Brainwashed

As a feminist, I have fought for women to present however they like without judgement and to underplay the differences between men and women so it is difficult to now, have to point out the differences between men and women in order to ensure that natal females are not pushed aside and undermined.

When women have an equal share of voice, money and power alongside men, in all areas of society and in all parts of the globe, then we can stop counting and checking.. until then, we have to retain the right to insist that we continue to fight for equal representation of women everywhere.

woke not work

Four reasons come to mind: lack of critical thinking, inability / unwillingness to challenge TRA ideology, desire to be work and fear of cancel culture.

Whenever a new poster expresses concern about strange behaviour in their teenage children (or any age, really), I always want to shout GET THEM OFF THE INTERNET! I'm sure so many parents have absolutely no idea what their children are accessing and absorbing all day and all night long.

I'm early fifties and I struggle to regulate my own online consumption. I have a million things to do at work but here I am, mumsnetting. I know the consequences of too much time online, but I still do it. What chance do children have?

It's all been so cloak and dagger and while I'm not normally a conspiracy theory nut, there's no denying that this has been very much done under the radar.

Most policy is made under the radar. This is because most of it is incredibly detailed and boring and fairly uncontroversial. But also because some causes have intensive lobbying operations whose entire purpose is to get the policy through without it reaching the democratic arena.

Someone also once mentioned the rise of Type B personality disorders, i.e. those who are prone to hysterics and the drama queens, or train wrecks of a life. Then all this gets played out on SM and weaponised to a toxic level, where the emptiest tin cans make the loudest noise.

Yes. Social media has massively exacerbated this.

I also think subjective emotions and feelings have taken over logic and reality.

That's how humans get their 'kicks' I guess, you don't get that 'hit' from posting about logic and reality on SM.

Someone also once mentioned the rise of Type B personality disorders, i.e. those who are prone to hysterics and the drama queens, or train wrecks of a life. Then all this gets played out on SM and weaponised to a toxic level, where the emptiest tin cans make the loudest noise.

Standing ovation over here for @OldCrone. You are completely spot on

I totally get this. I'm in my early 50s, pro gay rights and had a live and let live attitude towards trans people (still do when it doesn't impinge on women's rights).

My mum is in her 80s, pretty progressive but has no truck with TWAW and has been shocked by what I've been telling her. Our views generally align.

MIL, on the other hand, is much more old fashioned and of the "there weren't all these gays when I was young" school of thought. I've always found it comforting that those attitudes will naturally die out.

But now I look at my teenage dd with her TWAW attitude, listen to her comparing me to MIL and really worry that it's largely middle aged women who are GC and that our generation will die out before the younger one has woken up.

I feel that I could have written that OP. It's only the women in the naughty corner who have opened my eyes. It's scary how gradually things have changed and what would have seemed inconceivable a few years ago is becoming common place.

Thanks to everyone who has posted links on the thread.

I get particularly frustrated when scientists fall for gender ideology. I'm a regular listener to the science podcast The Skeptics Guide to the Universe which is very big on critical thinking. Yet when I've gone on to on to (one of the presenters) Cara Santa Maria's own science podcast, I've heard her expressing frustration with practitioners who haven't referred to transgender "kids" by their preferred pronouns.

Specific person not a generalisation but I’ve forgotten the fragrant Alex’s surname and I CBA to look it up

Alex Drummond, I believe

I’d also say look where we’ve been for the last decade or so.

Recession
Austerity
Covid

All the things that go along with that. My community has been falling apart for years. For the last 20 years more and more shops have closed. More businesses transferred elsewhere. More job losses. More poverty. More food banks. Schools failing. Sickness and serious illnesses. Mental health problems with no services. And so on.

These have been immediate issues. If you’re out of work and you’re kid’s school is failing and you’re using a food bank and your mum’s in intensive care and your partner is in a depression what do you care about trans issues. You don’t always get affected. You have more pressing things to deal with. You might know a transperson but they’re pretty much in the same boat as you.

Most people don’t believe anyone actually changes sex. They say “well, he’s a woman now.” But they don’t think they’re women, they think they’re trans. So they know they’re not transphobic- those bigots you hear about must be doing and saying horrible things. About perfectly nice people who face abuse and struggle with who they are.

You see it hear all the time.

“Why would anyone have their bits removed...”
“My friend is lovely..”
“That’s never going to happen....”

I think those posters are genuine. They don’t believe someone can look male, with a beard can be lauded by an LGBT charity “as a woman”. (Specific person not a generalisation but I’ve forgotten the fragrant Alex’s surname and I CBA to look it up)

Then they tweet what they think is a supportive comment re trans and MH or that full genital surgery is involved and they’re the bigot. The ‘phone. They wash up here. They see the facts.

It all sounds too outrageous. Many people won’t get the accusations because they’re not in the groups that demand pronouns and inclusion.

Until they are.

Any mention of possible dangers has historically been met with "well, that's a completely hypothetical and vanishingly unlikely scenario" (eg men in women's prisons, or competing in women's categories at the Olympics). At least (unfortunately) we now have plenty of evidence that these scenarios are certainly not purely academic hypotheticals.

I still think it's a very complicated subject

I agree with most of your post ViceLikeBlip, but I'm not sure about this.

It's not complicated at all. People can't change sex. It's the pretence that people can change sex which has got us here: the GRA, the protected characteristic of gender reassignment being interpreted by Stonewall and others as meaning that people should be able to self-identify into the spaces reserved for people of the opposite sex.

It was homophobia which got the GRA passed. Homophobia is still at the root of many people's transitions (particularly those who are younger). It's time all pretence that people can change sex should go. People can't change sex. It's not possible and there should be no legal fiction which makes it so in law.

I can honestly say I didn't understand the terminology. I thought that TW were women because they were women presenting as male. And that therefore TM are men, ie men presenting as female... I am sure this was an early obfuscation, done deliberately. D I t t a n y pretty much took my hand and traced the words with me, so to speak. She didn't laugh when the scales fell, either, I felt so stupid.

Still in Be Kind mode - following a MTF person, blogging their surgical transition. The first thing, the FIRST THING they wrote about, not relief at surviving a big operation, not about pain relief issues, not about how hospital staff were so attentive and caring, nope. How deep was their neo hole, that was what they were interested in beyond all other issues or topics. Gave me the shudders and that was that.

My dad (late 70s) is pretty homophobic, in the "it's not natural, I don't want to think about it, it was illegal in my day" way. Being a generation younger, this always upset me, it's certainly not what I believe, and…

…most importantly, it doesn't affect him at all so why does he even need an opinion on it?

I think the highlighted section above is where the comparison with homophobia falls apart, Vice. Your dad is indeed unaffected by gay people being able to marry one another. Unless he’s a clergyman who refuses to marry same-sex couples, your dad could be in prison, or in hospital, or in any part of his daily and ongoing life and it wouldn’t affect him in any way.

Whereas if we fall into agreeing that men are women, then thousands, perhaps millions of women will be affected in many different ways.

Therein lies the difference. And all my young adult children see the problems with giving men permission to enter women’s spaces and with men being considered legally female. The whole of the younger generation are not unquestioningly on board because there are major problems with this that didn’t exist in the battle for gay rights. Gay men were not demanding the right to be called straight and they were not demanding access to women’s spaces. This isn’t about being old and bigoted and unable to accept new ideas. It’s by definition, about a clash of rights.

People are busy. Humans are tribal. It's much quicker and easier to look at what your tribe is saying and adopt the same view. You don't have to interrogate it because you already know your tribe are the good guys and therefore must be saying the 'right' thing. There is a high social, emotional and potentially financial cost to challenging your own tribe.

There must be a place in this for workplace 'awareness' "Training," often for worthy and just causes such as anti-racism, but done so clunkily ans simplistically that it becomes a question of intimidation.

I remember the question about 'black' being a negative connotation is so many cases, which is true, but if you raise the minority of positive examples such as black belt in judo or accounts in the black, you are made aware that your contribution is not welacome and you should shut up in future. There is no room for nuance in this.

I've attached the transgender trend graph again on referrals of children and young people to the Tavistock. I don't understand how government, large institutions etc, aren't questioning this, openly and in public.

Brainwashed really is the word.

Be kind
Those poor people
What does it hurt you?
It’s only a word but it means the world to some people
Big business sticking its oar in (the image of a fresh faced child in butterfly wings and glitter is more visually attractive than a woman in rags with a black eye)
Shhhhhhhh woman...

No thank you

Sorry I should have specified my explicitly in my post that I'm talking about the trans debate, I'm not questioning the validity of LGB people for one second!

I'm early 40s. My dad (late 70s) is pretty homophobic, in the "it's not natural, I don't want to think about it, it was illegal in my day" way. Being a generation younger, this always upset me, it's certainly not what I believe, and most importantly, it doesn't affect him at all so why does he even need an opinion on it?

And I think this is quite a common "starting place" for a lot of people. It's something I really don't understand, but hey- live and let live, right? And as I was having more misgivings, I was having discussions with younger family members where I was sounding a bit like my intolerant dad, and I really didn't like that.

I still think it's a very complicated subject, and I still believe that the vast majority of people in any walk of life just want to be allowed to get on with living their life in peace. But it should always have been obvious to everyone that there will always be a significant minority who will take any opportunity to harm women. Unfortunately we now have a lot of evidence to corroborate this, but I think it is at least opening more people's eyes to the fact that it really isn't as simple as "live and let live".

But I have yet to make any headway whatsoever in persuading younger female family members of this. And I do wonder at what age the younger generation really do take over, and whether we have enough time to change their opinions before we're considered totally obsolete, and our own children start excusing us with a hushed "she from a different generation".

thing is, I don't think I did connect that the "men" who were pregnant were actually female and just needed for their own reasons to identify as male. I don't think I was "being kind". Looking back it really feels like I was under some sort of spell.

Okay, that does sound bizarre and unsettling. Maybe I’m old, or maybe it’s because I first came across a very reasonable woman who was transitioning years ago, but I always had full understanding that sex didn’t change.

I perhaps bought into the theoretical idea of a male brain in a female body because I wasn’t thinking about it much, but it was down to a lack of examination of the issues and an acceptance and faith in those ostensibly “in charge” rather than something I was fully on board with.

I’ve wondered about that thoughtless acceptance, but have never felt brainwashed.

This is a good read:

www.goodreads.com/book/show/41817546-the-intelligence-trap