Thread by @BethReid93

This (v long and late) 🧵 will give a bit of background to how I peaked, and the aftermath. I don't regret anything and I'm now in a brilliant place with great friends. But I think its important to show why it's so scary for young GC women to speak out.
#YoungGCWomenUnite

I am currently 28. I picked up "be kind" feminism from uni and my peers and had never really challenged it. My peaking began when my mum and I clashed over @GetTheLOutUK in 2019. I couldn't fathom the idea of my mum being a bigot - it just didn't make sense.

Mum and I didn't really talk about it again, but she started dropping Invisible Women factoids on me. Which made me question why people claiming to be the most vulnerable group were so adamant that they shouldn't be properly counted in the census.

Mum also sent me to an event where @helenlewis spoke about Difficult Women, and she made it so clear that we shouldn't discount women's contributions to feminism because they didn't agree with the party line.

During the first year of Covid I was pretty quiet, except to question our women's network having TIM in on IWD when it had been such a shitty year for women and there was so much else to focus on (apparently TIMs were incredibly marginalised and we didn't talk about it enough)

But then the great abandonment of Stonewall happened. My workplace left and, due to my job, I was pretty front line - dealing with complaints from TRAs telling us we were bigots and we would rot in hell. Any GC emails were much more polite.

I had a friendship group at work. We'd started together as grads, talked every day, went on holiday together. We were close.

A year ago today I lost that.

I knew the conversation was coming, so I'd been slowly testing the waters.

Unfortunately, we went out to lunch and someone brought up Stonewall.
My friend, who I'll call Jane, started encouraging the conversation and kept glancing at me, obviously testing my reaction.

So I spoke up. I explained as clearly and politely as I could why I felt Stonewall was dangerous. Why I thought the whole ideology was dangerous. My fears for teenage girls, for women's prisons. My confusion about why therapy was considered bad.

The following Monday I got a message from Jane (who's not LGBT) on our work network trying to educate me on my transphobia and asking me to apologise to the LGBT friends who'd been there. Friends who hadn't told me they were offended and one who had actively asked questions.

I offered to exchange views with her and explained that I couldn't agree with her unless she provided sound reasoning. She refused and told me I needed to hide my views at work as they weren't in keeping with our D&I strategy. I panicked. Big time. Called my mum hyperventilating.

With her help I advised Jane that my views were protected beliefs and it was discrimination to tell me to hide them. I also stood my ground and refused to apologise as I knew I had been polite, clear, and engaged with other views. Jane cut me off.

I was terrified. I had just applied to a job in her team and knew she had influence. I had to call my manager, out myself and explain what had happened. She had to explain to my director. I was a nervous wreck and didn't know what to do. I feared for my friendships.

I wasn't in work for another month. I had to self isolate before a very traumatic surgery, after which I was too weak to come in. My friends all knew about this surgery but no-one reached out. I felt incredibly alone.

A week after my surgery it was my birthday. We'd put plans in the diary 2 months before, so I texted my friends to explain how ill I was and suggest we rearrange.

No one replied for 48 hours. After the first reply, Jane left the group.

The following week Jane and I were supposed to go to a gig. I'd forgotten, but on the day texted to say "I'm not well. Take who you want". She revealed she'd already sold her ticket without telling me as "she wasn't sure what was going on".

She did the same thing again two months later and simply deposited a refund in my account without contacting me.

I struggled the next few months. I tried pretending things were normal with my grad friends, but those I was closest to seemed to purposefully drift, making excuses if I tried to arrange to meet. They barely meet my eye at the tea point these days.

My non-work friends were all struggling with their own issuess and couldn't relate to what had happened. My best friend, a police officer, didn't talk to me for two months because I said Sarah Everard's death showed the police had a misogyny problem.

I was incredibly lonely.

However I was also incredibly lucky. I am forever grateful to my family who looked out for me and looked after me. I was very close to depression but they helped me out of the hole before it got too deep.

Mum felt/feels guilty because she peaked me. But she shouldn't. I've never been good at keeping my mouth shut and, for all that pain, I don't regret it. It showed me Jane, and my friends', true colours. I honestly don't want friends who are that judgemental and unsupportive.

It also meant that I finally reached out and found my own #YoungGCWomenUnite group on tumblr (shout out to tumblr user UKRfeminism, the organisation mastermind). We have a WhatsApp group, meet up at least once a month and we're heading to @FiLiA_charity together next month.

I 100% recommend finding other young GC women/ radfems and coming together. My group is such a brilliant support network and it makes such a difference having people who you can speak with unfiltered. Also they're just a good laugh.
#YoungGCWomenUnite

The group, my family and my experience have also helped me become more confident about speaking up at work. On the GC side I've helped implement changes to support more balance debate.

On the personal, I've finally got myself a brilliant new job in a different team.

I'm not going to lie, it was long and hard and I still wear the battle scars. But they're scars now, not wounds. They remind me where I've been and what I've overcome. And I'm proud of that journey. #YoungGCWomenUnite