Question 88. Is there anything else you want to tell us about yourself and any impact gender identity ideology has had on you?

1088 women made additional comments on the impacts of GI. 

Thematic coding was used to identify the most common impact women felt gender ideology was having on their mental health and wellbeing. These were the issues that emerged:  

Fig.85

Women’s Comments 

“The impact GI on me and my family is disastrous.   Potentially our daughter could have an intact male providing her personal care.   She’s unable to protect herself / use verbal communication to alert us / anyone if she was being abused.   My worst nightmare and the impact on us is incalculable.”

“Sometimes when I read the rubbish that pro trans ideologues write I cry.  I feel that my lifetime of feminism is being destroyed in front of my eyes.  I feel that my years of experience, knowledge and thought is not just devalued but seen as damaging.  I have never hated anyone in my life (well, maybe one or two people) and I find being told I’m hateful really, really hurtful.  I have known trans people (met my first 45 years ago), worked with them and I don’t think any that have known me would ever have described me in that way.  For me it is a really personal attack on pretty much the core of who I am.”

“I have become obsessed with this issue.  I am 82 years old, a 2nd wave feminist from the 1970s and am horrified at how all the work we did is being undone.  Particularly horrified at the way younger women have no idea of feminist history and are joining in the gender identity nonsense and abusing those of us who are refusing to accept it.  I have to monitor my mental health because sometimes I can be overwhelmed by the enormity of the battle we have on our hands to stop the erasure of women and women’s rights. There is insanity all around us, so it is hard not to become insane ourselves.”

“Although I am a qualified academic with a PhD and publications, I have been unable to pursue an academic career because I am unwilling to speak the language of transgenderism. I have also experienced years of gaslighting with the feminist community for similar reasons. The toll on my employment opportunities and economic and mental well-being has been heavy. It is particularly disorienting to know that so many people are completely oblivious to what is happening. It is destruction of women’s language, rights, spaces and sanity by stealth.”

“I am very afraid of the impact of gender identity ideology on my children.  Sometimes it feels like we are screaming into the void as so many people in positions of authority are totally blind to what is going on and completely unwilling to do anything about it.  It’s very frightening.”

“Gender identity ideology has caused me to feel subordinate to men and caused me to live in fear because I oppose it.”

“I am a mother of two girls who are determined and love physical activities. I am deeply concerned about the messages directed to girls so that they feel ashamed of being female and the lack of adults speaking up against this ideology.”

“It has sent lesbian and feminist community underground. Everything has to be done in secret which makes it very difficult to reach out to new women.”

“I can’t talk in my own home about it. I can’t help my daughter to develop the same critical thinking I tried to instil in her about all topics. Influencers and strangers have far more power on her than her family. I’ve seen a mediocre psychologist interpret her issues as gender issues when they aren’t about that.”

“It is hard not to become fixated on it, because it is so all-pervasive and frightening in its ill-logic – and it has been so enthusiastically, unquestioningly adopted by power bases in education, healthcare, government, industry.  It has had a significant impact on my sense of well-being.”

“I am a detransitioner who now speaks out about these issues publicly and in media. I was not mentally stable and had undiagnosed PTSD at the time of the transition and was not given proper mental health treatment. I should not have been approved for hormones or mastectomy.”

“Sometimes I feel like I’m going crazy. I know some people believe that we’re living in a simulation. I don’t really believe that, but if we are, for me, gender ideology is the strongest proof. I feel like I’m living in an experiment where the scientists said, “I know! We’ll put a few rational people in this world that’s full of other people denying objective reality, and watch how the rational people react.” It’s just absolutely nuts that anyone takes this ideology seriously. The whole thing – the belief that identifying as a thing literally makes you that thing – is just pure, unadulterated NONSENSE. I worry constantly about the power this ideology is gaining and the harm that will come to women as a result. I sometimes can’t focus at work, because I want to be fighting it instead of doing my day job. I was devastated when Biden was elected, because he promised he would destroy sex-based rights, and sure enough he did, on the very first day. I live in fear every day that the Equality Act will be passed, and I’m anxiously awaiting the 2022 elections, when hopefully Congress will swing Republican and put that out of reach.    I didn’t feel much hatred as a woman before gender ideology took off. I knew things weren’t perfect, but I felt like overall, women had achieved equality in the West, that we didn’t really need feminism anymore, and that feminists should be focusing most of their efforts on the non-Western world. Now I live in a world that lets men dominate women’s sports and locks women up in cells with convicted rapists. The fact that our society allowed this to happen, and is pushing for more of it, truly makes me feel hated as a woman for the first time. There is no other explanation. People who support gender ideology are either totally ignorant or they hate women.    Ironically, the whole thing has sometimes caused me to have fleeting thoughts that I wish I were a man. How wonderful it would be not to have to worry about any of this! As a man, I might disagree with it intellectually, but I wouldn’t feel this constant terror that my rights were being steamrolled over. And while I have met many wonderful women in this fight, it has also made me despair at women in general. The inconvenient truth is that a big proportion of women are the ones driving this ideology, and a lot of them are going out of their way to witch-hunt nonbelievers. To be blunt, I just can’t understand that stupidity and cruelty, even if it’s coming from a place of attempted kindness. It makes me feel worse about myself, as a woman, to be associated with these people. I feel like one of the suffragettes living alongside women who didn’t think women should have the right to vote. What other group fights so hard against its own rights like this?”

“This gender bullshit is taking up so much of my mental space. I feel like I’m the only well-informed person I know in real life. Everybody else knows nothing except for the rosy picture the media is consistently showing us. It’s very tiring and infuriating to know so much and know that when I tell people, they insinuate I’m a bigot or tell me to stop making them feel sad.”

“As a rape victim I had ptsd and couldn’t bear to be in a room as any male (no matter how they identified) for months after. This ideology would call me a bigot for asking for a female doctor.”

“I am a retired criminal justice social worker and mental health officer and I cannot believe this nonsense has gotten so far to the extent that women like myself could be criminalised for believing in biological reality. I have been threatened and accused of all sorts from gender woo woo fanatics … It is the 21st century witch hunt …however I will never be intimidated and I am willing to go to jail for defying this cult.”

“As survivor of sexual child abuse by a close family member, the idea that I have to accept men into female only spaces gives me strong unease and anxiety. The thought that I won’t be “allowed” to feel unsafe, uncomfortable and anxious when a man is present in a space where I’d usually feel safe. As if my feelings, my life experience are completely irrelevant and the statement of the man, that he feels like a woman, just weights heavier…  I feel discriminated and disrespected by all of this…”

“I am a musician and afraid and under stress, when I organize activities for women what happens, when transwomen want to occupy my created spaces. It happened one time, all women were irritated, no woman spoke about the pink penis elephant in the room, until I began after the meeting. The most women did not understand my problem, because they don’t know much about what’ s going on with this gender ideology.”

“I am afraid to lose the rights other women have fought for. I thought sexism would go away as time passes by, but today it is even worse and there is a huge backlash. I have always voted for left wing parties, but now I am concerned about the upcoming misogyny in the left. I don’t know where to belong anymore.”

“I’ve never seen anything that will allow child sexual predators since growing up on a hippie commune. I’ve seen all of this before.”

“I work in academia and it’s a nightmare. The pressure to constantly affirm the neuroses of pampered, upper-middle-class kids who have simply never developed any level of resilience to ideas they don’t like is utterly exhausting. The disregard and lack of empathy for women takes a daily toll.”

“I am a union rep and am very worried about the influence of gender identity ideology on my trade union. We have TU menopause guidance that states that men go through menopause if they stop cross sex hormones. It’s insulting to women being discriminated against or struggling because of menopause.”

“It is almost impossible to overstate the impact this ideology has had and still has on every aspect of my life.”

“Concerned for me and as a mother concerned for my child.”

“I am so tired with this offensive ideology. I just want the world to wake up and care about women for once.”

“I am very afraid for my children. I couldn’t bear to have them fall for this ideology.”

“I wanted to retire and enjoy my life, not fight this oppressive gender nonsense.”

“I just wish I could do more, and I don’t know what to do.  I’ve expressed my views on Twitter and Facebook.  On Facebook it became very distressing, and I felt like it accomplished nothing.    I have ADHD, it’s hard to remember statistical information and mount a solid argument.”

“Second wave Radical Lesbian Feminist forever.”

“My life has been turned upside down by my daughter going trans at 14 with no history of gender distress.  She got the idea online and it concretized her ordinary adolescent struggles and prolonged them under the framing of gender dysphoria. I almost lost my marriage. I couldn’t work.  I became obsessed with understanding this.  Now I run a local PROGDK group in NY, Our Duty US East and I volunteer with Genspect.”

“It has woken me up to the fight that feminism still has on its hands.  I thought we were nearly there.”

“I started to worry and become an activist as a radical feminist because I have a daughter, and the mere thought of my daughter having to use the changing room with a bearded male gave me the creeps. Then I read more and more and now I fight against my government (that is in favour of self id) and help peaktrans people around me.”

“It is outrageous, it has been bothering me since 2014. I went to a women’s college and used to work in a battered women’s shelter so the loss of women’s spaces is awful. I cannot even imagine the reality of female inmates made to share cells with men. It is cruel and unusual punishment to say the least.”

“I recently had a panic attack when a man was in my women’s open swimming pool changing room and the staff said that he identified as a woman and had every right to be there. He dressed and looked like a man. It felt violating and like an act of aggression.”

“It is exhausting.  I live and breathe terfing now when I could instead be doing other campaigning around refugees and asylum or domestic abuse but instead I’m just trying to hold the line as I watch women’s rights disappear.”

“Emotional well being. At my age I thought women had won the right to be respected. But now I find we have lost it again. We are going backwards and many people are not yet aware and it will be too late when they do find out. Women are second class to men and this is proving it.”

“It has torn my family apart.”

“Stumbling across the erasure of women by the gender identity lobby has changed my life. Accepting this erasure is not an option as I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. The comradeship of the community of women fighting for our rights is the only thing that stops me having a mental breakdown.”

“I am a mother and a writer and singer-songwriter. My daughter has been captured by the cult of gender identity ideology.”

“I have been working to try and safeguard children from this for years and I am tired.”

“Increased anxiety a great deal.”

“I think about it constantly – I have been aware of the damage of gender ideology for about 6 years now. It does affect my mental health, I feel like I’m back in an abusive relationship, except this time it’s with my state, my Government, my popular culture & health service & so on…   When I first became aware, I wrote an email to my MP saying I was worried about women’s spaces & the impact of gender ideology on children in particular. He wrote back saying “women’s fears around the bathroom issue (I hadn’t mentioned bathrooms!) are unfounded & verging on hysteria” at that time we had a serial rapists lifting, actually physically picking women off the ground & taking them down alleys off our main party street & raping them – & my MP was telling me self ID was no problem & women were ‘hysterical’. One of many WTAF moments since then.   There are many brave women in the pushback, but I don’t honestly think there’s a greater woman than Keira Bell. What is happening to children, the loss of ethics, I don’t have words to describe. When we live in a world where we surgically remove healthy body parts from children & sterilise them, whilst society cheers on, anything can happen. That should be a siren wake up call. The fact that it’s been allowed to happen I will never get over, it’s the shock of the new every day & even when it is stopped, I will still be trying to understand how it was allowed to happen.”

“I feel quite isolated. Covid hasn’t helped, but I am losing interest in many organisations that I used to support and identify with due to their adoption of gender ideology. The consequence is a recurrence of depression.”

“It’s made me feel so frustrated. I feel like I’m being gaslight by society and told to put up and shut up. I wouldn’t make anyone uncomfortable so would use whichever pronoun someone wants, if it felt right to do so. If someone was full man presenting but wanted me to call him a woman I think I’d tell him to fuck off to be honest. Honestly, even doing this survey has made me see how shite this whole thing is. I’ve had a lifetime of men controlling in relationships & in society, I’m sick of it. It’s all flat earth stuff and beyond any reason.”

“It causes a high degree of stress – the gaslighting and sheer madness of denial of reality in terms of biology and men transgressing women’s and girls’ boundaries.”

“The rise of gender ideology has had a devastating effect on my mental health and my political activity. I have been active in left wing politics for around 40 years and was passionately involved in campaigning for Jeremy Corbyn. When a few women in the local Labour Party started expressing our gender critical views and sharing our concerns about gender ideology on the Facebook group of our local Corbyn group we were silenced, bullied, called bigots, censored and ultimately removed from the group. This caused me huge distress and stress as I was utterly horrified that people I thought were my comrades so easily threw women’s rights under the bus. I am still in a state of horror, grief, fury and bewilderment that the gender ideology movement has been embraced by the so-called progressive left to the point where senior Labour politicians can’t define a woman and accuse gender critical women of ‘hoarding rights’. I have to be extremely protective of my mental health around this issue as I have other major stresses in my life but I do everything I can to support those on the frontline standing up for women and LGB rights and child safeguarding on this issue. I also speak to friends and family whenever I can. This is a fight for the survival of women having the ability to name ourselves and organise as a sex class. It’s a dystopian nightmare.”

“I was supportive (liberal progressive Democrat) until about 5 years ago when I got to a crossroads of seeing transgender violence/hatred of women and learning there were a large number of detransitioners. I studied, listened, learned. I became a self-named TERF, gender critical radfem, and a much more moderate Dem. I now try to enlighten others to what’s going on.”

“Very worried for my youngest grandchildren who are just entering the school system.” 

“Because of this issue, something has happened between both my mother and myself and my daughter and myself that I never thought could happen. It’s an issue that I am not allowed to bring up because neither of them will let me explain why I feel strongly that this issue is going to affect them, their future, and the future of all women and girls. It is dangerous. But it has become such a sensitive subject, not to be questioned in much of our society. We should not have to deal with any of this. It is just insanity. It’s hurting families…I’m sure mine isn’t the only one.”

“I used to be a TRA, and the only person in leadership of a small group which was part of a larger gender group in the southeast. Most trans-identified people I met were female teenagers. I have to live with the fact that I might have had a chance to plant a seed of self-acceptance in their heads but didn’t. I always made sure their parents were present (more so because I was on the board of the church where we met and didn’t want to open the church up to lawsuits) but I still wonder if the girls and/or their moms would have done something differently if I’d known about the harms of gender ideology and if I’d said something.”

“I am a detransitioner.”

“It has been devastating.”

“Becoming worried my entire sex is being eliminated by men in frillies.”

“I’d say that it has fundamentally changed my entire life. It is quite possibly the worst possible ideology at the worst possible time, and it’s driving everyone insane.”

“My 24 yr ftm thinks I ‘threaten their very life’ because I’m concerned about medicalisation. I had no help from stonewall/mermaids who just make her more paranoid. Currently ostracised.”

“University system makes it very hard – stonewall too powerful.”

“Just that I feel that the impact that hits of rage is having on my brain chemistry is probably harmful. I feel like I’m on constant watch for traces of gender ideology everywhere, almost hyper-vigilant. I feel like I can’t switch off and that if I try I’m letting down women and girls. I also think that the Covid pandemic has prevented organisation and camaraderie that other grassroots movements have benefitted from. So the loneliness and isolation of being GC has been exaggerated. I’m lucky I have a supportive partner, I’m not sure how I could have coped without him and even then I sometimes argue with him because he’s not as concerned about gender ideology as I am.”

“Gender identity ideology is simply a waste of my time.”

“I can’t talk to my older kids about gender without it becoming a destructive row. They have been groomed online. They both have used they/them pronouns occasionally. They think they are being kind.”

“I worry about its effect on me as a survivor of rape, DV.   I worry about my daughter’s rights she is a lesbian in a same sex marriage.”

“I feel that the New Zealand govt is gradually erasing women’s protections and rights in this country.”

“I feel like I’ve fallen into a time zone where madness rules.”

“I’m angry that I have to spend my time fighting this. I’m angry that it affects everything now. My kids come home with books from school – I have to read them first to make sure they’re suitable. I go to a work meeting and see rainbow lanyards, and I’m instantly on edge, wondering if I’ll be asked to state pronouns. If I see a company talking about women, I have to research what they mean by that. It’s exhausting. I’m angry that legislation is being created around what is essentially a subculture. I don’t actually believe that transgender is a real thing. I believe there are genuine dysphoric people, but that it’s a small percentage and they’re generally not the activists. The problems arise where we have men with fetishes, vulnerable people looking for a sense of belonging, those who have suffered trauma or have underlying other issues, and entitled teenagers. Transgender in these terms is not a real thing. It’s simply a bandwagon to be jumped on, a fad, a trend. Why are we making laws for it? It makes no sense.”

“I feel excluded, made invisible, undermined. It is an ideology, a personal belief and not to be imposed. Yet, if somebody identifies differently to their sex, I would be respectful.”

“I have in the past been terrified and petrified by the violence of trans activists online. the typical male entitlement combined with gaslighting and threat has pushed me into hiding for months if not years.  gender identity activists have tried to make me lose my livelihood consistently since I spoke out about it, banning my products from selling platforms, trying to ban my website/shop, sent me death threats, rape threats and bomb threats. Transactivists have consistently targeted my social media account in the aim to have me banned, I have lost many months and much income finding solutions to this staking and harassment. It has caused me great anxiety,”

“I feel I am arguing and debating with a cult.”

“I cannot believe how quickly this has taken over and I fear the consequences in the years down the line if we do not fight it now.”

“The language of motherhood being ruined is especially hurtful due to my experiences. I also know that as a tomboy/bisexual girl there were a few times in my life I was extremely vulnerable to that kind of thinking. I believe nobody should make irreversible life changing decisions before 25 when the brain has fully matured. I believe the desistence that happens in 90% of young people cannot be ignored. Medicalising children and experimenting on their puberty, costing them their fertility is abhorrent and should be widely known. In fact, it all should be more widely known, the Dentons report using Ireland as an example of how sneaking in gender identity laws under the radar is a good strategy, that self ID has led to violent men in our women’s prisons. That 99% of trans identified males will never have surgery and that less than 15% will have hormones, yet self ID opens the doors to 100% of men who wish to use the advantages. That my daughter has had her world shrunk and diluted in favour of men with paraphilias like autogynephilia and fetishes for women’s identities.”

“My life has been turned upside down since learning of gender ideology and queer theory. I am extremely worried for Scotland’s children as the government are completely under stonewalls thrall. They are indoctrinating children in public schools, Police Scotland are allowing men to self id and are recording their crimes as female and housing them in women’s prisons. Having spoken to women who have been locked up with men who have committed rape, torture and murder. It would break your heart to hear them describe themselves as scum and they do not matter.”

“I have been targeted within my former political party for questioning gender ideology. I’ve been smeared & bullied because I won’t capitulate to the dogma.”

“It has harmed our family and our child and there is no way out because exploratory therapy and non-affirmative options are illegal in our state.”

“I’m not too badly off myself at the moment. I fear for more vulnerable women and young girls, including my 14 year old sister. I fear that my views may hold me back from future opportunities, socially and career wise.”

“I am a breastfeeding counsellor. I am doing my voluntary work well on the ground. Women need our support. On an organisational level it is completely different. I am being told how to speak, how to behave and what matters to women and babies (or not!) It’s really, really horrible.”

“I have heard countless stories about the damage and coercive nature of this ideology.  Physicians who are being compelled to prescribe puberty blockers.  Counsellors who have resolved dysphoria by dealing with trauma.  Women who have been terrorized and threatened by men in dresses – while raising funds for a rape shelter.  Trans ID males who show up for bra fittings only for attention.  Males who ID as women to gain access to women in prisons.  Men who sit around in women’s washrooms – wearing a wig, sketching.”

“I am a tomboy and all this nonsense about gender identity has stressed me out. I feel like I’m moving further from my friend group bc of differing views on gender/sex.”

“In my husband’s family, we have had 2 girls (first cousins) identify as trans since 2015. One had traumatic childhood and had been receiving psychological help since childhood but self Id as trans in early 20’s. Was in a long term lesbian relationship. Other one was 15 and grew up in BC which has been pushing SOGI 123 for years. Not sure of sexuality. These cousins have never met. Statistically speaking, that should not happen and that is what got me started on the road to understanding this phenomenon.”

“Inspired to act to correct the situation.”

“Thanks for the opportunity.”

“My brother and I are actually attempting second citizenship based on ancestry for either UK or Ireland (gram born in 1913) and this makes me afraid that there’s no escape hatch. America and Canada are batshit now and there’s even less tracking of all this nonsense. I used to feel bad for the old school HSTS types but now having run personally into insane abuse and having girls I’m afraid for and I don’t know how to save them I just couldn’t care with the bullshit.”

“It’s the battle of my life.”

“I’m worried about the impact on my children and the forced indoctrination that is going on in schools. Children should be allowed to believe their eyes rather than have teachers and external groups demand they go along with other people’s mental illnesses and delusions.”

“Has impacted my children, especially my teenaged daughter.”

“Indigenous women’s rights have always been ignored in Canada. There are thousands of my sisters who have gone missing or been murdered by men. As native women make up the largest percentage of incarcerated women they are the most affected by men in women’s prisons and shelters.”

“I have had the great fortune of having a mother who always, “shot from the hip” – she was a terrible mother but an amazing radical feminist.   I am acutely aware that it is through the good fortune of being born and raised by her that I wasn’t sent down a path of trans guidance – I mean, if that were an option growing up. I hated being a girl and still have issues with my nude body. It is quite telling who is important enough to be heard about body dysphoria, eh? Like, now that oodles of cash is to be made off of our young ones from hating their bodies. nobody gave a fuck when women hated themselves. Nobody changed their damn language to ease our suffering. Damn this cult.”

“Loss of friends. Anxiety has increased appallingly. So concerned for my grandchildren, who have both had GI pushed on them.”

“This ideology Is still not very present in my life EXCEPT for the fact that their activists are now attacking the one female organization par excellence to which I belong:************. They are attacking from within AND from outside.”

“It’s making me fall out with my family as they think I am over the top in my anger and alarm about the proposed self ID legislation in Scotland.”

“After experiencing males trying to compete as females, I started Save Women’s Sports. This now impacts every day of my life.”

“Patriarchal gender roles have driven me away from my birth family after I recognised there was actual domestic abuse. Younger family members who were supportive to me over this, now speak really weirdly and scarily to me over gender/trans stuff. They have been sweet and loving all their lives… till they got caught up in what seems like a bit of a cult.”

“I know my friends are sick of my concerns and the HT at my children’s school was incredulous at my objection to a couple of the books they’re planning to use in the No Outsiders lessons. I am now branded ‘that’ parent and it’s put me off bothering to apply to be a parent governor.”

“I had nonbinary roommates after college who were all androgenous looking, but when my roommate and friend from college started identifying as nonbinary, I knew that something was up because she didn’t make any effort to show her gender. She still wore dresses and lipstick, and her hair was already short. It really dawned on me when we had some conversation about something women go through (harassment?), and I had to deal with 3 of my 4 roommates acting like they had no input on that because they weren’t women, even though we were all female. It started to wake me up. Like, this roommate had been stalked at work by a man and had been street harassed by men many times, and yet she was acting like she couldn’t understand because she was no longer calling herself a woman. It made me realize that being a woman is about the body. We are women because of our bodies and not because we identify with femininity or being weaker or being the more harassed “gender” or lesser paid “gender”.”

“Since retiring from the police I feel more able to be out gender critical. To be honest I think most people were clueless to what’s going on or think it’s a fad that will blow over.   Coming from Scotland and having a “feminist to her fingertips” first minister I didn’t think things would go the way they have. However successive policies and laws such as the hate crime act, the redefinition of woman in the gender balance on public boards, the omission of women from the maternity bill and the promise of self id and conversion therapy bill have left me angry despondent at times and genuinely fearful for the future of Scottish women. Our gov has been infiltrated and corrupted by this ideology and very few in gov have the guts to stand up against it.  The promise of Independence is being used to keep them in power to wreak havoc on women rights.”

“A public event I ran was scuttled by trans activists.”

“Feeling unable to vote because all the main political parties support self ID is incredibly dis-heartening. Hearing Nicola Sturgeon say women’s concerns were “not valid” was like a slap in the face.”

“Feel despairing that decades ago I walked down the main street for “Reclaim the Night” march – yet instead of things getting better this attempted takeover is happening… particularly sickened at the contagion and ‘be kind’ ‘politically correct’ aspect of young liberal, left leaning people thinking GC is negative and ‘unkind’. BTW: look at the flag – pink for girls – baby blue for boys… !! how freaking regressive!! And also unhappy for genuine dysphoric individuals who need acceptance and support. It feels like things will never get better. But this hopefully is just part of the worse before better learning curve of human evolution (?)”

“The neo-colonisation / language imperialism / intellectual terrorism in this ideology bugs me to no end – the stealing / appropriation of women’s age old language, the imposition of this on the English speaking world whose majority were colonised and are still dealing with the legacy of colonisation, the lack of thought for translation, the use of UN bodies to force change in countries that resist etc. I’m shocked by the lack of recognition of the mass psychosis going on, the abdication of leadership on this issue by the politicians … and oh, the reliance on sex stereotypes and lack of critical thinking e.g. what does it mean to live as a woman, what is a woman if a man can become one, why is it only trans identified females  who have babies and not trans identified males, what similarities do all who get pregnant and give birth have in common etc – a glimpse into some of the questions that swirl through my head.     Mothers within all these – even this survey doesn’t touch on the impact on maternity and parents who are dealing with decisions around puberty blockers and mastectomy. How can puberty be paused without consequence? Interesting that no other body function is treated like this – imagine if we pause talking, walking for toddlers just getting to this developmental stage.     This is madness, crazy Western madness spreading round the world.”

“I feel that the mass gaslighting and cognitive dissonance of gender identity ideology contributes to my anxiety. I am constantly pressured to go along with the ideology and ‘be nice’. I have been questioned and called out as being a TERF. It is only a matter of time before this impacts my public profile and therefore my work.”

“Daughter thinks she is non-binary. But many of her friends have progressed from there to testosterone and full female to male transition. I am terrified of the damage being done to our young people and the ramifications for the future. And the pressure to accept fantasy as reality.”

“I am distressed to see so many of the gains women made in the 1970s and 80s being rolled back. We thought we had overturned sex stereotypes and now they are back in an even more insidious form.”

“Just that I am constantly furious at what is going on. I am v pleased not to be young and lesbian. Came out at 14 yrs. Now I would be considered trans for sure. And that would have been disastrous.”

“My brother in law is a trans man. I’ve never had any issue with trans people, and in fact helped the wider family come to terms with my BIL joining our family. So I am not against trans people at all. But that is a very different thing to what gender ideology is promoting & pushing. I am also extremely concerned about the number of older transwomen who are seemingly driving this movement and the rising number of young girls becoming trans or non-binary. There is a child predatory element to all of this that is linked to sexual links, fantasies & paedophilia that is not getting enough attention.”

“I am a mother, a breastfeeding advocate for a global breastfeeding organisation and a midwife. I know where babies come from and how you get them started. I have no problem affording individuals appropriate care tailored to their specific needs, but public health messaging is being rendered ineffective by pandering to this political ideology.”

“The NZ Ministry of Health has removed the word woman / women from policy documents without any prior consultation and it is unclear how this happened or who influenced this. An example – the 2020 Contraceptive Guidelines – “It is recommended that contraception counselling be a routine part of antenatal care. Health practitioners should offer pregnant individuals the opportunity to discuss and document a contraception plan prior to birth (including the option to not use contraception).” Searching through the document for the words women or woman – there are quite a number because of references to research or documents about women. In the future that MOH seems to be tracking towards – will there be articles to references that use women/woman? It’s concerning. The same is happening with documents about abortion “Offer people who are considering having an abortion information as outlined in Appendix B:   Providing information for people considering an abortion.”  https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/publications/final_aotearoa_contraception_guidance.pdf  https://www.familyplanning.org.nz/advice/abortion/abortion-law  https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/publications/new_zealand_aotearoa_abortion_clinical_guideline.pdf   (The NZ College of Midwives was a lone voice in terms of trying to stop the removal of women from these documents)”

“It’s made me very angry indeed. It’s confused my daughters.”

“I have left the organisation I worked for, lost friends and have nobody to vote for. I have been called unsafe and hateful for insisting sex based language is relevant and important in healthcare, specifically maternity care.”

“It has made me increasingly angry as I see the way women are treated simply for stating facts like ‘only women menstruate’, or ‘woman = adult human female’ or even asking for debate around single-sex spaces.”

“It has made me so unbelievably angry, frustrated, sad and lonely. I feel I have the weight of the world on my shoulders most days due to this ideology. I am terrified for my own future, my daughter’s and women and girls everywhere.”

“I retired before this situation spread like a rash and don’t know any transgender people personally, so have not been affected directly. As an advocate of breastfeeding I’m horrified to learn that friends have been sacked from groups for saying woman and breastfeeding, one being sacked for referring to herself as a mother. The revision of policies to be more inclusive while only listening to advice from malevolent organisations such as Stonewall is disgraceful and confusing. Tax payers money being used by public bodies to be advised by such groups – the £400k spent by NHS on 7 Inclusivity and Diversity managers when there are dangerous shortages in clinical staff is ridiculous.”

“I worry about it at work and in my social circles. I have been targeted online and had my Wikipedia page hacked and been called transphobic.”

“I’m an ex liberal feminist so I understand the be kind narrative. But being exposed to male violence and also the impact this is having on our children has made me determined to act. I set up @sexnotgenderNM, initially as somewhere other nurses and midwives could share their views- we now have a twitter platform and are working behind the scenes on the growing ideology. We practice based on evidence and the evidence points to harm.”

“So far, in real life the only direct impact is that through village events I got to know a younger man who seemed vulnerable and had depression, so I kind of took him under my wing. He started dressing up, and I said, good for you, break the mould. Then it was discussing hormones with me at the village fete, and demanding others use new pronouns, and drooling over men on the internet and calling them “beautiful women”. I felt betrayed and insulted, and let it be known I wanted nothing to do with him if he didn’t see women as real people. Now the village priest thinks he can cow me into submission under the guise of being “kind” so all conversations are now dominated by me getting more and more adamant: no, this is NOT kind; it helps nobody.”

“I feel the whole gender ideology is eroding women, women’s rights and language around being a woman.  I do not agree that Trans women are women, they are not and can never be women.  I’m concerned about the lifelong harm and mutilation of healthy children and teens.  I am concerned that men are trying to occupy our women only spaces and I am concerned that I am being silenced over the subject.”

“My daughter recently detransitioned. Fortunately, she did not take surgical steps to alter her body, but she deeply regrets taking testosterone for a year as it has altered her voice among other changes. Her experience changed the way I think about gender identity ideology.”

“My late teens and early twenties were turned upside down by gender ideology. My early relationships with other women were extremely negatively impacted by it. I am very frightened to think of the impact on younger girls and women since I was a bit older when it came around and now it is everywhere.”

“It makes me fearful of the Scottish government. I am a strong independence supporter, but couldn’t vote for it under the current party’s gender identity policies. I am astounded that anything could have made me swither on independence.”

“I work with children and young people. I’m worried I cannot offer any protection. I find it all very disturbing and how people just seem to accept this ideology and it is never challenged. The consequences are far reaching. We have spent years talking about consent and now we are not allowed to base our attraction on preferred sex. Women’s rights are being undermined. If you can’t evidence the problem how do we solve it. This is happening at the same time as the recognition of the risk posed by men to women and girls. Our identity is being stripped from us and infiltrated. This causes me lots of worry and anxiety and wonder where all this will lead. The future of women is under threat. I spend a lot of time worrying about this. My son describes it as an obsession. I find some of it so unbelievable. I think most people do not understand and are sleep walking into this.”

“Constantly worried.”

“Gender identity ideology caused me to believe I was a man and had to change my body to fit that. If some other way of thinking had been presented to me when I was young, I wouldn’t have to live with the effects of almost a decade of testosterone-therapy (such as hair thinning, vaginal atrophy), and pain from the surgery on my chest, as well as the stigma of being detransitioned.”

“I would like the truth about the trans ideology and its relentless promotion to be exposed by the media, not just as a footnote or side issue, but as a fundamental issue that is changing the nature of humanity and endangering the present and future of humanity.   It is definitely impacting my mental health as I see what I think are false claims being accepted, and people being trained to think in a certain way that denies the reality of biology and humanity. It makes me feel angry and frustrated that not many people seem to care.”

“We have gone back to the 1970s in terms of sexism and stereotypes, only now it’s insidious & trendy to be misogynistic & homophobic.”

“18 year old ROGD daughter.”

“Social media such as Tumblr, Twitter and TikTok play a big role in the propagation of these ideas – as a teenager I was an active Tumblr user, identified as “non binary” and desired a mastectomy and hysterectomy due to social anxiety, lack of a sense of belonging and struggles with my body image + coming to terms with becoming a grown woman and sexual being. I’ve always struggled with my diagnosis of ASD (Asperger syndrome at the time) and also sought an alternative explanation as to why I didn’t fit in with anyone.”

“My 5 yr old nephew was told he’s a girl by strangers and state employees, it took my family 1 yr in court and over 35k to get him safe.   The level of evil getting by is unbelievable.”

“I am a retired academic teaching feminism, so gender identity ideology has been for many years a topic I discuss and would reject, while insisting that gender identity is largely a male phantasy, because males on the one hand would like to be women, and they believe they can be whatever they want to be, because their sex is not in question.”

“Black women are constantly compared to trans-identified men, saying racist and misogynistic (misogynoir) stuff like: “if Black Women are women, then transwomen are women too” and comparing the desires and demands they want from society to the civil rights movement. Calling Black Women “black birthing bodies”. Homosexual transexuals claim that it’s Black Women’s fault for straight black men not dating them. That we must not only stop black men from killing them, (when we can stop them from lining (sic) us) but also somehow make straight black men date them. Along with calling Black women very misogynistic things about our bodies and our female reproductive system.”

“I feel really angry about what’s happening to kids.”

“I am angry. But more determined than ever that this madness ends. This has to end. It is a medical and social scandal.  Sometimes it is too much, but people are peaking more and more. The storm is always worse right before calm resumes.”

“It’s wrecked my life. This identifies me but I have been sued twice, monstered in public tribunal by Dr H******, subject to death threats and rape threats, my kids have been doxed and catfished and I spend my life in fear, terrified of the phone ringing, opening email, getting out of the car in case there are activists waiting in the car park. I feel totally overwhelmed by life and unable to cope. My husband was very hurt at being forced to stand down as school governor because they didn’t want to be associated with my views post Susie Green.”

“I have lost my entire friend group, two therapists, my siblings for speaking out against gender ideology. I am a trans widow. I am called a TERF at least once a week in an angrily fashion. I can’t go on any lesbian dating app without seeing a trans woman.”

“I feel both sorry for and enraged by trans ideology. It is a scary, totalitarian groupthink that is dangerous to all but women and children more so. People should dress how they want, play with their identity how they want, subvert norms and cultures, enjoy life as they wish. What they should not do is endanger, harm or threaten anyone in order to do that nor should they try to displace others in order to achieve something that is patently wrong, invasive and erasing of women.”

“No, I’ve said enough.  I’ve seen, first hand, how devastating it is to be around trans people – they’re liars, first and foremost (not all obviously, just the ones who demand you do what you’re told and say what they want you to say or else!) and clever little manipulators.  They have mental health issues that are not properly addressed by pretending they are the opposite sex.”

“The mass-scale gaslighting has taken a toll on my mental health.”

“I was always involved in feminism but this has fuelled my activism. Last year exactly I stop being afraid and started speaking out.   I am just so terrified about all the laws being changed and people not caring.”

“This ideology has created a rift in my family and my child’s mind has been poisoned by it. He is struggling more than ever since this declaration and the use of pornography was the catalyst that lured him in.”

“My fear is for the upcoming generations. I hate my culture being colonised by this. Deep spiritual practices are being watered down for inclusion of this shite.   Mana WÄhine Korero is a group of Indigenous women fighting against this.   I have lost friends family members… Medical care is silently Done (sic) psychology and physically care. People are brainwashed and immediately think I’m a hateful bigot. Terrible behaviours and abuse form the younger generation. Esp wyt men.”

“I have developed anxiety as a result of this issue. I am extremely angry about what is happening to women’s sex based rights.  I am afraid at the erosion of safe spaces but most important at how women speaking about their boundaries are vilified.  I have never seen such anger/abuse and silencing tactics used against women speaking up for their rights.  The hatred and demonisation of women truly depresses me.”

“It has destroyed my relationship with my eldest son who attended uni and now insists I should accept men who id as women as actual women.”

“Working with young people shows me how many feel they don’t fit in (a normal part of adolescence, who are ascribing it to being trans).”

“Gender ideology tainted what should have been a liberating and important period of personal growth. I’m worried about my personal views being exposed in my professional and social circle.”

“I’m scared every day because I now know the state is happy to watch women fall.”

“This pack of lies that gender ideology is, affects me as a woman.   I have also had to face major health conditions, resulting in a hysterectomy due to a huge uterine tumour. It took over 25 years to get properly treated because being a woman any gynae conditions are deemed something to put up with.   Having a smear test was traumatic and that was with a female GP who was downright offensive in her bedside manner.   I was fortunate that the 2nd gynaecologist (a male) was kind, respectful and worked *with* me, and sought to preserve as much of my sexual organs as possible to remove the bare minimum to resolve the health issues I had (so just the massive tumour and the uterus removed).   Yet, I see this ideology allowing young girls in particular to have those organs removed on a whim. No CT scans or MRI scans can see that a girl is supposed to be a boy. No blood tests will see raised levels of hormones etc., to prove that a girl is supposed to be a boy. No brains scans will show this.   Yet, because they are persuaded by others, to say they are a boy and not a girl, they are then fast tracked onto drugs and surgeries that are high high risk. I did my research. Women with gynae conditions are often placed on Lupron, that same toxic drug called puberty blockers. Those women are NOT supposed to be on Lupron for more than 6 months because of the KNOWN side effects. It puts women into a temporary menopause, the idea being if their gynae symptoms subside, that means a hysterectomy (effectively full surgical menopause as everything is removed) will help them. Of course, removing everything means NO hormones are being secreted (ovaries STILL secrete smaller amounts of oestrogen even after natural menopause losing it entirely is not a good idea. Which is why I was grateful to my gynae that he did not view Lupron as a good idea nor removal of my healthy (if somewhat bruised and squished, due to the tumour, ovaries).  This is part of why I was so peaked plus seeing young girls I knew from age 9 suddenly deciding they were non binary (that’s the stepping stone) and then trans.   ALL of them (5 I know of) have mental health issues and other disabilities. They are trying to run from their life as they cannot cope with the issues. Whether that is mental illness of themselves or their parents; or simply not conforming to society expectations of how to be girls.  I was fortunate growing up, a child born in the mid 70s, that I never felt pressure to be a specific type of girl. I was very girly95, I loved having very long blonde hair (even if it was a pain to constantly manage); I loved dressing in what is deemed a feminine way, I still do (1950s dress style!), but I also loved building things models of buildings; my Dad’s meccano set; computer programs; clothing (yes that is building things). I was not sporty but happy to climb trees till I got to mid teens and growing pains and female puberty stopped all that (too much pain!). However, I STILL had pressure from my peers (all girls as I was in a girls school) to conform. To like their fashions (I didn’t); to follow the music bands, read the magazines and books they liked, go to the nightclubs etc. I hated it all.  I was fortunate I have an excellent and close relationship with my parents. I was able to talk to my mum and she said I had a choice: Follow the sheep and what they dictate I do or be just me even if it marks me out as different.   I chose the second.  I can understand these girls trying to choose the second. But I didn’t have to (1) physically change my body to something it was NOT to be different. (2) I was not expecting anyone else to follow my view of myself or to like classical music, or read the literature I loved, or wear the fashions I preferred. I did not impose my views of how I wanted to live, on *anyone else*.   These girls are physically changing their body; demanding their families and friends perceive them in a way that is not truthful.  It does not make them different. It will stop them living their lives to the full.     How do we stop this in its tracks? Push gender identity into the same view as have whatever religion you like, do not impose on anyone else?  How do we stop the medical, legal, political and social scandal before it’s too late?”

“I’m scared every day because I now know the state is happy to watch women fall.”

“Gender ideology tainted what should have been a liberating and important period of personal growth. I’m worried about my personal views being exposed in my professional and social circle.”

“I used to cross dress all the time as a teenager, and got teased for it all the time. The local bullies kept telling me to transition already. When they found out my grandma had her breasts removed and eventually died from breast cancer they asked me if she is where I got “it” from. That experience is why I did the research that later allowed me to resist my doctors’ efforts to trans me. I can’t help but think genderism and trans ideology is just an excuse for people, men in particular, to be horrible people and maintain power.”

“It has alerted me to just how mad the world is growing. I also worry about my grandchildren who are still in primary school.  What rubbish are they being told, and how can I counteract it?”

“I came from a background of supporting trans rights, which I still do, but NOT at the cost of women and girls, whose rights in law need to be upheld fully. I think being trans or NB is almost a fashion trend right now, everyone is jumping on the bandwagon. Maybe people need to work harder so they have less time on their hands for naval gazing – it’s deeply narcissistic and selfish, I find.”

“I’m worried about my baby nieces. My sisters, mom, myself. And all women… If encounter a man in a bathroom or locker room I’m afraid I’ll lose control.”

“When I was studying in the UK, I started learning more about gender, especially with the debut of an animated show called Steven Universe. It was a lovely show but it got really woke later. And the show creator called herself nonbinary and I related to her, so I thought that label fit me too. I ironically peaked when learning more about gender identity. There was a lot of inconsistencies and I noticed how incompatible it was with homosexuality and heterosexuality; if we are gender attracted and not sex attracted, doesn’t that make conversion therapy right??? A gay man can accept a vagina as long as it was on a “transman” then why not a woman? It scared me… my woke ex could not answer my questions. I was also scolded when I asked in online groups. I finally desisted in my nonbinary identity after looking up the gendered brain research and finding no evidence for specific gender identity identified in brains.”

“I am the mother of an adult child who wishes to transition. I wonder if we have failed our daughters when their experience of dysphoria contributes to their wish to transition. I fear for my daughter. I fear for myself. My government is about to bring in mixed toilets in schools, without consulting the voting population. Why are our rights being eroded in this way?”

“My teen daughter has recently and suddenly been swept up in gender ideology and claims to be trans. It alarms me and has made me aware of many issues and consequences this has on culture, politics and the well being of children, teens and young adults. Never have I been so consumed by anxiety about an issue.”

“I respect all people and believe that everyone has the right to be treated with dignity and respect.  I believe trans people have rights.  I just don’t think it’s right for their rights to infringe on mine, my safety.  I am a woman. I want to be called a woman, not a person with a vagina or a cervix haver or a chest feeder. That language is flat out offensive.  I am a woman, and will not tolerate being referred to by my genitalia or my reproductive organs.  Make gender critical feminism illegal (looking at you Canada) and you will be locking up a huge number of women, rape survivors, and abuse survivors, simply for not rolling over and taking more abuse.  All of this truly puts women in an impossible position.”

“I have felt isolated in my views and get frustrated that my husband doesn’t share similar views. I have now acquired many gender critical/feminist friends on FB and joined a gender critical group which has helped tremendously.”

“I just want my ex partner back. So badly. I miss her so much.”

“I live in Scotland where the government has been captured by Stonewall so gender identity is in all the main institutions. Hate crime bill being introduced which protects cross-dressing men but specifically NOT women. The Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre has a man called Mridul Wadhwa in charge – he identifies as a woman and holds repellent, fetishistic ideas about vulnerable women. It is grotesque!”

“It’s frustrating to see articles describing women as people with vaginas and not be able to speak about it without being attacked. The world has suddenly become a bizarre place of people who seem brainwashed into repeating dogmatic beliefs about gender and shutting down any questioning. It feels hostile to me.”

“Severe Anxiety.”

“I am so fearful & angry for our young people.”

““The birth world – “pregnant people” – “chest feeders””

“For the first time in my life I am very sad most days.”

“I have lost friends, and was preparing to speak out on my social media about it, but a family member declared they were trans and I don’t want to be estranged from the affirming family members so have kept quiet.”

“My wife is threatening to leave me over my views because she says they are taking over the family space. I feel unsupported in my personal life. I feel hopeless to change things.”

“I cover my hair in public, and am concerned about adjusting my scarf in public facilities/changing rooms because there is now a danger of a male being present. I’m sure this is a concern to a lot of Muslim, Jewish and other women.”

“It’s diminishing for women. I can’t believe in the 21st Century we have regressed, embraced gender stereotypes and homophobia. As a woman and a mother of 2 daughters, I worry that they are being exposed to extremist ideology in the guise of inclusivity and Liberalism. I say this as a life long Labour and Liberal Democrat voter- the left have lost their way and thrown women’s rights away in a craven attempt to earn points and accolades.”

“I know what it’s like to be dominated by men, I know how it feels to be oppressed for being female, I know what it’s like to be beaten into submission by a man. Our physical difference is what has allowed men to subjugate us, this cannot be ignored. Feminism has contributed so much to humanity we cannot let men with claims destroy what we have fought for.”

“As a lesbian, a psychologist and a university professor I have multiple concerns about gender identity ideology on my work and my personal life, as well as being concerned about what is being done to children.  The threats to children, to women like J K Rowling and to academics are highly disturbing and frightening.”

“I fear for my kids that they would fall prey to this predatory, highly financed cult.”

“I have lost jobs, friends and lesbian events… very isolating and depressing.”

“It’s incredibly demoralizing to see how easily trans ideology has been able to erase women and lesbians and villainize female victims of male violence.     How female prisoners are being locked up with rapists, girls forced to shower and bunk with male students/teammates.     “White women’s tears” “White feminists” “Karen” these are all terms also used by trans activists to keep women silent and direct the blame for male violence on females.”

“Anxiety and stress re the future for my granddaughters and other women’s granddaughters.”

“It consumes me. It’s so patently unfair and untrue. It’s a power grab by males, and a sad shame for young women who don’t like their bodies or who don’t want to be sexualised and objectified.”

“In 1972 I had trouble getting Birth Control Pills, 1981 when employed, told I shouldn’t work because I was married 1985, at age of 34 I couldn’t get a loan due to being a single woman. This is related.  Still men telling women what can and can’t do.”

“Gender ideology have greatly influenced my life.  My son sees himself as female.  The whole thing is tidi (sic) and sad…for me personally and our society in general.  I wish I never heard the word gender.  Very sick of it.”

“I feel like it is wrong to be a woman now. Men are women. Better women. They know best. And people are actually listening to these fuckers.”

“My son was claiming to be a girl for almost a year, he was so convinced we were abusive because we would not use new name and pronouns that he had a glitter family (who had never met him or me) trying to take him away from us. He no longer identifies as trans and says he felt pressured by his peers.”

“Because I have openly expressed concerned about young people being shepherded down the trans pathway, I had a complaint lodged against me by a trans group. Fortunately my professional society supported my right to my views.”

“I feel that for the first time in my life people are disapproving of my views.   I’m typically very left. A socialist and currently completely and utterly politically homeless. I am worried about repercussions but the more time goes on the more this Ideology takes hold the more I need to speak up.  As I mentioned before this is a spiritual as well as safeguarding issue for me.”

“It has led to my seeing a psychologist for the first time in my life, a general distrust in politicians (I was a Greens voter), having trouble sleeping, fearful of losing my job (academic), loss or freedom of speech without intimidation.”

“I was undertaking a Ph.D. (long story as to why I had to withdraw) but it became evident that the wokies had taken over and I had to start biting my tongue when I was informed by a new second supervisor (who was a ‘genderqueer’ hetero male) that my topic (policies and discourses affecting lesbians in the Australian military) needed to include bisexual and straight women, and also transwomen (i.e. hetero males!). What the ACTUAL FUCK? No straight person EVER got thrown out of the military for being heterosexual! I’ve read so much stuff that centres straight women – and men for that matter – and they don’t seem to give a flying fish about excluding lesbians and/or gay men from their work!!! #PeakTrans number 1 moment for me about how warped this ideology is.”

“I am more scared since Biden’s (who I voted for) first day in office and he issued an Executive Order erasing women’s and girl’s spaces and opportunities than I have ever been in my life.”

“Men are taking over women in so much and the fact that so many people think it’s okay or doesn’t care about it is ridiculous because it affects every single woman.”

“It has made me fear bullying, rejection, disgust or hate from almost anyone if I share my views on sex, gender and how I see myself in that context and I fear having my reputation destroyed online. The ideology has damaged the relationships to my siblings. I fear the gender ideology might have the power to start undoing the gains of feminism.  I fear being publicly shamed. I also fear society’s changing view of women, making old sexist stereotypes acceptable again. I am ashamed of being an adult not daring to speak up when children are damaged for life by public health care. I think I might have been one of those children if I had been born twenty years later.  Move to mental health.”

“I went back to university as a mature student. One of my lecturers is a woman in her 50s that actively promotes ‘trans rights’ in the classroom in context of contemporary social theory, one lesson was dedicated to feminism and the following lesson was for black and post colonial feminism specifically and in both of those she promoted the cause of ‘trans feminism.’ Michfest was so awful for them, uses the word Terf to talk about JKR terrible transphobic.   I want my money back for having to hear this drivel. when I pointed out it’s not fair for women in prison to be subjected to rape, she said it was sensationalist story. I didn’t have the strength to argue articulately, started crying and shaking and had to leave from embarrassment. Also gender neutral single toilets, sometimes seat is up covered in pee, disgusting. Menstruation station, free sanitary towels in a basket out in the open hallway.   Last thing – Thank you so much, this has been so cathartic for me. I journal and that helps but knowing someone will read this and get it without saying stupid crap about being kind to everyone is incredibly valuable to me and I imagine to many others.”

“I have been hounded out of peer support mental health groups because of my views and had to seek crisis care because of it.”

“I’m a parent of a ROGD teen. This has been a nightmare, the most difficult and loneliest part of my whole life.”

“It takes up a lot of mental space in my head, because it is the ultimate in patriarchy and I know it’s essential to resist it. I have been deeply hurt by the total disregard for women (our validity and lived reality as a sex-based class, our right to boundaries, our right to fair sports, our right to safety from males, the reality that males are a threat to us, our right to speak about any of these issues) that gender ideology involves, and the way that this has been swallowed by the establishment with total disregard for the impact on women. The emphasis is always on validating and accommodating the trans-identified male, never on centering women, and the misogyny of this is deeply hurtful.”

“My daughter at 11 first said she was lesbian, then a Demi girl and now she is trans and her school friends are affirming this and using a boy’s name and pronouns. She is not the only one in her year.”

“My son is currently identifying as trans and was socially transitioned at school without our knowledge.”

“Gender identity ideology impacts me through the government changing laws to recognize gender identity instead of biological sex. That is wrong. Sex is binary and immutable, and gender identity is an ideology, an unprovable idea that has no place in laws or schools.”

“Honestly, it’s kept me up at night for the last four years. I feel totally betrayed by society and political groups I used to be involved in due to their phallocentric activism. I know we will win but it’s caused me to withdraw as it’s had such a disciplining effect on me. I can’t believe the gaslighting has been so horrific, and it’s incredible how people have turned a blind eye to violence against women. But we will win. I’m sure of it. It’s just so tough to see this misogyny. I moved to the UK because of sexism in Egypt and now I feel I might leave because the discourse is so twisted here and women are having to call their rapists she. It’s disgusting.”

“It pushed me out of abortion activism. I strongly feel that the current loss of abortion rights in the USA is directly connected to the pushing out of normal women from activism in favor of ivory tower types who are completely disconnected from regular people. Gender policing around trans identities and willingness to purge productive women from organizing because they don’t believe or understand gender doctrine has been devastating to grass roots women’s activism.”

“I have said it all. A doctor with an affected teen daughter. And at least 6 colleagues across the country whose children are affected and their safety and future health are being placed at risk.”

“Dealing with this -having children going through this is nightmarish, Orwellian – I can see so clearly what is wrong but I can’t say anything without risking being fired and even losing my child to social services.”

“It’s a cult that I’m struggling to remove my daughter from.”

“I have a trans identifying child.”

“As a parent with a trans identifying teenager I am absolutely furious and yet forced to remain quiet about my views publicly to avoid being ostracised.”

“I am the mother of a trans identified son on hormones. He is autistic and dually gifted. This affects me as a mother and a woman.”

“My child was socially transitioned at our public elementary school behind our backs. This caused harm to our relationship with our child. She has now desisted.”

“It’s broken my family since our daughter identified as trans 5 years ago and has cut us out of her life.”

“Gender ideology has taken my once fun loving and people loving daughter away from me and replaced her with an anxiety filled, biology denying, angry person.”

“Severe distress.”

“Lost me my best friend.”

“I was driven out of a sports club over this issue.  The most positive recent influence on my mental and physical health was a women’s music festival which was forced to close down due to gender ideology.  I can no longer engage in certain political campaigns due to the influence of gender identity ideology (“terfs” are explicitly unwelcome).”

“I keep myself anonymous on social media when discussing gender critical views, not for my own safety as such but for my daughters’ sake. My daughters are both in professional jobs and we have a distinctive surname, so easy to identify.”

“Don’t get me started!!! Retirement doesn’t exist! Resisting this existential threat by men pretending to be women is a 24/7 job! I feel deep grief for the loss of everything the second feminist wave lesbians had set up. The erasure is severe. The backlash against women loving women is too. I know why, I’ve deconstructed it. Women are not allowed to exist without needing men. Simple but true. Well I have and I will. If that means I end up being a hermit in a wild wood somewhere, so be it. Men will never be women, women will never be men. Lesbians have boundaries and are the best women I’ve ever met. I fear for the future and the trans take over. I am well prepared for stepping out when I draw the line at what is the colonisation of the female sex. Making women defunct, a non male. I’ll be welcoming my resting in peace.”

“Constant, low-level anxiety on many fronts. Trouble sleeping etc. Horror at how society is blindly making it acceptable to erase women. Surreal dissociation from others when they parrot standard mantras.”

“I sometimes feel that the world has turned upside down and that I worry about this too much. Impossible not to feel shaken that so many people and organisations have lost their minds. If they can deny reality to be fashionable what else will they do?”

“I was shocked when I realised what was happening.  I’ve had a longish term relationship with a transperson.  I’m not transphobic yet I have to constantly defend myself.  I’m saddened to see all the advances we made for women in the 60’s, 70’s etc being attacked.”

“GI has had a significant impact on my mental health.  This includes from being ostracised by former friends without any opportunity to rebut allegations which are never specific.  Also from the anxiety raised by the fact so many people have suddenly denied the reality of two sexes, and how far people are willing to collude with lies for a quiet life.”

“I lost a very lucrative job because gender ideology has reduced my former workplace to one unsafe for women.”

“It has caused me a great deal of concern, I’m afraid of how the new mainstream way of looking at gender and sex, will affect women now, and the generation of women to come.”

“As a parent and grandparent, I am fearful of the impact of gender identity ideology on my children and grandchildren.”

“It’s made me very angry and very worried about the future, both for myself as I get older, but much more for younger women and girls.”

“I have made it my life work now to stop the erasure of women.”

“It has revealed how perennial, deeply embedded and normalised misogyny is in our society – which rears its head in ever more inventive & disguised forms. This latest is particularly pernicious since it has seduced many younger feminists, as well as those concerned with social justice matters, who seem to have bought into this ideology without considering the implications for women. It’s also revealed how there is widespread ignorance about human rights, and the fact that they can and regularly do conflict, and thus have to be balanced. We clearly see this with children’s rights vs parents’ rights vs doctors’ rights – for example, in cases with terminally sick children whose parents want to prolong their lives, and the courts are required to make a judgement. Human rights can involve complexity.”

“Gender identity ideology has caused me to feel subordinate to men and caused me to live in fear because I oppose it.”

“I have been a feminist since the 1970s.  I despair thinking about how every part of society is being changed by the promotion of trans ideology.”

“I have a land that I bought to be a women’s land and have gatherings for women but got discouraged and stopped because of the way the trans issue kept coming up.”

“I am so relieved I retired early from teaching just before this ideology took hold a few years ago. I was always outspoken on issues of girl’s equality and I would not have been able to stay out of trouble on this in the very progressive (not!) world of teaching. And at least now, I can speak more freely on social media. I’ve had much more time to follow what has been going on with this ideology and though I am speaking out a bit more publicly, it’s easier because my condition is stress-related to do low-level limited work behind the scenes e.g. petitions, donations, emails to MPs/ BBC etc.,/ government consultations and whatever comes up.”

“This ideology has made me lose hope in humanity and lose hope for a future that includes liberation and respect for women as a sex class, it’s not a world I want to live in.”

“Ever since I started to really become aware of this issue, about 18 months ago, I have felt very, very dark. I have been living in a constant state of disbelief, despair, horror, fear, confusion, and emotional pain. I feel thoroughly and utterly betrayed – by politicians, academics, and the ‘liberal left’ in general. I have found it extremely difficult to talk to anybody about this issue, because the fear of being ostracised is so extreme. If I hadn’t found other gender critical women through Twitter, and been able to meet with them and release some steam and take some action, I honestly don’t know what I would have done. This issue takes a daily toll on my life. Every day, I feel like I’ve woken up in a twisted wonderland, and I feel desperately worried about how this is all going to end. Sometimes I feel slightly optimistic that the tide might turn, and other times I just feel total despair. More than anything else, I just can’t stop asking, how – HOW has this happened? How have such blatantly terrible things been allowed? How are so many people blind to this insanity? How can so many people, when faced with questions about women’s sports or women’s prisons, respond with some kind of platitude about ‘being kind’. ‘BEING KIND’?!?!?!?!?! The only conclusion I can come to is that misogyny is far deeper and widespread than I ever thought in my whole life. I’m becoming aware for the first time of the degree to which women are despised and hated, and always last in line for anything. Even by women themselves. To be honest, even in the best case scenario where everybody turns around tomorrow and denounces gender ideology for the insanity that it is, I won’t be able to forget the abuse levelled at JK Rowling, Joanna Cherry, Maya, Marion, and all the other brave women who dared to speak out. I won’t be able to forget the distain dished out by David Lammy and company – people of whom I would have expected so, so much better. There is so much awful damage almost certainly still to come, but it would be very hard to even ever repair what is already broken.”

“It has made me lonelier than before which is saying something. I know for a fact I’m not welcome in most queer spaces and most lesbians my age (23) are queer. Also I’ve lost two friends of 20+ years over this. I feel like I’m going crazy.”

“Personally it impacts me in a way that I cannot assert my personhood like many feminists who reject femininity unless I want to be identified with men who pose as women (with fetishists) or a woman that is trying to pretend to be a man. I have constantly been compared to men when it came to my looks or sometimes even behaviour while growing up all the way to today (sometimes even when I was actively trying to be feminine to conform). It has made me want to reject femininity even more and like many others I am sure that if trans activism was as popular as it is now they would have been able to persuade that in fact I don’t have to be a woman were they around when I was 13 or so. I feel passionate about rejecting femininity so trans ideology felt like someone threw brick at my head while I was on my way to try to get more free of it. I have no more space or chance to be seen as equally woman anymore if I want to abandon femininity, there is no framework that allows it in current society and professionally it has narrowed down my career choices because even academics and colleges don’t allow radical feminism theory to be applied or worked on as anything more than chapter in a book (if that). I don’t see how can I pursue field where I can help women with trans ideology in place in every institution.”

“I’m a survivor of several forms of MVAWG, and the thought of for example ringing rape crisis for help and having a male voice on the line makes me shudder.”

“I am 70 and have lived my life as a Feminist since about 1968. I fear what’s happening now. I don’t understand why transwomen are so obsessed with being identified and accepted as women rather than pursuing attempts to show that they are not like men.”

“I have been censored on leftwing news sites for making pro-female comments. I’m concerned that readers of news don’t get the full picture of the issue because critical comments are deleted and only pro-gender ideology comments are posted. Also, I am afraid to be too vocal on line because I’m afraid I’d draw the blistering anger and threats commonly received by gender critics. In other words, I am being censored AND I am self-censoring out of fear.”

“Getting into radical feminism has been shocking but ultimately empowering. Before trans shite crossed my path I naively thought that younger women in UK were better off than my generation were at their age. But now I am horrified at the affects of porn, social media and popular culture, leading to girls seeing themselves as sex objects for the pleasure of boys. Boys seeing them likewise of course. The ebbing of shame in the area of sexual practices is not positive in many cases. Girls get accused of being boring or kink shaming if they don’t want to do horrible harmful things sexually to please a man.”

“This issue causes me great distress on a daily basis.”

“I just want to exist. I need single sex spaces. I need to be able to have a conversation about my needs.  I feel like I am being called selfish for placing my needs first, for once.  I’ve been a skivvy for men all my life, and it’s my default setting. I hate it and hate myself for it. I still fight against internalised misogyny and homophobia and now we have another wave of it from both the usual suspects and our so-called allies. I hate it so much.”

“I am secure in who I am as a woman. I know who I am and I know that the way I dress/present myself has nothing to do with the person that I am and it definitely doesn’t change my sex. More than anything, I am frightened for how gender identity ideology will impact my students in the years to come. I can find my way through life as an individual woman because I am strong and I missed the time period in my life during which these ideas would have really taken hold in my consciousness, but the kids I take care of who are growing up in this culture aren’t so lucky.”

“It’s disheartening, stress inducing, I worry for the girls and women in my family. Gender identity ideology feels an awful lot like plain old misogyny.”

“I’m studying to be a teacher (maths and science) and I’m very sad about this issue. I want to help the teenagers but if this continues when I’m done with my education in 5 years then I will have to continue what I see as actual abuse in confirming these kids that their bodies are wrong, when in fact it’s just society that is wrong. Every school had its protocol and if gender will be law then how tf am I going to be able to teach kids about anything when I need to lie about this fundamental part. Especially since I will teach biology.”

“My Father was abusive and I have been in one long term relationship with a man whom was also abusive and trapped me for over a decade. I know all men are not bad but plenty of them are and society supports them to carry on abusing women and children.  We have safe spaces for a reason, the current prison population in the UK is 77k males and 3k females, that shows most crimes are committed by males and that’s not even mentioning our dreadful conviction rates for Rape and domestic abuse.  I have good reason to fear the encroachment of men into our spaces and the erasing of women’s language and rights.”

“This has been the most devastating time in my life, and I have totally lost my trust in our health-care system, politicians and authorities, as well as in humanity in general. I do not know how to live with this in the future, and gender ideology has destroyed my life. Move to mental health.”

“At my age one can see patterns more clearly. Women are being oppressed but the frame and words they call it changes from time to time.”

“If Butch Lesbian heroes of ours in Lesbian Herstory are being changed into trans, we won’t have Lesbian Herstory to enjoy and young ones won’t know what Bio-females can do.”

“I am the parent of a desisted daughter which is what got me introduced to these topics.”

“I don’t want to lose the rights that women earned.”

“It’s taken a lot of focus from my feminist commitment. It’s derailing and exhausting.”

“Having to be conscious of this and fighting this on a daily basis is exhausting.”

“I’m a feminist. I have many lesbian friends and I really worry about their future.”

“As a lesbian and a feminist, I am horrified and afraid by these developments.”

“It’s just another form of abuse.  Males (no matter how they identify) cannot access women’s bodies and by extension those spaces where our bodies are exposed and/or vulnerable without our explicit consent.  Gender id tells men they don’t need our consent. It tells women we don’t get a say in the matter.”

“The anger I feel is constant. Having suffered oppression by males since very young, this whole movement has really hit home for me in a very personal way. Then friends and political activists I find out are NOT gender-critical, or have not even bothered to study this subject causes me so much grief and disappointment. So much misogyny amongst women and left wing men – who all seem to have left their thinking skills fast asleep in bed. It has been a truly shocking experience, and each day I feel that shock and trauma, when I am fearing that women are losing their rights, like safe spaces. I am cautious even amongst old friends, that they might now dislike me, and then I might think ‘so-and-so hasn’t rung me for weeks, is it ‘cos I am gender critical?’ It is damaging to my mental health to have to even be thinking about old and trusted friends in this way. The anxiety of possibly losing old friends fills me with hopelessness and despair. Why can we not have a reasoned and calm conversation about it? So many of them don’t even want to talk about it with me – then I think that they think I am a bigot – it is dreadful to be misjudged by your old friends. And THEN not be able to even talk about it. There does not seem to be any acceptance of people thinking differently, and not towing the orthodoxy of the men-can-be-women-brigade – like there might be over other political issues. I find it more and more frustrating that so many seemingly intelligent people no longer believe in biological sex, and are willing to see so many children and teens go through absolute hell because of this ideology.”

“I try to Peak people when I can. In Quebec outside universities it doesn’t seem to have “noticed” yet.”

“I’m very frightened that the fundamental reality and beauty and power of womanhood is being lost to this immature ideology and that we’re heading towards a world where bodies and identities are chosen from the shelf. This looks like a dystopian horror where we’re totally removed from the earth and the reality and power and beauty of our bodies.   I’m also frightened that such an obviously insane ideology can capture organisations and government so completely.”

“This ideology has been really frightening and I feel it is a violation of women’s spaces.  I have never in my life had to be careful of what I say and now I feel my freedom of speech has been reduced and I stay silent about this at times.”

“Pressure to conform to GI doctrine in trades union.”

“I am feeling really tired of the struggle, especially as I am isolated and unwell.  It is tempting to give up!  But with the proposed reform of GRA in Scotland and with colleagues still working who dare not speak out, I feel I have no choice.”

“It has made me very, very angry and taken up a huge amount of my time that I could have been using to transform the world for the better through the work I do!”

“I am a leftwing feminist and these issues have left me politically homeless.”

“A friend’s daughter is caught up in this. Originally her boyfriend came out as trans, and she said she was now a lesbian. Now her boyfriend’s mother has bought her a binder, without my friend’s consent, and she is using he/him pronouns and calling herself a boy.  This has put an enormous amount of strain on my friend (who is herself gender critical) and the relationship with her daughter who is pressurising her to lose contact with GC friends, both on and offline.  This is affecting our friendship as we don’t see each other enough, at a time when my friend needs supportive friends. She is being dragged into it because she doesn’t want to lose her daughter.”

“Made me uncomfortable in my perception of womanhood for a while and gave me minor dysphoria and internalized misogyny.”

“Scotland has become a dangerous place for women, children and free speech.”

“My eldest son called me a dinosaur. Me, the feminist who brought them up as a single mum! Other son no longer discusses the subject with me – “Mum you brought us up to be kind and loving and accept everybody for who they are”.  Troubling and sad.”

“I got accidentally peaked, and there is no going back.”

“It has made me very angry that women are having to fight against patriarchy, misogyny and are having to defend ourselves against accusations of being discriminatory because we want to protect, women and girls and our sex based rights.”

“I would suppose you could say I am suffering from burnout as have been campaigning against gender ideology for so long – ten years in fact.”

“Being cancelled because of TRAs, being forced to retire early, having friends attacked on social media because they are associated with me. Falsely accused of being transphobic. However, the experience has had the opposite effect to what they all intended. I am now an out campaigner for free speech and women’s rights.”

“Depression, isolation, fear of speaking out, loss of friends. Witnessing good friends and organisations split apart.”

“I can’t talk about it except with a few other lesbian friends who are also gender critical. I have friends, lesbian and straight, who have trans family members and will not examine what’s happening, out of love for their family member. They see the individual struggles and claim that being gender critical is being critical of the individual. I know lesbians who claim that we are not under threat by trans ideology. It’s like going back into the closet with what I believe.”

“I was to have been investigated by Sheffield Council for being transphobic- for being a member of Sheffield feminist Network, which had invited Michelle Moore to speak at an event. The investigation never happened as they could not get enough volunteers to be part of the investigative panel!”

“I am glad I am older and retired as well as being in a long term relationship. I hate to think how I would feel if I was having to cope with this as a younger person.”

“It worries me quite a lot as an individual, as a mother and as a professional.”

“I have been researching this issue for more than a year, following the debate going on in other countries. Here in Italy we do not even have a basic bill for lgb rights, and now queer lobbyists are trying to pass a bill that essentially opens the door to self id and persecution of gender critical views as “hate speech”, while presenting it to the clueless well-meaning left wing population as a bill that grants legitimate rights to homosexuals. I am a gender critical feminist and an independent researcher, and I am very concerned that no one is listening to the truth anymore, they are falling for the same lies and dogmas.”

“The majority of the public have no idea of what’s been going on and I think it’s about time that people were educated in this without fear of reprisal or abuse.”

“I am unemployed with zero interest of ever returning to work because these belief systems (including critical race theory, and sex work is work, post modernist lies) has infiltrated everywhere and consumed all thought even in the mainstream. I can’t play along and I’m stepping out.”

“I thought I was the only one whose OCD was fixated on gender identity. I felt so alone. Sometimes I can’t believe this is my life now… I found radical feminism and finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel. Never thought I’d be a “TERF”! I now have met so many amazing, talented women fighting gender ideology.”

“The loss of women’s movement. Both our political fight and our social connections has been severely injured. A friend of mine had been to an 8th of March party some years ago. She and another woman sat outside on a bench because they didn’t feel like they belonged any more, for instance among all the men in there. They were discussing how important it was to be inclusive – not realising that they already had been so inclusive that they had been part of creating a place where they themselves didn’t feel that they belonged to any more…”

“I find it distressing how some younger people especially women think I am overreacting when I speak about the erasure of women and how we are being demonised by the trans ideology.”

“I have had a double mastectomy for breast cancer – seeing pictures of girls and young women voluntarily having this surgery for gender identity purposes makes me feel ill and angry.”

“The idea that people can believe their wishes over-ride reality, that ideology over-writes scientific fact, that innocent people who want to ‘be kind’ are supporting the actively anti-science, anti-rational adherents of Queer Theory has left me feeling as though the ground I stand on is unstable, liable to shift or disappear without notice. That people I thought were my friends (or at least solid acquaintances) would condemn me almost unheard, declare my feelings ‘invalid’ while demanding that I ‘validate’ the feelings of a male… I am dumbfounded. Betrayed. Generally distrustful with outbreaks of belligerence :-/  I sit here shaking my head in disbelief. Every day another WT*actual*F moment.”

“I’ve never believed it and I’m always a bit surprised that anyone ever has. I do think that there is a lack of feminist analysis in mainstream thought and talk and that is why so many people have been vulnerable to this sexist ideology. I feel very annoyed that so much of my time and brain space has been taken up by this ideology and I know I bore my children and friends with it.”

“I have 4 kids and I worry about their future and what is being taught at schools. I am particularly afraid for what my daughters might have to endure as young girls and women.”

“Second-wave feminist. I am livid about the misogyny pushing this ridiculous and harmful agenda.”

“It has created a climate of fear in my workplace and I have definitely lost friends who go along with gender ideology and who are scared to stand up. If you do stand up you are considered a risky person to know so people either shout you down or ostracise you.”

“I hate that people even think there is a gender identity.”

“I’ve lost my friends, community, social network, dances, gatherings, and connectedness to the domination of heterosexual men in dresses.”

“As someone holding GC beliefs, I feel discriminated against at work and society generally.”

“It (activism) has consumed far too many hours of my life over the last five years. It’s absurd.” I could’ve spent the time fighting other causes like stopping surrogacy.”

“The knowledge that women only spaces are under threat, the erosion of women’s rights, the dismissal of women’s concerns makes me angry, but also stirs up painful emotions of feeling unsafe and threatened as I did when abused as a child. And that makes me even more angry!”

“I worry constantly that I will be asked to explain my views in my political and professional life and be discriminated against as a result.”

“Makes me live in fear. I know how easy it is for men to manipulate women and children. GI makes this easier for them to get access to do so. Not allowing women to meet to discuss our issues without threats and Scottish Government are ignoring the issues.”

“As a former HR professional I am concerned about the conflict this ideology presents in the workplace and the likely bullying and discrimination against staff who do not believe that humans can change sex.”

“It has woken me up to the existential threat to women and to their and girl’s safety. I’m dreadfully worried for our young women. My clever, well-educated 22 year old daughter and her cohort have been totally captured by this ideology. The fight against it has taken over my life. I belong to several women’s groups lobbying Welsh parliament and speaking truth where we can on this issue. It is the hill I’ll die on. It is the most important fight of my life.”

“Thank you for the opportunity to speak in this survey, and to acknowledge the considerable toll being in this arena/fight/’debate’ has taken on my mental health. I found a radical kind of feminism at school and university in the mid/late 80s, then derailed into liberal feminism for a long time, and then got lost altogether in the years of having kids. I don’t know how we address the generation divides and all those kinds of issues that urgently need attending to. And I think we need to be talking very loudly about porn – I see how this contributed to my losing my way, and that was way, way before the kind of porn, and availability, that kids are experiencing now.”

“I’ve lost friends of decades because they put their allegiance to new gender identity ideology over their responsibility to support friends. It’s been traumatizing and deeply lonely.”

“One of my closest friends was raped by her ex-boyfriend and she and I were shunned by mutual friends when we spoke about it because by then he had started identifying as a woman. The last I heard of him, he was dating a lesbian minor with more than six years of an age gap – the girl cut contact with me when I told her what he had done to my friend, and she told her friends that I was “toxic and transphobic”. It’s been a few years since then. I hope she’s okay.”

“It came out of the blue. It’s a belief system with no basis in reality and it ultimately pushes back women and girls’ rights.”

“I am still learning but am increasingly disturbed and at times down right angry about what I see going on- I worry for my daughter and how these issues will affect her in the future.”

“I am appalled at the suffering of women in shelters, prisons etc., and feel helpless to do anything to help them.”

“It has made me angry and active. On the other hand I have rediscovered feminism and the joys of working with other women.”

“Terrified that my daughters and granddaughters will suffer from the regressive adoption of gender theory at all levels of their lives.”

“It crept up on me. I did not pay much attention in the beginning but now that I have become aware of this issue I am shocked and dismayed.”

“Please do not lump radical feminists and “GC” in together. Or lesbians and bi women.”

“I actually think that the erasure of our words and our understanding of ourselves is an assault on all of us. It makes us feel like we are going mad at times… like how can people believe this bullshit. But as I said earlier, the emboldening of men is the absolute worst aspect of this… it is alarming and frightening. Let’s face it though, men like us to feel frightened.”

“I sleep badly. I have bad dreams since Marion Millar was arrested & now Cire under threat in NI. Having spent my youth fighting for rights it’s appalling to be called a bigot, right wing, a nazi, in the pay of fundamental Christians, homophobic, a dinosaur…”

“It used to give me a feeling of being trapped, but through finding a community of women that has gone. But still it is bitter that we’ve lost so much of our achievements.”

“GI is Colonialism coming in Serbia from EU/USA/UK trough organizations that sponsor NGOs here.”

“Covid started as my work conference was becoming intolerant of women refusing the use of pronouns and the cis label, which I will not use.”

“It concerns me a lot, how Influential it is in academia and in the left, and that I can’t be open about my views.”

“I am sickened by the erosion of the rights that the women that came before me fought so long and hard for.   I am intensely concerned about the current and future well being of my nieces and my cousin’s and friend’s daughters. What this ideology is doing to children breaks my heart.  I am also very deeply concerned about what is happening to women in prisons and jails in my state and elsewhere.  There are so many awful things happening to various groups because of this ideology and I have an almost continuous thread of stress and anxiety about all of it running in the background of my thoughts.  I live somewhere that gender identity ideology has taken over so I also have started feeling much more isolated and alone than I ever have in my life.”

“Well as a lesbian the impact was quite enormous, it’s destroyed my entire trust in progressive/left spaces and almost all institutions. I feel like I’m on my own.”

“Everything these people say sounds nice in theory. But in reality it just doesn’t work.  I hate everything about it to the point that I avoid people who have pronouns set anywhere. I will not bow down to this mess. I hate how you can’t have any women’s spaces anymore that need to be opened up. I hate how the experiences of women are often summed up by a man who wears a dress and makeup. This is not the same.  And most of all, I hate how this has gained so much support so quickly. Women clawed themselves through shit for decades. We fought for everything and took it, and have it taken away again to this day. And this shit just breezes through. I have to work so damn hard to prove myself, to be twice as good as a man and even then, my voice is not heard. I have to follow an impossible beauty standard and despite all the claims of being a feminist too, these people still think that “beautiful” is the highest compliment a woman can receive. I am so angry and so sad, but I will not give up and identify as nonbinary or some garbage to gain respect, I will take it.”

“I used to identify as a transman but luckily only socially transitioned as I’m quite flat chested and passed quite well (for queer circles anyway, where everyone is quite delusional, normal people probably saw me as a 12 y.o. boy). Being in queer circles worsened my depression, caused me dysphoria (which has disappeared since I exited those circles *funnily enough* social contagion/rapid onset gender dysphoria indeed).”

“Gender identity ideology has turned being a lesbian into even more of a nightmare than it had been before.”

“Have lost friends and it still haunts me to this day.”

“I have lost 5 friends at once in a very ugly argument caused by the statement that it is okay to grieve for lesbian visibility, it was half of my close friends group. That hurt a lot and made me question myself and hit my self confidence severely for a while.”

“The German lesbian Organisation called “Lesbenring” (I formerly spend a lot of time for) now is completely infiltrated by gender ideology and I am forced to leave. Maybe I am old, but can see clearly the consequences of this hype in public media and soon in law. Not afraid, but very angry.”

“I have experienced a trans woman, in a supported accommodation for people with mental health problems who was violent, sexually abusive and used his gender identity to access female support groups for victims of childhood abuse. It was wholly inappropriate and retraumatising for us as young women.”

“I am a detransitioner. It ruined my life.”

“I am a survivor of sexual violence and this scares the hell out of me.”

“Gender identity ideology encourages more sexism and misogyny. To me, there is nothing progressive about it. As a woman who has never cared to conform to what “society” expects me to be or look like, I feel that GD ideology makes it harder for people like me to fight against stereotypes and liberate women and men from societal pressures to express themselves without being shamed or told they must be the opposite sex.”

“I have been happy with my sexual orientation all my life. Now, seeing that men claim to be lesbians, I lost interest in using dating apps. Meeting women irl is hard enough. I feel I can’t date, let alone be with a woman who doesn’t reject gender ideology. That makes the dating pool even smaller.”

“I find it depressing how little progress feminism has made in the last 100 years if all it takes is a few males saying they feel like women for women’s hard fought for rights to be squashed in a very short time.”

“I am again, after a long time, getting nightmares about the perpetrators of sexual violence against myself (I was a girl then) when meeting men in disguise as “trans women” in women only spaces.”

“My time exploring my gender was awful for my health and the lgbt helplines made things much worse with the ideology’s untruths and facts such as the suicide statistic and called me a bad person for even asking questions, fortunately naturally critical enough to reason myself away from the belief system and became a gender atheist but I worry for those who are too accepting of what they are told. One of my unhappiest times in my life was the time I thought transwoman are woman because of everything that meant about the world and me.”

“I want to fight for women’s rights, intersectional feminism, abortion rights, LGB acceptance, etc. but instead we have to fight over whether women are female.”

“As a coach, I am concerned about how to interact with children given this minefield.”

“It’s even cost me family relationships, after a younger relative fell victim to ROGD and then deemed the rest of us transphobic for daring to ask questions (even though we did respect the relative’s pronouns and chosen name and the questions were in a genuine attempt to understand).”

“I am coming back into the fight for lesbian/women’s rights because the situation is as dire as it gets, imho. We used to be harassed by the hetero sexual environment, nope it’s the own supposed peer group that’s the actual threat.”

“Depressed, angry, scared, upset and on high alert are just some of the emotions I am feeling. I actually hate the world for this crap.”

“I’m going through my second childhood. It’s the 1950’s all over again.”

“Getting kicked off twitter and Facebook is pretty bad as I do find social media a good distraction. I’m barred permanently from twitter and have another 30 day ban at present for stating that trans is a mental health disorder.”

“I don’t have the words to explain why, or describe how, learning that my partner of 5 years had held a lifetime belief that he was bi-gender destroyed my career, my finances, my health, my looks, my confidence, my beliefs, and ultimately my desire to live.  I grew up in an unsafe home with an angry, abusive father.  I survived a first marriage to an alcoholic man, then a second marriage to a philanderer.  I had no idea how very, very much men hate women, until I researched the term gender identity, then sat in counselling sessions listening to the man who loved me reduce me, and all women, to nothing but a list of socially-dictated stereotypes, a costume to wear, an idea to act out.  An object.  His hobby.  A vacation.  A new frontier.  His desire to be me, specifically, Me – who I am, is terrifying.”

“Finding gender critical feminist blogs on Tumblr as a teen made me realize I wasn’t non binary and helped me see how damaging that identity had been. I never did HRT or any medical transition but I was using a binder, which has its own health concerns, especially because my upper back is already messed up from kyphosis and scoliosis. Identifying as non-binary had only increased my confusion about what it meant to be female, and obviously hadn’t changed my material reality at all.”

“For a period, I identified as non-binary expressly because I had been directly told to shut up about my own field of expertise (modern foreign languages) in public by a transgender woman on account of my sex. During this period, I felt uncomfortable entering into discussions regarding any sexism or misogyny I faced due to “not being a woman”, and felt that I had less right to womanhood and the related experiences than someone who had to think deeply and critically and find their way there, i.e.: a transgender woman. This inability to even think of the sexism with which I was still faced, let alone the loss of language and community with which to discuss it was the starting point for me discovering my gender critical beliefs and renouncing my non-binary identity.”

“1. It has hindered me seeking medical treatment. I already have a fear of what can happen in hospitals, because of what has happened to me previously. Knowing there’s a possibility of a trans woman medical practitioner treating me and having to deal with that tactfully, while I’m ill and being triggered has made me even more cautious. I have a good female GP who I can go to about anything, however, I even hesitate seeing her because I’m afraid of being referred on. I just don’t want to deal with it when I’m not well.  2. I have spoken with my children for years that they can be anything they want in life, they can dress however they want, they can do whatever they like, but they will always be their sex. I’ve told them some people think differently, and we just let them have their thoughts about it, same as we do with religion. I resent that I even have to do this, and they’re not yet teens so I don’t know how it will play out (could backfire spectacularly!). One of them has already told me that they’ve been told boys can become girls – my eldest is 10.”

“I think I’ve said as much as I can right now without getting completely overwhelmed, which is why my answers blanked earlier. Thank you very much for the opportunity to participate in this survey.”

“As a future teacher, teaching in accordance with gender ideology might be required for me to do if it doesn’t get stopped beforehand.”

“It feels like observing an alien culture. What worries me is that it’s starting to seep into countries like mine and undo what little progress we’ve made when it comes to women’s and gay rights.”

“It’s ruining my physical and mental health.”

“It’s caused the end of two very deep and important friendships. The LG have been ostracized from our community. We’ve lost our butches. It’s a fucking travesty.”

“A year ago when I was starting to understand I was a radfem I had quite some anxiety about it.”

“Just when women are rising this trans comes in to sabotage our rise. So harmful to trying to save the world.”

“I am concerned about the lack of information on how transitioning parents effect the well being of underage children.”

“I tried to organize gender abolition feminists in my area, we did a few things, but most women are scared. They want to get together to talk, but they don’t want to take risks.”

“It is particularly at the forefront of my mind working in academia, especially this past week as someone has taped a “gender inclusive restroom” sign to the women’s restroom on my office floor which incidentally also contains the area for nursing mothers, all of which makes me very uncomfortable.”

“It makes me crazy that so many of my comrades have bought into GII. Recently a very dear friend and comrade over 50yrs told me to “get over it, we lost this battle.” She is a famous US artist, feminist and Marxist. She was once my role model in politics but no more. She is too old and famous to be cancelled she has become a coward.”

“It has resulted in my being isolated from and forced out of Left groups and caused me to fear participation in social movements and Pride events.”

“Had to leave the Labour Party couldn’t be bothered any more. Actually as a second waver the resurgence of feminism around this has been a personal plus in terms of new friendships and interests, it feels like absolutely my fight as I have also worked with prostituted women, in a DV refuge, in AIDS/HIV education in the death years and in more general youth work in between my teaching/ lecturing posts.”

“It made my teenage years so much more difficult than they needed to be and seeing young gender nonconforming girls and boys fall prey to these mind games en masse is disturbing to say the least. I shouldn’t have been worrying about pronouns and deadnames, I was only 16!”

“A lot of my online female friends have started identifying as nb or trans men, or are really into trans activism, I’m growing weary of it but I still don’t dare to out myself as gender critical.”

“It makes me feel lucky I didn’t have to deal with when I was younger. It makes me afraid for the youth of today. It’s very aggravating as a feminist to see that they manage to ruin so much for women and that if you point it out you’ll be branded as a ‘bad woman’.” 

“If a white person identified as black, this would not be acceptable. Also, the use of Karen references is used to further perpetuate this misogyny.”

“I feel like it’s made me…angrier? More cynical? I don’t know how to put it into words…  Seeing and reading how women (het and gay) are treated by followers of gender ideology makes me feel so powerless. Our words are erased, we’re barred from important events, we’re spoken over, we’re told that our experiences are fake or don’t matter…and then whenever we bring up our concerns on how we’re being treated, we’re once again told that we’re making it up or that it’s not a big deal. I don’t know…I feel mentally drained, I guess. There are some days where I have no hope for women’s liberation. I fear for future generations of women if gender ideology doesn’t change in the next several years.”

“It is a constant worry in the back of my mind – I worry that the rights of women are being eroded, and that we are being targeted and silenced whenever any objection is being raised. I am glad I haven’t had female children or I would be is a much worse mental state.”

“I’m a detransitioner in college. I’m scared. I don’t know what my future will be. There are no lesbians anymore. I can’t talk about it.”

“As a lifelong leftist political and social activist the capture of the Democratic Party and established non-profit organizations such as NOW, HRC, NARAL, Stonewall and even some of my beloved trade unions by gender identity ideology has been so painful and alienating. Even groups and organizations that remain silent on upholding women’s hard won sex based rights I fear are silent because of fear of backlash from gender identity captured organizations and individuals, not because of any full throated support for women as a class oppressed because of sex.  I also have a lot of fear that any overall backlash against gender identity ideology will also erode legal, political and socials gains that have been made by the lesbian, gay and bisexual communities.”

“I ended up referring to myself as trans for years and having unbearable dysphoria – gender ideology just made these issues way worse because it suggested there is this weird way out, like a cheat I guess, instead of learning to come to terms with your body and finally being happy, without weird surgical wounds that end up making you infertile and scarred.”

“It feels like being brainwashed by an abuser with the difference that this is a global phenomenon.”

“Loneliness and despair not having any space to meet with my lesbian sisters. Sometimes this is very hard to handle, especially at my age.”

“I feel constantly anxious about what the future holds in terms of this debate and how many women and children will continue to be harmed before the world comes to its senses over this manifest collective lunacy.”

“I do not have an issue with people wanting to transition. I have an issue with their refusal to respect the boundaries of sex and sexuality, their promotion of gender roles, and how much they lie about medical possibilities and experiment on children.”

“I am angered that my daughter is treated poorly at school for wanting to write about historical feminism. Her school now has a policy that repeatedly misgendering could result in expulsion. Her school also has a fundraising book full of trans kids. It’s creepy. I think more of her than my lost friendships because so many of her friends swallow this garbage unquestioningly.”

“I’m an unemployed, ASD hermit.  I’m way more scared to interact either (sic) world because of all this.  I don’t see how I’ll ever get a job and/or not be arrested at some point for just being honest… the insanity of the ideology infiltration of everything has been slowly driving me mad.  I’ve lost friends and I never had many to start with.  But I’ve also made friends and connections with lovely, clever women too.”

“I am angry, sad and generally feeling that I live in a world I don’t understand with regard to GI. It is, however, making me passionate and motivated to change the discourse.”

“Very outraged, yet paralysed about the developments.”

“Stressed, fed up, despairing.”

“When still working (at a large broadcast company), I saw many female colleagues, claiming themselves to be feminist, kowtow to the TRA ideology. Most media here use the * in sex-sensitive words, of course, most of them for women only. So you can read Frauen* (women*), but always Männer (men). Even serious media like some newspapers and magazines or the broadcasters under public law don’t waste a minute to think what BS they are spreading. WDR (one of the broadcasting organisations under public law) even celebrates this man named Georg Kellermann who is the head of a large studio (which he became because he’s a man) and who now calls himself Georgine. His mission is to get rid of all the TERFs (those women who still have all their senses together and refuse to accept his assertion of being a woman). His employer… does nothing against him but bullies and bashes the women who dare to criticise Mr. Kellermann.”

“For the first time, I am afraid of a social development. This is new for me.”

“It’s destroyed my retirement yrs.”

“My niece (age 25) has been going through medical “transition” for 2 years.  This has put distance between us.  She doesn’t know how I feel about it, nor the fact that I am a GC activist.  I had only two nieces, and the older one died of ALS at age 48, shortly before her cousin “transitioned”.  My feeling of loss is deep as a result.”

“Being this furious for this long, has in itself had huge impacts upon me. I do not enjoy the greatest health and have a limited amount of energy but everything I have goes into this fight and it’s exhausting. I am currently, stepping back from activities due to burn out but I cannot stop. The war continues, so I must pick myself up and get back into the fray.”

“Myself and friends – mostly single women and politically active for a lot of their lives, have been terrified to speak our minds, ridiculous as that is. And dangerous in a large level.”

“That I should support gender identity because my country has a group called hijras who the trans lobby assumes to be trans too to suggest that trans people have always existed.”

“It has given me purpose and will to fight for young people’s sake but also great grief, anger and depression.”

“It’s changed my position from a community leader in the women’s and LGB community to a pariah overnight in my “progressive” town. But this has made me see the misogyny and the money and power behind this cult and cemented my determination to do everything in my power to resist it.”

“I have trouble believing how many people support the LIES, will never change how I feel about this, men can never be women.”

“It has made me mistrust institutions and government, for example our ministry of health.”

“GII has increased my fear for the future 10-fold and knocked my confidence in the NHS, in public bodies and in charities that are supposed to support and protect vulnerable people. I have lost one long term friend, who I hope one day will see this movement for what it is. Currently, his employment depends on him not doing. Women’s rights activism has brought me closer to a number of existing friends, however, and I’ve forged new friendships with some formidable and fiercely intelligent women.”

“I am very tired. I sleep less, I worry more, I worry about our daughters and what future they have if we can’t overturn the institutional capture and keep words like woman to mean adult human female. I’m angry and manage this in the best way I can, with exercise and meditation but I have very little time as a working parent but I remain active and vigilant. Being constantly vigilant to the next attack is exhausting, and yet it always comes. Every single day there is more misogyny to counter.”

“I am a trans widow.”

“This gender BS is the reason I left all social media which has had a major impact on my social life and has increased feelings of isolation and disconnection. Trans ideology puts porn based fetishes before the rights of half of the human population.”

“Makes me feel like the world is a more dangerous place and people are more susceptible to irrational influences than I believed previously.”

“At work I volunteered to be our department’s representative for an inclusive terminology project.  I thought it would be a nice, positive thing to do.  It’s turned out to be a distressing experience because of the aggression that people display when you dare to question anything and not toe the party line.”

“Prior to realising that there were very many people out there who also thought that gender ideology was nonsense I felt like I was losing my mind. I felt incredibly angry, confused, anxious and had problems sleeping for about 2 years. I experienced terrible cognitive dissonance because I wondered if I was an awful person and a bigot for not being able to accept the ideas being presented which caused huge psychological discomfort. While much of this has improved I still experience a lot of distress when hearing detransitioner’s stories and when I think about the harm being done to children that will affect them for the rest of their lives.”

“I refuse to use mixed sex lavatories, and I am fearful that men (who can identify as a woman but still have a penis!) will someday be allowed to share changing rooms. I am worried for my granddaughter who is only 4.”

“Constant concern regarding grandchildren and school indoctrination of this ideology. Often think I may have to retire early and home school to protect them.”

“I’m a women’s officer and feel am put in a very difficult position if TIMs want to take part in women only events. The obvious pro trans position taken by other members causes me a lot of stress and I don’t feel I have the space to properly discuss the issue.”

“I’ve twin daughters, this panics & infuriates me all in one.”

“I am infuriated at the amount of mental energy this takes up when there are other, extremely pressing issues we need to tackle – such as poverty in the UK or the climate crisis. Most people can only spread themselves so far, and the obstacles we face in trying to embed feminism in mainstream thought can be pretty demoralising. Allowing gender ideology to develop unchecked is not an option, though.”

“I feel silenced.”

“I work with young people and can see first hand the impact this ideology is having on them. In the current climate I can’t see how it’s possible for a young woman to come out as a lesbian without being transitioned. The odds are stacked against them. The lesbophobia within LGBT community is out of control and no one is recognising this or doing anything about it.”

“My gay children feel that it is important to be inclusive at the cost of the eradication of womanhood.”

“I feel we are winning the battles. But we have a long way to go to undo the awful damage to children, the women and to society as a whole. The idea that we cannot trust our police or govt or institutions gives me more anxiety and anger than the issue itself. The threat of SELF ID seems ever present, even though it’s not the law.  The cowardice of our politicians makes me anxious too.  All the battles are being won by women. Grass roots. With very little support. It’s these things that make me anxious.”

“I would not be able to return to my previous career as a mental health professional due to my gender critical views, unless I was to hide them.  Given there is no evidence that people can be born in the wrong body, gender ideology and forcing it upon people by cancelling them or sacking them, should be a criminal offence.”

“I want to talk about my feelings on this, but I feel like I’m being silenced. I know lots of other women feel the same. I’m afraid to go to Pride marches as a lesbian and as a feminist. I’m afraid of using dating apps and getting banned for being transphobic because I don’t want sex with people who are male.”

“I don’t like the lie that people can change their sex. Most people, except for a relative few inter-sex people, are born either female or male and stay that way permanently – they can alter or remove some outward characteristics e.g. penis, breasts but their physiology remains the sex they were born with e.g. muscles and apparently mitochondria in cells etc. Men remain XY males and women XX females even if they change their subjective gender -or how they are perceived. Intersex people can speak for themselves.  I was previously employed as a Laboratory assistant at a university in a specialised science facility and even they suggested in an online newsletter that colleagues could think about transitioning. There was no pressure on me personally at all at my workplace though. I won’t be transitioning. I know and support Anna Kerr at the feminist Legal Clinic in Sydney -which was forced to vacate its City of Sydney Council premises this year due to gender identity politics.”

“l am now divorced from my husband of 35 years.  After 30 years of marriage he told me he was trans.  l was very supportive to start with but his behaviour, mental health, personality all changed for the worst and the lies and behaviour became intolerable for me.”

“I am lucky that I’m self employed so I can speak out. I have had a death threat on social media for doing so.”

“Fear for my impressionable autistic son being brainwashed at school.”

“For all the impact it is having on the West, the away impact it’s having on countries like India and in Africa could be devastating. It will stop women’s liberation in its tracks.”

“I choose reality. I love the world. I seek knowledge and learn from the world around me and the humanity, animals and nature within it.   Philosophy is amazing, to question things is important – but please let us not think our consciousness is ‘out of this world’. We are intelligent mammals but we cannot twist reality.”

“I have not felt as silenced about a subject since I was systematically raped and sexually violated as a child. This impacts me greatly and I long for a society where I can express my views without the fear of violence, exclusion or losing my job.”

“Yes. It has exposed me to radical feminist theory for which I am grateful. It has brought clarity and exposed the extend of misogyny in soon-to-be ex-husband. I could no longer pretend that he would reform. He doesn’t even recognize my humanity. I am so relieved to know the truth and look forward to freedom.”

“My mental health has deteriorated greatly due to the bullying and harassment from my union branch members.”

“Reactivated the feminist in me.”

“It’s a constant worry.”

“It has made me scared of speaking truths in certain company.  However, I refuse to lie and I will not consent to compelled speech.  It has also given me the opportunity to engage with other women from different walks of life with a common goal of defending our rights and joining together in campaigning in inventive ways that (hopefully) won’t see us charged for hate speech or the loss of our jobs.”

“I work in a school, where I have seen girls with mh problems identify as boys, I have been reported to the head for believing that girls are girls.”

“I felt as a woman that I had the freedom to do anything. That hard win equality rights were finally working.  Now however, I fear that we are regressing and our institutions are allowing it to happen.  For the first time in my life, I feel threatened and oppressed. The rise in violence towards women is extremely worrying and there is a general hostility which should not be accepted in a democratic society. I worry for the next generation and for women growing up in this new normal. The distrust and suspicion between the sexes is leading to increased civil unrest.”

“I am concerned about the lack of public debate on this issue, particularly because of the impact this ideology has on women’s rights and access to single sex spaces such as prisons, rape crisis centres, hospital wards and toilets. I believe trans people should be entitled to protection from harassment however, I believe that women are a sex class and this sex class needs protection and definition in law for all purposes including data collection.”

“Started to think and appreciate radical feminism.”

“I now have people deliberately mis-sexing me thinking they are being kind! When I point out I am a woman, I get told by them why do I not dress like one. Since when have jeans and a T shirt = man! Women do not have to wear dresses, they do not have to use make up and we don’t need to have long hair. This ideology is encouraging people to miss-sex anyone who doesn’t fit a rigid sexist stereotype. It’s not kind it’s insulting and restrictive.”

“I am a high school teacher in one of the most liberal cities in the world. Surprisingly, I’ve not had trans or nb students but I fear the day I do and will need to inform them that our choir groups are divided by sex.”

“I write and create gender critical content on twitter, youtube, facebook, and instagram under my own name, Amy E. Sousa, as well as @KnownHeretic”

“It is a cloud hanging over me a great deal of the time; it has revealed to me how much men on my side (left) despise women, so I often feel hopeless. I also worry constantly about the impact of these ideas & policies on my 13 yo daughter.”

“The fear of losing my job. The fear of not being able to safeguard children and vulnerable adults because of gender ideology. I am a Social worker.”

“It has caused me to live in a state of almost constant frustration, fear, sadness and anger since I discovered what’s going on 2 years ago.”

“I am the parent of a trans identified child. It is truly terrifying not just thinking about the impact of transition on their healthy body, but also having my child radicalised and groomed to hate not just their body but their family as well.”

“As a freelancer in a creative field I have to go to great lengths to hide my views online. I have turned down work because it was seeped in harmful trans ideology aimed at young children. I even had to lie as to why I was turning it down.”

“My work has mandatory training which misrepresents the Equality Act. They’ve now started discussing protected characteristics and yet they collect data on gender, not sex. They are starting work groups for LGBTQ etc., and I am scared this will lead to more oppression of gc views. It’s a local authority!”

“I am terrified of the future in a country dominated by reality-denying misogynistic quasi-religious fanatics.”

“I don’t hesitate when I say this- it’s had the biggest impact on me of any political movement.”

“Feel very preoccupied, unable to “look away”. Not always good at switching off and concentrating on other things.”

“I’ve lost friends and family. Been hounded from women’s online groups.  Sent violent porn anonymously.  Have been in extreme fear of police action as a result of my protests.”

“I’m grateful, for once, that Greece is so behind the UK that I will hopefully never have to put my pronouns at the bottom of an email.”

“It is making connecting to other lesbians very challenging.”

“I am mostly frustrated and sad that this is taking us backwards in terms of equality (my daughter can work on an oil rig and still be a woman / my son can wear make up and date men, and still be a man!), the unfairness (e.g. men claiming to be a woman and removing a woman’s achievements), and the impact on safety (e.g. lesbians feeling pressured in to having sex with a man).”

“My main thing is reality testing. Often I need someone with me to confirm that what I am seeing or hearing is real. I need language to mean exactly what it is meant to mean. Otherwise I tend to drift off the planet, which is not very sensible. I also live with paranoia and anxiety, and anger issues. I feel like I am much more on high alert than I was before I learned about gender ideology. Who I can trust is no longer possible to work out. Actually I suppose I only feel safe in feminist spaces now. I also trust men, young people and left wing people a lot less than I did in the past. I am very left wing politically, and usually involved in community actions, so this has meant I am either constantly policing my language, or becoming more isolated from every community action. If you do not believe people can change sex you are labelled transphobic and not welcome. This is happening everywhere, council, schools, shops, pubs, sports places, evening classes, activist groups. I hate that I have to be silent, or absent. This is misogynistic hatred towards older women. It seems younger women are happier to shut up or go along with it. But they have to keep their employment, so who am I to judge? I find it very difficult to be silent, so I am usually only with women I can trust, or ordinary working class people who seem to know this is all bollocks (literally).”

“I am a 72 year old radical lesbian feminist. I have spent the past 35 years working for women and girls’ rights and particularly lesbian rights. For 2 decades I have personally experienced the attacks by trans – shutting down our lesbian gatherings, destroying our women only services, taking us to court, tearing our communities apart. Now they want even more. They want our children, our young lesbians, our culture, our rights we have fought so hard and long for. I am beyond sad about it all. I am beyond angry. I am in despair.”

“The tearing apart of my friend group and political circles has been a tragedy. Such loss, such damage.”

“My biggest problem has been my unease with the political circles that I was in. I come from radical left, perceive feminism as an anarchistic worldview but the whole discourse has changed in such environments.”

“It terrifies me the way it is advancing it on the world, changing laws and mindsets so fast. I hope we could stop it on time.”

“I’m outraged. In the 1990s I was living in Germany and volunteering at the women’s cultural center, a women only space. A debate ensued because a cross-dresser/trans women was coming to the disco and some women opposed it. I was not only in favor of Paula being allowed in, I befriended her, a male school teacher by day. In the early 2000s I also educated myself about trans/queer at a meet and greet event at my local Gay/Lesbian Center in California. And even decided to call myself queer for a time because I’d felt that the lesbian community had become “mainstream” in their politics particularly towards marriage equality. I’ve been very supportive of diversity. But at our gay pride 2019 the key speaker was trans and spoke fervently about trans rights and children’s trans rights. I felt immediately alienated. It’s only been this year that I got wind of everything that’s been going on. Now I follow several organizations reporting on sex-based rights and have been re/reading a lot of the 1970s/80s feminist canon. It’s grounding and I feel necessary to remind myself where we’ve come from, given that women’s history is constantly in danger of erasure.”

“I want to thank you for the work you are doing.”

“I keep my views secret because if anyone found out my views I would be ostracised and lose jobs.”

“I have a college classmate who identifies as male. It was a shock and I have trouble with wording because in Slovene you have declensions which makes it harder to try and stay true to my opinion but at the same time to not be scrutinized.”

“For the first time in my life, I feel censored. I watch what I say and to whom I say it. There is no room for discourse, especially here in Canada. I believe the vast majority of Canadians feel the same way, but the politicians, media and academic institutions tow the trans line.”

“I can’t speak freely to anyone without fear of offending. I can’t go anywhere without worrying about encounters with activists and supporters who consider me privileged, or prey, and worthless.”

“I left the Green Party due to the infiltration and adoption of self ID.”

“It’s creating an existential crisis for me. When I don’t speak out, I feel very distressed and powerless. When I do speak out, I’m waiting for the shoe to drop. So far I’m boring enough to ignore because I haven’t published anything about gender ideology (even though I’d like to).”

“I am currently suffering from moderate depression. This has largely resulted from an incident two months ago where I explained my GC views to work friends at their request and under the promise I would not be cast off as transphobic. However one friend then accused me of transphobia, advised me not to voice my opinions in the workplace for ‘D&I reasons’ and cut me off when I refused to apologise for stating I didn’t believe people could be born in the wrong body. This has splintered our friendship group and has meant I have lost a support network that would have otherwise been there for me through other big life events that have recently occurred. I also had to reveal all of this to my line manager as I had legitimate fears that this friend might interfere in my attempts to apply for internal roles. Prior to this incident, I suffered from anxiety, partly from the necessity of hiding my views and partly as I was aware of this particular friend needling me to admit my views. Additionally, my particular role at work involves a lot of reputation management and I am required to be impartial. We have recently come under media scrutiny for our association with Stonewall and I have had to hide my views publicly and from those outside my immediate team (who thankfully have seen the light due to our reputation work) to ensure my impartiality is not called into question, not least because this would negatively impact my chances of promotion.”

“My mother is a hippy, she taught me to trust myself and allowed me to make mistakes. My parents were not nudist but nakedness was normal at the house. I feel like, gender ideology is the opposite of what 68 aspired to achieve, that was to celebrate life and our bodies as gifts. I cannot fathom the pain one should feel when they believe they were born in the wrong body, and the amount of medical malpractice to affirm it as a health practitioner.”

“Femicide rates are high in Turkey, also lgbt rights are not protected in law. People are generally homophobic but young people are more open. The trouble is that these children’s brains were filled with gender ideology. They are actually very homophobic and don’t know this. All lgbt and feminist organizations are gender supporters. If you openly criticise trans ideology you can’t be in lgbt/feminist organisations. The country is already homophobic and misogynist. As a gender critical lgbt, I feel alone.”

“I’m missing the save spaces for women and fear for freedom of speech and free debate.”

“Tiring, consuming.”

“Stepson has come out as trans and it has caused a lot of stress in the family.”

“I have spent 50 years fighting for women’s rights, for women’s voices to be heard and for their views to be respected. The current backlash is greater than I could ever have expected and I find it terrifying. Although there is now more open discussion than there was a year ago, nobody apart from Jennifer Bilek, has yet had the courage to identify the handful of rich white men and their millionaire (billionaire!) supporters who have succeeded in foisting this on an unsuspecting world. Truly, this is patriarchy in action.”

“Gender identity ideology has above all else fired me up to greater commitment to political activism for positive social change for lesbians and other women.”

“It has had an impact because I spend a lot of my time and money fighting against this ideology. It is like a second tax on women. We have been failed by our MPs and institutions, who haven’t protected our sex based rights and now thousands of ordinary people are having to fight for them all over again.”

“Fear of the future for when I am in need of help from others and for my daughter and grand-daughters.”

“I have experienced some ostracization by lesbians who adhere to trans ideology and expect me to be pro-trans or complacent about its impact on lesbian lives. It makes me fearful to socialize.”

“Identity ideology has impacted our lives hugely. Loss of income, friends, fractured family relationships, depression and illness as a result of the strain etc.”

“I am consumed with the fear that we have turned into an Orwellian dystopia. I am very angry too and it is impacting on my sleep.”

“I have young grandchildren and can see what is out there. It is my job as a grandmother to protect them.”

“Takes up a great deal of my time keeping up with this issue. Wish that I had been aware of it earlier. Being comfortably retired obviously helps.  This nonsense has awakened the radical feminist in me. I put up with dominant males and their bullshit throughout my professional life. And now I see this stuff happening. I feel very sad for women.”

“I never thought at this age I’d see the hard-won gains of generations of women overturned on a whim. And I never thought I’d see straight women supporting the eradication of women as a category and the eradication of women’s sex-based rights.”

“It has been very destabilising, requiring me to rethink many of the things I believed. This has been a good thing in some respects, but also incredibly stressful and upsetting, greatly impacting on my mental health and wellbeing over the past 5 years. It has set me back, health-wise, affected my confidence, and been very isolating. I feel a great deal of fear surrounding what is happening, what could happen, and the impact that GII is having on our understanding of what it means to be human (which in the modern world is already impaired).”

“Watching the impact of this ideology on teens has concerned me deeply.  Guiding my daughter to accept her growing body in this culture has been a delicate and ongoing challenge.  I am shocked at the fanatical adoption of this ideology in the past 5-8 years here.”

“My daughter has identified as trans for 5 years and it has been a nightmare.”

“I do feel more cautious talking about this with many people, esp. since I’ve had a few close friends/family members say explicitly that they disagree strongly with my views and feel it would be better for our relationships if we just drop it as a topic of conversation.  I’m also very aware of the zeitgeist at work: though I don’t work with any transgender people, I notice that more and more colleagues are adding pronouns to their online signatures.  I haven’t been asked to do so; however, if I am, I will refuse.  And then I expect there will be a fight.”

“I am aware that my State Govt., and politicians generally to my knowledge, the local University, schools, the local women’s sexual assault referral centre, the local women’s prison, the 2 local hospitals, are all allowing entry to men who self-ID as women. I have so far personally not been impacted by this policy capture – fortunately.”

“I’m so grateful for your crucial work on this.”

“It has taken a huge amount of my bandwidth over the past year as I have become involved in an activist group fighting gender ideology and self ID in Ireland. The gaslighting and erosion of women’s rights while people tend to automatically side with the trans ideology they’ve been brainwashed into perceiving as cool and progressive, while so easily ridiculing any woman who doesn’t go along with it, has shown me just how precarious women’s social and legal standing is. It’s disempowering and disappointing but also enlightening as to just how much misogyny there is, and in which quarters – left wing men mainly which was a surprise to me.”

“After 40 years as an out & proud lesbian feminist activist the evils of the gender identity fiction have cut into me deeply.”

“I am pleased that women are fighting back and getting strength together.”

“Although I’ve tried to keep up to date on what is happening re gender ideology, it has had a big impact on my mental health.  My anxiety levels have been through the roof sometimes, fearing what could happen to what I consider safe places.  I do not have a problem with someone wanting to live their life as the opposite gender but when it comes to sex segregated places it needs to stay segregated by sex only, otherwise it totally negates their original function – Safety and Dignity, we must find a solution where everyone is safe and happy not just a select few.”

“I was recently an in patient in Hosp. A trans male was in same ward and he tried to get into bed with a female patient.”

“The trans ideology assault on women and children utterly appals me and I take every opportunity to campaign vigorously against it.”

“I’m an MFA student at a research university. I’ve submitted works of poetry and fiction for publication and had them pulled due to tweets of mine deemed transphobic. Even though I deleted the tweets, they were screenshot and saved and circulated among gender fanatic literary magazine editors who identify as nonbinary and transgender in their circle jerk circles to keep me from being platformed among their crowd.”

“I’m usually on the side of the underdog. This trans rights re-worlding makes me look like a bully. I think the things feminists have fought for over centuries include the right to be accepted in your gender and sexual identity, as queer other but still male or female. Now, that identity is being denied. The trans rights movement is the most suffocating and limited of all narratives on sex and gender.”

“As a retired midwife, I find the elimination of words like woman, mother, breast, breastfeeding for ridiculous and biologically impossible neologisms extremely disturbing, particularly as student midwives can fail their assignments for using the correct woman focused language and experienced and much-needed breastfeeding counsellors being dismissed for referring to mothers and breastfeeding. Well-known authors on aspects of pregnancy and birth being removed from organisations purporting to support women and being subject to online insults and threats.”

“I was accepting of transgender ideology as a progressive liberal Democrat until 2014. I ordered a “feminist” zine from a nearby feminist group and was shocked by its hatred of females, the idea of “lady dick” presented as superior, images that clearly indicated men were now considered lesbians, and a rather pornified idea of sex. I instantly became transgender critical and, through online searching, discovered the community of “TERFS” of which I am now proudly a part. I would not be aware of the extent of the transgender problem and its dangers had I not seen the zine and found terfs. I think the general populace is unaware of what’s going on.”

“Lost friends, my character has been attacked on social media by friends, and I have faced rejection by my daughter based on her adoption of trans ideology coming in conflict with my gender-critical feminist views.”

“I am a union officer in a very pro-trans union and this has made life a bit difficult. I want to support transgender people but not at the price of having to accept that trans women are women.”

“I am a teacher but have been on sick-leave for 15 months due to breast cancer. I had a double mastectomy without reconstruction. In this time, a couple of trans students have started at my school, I believe they are TIFs, and I’m worried about how I will react to them when I return to work.”

“I no longer wish to live in my own country because of the increasing overwhelming marginalization of biological women in favor of the comfort of men who claim to be women in the west.”

“My daughter has recently self identified as trans and uses he him pronouns. I am very concerned about social media influences mental health and other factors at play. I feel extremely disempowered as a parent.”

“I’m fighting it in my corporation almost single-handed but I am not put off by bullying.”

“Daughter is swept up in trans ideology; it’s a completely life-consuming nightmare. The ideology is cult like, the practitioners disgracefully greedy and cruel. Affirmation-only treatment makes no sense to any decent healthcare system.”

“It is damaging my mental health, causing me anxiety beyond belief. It affects my relationship with my children (they think I have joined a cult).”

“I escaped domestic violence. As a result I ended up in a shelter, where after some time a man with a beard claiming to be a woman moved in, and was given a right to occupy single room, before it was offered to women. I lived in fear, that a man I run away from can move in at any time, I lost my sleep, and eventually moved back to Poland, because I was afraid my government doesn’t protect my rights as a woman anymore.” is stopping me from accessing leisure facilities, healthcare and forces me to stay quiet about my safety and comfort in the workplace.” 

“I was raped by a crossdresser in 2010. I dread to think what he identifies as these days but I definitely wouldn’t feel safe in women’s spaces if he was there as he was so predatory.”

“I have a history of sexual assault.”

“Gender identity ideology has impacted me in many ways. It has caused me anxiety and has impacted on real life friendships and situations. I am fearful for my grandchildren if the trajectory we are on in relation to gender issues continues.”

“I have been active at National and local levels campaigning and working for Women’s rights and I feel any progress we have made is being undermined. I have a lesbian stepdaughter and a lesbian granddaughter and I fear that their ability to determine their own lifestyle is at risk.”

“I am a scientist and sometimes teach biology. I cannot in all honesty teach my subject.”

“I first realised what was happening with the IOC rule changes to Olympic participation.  It was so unfair, I couldn’t believe what I was reading OR that people were not more bothered.  It just got worse and worse, prisons, court cases, transwidows, gender ideology being taught in schools, men parading their kinks in NSPCC offices and being CELEBRATED, Jenni Murray being cancelled and forbidden to speak.  The list goes on and it has made me rage and rage.  I went to a WPUK meeting where the hotel cancelled us!  I think I realised then that we were really up against it.  But thank god the tide has started to turn or I may have feared for my mental health. Thank god for all the brave women who spoke out, especially for me Janice Turner and JKR.”

“It distresses me a huge amount. In 1980/90s as teachers we helped children see that gender roles were based on sex stereotypes and they could adhere to them or not. Now we are expected to tell them they can, and should, medicalise themselves for life if they find the gender roles assigned to their sex uncomfortable.”

“It has certainly stirred me from apathy. I’ve never felt so motivated by an issue as this – because, simple I am a woman and I am under attacked for being a woman. I feel this is an emergency for children. Transgender ideology is extremely dangerous and very harmful for young minds. I can foresee a huge mental health crisis emerging.”

“I am astonished at the speed and reach of this new world dogma. It is a misogynistic men’s rights agenda and harms women and children.”

“As a lesbian I am affected differently because trans ideologists deny same-sex attraction. Obvs straight women could be affected by their denial of opposite-sex attraction as well, but somehow they don’t seem to be targeted in the same way. Nor are men (gay or straight).  The targeting of feminists and lesbians should alert us to other agendas which are piggy-backing on the trans/gender ideology campaigns- MRAs masquerading as Antifa for example.”

“I’m so worried for my son who has just started secondary school. I’m often irritated or angry by following this online which also impacts my son and partner.”

“Have teenage daughter and her friendship group is totally captured.  We no longer discuss this issue in the house as it was too upsetting for all.   And in work I’m expected to share information relating to ‘trans awareness’ and would be in breach of my role if I didn’t.  Some days that’s made me want to cry with frustration.”

“I’m a retired doctor and am outraged by people being forced to parrot this nonbiological nonsense.”

“As a lesbian of older years I am so upset for the young girls now who will never know the fun and freedom we had meeting together in our clubs and bars.”

“I feel I have to stay silent and accept lies over facts. I feel uncomfortable going to local hospital and being treated by people wearing rainbow lanyards. Recently my 15 year old son was treated by a 6ft 2 male called Susan. It made us both feel uneasy.”

“Gender ideology has caused me enormous stress and is damaging my mental health.”

“I have been bullied out of my local community groups and in my children’s school parent whatsapp groups.”

“As a child I was badly bullied. This tied in with my knowledge of the Holocaust and seeing footage from concentration camps at far too young an age. I grew up very aware of what it was to feel different and to feel vulnerable at a primal level when you are isolated and stigmatised by the herd. I knew how powerful the need to be part of the safe herd was, that I would betray a friend or even family member potentially from fear of being ostracised. And of course this made me, as I grew up and became stronger, very committed to speak up to bullies and not to go along with the herd. I find the herd mentality of gender ideology terrifying. As Voltaire said “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”

“I think it has had a serious detrimental impact to healthcare afforded to my daughter after I might have outed myself as a terf. I would like to talk about this.”

“Has negatively impacted my relationship (marriage) especially as I have a daughter and my husband believes I should be kind and let intact males who present as women into my sex-segregated spaces.”

“It is so annoying for someone with severe PMS to hear a man saying that he is a woman ohh my god!”

“The whole thing concerns me very much.”

“I was thrown out of a religious group for expressing my views on Facebook.”

“Infuriating.”

“I’ve 2 daughters, aged 26 and 24. The elder had 2 children of her own and has no time for gender woo woo, especially it being taught to her young, impressionable children. My 24 year old is very ‘woke’ and considers me “transphobic”, tries to silence me, and generally throws a wobbly if I mention the subject. Interestingly, she’s autistic.”

“I think this issue is a big one for parents, especially of girls. Warning them, keeping them safe both from Tims and from the regressive stereotypes & ideas but keeping a close connection and it upsetting them if their friends are genderists is tough. Dealing with ridiculous woke ideas at school calmly etc., I think has a huge impact on mums.”

“Honestly sometimes I despair and wonder if there’s any point in fighting. Sometimes it feels like I’m living in opposite world, I cannot fathom how people are going along with it. Luckily I have a circle of rf/gc women who support each other when it gets difficult, and I have a wonderful partner who agrees with me.”

“Lost my friends. Lost my community. The choice is between total acceptance of an ideology without question or isolation. I chose to hold my views and it’s hard.”

“I considered identifying as nonbinary, or even transitioning, because I felt it would make my nonconformity more acceptable if I was a man. By nonconformity I mean: the fact I’m attracted to women, the fact I’m not typically attractive, and the fact I have ADHD and the associated social difficulty. I believe many young women may feel the same – that they are a problem that needs changing/fixing, rather than the world that refuses to accept us as we are.”

“If I was a teen now, I’d be transed. I was and still am a gender nonconforming woman. I learned to accept myself as I am in this sexist world, just for gender idealogues to tell me that “I’m being a woman in a wrong way.”

“It kills me that my grown up children (22 d, 24 s, 28 s) disagree with me and label me a terf.”

“It has infuriated me to the point that I no longer wish to be “kind”. I am incensed with the politicians and women who take part in attacking gender critical women.”

“I have been noticing a trend that claims bisexuals should have no problems dating trans people.  I believe that most bisexuals want to date only non-trans people.”

“Debating the existence of sexual dimorphism, and the female sex has left me feeling completely hopeless. What’s next, if they can do this?”

“I work in domestic abuse and have been witness to abusive men claiming to be trans women to try and access support from women’s only services. I do believe that trans women should have more rights but not at the expense of keeping women safe. I feel genuinely scared to have an opinion about this for fear of being labelled transphobic.”

“This worries and frightens me for the future. The erasure of women and girls is happening by stealth.”

“Really resent the amount of time I have to spend campaigning against gender ideology. Have lost friends and had to leave other campaigning groups because of my opposition to gender ideology.”

“It’s a much more serious threat than I used to think. We really need to build a powerful grassroots campaign to stop the war on women.”

“My initial encounters with these ideas, and trans-identified individuals were gentle. I felt drawn to all of it, and sympathetic. I had a positive and supportive view of this topic. Eventually, as I immersed (‘educated’) myself, and spoke to, and read other women I realised that it is rather problematic and endangering for women and girls (primarily), particularly those who are already vulnerable. I have been targeted by transactivists, and this in combination with previous experience of male violence has made me a “transphobe”, I mean I have terror of the idea of encountering these individuals. They have made me fearful of their existence. Sadly, I cannot say that I am one, because my natural response of survival is now deemed a ‘hate crime’, even though it is justified by my life experience. I had to seek counselling, I delayed professional projects, I have been struggling to find a job, during lock down I further isolated myself fearing the backlash of friends and family over my views on gender id, I have been sanctioned by my union, because of all the above, I am struggling financially… I have avoided activities and places when I know there are trans people.”

“How has this happened? I’ve read obsessively loads of background stuff, and find it hard that people can’t see the risks.”

“I’m a detrans lesbian.”

“If I had been born later I would have been “transed” as I was gender non-conforming, and so I am very glad that I am not young!”

“I have a son with ASD who wanted to be a girl, we found out it was because he fitted in with girls at school, and was bullied by the boys – he realised that actually he is just a non- stereotypical boy – but if this happened today I would worry he would be on the road to transitioning, life long medication and sterilisation. I worry for those that are in the same situation my son was in.”

“I am old and cannot quite believe I am trying to fight this battle at my age, 73, which is driven by misogyny and a lack of respect for women and their boundaries. It seems totally regressive and driven, in part, by men’s sexual licence. I fear for young people’s mental health, since they are being fed so many lies, in order to serve older men with paraphilias, and in the case of young women, to escape the fate they imagine will befall them.”

“Working in medical publishing I have been astonished to find myself unable to speak out on this because our company has been Stonewalled, with pronouns encouraged on emails, and us even publishing a paper referring to “sex assigned at birth”. I am horrified by the mass delusion society seems to be inhabiting at present, and the postmodern denial of reality. Everyone should be able to identify however they wish, but this should not be to the detriment of others.”

“Just stay quiet. Never ever say anything about anything worthwhile. Don’t even think about any going for a political office or a high power job, such ambitions are dead. As an actual born woman my chances of gaining any kind status are already bad, but now I am an actual pariah for daring not to worship on the altar of gender. I have lost friendships. I have learned to stay quiet and become invisible in order to have a job so I can have a roof over my head.”

“I have incurable cancer. I wish I could identify out of it! I have to self-censor when I talk to my daughter, which makes me very sad.”

“It scares the sh*t out of me.”

“It makes me worry for the future, for the children, for the world.”

“It is the biggest assault on women’s rights in my lifetime.”

“If I encounter a statement regarding gender ideology at work or online and I could potentially counter it with my own opinion, I am always torn. I feel morally obligated to stand up and counter it, but then I am potentially drawn into an argument that often plays on my mind even if no-one does argue or I decide not to engage further.  If I decide not to counter the message, it will still play on my mind that I did not respond but wish that I had.  I think in a world where those in charge at our organisations and civic institutions responded better and didn’t cower to bullies, and understood the law and equality act and how to implement it, then I wouldn’t feel a responsibility to engage in these arguments personally.”

“I have written many letters to my MP about the misinterpretation of the Equality Act and the impact on single sex toilets, hospital wards, prisons, and sport. I’ve had no response. I’m afraid of the wilful misinterpretation of the EA so we lose our abilities to protect our spaces.”

“It’s made it harder to tell my 11 year old facts she should know (mixed spaces are more dangerous. Men are stronger) because she has already learned at school that there is no risk from mixed spaces and that women can be as strong as men. Some parents cannot talk to their children at all for fear of them reporting GC views more widely.”

“It has angered me more than anything I’ve ever experienced before but on the plus side it has made me engage in actual women’s rights activism for the first time in my life, which feels great.”

“I think about it everyday and it horrifies me. I have a daughter and we need to make sure gender ideology is forced out of schools as they are now starting to teach it to primary schools.”

“It has had a detrimental effect on my mental health, causing me lots of anxiety and inability to sleep or relax. However I think it is hugely important that the efforts of the many brave people speaking out and suffering concerning their jobs/livelihoods are reported and heard.”

“There’s only so long you can get angry about men. This debate quickly led me to start reading some feminist theory and I’ve been really inspired by female academics and activists I’ve encountered. I like how radical feminism really centers women and draws women together. I think that other GC groups would benefit from starting from this perspective – we should shift from defence to attack as much as we can. I’m not sure if I’ve expressed that well.”

“I feel like I am so alone because we can get cancelled at work or by friends over being GC because most people want to be seen as “good”/woke.”

“Mother of 18 yr old ROGD daughter. Getting up to speed fast.”

“As a writer, I definitely feel the chill washing across my world, from hasthtags turning up Amazon reviews to editors enquiring about words and phrases that would have passed unremarked a decade ago, to both the Society of Authors and PEN coming out against freedom of speech in this context, which makes me very fearful of what other assaults on free speech they will no longer protect us against. Aside from the very palpable assaults on women’s rights involved, I think that this issue is giving us a very frightening window into a world where we are no longer able to express obvious facts, for fear of being convicted of wrongspeak.”

“As a vulnerable woman in the community, it has somehow become MY job to become a full-time feminist, just to exist – I don’t have the energy for this.  I get called all sorts of dismissive names: I am, and always have been, PRO-WOMAN.     Outside forces label and control me.”

“As an 80 year old my feminism was shaped by the movement for women’s rights of the 60s and 70s and the journey to learn to love myself as a woman. What I see with the trans/gender ideology is a complete 180 from everything feminism stands for and the redefinition of sex to something meaningless.”

“The isolation and hatred I have experienced as a result of my views on sex, and sex-based rights, have resulted in anxiety, sleeplessness and feelings of profound loneliness.   I am concerned about the relatively young trans rights activists, but I am far more concerned (and angry with) older professional people who refuse to offer solidarity or support to women who find themselves in my position, or who are too intimidated to speak out. I work in a university.”

“When I was 16-18 years old, I bought in to the lies of gender ideology and identified as nonbinary transmasculine. Perhaps it’s a coincidence, but during that time I suffered from severe depression and suicidal thoughts.”

“Once you see through it you can’t escape it. It takes a lot of time and energy to fight and has given me many sleepless nights. I never thought women would be under such an assault as this in the modern age.”

“Gender ideology added extra obstacles to finding dates and LGB friends in an already homophobic country. Now everyone in russian LGBT spaces is concerned about pronoun bullshit instead of fighting actual oppression.”

“Gender identity ideology is NOT just about transgender and nonbinary individuals, it includes men and women who enforce strict gender roles on others, e.g. boys wear blue and girls wear pink. There is a correlation between gender conformity and heterosexuality – gender is a tool to place men over women (men = active, strong. women = passive, decorative) AND heterosexuals over homosexuals. Gender roles are damaging enough to lesbians. Transgender relies on gender roles created and enforced daily by heterosexual culture.”

“Feels like the Salem Witch Trials.   Keep quiet. Lay low. Avoid being seen. Loss of friends, staying silent when children of friends are transing, feeling gaslit, afraid for women and girls, especially those who are vulnerable, in prisons, shelters, etc. And so many women think it’s all terrific. It’s a big delusion. It’s sick.”

“Many discussions that turn into arguments. It’s a nonsense theory that I resent having to navigate on a daily basis!”

“Like many women I now face the prospect of entering any women only space as potentially risky where previously these were safe spaces.”

“I think you’ve covered the issues well. The impact is devastating and that needs to be known.  I’ve been de-platformed and lost my job as well as being in a relationship with a non GC person etc…”

“It’s had a huge impact on my concentration and working.”

“I speak out when I can but feel reticent because of the big Pride Network in my office which acts as Stonewall foot soldiers.”

“My belief in democracy has been shattered after seeing the ease with which the beliefs of the majority can be completely ignored by politicians bowing to a noisy minority well-funded by an exploitative gender industry.   (It happens with the fossil fuel industry, too), but the realities of biology I never thought would be so happily abandoned by our elected representatives.”

“My life has completely changed since I got involved in this campaign – social life wrecked never read anything now, am on Twitter and Facebook non-stop. It’s my choice but it’s not how I expected to spend my mid-70s and there are so many other crucial things to campaign about.  But because so many are silenced I will continue…”

“I really detest being called right wing by people that call themselves left without having the slightest notion of what that means – just because I do not agree with the gender identity ideology. My view of the world is based in materialism – reality rules. And I worry about my small grand children and how they will be affected when growing up if this doesn’t change very soon.”

“Being marginalised and side-lined in the Labour Party when trying to tackle the issue.”

“I spent years in the field of education (university, schools) and am extremely concerned about children and young people being miseducated, and the silencing of gender critical academics.”

“Someone I do not know has made complaint to nursing council after stalking my fb page…after my job.”

“It has lost me a lot of friends because I have spoken out.  It has lost me self employed work.   It has closed social doors in my small home town, I have left organisations because they have been captured by trans inclusiveness (WI).”

“It has been an incredibly challenging time, and isolating.  However, I have a degree of pride in the fact that I have attempted to raise my voice and take actions to challenge this orthodoxy.  I hope that it will be a case of what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, in the long term.”

“I haven’t lost a job (though we’ll see if a conversation about putting pronouns in my email signature is coming; I cannot comply with that), nor have I been physically assaulted or anything terrible. So far, the way the culture has changed has just made me angrier and more depressed.”

“I worry not so much for myself, because on a day to day level it doesn’t really affect me, but I have grandchildren. What a confusing world we are creating for them, as if their lives are not complicated enough.   I’ve been women’s lib all my life and I see the gains we have made being eroded so quickly. Safe spaces for girls and women are disappearing and words like woman and mother avoided. Rape and sexual assault of women are rising. A woman is murdered every 3 days in Britain. Now schools have unisex toilets apparently. My friend’s grandson won’t drink anything all day because he won’t use the toilets. Children and women need safe spaces.”

“Just my comment earlier about my daughter, honestly, before that I had no idea about any of where this had gone.  I’m awake now.  Thanks JK Rowling”.

“It has often made me feel like the entire world has gone mad. Like this incredibly powerful trojan horse trick has worked. What better way to control and dehumanise women, than to let men be women and then tell women how to be better women?”

“I used to teach feminist theory. I can hardly believe what has happened. It’s like the world has been taking stupid pills. I am so angry.”

“I am now homeschooling my children because I don’t want them exposed to gender ideology being taught in schools.”

“Became a TERF when I saw the misogyny and homophobia caused by trans ideology.”

“Just answering this survey it’s making me nervous. I don’t worry just about how this could affect me, but also my family.”

“I’ll fight this with everything I have.”

“It has created intergenerational stresses in families, seen me barred from some social media groups, disinvited as a speaker, and ranted at in a conference or two. Above all, it causes me great angst to think of my young grandchildren having to negotiate puberty with these added ‘options’ that are all damaging and delay adult maturity at best, and may inflict mutilation and infertility at worst.”

“As I said earlier, I get really frustrated by this whole thing.  Part of the frustration comes from seeing others completely disregard the concerns of women in general, and specifically lesbians.  So much misogyny and homophobia completely disregarded, and even happily pushed forward, because a privileged white dude in a dress said he wants something.  People who theoretically just want to be nice, are blindly throwing away women’s rights without thinking it through.  I’m glad I’m not younger than I am. And you can say anything is true if you change the meanings of words.  You can say pigs fly if you rename ravens and say they are now called pigs.  Ridiculous.  I am now politically homeless, like so many others, because in the US we have two parties and they have both gone extreme.  I want a third option.    It pisses me off they want to debate the definition of woman when transgender is the new and ever-changing word. Just very frustrated.”

“I’ve lost friends. It sometimes makes me feel crazy because not many people understand and are trivialising the way women feel about their safe spaces (prisons, hospitals, shelters).”

“It has made me feel nervous especially around some young people. I still speak out on social media but sometimes the abusive comments are too overwhelming. As I live alone it can affect my mental health.”

“I feel I’m grieving the advances we made as women. I personally have been politically involved since late 70s on women issues, LGB issues and anti racism.”

“Increased my anger towards men at the repeated and increasing attempts to erase my life experiences as a female.”

“I have been a Gender Critical radical feminist since 1970.  Sometimes I feel like we have to start all over again with this regressive cult taking away our rights.”

“Caused family arguments.”

“I used to work in the charity sector e.g., developmental, equality, and research charities when I lived in the uk. I no longer feel I could work in this sector as I feel it has been institutionally captured by T ideology. It is obviously worse in Canada. I haven’t even bothered looking in that area here. All of Canada is captured now, but most ordinary people don’t realise.  Ordinary being those who don’t think about it.”

“Revealing my gender critical views has lost me work and I have learned to keep my mouth shut.”

“I just find myself becoming angry every single day re this issue.”

“I have 2 daughters and they appear to have the idea that gender ideology is fact, rather than contested theory. As a young closeted lesbian, I feel sure that I would have been very persuaded by trans ideology in the absence of any education about lesbian possibility.”

“Loss of friends and family.”

“I have a gay teenage son and am constantly terrified that he’s going to declare himself trans as he is very susceptible and impressionable.”

“I’m fed up. Been fighting men’s violence towards women and girls most of my life and now feel like instead of that the work that really needs to be done to address this, everything is derailed by this harmful rhetoric.”

“Very depressed about the return to regressive stereotypes about sex and sexuality.  As a lesbian I feel like there are no spaces left me.”

I feel like my identity has been stolen and colonised, and that I have to suck it up, unable to voice my frustration, pain and anger … for the love of my granddaughter (as explained in a previous comment). I am hoping for a massive backlash to set things right. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak my mind.”

“To misquote a great feminist… “women have no idea just how much men hate them”.  The scales have fallen from my eyes.  I will NEVER fully trust a man again.”

“It is hard to explain on this form. Gender ideology is a huge threat to the women’s movement. It erases everything we have fought for and stand for. The real life consequences of this are far reaching and terrifying.”

“I recognise that gender identity ideology has become a system implemented by a wider system of male supremacy that is designed to enact men’s interests. Society has become increasingly oppressive for me in its misogyny due to the incursion of transgenderism.”

“Identified as “trans” for a period of time in high school (probably around 2016/17?). “Came out” to my parents and they brought it up during a meeting with a psychiatrist but this was before everyone was forced to go with affirmation so he asked my parents about my history and knew it wasn’t actual sex dysphoria (this was before ROGD was a term, I think, but my situation would be described by the term fairly accurately). Thus no physical transition took place, luckily.   I think I was always kind of doubtful about it being sex dysphoria. I had body dysmorphia / eating problems before and I think knew on some level that the trans thing was a manifestation of that, and that the reason I was uncomfortable being referred to as a girl / she / etc., wasn’t because I didn’t want to be female, it was because I didn’t like how people treated me because I was female. Through the following years I started reading more criticisms of gender ideology (tumblr blogs mainly) and realized it really didn’t make any sense. I brought my new thoughts on the subject up to my friends at the time and was essentially ex-communicated by my friend group. This story seems to be fairly common with women in my age group. That said, gender ideology specifically didn’t impact me much compared to other problems like internet pornography exposure from a young age, online grooming, the whole “sex work is work! being a sugar baby is empowering uwu” crap, yadda yadda.”

“So far, it has no specific impact on me personally, other than the fact that I utterly appalled by the damage it’s doing in the world.”

“Every time I use a public toilet or changing area I am frightened in case there is a male there.  I always accompany my daughters to the toilet in public places.  I worry that a trans-identified male will work in my department and I’ll be compelled to use pronouns and go along with it and share a toilet with them.  I have no access to rape crisis justice advocacy because of them adopting transgender ideology.  I feel like I am waiting to see this disaster on women and children unfold while many people around me are still in the “be kind and welcoming of males into our female spaces because it’s a shame for those trans-identified males”.  My sister lost out on a small music award for women and the person who won was a trans-identified male.  Women who see this for what it is are angry, frightened and silenced.”

“I have had to be my daughter’s mental health professional, so I have had the strain of dealing with her mental illness without support from professionals or colleagues.”

“I find it incredibly frustrating that this gender identity madness has had such an impact and the level of institutional capture is astounding. I have serious concerns from a legal perspective. I do think about it a lot and some days feel quite down and powerless about it all. However there have been a few glimmers of light recently that have boosted my mood.”

“It’s important I can request female doctors when I am being examined.”

“Worried about my granddaughter’s safe future.”

“I find it incredibly frustrating that the general public are not aware of what is going on. Gender ideologists have a disproportionate influence on government and business policies to the detriment of women. I’m fed up of the lies that are spread to defend them by public figures. Before I was aware of the influence of gender ideology and trans activists, I was very sympathetic to mentally ill people who thought they were of a different sex. This sympathy has gradually dissipated.”

“It’s turned my world upside down in recent months, I’ve had to leave my women’s group because they are all woke and think I’m transphobic for wanting to talk about the impact of identity ideology on women’s rights. And my professional life is depleted by attacks from fellow therapists who made a complaint about me to my professional body for questioning the affirmative therapy approach. I’m now going through a legal battle where the decision about my continued accreditation sits with an anonymous panel, who may be biased, so I feel alienated from my professional network too! Not to mention losing my community as a lesbian!”

“I am outraged that men are trying to take over womanhood. Transgender people are entitled to their feelings. We women are entitled to our safe spaces. Trans people who are being discriminated against need protection. Women need protection too. Trans need their own protected places such as transgender prisons. Women’s shelters must not be infiltrated by men. Many trans people are mentally ill. They need help not confirmation of their delusions.”

“I’m distressed and feel ambushed by it. I feel that lesbian identity doesn’t matter to anyone, and worse, it’s not really allowed anymore. I’m so angry and upset. I’ve had to give up my EDI post. I’m sick of all the stress. I’m worried students will have to share female toilets with males. I’m worried that they’ve lost the ability to think critically. They just repeat, repeat.”

“Most of this has happened since my daughter identified as trans, but I may well have caught up with what was happening sooner or later.”

“It has impacted my gifted quirky daughter, and therefore our mental health too.”

“As a lesbian with a small, close, group of friends who are almost entirely entrenched in this ideology, it is alienating to have to repress my views and not share my activism for fear of exclusion or being considered hateful. Organisational desire for money, the whims of a minority of men, and fashion has caused a rift in our community (and one that has very few resources or social places left anyway).”

“I have had several transgender friends throughout my life and what peaked me was the realization that none of their mental health situations had improved after identifying as the opposite sex. I have not shared my opinions with anyone offline and I often lie about my beliefs in order to not face social consequences.”

“A teenage family member came out as trans last year. I am sensitive to their needs and always have observed preferred pronouns for them and anyone else. I am amazed that gi ideology has been so successful in erasing sex. Those behind it think they are being progressive and I can see why, but they fail to recognise the safeguarding issues for women and children.”

“My son is currently wanting to transition.”

“Having a daughter affirmed as a boy by society has destroyed our family (and my mental health).”

“It has affected my relationship with a family member. I am expected to believe something that is untrue. Demands are made that I should discard all that is known about human biology. This is not a healthy environment for anyone to live in.”

“13yo daughter is using they-he-it pronouns with friends; best friend is f2m, socially transitioned at school with full support of family; my daughter says she doesn’t feel comfortable being referred to as she. Hates her body.”

“I’m a desister.”

“I’m a 67 year old feminist, a feminist since I was 17 or so years old. As an English major (through a Master’s and PhD program), my focus was women’s literature and women’s history, informed by women’s experience and politics. Issues of how gender stereotypes have affected women because of our sex historically was of course a major focal point of those areas of study. To witness this shift in how transactivists are influencing how the media, schools, legislation, and susceptible and vulnerable kids think and speak of gender and sex is deeply troubling, and to my mind (and many feminists and others I know) has all the signs of cult-like influence and behavior. It is also staggeringly misogynist. I’m retired. So far, this has had little impact in my own life, but I am worried especially about how this is already affecting girls in schools and sports, and also just women generally who are being erased by the imposition of “gender neutral” language. Thank you for providing an opportunity to respond with this survey. I hope it can be useful.”

“I am politically homeless because of this rights conflict, and see that women, their needs and rights have become of no interest to political parties. It is as if incels now rule us all, rape has become a crime with no consequences, patriarchy has taken us back centuries. Women are disregarded.”

“I want to pull my children from school. I quiz them everyday. I have lost faith in every public org.”

“It makes me worry for my daughter’s future.”

“It’s just woke homophobia to say lesbians should suck dick. Nothing has changed. And I’ve been called more slurs by the trans community than by the religious assholes I know in real life.”

“I’m a licensed MFT, basically retired.  If I were still practicing I would be tearing my hair out I’m sure, but I hope I would maintain the standards I believe in.”

“I have had trans friends and family members for many decades. I am empathetic towards their situation and will use the names and pronouns they prefer, but all of them were very low key about being trans until the last few years. Now some have gone full on activist and others wish the whole subject would disappear from so much public gaze. I find it very hard that I have to refrain from stating my views on younger family members social media and in discussions to avoid hurt and upset even when I fundamentally disagree with them. The level of intolerance and bigotry from the activists is like nothing I have seen before – and I’ve spent over 20 years involved in political campaigns of one sort or another. I dislike being painted as a bigot and attempts to compare my beliefs with antisemitism, racism, homophobia and accusations of being allied with the religious far right in the US.”

“It’s meant I’ve learned that we have many laws that in practice become meaningless.     Schools can ignore the equality act because parents don’t have time, energy or money to sue them for breaching it. Safeguarding laws are promoted as the law that must come first yet explain to schools that they are using stonewall resources that aren’t working together compliant and they don’t care. There’s very little parents can do but use grievance procedures, involve governors and similar, which feels like a war with the school. I’m not even sure what the next step is-would ofsted take action against a school that refuses to follow the department of education’s guidelines on not using organisations that teach children they are born into the wrong body? I’m trying to choose secondary schools for my twin daughters, separate secondary schools. In an area that’s considered to have very good schools. The schools I’m choosing between are ofsted rated outstanding and are in the top 20% of the country for exam results. Yet they all are stonewall champion schools. And teachers appear to have no understanding of the safeguarding risks involved with gender ideology or the organisations that push it. Which makes it feel like safeguarding policies/training/awareness is nothing but lip service. It feels like the schools themselves are the safeguarding risk to my daughters and I have to choose which is the lesser evil and beginning our relationship with secondary schools by arguing with them to make changes necessary for good safeguarding practices. It feels hopeless and I feel powerless. Yet schools are using money they get for our children to fund a highly homophobic and misogynistic male rights activist group to lobby the government to remove my rights, my daughter’s rights, and all the safeguards for women and girls. Yet those safeguards for women and girls don’t appear to be enough to stop the schools spending their money on partisan political lobby groups. Not only is the emperor’s new clothes an apt description of accepting gender ideology but it also feels appropriate for awakening to the realisation we have safeguards that don’t safeguard.”

“I regard this ideology as regressive, reactionary, toxic and deeply divisive. I am committed to fighting against it in any way I can.”

“Despair.    Futility.    Anger.    Politically homeless.”

“I am just full of powerless rage at what is going on in the developed world, although I am glad women are organising in the UK to preserve their sex-based rights.”

“I can’t talk about this with certain friends as they have swallowed the “be kind” bullshit. It saddens me that toddlers and preschoolers and children and teenagers are allocated a gender identity -e.g. young boy wearing a dress is not a girl, he’s a young boy wearing a dress. It’s ridiculous and so offensive and sexist. Women are more than dresses and lipstick.”

“I socially transitioned at age 14 and detransitioned/reidentified at age 17, all due to social pressures.”

“It has caused friction, but I try to stick to rational argument, not abuse!  I’m concerned that it’s a backlash against the feminism I and many others have stood up for – against the rights of women to organize, to have our own spaces, against our ownership of the very name of ‘woman’ and our right to define ourselves.”

“My stress levels are high – it is like having to keep the secret of ongoing abuse. I am aware that I am really only an onlooker: the closest I directly come to this is in schools (I am a visiting music teacher seeing pupils one-to-one) with some pupils going trans/non-binary. But gender ideology is everywhere.”

“1. One of my friends killed herself following the abuse her ex had on her. The ex transitioned and is now working at a women’s shelter. Despite being a pedo and a rapist because ” Trans women need representation”     2. I am a teacher and am studying part-time towards graduate degrees, I have to censor myself, some of my peers cannot say the word “woman” to refer to female adults, and the teenagers I teach are more accepting of trans people than gay people, and a lot of them identify as trans or non-binary. I’d say 1 out of 5. It’s alarming. Half of them are clearly homosexual or bisexual.”

“That I am despised by trans for being a real woman and a lesbian. That all the campaigning we were involved in the 70s 80s 90s to improve LGBT rights is ignored and the way I now feel I have to hide rather than be proud all these years later. To feel that there is violence directed at lesbians.”

“Bothers me how acknowledging the existence of the female sex class is taken as a declaration of being a ‘white feminist’ despite the trans movement being predominantly white and western. I am very concerned about intersectionality being bastardised to prioritise men’s feelings, taking attention away from women who face racism in addition to sexism.”

“Colonial imperialism being pressed on Latinos.”

“I follow closely on Twitter what is happening.  I am appalled every day. Worse thing to me is all political parties are in thrall to gender so I don’t even get a chance to vote for what I believe in.”

“It’s hard to have a civil discussion because this crowd cannot handle the conversation that this movement is making everyone uncomfortable and it is regressive.”

“Most of my friends want to avoid this topic. It has become off limits, like religion and politics. This makes me feel lonely, and were it not for some online communities, I would feel sunk.”

“I’m a detransitioned masculine/GNC Woman.”

“During a very low point in my life, after developing PTSD from a traumatic event, my friend circle at the time was delving into gender extremism, this was in the early to mid 2010s, before it all blew up. I had a boyfriend who came out to me as trans, which then led me to “question” my identity because I was so mentally unwell, on top of having PCOS resulting in me having more testosterone in my body, fewer periods a year, small breasts, etc., and being generally gender non conforming.”

“I am part of a STEM sorority. It claims to be a single-sex organization. My sorority wants to have its cake and eat it too! They allow sisters who joined and later decided to ‘identify as men’ to remain as sisters (as well as women who try to join who already ‘identify as men’) AND they allow men who ‘identify as women’ to join as well. What is the logic here?? How can you possibly claim to be a single-sex organization when this is what is allowed? It especially pisses me off because it is HARD for women in STEM to find solidarity, to find solace and now I’m expected to act as if these men have the same struggle as me making a space for myself in STEM? PISS. OFF.”

“Feels like I’ve lost 6 years of my life thinking I’m (or should be) someone I’m not.”

“Gender ideology has shown me what true misogyny looks like and how easily women’s bodies are erased.”

“I am a full-time student and I work retail. Expressing gender-critical views would almost certainly put me on probation at my college as well as written up/fired from my job.”

“I am a researcher in violence against women. I worry that research and crime statistics are being skewed by male sex offenders who have transitioned.”

“I’m grateful for this survey. I don’t think the impact of gender ideology (and the extent to which it seems to have been so blindly embraced by so many people) on the mental health and well-being of women and girls can be underestimated. It’s very very upsetting and impossible to articulate to those who refuse to try and understand. The assumption that I am a hateful or bigoted person is really hurtful and an insult to my intelligence. It’s very frustrating to know that so many people are paying so little attention.”

“As a mother it’s a frightening time.  My children have spoken to me about it and I have answered as honestly as I can.”

“I feel silenced. I feel like women around me are silenced. I feel depressed and discouraged by the forces lined up to keep women silenced.”

“I’m concerned about friends with severe mental health issues turning to gender identity as a potential cause of their problems as opposed to the intersection of trauma and genetics. I am also concerned about them espousing increasingly reality-denying, unscientific opinions about the mutability of sex. I am most concerned that women as a class have faced lack of representation in medical research and still often face substandard medical care based on our sex, and now our word to describe the medical class we belong to has been repurposed without a replacement.”

“As a female content creator I’ve had to bite my tongue so often I’m afraid I will drown in my own blood.”

“My best friend’s daughter identifies as non binary and she has been told if she holds any gender critical views she is a terf. We no longer have open honest conversations as I do not want to lose her friendship.”

“I can’t sleep at nights now, so worried am I about what is being done to women, to girls, to children, to truth, to common sense!”

“I worry for young people. I worry for parents who aren’t as feminist/politically aware sleep walking into this. I worry for women’s rights. I wrote to a prospective msp before the elections and asked if they acknowledged the reality of biological sex and they replied by saying they didn’t know all the information yet. This depresses me no end.”

“Worked in a refuge for 35 years, the issue of safe single sex spaces is very important.”

“I’ve spent most of my spare time researching it for 18 months. It is terrifying.”

“My daughter was almost irrevocably harmed by this movement. I have to work with a trans woman, who I feel is performing his idea of womanhood in a way that insults me every day. I am not “cis”. gay people are not “queer”. terf is a slur. The trans rights movement is a misogynistic, homophobic, racist movement, that has harmed so many children it makes me sick. I feel so lucky that my daughter had the strength to reject doctors who would have harmed her. I sometimes think of that medical slogan “first do no harm”.”

“2 of my adult granddaughters are completely estranged from me, Bath Uni philosophy department sucked one into trans ideology, Judith Butler & post modernism. Very sad & gut wrenching & a massive loss for all 3 of us.”

“It has made me hostile to men because I now understand the extent of their hatred for women. Also contemptuous of men as I think some of them actually do think putting on a wig and a dress makes you a woman. And it has made me realise the gains of feminism were very superficial and are at serious risk.”

“I have been silenced.”

“It honestly makes me feel I’m going mad at times.   Thankfully I have found online groups to help!”

“Gender ideology has caused me to get stalked and harassed by a TIM and have to hide being a lesbian.”

“I’ve been shouted down and silenced.  I’ve been insulted and treated as if I were somehow stupid and ignorant for stating that biology is real and immutable.  It is affecting younger family members and I’m terrified for their future and that they will make decisions they will later regret.”

“Horrified at the shift in educational materials and the aggressive push of this agenda on our children. My grandchildren will not be attending main stream school because of this.” 

“I am on my local primary school board and we are grappling with a sex education curriculum that is riddled with gender ideology, and a new young generation of teachers who are in thrall to it.”

“Why can’t they tweak the legislation like they did for disabled in the 70s and use planning law to legislate for their own places i.e. toilets etc. legislation should be used to create their own safe places for trans etc., like women and men have. To me it seems like men again are trying to assert their authority over women and to put them at risk to scare them back to meek and obedient women who do as they are told. Worse still you have women that are actively working towards the elimination of women’s rights and of women themselves which is why I left the SNP and joined Alba.”

“Confused angry children. Debates about other subjects continue without hostility. Debates about trans fuelled with aggression and hatred.”

“It’s made me very careful, I don’t discuss this openly and I have definitely become more angry with a feeling of hopelessness.”

“I feel, because I am not employed atm that I must speak out and this takes a toll.”

“Enraged by the utter stupidity of it all.”

“I’m a 50 year old opinionated & some would say difficult woman, with the benefit of a supportive husband and friends, who long ago stopped caring what most people thought, and even I feel unable to speak my mind in many circumstances, so imagine the impact on people less privileged & secure than me.”

“Some traditional families like mine still deal with a great amount of patriarchy and misogyny on a daily basis. After suffering from it my entire life I cannot believe that males are attempting to identify into being female and that many are doing it because they believe it unfair that women get preferential treatment in society. I’ve also been a victim of sexism, harassment, and sexual assault multiple times in my relatively short life and I hate that women’s rights, women’s concerns, women’s issues, the needs of vulnerable women etc., are being bulldozed by the very people (progressives / liberals) who claim to want to protect them, in favour of going along with yet more male demands and delusions. For the billionth time, women are painted as unreasonable aggressors. I cannot even be honest with my friends because most progressives I know (especially in this 20s – 30s age group) have been deeply, deeply indoctrinated into gender ideology and will brook no argument otherwise. Anyone who dissents is automatically considered wholly wrong, ignorant, bigoted, hateful. I also dislike being associated with people who aren’t actually technically critical of gender in any way, like conservatives who join GC groups run by radfems and then talk over us or say insidious things. I do not hate transgender people at all but the nature of this debate in so-called progressive circles just makes it impossible to use proper language / vocabulary (a man cannot ever be female! Regardless of whether he says he is, has had surgery, has had his ID changed etc!) or be engaged with in good faith. Unlike the people who believe all you need to do to be a woman is to say so, and then optionally subscribe to some insulting hackneyed sexualised stereotypes or ways of presenting yourself, I know what it’s like to be born a woman and live as a woman and be attacked on all sides of society because I’m a woman, and I know that I need to stand firm in protecting and advocating for women’s rights.”

“Google search results on LGB stuff is nonsensical. The Olympics is now a disgraceful institution that no longer even attempt to exemplify sportsmanship. No honest athlete can bear the title of Olympian with pride now, considering what they have done to it.”

“I noticed before I left further education 3 years ago the increase in students claiming to be trans when they were clearly not, I had no idea how much nonsense they were being taught at school. My daughters think I’m a TERF but are now in their v early twenties and beginning to see the obvious issues with gender identity theory.”

“It seems an alarming event of mass hysteria. Keeping people with penises out of women’s spaces is essential.”

“I do not hate anyone who identifies as transgender, and have always held the belief that if what you’re doing isn’t hurting anyone and it helps you sleep better at night; go right ahead and do it, however I cannot stress enough how dangerous it is to pretend that transpeople can do no wrong and that they will always be the victims. Me being blindly trusting, because I was always told transwomen are incapable of violence, ultimately lead to my rape. People with the best intentions of being kind and accepting with no stipulations are the most vulnerable. It makes me sick inside to not be able to talk about this, I live in a mostly gay community and it hurts me to see people pretending these things never happen just to protect the feelings of transpeople. Why are my feelings not important? Why is it ok to pretend predators don’t exist or are a small percentage?”

“Apart from clearly being able to see how this inevitably leads to the erasure of all women’s gains in the last 100 years, it is even worse since it also erases male violence in an unprecedented way. Stats and law are what we have to define reality and they are being warped by this ideology. This has also personally affected me as a close member of my family has identified as trans in the last year and a half. She is, like so many, a teenage girl.”

“The only thing I feel not mentioned is my concern about having my views discovered when applying for jobs – and ruining my chances.”

“I have been censored online and no longer feel safe to speak out in public about my concerns about gender ideology. I have been threatened online.”

“Gender ideology pisses me off. I live in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. There was this famous fashion dude named Peter Nygard. He has been known to make inappropriate sexual advances in the workplace and, quite recently, has been very publicly outed as a sex trafficker and overall creep. Both of my parents worked for him (mom and dad) in the past, before gender identity was a public thing. One was bothered by him quite a bit (but hopefully not that seriously; I wouldn’t probe). We all know which parent it was without even having to ask. Gender ideology’s insinuation that all a woman has to do is claim to be male in order to escape these inappropriate sexual advances and whatnot is both false and offensive.”

“Mostly I’m scared I’ll lose at least half of my friends due to my views. I’m scared my roommates might decide to kick me out. I’m scared of bringing up my point of view at university since people might attack me. As to my online presence, I’ve seen other gc women being doxxed for their views. I’m scared to be openly gc because the possibility this might happen to me is high.”

“It’s taken me away from my passions and pursuits. It’s made me into an activist when I never wanted to be one. I’m like the Ancient Mariner now. Thanks, gender.”

“It has made me fearful to speak & be myself in the world & I no longer trust that other people have my best interests at heart. I also find it scary how gender ideology has captured all our institutions.”

“I just know that if this stuff would have been common when I was in middle and high school I would have gotten sucked into it. They prey on vulnerable, lost young people.”

“I’m afraid that I’d be pressured to accept and sleep with men/penis to be seen as a valid lesbian by the greater community, even lose jobs and my academic merit. I have to stay in the closet for my own safety…even if it’s 2021.”

“As a GNC bi woman I cannot describe the rage and betrayal I feel at being told that my issues MUST mean I’m trans because I’m obviously soooo bad at performing femininity.”

“I have been gender-non-conforming since I was a child in terms of interests, personality and fashion/style. I also have a hormonal disorder that manifested as an unusually high amount of testosterone for a woman. This has somewhat affected my appearance and voice, and the way people perceive me. It took me years to come to terms with my condition and it scares me to think that if I were younger and still insecure about my body, those fears could have led me down a very different path to identify as trans. I used to have sympathy for the trans movement because I was very unhappy with my own body BUT trans people invading and de-railing online support groups for women with my condition made me take a critical look at gender ideology.”

“I lived as a man in my own head for about 15 years, until 2011. Four years later, my brother-in-law came out as a woman the same Summer as Jenner. When I sympathized and tried to explain how I knew he was wrong, offering to help him find his way through, I was slowly cut out of my sister’s life. I was a detransitioner when there was no word for it, and yet I’m told ad nauseous to educate myself because if I don’t agree with them, I don’t understand. Besides the many reasons why these ideas don’t add up, it never occurs to them that my intimate understanding is why I’m compelled to push back.”

“My first girlfriend transed. It’s like she disappeared.”

“My biggest problem is that I’ve become alienated from a career I loved that allowed me to actually help women, because of fear of reprisal for even the mildest critical attitude towards gender ideology. I have tried to make it work but I am looking for another career now because the cognitive dissonance, and the knowledge that I can no longer do the best work I once did, is making me miserable.”

“If I was a 12 year old girl right now, I would be pressured to transition. Thankfully I was able to grow up and accept myself as a Lesbian.”

“Forcing people to comply and say that they believe in trans-ideology when they don’t. Forcing people to lie about what can be seen clearly, in front of their eyes. I’m worried about self-identification, if any man can self-identify as a woman, any man will do so, including perverts who will use any loophole they can to get access to women and children. The sexualisation of children from an early age is also worrying: dice games, for early teens in schools with penis, mouth, anus, vagina, fingers, object etc.: I’ve seen the pack the teens have to make up scenarios where these body parts can be used to pleasure their partner: hello? Drag queens in nurseries working with young children, kids dressed up as drag queens. Stonewall Diversity Champions and the multiple bodies across every spectrum of society fighting to comply and conform to gender-ideology. David Lammy (who I used to like!), lying in his teeth and talking mince about women who have genuine fears about men in their spaces. There’s lots more but I’m signing off now, had enough, it’s depressing and very worrying for where we go from here. Thanks for the opportunity to vent a bit.”

“I’m glad I’m old.  I was a gender non conformist all my life.  Raised as a son, even called a masculine name.  This movement infuriates and scares me.  It’s absurd, harmful to kids, and threatens to destroy society.  And utterly destroys women’s rights, and the gains women fought hard to achieve.”

“I feel really bad for my niece and nephews growing up with this trash. My niece had a bunch of friends come out as non binary, she’s 10. They don’t speak to her any more. I talked to her about it and having to explain these things to her how this gender ideology crap wasn’t real she can like what ever she likes and that is ok, toys and clothing don’t have gender.”

“We are losing our spaces (sex segregated for a reason), our language (needed to express our requirements) and our voices (needed to express our concern without insult or injury). We are losing what it is to be a woman. Males can never understand what it is to be female.”

“My workplace (which has nothing to do with anything political, legal, or regarding policy) has been turned into a political arm of gender ideology. I just want to go in and do my work making things. I hate having to participate in the religious beliefs of others. I hate having to sit there while they erase my entire life experience and call it “kind”. Moving jobs won’t help as the entire industry has been captured by ideological zealots.”

“I mentioned my son’s experiences above. It horrifies me that different parents might have had him castrated. When my son and I read Susie Greene’s first hand accounts of her child’s behaviour, it sounded just him (my son).”

“It feels like a constant battle. It can be mentally exhausting.”

“I flit between anger and despair.”

“Gender identity ideology has changed the way I see the world.  It has underlined how very loathed and little women are.  Our safety and dignity, our physical and mental integrity, matters nothing weighed against the ephemeral feelings of men.  In a world where men are called ‘men’, and women are ‘bodies with vaginas,’ it seems we stand at a threshold where we are no longer even the ‘owners’ of our accumulation of body parts.  A ‘vulva-owner’ could have one floating in a jar of formaldehyde, or own a stable kept for reproductive convenience.  This movement opens the door to the dehumanization of women.  We become functions and commodities, neither of which have feelings or rights.  Gender ideology goes hand and hand with the dehumanization and commodification of women seen in the rising menace of pornography, and in the rental or sale of women’s organs seen in surrogacy.  If we lose to gender ideology, we will lose our human essence and soon thereafter our place as humans.  We will become vulvas who are owned.”

“I worry deeply about the future for women and girls on the entire planet. I think that as more younger women start to come up against the impact of GI ideology – the stress and anger will grow.”

“There is a huge, huge pink elephant in the room, both in my family, and the whole of society.  It is exhausting, frightening and makes me feel very sad for women.  Thank you for doing this survey, I have never been asked these things before, and not had the courage to ever articulate them before either.  Thank you for your work.”

“I live in a fairly conservative area and work in a conservative environment, so most of this nonsense hasn’t infiltrated my personal life. I’m very aware of it, though, and have been educating my friends and coworkers about these issues. Most have NO IDEA how bad it’s gotten.”

“Could compartmentalize until family member believed he had Gender Dysphoria and I was forced to think about gender all the time with no escape.”

“Have people in my life in different situations, an adult “old school” transvestite male friend who knows he is not a woman and three teen children of friends, two of whom are going down the medical pathway. The third has parents who are treating it as a rebellious phase and so far so good. I avoid all but the most superficial conversations with one of the medicalising parents in order to keep the peace as she is a very passionate “rainbow mum”.”

“When particular things happen, like today, regarding the recent harassment of Kathleen Stock at her university, apparently her union is on the side of the students trying to get her fired and have called her transphobic.  I find this devastating, unbelievable and it has been playing on my mind and sometimes these things keep me up at night or wake me up early in the morning and I can’t get back to sleep.”

“Family tension. We’re all lefties. My brother and I used to be on the same page, no longer. He doesn’t understand the damage of going along with it.”

“It’s had a huge impact on me in a variety of ways.”

“It breaks my heart to see women’s sex based rights being jeopardised by all this. As a young woman, I played my own small part (Greenham Common, reclaim the Night marches, campaigning and marching against section 28) in the struggle for women’s rights and lesbian and gay rights. Never could I have imagined that we could have travelled so far backwards as we are in the process of doing now. Never would I have imagined I might be called upon to protect and fight for those rights all over again. I will though, of course. The safety and well-being of women and children, freedom of speech and thought, employment protection, etc….it’s all too important not too.”

“I fear for my children.”

“I was largely ignorant of gender ideology until my son came out as transgender a couple of years ago.  He is now 19 and awaiting an appointment at the gender clinic. My husband and I believe he is on the autistic spectrum, though he has never been diagnosed. This has affected our family life significantly.  We believe our son’s interest in transitioning has stemmed from 1. being neurodiverse and not fitting in and 2. online influence of anime and porn.”

“I’m terrified for the future.”

“The idea as a woman of losing all that my ancestors have worked for is always there in the corner of my mind.”

“I was acutely gender dysphoric/believed I was transgender from early puberty to my mid twenties, when I found other ways to manage my gender issues. I am partnered with a detransitioned woman.”

“Being told black is white (and feeling forced to comply) is doing a number on my mental health.”

“As previously stated almost lost my job for stating biological fact, incredibly stressful investigation no support from my union.”

“It’s utterly depressing as a RF to see all the work of 2nd wave feminist get destroyed for an ideology that is so damaging to women and girls.”

“Generally distrusting of men, not using public washrooms anymore.”

“I am worried for future because it is coming even if it doesn’t impact my everyday life yet. I would hate to have to deal with at work, for instance, in the future.”

“Really angered and hurt by the assertion my views are comparable with racism, homophobia etc.”

“I feel like women are being eroded & no one seems to care. Not using the word “woman” is insulting.  Due to covid/lockdown there is nothing specific that has affected me personally.  Lage institutions are not questioned about removing the word woman.  There is tons of support for trans, men to women. Growing up during the 1970’s & 1980’s women seemed to be striving for equality.   Now it appears that men have found a new way of suppressing women.”

“I have been fortunate enough to have not have been directly impacted by the trans movement. However as a life long feminist, my primary concerns are how this is breaking down and erasing women’s rights globally. I am also alarmed by the generation of children that are being surgically harmed and sterilized by professionals and doctors. I am also worried that once this is over, there will be a backlash against feminism and the LGB movement.”

“I am a civil servant and I have had to have several LGBT mandatory training sessions where Stonewall nonsense and pseudoscience is promoted.  I have raised some issues but have felt unable to voice my true opinions.”

“I lost my career due to the toxic workplace from critical theories, gender in particular as it contradicts deeply held values & moral beliefs. I believe in safeguarding & do no harm. I believe in gentle uplifting exploratory support, not drugs & surgery. I value working in partnership with parents, not lying to them. I understand child development & how to support vulnerable children while they explore identity & sexuality without choosing for them. I value evidence based practice. Gender identity ideology opposes all that is important to me. I feel adrift, lost, worthless. I am deeply saddened by the world’s easy acceptance of a totalitarian mind fuck being committed against women. Only the humour strength & vitality of other women keeps me from despair.”

“Given what I consider the urgent nature of opposition to genderism’s erosion of women’s sex-based rights & the permanent gay conversion “solution” it promotes, I have had to invest the majority of my free time in opposition to it rather than engaging with other activities & issues. After a lifetime of fighting for women’s & lesbian rights, it is soul-crushing to be forced to defend my very existence as a woman and a lesbian in both culture and in law. My god, the very same men that punched me in the face years ago for saying I was a lesbian now threaten to punch me in the face for saying that they aren’t lesbians. I am in a near constant state of despair or anger. Who could have imagined this?”

“I’m grateful my children have avoided this cult.”

“The ideology is linked with wider Critical Theory nonsense. Genuine question: is campaigning against it best done in isolation or by working with allies across the wider issue?”

“I cry daily, feel sick and afraid- not so much for me but for girls and women already suffering disadvantage, often in developing countries, where the knock on effects of misogyny and damage to women in the UK and other western countries will be profound and disastrous. I try to advocate for those in more difficult situations – I’m old enough to hide away and live reasonably well, but I’m afraid for girls and boys, young women and men, whose opportunities will be severely damaged by trans-ideology and its impacts. I’d hoped the creativity I witnessed in the 1980s would blossom, making people happier, better, more responsible, more altruistic. I weep for those caught up in this regressive pernicious and damaging ideology.”

“I fear for the safety of my daughter and granddaughter using outside spaces.”

“As a woman, I’m pretty gender-nonconforming – I have short hair, I don’t shave my legs or wear makeup and I don’t dress feminine at all. I am very concerned about the implications gender identity ideology has for GNC people and in particular GNC women, mainly the pressure to declare oneself as trans or nonbinary.”

“I run a support group for DV survivors (women only) and have received death threats, rape threats and harassment due to refusing to affirm an autogynephiles miscarriage fantasy and refusing to include TIMs. I made a statement regarding the current CEO of ERCC and received a bit of backlash over that – though overwhelmingly we got a lot of supportive messages.”

“Having a teenaged daughter that is on the autism spectrum and has begun to identify as non binary over the last year, I have tried to understand why she now feels ‘more confident’ when she thinks of herself as a boy. I know that social media has played a big part in her thought process as has the friend group that she is part of, I admit however that I am scared of her wanting to pursue this ideology further. I have told her that I find it very difficult to use her preferred pronouns as she is outwardly very feminine, coupled with the fact that I know I gave birth to a daughter and the evidence of my mind and eyes contradicts what she wants me to say. I usually try to refer to her, when talking to her or about her when in her earshot, by her nickname which is gender neutral, and at the moment she is grudgingly accepting that. She is a very smart girl and I am hoping that this will be something she grows out of, time will tell.”

“Anger.”

“Mridul Wadha has been in training my colleagues and it makes me want to scream. Concerns raised, seemingly understood but no action taken.”

“Indirect, it affects my close friends.”

“I am politically homeless. I was a lifelong SNP supporter but voted Labour when I lived in London. Now I don’t feel that any UK party represents me or defends women’s rights.”

“I fear for my grandchildren at school. It feels like they are being groomed.”

“It is breaking up my family. Two of my four children are rabid TRAs. They will not discuss or talk about my safeguarding concerns. They seriously think that I, a left leaning woman, who brought them up to care about social justice, have suddenly turned into a bigot. One daughter has said if I mention it again I will never see my grandchildren. I am scared about my job. I can’t talk to friends about this. I am full of furious, simmering rage.”

“My concern is children and adults afraid to speak up against a growing cult.”

“I am terrified for women.”

“I worry for my profession and my job but nowhere near what I am worrying about in relation to my own young daughter. I fear what schools and especially universities are teaching young people nowadays in terms of so called queer theory and gender studies.”

“I can barely believe the way that women’s rights have been stripped away without democratic scrutiny and the use of the Dentons approach. Politicians throughout this country have betrayed women in pursuit of the young vote. They know it is all lies and they are also betraying young people.”

“I cannot believe we are going through this — it is absolute insanity! Every cell in our bodies is sexed! But it’s impossible to say much owing to verbal AND physical threats.”

“I feel being constantly insulted by being referred as “chest feeder”, “menstruator”, “individual who practise vaginal sex” etc., by official Government organisations and big corporations. Also I don’t want their involvement in schools educations and the impact of their ideology on children. I don’t want my son to be told that you can choose if you are a boy or a girl.”

“It has caused issues in heterosexual marriage as husband unable to comprehend how far this ideology has infiltrated our society. And he finds it hard to say no to the male perspective as the trans population we have known in past have been few and far between and he is unable to understand that trans has expanded. He now acknowledges there should not be men in female sport but still thinks trans women (men) should be in female prisons as the poor trans may get their heads kicked in a male prison. It is hard to change the mindset of men who feel they need to support their own even if they are a cock in a frock.”

“Yes, I left therapy because I refused to accept males can be women.”

“Stress re hospital wards, changing facilities and work toilets.”

“I no longer trust any institution. From the govt to the NHS, National Register of Scotland, local council, schools, churches, charities, police, courts, sports bodies, trade unions, political parties, civil service, social services. No state institution. No civil society org. No profession. It’s disorienting. I realise many people haven’t had the luxury of that trust as many state institutions never worked for them – if you’re working class, disabled, black – your experience of the state is v diff from mine.”

“This consumes far too much of my time and attention. I am in a group on twitter / facebook and we have met in person which is a relief as I have an outlet. However, it is a real emotional / psychological burden that in addition to the need to be alert to predatory males (which all women and girls learn to do) I feel I have to be alert to this ideology and the pernicious impact it is having – not so much for me but for my daughters’ and future generations.  I would far rather be doing fun things but I just feel a compulsion to somehow fight back. For example just today I’ve written two carefully worded emails to MPs re. the Kathleen Stock debacle and I wish I didn’t feel that I had to.  On the other hand, I want to stand up and be counted and I feel we are on the verge of a war against an authoritarian reality denying cult who already have far too much power and I need to play my part.”

“The total capture of academia by gender identity ideology regularly makes me feel that, as someone who is the first-generation of my family to obtain a university degree, I don’t belong in the academy. Many academics, usually of upper-middle class background, who conform to the gender ideology dogma, insult the working class who largely believe that sex is dimorphic, and refuse to entertain the idea that gender identity is a luxury belief.”

“Going public with my beliefs would without a doubt ruin my life.”

“Women’s sports literally saved my life. I was anorexic and wanted to die, and the only thing that made eating and getting healthy worth it was that I could win races. I became anorexic in part, because I was raped. A man took from me unfairly, in the worst way possible. And I would have relapsed when I started my career and was again having men harass me and discriminate against me (I am a software developer, my industry’s notoriety is justified)- and it was ONLY sports and the safe male-free refuge I had in female competition that helped my self-esteem and kept me healthy. The idea that men should be able to violate that refuge, and again unfairly TAKE from women as they so often do in so many other areas of life, sickens me to my core. My own parents who are aware I am only alive because I found running and triathlon- disagree with me about this. The intense brainwashing the media has inflicted upon them and others that they would choose male stranger’s feelings over their own daughter’s well being and life, abhors me. I don’t know if I will ever really forgive them. My brother is gay and at least agrees with me about sports but doesn’t want to hear anything else criticizing trans activism, and has accused me of being alt-right, I think because he is so conflicted with his loyalty to the LGBT community that has been taken over by gender ideology. I feel abandoned and vilified by my own family for understanding the nuances to this topic and for believing that my rights and my well being also matter and should be given some consideration. The overwhelming message I have received is that I don’t matter and I and other women like me deserve no consideration whatsoever. I do not think my family would have come to such conclusions on their own, if not for the power gender ideology has quickly accumulated in leftist circles.  I also was a non-gender-conforming child and I am 100% sure had I been born 25 years later than I was, I would have been pushed into the idea that I “really was a man” and given my body issues I probably would’ve believed it. My anorexia did some permanent damage to my body which I struggle with to this day, but nothing like what hormones and gender reassignment does. My heart breaks for the girls that I very much see myself in, who are being betrayed by the adults around them in the name of a pseudo-religion.”

“I have a degree in politics and was a member of the Labour Party for 25 years. This issue changed my life, and self perception. I always saw the left as the good guys.  It’s scary, as I am now politically adrift, having lost the certainties that shaped my life.”

“It’s impacting the primary school where I help out and also my husband’s place of work (and nature of his work). He is hoping to not have to confront any major difficulty with it in his remaining years before retirement. I dread it surfacing in my immediate family circle.”

“It makes my work more difficult–I teach in a department which is very ‘queer’ compliant.”

“My son is gay so I take an interest in all things about his life and what could impact him as a gay man.”

“I’m due to visit hospital soon for some treatment. I know I’ll be upset if I see any of the NHS Rainbow Badges and I’m worried that I’ll end up saying the wrong thing and possibly be refused treatment.”

“I have a teenage daughter. I’m concerned about how this impacts her.”

“I am very concerned with “identity” culture. I’ve seen young people be disturbed when their personal experience, let’s say with attraction, conflicts with their identity. It’s a self-imposed prison. People claim many attributes as an identity, when most all of these things will evolve over time. My 9 year old grandson thinks he’s a girl. I cannot lie to him, he is not a girl and never will be, even if he transitions at some point. It’s cruel for adults to mislead him.”

“It is mentally exhausting and very isolating. I feel I’m warning people about a big disaster and they all think I’m a lunatic.  I am disappointed in people, even people close to me.”

“I had no idea so many men thought that women were a not-men category – that any man who didn’t want to be a man could be shoved in there.  I didn’t realise so many men don’t see us as actual humans – one of the two sorts of humans that exist and that sort that men can never be.  It blows my mind that they think we are just poorly constructed men, weak men, men without penises or just dressing up costumes.”

“Family members have cut me out because I don’t believe men should be accepted as being the same as women, no disagreement is allowed. It’s like a cult for unhappy emotionally unstable people.”

“The hypocrisy, manipulations, and lies of gender identity ideology go against my base principles of being truthful and being aware of what I agree to. It pulls the veil over people’s eyes so they stop thinking, and even forget to hold to their own principles. Because I’ve already faced direct verbal assaults on my character and have been branded Evil, to the inaction of onlookers as well, I no longer trust anyone, even acquaintances who I would have considered friends before, enough to share even insignificant things about myself.”

“I am particularly concerned about the impact of gender identity ideology on mental health having suffered from gaslighting and abuse in a previous relationship resulting in deteriorating mental health and a suicide attempt. For mental health organisations (such as mental health hospital wards) to collude in gaslighting individuals that men are actually women is awful and incredibly distressing to me.”

“The threat of losing employment and negative consequences for future (academic) career for me and partner remind me of the communist regime we both grew up in.”

“Everybody here is either captured or terrified and hiding.”

“My daughter believes she is trans. She is also being assessed for Autism. Her school allow transition without notifying parents. I am worried as to how the school curriculum is presenting transgenderism as a life choice like changing your hair colour, rather than as a mental health disorder which it is. In other mental health illnesses, we do not affirm delusions.”

“I am a woman with a DSD. Our support groups are infiltrated by transwomen who pretend to have DSDs and claim to have periods, etc. We are expected to affirm this delusion. Funding is being redirected from charities that are meant to support us to trans orgs to further arguments about non-binary identities, or to use us to claim sex isn’t real. The damage done to people, especially women, with DSDs is too often overlooked.”

“I now don’t trust organisations such as the Government, NHS, the Labour Party, the SNP, the local authorities, charities etc. They will say and do anything even when they know it is wrong and dangerous.”

“I am almost permanently angry and distressed.”

“Just that it’s annoying and surely there must be something to be done?? Where is the so called silent majority??”

“I am fighting this mostly for the young ones and not to see the gains of my generation of feminists lost. But also in the interests of truth and a society that isn’t run by ideologues who are authoritarian and hate women essentially. Some days I can barely stand what I see on social media and having to endlessly pick up arms and fight it, whatever the costs. The only bright side is the sisterhood. Without the support of other wonderful feminist women I couldn’t go on.”

“It is very worrying and frustrating that none of the political leaders can bring themselves to say only a woman has a cervix! I am glad I am not a young woman now with all this nonsense going on.”

“I used to support it, before I’d thought about it properly. It was hard to change my mind, and very hard to lose so many friends over it, but I couldn’t sit by and stay silent.”

“I have recently started working at a secondary school. I have twice asked for the school’s policy documents relating to trans-identified pupils, but have not received anything, so I do not know what the school’s approach is. I know there are girls who identify as boys in the school, but I do not know how they are treated in PE/changing/toilets etc (the block I work in has unisex toilets, which are not safe as the doors and walls are not completely floor-ceiling.”

“The speed with which the cult of gender identity has swept through institutions without check is probably the most shocking development I have witnessed in my lifetime. It has no basis in material reality and seeks to compel those that resist it to lie about what it is to be human. It is wreaking irreparable damage on the young, both physically and psychologically. It is an insult to women – by which I mean, adult human female.”

“My youngest daughter (18) has gender dysphoria.  She is a lesbian, came out to me at 12, then was socially transitioned by her school unknown to me, at around about the age of 13.  She calls herself trans but has not taken any medical intervention…yet.  She is very beautiful, and has been the object of unwanted male attention, but has low self-esteem.  I believe she also may have ADHD, from observations about her behaviour.  We get on really well but she will not speak to me about this subject, so I live in abject fear that she may take matters into her own hands before her body and mind have completed it’s natural development.  It is part of the reason why I have yet to become open about my loathing of this dangerous and deeply socially subversive ideology.”

“My lesbian daughter (16) has more trans and non binary friends at school than fellow lesbians. All my contemporaries have seen this explosion with their own children’s peer groups – it is rampant amongst teen girls in particular. I personally know two male trans.”

“The gender identity ideology is trying to invade the country I live in, they are already making their first steps in schools. But it faces a strong opposition from the whole society, and I don’t think it will ever succeed.”

“Since a friend ‘peaked’ me by describing the reality of the transgender situation, I’ve become strangely obsessed by it. I watch podcasts, follow gender critical people on social media and am in touch IRL with GC people. I find it hard to articulate exactly why I find it all so urgent. The basic denial of reality feels very threatening to me – almost dystopian. It feels like the fabric of society is being torn and all the structures and values I relied on are crumbling. Politically, I’ve always leaned left and been comfortable with progressive social change (such as divorce, abortion, same sex marriage) but I now feel ‘politically homeless’, since so many left wing parties and organisations seem to have thoughtlessly capitulated to gender ideology.”

“I am very concerned about the way that women are being erased, and places taken by men who cannot ever represent what it means to be a woman.”

“I am a retired academic and a centre left /liberal /green political activist despairing of the damage academia and the Labour, LibDem and Green parties are inflicting on themselves, and the country, including women, children, LGB people, over this.”

“At first I wanted to be very much inclusive…but as the years and abuse went on (i.e. trans and TRA abuse) went on…I feel sad but I will not stand by erasure of women, to accept men as women in any capacity.”

“I have family in Scotland (and lived there for 8 years). I don’t really want to visit now due to the hate crime legislation and the attitude of the Scottish govt.”

“I try to warn people about what is going on, but sometimes I don’t think they believe me purely because of how ridiculous it all sounds.”

“Gender Identity ideology scares the hell out of me.  I fear for our children’s futures, especially girls.”

“As a woman who went through a phase when I was younger that rejected womanhood and wanted to be a boy, I worry that if I had grown up in this current age, I would have attempted to transition and made a massive mistake.”

“Thank you for doing this.”

“I’m finding myself more and more depressed and angry at the way women are being shunted aside, I grew up being friends with both boys and girls and it always made for happiness and harmony, I don’t consider women above men, I consider us all humans together. I feel that women aren’t considered important enough to be defended by the government or others in authority and it makes me feel resentful and sad. I’ve always tried to be a team player at life but I see our children being twisted up in so many knots that a happy life with many friends is becoming something they don’t even consider, everything has become about gender identity and race, it’s all so divisive.”

“I work with young people who are increasingly at risk of discrimination, hatred and identity issues – this is unacceptable, potentially psychologically damaging and it has to stop.”

“In my previous workplace (6th form college), the welfare staff insisted on single sex changing rooms/ loos for both sexes, as well as gender neutral, despite the aggro from trans activists. Both boys and girls (including daughter of a cross dresser/ transitioner) thanked the welfare team- but in private as they were too scared to speak up in front of the trans activist students or Stonewalled teachers.”

“I worry about my daughters being exposed to this ideology at school.”

“It’s made me afraid to speak. It’s denied my lives experience. It makes me fear for the future of girls.”

“I’m shocked by it. It is like mass hypnosis happening and looking on wondering what can be done to put things right. It would be laughable if it hadn’t got so dangerous.”

“My brother – who I was best friends/very close to – now have this as a wedge between us. He, his husband and a few of their gay friends thought my Facebook posts sounded transphobic and bigoted. It is a subject he asked not to be mentioned. It is utterly heartbreaking and disheartening.”

“All I know is that if I was a child growing up now, then people would see a little tomboy playing football and climbing trees and questions would be asked if I was trans. Many times I would say I wanted to be a boy, not because I thought I was one but because they got to do the fun stuff. I thank god that child isn’t growing up today, except she is. Not in my skin, but there are thousands of other little girls who eschew girly stuff now growing up with an all-prevailing ideology making them question whether they really are a girl at all.”

“There are plenty of people I know who I wouldn’t discuss it with as they believe in it. This means I cannot be honest as this would lose me a family member/friend.”

“I’m watching so much of what women fought for being swept away by men (including the ones who wear dresses and refer to themselves as “girls”).  I’m also very sad about the many girls and young women who feel so oppressed by the currently increasing sexism that they are trying to opt out of being women.”

“All the hard work of lesbian recognition and acceptance in the 60s/70s is being eroded, has been eroded.”

“My children have been to uni where they were indoctrinated into believing that a man is a woman if he says he is. My relationship with them has been massively damaged as they dismiss my concerns and views as being ‘on the wrong side of history’.”

“You’ve asked over 80 questions – each one documenting ways in when GI impacts women and children.  Each one I am aware of already but seeing them all listed like that – well it’s quite terrifying.”

“This ideology has completely floored me, and made me feel extremely frightened and think about whether it is worth living on this planet. I feel that as a woman I now have to divert attention from my career, to this. I was brought up in an extremely sexist household – having escaped the trauma of that, I find that the ideology and the sexism in it; and the imposition of cult-control of women is quite triggering for me. Women are now having to do the work that male Governments should have done – these male Governments did not, and therefore this shows me how deeply misunderstood women are; and how they simply don’t exist as people in the minds of these men. I thought I was in a reasonable enough world until very recently, and now I think I have stepped into a dystopia, and pandora’s box, that the planet is hell. I feel extremely frustrated in the tide of children being brain washed into this. It’s all glaringly obvious that it’s very wrong. What on earth is going on?”

“It has made me angry in behalf of other women, especially younger women. It has caused me to question the motivation of politicians, and their ability to stand up and be counted.”

“If I was a young person now, I would be at risk of being persuaded that I am actually male.  I didn’t like dolls, preferred cars/mechanical toys, have always been a strong woman in my views, physically, preferred clothing society views as more ‘male’, and am hairy enough to grow a wee moustache.”

“Previous bad experiences with several men. Would find it very traumatic to be confronted with a ‘transgender’ biological male in women-only settings, or when hoping to be seen by a female medical professional. I don’t like the idea that I might be called transphobic for having this preference or wanting to keep protected spaces.”

“As a child I wanted to be a boy because of freedom etc. My daughter (born 1979) never thought of wanting to be a boy as she had strong women role models and knew she could be whoever she wanted as a girl and woman. Gender stereotypes have intensified enormously since then. If I was a child now I could be under pressure to trans.”

“I am fearful of having to receive medical treatment or care from someone who is clearly male but identifies as female if I have requested a female to give me care.”

“As a woman who has been abused, beaten, raped and assaulted in her lifetime, the thought of sharing a bathroom, changing room, hospital room, with males, both frightens and enraged me.”

“My daughter identifies as a gay, male, hologram. For six months I did my best to call her “he” and her chosen name. But I would not accept that she was actually, and had always been, a boy. She wanted to police my thoughts and so despite my demonstrating my love and commitment to her she left for her dad’s and never came home. Her school have affirmed her. The local LGBT youth worker calls me regularly to say “he” doesn’t want any contact with me. It is endlessly retraumatising. And I have to do this in a world that believes all of this. My gp signed me off work for eight weeks as developed a profound stutter and was largely unable to speak. Now each time I get stressed about anything I become unable to speak. It will affect my career.”

“I have helped to set up a GC women’s group in Wales – that solidarity, and the ability to take collective action (and to socialise together) has helped a lot. I am not optimistic about winning the battle but I will never stop fighting. It’s too important.”

“I just think it can be underestimated just how much of a toll trans women are lesbians has had on young lesbians. I went through a really dark time when I felt like I didn’t even deserve to call myself a lesbian because I thought my lack of attention to trans women was bigotry. I’m so sad lesbians are going through this :(.”

“This is the only issue where I am afraid to speak my mind or discuss with facts.”

“I was known as a Tom boy as a child. I hoped and wished I would evolve into a boy as I grew. I asked my Mum if I could be turned into a boy. All changed as I approached adolescence and puberty and had a sense of womanhood and being female. As my understanding grew I realised that feminism was aiming to give me everything I had wanted when I wanted to be a boy and by 14 was a happy young woman with a shelf full of feminist books, a love of the great outdoors, camping and building fires, and a boyfriend. Thank god Mermaids weren’t around to get hold of me!”

“The unfairness of all this is utterly maddening. The frustration and powerlessness that this engenders is very wearing. Sometimes I do have to force myself to step away from social media!”

“My gender critical stance has alienated me from my son, my youngest daughter, and my niece (who is currently being seen at Tavistock), which has been deeply distressing for me and my brother (father of my niece).”

“It’s objectively made me more blunt and assertive, but also more bitter, cynical, distrustful, and miserly with things like compassion and emotional labour… I don’t give the benefit of the doubt anymore. Being GC, but also being a lesbian is particularly isolating. Finding community is hard when it feels like you’re shut down at every turn, especially on the internet. We’ve been doing it, but slowly and very, very quietly. It’s weird having found a home of sorts in the LGBT community, only to be pushed out a few years later. Anyone who really cares about this sort of thing is burnt the fuck out. It’s hard when you’re young and scared of getting cancelled because you want to pursue a career/degree/whatever, but have a burning desire to *do something*, but you’re terrified of the fallout. With the internet, everything is documented.     About me though. I’m a biracial lesbian in Newfoundland, Canada. I’m studying psychology/gender studies with hopes of pursuing clinical psychology. I thought I was a man for about a year in 2016-2017, but kept those thoughts to myself. I peaked shortly after realizing that I don’t want to be a man, I just want the privileges that come with being one. My friends and I run a small fundraising group for women’s issues, and we sometimes talk about how a GC movement might be launched here in NL. The province skews towards gender ideology because it’s Canada and also the university, but the people themselves don’t seem to feel any sort of way about it. Anyway, hope you get some good data from this. My email is there if you want to talk more.”

“Being told I am a bigot after a lifetime of being an activist for social change is a bitter pill to swallow.”

“I have many trans friends and I love them and use their preferred pronouns. I do not hate anyone and I believe everyone deserves equal rights. However, gender ideology as a thought system strikes me as very 1984 2 plus 2 equals five if the highs-ups say so. Men are women if they simply say there are.”

“I did a diploma in Gender Studies at Birkbeck College over 20 years ago (already had a PhD); I read people like Judith Butler back then but the understanding was obvious: that gender was always separate from biological sex. A societal construct based on the masculine/feminine spectrum. Personally, I think most people can appreciate this when it’s pointed out to them though the BBC is still in thrall to Stonewall’s teachings. Regarding that organisation, my partner and I feel betrayed, together with all the gay men and lesbians who used to support them.”

“My daughters where groomed at school to ‘be kind’ to trans identified males and let them access female spaces. At first they got angry with me for saying this was wrong. I was automatically branded a ‘transphobe’ as per the cult indoctrination. On showing them evidence of what happens when you allow men to invade female spaces, they have now realised the full implications of ‘be kind’ indoctrination.  The worse worry I have is for female prisoners (many have mental health issues due to childhood abuse and trauma) being locked in a cell with a male. You would think this couldn’t happen but they actually put male rapists in with women. The male’s power to get access to women is greater than women’s rights to not be raped. I hear prisoners in California now getting pregnant in prison. Despite clear evidence these men are still using their penises for heterosexual sex, male dominated societies, organisations and politicians STILL put men first. I fear it will take a woman being murdered in her cell for anyone to listen. Being raped in your cell will not be listened to since the male will simply say she consented.”

“Society seems unhinged. We are living in the Age of Unreason.”

“I am part of LGB Alliance Canada.”

“Massively concerning as an educator.”

“I think gender identity ideology is the ultimate expression of misogyny, and has been particularly fed by the use and abuse of women in pornography. Although shocking that we have got here, it also now seems that it was always inevitable and I am not confident we can roll it back. There’s too much money at stake.”

“My partner was fired from her University teaching job.  I am a nurse working in a healthcare system that does not acknowledge biological reality or the importance of women’s sex based rights or feminism.”

“We have a family friend who is a transwoman (transsexual, has had the op). He looks like a man dressed as a woman and behaves in an incredibly toxically male way. In fact, I would say he is more stereotypically male than most males I know. His idea of what makes a woman is insulting to actual women.”

“Rape survivor. Terrified about what help I would receive in future. Terrified about shelter situation.”

“It is preventing intelligent conversations.”

“I see references to people identifying as non-binary or trans and it makes me feel exasperated and worried about the society they are making. I have young children and I am very vigilant to them referencing gender stereotypes and I am absolutely against them being encouraged to colour in rainbows at school, or the mindless pictures they are given to colour saying ‘be kind’ as I feel this is indoctrination. I know that my husband feels that I am overly concerned with what he sees as a ridiculous fad, but I don’t believe he can fully appreciate the potential impact for women.”

“I am aghast that my employer, my professional body, my union, and so many public bodies have been captured by gender ideology. I genuinely feel unsafe, in that should I be accused of transphobia, no one would support me.  If I went to the police, I don’t believe they would protect me. I find that a very frightening prospect, that the bodies which I previously assumed were there to uphold the law, will not do so and may join in punishing me for my belief in literal reality.”

“So scared of men now when I can’t even call myself a woman. The power man has taken over women in the justice system.”

“It changed my life utterly.  I had to divorce my trans-identified spouse after he came out after 32 years of marriage, and I had to retire early when I was threatened with disciplinary action for speaking of my experience.”

“Upsetting when women in the Jewish community embrace men as women so easily.  Another sign of Jewish female erasure.”

“I’ve had anxiety and depression for most of my life – including suicidal tendencies and self harm. This was largely due to misogynistic treatment I received when I was younger and I’ve been in therapy/taking medication for a while to help with this and was getting better.  Gender ideology sent me in a negative mental health spiral and I ended up self harming for the first time in years.  It’s the same misogynistic bs that I grew up with but with progressive wording as wrapping paper.  Being told by strangers online and people I knew in person that me dying might be best for the happiness of other people was also not helpful.  Gender ideology is a very hateful movement.”

“Google me (D**** B****) to learn about my federal civil rights lawsuit against police for their wrongfully arresting me in December 2017. It was wrongful because they arrested me only because I am a woman. I believe my gender-indoctrinated male neighbors googled me and presumed I was a TERF. They were not wrong; however, I did not know I was a TERF. They knew it before I did. It took me a while to put all the pieces together but now it all makes sense.”

“I work in publishing and the industry it is totally captured. I left my job to go freelance so I could speak more freely.”

“I’m very stressed and upset by it, can’t stop thinking about it and incredibly angry that we are being effectively silenced as media is not covering this issue and the trans activists have captured government and virtually all public bodies. Women have nowhere to turn for help.”

“My son has been influenced by this and thinks he is a lesbian. He has a relationship with another boy who also wants to transition MtF. Two boys believing they are lesbians!!! My kid got surgery approved, castration and neovagina.”

“Huge amount of entirely accepted and expected gender nonconformity in Northern Ireland, particularly in heterosexual (as well as lesbian) women, myself among them.  Slowly disappearing.  Level of observable conformity to gender norms is shocking, post-primary.  The biggest affront to me is that we are to become unique among all that exists or has existed or might exist: no word is permitted to describe us. Not even a word because of course that offends men.”

“As a therapist, a worker who is supposed to assist people in their suffering. . . A woman who is dedicated to reality, and helping her clients get to the roots of their condition(s), I find it deeply unsettling and disturbing that we are disallowed from exploring anything that may be underneath someone’s transgenderism or it would be reason for my license revocation under the reason of “conversion” therapy.  If we explore any of this, it is professional suicide. Also as a woman who has been a “tom boy” or in today’s vernacular “gender non-conforming”, I think that this push to reinforce gender bullshit is FAR more harmful that actually dismantling it altogether. Pink is for girls, and blue is for boys never made sense, but that is where this sex based compartmentalization begins. Many of us (men and women) do not fit these oppressive boxes, and THAT is where we should be looking, let’s get rid of the boxes that we can’t fit, and maybe ask ourselves WHY these ridiculous boxes are so important in the first place. Let’s also get rid of this notion that some dude’s “feeling” than my REALITY. (sic) Let’s maybe ask ourselves WHY so many young girls and women are suddenly seeking such an extreme desperate escape from womanhood. . .”

“I feel totally isolated with all my irl friends having swallowed the gender cult ideals hook line and sinker. My soul mate best friend called me an ignorant bigot and our 20-year friendship ended abruptly a year ago. I have to keep my radfem beliefs secret from employers and unconnected with my real name or face serious professional and financial consequences.”

“This trend pisses me off and frightens me.”

“I’m just mentally exhausted.”

“The transgender menace shut down my sanctuary and soul reviving yearly retreat. Will never forgive them for that!! So sad watching younger lesbians being bullied and pushed into accepting the women hating ideology of the MRA (trans rights movement). As an activist I have devoted my life to lesbians and I will never back down from fighting for our rights and space.”

“’Gender identity’ is a religion. I am an atheist. It is against my legally protected beliefs to pretend human beings are anything other than the reality of their determined at conception and observed at birth sex. I can not and will not lie about this.”

“It has made continuing to take an active role in my local CLP untenable. Criticism of gender identity theory is not tolerated.”

“I am so pissed off that so many people are so unthinking about this. FFS! I am so pissed off that my son (20’s) reflexively falls for the BeKind mantra – I thought he was able (and willing) to look, to see, to think. And so there is a no-go area of discussion where previously there was none.”

“It takes up an inordinate amount of my time, professionally and personally. I am confronted daily with examples of it invading my space- in television and radio, in the news, in use of statistics and in academic contexts, in service design and delivery, in inane ways like the right of a lecturer to question a theory and in extreme ways like the accidental use of ‘he’ to describe a man, the demand for pronouns or the inclusion of men in adverts for women’s products (which I hate anyway). The changes to language and expectation around what ‘woman’ means. The levels of suspicion and investigation I have to undertake to know if someone or an organisation can be trusted. The sense of repulsion I feel when someone uses pronouns or says anything about ‘self id’ as a positive move forward in social justice. It’s overwhelming and all consuming as it all denotes a threat to and a consistent undermining of women’s rights, language, spaces and bodily autonomy; all of which is already tightly regulated, limited, politicised and surveilled.”

“It has become an issue that dominates my life now. I fear that we won’t be able to stop this issue and many people/society will be negatively affected resulting in longer term problems for everyone.”

“Constant, low-level anxiety interspersed with peaks of horror at the systematic attempts to remove the word woman from society, being referred to as menstruators etc. It’s like a dream. It feels existential.”

“In relation to ethnicity, gender identity theory is a “luxury belief” which is one reason why many of the most prominent campaigners for women’s rights who have pointed out areas of conflict with gender theory (and who have been attacked on social media as a result) are women of colour and immigrant women. It is reflective of white privilege to believe that self-ascribed gender is more important than biological sex. The particular hatred many feminists of colour experience also reflects the broader racism in society.”

“I’ve been a feminist for as long as I can remember. I’ve never been so tired and scared – people are denying reality and seem happy to put women at actual increased risk of sexual assault to keep men happy. Where do we go from here?”

“Living in yet another new place, the existence of gender ideology & the promotion of gender self identification is a massive barrier to connecting with new people, integrating & making new social connections.  Groups that I might naturally be draw to, like Extinction Rebellion & the Labour Party have bought into this ideology. As I am new to the area, am already disabled, it creates yet another barrier to me reintegration into my new community.”

“It has left me with no support in the most difficult time of my life. I am lucky to be alive.”

“It is relentless browbeating.”

“I’ll have to think about it some, since last weekend is when I came out of the closet as a TERF by going to the demonstration in Austin at the State Capitol with a group of self identified TERFs who were chased and attacked by TRAs.  Fortunately there were no injuries because the cops did a fabulous job.  Here’s a video that one of our members shot in the thick of the crowd. It got worse later as far as people screaming at us and pushing us.    Our group is called TERF Collective on Facebook.    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmTVuovW33c”

“Very concerned for my young children being indoctrinated in schools.”

“I’ve vocally opposed this ideology since I first encountered it in 2007.”

“As a teacher of psychology and sociology it is damaging to all children and reinforces outdated stereotypes we had worked hard to begin to remove.”

“I’ve lost my trust in a lot of friends who have revealed a deep and enduring hate of women because of this.”

“I’m a teacher. We have to deliver this nonsense to vulnerable young people and pretend to believe in it. Show any dissent and it becomes a disciplinary matter – going against college policies.”

“I was kicked out of a women’s safehouse in Canada because I started talking to the staff about the discomfort of being housed with males, about how one male had had his dick out and how one staff member had ignored it. The second one in the house had penile inversion surgery. I was not the only woman there scared. However even talking to others about the issue was seen as a threat by management. They dropped me off at a homeless shelter last summer.”

“It is a terrifying time for women watching our hard won rights being flushed down the pan.  The misinformation surrounding the gender ideology (men’s rights) movement combined with suppression of free speech seeks to render women helpless. Disinformation and manipulation of children which seeks to convince them they want or need to change sex is obscene and cruel.  It is impossible to change sex.  What is the driving force?  Who/what is behind it?  It makes me feel as though I am losing my mind.  I feel I cannot trust a government that would facilitate this.  I feel I cannot trust our flag-waving Police Force.  I feel I cannot even trust the medical profession.  I fear for myself and I fear for my daughter.”

“I am very troubled by the loss of free speech and the treatment of women who have publicly expressed gender critical opinions. Laws and policy need to be based on rigorous scientific evidence and robust debate. This whole situation is having a negative effect on my mental health as I feel powerless and like a second class citizen with no voice.”

“I am a survivor of domestic violence. Feminism helped me understand what happened to me. It’s incredibly distressing to see women being gaslit through this movement. The misogyny is off the charts and it has impacted my mental health.”

“I’m so upset by this ideology and its capture of social institutions, including mainstream media, that I spend many hours every week researching the impacts on children, on women, on free speech. I find myself haranguing the friends I can trust about the latest horrors, sending them articles, etc. I feel shame about not being able to speak out publicly. I’m not afraid personally – I could deal with being fired, but the organization I’ve helped build for 20 years would be destroyed by the accusations of ‘transphobia’ I would draw and the internal discord that would erupt among organizational partners.”

“I feel being an older woman has been a benefit, as I haven’t gotten sucked into gender woo as I would have if I’d been younger. It’s given me a reason to be pissed off every single day, which sucks because I thought that would lighten up after txxxp lost the election.”

“I’ve mentioned various times how I’ve been affected and how the world around me is affected by this, I’m angry and wish this would change for us all, tired of seeing women being affected by this, myself, I wish for a better life quality, for fair treatment and unbiased science.”

“I work in tech. Women are grossly under-represented and the culture is deeply misogynistic. Trans people are significantly over-represented compared to the population. Tech controls whose voices get amplified and who gets deplatformed. I’m terrified by the degree to which the industry that has traumatized me repeatedly is now setting women back in the entire culture. And I’m disturbed that no one else seems to recognize that the tech industry and its misogyny is the source of this.”

“The authoritarian change in language, coupled with the vilification of reasonable objection, has cost me a great deal of peace of mind. The fact that my government has essentially redefined humanity as being something other than a biological category is deeply distressing to me. Truth and truthfulness have been suspended officially and this has made me feel alienated from society, as most people prefer to get along to go along, even when the stakes are of the most fundamental kind: truth itself. I feel like I am constantly being gaslit by the media, the corporate messaging, even in my neighbourhood groups. It is exhausting. I am so afraid to raise my child in this society that values feelings over truth.”

“Gender ideology has caused me more hurt and abuse than anything else in my life.”

“I feel gender ideology has had a negative effect on my own body image and has led me to consider cosmetic surgeries, I think because gender identity ideology puts so much more pressure on appearances. Even if I don’t believe in gender myself, hearing people around me promoting these ideas, is making them seep into my mind. I am female, but I do have some facial features that are traditionally thought of as being more masculine, and so the idea of getting a facial feminization surgery has crossed my mind. I have also considered getting a chin lift and laser hair removal as well. I have cried due to feeling ugly and “not feminine enough” after being exposed to some gender identity rhetoric, but I have recently distanced myself from a lot of acquaintances who support gender identity ideology and have been spending more time lurking on a social media site for gender critical women. While I am afraid to make an account and interact with those women in case the site gets hacked and accounts get compromised, just reading through their posts is helping me gain confidence and I am working on accepting my natural body instead. Additionally, when I was younger (17), I briefly considered identifying as a transman myself. This was partially a result of having spent too much time on tumblr, which was a website where there was a lot of grooming directed at teen girls to encouraging them to be “sex-positive” and if you weren’t keen on that idea, then perhaps you were trans. I also was drawn to being a transman because I wanted to escape from some of the drawbacks that being a young woman comes with, such as street harassment or my parents not letting me stay over with my guy friends.”

“While I hate the term, the language and threats used by TRAs is very triggering as a domestic violence survivor, to the point I’ve had flashbacks and have had to avoid/quit online spaces for hobbies and charities I was part of.”

“Gender identity ideology hasn’t impacted me that much in person, and I think it is because I was raised in a low income household, in a working class community, and it’s very jarring to be told that gender critical views are bigoted by people who grew up with class/white/male privilege; to be told that a white middle aged affluent man in a dress is somehow more oppressed than any woman.”

“There isn’t enough room here for me to say all I wish to say.  I will work to fight trans ideology until it is no longer needed or until I die, whichever comes first.  I mean it.  I stand on the shoulders of the Suffragettes and women like Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon.  I hope my shoulders are strong enough for the women who come after me–I fight to make sure they are.”

“It’s been very painful.  Apart from Climate Change, it is the issue that concerns me far more than any other.  I am deeply grateful that my two closest friends are gender critical, but I’ve lost friends and had family ask me why I care so much, and tell me that trans women are vilified.  I’ve had coworkers in tears, asking why I am denying the lived reality of trans kids and TW.  I’ve had a TW friend at work struggle to understand why I don’t see TW as synonymous with women.  I find it incredibly hard to find answers.”

“I feel helpless and frustrated, because seeing through something isn’t enough when the rest of the world are sucked in.  I have the tools to disengage with manipulative people’s bullshit, but if legislation is changed to accommodate it then that won’t be enough.”

“It’s unfortunately been somewhat of an obsession.”

“As a female in a very male dominated industry I am silenced. I have left all work organisations that used to be for women as they are now diversity organisations, and no longer aimed at supporting women. I’ve ignored requests to declare my pronouns, but been questioned on it.”

“It’s a difficult time to have teenage girls. Like me, they are sceptical about gender ideology. But they are taught nonsense at school, and feel they have to hide their true opinions.”

“Retired teacher, horrified by GI takeover of schools and innocent children from kindergarten up.”

“It has made me much more of a feminist. Once I thought the big battles had been won. I was wrong.”

“I find myself angry all the time. With 2 daughters I feel I constantly need to be aware of the erasure of their and my rights. I find myself angry at men.”

“It’s just awful. It’s really awful what’s being done to women and children. I’m a liberal/leftist BECAUSE I care about protecting women and children and here the liberal/left is attacking them just as badly as the conservative/right. It’s a nightmare.”

“I have argued with my children about it. I am GC they are be kind.”

“It threatens my livelihood.”

“I am anxious about the erosion of women’s rights, by men who claim to be women. I am angry. I am afraid for the future.”

“I once supported trans but only recently found out that they had taken over the gay groups which were rife with bullying and misogyny as a result. Also infected my political group with homophobia. That is when I became a TERF.”

“I spend lots of time on social media now and worry about the state of the world much more – I am a great grandmother now and fear for the future.”

“I grew up with right wing/traditional ‘gender’ sexism. I was looking for progress in the broader world, but instead got the regressive liberal rebranding of genderism. It’s exhausting.”

“I worry about the impact on more vulnerable women much more than the effects on me personally. And I resent having to watch what I say about it and to whom.”

“I feel like I’m in an almost permanent state of rage with the patriarchy these days.”

“I find the lack of scrutiny of the impact upon children horrific and spend a significant amount of time worrying about how this could affect my daughter who I’ve always encouraged to follow her natural gender non conforming likes and preferences. I’m anxious about the future for women and children and that the next boundary targeted will be the age of consent.”

“I’m freelance, working in children’s publishing. I have turned down work on principle as the subject matter was about pushing the idea of changing sex onto very young children as young as 3. I have lost out on lucrative work over this principle. I had to lie about the reason I was turning it down. I’m not out as GC in my workplace. I feel I would never work again if I was.   I’m also contemplating resigning as a school Governor.”

“It has galvanised me. I will not stand for the lies from my elected representatives or the lack of care for people with gender issues from in healthcare.  They deserve the same evidence base supporting their care as anyone else, and we are not providing that.”

“Of all the principles and achievements I thought would never be rolled back, feminism is the one that amazes me the most. It is a coup by misogynists that must not stand.”

“My step daughter is trans identified and has cut ties completely with family and friends.”

“I’ve felt silenced in my training -as did the majority of colleagues. Hate being called cis.”

“I think about this most days. If I won the lottery, I’d sink most of my winnings into fighting the transing of children.”

“I’m a gender non conforming woman. . . But still a woman!”

“I’m a member of the Labour Party and I feel increasingly alienated because of the “woke” element within the Party and the Party’s intention to introduce self-ID if they get into government.  I have always considered myself to be very left-wing but because of my gender critical stance I am silenced in discussions and accused of being right-wing.”

“Volunteer with WA worry about us sharing our safe spaces with trans.”

“I feel full of rage alternating with profound depression that women’s rights and feelings are dismissed and that the ideology has seeped into everything and everywhere.”

“Rex Landy called herself ‘a professional nobody’ the other day. That applies to me too. I’m an old woman, nobody gives a fuck what I think. I don’t want men in the Ladies asking me for tampons. I don’t want a man in a dress to think he can force his way into being my ‘friend’. The ideology makes me fear for women, for my daughter, my granddaughter and women in general.”

“I had a horrible experience of forcing myself to act as if an enormous TIM Lesbian employer were a woman, and finally relaxing about it, only to be confronted by their true colours. The weird competition with me. The male showcasing of wealth and power. The disgust at gay men. Everything freaked me. But no one else (apparently) felt uncomfortable.”

“I’m 25, my friends are all quite on the fence about this issue and it feels quite alienating. My childhood best friend is trans identifying – I can’t be around her because I’m afraid I won’t be able to keep quiet about my fears for women’s rights.”

“My 22 year old daughter has displayed classic rapid onset gender dysphoria and is now taking testosterone and transitioning which is breaking our hearts. She has ADHD, ASD and before this, came out as a lesbian which is what I firmly believe she is. I am a lifelong feminist and cannot believe our rights are being stripped away under the guise of this pernicious ideology.”

“I remember as a child in the 70s being told how much better the world was for women and that by the time I was my mom’s age we’d be in an even less sexist society. I’m pretty angry at the backlash to the women’s liberation movement that means we’re still fighting fights women thought they’d won already.”

“I developed strong discomfort with being female and the social implications of that when I reached puberty. As a young adult, it seemed appealing to be able to avoid the reality of being female by identifying out of it, so I researched “gender identity” but ultimately found it to be incoherent and reinforcing of damaging stereotypes, and I could never honestly say I ever experienced anything like having my own “gender identity”. I am just simply a female human, and I was able to make peace with that when I reached my 30s.”

“My family all subscribe to gender ideology and it’s caused issues. My sibling says they’re non binary, I think they see it as a way to explain existing mental health issues.”

“I’ve attended several women’s rallies and I’m shocked at the hostility & hatred of the counter protesters, generally but not always men.”

“The main impact I’ve suffered (and suffered is the correct word) is that my spiritual homeland, the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, was torn in two, publicly excoriated, and ultimately destroyed by transevangelists.”

“Fighting this has taken over my life.”

“As an older woman, I am concerned that social media does not mobilise women of my generation who fought so hard as feminists in the 70s and 80s. We need to mobilise older women who will fight against this misogyny.”

“It has made my ability to run my company very difficult as Trans Activists consistently promote my service providers cancellation of me.”

“I am extremely concerned by the erosion of women’s rights & the redefining of the word “woman” to include any man that wants it.  I’m horrified by the impact on women only spaces, & on vulnerable women (in prisons, domestic violence refuges etc.) – and I’ve just watched in horror as this ideology has sucked so many vulnerable children into it. It’s like a cult. In theory, there is nothing wrong with a child saying they are the opposite sex, wearing clothes/hairstyles associated with the opposite sex – but why people have pounced on this and are trying desperately to put children onto a medical pathway is beyond me. It feels like people are exploiting these children to make money out of them as lifelong medical patients.  It feels that this is being driven by men – middle aged male late transitioners who are more often cross-dressing fetishists than suffering gender dysphoria. It is all about taking women’s spaces, sexual objectification (of themselves as women – most likely porn-led) and abusing or silencing women who will not accept this.  Younger (particularly left wing) men have jumped onto the bandwagon, and abuse women with impunity, saying they are on the right side of history.”

“I am fearful for the future of women, to a time of having to avoid some public places or services for fear of my dignity and safety, becoming a nobody and literally just a Body with a vagina.  Loss of my ‘identity’ as a woman. I fear for women in a future that looks bleak as our rights as women are stripped away for what appears to be fetish based selfish desire of some men. This fetish is bad for those who suffer with genuine Body dysphoria, and LGB people.    All of this leaves me feeling disgusted and depressed. My mental health conditions worsen because I have become hyper focused on the threat to mine and womankind.  I feel like my very existence is threatened, my very life.”

“As a child and adult sexual and DV survivor, I feel trapped by the encroachment of mentally ill men pretending they are women in my safe spaces.”

“Made me worried and angry enough to start lobbying politicians and protesting. Will do everything I can to fight self-Id and gender ideology.”

“As a woman who was raped in childhood it concerns me greatly that gender ideology demands that girls are being taught not to challenge someone who appears to be male in toilet/changing room.”

“The rape crisis issue retraumatised me, conversations I had with TRAs were very triggering. I recognise the male abuser mentality in all the arguments and it’s upsetting and disturbing.”

“I spend a lot of time on Twitter!  I get mad a lot.  I feel entirely pissed off as a 60 year old lesbian, being invisible anyway as a woman, now made more invisible by the gender bullshit.”

“My child has been brainwashed by gender ideology.”

“The idea that this pretentious claptrap was promoted with the demand #NoDebate was so offensive; nothing should be beyond challenge, given a free pass, not be subjected to academic scrutiny or reasoned debate in a civilised democracy. Politicians whose cowardice has let it happen are the shame of our society.”

“My sister in Scotland is totally captivated by Nicola Sturgeon. She does think that Covid & Scottish Independence are more important to her, & Scots generally, than women’s rights stuff. We just don’t talk about it. Here in Australia we don’t have the wonderful base of articulate, courageous feminist activists that the UK does. We do have (Senator) Claire Chandler, & (Lawyer) Kath Deves & (Academic) Holly Lawford-Smith, plus scattered GC activists mainly in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane. I am in Darwin NT (only about 3 GC women so far I think) – would like to find more.”

“I left the Women’s Equality Party because they couldn’t define what a woman was so its left me mistrusting of parties.”

“I am a nurse and am horrified by how this erasure of women and the impact it is having. I also grew up has half-middle eastern and in a very sex segregated way and these negative experiences were because of sex not gender.”

“I work in the NHS, indirectly in diagnostic services, and I am concerned that the apparent willingness to mis-sex patients to avoid misgendering patients is going to lead to harm, possibly even death.”

“I was a teenager during the rise of this gender nonsense, and felt somewhat forced to comply or be a part of it, or be labelled a bigot. I had “friends” (no longer friends) that insisted I cross dress or use pronouns I wasn’t comfortable with. It’s almost like they don’t want the traditional “straight/gay, man/woman” to exist at all, if you’re not trans, or some in between made up gender, then you’re basically a nazi. Women are being erased by men, who think they can do everything better (including being a woman).”

“It’s a setback that upsets and frustrates me very much. Even though I keep a cynical position about the whole thing and I have a lot of granted anonymity, this shit is so unfair it boils my blood. I also want to explain myself that I used to be more aware of other rights, as the fight against classism, racism, the fight for LGB rights etc. My take on women’s rights is what made me be expelled from the left and from the specific groups, and it just made me feel like I was into something more important. My answers on kids, race and lesbianism are a specific reflex of it.”

“AH, you want I write a book??? Summing it up, as a Butch Dyke Amazon I feel we have LOST so much in EVERY sector of the Lesbian Communities save one: there still are Michfesties out there that feel VERY STRONGLY about born Female or Women born Women space and Being. Only THERE do we feel free: as Lesbians, as Womyn, as Witches, as Amazons, that time away from males has made us strong, especially emotionally and spiritually.  Once on that Land, where we as Lesbians were in the majority, and 99% FEMALE (Except those few gatecrashing mtfs), we could SEE the possibilities what it was like to live in an Amazon Nation, wild and free, where we could walk int the middle of the woods with everyone sleeping and fear no man. Could BE ourselves without derision, censure or silencing, even the wildest aspect of our Female selves, even though controversial, still accommodated. It was like living in another time, another world. And young girls and teens could run free. No fear of sexualized violence, abduction, or needing to censure ourselves in any way for the sake of men. Michfesties STILL hold onto this Vision and hope to build it anew.”

“2 of my now adult (on the spectrum) boys identify as trans and it has destroyed our family.”

“My grandson is being allowed to believe he is / can be a girl since he was 6 yrs old by my daughter and her girlfriend (who say they are trans as well).”

“My autism cannot accept fiction that a man is a woman. I have been sexually abused and stalked. Self Id is a licence to abuse women. Why can’t men see it?”

“I disbelieve in the existence of gender identity in the same way I disbelieve in deities. I find the proliferation of gender identity ideology, aided by organisations and our governments cause for great concern. It looks to me like our society is being forced to adopt a pseudoscientific belief system against its will or suffer the consequences. I’ve studied propaganda extensively in a higher education setting and I know what a psychological terrorism campaign looks like and this is what I’m seeing in the here and now. I don’t worry for myself, not really, but I do stress about what this means for my 18 year old gender identity atheist daughter going forward. I want her to have the right of free speech and freedom from belief. I don’t want her to be oppressed, victimised, bullied, ostracised because of her lack of belief. And, from what I’ve already seen, she will be.”

“Lost faith with academia; feel a generation have been let down; Politically homeless; lost faith in those with power and influence; enduring feeling of sadness.”

“Gender ideology is a quasi-religion, if not an actual religion. I have a religious faith so being required to express support for gender ideology conflicts with this. No-one would think of asking about religious beliefs without allowing people to identify as atheists, but forms always assume everyone agrees with gender ideology. I want to be able to say I’m a gender atheist.  Trans people have sometimes made videos which are highly offensive to people of my faith but no-one appears concerned about that. I am so concerned about the impacts of gender ideology on women and children that I have linked up with GC groups, contributed to crowdfunders, and have become a women’s rights activist, which I never thought I would need to do.”

“Professionally, I care for women who have been traumatised. Gender ideology is very harmful to them.”

“I found out about the reality of this ideology and the extent of its influence on organisations “by accident” through the course of my mental health volunteer work. Everyone I’ve met with similar views to me also “fell” into this discovery. Before this I believed many of the tenets of transactivism, including the idea of some kind of “internal womanhood” in some males (and vice versa in females); discovering about autogynephilia, and about the facilitation of predators and the harm done to women, children and some men (including some autogynephilic men) by this ideology and its proponents changed all that.”

“I have adult children, in their late 20s, who are concerned how critical they can be at work regarding pronouns/mixed toilets.”

“I’ve lost work and developed my first grey hairs.”

“I came out as a lesbian 7 years ago at the age of 28, a very difficult process. Initially I was relieved to join the lgbt community but very quickly was subjected to threats and aggression from males who identify as lesbians, there doesn’t seem to be any space for lesbians anymore and being both a woman and a lesbian feels like the worst possible situation to be in with the current gender ideology.”

“Thank you for doing this!”

“I am not an academic or an activist, I have only been aware of identity politics for the past two years. But the more I read and debate, the more anxious and stressed I feel that the world as I know it may possibly change for the worse. I fear that I am being coerced into believing something that is not good for women and girls. It all seems to be driven by men, sex, money and power.”

“It has made me question associations I have with people on ‘the Left’. It’s distressing to realise how many of them have bought into gender ideology and do not seem to care about women’s rights or even to know what they are. This fight has taken over a large part of my life and impacts almost everything that I do.”

“It has made me furious – everything women have fought valiantly for is receding. I cannot believe this is happening.”

“You didn’t ask about our experiences as mothers – especially mothers of children caught up by the trans cult.”

“It has caused great negative impact on my mental health to the point that I no longer feel motivated to be politically engaged in other ways (such as environmental protection) as I’d rather the world ends than continue down this dark woman hating and child endangering path. I have lost some of my closest relationships to this cult – I have never known a more divisive topic. At points I have felt suicidal.”

“Men being referred to as women has a dehumanizing effect on women.”

“My 10 year old daughter is being bullied in school and on social media for refusing to use preferred pronouns. It’s horrific for some children just now, bullying is increasing against children who don’t believe in gender identity.”

“Trans widow and mother of ROGD TiM and not the only one to be hit by this ideology twice.”

“Angry, bit obsessed. Feeling have to fight against it but not in social media.”

“I’m so angry all the time.”

“I think about it almost all the time as I have been a feminist from my earliest memory and it is fundamental to my beliefs, values and existence.”

“My fear, anger, anxiety, etc. have turned me into a full-time activist and crusader for women’s sex based rights and the rights of LGB people and of children.”

“I fear more for my 5 year old daughter growing up with this than I do for myself.”

“My ‘queer’ flatmates (including male drag queens) petitioned to my landlord to get me evicted for being a ‘terf’. I was bullied out of my own home. I was 24 years old.”

“Brought back previous trauma re sexual attack by trans person when I was younger. Have concerns re any future hospital in patient.”

“I have mild panic attacks at the thought of intact males in spaces with undressed/vulnerable women.”

“I have been through a lot of abuse in my life by men and I really value women only spaces.” Often men put on an act of being nice, but are also abusive and only show that aspect of themselves when they know no one else is a witness. Trans activists just seem like another form of male violence/abuse in the way they call women TERFS. TERF is a derogatory term like the ‘n’ word that is used on black people, but trans people pretend they are much more victimised than women. This is not true. My lived experience as a woman and women’s historical experience shows how women were always treated as second class citizens. Trans  ideology also promotes sexual stereotypes.”

“Lesbians have been pushed out of the LGBTQAI++ “community”, but many don’t even realise it, as they’ve previously been indoctrinated into being ‘trans allies’ before it started getting out of hand because they’d rather not be seen as transphobic. Now when you tell them what’s happening, some of them are keen to join in the accusations of transphobia. These are the ones who already came out, already have their social circles, don’t need to meet new lesbian friends, don’t need to use dating apps etc.”

“It’s just made me very angry. I really don’t want to think about the various sexual fetishes that are part of the TRA movement but…”

“The biggest impact has been in my union setting where I was vilified for being a Terf, threatened, censored and lost positions for discussing gender identity.”

“I’m very concerned re: NHS corruption of SEX/Gender issue and their apparent lack of policing by government. Stonewall again. Also Policing and their gender freewheeling all points lead back to Stonewall. I fear that I can no longer rely on the establishment to treat me fairly as a tax paying gender critical female.”

“I’ve just had enough, the fact everyone’s arguing about whether humans can change sex is just crazy. Speaking out gets you labelled as a fascist. Ever since I learnt about this TRA stuff, I’ve been consumed with this debate and the affect it’s having on women. I have seen so much misogyny online by men who want to be women. It’s stressful to know that I can’t say anything or that I could be blasted on social media if I do or potentially fired from my job. I’ve seen tweets from a man who state they want to be the first trans woman to have an abortion. It’s disgraceful, Arielle Scarcella did a video about that tweet. And this man is a protected member of that community that understands what it’s like to be a woman??? Vile. I’m honestly just sick of it, I’m sick of being told what a woman is by a man. I’m sick of language being meaningless. I’m sick of hearing about children being sterilised and operated on for mental health issues. That women are being raped in prison. That rape victims have to reshape their trauma and include men as their mentors. Lesbians have to like penis. A penis is a female sex organ now?? Since when?? I don’t remember being taught that in science. It’s like something out of a dystopian novel. The denial of reality is insane. I can’t do it anymore. I just want every male on the planet to shut the fuck up for a second and let the females talk it out and decide, because it’s us that this negatively impacts.”

“I’m a feminist and have worked in the arts so I’m concerned about artist expressing or working on this like the Brazilian woman Aleta Valente who has been attacked for her work on her own gender. As a rape survivor myself and someone from working class background, I know this issue is more a threat to my class than the middle class, I had policemen try it on with me in a woman’s hostel, I have had men from a teen from my mum’s boyfriend to a friend’s uncle and my father’s friend try it on with me, working class poorer women will suffer more, not the affluent or middle classes. We are the ones running from domestic abuse more, we are the ones who have had sexual advances from young more and suffer from more child abuse in our environment. We are the ones using public transport not taxis or our own cars and we are the ones ending up in hostels and prisons which are often a result of male violence, rape or abject poverty. It will be working class women affected more and encompassed in that is women of a varied ethnicity. Also women who’s cultural identity is not used to or allowed to share spaces with male genitalia or seen culturally as acceptable by religion or race structures need to be taken fully on board before whole cultures are called misogynistic over their needs and outward racism towards them ignored.”

“I feel that Lesbians and gay men are being erased. I am concerned that heterosexual people are not aware of what is happening and they are unaware of the consequences of men being able to self ID as women as they want to be accepting and think this is the right thing to do. They are afraid of being called fascists and bigots.”

“I was a university student, English major. After being called a bigot by my professor in February 2021 for refusing to deny biology, I later dropped out (although I finished my course, muzzled and censored), one course short of my final year. Universities are indoctrinating students, and turning them into helpless narcissists who believe they can shut down any conversation that makes them “uncomfortable.” I am also a university employee, although likely to be fired soon, since I won’t submit to punitive and discriminatory COVID tests either. Universities are becoming a joke, and the humanities are all about trans rights – Jordon Peterson was right.”

“Cannot understand the stranglehold it has.”

“It makes me despise my own sex who go along with gender ideology.”

“I have become incredibly angry and upset at what is happening to women, girls and children. And incredibly angry and upset that I cannot talk it through with friends, because when I have they have gone quiet and pretended I must not understand the issues. One told me I sounded hateful, she told me I sounded hateful for the crime of THINKING that men cannot become women. My thoughts are now a hate crime and my friends at times have been the police, and they and we are all leftwing women.”

“It has made me very sceptical of health professionals and institutions in gender. Everyone can see the absurdity of self ID and teaching children about gender ideology but nobody seems to be stepping in to do anything about it. There has always been a very small number of trans people who have a severe dysphoria, but in recent times there seems to be a whole host of people claiming trans identities that are not dysphoric. I would have thought that researchers and psychologists would have been keen to try to understand the causes behind this and try to tackle the issues of people in the various groups that are now under one umbrella of ‘transgender’.”

“The most depressing thing is to realise how easily the decades of progress women have fought for can be turned back.”

“I am fighting it.”

“I have a niece who is transitioning, her parents were informed by her school who had already changed her pronouns and name her own parents were the last to know.”

“It is directly impacting Lesbian family members.”

“This issue has taken up 90% of my in-person and online political activism in the last two decades. It haunts me day and night that men are getting away with all this destruction of what women have been building for many decades.”

“I have been radicalised by this issue!”

“The continuing erasure of women by men.”

“I had to leave a political party I was devoted to bc of the rise in misogyny and I just didn’t feel safe as a GC woman. I was suicidal for a couple of days when this happened. Thankfully I was aware I was ill. And this I suppose was what led to me getting a very late diagnosis of autism.”

“Like many other women I cannot believe where we are. As a life long believer in Scottish independence, I am utterly dismayed and disgusted by the pandering to and the promotion and pushing through of laws that will without doubt harm women and children. There is only one word for it-sinister.”

“I have a family member who was fast tracked onto cross-sex hormones without exploration of her autism and her anorexia. She has now de transitioned but has been damaged by the testosterone.”

“I worry about the erasure and bullying of women. I worry for my daughter and granddaughter.  I worry about all the misogyny.”

“I am now an activist & a podcaster to fight this having connected with other women who feel the same.”

“It had changed my life, now I am fighting to protect the rights that have already been recognized. I stopped doing other stuff to volunteer in WHRC. I feel we went back 50 years.”

“I think it is an existential threat to women. We stand to lose everything we currently have in the Western world, and if we lose those things the rest of the world will let them go too. It doesn’t matter so much for me as I am older, but young women stand to lose so much and they cannot see it!”

“This has been an existential crisis for me.  The Enlightenment died when the medical profession signed up for gender identity ideology.  I have lost respect for many leading scientists and institutions.  It is not hyperbole to use the word eugenics as applied to autistic and all gender non-conforming children.  The realisation that Germaine Greer was right was also a shock.  Watching men on social media making fools out of themselves and being truly awful is something else.”

“Yes, I have a family member who transitioned MtF, and from whom I am now estranged.”

“Not so much impacted, like in work place and society. Gender identity is not known among the general people and women organizations here (Sweden) haven’t taken a real clear stand – like in for instance Great Britain and like global organizations like WHRC or WoLF in US.  The consequences are not generally known (yet) and what to come among the general people and not even among all feminist and what has happened in other countries to women and girls.”

“We need to organize more protest in Canada.”

“I feel gas-lighted by how hard it is to assert simple biological and scientific facts in the face of the media, governmental and community organisations, politicians etc., stridently asserting their delusion that gender (which is a fluid social and cultural construct) and biological sex (an innate physical characteristic) are inter-changeable and all the flawed thinking and action that flow from that.”

“The impact on children in Scotland. And for female prisoners and for all women and girls in Scotland, we are now the same as a man who identifies as a woman. Fucking unbelievable.     We could be arrested or sacked for not affirming some dude’s feelings that they are a woman.”

“I have a mixed race adult male child who has been captured by this. He has experienced some racial harassment by peers growing up, only mildly. He thinks he is more oppressed than me, but by his age I had been harassed, assaulted and discriminated against at work because of my sex. He was brought up by an outspoken feminist. It’s really frustrating to see how powerful this lobby is and that young men can think they are more oppressed than their mothers ever were.”

“Gender ideology activists had tried to humiliate my feminist group and tried to hit us in a concentration in Barcelona on the 26th June, but could not because the police was there, although we had to leave before time not being able to freely exercise our right to demonstration and free expression.”

“I have a daughter and granddaughter. We are estranged and I’m beside myself with concern for the impact on both of them. It’s the most difficult thing I have to deal with because I cannot protect them. I believe that my daughter is mentally ill and has isolated herself to avoid dealing with relationship issues.”

“Having lived through the political turmoil of the 1960s and the rise of second wave feminism of the 1970s, the current air-headed embrace of ‘choose-me’ (so-called) ‘liberal feminism’, I am infuriated at the potential loss of women’s rights and everything we worked for.”

“If it’s a disgrace for white people to pretend they are black and take up black spaces, why is it OK for men to pretend they are women and take up women’s spaces?  I asked this at a forum that was primarily black and several of the women stopped short and said – well damn never thought of that!  How do you miss that?????  I don’t put my pronouns on my documents.  So far I have not been asked or pushed but if I am, I’m going to say that everyone should be treated with respect and dignity regardless of their pronouns and stop there.”

“I feel stress and fear that I won’t be allowed to ask for female only care and facilities.”

“I have a daughter, who whilst [she is] not (don’t think!) into this, doesn’t seem to like me talking about it – like angrily doesn’t like it!”

“It’s made me furious and frustrated.”

“It has caused rifts in my family and put barriers between myself and my children, also friends.  It is heartbreaking.”

“I will fight with other women to prevent our erasure at every opportunity. I cannot believe how much gender ideology has captured governments and local authorities and services. There’s money and profits to be made from the promotion of this delusion clearly.”

“It makes me fearful. I do not feel safe around the Police or NHS and I feel it is fuelling misogyny making me less safe everywhere.”

“It’s genuinely concerning and I do worry for the future.”