How I got here, a short thread.
As someone firmly on the left (some may even say 'hard left'), I never dreamed I would have views that I couldn't broadcast comfortably under my own name. I never imagined I'd find myself setting up an anonymous social media account to feel safe.

Back in 2019, I opened Twitter to see my comedy idol, Graham Linehan, trending. I was devastated to see all the comments branding him an abhorrent transphobe. How could someone who had written some of my all-time favourite comedies be such a terrible human being, a bigot?!

So, never being one to parrot what I hear others saying without finding the evidence I need to back it up, I started to look into what he'd done, to read through these horrific tweets. I prepared myself to have Black Books & Father Ted tarnished forever once I'd read this stuff.

Imagine my relief when I found comments that (surely, I thought) any sane person with a basic grasp of human biology would make. I saw a man actually putting his head about the parapet to defend women, for once.

"All I see here is a man who wants to protect women's rights."

What I hadn't realised at that point - as my naive understanding of 'trans' was that they were 'transexuals' - was that defending the rights of women was now the issue. Defending women's rights was now the bigotry. Protecting women was now transphobia.

Needless to say, this led me to read and read and read, and I've been reading for the best part of two years now. And both sides of the argument, I must add.

Since then, I've seen JKR receive horrific sexually-threatening comments for trying to explain boundaries women need

Especially after traumatic events that may leave them understandably scared of male-bodied people. I've learnt about teenage lesbians being butchered, about lesbians being erased, cotton ceilings, autogynephilia.

I've seen women harassed, threatened, their careers destroyed.

And all this, all of this horrific abuse, because said women are being told to 'be kind'.

The lie that being kind consists of respecting someone's pronouns, when it actually means moving aside, allowing any man to appropriate us, to relegate us to a subset of woman, angers me.

The fact that once we have been relegated in this way, the new subset of women elevate themselves within our category, demand that we forget our needs and our rights, in order to accommodate them, to validate them, ensure they are comfortable... That makes me fucking rage.

So here I am, having realised that I would probably never work again if I said all of this without anonymity, yet being unable to hold back any longer.

To all the women & men who fight this battle without my cowardice, just know you have my eternal respect.

Yours,
An Adult Human Female