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Original poster

Argument with younger family members

106 replies

CandidLurker · 20/04/2025 10:07

I know there’s been a couple of threads but could do with thoughts/advice as to how to settle this in my mind.

At a family gathering yesterday someone brought up the SC decision. I knew exactly the reaction of two young women (both 20’s/very early 30’s) in the family so I tried not to say anytthing.

However, one did argue it from the point of view that this is an oppressed minority and it’s treating them like gay men used to be treated which annoyed me because I don’t think it’s the same at all, then I said I agreed with the SC decision and oh my God the outrage….
….some of the things that were said….no trans people were consulted in the SC decision…trans women don’t have a physical advantage in sports because they can take puberty blockers during adolescence….one shouted at me “BUT THEY HAVE GRC’s” and almost spat out JK Rowling’s name like she is an evil bitch.

I’m kind of upset because these are 2 young privileged women with parents who have helped them overcome every possible difficulty in life they have yet encountered. They’ve probably never encountered sexism in the workplace to the extent I did starting work in a male dominated profession in the 80’s. They weren’t born during the AIDS crisis and have no knowledge/memory of the kind of institutional prejudice gay men encountered (eg not being able to be honest about being gay as then they couldn’t get life insurance which was a requirement for a mortgage in those days).

i feel like they hate me. It feels a bit like when you are a child and you are accused of something serious you haven’t done!

I don’t think trying to speak to them about it will achieve anything..

Any words of wisdom appreciated.

OP posts:
CheekySnake · 20/04/2025 10:23

You know what, if they want to believe total bollocks, let them. It won't change the law or what the supreme court said.

Getting people to change their minds when they've committed to something is really difficult. It's a slow and painful process. It literally involves rewiring pathways in the brain. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it think.

AlexandraLeaving · 20/04/2025 10:22

No words of wisdom, but I hear you. Someone said on another thread that, in the 50 years since it was passed, the reasons for needing the Sex Discrimination Act seem to have been forgotten by those who did not live through them - and many of those who are hard of thinking. The SC ruling confirmed that we have not lost those rights (so is therefore a good thing). It also confirmed the (existing and extensive) rights under the EqA for transgender people (also a good thing). The lack of intellectual rigour applied to the situation from those who see the SC ruling as “removing rights” is depressing. If additional rights are needed, let’s be clear about what those are and discuss like adults who those can be provided without impinging on the hard-won rights of others.

Original poster
CandidLurker · 20/04/2025 10:20

Octavia64 · 20/04/2025 10:15

My daughter is exactly the same.

no advice, just sympathy.

we don’t talk about it.

she is 24 and has never worked. Autism and adhd.

It’s awful isn’t it. My brother was there and agrees with me but probably wisely kept quiet. I said you could have backed me up and he just said he didn’t want to get into an argument. Which was probably the sensible thing. However I did feel like I was being attacked by both of them and they honestly spoke to me like I am evil personified!

OP posts:
Sortumn · 20/04/2025 10:20

I assume you've known these young people a very long time and know who they are?
They don't hate you. They may be being taught to hate a fictitious terf. They won't realise there are more GC women around them than they realise.

I've did a full on flip flop from thinking it was good to making a polite pretence that we think people are the opposite sex to wondering if it's kinder to take a more honest line.

I used to think that men who wanted to be women were the most vulnerable and had agreed in discussions that they should be embraced in women only spaces. I hadn't considered what some of those spaces were of the many traumatic experiences of women. I had considered it from the point of view of a woman who'd had to be a certain way to navigate being in a mainly male industry, not acknowledging my own reality. Once I started acknowledging that and the reality of other women I could see it in a more rounded way.

When Germaine Greer said "I don't care!" I was terribly confused by how flippant that sounded, but also curious.

It took a long time for me to understand where GC women were coming from and I'm not sure I would have been prepared to get there ten years previously. Give them time and in the meantime, remember who they are.
Thinking that they hate you is buying into similar rhetoric of those that tell trans people that we don't want them to exist.

CatietteX · 20/04/2025 10:18

Can‘t post much, but didn’t want to read and run. So sorry to hear this. I’ve been shocked by the backlash we’re seeing; it’s a really difficult time. It sounds like, in a difficult convo in which everyone said their piece, you approached it with a maturity and empathy the others didn’t show. You should be proud of that. It speaks volumes, and hopefully they will see that over time.

Octavia64 · 20/04/2025 10:15

My daughter is exactly the same.

no advice, just sympathy.

we don’t talk about it.

she is 24 and has never worked. Autism and adhd.