Is This Advocacy?

Here's Nicole, who studies sexual assault and how it's covered up by organisations. She likes to present herself as a victim's advocate, but became a victim shaming ideologue, chastising the wrong sort of survivor in one breathtaking dive. It's quite incredible how a woman who claims to understand a bit about sexual violence can turn on victims begging her to listen. How does it happen?

First, know there's intense pressure on anyone in the public eye. Even worse for someone building their own little pedestal in it. Then, the claustrophobic grip this ideology has in academia, add the fact this 'advocate' is a young woman, and it's not surprising. Or, maybe she's purely motivated by egocentrism, ambition, completely drained of independent thought. What else but 'stand by victims' in the age of #MeToo, reel off some vapid critique of capitalism, call yourself queer and get happy clappy?! There's a particular slogan though that has a predictably stupid lie; 'Transwomen are women!'

In some way a flicker of pity crosses me. I think how miserable it must be to know being an intersectional crusader is mandatory unless you fancy unhinged abuse, scurrilously dishonest gossip and an impossibly hostile working environment. You aren't allowed to just not engage  - allyship isn't a neutral position of goodwill, it means destroying those TERFs. It means never letting the slightest faux pas slip by. It means judging everyone on the words they do or don't use, checking out their previous tweets like forensics check out a nonce's computer. See the word 'woman' on their avatar? Fucking burn them!

The pressure's real, but it doesn't justify being an contemptuous, dismissive bastard to rape victims. There is even an option to be brave, to be a feminist. It doesn't necessarily mean shouting it from the rooftops, it could involve quiet non-conformity. It does, however, scupper your chances of rapidly building a fan base online by singing with the queer choir and reaping those easy awoken tokens.

If there is one thing underpinning this, even more than the 'be kind', 'don't make a scene' social grooming of girls, it is this; privilege.

It's all very well saying you stand with the oppressed, but who are they? Are they children working in cobalt mines in Africa? The iPhone workers throwing themselves to their deaths? I guess they'd agree that yes, this is bad, they might have even tweeted on it once. But this is the politics of home. So the oppressed are of course the poor, the abused and often the women, but only ish.

The group who take up most time, most space, are trans people. This is the new frontier of civil rights. It gets them tokens rolling in, too, so what the hell? 

The fact this is build on a morbid, histrionic web of lies is a problem, which is why the awkward questions should be wrapped up with a handy maxim, held at arms length and dropped into the bin / memory hole immediately. You can't leave it there - it spreads disease, a kid could step in it, and there's penalties too.

Thing is, it isn't shit. It is none of the things we are told - theirs is a performance of civic duty that has as much basis in justice and reason as drowning women to prove them innocent.

It is impossible to win an argument built on fact with trite, flimsy mantras - which necessitates the charade. Hence the farcical responses you'll see in these screen shots and the insta-block she uses with immediate effect.

But it's hardly just Nicole. A wealthy, weak militia of well-loved, cossetted intellectuals and fans exist, and their only introduction to suffering was an entitled white male weeping about oppression in university, or an article about a rapist who's very distressed over their inhuman treatment as a newly out trans woman, á la Synthia-China Blast. Unless they are bravely inquisitive it is impossible to understand what this ideology does to those of us with (relative to the West) nothing.

Now I don't know if Nicole has suffered sexual violence, I wouldn't speculate and I'm not suggesting her stance is incompatible with it. What her stance is incompatible with however is the experience of marginalised, poor women who have nowhere but state and charity funded spaces.

Can Nicole honestly relate to being a 16 year old care leaver, who endured violence and neglect throughout life, now placed in some God awful move-on hostel? Can she relate to the state of never having had reliable, compassionate family? Never having someone to call if you really messed up? Never having someone to help out when you have no food, no electricity on the meter, when you cant afford sanitary products, a new pair of shoes? I don't think so.

Have any of these people experienced life in a hostel, or homeless with just a day centre to wash in? How about prison? No. Of course not. 

If the happy, smug, queer choir went through a rape, or were stalked, or escaping domestic violence, would they be left crying in the busy council office with letters from the police victims officer as proof of their situation, as they begged for a place tonight? Or would they pretty much be swept up by functioning, loving family and friends with a spare room or sofa? Would they be forced to carry their belongings in carrier bags to the other side of town, where a b&b owner waited to give them a stern run down on the rules? Would they have their own shower to sit in and cry as they pick the grit out of their knees, with people waiting to hear how they are and comfort them? I think so, and if they didn't, there'd be a gofundme up, being widely shared and earning within 24 hrs.

Do the gender warriors who spit at the idea of same sex spaces to heal in ever think they'll need them? Clearly not. And still, for the young me I wouldn't be entitled to it, despite having not even a winter coat. If they, with their expensive education, careers, shiny hair and great teeth, were terrified and forced into leaving town by an obsessive ex, would they get a solicitor? Is it possible people like Nicole are treated as more innocent, more worthy, more important than a shaky, dirty drug addict who was dragged through foster care and has previous dealings with the law? If they argue no to this, they really have no decency, honesty or consistency. And that would be no surprise.

I'm a white, 'cisgender' woman. If they had a solitary fucking clue about their celebrated intersectionality though they would know it's not always that simple. I know I'm not the worst off, like Nicole I can perform respectability online if I want. I'm literate, I'm not starving or scrabbling around for dropped change anymore, hence this blog.

I've a few points to make though. Before others my age were revising for their GCSEs, I was homeless. I was preyed on by men and would go home with them for the night to (hopefully) get some sleep in a bed, watch tv, drink alcohol and act like a grown up before being fucked. I was begging, shoplifting (too young for benefits, no one knew where I was and they never looked) and treated like shit.

Does Nicole actually believe this? Are men really our white knights, only prevented from protecting us by the segregation we irrationally demand? I did ask her, but was blocked. 

They talk about how hard it is for trans people to use toilets - they should try using one when visibly homeless. Try walking into a city centre toilet with their attendants while dragging your drenched bedding. Try it for an afternoon. Going everywhere with your wet, heavy bedding because if you hang it up or leave it somewhere, there's a high chance the street collection will bin it. Try living like that in a northern winter, dealing with violent, lascivious men walking home on a Friday night. Try it.

I was so, so terrified, I felt like I was on a tight rope. I was so frightened and so doomed I just stared blankly ahead, trying to keep going by autopilot and never ever looking down. I missed my seemingly unreachable siblings as they hurtled off on their own journeys, like rubber balls bouncing off hard floors. I broke at the sight of intimacy between people and let another man fuck me hoping I'd get used to it. I had to improvise. Alcohol was useful at first, but heroin was my only comfort, it was essential palliative care for me.

Relentless upheaval came with a monotonous, soul-destroying jingle that cheerfully reminded me it was always going to be the same. I got a boyfriend, started staying at his place until he snuck some gear past me one afternoon and died in the bathroom. I was in a hostel, then got kicked out for letting my new boyfriend in. I got into a better one, a girl's hostel, where I felt sorority and was taught basic life skills. But it gets in your bones, the implied consensus you are subhuman. I was, I was sure, far beneath the other girls. I was still using and in the same circles. And I really tried, I tried so, so hard. But I couldn't stop it. 

Which, funnily enough, is a consequence of the abuse I went through as a small child and my inability to process or confront it. I would get sudden waves of what felt like stage fright, I was paranoid, constantly on high alert. It never stopped, yet many real dangers passed by undetected.

I don't care who it is when I recognise this in someone. They could be a woman or man and it's irrelevant if they're trans. It could be an animal - it breaks me to see it. Unlike rigidly authoritarian ideologues, I don't have to fully agree or even like that person to feel deep pain, an urgency to help them. No one should be that traumatised and alone in a country where it can be fixed. Everyone should be able to access somewhere.

So, I really do have compassion for victims. It doesn't matter what demographic they hail from. I want what is best for all of them. 

I never broke the gender rules much back as a kid. It was impossible. My abuse was never a consequence of breaking them although I'm sure it enabled my abuser. Strangely though, Nicole is the one singing and dancing about gender. I think it's shit.

When I was that young, that broken, the most terrifying prospect was to be arrested and 'returned'. I couldn't risk that, so I lay low. I was just a street drinker, a junkie. I couldn't admit my age and vulnerability, so I had no leverage. Once I'd reached adulthood I was too dysfunctional to manage. I couldn't keep up my community charges in hostels, I couldn't stop using. Around and around it went with more injuries on each lap. 

I got into abusive relationships, because that is what homeless girls do. Being alone leaves vultures to circle unchallenged. I was claimed by men I'd taken an instant dislike to, because I couldn't say no, I couldn't trust my judgement, I was a fuck up. 

I wasn't just a pushover and a victim though. I couldn't have been. I could often intimidate people if I wanted to. I defended my stuff and myself, verbally, physically. But that comes with risks, and those risks can result in hard lessons that teach you when to fight and when to flee, when to freeze.

In hostels there's often a delicate balance that's shifted with the arrival or departure of every person. Most hostels aren't so big, you normally get to know people's names. There has long been a dearth of places for women, as most hostels were set up for men, functioning often as bail addresses, and refuges are specialist and heaving. You sometimes get hostels run by charities based on religious fellowships that offer beautiful living quarters, but they come with zero privacy, dorm rooms, curfews, breath testing on the door, no visitors, you have to spent half your dole on the charges and they dictate dinner time, demand group activities. Having been through what I had before, it was impossible, repellent, frightening to me.

I was sexually assaulted many times, I guess I had that mark on my head. I nervously giggled at inappropriate remarks or touches, I kept on shrinking smaller and smaller. I've heard 'don't you dare' many times too, and it never means anything good.

There was one time I wasn't 'just' assaulted while passed out, or coerced, but violently attacked with explicit threat to my life. I left the police station knowing they hadn't tried much with the forensics, in clothes from lost property that hung off me, checking behind me as I was sure he'd be out and looking for me. I was desperate, dirty, with not a single person to call on. I got hugs from my street mates, who were, in truth, excited with the drama and quick to compete. That's how we lived, lurching from one death to another, one tall tale followed by another, more tragedy or horror. It's like a soap opera where a vastly disproportionate number of deaths and tragedies occur, only to be forgotten within the month.

I really, really needed somewhere of my own. To just be safe and warm. It felt like forever since I'd had that. The idea of having my own t.v. to watch, having a bath and going to bed, was too painful to contemplate.

I cried and then I emotionally buffered, I went very, very still inside. I was scared and exhausted from fear. I stopped. I froze like a million headlights had picked me out of the darkness. I wanted to disappear but only did in the same ways as before - invisible via studious avoidance of passers by. It was a performance, an unspoken conspiracy to never acknowledge me unless near property or the vulnerable. And I understood it. I understood very well.

I was treated with love by women in the day centre. It was actual love. They went above and beyond for me and it was the most beautiful, uncomfortable and guilt ridden feeling I'd ever had. I contended, within a couple of weeks, I was over the worst and I hadn't been that hurt. I rationalised with self-talk I can't even hint at here.

I went headlong into heroin telling myself my growing habit would be ok once I was on methadone.  When the methadone began I was flung backwards, I couldn't cope. I really needed it, and they wouldn't let me have it. They warned me, they stopped my script, they never helped me get the things that made me safe and warm. There was a nail bomb in my head and I could not diffuse it with dilated pupils and shaking hands.

I thought I'd dusted myself off, I got a place in a hostel and I tried to avoid the staff with their eyes on my drug use and alcoholism. I kept staring blankly ahead, fixated on my next score. I'd grown up enough, been traumatised enough by my time sleeping rough, and I valued having a roof over my head. All I wanted was to stick it out til I got social housing. 

It was noisy. There were fights. Every bit of support I got was limited and conditional. A key worker might be lovely to you, then blank you in the street. They forget things you divulged with great trust, due to the overwork, or something... How fucking stupid was I, to open up like that? That's what makes me a victim. I have to stop that. They can turn to someone else in a flash, telling you to tone it down, to issue warnings about how you staggered in one night, or just out of absolute compassion fatigue. No one is reliable.

Prison was worse. The boredom, the seaches, deprivation, theft and competition. The huge injustice of your boyfriend, who you took the rap for, now mysteriously not responding to letters or calls. The damage everywhere, in everyone. The non-existence of education or pastimes, the sleep broken by noises, and the knowledge you're never alone - it's exhausting. It never was possible to drop the coping mechanism of dulling the pain. I was caught in the past and surrounded by others trapped in theirs. I was blockaded in with intractable grief.

Than men - see that, Nicole? Is this misgendering or admission? Even though it isn't really true. How many more than women? 

I try to not constantly reflect on my experiences when seeing other people make mistakes or behave badly, but it's hard sometimes. One thing I'd feel good about myself for was my refusal to steal from people, although I realise now that wasn't always true. To me, my pain had justified my entitlement, but presumably some aspects of my childhood my parent's hadn't completely fucked up on gave me some ethical basis to live by. The thing that cuts me down to the bone is the hopeful, innocent naivety I had when confronted with men who managed to manipulate my emotions and assessment of them. They might just groom with drugs and drink and cigarettes and that little puppy headtilt that tells you they're listening. It might be more niche and refined. Either way, I picture myself as a scared little puppy which nervously cowers and wags its tail, hoping they won't be hit again. 

That image is seared into my brain as I remember the men who seemed harmless, the man with lady's jeans and name who turned on a dime into a scary, hyper-aggressive embodiment of toxic masculinity and how I tried to slip his gaze. I was fully aware he was dangerous really, I stumbled on his preferred pronouns despite trying and bristled at his dominance, how he effortlessly silenced me, how I knew he was lying and sinister. But also, how I'd have instantly fought back at such conspicuous and direct obscenity and infringement on my space and dignity coming from someone who was without this performative shield. Even after all I'd seen that was difficult to say. It's baffling to me now, but negotiating a world which was heaving with dangerous men, I'd only seen the most obvious. I'd been gaslit forever, socialised to be nice, I'd learnt how being judged is crippling and wanted to escape that for myself, and maybe I still wanted to avoid perpetuating it on him. I couldn't see a woman in there, but I thought, somehow, that I should.

When I see the dismissal from these spoilt, ceremonial lib-fems, I notice again the categories we are boxed into for a sanitised collection and disposal. Bigot, well, that's an obvious choice. There's no way to be too harsh on someone if they're a bigot (although it's telling the woman using this is highly educated but unable to see it is her who is unable to hear a different opinion). How about Jameela's choice of gif - a man striking another in the face with a cane, with 'not today, peasant'. Interesting, isn't it?

peasant

/ˈpɛz(ə)nt/

Learn to pronounce

noun

1. a poor smallholder or agricultural labourer of low social status (chiefly in historical use or with reference to subsistence farming in poorer countries).

   "peasants left the farms to work in industry"

   Similar:

   agricultural worker

   small farmer

   rustic

   son of the soil

   countryman

   countrywoman

   farmhand

   swain

   villein

   serf

   paysan

   muzhik

   kulak

   campesino

   paisano

   contadino

   fellah

   ryot

   carl

   cottier

   kern

   hind

   • DEROGATORY•INFORMAL

     an ignorant, rude, or unsophisticated person.

     "‘That is a civilized drink, you peasant’"

We're poor, ignorant, rude and unsophisticated. We're uncivilized. In a way, it's true - for many of us who actually have been in emergency accommodation for the homeless, for women fleeing domestic violence who don't have funds, friends or family to save them, for those of us in prison or psychiatric hospital, stripped of your most fundamental rights of autonomy. We might be every one of those things and ugly and nasty to boot. But, Nicole, Jameela and friends, it isn't you dragging your drenched baggage behind. It isn't you trying to reclaim your grip on reality, submerged with others still deep in their mental quicksand, while nurses insist you are on a female ward with only other women. They know this. They know the next victim of the next Karen White won't be them and it won't be anyone they know and love. It would take a crusade of almost unparalleled self destruction for one of these virtuous, magnanimous public influencers to be that recently raped woman, crying in the council office and clutching their police victim support details. There boundaries will remain unbreached.

It's a certain kind of woman who needs these spaces or is forced into them. 'Peasants' is fine. I'd prefer they just say it.

The lib-fems and their woke-bros stare ahead to their true believers, they smile blankly at these victims, diagnose wrongthink and spit out the bad taste in their mouths. They wear sequined blinkers and demand their boundaries are respected, throwing up blocks as shields to create a safe space those peasant women are not allowed.

This will come crashing down one day. I hope the applause makes all of the suffering of truly marginalised women worth it in years to come. I won't abandon feminism, but I also won't forget

The Scary Gender Critical PinkNews Warned You About!

MY JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE TERF

I am a TERF. 

Or, a terf - It's not an acronym anymore, it's a cursed denouncement that renders the accused a social leper, and it's all our fault. We deserve no understanding - we oppress people; we cause deaths, we dog-whistle with hateful messages, coded in polite sounding conversations.  We are infectious and insidious. 

I think many of those on the side of the popular trans rights movement are unaware or in denial of the persistent abuse, threats and misogyny feminists face. Most people don't have a clue what's going on.

I cheered along once. I believed trans people were the most vulnerable, and under persistent attack. I hate reactionary discrimination. I hate bullying.

But over time, watching women being dog-piled, abused over entirely rational and compassionate statements.

I saw the sneering contempt of men, staking their political window display on being accepting while lecturing on feminism, insulated from the sharp end.

I discovered it was literally impossible to discuss the impact on women in any detail, the answers sounding painfully scripted and shockingly callous.

I had enough. And when I insisted I would talk about my fears, my experiences, I was met with fury, spite and disingenuous, laughably weak arguments that were apparently  set in stone.

I was ghosted. I was shut down and ostracized, I saw true misogyny, dismissing cases of rape and sexual abuse, which is imperative to support Self ID.

The plain facts are, the rights of women as a distinct class have been under relentless assault; women have been egregiously slurred, harmed and harassed. Our voices have been silenced and parodied. Publications we once trusted depicted us as mad harridans; serious abuses were hushed up, met with laughter and more ostracism. 

They- trans activists - will not talk to us. 'No Debate' has been a long held policy while backstage a political and ideological movement has had incredible implications on government and organisational policies; police; the courts; education and media.

"To anyone who spits the word TERF at a woman, there's no redemption, no hint of nuance or good faith can be applied to her. And if I say something that sounds reasonable, that's a serious, deep red flag - a trick"

I know this is pissing in the wind, for people who spit the word TERF at a woman, there's no redemption, no hint of nuance or good faith can be applied to her.

If I say something that sounds reasonable, that's a serious, deep red flag - a trick - and you should run screaming 'TERF!' into your every online account. 

In my journey from being a supporter of trans activism to where I am now, I've got to know many more trans people than I ever did before. I know at least a dozen transwomen I can have deep, vulnerable conversations with, while activists arrogantly demand I meet a trans person. 

My problem is not trans people. My problem is not people wanting to be treated as the opposite sex. I'll address you as you wish, but I won't tie myself in knots trying to navigate an ever expanding world of neo-pronouns, or prostrate for every slip. That really is too much of a petit bourgeois, hand-wringing, sphinctre-gazing, precious waste of time - especially for identities separated from physical reality which purely reaffirm stereotypes - e.g. 'I'm non-binary as I don't identify with femininity'. I mean, you're serious, aren't you? Fuck off with that astrological-woo shite. I have no ill-will towards you, and I imagine I might have identified that way too as a frightened, body-dysphoric kid who hated having breasts. But this is so regressive, and you are being played. Please stop expecting everyone to validate you - it only ever ends in tears.

Although they seem oblivious to it, there's a new role model for today's liberal feminist's - a pious and all-sacrificing ouch-kisser for the world's scraped knees, albeit stylised as some kind of freedom fighter with a few choice swears and a contrived, edgy profile pic. 

Being 'kind' is what you are meant to be - it isn't activism or good work, it's simply knowing your place

You're required to shout loud and proud, 'Feminism is for everyone! Fuck the fash! Trans women are women!' and dismiss or laugh at the times 'inclusivity' ended in rape. It's not so tempting to me. In fact, for those liberal feminists reading this, I want to tell you now - no amount of martyrdom will gain you respect, you will always be secondary in your movement, stories and life, and it will never be used as mitigation if you put a foot wrong one day. Being 'kind' is what you are meant to be - it isn't activism or good work, it's simply knowing your place.

Try telling your bloke mates something they dont like, tell them they have no right to lecture you on feminism, call out some misogyny, don't apologise for it. See how that goes.

I'll be kind and considerate as much as I can, and if you call me out on something without trying to break and shame me, I will listen. But I cannot promise to agree. And, you should care enough for your own self respect to not want to make me.

I know the trope - TERFs are spiteful, malevolent liars; hateful, frigid and yet weirdly sex obsessed. We're white and highly privileged. We value ourselves as mothers, for our biology which we never even worked for. We code our 'talking points' and detect each other's by a cackle hidden in the words gender critical, biological, natural. 

A bit like witches then. But actually, no... exactly like witches - hideous and old, muttering incantations under our fetid breath, shagging the devil in disgusting ritualistic displays. We selfishly grasp onto too much land, we harbour unexplainable power and wealth, we dont worship the right deity, we're unnatural (or too familiar with the supernatural) and unnerving.

To the fervent activist, isn't it a pity that your venture for whatever it is you want has had to dredge up 17th century misogyny? Do you ever wonder why that is? Why do you have to lie about us? Why do you frame us as the existential threat facing society? 

Why do you constantly, wildly misrepresent our arguments and aims? 

How free and empowered do you think you will become by trashing the category so many of you covet? Why do you want to join a category you think should have so little dignity and privacy and right to self defence? It's not the way transsexuals before you behaved. Why do you demand to be recognised as part of a group you so clearly despise unless they conform to your authoritarian ideology? You, the non-conformity champions? 

The answer is in there, isn't it? The answer is because you don't consider trans women literally women, as you claim to. You say trans women are women when demanding the same sex rights and spaces, and you'll leave out the trans as much as possible - 'all women' etc. But you'll make damn sure that prefix is there in bold if it's in defence. When a trans woman is abused that's a hate crime, but actual women don't have those legal protections and err, well, who cares? The abuse directed at women you laughingly dismiss, you are incensed by if directed at a trans woman. Call a woman an ugly, mannish cunt - she deserved it. Say that to a trans woman and you should never work again, cunt. Women are fine; that's what you mean, you just can't say that without embellishment. But trans women - the murder rate! The oppression! The exclusion!* The struggle, hurdles, the hate! Or - Feminists and the lies they tell.

Phil here with some glorious bullshit. Whether Phil will consort with the lady dick is unknown at date of publication.

To you, women are all too often hysterical about rape and assault, but it's trans women who could never survive being in a confined space with males.

But yeah, you're all feminists now anyway. Except for TERFs. You're just real feminists who don't obsess over the oppression based on our biology. Feminism is intersectional! Isn't it? Isn't that what we say these days?

What does intersectional mean? I guess it involves not being a selfish bitch, not griping over the really statistically insignificant number of rapists in sheep's clothing. But, even if it is statistically significant, even if it's overwhelming, that's not the point. 

I guess that as a school of thought designed to study the oppression of black women who face layers of discrimination, it's a massive win to swing it round to situate males, normally white males, at the epicentre of feminism. Brilliant.

Excellent work by Jameela here, studiously avoiding the point and breezily suggesting it doesn't matter how many women are raped in her brave new world, as long as Karen is included
*This principle does not apply to police*

Let me speak to you giving you the benefit of the doubt, picturing you with entirely good faith. That obviously sounds derisively patronising, but it isn't meant to be. I was there once, too. I assumed that 'TERFs' must present a real threat to trans people. I pictured crazed, section 28-supporting right wingers, and I was too overwhelmed by the rules of engagement to have conversations, or to ponder on why it is women who are presented as the dark force.

That 'deep need for protection' is the only honest thing here. But for the highly educated, middle class, white and well-paid Alison, that in and of itself is a damnable thing

The idea is women hold incredible power over men. False rape allegations is the nasty woman's nuclear weapon. Think of the horrific case of Emmet Till, see how Carolyn Bryant invoked heinous violence, torture, murder, enabled her men to be insane persecutors. That is where you are meant to be; picturing the innocent trans person, ignorant of the regressive norms and etiquette in their new environment, being wickedly lied about, set up, and punished for some fictional crime by the vicious guard dogs those women call sweetie. Women, standing behind men, prodding and whispering in their ears til the brutes lose all control. Women, standing behind those men, weaponising their jealousy, mobilising their brutish bodies against another; inciting, provoking and relishing the depravity with their hands and pinnies left unblemished.

See a story of a trans woman beaten up on the other side of the globe, just for using the toilet, and witness the new theories coming thick and fast. The stupid women who saw her and judged, they got scared, they thought they had a right to question and exclude. Yes, the violence was dealt by a man but why? Because women.

That's the idea. We might not get our hands dirty but my God we make sure someone does. It's the 'TERF rhetoric'. And really, the avid trans activist is just trying to stop this unhinged hatred. That's all. Because trans women are women, distinguished by vulnerability alone.

So it may come to you as a surprise, but you don't get much further from the Carolyn Bryants of the world than radical feminists. Male violence is never invoked as justice or protection by radical feminists, radical feminists normally are gender non-conforming, and a high number are lesbians. Male violence is exactly what they have always countered. You might find it difficult to believe you've been perpetuating these lies, but maybe think on it a while. I reckon you'll realise it's in there.

'emmisions'

It got there, it became, unwittingly, the supporting hypothesis because you're trying to do the right thing, and you're bombarded by the instructions.

Gradually, the propaganda slips in under the cognitive radar, because of the weight of the rest of the batshit, ridiculous ideas shoved down your throat, foie gras style. 

This is conducted in a relatively clever way, by giving you glimmers of reward à la emoji love-bombing and some really tricky homework that boosts the morale but overloads you with fluffy, pseudo-esoteric bullshit. All under the guise of essential human rights.

It's a 'Dear allies, memorise these genders, acronyms and neo-pronouns or you too will be crushed, nazi scum' series of tasks set by infomercials (badly disguised as journalism in Pinknews, Autostraddle, Diva, LGBTQ Nation etc). It's a torrent, and you either learn the lines, or explain you're clueless. If clueless, you'll use copious caveats, display intense sympathy and deference, be armed with apologies and promises to read up, listen harder. If not, you are consigned to the black book of treasonous heathens, subject to a public flogging and rejected by your peers.

I thought I didn't understand what was meant by it all. I held on, I repeated the urban myth-mantras of the vulnerability, death rate and oppression. I was told to educate myself, and I did. And that's, as far as you are concerned, where I went wrong.

So, I began to ask questions and read. What I found was some really murky, nebulous theory dictated as if irrefutable, empirical fact. And not only that - to question in any detail, to note the contradictions or obvious fallacies was a serious offence. WATCH YOUR STEP they glowered, this is human dignity we're speaking of.

Aside from the theoretical certainty and immovable conviction was a brittle and rigid conceit. This edifice of condescension and grandiosity started to look not purposefully angry and focused, but shaky, fragile. It's not that these questions are a distraction - it's that you need a hell of a lot invested to accept the bullshit answers. 

I saw an inability to answer anything from ideology to claims about statistics and events. The paddling, hidden under a facade of stoic evangelism was becoming clearer. 

I slowly started waking up to the insanity. Despite being known by my friends as a bit of a bleeding heart, easily upset for people, I realised I was slowly being more and more limited in discussion, monitored, questioned on 'what exactly do you mean by..?' and given way less benefit of the doubt. Slowly I, as a woman who has experienced sexual abuse in childhood and adulthood, who developed a trauma response addiction and had a trans woman aggressively and intrusively claim their [my] rights, realised I was being censored. The trans woman, pre-treatment, who intimidated and unnerved many of us with no choice but to share our spaces and tiptoe around them, was not acceptable to discuss. I now had less right to dignity than a well loved, living-at-home-in-her-20s, middle class student. Why? Because she identified as queer, and felt she had the moral high ground to put me in my place, again and again. Which she did with zero logic, consistency or care.

As a genderqueer person, she was apparently unable to use the women's toilets, and unsafe to use the men's. So she used the disabled, and was angry at the lack of facilities. If disabled people complained about her using their spaces, she dismissed them (with less hostility than she showed me, though). But as a woman who knows I am a woman, and has suffered multiple traumas at the hands of men, having been triggered daily by a trans woman when I was already traumatised, I was 'inflammatory' 'reactionary' and 'weaponising [my] trauma' by saying some women's spaces should be for women alone. 

Had my former friend ever been in jail? No. A refuge? No. Had she ever been raped? No. But her gender tokens elevated her need for suitable spaces, free of triggers, far above mine and her lexicon of mantras and phrases somehow convinced many she was right. She could be uncomfortable by members of her own sex, while popping in to a public toilet. I could not be uncomfortable with a male living alongside me all day and night.

As she dictated theory as fact, reacted with histrionic rage and scrutinised my every comment for evidence of transphobia, she rallied a gang of others, several being mutual, though not close, friends. What she spoke about, her arguments with other people, her posts on social media all centred on proving me a bigot while never mentioning my name. She got increasingly strident, and some men joined in, invigorated by her enabling and a sense of self righteousness. I was misrepresented, it was made clear my thoughts would be constantly challenged, and I was shut out.

It never did devolve to a row. I wish it had, but I was so carefully choosing my words, so consciously aware of what I perceived to be her hurt, so cautious of seeming abrupt or selfish I allowed her to set sail on her journey of supreme justice, nailing my torn clothes to her mast.

Of course, not everyone agreed with her. People asked me if I was ok a lot. A couple of people directly challenged her and the little gang that had formed around her. That did end in rows, which I normally only heard of much later. Generally though people steered clear. They'd tell me they don't know enough about it to comment, they didn't understand. They told me she didn't actually mean that, and this had never been said. In the time since this, I've had these rows on Facebook, and even though the words are there, as they were typed, the same thing happens - denial, obfuscation, apparently I misrepresent the other person with their own words, while wild distortions of my words 'probably held some truth' as 'but that is what you were getting at, isn't it?'

Always missing context, never listening with my heart, I'm not taking their view onboard. Every time, it isn't that bad, no one is actually arguing that. It's just trans women are women, and I am just being difficult now.

It's strange, I struggle to believe how sucked into her aggression performed as vulnerability I was. I'm a smarter, more articulate and naturally more aggressive (at least in terms of direct aggression, rather than passive) woman, with much more life experience, but I let myself be mistreated, insulted and bullied by a poncey, spoilt ideologue. And to top it off, a spineless one who insinuated her strength was not being female like me, while performing every Carolyn Bryant trick in the helpless maiden handbook. 

My amazing good fortune in being born to a body that I identify with is a privilege. The fact it's taken me years to come to terms with who and what I am is irrelevant. I'm clearly so happy being a woman, I would reject it otherwise. That must be it. All that cisprivilege I owned, using it to harm those like her. People with so few problems in life they can sit in their familial home, call it their home, in adulthood and spent hours every day wondering how they should dress, which of their many clothes they should choose to express their inner being. Not so easy for us without family, those who've been through the care system and were all alone at almost half the age she was now. It's the twilight zone on iron(y) tablets. It's inexplicable. Or it seemed so, until I understood how I'd been gaslit by a persecutor in disguise. It slipped right under my radar. 

I knew I was female from my first memory. I was scolded for acts my brothers were not. My anger was ridiculed. I was dismissed as crying just like the way we are depicted as Carolyn Bryant, a woman who laughed when the court was hearing of Emmet's horrific injuries, in front of his mother. I was loaded with tedious tasks, sexually abused, raped, hounded, and never safe.

The trans activist lives in an artificial landscape. It requires forced perspective, simulated dangers, astro-turfed campaigning and sound effects. It relies on keeping trans people a spectre of imperiled but dignified bravery. It's about supremacy, whether that's the great white defender or the under-dog survivor. What they want is what is yours, and they'll dress it up as an emergency but it was all very well planned.

The implied threat of eternal damnation is definitely real, they will ruthlessly exploit any slip, they'll go after all they can, they'll endlessly play the victim and rescuer. They'll have you fired for fun. But once you're out, if you don't have so much to lose, if you're employer isn't a coward, it might be liberating. The sting loses potency in staggering time. Don't look down and imagine the drop is real, there's too many distortions up where you are now. And it's better to jump prepared, than have your strings cut.