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?

@ohfook

Are you seeing this in real life or just online?

Granted I don't live in a very cosmopolitan area of the U.K. but the world I read about online bares no resemblance to my day to day existence.

Online everybody is a good-bank supporting, liberal, left-wing remainder who manages the balance between being a feminist who also supports trans women, is actively anti-racist and concerned about climate change. If that were the case, we'd be living in an Labour run, EU member state which had successfully eradicated racism, transphobia and homophobia and was well on its way to becoming carbon neutral. Clearly this is not the case!

What does supporting trans women look like to you, such that it is compatible with being a feminist?

If Labour were in charge we'd have self ID already, which certainly isn't compatible with feminism.

It all seems a bit odd how big a thing it’s become. Surely there is only a tiny minority of people that this is a genuine thing for? My 15yo has one genuine friend who is transgender and looking to have medical intervention to change from male to female in the future and is totally against all the talk at school and just wants to get on with it quietly whereas the teens jumping on the gender chaos are something different each week and messing about with their gender pronouns and getting moody when they were ‘she’ on Monday but now ‘he’ on Thursday.

I don’t know any one in my age bracket who any of this applies to. We are all the correct gender for our biological sex.

Question for @Tumbleweed101 and any others:

Do you actually believe you have a gender, or gender identity, in terms of it being a separate thing from your biological sex? What is it? Can you describe it?

@MixMatch

The so called "transitioning" of children (who are all vulnerable in some way due to their age and often other factors) which is being sanctioned by some people in government and pushed by others with their own agendas, is going to be a HUGE scandal within a few decades.

We are talking about children who due to their age, are legally unable to even consent to a TATTOO 😳 Yet they are having their bodies and development changed beyond all recognition through life changing surgery and drugs.

It's utter madness how ANYONE can defend this and these children are being let down by the conspiracy of silence by everyone. This is despite high profile court cases and whistle-blowers from the gender "clinic" in London.

This.

The transitioning of children is a scary thing.

When I was a child I wanted to be a boy, I had short hair, wore boys clothes and said I wanted to be a boy all the time. Thank god this was in the early 90s, my parents weren’t ‘woke’ and I was just considered a tomboy.

If I had of had some of todays super woke parents I may be living my life as a man now, which is definitely not what i would have wanted! I’m not particularly girly, but I am definitely female and there’s no way I want to be a man.

I’ve seen parents letting their 6 or 7 year olds change their names and pronouns. How does a 6 year old really understand. It’s so damaging, once you’ve made that change it must be really hard to go back if you change your mind when you’re older. I could lead to an awful lot of unnecessary stress for those kids.

I get some people really feel they are born in the wrong body and will want to transition to the opposite gender. That’s fine, but I feel very strongly that this is a choice for an adult to make about themselves, not an impressionable child.

Granted I don't live in a very cosmopolitan area of the U.K. but the world I read about online bares no resemblance to my day to day existence.

I live in a city and see people I know to be trans and/ or appear to be trans (or at least presenting themselves in an obviously gender fluid way, eg people with make features and beard wearing dresses) daily.

I have an older teen who is non-binary but to a very ‘light’ degree - still using birth name, wears clothes of that sex, but likes they pronouns and doesn’t see themselves as typical of that gender, which is fair enough. They are an adult and can decide.

There does seem to be a massive trend towards labelling, I don’t see why you just can’t be bio male or female and not bring gender into it. Just do/dress etc how you want.

I live in a rural area of Scotland and it’s rife amongst children and young people

If it makes them feel better to label themselves I have no problem with it, but I do have a problem with medical intervention at an early age, thankfully that's a minority

I get that people find this confusing. But what isn't confusing is the genuine heartache of feeling that you're in the wrong body. The confusion in your own mind and the feeling of isolation caused by not feeling at home in your own skin. Approaching those in this situation with compassion and acceptance is not confusing - it's allowing them to be as they are.

Teenagers have been going through confusing personal journey's for millenia. Whether it was seen and accepted by people or not - the confusing teenage years have always been there. What i see of girls in this society is that they see all this pressure that to be female means one thing - glamour, big boobs etc- love island wannabe (I'm using shorthand here but you get the picture) and not identifying with that image may cause confusion in them. There's lots of perceived pressure to be certain ways and lots of female centric violence highlighted.in the press. I understand the desire to reject that and if they're already feeling confused, finding a tribe that accepts them is all the sweeter.

Accepting that they're confused and accepting what they're saying as how they feel - i.e
.showing compassion and supporting the individual will help them feel accepted and give them the space to discover who they are. This is what i believe we should be doing. This doesn't mean not challenging their views and opinions but that can be done constructively and in a way to make them think analytically about their situation.

From the trans people i know it was a long journey to final acceptance of what and who they are. It was not a lifestyle choice.

And I'm yet to meet a teenager who when told that they're wrong does anything other than.dig their heels in and entrench in their position.

Accepting that they're confused and accepting what they're saying as how they feel - i.e.showing compassion and supporting the individual will help them feel accepted and give them the space to discover who they are.

But this is exactly what people propose doing.

Maintaining some illusion that you can change sex, however, doesn't help anyone. In fact it has the potential to seriously fuck these children up in the longer term.

Getting used to an adult body is a tough and confusing process. We've all been through it. Attributing all this to being in a 'wrong' body or perpetuating ideas that living as a male/female is about complying to rigid stereotypes are a terrible way to handle this.

I get that people find this confusing. But what isn't confusing is the genuine heartache of feeling that you're in the wrong body. The confusion in your own mind and the feeling of isolation caused by not feeling at home in your own skin.

Curious that there is an epidemic of it... Prior to social media, there were a handful of individuals (all adults) here and there who underwent a full transition, having lived as their preferred self for two years as a prerequisite, etc. I have known three in my whole life.

I think it is often down to social contagion; certainly was the case for three young girls in the same class in a small country high school that I know of - what a coincidence!

Thekeatingfive, it's not a terrible idea if it's something they grow out of, many will

it's not a terrible idea if it's something they grow out of, many will

Denying biological fact isn't a terrible idea? That's what you're saying?

@blublub

It’s just the latest fad. We’ll have real problems soon, aside from navel gazing, like if we can eat or possibly war. This will help put things in perspective for those whose lives are in a bubble in their own head.

Agree with this 100%, it is just a fad. What is inexcusable is the grown men and women jumping on the bandwagon when they are old enough to know better. It does seem to mirror a more narcissistic direction western society seems to be going in though. Honestly no-one really gives a shit about other people's 'gender identity' it's just all so self indulgent.

@DdraigGoch

My daughter’s friend is trans (girl to boy) and was banging on in the car how disgusting it is that toilets in school are single sex and should all be unisex… Firstly they go to a girls’ school Ok, that's beyond parody. The toilets may as well be unisex on the basis that all pupils can use all toilets.

If he now identifies as male, why is he still attending a girls' school?

@Momicrone

Thekeatingfive, it's not a terrible idea if it's something they grow out of, many will

Unfortunately some of them will be irreparably harmed before they grow out of it.

Yes and that's terrible, but some people experiment with drugs and go on to lead happy healthy lives, some don't.

Growing out of something is normal, people change their minds about tattoos for example, and can have them removed, which is very expensive and painful, but what about the irreversible steps?
Cutting off healthy breasts, having chunks of flesh cut from arms and thighs to create a faux penis for example. Those surgeries are not something that can be reversed.
A certain well known young person from the US has been the poster child for m to f and I remember reading that that person’s mother saying I’m paraphrasing here “ there wasn’t enough “ material“ ie flesh , to create what her child wanted.
This isn’t a child or an adult who has needed skin grafts after a terrible accident, this is a young person who has had bits of their body removed because they have mental health issues or they were indulged and/ encouraged by their parents who should know better.

Sorry I quoted the wrong post. I meant this

Yes and that's terrible, but some people experiment with drugs and go on to lead happy healthy lives, some don't.

Not state/medical/parentally sponsored they don't

@Momicrone

Yes and that's terrible, but some people experiment with drugs and go on to lead happy healthy lives, some don't.

Drugs are illegal.

Why is it illegal to take cocaine or ecstasy, or even smoke weed, which will probably not actually harm you in the long run, but legal for an 18 year old girl to take testosterone and have a double mastectomy with little if any appropriate counselling?

A poster upthread mentioned that their teen identifies as non-binary as they don't fully identify with female stereotypes (sorry if I've misquoted) and this is what I keep coming back to - is it all just about gender stereotypes? Are the kids who were raised to love dolls and cars, wear whatever colour they want regardless of gender going through this too? Or is it more the girls who were forced to wear pink and not spoil their dresses who are rebelling and identifying as male?

I was a tomboy but LOVE being a woman. But being a woman isn't about getting manicures every weekend and drinking sparkling bloody rose. The insistence on labels is what I can't get my head around.

But I suppose when you are a teen with raging hormones and not much sense of who you are as a person, labels help you paint that picture.

I'm confused by the whole thing, supportive of genuine trans people but the media storm and school aged gender chaos is overshadowing the real issues. It all makes me need a lie down.

I have said this before and I will say it again, this is the ONLY reason I am glad that my autistic non gender conforming daughter whose sensory issues means that she couldn't stand the feel of make up or the clothes that are marketed for girls is not able to be in mainstream (or any) school.

She would be so very vulnerable to gender ideology, it's no wonder autistic girls are the most likely group of girls to experience sudden onset gender dysphoria.

That paired with the fact that there are next to no services available to support young autistic people means that it is very easy for the adults to say that this is a great fix for the fact that these girls don't 'fit' into to society.

It's a bloody disgrace, I don't like to dwell on it too much because it's to painful but we why is the state sanctioning the sterilisation of disabled girls?

If it wasn't for MNi would probably say live and let live and think it's all a bit silly. But I have learned so much from the discussions and do feel genuinely concerned that this erosion of women's rights is stealthily creeping into normal language. The very fact I could be threatened with rape or murder for saying that speaks for itself.

The very fact I could be threatened with rape or murder for saying that speaks for itself.

Never doubt the patriarchy is alive, well and positively thriving.