I actually found it originally when I was a trans-rights activist and many of the other trans-activists warned about the site. At first, reading through it, I believed this site was really problematic and hateful, but over time I realized that it was telling the truth.

It would often cause cognitive dissonance because after some time reading Ovarit, I believed every radfem point except for the gender critical part, which I had a hard time accepting. I saw and understood the arguments against porn, against sex work, against makeup. But I still saw being "gender critical" as "transphobia". Eventually, after spending more time just reading, I realized that there was a problem with the transgender movement and that it was erasing women.

I think sites like Ovarit are always good because they keep people coming back browsing and thinking for a long time. There's probably a lot of lurkers now who are trans-rights activists who will eventually drop those ideals and believe in radfem ones.

I’ve been a radical feminist since 2005, but really ramped up in 2016. I was on Reddit for awhile and had no idea Ovarit existed until someone dm’d me the site and extended an invitation. It was maybe one of my happiest days as a feminist. Like being pulled out of church and brought to a secret society where other people actually think like I do!

Thank you. Ovarit has been a godsend for my soul.

I have been a feminist since the 1950s! I didn't know it though. I was just a little girl who liked to play outside and chase after snakes and loved math and did all kinds of other things that boys did, so I guess I was "gender non-conforming". But my mom and my dad, people born in the 1920s, didn't care or put me in a box. They wanted their daughter to succeed at what ever she wanted. So I guess they were feminists too? Radical for their time?

I am fortunate that I met and married a GOOD man who isn't afraid to clean toilets or wash dishes or anything else and is my partner and best friend. Another radical feminist?

Am I a "radical feminist"? I have no idea and I am too old to give a shit. But I do know that a penis doesn't belong in a female locker room and males of any kind don't belong in women's sports.

I can't tell you exactly how I found Ovarit. I am not on Twitter or Reddit or Twitter/X or even Facebook. I read Colin Wright (Reality's Last Stand), and Jerry Coyne, WhyEvolutionIsTrue, for their science perspectives and this led to Titania McGrath/ Andrew Doyle, and Graham Linehan/ the Glinner Update, and listening to Peter Boghasian and Carolyn Hoovlet. This eventually led me to Reduxx and then various substacts and somewhere along the way I heard about Ovarit. I lurked for a while, then realized I wanted to join so I could "like" many posts.

I really love this site. You all educate me, make me laugh, and make me think.

I ended up here thanks to a not so great date and a bunch of blokes on reddit viciously bashing ovarit while pretending to be on their period. It was a bit more complicated than that of course, but that's the gist of it.

Reddit went down and I was googling to see what happened, which took me to wikipedia and an article called "controversial reddit communities" which had Ovarit listed under the Gender Critical subheading. And here I am. I didn't realise that all the parts of feminism I was uncomfortable with (hypersexuality, sex work, being "allies" to men) were actually liberal feminism and there was a different type of feminism, radical feminism, which aligned more closely with my personal ethos.

From r/truelesbians after being banned from r/acruallesbians for questioning why there are so many trans posts in a “lesbian” sub. Thank you to whoever sent me that invite code.

I was assigned radical feminist, lesbian, tomboy at birth. Then came to understand what radical feminist was by being a female in a man's world, having a brain and being a critical thinker, by reading and being an activist. Found Ovarit through being on Spinster, my first ever social media venture. I prefer Ovarit now. Like the format and the kick ass women with opinions, the links and discussions, mostly civil and respectful.

A Trans Identified Male was complaining about ovarit so I had to check it out

I’m old enough that during my formative years, radical feminism was just feminism. I fell into the just be kind libfem trap for a while because the TIMs I knew in the 90’s were all Black gay men. As time went on, I did what I was told and listened to (white, AGP) “trans women,” which privately sent me to back to my radfem roots. Seeing the ROGD in my daughter’s friends and my friends’ daughters led me to r/gc, and now here I am.

I've always been a feminist, and the ideas that 1) there is a difference between male and female people and 2) that feminism prioritized female people and issues impacting female people has never been a question for me. That's basic. That's default. Apparently, that's 'radical feminism'.

Anyway, I read Caroline Criado Perez's "Invisible Women" and found it had so much amazing information. I knew about the day-to-day sexism I lived with, but seeing how that day-to-day sexism applied at government, economic, and global levels was huge for me. When I looked up conversation and reviews around the book, I learned that there was "controversy" around it for reasons.

I like to read what others have to say, and I like to listen to as many points of view as I can, so I can form my own opinions. So, that's what I did.

And I found that in online discourse about clearly female topics, if the original post doesn't explicitly make a million caveats, the poster gets hounded ("don't forget GROUP!") until they make a follow up post with that change. Or they're censored by the site. Or there's controversy. Or, or, or... All that, along with many other things, bothered me so much.

Women are half the human population. Why can't women just talk about women? Why can't we talk about the impact of men? Why does our language and terminology need to change? If we can talk about every other nuance and caveat, but we can't talk about THIS, then there is something wrong here.

I was on Twitter and saw a post that mentioned Ovarit. I followed the link, and read through the discussion here. Look, women talking about women. Women prioritizing female people. Women remembering that SEXism exists, and it exists globally and actively. Then I lost the link and couldn't remember the name of this site, and I wasn't able to find it again for months, until I did.

I took a look around Reddit one day and realized a solid 40% of the posts I was seeing on women-centric subreddits were by TIMs and any mention of that gets you silenced, called a terf, banned or a combo of those. So I start googling “women only social media” and eventually one of those hit me onto a Reddit thread where they had some choice shit to say about this place and all the terfs. Naturally I had to come check it out.

As for Rad Fem my mom just called it feminism growing up in the 90’s. I wouldn’t even call myself a rad fem IMO but apparently I am a raging rad fem to society anymore for simply thinking women need our own shit like female only sports teams or bathrooms.

I found out about Ovarit via GC subreddits, but I feel like I've known about radical feminism since back when it was just called feminism...

Then everyone else started going weird, calling women's studies "gender studies," including men in women's groups and changing everything around, and I found myself disagreeing with people I thought I was politically aligned with. This was a gradual process that started somewhere in the early 2000s and became more obvious about a decade ago. I started feeling like I couldn't talk about the issue on certain platforms, losing or upsetting some friends or acquaintances saying things I thought were common sense.

That's how I found the GC subreddits, JK Rowling & a bunch of others on twitter, Magdalen Berns on YouTube, and feeling like there were other people like me who thought things were heading the wrong way. I was active on the subreddits until they were erased & then came here, and still feel a little bit freaked out that so many of my friends and family live in such a different reality from me. I've become the crazy uncle? I truly hate politics these days. I just do not want to deal with it.

I was on Mumsnet one evening when lots of US posters turned up and explained that the Reddit women's groups had all been closed down and they had been kicked off. I was impressed with how quickly Ovarit was made and joined up.

I found out about Ovarit from a hatchet job in the Atlantic, I believe.

Way to go, Atlantic!

Facebook, weirdly enough. I found it because someone mentioned it as a feminist site and a bunch of others jumped on the thread saying it was horribly transphobic and full of terfs, and I was like hell yeah!! My people!! I may have seen a comment about it on r/fourthwavewomen but it didn't bring me here.

I heard about Michfest and decided to find out what a TERF is, because those evil TERF's seemed to be a reasonable bunch. Found the GC subreddit (it had fewer than 4000 members at this point) and also found the unforgettable and incomparable Magdalen Berns youtube channel. I think I got my Ovarit code from someone on twitter after the GC subreddit was nuked to keep the AGP's, "queer" terrorists, and pedophiles happy.

I found out about Ovarit and thus radical feminism through the subreddit r/Truelesbians. Before it went down, the original mod from there made the Lesbians circle and brought as many women from there as she could before it too got taken down from the ban hammer.

I would lurk on r/GC too, but as with this site, too much doom scrolling is bad for the mental health. It enrages me how so much craziness and evil action is just allowed to go on against women? It’s appalling and I wish I could do more about it, for the betterment of women in the US like myself and worldwide, but that’s where the depression kicks in.

The Universe floated Ovarit into my realm on Twitter one night. After having watched the video of the guy telling women that we don't own our periods and we don't own womanhood, I had completely and immediately withdrawn any miniscule drop of empathy I could muster for the transes. So, I began Googling "anti-trans forums" and "anti-trans sites similar to Reddit". And somehow I ended up on Ovarit's Twitter, begging for months in their DMs for an invite code lol 😆💕♀️

I Blame the Patriarchy blog had a big split over transgender issues in 2011. The radfem blog world opened things up for me after that.

Radfem hub was a website for a while.

Not a radical feminist, but I saw Ovarit’s name pop up on various websites, including Reddit and KF, and took a look. Realized that I could speak freely about GC and women’s issues and was sold!

From a very kind person on here who sent me a code after I got banned from fourthwavewomen (never given a reason or a warning and any posting I did on there very anodyne), and I recall I pm-ed them so they didn't think I was ignoring them as we had been having a productive discussion. Something like that anyway.

I've managed to forget their username but I am very grateful to them.

I picked option 4 but the website was Tumblr in like 2012, not any of the options listed here.

I was in all of the GC subreddits too.

I’ve always been a feminist, since the 1980’s when I was growing up. I had some doubts about 1990’s third-wave, sex-positive feminism when I was in college. Then during the Bush years the lefty men I knew were really impressed with Jon Stewart and Bill Maher, but I didn’t like some of the sexist things they said (not to mention that Stewart’s both-sides-y civility politics seemed to me like some weak tea). I was still a feminist but I wasn’t in step with liberal, I-choose-my-choice feminism. I was only barely aware of Andrea Dworkin and the second-wave feminists, but that’s probably when I came to be a radical feminist.

I joined Reddit a little over ten years ago and went looking for the feminist spaces. I soon learned that /r/feminism was anti-feminist and settled into /r/feminisms as the real feminist space. At the same time, it wasn’t long until I hit Peak Trans, on I think /r/TwoXC. And the general misogyny of Reddit was an eye-opener on how younger men thought they were oppressed by feminism (ha). On /r/feminisms I saw somebody say something about /r/GC. That made sense to me and became my feminist home base, and then when it was killed I came here.

I knew a lot of radical feminist principles when I was a teen, but they got lost in the rise of libfem noise. Rediscovering them online in the wake of peaking about trans stuff was awesome; just this feeling of 😌 ahhhhh that's right, fresh air and common sense.

I found Ovarit from radfem Tumblr.

I found GC from The New Backlash. I found Ovarit from the Atlantic hit piece on it.

I actually found Ovarit through its anti-kink board from r/antikink

I was just searching gender critical content on Google and came across the website at one point.

I heard about in on Mumsnet years ago back when I thought gender critical meant horrible transphobes so never bothered looking at it. By the time I’d peaked I’d forgotten all about it and then saw a whiny post about it on Reddit recently so checked it out and loved it and here I am!

I found radical feminism through books, which I either checked out from my university library or downloaded from links on tumblr lol.

Ovarit itself I think I saw advertised when it was first being set up over on spinster, which I also had hopes for because I like federated social media but is sadly not a site I can really recommend. You can look at their home feed if you want to see the quality of discourse (lots of antivaxxers and conspiracy theories, last I checked). At least they don't silence me for telling homophobes and racists what I think of them though.

I actually don't remember specifically. it wasn't from the FDS or GC subreddit since I never really looked at those subreddits. it was also not from mumsnet bc I'm American and not a mom, so that site isn't really for my demographic.

I think it just came up at some point while I was searching for more information about 'gender critical feminism' after seeing that phrase in a comment section somewhere on an article or blog post about TIMs in women's sports. I'd never seen that phrase before and wanted to know more.

this site might've been mentioned in someone's substack newsletter that I read while looking for info about gender critical feminism? I really don't remember the specifics about how I originally found this site, but I did lurk for like a year before actually making an account

I was 20 years old. Wanted, for personal reasons, to learn about feminist theory. For a year, could only find very uninteresting books. When I searched online, I was only confronted with the same crap of "the different kinds of feminism" going over the difference between radical/communist/material/queer feminism, but no actual bibliography.

Until one day I came across the expected reading list of a Master degree in "Gender". They had a book titled "Pornography : Men possessing Women". It seemed like a promising title. So I bought it.

I've been on Ovarit since the GC subreddit was banned, and I learned about radical feminism from tumblr (and then doing my own reading) a little over a decade ago.

this is a bit of a weird story BUT i found out about radical feminism from a book recommendation (the book was woman hating by dworkin) left on a blog post by a TIM who posted about pornographic visual novel video games (yeah). read it and went ‘ohmygod wow shit makes sense’ and so i started reading about radical feminism on tumblr. i think i found ovarit through tumblr. tbh i mostly read books and watch radfem yt atp (ovarit is super cool but being on it too long makes my brain hurt, and tumblr is a hellhole with so much infighting and nonsense).

I often thought of myself as a radfem since college, but I also supported transgenderism (so really, I was just a libfem.) I was dating a TiM and was suckered into the trans-cult because it was "just an extension of gay right." What a load of crap!

At some point around the early 2010's, I started hate-reading Meghan Murphy's website, Feminist Current, due to being scolded off of the We Hunted the Mammoth forum for "ableist language" (seriously, it was something along the lines of "she blinded me with her beauty" and I was dogpiled by the forum's purity police. It's a massive TRA site now, so good riddance!) I didn't like the way Meghan talked about TiMs (because I still considered them women), but I did enjoy that her forum allowed you to say pretty much whatever negative thought you had about men without censorship. It was freeing to finally unload about lazy/violent scrotes without being accused of misandry. Her reporting on all the naked misogyny within the trans movement made me see the light. I don't read her much these days, but I'll always remember that her website got me out of the trans-cult.

Just to add: I found Ovarit after r/GenderCritical was nuked.

It actually came up when I was searching for something, so it evidently isn't too buried by our search engine overlords

Google found it for me

Radical feminism I found when the trans rights movement started taking off. Jk Rowling was a big part of it, I looked up what she wrote to get so much hate and found myself agreeing with it. There were a few other things like TIMs in women's sports and the demand for gender neutral bathrooms that made me Google to find other people who were against the trans movement, that led me to discovering radical feminism.

Ovarit I found when I made a few gender critical posts on the fourth wave women sub on Reddit. Someone else picked up on it on sent me a DM telling me about Ovarit and gave me an invite code.

I was already GNC and I discovered the gender critical movement, but I mostly forgot about it after the sub was banned. Then years later I looked it up on Tumblr thinking I would find nothing, since it's the TIF website, but I found radblr as a whole. I became a lurker, then an actual posting user. Someone posted about ovarit and I came here. I ended up deleting the tumblr acc because it was too much work to keep up with, plus the fact that many women on radblr seem to care more about hating women who aren't feminist or feminist enough than actually doing anything that helps women

Someone on Twitter gave me an invite code. I'll never know which one of you it was as they probably keep their Twitter handle and their user name here different. But thank you!

Other - I found radical feminism through tumblr some 13 years ago; I found Ovarit through r/gc which I also found through radblr in 2018 when someone made a post about a user being banned from reddit for posting about Yaniv.

I was told about Ovarit by a woman I met online on the Straightspouse site that now goes by the name Ourpath.

Hmm I think I saw it mentioned on FourthWaveWomen, but it might have been FDS.

Twitter

This question seems to assume Ovarit is a radfem forum. It isn't - the About page is clear about that, and we have many women who aren't feminists or aren't radfems who post here.

To answer the question, I was introduced to radical feminism online, well before Ovarit existed. I was introduced to Ovarit when someone tossed me a code because I was going off about TRAs in some subreddit (I forget which).