The Cost
Part 2: Family
Yesterday was Part 1, which covered friends and colleagues, but the havoc gender ideology has wreaked on families is even more heartbreaking. I imagine these scenes are being played out in one form or another in every other household in the UK. Middle-class households, especially.
The comparison that springs most effortlessly to my mind is that of people who said they had lost their parents to Fox News. Except now, it’s mainly kids being lost to Internet-derived positions they can neither defend nor articulate.
Again, my question was: What was the closest friendship you lost because of your beliefs? Or not even the closest, just one that surprised you or knocked you back? We all know about losing livelihoods due to 'cancellation', but I want to show people the social cost of it.
FAMILY
Oh hell. The topic is way more toxic than Brexit.
I am a coward speaking about it in real life because my son is a committed TRA, politically active. He's always been a feminist and I was pround of that, but TWAW (“Transwoman are women”) blindsided me. We had a row about this ages ago, when he threatened never to speak to me again and slammed the phone down. He's never done that before. I didn't know whether to believe him - we'd been so close - but he did speak to me again. We have just never again spoken about this, and I don't speak about it anywhere that he can see or hear me.
I have various other people in my life where I actively avoid the subject. I wouldn't broach it with anyone unless I had an inkling they could be likeminded. And very few friends with whom I can speak openly. My husband is onside but thinks the whole thing is so barmy there's nothing left to discuss.
My sister.
For me it isn't friends that are the problem, it's discussions with my adult children, and more importantly my nieces and nephews and other of that generation.
My kids believe it's all a load of bollocks, and are particularly angry with male people entering women's spaces (especially sport for my son, medical and abuse situations for my daughter). But they have forbidden me to talk about it, they are afraid to say anything themselves, it's a taboo subject.
My own husband disagrees with me which is a bit depressing (he thinks JK Rowling was punching down, that the actions of a few shouldn't count for the many, that most people mean no harm so just let them be). We've agreed to just not talk about it for the sake of our marriage but I am obsessing about it a bit so I feel like I'm not being very honest with him.
I lost my cousin over this. She was a good friend too. We were always close but became especially close after my Mum died because my Mum had been a second mother to my cousin. She understood my loss, and I understood hers. We talked for hours about politics, family, the state of the world... And then somehow the topic of transwomen in women's sports came up. She has a DGD in team sports but was entirely taken aback that I did not think it was fair for someone who had gone through male puberty to compete against girls and women. Apparently I was a bigot. She hung up (we were on skype) and I have not heard from her since.
This hurts because I did not rush to that decision even though it seems a no-brainer. I read up, and yes it is not right and not fair on women and girls. But I am the bigot apparently.
My young adult children, they are othering me because I am concerned that my Tran identifying Adhd daughter will take testosterone which can collapse the uterus, cause vaginal atrophy and ovarian cancer. She self-diagnosed with gender Dysphoria along with her 2 childhood best friend at 15. Therapists and teachers congratulated her; expressed dismay that I wasn't respectful of her new pronouns. There was no prior history of gender Dysphoria. We are not allowed to talk about it or express concern. My oldest gay kid equates my concern with rejection, not so; it is protection. I would be thrilled to plan a gay wedding but not thrilled to drive my beautiful smart kind daughter to the hospital for a hysterectomy and double mastectomy. Clearly there is something non-inclusive about my thinking because I should be celebrating the kids that can walk into Planned Parenthood (which I donated to; since have stopped😡) or Urgent Care and in 1 day receive Testosterone w/o the consent of an adult (can’t drink til 21 but can access hormones that lead to sterility at 14).
This is the cost; her 2 bffs are on Testosterone, 1 never saw a doctor, 1 went to a gender therapist. Clearly somethings wrong with me that I question this. 😡 my kids are angry and hostile. The pain and stress of this is indescribable as it tears through my family and her 2 bffs families. I know 3 other trans male young women, all after surgeries increasingly depressed. None of us can publicly talk and out these suffering kids. The mob can speak but not loving concerned parents.
My niece, hopefully not forever. She's 18, super smart and super woke, but now thinks I'm a bigot.
A close friend who I haven't discussed this with but when I've said things on group chats she's made clear she agrees with TWAW. We've seen each other a lot over the past few months (socially distancing... our DDs are best friends) and it's been stilted and a bit awkward.
My younger sister, the most lefty socialist communist Corbynite you've ever met. I asked her if Jessica Yaniv was justified in suing beauty salons in Canada for refusing to wax his nuts and she said yes. Also said that women dying in menstrual huts in Nepal should be able to identify out of their oppression... She's very smart and brilliant and compassionate in so many ways, but we're polarised on this.
Last few months have felt very sad and lonely, only on Mumsnet, Twitter and a handful of real-life friends seem to agree with me that women are women and transwomen are transwomen.
It has made me so sad to fall out with good friends and family members over this one issue. And that they now see me as possibly hateful and bigoted. I use my real name on Twitter and keep my tweets part work-related/part GC. Being doxxed is a worry. I'm a lifelong Labour voter but feel (cliched but true) politically homeless over this thing. Greens might be my best bet.
If I said what I do and don’t believe? My sister, my best friend at work, and one of my university friends all have ‘trans’ daughters or stepdaughters (presenting male, I mean). Sister actively campaigns for trans women to be in women’s prisons.
I stay off the whole subject and meet up less often because of it.
one family member is very into that scene. 18 years old and now nonbinary, wears binders etc... I love her very much but I don't want to preach to her. Tumblr will reinforce all her feelings and more, at least half the people I knew were struggling with anxiety, feelings of disconnection with society, an inability to form real-life relationships & feelings of hopelessness. Online life feels so safe in comparison.
I'm not bothered about friendships, but this topic is an open wound between me and two of my kids. I actively self censor around them to avoid losing them. It's sad, embarrassing, and makes me feel that I failed as their mother.
My friends are thankfully all sane. Some of them are still on the "#bekind" wavelength, but even they can see the issues of self-id etc.
The only person I (nearly) lost was my 20 yr old daughter. She is 2nd yr at Uni, entrenched in wokeness, has trans friends and simply couldn't comprehend when I told her I not only didn't hate JK Rowling but actively agreed with her.
We have always discussed and debated any subject and she's usually excellent at critical thinking (Wants to be a Barrister - much better at arguing and way smarter than me) but this is one subject she just won't discuss with me.
It's honestly as if I've said I support Hitler or something.
This issue has been awful for my marriage, and we have a very strong one. It's made both of us view the other in a different light. We have an agreement not to talk about it. It feels like I'm having to hide a huge part of myself from him, whereas I've never needed to before.
I haven't lost the relationship (yet!) but my husband's views on some aspects of this - transwomen in sport, for instance - really shocked me. I just don't understand the willingness to overlook clearcut advantages in male physiology, for one thing.
I can't talk to my husband about it at all - he thinks it's a complete non-issue. So I feel there's this massive thing (for me) that we can just never discuss, which feels quite lonely.
I was going to say the same thing. My husband refuses to discuss it at all, likes to give the impression that I have some mad bee in my bonnet. It is lonely and means that I have no RL person to discuss this with, especially my concerns relating to my teenage daughter and her trans school friends.
It's helping kill my marriage. He's very much 'no debate' and thinks I'm on the wrong side of history. I can't forgive him for not taking on board my views or even accepting that I, as an older woman, might have a perspective worth listening to. He has advised me to educate myself by reading up on the right kind of feminism, the younger women he follows on Twitter. He really is a complete twat on the subject and I feel utterly betrayed. We have agreed to avoid the subject. Yeah, he's got a beard.
Husband. After 25 years together. It was the final issue that unearthed all the underlying views on women, roles and gender. Woke. So it could be said to have cost me a marriage, home, and business. Or saved my sanity, dignity and the rest of my life.
It's horrible knowing you can't speak your mind because of the hate you'll get for it. I'm finding it exhausting and have today deactivated my Twitter account. I was reading a lot and learning a lot but it was no good for my mental health to feel so furious all the time. That may be cowardly, but I needed to take a step back. A male friend (the DH of one of my oldest friends) sent me a long message saying he was so disappointed to see such hate and GC stuff in my timeline... basically telling me TWAW and that my feminism was wrong. He's a nice guy irl, and he wasn't trying to patronise me, but he did say my misgendering someone was hateful... I give up, for a bit. Will carry on reading MN, talking to friends irl who won't call me a terf, and discussing feminism with my kids as much as I can without being a weirdo about it.
Some - we agree to disagree. A good friend of 30 years, who’s gay, posted about TERFs, etc, but we had a very honest open discussion. Because of my daughter’s experiences I could give examples of safeguarding failures, etc.
The biggest cost to us has been from the mental health service. Because my daughter had suicide attempts after desisting after 4 years of identifying as male, the first conclusion jumped to is that she’s been converted by us and is in denial about not being transgender. It’s cost years of not being able to get an ASD assessment because they are not prepared to accept the black and white thinking which lead dd to think she was male, is anything to do with autism.
It’s cost my daughter years of her childhood.