Gender ideology is toxic and creates divisions

[reprobatiusmumius]

I know I’m wading into a toxic debate here. But AIBU to find the gender ideology debate just so poisonous?

I have non binary identifying autistic teenager. I love and accept her but I refuse to get drawn into pronouns and calling her by a name she’s made up herself.

Why? It’s disrespectful to me, frankly. I conceived, birthed, nurtured and named her. I do not wish to capitulate to an ideology I disagree with, and so? My stance is, you do you with your friends. I am going to do me with you. That means I call her by her birth name and I’m not going to force grandma to say they / them which is grammatically incorrect. This is my stance.

It feels like a reasonable truce, having navigated years of chest flatteners, drawings with breast scars and other horrors, when all I want for her is for her to be happy in herself. In her current body. Surely, that’s not an unreasonable stance? And yet, I have been called out for bigotry, transphobia and told that if she walks out on me and never speaks to me again, that’s all I deserve. Not by her, I may add, although she tends to refuse my clothing suggestions- it’s fine- I give her money and she can wear what she wants (except clothes, like binders, that can physically harm her)

I’m sorry, but how have we got to a stage where parental norms, wishes and expectations are so decried, twisted and frowned upon that this debate has become “if you don’t agree then your child should disown you”? Seriously, I’ve got to the point where I’m so angry by the gremlins who have hog hold of her and convinced her something untrue that I feel like I want to go full Trump and refuse to engage in this debate at all, just ban it outright.

This is a debate where there is no allowance for nuance, questioning, watching and waiting and just accepting a rebellion (because that’s what I see this as!). I thank god they have banned surgical interventions on under 18s because the online trolls who push this agenda want to turn kids against loving and cautious parents who just WANT THEIR KIDS TO BE HAPPY as they are!

Sorry, I’m so angry- have just been outright banned by an Autistic with ADHD sub on Reddit for stating the same, and told my daughter should disown me. How did this become so toxic and how is any of this good for families?

The online pushers want more angry converts to their nasty little cult and it’s made me so angry. How dare they poison my sweet little girl and make out that I, her mother, am the problem, because I have an opinion that differs from hers. It’s hideous and I’ve had enough of the insidious compulsion to agree entirely or say nothing.

I agree, though I think behind a lot of the push towards children are those monstrous men. There a lot of money to be made from turning children into medical patients for life at the youngest possible age.

I’m so sorry that poor daughter of the emotionally abusive writer was put through all of that. The daughter sounds absolutely admirable.

And I respect your right to think all of this.

Please afford me the same right to differ in my opinion to you.

When your opinion is one that I believe to collude in child abuse, no, I don’t have to respect either you or your opinion.

I have not read the full thread but I wanted to react to the OP as a couple of points stood out to me:

I love and accept her but I refuse to get drawn into pronouns and calling her by a name she’s made up herself.
Why? It’s disrespectful to me, frankly.
I am sure you love her, and I am also sure it must be a very difficult position to be in, but you are kidding yourself that you accept her - or rather, you are not ready to accept that she might grow up to be someone you fundamentally don't understand and may find difficult to relate to. That has nothing to do with trans or not; it happens to many parents and many parents struggle to accept children who are very different from who they thought they would become.

My stance is, you do you with your friends. I am going to do me with you. That means I call her by her birth name - does that mean she cannot express herself with you then?

having navigated years of chest flatteners, drawings with breast scars and other horrors, when all I want for her is for her to be happy in herself. In her current body. If it's been years, it's not a mere rebellion. I can't pretend to truly understand gender dysphoria but I know enough about it to say it's not a temporary craze like wanting to get a tattoo. If she's been like this for years, it suggest that it very much isn't. When you say it's a 'rebellion' you make it all about you. You should try and continue to engage with her on this topic because the last thing you would want if for her to repress this until she's out of your house. Whatever happens to her and whatever her subsequent decisions as an adult, you will want to be able to support her. You may not be if you lose touch.

'Go full Trump'- I know this is not the point of the thread but I can't see this and not react. I have seen many posts and articles in which gender critical feminists sort of align with Trump as a necessary evil because at least the far right isn't into gender ideology like the Dems are/were. You can't do a deal with the devil because the devil always cheats. Project 2025 is a nefarious, nasty roll-back of all the rights women and minorities in general have fought for. The Trump regime is NOT into free speech. Not into freedom. Not into defending women. You cannot cancel democracy itself for the sake of cancelling one ideology that you perceive to be toxic.

So it’s just her age. If she was an adult and changed her name via deed poll you would respect that?

Jeez, I thought you meant me for a second 😮‍💨😅

If she changed her name to furryface295, no I sure as hell wouldn’t. Luckily she’s not an idiot, and I gave full confidence she will grow out of it.

mt mother changed her name when her mum died. Ironically, she rejected a gender neutral name, which she’d grown up hating.

At least she had the respect to wait until her mother was dead before changing it (I also suspect, after multiple husbands, and surname changes, she was making sure the IR couldn’t catch up with her).

difficult women have precedent in my family.
so, probably no, I’d carry on as I am. And that’s ok too.

You may be right. Maybe my own autism makes this more difficult for me to accept (the whole ideology, not just my daughter’s wishes). And maybe that means we are more likely to clash. We don’t though. Haven’t got the energy for it.

we just gently ignore one another (she’s 16, so that’s kinda normal and she is quite severely asd) and that works fine. She can be her, and I can be me. Surely that’s better for everyone? And yes, sh er might drift off, but she knows fully well I’m here for her to come back to

re Trump: free speech is one of the hills he got elected on. Elon took over x for this purpose. It’s a right wing pillar, so I’m not sure where you’re getting this idea from. Yes, he’s also into misinformation, which is another issue.

I genuinely don't want to derail your thread but Trump got elected on many hills that he's had no intention of respecting: reducing inflation on day one and he gives US businesses ridiculous tariffs to contend with, and guess what the coming recession will fuck us up too; DOGE? All about wrecking stuff, zero savings and hundreds of thousands of unemployed federal employees and no one to monitor essential services; 'free speech'? There are many many recent instances proving that free speech in the US now is very much under threat. I mean come on! Have you seen the repeated rants on Truth Social about anyone who criticises him (latest example being Bruce Springsteen who - quote- needs to 'remember he's got to come back to the US and then we'll see'? WTF?) Or the numerous instances of students being expelled with their visas revoked because they attended a protest? Or every single professional news reporter who challenges him being publicly humiliated because they asked a simple question (latest example being the guy from NBC news who asked Trump about the Qatar plane gift?) I could go on... Free speech under Trump is only free as long as you agree with MAGA and praise him to high heaven. It's about sycophants and not about transparency or facts anymore.

I could have said the same to you. Refusing to allow a child to have autonomy over their body and their self-identification is in my opinion abuse and will in the end drive the child away from the family and result in them living a life lacking in parental support, thus increasing their vulnerability.

But I don't verbally attack those that believe differently to me.

It's about respect for differing opinions. I have friends who voted in Trump. I think they're insane. But I don't say it.

This dogmatism and aggression is what prevents useful discussion about sex, gender and trans issues. Respect towards each other's differing opinions would be far more likely to effect change and understanding than hurling insults and abuse.

This is derailing it (it wasn’t the point of my piece, more a reaction to the overzealous moderation on Reddit) but if you want my view on politics (and I am a financial writer and autistic, so believe me, I do my research and my pattern spotting is second to none) politics is mainly market manipulation. Things that he says are (often) calculated to basically tank or raise the markets , and bear little or no relation to what he will or won’t do. Some of the most noxious policies he’s implemented such as roll back on row vs wade are also macro moves to reduce birth rate decline (and ensure us has fighting stock for inevitable clashes with China in next two decades. Pay less attention ton. The only true things in life are the market and evolution - and the love of a child for its parents, which is bound to be disappointed by the messy, fragmented, ugly reality of the world in which we inhabit. I just don’t like that love being hijacked by an ideology that only cares about itself, not about her.

Things that he says are (often) calculated to basically tank or raise the markets , and bear little or no relation to what he will or won’t do.
Very true - however every example I mentioned was in response to what you mentioned regarding his campaign promises and that the far right's notion of free speech is very much flawed because it's just a tool for them to get their way and impose their thinking on the rest of us.
On the markets, I do wonder why he seems to intent on killing the USD as reserve currency? But sorry yes, that would really take the thread in a different direction. I just don't get the end game of what seems to be the inevitable outcome of the tariffs but I'm not a financial analyst...

He tanked the markets- giving investors the op to buy low. Now s and p back to thereabouts where it was before so-called “freedom day” - markets tank on political string pulling every April…

nearshoring is the object. Wresting chip control away from Taiwan before China claims it (Nvididia- see chip wars)

but we’re well off topic!

I completely agree, and thankfully the Cass review and various legal challenges have enforced the boundaries that will hopefully prevent the harm that was clearly being done to some of these young people.

But there will still be some who have a lifelong experience of dysphoria and wish to transition. If you go by Mumsnet posters they're all perverts or cult victims, but that's not the case IRL.

I'm sorry, but bringing your friend's experience into it to shut me down is not going to work. I'm sure she isn't going to read my 'rigmarole', which was my reply to the question you asked. I'm sure she and her daughters would also have been badly affected if he'd come out as gay and left her for a man, which is something that happens at times, but we don't use that to vilify all gay people. He may be a selfish pervert but he has the right to dress as he chooses (wasn't that the JKR rallying cry?); unfortunately some people make shitty decisions that impact on their families. It's not really relevant to anything I said tbh; as much as people like you want it to be black and white, there are plenty of decent trans people who just want to go about their lives. And they DO have a genuine condition, however you wish to define it, which can't be 'logiced' away. Autogynophilia is also a thing and I personally find it gross and offensive, but it's a free country so I guess they can do as they like.

I've already made clear that I think single sex spaces and overall caution are right, your ranting about nasty trans people isn't going to stop me thinking that a lot of posters of this type are just good old-fashioned transphobes who have found a way to make that their whole personality and feel like intellectual heavyweight free speech heroes into the bargain.

I don't agree with you, and one of the reasons I don't is the massive number of detransitioners. There are over 10,000 I believe on the detrans subreddit. Many of them are really sorry their parents went along with their teenage beliefs. Many of those have destroyed their bodies, and for some of them their parents are now struggling to accept them again as their actual sex.
Lots of them say they wish there had been more pushback on their wish to transition.
If it was my family, I'd rather do everything I possibly can - including not going along with transition and hefty pushback if necessary - to prevent my child from damaging their body. If I say it's OK to pretend they are the opposite sex, and then it's OK to alter their body, I have a child with a damaged body. That's my responsibility and not one I could live with.

Neither Trump nor Musk are pro-free speech FTR.

How they treat those who publicly disagree with them and Trump’s stance on campus protests makes that clear.

@drspouse but as long as lines of communication and compassion have been kept open between the family and the trans person, if they need to detransition, they are there to support the process.

Whereas, if the relationship is irreparably damaged, that person is then left without support if things then break down for them.

The familial relationship is the key important factor.

While I am sure your partner leaving you is sad and in fact fairly traumatising - what’s their preference? That their husbands just remain in a sham marriage living a lie?

No (though dressing like your teenage daughters in front of your teenage daughters is something no man needs to do) - just be aware that when you (or the poster I was replying to) laud trans people for being happy and brave and living their best lives there may well be a trail of familial destruction in their wake.

However, I know you’re not a good faith poster on these threads so that’ll be my final answer to you.

It seems pretty clear that you DON'T accept who she wants to be, and maybe need to be a bit more honest with yourself about that.

Parenting is always a balance between where to draw boundaries and where to give space to explore. Every parent will draw lines in different places.

And I think most parents would understand why you don't want her to do things that cause physical harm to herself.

But "the name I gave her is what she is called" sounds very possessive to me - using a different name, whether it's a nickname or a boy's name or whatever it is, seems something very much less harmful - and very easily reversed if one day she prefers not to use it any more.

Insisting on not calling her what she wants to be called is like a constant daily public reminder to her that you DON'T accept what she wants.

I'm not going to try and tell you what you should or shouldn't do with her, but you should at least be honest with yourself about how you feel.

It’s a cult, teenagers who don’t fit into certain social groups are most likely to fall victims of cults inc this one.

There is direct targeting of certain groups. Eg EMP who do band clothing /alt clothing etc- the only titles they have are Ms Mr and Mx no Miss or Mrs but Mx. I want to be a Mrs not a Ms It’s these kinds of things that eat away at normality.

Yes it is toxic, yes it’s designed to be a disrupter of social norms but not in a good way

I am being honest. She can do her and I’m going to do me. I think that’s fair, right? I don’t have to bend over backwards to accommodate something I disagree with but I’m not going to stop her living the life she chooses.

I get that. That’s it not as simple as “living your best life” and nobody is ever harmed.

Yes there is often fallout - but often people wish to make uniquely big deal of being a trans widow when it’s simply another of the millions of cases of one spouse choosing to exit a marriage.