Theory: like parenting toddlers

For me I can pinpoint the moment when it hit me that gender ideology was nonsense, and that was when I was sat by my newborn's change table crying uncontrollably and the realisation of how much I hated every single thing about birth, breastfeeding and babycare, and that no way did I identify with this shit.

My experience of severe nausea and vommitting in pregnancy alerted me to the fact of being a woman. Also ivf and experiencing maternity discrimination in my male dominated industry. I've also played a lot of sport with men throughout my life. I am far better at racket sports than my partner but we have a really decent game together simply because of his advantage being a man. Any mixed league I've been in, I've languished at the bottom with the other ladies! The benefit being, I always get a good work out! I don't understand how people can have children and not recognise that females are different to males. Very odd.

Good fences make good neighbours.

I would agree with OP.

Also, going through the physical reality of something (pregnancy and parturition) is very different from reading about it or even watching it in reality, never min on TV. As a young adult I hung out a lot with a bloke who was paraplegic. This gave me a much better idea about stuff like wheelchair access and some things like spasticity, but honestly, I have no idea how it was to live in his body and make a life after his accident. Similarly, I had no real idea how gruesome periods could be until one of my DDs was virtually passing out each month - and even so, I have to stitch together my experiences of the odd painful period and menopausal flooding to have any idea of what it was like.

Pregnancy and childbirth really alerted me to the fact that I am a female mammal and that there is no getting away from that. Sex can't be changed and I know this viscerally.

I just don't get the disconnect. Cannot understand it.

I was assessed for PTSD by the hospital psych team after the birth I had.

Comments like “you can watch it on TV” read to me like claiming you know what living on a frontline war zone is like after watching the news.

It really is pretty daft I’m afraid to suggest that watching something on television or reading about it is the equivalent of actually experiencing it yourself.

I would agree with you in general.
Apart from setting boundaries, another thing a parent is aware of is how difficult it is to grow up feeling confident and secure and therefore the last thing any adult should be doing is adding to a child’s confusion with complicated ideas beyond the understanding of their age.

One thing that is worrying though imo, and which doesn’t seem to correlate with your hypothesis, is the instances where parents seem to truly believe children are in the wrong body but say it has all been the (very young) child’s decision.

I saw a link on Mumsnet for example of an American mother who said their baby boy ‘told them’ they were a little girl at the age of 18 months. She also said that Jesus had given her a little girl.

There is an Australian soap character who had fully supported his child transitioning with puberty blockers.

In the U.K. an acquaintance told me his little boy of 4 had transitioned to become a girl.

(None of these were DSD cases.)

In an age when it is possible to watch someone giving birth on TV, I can't see how anyone can't realise what it entails. And there's a whole website called Mumsnet where you can find out just about anything you want to about becoming a mother.

I am sorry, but comments like this are why the subject isn't spoken about properly, which has huge implications for maternity and postnatal care.

It is one thing to watch something on TV or read about it, but another thing entirely to live through it.

I agree with the 'parenting toddlers' analogy but I also think that for many women having children makes them experience a lot more sex based inequality. Speaking personally, before I had children I was adamant that in my industry being female did not put me at a disadvantage. I truly believed that the playing field was level and that my generation would be the ones who brought about equal representation in the board room etc. I would definitely have argued that a trans person was at more of a disadvantage in the workplace that a woman. I did argue that allowing trans women in to female toilets etc was harmless.

Having children made the scales fall from my eyes. I experienced the lack of support for the needs of pregnant women, was made to wait years for promotion (on the basis that obviously I could not apply for a promotion unless I would be in the office for the full business year before and after my application), had male bosses decline career enhancing projects on my behalf because I had a baby to look after (passing this off, when questioned, as a caring move- and instead sending a man who also had a baby at home) and much more. It made me question everything I thought I knew/believed about how society treats women and girls.

Jordon Peterson said in an interview that he was baffled by people believing you can change sex. He said that children under the age of three or four might think that, but it's absolutely crazy for an adult to think it.
He's not wrong on that.

Ah, I didn't realise, @oxalisred. So difficult. Wishing you and your family all the best

I agree @packingsoapandwater, though I don't see it as a negative or unfair thing exactly, it's very clear that my experiences of pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding are big and meaningful things I have in common with other mums and can bond over, and not with any men. Stating the obvious I know, but pre kids, working in an office or studying alongside both sexes, the physical differences are pretty irrelevant and the salient differences are the aesthetic ones and the "who fancies who". Although I was always conscious of men's greater strength and my physical vulnerability when out and about, of course, so even pre kids when I heard about self ID being mooted, I thought "hell no!". But I can see how others might shrug or even cheer. The Twitter pseudo-intellectual pseudo-feminists who espouse this stuff (e.g. journalists, academics, creatives) do seem IME to typically be young or young-ish women without children.

I've wondered this.

I think it's possible that mothers, as a rule, are just too aware of the physicality of biological sex. After I had my dd, it really hit me how females get the shitty end of the biological deal: pregnancy, childbirth and feeding, all of it with associated sickness, discomfort, pain (agony in many cases), mastitis, cracked skin, and torn flesh while males pretty much just ejaculate.

It actually shocked me at the time how unbalanced it was, how unjust. I understood properly, for the first time, what was really meant by "the suffering of Eve". And to think so many women, before modern medicine, lost their lives in childbirth...

But recognition of this truth is very muted in modern culture. No one really talks about it. If you don't have your own children, I don't think you are ever in a situation where you realise just how visceral pregnancy and birth is, and maybe you are never quite aware of what your biological sex really means.

I think it's surely true that bringing up a child should give a person greater understanding of human behaviour, psychology and needs than they had before becoming a parent.

That's not to say that all parents have a better understanding than non-parents - some parents are starting from a very low baseline!

But I find that seeing up-close how a child thinks and feels, as they're so raw and unfiltered, kind of shows me how we all are under the surface. It's made me better at dealing with people.

Where it gets messy is where you have parents who have been terrified into a trans-evangelist position via their own child's experience. I can imagine how the fear for a loved one could just override other avenues of thought.

Yes that's true - I'm not saying only mothers truly understand - I am generalising and that always comes with exceptions, but that there may nonetheless be a trend. I'm very open to the idea that I'm wrong. Just like I might be wrong that non binary identities correlate strongly with narcissism. I'm just searching high and low for explanations for this madness. Because I do believe that if it was mostly mothers in academia- we might not be here.

I don't think you can make generalisations like this. I'm not the only regular poster on here who doesn't have children. The only gender evangelist I've had a conversation with about this in real life has daughters and grandchildren.

I agree with this. There are plenty of mothers that are happy to give away the protections they themselves enjoyed in the name of trans activism/be kind.

I think those of us who have ever spent time with a toddler, whether as a parent or otherwise, are very used to engaging with make-believe and imaginative play (a good thing to promote development) and having to say no to the more outlandish demands (a good thing to promote development) and can distinguish between the two.

It's baffling to me that no-one would have thought it decent parenting to take my son's claim to be a cat as anything other than healthy imaginative play, yet if he had said he was a girl some might consider it decent parenting to say yes my darling you are a girl, even though you've got a penis.

Mental.

I used to work with vulnerable but challenging teenagers. They were excellent at turning almost anything you said into over the top criticism of them eg “here’s your maths, I can help if you need it.” “OMG YOU SAID I’M STUPID! HOW DARE YOU CALL ME STUPID! I’M GOING TO GET YOU FIRED!!!” Mainly because their whole lives were so out of control full on drama was their way of communicating.

I see this a lot in some TRA responses.

the loss of women's single-sex spaces appals me.

Oh for an Edit key.

Aaagh! I meant the loss of women's single-sex spaces appals me.

I wonder if this could be how queer theory has taken hold in academia ... could it be that it is predominantly men and women who do not have children?

That's a good point, Lliik. I'm childless myself, and feminist till I die, so the lss of women's sex spaces appals me. But I can see how having children would focus your mind on what's good and safe for children. It might also sharpen your alertness for dangers, and your reluctance to have untested batshit-crazy ideas like making all loos gender-neutral trialled on the whole population.

Queer theory is very much about overturning the apple cart, kicking down the fences, not caring about your own boundaries or anyone else's -- a very teenage energy.

Not sure about the statistics here. In the families I know who have gone in for gender ideology, it's driven by the mothers in most cases, with the fathers sort of nodding along. The one exception is the father in a very acrimonious family split who has been very encouraging of the daughter's wish to be his (and only his) son.

I think it's because as mothers we are used to young children inhabiting a fantasy world. I had one child who would only respond to her octonaut name for months, and another who constantly thinks she is some form of baby animal.

Yes, I will call you baby cat, and offer pretend cat food, but that doesnt mean you use a litter tray, or get taken to the vets...

Is it because we're mothers that we understand this fight so well,

Yup.

Familiar with cutted up pears type rage. And practiced at not giving into tantrums and demanding adherence to basic nursery manners.