Gender critical age ranges

Early 40s and GC.

Depressingly, the majority of my similarly-aged female friends are firmly in the TWAW/be kind camp. I’m old enough not to care about being ostracised for my beliefs but equally I value their friendship in other ways. I have two friends I can speak openly with on the subject.

I'm 37, became terfy in my late 20s.
Mother is 55, youngest sister is late teens and they've both been converted.

Mid 40s - became aware of it all and progressively more GC after following Glinner on Twitter in my late 30s and came to FWR from there. I've never spoken to anyone who didn't think it was nonsense really, a few 'be kind' people but they always agree once it's explained properly. My DH and his friends talk about how ridiculous it all is in the pub. My teenage niece goes along with it but rolls her eyes at home.

54

Always been a feminist but wasn't aware of this issue until I joined MN in 2015 and quickly 'peaked'. My mum is 80 and is also GC.

Am reasonably open at work but aware of those around me who are vocally TWAW (mainly younger and several are gay and lesbian).

Late 30s but feminist since my teens thanks to working class Mum who got sick of being told there was no point in teaching her, promoting her or training her because she’d just go off and get married/have babies. She brought me up to believe that I could be and doing anything regardless of my sex. I didn’t realise until I found her that apparently I’m a rad fem!

Can’t take credit for the granddaughters - that’s down to the lovely daughter-in-law. And I wouldn’t say they’re out of the woods yet.

There’s just a bunch of us who chat via WhatsApp, meet in the pub once in a while & plot & plan.

It started because a few of us made contact when we were still thinking we might be the only ones. And it spiralled from there - word of mouth, mostly.

Late 30s

36

Mid 40s. I was radicalised by Mumsnet about 5 years ago.

The ones who are TWAW are of a much narrower bracket and v much fit a 'type' or 2 - green/blue coloured hair, virtue-signalling younger person or middle aged beardy woke bro who at heart is sure they're right because they're a man.

I would absolutely agree with this - all of those who’ve had the damned cheek to tell me my feminism is wrong have all been men, and “woke bro” types at that. Still, useful to be able to know who they are.

I am late fifties, but my 18 year old dd and her younger sister are both GC.

42

It's not that I think 'gender is bullshit' exactly. The example of gendered language above shows to me it's not that simple. I also believe that though gender and sex are obviously separate things, the reality of trying to change that entwined relationship both for society and individuals isn't easy either.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't try, and it doesn't mean that we just say 'changed gender, changed sex' as if there's nothing complex about it.

Mid 30s

I've never spoken to my kids about this so was a bit surprised over the weekend to hear my son, aged 11/12, in his first year at secondary school, speaking really sarcastically in the car to my daughter about how in 2023 you could 'identify as anything you liked', and tossing in a bunch of deliberately absurd examples of what he might identify as. as I said, I've never discussed this with him and restrict his internet access so this can only have come from classmates and or teachers. I know that in French they've discussed the impact of recent ideas about 'gender' on a really heavily gendered language like French.

older, but this is not a representative sample because (I suspect) the majority of MN posters will be in the older age groups anyway...

Mid 50s.
Openly sick of this shit and so I don't really hear anything from people with gender woo beliefs. I don't go looking for fights but I'm happy to meet anyone on the field of debate.

Mid-thirties. I first came across someone saying TWAW on an American feminist blog when I was in my early twenties. Thought it was complete nonsense then, too. My comment and the other critical ones got deleted. I thought it was just internet eccentricity and moved on to another blog. I never could have guessed how far the nonsense would go.

My 15 year old rolls her eyes at the pronouns nonsense. She still thinks sex work is work but she's not far away from getting her head straight on it

@BadSkiingMum I agree completely- I was at secondary school from 1999-2004. I know that's a while back now but this was absolutely not a thing back then. Not at all. I just genuinely cannot think what our reaction would possibly have been as teenagers back then because it just wasn't happening like it is now.

40

I’m 37.

It’s heartening to see some younger women here too 🤗my sister is 21 and is very much “be kind”, “TWAW”, and we just avoid the topic now. I’m hoping she will come around eventually.

I'm in my 60s, another second wave radfem,
In the early seventies, I lived in a flat underneath two trans women, or trans sexual, as they were known in those days.
It was obvious that they were coming from completely different places.
One wore discreet make up, conventional clothes, had an office job and wanted to blend in. She told me that when asked at primary school what she wanted to be when she was grown up, she answered “a lady”
The other was more like a performance, in your face, theatrical clothes, make up, even the chosen name was to stand out. It was all look at me, aren't I great, a better woman than you scruffy hippies downstairs.
I didn't then have the terms, but knew that gender dysphoria and auto gynephilia were different matters.
So when all this TRA stuff started, it felt very familiar. It was bullshit then and it's bullshit now.

I'm 38, have been questioning this bullshit since I was 27.

I'm 55, my Dd is also GC, she is 18.

Early 60s, as are friends who hold GC views.

I've always thought gender nothing but trouble, but events in the last five or six years have set my GC views more thoroughy.

I am cross with myself that I put up with so much shite from men in my younger years, and have not so much as a hint of a fuck left to give; I call out misogyny when I see it. I will do all I can to ensure the little girls in my extended family don't grow up in a misogyny-soaked mad world in which mens' feelz are deemed more important than reality.