Does anyone else feel isolated for their views on gender?

I'm mid 50's and pretty much everyone I know is GC and we discuss it quite openly. I'm in the midlands where most people haven't yet lost their senses on this subject. One of my daughters however displays woke tendencies so we don't discuss the trans issue. The daft thing is many trans people don't claim to be the sex they present as, so lumping them all together as one herd mindset is a bit, well, bigoted.

FleetsumNLangCleg
Your poor DC. How did their head not explode with dissonance.
Plus dissing your trans neighbour. How phobic of them.

Dear god, the world is truly going mad.

I find people just mutter at me, “It doesn’t bother me what people do or call themselves” I then give examples of some of the consequences, such as women’s shelters and not having to “become” female in any shape or form to call yourself one, but I do think people think the examples are so ludicrous it can’t be true! Or they’re too worried about being discriminatory, ironically.

I don't feel isolated, because literally nobody I know in real life ever mentions the subject. I just think it's not even on a lot of people's radar tbh, especially if you live fairly rurally.
In fact, because almost all of what I've read about gender politics has been on the MN feminism board, I probably feel more in a majority than I really am.

I'm early 30s, urban, left-wing, educated, and I do definitely feel quite isolated a lot of the time on this topic. I am GC and so is my mother, and I have had a few good discussions with friends but ultimately it seems most of my peer group definitely subscribe to the current trans gender ideology. Even my best friend who I am able to speak openly with basically believes TWAW and that they are the most persecuted group in society, and that it is almost justified, the silencing of GC women which has started happening on this topic. It has, sadly, made my respect for her diminish a little. It's funny/sad how that happens.

That for me is one of the worst things. The fact people are scared to say what they think and the debate is being shut down. I just worry what it will mean for the ability to define what a woman is, and women's sex based rights, and of course what it will mean for the next generation. I have no issue with people identifying as another gender; but I wish that is what it could be, rather than trying to claim they are that other sex. Sex and gender are diffferent, afterall.

At work everyone has started adding their pronouns to their email signatures... well not everyone, but quite a lot of people. And the Women's Network has changed to the Gender Network.... I do understand wanting to make trans people feel included, because I do too. But I just don't really... feel good about this emphasise on pronouns and gender neutrality etc... it just feels like it's taking away from women's struggles and rights... it's hard to explain the feeling... yeah, it's a tricky one.

I agree there's an overlap but generally we don't have all the tenets of Christianity forced on us. It may inform the law but it's not thought crime not to believe or to say you don't. And we don't use the religious commandments as laws, for example adultery is legal.

I do get your point though and I suppose it shows how a belief/faith/dogma based totalitarian state, where dissenters are hunted down, is never that far away.

the state (at least in the UK and most other states) doesn't take those beliefs and make everyone have to say they are right, or change the laws so that believers can impose on non-believers and take away their rights and protections. That's the key issue to me. Believe what you like, but saying other people have to is crossing a line.

Not entirely true. Lots of laws in the UK are based on Christian belief.

Gay people cannot legally marry in churches for example.

Less importantly (but still annoying) we can't do our supermarket shopping on Sunday evenings in the UK because of religious beliefs.

Crazy really how a belief system can actually inform the law.

I don't actually think that follows

What I meant was that when you are in a for a penny, you are in for a pound; and even though most people baulk at the idea of medicalising children........believing that you can't know yourself or have a settled or core identity until much later on in life, they are propelled, by virtue of internal logic, to have to validate that.

totally random

*I do think the tipping point is approaching and the cult-dominated future won't materialise, but I'm still wary and realise it might8

It already has - certainly when perfectly civil discussions about the nature of totalitarianism get deleted, but all kinds of abuse exists along side that - remain untouched. The problem with totalitarianism is that people are no longer able to judge for themselves, or show discernment, or consistency of approach. Punishment appears totally ransom and out of proportion.

I mean after all, atheists don't generally waste their breath arguing with religious people about whether god exists, praying works or there's an afterlife, using scientific reality as their basis. Because it doesn't work, and it's kind of irrelevant to an article of faith. Instead, we respect that religious belief is important to them, and that's how they feel - but the state (at least in the UK and most other states) doesn't take those beliefs and make everyone have to say they are right, or change the laws so that believers can impose on non-believers and take away their rights and protections. That's the key issue to me. Believe what you like, but saying other people have to is crossing a line.

I do think this is the outcome we will end up with when all the damage, harm, risk and orwellian horror is truly exposed. And the TRAs, gender-affirming HCPs and woke numpties are certainly going the right way about leading the majority to that realisation eventually.

Just shows the complete mess people get themselves into when they are trying to be politically correct, against all of their instincts

Yes, and in part her instincts were not even allowed to kick in, since no debate meant she had never had an opportunity to investigate what TWAW really means. A good reason to reject no debate. Get out there, speak to your family and friends. Work is different and everyone has to judge their own circumstances...

I have a sibling who is "non-binary" and deeply involved in the whole scene

I have a trans sibling, and know first hand that "transition" is not always the solution. My sibling suffers from as many MH issues as before. I feel my sibling was directed along a path that was on trend, but not their problem. It's like telling a troubled person "Jesus loves you, accept Him into your heart", so yes, like a religion.

trans children exist too...and should therefore receive medical help.

I don't actually think that follows. You can believe yourself to be the opposite sex and if that is treated as a belief, which we can respect that the person experiences, that doesn't mean everyone has to agree.

I do think the tipping point is approaching and the cult-dominated future won't materialise, but I'm still wary and realise it might.

To me it very much is like a religion

If you accept transgenderism as an actual 'thing' - rather than just a mental health issue/identity struggle - then you have to accept the whole lot of it. You can't opt in and out........and that goes for accepting that trans children exist too...and should therefore receive medical help.

What a mess!

That's interesting Fleetsum. I think a lot of people who haven't really thought it through much first and foremost "know" that a trans person is a victimised minority whi=o can't help what they "are", exactly along the lines of the homosexual people they have traditionally been lumped in with. It would be bigoted ijn the extreme to have anything negative to say, because that's how it works with gayness (totally reasonably in the case of gayness, because it makes no demands on anyone else, other than equality and respect).

That means they are required to believe that TWAW and TMAM because that is how they say they feel (the vocal activist ones anyway). It doesn't matter that according to science and common sense that's not possible - after all the establishment, science and common sense have been wrong before and it's better (not to mention way cooler and virtue-signalling heaven) to be on the side of the underdog and stick it to the traditional bigots.

Then when they get asked to define women and men, address issues of women's sex-based protections etc, they are a bit stumped. It's really hard for them to go there as it requires a leap back into rational thought. Falling back on "you're a bigot because you dare to question being nice to a poor oppressed minority" is so much easier, not just in terms of cognitive dissonance, but in terms of not losing your friends and woke approval.

I have a sibling who is "non-binary" and deeply involved in the whole scene. For them to question it is even harder - it would be their whole world exposed as the emperor's new clothes, their social life, relationship and sense of self, which they have always sought through one kind of "special identity" after another, down the pan. They are so massively invested in this empirically impossible belief.

To me it very much is like a religion, and I'd be OK with respecting someone's empirically unsupported belief in the same way as I respect religious people - if it wasn't threatening to lead to legal changes that massively endanger so many people and impact negatively on me. But the situation at the moment (though I am confident it's changing) is that so many people are terrified to question it. It's like a religion that has taken over the state and so many people either swallow it, or know they have to say they do.

DC accused me of being horrible, and of labeling the cross dresser as trans because of appearance, as though I was catagorising them by their clothing (hmmm...yes, that's what's happening I guess, but not my fault). DC was clearly shocked by my "stupidity" and asked what she believed was a killer question: What is a man, then? Huh? Huh? I think she expected me to answer 'no make-up, men's clothing

Just shows the complete mess people get themselves into when they are trying to be politically correct, against all of their instincts. This is what being told what to think ends up looking like...you can no longer think or judge for yourself.

@Kit19 same here re work, I feel so alone

You're not alone. Some people will always prefer to go with the crowd...and social acceptability is the most important thing. That goes for all sorts of issues...not just this one. Most people will not speak, or stand, up.......That may mean that in your life you will have fewer, albeit more meaningful, friendships...but that is fine.

A number of months ago I spoke to DC who lives in Canada. We do not speak often. She is an educated and intelligent person and considers herself very woke and inclusive. We had a long skype conversation, which went all over the place but included at the end a discussion that flipped from straightforward to weird. It was a discussion of a person who lives down my street who was outwardly male-appearing for years (married, father of three) before becoming a fish-net wearing Barbie-type transwoman. To me this person is a classic AGP. In my youth they would have been called either a cross dresser or a transvestite, but since we are told by Stonewall that cross dressers are under the "trans umbrella", I called this person (and they call themselves) a transwoman. Our discussion was about a row this person was having with another neighbour (so not initially about TW).

I don't think the descriptive words are different in Canada but DC was shocked at my vocabulary and said I was mistaken. "This is not a transwoman, and just because you put on a dress it does not make you a woman". So, DC believes TWAW, but not this one. I think she sees herself as someone very inclusive of the T in the LGBT but doesn't know what the T really entails, or what she is being inclusive of. I suspect that is the case with a lot of people in Canada because the gender issue is not something that is covered by the press. For whatever reason (no debate).

DC accused me of being horrible, and of labeling the cross dresser as trans because of appearance, as though I was catagorising them by their clothing (hmmm...yes, that's what's happening I guess, but not my fault). DC was clearly shocked by my "stupidity" and asked what she believed was a killer question: What is a man, then? Huh? Huh? I think she expected me to answer 'no make-up, men's clothing...'

Me: well for starters a man is generally a person with a penis.

DC: Not all people with penises are men. Some men are women. (So she believes TWAW, but not cross dressers, fair enough).

Me: what now? Did you hear what just came out of your mouth? Men are women??

She faltered here, but only a little. DC: Yes some men are really women. They feel inside that they are women and so they are women.

Me: Someone born with a penis is a man, that is his sex. Won't change. But he may choose feminised clothing if it makes him happy, his decision.

DC: He doesn't choose, he doesn't have a choice!

Me: He doesn't choose his sex (male) but he may well choose to wear (gendered) feminine clothing to feel more comfortable in his skin, for instance. To me that's fine but he is still a man. And in the strange world we live in, a cross dresser with no dysphoria can also call himself a transwoman. So define a woman for me. What makes you KNOW you are a woman?

DC had obviously never thought about this before, ever (because Canada). DC: (answering as if speaking to a simpleton) I am a woman because of my boobs and my uterus and ovaries.

Me: If that is what makes you a woman, then how is that person born with a penis really a woman?

DC: (huge hesitation)...and a feeling deep in my gut...

My DC has not spoken to me since, and if she has gone away thinking I am a bigot, well, maybe she has also been forced to think things through a bit more. I know that I need to understand the issue better, and I am immersed in it. Whatever conclusion she comes to is up to her but for me our conversation illustrates that many people just don't know what it is they are supporting in saying TWAW, and therefore getting angry at their "horrid" family and friends. But hey, no debate. I guess it has worked so far.

I see so much of the wokeness from my friends. I definitely dare not bring it up on Facebook where some people were frothing about JKR. My mum is firmly GC and has been educating my brothers, sister and dad about it and worrying about my 4-year-old niece. (Like me she learnt about what's going on from here.)
I have no idea about my colleagues, they're more into Love Island than politics. Might try bringing it up discretely one day and see what happens.
Church is the one place I can think of where people would agree with me (for some of the wrong reasons.) Being GC doesn't fit in with the idea of clearly defined gender roles in a traditional, conservative, patriarchal organisation. I don't know what to make of that sometimes.

Yes. But most people expect a woman to have breasts and vagina and a man to have a flat chest, facial hair and penis.

I dont know anyone who doesn't have a close friend or family member who has had a mastectomy due to breast cancer diagnosis or as a preventative due to BRCA risk. They are all women.

All humans have facial hair- both sexes.
Women who have more obvious facial hair which may be due to hirsutism, PCOS, changes in hormones due to menopause etc are all women.

I really do wonder about these 'people' whose classification of sex & 'expectations' seem naive & oblivious to the implications.

I don't think that's where the term pansexual came from, even if some people use it that way.
I first heard it being used by/about Captain Jack Harkness in Doctor Who (played by John Barrowman) - meaning he’d go with men, women, alien, anything.... so now I have an image of Layla Moran with a multi-limbed Star Wars-type character 🤦🏻‍♀️

restaurant W robe should read ‘immediate family’ 😂 a combo of phone typing without my reading glasses and auto correct.

Went to a funeral today, sat chatting with two fairly random women, one 50ish, one 30ish, me 40ish. Two of us have a ROGD kid in our restaurant W robe families and the other has a best friend with a ROGD kid.

This is the thing we need to talk about. If everyone says it out loud they realise it’s not just their family, and that it’s everywhere. And it makes so sense to go from no trans kids in an average British school 5-10 years ago to now, everyone knows one.

Where are the anorexics? The self harmers? The goths ? FFS.

One of my neighbours brought up all the gender stuff on BBC kids website the other day. She’s worried about her GNC daughter who is 11 and dreading puberty and all the seeming limitations that come with growing up female.

It’s the detransitioners who will blow the lid off ALL this woke stuff. It’s up to us to make sure as few kids as is humanely possible are harmed in the meantime.

Talk about the kids.

I don't feel lonely or isolated thankfully. Many of the people I know are GC. I don't work in an overly woke environment.
I do know quite a few people who aren't GC or are ambivalent and that's fine too. I'll discuss my thoughts and perspectives but respect other people can hold different views.
I'm more passionate about the damage potentially done to children swept up in this though.
I don't feel strongly about 'pan' - language evolves, although I have pointed out the erasure of homosexuality by this shift to some friends.
I am grateful to be able to discuss these issues on MN as I don't use Twitter and only use Facebook for friends and nonsense.