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[–]crystalskies 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Growing up, I struggled to accept trans "women" were women due to the performative aspect. It felt like they were dressing up as women. I bought into it for a while but I think what really turned me was when they started talking about how "sex doesn’t equal gender".

My other peak was when dysphoria apparently stopped being included as a criterion for being trans.

[–]FeralSelkie 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Long time lurker here, making my way to the first post.

I recently lost the last "true" best friend I had in years.

The start of the war in Ukraine and spillover economic disaster in my country drove a wedge between us, because I had been the most affected by it. I found myself jobless and struggling in the inflation with extended family also impacted by the repercussions of the war. By the time things settled somewhat a few months later and we could properly spend time together and catch back up on our friendship, she had changed. From a fairly reasonable if overly male-centered woman to a "he/him transmasc gay man non-binary" whose biggest struggle at present was not being able to live as her "authentic self" and have "affirming surgery". This corner of the world is burning, often quite literally, and THAT was her most pressing problem in life?

I was... at a loss for words. Still am. I don’t know if things would have been different if we hadn't lost contact during my difficult post-job loss months, if I could have helped with whatever had set her on this path. Bad influences? Too much internet? The cult?? All at once?

Didn't display immediate happiness at the news and I reacted with enough confusion (and a bit of fear) each time she tried to broach the subject that it must've instantly labeled me as GC in her mind and led to her cutting me off entirely.

She thought she was finally being her truest self. I thought that I was witnessing a body snatcher in action. What happened to my friend while I was gone?

It is one thing to read about this happening to other people on forums and another to find yourself in the position of seeing this in action right before your eyes. I am still shocked. I peaked hard, there is no going back from here.

[–]pakibiterf 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'm a mid-20 something bi man from a conservative muslim country.

And yeah, this TRA ideology has spread here too. However, there is a distinction I'd like make between the TRA ideology and like ages old "third gender" concept that's existed here for a while. I'm only referring to the earlier since the latter aren't really a threat and has historically been reserved for intersex people.

Okay with that out of the way, it's almost strange writing this but I had my "peak" (hope I'm using this correctly) 3 years back. Not long after for a brief time, I almost saw myself as trans or NB myself. I happened to actually come across the whole JK Rowling controversy and decided to read what she actually said and well... it made a lot of sense. I've always been a really critical person so speak and I don't subscribe to anything without really seeing what it's all about.

It's permeated a lot within a certain upper-class/elite class segment of liberal (using it differently from the connotations it has in the west) society here and it's strange, when you live in a country with so many issues related to patriarchy and conservative mindset in general, and you have "activists" going on and on about using the wrong pronouns literally causes them to have mental breakdown.

It doesn't help that most of my friends who are now trans or NB are also mentally ill and act like teenagers well into their late 20s, can't hold down jobs and pretty much supported my parents or generational wealth.

I feel like it's wrong trans women to bully ciswomen into their spaces. There are common experiences that 99% of woman have. And biological sex is a big part of that.

It's weird seeing feminist marches in a country where you still have honor killings and there are issues of woman going out to have jobs or be financially independent being grouped together with first-world nonsense like Gender identity politics.

Beyond that, I feel NB or Trans movement in general actually reinforce gender stereotypes even more. A man or a woman can do whatever they damn well like, without them needing to construct a whole new identity.

[–]sunnycosmos 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

One moment that led me here recently was a Twitter post that insisted instead of the current sports system of women and men, we should just have weight or muscle classes open to everyone. I grew up playing basketball and had an especially bad experience the time that I did a co-league. Our physiology is different and that's why women's sports are a protected class. But noo, our women sports are discriminatory towards 1-5% of the population, so we have to uproot the whole system and screw over women's sports in particular.

It feels like it's womens spaces that are ALWAYS facing the brunt of these new gender politics. We get the short end of the stick with everything. I also just hate some of the language I see, like "men can get pregnant too, so abortion rights are not a womens issue only" etc. And then if you argue that there IS a correlation and shared experience among women, in general, for issues like periods and reproductive rights, people say that you are reducing womanhood to having a uterus. What are YOU reducing it to, then? A feeling? Wearing a dress?

[–]Moutonelectrique 11 insightful - 2 fun11 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I missed you guys on Reddit for some reason, probably because I tried to be a good left leaning feminist. However, I've been quite wary about the gender ideology for several years now. I think it started with the takeover of the LGB+ community. Suddenly everything seemed to be centered around the T, progressing to lesbians should accept girldick, gays should accept boypussy and bi's were TRANSPHOBIC as Bi means two. Well then. But as a straight woman in a relationship with a bisexual, I didn't think it was my place to say it out loud and furthermore, I thought I just wasn't being accepting and I didn't hear any backlash from within the LGB community.

Then the takeover of women's issues and spaces, erasing women, trans identifying males claiming to have periods, the transing of children, transing of almost everybody (including me, I am apparently a non-binary according to some as I watch football), going backwards to the 1950s gender stereotypes, claiming hormone therapy is completely innocent and reversible, the pronouns and so on. I also noticed the overlap with the incels from back in the day.

I felt, and sometimes still feel like I'm a bad person for not accepting it. But I just can't agree with it, I can't agree with the erasure of women, the erasure of years of fighting for women's rights and LGB rights and going back to insane strict gender roles.

I'm rambling a bit, sorry about that.

[–][deleted] 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Few days ago, I found another horror story. This one is about Tashmica Torok, ironically the founder and CEO of the charity of rape survivors. She was actively harassing lesbians on TikTok for "punishing" trans women by denying them access to their bodies... For someone who works with rape victims, she surely has Harvey Weinstein's grasp of consent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uddDyVSN8c&t=2s

[–]Prude-aligned 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I can't really claim a "peak" moment, because I never fully bought into the gender movement. As soon as I learned sex and gender are different and gender is a social construct it made sense to me. Some moments that pushed me towards being gender critical are: 1. The non-binary male in my college art class who confused a group of prospective students by forcing them to do a pronoun circle. 2. The heavily pro-gender local theater community where I live/work. Immediate hatred for JK Rowling (she said nothing unkind imo), emails to performers and crew about having to "do better about misgendering" non-binary (mostly female) performers, and upper level staff going on social media screeds about trans-rights. 3. The silencing/harassing of GC voices, the terror of medicalizing children, the erasure of homosexuality and women, and the invasion of women’s sports and other spaces. 4. Close (male) member of household suddenly focusing on gender to explain/improve his mental/physical health issues during the pandemic. The easy indoctrination red flags are numerous. He is surrounded by gender cheerleaders.

Recently I revealed I am gender critical to this person. The conversation was rough and I'm fearful of what will become of our relationship and my life in this hyper-progressive area we live in. He agreed with me on a few points, but gave off "as a gender expert I will change your mind" and "radfems = bad" vibes (I don't align with radfems on all points so I don't consider myself one personally). His closing statement was to recommend Contrapoints to me, which I immediately shot down because I find those videos disingenuously biased. I suppose it's better to have it out there, but I worry my one refuge from gender ideology, my home, has been too deeply infected.

[–]selfalt 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I peaked when I went to a small women's liberal arts college in the Northeast. They had just enacted a new policy to accept trans women to the college. At the time I didn't see a problem with it, but after seeing the way the student body responded - vehemently demanding trans rights at a historically WOMEN'S college with a rich history of lesbian culture was the spark of suspicion. At the same time, witnessing how trans women acted - always demanding, complaining, policing language - made me realize there was something unequivocally male about constantly moving the goal posts, expecting free labor from women, and the general aggression toward dissenters. You can put on a dress, but you can't undo male socialization.

Now 5 years later I'm extremely gender critical, find gender ideology to be sexist and eroding the accomplishments of women (if you're an exceptional woman in certain subjects, then you must be a man etc.), and find the medical industrial complex that transes children and adolescents horrifying. I'm not anti-trans, but I won't be pushed around or forced into any ideology that privileges male feelings over women and children.

[–]TheHistoryMachine 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think we may have gone to the same college.

[–]Bookshelf 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Twenty years ago I did a lot of reading on trans topics because I was interested in a relationship with someone who was transitioning. (Definitely dodged a bullet with that!) I was pretty accepting of trans stuff and particularly gender non-conforming presentation for a very long time because I thought I understood trans-related issues thoroughly. Since childhood, I have felt that, deep down, my sex didn't really matter that much to my thoughts, interests and friendships. So I didn't emotionally "get" why someone would want to transition instead of just being GNC, but I was accepting nonetheless.

However, about 5 years ago I had a few conversations with a trans "woman" about trans topics and my thoughts about self-acceptance rather than medical interventions. I realized that some of the things I said to him were not being well-received due to his body language (no actual voiced objections) and not long after that I started researching trans topics again to figure out why. This was near the time of the Women's March after Trump's inaguration and the media reporting on trans complaints about pussy hats being transphobic and demands to "center trans women", which made my eyes roll, but then I got disgusted that they were being taken seriously by the organizers.

Around this point, I searched for "critical of gender" and found r/GC. I was a little dismayed that radical feminists were running the show (due to some previous experience with radical feminist discourse that was off-putting to me). But I quickly found a lot of interesting perspectives and enjoyed reading the peak trans threads. I soon realized that trans activism had changed enormously in the 15 or so years since I last heavily researched the topic and had become very disconnected from reality. Ideas that had been considered controversial even in trans circles in the past like hormones and puberty blockers for <18s were now being pushed into mainstream acceptance without safe guards and therapy was now "gate-keeping".

My real wtf moment was seeing the censorship around Yaniv and how free speech principles were being violated. Of course it has only gotten worse since then. But this is when I became determined to fight back against the nonsense. After r/GC got banned, I realized the full extent of the current dystopia. I have felt so much dismay observing how the left has embraced totalitarianism around this issue and other "wrong-think".

I've been lurking r/GC and Ovarit nearly daily for several years. I have a lot of thoughts and ideas that I want to share with the gender critical community that are much too long for a single post. My main goal in creating this account and posting this story is to get an Ovarit invite, so if anybody can help me out with that, it would be very appreciated. Seeing the courageous Afghan women protesting despite the danger has increased my resolve to speak out and engage with the GC community.

[–]Actia 14 insightful - 2 fun14 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I peaked around February this year. I remember reading an Atlantic article about Ovarit months prior, and decided to check the website out. Now, I was never a hardcore TRA; I was one of those people who thought ‘let them be, they aren’t harming anyone.’ Then I started reading, and the pieces finally connected. Their muddling of language*, their hatred of women and the LGB, the rewriting of history, and so much more. They were harming people, and no one can do a thing about it! If you do, you essentially ruined your life; there was no debate allowed.

What solidified my position is how this affects autistic people. I haven’t looked into it much, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the reason why so many autistic people are ‘trans’ is because we have a hard time fitting in. TRAs know this, and swoop in to try to convince us that being trans will help us. And sadly, it looks like many are falling for it. Seeing this just makes me sad that I can’t really do anything to help them, and scared because that could’ve been me.

There is so much more I could go into, but I don’t want to make this comment long. I do want to thank you all for these sorts of community, though. Without it, I think I may of gone insane!

*A personal anecdote, but I always mixed up terms like transwoman and transman before I peaked. I wonder how many others also mix them up.

[–]puzzleskulls 13 insightful - 2 fun13 insightful - 1 fun14 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

The TRA's struggle to deny the truth is never more desperate than when reality is at total odds with their fantasy. Acknowledgment of reality would undermine the foundations of their world view, and they can't allow that to happen. They will loudly and violently push their agenda to seek validation for their lies at the expense of the truth and how it applies to others.

They don't want equality or the right to just exist like everyone else, that much is obvious. This is all about control, power, fear, and domination. They wouldn't be denying basic biology, playing on people's sense of fairness, erasing women and homosexuals, invading our institutions, removing parents rights, and manipulating our language if they wanted equality.

They are actively encouraging people to report others that refuse to buy what they're selling. People are being cancelled left, right, and center. There is now a feature on FB to report your "extremist" friends. A move that was obviously and disturbingly pulled from Stalin's playbook. I don't know about you guys, but I absolutely do not want to live under their totalitarian lunatic regime.

[–]anxietyaccount8 14 insightful - 2 fun14 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I don't know if I can say I'm "re-peaking". But I just came across a trend which is horrifying so I hope radfems pay attention to this.

Non-binaries and TQ are already non-feminist. But I fear this could turn into active anti-feminism. One reason is because of their inexplicable hatred towards "cis women" and "straight women". They're always gatekeeping and criticizing random things, even if there's no reason or logic behind it.

It could be very plausible that they'll go after straight women who don't follow or subvert gender roles for "fetishizing and appropriating non-binary queerness" or something. That sounds exactly like something they would say.

I would have never thought that people on the left could turn into misogynists who love gender roles more than any conservative

[–]SaltySkank 11 insightful - 2 fun11 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Greetings.

Firstly, glad to see this community again. I'm fairly certain I found it and lurked around some just before the great purge of a year prior on reddit thanks to the TRAs. I missed y'all.

My peaking has been a long time coming, but I think my actual legit final Peak happened a few days ago. I have always had some concerns and issues with the whole Gender Theory thing, at least what I understood of it, but I was largely okay with just letting it be. Like some other people on here, I assumed that "I identify as X, so I am" was meant at a more personal level, as in self acceptance, and I was and still am entirely okay with that. What I didn't realize until much more recently is that the trans movement is obsessed with abolishing the concept of biological sex altogether and replacing it with self identified "gender", and in the process, means to redefine language AND law. That goes way too far, and is not only ridiculous but outright dangerous in light of how rampant sexism still is. If humans were not a sexually dimorphic species, this would not be an issue, but we are, and I am not about to ignore that just because reality may hurt someone's feelings.

Some of my friends have recently become some form of trans, and the vast majority of the rest of them fully support this. I was heavily skeptical at first, since a lot of these friends struggle with mental health issues and have for a long time, and I suspected it might play a role in this. However, I largely just tolerated it and tried not to say much until it started to get more and more extreme over time. Eventually, I started to raise some questions and voice some concerns when the relatively chill "I just don't feel like I fit into either gender very well, so I would rather just not confine myself to them" became "Anyone who feels like they are X are X, in every way shape and form." and ANY opposition to that, no matter how small, became tantamount to a personal hate crime.

I have friends in the LGB community. Talking with them especially has opened my eyes as to how harmful TRA rhetoric can be, and how backwards parts of this movement are. Suddenly a man with a dick can be a "lesbian" just because he feels like he's a woman, and nobody can question that without being a "transphobe" or worse. Suddenly "anyone can menstruate" and "girls can have dicks" and I'm being cruel and "gatekeeping" for insisting that a vagina is a female sex organ and my lesbian friend's attraction to them is not a CHOICE or a PREFERENCE and that "lesbian" means SAME SEX attraction to NATAL FEMALE characteristics.

I was implied to be a TERF and a hurtful bigot for defending my lesbian friend's right to exclude dicks from her dating pool, because TRANS WOMEN ARE WOMEN and apparently what's between your legs has nothing to do with your gender. (Nevermind that I was talking about SEX, but apparently that word doesn't exist anymore.) I was apparently supposed to be content with that circular, bullshit non-definition, because pressing the issue and asking for clarification on what a "woman" even is anymore just resulted in TRANS WOMEN ARE WOMEN being repeated incessantly at me, like it was God's fucking judgement and nothing but full and unquestioning acceptance was tolerable.

My friends now either completely lack self awareness or are somehow oblivious to how stupid that non-argument is and how little sense it makes. I will go as far as to agree that Gender can largely be a social construct and refers largely to how you present yourself, but by no means can you use it to replace biological sex in either definition or importance. The "woke" section of my friend group evidently thinks that it is "closed minded", "hurtful," "transphobic," and "devastating" to identify someone based on their biological sex/gentials AND to acknowledge that homosexuality means SAME SEX attraction and has fuck all to do with gender identity.

Nonetheless, I actually attempted again to have legitimate, good faith discussion on this, and honest to god innocently and delicately as I could ask questions to try to fucking understand this shit, (I have in the past as well) and EVERY TIME I get either flat out ignored (as in the subject is instantly changed) or get snubbed and everyone pretends I never said anything and that I no longer exist for some hours/days.

I came to realize over time, and especially after the last incident, that this is not how healthy and normal people act, much less people who are supposed to be my friends. No, we're so culty and TRA-brainwashed now that even asking QUESTIONS is offensive and is somehow "invalidating" someone. We can't even talk about it now, at all. Fuck that. Apparently it is entirely possible to be a lady some days and a dude other days despite having no dick, BUT ONLY SOMETIMES when a person FEELS LIKE A MAN. This shit has gone balls off the walls insane and I'm done. My god, the entitled narcissism coming off some of these people. I was trying to be respectful, I was legitimately trying to understand their viewpoint and ideology, but every attempt was either ignored or met with spiteful ACKSHUALLY UR WRONG AND STILL A BIGOT BASED ON THIS TINY TECHNICALITY THAT YOU MISSED like I was being an intentional asshole and obstinate idiot.

I was never a normal female growing up. I was the biggest damn Tomboy, but nobody c a r e d. My parents didn't care, my family didn't care, my friends didn't care. It wasn't a big deal. I still don't fit in the gender binary. Probably. (I don't even know what the hell that is supposed to mean anymore??) My parents and family subscribed to the belief that boy-stuff and girl-stuff were really just stereotypes anyway, and what did it matter in the end because a girl could do just about anything a boy could do! Obviously sex played some role in how things play out, but it's you underneath that matters. I am sure some idiot would try to ID me as trans-something, but A.) I don't give a FUCK what society thinks and what random blowhards think of me / identify me as? and B.) I don't need constant validation from everyone around me in order to not self destruct, and C.) I don't care about labels. How would I have turned out, I wonder, if I was being raised today in hyper TRA culture?

Of course I had moments where I hated my body, loathed menstruation and wanted to chop off my boobs, wanted my non-huge hips back, and hated that my stupid body changed itself because BAYBEEZ and THATS WHAT WOMEN BODIES DO. As a teenager, I may have wished more than a few times that I was a male instead, and that I wouldn't have to be stuck with a monthly subscription to crotch bleeding forever and all the societal bullshit that comes with being female, but I got over it and accepted reality and learned to accept myself. I think that is a far more healthy outcome than living in some delusion that I was never really a girl and am secretly a boy somehow.

I'm disappointed in my friends, who are both smarter than this and should fucking know better than to buy into such stupidity, and in the entire fucking attitude surrounding TRAs and the trans movement. Erasing sex is stupid and dangerous to women and homosexuals. I'm done being gaslighted, ignored, and attacked and treated like garbage for asking a fucking question and living in reality where biology exists and is relevant. I'm sick of my lesbian friend having "girldick" forced on her constantly and being an automatic TERF!111 and bigot for wanting nothing to do with a fucking penis. Most of all, I'm disgusted by the demonization of homosexuality that a vast majority of TRAs refuse to see or acknowledge. Society should not be catering to this. People with actual Gender Dysphoria need therapy and proper medical care to learn to accept their bodies, not mutilating surgeries that promise shit they can never deliver and constant validation of their delusions. And god DAMN, being "trans" is not fucking trendy, and the sooner people can figure this out the better.

Not to mention the hypocrisy and misogyny. "DON'T REDUCE PEOPLE TO THEIR GENITALS!!" meanwhile, we can't say Mother's Day anymore, it has to be "Birthing People's Day" and I should be called a "Menstruating Person" because calling myself a Woman excludes trans people. I have to accept dicks in my women safe spaces now, and let natal men ONCE AGAIN barge into my spaces, business, legal protections, and reproductive rights, because who fucking cares about us, can't invalidate a trans person!! Fuck off.

...like I said. P E A K E D.

[–]clitoriana 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I "peaked" almost 5 years ago, and I thought at this point nothing would surprise me, but I've spent so long now surrounded by intelligent, reality-acknowledging people and normies that today, when I heard the news about Chris-Chan, a mentally ill TiM allegedly raping his elderly demented mother, and saw tons of posts on Twitter and Tumblr asking people not to "misgender" him & lamenting how "transphobes" will use this against trans people... I realized I fucking hate these people. I literally hate them. They're horrible people with no moral center, just an all-consuming obsession with their personal identity. No sympathy left for people so heartless and selfish that they cry about how an old woman possibly having been raped affects them.

[–]myloudneighbors 9 insightful - 2 fun9 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Before i got peaked, i was naive to the fact that trans people could be a danger to me. Thought that most trans people were actually just severly mentally ill people who thought they lived in the wrong bodies.
I live in a somewhat conservative country where female sexual assault is dismissed.
After trans people have gotten more accepted, it's more like in your face "hah, feminists, you wanted this, well you got it". If women get assaulted in their own bathrooms, they get blamed. But most actual women never supported it. It was all trans activists and idiot politicians.
I was on reddit when GenderCritical got cancelled. I waited until it popped up again in various places.
Another trigger my own brother, who had always been physically violent against me and my mother, and has very sexist views against women. Despite beating me up and harassing our mother he is suddenly pro-women now? Oh no, wait, it's not real women he is for, he's just scared of the new 3rd 'feminism' movement.

[–]ygrek 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I peak very early, but don't really realise it. When i was teenanger and started adventure with internet. Oh my it was about 20 years ago.:) There was site for women, about cosmetics, health, lifestyle etc. There were comments and profile keep wrote nasty things about women. Misogynic shit and weird stuff: that she better then biological women: more feminine and so on; men more wanted "her". Then I realise that someone is... trans. Keep remember this, even for years was woke person. Second peak I had about few years ago. It stared with libfeminists fanpaige, which wrote about SWERF. I didn't know that word and google it. I found Feminist Current and some site where was written that: "swerfs are also terf". So check out another mysterious word. I found terfislur com. There were tons of hate, misoginia and violence. From trans and nobody tell them to stop.

[–]WhoKnewWhoKnew 13 insightful - 2 fun13 insightful - 1 fun14 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

New here. If I’m understanding correctly, I peaked after my husband came out as trans and wanted to become a woman. The narcissistic drivel he spewed was so unlike him and eventually I realized was the most male entitlement I’d ever heard in my life. He believed being a woman was a feeling and consisted of looking feminine and being submissive in bed. In my experience, being a woman is all of the sacrifice I give for my family. So in choosing his feelings over his family, he chose the most anti-woman behaviors he could. Family men transitioning MtF is Male Entitlement.

[–]KvntXO 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Ex husband, now?

[–]Data_Doctor 14 insightful - 2 fun14 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Yesterday I got banned from a reddit sub for not regurgitating all the TRA slogans like a good, obedient woman. Being banned has convinced me I'm ready to officially hang out with y'all.

I peaked around this time last year. I was on a forum talking about trans issues and my ambivalence about some of the rhetoric and how I'm sick of "TERF" being the default insult for anyone who has concerns, no matter how slight. One of my concerns is how gate-keeping has been deemed "transphobic" and thus unacceptable. Anyone who says they are a woman is a woman, I was told robotically by multiple posters--people I'd been "friends" with for ages. These people were not only saying that anyone who says they are a woman is* a woman, but they are also female and thus should be able to change their legal designation to "F" and enjoy all the benefits and protections associated with that "F". Even if they haven't altered their biology in any way. Even if they have no plan on altering their biology in any way. Even if they had just started identifying as a woman yesterday.

So I asked one of the posters to explain this to me since it's crazy bananas.

He explained it to me like this: A female person doesn't have to wear feminine clothing to be called a woman. A female person can alter her biology and still be a woman. So why should it be any different for a male?

Leading up to that moment, I thought that gender ideology was stupid drek but mainly harmless. But as this ally mansplained what it means to be a woman to me, I realized that gender ideology is oppressive. It's dangerous. And I realized that this guy--who I had always thought was smart and decent--had been brainwashed. And so had all the other posters, who called me a hateful monster for not wanting every Tom, Dick, and Harry to feel entitled to women's spaces. I no longer post on that forum because I just can't with those people. I can't suffer that kind of foolishness anymore.

So I guess you can say that experience opened my eyes. I haven't been able to close them since.

[–]Rage-Xion 14 insightful - 1 fun14 insightful - 0 fun15 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'm a 28 years old gay man and I only recently embraced "transphobia". I chaged my views gradually for many reasons. For many years, everytime I was questioning the validity of Trans right activism, I was worried that I was a bigot just as bad as homophobes so I struggled a lot.

When I was a teenager struggling with my sexuality (among other things), I kinda found it weird that LGB people were lumped with the transgender folk since LGB is about attraction while T is about identity. Nonetheless, I was supportive especially while watching a crappy reality TV that had a fairly sympathetic transman.

I subscribe to the mentality that transexuals were female souls trapped inside man body (and vice versa). This was way before non-binary shits became popular.

Catlyn Jenner was maybe one of the first crack. Althought I was supportive, I was weirded out by the odd revisionism. Not only should we acccept that Jenner is a woman named Caitlyn since 2015 became we must act like it has always been he case. Somehow, a woman was allowed to compete in men's sport, a woman married a heterosexual Kris and a woman fathered children. makes sense.

I've also noticed that TRAs became more and more demanding after same sex marriage was legalized in the USA and LGBT websites that I regularly consulted were suddenly almost all about trans rights and less about LGB.

Another crack happened when Riley J Dennis makes the infamous video about genital preferences. The video was (rightfully) downvoted to hell and saw many trans folk arguing against his rapey rhetoric. So I believed at the time that this kind of mental gymnastic was unpopular among Ts and only a few were supporting of the "cotton ceiling".(cringe)

Last year Rowling was demonized for defending biological sex and the right for lesbians to refuse to sleep with transgender women. I've read her article and didn't find anything offensive at all. I also wondered why no one talked about her abusive husband as if she deserved it.

The final straw was the Super Straight movemont. A 16 years old guy was harassed for not wanting to date woman and make a joke about starting sexuality and then suddenly all the website were on board that excluding trans people from dating pool is transphobic.

Then I started to read more about insanity like the erasure of basic biology and the transition of children. The latter really break my hearft. They go throuh irreversible body alteration and it's now hateful to protest about it. While I've never personally experienced gender disphoria but during my teenagehood, I really hated my body. The facial hair was growing in irregular patches, I had severe acne that wouldn't go away no matter how many creams, stinking lotions or even pills I took, having nocturnal emisions almost every nights,... I luckily gog over it but If I had spent my teengehood in a woke era, I might have decided to be nonbinary, have my penis chopped off and then regretting it.

[–]PluckyAgain 17 insightful - 1 fun17 insightful - 0 fun18 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Happily submitting my old story that was on r/gc too. Used to think that if someone feels theyre born in the wrong body, and do so much work to change genders, the least we can do is be supportive. Was happily chugging along like that, but i 'm part of an ethnic/religious minority where menstruation and the strict rules around it are still pretty taboo. Was in an fb womens group belonging to said minority, the issue came up, there was a very open and insightful and important discussion about menstruation and the rules surrounding it. Then one woman pipes up its "triggering" her. I didnt know what that meant at the time. The discussion got derailed, half the women starting fawning over the TIM, forty percent checked out and one or two stayed to argue. And were called words id never heard before. TERF and such. I asked a friend, she sent me a link on trans widows, i peaked, and admit to being an evil terven since. Glad to be back! Edit: i wrote windows...:-) makes sense too in a way

[–]EvaWumben 14 insightful - 2 fun14 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

If I may update? It's been several months, and while I keep certain things private for anonymity, myself and several friends (few of us white or straight) have been brutally attacked by hordes of white kids online who immediately scream "TR*NSPHOBE" the second any of us say a single thing. They are terrorists (and zero of these young people identified as REMOTELY nonbinary, trans, gq, etc. until about a year ago), and this seems to be a pattern in every social circle that doesn't involve majority POC populations, tbh. I'm older, meanwhile a younger woman I know was just subjected to severe abuse by a "nonbinary..." whatever, he is a man. A MAN. For having to have surgery for severe medical issues that could've killed her. Her crime? She was accused of flouting her privilege at being born with female anatomy and getting healthcare for a serious actual health concern when trans people have to get a gofundme and "don't get to have ovaries". I am told her friend group peaktransed over this. I am so irate all the time. It was bad enough growing up knowing that once we hit a certain age we're discarded and considered irrelevant as women, now we're being appropriated by men while white girls who have only known sex based oppression are throwing out their womanhood (on paper at least) in order to......everyone knows what I mean.

The utter and complete racism involved in this movement as well, I am infuriated nonstop (and I am NOT sharing my worst story here lest I want to blast it elsewhere). All I see is groups of white kids appropriating the mantle of oppression by claiming random gender identities, and apologies if this offends, I don't have any hatred for any racial group, but this is so blatantly obvious and most of us are sick of this. Claiming a gender ID most never heard of till recently is suddenly widespread and more oppressed than racial minorities, EFF THEM ALL.

[–]PeachesAndSnakes 14 insightful - 2 fun14 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Peaking again. A TiM I know recently put im some pictures flexing his arms saying 'ready to be someone's buff girlfriend' and let me tell you, I've never seen any of my female friends with arms that big, not even the ones who work out regularly. This person has been on hormones for ages, had SRS, and the advantage they still have when it comes to building muscle is just so clearly there. I don't know how he can look in the mirror and still not see the advantage he has.

[–]Moms_undies 21 insightful - 1 fun21 insightful - 0 fun22 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I'm an older millennial and as a kid, I was a tomboy. My mom told me that it was okay for girls to like "boy stuff" because the distinction is just based on stereotypes. She told me that I could be anything I wanted to be because girls are just as smart and capable as boys.

Two things peaked me:

  1. I work in academia in a STEM field. Being a woman in STEM can suck because it has enclaves of old boys clubs that don't even try to hide their misogyny. I'm a mom and that makes it even harder. But I feel like I have a duty to girls interested in STEM to blaze the trail for them and stand up to discrimination. It makes me really fuckin mad whenever I see a TIM invited to panels on being a woman in academia and/or STEM because they have no idea. They never had to be the only girl in middle school programming classes. They never had to be constantly interrupted at meetings. They never had to deal with comments about having baby brain while visibly pregnant at work. F them.

  2. The girls who should be told that it's fine to prefer toys marketed to boys or wearing jeans and a t-shirt or being good at math are being told that they're not girls. We're going backwards.

[–]absoluteblasphemy 11 insightful - 2 fun11 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Yes, it makes me so glad to see women in STEM speaking out. It’s tragic to see science become both falsified and dogmatic in the discussion of trans medical care and human biology.

Keep your kids close, this stuff is really insidious at the moment. Much love and respect to you for sharing.

[–]ontheVerge 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'm new to saidit, and confused. But I am here to at least get some of my peaking off my chest. I never really was on board the trans train, I guess, it just seemed nutty to me from the get go, because you can't be born in the wrong body. I was peaked a few years back, but never went to reddit, or other sites to discuss it, I mostly stayed on pinterest, and was peaked by absolute denial of biological facts. Some troll was trying to convince me, that if a man said his penis was a clitoris, then it was, because of intersex people. My refutation was, my genetics professor disagrees with that, and would tell you what a selfish dunce you are for using intersex individuals. Magdalen is probably who made it clear for, I felt less confused, and that I wasn't the only one who found this all a farce. The first video I watched of hers, was of Charlotte Clymer. I felt for a long time though, that Germany would not go the way of the anglosphere, that because of the lack of the word for gender, that it would be harder to obfuscate reality, and that, Germans, don't really liked being told to fall in line with group think, you, having gone through two authoritarian regimes in the last 100 years. (yes, Nazi Germany was worse in my opinion than the DDR, I think I shouldn't have to explain why, it is obvious to me, the DDR was however non the less an authoritarian regime) Well, I don't know about that now, but the reason I have decided to come to Saidit, is because I feel at a loss. To me, having been peaked for about 5 years, from the biological denial, the digusting caricatures of what TiMs believe women are, the threats of sexual violence, hanging effigies of terfs, of violence (of the attack on Maria MacLachlan, to rats nailed to VRR Center), ach and the cotton ceiling, so rapey and so gross. My heart goes out to my lesbian sisters that have dealt with these TiMs. And reading the accounts of trans widows, how narcissistic and vile their husbands are. I peaked again there, over and over again, maybe it's because of having been in a relationship with a narcissist, and how the emtional abuse hits, a little too close to home. I have hit a block in my personal life in being able to talk about it. I guess a kind of allegory of the cave. I guess, I'ved peaked on the lengths this ideology is able to reach. I haven't been too shy about it with my parents, my mother loves to comment, on how I let this "trans stufff" make me so angry, and I need to stop caring about it, because it's bad for my mental health. Despite the fact that my mental health, is actually great, being angry it medical experimentation on children isn't mental illness. My one sister, believes I hate trans people, because I don't believe TiMs should be in women's spaces, and because I use medical terms like, double masectomy, or penile inversion, and take issue with the misuse of the chemical and pharmacological term of trans and cis. Also, I shouldn't have issues with porn, because it's not that bad, and is wrong to take away women's choice to be beaten, strangled and raped for their male partner's sexual gratification (but when questioned, on why is it okay for men to get off on beating women for sex, the conversation needs to end, and I need to stop hating trans people, because they are suffering). Sorry for all the rambling, the final nail in the coffin, was discussing with my other sister. She used to be, well gender critical in her views, because she hadn't looked into it, but that I was off my rocker, and that the fetishistic men, were just a niche, of a niche, and that I must be kind to dysphoric individuals. Until JK Rowling's essay: she said it was hateful, and I answered, "I thought it was tame, and actually very kind to trans individuals, what exactly in it makes you think she hates trans individuals." She read it, agreed, that I might not be too unfairly angry, to the next week, saying, "Well they are not cancelling gender critical views, because Rowling still has a twitter!!!" On further questioning about all the other women having kicked off for expressing gender critical views, and stating the biological that woman is adult human female, no, that's not why these women were kicked off, they did something wrong, they deserved to be kicked off. A couple weeks ago, she was explaining to my mom that, sometimes 2+2 does equal 5. This doesn't really sound like your typical peak experience, sounds probably like family drama. I am sorry if it is not really coherent, and rambly, drinking maybe a bit too much wine, to even write this all out. I feel a little nuts, to be honest, and no one to really talk to. There are amazing voices and people speaking out, I just love Karen Davis, she speaks to my soul. And maybe Germany, as of yet will not write women out of law, like America has, but so much is happening with out ANYONE being told. I can not kowtow to this vile nonsense, I don't really know how to speak up about it either. Sorry for my ramblings, maybe I just needed to get that off my chest.

[–]persistentlywoman 16 insightful - 3 fun16 insightful - 2 fun17 insightful - 3 fun -  (1 child)

I just submitted my story to noconflicttheysaid.org and while I planned to tell a more detailed version here, tbh this sums up why I reached my peak trans suddenly very rapidly after years of being a pretty staunch ally. I have definitely been veerrrrryyyy sloooowwwwllllyyyy peaking for a decade or so, after witnessing what the trans tsunami, as I call it, did to butch lesbians in my community. the peakening started increasing the last two years as the ideology grew more and more unscientific and gaslighty. but this piece of shit definitely pushed me right over the edge. I am as staunchly anti-trans now as I ever was pro-trans. it's a mental illness and the below individual illustrate all the reasons why indulging and coddling it only leads to more harm:

last year a male trans identfified person started attending social events I was organising. he claimed he was a trans butch lesbian. he attempted to latch onto me and through our conversations (I wanted to be kind and inclusive) I learned more about his identity that troubled me: he didn't identify as a woman but insisted he wasn't a man. he had no genital dysphoria and ensured he was still sexually active. he lied to doctors to get estrogen, but just enough to grow breasts. he prefers he/him pronouns and a male name and presenting entirely masculine as he gets 'dysphoric' otherwise. despite all of this he insists his experience is that of a butch lesbian and that our community is where he belongs, without question. and he was very quick to frame any confusion about all of this as transphobic.

I noticed he was quite misogynistic and I reacted against this a couple of times - a reaction which he framed as abusive to him. of particular note is him standing over me in my own home, after I had cooked and fed him dinner, yelling at me about what a terrible, harmful person I am for the way I reacted to misogyny in the community. a terf. I sat there and cowered because I was too afraid of further escalation to name the gaslighting (not to mention profound disrespect and cruelty) that was going on.

finally, in the lead up that confrontation, he had presented himself as having been the victim of false accusations of rape and the victim of a witch hunt in his former city's community. but as he revealed the details of this story that same night I realised with horror that he absolutely HAD committed rape (of a trans woman no less!) and was trying to pass it off as something more 'nuanced', as he claimed. something I have experienced many rapists doing in trying to absolve themselves of responsibility. after I asked him to leave subsequent to his attacking me, I investigated further into his past as the communities between these cities are linked, and found out his predatory behaviour was serial.

I expressed my confusion and distress anonymously on a reddit sub, which he found. we had a charged exchange in which I named him as a rapist and detailed his manipulation and distortions about it.

I later found out he had gone on to commit rape here as well since relocating from his former city. in this instance it was a gnc woman, and he repeatedly forced her to say she was 'really a boy' throughout the experience.

relatedly, he was also in the butchlesbian subreddit pontificating about how gnc women should all identify as trans and it was denying reality to claim otherwise. the agenda was so obvious it made my stomach turn.

I was to be on the guest list of a recent event celebrating butch identity where I live. I had assisted the organisers with contacts. he was to be walking the runway of this event. the week before the event the organisers contacted me saying the reddit post (again - anonymous) had made them aware I held views which could be damaging to their brand as a safe, inclusive event and they could not have me on the guest list. I asked them if having a rapist on their stage would damage their brand. these two women replied they would not get involved in a personal conflict. when I pointed out that they already had and were excluding a lesbian from a lesbian event in favour of a rapist, they claimed the call was not productive and ended it - though I did tell them to go to hell before hanging up.

I am now left facing the sordid reality that a lesbian - a participating member of my local community for close to 20 years - was blocked from a lesbian event because an abusive male weaponised identity politics against her, whilst leveraging bogus claims of shared identity to coerce women into sex with him, either through intoxication or intimidation. or both. all the while telling everyone around him that they're transphobic for objecting to any of this. that he recruited other women into discriminating against a woman who knew too much about his true nature and intentions amongst us. that he is protecting himself behind crocodile tears about his own feelings and pain, like he hasn't devastated the lives of several women through sheer hate and a sense of entitlement towards us.

my only solace is knowing the word about him is circulating and most are distancing themselves. I can only hope this ideological cult crumbles soon. people like this are clearly a danger to women.

so that's my story in a highly condensed nutshell. this monster is also writing a 'memoir' he seriously thinks will be the next stone butch blues that is literally just a narcissist's self indulgent parade of misogyny and abuse apologism. I'd love to share it with all of you because the more people that amplify how misogynistic it is, the more grounded in reality I will feel. my only concern is if he can see where people are coming from and perhaps remove the book from the internet. let me know if you want to read the garbage.

and yeah, I am feeling pretty messed up about all this and welcome any words of support.

[–]YourSister 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I am so enraged on your behalf, sister. Sorry for the late reply, I haven't been on this site in some time.

They've really managed to find a novel way to shut women up, haven't they? Solidarity and support- I will be thinking of you, as I quietly help unravel this misogynistic shit that hurts primarily women.

[–]linda_senora 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Hello, I had to open a new account.

My story:

I think it all stared with the late Magdalen Berns.

After watching her videos (I don't recall if YouTube's algorythm recommended them to me), I could not believe what was happening to lesbians. I could not believe that Alex Drummond was successfully conning people.

Then I remember reading a bunch of posts on Twitter about the cotton ceiling and then I began to look for more people on Twitter who knew more about the trans lobby than I did.

I became appalled at the comments TRAs and most trans people make about gender and sex, homosexuality, women's rights, and female genital mutilation. I cannot believe that TRAs and trans identified individuals have the audacity to go after survivors of FGM. It is unacceptable.

I also watched Posie Parker's videos and she has managed to convey how dangerous gender ideology has become.

I admit to watching a few videos by Rose of Dawn and he seems less deranged than other Trans Identified Males, but I have stopped watching those.

I think I might have become increasingly angry with trans identified individuals. I don't know that being this angry is healthy.

That's all folks.

[–]Redditstinks 19 insightful - 4 fun19 insightful - 3 fun20 insightful - 4 fun -  (0 children)

Some 6 years ago I was watching a documentary about a trans couple. A TiM, and a TiF. The TiF was pregnant, and the documentary was presenting it as this amazing thing that’s almost like a scientific mystery. I was amazed, too, as I was brainwashed by the gender agenda. So I decided to do some research to explain this phenomenon ( 🤡 ) and I stumbled upon a blog post. The blog was a radfem blog, a really funny one written by an author who humorously claimed to “identify as a squirrel” (it’s been banned for a while unfortunately). I was hooked. Then I read the comments. They were along the lines of “such a scientific miracle that a biological female got pregnant from a dick ejaculating inside of her”, “he femininely penetrated her”, and the one that struck me the most, commenting on the picture in the blog post: “the mother is looking at the baby lovingly, while the man is making eyes at the camera”. Boom. From that simple but accurate description of the image, I quickly dismantled years of brainwashing. They can try to perform as women, but there’s something deeper down there that if you didn’t experience, you’ll never understand.

And I’m sick and tired of people trying to respond “but what about x? And x?” Stop trying to delegitimise our struggle by highlighting and magnifying exceptions. Shut. Up.

[–]PeachesAndSnakes 19 insightful - 1 fun19 insightful - 0 fun20 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Peaking again. On a dating app looking for women and I STG half the profiles I look at are barely transitioned TiMs. Normally I would just keep scrolling but there's just SO MANY. There's all the classic stuff too, pictures of anime girls, oddly sexual pictures/text, "HRT turned me into a dragon", the list goes on. I'd gotten pretty good at spotting the signs because that's just not for me but with most of these I don't have to ask twice. Is it too much to ask to only see women on dating apps when that's what I'm looking for?

[–]VdeVulva 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Getting some peak trans in the morning on the endo thread of reddt. This user really wants to say that *not only women get endometriosis and of course invade our outlet. F* off! Asks the mods if "this is an inclusive space" and says that it's a waste of time to debate the meaning of "woman". I will never ever call myself a uterus-owner! You can get all the f*ckin way out of here!

[–]lis 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

As an introverted and solitary lesbian with workaholic tendencies I had not paid much attention to the LGB community and/or policies until a year and a half ago, when one of the lesbian authors I was reading at the time stated “transwomen are women” and denounced lesbians who didn’t want to date them. I was genuinely shocked as at the time I still believed that most people understood the difference between sexes and viewed gender ideology as a coping mechanism for those who couldn’t handle enforced gender roles and stereotypes and needed to fit in. A quick search showed me just how wrong I was...

[–]PenseePansy 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

at the time I still believed that most people understood the difference between sexes and viewed gender ideology as a coping mechanism for those who couldn’t handle enforced gender roles and stereotypes and needed to fit in.

Yes, this is pretty much what I originally thought, too! Even though I've firmly believed that "gender" was a pernicious lie ever since I was 20 or so, I mistook "trans" for the kind of compromise that many people have to make with parts of their culture-- stuff which is too pervasive/deeply-rooted to just ignore, or end overnight. So on that basis, I was willing to accept that this was some people's way of dealing with the burden of gender roles. In the words of the old song, "whatever gets you through the night", you know?

Yeah. Then, like you, I came to realize how wrong I'd been... and that "trans" wasn't a way of finding a workaround for gender-roles (enabling people to just live their lives); it was a way of reinforcing them. :(

[–]Catbug 27 insightful - 1 fun27 insightful - 0 fun28 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Just repeaked after an absolutely disgusting TIM told me women owe their rapists help if the rapist is hurt while you defend yourself and of course a TIM mod backed him up. In the fuckin gcdebatesqt saidit.

I was informed that victim blaming is not breaking any rules or disrespectful enough to even address. Absolute disgrace.

[–]Rationalmind 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Repeaking with Gottmik on Drag Race.

[–]Shesstealthy 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

This is probably peak virtue signalling more than anything else.

I follow Dominic Noble's book and movie reviews on YouTube. He's very woke - to the point where he was all "I completely owe my career to JKR because of Harry Potter but now that she is so terfy with her whole don't call me a menstruator thing I can no longer produce HP content ever again" - but his reviews are often sharp and funny and he has a nice soothing voice.

Anyway he has just pulled a presumably humorous review of a presumably m/m book about a sexy lumberjack because... he just found out that the author has come out as NB so his video misgenders and deadnames and makes assumptions about their gender so he has to redo it.

FFS.

I'm guessing this was a typical m/m sexy romance written by a woman who no longer identifies as one, so all his observations about how the characters don't act like men have to be reviewed. That's what I'm guessing.

I hate this obliteration of people's lived experience just so they can be "who they really are" no matter how recently they made their gender decision. If you're born and raised as a girl you're formed by that no matter how NLOG or manly you think of yourself as being.

[–][deleted] 5 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

Wait for it, that bloke is in deep with woketubers. He'll come out as a TIM too, just wait for it.

[–]butch_woman 22 insightful - 1 fun22 insightful - 0 fun23 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I'm just tired of hearing I'm transphobic for not wanting a penis in me, or on me, or anywhere near me, or hearing about how the female penis has a different mouth-feel than the male penis. It's funny in that I used to be very accepting towards trans people before all of this shit started. I of course still support anti-discriminatory laws against trans people, but I won't encourage rape culture in the guise of progressiveness.

[–]Shesstealthy 17 insightful - 10 fun17 insightful - 9 fun18 insightful - 10 fun -  (0 children)

Different mouth feel = flaccid.

[–]Lady_Merlin 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

For me, it’s the visceral fear/disgust over the idea of TIM in change rooms.

[–]ravenclaww 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I've peaked awhile back, where I've acknowledged that TRA is repackaged MRA and that misogynistic men would use it as a shield to attack women without any consequence, such as Rahul Kohli. What's making me peak again is seeing a tweet from an online acquaintance where she said that "Pregnant people make [her] sick". (Note that it's "pregnant people", instead of "pregnant woman".) It's one thing to be horrified at the prospect of being pregnant herself, or not wanting the side effects that come with pregnancy, but having a visceral reaction to OTHER WOMEN being in a state that only adult females experience is extreme and sad. I feel like TRAs are encouraging libfems to harbour a sense of internalized misogyny and erase their own sex-- no man would ever say that a male-exclusive thing makes them sick. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this woman comes out as "non-binary" or "trans", like Ellen Page did, just to separate herself from this aspect of the female sex. It's honestly very disappointing.

[–]anxietyaccount8 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This isn't really a "peak" story, but just so you guys know, some "tru trans" people/HSTS have extremely and I mean EXTREMELY conservative views of gender, so I don't think GCs should be hanging with those ones.

[–]itsnotaboutewe 20 insightful - 2 fun20 insightful - 1 fun21 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

Around four months ago I posted on here about a transgender identifying man who was moving to my small rural community and how I thought I would be the only person to not go along with his delusions. I feared I would become the odd person out and be ostracized from my own community for not accepting this man's fetishes. I was the only person who knew anything about trans-ideology and I thought he would ruin the great atmosphere we have here in our isolated village. This is an update.

The guy came here to do some odd-jobs and was house-sitting at a place on the main street. He would wander around in his pink tights, which caused a few raised eyebrows, but as he kept to himself he wasn't much of a problem. His other mental health problems soon surfaced when the home-owner returned six weeks later and he abruptly left the village without having done any work for anyone, so not many people had interacted with him in his time here.

I was relieved that my fears weren't realized because I had really stressed over the situation. He had left in a hurry so his room was a bit of a mess and when cleaning it up the home-owner found tampons, pads, and her own underwear with lipstick stains on them under the bed. She peaked. Slowly the word has gotten out about this guy (not by me) and now I think the whole village has peaked.

[–]fuckupaddams 10 insightful - 3 fun10 insightful - 2 fun11 insightful - 3 fun -  (1 child)

Nope, not a fetish, he's just living his fucking perverted truth.

[–]PenseePansy 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Nope, not a fetish, he's just living his fucking perverted truth.

Well, yeah-- the truth that he's a fucking perverted fetishist!

[–]Monchichi 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

and her own underwear with lipstick stains

itsafetish

[–]assignedcopatbirth 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Oh my god... that must have been so creepy for the owner! Glad he left before he pushed even more boundaries.

[–]marmorsymphata 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/k0x0hu/this_dungeon_is_a_full_female_reproductive_system/gdmpfb0/

There is literally just no level of bending over backwards and pretending you believe their ideology that will satisfy these people. They NEED to erase EVERYTHING about sex on every level.

[–][deleted] 35 insightful - 1 fun35 insightful - 0 fun36 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I used to think the whole "trans women are women" thing was legit. At least in the sense that they genuinely had a female brain and experienced consistent distress at their body and consistent improvement when that body was changed to match their brain.

Then I saw some transbians speculating on tumblr (of course) about how to unlearn the male gaze. This was years ago and would never be admitted to today, but I was confused: if you're a bona-fide female with a female brain, how do you have the male gaze? If you're gay, you don't "unlearn" straight behaviors. You might stop mimicking them to fit in, but you always had an innate sense of who you wanted to be. So the idea that some people had to forcibly train themselves to be less male instead of exposing their "true self" troubled me.

I notice that the general PR image of transgender people is the HSTS, meanwhile the AGP runs the TRA agenda. Then the RODG/NB types support it without (as I see it) the greater context. The NB thing really got me as I could tell these were straight women, often troubled with mental illness, chopping off their hair and insisting on special pronouns.

I started to feel uncomfortable because I couldn't have a debate in that environment without getting ostracized. People would blow up and scream on social media over much less. I felt I was being forced to validate a fantasy that I didn't believe in. There's no such thing as a non-binary brain, as brains and brain structures are not binary. It seemed that if they had dysphoria it was self-cultivated in the sense that by obsessing on their gender and tying their validation to their pronouns, misgendering and similar behaviors became an act that struck their ego deeply. If I see myself as an amazing musician, and everyone around me also told me so, if someone said bluntly that my music sucks my ego would be devastated. The conflicting statements of "it's just about decency and respect" and "if you don't do it, they'll kill themselves" especially drove me nuts.

I remember a comment from a female NB about how she wanted a PHD mostly because "Dr" is a gender neutral title. Perhaps that woman thought it was proof of how actually non-binary she was. But I just thought it must be a miserable existence to be so obsessed with how other people see you that you would devote years of your life to something you're not otherwise interested in.

The TRAs got bolder. Trans periods, truescum/no dysphoria to be trans, support of children transitioning, etc. Around then was when I started hearing TERF thrown around. People were treating terfs like those evil dirty stupid republicans, and I'd learned long ago that was hate propaganda. So I had a look. I don't agree with most radfem beliefs but it seemed that we shared concerns about free speech, about liberal sentiments that weren't actually helping people, and some actual good data about transgenderism, ROGD, and medical transition. Looking at things like the ratio of TIMs/TIFs, the problems with puberty blockers and hormones, the stories of detransitioners whose sexual trauma had made them hate their bodies, helped me go beyond the simple "born in the wrong body" narrative and understand how complex this thing actually was.

You won't be long on GC before you hear about AGP and check out itsafetish, and then it was pretty much over Trans Everest. I knew itsafetish couldn't last - it was too revealing to show AGP TRAs speaking honestly. No one would look at that stuff and see a woman, because AGPs are not women. And then seeing that for some TIMs, the fetish isn't just them but also enacting feminization on young people, I was done with all of this stupid shit.

[–]Locastor 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Hi again everyone! Just found out about SaidIt and delighted to see you all again!

Meta but is there a place where I can see a list of communities sent down the memory hole on Reddit that have been resurrected here?

[–]worried19 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

There are two other active ones that I know of, s/GCdebatesQT and s/LGBDropTheT.

[–]Locastor 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Thanks friend

[–]worried19 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

No problem. Hope to see you on the debate sub if you're interested.

[–]diapason 22 insightful - 1 fun22 insightful - 0 fun23 insightful - 1 fun -  (13 children)

I had kind of been sick of trans/'queer' ideology for a few years already by this point, but what really shocked me and pissed me off about it recently was when a few months ago my younger sibling (early teens) expressed the opinion that people who refuse to date trans people are horrible people. I was shocked and wondered where they had heard this, because there was no way they came up with this on their own… Needless to say, I told them that they had the right to reject anyone for whatever reason they want and they should not be labeled bigoted or a bad person for it. The fact that children and teens (especially LGB ones) are being groomed into this mindset is abhorrent to me, and I hate what the TQ+ are doing to the rest of the LGB community and what transgender ideology is doing to women's rights. Around the same time, there was uproar on social media coming from some of my former classmates who were offended by JK Rowling's "transphobic" essay, but hadn't seemed to have read it themselves, so I read it, thought it was reasonable, started looking, and wound up here.

So, all in all, I wouldn't say there was one specific thing that was my "peak trans" moment, it was more of a slow burn with a lot of stuff chipping away at my initial support for trans ideology (trans and non-binary friends and classmates, pansexual snobbery, noticing r/actuallesbians was like a third transbians, every LGBT online community being mainly about the T, stopping believing in the concept of gendered souls, lack of evidence for gendered brains, trans-women in women's sports, TRAs denying the differences between male and female socialization and their response to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's comments, "genital preference" discourse, the increasing obviousness of how reliant on gender stereotypes this shit was, TRAs' denial of biological sex, pronoun madness, non-binary obviously just being an attempt to escape misogyny, insistence on using gender-neutral language in sex-ed which would make it inaccessible to those who needed the info the most, how liberals had a religious fervor about their support for trans ideology, getting corrected in class by a teacher and a liberal friend that sex and gender were different, seeing kids getting corrected in class on classmates' pronouns, when I first saw the fearmongering about Drop the T being a hate movement when it made perfect sense to me and didn't seem hateful at all, the "you owe your rights to trans women" shit, the highjacking of feminism, the gaslighting of saying that the vast majority of transgender people are nice people and therefore the problematic and violent ones don't matter, logical inconsistency, learning about how harmful puberty blockers were to children, finding out about the astroturfing in the trans movement and seeing how they were deliberately holding LGB rights back, TiMs getting women's scholarships and political seats, the high amount of TiFs in an online eating disorder support group I was in, the pathetic state of my school's GSA, "queer sex" guide articles floating around talking about PIV sex being a type of lesbian sex, noticing the grooming in all this stuff, noticing how conservatives I knew were more likely to be supportive of/sympathetic to trans than LGB, seeing how transgenderism ran in certain social circles, observing how transgender people behaved more similarly to what was typical of others of their biological sex than their gender identity, the likes of Danielle Muscato, the pressure to be open to dating trans people, the fact that I didn't have a sense of gender identity like they insisted I must, the insistence that trans people were the most oppressed group in america despite nothing to really back up that claim, the beggars on social media, the way gender identity kept constantly being likened to sexual orientation, and so much more.), but to hear something that reeked of such obvious grooming from my beloved younger sibling made me just 100% done with this shit.

N.B. My sibling isn't a "they", I just used gender-neutral language and an approximate age to refer to my sibling to avoid identifying information.

TL;DR: Younger sibling said people who weren't open to dating trans people were horrible people, whole thing reeked of grooming, said fuck this shit.

PS I'm probably younger than most of the people here and this transgender ideology stuff has been around all throughout my teenage years, so it's interesting reading stories from people older than me here to get a different perspective on the whole thing!

[–]hetisachoice 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

noticing how conservatives I knew were more likely to be supportive of/sympathetic to trans than LGB

What's conservative about trading in a perfectly functional penis for non-functional fake breasts?

[–]distortedlinds 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

do you know where your sibling heard that crap from? I am incredibly curious.

[–]diapason 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'm guessing either 1) unrestricted internet access or 2) poor choice of weird friends who have unrestricted internet access who then rub off on them. I can't even tell where on the internet, possibly Tumblr, possibly YouTube, possibly Discord, just it has to be from somewhere cause no one comes up with this stuff on their own. (My sibling's had much more restricted internet access the past little while since our parents have realized how much weird crap they're coming across [unrelated to the gender stuff], thankfully)

[–]OrangeFireflyReturns 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I have a fervent hope that younger people will start to see through this bs. I'm desperately hoping that non-binary (in particular) will be a fad and that teens will start to reject the whole concept as a bit passé.

[–]Lilith_Fair 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Come join us at Ovarit.com. I'll PM you with how to join if you want.

[–]Shesaidno22 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Can I get a PM, please?

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I would also appreciate one. Saidit... is a fine temporary refuge, but its primary userbase is wildly engrossed in conspiracy theories. I don't think it's a good permanent home for gendercrit discussions.

[–]distortedlinds 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Can I get a PM :)

[–]diapason 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thanks!

[–]windrunner 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

When I look back at it and after reading all the things you enumerated, I don't know how I didn't see this ideology for what it was before, although I was never a TRA or very supportive of it all. But damn, when you actually read everything you can't just help wonder just how many people were brainwashed when SO MUCH evidence exists.

[–]diapason 16 insightful - 1 fun16 insightful - 0 fun17 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

For my age group (late teens) a lot of it is there's a lot of social pressure, especially in certain social groups (art/theatre/choir kids, LGB youth, especially so for girls) to buy into the ideology, and I remember it started becoming popular when we were in our early teens, with a lot of the stuff spreading via social media. Nowadays when I open up Instagram, the stuff my old classmates (mostly girls) are posting on their stories is like 1/3 BLM, 1/3 "if your feminism isn't [xyz], it isn't worth shit" (one post said a whole list of things, including "male-inclusive" lmfao), and 1/3 TWAW/TMAM/NBsANB shit, with some Biden propaganda sprinkled in here and there. So yeah, realistically some of them are just virtue signaling but many of them are genuinely indoctrinated when you talk to them. And why wouldn't they be, when this shit gets pushed on us at school too? We never had any formal "education" on gender identity or anything like that, but we'd get chastised in class for accidentally 'misgendering' or 'deadnaming' classmates we'd known since elementary school, so it's not like we could express anything critical of trans. The good news is I think a large portion of us are sick of it/think it's bullshit, but the opposition isn't very vocal; really only the Trump supporters can get away with being open about that and still have friends, and that's a niche. What's telling is more how many of us are silent on the issue, especially for kids who are otherwise pretty vocal about politics or liberal/left-leaning. The unfortunate thing is a lot of my generation really strongly associates LGB with TQ+, so I'm really worried about the probably inevitable coming backlash.

Part of what concerns me most is how targeted the push for trans acceptance is on LGB youth—many have been sold on the lie that they are in any way like us or that we owe them our rights, and so support them with an almost religious fervor. I've seen over the past few years that even some of the kids who were initially skeptical of the gender identity stuff have drunk the koolaid (like an old friend who used to say "there are only two genders" sophomore year who just shared an informational post a few weeks back about supporting non-binary gender identities; and she's the only out lesbian I know who hasn't gone trans or non-binary)[ETA: I forgot I knew one other who hasn't either, I have no idea what her opinions are on the TQ+ stuff, she doesn't post about it ever, which I guess might be a good sign]—whether it's for woke points or genuine change of belief, idk, but either way it's kinda disturbing. The new fad is pronouns in bio—that's even reached some of the straight kids who never really knew about or cared about this stuff before. At the same time, some of the girls who really bought into it early on in high school to the point of adopting a non-binary or trans-guy identity themselves have since desisted (and a couple grew their hair back out or began presenting more femininely again, which sends a weird message, but that's neither here nor there). Gay guys seem to be more spared from it, I'd imagine bi guys as well (I only know one guy who's out as bisexual, so I can't comment on them as a group), but lesbians and bi girls have been pretty affected, with lesbians getting the worst of it I think. Plenty of girls who claim LGBTQWERTY status but who I'm pretty sure are actually heterosexual have gotten sucked in too.

An important factor, too, in my age group's support for trans ideology is the demographics of transgender people. At my (moderately large) school, there were multiple female students in my grade who claimed trans-guy or non-binary status, but to my knowledge not a single male one claimed to be trans or non-binary. This fits in with the demographics of the population too—trans youth tend to be TiFs or female non-binary, while IIRC adults 30+ are more often TiMs. So when someone my age who has only a passing awareness of the issue thinks of trans people, what comes to mind is the TiFs we know, who are at worst mildly delusional, obnoxiously PC, self-centered, or weirdly obsessed with gay men, but maybe a slight majority of whom are generally nice and unassuming but seem to have low self-esteem. The TiMs who are sometimes genuinely a threat to women or children, the ones who appropriate groups and online communities and moderate them with an iron fist, the ones who take women's political representation, the ones who colonize lesbian spaces, the ones for whom it's a fetish… they aren't even on our radar most of the time, so when liberals/TRAs push for the trans-inclusive stuff with bathrooms/changing rooms/shelters, it's easy to dismiss the opposition as right-wing fear-mongering or older people stuck in their ways (plenty of youthful arrogance mixed in there, TBF), because that's not the image we're associating with the group if we haven't really looked into it. If someone my age has a negative view of trans people from their experience, they're more likely to think they are mildly delusional or self-obsessed, rather than fetishistic or threatening.

I think the whole ideology is relying on adults having the wool pulled over their eyes. IRL I've heard adults/parents express criticism of what's going on, but they always seem to miss the point—they think the issue lies in kids thinking they're boring for being heterosexual, or clout being given to 'marginalized' identities, and think all they need to hear is that it's okay to be straight, and then the issue will resolve, but that's not really the issue—otherwise straight kids would be pretending to be gay or bisexual instead, not non-binary, trans, etc, and those who are gay/lesbian/bisexual definitely wouldn't be claiming a gender identity cause they wouldn't feel the need to. It's another part of the forced association between LGB and trans—a lot of adults associate them too (again why I'm not looking forward to the inevitable backlash, although I know a lot don't have a problem with LGB but only TQ+, just there's no real way to know how things are going to play out).

It seems like the effects have gotten worse for kids a few years younger than me, like my younger sibling's age group, and I don't really see it going away within the next couple years—I think it'll take a little longer before the trans/gender identity movement reaches its head, and by then so much damage will have been done.

TL;DR: peer pressure, indoctrination, propaganda spread on social media, only knowing TiFs, forced teaming with LGB issues, the vain desire to be "on the right side of history"… all of that's contributed to support for trans advocacy in my age group.

I think trans ideology is up there with the normalization of pornography and "sex work" in destroying my generation. There's so much propaganda bolstering support for both, and it's having terrible effects on my age group, especially the girls.

[–]MonstrousRegiment 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Fantastic post, thanks for the insights! and hang in there, you obviously are going to be great at being an adult.

[–]diapason 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Aw, thanks!

[–]jjdub7Gay Male Guest Commentator 29 insightful - 3 fun29 insightful - 2 fun30 insightful - 3 fun -  (2 children)

When Mike "Zoey" Tur assaulted Ben Shapiro on Dr. Drew for pointing out that Tur was still biologically male in perpetuity.

"[blaspheme trans dogma again] and you'll be going home in an ambulence."

Not only was it shocking to see an obvious, 6'4" man wrap his ham-sized hand around Shaprio's head and neck, but the juxtaposition of the 6-7 other panelists, insisting that not just anything about this aggressive (even on HRT), hulking individual was feminine, but that the entire display was the pinnacle of female social achievement, asserting its "human rights" as never done before throughout the course of human history.

I then realized we were dealing with a cult.

[–]BiologyIsReal 21 insightful - 1 fun21 insightful - 0 fun22 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I can't say I really peaked as I've never believe in TWAW. I've never feel really feminine despite being a women, for that reason I always found something ofensive about a effeminate man claiming womanhood. Also I know enough about biology to not buy the "but intersex!" excuse. However, I didn't pay attention to this topic because I take a "live and let live" philosophy as long noone is harming anyone and I though trans were a tiny minority, anyway.

Several things make me reconsider this approach, though. First, I noticed how the world seemed to be more obsessed with gender roles than 20 or even 10 years ago and I started worrying that transgenderism supporters were re-enforcing the very same gender roles and stereotypes that they claimed to defy. Moreover, I heard about the so called “cis privilege”, and rejected this concept from the beginning because I didn’t think any woman, including the very feminine ones, was privileged just for the fact of being born female. Some people were arguing TW should use the women's bathroom, an idea I found ridiculous because they weren't women and beacuse sex predators were bound to abuse this. I also heard some people arguing things like sexual orientation was based not on sex but on gender and a transgender individual didn’t have to disclose their biological sex to their romantic or sexual partners, all which sounded pretty rape-y to me.

In short, I was growing wary of gender ideology and the fact the only pushback I saw came from people who didn’t buy in the sex change narrative but still believed in and supported gender roles, didn’t help. The last straw for me was when the UN decided to include transwoman on International Women’s Day! At this point, it really felt like I’ve stepped in an alternative universe were things worked differently from ours. I mean, I even stumbled upon a graffiti claiming something like there were boys with vulvas and girls with penises! Such disregard for biology was maddening and I still hadn’t heard the worst of it.

This March, I find out more about trans rights activists’ goals, by chance. I ended up in a radical feminist website while searching for another topic. In the side-bar there were some articles about transgenderism which picked my curiosity. The more I read the more horrified I got: not only the future I feared was much closer than I thought, it was also way worse than anything I ever imagined! In a matter of a few days, I learned about things like self-ID laws, the “cotton ceiling”, male rapists in women’s prisons, autogynephilia, children and teenagers being medically transitioned, girls surpassing boys in gender dysphoria statistics, the increasing number of young detransitioners, legitimate research on the topic being shut down because it were against the official narrative, the rape and death threats towards women with opposing views, the butchering of the language 1984-style, and more.

I can’t describe how mad and frightened I was and I still am! I’m angry with all the scientists and health professionals endorsing this ideology despite they should know better than to think sex is neither binary nor immutable. I’m angry with all those involved on the transitioning of children and I can’t believe this is not a huge medical scandal already. Neither, I can’t understand how a lot of self-proclaimed feminist are championing the erasure of women’s rights and tolerating all the rape threats sent to Rowling and all the other women who dare to speak out. How can they not see the misoginy of this?

But it gets worse. About two months ago, I learned I was wrong in thinking the gender ideology was concentrated in the English speaking countries. I thought the peak of this insanity have yet to come to my country, but it turns out both self-ID and transition of minors are already legal here in Argentina since 2012. Oh, and there are more insane laws incoming! I'm in despair...

[–]nautilistic 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I've never feel really feminine despite being a women, for that reason I always found something ofensive about a effeminate man claiming womanhood

This is what makes me completely disregard the gender ideology. "Cis" people never felt "cis". No "cis" man has ever stated they feel their gender. No "cis" woman has ever stated they feel their gender. It's an assignment of a term which applies to those who don't "feel" their gender. I reject the notion that a gender is a feeling.

Are gender roles a social construct? Absolutely. Therefore I can get along in the reasoning that gender is a social construct. But to say sex is a social construct is a denial of scientific facts. You can change your gender role, by being non-conforming and I think that is very important for a society and the emancipation of all. You can change your sex, somewhat, by undergoing sex change operations. And I believe people exist who really feel they're in the wrong body and happier living as a member of the opposite sex than the body they were born in. I won't get into any debates whether that has a psychological or physical cause. It doesn't really matter to me. I respect it and I will use the "he" or "she" pronoun if that's what makes them happy.

I draw the line by neo-pronouns and genderfluids. I don't believe you can change your gender by saying "I am now a woman". I don't believe your gender fluctuates. That's your mood or emotion. I think neo-pronouns are a sign of narcisism for wanting to feel very unique and special.

The fact that so many people go along with this is what peaked me and this seems to be a place of sanity.

[–]vodka_gimli 22 insightful - 1 fun22 insightful - 0 fun23 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I had a former close friend who first came out to me as trans. He and I had drifted apart due to moving across the country, but he knew that I wouldn't judge him. And I didn't. I had never been a fan of the whole 'TWAW' mantra because I don't like being told what to think and it came across as overly religious and preachy, but I really didn't mind treating transwomen as women. I gave him open feedback about his clothing choices and picking out cosmetics. One day we were chatting and he brought up the bane to transwomen that is TERFs. I didn't know what that meant so I started researching and found r/GC and their arguments were cogent and made sense. I didn't know what an AGP was but my friend was a textbook case. I started reading Andrea Dworkin and I had never had feminist literature resonate with me like she did. This newfound class analysis made me see so much misogyny which I would have dismissed before. I especially saw it in the trans rhetoric toward women/TERFs.

[–]distortedlinds 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Andrea Dworkin

which work did you read? I'd love to read it as well

[–]Erised 22 insightful - 1 fun22 insightful - 0 fun23 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

I spent years and years of giving the benefit of the doubt to trans ideology that I never quite believed but just nodded along to be nice. And besides, who doesn’t want to be on the “right” side of history? But the biggest thing I could never quite believe was the whole “Trans Women are Women” thing. Whichever way I tried to justify it or reason it out, I could never TRULY believe TWAW— that we shared a similar enough experience for us both to be grouped under the “woman” umbrella. But, I concluded that including trans women in feminist circles, doing what I could to make them feel valid and accepted did more good than harm. It was kind of like calling a close family friend “Aunt So-and-So.” Yes, she wasn’t really a family member and I wouldn’t ask her about her 23 and Me results to learn about my family lineage, but everyone was on the same page so there’s no harm in calling her Aunt So-and-So.

Ironically, I finally got peaked by Contrapoints, whose channel is supposed to educate people about the trans experience. Her video “Gender Critical” first introduced me to GC theory which lead me to the Gender Critical subreddit (R.I.P.). I looked it up purely out of curiosity, but found that, actually, the GC stance made a LOT more sense than the theories I’d been nodding along with for the past 3-4 years. Rather than telling boys who like to wear dresses that they’re trans and need to get surgeries/ they’re trans and therefore should be able to access any female space they want, shouldn’t we be working on telling boys they CAN be boys and wear dresses and put the pressure on men NOT to harass said boys in male spaces?

And then contrapoints released her video called “Men,” in which contrapoints spends half an hour using the good ol “I have experience as a man AND as a woman, so I can definitively say who has it worse” while only reading ONE book as “research” (MRA-fodder “The Myth of Male Power”) and coddling men for having it “so hard nowadays” for suffering under a patriarchy they choose to prop up. Men are lonely because no one pays attention to them— should I, as a man, take the initiative to call my male friends to check up on them and build a strong relationship with them? No, it’s the feminists that are wrong. Of COURSE men are going to gravitate to misogynistic MRA groups! They have nowhere to turn to for help under toxic masculinity and the pressures of patriarchy... except for Men’s Liberation? Which is an incredibly positive community that contrapoints fails to mention once in her video.

No, it’s actually the men who are oppressed because men’s greatest weakness is their perceived power and women’s greatest power is their perceived weakness. Thanks Contra, I’ll remember that all the times I’m being told I’m overreacting when standing up for myself after being sexually harassed, when states continue to erode the rights over my own body, when I receive 80% of the salary my male colleagues get, while I’m married and doing all the housework, all the childcare, AND a full time job. But at least men will automatically just DO things for me that I never asked for in the first place, because it would be a shame for me to actually have to figure something out and build a skills I can use for a lifetime, right? AND I’ll get showered in male (false) praise and (duplicitous) affection... until I turn 40 and get treated as though I were invisible.

She can attest that, as a man, it stings when a woman walking alone at night and automatically assumes that you might be a predator. Ouch, poor men. Could it be that women LARGELY experience violence from men AND are then shamed for “putting themselves in that situation” when they experience violence? It doesn’t matter that women routinely have to make themselves small and cut themselves off from experiencing life at its fullest for fear of violence, harassment, and rape as pointed out from the Sylvia Plath passage that Contrapoints decided to put in her own video— but none of that freedom appeals to Contrapoints. And since it doesn’t matter to contrapoints, it shouldn’t matter to all other women.

Here was someone who made video after video explaining and rationalizing how she was a woman, and how everyone needed to believe her and validate her as a biological woman— how other biological women needed to fight for her rights in order to be “good intersectionalist feminists.” But then she puts out a 30 minute thirst trap (oh yeah, did I mention she wears lingerie for the majority of the video? Because this one is 4 da boisssss!) dismissing, belittling, and invalidating concerns women have had for years because those concerns don’t align with her view and experience of what “womanhood” is.

But that wasn’t what ultimately peaked me. People make mistakes, and hopefully they learn from those mistakes and grow. I wasn’t mad at Contrapoints, I was just.... disappointed.

What peaked me was the comments. More specifically, the responses to the comments that respectfully pointed out that contrapoints’s views on men and the safety concerns of women were most likely influenced by the fact that Contra was socialized as a man for about 80% or so of her life (as she’s very open about considering this ENTIRE VIDEO was drawing on HER OWN EXPERIENCES as a man). No, she wouldn’t mind getting so called “positively” cat called, because those comments AFFIRM her gender identity. That, as a former self proclaimed MRA shithead (her words), she might have some misogynistic attitudes and beliefs she still needs to work out. Plenty of biological women have internalized sexist beliefs, it should stand to reason that those beliefs likewise just don’t magically disappear for trans women.

But her supporters were having NONE of that. It’s transphobic to EVER point out that a trans woman USED to be a man (but then, what did they TRANSITION from them?) To critique and criticize ANY trans person’s views mean you’re trying to invalidate them and erase their identity, even if most TRA talking points are inherently contradictions of each other, kill yourself TERF!!!! (It’s okay for someone to be mistaken or misinformed about something. Pointing out that what you’re saying can be harmful to women who’ve been oppressed and brutalized for millennia isn’t an attack on you. Also, rude).

For years I had viewed TRA’s points in good faith and unquestioningly assumed the best when they shared their experiences and what it meant to be a woman to them. But whenever a biological woman spoke up with concerns or criticisms, she was met with hostility and the worse was assumed about her — she automatically hated trans women and wanted them dead, everything she said was just a dog whistle for hate. I watched as women lost their jobs over asserting that biological sex is real. I watched as the bar of entry for what constitutes “a woman” became lower and lower and the danger that comes with that as men can enter female spaces and redefine what womanhood means and what should be important to women. All the trust, validation, and support I’d been giving TRA’s for years wasn’t a two way street.

[–]distortedlinds 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

so well said. its important to note that Contra harvests and encourages the comments in her videos. thats his fan base, and as much as they can ignore or reject that fanbase - its still the mindset they encourage and are a direct reflection of who they are as a human.

just food for thought.

[–]Daraincork 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Brilliant explanation of the problem there , Erised. There can be no compromise with the TRAs because they won't accept one. Much always wants more as the old saying has it.

[–]jjdub7Gay Male Guest Commentator 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The compromise is them assimilating every last piece of space, designated benefit, familial kinship, categorical accomplishment, bit silence awaiting a voice - and it will still never be enough, all fodder for the narcissistic void.

[–]MonstrousRegiment 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thanks Contra, I’ll remember that all the times I’m being told I’m overreacting when standing up for myself after being sexually harassed, when states continue to erode the rights over my own body, when I receive 80% of the salary my male colleagues get, while I’m married and doing all the housework, all the childcare, AND a full time job. But at least men will automatically just DO things for me that I never asked for in the first place, because it would be a shame for me to actually have to figure something out and build a skills I can use for a lifetime, right? AND I’ll get showered in male (false) praise and (duplicitous) affection... until I turn 40 and get treated as though I were invisible.

Great summary!

I'd like to encourage everyone here to use sex-based pronouns. Free your head!

[–]889250 21 insightful - 1 fun21 insightful - 0 fun22 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I started lurking at the Gender Critical subreddit a while ago, I was sad to see it was banned. I would say this was a peak moment for me in itself. Having seen the posts on there, I didn't see that any of it was hate speech or dehumanizing in any way. Anything that questions the trans movement is a huge no no on the internet. Great free speech there.

The hatred shown towards JK Rowling even after (especially after) her essay in response to the outrage of her latest tweet was definitely a huge peak moment for me. A woman being silenced, insulted, and threatened for daring to stand by scientific fact and biological reality really grinded my gears. And through that hearing about biological women who lost their jobs for believing science and voicing and standing by that belief? Important peak moments.

Boiling womanhood down to essentially "I feel like a woman so I am one regardless of any other factors" is a huge peak moment for me too. How does one feel like a woman? I don't even know. How do you feel like a man? Man and woman isn't a feeling.

Trying to find any articles or opinions questioning the trans movement at all is almost impossible, so when I found myself questioning a lot of what I was seeing i googled opposing positions and had a lot of trouble finding anything that wasn't supporting trans or "debunking" opposing views. Calling people terfs or transphobes when they so much as question the TRA narrative, utilizing cancel culture to silence any attempt at rational discord about the trans movement is frustrating and was a huge force in pushing me to be gender critical.

I didn't want to write a damn essay but when I started naming peak moments it got harder and harder to stop lol. I don't hate trans people and I believe they should receive all rights and protections everyone else has. But I don't agree with their attempt to rewrite history, biology, and language to suit their needs.

[–]PrincessBubblegum 17 insightful - 1 fun17 insightful - 0 fun18 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Hello. I guess I peeked a long time ago. I grew up Catholic, and no one let me read anything that would contradict what I was taught. I learned pretty quickly that not being allowed to read was the opposite of freedom of thought. My mother used to tell me when I asked her a question; because I said so; and that answer was never good enough for me. I kept asking her why, and she told me that one day we are able to learn to read and then we can decide the answer for ourselves. I think that's the most important thing she ever taught me. Sorry for my punctuation.

[–]drunkthrowwaay 37 insightful - 1 fun37 insightful - 0 fun38 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The thoroughness and viciousness of the Reddit purge, and how tra and supporters behaved during it, repeaked me. Celebrating shutting down not just opponents’ speech, but even just open discourse, like in the debate sub. Celebrating shutting down truelesbians. Lurking and threatening with possible shutdown the detrans sub, if their content wasn’t up to tra standards.

The fact that a major social media platform and public discussion host enacted such a ridiculous, widespread, and unrelenting purge based on political views that a minority of the population vehemently despises, as well as non political speech that this minority deemed not correct enough for them. I hate it so much. It’s suppression of free thought and the freedom to share and exchange such thought. Some might say, “It’s a private company and they’re free to regulate speech how they like.” They are a private company and can legally do what they like—but it seems obvious that this is the form that suppression and censoring of the public spheres of ideas would necessarily take in a late capitalist society. It’s 2020, and in the US most speech directed at the “public sphere” is conducted through private companies.

To paraphrase Justice Brandeis, the remedy for speech you hate is not suppression, but more, better speech. If TRA ideology is accckkkshuallly scientifically correct and logically valid and sound then they shouldn’t be suppressing opposing ideas—they should be meeting and defeating them in public discourse. I can’t respect a movement that shies away from such debate and can’t meet such challenges, that would prefer its opponents are simply not heard.

Edit: Honestly, it is depressing as hell. I only ever participated in the GC v QT debate sub, so I can only speak about that. There was nothing at all within the debate sub that could plausibly make it a “hate sub.” Things got heated sometimes, but “heated” for that sub didn’t include slurs, and certainly nothing actually hateful. I believe misgendering was actually against the rules, and mods were pretty strict about enforcement. Nothing about it was hateful. Redditors abusing the report button, Reddit employees with an agenda, and Reddit corporate that wants the easiest way to avoid controversy—fuck all of them.