Arguments with daughters

If it makes you feel any better I think the worst of the social contagion era is tapering off! End of year 8/beginning of year 9 were her year groups mass ‘coming out’ phase (summer of 2018) and she’s just started lower 6th. The years below her seem to have fewer and fewer girls taking on these identities, although there are now more boys identifying as trans than in my middle child’s year (there were none in my son’s year, he did his GCSEs in 2016).

Youngest starts next September and I’ve applied for a very multicultural, fairly traditional girls’ high school (too many mixed sex toilets in the co-ed high schools and the girls grammar told teachers to stop calling the students ‘girls’ some years ago!)

When you get to the high schools open evening stage, ask some pointed questions, schools are extremely varied on this issue, don’t ever be afraid to be THAT parent.
My middle child’s school is a Stonewall Bronze Champion which sounded lovely 7-8 years ago, and very much not-lovely now)

This is partly where I came from to my current views, the rest being my practice of feminist analysis where not having names for those who are victims of sex-based oppression, misogyny, and sexism causes tremendous hardship. The mistreatment of women and girls is, at its foundation, sex-based, and erasing our ability to address that is as hard as it would be to address racism if we were not allowed to have names for minority and majority racial groups.

Being female is a material condition, not about feelings, and attempts to appropriate 'woman' for the latter will certainly not help the vast majority of female people to get fairer lives on this earth.

The "saggy old bodies" comment is not only disgusting, it also demonstrates a level of (and I'm sorry, I don't want to be rude as you obviously love your daughter) ignorance I find hard to stomach.

As others have said, it sounds like something a self-righteous and thoughtless teenager might say, not a woman of more than twice that age.

I don't think there's any point trying to convince your daughters that they are wrong. Avoid the topic if possible and if they bring it up again, I would answer all their questions or assertions with questions. Try to get them to really think about what they're saying. You won't change their minds but you might encourage them to do enough thinking to change their own minds.

@vdbfamily for sure - and that is probably why in prison men identifying as women actually have higher rates of sexual offences than “standard” male rate

but I do think it’s important to be clear thst just becaue someone is a “genuine” transwoman (whatever that means under the ever growing umbrella) there still just as much a potential threat to women as any other man

i have a nephew who is a delightful young man - I know that - other women don’t. And it is entirely right for other women to exclude him from women and girls spaces on safeguarding grounds - same goes for any perfectly pleasant male who identifies as a woman

I think it is worth pointing out that abusers/ pedophiles will take any and every opportunity to access children. Some become teachers, priests, youth leaders etc, but if self ID goes ahead, this will make life very easy for them.
We are really more concerned about those who will immediately take advantage of this, be they pedophiles or even just men wanting access to women's changing rooms for sexual kicks. Less concerned about genuine transwomen but we have no way to tell the difference.

I'm actually horrified at that stat. I have two young daughters in primary school and this madness really worries me. What the hell is going on?!

Also OP, I'm around your daughter's age. I'm horrified by their attitude towards other women and they certainly don't speak for their whole generation!

Do they have thoughts about what gender actually is? It’s how I got to the position I’m at. My thinking went along these lines:

Sex shouldn’t matter, apart from a few areas where biology makes a difference (health, contraception, sports etc).
All the rest is gender and isn’t a good thing for anyone. So organising our society along gender lines is not a good thing, for anyone.

Oh, right. Did you mean blocked on Twitter? I thought you meant blocked on WhatsApp!

I agree with this. It's not worth ruining your relationship with your daughters.
I have a DD (25) And generally we have a super relationship but both DH and I agree that it's better to avoid these conversations.
It may be different for you, though, if they deliberately steer dialogue into this sphere.
That's a whole different story.
I feel for you OP.

I don't think I have the energy to engage in future.
Throw it back on them. If this is all via the written word then you can prepare. Get a set of questions ready for next time it kicks off (none of which relates to toilets! there are some excellent ones above). Get them to justify their position.

Meantime, take it down a notch or two. Blocking your own DD seems a bit extreme.

37 and 41? Crikey, until I re read the OP I thought this was teenagers.

@Waitingfordecember the idea is that penis people could
get off on seeing vagina people change.

transwomen are penis people and there is no evidence there rates of sexual assault are any different to other penis people

but I have no doubt you realise this and are just being disingenuous

it’s penispeoplephobia - otherwise known as basic safeguarding practices to protect women and girls against possible
male violence (and we all know exactly what categories of people I am referring to in that sentence)

I never discuss this with my daughter. It's just too difficult. As with lots of other subjects, unfortunately

Yup. This.

Am a similar age to OP's daughters. Plenty of TERFy mates similar ages.

As well as being privileged to not have experienced so much male violence/ maternity discrimination, my friends that don't get it tend to be ones who had rather sheltered, small town upbringings. Not dissing that at all - it's aspirational! - but I wonder whether they feel they have to over-compensate for something in the current cultural climate that places low value on their experiences.

I am also hearing quite promising stuff about teens currently, suggesting more than a few are starting to see through the gender identities of their peers and are finding the authoritarian, attention seeking nature of some of it quite tiring. I live in hope.

I'd pull up the ageism and consider going on strike with some of the "take me for granted" mum stuff if I were you.

You have no idea what my views are on women only spaces ‘soz’.

But as much as you’d like to deny it, there are parallels between homophobic rhetoric and current arguments about trans women in women’s spaces…. safety being a huge one. Are you really denying that people have used the idea that gay men and lesbians could get off on seeing people change as a reason to want them kept out of certain places? Or that they might go as far as to attack people if given the chance?

Obviously this is highly unlikely to happen, most people aren’t sexual predators after all. It’s not impossible though (as I can sadly confirm through my own experiences).