Refuges - Part 1 - Be Grateful for What You're Given

Refuges

 - Part 1 -

Be Grateful for What You're Given

I see a lot of comments online about refuges and how they've all been trans inclusive, on the basis of self identification, for decades, without incident.

Then, the arguments, often including claims made entirely speculatively. ''I'd have no problem with a transwoman if I had to go into a refuge. They are women, after all"

They talk on how they think they'd feel, speak in favour of trans inclusion in these spaces, dismissing or outright abusing any woman with deep, male-triggered trauma.

(see here for the deeply disingenuous Stonewall report). 

I'll be illustrating that in subsequent blogs.

 

"I'm trans" is sometimes a suit of armour and claim to the delicacy of a newborn hemophiliac, no matter the real status or blind aggression demonstrated. We, natal women, are expected to be gracious, kind, accommodating - immediately drawn to protect the archetypal unassuming, meek transwoman - Hayley Cropper, or Jazz Jennings, perhaps. We are expected to put gender solidarity at the heart of our recovery. 

Well, it may come as a surprise to some, but when we flee violence, living in unstable, conditional and inadequate housing, it is not the fucking time, ok?

It is not the time to watch our back, watch our words, or budge up. 

We spent so long squeezing ourselves into ever-smaller, apologetic corners. We have cramp, dead legs. 

I am so beyond exhausted, I here write, at length, on what happened to me when I was placed in a hostel with a trans identifying - convicted paedophile - male, and the catalogue of abuse which preceded it.

 

"As a survivor..."

Many, even most of us, have experienced sexual assault. You have, and you don't believe you'd be concerned with sharing with transwomen? Maybe you know transwomen you feel safe with, who would be great support in this awful situation?

 I do. 

Maybe it would be instant friendship, and you find meaning in this. Probably, that's the trashy Lifetime TV show fantasy I strongly suspect is behind this. 

Sexual assault is a hugely varied crime with an infinite number of short and long term consequences, not necessarily in line with the perceived severity. As much as I try, I can't help but feel those breezily submitting their popular, trendy opinions are crudely trivialising the plight of genuinely vulnerable women. 

Their experience, set in their lives, is a singular one, as all of our experiences are.

Have you been there? Wondering, do you sleep on the street where there are many people, good and bad, or in a park, where there is hardly anyone, but you'd be totally isolated if someone attacked you? And rough sleepers are attacked - taunted, robbed, pissed on, beaten up, raped.

Or sleeping on sofas, aware you're in the way, trying to be useful, unobtrusive, just desperately wanting a little space to cry in, to sleep comfortably, with privacy. Or they're welcoming, but sit up all night talking and you are obliged to play along, even while crumbling at all the words and the noise.

Walking around all day, sitting in public toilets because no one can see you there, and the pressure exerted from all those eyes is crushing you.

When your head is in a mess and people say they'd help, but you can feel the tolerance crash to the ground within moments? When you turn up, as they invited you to, and they clearly want you to go, but don't say it. They just hope you'll pick up on the tension and leave. But you are so desperate, you just try to stick it out, ignoring all the cues and hints because it's raining outside. You can't be whining - everyone has heard enough. You need to bring something positive. 

It is like being spun round in circles. It's extraordinarily lonely.

My memories of being abused as a very little girl are confused, scary, and only come into consciousness occasionally, like ancient litter on the river bed, stirred up by turbulence, always just evading my efforts to hold and examine, slipping back and away. I have nightmares - it wasn't him, it was a big cat - a wolf, a monster. It chased me up an endless flight of stairs, I kept stumbling and it sprang, leapt, pounced. It was so fast. It pinned me down on my bed. I can see the old wallpaper and my sister's posters. Images of memories appear like strobe lights in a nightclub. I don't understand any of these fleeting pictures, they evade my direct view like mice scurrying into kick boards. But it freaks me out on a visceral level that I can't explain. 

I loved and idolised the man who hurt me. He was sometimes so amazing; so much fun, so in tune with me. No one else seemed to get me - just him. 

I was always afraid, and weighed down with an ineffable shame. It must have stopped by the time I was eight, I know that, but he never stopped the creepiness, the inappropriate comments, and grew increasingly paranoid and violent. 

I remember, at around that age, my ability to immerse myself in play suddenly stopped one day. If you've ever taken MDMA or crack, you might understand this - everything is lush, fascinating, and you have this energy, but abruptly a grey, stark, nihilistic, echoing dullness. It's your favourite music replaced by white noise. It sweeps in and it drags all of the good away. You can feel it. It slams down like shutters. It takes everything. This was exactly the same. The world was so bleak. I was so unhappy, I can't describe it.

In early adolescence I was assaulted by several men. 

A notable example, when I was twelve: a huge treat, to go to a gig in London. In the crowd at Brixton Academy, a grown man pushed up against me. He put his hands on my waist. I froze. I remained frozen as he nuzzled into my neck, pushed back slightly by scrunchng my shoulders up to my head when I thought he might leave a mark.

I was frozen as he shoved his hand into my pants. It's like I'd accepted this was part of a night out, of growing up. But, also, I was so dirty for it. When it was over I caught a fleeting glimpse of him. I was terrified he would see me, recognise me. And if he saw me, something would happen. Something terrible.

What if he's from my town? Ridiculously unlikely scenarios filled my head. I felt barricaded by shame and blind panic. My heart was pounding into my throat and everyone must know what I'm thinking, because my mind was blaring. They could see it in my face. Hear it in my voice. I have never told a soul.

My family was blown apart like a snooker break. The thing I'd had before, my hated, stifling refuge as an agoraphobic, school-phobic, mentally ill kid, was gone. A new man came in just as my dad finally left. He insulted us, hit us, and took mum away. The house was sold, we moved across the country, and he demanded I go. And I couldn't go home, there was nowhere to go back to. 

My siblings scattered across other cities, other countries. I was 15. 

I was terrified. I walked along the canal one day, under the trees, and I could watch the herons. A man passed me, then ran up behind me, grabbing my bum. I screamed, he said he wanted my phone number. I told a friend, no one ever suggested the police. A hairy, greasy man pulled up near me as I waited for someone. Seemingly deranged and laughing, taunting. He got his cock out. It was like they were all in on a private joke which was mocking of my experience, and I was so weak, they laughed at my attempts at verbal abuse.

I lost my virginity and began sleeping with almost any man who bought me a drink. It was a strange kind of inoculation against my persistent, secret hope for love and someone to save me. To toughen myself up a bit. But somehow, within a few months I had a big group of friends, went out every night I could, had a lot of fun and went to some brilliant parties. My boyfriend was 24, I thought I loved him.

By the time I was 16, i was lodging. My boyfriend lived in a party house; people just wandered in off the street, there was always something going on. One time, I'd stayed up a couple of days, taking all sorts of substances. I was a mess. The shop sold several bottles of wine to a new friend when they opened at 6am. I think I'm allergic to red wine - I flush bright red, get a headache, need to sleep.

So a few glasses hit me hard, and I decided to go to bed. This new friend, Simon, was good looking. A couple of women, much better than me, really fancied him and I dismissed his general conspiratorial, flirty behaviour, because he wouldn't fancy me. Exhaustion hit me, I said I was going to bed. I walked down the stairs, had a pee, got into his room, took my trousers off and fell into bed. I didn't notice til I was in the bed, that he was there.

I couldn't stay awake, I kept drifting in and out, but I said no countless times. He raped me. Someone opened the door and apologised, so I knew everyone else would know he'd been there. I couldn't verbalise, ask for help. I gave into the fiction. We were all promiscuous, hedonistic. It was ok if I pretended it was ok.

My boyfriend lost interest in me, and I couldn't talk to him. Simon's girlfriend found out and publicly confronted me. They were in their late twenties, grown ups - she was a social worker. Everyone assumed it was consensual and I never corrected them. He was good looking. It was a better option for me, somehow, to reframe it that way.

By the time I was 22, I'd been through a lot. After I left a violent relationship I presented at the council offices who eventually put me in a bed and breakfast. Cramped, poxy, tiny and damp rooms, no cooking or refrigeration, the toilet up the stairs and round the hall with men on stag dos staying every weekend. 

Then, finally, I got a flat. 

It was temporary accommodation; tense, rough. I didn't feel safe, but my psycho ex lived nearby, so no one was surprised I felt vulnerable. 

Within the first couple of days, walking carrier bag after carrier bag or belongings back to my new place, I saw a guy outside, who asked me to go for a drink. I Iaughed, but I didn't like it.

But people reassured me - of course I was feeling edgy. It's no big deal. 

It was a new-build shit hole, entrances facing a courtyard - parking for workers, ambulance and police - no resident ever had a vehicle. The window locks were so tight you couldn't get a whole hand out. And the courtyard wasn't lit, at all. I was scared. Then one night walking in, the man was next to me, but I couldn't see him.

He said something, and disappeared into the blackness. Now, that's fucked up, no? My friends told me to relax. I suppose they doubted me. 

But several things happened. I had weird, vivid dreams and afterwards I wasn't sure had he been peeking through the windows or getting in? Things had been moved - was I sleep walking? Maybe I should stop smoking weed. I still don't know the answer.

I tried to make it safe. The previous resident died of an overdose there, and her thick, dark hair clogged the bathroom plug holes. It made me feel sick. I burnt incense and developed a brief spirituality, wishing her well. It just wasn't right.

After about three weeks there, I'd just got back from a night out. I was a punk, I went to gigs and walked home alone, drunk and feeling safe.

And within a couple of minutes of getting in, the buzzer went. The man was outside. I knew instantly from his voice. Apparently he 'just want to speak' to me. 

It sounds trite, but I had mental images of fox hounds closing in on their quarry. Of exhausted, lagging foxes, losing against a tide of jaws. I felt intensely vulnerable.

I told him, I said "just fuck off. I'll call the police if you bother me again" and went to bed. 

In the night I woke up, anxious. I only had old, scratchy blankets, it was very cold and something was wrong. I got up and put on layers of clothing before getting back to bed. It was the most fortuitous instinct of my life. 

Because later, I felt a rush of cold air and realised - the covers had been lifted off me. 

And, there was a hand on my pillow. There was just enough light to see it was not my ex boyfriend's. There was a man - that man. He was naked, in my bed. 

I think I instantly started screaming and he told me to shush. He said 'I just want a fuck', like it was reassuring.

Here began the profound confusion I couldn't shake for years, like it blew the last fuse in my brain. 

I was screaming, shouting, pleading would he get back, just let me have a moment, to let me understand.

I kept thinking this was all a mistake. Maybe I was in his flat? And I'd been drunk, I'd brought him home, hadn't I? Why was I doing this to him? He seemed so calm, if I just calmed down it'd make sense. 

He wouldn't back off. My brain was screaming 'this isn't real, it isn't real' and I couldn't think.

I was standing on the bed at this point and realised I could only just see over his shoulder. I'm five foot eight. He seemed huge, he was young and fit.

He lunged, shouted, we fell onto the floor. He was too strong, turning my left arm black for weeks with just two punches. I landed with a thump and felt winded.

I was bargaining in my head the whole time.  Occasionally I thought I should let him, maybe. I should, because I cannot die here. I have to speak to someone again, tell someone.

But he wouldn't back off. I couldn't think. I looked around the room and couldn't see any way out. It was unbelievable. 

I was too shocked, would he just stop for a moment, I'm too shocked? At the same time, the idea of 'letting' him was the most egregious, unthinkable violation. I could never, ever allow it. There was no way out of this room, because I couldn't get past him. This can't be real.

When I was at primary school, a little boy in my class developed this fixation with me. He would do the same as that man at Brixton Academy, and I just gave up fighting. Sometimes gangs of kids gathered round as he pinned me to the playing field. It was always the same routine, and I can't be crying in front of people. 

One day, I had to go back to the classroom during P.E. He followed, and the same thing as this happened: we were rolling around, fighting as he tried to rip my leotard off. It was terrifying, I don't know what made him leave, but I kept quiet for some time. I eventually told a sibling he touched me. Sibling told my mum. I had to explain in detail what happened  My elder sibling said "thats disgusting" and I thought that was me. That I was disgusting. No one ever asked me if I was ok. It wasn't mentioned again.

And now these memories came crashing down on my head. It was the same. I had a vivid flashback.

 I fought for my life, I thought I would die there. It is incredible how many things can run through your head at once. I was switching from one thought to another. It just couldn't be real.

He beat me up, tore at my clothes and screamed he wanted a fuck, or 'just' a blowjob. We fought. He had me on my back on the floor and I remembered the lethal looking screwdriver I'd put under my bed. I thought, I'll stab him, I'll stab him hard as I can, in the ribs, and I'll run. I wanted to hurt him, I really fucking did, but I couldn't. Because, it dawned on me, I was shaking and in mind-warping shock. He knew exactly what he was doing. Immutability of sex - he was much stronger, faster, he wasn't shaky or confused. He'd get it off me. I twisted my legs tight as I could and he almost howled with frustration he couldn't stop me. I prayed he wouldn't see the screwdriver. 

It lasted over 15 minutes, as worked out by my alarm clock going off and the time I called 999. I have never felt desperation like it.

I didn't die there, because I was lucky. Towards the end of this monumental struggle, from fighting to helplessly, hopelessly scanning the room for ways to escape, to trying to speak and humanise myself, ask for a glass of water, or could he go get some beers..? I managed to pull the curtains down, just as he threw me back onto the bed.

It was a miracle. Bright winter sun filled the room and saved me. 

To my huge relief someone was already outside, because of my screaming. While I screamed, by the way, neighbours on the other side of the paper thin walls went quiet. One later told me she didn't call the police because she hates them. I held onto a parcel of hers later, desperate to confront her. Her nonchalance was staggering, like she was wrapped in temazipan jelly.

The power flipped. He pulled his clothes on faster than I could imagine; two movements and he was dressed. He was scared of the light hitting his naked body, embarrassed. He was suddenly clothed, he grabbed a different screwdriver and ran.

I ran, up and down the room, looking for my phone which would only stay on for a few minutes at a time. I was holding it, running back and forth, unaware. I dialled 999, screaming. The police arrived - seven squad cars in that little courtyard. They had to take my clothes, and most of my remaining clothes were at a friend's for washing. I had to change into a tiny skirt and laddered tights. It was humiliating. 

They arrested him close by.

Afterwards, there was an almost euphoric drama around me. Everyone wanted a bit. He said I was a prostitute, I heard it first over the police radio. They screened me for drugs at the SARC. I knew what they thought. They gave me cigarettes and coffee before swabbing my mouth.

For obvious reasons, I couldn't return. He had tried forcing the windows and used a hand drill to get through the locks on the front door. He'd been stalking me for several weeks, the police told mr, and he lived next door. After a couple of weeks crying in council offices I was placed in a massive hostel.

The abject terror I was left in was like loud, relentless tinnitus ringing through my body, overwhelming all else. I was stunned, stuck forever in the moment between flight, fight or freeze. I was viewing life with a strange zoning in, zoning out camera angle, like the directer of Peep Show was operating my brain. I couldn't keep up.

Words hung in my head, I repeated things in text messages, or to police and victim support in bizarre patterns that omitted the key word 'rape', just writing or saying 'and he hit me and he tried to... he did he tried to. He kept doing it, and I couldn't get away from him'. 

I woke myself up in the night screaming for help, then had to deal with the profound shame at having called the hostel security staff while still asleep, trying to work out what I'd done and who I was speaking to. 

I couldn't apologise enough, another mark of having been systematically undermined and abused. I didn't sleep properly for years, the smallest unexpected noise, a shadow passing the window, sent me into instant high alert. The pigeons! The pigeons that rooster on the window ledge sent me into an autopilot panic while the other half of me told myself to calm down. Again.

I felt like I was on a tightrope and might fall to my death at any moment. Don't look down, I told myself, as I tried to stop my legs from buckling underneath me.

My entire ability to think with clarity, to take time over how I responded, to hold a thought in my head was smashed to pieces, shattered across a vast expanse of land I had no way to cover. I would have to accept a large part of me was gone now, and any pieces I recovered resulted in lacerations and splinters.

My attacker was the latest in a long line of abusive men who repeated as a cycle. It had begun when I was a tiny child. I struggle to count, or even believe, the number of serious sexual offences, the 'minor' ones, the frightening encounters and massive overstepping of boundaries that followed. 

When you have been acclimated to predatory behaviour, gaslighting and violence, your micro-expressions, that nervous giggle when you actually feel rage, that irrepressible flinch you hate yourself for, your constant second guessing yourself and, in my case, the drunken oversharing - it acts as a giant beacon for any circling vultures. And let me tell you, there are a lot of them.

The fact I had been through something so shocking, so statistically unlikely, a freakish nightmare, had spun my limbic system into such a furious gyration I'm still, almost 20 years later, not the same. I'm still dizzy. I still, after years of psychotherapy and even hypnotherapy, wake my partner up in the night shouting, lashing out, sleepwalking (running) around the room to find my phone and call 999. Which I have done, only to wake up on the phone to emergency services, having to excuse wasting their time again, filled with a gut wrenching horror and shame I cannot articulate.

I had a police investigation to cooperate with and then a court case; not knowing if my attacker would get bail; thinking I saw him when I hadn't; not even having a working mobile phone and so having to call or visit the station to find out, knowing it could happen without being told immediately - all of this while not having my own front door to close where I could find quiet, be alone, uninterrupted, or have friends stay with me. I was at an age many people are at university, going home over the holidays with laundry, and I was completely alone. That time was so bone-shakingly vulnerable I can still feel it. It's a physical memory. 

I had to keep a brave face on. I took a lot of heroin.

All the normal parts of living in a hostel compounded my distress; the noise that never stops; the arguments, fights and tensions; the ready availability of drugs; the theft of my food; the rules and room inspections which made it clear this was not my home; add to that a purported transwoman who displayed no signs of being dysphoric, who wasn't trying to imitate any of the female socialisation imposed on us from birth and was still overtly sexual, making comments about other people's bodies, thoroughly enjoying and wielding the power he had to intimidate staff and breach boundaries, I was blindsided, yet more disoriented and, now, censoring myself.

We knew, early on, he was a sex offender. Among the many rows he got into, one was with a group of teenage boys who were frequently around outside and would shout 'paedo' at him. He told us he was on the sex offenders register. He had no shame about it, and appeared to suffer no social consequences - it was bizarre. His story that it was a 15 year old girl who had lied about her age went down fine with many of the blokes in there, even though he was in his fifties. There was a hierarchy; maybe half a dozen men in this huge hostel would routinely be at any meetings, they ran the cafe in the community space on the ground floor, they arbitrarily decided who was ok and who wasn't. The people who saw through this thin veil of an excuse were there, but disengaged, not that interested over making the occasional cutting remark.

I kept my head down, but had to interact with him at times as certain groups or meetings counted as credit towards moving on. I had to listen to him furiously detail the difficulties of his life, his persecutions and suffering. He saw I didn't want to be near him and drew closer - I'm sure he enjoyed my distress. 

I spoke to my keyworker and expressed my unease; that I didn't trust him, that he was intrusive, aggressive, prurient. My keyworker, probably only 25, stumbled over her words. She wanted to, I felt, agree, but she couldn't. She was uncomfortable, then returned to script, emphasising she and her when speaking about him. This man had both aggressive dominance as a threat and the veneer of victim class oppression as a shield. I've rarely seen such a blatant display of power and male supremacy. It was almost impressive.

A reply from a transwoman who was angry at my story and suggestion that refuges should be single sex. This person hadn't even changed his profile name or 'appeared as' female, as he was 'struggling with transition', but nonetheless demanded he be afforded a place in a women's refuge if he needed it.

It took me a very long time to speak openly about this, even in my internal dialogue. I told friends that he was there, I may have confided in some how I didn't believe he was genuine but it's only recently I managed to correctly identify him. I came to the conclusion that late-in-life transitioners are often a bit weird, having met others and noticed similar traits. I surmised this was because of the pressure of holding in their identity all those years. It was the best I could do.

A few Facebook replies to my story

Now, I look back at it with outrage. I wonder what it's like now, all these years later.

Granted, it was a mixed sex hostel. There were very few women and it was all I could get. There was no rush to find me somewhere else, and if I left I'd have made myself intentionally homeless. I returned to old coping mechanisms and I still have the trackmarks.

Another reply I received on Facebook

When it comes to refuges, let's get some things clear -

Refuges were founded by second wave feminists, in an incredible effort of sisterhood. They were not 'given' by the state, they were built off of the backs of women's unpaid labour as they struggled against intense societal misogyny and a law which didn't recognise a man could rape 'his' wife. 

Initially, these were often in squatted buildings. It was true grass roots activism which the corporate backed, extremely well represented and loud trans rights movement could only dream of claiming. Janice Turner explains more here.

Refuge workers cannot divulge their place of work to anyone. Not their partners - no one. Only certain taxi firms and designated drivers are used, after debriefing and DBS checks. The same goes for maintenance workers. There will always be efforts to find female workers, and they will always be escorted and attended while working, with the women informed prior.

Any woman will be told, on entering the refuge, that disclosure of the location is a potentially lethal breach, and can result in eviction. Having anyone, especially men, meeting or dropping you off outside without prior approval is also against the rules and punishable by eviction. 

Teen boys are often not accommodated, as there are likely to be children who have been abused by older brothers while growing up in toxic family environments, and because we know that these behaviours of abuse are sometimes replicated, that boys are a potential risk to others and cannot be assessed for these risk factors adequately. Karen Ingala Smith, the directer of two London based women's refuges, explains the difficulties here in Trauma-Informed Services for Women Subjected to Men’s Violence Must be Single-Sex Services

How do we square the exclusion of some of these women's sons, while allowing transwomen in? Transwomen who may or may not have internalised the same toxic, patriarchal behaviours; who may or may not 'pass'; who likely still have a penis; who are under no obligation to take hormones? How do we tell the distraught woman who has given up her life, her home, her pets, to flee a violent partner, then had to place her son in care to live in a refuge, that this is fair?

The usual response I get is that no sex offender should be placed in a women's refuge. Something I'm sure we can agree on. But it is not so simple.

People can change their name for £15. There have been many cases of sex offenders using this second identity, along with the taboo over 'dead naming', to obscure their past.

Krysten Lukess was known as Mark Turton when convicted of sexual abuse against a female child. After transition, they love-bombed a single mother, infiltrating her home and spent four nights a week sleeping at her home - in the same room as her 11 yr old. 

Andrew McNab has 11 separate convictions for sex offences against children. After leaving prison he changed his identity to that of Chloe Thompson, set up social media accounts under the new name and was only caught after his behaviour concerned people around him (although later incidents where he masturbated in a residential street during daylight and, somehow, used a dustbin as a sex toy followed)

Brandon Walker also changed his name to Chloe, and has several other aliases. Walker has been convicted of 49 offences and is only 30. Most of these convictions have been for sex offences.

In fact, over 900 sex offenders have disappeared off the radar by changing their names. The police can't track them - how on earth are charities supposed to know? When convictions for sexual assault and domestic violence are so statistically rare, how many guilty but legally 'innocent' are walking amongst us? 

What do people think these vastly overstretched and underfunded charities are capable of? A screening process with risk assessment and possibly even references from life-long friends seems to be assumed. Expert workers who can sus a wrong 'un out are assumed to gatekeep. 

This is, frankly, laughable in the most bitter way. Seventy percent of those wishing to access refuges are turned away. It's the most desperate cases, cropping up at the same time as a place emerges, who are accepted.

In my next part Refuges - Part 2 - LibFem Responses, I'm going to recount a few common ripostes to the argument refuges must be single sex. Following that is Refuges - Part 3 - The Harassment & Hate and finally Refuges - Part 4 - Reassurances of Hostages which will deal with the Stonewall report, and how it's a massively disingenuous crock of shit. 

See you there.

Liberal Femicide

Liberal 

Feminismcide

Feminism has, in name at least, been claimed by pop culture. It's been bleached, starched and caged. A toothless, obese guard dog on a very short and heavy chain. 

Like an evening at the neighbours as they force you to peruse their holiday snaps, expressing wonder and envy; where in every picture they stand by the Eiffel tower with matching 'I ❤ Paris' hats, boasting of staying off the tourist track and seeing the 'real' country. 

It's a fragile shop display that mustn't be touched. Easy answers with easy mantras for everything from the serious to innane. It's the breathless, vapid 'here comes the science bit' of Loreal ads (or whoever it was).

It's been stripped down to nothing. It's the cast off exoskeleton of a spider hanging in a web, looking real from a distance - but - your breath, from the other side of the room, sends it spiralling off into the air. It has no integrity, function or bite. 

It's a crap pop tune, a chanting mob of nothing; "How are you?" followed immediately with "Ok, good". 

It has been so infiltrated and destroyed, so utterly usurped it is little more than a Red Tractor logo on your factory farmed chicken, assuring you that this bird had a good life - all 42 days between conveyor belts from hatchery to abattoir, that is.

There's no room for disagreement, for analysis or difficult questions or, especially, doubt. It's hyper-capitalism; you need everything they sell and, if you can't afford it, you should have worked harder.

It centres everyone except for women, and still uses 'exclusionary' as an othering slur.

It sees almost nothing as sexual exploitation. Sexual exploitation is liberation. 'We're all whores now!' they cry, claiming their entirely straight, monogamous relationships are 'open' and queer.

 It is the incel calling the woman who wouldn't shag him a whore. It is 'not all men' at another murdered woman's vigil; it dresses itself, identifies as anti-racist while abusing survivors of FGM as backwards and worse. 

It claims to be anti-colonialist, while insisting campaigns to stop women and girls being forced into period huts in Nepal use gender neutral language. God forbid one identifies as a man and is unwittingly excluded from the conversation, while bleeding in a freezing, insecure, lonely lean-to.

It's the humanitarian aid worker who pays the desperate local for sex and rationalises he's helping her, that she probably likes it, too.

It's the kid in McDonald's with the Che Guevara tee shirt, tweeting about anti-capitalism on their iPhone.

It got where it is through the old boy's network, and has a strong belief in the power of hard work alone.

It's the middle-class trustafarian, barely emerging from full parental control and still highly subsidised, dictating how women in hostels and prisons should deal with their trauma when faced with male inmates.

And it is those same coddled ideologues, with anarchy-A profile pictures and a Kropotkin logo on their jacket, as they abuse Helen Steel as a neo-lib TERF.

They threaten and assault women at anti-male violence demos and trade stories on it after.

It's them as they raid the Fairshare shelves, filling their rucksacks with food they'll never touch, just to exhibit their urban survivalism and hard knocks life back at home.

It's the nonbinary who cites there being only single sex changing rooms, 'forcing' them to pick, as a serious an insult as the woman forced to refer to her rapist with she/her.

It goes to the press to complain of harassment after hurling abuse at minimum wage check-out staff who greeted them with gendered terms. 

It's the woman who always has the money for a cab home, blaming the woman who does not, and was assaulted when returning from her night shift.

It's banging on about 'white feminists' acknowledging biology while comparing trans identifying males to black women.

It's the debating team who play white noise at opponents and leave, bragging of their 'win'.

It's the Bullingdon boys - sexually assaulting lap dancers, burning £50 notes in front of the homeless, smashing up bars and getting mum and dad to pay it off - finalising their career plans to be barristers and politicians.

It's the twat with an ACAB banner who calls the police to report stickers for hate crimes: Who thinks abolishing prisons is a grand idea while claiming a contrary opinion on twitter makes them unsafe.

It's the rabidly pro-Muslim white kid who denies women have the right to spaces to be without males and sees no contradiction.

It's the environmentalist who takes several holiday flights a year.

It's the young man with an adoring family and trust fund, who preaches like Jacob Rees Mogg at dinner, abusing women for insisting on single sex refuges. Him, as he's smugly stating he'll donate hundreds of pounds to campaigns which harm them, since they are TERFs. He'll leave the donation in their name. And he calls himself left-wing.

And his friend, the shiny, simpering 'pick me!' girl who has never once had nowhere to run to, lecturing women on trans inclusion in those same spaces. It bombards any comment or question with a laugh react, a meme and a block, screenshotting it to publicly mock later.

It takes the feminist framework of black women to analyse their layered oppression and shoves the white dude into the fore. 'Be kind' it squeals as it searches for your employer and sends threats on messenger.

It's the awkward jokes that break the ice after you saw her husband hit her and heard him call her a bitch. It's telling her that she really needs to understand him better, and a bit of make up wouldn't hurt.

It's an elitist game. A round of contrived compliments followed by spiteful whispers during the obligatory continental kiss. It's a privilege system of in-group consensus, in-jokes and standing on the backs of other's to get in camera shot.

It invokes the suffragettes and woke-washes their values before damning the whole movement as white supremacist. It dresses up in Vivian Westwood vintage punk and crosses the road to avoid the Big Issue vendor.

And one day it will crumble, and all of them will be revising their histories and brainstorming excuses and fishing out those photos which they posed for as they handed some clothes to the charity shop.

And I will never forget. But, as a feminist, I'll still defend their rights.

my friend and the mob - trans your child

A couple of years ago, I saw a woman on Facebook who wrote on a feminist page how her child (a boy) was soon to start puberty blockers. She said he (referred to as she at that time) needed them, the dysphoria was overwhelming and this was a careful decision they'd come to with specialists in gender therapy and endocrinology.

It was one of those times I was less than impressed with some of my fellow feminists. Some replied to this woman (let's call her Maya) with studies - proper, peer reviewed studies, not opinion pieces from journalists or doctors - but a couple were ultimately offensive, telling her she would be failing her son if she did this, and thus wasa bad or inadequate mother.

One woman I remember vividly. She told Maya there are so many problems with pubertal suppression that were concealed, and she pleaded with her to read the studies. She sympathised with Maya's situation, and said she knows she will be bombarded with opinions but her job as a mother wasn't only to support her child now, but think of their future. "Of all of your responsibilities and duties, there is one that we can forget - he deserves to reach adulthood with an adult body."

That really struck me. We are reminded of the need to prepare them for adulthood - their education, their eating habits and hygiene, their ethics - even their table manners - but this salient, indisputable fact had been obscured by our social narrative that gender dysphoria was an intolerable, permanent condition that is quickly, safely remedied by a 'pause' via pubertal suppression, and without that it may be a death sentence.

I could go on about the risks of puberty blockers here, but I'm no endocrinologist or sexologist, I'm not a professional. There are many who can do it better than me. But quickly I want to run down common side effects / dangers of them:

1) Puberty may be additionally painful for dysphoric children. And puberty is painful enough already. However it resolves gender dysphoria in the vast majority of cases.

2) Bone density is stunted at the time it should be increasing, and bone development is restricted 

3) Brain development 

4) Sexual function - puberty blockers halt sexual development and since they almost without exception lead to cross sex hormones this leaves adults without the ability to orgasm or experience sexual pleasure. Even Marci Bowers, the renowned transwoman sex reassignment surgeon who completed Jazz Jennings' surgeries is now speaking out about this.

5) As it halts sexual development and almost always leads to cross sex hormones, many will be rendered infertile (see here over the ethical concerns of asking 12 yr old dysphoric kids to choose a sperm donor, as gamete freezing is rarely successful so it's preferable to save a zygote over an ova)

6) The halt of sexual development means natal boys will be left with the penis of a prepubescent boy. If the natal boy detransitions after long term use, he has to navigate the world with not only lingering issues of dysphoria but a micropenis. If the natal boy wants to surgically transition, they are unlikely to have the tissue to form the neo-vagina (Jazz Jennings) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26119518/

7) Suicidal ideation may actually be more prevalent in children on blockers, but the research has studiously avoided including this data.

8) left behind peers as they grow, reach sexual maturity etc - not a good outcome fpor a child already feeling out of step with their body and sex.

The situation at the Tavistock in the UK was such that multiple clinicians resigned. Concerns over the explosion in numbers of children accessing the Tavistock and declaring themselves trans has also caused huge concern https://www.transgendertrend.com/current-evidence/

But let's talk about what happened with Maya.

After seeing the less than sympathetic responses from some of the women on this thread, I private messaged her to say I hope she was doing ok. She was friendly and responsive and said that while some of the comments were uncalled for and unnecessarily harsh, she had been given information that shocked and concerned her. 

We became friends on Facebook and I really admired her lack of defensiveness. She was, at the beginning, pretty sure her child would need to transition, but she was reasoned, she wasn't ideological about it. She just wanted the best for them and was remarkably resilient to personal attacks.

At the beginning, after her child's declaration they were trans, she had given her blessing to social transition. She had bought her child make up, new clothes, they changed their name. She was no less the proud mother. However, now, after what she had been told, what she then read, about puberty blockers scared her. 

She went back to the endocrinologist and presented them with the studies. They admitted these were documented consequences. Before, the majority of the adverse effects and dangers hadn't even been explained to her. Those that had had been presented as far less likely, less serious and had been outweighed by argument she was now seriously beginning to doubt. She'd searched 'puberty blockers' online and found glowing reviews and angry defences of it as a treatment (until she put 'GnRH agonists' in the search bar - this brought up the more factual and less rose tinted results). She'd been bombarded with appeal to emotion. Emotional blackmail. Being the parent of a dysphoric child is extremely difficult and worrying, and a media fuelled with opinion pieces and a narrative that vilifies non-confirming parents as responsible for suicides, as well as relentlessly distorting the views of any dissenters creates a hell of a tough path for anyone who wants to use normal scepticism and caution. To be wrapped up and enveloped in a culture of brave, strong, brilliant depictions of warrior mums and dads must be intoxicating and deeply reassuring. It's the manipulative love bombing of a cult.

Maya, however, is less concerned in giving herself solace than making sure her child is ok. Having been lied to by the medical professionals she was led to believe knew far more than she ever could, who lived by a doctrine of do no harm, she started to read more. She also noticed that her child seemed to have some deep rooted homophobia, which was incomprehensible to her. She wasn't homophobic, neither her husband. Her whole family were progressive, left-wing and had a history of human rights activism. It was shocking, but, unfortunately, real.

Slowly, through many months and heart-rending conversations it became a little clearer. Her child was same sex attracted, and had been bullied for it. This homophobic harassment had been internalised, and when they came out as trans it got a lot better. 

It's a familiar story. Children bullied as gay / gender non-conforming don't get much protection at school, especially when they are young enough to be perceived as entirely asexual by teachers. When children announce they are trans - and it is normally an announcement - they not only are recognised as at risk of bullying by teachers who will take special care to make sure they're ok, their peers take notice. The bullies are flooded out by more affirmative, fascinated classmates. Their social status, despite how unlikely this may seem, climbs exponentially. A gay or gender non-conforming kid gets no proclamation as such when 10, 11, 12. A 'trans' child will. 

Maya had a son, not a trans daughter. Gradually they untangled this furiously constructed safety net, they saw a therapist unwilling to jump to conclusions. Throughout all of this she maintained an open and honest relationship with her child. He knew he was loved and supported to be who he is - trans daughter or young gay son included. He is now unequivocally a boy, who is probably gay, and that's absolutely fine.

It looked to me like an astounding act of parenting. She didn't tell her child he was anything, but she asked questions and reassured him he was loved no matter what. Because of this, he is not growing up on a medical pathway that never ends. His identity and body are free from attempts to manage a coping mechanism that would have had profound effect on every aspect of his life, future, his health. That's a huge success, isn't it?

According to many, no, it definitely is not. Among Maya's friends are doctors (no endocrinologists, as far as I know) and journalists, lawyers, writers and activists. Some are minor public personalities with high ambitions. It is their behaviour I'm going to focus on.

Of the many issues with puberty blockers, the resulting sexual dysfunction seemed particularly abhorrent to Maya. Because she has explained this, she has been accused of having a sinister interest in her son's sexuality. Because she has said he is likely gay she has been accused of an unhealthy obsession. Some have even said she is sexually abusing him. So, it's admirable for her to declare her child trans and use medicine and social transition to try to change his body and life to fit his mind - however impacted that young mind already is by social media, bullying, homophobia and low self esteem, because he is a girl if he has said so - but to say it appears he is struggling with shame and fear over his emerging sexuality is abuse, or indicative of her sinister desires towards him.

This has been quite a journey for Maya. In discovering the clear dishonesty in the information she was given by professionals she trusted, she's been looking further into the notion that gender overrides sex, and she has what might be called 'TERFy' opinions. That is; women's prisons should not be open to any males who identify as women. Sport is and should continue to be divided by sex, because lowering testosterone does not neutralise the disparities between our sexed bodies. She is aware that there have been many cases of supposedly trans women abusing, filming and raping women once they have accessed women's spaces. These are all arguments you won't be surprised to learn I agree with, but it's been incendiary to many of her friends, despite her making many trans friends along the way who have backed her up.

It doesn't matter, as we know, how many times we say that trans people are vulnerable in men's spaces, and deserve their own spaces - that, according to her wealthy, normally white, western friends, is segregation. 

It doesn't matter if dozens of black people are there to call these analogies offensive - these educated, upper-middle class people know better. It doesn't matter if trans people who have been through surgical transition are there to say that her fears for women's spaces are legitimate and important - a non-binary woman decked out in make up, displaying every gendered stereotype of womanhood will be there to call them traitors, frauds, bots. Maya has committed an unconscionable crime against her 'daughter's' humanity by helping him come to terms with his sex and sexuality. This must be abuse.

There are no good faith arguments here. I've been through several posts attacking her and while there's a lot of speculation that 'cis women commit far more rapes than trans women' or 'puberty blockers are safe and reversible' or 'trans women are suffering an unprecedented level of murder' no one ever has anything but opinion pieces. To be fair, I can see how easy it is to believe this, given the incessant editorials in well known media, the shocking level of ideology crammed into supposedly scientific publications, the broad ideological capture this movement has achieved, but when you are given real data, or hundreds of cases of something that 'never happens', or are unable to explain the central crux of your own argument (trans women are women) it is truly some bigotry, delusional pride and idiocy to fly back to your flock and boast of your success in argument.

They don't think, they can't accept or even recognise when they're caught out, they refuse to read anything not explicitly endorsing their world view. How on earth is this adult debate?

I have seen supposedly left wing, anti racist 'radicals' and feminists talk about how they want to punch Maya, reject her black friends as 'uncle Toms' and consistently argue 'not all men' (as if anyone had said that it was). I have seen supposedly left wing men, concerned with the economic oppression of women just like Maya, tell how everything she has said has been screenshot and will be reported to her employer and possibly antifa groups in her area. One of them has reported her to child protection for abuse over a completely spurious accusation and another for emotional abuse. They sit upon an ivory tower, throwing rocks at a mother who, they say, must have forced her poor child into the closet. They mock her, they tell her she is a disgusting mother. They block her and continue to orchestrate dog-piles with their friends. They call her a b*tch, a c*nt, accuse her of harassment while posting about her on Facebook and Twitter, say they pray for her 'daughter'.

I have hundreds of screen shots of these comments. Many are well off, highly educated professionals, with jobs I am sure would be severely compromised if it they surfaced. This is some of the most disturbing abuse I've seen anyone I know receive; it is drenched in misogyny and overtly threatening. The deranged pretension that they are left wing and she, for believing biology also counts, is right wing, is just another farcical fantasy that shields their tiny, gilded cages from any critical glimpses of their own warped self perception. They cry for prison abolition and full access to women's spaces for self identifying trans women knowing they will never be in prison, or fleeing violence in refuges; they are fully aware that they have the status to be taken seriously by police, hire lawyers and garner publicity if ever touched upon by the realities of our normal lives. If they but an ACAB frame around their profile picture, they believe their $200 haircuts and well-nourished white faces are absolved of their own hypocrisy. When they shriek about abolishing police and prisons, they know 1) it will never happen and 2) they live in gated communities with private security anyway. This is devoid of class analysis, genuine concern and any of the political reality they (claim to) rail against. It is the epitome of frat boy / mean girl supremacy - mocking the poor kids for their bad clothes and diction and their inability to escape reality while waxing lyrical about how they fundraised for the marginalised.

I'm not going to unleash the screenshots as I fear it will only exacerbate Maya's situation. But I have them, and when the time comes and this mob hysteria breaks I will still have them. I don't believe in storing these things to destroy people's careers or relationships but I have a pretty good idea when this group-think comes to an end, when these arguments are fully trounced, people will be running a long distance in the interval, washing their hands like Lady Macbeth. I think some kind of truth and reconciliation process will be important, so I suggest that others do this - because these people will continue to live in denial about the harm they cause otherwise. The level of vitriol and abuse directed at an ordinary mother who has dared to put her child's welfare above a belief system that tolerates no salient questions or dissent has been utterly jaw-dropping to witness. Something very, very strange has happened to our society, and the purported left has become a cesspit of conformist, individualist, ideology-worshipping misogyny and anti-logic. We cannot lose our movements to this.

Liberal Femicide & the theatric J'accuse

This week I had a friend do a very public, performative call out on my apparent bigotry. The seriousness of the allegations made against me with vagueness and blustering are an interesting tactic I've seen before.

WITH EVERYONE I ARGUE WITH ABOUT THIS, THERE'S A DESPERATE BID TO SILENCE ME. YOU NEED ME TO SHUT UP, IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW MANY FALLACIES YOU'RE SHOWN TO RELY ON WHILE TRYING TO 'WIN', YOU MUST BE RIGHT AND I MUST BE WRONG. "JUST STOP!" YOU SCREAM WHILE CALLING YOURSELF THE RATIONAL AND KIND ONE.

We were friends. You, I thought, had a good idea of who I am, what I care about and how I treat people. But then you saw another, strawman me, and you had to condemn it. Strangest of all was, somehow it was inevitable this would happen.

I wasnt using slurs, I never have. I didn't target anyone, I wasn't displaying apathy or contempt for other people's lives and dignity. It's inexplicable, to me, this can skew your opinion of me 180°, turning your every estimation of me on its head.

This isn't an aberration on my part, though, is it? You are the changed person here. It's like you lost all recourse to critical thought.

You developed blocks to deflect my words, with prefabricated, pre-emptive strikes at the ready, as if bulldozing over points I'd made before would leave me with nothing but surrender. You ranted in abstract with fury, supposedly directed at no one, while clearly intended for me. The furious words you spat came out screaming, and then at the last-minute they swerved, turning into oblique hits or even a form of threat.  

Until I asked you, where then you began claiming I had it wrong. I was paranoid. I felt pretty resigned to what was coming.

Ultimately, like others before, you hermetically sealed yourself off to everything I said, determined to view it as something it is not.

For someone who burst into my comments months ago, unleashing polemics that were built of total misconceptions and myths, which were proven wrong - I guess it's obvious you couldn't challenge what I was actually saying.

I never met you with the anger you directed at me - I told you I was happy to talk now or later, online or in private. I wasn't accusatory. I wasn't smug once you eventually conceded you'd been unfair or got stuff wrong. I never brought the argument to your posts, which often covered the same issue.

There was so much venom, so many cumbersome tropes, all weilded like battering rams to smash these bad, bad thoughts of mine into smithereens. 

I explained they were wrong. I gave you reliable sources. No, trans people are not murdered at a disproportionate rate, and no I'm not saying GRS should be banned. Puberty blockers are not 'entirely reversible', they do have serious side effects. Yes, men absolutely have abused trans inclusivity to victimise women and girls, and that is a fucking problem. Or isn't it?

I said I was glad you were sticking around, even though, if this had happened in any other context I can think of, I'd have fully, angrily defended myself. I did this hoping you might see where I was coming from, because I know this shit is everywhere, because I know it takes time and courage to question the 'un-debatable'. And you knew enough about me to know I'm not a rabid, hate-powered fanatic. Surely, you knew that? 

Maybe you believed this was a huge flaw in my otherwise agreeable politics, that I'd fallen victim to online misinformation. I don't understand how we remained friends if that isn't the case.

On that post all those months ago, two trans people stepped in to defend me - but that wasn't good enough - it still must be hate. These are the trans people you can ignore. These people are brainwashed, and, obviously as my friends they must be handpicked as the atypical self-haters they are. Victims of Stockholm syndrome, manipulated chumps. And it's completely unproblematic for you to say so - although if I'm ever heard questioning affirmation and pubertal suppression for a 10 yr old somewhere, that is deeply offensive. How dare I suggest I know them better than they do? 

No amount of care on anyone's part to calmly articulate the problems of any trashy trope, shit argument, lie - none was ever going to meet that gold standard of 'acceptance' which you demand but never extend. 

Everything I and anyone else defending me has to say must be framed as a consequence of hate or misinformation, regardless of how every source, every tactic you have of dismissing me is shown to be one-sided, unsubstantiated, full of holes, wrong. It's like arguing that a turd on the pavement is shit and not chocolate, only to realise the people claiming chocolate are copraphagiac and have ingested all the evidence.

It's revolting, and maybe malicious to make them acknowledge their mistake. Call them some help, but don't humiliate them. Leave whatever pride they have intact.

I tried to leave your pride intact. 

You went quiet for a while, you didn't raise it again, or at least not directly. We spoke on other things and you recently saw me challenge someone who was genuinely bigoted and making wild generalisations about the actions and beliefs of you and people like you. I didn't go nuts at them, I countered what they said - like adults are supposed to. The reticence you displayed in putting those little like and love emojis on my comments should have given me warning you were drifting away. It was definitely out of character.

Over the last few months I've been involved in multiple spats online that have escalated to the point I've been very upset. In one I had told a man that he was in fact wrong, and unisex facilities were more dangerous for women and girls than single sex ones. Afterwards I received an unhinged series of private messages from a trans woman who threatened to smash my face 'into the kerb until it's nothing' and rape me (despite finding me physically repulsive, apparently).

I'd never spoken to this person and, after finding out they had previously stalked a woman (and posted hundreds of rants on social media about her, naming her, obsessing on what they percieved as flirting) I made a police report. It was deranged, detailed and totally unsolicited.

You saw these messages, and you saw what had started it, but didn't respond. You just ignored it entirely. 

After another argument I posted screenshots of the typical behaviour that you yourself have just displayed. A long conversation with a group of men and their support females had been marked with relentless strawmanning and insults. Men, and sadly some women, who's idea of feminism is comprised in entirety by 'my body, my choice' and some bastardised, shallow chant about 'equality', delighting in the freedom they had to unleash harassment on women.

It was a post about the inclusion of trans women in sensitive, same-sex spaces like prisons and refuges - something I objectively know more about than you do, being I have lived it. As much as you claim solidarity with the vulnerable, and you have minority status that undoubtedly negatively effects your life, you were well brought up by loving family, accessed higher education, have never been homeless or left without any family support. You don't understand how life works in these places, and it shows. It jumps out in flashing neon lights.

At the start I had spoken to a trans woman who was scared of male spaces and I had sympathised and agreed she shouldn't be in a men's prison if convicted tomorrow, and of course trans people need refuges. We actually achieved that rare thing of finding some common ground and amity. I was grateful to be reminded of her feelings, and the reality of, her vulnerability, she seemed more thoughtful too. After this, the swivel-eyed mob launched an attack, and myself and two other women were called bitches, bigots, told we were hysterical and twisted, right-wing, fascist and vile. 

After the abuse, the sexist jibes and deliberate distortion, I was told my comments had been threatening and transphobic. I knew that wasn't true, of course, so I asked the man accusing me to show me an example of my abusive behaviour. He called me a 'dumb bitch' and suggested I'd make better use of my time by beating up black kids*.

I kept asking, he got more offensive. He spent hundreds of words telling me how I was bitter and angry because I'm a jealous harridan and no one will fuck me. He seemed to have limitless time and fury to vent about how he had found me out and exposed my disgusting ethics - but no example of my supposedly cruel, insulting comments emerged. That's because it didn't exist. I might be combative and gobby, but I'm careful and I'm not transphobic. 

But there's no trick a TERF won't pull, and it was nothing more than an indictment on my manipulative tactics, my attempts to veil my genocidal hate and wish to segregate others as reasoned argument and concern.

*Of course, the 'beating up black kids' was completely unremarkable to you, despite you knowing me pretty well. Despite you very recently having witnessed me challenge racism (which I had no reason to think you would ever see). Because there can be no explanation for my views except for hatred. That's it, isn't it? And that is why you don't want to hear an explanation, because why would you want to see it isn't, that it's founded in reality? Why would you - trademarked as a strong, outspoken feminist and irrepressible 'nasty woman' - choose to understand what I'm saying and run the risk of opening those brave, wide eyes to what is everywhere? When you yourself are abusing me now, fully aware of the power of the term TERF and how it enables unrelenting pile-ons, misogyny and threats.

This was clearly getting at you for a while, and I wish you'd taken me up on that offer to talk, though I understand why you didn't. You and every other friend who has denounced me as a TERF has exited via the exact same door: by public call out, waiting for the prime moment for theatrical support from onlookers, or slinking off in the aftermath of someone else's spectacle. None of you ever engage with any specific point; just make hackneyed, condemnatory accusations and assert your moral superiority.

I think this is why we have TERF block lists, a 'no debate' culture. Cut us off like a cancer - never, ever take up the chance to speak privately - repeat the hail Mary of 'trans people exist' as if it rids my views from every cell of your better being. You're the Thatcher government of negotiation, but without even the backstage arbitration. Just an impermeable sphere of closed ranks and hostility.

You chose to call me a bigot and renounce me with dramatic timing, in a foot-long screed, on a public post on Facebook. I'd said something pretty anodyne; that medical ethics had been sleeping through the surge in unscrupulous surgeons who advertise mastectomy as a miracle fix on Instagram to teenagers, using teenage clients as props, in a way we would deplore if they were breast implants. The conversation evolved with other people, we discussed this glowing, sanitised front page depiction of brave trans kids. I was concerned about the massive increase in kids coming out as trans and that puberty blockers were still being portrayed as a sensible, reversible treatment without major side effect.

You saw a trans woman launch into a tirade against me, and then screenshot my profile picture to compare to theirs, saying I was ugly and mannish and they hope I too can pass one day. Then you struck.

"I'm done with you now. After all the times I have tried to show you how harmful this is, you, nonetheless, continue to use damaging misinformation, lies and prejudice against one of the most marginalised groups in our society. I see you repeat the same bigoted, transphobic lines, your refrain is as repetitive as it is telling - you are being abused by sexists, people irrationally accuse you of hate. But still, here you are, furthering the oppression of trans and gender non-conforming folk with constant gaslighting, dangerous tropes and harmful talking points. You are toxic and unforgivably cruel. And let's be clear, you are no victim, you are the perpetrator. If people respond with anger you have anyone to blame but yourself'. 

Then you went about putting those little love emojis on every comment of the trans woman calling me ugly and blokey compared to their better woman-ing - which was delusional - but I don't want to get into this anti-feminist idiocy or show my profile picture here, so believe it or don't.

I didn't see it at first, as several other people had joined in on the thread and you had written my name in full on another subthread, without tagging me. I suspect some of the others joining in were your friends - sure I'd spoken to one before.

When I did see it, maybe 12 hours had passed. I thought back to the threats of rape and kerb-stomping, the misogyny and 'bitch'es and a pang of hurt, anxiety and anger shot through my chest. I felt like I'd been winded, my hands shook. I guess I then slipped into my necessary, protective creation - my character mode: unemotional and focused. Wanting to get to the point. I always think about what made me, pre-peaking, feel empowered to think outside of the prescribed lines and feel ok with my opinion and beliefs, and it was seeing these rows; the barrage of shit and bad faith arguments thrown at women who were being rational. Seeing them ridiculed by sexist idiots who missed every point and entered into a frenzy of 10 minute hate. I always think back to that because I remember how gutting, scary and alienating it was to realise the popular side I'd automatically stood with was talking shit, and the 'bad guys' in fact had won the argument and not shown any of the hate they'd been accused of.                                      Also, I just wanted to know what exactly I had done.

I said I was sad you'd chosen this place to air your grievances - but whatever - where had I been abusive, toxic, transphobic? Who had I gaslit? Had you seen the shit that had just been levelled at me? Where had I got close to anything resembling what you were accusing me of?

It was the best part of a day before you responded. In that time you'd had access to my profile, as neither of us had un-friended the other. 

"I'm not even the target of your nasty campaign and yet you're hurting me. Are you even listening to what I am telling you? Does any of this penetrate your skull? Why are you doing this? You just can't let trans people be, always chipping away at their validity and dignity'

I asked you, again, where had I been abusive or transphobic or hateful? You didn't respond, and a few hours later I removed you from my friends list but I didn't block you. The trans woman and the new pack of dog-pilers put their little hearts on your comments, joined in on yet another subthread about how my behaviour must have been so hard for you and well done on being an amazing ally. 

Of fucking course you want your bubble of harmonious camaraderie with its synchronised outrage and mutual preening. It must feel great, but I guess the troubling spectre of cognitive dissonance is an ever-looming, existential threat to your group survival. It's kind of irrelevant how weak the defence is, it's like having a fake CCTV camera with a solar powered LED light - it might not work, but it's still better than nothing and should scare people off. None of these arguments are arguments, you haven't read the literature you post instead of responding with your own words. It's not a difference of opinion, it's a defensive mechanism that only becomes more desperate and angry the more it's tested. There's no integrity to any of it.

I am always careful with my words, especially online. I never 'misgender', although I might awkwardly skip around pronouns sometimes. And I think I take up prejudicial comments pretty even-handedly. If anyone ever uses a slur like 'tranny' I call them out. If anyone makes derogatory jokes or cruel remarks I call them out. I'm sure you're convinced this is entirely a game but it genuinely does bother me. I guess the part that is a game is I don't want it made easier to depict my opinion as based on prejudice and revulsion, I want that very clear. I am careful to make actual arguments and not use ad homs or strawmen because there's so much stuff I need to talk about. I know in the past I've been unnecessarily abrasive and bellicose and I've grown up a bit. I actually care, for other people as well as for myself and mine. I do not want bigoted bastards to be aligned with me. I don't want to harm anyone.

I also know I'm not perfect - of course. When I'm defending myself against allegations of bigotry and feeling attacked, that is the exact time those seeds of prejudice can begin to germinate. I don't want to be an arsehole. I still read things I disagree with, everyday, and I try to manage my internal defences. If I've said or done something that harms people - I want to know. How many times have I said so? But you won't get through to me with nebulous indictment that's then retracted or re-positioned if I ask if it's aimed at me. You won't get through to me by trying shame-inducing language when I'm begging you for the detail and example. It just makes me think you're chatting shit.

If I was you, I'd have given examples. If I knew someone who was perpetuating harmful rhetoric against vulnerable people, and that person was within reach - i.e. not reacting with censorious fury, but asking for me to illustrate how and where, I'd be absolutely fucking sure to provide it. I'd have them already in my head (certainly wouldn't go on the assault without them) and if I didn't, but I still could look through their profile and screenshot everything they'd said that demonstrated it, I'd do that. I'd spell it out and try to do so in a way which actually got through to them, not orchestrate a theatrical flounce to the applause of others. How do you change people's minds? How do you challenge someone who's views otherwise align with your own on racism, homophobia, environmental issues, most political arguments? Did you want to change my mind, and stop me from hurting people, or just dramatically disown me with the benefit of a studio audience and prompted cheers? 

It all seems very contrived to me. A desperate act trying to provoke my vitriol so you could walk away certain I was in the wrong, full of hatred. Truth is you couldn't find an example, and my asking for it made that cognitive dissonance even more urgent to quell.

So, this, I theorise, is why you are desperate to barricade my voice out of your synthetic feminism, activism and social justice. It's as welcome an interjection of realism as the ringing of an alarm after a sleepless night. Let's just get back in the group-isolation tank and reassure ourselves, eh?

If you really believe you are right, leaning on an argument which is then shown to be fallacious isn't going to change your mind. If I argued that conversion therapy is wrong and it turned out a 'fact' of its consequences I'd used was in fact bullshit, I wouldn't concede that actually, no, it must be ok. So I understand the futility of dismantling the myths because you're not meant to be arguing this based on fact and matter, you're supposed to be arguing this because it's an ethical imperative - your moral duty, expectations you must fulfil to be worthwhile. This is about faith. Which is why you mustn't be led astray or fraternise with heretics. You must stay a pure, evangelical and devout member of the flock.

But I wish you could see that when one defensive, learnt-by-rote statement is dismantled, and then the next, and it's shown there are huge holes here, terrible omissions there, it might be that actually the whole thing is a house of cards. 

The fact you've responded like every other person I've fallen out with on this - there's honestly no difference in the routine, the evasion and the angry dismissal. And you need total certainty on things, even if it's from a rented costume hire. You need your chanting 'comrades', you lean on a shallow, reactionary, package-deal ideology of what makes a 'leftist', even if sometimes you show real insight and knowledge in other areas. It's cowardice multipled by the implicit assumption you will never be hurt if you're 'kind'. Which is a big mistake. And it certainly isn't brave, or independent, and least of all feminist. I don't know how long this madness will last, but I sense it won't be long. And when it crashes, we really will need to talk.

To the Mother of a Transwoman, Who Thinks I Hate

Guest Letter - Aoife Orr 

For the woman who I intensely hated, for a while.

We argued fiercely. You love your child, and are fearful of their predicament.

We crashed headlong into one another. Both angry, frightened and raw - me, with my trauma and rage; having been raped and my privacy and dignity potentially threatened. You and your friends, you all looked so self assured and dismissive. It cut all the way through me. It stung.

And you, with your fears and hurt that, now I'm calm enough to think about it, doesn't have an end point - your child is in pain, and afraid. And whatever trauma you and they carry, and how it's reflected in this row. 

We collided at full pelt and actually, now I think about it, if we'd met discussing any other conceivable subject, we'd have likely bonded.

You saw me as an insidious threat to your child's safety, no matter how much I tried to explain. You wouldn't hear me out, you thought you knew me, my mentality. I promise, you don't.

It felt like you projected onto me a generic mask created to dismiss me. It's what I suspected you project onto any woman who resists this - a political movement you see as there solely to protect your child, that I see crushing my last vestiges of humanity. 

I wish we could actually speak to each other. 

I'm pretty sure our feelings were mutual.

I often wonder how I'd feel if I was trans and had to read the headlines of media we think of as sincere, left-wing and often veritable.

From The Guardian to The Independent, Vice, Vox, pretty much any LGBTQ publication... They all tell trans people they are hated, that everything is a dog-whistle and women with concerns over their safety, ability to participate in society as set out by women-only short lists, same sex spaces, sports etc are actually evil bitches with a vendetta.

There's almost never a genuine, unbiased article which clearly sets out the situation and opinions of those involved. Shock tactics and sensationalist one-sidedness, along with unforgivable misinformation and omission, seem to be everywhere.

I know, having spoken to many (transwomen especially), that some are genuinely terrified about their risk of being beaten and murdered. 

There's an ever-present fear of being ridiculed, with some believing supposed allies when they claim laws have quietly been brought in that will mean they could be prosecuted for using a women's toilet without a GRC, or similar hyperbole and scare tactics.

I'm a mother, too. I am trying to imagine myself in your position; the pain you've seen your child go through, the struggle to find peace and acceptance. I know I won't be able to fully understand, but I do try. 

And now, I'm trying to imagine my child reading these things, now pertaining to them. That hurts. That induces in me a flinch, and makes me want to look away or fight.

You must be frightened. I would be, too. And I'd be every bit as angry as you are, and - depending on how much I'd read about it - I'd maybe be saying the same things that you just have to me.

What I see is a group of activists claiming the title of greatest saviour. They wander like missionaries into the posts, feeds, media most likely to get attention and throw themselves into furious rages at the treatment of trans 'folx'. 

They garner a lot of social capital from their advocacy, it's a vocation and adds meaning to their lives. I think some are heartfelt, but others appear as cynical and deceitful as possible to be. 

They stand on the periphery, shrieking alarm calls in a never-ending stream of stories, gaining kudos and a claim of righteousness by sending fear through huge swathes of people.

They lie about suicide rates and continually push on with language around suicide and self harm that breaches all media guidelines. 

They smugly create a logical fallacy, a straw man, so they can skewer it and elevate themselves yet again. They lie about the murder rate (please see Verilybitchie, a transwoman, debunk this here), or exaggerate it with forced perspective - placing trans people in high-resolution close up, with worse affected demographics in the background, looking small and blurred. 

They conflate hate crimes that involve nothing but a perceived slight, or a casual, even accidental misgendering, with violent attacks. They never mention women have no protection under hate crime law, so of course, you are supposed to think your child is under sustained attack unlike any other group.

And who wants to read about the other side? Who sees their potentially suffering, vulnerable child being marginalised and abused and thinks "I really should hear them out"? 

No one, of course. Not to mention you're told by the same people, that 'we', i.e. feminists, are devious, hate-filled transphobes who should never be entertained, allowed an audience to blast with dog-whistles or an excuse to weave our tangled web of propaganda.

Someone is terrorising your kid, but it isn't me, and it is not who I associate with. Have a good look at what these people are saying, ask for the sources, the numbers. Treat it with some scepticism while knowing this is not and can never be a sign of wavering in the love and support you have for your child.

Some sensible thoughts from John here:

I'm sure when you see these conversations online, or protests on the street, you think we're unnecessarily cruel. 

Perhaps we look hardened, gleefully spiteful, resistant to compassion - this is our typecast, it's been built and constructed in the tradition of all heretics. We are the witches, the nags, the bitter, spiteful bigots. We are shoehorned into it, with inconvenient parts obscured or excised. 

And the occasions we do show a triumphant, antagonistic smirk it's difficult to express how much is from a final resignation to being perceived as awful whatever we do. For however many times you try to articulate it's not hatred; that you're frightened because of PTSD resulting from rape, and you are laughed at; for the abuse and threats and relentless misrepresentation, finally it can be the obvious and joyful route to fuck with the social pressure to be earnest and adult and just relish the whole thing. 

It's not a natural state, it's almost survival. 

It's another reason to dismiss us though, because everything is, and confirmation bias from all those partial headlines holds it firmly in place.

I imagine that anti-abortionists think of pro-choicers as cruel, heartless, as mindlessly, destructively stupid. 

While you might always find a couple of individuals in any movement who really are nasty little fucks who delight in edgelord shock tactics and being as offensive as they can claim licence to be - the vast majority don't think transphobia is any funnier than abortion is. (That of course comes with the caveat that transphobia never has a utility, time or place, that there's never a reason to abuse someone based on their presentation, beliefs about themselves or gender non-conformity.)

Gender critical or radical feminist stances are positions we have come to by examining our lives. There's an idea that anti-intellectual, reactionary hate speech is everywhere in our conversations; but this isn't true. 

This is feminism and analysis based on our experience, from academic discussion, reading, the exchanging of personal stories and theories. The notion we are speaking our true beliefs in dog-whistles, pushing trojan horses of concern past the gates so a squad of genocidal maniacs can leap out, it is everywhere: while we say what we mean, and are depicted as trying to dress up bigotry, trying to use feminist sounding rhetoric to cover ourselves.

 Yet I don't know how much plainer I could make myself - I see biological sex as an extremely relevant category, and I want the ability to speak about it and it is not about causing anyone harm, because so much of the suffering I and others have sustained is integral to our sex.

These lenses of viewing the world and all of its dynamics are built on the many factors, dangers and balances we all have to take into consideration. It isn't hate of trans people any more than being pro-choice is hate of foetuses and babies. It's about recognising difficult situations and facing them. It's those often traumatic, upsetting, yet still inescapable facts of life.

Women are often taking considerable risk in speaking out. People are rounded on by supposed friends, dog-piled, sent abusive and disturbing messages. Activists celebrate their attempts to get us fired, abuse our loved ones. I know some women who have had to move after their homes and families or pets were targeted, for saying things which would have been unremarkable a decade ago: for saying they want single sex spaces, or they don't agree with self identification as a workable policy.

At least understand this is a sincerely held position, with reasoning and deep thought invested in it, which is difficult to talk openly about. I held my tongue for a long time, like many others are doing now.

Probably the worst bit of agitating is within public discourse and the journalists, public figures and social media accounts which relentlessly misrepresent us. The lies about what people say and mean, what they want, the facts and stories are truly jaw-dropping. 

For example; Paris Lees tells The Canary that the 'average life expectancy of a trans woman of colour in America is just 35'. It's not true - the average age of a trans murder victim in America is 35. Katelyn Burns rages about the women-only Mitchfest, decrying the alleged misgendering of a trans woman performer almost 50 yrs ago and lauding Camp Trans, the protest against them. Burns and others can celebrate the end of Mitchfest in 2015, and never mention it was that year the organiser of Camp Trans, Dana Rivers, murdered two women attendees and their son after tracking them down to their home. Susie Green has frequently lied about trans kids committing suicide.

Transwomen without even a GRC can rape someone with their intact male body and be reported as women. Maria McLaughlin can be assaulted and then mocked, slandered, subject to objective lies and still painted as the guilty party.

There's essentially a media blackout on these cases; the hanging of an effigy meant to be Carmen Calvo, Spain's deputy prime minister because of her criticism of new legislation; the assault by trans activists on survivors of the sex industry as they campaign against prostitution or when protesting self ID; the harassment of and distortion in cases of women like Rosa Freedman, Louise Moody, Kate Scottow, Maya Forstater, Allison Bailey, Jean Hatchet, JK Rowling etc is as breath-taking as it is unforgivable.

I do not hate your child, I do not imagine them as a threat or pretender. I do not hate anyone for living their lives as best they can. I have a lot of empathy for anyone who is suffering, and I know very well there's plenty of transwomen who stand with us. They have been erased, abused as truscum, even prosecuted for transphobia by 'cis' people, and it fucking stinks. I'm sick of the dishonesty, the mendacious fallacies and bad faith. This, I fear, will ultimately impact on trans people too, and I don't want to see that. We just need to be able to talk about our lives and our needs. No one is being represented well here, very few are prepared to listen.

Never before would I have challenged the assertion 'transwomen are women'. This is because it was a little show of kindness and compassion and one of the million tiny acts of etiquette we use to oil the wheels of society. These things matter, and the emotional vulnerability of those with gender dysphoria is very real and deserves genuine compassion and sensitivity. 

The reason we are making noise is because someone has to, because the activism that's underway is not helping trans people and it is seriously harming others.

I don't believe any of the rhetoric below (which is a tiny snapshot of what is an unrelenting torrent) is ok. I think it's abusive. It really would be good to talk.