Adult son's voting intentions-a little shocked.

So because you know about being trans, and are supportive towards trans people, that means you're likely to be trans yourself?!
That's ridiculous
Exact same section 28 energy from the 80s - don't let people know about being gay as they're likely to want to turn gay themselves. 🙄

It's much more likely when people start believing in this toxic ideology that they're going to start overthinking themselves into a different 'gender identity'. Also the son might already be an autogynephile if he's sticking up for them.

Why? Just because he isnt so called "gender critical?"
That doesn't even begin to make sense.

Sounds like your son is at risk of becoming your 'daughter' in the coming years 🙁

The local left Labour faction have other reasons for opposing Rosie Duffield, that don’t really have much to do with the Trans stuff - although I’m sure they’ll happily chuck that in too. The huge (some might say aggressive) mobilisation of the student vote was what got Rosie elected over Julian Brazier in the first place and I’m pretty sure she’s lost that now, so it won’t be too surprising if Canterbury goes blue again. OTOH, anecdotal obviously, but I’ve never heard so many people round here saying they will never vote Tory again. So, who knows? And it’s not even government, CCC can take a massive amount of credit for putting people off. Looking forward to the locals and general elections here. And hoping for change.

No. It's the opposite. The son won't vote for Rosie because she said this. That's what makes him an MRA.

Adult human female is the only meaningful definition of a woman.

I don't see how stating that a woman is an adult human female means supporting MRAs. It's just a fact, surely. What else is a woman?

Rosie's crime was to say a woman is an adult human female. Anyone who disagrees with that is supporting men in women's spaces. That's dismantling women's rights and supporting the MRA trans ideology and that's idiotic not to see it and own it.

As for the impact on the election, yes I'm quite sure Rosie Duffield will be subjected to the most vicious of campaigns by Labour activists. Whether that will have much of an impact on the result I don't know but the party is stuffed to the gills with people who are quite comfortable in permanent opposition.

Why is he?

Can't believe that on the feminist board of a parenting website we've got posters blaming the mother for the behaviour of her adult children.

I'm sorry op. I'm sure if it were my son I'd rationalise it as best as I could - he's an adult yada yada yada - but it would still sting.

It's terrifying. Some will move away because they don't want to support Rosie. Many will move away because they do want to support Rosie.

No judgement from me, OP. I think some posters have been unnecessarily harsh.

I used to be in the ‘be kind’ camp myself, and only made the journey to thinking more broadly and critically relatively recently (within the last decade). It’s a toxic ideology and easy for people to become ensnared. I hope you and your son will have opportunities to talk some more as he matures.

It’s bloody hard raising kids, and sometimes they disappoint us despite all our best efforts.

There's a really clear class correlation, though. Most of the young TRAs I've talked to when they've been protesting at events I've attended have been young, white, middle class and university-educated. When canvassing for Labour in working class areas, or leafletting with WRN, the huge, huge majority of working-class people are firmly GC. Trans ideology is a luxury middle-class belief on the whole.

@Laladybird
"the rougher ones headed for the trades"

sorry but that feels hideously snobbish to me 😕

OP is your question about how does Keir Starmer keep to the centre ground (best chance of winning) while at the same time hanging on to the young ideological activists?

I would say that he can't. This TWAW nonsense is Momentum in a new dress.

My children are younger than yours so I've had a bit more warning and have taken care to talk to them about it. Mind you they could yet go another direction. My DS suddenly blurted out all the gender ideology indoctrination he's had a school over past two years (I had no idea). In short the brainy kids destined for uni are #bekind and the rougher ones headed for the trades think it is manipulative and ridiculous.

As another poster said further up, it is Labour's tragedy that so many of them would rather be ideologicallly pure and out of power than make compromises with reality and get into Government.

Plenty of people who have solid thinking on this issue have kids who are captured, so I am surprised there are so many putting anything on the OP for that element.

I'm also always a little surprised when people make the claim that if not voting for a certain party, an individual can' really be left wing. Being left or right or whatever isn't defined by the party a person votes for. There's often a correlation, but it's much more complicated than that, especially now when the LP includes policies that aren't especially leftist and the Tories ones that are more traditionally leftist.

He’s been genderwashed at school and by his peers. It’s not your fault OP.
Or maybe, just maybe, he has a mind of his own.
He doesn't have to agree with OP

I'm in RDs constituency and the left faction in labour really really hate her so I think if he is around activistist (eg for refugees) he will hear lots of negative things about her. It's a small place and things like management issues in a mental health charity cafe polarise the whole town.

But your son is young independent minded and wants to make a difference. I think what more could you want.

He’s been genderwashed at school and by his peers. It’s not your fault OP.

Schools have stopped teaching children how to think critically.

This reminds me about something I read about Chrysler. Before Lee Iacocca joined, it was alleged that the accounts department balanced the books by putting the invoices on one side of the scales, and the receipts on the other.

Eek @CurlewKate what a rollercoaster you've been on with this post! Your parenting, your understanding of voting rules, your feminism and more all called in to question 😬 Harsh! (and unwarranted)

I hadn't thought about Rosie Duffield's position before you created this post but I think you're right that her days as an MP are numbered. That's a real shame as she adds a degree of political balance to discussing the impact of gender identity belief. It's so important that it's a cross party subject and not just attached to one side of the House of Commons. If it becomes a solely Tory view then it may end up being linked with other Tory values like we've seen in the US political system. The Republicans and Democrats are firmly divided on it, with a few exceptions such as a Democrat I saw online speaking at a detransitioners' event - she's probably in a similarly vulnerable position.

Thinking about your surprise at his views, I can empathise with this even though my children are younger. My daughters both have/had very strong opinions on JKR ("a bigot") and gender identity being more important than biological sex. We've started having a few conversations about it all recently but it's a really difficult subject, given the potential it has to be relationship damaging.

’m glad my parents were floating voters tbh it meant that while politics was discussed with much gusto (and quite a bit of shouting) none of us cleave too tightly to any ideology. None of my siblings or I have a party we would never vote for, I think we’ve voted for everyone except the BNP and UKIP between us. I think it teaches you to be a bit critical and think “have they got a point?” It means it’s a bit easier to shift gears, it’s not disruptive to my sense of self or “identity”.

Such a well made point.

I think at best OP you have a raised someone who cares about people he sees as minority groups and the conversation around trans people are they are the most marginalised vulnerable group so he doesn’t have to think past that. I think it’s the nature of youth to see things in a black and white way, it’s as I got older I realised all the grey areas of life. If he also connects politics with morality or is an uncritical supporter of groups than it’s very simple for him.

At worst he can signal his virtue with no real cost to him, he will never understand what it would be like for a 13yr old to come out of the loo and bump into a 6ft bloke in a dress. Or have to talk about being raped infront of a man because he says he’s a woman. He doesn’t really understand what it is to be a girl and then a woman and how the fear of sexual assault has been the background noise to many a womans life,

It reminds me of when people have supported minority groups but completely ignored misogyny because the cognitive dissonance of seeing someone as a victim of racism but also a perpetrator of oppression is too much for them to reconcile. I’m saying that as an Asian woman.

So yes a transwoman can be a victim of violence due to toxic masculinity against GNC people and an oppressor and coloniser of womens spaces at the same time. There is a chance they can be beaten up in the mens loos for clearly being a man in female clothing but also get sexual pleasure from breaching womens privacy and boundaries (obviously some trans people are genuinely dysphoric and have a serious, persistent and painful condition, think that goes without saying).

I’m glad my parents were floating voters tbh it meant that while politics was discussed with much gusto (and quite a bit of shouting) none of us cleave too tightly to any ideology. None of my siblings or I have a party we would never vote for, I think we’ve voted for everyone except the BNP and UKIP between us. I think it teaches you to be a bit critical and think “have they got a point?” It means it’s a bit easier to shift gears, it’s not disruptive to my sense of self or “identity”.

I probably worded some of that more clumsily than I intended but I hope you get the gist. I’m not going to criticise your parenting OP, I have a kid and don’t know what the fuck I’m doing most of them time.

What they said, is that a lot of young people aren't going to be independent thinkers.

Now I agree with that in general, but anyway, we can just put this to the test for this individual. Ask them things like: what is a woman and how do you justify that definition?

If you get back answers like, "a woman is anyone who says they're a woman", or, "that's a dog whistle question", then you know you are dealing with another brain dead progressive.