I was at a party last night

And thats the thing that scales me that this ideology of ruling by fear of 'cancellation' will never go away. Parents not allowed their own opinions without threat of their children stopping talking to them. Is there any other subject that your children get to control the narrative about?

I would imagine it’s because this topic can be career ending. I also wouldn’t discuss it amongst friends if I had a career.

private Eye seems quite GC so I guess Hislop has been told to keep his gob shut by the BBC. Shame he’s not a bit braver, eh

Op, most people are gender critical,especially now. But it only takes one person to disagree and the whole evening can go very sour. We have probably all seen this by now....

Although I remember one evening, a while ago now, I was getting so frustrated with my pals talking about this and saying all the mantras 'twaw, be kind, they just want to pee etc', and I was the one getting annoyed so they changed the subject....

I noticed how it never comes up on have I got news for you. Never.

But in the credits is a little cartoon of JK Rowling...... So, they know exactly what's going on, band its big enough to be in the credits. But they have never mentioned it....

Bloody hell @DustyTulips, fascinating.

I just don't talk about it. I have had 3 conversations with 3 groups of friends, no minds were changed but we came near to a row each time. I have a GC WhatsApp group and I have here, plus I have a friend who used to work at GIDS. Thats it. I'm interested in specific issues (sport, statistics, residential services for women, children including the criminal underfunding of generalist CAMHS) but obviously this means I am TWATW and that disqualifies me from any opinion on anything. It's a very deliberate purity test to avoid alliances being formed.

What I realised from Brexit.’is that we all live in a very selective bubble in terms of opinions. Genuinely, the biggest shock of my life, after getting knocked up on a beach in Cyprus, was probably Brexit.

It’s the same with the trans stuff. Social media is a place for the young really, and if you live the majority of your social like through that medium, you might be completely excused for thinking that absolutely everybody is pro self ID and the erosions of women’s rights.

IRL I talk about this to just about everybody I converse with and apart from my sister 🙄 - I have never ever come across anybody who thinks that women’s rights should be eroded to satisfy a tiny minority. Sadly many are unaware that this is an issue unless they are politically astute.

The problem we have is that these political issues are being driven entirely by one section of society - young online types - and debate is seen as taboo. Easy political crowd pleaser really to pursue whatever is a popular online opinion. We all need to force debate and to not become cowed by these fascists but it does not help with even sites like mumsnet close down this sort of discussion far far too easily. Ultimately, revenue streams are being protected at the cost of democracy and freedom of speech.

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she mentioned an acquaintance was a member of the communist party and a dyed-red twaw-ter

That's strange, because the party line of the British Communist Party is gender critical. My DH is a member, and the issue was debated at their last conference last year - firmly GC.

Why wouldn't you talk about it in front of your woke adult kids, OP? Mine were like that, so I said what I thought and stuck to my guns. It was pretty heated for a while, but I didn't back down and doggedly repeated my perspective/evidence, and now they agree with me. Peaked all three of them.

In this context, could the phrase 'I'll be in trouble if I say what I think' be a kind of code for - "I'm GC, are you?" so if you had responded with 'me too', then would the conversation have opened up?

Really interesting to hear that the effects of preference falsification are known to be that significant and it’s not just my imagination.

Re the party, there’s no way I’d have commented on any of those subjects at a party. In general I no longer discuss politics full stop but if I need a rant I only ever do that with mum and sister.

I simply cannot be bothered with the amount of arguments that often come with this. Some people enjoy political arguments or lively discussions. I’m not one of them.

That said, I discreetly and quietly mentioned a terfy thing to a hobby group friend when we were faced with mixed loos at an event. She said nothing at the time but within a week I had mysteriously fallen off the hobby group email.

After making discreet enquiries, it did all track back to that comment. They are all apparently pissed off at what I said but I do wonder if some are just outright lying. But then they would have got in touch privately? I don’t know.

I went to a recording of QI. This topic very nearly came up and all, all of the edgy, funny, well-known people on the panel refused to talk about it. Explicitly said they wouldn’t go there. If even comedians can’t speak about it, then I'm not surprised people at a party can’t.

It is fear. Yet I think there are cracks appearing in the dam, it is starting to break.

Yes - like signalling you’re a Catholic with a nod and a raised eyebrow!

Though recently tbh I find I literally only have to mention “gender identity stuff” to any women I know over 40, and she immediately rolls her eyes and goes into a satisfying rant about how ridiculous it all is, and then we have an enjoyable time terfing away for a while 👍

I agree with it being fear. Those who are educated on the subject obviously know the biological right and wrong here but they also know the consequences from the 'be kind' and woke crowds. I've had a few conversations at work about this with people mostly skirting around the issue until enough dancing has been done that we both know we're on the same page.

It's like discussing religion during the time of Henry VIII.

A SIGNIFICANT time later , months and months, someone at that party has decided I said the wrong thing and turned a few people against me

Depending on whether people have school-age children or other young relatives who are caught up in this, directly or indirectly, I wonder if older adults throwing (even lifelong) friends to the wolves is interpreted as a power move and an unassailable marker of allyship.

It’s fear. I had a very nice, intellectual, candid talk with a group of friends about the trans issue. I was firm but polite in my position (trans women aren’t women , but they are still trans so are a protected minority; don’t agree with trans children being medicalised; women need female only spaces etc). A SIGNIFICANT time later , months and months, someone at that party has decided I said the wrong thing and turned a few people against me saying I’m a “transphobe”. She has also cancelled the friendship saying I’m a bigot. It’s not pleasant and so people want to avoid that kind of shit so they have to test the waters to ensure everyone there is a safe person to talk to.

I think religion is another thing people shy away from discussing. I have religious friends (Muslim, Catholic and C of E) and I am an atheist. I would love to ask some specific questions and challenge them on X or Y but I don't. I just know somehow not to go there.

I should think so. I wonder if people have absorbed the chilling effect of social media cancellations and even job losses. Perhaps so much so that they have decided it's safer to edit themselves in all settings and contexts.

This is how alienation from colleagues, friends, and people we should trust happens and its impact ripples out. It's why writers like Hannah Arendt described loneliness and distrust as among the precursors in the progress towards totalitarianism.

Totalitarian movements use ideology to isolate individuals. Isolate means ‘to cause a person to be or remain alone or apart from others’. Arendt spends the first part of ‘Ideology and Terror’ breaking down the ‘recipes of ideologies’ into their basic ingredients to show how this is done:

ideologies are divorced from the world of lived experience, and foreclose the possibility of new experience;
ideologies are concerned with controlling and predicting the tide of history;
ideologies do not explain what is, they explain what becomes;
ideologies rely on logical procedures in thinking that are divorced from reality;
ideological thinking insists upon a ‘truer reality’, that is concealed behind the world of perceptible things.
The way we think about the world affects the relationships we have with others and ourselves. By injecting a secret meaning into every event and experience, ideological movements are forced to change reality in accordance with their claims once they come to power. And this means that one can no longer trust the reality of one’s own lived experiences in the world. Instead, one is taught to distrust oneself and others, and to always rely upon the ideology of the movement, which must be right.

aeon.co/essays/for-hannah-arendt-totalitarianism-is-rooted-in-loneliness

It’s also clear that they agree with you. Nobody who thinks TWAW would be afraid of saying so at a middle class party. It’s a daft belief but it’s ‘inclusive’ and fashionable.

Very true.

I think that that is generally the case, but probably not here. The responses of the people at the party indicate terfy leanings.