for "tone policing" before. It's like, we already have an unpopular message. Why make it more unpopular with your style of delivery? It's bad strategy if nothing else.

But it's also true that we could bend over backwards to be nice, and it wouldn't matter. There are certain factions that want to shut down all discussion. Not just with threats of violence, but also suppression of our views. The Abigail Shrier book is a good example. She's respectful to trans people. She fully supports adult transition. She's not even against all forms of child transition. But the mere fact that she wrote a book about what's happening to natal female teenagers is enough to warrant active suppression and people calling for her book to be burned (an English professor) and withdrawn from circulation (an ACLU lawyer).

It's fucking scary out there. Which is why maybe GC women can be forgiven for sometimes feeling like we're under siege. It doesn't make personal attacks okay, but you can see why some of us may be out of patience. I'm more a "reach across the aisle" sort of person, but sometimes it feels like the people on the other side of the aisle are positioned to strike us. Women have lost their jobs for saying what we're saying. They've been subjected to rape and death threats. The other side is notably not on the receiving end of violence for their views, certainly not from us.

But back to this sub, I do hope you stick around. You can also not respond to certain people if you feel they're too aggressive. That's what I do. Our current sub is a lot smaller, but I feel like we actually lost some of our pitbulls in the transition. It seems overall more mild, although it does still skew GC. One major advantage here, though, no downvoting. That always pissed me off on the old sub. Like, why have a debate sub if you're going to downvote the other side to oblivion? Either we want debate or we don't. I would hate for this community just to become a big circlejerk.