I grew up in a very leftist family, though I was always fairly apolitical (I don't like the tribalism and groupthink of politics).

I always assumed that American 'bathroom bills' were in bad faith, because I imagined transwomen as the pop culture 'Blaire White' stereotype and assumed that they were materially different from men. And to be fair, back in the day, 'trans' implied sex reassignment surgery or the future expectation thereof and was more strictly provisioned by medical experts.

Gradually I started seeing 'trans' in the news more and more, and felt disconcerted. I chalked that feeling up to some sort of suppressed bigotry or conservatism.

I read a flowery article in the CBC about a stunning and brave transactivist named Jessica Yaniv and had a WTF moment.

Some time later I was at a restaurant with my bf and we were seated next to two very large, very masculine men in dresses, fishnets and pounds of clown makeup. When 'Zelda' disappeared to the bathroom for an inordinate amount of time, the other one (never did get a name) started trying to convince me to come to a drag show, told me all about how he couldn't find a job, ignored every social cue and generally threw up every red flag. I was starting to perceive by this point that this wasn't benign, and I was pissed off that these men were appropriating womanhood, but I also knew it was too dangerous to say anything. By the time I left I was committed to figuring out WTF was going on.

Then later Meghan Murphy's presentation at the Toronto Public Library was being heavily protested, and I wanted to understand more. I listened to discussions on the radio and read articles in the news about the event describing her as a bigot, etc, but no one was interviewing her or describing what she had said or done that constituted bigotry. I wanted to know more. I reluctantly watched a YouTube video of one of her events, expecting it to be cringey or boring, and was surprised to see women talking about the impact of policy and ideology on women's lives. I later found Meghan's interview with Heather Mason describing the situation in women's prisons in Canada, and realized that this was not merely an academic issue.

From there, I found r/GenderCritical, which felt like the only refuge from the misogyny on the rest of Reddit. The rest is history.

I felt isolated IRL for the longest time. I don't talk to most people about this. However, now gender ideology is making it's way into my workplace I've been pleasantly surprised how many people have confided in me that they're pissed off. These are people who I'm sure never thought about this stuff two years ago. Many are men. Canada is in a much worse position than the UK right now, but I suspect the tide may be turning. At least there's a critical mass of awareness that wasn't there until recently.