When, oh when, will the tide turn?

Agree with @WhatWouldBarbaraCastleDo. The institutions that have rushed to throw women under the bus will never admit they were wrong. But we can create an environment that makes it safer for people in those organisations to speak up. It's much, much easier for someone in a council or school to be able to say, "There is a lot of public/parent opposition to this" when faced with a policy drafted by Mermaids than to have to say, "I personally don't agree with it".

We are already starting to turn the tide, because we are already making organisations in the UK pause. If it wasn't for GC feminists, the GRA would be history by now. There is an official review into GIDS. We mustn't forget our successes - and the children we have saved from lifelong harm - but our victories will be incremental ones.

I think we have to think about what "turning the tide" looks like. There is no chance that organisations and prominent individuals and companies that have wrapped things in pink and blue flags will issue statements regretting what they did. That won't happen.

The best we can hope for, I think (and which is probably starting to happen) is that fewer people buy into this. That councils stop publishing regressive schools guidance, that celebrities stop retweeting mermaids, that organisations quietly remove some of their batshit policies from their websites for "updating" and fail to repost them.

All this will be impossible to measure, but it's important and I think it will be happening now. It might be demoralising that the tide turning won't be more dramatic than this - but I think it's important and those changes will be victories in themselves.

As someone at the coal face for about 3 years I cant say that I am hopeful that the tide ever will turn. There have been a deluge of scandals that I was sure would cause the house of cards to cascade down.

When Jess Bradley got suspended for flashing Jess Bradley's penis at work. When Aimee Challenors election agent dad was convicted of abusing a young girl at Green Party conventry HQ. I was sure the tide would turn. But what happened was that the media ignored it and the institutions involved hushed it up. Caroline Lucas even wrote an open letter about all the awful transphobia plaguing the party.

Since then I've seen scandal after scandal. While the media are reluctant to report I think that it's more than that. Its abuse bit the wrong type. It's not priests or the usual suspects. Its often those within the LGBTQI community. Most of society thinks this acronym just means gay and they like gay people and so this just sounds like some religious nut job calling all gays paedos. And that's how we are portrayed - never mind that most of those in this fight are LGB or, increasingly T. For example so much of the criticism of Drag Queen Story Time is framed as simple homophobia. That's how it looks to the uninformed.

What's more I feel like because people have become visible 'allies' they wont want to admit that they made a mistake. Who would want to admit they enabled such abuse of women and children's rights?

If you are hoping for society to wake up you will be waiting all day. What's more, I'm not sure i want that to happen - it will set back gay rights for years and years.

The best we can hope for is that institutions realise they are acting unlawfully and health care practitioners start to worry about being sued. This war started with policy capture and that's where it ends - when we take back control of key organisations.

Justhadathought

Yes, those ideas are really interesting to think about in light of the article in the thread about David Reimer. You can see how much of the development of feminism in that period was affected by what was then thought of as cutting edge knowledge about the differences between the sexes being socially created only. And then at the same time, coming out of that misconception, you get the concept of interior gender identity being solidified as something which we all just know which has been used to shore up theory about trangenderism.

I think there may need to be a realy full scale unpicking, but it won't happen until it can be done in some way that isn't ideologically constrained.

less reluctant

I think there is a need to be less reluctance to state that men and women are, generally, different. Or that there are general differences between the sexes. It can seem that ' transgenderism' is almost the rather weird end-point of 'equality' arguments - and of stating that women are just the same as men.

Obviously the 'equality' arguments had a meaningful and practical purpose - in terms of individuals being able to live their lives and be free to express their full range of talents, skills and so on......

But with that also came the denial, repression and de-valuation of the more traditional female roles - those which have arisen as a result of biology and, thus, by extension, female social roles.

Equality can only get you so far in a liberal, pluralistic society.........but then difference also needs to be acknowledged.

Lots of elements of feminism may also need to be revisited, how we think about the body, culture

Definitely agree with this.

To be explored & discussed more fully........old shibboleths need to be re-visited - in the light of contemporary society.

I think the tide is already turning but it will take years to undo the damage that's been done, and it will happen piece by piece rather than all at once. The key will be the disconnect between how the public feels about all this and how institutions have been told that we feel, or should feel. The more the media begins to tentatively cover the issues the stronger the public backlash will get and the harder it will be for institutions and corporations to continue with policies that the public mostly does not want.

I think politics is changing. I think the institutional capture will work its way out. My worry is the generation of children 12- 25 - who have been indoctrinated. When they come to maturity and enter the workforce they will bring their cherished beliefs with them - and not all will realise they’ve been hoodwinked.

Who are these womxn who need to rise up? And how do you pronounce that word?

It is always going to be a problem until womxn rise up and decide we need more than just safe 'spaces' free from men or male presenting people. We need safe towns and safe nations and once the sisterhood start to wake up and see what is happening to us then we will make it happen.

I don't think we should underestimate the effect that this pandemic will have on our social and political outlook.

The bad news is that I think people will have bigger things to worry about and gender critical feminists will get told to stop whinging about "fringe issues" and the TRAs will continue to sneak things in under the radar. But on the positive side I think the general public will be weary and battle-scarred and far more likely to call bullshit on the narcissism and obsessive virtue signalling.

I also think that to be completely free of all this, it will have to go beyond genderism. Genderism has a few elements particular to it, but it's been very much enabled by larger social trends, some of which have been quite damaging. There is going to have to be a complete unpicking of identity politics. I think that's going to involve questions like nationalism and community, which is a huge topic. The sex positive movement and all of its off-shoots may have to go up for discussion, maybe including some questions that will have to be revisited and rooted in a different basis. Lots of elements of feminism may also need to be revisited, how we think about the body, culture. Questions around scientific process, medicalisation, mental illness.

All these things overlap in various ways with genderism and to really refute it, its not going to be possible without getting into these areas. And I suspect that even for people who are completely clear-sighted about gender, it could be disconcerting, concerning, and even scary to be examining some of these other areas. That may be where there are limits, if people are content to put gender on the back burner but leave all the rest in place, it will still be simmering away.

The tide is turning, and it will accelerate, but it’s going to be a long time before all the damage is undone.

Agree, the more legal challenges and court cases there are the more scrutiny there will be. Politicians will notice, public owned organisations won't want to be dragged into court and accused of wasting taxpayers money, private organisations won't like the PR hit and the damage to their reputation plus the resulting loss in business. I hate to say it but the more stories in the tabloid media about court cases the better, they know their reader demographic how to phrase news stories for that demographic and which buttons to press.

The driver for many institutions will come down to money, as it always does. Public opinion and pressure from the print and online media will be the driving force in politics, there are only so many bad headlines and public outrage at those headlines they will be able to withstand.

Scandals such as the one coming over the medicalisation of children and the total lack of abiding by basic safeguarding in schools, Girl Guides, etc., will be exceptionally damaging and the scrabble to disassociate with how this was allowed to go ahead unchecked will be quick and brutal. However, as another pp said we have the receipts and we will use them.

It's still going to be a hard slog though, the insidious way this group have inserted themselves and their ideology into the very institutions that are the foundations of life in this country is alarming.

There is a lot less mindless amplifying of TRAs by celebs on social media. Not many celebs are brave enough openly to oppose trans activists, but they must be wising up.

Ah but some of us will have all the screenshots and receipts.

I don’t think it will take 10 years - I meant in 10 years time all these politicians and charity professionals will be trying to deny they ever had anything to do with it.

Hmm, that's an interesting idea, I haven't heard that before.

I do think that Canada specifically has struggled with its own sense of identity. On the one hand it's tended to reject it's connection with the British Empire and there is plenty of talk about "decolonisation". And then we have the giant that is the US which dominates so much of our political discourse, our trade, and media, which we also feel the need to separate ourselves from. And increasingly weird and contradictory attempts to deal with the history of relations with indigenous peoples.

I've noticed something similar in Scottish sources as well, particularly with relation to Brexit, a desire to assert themselves against a bigger, more populated group that's perceived as having different values and character. But it sometimes comes out in a way that isn't always very logical or seems parochial.

It does seem like Scotland, Australia, Canada, have all lost their traditionally conservative political class. Maybe also the traditional left - Canada has for certain. What's left is political progressivism and right-neoliberalism. England clearly has had some issues with these as well but there still seem to be significant remnants of both traditional conservatism and traditional leftism.

It is a shame that the Olympics have been delayed, because I think that would have shone an (Olympic) torch on the issue.

I also think the Labour Party deciding they didn't want women with GC views - and the reaction - will make politicians more cautious about who they call bigoted in future.

But there is still a very long way to go. The institutional capture goes deep

TBH I have very little hope of change

Then it will probably have to come from other countries taking more of a lead, maybe?

Do you think there is anything in the argument that ex colonial nations - and also smaller nations such as Scotland, are more susceptible to this kind of liberal, 'be nice' politics?

Why do you think that is? Is nobody really questioning it? What are the specific cultural factors that have enabled it to such a degree?

You have no idea how much time I've spent asking myself that question. I haven't really come up with a good answer, just some thoughts.

It seems difficult to connect to others who think similarly, there is nothing like mumsnet. I suspect that there are more Canadians with concerns on MN than on any Canadian focused forum. I find it difficult, and I am looking, to find information about specific Canadian political and policy issues, too. There is a little going on in BC, but that is farther away from me than the UK!

Institutions here have been very captured, quite quietly in general. I understand that locally to me there was something of a purge of GC women from local left political parties - I heard this on MN though, I haven't been able to find anything out beyond that. The only real pushback was Jordan Peterson and Meghan Murphy over C-16, but it happened so fast that it didn't raise too many worries.

There is probably a significant character element. I remember when same sex marriage was being debated both here and in the US. My friend who had been living in the US for a while commented that it had a very different character there where the pro-side was very ideological. On the Canadian side, it was much more about being kind and nice to all, accepting. Often ideology simply isn't examined in much detail, it's very live and let live.

I would actually go so far as to say it's intellectually irresponsible, and I think that for some time this is the kind of thinking that has been taught in schools. Students get very little content in terms of logic, philosophy, history, other than what is directed to an identity politics agenda.

The national broadcaster, the CBC, has been completely captured, as badly or worse than the BBC. There isn't much of a different viewpoint available at a national level. Politically, three of four major parties are completely captured, not only on this issue but the whole of ID politics. The Conservative OTOH have been taken over by incompetent yahoos who make BJ look like a political genius.

And also from a politics POV, there has been less and less acceptance of different views within political parties. The PM has made a lot of political hay by presenting anyone who disagrees with his vision of Canada as being against Canadian Values. Questions and issues which used to be considered to be beyond party politics are now whipped issues. Even the Greens, who specifically prohibit whipping have now made it clear that they make sure candidates toe the line in other ways, without even blushing.

TBH I have very little hope of change.

*Justhad
*
Yes, I agree, sadly.

I think it's up to us now to teach our new generation of children and young adults to learn the art of critical thinking

I am really rather envious, here in Canada there is no sign of any change, quite the opposite

Why do you think that is? Is nobody really questioning it? What are the specific cultural factors that have enabled it to such a degree?

I agree, it will take time. But I think there is already in the UK more acceptance that there is controversy, so being able to be honest about that may begin to improve sooner rather than later.

I am really rather envious, here in Canada there is no sign of any change, quite the opposite.