AIBU to feel overwhelmed by non-binary, cancel culture, and woke society?

[FordSiesta]

I've got to the stage where I feel quite apprehensive about the future. It just feels like there will be no 'men' or 'women' or 'boys' and 'girls' and everyone will need to conform to various gender identities and have to remember all the different ways people identify so as not to accidently offend anyone. I'm supportive of transgender people and understand people changing from male to female or vice versa but now there's all this non-binary stuff it's getting confusing.

All these things going on in this 'woke society' and if you aren't seen as wanting to conform with all this new stuff then the 'cancel culture' comes at you.

I just feel like I would be happy if there wasn't so much pressure placed on people to get pronouns correct if for millions of years we've used he/him and she/her and now we need to say they/them when we were taught in school they/them was plural.

I don't have kids yet but I do wonder if I did what the world would be like for them growing up.

AIBU for wanting to just continue with two genders?

I'd really struggle with them/they for an individual, I really struggle with any language that doesn't work within normality.

I feel that it's a massive case of fiddling while Rome burns, or end of the world decadence. We're facing the existential catastrophe of global warming, and young people are obsessed with how they identify. and whether they're sufficiently respected,

Quincy I’m not even sure what side of this you are on is it you don’t believe in sex changes or are you having a go at me for using the wrong words to describe this which I probably am. Tbh I can’t really get into a debate about as I dont know enough about any of these subjects to really have too much to say on either subject. That’s really the last I’ll say .

@Swear - what you’ve just said is spot on!!

@Smallkeys you cannot change sex. A father's sperm is X or Y and when it fuses with a mother's X egg, that's it a person with a defined sex is created.

@Smallkeys

Quincy I’m not even sure what side of this you are on is it you don’t believe in sex changes or are you having a go at me for using the wrong words to describe this which I probably am. Tbh I can’t really get into a debate about as I dont know enough about any of these subjects to really have too much to say on either subject. That’s really the last I’ll say .

Pronouns refer to a person and are based on sexual class.

She/He

Humans are one or the other.

The use of opposite sex pronouns and the constant use of the word gender instead of sex, is deeply problematic and contributing to the removal of women’s rights.

You can’t be NB - it’s a nonsensical concept.

Gender and sex are not the same!

If someone wants to walk around androgynous fair enough, not my business.

But telling me I should respect Co-opting of pronouns used for the opposite sex because someone ‘feels like a woman’ is bullshit.

And if you aren’t aware of the backstory to this debate, it’s probably best to read up on it and you will understand the reason for some of these responses.

And to the other poster, changing your Christian name (it’s a random label given to your by your parents) is not the same as changing to pronouns to be able to identify as the opposite sex group.

Please don’t compare the two.

@Smallkeys

Quincy I’m not even sure what side of this you are on is it you don’t believe in sex changes or are you having a go at me for using the wrong words to describe this which I probably am. Tbh I can’t really get into a debate about as I dont know enough about any of these subjects to really have too much to say on either subject. That’s really the last I’ll say .

You can’t change sex. It’s impossible.

It is a cultural phase. It will pass.

I’m in my 60’s. I firmly believe you are either male or female. I can’t see how anyone can say differently.
However, I do think people like to express themselves in different ways. If we were all the same it would be a very boring world.
In my younger days although homosexuality was legal, if people overtly expressed it, I do think they experienced hostility in certain situations. Times have moved on and for example I have a DN that feels perfectly at ease with their homosexuality and is free to express that in a public way and experience very little negativity because of it.

Therefore, although the recent upsurge in the numbers of trans people seems disconcerting to me, and also the language around dealing with it, I reference my feelings towards it by remembering the homosexual people I encountered in my younger days.

People find change difficult but they get there in the end. Trans people will become more mainstream just like homosexuals have.

I have to admit though it pains me to hear of young people having breasts, penis’ and testicles cut off. I suppose the more common it becomes though we will get used to it.

I just think I do me so I can’t complain if you do you.

@Quincythequince

People don’t just get to change the meaning of a word, and expect other people just to go along with it.

I massively object to the (non)definition of woman being used to say anybody can be a woman.

Woman is not a feeling, it is not a costume, it is not something anybody can identify in and out of Willy nilly.

Crazy that people even think this is the case. Bet all these heavily subjugated woman around the world would love to be able to identify out of it, or perhaps all these murdered little girls would because they were born the ‘wrong’ sex - not assigned the wrong gender.

I agree with this. It just feels like if it was another characteristic like being black or being disabled, and people wanted to self identify into that, everyone would be up in arms. So why is it OK for people to self identify as the opposite sex? I just find it all really depressing and reinforcing ridiculous gender stereotypes that if you like to play rugby you must be a boy and if you want to wear a dress you must be a girl. It feels like we’re going backwards!

Stop living your whole life online and you'll see it's a relatively minor issue in the real world.

@littleowls83

I think you've been reading the Daily Mail. In real life so long as you make a decent effort to get pronouns and terminology right and are prepared to admit your ignorance and apologise if you get something wrong then an accidental slip up isn't a disaster and you don't get 'cancelled'. Being kind to people and respectful of their beliefs and identify isn't a new thing.

In a sane world, newly invented pronouns or misuse of old ones would be ignored.

@AllOfUsAreDead

Just ignore it all and eventually the madness will go away. Something new will be trending eventually.

But unfortunately not before hard fought rights to have single sex spaces have been lost, or we’re openly allowing male bodies persons to compete in women’s sports?

You can call yourself whatever you want but it's hardly difficult to respect someone else's right to not want to be called a girl or miss or identity as a woman. And whatever you want is kinda irrelevant, children are leading this, the teenagers are telling us they don't want to be labelled anymore and conform to the roles we have previously and they are moving on, this isn't a fad that is going away.

If you think the trans stuff is confusing, wait until you see the alter/system/self-identified DID stuff the kids are into now...

I'm hoping it's a fad. Which means it will pass eventually.🤞

@StellaGibs

Stop living your whole life online and you'll see it's a relatively minor issue in the real world.

No , it’s not a relatively minor issue in the real world, how blasé you are about women’s safety, dignity and privacy. The battle that women are in at the moment is incredibly serious. If the words woman and man become meaningless, then all women lose our rights to single sex changing rooms, prisons, toilets, rape crisis help and many other spaces exclusively meant for us.

As an example Jewish women, Muslim women, disabled women will find themselves unable to engage in their normal lives as men will be in the spaces that they were once able to freely use.

Perhaps you should spend more time online and inform yourself.
Maybe you don’t care, but millions of women all over the world do.

YANBU. My children won't be attending public school if this continues.

Reading this thread, and was thinking i might find out what woke actually means because no one I know seems to know or they get irritated I don't magically know.

Is there really a cat gender or one can identify as a cat? I read it earlier on a post but mo one commented so is that correct? 'm not entirely sure I would pop that on my cv. Does no one have a private life anymore?

My teeb dc are exposed to a lot of this at school. They grumble its time wasting and always attention seekers disrupting lessons and insisting on being called by new names. They are constantly being asked if they are bi, lesbian etc which they find incredibly intrusive. There are school clubs to attend to find out what you are. Dc briefly entertained attending as there was a rumour about chocolate muffins on offer in return for attending.

If I want a female to chaperone me at the female doctors, I can see this turning into a sit com sketch. But not being funny at all really.

@WindInTheWillows7

What I don't like is the redefinition of "kindness". That if you are not affirming someone's self-deception, or even not actively encouraging it, you are being unkind. No, kindness has in mind someone's ultimate well-being, it is not about making everyone feel good about themselves in every moment. Kindness speaks the truth and tells people when they are being deceived. Real kindness is hard, even painful, because it forces you to say difficult things that people need to hear, which no one else is telling them. Pandering to someone's every whim and emotion is ultimately cruel, and lazy, not kind. It is not kind to unquestioningly prescribe hormone treatments or surgery to a child. Kindness would seek to get to the heart of why they feel they're trapped in the wrong body through patient and painstaking conversation and investigation before making such life-altering decisions.

This. Gender ideology is a lie that is harming vulnerable children and young people. It’s not kind to tell people they can change sex, and that that will solve their problems.

@Cupcakesandjam - yup, apparently Bristol university has included catgender in a list of pronouns. I haven’t fully read any of the articles yet, as need a day or two to stop laughing.

Am awaiting a rise in MN threads complaining about local teenagers shitting in their gardens.

It is absolutely a fad that will go away.

Unfortunately, before that happens, hundreds of thousands of girls and young women will be mutilated and sterilised, and their health will be permanently damaged.

The insanity that is ‘gender affirming medicine’, and the doctors who practise it, will be looked at with the same horror that we look back at lobotomies.

Women are real. Women are adult female humans. They don't have to 'identify as' what they already are.

Any man's 'identity' as a woman is a case of mistaken identity.

Non-binary is rejecting gender stereotypes/norms associated with identifying as male/female.

Gender is a social construct therefore it’s not how someone outwardly expresses themselves/genitalia but how they most identify.

"Sexism = the women should do the dishes. Feminism = men or women can do the dishes. Gender ideology = whoever is doing the dishes is a woman."

Basically no wonder smart young girls are rejecting traditional female stereotypical gender ideologies to becoming non-binary. And those who want to wear dresses are identifying as female as somehow a man still cant wear makeup/or a dress without being a girl.

Remove gender stereotypes you’ve got equality.