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Upcoming Elections
Australia has a federal election coming up in May. There are also other state and local elections happening so the place is wall to wall politics at the moment.
For 40 years I have voted for the party I thought would do best for the country as a whole and for the most disadvantaged, even if it meant I would not benefit from their policies or would actually lose from them personally. I always voted for who I thought would do the right thing over all. But not this time.
I have decided that this election I will ignore all other policies each party and candidate has and instead focus solely on how the parties treat women's rights. I would normally want to save the environment but if a politician says he will keep men out of women's prisons I will vote for him - even if he also wants to log native forests. If a candidate promises to keep women's sports solely for women I will vote for her - even if she also wants to make hunting homeless cats our national sport.
The politicians who support women's rights are not doing so to be popular and win votes. It can ruin their careers to openly go against the trans lobby in this way. Some of their policies on other issues may be there to garner votes but they are in the fight for our rights because they believe in it as much as we do.They aren't going to change their minds or back down once elected because their stance on this issue is as steadfast (and as unpopular) as ours.
By the time the next election rolls around in 3 years time this whole trans business should be done and dusted in our favour. Detrasitioners will be everywhere and courts will have decided contentious cases and settled compensation on at least some of the victims. Once the pendulum has swung sufficiently back towards sanity I will return to voting the way I used to.
These seasoned politicians and new candidates all take a huge risk in supporting women's rights to equality, safety, privacy, and dignity. I'm willing to take a one time risk and vote for them.
We need a powerful American woman to lead the charge. Someone with fuck you levels of money. Oprah would be perfect bc she's black and wokies would be uncomfortable saying hateful, horrific shit to her
But Opes is evil and would never do it. Kamala Harris would be excellent too. But we all know that ain't happening. If I ever win the lottery I'll do it!
The feminism board/s of Mumsnet really have played a huge role. Women on Mumsnet have been discussing, analyzing and pointing out the problems of the so-called "trans rights" agenda for more than a decade. Mumnset has been a rallying ground, and it's become a repository where women can find a wealth of information.
Women who were vocial on the Mumsnet boards early on became prominent and vocal activists IRL - most famously (or infamously, depending on your POV) Posie Parker/Kellie-Jay Keen.
Excerpts from a 2018 article that slagged off Mumnset as a "hotbed of transphobia" and "hate" and likened women expressing concerns about safeguarding and sexism on Mumsnet to teenage boys and young men promoting alt-right ideas and posting Pepe the Frog memes on 4Chan:
[the] path through which many British women have taken up a particularly transphobic ideology is, somewhat incongruently, the parenting website Mumsnet. The idea that a forum on which women talk about diaper rash would produce a wave of TERFs sounds a bit off, but in the U.K. this has reached the status of conventional wisdom.
Mumsnet was founded in 2000 as a forum for parents — particularly mums, yes — to pool advice and conduct discussions about subjects including but not limited to parenting. The website quickly grew in popularity and influence; in past general elections it was even common for prime ministerial candidates to take to Mumsnet and be grilled (a bit like a Reddit AMA) on questions ranging from childcare policy platforms to their favorite biscuits.
Before long, though, certain members of the platform developed an obsession: that trans women aren’t actually women, and instead violent men intent on gaining access to women’s bathrooms, prisons, and domestic violence shelters to harm them, and the idea that gender self-identification is ripe for abuse by cis men who claim to be trans.
[on Mumnset] the whole conversation takes on a Helen Lovejoy-style “think of the children!” tenor, which is very effective for radicalization since it stokes one’s own fears and helps to spread feelings of panic. There is also the sad fact that on any platform where groups of women convene to discuss their lives and experiences, they will have stories of sexual violence in common. So it’s particularly odious to see transphobes prey upon those experiences of sexual violence to stoke hatred towards trans women, who are themselves disproportionately vulnerable to violence.
Mumsnet in general has become a hotbed of transphobic rhetoric, and it’s easy to see how women using the website for information about cafes with the best changing facilities in their town could get sucked into the deeply cynical discussions that are being conducted there by people who claim to be worried only for their safety.
Mumsnet is to British transphobia more like what 4Chan is to American fascism. The tendencies were already there, but a messageboard to amplify them and recruit people to the cause never hurts.
https://theoutline.com/post/6536/british-feminists-media-transphobic
Other factors I think have contributed to British women taking the lead in becoming aware, sounding the alarm, meeting, organizing and taking action, in no particular order:
The small size of the UK in terms of population and especially geographically - and the fact that the UK is an "island nation" (actually an islandS nation) set apart from the rest of Europe.
Also, Britain's famed rail system makes it possible for people in the UK to travel all over the country using public transport options that aren't available in other Anglophone countries like the USA, Canda, Australia and New Zealand.
Britain's commitment to, and sophisticated understanding of, safeguarding. Safeguarding is area that British women are especially concerned and knowlegdable about. The conflict between "trans rights" and safeguarding of girls was made clear to many women in the UK by the public controversy over the "pro trans policy adopted by Girlguiding, and the actions that Girlguiding HQ took in 2018 to silence, punish and banish women who pointed out the dangers and harms of the GG policy, such as Helen Watts and Katy Alcock
The consequences of, and confusion areound, the UK's Gender Recognition Act of 2004 - a sexist and flawed law written and advocated by Labour that created of the legal fiction that men can be women, and vice versa, and allows TIPs to change the sex marker on their birth certificates and other government ID documents
The British public being given a chance (in 2018 IIRC) to submit written comments to the government about its plan, announced by Teresa May was when she was Tory MP, to reform the GRA to make it easier for people. The GRA reform proposal rallied a lot of women into looking
Britain has many popular media outlets that are conservative, right-leaning and/or promote free exchange of ideas - such as the longstanding publicationsThe Spectator, The Telegraph, The Times and The Daily Mail along with upstart media platforms like Spiked, Talk Radio, Unherd, The Critic and GB News - that were willing to cover the negative impacts of trans activism, the trans agenda and gender identity ideology generally when the Guardian and BBC wouldn't touch these topics with a ten-foot pole. Moreover, conservative and conservative-leaning publications and media platforms in the UK made a point of publishing gender critical articles by and giving airtime to long-established writers and pundits well known in British journalism like Julie Bindel, Julie Burchill, Janice Turner, James Kirkup, Brendan O'Neill, Melanie Phillips, Julia Hartley-Brewer and Piers Morgan as well as to more recently-arrived but equally strong GC voices in British journalism like Ella Whelan, Tom Slater, Kathleen Stock and Sanchez Manning.
The fact that the UK has more than two political parties that play important roles in kingdom-wide, national and local politics. In addition to the Tories and Labour, UK voters in this century have had the option of the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru, the Green Party, UKIP
The rise of the SNP and the success of the Brexit campaign showed that the British public have an appetite for the politics of disruption and many people in the UK are disgruntled and fed up with the establishment elites in London-Westminster-Whitehall.
Unique features of Britain's legal system, such as
- the British legal system makes it possible for members of the public like Keira Bell and Mrs A to go to court to challenge laws and the actions of arms of the government in through the British "judicial review" process - whereas in the US there is no such option, and in the US an individuals can only file lawsuits that will get a hearing in court if the courts first decided they have "legal standing" do do so
- The UK's Equality Act protects people in the UK with from being unfairly discriminated against at work, in school and other areas of life based on belief as well as religion, and the UK has developed criteria - aka the Grainger test - to determine what counts as a legally- protected belief of a non-relious nature. By contrast, in the USA, the law gives strong, clear protection against being unfairly discriminated against at work and in other contexts due to relgion/creed, but doesn't provide the same level of protection against discrimination based on non-secular belief
- Employees in Britain who believe they've been unfairly and illegally discriminated against by their employers or co-workers can file complaints that are heard in British employment triubunals. Huge victories have been scored for everyone with "gender critical" beliefs in the UK by British women who've made excellent use of employment tribunals and appeals of tribunal rulings such as Maya Forstater, Allison Bailey, Jo Phoenix, Rachel Meade, Roz Adams.
The huge amount of fanfare, media publicity and fawning attention from Labour leaders like Jeremy Corbyn and Angela Rayner given to a teenage prick named Liam Madigan after he started LARPing as a "trans girl" named Lily and began making media appearances and speeches in which he expressed his hopes of becoming the UK's "first transgender MP" and "first transwoman "Prime Minister."
It’s alarming the extent to which, in the U.K., transphobia has taken hold among people who understand themselves to be left-wing — with virulent streaks present in the trade union movement, the center left media, and in the Labour party. Trans people looking to take up positions within their local Labour party groups now have to run the gauntlet of small but vocal factions intent on their removal, a case in point being Lily Madigan, a talented young organizer who happens to be a trans woman and has become a pet target of obsessive TERFs within the party.
https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-42167494
https://www.vice.com/en/article/8xmnjg/lily-madigan-plans-uk-first-transgender-member-parliament
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/lily-madigan-21-under-21-2018
The huge amount of fawning media attention - and plum positions and honours - given to TRA Munroe Bergdorf, an arrogant, entitled young gay man who adopted the identity of "trans-woman" and whose main claim to fame is that he's has a ton of plastic surgery, he likes to pose in photos dressed in skimpy lingerie and looking like a plastic "sex bomb" porn star, and he's made many comments that are openly misogynistic, racist and homophobic.
The media attention given to, and uproar over, British TIM rapist Karen White, a violent man with a long criminal past whom authorities placed in a women's prison whilst he awaiting trial for rape. In the women's prison, White quickly proceeded to sexually assault four of the female inmates he was given free rein to prey on.
The British safeguarding organization Transgender Trend, founded by the brilliant and tireless campaigner Stephanie Davies-Arai in 2015
https://www.transgendertrend.com
The women's rights organization Fair Play for Women, which was founded in 2017. FPFW and its founder Nicola William played a leading role in the early phase of women's pushback against the "trans agenda" in the UK:
https://fairplayforwomen.com/about-us/our-history/
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL8N2LF3D8/
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5036680-hats-off-to-fair-play-for-women
The many preposterous, idiotic and batshit crazy public statements made over the years by a host of British politicans and prominent figures in UK politics - David Lammy, Lisa Nandy, Penny Mordaunt, Keir Starmer, Dawn Butler, Nicola Sturgeon, Ruth Hunt, Peter Tatchell, Nancy Kelley and many more - in an effort to virtue-signal their mindless support of so-called "trans rights."
[the] path through which many British women have taken up a particularly transphobic ideology is, somewhat incongruently, the parenting website Mumsnet
Honestly, it really annoys me when people act like it's bizarre that mothers would have strong opinions on social or political issues. Why on earth wouldn't mothers care about an issue that affects children's health and safety?
I love how they write off mumsnet as a place where women talk about diaper rash. It's so fucking obnoxious
I think another difference between Americans and the British regarding this issue is that the former are much more prone to wishful thinking, self-marketing, and self-aggrandizement, and the latter are more grounded in reality.
I think the UK has more of a collective spirit compared to the US (even though both originally Protestant, Anglo-Saxon countries are distinctively individualistic in global terms). The island is also much smaller and densely populated, so collective action becomes easier. My neighbor's problem is my own and so forth. Their debating societies are also stronger: it is a society that loves intellectual debate vs more spectacle and celebrity talking in the US. While the UK Tories are seen as led by a high-class aristocracy with centuries of tradition, while the American Republicans are led by close-minded, highly religious farmers and hillbillies, and cunning businessmen (stereotype, of course). So conservatism in the UK seems to have a higher moral rating, to be more cosmopolitan and sophisticated than in the US.
I find it funny that Shrier would resort to such a superficial pop answer as simply JK Rowling. Rowling herself is inserted within the British context that also produced Magdalen Berns and Kathleen Stock, Douglas Murray and the LGB Alliance, among so many others.
I don't find her answer pop or superficial. It resonated. Have you ever seen the show? The two guests segment is at most 25 minutes long. By the time he got to the trans issue they had maybe 8 minutes left max. And that's not her speaking all 8 minutes. Bill was talking and they had a third guest there who wanted his own air time. How would she explain all the nuances and layers and complexities of British politics and British feminism you all are criticizing her for not delving into in a few minutes' time, to an American audience? Outside of this very niche GC space and maybe some TRAs who still remember, no one has heard of Magdalen Berns. Americans wouldn't know who Kathleen Stock is except for the tiny minority of us who follow the issue. But we all know JK Rowling. Mentioning her made an immediate point, that we have no big voice on the left pushing back against this.
When you all commented on reasons that worked in British women's favor, you all also expressly said those are reasons that won't work in the US. Shrier could've used the precious time to heap praises on how the UK operates that would do nothing to help the American audience watching, or she could raise the two points that she did to strike home what could be addressed in the US to turn the tide. I think she did a very smart thing using her time there on the show.
The island is also much smaller and densely populated, so collective action becomes easier.
I think this also affects how quickly trans authoritarianism took over and how impossible it is to escape it if you don't agree.
In the U.S., there are 50 different states that have different ways of dealing with trans. Some are slavishly devoted to "trans rights", some are a bit more moderate, some (very few) accommodate trans not at all. This gives people the sense that they can escape the trans cult (or get even more embedded in it) by picking up and moving. In the UK, where can you move to?
The states being able to set their own rules also makes it difficult for TRAs to completely take over. The federal government under Biden is desperately trying to force trans on the entire country, but it's not easy. Meanwhile, if TRAs gain as much power as they need in Westminster, the entire UK has to abide by self-ID and sex being written out of law.
I'm from the UK and the 3 most important influences have ben;
Our history of left wing, grass roots activism and feminism. Feminists are used to having to do things for ourselves here.
The women who met on the feminist board on Mumsnet, and who were able to discuss issues and organise there. They were responsible for a lot of consciousness raising.
The Equality Act 2010. It pulled together all of the previous anti discrimination laws and put them in to one piece of legislation. Its specifically lists sex as a protected characteristic, and makes it legal to exclude men from a single sex women only facility even if they have a gender recognition certificate.
IMO the effectiveness of these resources is the reason why they have been targeted. The Labour Party intend to revise the Equality Act and the Gender Recognition Act to permit self ID and completely obliterate women's rights when they get into power, which they probably will at the next General Election.
The main thing we have going for us now is that they have not yet realised the way they intend to go about doing this is unlawful. They intend to remove the 'spousal veto' from the Gender Recognition Act, and its possible to argue that clause is the key that makes the whole act lawful.
The spousal exit clause gives the non-transitioning partner the legal right to be informed of their spouses intention to transition, and gives them 6 months grace to annul the marriage. Annulment is permitted because many religious women are unable to divorce.
Removing the clause will trap (mostly) women in a marriage they did not consent to, and change the meaning of a marriage contract. One is a human rights abuse and the other is a general legal principle.
IMO their only way around this would be to make annulment mandatory and automatic, when a married person decides to transition; and then they will have to work out how to manage issues such as child support, splitting assets, pensions etc.
The Labour Party intend to revise the Equality Act and the Gender Recognition Act to permit self ID and completely obliterate women's rights when they get into power, which they probably will at the next General Election.
Are you all in alarm mode about this? What are you all doing to gear up to fight against this?
If she only mentioned the UK single health care system and JKR then she is missing the main point of why the UK is able to have a more open debate on "gender identity" ideology, and more success in exposing and defeating it, and that is the depth and breadth of WOMEN with the courage to speak out and ACT up publicly: to resist and rebel. Their fearlessness is not duplicated in this country yet. Perhaps beginning with Sheila Jeffries book, Gender Hurts, through Magdalena Burns and the hundreds of women's organizations and newly formed groups and individual women, that has been the backbone of their movement. JKR joined late and after she had achieved enormous fame and wealth and was already untouchable. Good for her, she gives great support, but she was not, and is not, the driving force. She was enabled to speak out because of women that had already.
It is never just one person, "the leader". It is so American to believe that a "celebrity" is needed to legitimize and encourage a movement. But movements are not built top down, but are grass roots. IN the UK it is a movement of often anonymous, regular women who have built the resistance, and that is what we must do here in the US: find our courage and voice, not wait for a famous one. It is the totality of the hundreds of UK women putting their bodies and lives on the line for women's rights we must be inspired by. Women Won't Wheesht.
This is really important. But I think one other issue is the fact that in the UK there isn't a fundamentalist rightwing fighting so hard against women's reproductive health care. That does push USian women into unquestioning loyalty to Team Blue, and not by accident.
I also think that the actual size of the country had a lot to do with this. Women could get together and meet more easily, so it felt more like a movement. You knew people who were on your side.
Compared to the U.K. logistics in the U.S. are a nightmare. If twenty of us on this board wanted to meet up, it's very likely that most of us would have to get on a plane to do so. :( It would be so much easier if we could hop on a train for a few hours.
In the US we could do invite-only zoom meetings.
The most interesting part for me was when Bill asked her why England is able to walk back from this but America can't. She stated two reasons. The first is UK's health system, the NHS, is one central system, so it's easer to implement a course correct quickly. The US in contrast, has a very fragmented healthcare system. So it's hard to get private clinics to all change. I thought that was a valid point. The second reason she stated was JK Rowling. She thought JK Rowling by speaking out was able to lead women to come out and coalesce around the issue to push back, or something to that effect.
It is the ACA that made it illegal to discriminate on the basis of gender identity, and this is what caused trans "healthcare" to be covered by (mandated) insurance plans, Medicare and Medicaid. So a course correction would be possible by reversing just this one change. But health insurance companies love the ACA in general, so the politicians they finance won't touch it. (Also the reason why there isn't a public option.)
JKR is amazing but I think crediting her is simplistic. In her famous essay on transgenderism, she referenced Magdalen Berns, plus there had already been prominent trans-critics like Greer and Jeffreys. I'm not from the UK but I have the impression that feminism in the UK always maintained some level of opposition to transgenderism, probably because it is still majorly class-based (i.e. women as a class) whereas feminism in the US today is almost entirely defined by liberal individualism.
It had.
JKR was great but she stepped into this because of Maya’s tweet. She deserves the credit. Magdelen Berns was very vocal before that and Lisa Muggeridge and KJK and others on YouTube refusing to wheesht.
And we’ve had politicians in SNP, Labour and Tory party speak up plainly from the start. There have always been a few lone voices who refused to buckle.
A big part is the grass roots activism and grass roots groups that are comprised of every day women organising. Many who hold very different views and come from very different backgrounds, who put that aside to work with each other on this issue. My outsider perspective from posters here/Twitter etc is that putting other disagreements aside and reaching across the divide to organise on this issue, doesn’t seem to be something many women are willing to do. Or at least those who are definitely not willing to do this are very vocal. I get there’s different extremes of disputes, so I’m not judging that choice, but observing that looks like one very obvious big difference.
It’s also worth remembering the UK countries have very different stances on this also, even though the devolved powers may not have absolute choice given Westminster retains some law making power over them. But Scotlands SNP and Wales Labour governments are way more gender woo leaning than Westminster is (or has become at least). While this is a wide generalisation and not an absolute, I’d say Scotland at least, is more homophobic still than England, due to West coast Catholicisms influence. I don’t know if others would say Wales is also, I really don’t know Wales at all.
As a whole I’d estimate Britain is less religious than the US also. Magical thinking in one area makes it more likely people accept the new magical thinking. So maybe US is more likely to cement to this because of that.
As a whole I’d estimate Britain is less religious than the US also. Magical thinking in one area makes it more likely people accept the new magical thinking. So maybe US is more likely to cement to this because of that.
Interesting point. But if that was the case, countries with a high percentage of atheists should, in theory, be less prone to transgenderism.
France is the country where people report being irreligious the most (40% say they don’t believe in any kind of spirit, god etc) but trans ideology is sadly not nonexistent here.
Europe has strong Catholic roots through, like West Coast Scotland. The influence trickles down.
I think Riley Gains is doing a great job, although she is right wing and religious, not liberal.
We also have Cherie Curie (I LOVE that we got CherryBomb, TERF is the new punk) and Martina Navartilova, aren't they American? And liberal.
We got CocoRosie too! And lots of social media darlings. I love MaryCate's Listen To Trans People.
But yes someone universally adored beyond reproach and known for their philanthropy and liberal values coming out swinging for us would be a huge boon.
It would take an Oprah, Taylor Swift, or Beyoncé, IMO.
Oprah has faded and no longer as big as she used to be. Though she does still have fuck you money. But I don't see her sacrificing her social credits with the left for this. Taylor has come out for lgbtq. Her corporate enterprise is the same as all virtue signaling big corporations. Beyonce is all about $$$$, and Beyonce Corp has proven many times they have no political principles and will go anywhere and comply with whatever powers that be to make a buck. All three are hopeless.
I would be so curious to see what would happen if Taylor swift ever had even a lukewarm very soft take on the issue.
I would be so curious to see what would happen if Taylor swift ever had even a lukewarm very soft take on the issue.
The media and SJWs would immediately go to work slandering her as a White supremacist and digging up dumb jokes she told as a teenager to paint her as a bigot. Or, just like with JKR, they would fabricate evidence that she's a nazi who constantly talks about genociding trans people
They pretty much did that to JK Rowling except Rowling stuck to her gun. So theoretically Taylor Swift can do that too. But let's be serious. She won't.
Right, but that could totally radicalize her and some of her fan base. It's a fun fantasy.
Right, but that could totally radicalize her and some of her fan base. It's a fun fantasy.
I don't think Swift has the inner strength that Rowling does. Rowling came from nothing and didn't achieve success until she was an adult. So she has more perspective and doesn't care if worthless people (like TRAs) think she's a bitch. I don't think Swift is there yet (though I would LOVE it if she proved me wrong and went Full TERF)
Oprah at this point is close to irrelevant to anyone 35 and younger.
Oprah at this point is close to irrelevant to anyone 35 and younger.
I doubt most people under 20 even know who she is. She does a lot of "producer" stuff, but she rarely appears on camera nowadays
If Shonda Rhimes got onboard, it could change everything.
Her shows have been promoting trans for years.
Yeah, I'd never expect it, she's a Hollywood money machine. It's just a thought exercise.
Shonda Rhimes is a child buyer and trafficker. This means that she believes human beings and human body parts can be bought, sold and owned. She’s already made the leap to people are commodities and parts that can be bought and sold.
I'm not any kind of fan of her or her work product, but she has the propaganda chops and the reach.
I am really surprised and delighted to hear this about Cocorosie. They had a TIM on one of their songs years ago and I remember asking my boyfriend at the time to thumbs down so it won't keep playing. He had told me earlier this guy was a "transsexual" or whatever the term du jour was at the time. He asked why and I said I don't like how his voice sounds and I don't think it's cool that he's pretending to be a woman. This was around 2013 and was one of many prescient MERF moments.
I don’t think he was fully trans when he sang on Beautiful Boyz, if that’s the one you mean. But I’m also delighted to hear this.
The only one of them most women heard of is Martina. I'll bet only 1 out of 500 women ever heard of Cherie Curie (or even the Runaways, they didn't get airplay at least where I lived, they got magazine covers on rock and roll magazines, and I didn't know anyone who actually listened to them and I was pretty rock and roll and later punk).
Agree with the other commenters these people you named are not anywhere big enough to compare to Rowling. I've never even heard of any of them besides Riley Gaines.
Martina was a huge tennis star in the 90s and Cherie was selling out arenas with her band The Runaways while she was still practically a sprat back in the 70s.
I think they're both pretty household names, as much as JK was even before she became known for mainly her politics.
But I agree it would take someone as big as T Swift, and even then, they'd probably just pillory her.
It's interesting how male 70s stars like Alice Cooper and Paul Stanley walked back their comments after the slightest whiff of pushback, while Cherie stands her ground.
It's not a question that a big name person speaking out won't be pilloried. It's a certainty that they would and be branded evil and bigot. The question is whether such a person will have the galls to stick to her gun and disregard the hate. No woman on the left in the US would, including Taylor Swift.
I love MaryCate's Listen To Trans People
What's that?
marycatedelvey on twitter, she makes videos where she reads out some of the most unhinged comments from violent/delusional TIMs (listen to trans people) and also makes funny skits as well. I first heard about her last year when she came out as a 'trans-transwoman' and pissed off a ton of TRAs lol.
Ahh thank you. I had quite a fun time watching all her videos last night.
A series of videos on X where a charmi g young woman just reads (vile) things TIPs have commented online, in the name of cutesy voice "listening to trans people!"
For all of the reasons she named, but I think one additional component to consider is geography. That the UK is an island with comparatively dense population to the US and that makes it a lot more possible to meet in person and organize in numbers, something we just can't safely do online. There's safety and strength in numbers, but we're so spread out in the US that actually going to an event can easily mean needing to get on an airplane or driving the better part of a day or more each way, so it's a pretty substantial time and money commitment that many of us can't swing if we have other commitments. The closest other user on Ovarit I'm aware of is about a 2 hour drive away from where I live, (next closest 5 hours, next closest ~10 hours) and I'm aware of one other more high-profile 'out' trans-critical woman in the area with a mutual friend, plus a few more people organically who are more-or-less questioning or fed up with this shit but aren't feminists or aren't going to be the first ones to start something (a total of maybe one or two women that might join on if we got a group going). I'm sure there are more quiet dissenters around, but feeling each other out is always an exercise in extreme caution (with men less likely to be as cautious, but even the dudes who usually don't hesitate to poke the bear suddenly find their inside voices and awareness of who's around them when showing their hands as gender heretics).
I will say, from what users here have said, if you're in the California Bay area, Seattle, or Portland, you've at least got some density of Ovarites in your favor if you want to risk arranging a meetup.
JKR being uncancellable has been a huge boost.
It prompted people to go read what evil genocidal things she was writing 🧙♀️
The "progressive" left will forever be the biggest scam of my lifetime.