How do you talk to teens about misogyny and trans issues?

@Ereshkigalangcleg

Absolutely fine for it to be pointed out, I encourage healthy communication and debate.

However, I think some posters do verge on the boundary of forcibly wanting their child to see their view and no others because they believe their view is the only right/superior one etc

But all those things are evidenced 2007, and the contrary views are not. It's perfectly fine for a parent to point that out to a 13 year old.

I started talking about this to my daughters earlier than 13 which is no doubt easier. I started with sex stereotypes which they understood easily and personally. Since so much of the trans ideology is based on stereotypes ( every story about a boy becoming a girl is full of them) this is a way of opening their eyes. As they got older we talked about the suffragettes and the fight for women’s rights. The more they believed in their own rights the more aware they were of others trying to remove them.

Now at 13 they need to have the words to push back on the messages they get from their friends so I emphasise ‘you can’t change sex’ and ‘what about my rights’ . I also make sure that the language I use at home reminds them of reality, ‘men who believe they are women’, ‘girls who believe they are boys’.
I suspect that reading Laura Bates Everyday Sexism might also contribute to the critical thinking process but I haven’t gone there yet.

Perhaps I have been trying to bring them to my way of thinking but the clear reason for this is that I want to protect them from the risk of the harmful messages that they will get from elsewhere. I never want to see them persuaded that they are really boys because they are science loving girls. For every positive message they get at home they face 10 negative ones from outside. I am just redressing the balance.

@Babdoc

And it is perfectly fine, ok and right for you to have those opinions and feel that way.

But others don't have to agree.

Science, facts and what is right and wrong change constantly.

2007, what do you mean “There is no right or wrong”?
It is right that humans (like all mammals) are either male or female.

It is wrong to claim sex is a spectrum.
Humans cannot change sex.
It is wrong to claim they can.
It is a fact that males commit violent and sexual crimes against women. Transwomen retain the same statistical level of violence as all other men.
It is wrong to claim it’s safe to allow any man claiming a trans identity into women’s sex separated spaces.
HTH.

I dont see that at all 2007

The op only made three posts and in none of them did she infer or imply that she was ‘trying to keep talking until she sees my point of view‘

I have discussions with my children on a range of subjects and sometimes we don’t agree...and sometimes the more we discuss the more we understand about each other

And you don’t just talk about these subjects once...they evolve

And I’m aware that other posters have made similar comments to 2007

@Ursula2001

I totally agree.

It's more a "I'll keep speaking to my daughter until she sees my point of view" rather than discussing/debating etc and understanding that someone can disagree

It's an emotive subject, there is no right or wrong, it is simply that people have different preferences as to what they want and what they deem acceptable

Also talk to school and ask why the stonewall information has been presented to your child in such a shallow fashion with no consideration for women’s safeguarding. Are they aware stonewall is a political lobby group centreing on trans issues and are considered to be sexist and homophobic.

Forward her all the facts about how many women are in prison for violence/sexual assault compared to men, how many women are murdered by men each week compared to men murdered by women and so on. Text her links to facts

And of course they disagree.

Why the fuck would a 13 year old actually understand the wider ramifications of adopting such a ‘kind’ acceptance? They have not yet sat job interviews and mine thinks it will be all hunky dory easy. She knows no one who has been sexually abused because we haven’t yet discussed individual cases with her and none of her school friends discuss it. She doesn’t care about women’s sport because she doesn’t care that some women actually do care about being able to compete fairly and safety. She doesn’t yet understand that just because she is taller than mum, she is not going to be able to fight off a male.

As has ‘also been pointed out in this thread’, if you have been able to successfully discuss the issue in an age appropriate way to an early teen (and not just agree with the ideology) please share. Oh and I mean, not in the way like the lobbyist education packs that ask 11 year old to define extreme pornography (like that is just an everyday occurrence)

If you have just come to shame the transphobes, may I suggest twitter. There are much better options there and it won’t be moderated.

Multi-pronged approach to add to others already mentioned..

Get her to read the book Invisible Women - or if it’s too big/long, have it knocking around and get her to read one of the articles or reviews that were out around the time it came out with some of the most interesting bits in an easy to read few pages.

• there’s a similar book coming out around now that’s just looking at how women are treated in medicine currently - effectively as smaller men with boobs and baby growing bits - but that actually thre are lots of differences where due to our differences that approach can actually be really harmful. Again there are articles around if the whole book would be too much. Get her to read them just for interest and nothing to do with the trans thing to get her riled up that if she has certain medical illnesses or events, she is likely to have worse outcomes / more pain / longer time suffering / etc than boys experiencing the same.
• leads nicely in to a conversation about it being important to note that these are differences - there’s currently lots in the news about BAME males are likely to have covid 19 badly and die from it. If the GPS were to send out a useful info letter to all the bame males in the practice, would she expect a transwoman who fitted the criteria originally to be similarly notified? Even if it hurt their feelings to getthe letter? And what about a few months down the line when the vaccine is ready- and as the surgery starts to get them in so can’t do everyone at once, they decide to prioritise those older bame males for the first batch. Should they send an invite out to the transwoman who complained about getting the initial letter? Is it kinder to ensure that their feelings aren’t hurt or that they are put at significant risk by not getting the vaccine?

• tell your dd that it’s great she is so accepting as it has given you the confidence to come out as a trans age individual and that you now identify as her age and won’t it be great as you’ve spoken to her school who have accepted you as a pupil in her class and that you’ll start back when she does. You can hang out and be besties, have so much fun together and it will be great as you’ll find all the classes much easier second time around so you can win all the prizes/get onto all the teams/etc. And that you’re still going to keep the best bits of being a mum so able to tell her what to do, but jettison the boring bits you don’t like so that means that now she needs to pick up the shortfall as you’re obviously just getting into this transage thing so she needs to do [all her least favourite jobs]. F she complains - just point out that she needs to be kind and that it’s transphobic not to be.

• get through all that and then say that [creepy older male you both know] is also transitioning but is double trans - so they are becoming female and younger so also going to be in same class and that they are especially looking forward to the sports and girly locker room antics. See if she is freaked out or thinks that you should be kind.

• get her to discuss trans race too and should people be kind? But look how people reacted to Rachel Dolezeal (Sorry can’t exactly remember her name) - how are the two different?

• dig out your old class photos and see how different everybody looks. Maybe look at class photos over different times to see when the switch happened to girls all having long hair. Discuss Princess Diana vs Kate and Megan - was Di any less of a woman for having short hair?

DD asked me if JK Rowling was transphobic and it opened up quite a nice conversation. I tried my best to present both sides of the conversation and then moved on. I’m not massively worried about her, I think she’ll make up her own mind as she grows older.

How to talk to teens about trans?
Not the way I did with my niece.
She was telling me about a boy at school who IDed as a girl and wanted to socially transition, but the school refused to address him by his new 'female' name. My niece thought that was wrong, because TWAW. She couldn't define what a woman was, though.
She's bright enough and stubborn (like myself) and tbh, I was getting irritated with her so I ended the discussion. Haven't seen her since lockdown.

TWAW only tricks people who don't know the difference between an adjective that modifies a noun, tall woman and Black woman for example, and a compound word which changes the meaning of the noun entirely, Seahorses are not horses, hot dogs are not dogs, trans women are not women.

It really doesn’t matter one iota how “comfortable” Neko is around naked men. Other women are not, and our rights to sex separated spaces are not for Neko to give away.

Neko doesn't seem very interested in actually debating the points we've put forward. Seems more interested in a defence of penis rights even invoking the black civil rights movement to get the job done. Can't imagine why?

the issues comes from who they are, to me it sounds like saying, what if a black man was in a safe white space, knowingly making people uncomfortable, putting his own needs first, and the guys just trying to get some shopping done.

Change that to 'if a black women' was in a safe 'white space'. Actually, there is nothing to fear from another woman because she is 'black'. She still may cause someone bodily harm however, the risk is much less and there is a chance that another woman can fight a female attacker with no weapons off. Male bodied people still retain their biological advantage (check out research pulled together by Dr Emma Hilton, herself a biologist but pulled together results from 11 peer reviewed studies that have already been published) even after being on Estogren for an extended time.

This is fact and it has been proven, and with every study it will continue to be proven. So, no. Being uncomfortable because someone is a racist is not an answer to a proven fact that a male can more easily overpower a female in a vulnerable situation while in a toilet or changing room.

I don't assume that everyone with a penis is a sexual predator just because they have a penis

I have never once read any post on MN saying they are, but when almost all sexual predators DO have a penis, the safest thing for females is sex segregated spaces.

Because of the power differential between men and women. Women as a class are not a threat to men to the same degree by any stretch of the imagination.

Physically most men can overpower most women very easily. Even quite young men - my 16yr old son is much stronger than me or his sister and he's barely got started re full adult strength.

It's nothing to do with women being better. It's all about material analysis and risk. It's why businesses by law should be carrying out risk assessments when they make these sweeping changes, although many don't.

It's why we have an Equality Act that enshrines sex based rights into law.

It's why the UN and charities like WaterAid campaign for safe washing and toileting facilities in developing countries - because they understand all the evidence that indicates mixed sex environments are not safe. Yet in first world countries that safety is being removed from women and girls.

If men think it is unfair to have their space repurposed as an all gender space then they can speak up too as is their right and we can all get behind a campaign for third gender neutral spaces.

Until that happens women have a right to say no and female spaces/All gender spaces is the safest and easiest interim measure.