I was at a party last night

Yes I've found this with a couple of friends recently who used the phrase 'born in the wrong body' although umming and ahhing about the consequences of losing sex based rights.

It depresses me a bit. But unless you are naturally outraged by trans people (I certainly wasn't), it actually takes a bit of time, effort and critical thinking to understand the debate and it's implications, even if you are 'intelligent'. Plus people naturally want to and be seen to 'be kind', it's more attractive than saying 'no, stop it'.

I doubt that even the most committed believer in trans ideology actually believes that transwoman are female and transmen are malemand this is why it is so important to stop any debate as they can't argue something which is so demonstrably false.

I think it's because a lot of basically good and intelligent people don't really know what they think.

I work with mostly professional women. They're only recently starting to "get" the implications, mostly due to news stories around women's sport, but they still believe in inclusivity and that people should have the right to live as they choose. They're more likely to have empathy for the man "trapped in the wrong body" than for women fearful of losing female spaces, although they can see that argument too.

We've also been Stonewalled for years so it needs a switch in what you've been taught is right/wrong.

Preference falsification would explain a lot but I have to wonder EmbarrassingHadrosaurus whether people are legitimately fearful that someone may quote them outside their circle of friends, that comments may get posted of FB.

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.

No such restrictions in my circle and we're from all political persuasions and none. At a recent event I was talking to someone new to me ( and much younger) about similar issues & she mentioned an acquaintance was a member of the communist party and a dyed-red twaw-ter but added swiftly 'but I'm not'. I said 'me neither, but I wouldn't care if you were. I'd still like to hear what you think about xyz'.
I'm in despair at the current levels of self-cancellation and self-censorship on this and so many other things.

Preference falsification in action, sadly.

www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674707580

Preference falsification, according to the economist Timur Kuran, is the act of misrepresenting one’s wants under perceived social pressures. It happens frequently in everyday life, such as when we tell the host of a dinner party that we are enjoying the food when we actually find it bland. In Private Truths, Public Lies, Kuran argues convincingly that the phenomenon not only is ubiquitous but has huge social and political consequences. Drawing on diverse intellectual traditions, including those rooted in economics, psychology, sociology, and political science, Kuran provides a unified theory of how preference falsification shapes collective decisions, orients structural change, sustains social stability, distorts human knowledge, and conceals political possibilities.

A common effect of preference falsification is the preservation of widely disliked structures. Another is the conferment of an aura of stability on structures vulnerable to sudden collapse. When the support of a policy, tradition, or regime is largely contrived, a minor event may activate a bandwagon that generates massive yet unanticipated change.

In distorting public opinion, preference falsification also corrupts public discourse and, hence, human knowledge. So structures held in place by preference falsification may, if the condition lasts long enough, achieve increasingly genuine acceptance. The book demonstrates how human knowledge and social structures co-evolve in complex and imperfectly predictable ways, without any guarantee of social efficiency.