Identiy Politics

Fair enough

I'm not sure what I posted that was unclear. "On lots of committees" certainly looks unambiguous to me.

That's really funny serfterf. Not trans, just tired and irritable.

X post.

I also agree that all extremism is dangerous. I was trying to say that.

Are you a TRA running?

I imagine it would suit some groups very well if the critical thinkers all got themselves sent down.

serfterf maybe I misread the tone of your earlier post. It just sounded depressingly like people I encountered at uni who toed an ideological line while it was trendy and then binned it the minute they wanted to bet on the stock markets...

Good for your son if he's engaging.

I do find the hysteria around trans issues on mumsnet as wearing as the "we can all be identify as rare Japanese butterflies" I find elsewhere. I also think that university is about young people challenging the ideas they grew up with. That's not brainwashing, that's thinking.

Apologies for my judgy post . I think I'll step away from mumsnet for a while

Oh do run along running

He's in possibly the most "right on" college he could be in and would be subject to a disciplinary process if he "spoke up".

When it's possible to be sanctioned at a good uni for holding gender critical views it's the system that's at fault and no way should a student be expected to damage their own education to challenge the madness. Just think about that state of affairs for a moment.

Besides, there are a handful of them who seem to have tacitly agreed that they do more good ON various committees as a moderating element.

There was a horrendous debacle recently involving a pro choice charity and a pro life organisation both attempting to disseminate literature and freebies at the college. If the extreme theorists had been left to settle matters, something unsavoury would have happened.

serfterf Wow. Reread that post and then put it in a different socio-historical context - maybe the American civil rights movement.

If he has an opinion, he should voice it. Toeing the line in public while disagreeing in private is hypocrisy and fear and does not move the debate forward. It's not a totalitarian regime. There are no gulags or lynchings if you disagree. It's an important debate which we should all engage with honestly and openly.

Agreeing in public and then sneering in private just to please each respective audience is a road to confusion and mistrust. Shame on you for not expecting better of your son.

My son is also starting university this year. He knows how I feel about all this. But I worry that he will either get indoctrinated, or he will take a stand and get ostracised.

DS is on lots of student committees and he's hilarious about this stuff. I should think that there are a lot of students, like him, who toe the public line of what is acceptable in that arena and privately think what they think.

It's not ideal to know that a generation of minds are being forced into totalitarian-style double think but I console myself that he's gaining great diplomatic skills (and most of all that he IS gender critical).
He regales me with tales of the more absurdist debates and innovations and seems to have perspective on the whole thing

Here: perhaps is more useful to think of gender as performative rather than a social construct

To reply to something ages ago... just because something is a social construct doesn't mean that it's unimportant. it does mean that it's mutable and not some monolithic Truth. Identity politics is a complex and problematic issue and just saying "It's all nonsense" is as facile as saying "I can be whatever I want to be". There are rarely easy answers..

Really, if you want to learn something watch some Judith Butler videos not some kid on You Tube.

I think that some of those students seemed to show more critical thinking than others so I don't think that all hope is lost, yet (and of course they may have interviewed plenty who called out the bullshit that didn't make the final edit).
He could have been Chinese.

because I'm not looking to invite trouble. But I won't deny reality either.

I think that's a contradiction in terms in this day and age!

Yes I think at 30, you will stand a much better chance of being assertive, holding your ground, but not being rabid.

I'm not so sure with DS...

I've come to the conclusion that he needs to navigate his own way, whatever that entails.

Should be an interesting few years!

Datun I shall certainly let you know! I'm going as an MA student, and at 30 I'm a bit less susceptible to peer pressure but I'm still concerned about coming up against extreme disapproval. I've just finished my undergraduate degree at another institution - post-92, very working class, lots of mature students, and there was no institutional evidence of any genderist/TA ideology. I think this was also due in part to there being a relatively high number of religious students, both Christian and Muslim. The university I'm moving to is Russell Group and from what I can tell things are quite different there.

I really hope your son is able to find a compromise that works for him - obviously indoctrination would be terrible, but being seen as a social outcast for his beliefs wouldn't make university a good experience either. I have to think, though, that even at a university where all this goes on, he won't be the only one taking a critical attitude towards it, so it might be a matter of finding likeminded people - either those who agree, or those who are happy to debate issues civilly without calling for censorship.

I'm planning to ask the university's Feminist Society if I'd be welcome as a gender-critical feminist. If the answer is along the lines of 'no, you evil TERF' I might just try to stay clear of the entire issue, because I'm not looking to invite trouble. But I won't deny reality either.

CancellyMcChequeface

My son is also starting university this year. He knows how I feel about all this. But I worry that he will either get indoctrinated, or he will take a stand and get ostracised.

He is educated, articulate, wins debates at school, and is argumentative (!). He's 19, and although he utterly denies it, he will be as susceptible to peer pressure as anyone else.

Are you attending university as a student, or a tutor?

I'd be very interested in how this issue is navigated when you go.

Please report back!

I posted that video in another thread yesterday - it's really shocking.

lessworried If that's the case, it doesn't really make it any better. If someone fears they might be expelled from their college or hounded on social media for saying that a white man isn't really female, Chinese, or seven years old, then they're living in a society that pressures them to deny reality. 2+2=5 if we say it does, don't contradict us because feelings matter more than facts and you have to be polite.

I'm starting at a new university this year that has some of these policies, and I won't, under any circumstances, say that I believe men are really women or vice versa. People are very welcome to disagree with me, because the reasoned debate of ideas is what university should be about. And I'll be polite about it. But I won't make statements that I know are factually false because a tiny minority of transactivists want to call facts 'literal violence.'

I only watched the first couple of video's not the one with the pro trans activists

I only watched the couple of video's nit the one with the pro trans activists. The feeling I got was the college kids were just trying to be nice and I can see where they are coming from to a degree, of course he's not a 6,5 7 year old Chinese girl however him just saying that isn't causing any harm. Him then demanding to use the girls restroom at a Chinese girls school would be a whole other issue.
Also they are aware that they are being filmed so wouldn't want to say anything controversial. The last thing they would want would be to expelled from University or hounded on social media until they were forced to leave. One moment of honesty could leave them to being forced to continue their education at a Christian College founded by a televangelist in 2005 with a statue of a Confederate General on the front lawn.
Mostly I think they were just trying to be polite and say the nice thing though.

None of it makes sense. I often hear/read genderists stating that gender is a social construct and I just feel

But if gender is a social construct, why do transmen/women want to "change" their gender then? If it's not real anyway?

The logic is flawed. Gender is a social construct- read some Judith Butler or some social anthropology if you don't get that. Race is also a social construct but height and age are more empirically testable.

It's good for all of us to challenge ideas around race and gender. How open minded and tolerant young people are is wonderful and to be celebrated not sneered at.

Don't worry, give them a few years in the workforce and they'll calcify into intolerant protectionist traditionalists...

I understand it's a complex debate but it is an important one.

In fairness, she doesn't agree with the pisstakers of the "I'm a woman today because I feel like one" variety but she is adamant that it is possible to change your biological sex.

Me: "So, if I had to have a mastectomy and a hysterectomy would that mean I'm now a man?" Dd:"Obviously not" Me: "Why, if I've removed my female organs?" Dd:"Because you don't want to be a man"

Perhaps you should identify as genderfluid and demand male pronouns whenever you talk to your DD.
(But still use women's facilities everywhere ... until the new law goes through, obviously)

Perhaps seeing this happen in reality, seeing the person who gave birth to her pretend to be male, would make her wake up.

(And if she complains that you are taking the piss, remind her that NO ONE EVER identifies as trans for the purpose of piss-taking, not even male rapists who want access to women's spaces. Therefore, it is virtually impossible for anyone to identify as trans to take the piss)