Read on Twitter
I just had a realization. I think the reason it took me so long to realize what was going on in the outer world in terms of TRAs is because my group was almost all women. Most were curious about gender + being trans, all women. No trans MtoF. No demands on our female space.
We didn't have a single male-to-female trans person, not a single one and so we didn't have to deal with this emotionally violent co-opting of being female. We were simply allies to MtoF and assumed the same humility and gentleness.
I only realized how this was playing out in the larger world once I got on twitter after JK Rowling's tweets in June. Then saw the violence, the defense of this violence by other women, myself as an ally being told, "Sit-down and shut up, cis woman, trans woman speaking!"
I tried telling fellow allies how I was concerned about women who'd been assaulted in bathrooms and were being triggered, that no matter how we felt we needed to be there for them emotionally. Was screamed at, told those women shouldn't lay their fear on the laps of trans women.
I tried defending twaw for the first time to GC people, and found I couldn't do it. I'm trained in science, and very scientifically minded, but had never actually tried to explain it before. I realized I couldn't.
Meanwhile, I looked into the context of what JK Rowling had said, and read her essay. I was sobbing at her honesty, her pain, her compassion. And then saw my friends immediately, without blinking, attack her. Women friends. I sobbed for hours.
It took about 10 days, and I was done. I was done with the obvious bullshit, with the completely misogynist men who came in to defend trans women just because they were men and think they could abuse women for having the nerve to think that sex mattered.
I started reading GC tweets just to help me process leaving what is an actual cult, dealing with having had my love be manipulated and dumped on my own being. So many of these tweets helped me get here. @lascapigliata8 @ripx4nutmeg @RadfemJana @HiboWardere @duncrail78 .
I met GC transsexuals who support women. And women and men saying NO. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. My heart that now realizes that feminism can't be taken for granted, and by necessity is always radical.
