Begun as a reply to neveragain: No issues with the length, thank you for saying what I couldn't truly put into words before. When you don't realize you're peaking, then JKR shows up....Same thing here. TERFs are evil horrible people, right? Like you, I think I believed them to be basically the far right in America. I saw the uproar, after thinking her tweet about "people who menstruate" was absolutely hilarious and spot on, then what everyone called her GC manifesto. I didn't disagree. I read it aloud to others who'd previously mocked girls in stories about TIMs in locker rooms as phobes. They agreed. At a certain point, every woman has either gone through enough misogyny that we cannot stand seeing it belittled and appropriated or they're, frankly, enduring Stockholm Syndrome. The simple fact is that I had peaked a bit before, as I simply got sick of TIM friends posting about the horrors of menstrual cramps, and frankly just know these particular people to have horrendous histories of trauma and abuse. And also the obvious fact that they're appropriating suffering of actual women to bolster their delusion.

Ding ding ding. There it was, I had started to refer to myself as an "actual woman". I'd recently met a TIM and the level of trying to almost convert me was strange, actually rather strange. I was seeing more and more of my feminist friends give loads of clout online to those who used TRA language, while honestly leaving behind actual women who have long been activists and feminists, often WOC, because we refuse to put pronouns in our bios. Things went from "it's polite to put pronouns in your screen name or bio" to "What kind of person WOULDN'T?" so quickly. Slowly, even the most non gender related spaces online were invaded by small numbers of young people, usually not even trans, who started insisting on this nonsense. And it is nonsense. Cue JKR. I read. I digested. I'm not as far over as she is, I thought, but I'll check out the study she references and this YouTuber. Ding ding ding again. Really? It was the appropriation of what it means to be a woman. All of it. At first it felt terribly subversive to hear TIM aren't women. But the follow up line, "everyone knows this", yeah. We do. So I began to read about the abuses lesbians were facing. I began to lurk. Truth is, I didn't need to. I know a few people, now in their early 20s, who detransitioned. They're horrified about it. We never spoke aloud that this was socially imposed on them by parents, but we always thought it was. I'd forgotten that, as they're back to IDing as their actual gender now. The final straw and line for me, other than my rights being pushed aside for those of TIM (which has happened to me) was doing this to children. Prepubescent children. With puberty blockers. I ticked every box as a kid for what would now be called persistent gender dysphoria, but I was just a tomboy and recognized as such. I wasn't even treated that weird. Doing this to any children is abuse and horrifying. The knowledge that kids like me are now being asked in schools if they area actually trans, and subjected to medical experiments and psychological torture is too horrifying. Little girls like me are already told our bodies are shameful. Now they're being told it was all a mistake? Their entire BODY? RAGE. I just peaked 5 more times writing this.

-why is the general public not horrified over transing kids? -why are detransitioners attacked and denied media coverage? -why are women being.....never mind, that's old hat, I KNOW WHY BUT STILL -why is the mic being given re: women's issues to TIF on twitter? WHY? WHY does anyone put up with this?

The simple fact is that in the US, the debate has centered around the religious right, and usually people you really just don't want to much associate with in person, who don't value women any more than what is discussed here. A LOT of Americans simply chose the side that wasn't literally the same side of people who protest our rights in almost every other area. I think that was all anyone needed to set this debate in the US, frankly. Yet I meet younger folks who think it's nonsense and are done with it as well. It's a different scene for the Brits I've spoken to, and I'm glad we can sort it out online, love hearing your perspective.

Apologies for pouring that out beginning as a reply, then an mishmash of disjointed gushing, I've just felt very alone without anyone to discuss this with. Hitting full peak during shutdown with only an obviously hostile internet has been....interesting. Till I found this place, and thanks again.

Thanks to whoever put this entire sub up, I saw the link on reddit.