How to talk to super-woke family?

I’ve found it helps to start with the common ground.

So, personally, I believe that if a biological man has full sex reassignment surgery, hormones, presents as a woman, then I agree they should legally be treated as a woman now, ie allowed to use women’s changing rooms.

So I used that to establish the common ground, then started explaining that some people might pretend to be trans in order to get access to women....focus on prisons, women’s refuges etc where the danger is clear.

So start off with as much common ground as you can and go from there.

I have had the word very recently. Still think it's stupid. Just because a word is being used "a lot" doesn't make it right. Somethink was being used and that sounds stupid too.

His behaviour is the problem, not his political views (which while problematic are his to hold). Have you considered discussing how he could behave that would allow you to feel comfortable? It’s possible to remove yourself from a discussion without “flouncing our”. Do you allow him the choice not to engage with you on this topic?

I worry he’ll be somewhat intolerable to other people with this “how dare you not be as woke as me!” attitude. there’s a reason most late teens/early twenties don’t have huge numbers of older friends . Lovely emerging little people but sometimes all that tunnel visioned passion is exhausting. He’s growing up. Give him a bit of time and space nobody is going to write him off. If he’s still at the same place at 30 there may be a problem.

I was like this straight out of uni. My parents and I disagree politically on most things and I was so militant and intolerant.

I grew out of it, and I think the more you are away from an echo chamber the more willing you are to hear things from a different POV. Just try to avoid the conversations for now.

Although, I do think you should say something about his impact and presence as a male when he is aggressively disagreeing - that's not on.

It's enraging I know OP But I suspect it's part of the parent / nearly adult child dynamic. They do have to see us as 'out of touch' - it's how they grow away from us and develop their own identity in the world. I have learnt to be fairly light touch (as far as is possible) and to pick my battles. So my red lines - individual's rights to privacy and safety re undressing, hospital wards, smears, prostrate exams etc (I include men in this), no telling children they can change sex and pushing drugs at them, sport for adult human females and no misrepresenting the law.
What I have learnt is that if we talk occasionally and I share useful information it does help give them alternatives - so calling out the false suicide statistics, giving them the background data re murders etc. There are the odd wonderful moments when I hear something I have said coming out of their mouths.

I think the wider point is he needs to be able to accept other people have different world views, and be open to changing his mind without feeling like he’s giving up something fundamental. Perhaps reassurance you think he’s intelligent too? And making the point that an important part of having an intelligent world view is being able to change your mind without feeling stupid?

My son was similar until the day we met a very fluttery and lovely young trans woman serving in a butchers shop. This gave me the opportunity to say that I wasn't against that person, but that there were issues I had concerns about. I had just found out about Yaniv so talked about that, and Karen White and I would also now talk about sports issues.

WTF is woke? Someone making up a new meaning for a word as they think they are just too cool for this world ?

Agree with PP. your job as parent is not to teach him to think like you, but to teach him to think and engage appropriately in society. The ‘storming out’ response is actually an aggressive and almost violent one and he needs to learn better self-control. He needs to manage his emotions in an adult way. This is a critical life lesson and in a calm moment you need to sit him down and discuss this with him and help him develop strategies to respond more maturely.

I wonder if the son at college is learning anything useful - that will get him employment in future or just being indoctrinated by left wing dogma. I would say if you don’t like it go and earn some money to pay for yourself

You should address his behaviour of flouncing and anger over being disagreed with. It doesn't matter what the subject is, he needs the negative behaviour pointing out to him, and explaining it's intimidating to people and not a mature way to debate/discuss issues. Just because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't make them The Bady.

He needs to understand that it's not a game of good V evil, We don't live in a batman comic.

He needs teaching to read around stuff, look for different sources, look for facts, look at others arguements and view points.

Most of all he should know that his opinions are not definite and neither are anyone elses. There is nothing scary in hearing what others have to say.

I share this problem with the OP and so do some of my other friends who are parents of young adult children. The offspring have been brainwashed by the various woke, political and PC agendas and they voice their bigoted, unevidenced, echo chamber opinions with entitled rudeness. One friend’s child did not speak to his parents for six weeks because they voted the ‘wrong’ way in the Referendum.

After this same event my DD was so panicked and angry she was furious with us too - and the absurdity of this was proven by the fact that we voted differently! In the end she saw sense and agreed to avoid the subject.

However, I am extremely alarmed by the intolerance of the young. I think it comes from liberal parenting, the general level of intolerance of the left which has created a pattern which validates only one side of an argument and from the sowing of discord between young and old by the Resolution Foundation. Universities pushing a Woke agenda compound the problem.

Use language he’ll understand - tell him to check his privilege. As a last resort, tell him to stay in his lane.

Red pills are a cure for 'woke'.

My son, the one in the post above this, though GC, used to think it was a minor issue and I shouldn't pay too much attention to it; it's so ridiculous it can't last. And he'd compare the damage done by TRAs to children starving in Yemen and tell me I should be much more an activist about war and starving children because that's much more important.

But he has been listening to me and more and more he is realising what the consequences can be -- like when I ask him if he'd be OK with his daughter sharing a shower with a naked 50 year old man, or having to go (when she'd older) to a public toilet at night where she might very well encounter a male who has every right to be there, as he's "a woman". That makes him think.

I did get him to look at links that showed that in our country the default is 50-50 custody so he backed off on that.

Unfortunately this is not the case in all countries, especially if you're not married. My DS has a daughter with an Austrian woman, and in Austria if she is not married the mother gets full custody and can basically do as she wants with the child -- my son has NO rights he can uphold. He only gets to see her every few months.
It's an awful situation.
He is btw extremely GC. The mother is very much "child led" in how she raises their child and I'm pretty certain if the girl said "I'm a boy" she'd go along with it. Which is thank heavens not likely as Austria is far behind the UK in gender ideology; for the time being.

No worries, I hope you manage to have some good thought provoking debates with your son. I (think) I am looking forward to when my daughter is that age Goodness knows what the wokeness will be like then

Invisible Women

Point him towards invisible women which outlines a lot of the ways women are still disadvantaged in society.

oops posted too soon - its a list that a researcher wrote about how people think about their safety. Guess which column is in the mans. Obviously owning a firearm is not applicable in the UK

tell him to look at this