Looking Back Over 2 1/2 Years of Gender Critical Dad

Its two and a half years since I started this blog. I just want to look quickly at how things grew and how they have suddenly started really kicking off.

When I hit peaktrans, I had never heard the term, I felt alone. The first people I found out about, who looked like they might not think me mad, were the radical feminists. They had the ideas that made sense of it, and a lot of other ideas that forced me to take a hard look at myself. I posted a lot at  Reddit r/GenderCritical/. They were good to me. Supporting me when I was panicking. Sometimes I messed up, wrote shit and got ripped a new one for it. They encouraged me to start this and one even edited my first post.

I will be forever in their debt and r/GenderCritical/ is still a vibrant and growing place full of wonderful people supporting each other and developing ideas.

After starting the blog I was contacted, had a secret meeting in a service station cafe, where I was sussed out. Then a meeting in an professors office  to talk about a book, where I foolishly committed myself to write more than I had since I was in school. An early rise the next morning and off to Thinking Differently a radical feminist public meeting in London. This was a whole subculture, they might of looked at me suspiciously, but there were hundreds of them, they knew what they were, they knew that gender was bollocks.

Shortly after that I met Miranda and Julie Bindel and a few other rad fems, in a tiny meeting, again at a secret location. Notorious TERFS, really nice in person, with a razor sharp analysis of why genderism not only shafts women but does not represent Lesbians and Gay men, people with dysphoria and people who live as trans.

I felt part of something, a small something, but something growing, something that understood. I spent the back end of 2016 doing my chapter. At times it felt like I was a schoolboy faking it, just splurging out a load of second rate Kerouac rip off.  The editors asked for an biographical paragraph. I just bashed something out https://www.cambridgescholars.com/download/sample/64273

I’m a middle of the road middle aged dad trying to keep his daughter safe. Lefty liberal newspaper reader, organic eggs and chicken, equal shares sort of dad. .....

I didn't realise that you were supposed to do it in third person, with authority.

The book came out back end of 2017, it sold better than expected, then it came out in paperback. We still haven't sorted out a launch party. I've lent my copy to my fundy christian mate who has gone off on maternity.

Last year and this year have been about building up. starting the parents board . Thats grown like mad, full of wonderful people. Its their board now, I'm just the caretaker, the techy who fixes things.

A pivotal event happened in September 2017. A small group of women were going to have a meeting about changes to the Gender Recognition Act. A bunch of students from Goldsmiths and some ageing activism role players found out and scared the venue off. The organisers put out a message to meet at speakers corner, where the address of a new venue would be given out. An unpleasant young man who calls himself Tara Wood tweeted "I wanna fuck some terfs up" and went down to Hyde Park  and assaulted a 60 year old, tiny, woman.  https://www.feministcurrent.com/2018/04/27/trans-identified-male-tara-wolf-charged-assault-hyde-park-attack/

This got some press coverage, nothing on the BBC telly. The yob did get convicted but let off with a small fine. The victim was put thru the indignity of having to refer to him by female pronouns in court.

It became obvious that genderism was not some small counter culture clique, it was the establishment. Only the most right wing papers, the Mail and the Sun would print a gender critical view.

Since then things have built. A Womans Place started, then other groups, Women Need to Talk and Lisa Muggeridge.  Challenor happened, the Green panicked and then realised how he had shat on them. Now Challenor Junior is busy taking over LibDem LGBTQ+ and making an arse out of them.

Lucy Bannerman, Janice Turner and others in the Times are writing great stuff. That gets noticed. Alison Moyet stuck her neck out, got shouted at by the trans mafia and wound it back in. That got noticed.

Slowly at first, then quicker, exponentially, things are taking off. Posi Parker is all over it, Thousands of people sent a few quid that soon added up for a big advert in the metro. On twitter every time some numpty from the BBC, the government or opposition spouts about gender hundreds of women pop up to put them straight. There's more men popping up, some famous like Graham Lineham many unknown, but all standing up for women and girls.

Finally, national treasure Jo Brand has written a balanced piece in the Guardian.

Its a mass movement now. I'm no longer the Gender Critical Dad, I am one of the Gender Critical Dads.

That's a great place to be. We are going to win whatever I do. I can, I need to play my part, but there's others, way more capable than me who will make it happen