Preferred pronoun labels at childrens event

[StopitSarah]

I took my primary age children to a science event this weekend. It’s run by university students. Almost all of them had their preferred pronouns on their name labels.

AIBU to feel that was unnecessary and to feel a bit uneasy? One of my children wanted to know why “the man is saying we should say he/him. Isn’t that obvious?”

I asked one of the students who said it was to show support to any trans helpers and was for the benefit of the (adult) students, not the children.

I’m SO BORED and irritated by the trans agenda being every-bloody-where.

But AIBU? I had a good chat with one of the students and he said that they’re all science students and understand that woman = biological female is too simplistic. My brain exploded.

I was at school in the 80s and early 90s so it was in force for my entire education.
Why?

@Tellyaddict123 have you not seen the news lately? Are you not aware of transwomen in women’s prisons, and transwomen winning women’s sports events? This is happening at the moment. That’s why people are angry and frightened.

Yet it's ok to say that you're being 'indoctrinated' to ask to believe that some people are born identifying as the opposite gender?

Nobody is born identifying as the opposite gender, obviously, as they are babies. Some might identify as young children, though probably very much encouraged by parents. Others as teenagers, very common today, though quite rare in the past. Others later in life often having previously given no indication to others of these feelings, like a previously rather macho member of my extended family who identified as a woman in retirement!

Citation needed. Human brains aren't divided along sex-based lines. 'Lady-brain' is just how the patriarchy keeps women in their place.

Hence why I’m learning more but I don’t think I can be completely black and white. Against trans or pro. Why can’t people be more grey?

why can’t I support trans rights but also say it’s not right for them to be in sports or prisons?
Why do you get called names and people react so angry (which actually makes me want to support trans right more as they so far haven’t tried to personally attack me while asking questions and wanting to learn)

I'm confused here.

Is using the correct preferred pronoun so important that you will cause someone to commit suicide if you don't?

Or is it no big deal, it's just a badge letting people know their preference and why are we making a fuss as it doesn't affect our lives?

WHICH IS IT?

Also is it not homophobic to expel lesbians from dating apps for complaining it has lots of men with she/her pronouns? Is it not homophobic to tell gay men to get over their 'genital preference' and sleep with a he/him trans man or they are bigoted?

@CremeEggQueen - because I was in my 20s, marching against it and working with my friends at First Out coffee shop near Centrepoint to lobby against it and galvanise support from MPs and celebrities.

To compare it to objecting to pronoun badges at a children's event is enormously offensive to those of us who fought so hard against the homophobia of the 1980s.

what the hell are you on about? No biological men can compete in female sports that’s just silly. That would be an unfair advantage.

This is exactly what is happening @Sarahcogglesand yes, you're right, it is very unfair.
Why do you think people are so upset?

Can you provide some data to back up this is happening? Of course that’s wrong but my understanding is most trans people aren’t doing this?

Isn’t this the same argument 30 years ago that some lesbians are going in female toilets to sexually abuse women? When people were anti gay?

Im just worried that people say these things, it gets believed but it’s never actually happened?

NAMALT etc.

It only takes one male predator to change your life. It doesn't matter whether he's wearing trousers or a dress. Being a good man/TW doesn't give one a free pass to use womens' facilities because we've only got their word for it that they are a good man/TW.

Good men stay out so that bad men stand out.

So its OK to campaign for the parts of LGBT you agree with, but the bits you dont it's Ok to treat like the ones who are oppressing you as you say it's OK?
Yeah, I don't think it works like that.

@Tellyaddict123 www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4605219-transwoman-in-the-changing-room-at-school-pool here you go

Name calling is wrong but people are angry and frightened. Women’s rights are being eroded and those who object are being called bigots and transphobic. Trans people have been around for ages - I remember seeing a very obvious transwoman as a teenager in the 80s - but it is only recently that things have taken a more sinister turn. Men can literally put a dress on and say they’re a woman today, and apply for a job in a Rape Crisis Centre. This kind of stuff is terrifying, hence the high level of emotion when talking about it, and the frustration with people who seem to think it’s OK.

However I have no issue with someone identifying as a man or woman if they are the opposite sex. What’s the concern? As long as they are happy not sure why it’s affecting me?

Except that it does affect you. You are expected to give affirmation even though it is quite obvious to you that they are still sex they were born as. There is an expectation for you to deny the evidence of your own eyes, to get the pronoun’s right, to be in trouble if you get it wrong.

The students involved will (in a few years) become scientists, just like you. Some of them claim to believe that one can change sex. Does it not worry you that there is such an absence of critical thinking?

Yes, my post was saying that it was happening, quoting @Tellyaddict123 who didn’t seem to be aware.

They're not the same thing @CremeEggQueen. My sexuality doesn't impact anyone else. LGB has nothing to do with T.

I wish you were right. 10 years ago I’d have thought you were right. What it’s done is make children feel they either HAVE to conform or they are perhaps not the boy/girl they thought they were. It’s destroying the middle ground when a girl cuts her hair short and suddenly other girls think she’s a boy. Or a boy wants to wear pink or sparkles and the classmates say that means you are a girl and the teacher nods and smiles.

Problem is, trans ideology is quite homophobic.
It's all gender, what you feel or identify as, and biological sex isn’t relevant. So how can there be same sex attraction? It's been changed to same gender attraction. There have been schisms in lesbian support groups about this. TW ( for the most part fully intact males) have called some lesbians bigoted for not wanting to sleep with them (because they're real women too). It's a huge issue, but many are unaware all this is going on. They then name-call those who have noticed and who object. As you have just done.

@Tellyaddict123 have you not followed the recent cases about transwomen in women’s prisons?

So its OK to campaign for the parts of LGBT you agree with, but the bits you dont it's Ok to treat like the ones who are oppressing you as you say it's OK? Yeah, I don't think it works like that.

Why not? It’s just a set of initials that have been added to over the years. I’ve never worked out why it needs both L and G. Aren’t lesbians also gay?

What exactly is ‘trans’? What is it that people are supposed to be campaigning for exactly? I used to believe it was for gender dysphoria but apparently it’s just a choice now.

And if it’s a choice, why would any woman want to actively campaign for a man to access their hard won single-sex spaces?

The issue is this exactly - if it’s gender dysphoria then we should support better mental health services and more should be done to provide 3rd spaces.
If it’s a choice, then I don’t think we should humour any of it. But regardless, none of that should come at the expense of women’s rights and spaces. There is zero kindness or consideration to women in this movement.

It isn’t inclusion for people running an education event to wear name badges stating that they support a political movement that attacks women’s rights and children’s safeguarding.

And it ‘triggers’ me (which is a deliberately insulting and patronising way of you to put it, but whatever) when people force contentious political activism into primary age education and disguise it as inclusivity when actually it’s aggressive and misogynistic silencing of women.

If you want to know who the bad guys are in this debate, look for the ones who hide their faces in balaclavas so they can ‘feel safe’ while they attack others.

Gender identity is not a sexual orientation so has nothing to do with the LGB.

A same sex, age of consent couple loving who they want harms no one. They don't compel speech, Don remove hard won sex based and don't cheerlead young people to actively harm and mutilate their bodies to "change sex".

@Tellyaddict123 www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jan/26/trans-woman-isla-bryson-found-guilty-rape-not-be-held-in-womens-prison-sturgeon

The most recent case, which got a lot of publicity. Until there was an outcry and the government intervened, this violent rapist was in a women’s prison.