Being a Minority of One.

“Being in a minority, even in a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.”  - 1984

First I should make clear that I am catching up with my story, events in this post and the previous all happened a while ago. I'm in a calmer state now, still scary but not paralyzingly so. Also thanks to my editor, you know who you are, and all the wonderful people who are helping me to become a writer of sorts.

My daughter has decided to become a man, wants a mastectomy and testosterone, the group that she'd been going to, it turns out to be a cult, teachers I trusted had been enabling her delusion to boost their self righteous liberalism and pompous patronizing tolerance . I'm supposed to come to terms with this and support her on this brave journey, but just I could not buy it.

It left me reeling, questioning my beliefs, my sanity, my decency and my motives. Why did I disagree with the consensus? I've always been a big headed git, but also capable of reflection and I think,  reconsideration, but this stuff just left me in a spin

Its so gob smacking, that I didn't want to talk about it in depth with my partner, If she agreed with me, it could just be to keep the peace, or because I'd worn her down. 

I hit the internet, searched, somehow found https://www.reddit.com/r/GenderCritical/ and from the  sidebar in that loads of links, full of sane women, frequently repeating the objections I had to trans, filling in details,  providing a calm, reasoned argument, why the transgender system of belief is fundamentally flawed.

So I wrote to an old feminist friend, for decades ago, just for a sanity check

I could do with a reality check from you, things have happened, that I really don't know how to deal with. I'm turning to you because I respect your intelligence and remember you as a staunch feminist and pretty resistant to trendy bullshit. Your also distant enough from me, that if you decide I'm being a bit of a drama queen you can tell me to bog off, with no consequences for yourself.

I really do worry that I might be very wrong, or that I am right and most of the liberal lefty Guardian reading world has fallen for the lies of an abusive cult.

About a year ago my daughter decided she was really a man and wanted to transition. Like most parents my initial response was to assume that its another passing fad, then a feeling that if I don't accept it, its my problem and a reflection of my innate transphobia. I did have a strong gut feeling about it, but tried to ignore it. She's now saying that she is planning to start hormones and get a mastectomy as soon as she can, fortunately the NHS has a massive and growing waiting list.

The received wisdom seams to be that this is a difficult time for me, but with the support of the trans community I can learn to support my child transition into her corrected gender.

Trouble is I don't believe a word of it

It was such a relief, to get her reply, we had a bit of back and forth, I think she realised that, as she was into motor bikes back in the day, and frankly had been a very 70s feminist, dungarees, monkey boots and all, that she might of ended up going down the trans road if she had hit the same influences as my daughter, so no I wasn't mad.

I also found a vid by Rebecca Car https://rebeccarc.com/2016/03/22/critically-examining-the-doctrine-of-gender-identity-2/ its an hour long, the camera angles are terrible, but you can hear every word, and its an hour well spent.

She's a philosopher at the University of Warwick and she uses ideas like a mathematician uses symbols, each one is precisely defined and rigorous and they build on each other to rip chunks out of Gender Identity until the whole bullshit structure collapses. I never thought philosophy could take your breath away, but she did.

I read hundreds of posts on https://www.reddit.com/r/GenderCritical/ and https://www.reddit.com/r/Gender_Critical/ and all the links off the sidebars and found lots of wonderfully sane people, some of whom had been thru the same sort of thing as me, some were professionals, trying to find a way to get the word out without losing their jobs. I found out just how sinister and wide ranging the transgender agenda  was, that other people had realised it was woman hating and the opposite of gay, lesbian liberation, but would eradicate  gays and lesbians, reduce feminism and the very reality of women's oppression to a bad consumer choice.

I was no longer a minority of one, other, sane people had reached the same conclusions, others had worked out a framework of ideas that held together and made sense.

The trans gender sites on the web, were full of patronising bullshit, spinning a web around a circular definition of gender and the new idol of Gender Identity. 

Gender Critical sites were calm and thoughtful with a level of thoughtfulness and humanity that was incredible. These were the people slagged off as TERFS and hateful radical feminists, but they were the only sane ones and they were so reasonable, sane and just, well, nice.

I still didn't have a clue how to help my daughter get out, but I think  I have enough insight to know that arguing with her would just push her away but I know that I am sane. I can talk about it without being terrified people would think I was nuts.

The future is still uncertain, but the best we can do is keep our relationship with our daughter working and real, keep doing real stuff, show love and respect for her, without endorsing, or enabling the trans crap, ignore attempts to goad us, and stay calm when she throws a paddy.

In the meantime I'll keep writing here, remember to review and edit the morning after and decide what to write about next.