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 mean you wouldn't validate someone's psychotic delusions would you?

@Momicrone

With the high prevalence of mental heath issues amongst young people, I support anything that keeps them sane. I'd rather they experiment with genders/pronouns than self harm, depression or worse.

Young men and women taking hormones that permanently change the pitch of their voice, their hairline, their facial hair and the distribution of fat in their bodies is self harm.

I cannot see how a double mastectomy and chemical cassation are anything but Devastating experiments.

Don’t get me started on the ‘or worse’

@Ballcactus

It’s not my job to educate you, you should do that yourself.

So you don't know, then.

My DS16 has SLD and is totally oblivious to Social Media and all this gender bollocks.

Reading some of these posts about what teens are doing to themselves and the crap they are swallowing makes me glad for once he is the way he is.

Just glad I am not a teacher tasked with sex education in a secondary school. I mean where would you even start without offending someone.

And the reason why the Feminism: sex and gender board is so busy with pro-woman posts is simply that women's rights are being eroded and women are using one of the only places available to them to share information and take action. Here in Scotland, women are being taken to court for posting pictures of suffragette ribbons, women are self excluding from rape crisis services which no longer offer single sex support groups and Police are investigating stickers on lampposts which say 'women won't wheesht' as a hate crime. These are just a few examples.

Women's right to single sex spaces (as specified in the Equality Act 2010) are being demolished for the sake of an ideology.

When there is a really serious national emergency like a war or mass flooding and starvation people will forget all of this crap.
There are no "them/theys" in Afghanistan, Syria, Darfur. They are too busy starving to death or being murdered and watching their children die.
All this gender nonsense is a privilege or rich white countries with nothing else to think about.

This thread is going to get moved or deleted within the next 10-15 posts.

Anyway. Sorry your confused OP. It’s a wild world out there for those of us who work in sex (biological, not shagging) based industries and education.

@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.

Absolutely spot-on.

@StrangeLookingParasite she should beware of telling people to educate themselves. I did and now I'm what they call a TERF.

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

But if you don’t bow to a ridiculous ideology that leads vulnerable young people to unnecessary drugs and surgery, you could lose your job or be arrested. Not so good.

@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.

You're spot on. They've redefined kindness to shut down conversation.

Check out Betty Friedan, then ...

I love that you're focussing on radical lesbian separatists here. Cos, of course, it's surely the lesbians and their 'extreme' beliefs that were the problem.

Snide. I love that you're focusing on one thing Betty Friedan said at a rally in 1969 as standing for the beliefs of all of second wave feminism. I love that you are speaking about second wave feminism as some historic artefact, when many second wave feminists are well and alive. Radical lesbian separatists did have some extreme beliefs, so perhaps you could read up on that when you have time in between lecturing people about an era you seem rather foggy on.

What I feel is that there is a board that is dedicated to this and yet there are constant posts on AIBU about it. I work with a number of trans people and hear less about pronouns there than I do on here!

It never used to bother me. I just wanted people to be happy. One day I asked the care agency to ensure the person they send to provide intimate ( includes washing) care for my disabled daughter was female. It had never occurred to me that that a female career would be anything other than a woman. Seems I was wrong .

@milkyaqua

Check out Betty Friedan, then ...

I love that you're focussing on radical lesbian separatists here. Cos, of course, it's surely the lesbians and their 'extreme' beliefs that were the problem.

Snide. I love that you're focusing on one thing Betty Friedan said at a rally in 1969 as standing for the beliefs of all of second wave feminism. I love that you are speaking about second wave feminism as some historic artefact, when many second wave feminists are well and alive. Radical lesbian separatists did have some extreme beliefs, so perhaps you could read up on that when you have time in between lecturing people about an era you seem rather foggy on.

I have been a radical lesbian separatist. Perhaps you should try living this, rather than lecturing?

It'll all be turned on it's head once the hormone treated and surgically altered youngsters get to 25, 30, 35 whatever. Once they realise they've ruined their bodies, health, sex lives, fertility etc. There'll be hell to pay. The people who have assisted them will be vilified.

I'm autistic. I'm compelled to tell the truth as part of my brain's functioning. People cannot change sex. It's a physical impossibility.

Considering what’s happening with self ID - we can’t ignore all this stuff - unless we are happy with any man announcing he’s a woman and entering female spaces at will.

"Ask yourself how many cancel cultures you've experienced so far. None? That's how many you can look forward to in the future."

You may find it instructive to read about Allison Bailey, Jo Phoenix, Kathleen Stock, Raquel Rosario Sanchez, Maya Forstater, and any number of other women who have found their professional and personal lives turned upside down because Trans Rights Activists have tried to have them cancelled.

I have been a radical lesbian separatist.

Rightio.

It’s the email signatures at work that annoy me.

She/he/they/we/wewe/hehe/yeahyeah.

It’s unprofessional and disrupting.

@Momicrone

With the high prevalence of mental heath issues amongst young people, I support anything that keeps them sane. I'd rather they experiment with genders/pronouns than self harm, depression or worse.

I think there’s a strong link between mental health, general adolescent need for rebellion and an increasing pressure for young people to both put themselves in a box of “identity” which aligns them strongly with a group view of the world whilst at the time demonstrating their uniqueness.

Double mastectomy, cross-sex hormones for no medical cause seem like self-harm to me but with very serious consequences.

And that’s before we get on to what changing the meaning of words in everyday use means for society and the safeguarding implications, particularly but not exclusively for women and girls of believing that humans can magically change sex.

Live your life how you please but don’t expect me to follow your religion.

I’ve read a little around the binary/ non binary and can understand some concerns but there’s so much polarity and rage on the net, I’ve kinda switched off. I’m glad we didn’t have the net when I was growing up because it’s a political minefield.

Lesbian rights were a major issue for second wave feminism. There was intense discussion over whether lesbianism was compatible with feminism.

What???? Where did you get that from, milkyaqua? I was an active and committed feminist throughout the glorious second wave, when Women’s Liberation made so many gains. In my five decades as a feminist, I have had many discussions about sexual politics and met and campaigned with a lot of women, both lesbians and heterosexuals.

Not once have I ever heard a woman suggest that lesbianism was incompatible with feminism. Never. Let alone ‘intense discussion’. How could it be? Both are about women caring for women. Both are woman-centred. The argument I did hear was whether heterosexual women could commit themselves to feminism! Not all lesbians I know are political, but none are antifeminist.

I don't understand how people can see the propoganda and manipulation on this one issue. Yet seem to be blind to it on others. If the mainstream media is this fucking off and mental about this issue, how off and manipulated are they about literally everything.