My DD hates that I’m a TERF!

There's probably some truth in this.

Teenagers want to rebel against their stuffy old parents, except that the current young generation's parents are pretty sound, so the only thing they really have to rebel against is common sense.

Is she aware of the 10 and 12 year old girls assaulted by a trans identifying man known as Katie Dolatowski in the women's toilets in Morrisons?

A cynical part of me thinks some youngsters crave something to oppose their elders on. They want the conflict. Gen x ers are pretty cool and liberal so inter generational conflict is massively reduced - except on this. It differentiates them from their boring illiberal parents who “don’t understand”. Hopefully it’s a stage they will grow out of especially if the “horrible terf parents” are the ones funding their lifestyles/university/letting them live rent free.

Interesting - does she offer anything which she believes is a coherent argument? Is there any area she thinks maybe should be reserved just for biological women? I’d try to get her to talk - explain and justify her arguments. Maybe she’ll start to question it herself (or yes, just back away - your relationship is way more important)

Having posted my list of common methodology problems in trans studies, turned off my phone, and gone to bed, I of course immediately remembered that I'd left out:

• self-selection or biased selection criteria leading to non-representative, non-random trial groups
• failure to control comparison groups so they are matched for age, experience of the task, and other life factors
• inappropriate time horizons for longitudinal studies
• reliance on self-report instead of objective measures
• switching measures part way through.

I have 4 dds and have been through this with 3 of them. They know my views, they know that I am a kind person and have never hated anyone in my life, and we have mostly just agreed to disagree. I will not allow them to be rude to me or call me a transphobe, we have had the occasional row over specific cases but it never gets nasty. My eldest was full on twaw but has done a u-turn and now agrees with me after someone she follows lost their women only business due to TRA's. My second was always gc despite being friends with a number of trans people at college and work. She loves them as people, accepts them in women's spaces but absolutely rejects the idea that twaw. 3rd and youngest are a work in progress but I believe they will get there in their own time. Stay true to your beliefs and don't let her disrespect you.

How old is your daughter OP?

I have 2 daughters, the one who called me a bigot (when she was teenaged) has since grown up, experienced more of the world, experienced sexism and harassment, and has now joined me in the biology rules camp. So there's hope.

(My other daughter on the other hand....)

I approached it by talking to dd about trans rights - ie about how people shouldn’t lose out on employment or housing opportunities because they’re trans, about how it’s fine for people to dress however they want (within common decency) and not be attacked or abused for it.

Once she’d grasped that I didn’t actually support genocide (apparently t’interweb is awash with how terfs want all trans people dead etc) she was much more up for discussing women’s rights. She hasn’t changed her views - turns out she always had GC beliefs. She’d just believed the crap she’d been fed by TRA’s. I suspect that’s true for lots of teens

You seem to be struggling to understand words. Adoptive parents have the qualifier of ‘adoptive’ to signify that while they have taken on the parenting role, they are not the same as biological parents. Same with step parents.

But your analogy doesn’t work. People can’t change sex. There is no ‘social reality’ where men can be one women (or vice versa). ‘Gender’ is a regressive social stereotype and sex is important in many situations.

I've got the opposite problem - my teens are firmly in agreement that what sex you are matters sometimes and that humans can't change sex. My mother, however, thinks it's ok for men who describe themselves as women to be in female only spaces because she thought about it and decided she wouldn't be bothered by it. What I really can't get my head around is the fact that this is a woman who was in an abusive relationship for years, and yet she still doesn't seem able to grasp either how dangerous some men are, or how common and actually quite sensible it is for women to be wary of men. I knew both of these things by the age of about 13.

@TheLizardQueenyour DD is a teenager, she’d be embarrassed if you breathed regularly.

My DD18 is on the fringes of this, hopefully heading to sanity and now I try not to discuss it with her but to work on our relationship and do nice things together. I’d love her to see reality and it would be safer in all kinds of ways but, at the moment, she doesn’t and I can’t reason her out of a place she didn’t arrive at by reasoning.

Ignore the usual scolders, they struggle to handle the idea that a woman can think for herself and have actual opinions. Good luck.

Ok

So how do we define 'gender' then.

And why on earth would a transGENDER person think they had a right to same SEX spaces that don't belong to them?

Yup. There’s only one side that is filled with hate and intolerance here and it isn’t mothers.

Funnily enough if you look up the meaning of ‘bigot’ and then consider the absolutist demands of trans ideology, it fits perfectly. OP is not the bigot here. Her DD will grow up eventually and realise how right she is.

It’s really nothing like that. More like if your parents confirmed that the Tooth Fairy isn’t real.

No one can change sex, gender ideology is just an ideology that currently gives a licence to bully and the daughter is in the wrong. She’ll grow up one day.

If your child at age 18 came to you and said 'birth giver, I feel differently abled and believe in my soul I was not meant to have legs. I have been born in an abled body but would like to have my legs removed' would you be all for it - I mean bodily autonomy is the way right?

She'll come back to you eventually, even if it means several years of no communication/talking you'll have us here.

I haven’t read the whole thread, OP, only some of the first page, but my DD (mid 20s so no longer a teen) has recently cut me off, having put up with my views for many years. I see on the first page that there are now a lot of parents experiencing this and I have to wonder whether transactivist groups are increasing the pressure on young people to “be allies” and cut ties with their mothers.

It has been obvious for a while that those who transition young are often pushed hard to cut off their parents at the slightest whiff of disagreement (and then, of course present this as the parents’ fault and therefore a sign of oppression). The cult-like anti-parent behaviour they encourage is a particularly horrible aspect of transactivism.

I wish I had been able to stay calm and call it out for being ridiculous when it finally happened, but just as they are being programmed to pull away, women have been pushed into fear of the consequences of standing up for women’s rights and when the moment finally came, I felt like I had been punched in the gut. Still do.

Tough love - as others have suggested - cutting off financial support sounds like the correct response, but incredibly hard to do. I hope your DD grows out if it.

I went through this with my then teenage son. He was appalled at my beliefs because he has a trans friend.

We have worked through it and he now accepts my position. I wouldn't say he agrees, and I do not agree either him. And that's ok.

But the breakthrough for us was when I likened it to creationism. I said that there are loads of people that believe god created the earth. And we know that's not true. But, it would be wrong to teach creationism in science, as fact and plenty of creationism would like it taught as fact. And it's the same with trans. Its wrong to teach it as fact (you can change sex). But both beliefs are deeply held and the world can continue to turn while we hold different beliefs. And I respect those beliefs. If that's what you want to believe instead of science, that's up to you. But it's wrong to gaslight everyone else in to stating it is a truth when we empirically know it's not truth. Which is the current trans position.

I accept that people do believe you can change sex. Even though we know that's not possible. That in hundreds and thousands of years when the analyse the bones of trans people who have 'changed sex' they will not be able to detect it. Because its biologically impossible. So don't call me a bigot because I don't buy into nonsense.

But adoptive parents know they are adoptive parents. They take on the role of mother or father but they wouldn't, for example, give their medical information when it comes to screening for genetically inherited diseases because they understand they haven't changed the chromosomes of their kids by adopting them.

I don't think anyone has an issue with a widening of gender identity. If a man wants to wear a dress, crack on. But you don't magically become a woman through clothing or hormones.

Oddly, if TRAs could stand to have some reasoned discussion lots of the issues are similar to feminism. Being a woman is not about lipstick and high heels any more than men should always be tough and never cry. There are many, many different ways to be a man or a woman and we'd prefer to see these embraced and a push back on toxic masculinity rather than forcing kids who don't fit with the majority to attempt to swap boxes rather than seek to widen the box.

Great post.

You're "so angry and sad" that you can't discuss one political topic? 🫤

There are lots of topics I won't discuss with my family because I think their views are ridiculous and it doesn't bother me at all! I don't need to discuss everything with everyone.

There aren't equivalent numbers in older cohorts coming out as trans now that "society is more open" and there should be if you were correct. It's mostly teenage girls and older males that have suddenly discovered they are trans.